Calax

Bleach Soul Ressurection is a third person hack and slash in the vein of Dynasty Warriors and Sengoku Basara. It's based on the long running anime during the Arrancar/Vizard arc. Sounds like it'd be a match made in heaven with Hollow's flying everywhere, Super powers snapping off, the Soul Society going crazy right? Well no, the long and short of it is that it feels like the developers don't quite have a grasp of what makes something like Dynasty Warriors fun (at least, in my personal view). The combat feels jerky, with very little in options for combo's (no XXXY combo for example). Instead it's all based around single button strings for combos. I suppose a higher level player could find a few combo's that work, but they'd feel jerky because of how the animations would play out. Not everyone can get smacked into a building like that Now then, Characters are varied, with all the major fighters from the arc (well, except for Renji and the evil scientists), each playing somewhat differently. The game design for their progression however is... painful. You remember the Sphere Grid from FFX? Basically the leveling up system is that with the options of either 5 basic upgrades (attack, spiritual pressure, health, defense, or limit breaks) or unlocking a character. Ok, not actually a character, they couldn't seem to fit in the various other fan favorites (Kisuke Urahara for example, isn't on the roster), so instead they added them as upgrades that allow various different actions. For example, Ichigo can unlock Urahara and get the ability to do a quick counter if you time the attack correctly, other "characters" tend to provide more static buffs. Who doesn't love a good fight? As you can see in the screenshot above (not the face, above that!) the game is GORGEOUS. Cell Shading makes the entire thing look very much like an anime, and honestly would probably be a good way to go in general for the industry for more outrageous games, particularly anime (anyone remember the original DBZ:Budokai look? Yeah...). The Cell Shading also provides a very much less taxing way to show these off compared to more "realistic" engines (like Unreal) so the entire game RUNS fantastically. Also it makes exploding buildings, sand dunes, or people, look like they actually took a BAD hit. A nice touch is that if your characters get their asses handed to them, the characters model starts to show the dust and damage from the fight. Entirely Playable baby! Now, here's the downfall of this game, there's actually less content than you may think. The "story" runs from Ichigos arrival at the Arrancar palace, until the defeat of Aizen, but it doesn't really have much of a connection between the missions so you need to have watched the anime to understand wtf is going on. Added onto this are a mission mode, and a semi-competative mode where you kill as much as you can for points. I managed to do the entire story in about 4 hours overall (no, I'm not kidding), and have done a couple of very samey missions. The game just doesn't have that much of a hook to it, and you feel either VASTLY overpowered, or REDICULOUSLY underpowered depending on the situation (basically you can flick on your "limit break" (not the technical name) and get an upgrade to your stats, which lets you throttle anyone nearby, but if you face a boss without it? eewww). The story's length is particularly annoying when you consider just how long the arc was in the series, and how many fights there were, and yet you're left with 12(!) missions to compress that entire story. For non-viewers, there were about 100 episodes for the arc, along with some 20 odd fights. Most of the fights not in the game were skipped because of the roster limitations, but some of the omissions are just.. bad. You don't get Ryujin Jakka (Old Man Yamamoto), any of the lieutenants, Komamura, or any of the Vizards. There was SO much potential for this, but in the end, the game just feels like a cash in... at least Mugen Ichigo is unlockable. >.> was writing a review for another board... but I'll just leave this here

Got really frustrated when I logged in and saw that not only did i have the right part of my class quest... I also had the last part of the class quest too! And I couldn't get rid of the last bit (to complete it). I submitted a ticket and went on my merry way... Then I get into my next quest (I'm annoyed at tattoine, so kithsara, my Knight at 28, is just plowing through it as fast as I can) and get up to the Shock Drum (the kinght's "Act I" stuff revolves around finding and retrieving a pile of superweapons) and... I can't complete the quest. I log out in frustration.

Eh, I've just finished off a couple of games which fall into the "action" category in RE5 and Assassin's Creed, and both had main stories that seemed much longer than Arkham City's. I wasn't expecting a 50 hour epic, but it seemed like there were 4 or 5 quick things to do in the main story, then it's done. Well, one of the annoying things about Arkham City is it's always "OMG B-MAN! YOU HAVE TO SAVE US!" Every... single... mission, so you're rushed along and don't feel like you can do the side missions >.>

that's the norm anymore

TARDIS!

