Phantasy star universe:
First Impressions
This game is addictive, but why? it is essentially the most boring game ever made, but it isn't boring at all, it is an enigma.
on paper this games is so simple, walk up to unit press the same button 10, 100, 1000 times depending on the opposing units level and then dodge the odd 2 dimensional attack and eventually the opposing unit will die, then move onto the next unit and repeat until all the units in the room are dead and that triggers a key spawn, to let you into the next room, to repeat again.
that's pretty much it, ok you gain levels and earn the right to go to higher level rooms where the same thing happens but the chance of you dying and the amount of hits required to defeat the opposing unit increase.
yet I played it all day Saturday until 3am Sunday, and then all evening Sunday until 2am monday.
I wasn't bored ever, the promise of a little cash and the level bar being tantalizingly close to full keep you playing, you have to save up and buy that sweet new gun or ability that will hopefully give you the edge and decrease the button bashing.
I have played this Friday, Saturday Sunday Monday and I am now a level 13, however already I am seeing the potential folly of my character selection, I need to seriously consider my choices for when the full game launches.
Pay to Play?
Phantasy star universe is upsetting some as it has a monthly subscription how this is to be structured is unclear at present, I had heard mumblings that it will be 800points and potentially will instead of being a traditional subscription payment will be a marketplace purchase of 30days play so you can dip in for 30 days when you want to play as opposed to signing away your wealth for eternity.
I will post more at launch
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Sunday, June 11, 2006
HOT
weather is crazy its steaming hot, spent the weekend with my big bro, playing rockstar table tennis and watching the world cup, england won 3 points, who cares about the shoddy second half, get over it.
all games this weekend have been really entertaining, trinidad and tobago, mexico, and angola were great to watch and mexico could be a real suprise of the tournament I will look forward to seeing them again.
table tennis is great fun for the 360, the career mode does seem to cheat somewhat but it is great fun most of the time, the online mode is close to perfection apart from ditching your lobby at the completion of a game/tournament???
why oh why, but with any luck they will patch it as they did with cod:2
finally my thoughts on the new dash update, music continuity is 100% brilliant and makes the convergence of gaming and music a natural and very entertaining prospect.
just obtained appleseed and watched the first few opening minutes, wow and wow, great looking and action packed, will watch it all and feedback my thoughts.
all games this weekend have been really entertaining, trinidad and tobago, mexico, and angola were great to watch and mexico could be a real suprise of the tournament I will look forward to seeing them again.
table tennis is great fun for the 360, the career mode does seem to cheat somewhat but it is great fun most of the time, the online mode is close to perfection apart from ditching your lobby at the completion of a game/tournament???
why oh why, but with any luck they will patch it as they did with cod:2
finally my thoughts on the new dash update, music continuity is 100% brilliant and makes the convergence of gaming and music a natural and very entertaining prospect.
just obtained appleseed and watched the first few opening minutes, wow and wow, great looking and action packed, will watch it all and feedback my thoughts.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Rogue Trooper
Rogue Trooper, a game which has been released with almost no fanfare, yet it probably deserves it more than most of the hyped games being released, however its hidden gold and well worth a purchase.
the story is taken from the pages of 2000 AD, along side Judge Dredd, rogue tells the story of the GI troopers, A genetically engineered army, raised in tanks, it all sounds familiar and you can be forgiven for feeling like they have just ripped off every sci fi film from the last 10 years, but when you understand that the first edition of 2000 AD to feature rogue trooper was published in 1981, you begin to see that this character is more original than first thought.
enough of the history back to the game.
the story starts with rogue shipping out with his army of GI comrades to fight the norts, they are air dropped to a place called the Quartz Zone, however the supposedly unprepared norts have been tipped off and are fully armed waiting to shoot the drop ships out of the sky, nearly all the GI troopers are wiped out but rogue and a few of his unit make it through, among the survivors are gunnar, bagman and helm, each GI trooper is relatively cheap to manufacture in a materials sense but highly expensive and time consuming to train, so the souther labs came up with a system to download the entire personality to a bio chip located at the base of the neck on each trooper, providing this chip can be retrieved before the electrical energy remaining in the spinal column is expended the chip can be located in a slot on the backpack, gun and helmet of any GI trooper, which can the be implanted in a new host body back at HQ, as you may have already guessed, gunnar, bagman, and helms survival is shortlived quite literally and they are all soon attcahed to rogues vacant slots.
