I felt Image Overload was appropriate for a 4 Image post. This one might get similar treatment, I have enough Eureka + Black Lagoon images to pull it off if I opt to do so, though I'm not certain how well the mix of image and text went over with others. I can say that having two Images stacked at the top was a bad flow, so I'd be mixing images into paragraphs, which I'd rather not be doing.
Finished off Lost Planet, and all I have to say is... bleh. The game is awesome, the gameplay is fluid and beautiful, and the fun of dashing around in the middle of about 20 enemies worth of fire is indescribable. Some of the foundation concepts, like Thermal Energy fueling both health regeneration and ammunition for some weapons or the Grappling Cord are groundbreaking (I don't care if you say the Grappling Cord has been done before, this was a seemless intergration unlike anything before it). I definately ended wanting some ephemeral more, though not any more of the Flying-Mech or last battle. For whatever reason I end up hating the last battle in about 80% of games, just because they try and do something new and different and end up fucking it the hell up. So many games either take a winning routine and break it (Any Fighting game in the history of fighting games (See my DoA3 Rant specifically)) or decide to just compensate their AI by making the enemy the most powerful thing ever seen (Like Baldur's Gate 1. Listen to me Black Isle, You're gonna level cap me at 7th level yet give the last boss's minion the ability to cast Cloudkill (For the non-savvy, that'd require level 13 to do)). But enough of a tangent. Good game, perhaps not a great game, but I'll definately be giving it a replay, moreso for the fun of it than for the hunting of the medals. PS: Ending blows total goats, seriously.
Moved the PS2 back to the small TV and put in Valkerie Profile 2. A little over an hour and into Chapter 2. Rufus is a badass in the Balthier style, and I've already gotten over the fact that several of the heavy warriors have the same VA as Ichigo from Bleach (as well as Vash the Stampede and Renton Thurston -- let me give you a moment to have that sink in). Gameplay is spectactular, item linking is innovative as is the Skill system, and Alicia's Special Attack is jaw-dropping. They've got everything I could ever want to alter in the configs. Breaks, Combos, Item Acquisition, Overdamage, all enjoyable. The jumping puzzles are fun, if a bit tricky to get the hang of, but I'm not sure what else they're going to be able to throw at me to complicate things.
Read Gabe's rant about Guitar Hero 2 for the XBox, and really I'm not about to invest in another guitar to go to a console with essentially less options (the few tracks gained are much less than a whole other game on the system) and the new tracks that are confirmed or rumored have no bearing on me, though I'm suprised to see that Deep Purple got another track. The talk that Neversoft (makers of Tony Hawk and Gun) have taken over Guitar Hero III development aren't all to worrying for me, they're pretty much got a winning formula, they just need a good music crew and that's all I ask (It'd be patently unpossible to choose a tracklist where I couldn't get behind a few of the songs), I'm more interested in what Harmonix is going to do instead.
Sidenote: The NPD Data for Video Game sales for 2006 are quite interesting. (Strunk and White would like to add: Data are, Datum is)
One last shot of Webcomic-age. The Oracle Strip of Order of the Stick. Given that Roy's has been settled, can we count the latest developments as settling Haley's? (When you only know the answer and not the question it's hard to tell -- PS: 42).
I probably won't get through all of this, just because work tends to cause my writing ability to deteriorate after a few hours anyways, and I've been trying to write about Eureka for a month or two now to little avail. Planned intinerary for this trip: Eureka Seven, FMP:TSR, Black Lagoon, Venus Versus Virus, Code Geass + GunXSword and Ergo Proxy (though almost certainly not in that order). Actually, next post delays, work is trying to break my spirit and my soul again. Hate when they do that.
