Once your characters get a bit more flushed out ability wise and you gain access to the paradigm shift system, the battles get a lot more interesting in fun. So far I am really enjoying the combat system in this one, it took me a little while to get over the fact that just hitting auto battle every time on your party leader is the best method to use but once I realized the real point to combat is knowing when to switch paradigms and which paradigms to use things started to get better.
Only "mildly"? Surely you jest. Anyways, that list is an awful way of evaluating things. For starters, only 4 of those games are on the Wii, it's not even close to recent, and doesn't take into account sales across multiple platforms, as Modern Warfare 2 has already sold 20 million units, the original Modern Warfare about 14 million, GTA4 has sold over 14 million, etc, etc.
Holy hell. Just beat Dragon Age. If that's what RPGs are like, I didn't know what I was missing all these years. Loved the story, but I'm still in the mode where I want to keep going. Wait, what's that you say? The expansion pack comes out in five days? Excuse me while I go massacre the knuckle children. Spoiler I'm gonna miss the sultry witch and sexy little redhead though.
Anyone here ever try out The Witcher? Although I despise a great amount of the voice-acting, this game is badass. Made in '07, you should be able to find this game cheap off of Amazon or EBay. It also holds one of the finest soundtracks I've ever heard, and is right up there with Planescape: Torment and the Silent Hill series.
The Witcher was great! Just be sure to get the Enhanced Edition. I think you can still buy the basic game (should be cheaper) and download the EE from the official site for free.
Finished God of War II last night. I won't lie, I cheated, I used a walk through to finish the game quickly. It really cuts down on the excitement and flow of the game when you do this. Now Im just pumped for GoW3. Beyond beating the game for the story and maybe some of the challenges, Im seriously considering just renting the third one and busting it out in a week, sans walk through. side note: Finally got my coveted 1.0 k/d ratio in CoD. Fuck yes.
FFXIII is sucking my soul right now. This game is AWESOME. Its by far the best looking game on the 360 to date. A lot of people are bitching that its not like other FF games but I think thats one of its better points. The battle system is like nothing I've ever played and I'm really enjoying it. Great sound, great story and amazing graphics. I'm about 25 hours in and hooked.
The Eidolons? You get your first one (Shiva) in chapter four, but no real chance to use it. You get Odin in chapter 5. This battle system rocks ass. Once you get used to paradigm shifting, it's incredible all the shit you can do. The story and world movement remind me a lot of FF X, but better.
I'm loving the paradigm shift system, especially once your characters start getting some of the more advanced buffs and debuffs. And as far as the Eidolons go: Spoiler The Odin fight was pretty ridiculous, I ended up having to try that one at least 3-4 times.
Stumbled upon 75 free bucks today and picked up FFXIII. This is my first Final Fantasy game, and I have to say I'm pretty dang impressed. I was skeptical through the first few hours, as the combat was pretty lame, but as soon as you gain the ability to Paradigm Shift it becomes so fucking awesome. The story and characters are ridiculous, but that is to be expected from a JRPG. Every time the fucking chocobo chick flies out of the black dudes 'fro I laugh my fucking ass off.
Interesting article on programmers trying to dip into the used game market with DLC and, in some cases, codes you have to purchase online to even play the damn thing. <a class="postlink" href="http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/plugged-in/game-makers-strike-back-at-used-game-market/1390305" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/plug ... et/1390305</a> Thoughts? Do video game companies have the right to double dip?
And speaking of downloads, Perfect Dark 64 will be available tomorrow for Live Arcade. If you haven't heard, improved graphics, as well as online play. Can't wait.
Improved graphics, but they are still ancient. That being said, for 800 MSP, I'll be snatching that shit up in an instant. One of the best games of all time. And now it's capable of 8 player online multiplayer (up to 12 including Sims.)
Question for FFXIII'ers, I've read that the battle system is great a few times, but how is the story? There hasn't been much talk about that. Are the characters interesting or do you want to choke them?
I think it's bullshit. Yeah, yeah, EULA, you're licensing a copy not buying the game, etc. You have to admit that disallowing buyers of used copies from playing vital parts of the game violates the spirit, if not the letter, of first-sale doctrine. When you buy a game used and realize later that you can't play multiplayer or use a character creator, or even start up the game, it feels unfair. My stance on download games (e.g. Steam) is a little bit different. Downloaded games are non-rivalrous, so copyright issues are just that: creating 2 copies of a game where there was just one. That's not the case with physical copies of games. Leaving alone legality, it does seem a bit much to pay $60 for a game and then realize that with DLC and the like the true cost of fully experiencing that game is closer to $100. That's a lot of fucking money.
I don't like this either. Disclaimer: My views on this differ based on whether it's a PC game or a console game. It's way too easy to take a single disc for PC and install games on a bunch of different computers all at the same time. Aside from a very small percentage of people, console users don't have that capability. If a console user sells their game disc, they can't play any more. If you start charging people to play a console game that they bought used, you're not only double-dipping, you're putting restrictions on the market that unfairly hurt both sides. People will stop buying used games because it's no longer saving them money. Stores will stop buying used games, because they can't sell them. People won't be able to sell their old games, so they will probably not spend as much on new games. EVERYBODY LOSES, both customers lose, retailers lose, and publishers lose. $15-$20 is like 25%-35% of the NEW price on a game, and almost 50% of the typical used prices around me. Gamestop would have to cut the price of their used games almost in half for the final cost to be what it is now. This would pretty much eliminate the game rental business as well. Who's going to rent a game if you have to pay $15 on top of the rental fee to get it to work? Take this situation, and try to apply it to any other consumer goods. What would happen if Ford required anybody buying a used Ford to purchase an activation code for 50% of what you bought the car for before the vehicle would run? If used cars are going for $15,000 would anybody be willing to pay Ford a $7,500 fee to "activate" their car? What if the HDTV you bought used from a friend would only work in regular def unless you paid an extra $400 activation fee for High Def display? Would you be willing to pay $5 in order to "activate" a DVD your friend is letting you borrow to watch at your house? It's ridiculous. If the publishers want to make money, they should be focusing on putting out quality games. If they spent half the effort they put into "preventing piracy" and restricting usage of the games into developing and testing the game properly, maybe they wouldn't have to worry about people selling off their games.
I thought that the story started out a bit slow, but its been getting better as I've been getting closer to the end. Its a character driven story and so far I've enjoyed the characters. It is a JRPG though, of course, and so a couple of the characters can be grating from time to time and you have to put up with the standard Japanese cheesiness sometimes, but overall I like all the characters.
The red headed Aussie is clearly Riku 2.0. And Hope is almost as whiny as Tidus, at least at first. Sazh, Snow, and Lightning are all pretty decent, though I keep on waiting for Sazh to yell: Spoiler Mah Boy! They took mah boy! Right... outta... my... hands... a la Michael Dawson on Lost I'm only a little bit into chapter 11 (of 13, btw), and this looks to be a great area for CP (exp) grinding. Anyone found any other good areas to grind? In chapter 7 Spoiler on the airship, there's a long expanse of soldiers that you can grind on for (at the time) decent CP, but more importantly, a LOT of money, which will be needed to buy shit to upgrade your weapons. Even if you already have like 50,000 CP built up (I believe the max is like 1,000,000 or so) find a weapon you like for each character and grind money til it's starred out.
With the way sales are tracked at big video game retailers I don't see why developers couldnt try and negotiate a deal where they'd get a percentage price of a resold item. Sure the trade in value might go down or the resale price might go up a bit but it probably wouldnt be as huge of a percentage as pay for play codes.