Tale

I gave up on Radiant Historia. I'm almost 10 hours in on some sewer level that's part maze so I keep getting lost and fighting the same monsters over 10+ times. And right when I thought I found my way out, it turns out there's more. I might pick it up again later. Not feeling enthused by my attempts to play SMT IV either. Stuck on a boss that can nearly one-shot my entire party. And completely redoing my party so it can't is going to take hours. And that leaves me with my attempts to play Deadly Premonition. I guess I'm on "episode 2." And there's really nothing going on. I'm being asked to follow the thinnest of tangents to the case in the hopes that it'll payoff later. I'm really not interested in Nick's potential infidelity with Diane and I absolutely fail to see what that has to do with Anna's murder. It's wasting my time. As are those other world sequences, the one in the lumber mill was twice as long as it needed to be.

Except they're not subsidizing their material, they're interfering with everyone else's. The road analogy would be if Wal-Mart was allowed to set up tolls in front of Target. The telephone, a less abstract analogy, would be if Verizon was allowed to intentionally degrade all telephone calls made to someone using AT&T. Imagine if the infrastructure they're using to do this was publicly subsidized. It is. And imagine if they were the only option in town, which is true in many places in America. It's anti-competitive.

My philosophy here is that what the game is "trying" to do should be its core mechanics. Trying to do something completely different for a moment doesn't sit well with me, especially not when that something else is a game of Simon Says. It's like we have these potentially deep and engaging game mechanics that are exciting and tactical... and then we have this child's game that you can constantly find a variation of on the clearance isle of Target's toy department. And for some reason, someone thought what this $60 game really needed in the middle of it was some of the latter. I think that's fair. I dislike the sudden "Pass this quicktime or die" in a game like Resident Evil (especially when I was oblivious to them even existing before hand). With The Walking Dead, I'd argue that those sequences are the bulk of its core mechanic. Yeah, that I'm fine with. I'm even fine with David Cage's games, aside from the writing issues. I say fine, but I want to think they could do better with regular controls. There's an up frontness about it that makes it hard to argue against. If it works for their audience, then it works.

Blackwell is a great series. And I vaguely recall hearing that he's working on another. Thinking on it, I haven't been playing anything. Which is weird, what am I doing with my time? Oh right, work. I get a few minutes of Radiant Historia in when I can.

My philosophy here is that what the game is "trying" to do should be its core mechanics. Trying to do something completely different for a moment doesn't sit well with me, especially not when that something else is a game of Simon Says. It's like we have these potentially deep and engaging game mechanics that are exciting and tactical... and then we have this child's game that you can constantly find a variation of on the clearance isle of Target's toy department. And for some reason, someone thought what this $60 game really needed in the middle of it was some of the latter.

Tried out three games on the ****ty laptop I have access to (it's a Celeron 900). Gone Home: Runs terribly on lowest settings. Single digit framerate is what I'm talking about here, if not worse. Broken Age: Crashes when trying to start a new game or load a save. The Banner Saga: Runs almost perfectly. That settles that.

Finished Unfinished Swan, apparently I stopped right before the ending when I played it at release. And on Deadly Premonition now. Not impressed so far, hoping it picks up after day 1.

Society of Dangerous Obsidian Fanatical Forumites http://steamcommunity.com/groups/SODOFF

Finally beat Awakened Daimon a couple of days ago. I switched back to Assassin and did the blast arrow/periapt thing for most of it. Apparently didn't bring enough, because I still had to Deadly Gouge out half his health. Blast arrows were especially nice for stopping him from killing my pawns with the vortex.

I'm unenthused by the dragging out of Amanda Ripley. But I guess it'll be easy enough to get over if they do well with the game proper. And glad to see that the rumored clones for her to fight are nowhere to be seen. I remember it and I don't care a lot, either. I hated the episodes, they repeated too much of Half-Life 2. I was sick of Sandtraps when I played Sandtraps. I was sick of Sandtraps when I played it again, only with toxic ooze. And I was sick of Sandtraps when I played it again with toxic ooze and slightly more zombies in Episode 2. I'm done. It's why I was glad they stopped the episodic. But now I'm not sure what to see from them to continue it.

Loved the original mod, loved the new game. I do wish he had managed to incorporate some sort of mechanic, be it puzzle, or hidden items, just to enhance the replayability. I valued my time with it, but it's one of few games I look at and can say unequivocally that my time is done. I have no reason to go back.

I completed the Bravely Default demo. Am really looking forward to its release. And that was interspersed with Radiant Historia. The game has a cool premise, but I think they're being a little too restrictive with it. So far it's coming along as a dressed up linear JRPG. Which isn't absolutely terrible, but it's just missed opportunity.

I'm a Valve fanboy on the wane. And I'm getting a little worried about them creatively. They've been doing fantastic work in microtransactions and multiplayer, but beyond that, I think they need to push something out. Talent is a perishable skill, you need to create and publish, take the feedback, and then improve. You need that entire process. They're stuck in the first step on Half-Life. And each year they don't release something, the talent they acquired from releasing even Portal 2 is going to spoil. I used to be a big fan of "release it when it's done... if you can afford that." But I think they've crossed a line into it creating a concern about if they're even going to know how to make it relevant and appealing anymore.

Restarted Demon's Souls. Decided I wanted to play a war cleric type, but starting as Royalty for the ring. Turns out there's no real offensive miracles, so I'll just do heal/soul arrow/flame toss, then pump strength and endurance for equipment.

It's pretty fast when I just 4x Brave it and wipe them out in one round.

This is the second time marvel has done this and it's getting a little annoying. And by "second," I mean it's actually the third. The second time I knew of was just a few months ago, but for Capcom. This is the second time with Activision. You still can't get the Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 DLC. I don't know common this is for licensed games, but Ghostbusters met the same fate, and it's also why you can't get Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth anymore. Entire games lost with no new copies to be sold seemingly ever again.

Bravely Default demo came out yesterday for NA. Fun little game, but the demo is a bit too grindy. My copy of Radiant Historia should arrive today or tomorrow. I heard great things about that one, too.

Way too much Dragon's Dogma. I went back to Sorcerer because I don't know why. Just to balance strength and magic in the end, I guess. I'm just grinding away, hoping to beat Awakened Daimon. I've read a few strategies for him, but he simply would take too long for me to commit to trying.

Ouch. She can go home the same day she had the surgery? It's not quite the same day. But mostly because she was so late getting there last night. Apparently, recovery from an appendectomy is simple.

Picking my mother up from the hospital a little later today. She had an appendectomy. She'd been sitting on stomach pains for 24 hours before seeing a doctor.

Hey Tale, have the fixed the PC version? Define "fixed." I played through it just fine with no mods using my 360 pad. Some people prefer to use DSfix for additional graphics options, though.

I was sitting here thinking "oh man, I'll play some Dark Souls when I get home." Then I remembered my computer is dead and I don't want to play the PS3 version without Abyss.

I more or less finished Dragon's Dogma. Beaten the main game and have beaten Daimon. About the only thing I haven't beaten is Death. Because he's scary. Also, my computer gave it up last night, so I won't be doing anything there. Seems to be the processor. As in, if I plug power into the processor, the computer only lets the fans spin up for a second. From what I gather, this means that my motherboard does not like the voltage being pulled by the processor or something similar.

I got bored of playing Sorcerer, so I'm switching to Assassin in Dragon's Dogma. Sword and shield Assassin looks like it could be lots of fun.

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen Hit the post-game, grabbed the art of metamorphosis, then made by my Arisen and Pawn blue. Now onto Bitterback Isle!