Penny Hero (dot) Net

I think I’m almost at the very end of Dirge of Cerberus, and I’ve only logged about 5 hours of game time. I could be totally wrong though. I’m not cheating and looking up guides or anything. hm… btw… god. Vincent is so hot. (*snickers*)

so… time for some Dirge of Cerberus reviews and reviewing by penny!

I like:

1. The style/tone of the game.
   With the exception of one small side-scene where the point of view shifts to that stupid cat Cait Sith… the entire game is pretty dark and serious. I like the odd combination of mysterious-vampire/demon-like-magic that vincent seems to radiate, combined with the political/technological/environmental stuff that final fantasy VII is all about.
2. Vincent (duh).
   I like his character, his story, his twisted and broken body. I have to admit that I HATE his stupid cell phone and it’s stupid gothic silver cross style. it makes his character more like a costume complete with matching accessories! omg ponies! … but whatever. He was my favorite character from the original game… his story never got explained fully. Now it has, and my jaw has sorta… dropped. (nope, no spoiling.)
3. Gameplay style:
   I love the 1st/3rd person shooter thing. woo for mixing it up in the FF genre. And as far as the 3rd person action style game goes, it seems like the time the creators spent on Kingdom Hearts influenced this one… it’s sort of like KH, only you’ve got a gun in your hand (well, 3), and you actually have to fricken aim. Not that aiming is all that hard or anything. It’s like halo without the funky controls, and with a lot more auto-aiming. So… Halo minus about 200 in difficulty. plus mele combat. and materia. woo shiny materia.

What I don’t like:

1. The leveling system.
   I HATE that the whole “leveling up” system is now pretty much non-existant. Unless you’re really really good and get a really high score at each chapter, you’re not going to get all that much experience. The drop-rate of items is also really controlled, so you can’t gain enough gold to upgrade your weapons very well… which I suspect is one reason the second thing I dislike about the game is a problem for me:
2. The Tsviets
   Granted, I haven’t beaten any of them yet (not for lack of trying), but the fight with Rosso the Crimson (and I assume all the other Tsviets, although I haven’t gotten past her yet) is DISPROPORTIONATELY hard compared to all other battles before her. It’s really fricken annoying. I’ve only died once in all the other boss fights, and I can’t get her down past about 1/2 health before she wipes the floor with me.

What I’ve got mixed feelings on:

1. Inventory limit
   The limit to how many items you can carry makes the game a major challenge. At first I thought this was really really lame, but now I realize that the challenge is there for a reason. It keeps people “playing fair” and keeps people from just stocking up and maxing out on all the potions you can hold. it makes sense, considering ALL of your items are a usable at any time. The creators put a lot of care into the small logistics of the game to make sure that even the most experienced FF player isn’t going to be using any of their old tricks to get through unscathed. On that note… next item:
2. The lack of any save-points.
   Probably for the same reasons that they’ve limited your items inventory, they’ve also limited how games are saved. For one thing, you can never actually “save” your game in the conventional sense. You can’t save a copy just before a boss you like and then re-play it later (or even just as a precaution before a boss in case you die). There are NO save points. Your game is auto-saved, and I still haven’t quite figured out how all that works because when I return to a game, I sometimes expect it to pick up in a place a little farther along from where it ends up starting… I don’t know. I’ll leave that to someone else.
3. Related: the Temp Save system
   Both this and the lack of save points is frustrating PROBABLY because I’m used to being able to be a little more reckless. Back when I knew I could just make a temp-save, go nuts and learn the level, and then just restart, I’d do it. But this temp save system is meant to prevent that. Once you re-open a temp save file, the file is destroyed, preventing you from just resetting the console. It’s pretty obvious that the creators know the kinds of tricks players like to use to “cheat.” On the other hand, this system solves one of the biggest problems of any other RPG with fixed save-points you have to manually access: you can save and quit your game at any time. So, if your mother tells you to get your ass down stairs and do the dishes, you have no excuse (or in my case, if my ride is about to leave or something). I love AND hate both these details. They show the kind of thought that was put into it, and it steers players more into playing the game how the creators want it to be played.

Overall, I love the game so far. I love the FF saga, and you really can’t have that saga without vincent (Soooo odd that vincent is an optional character in the original game.)

