Saturday, July 11, 2009

Ok Fine, One More For The Road

I know I said that I would be going today (and I still am), but I'm having some problems sleeping right now. See, I fell asleep around midnight. When I awoke, I begin having thoughts of "Well, time to finish packing" and "Time to make myself some breakfast". About that moment, I decide to see what time it was and looked at my clock (which is about 20 min slow because of a power outage) and see something I did not expect: 2:00 am.

"%@#$%!", I exclaim. It appears that I was only asleep for no more than two hours. I tried going back to sleep, but I eventually gave up as the thing that keeps me awake more than anything is sleep itself.

Out of boredom I begin browsing the internet, checking my email, facebook and the such. During my browsing, I come upon and article from Kotaku (and yes, one of my goals is to diversify my gaming news sites) about something I wrote of not too long ago.

It appears that the IRL Gundam built in Japan has also taken a step into the virtual world as well. To celebrate the 30th anneversery of the Gundam franchise, a virtual replica of the Gundam statue will be added to PS3 Home from today until July 23rd.

Hey I'll get to play Left 4 Dead 2 at Comic Con...

(Story originaly from Inside-Games.Jp, Via Kotaku)

Bye, Paisanos!

Well, I'm leaving today. I'm sorry if I'm getting a bit repetitive with the reminder, but I'm going to be putting Elisha (Katamaris4Ever) in charge while I'm gone.

I get back on the 18th, and three days after that, I will be flying out to San Diego to go Cover Comic Con. If anyone sees someone cosplaying as Dan Hibiki or Sgt Keroro in the crowd behind G4, that may be me. I'm definitely going to record some videos while I'm there, but I might not post them until I get back home (probable hardware issues with my laptop. But I'll try).

I just hope Vic and James don't do anything stupid...

-Phill

Friday, July 10, 2009

Deal Alert! aka EB Games/ Gamestop Price Drops

I love being a deal hunter. It's really cool to see a 60 dollar game drop to 20 or lower. However, even I know that some titles will never drop their prices, as they usually sell out at a high price anyways.

Which is why I almost wet myself when I saw the EB Games drop list this month. While they are having a sale on a bunch of new titles (Prince of Persia and Infinite Undiscovery are the most noteworthy, as they're 20 bucks each) this month, I didn't realize that two DS RPGs dropped to a low price of 20 bucks too. Chrono Trigger and Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume are being reduced, and I strongly urge all of you to buy these titles. Chrono Trigger is regarded as one of the best RPGs in the genre, much less for the SNES. I also have a soft spot for Valkyrie profile, as it was pretty great on the original playstation. Plus, Square Enix rarely drops prices this soon on recent titles! Get a move on!


Dragon Quest IX Gameplay



The above video is footage from the Japanese show television show, Joudeki!! Geinoujin Kodawari Ou Kouza Iketaku, showing the co-op gameplay for the upcoming DS game and latest installment in the Dragon Quest series, Dragon Quest IX.

While I have honestly no clue what exactly they're saying, I'm aware that 1) the people playing it are Japanese celebrities, 2) this is the first time gameplay of it has been aired on network television, and 3) that the guy at the end with the fancy graphic and called "Gamu disihna" is the creator of the Dragon Quest Series.

And in minor site news, I'd just to like to remind everyone that I will be gone for the next week, but about 4 days later I will be heading out to Comic Con and getting good coverage of it. I don't know if I'll be able to post videos of it from my hotel, but I will definately be able to post pictures from it.

[Story originally from Kotaku.com]

Monday, July 6, 2009

New Column: Video Game Gripes

Ok, before I begin, I'll admit it - I'm a bit lazy with this site. I said I was going to have the video up the day before, then I say I'll have it up yesterday and still don't. It's summer, pretty much all I want to do is sit around playing video games. But I'm going to try and keep doing this. I'll work on my next "The Meh, The Bad and The Weird" tonight. I was going to the game Justice League Task Force for the Genesis... except I can't find any of the cables for it. I was going to do one for the SNES, but for a while I can't find one of the cables for that either. It's like I've got some little Gnome that's going around, stealing all my cables.

Now, onto the column, "Video Game Gripes". Video Game Gripes is a colum that talks about all the annoying things in games, some of which are pointless today but still are around for one reason or another.

This week, I'll be talking about Random Battles.


Random Battles are pretty much a staple of all JRPGs out there, like Final Fantasy for example. They can be extremely annoying at times. Now, don't get me wrong. I understand the point of them - to level up your character to be able to fight bosses. There's pretty much two kinds of setups for Random Battles out there: the kind where you walk and eventually fight monsters after a short while and the kind where you can actually see the monsters roaming around and avoid them if you're lucky enough (thus gets rid of the whole "Oh God, I hope I don't get attacked. Just a little farther" scenarios). I don't know what excactly to classify Pokemon as, becuase it's one where it only happens in certain areas. Random Battles can occasionally be much more than annoying because there have been times where I've literally taken only two steps and had to go through one. This is even more annoying when you're low on health or mana and need to rush back town, only to encounter a Random Battle that wipes out your whole party.

Yeah, most games that do that let you flee, but besides making you feel like a little coward, a lot of times you can't. You know, the whole "You try to run... but enemies block the way!". I swear sometimes I can hear some evil laughter in the background when that happens.

There are also usually items that temporarily make monsters not attack you, but 1) you have to buy that (thus spend money you could on other stuff, just to make them not attack you) and 2) it usually doesn't last very long.

Random Battles usually result in you facing weak little monsters (like Slimes) that can easilly be killed in one hit, the whole time just spamming the A (or X or whatever) button until you get carpal tunnel.

One last time, I realize the importance of Random Battles. However, it'd just be better (at least in my oppinion) to be able to physically see them and avoid them with some skill.

Next time, I'll be talking about the dreaded Invisible Walls.

Just as a heads up, I won't be posting anything next week. I'll be gone until the 18th, and hopefully this site will be in good hands.