On Corellian run I have unwittingly become a Jedi while waiting for Bok on my agent.

Well it was all mocapped physically (the kid being Seth Green... they actually re-recorded all of his dialogue)

it'll get better.

because that's when your epicly powerful enough to do CRAZY things. I've heard an AMAZING spoiler for the Knight storyline that makes me a little it.... warm inside.

Played some old republic last night where I had one of the most hilarious deaths on my knight. Get to the final boss in the Hammer Station flashpoint (basically you go in to deactivate a former superweapon that gets jacked by a minor state... it throws asteroids) and I LEAP IN as our tank starts the fight (might have been yelling DYNAMIC! ENTRY! as I did). I land and slash and the guy moves just a little bit so we end up back to back. Then he triggers an ability that knocks everyone away from him, and I get thrown right off the cliff into the firing mechanism of the superweapon. In game terms this means that he basically pitched me off a cliff so I got a little scream audio then respawned outside and spent the rest of the fight running back.... but if we play it "straight" there's now a planet that's got a rather large crater from a meteor, with Jedi DNA strewn about.

well, I haven't talked to the givers again, only the aliens who say "Dude! MIEN!", so it might change when I talk to them again

And WOW that's a stupid dichotomy.... I'm on Taris on my Jedi and I'm being forced to make the choice between "kick out aliens with pre pre claims on the land... in favor of the family who had the land before taris burned" or "tell the people who owned the place to shove it because this belongs to these guys".

The Agent and Inquisitor ones I've found have been the most interesting. As an agent you're skulking around neutralizing targets and intelligence rings while trying to dig out who's behind a huge terrorist act. As an Inquisitor you're helping your master gain more power by any means necessary... including murder.

The class stories seem to vary wildly in terms of quality, that's for sure. And I feel like I need to have a wiki open in my secondary monitor just to figure everything out.

It's USB. Actually, it's the reason you'll never find a wired one at gamestop, they stopped makin em and people either kept em for pc gaming pads, or gave em away with the systems that they traded in.

my Agent is 22, you can PM me when you get to that point and I'll hold off leveling him.

right now I'm giving my agent a short break (he's on Nar Shadda) and messing around on a Jedi guardian. Calax (agent) and Kithsara (jedi) on Correllian Run. And yeah... just how fast they move to "Ima bribe you nao!" is kinda.... scary. And the fact that you can't get them to play nice while letting them have a relationship.

I have gotta say... that lovers quest on Typhon still bugs the hell out of me...

*please work*

Armstech, Scavenging, and I forget the third.

Mainly Corellian Run.

Now departing Dromond Kaas as Cipher Agent Calax. Personality wise he's kinda turned out like Michael Weston from Burn notice. Flirty, fun, but always gets the job done and has a dark streak to him. And will snipe your face off at 1 million yds rather than jab you in the gut

I AM HOME!

Honestly, DoW2 was enjoyable to me, but Chaos rising was just.... boring. It basically is a squad tactics game in the vein of myth, just without a lot of the "Casualties!" calls. There's a lot of promise, but it seems to not have been capitalized on, much like the Space Marine game. One thing I wanted was a "Horde Mode" where each member picked a squad type, and tried to deal with ever more powerful waves of enemies. And we KIND of got it in Chaos Rising as "Last Stand" but instead of being a "Pick a squad" it's "Pick a hero" with only certain "builds" being viable to each hero (for example, a teleport/doombolt build for the Chaos Sorc is one of the most dangerous things to play, but does incredibly well in the hands of a micromanager). Personally if they had put it in with the selection of a scout, tactical, devestator, and assault marines, and had players pick which one they used with a small loadout choice, then built a map around fighting off waves of enemies from one direction (like the defense missions in game) you'd probably see some more interesting play. Although the current incarnation of Last Stand can be pretty crazy when you've got like 8 dreadnaughts running around in one of the final rounds of the primary map.

Should be a long series of lines and traffic jams >.>. It's one of the busiest days of the year!