I also find it kind of strange and cool that I bought the game only a few days away from Oct. 13… Vincent’s birthday (according to the original FFVII booklet).

I wonder why they didn’t try to release the game on that day and see how many fans would notice.

Nothing restores a slightly emotionally confused brain heart (tee hee) than Kingdom Hearts II… on a projector.

Or maybe it’s a form of escapism. I don’t know. It just feels too good to be bad for me. :)

Reasons ICO is probably the best game I’ve ever swooned over:

The Animation: The animation is so sweet. Sentimental and subtle. Like puppy-dog romance between children. You jump across a gap, and you call to her. She hesitates, steps forward, jumps. You catch her before she falls because she can’t jump far enough and pull her to safety. At the save points, when you’re both resting side-by-side on your little stone couches, if you press the “call Yorda” button once, you turn your head to look at her. Also, I think (but I’m not sure), that if you resume a game from a save point, Yorda pulls her head off of your shoulder, but it happens so quickly that so far I can’t zoom in fast enough to see it.

The Girl: Yorda is a frightened, confused, vulnerable girl. Not a stupid bimbo, which is what I was afraid of. She pulls her hair out of her face when she’s left idle as if she’s nervous and frightened. not like she’s primping. She steps hesitantly, unsure of what to do. She looks around for danger, but frequently watches you like she’s afraid to be left alone. She gasps when you swing your stick at things and tries to run away from danger (sometimes straight into a phantom, but whatever. I’m a spry 8-year old boy and can usually save her). If you fall off a ledge (and not die), she’ll gasp and run toward you. If you let a bomb explode in your face, she runs to your side to see if you’re ok. Her character cultivates this intense real desire to stay with her, regardless of the fact that if you leave her in the next room alone for too long, phantoms come and try to take her away. Even if there was no danger in her being alone, you’d still never want to let go of her hand.

The Language etc: Neither Yorda nor ICO speak English (or Japanese for that matter). Their speech is jibberish, but ICO’s is subtitled in English. Yorda’s on the other hand, is subtitled in this beautiful indecipherable script, meaning she and ICO can’t understand each other. And you only can understand your own speech. You as the player are really just as clueless as this little 8 year old boy (I’m convinced he’s 8. I’d like to know for sure though.). The world feels more “real” for that. no more badly dubbed or translated irritation. You’re looking into a fleshed-out world.

The Gameplay: There are no icons, no health-meters, no magic spells to cast. There are no lame-ass “collect 200 of this stupid item to get the stupid key” quests. No boss fights. No points, no scores. Either of you fall from too great of a distance and die, it’s Game Over. Yorda gets re-captured by the phantoms and it’s Game Over. But that’s all. It’s hard enough though. All of the rooms are difficult puzzle-based escapes into the next room. They’re non-repetitive, progressively more difficult and complicated, and the design of the castle itself seems to be real spacially. If you look out the window and see a windmill a few hundred yards away, chances are in the next few rooms, you’ll be outside and have to climb that windmill. In the puzzles, even in the very beginning of the game, there are no obvious visual or audio cues to give you any kind of clue as-to how to solve them (except once, Yorda ran excitedly over to some stone pillars I was supposed to push, but I interpret that as her anxiousness to get out of the castle. We’d just had a run-in with her “mother”). Even your first actions in the game are completely without any kind of tutorial. You figure out the buttons either by reading the little booklet, or just through trial and error.

*sigh*

This game is turning out to be all the things I hoped it would be. Which is silly, I guess. I’m trying to think of an analogy between the mainstream games that are out and this one to express how completely different this is from anything else I’ve played or heard of before. All obvious cues that say “you’re playing a game” are just gone. The only time you see the mediation of any kind of menu or information other than the subtitles is when you pause, save, or die. What kind of book does that? or poem? when all other books need chapter-breaks, or conventional climactic build-up, or antagonists or narrators. Back-story… but here the point of the game is to uncover the back-story as you try to escape from the castle. *purr*

I think this is the kind of game that might be a real challenge to enjoy for some people. especially those who might be used to more “action” based games with great big explosions, epic stories, gore, timers, or races. I think it might be a rare guy who loves a game like this. Maybe even a rare girl who might have by now become conditioned to love the “other” kinds of games. I’d just like to kiss anyone who loves this game as much as I do.

