tempest in a teacup

Here’s last month’s edition.

Games that have been knocked off the list due to completion:

• Devil May Cry 4 - Beat it on Devil Hunter, although honestly I don’t think I’m really done with it yet. I can’t say that I’ve really mastered any aspect of the game (except maybe Nero’s Devil Buster but it’s LOL EZ anyway).
• NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams - I’ve gotten all my C ranks and unlocked the true ending to the game, so it’s leaving the list. I’ll still keep trying for A ranks and better scores from time to time, though (it’s a freaking score attack game - who wouldn’t). Maybe I’ll put some footage up here when I try it out.
• Zack & Wiki - I’ve beaten the main story quest, but I haven’t found any of the hidden treasures yet. Still, that’s good enough for me for now.
• Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition - Beat it shortly after my last list of doom post. I’ve fiddled around a bit with the other modes (the Ada side missions and the Mercenaries minigame) but I haven’t gone back to the game yet.

Games still being played:

• Super Mario Galaxy - Would you believe I’m still stuck on that one Luigi purple coin mission?
• Advance Wars: Days of Ruin - Really haven’t touched it at all.
• Sonic Rush Adventure - That last Sol Emerald is a bitch.
• Mass Effect - I’ve just finished up the Noveria story quests. It seems that there really aren’t that many main story quests which is a little alarming, but I’ll see what happens. I’ve started to get a good feel for my final opinion on the game, too…and it’s a little uneven.
• Beyond Good & Evil - Still fun - I’m right after the part where Pey’j gets kidnapped (spoiler).

Games that were started and beaten over the course of the month:

• Metal Gear Solid - Great boss fights, great sneaking areas, terrible gun controls, WALL OF PLOT is annoying.
• Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance - Boss fights are somewhat less great, sneaking is much more fun, gun controls are better, WALL OF PLOT is still annoying.

New entries on the list:

• Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence - Not too far in. I can’t say I’ve gotten the hang of CQC yet - for some reason every time I try to grab someone from behind I end up throwing them and setting off an alarm.
• Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword - this is surprisingly good for a handheld conversion of Ninja Gaiden. There are some cutbacks (simplified combos, only one melee weapon and two ranged weapons) but otherwise it’s fast and furious just like the console versions.
• Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune - my first PS3 game! Think Gears of War crossed with Resident Evil 4 with a minimal bit of Tomb Raider splashed in for good measure. Very polished and slick - nothing to complain about so far.
• Bionic Commando: Rearmed - I never played the NES version, but even so this game is pretty cool. While the levels and bosses themselves are pretty well-designed, I particularly like the Portal-style Challenge Rooms.

And that’s it for August!

It just occurred to me that my Wii backlog is basically empty now (except for Galaxy). Any Wii game recommendations? Keep in mind that I’m a lonely bastard who plays games by himself all the time.

I’ve been hearing rumours that the 80GB Metal Gear Solid 4 PlayStation 3 bundle was soon to go the way of the dodo, and with it all backwards compatibility from the product line. I was pondering whether or not to take the plunge and shell out the cash for one of these bundles, but an e-mail that popped into my inbox at work swiftly resolved those thoughts.

A guy at work was selling his 60GB PS3 along with a few games, for the bargain price (relatively speaking) of $450. I wasn’t particularly interested in some of the games he was offering (Tiger Woods and Madden…right), but I realised that that sort of price for the long-discontinued 60GB model was a pretty damn good deal, so I jumped at it. Hence the shiny black monster now perched next to my 32″ HDTV.

The machine is remarkably quiet, even with a disc inside it - noise elimination was clearly one of their priorities in developing the hardware. Heat is another story, though - I tried to reposition the console slightly to make space for something else and the underside was almost too hot to touch.

That said, I don’t have much else to complain about. I’ll probably put Ubuntu on it so that I can use it as a media center (without being restricted to the formats that the PS3 supports natively). And now that I have something that can actually use the hi-def capabilities of my TV, I might start buying more DVDs (and downloading content from the PlayStation Store - I hear Xam’d is particularly good).

Games? Err, I got Guitar Hero III along with it, but until I clear my existing PC and PS2 backlog I’m probably not going to buy anything else for it. I’m still halfway through Devil May Cry 4 and I suspect I’ve barely scratched the surface of Mass Effect.

On a somewhat related note, I beat Metal Gear Solid at last (after disovering the first-person aiming option in the escape level which was never revealed to me, and in any case was rather difficult to use). Of course, the game rewarded me by freezing up right after the credits, preventing me from saving my complete file. Joy.

Overall thoughts? Rather rough around the edges, but it did have enjoyable moments.

I put a few minutes into Metal Gear Solid 2 - the two main things I brought away from it were

1. Yay aiming doesn’t suck as much!
2. Boo the cutscenes are still way too long.

I’ll probably only continue once I get the PS2 memory card adapter I ordered from Amazon tomorrow, so I can move all my save data onto the PS3. I’m not sure what I’ll do with the PS2 yet, but I’ll probably take it back to Singapore the next time I go.