Each of Rogues comrades biochips provides unique abilities as follows
Bagman - is your number one stop for everything material, ammo, health pack, bagman is essentially a very compact manufacturing plant, as you travel through the game you obtain blueprints for further items that he can then manufacture for your benefit such as gun upgrades like a shotgun attachment. I wont spoil the other upgrades as its part of the fun of playing through the game, so your manufacturing stuff, how does this work, surely you need some form of raw material to maufacture the items with? well this is probably one of the best elements of the game, as you kill the enemies there bodies are salvageable, it is this which you recycle into ammo, medi kits and the like, it works really really well, it never feels like there is an abundance of salvage but at the same time it never feels like there is a drought. the game designers have achieved a really good balance, each time I decided to buy an upgrade or splash on ammo, I had to think about it, think about the enemies I was likely to come up against and make a decision on what I needed for the next run and gun it also adds to thye feeling of being out on your own, scraping together what you can to survive.
HELM - is your tactical and surveilance man, he provides encryption decoding of door locks and security systems and also offers a radar for the locations of enemy troops, vehicles and salvage deposits, he also provides a holographic decoy of rogue which you can use to distract enemy troops with.
Gunnar - as each chip has a personality and converses with you its good to know that the character of gunnar is spot on, if a gun could talk it would be exactly like gunnar, he offers an automated gun emplacemnet and a sniper skill with stabilising gyroscope (handy)
the game itself is a great display of art style and level design, I never felt like they decided to just rehash the same old textures or level lay out, I also didnt feel like I was fighting wave after wave of the same soldiers, the enemies seemed varied and so did the locales you had to fight through to get to the end, little touches like sparking wires in bombed out corridors just added to the immersion and the feeling of being in an alien world.
the controls are well thought out and easy to pick up, sniping is easy enough to pick up, and switching bewteen the eventuial arsenal at your disposal always felt quite intuitive and never a chore.
the game plays through very much like reading a graphic novel, cutscenes are present but never get in the way, and the story is intriguing and keeps you playing through to the end, its not the longest of games, but on completion a harder difficulty level is unlocked, I will be playing it through again at this new difficulty level and I will post back here when I have completed the campaign again.
I have now a further interest in the rogue trooper charcater and expanded universe and I will be tracking down the graphic novels to read through as it has peaked my interest and I want to know more, the game is left open for a sequel and I am hoping that we get a next gen rogue trooper for the 360.
there is a multi player element to the game which as yet I have not tried though I will be giving it a shot in the coming months, I will report back with my impressions.
the story is taken from the pages of 2000 AD, along side Judge Dredd, rogue tells the story of the GI troopers, A genetically engineered army, raised in tanks, it all sounds familiar and you can be forgiven for feeling like they have just ripped off every sci fi film from the last 10 years, but when you understand that the first edition of 2000 AD to feature rogue trooper was published in 1981, you begin to see that this character is more original than first thought.
enough of the history back to the game.
the story starts with rogue shipping out with his army of GI comrades to fight the norts, they are air dropped to a place called the Quartz Zone, however the supposedly unprepared norts have been tipped off and are fully armed waiting to shoot the drop ships out of the sky, nearly all the GI troopers are wiped out but rogue and a few of his unit make it through, among the survivors are gunnar, bagman and helm, each GI trooper is relatively cheap to manufacture in a materials sense but highly expensive and time consuming to train, so the souther labs came up with a system to download the entire personality to a bio chip located at the base of the neck on each trooper, providing this chip can be retrieved before the electrical energy remaining in the spinal column is expended the chip can be located in a slot on the backpack, gun and helmet of any GI trooper, which can the be implanted in a new host body back at HQ, as you may have already guessed, gunnar, bagman, and helms survival is shortlived quite literally and they are all soon attcahed to rogues vacant slots.