I just cheated and downloaded the 100% completion ending cut-scenes for metroid prime I and II. I’m a bad person.

But holy shyst. I have a strange and sneaky suspicion that I will be bloody buying the new nintendo console just so I can play the third game. That evil dark bitch of a phazon clone. Ruining my evening… and possibly my life. (at least now I know where she came from.)

So, the first ending had a shot of her face without her helmet on. A nice close-up flyby. The sequel’s ending has a nice sequence of her standing all heroic-like with nothing but a blue jumpsuit on. She flips her hair around and everything. So, what’s the third game’s ending going to be? Plain-clothes? a bikini? Nekkid? hahah. I hope it’s not some stupid stunt like that. Oh my god! Maybe she’ll makeout with dark samus! hot twin lesbian bounty-hunter sex! (oh please kill me now.)

Anyway, I better fucking sleep now. It’s wayyy later than I want it to be.

At least I won’t be tempted to play the games again in the near future. Since I cheated and spoiled it for myself and all. (if you want these files, let me know and I’ll link you)

Metroid Prime II: Echos is almost too hard to be fun.

I’m not joking.

Remember those ice beasts that shoot freezing ice at you and you can only kill them by exploding their ice-crusted asses and then shooting them until they pop in a neat gory explosion? (heh heh. i liked killing those guys.)

Now picture one of those fuckers as a psycho aggressive lizard, with sharp-ass horns that take out about 25hp a hit, and they shoot not feezing ice, but electricity that follows you the fuck around and comes at you the second you move out of close-combat-with-sharp-ass-horns range. The thing is still only vulnerable after you explode the plating on its ass, but the amount of vulnerable surface area seems to have been halved compared to its ice-beast cousins.

Now picture it with about 4 times the amount of defense and/or hp as the ice versions, and imagine that it can also swim, and will proceed to chase after you as soon as it sees you, no matter how long you hang out in another room hoping it will stop scraping at other side of the door hoping you’ll come back.

Now imagine that these fuckers always come in pairs.

I’ve died more times (3 times) fighting these lizard things than I have in any of the bloody boss fights (1 time so far).

I hate them. Deeply. I need a weapon-upgrade or something.

It’s just so totally awesome when I search and search and search my bank’s website and my account pages looking for the answer to a specific and simple question, finally give up and email customer support, and then not five minutes later I find what I’m looking for.

The same kind of thing seems to happen when I’m trying to figure out a problem with my computer too. I’ll google and google and finally give up and ask someone, and then I’ll suddenly find my answer.

I wish I could email the support system again and tell them to ignore my first email, but I don’t think it works that way.

[insert transitional material here]

Metroid Prime 2 arrived on Monday. Yay for ebay and accidental winning it for 20something dollars. Tuesday was my day off, so guess what i did all day long. Needless to say, by 9pm yesterday evening, I was pretty gross. Unshowered, still in pjs, smelling of garlic (I ate nothing but spicy garlic fried rice)…but I completed 22% !! The game is pretty cool. Targeting system isn’t as fast as in the first one, and there are way too few save points, but whatever. It makes me happy.

I’ve really got nothing brilliant or intelligent to say right now.

Happy MLK day. :)

Stuff to do today:
☆ - read for Eng, Eng and Eng
☆ - read for Phl
☆ - finish Japanese homework
☆ - take out trash
☆ - put away laundry
★ - do last load of laundry
★ - work on xaraya theme
★ - L.research
★ - no metroid
★ - no gunbound

Tomorrow:
☆ - Budget presentation (6:40ish)

In Other News: Metroid Prime (as in, the final boss, gamecube one) is one scary mofo. You walk into the big scary room and all you see is this giant undulating face hanging from the ceiling… only it’s an optical illusion. well, sorta… since it was designed to look like that at first. When it falls from the ceiling, it looks like a giant spider. So yeah… I was scared. But I reduced it to very little health rather quickly… then I ran out of missiles and just got raped. *sigh*

Today, I plan on being productive. (shut up. stop laughing. damn you.)

…

Ok, this isn’t working. I’m done with this entry. I can’t think of anything marvelous to say.

I’m reading the um… manual for Ur-Quan Masters port.

“Don’t hit the planet unless you want to take LOTS of damage.”