Went downtown to see The Dark Knight today. Great movie, and I really enjoyed it. Very satisfying, and no real bits that stuck out to me as forced or unnecessary. Heath Ledger’s Joker was suitably sadistic, random and occasionally morbidly funny. I’m a fan of Mark Hamill’s Joker from the animated series, but I have to say Ledger did an excellent job.

In addition, a certain other Batman villain shows up (you should know who it is if you’ve been paying attention to any of the trailers at all) and while the treatment given to him in this movie is somewhat different from how he has been portrayed in the past, I thought it was pulled off very well.

The only complaint I had was Christian Bale’s Batman voice. Maybe I’m just spoiled by Kevin Conroy’s superlative treatment in the animated versions, but I have no idea why Bale’s Batman sounds like he has lung cancer. Apparently this was an issue with the first movie as well. Not only did it sound weird, it also made it hard to understand what he was saying at times.

In any case, go see it.

On my way back I popped into a Gamestop and picked up Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword and Metal Gear Solid: The Essential Collection. I’ve put in some time with the former and it’s really good for a handheld action game. I’m really not used to being able to block, though, being a long-time Devil May Cry player, but I suppose it’ll come with time.

MGS should be interesting…I played parts of the first game on PC, but I never beat any of them. Time to see what all the fuss is about.

Here’s last month’s edition.

Games that have been knocked off the list due to completion:

• Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition - well, Dante’s route on normal anyway. I’ve started a Vergil playthrough, but it’s more like something I can do if I’m in the mood. With this I can finally claim to have beaten a DMC game!

And that’s the only game I managed to beat last month.

• Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition - Still on Mission 5-2.
• Zack & Wiki - No progress here either.
• Super Mario Galaxy - Took a few stabs at clearing that Luigi coin mission, and the closest I came was 80-something coins before my reflexes failed me.
• NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams - I set my sights a little lower and decided to go for all C-ranks first so I could unlock the true ending to the game. Unfortunately this is easier said than done because some of the side missions are really fucking stupid.
• Advance Wars: Days of Ruin - Gathering dust. For some reason I simply can’t bring myself to finish that particular mission.
• Sonic Rush Adventure - Set a few more personal records in time attack, but otherwise nothing else. I’ve noticed that the physics in this game are quite broken (at least as far as Sonic games go).
• Mass Effect - I’ve unlocked my character’s specialised class (went for Shock Trooper) and after spending ages on sidequests I’ve finally started on the main story quests again. Still pretty good so far - the universe is interesting, and conversations with the supporting characters tend to reveal some interesting nuances over time.
• Beyond Good & Evil - Played a bit more. This feels like a Zelda game with most of the tedium/treating the player like he’s five years old stripped out. So far, having a lot of fun with it.

The only “new” entries on the list?

• Diablo II: Lord of Destruction - Nostalgia got to me after the Diablo III announcement. I’m rebuilding my old Zeal/Fanaticism Paladin (boring build, I know, but it was the first D2 character I ever made). In addition I’m playing a summoning Necromancer for playing online with PenPen.
• Devil May Cry 4 - So far it’s definitely easier than both Devil May Cry and Devil May Cry 3, but still rather fun. The Devil Bringer isn’t quite as interesting to me as the instant rev and other frame-specific moves like Table Hopper and the instant Exceed, which are the main source of depth in Nero’s play style.

Stay tuned for next month’s update, when I reveal pretty much the same list with no changes whatsoever!

Here’s the original list.

Games that have been knocked off the list due to completion:

• Psychonauts - I didn’t get all the scavenger hunt items, etc, but I was level 50 by the time I hit the final boss, and he didn’t give me much trouble.
• Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - Excellent game, but that final boss was far less challenging than the platforming area that led up to him.

Updated progress for the remaining items:

• Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition - No progress made. Haven’t touched my PS2 in a while, actually.
• Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition - Mission 5-2. @#%@ Regenerators.
• Zack & Wiki - No progress made. I don’t expect any will be made for a while, actually…
• Super Mario Galaxy - No progress made. That Luigi purple coin mission is really hard if you just bumrush it without any planning (like I tend to do)
• NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams - Finished the main story on both sides (not that it was hard, there being only 3 levels on each side and a common final level + boss fight). But I always try to play platformers to completion, so my next target is A-ranking everything. Yes, that includes that music mission in Memory Forest, a mission whose designer really needs to be shot.
• Advance Wars: Days of Ruin - I, uh, played a few more turns of mission 13. Still haven’t beaten it.
• Sonic Rush Adventure - I’ve been doing more time attack runs than Sol Emerald hunting, if you get my drift.

New entries on the list:

• Mass Effect - Level 20, just picked up Liara T’Soni. I’m playing as a Soldier, and will be going for a Paragon rating, like the goody-two-shoes that I am.
• Beyond Good & Evil - I actually haven’t gotten very far in this game because of a weird bug that causes my framerate to drop like a stone when I’m in the overworld. Just to remind you all, this is a 2003 game having problems running on a 2006 video card.