Each of Rogues comrades biochips provides unique abilities as follows
Bagman - is your number one stop for everything material, ammo, health pack, bagman is essentially a very compact manufacturing plant, as you travel through the game you obtain blueprints for further items that he can then manufacture for your benefit such as gun upgrades like a shotgun attachment. I wont spoil the other upgrades as its part of the fun of playing through the game, so your manufacturing stuff, how does this work, surely you need some form of raw material to maufacture the items with? well this is probably one of the best elements of the game, as you kill the enemies there bodies are salvageable, it is this which you recycle into ammo, medi kits and the like, it works really really well, it never feels like there is an abundance of salvage but at the same time it never feels like there is a drought. the game designers have achieved a really good balance, each time I decided to buy an upgrade or splash on ammo, I had to think about it, think about the enemies I was likely to come up against and make a decision on what I needed for the next run and gun it also adds to thye feeling of being out on your own, scraping together what you can to survive.
HELM - is your tactical and surveilance man, he provides encryption decoding of door locks and security systems and also offers a radar for the locations of enemy troops, vehicles and salvage deposits, he also provides a holographic decoy of rogue which you can use to distract enemy troops with.
Gunnar - as each chip has a personality and converses with you its good to know that the character of gunnar is spot on, if a gun could talk it would be exactly like gunnar, he offers an automated gun emplacemnet and a sniper skill with stabilising gyroscope (handy)
the game itself is a great display of art style and level design, I never felt like they decided to just rehash the same old textures or level lay out, I also didnt feel like I was fighting wave after wave of the same soldiers, the enemies seemed varied and so did the locales you had to fight through to get to the end, little touches like sparking wires in bombed out corridors just added to the immersion and the feeling of being in an alien world.
the controls are well thought out and easy to pick up, sniping is easy enough to pick up, and switching bewteen the eventuial arsenal at your disposal always felt quite intuitive and never a chore.
the game plays through very much like reading a graphic novel, cutscenes are present but never get in the way, and the story is intriguing and keeps you playing through to the end, its not the longest of games, but on completion a harder difficulty level is unlocked, I will be playing it through again at this new difficulty level and I will post back here when I have completed the campaign again.
I have now a further interest in the rogue trooper charcater and expanded universe and I will be tracking down the graphic novels to read through as it has peaked my interest and I want to know more, the game is left open for a sequel and I am hoping that we get a next gen rogue trooper for the 360.
there is a multi player element to the game which as yet I have not tried though I will be giving it a shot in the coming months, I will report back with my impressions.
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Xbox Live Update
late lastnight MS did the big XBOX Live update, and so far it appears they have tweaked the web stuff, I can now access my messages fom the web and compose messages via the web site, sounds great I have wanted that for ages.
I can view the DL content, such as gamer pics and themes. nice to know what you are buying, was well cheesed with the madden background, never would have purchased it had I seen it before hand.
just hope they have improved the actual quality of xbox live itself.
I can view the DL content, such as gamer pics and themes. nice to know what you are buying, was well cheesed with the madden background, never would have purchased it had I seen it before hand.
just hope they have improved the actual quality of xbox live itself.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Rogue Trooper
started this game tonight, first impressions are its good, Lucky Gonk put me onto this one, apparently it got some high praise on rllmuk and as such had peaked his interest, I hadnt really any experience of the story of rogue trooper I used to buy 2000 AD as a kid from time to time, but was more into other stuff really, Judge Dredd and A.B.C warriors
back to Rogue
the game has opened with a good intro to the clone/gene troops, feel a little unsure as to who it is or why it is that I am fighting, they are called norts?? I know this much and thats about it, german or eastern european sounding soldiers and some hints of nazi but I guess that is nothing new, the pace is just about spot on for my liking, I find games with tons of cinematics at the beginning frustrating, I paid £X or spent Y hrs downloading this, I want to play now, not after a tv episode.
but rogue does it well, and gameplay shocker uses the game itself to unfold the story, the chips with the "soul" of your fallen comrades is cool, and based on the fact that gunnar is now in my gun and bagman is in my bag, I have little hope for the rescue mission for a fellow trooper called helm who I am now on my way to rescue from a naval base, especially when on the last little intermission I noticed a familiar vacant shape in the front of my helmet.