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Don’t let me forget:

Next weekend is my dad’s 50th birthday. I think I will be going home for this one. Thanks to my stepmom for calling me this morning. :)

It’s rediculous how often I almost miss my parents’ birthdays. All have always fallen really near to each other. Mom’s and stepmom’s are a few days apart in November. Dad’s is in late November, and ex-stepdad was in December. It’s just “parental birthday season”. It’s amazing that I don’t see November coming and automatically think “oh. go buy presents.” I’ve been missing their birthdays pretty consistently for about 21 years now.

In Other News: I’ve decided Warcraft (RoC) is fun. It’s a totally different style of gaming from anything I’ve ever been addicted to before (this is your cue to say, “where the fuck have you been?!”). At this point, I suck at it, but yeah. Gotta start somewhere. I’m doing all the one-player campaigns so I can learn how to work with all the races, etc etc. (plus it’s kinda engaging. Fucking Arthas. I hated him for his cheesy goody-goody pious “character”. but Ha ha. Frostmourne, or whatever the hell his new sword is called, stole his soul and now he’s all evil and working for the undead. badass. Contrary to popular belief, bad writers can sometimes entertain a Starla.)

Anyway… I’m stuck on Chapter 4 in the Undead campaign. It’s the one where you have to hire those stupid troll balloon pilots to transport your troops across rivers to slaughter the elves. But your gold-mine only has about half the gold a normal gold mine has, so you can’t build your army up, or defend your base much. And the elves are fucking strong. Their “hero” is like, level 4 or 5, and mine is apparently not allowed to level up more than what the story line allows in each chapter. grrr. So I’m still a wussie level 3 and I keep getting my ass owned by the elves because my entire upgraded army gets slaughtered the first time I attack, and/or my hero dies and I run out of gold (and expendable buildings for liquidation) before I can build his temple revive him. Fack.

I’m going to try again before I go do laundry this morning. (sure. yeah right. like I’ll make it to the laundromat if I start playing warcraft now)

Soo not going to let those pansy-ass elves own me. I’m undead. I should win.

So, my ISP crapped out on me. I thought it was because I was late paying my bill… but then I discovered that I wasn’t late. (I paid my bill anyway though) The access number I use hasn’t changed, as far as their website can say. So I’m confused. And without internet. Grr. As if the fact that it is 56k isn’t bad enough.

I’ve tried leaving a “users helping users” support request, but I’ve received no replies in the 4 hours I’ve been in the lab doing homework. Gah.

Anyone feel like helping me troubleshoot? (Didn’t think so.)

In Other News: Since I don’t have internet, I needed something else to distract me from constructive work. So I dug through the games I’m borrowing for something I had not yet tried. *drumrollplease*

“Breath of Fire” (4?? I don’t even know for sure which one I’m playing) for PS1 is nifty. I haven’t looked at any reviews or opinions, nor had I even ever heard of this game before I found it in my giant binder of borrowed discs, so you know that my opinion really is my own. (Does that mean anything?) The dual-plot and perspective changes do much more than just give players a “hint” about where their main characters could go. (This kicks FFVII’s little “Ooh! Sephiroth’s in my party in one of Cloud’s dreams!” plot-twists IN THE ASS, btw.) They serve as intermissions for the main plot, and make my tummy tingle with the things they reveal about the state of the world. Instead of having some boring cut-scene where you see your characters traveling across the desert in a box (or worse, a fade-out/fade-in two weeks later), you spend that down-time discovering more about the God/Dragon Fou Lu on the other side of the planet, and what his relation to your main party really are, plus furthering his own journey to “The Capitol City”, random battles ad nauseum.

It’s like telling a story from two directions at once. The end may come when the two plots meet in the middle, but getting there is pure Cool. It’s the most entertaining adventure RPG I’ve ever played because of the shifting point-of-view, and the magic-filled fantasy plot-line. :)

I’m only 8 hours into the game, but I’m just all about it right now. Its single-disc nature gives me hope that I’ll be able to finish it before any pressing homework is assigned.

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Ok… back to writing my “crappy 2-page essay draft” (direct quote) that’s due tomorrow in Comp.

And… I suppose I have no idea when I’ll be back online… for those of you who talk to me via IM… Go kick FlexNet for me, will ya? I will miss you all dearly.