Early Opinions on Mass Effect 3

Why yes, I have been playing this all day. Thank you for noticing.

-Man this game is pretty. Prettier than ME2, even, and I stared at those graphics sometimes.
-However, the facial animations aren’t that good, especially on humans (or human-likes). There’s some low res textures and animation bugs too.
-Speaking of bugs, goddamn with the DLC mission crashing. There’s a workaround, but that better be patched eventually.
-And speaking of the DLC, Mr. DLC character’s voice isn’t as bad as everyone said it was. I…haven’t used him in battle yet.
-It feels a lot…slower of a game than the last one did. Like I’m in a JRPG and taking my time with sidequests even though the world is ending, and no one cares.
-Sidequests are harder to find and complete. The quest log is too barren. I’d like it to be more like an MMO quest log with lots of detail and pointers.
-Vanguard is fun, except when you Charge+Nova into a group of enemies and don’t kill them. Then you die.

Now for more spoilery stuff considering locations and characters and scenes, blacked out to be nice. I tried to label it with what it talks about, but obviously if you’re avoiding all spoilers then don’t read any of it.

Beatsome: A Minor Success

So just like in 2009 when I set out to beat more games and succeeded, I set out this summer to beat some games.

And then I got a job.

And then I got freelance work.

And all the games I beat happened in the first month.

Offical Summer of Beatsome Games Beaten (2):
Final Fantasy V Advance (GBA)
Bayonetta (PS3)

Offical Summer of Beatsome Games Left Unfinished (1):
Digimon World 2 (PS1)

Additional Games Beaten (1):
Ar tonelico Qoga (PS3)

Additional Games Left Unfinished (1):
Metroid Prime (Wii)

When will the next challenge be? God knows with the lack of time I have now!

Best of 2010: Anime

Because why not? Qualifying shows are based on this list because it didn’t mean I had to think of what qualified myself. And ADTRW uses the same list so yeah.

Now presenting Kari’s Best of 2010 list for all anime related things without pictures because she’s lazy but there’s some description to fill space! PS: Don’t bitch cause there’s only like, six shows mentioned.

30 Days of Gaming: Day 30

Day 30: Your favorite game of all time.

Well, we made it. 30 days, 30 blog posts, 30 gaming-related questions answered. “Favorite game” is always one of those tough questions to answer, having to rate on enjoyment at the time you played it, but also taking into consideration the want to replay the game, or graphics and music, or characters and story…Anyway, I have 31 top rated games on my Backloggery, and picking just one of those is pretty tough. So, after some deliberation (read: 5 minutes) here’s what I think is my favorite game of all time.

Suikoden V! Barely edging out Suikoden II, mainly because of plot pacing and number of characters I liked. Even though I’ve only been through the game 1.5 times, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time spent on the game. I’m not one to replay games much anyway.

I’ll give some shout outs to other games, though.
-Star Fox 64 is a very good adventure/railshooter, and very much a game I’ll always come back to for a run through.
-Knights in the Nightmare still wins for strangest mechanics and gameplay
-Ever 17 is the best mindfuck
-Growlanser II is the most breakable RPG I’ve played
-Earthbound definitely has its charm as a quirky RPG. Not many go the real-world route, after all.
-And for all it has popped up in this list, it’d be a shame not to put Valkyria Chronicles here for having awesome graphics and story

Thanks all for reading! We’ll be back to no blog posts for a while -3-

30 Days of Gaming: Day 29

Day 29: A game you thought you wouldn’t like, but ended up loving.

Y’know, I hated the Sakura Wars franchise for…oh, 7 years all because of the horrid TV anime. So when SLML was announced, I had a very lukewarm reaction. I knew the history of the series, how no games had crossed the pond yet there was a little fanbase crying out for it. As with many NISA or Atlus releases, it came with swag, and I planned to get it for the swag and maybe to resell when it got rare.

I didn’t really expect to fall in love with the franchise, eventually watching the rest of the anime OVAs (which ranged from good to utter trash) and importing the PSP ports of the first two games. I’m not as hardcore as other new fans, but I do like the series now.

30 Days of Gaming: Day 28

Day 28: Favorite game developer.

Atlus! Or as the haters say, Fatlus.
Really I didn’t pay attention to developers until 2004 or so, and even then Atlus caught my eye on the publishing side. But they did the SMT series and that makes them awesome.

Second place is Nintendo cause I grew up with ‘em.

30 Days of Gaming: Day 27

Day 27: Most epic scene ever.

It’s totally the set of scenes you go through when defeating Luca Blight in Suikoden II. Three battles, a duel, and cutscenes inbetween…just to take down one guy.

30 Days of Gaming: Day 26

Day 26: Best voice acting.

JRPGs have the problem of pulling from the same pool of voice actors, which makes you hear the same people over and over, and sometimes those VAs end up “phoning in” the role. Despite this, Persona 4 has some of the best voice work that I’ve heard, even with a few new faces in the game. Obviously the voice direction was well done and much improved from Persona 3 (and a bit better than The Answer).

30 Days of Gaming: Day 25

Day 25: A game you plan on playing.

Gods I can’t just pick one. I’ve got whole wishlist of stuff I want to buy and a whole ‘nother list of stuff I haven’t finished or started. But a definite “plan on playing”…let’s go with the lulz option.

Oh I totally plan on playing Radiata Stories someday, it’s just a matter of when. I’ve owned it for 4.5 years. It’s going to be my last PS2 game that I’ll start and finish

30 Days of Gaming: Day 24

Day 24: Favorite classic game.

I suppose this is classic enough, right? Final Fantasy VI is my first or second favorite FF game, and IMO the best of the SNES generation.