the ammo kit concept of using your bag to refine salvage from the battle field is truly great, gone is the feeling of I just need some smg bullets and all i am getting is revolver ammo, I can see this winning out in the later stages, as it is a frustration I hadnt even really noticed until now. however all shooters from this day on are going to upset me if they dont steal this mechanic, its great because its totally acceptable, infact more so than killing somone and them having bags of ammo on them.
thats all i have to say for now, will post more of an impression when I have got further in, it is 100% fun so far.
back to Rogue
the game has opened with a good intro to the clone/gene troops, feel a little unsure as to who it is or why it is that I am fighting, they are called norts?? I know this much and thats about it, german or eastern european sounding soldiers and some hints of nazi but I guess that is nothing new, the pace is just about spot on for my liking, I find games with tons of cinematics at the beginning frustrating, I paid £X or spent Y hrs downloading this, I want to play now, not after a tv episode.
but rogue does it well, and gameplay shocker uses the game itself to unfold the story, the chips with the "soul" of your fallen comrades is cool, and based on the fact that gunnar is now in my gun and bagman is in my bag, I have little hope for the rescue mission for a fellow trooper called helm who I am now on my way to rescue from a naval base, especially when on the last little intermission I noticed a familiar vacant shape in the front of my helmet.
the ammo kit concept of using your bag to refine salvage from the battle field is truly great, gone is the feeling of I just need some smg bullets and all i am getting is revolver ammo, I can see this winning out in the later stages, as it is a frustration I hadnt even really noticed until now. however all shooters from this day on are going to upset me if they dont steal this mechanic, its great because its totally acceptable, infact more so than killing somone and them having bags of ammo on them.
thats all i have to say for now, will post more of an impression when I have got further in, it is 100% fun so far.
a new hopeless
how sad am I starting a blog, its just a diary, for my benefit really, will list my gaming habits and thoughts everything a web diary should be.
so we start with first days of may, just turned 28 and things are pretty good, ellen is about to graduate from uni and work is going ok, apart from sharepoint, users, and computers, people here are a great bunch on the whole and we all get on well, which is 90% of the battle in my experience.
gaming, my 360 is the no 1 source of time drain at present although animal crossing and my DS are never to far from my hands, AC is truly a wonder, I am not doing anything to collect the stuff, its just a scavenger hunt and it totally pre determined by the game, but its just fun, even though I know really its mundane, but for whatever reason I just keep coming back. Oblivion rules the lions share of time on 360, so much stuff to do and see, and its pretty and well put together, auto saves chap my ass, but other than that its perfection.
Halo2 still features both on my old xbox and 360 BC, as does forza, the WFC has really drawn me back to this racing sim, I need to get my fanatech wheel sorted aswell, it really is a wonder that this game does not get the kudos it deserves.
keen member of the Mookismo clan which I guess is a subdivison of the synical world of rllmuk.
mooks are a happy bunch though and we all get on pretty well.
anyway popping off to do some work now, will be back when i have little else to say.
so we start with first days of may, just turned 28 and things are pretty good, ellen is about to graduate from uni and work is going ok, apart from sharepoint, users, and computers, people here are a great bunch on the whole and we all get on well, which is 90% of the battle in my experience.
gaming, my 360 is the no 1 source of time drain at present although animal crossing and my DS are never to far from my hands, AC is truly a wonder, I am not doing anything to collect the stuff, its just a scavenger hunt and it totally pre determined by the game, but its just fun, even though I know really its mundane, but for whatever reason I just keep coming back. Oblivion rules the lions share of time on 360, so much stuff to do and see, and its pretty and well put together, auto saves chap my ass, but other than that its perfection.
Halo2 still features both on my old xbox and 360 BC, as does forza, the WFC has really drawn me back to this racing sim, I need to get my fanatech wheel sorted aswell, it really is a wonder that this game does not get the kudos it deserves.
keen member of the Mookismo clan which I guess is a subdivison of the synical world of rllmuk.
mooks are a happy bunch though and we all get on pretty well.
anyway popping off to do some work now, will be back when i have little else to say.
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