But the female creature on the cover has a revealing outfit!

Couldn't find a cheap copy of Soul Calibur so I bought GRAW2 and Condemned for £11 each, both on 360. Probably won't play either for a while, just picked them up as they were on clearance.

I just bought Bangai-O Spirits, this should be infinitely better the second time around in english.

I picked up Double Switch for the Sega CD, Beyond Good and Evil and Armed and Dangerous both for the Xbox and Vampire: The Masquerade Redemption and Bloodlines for the PC.

Oh speaking of Sega CD, I just bought Dark Wizard. Interesting little game...the quality of the soundtrack is hilariously disproportionate to the quality of the graphics.

Dark Wizard is probably my second favourite Sega CD game (after Shining Force III), and it's a spiritual predecessor to Dragon Force, making it even greater.

I had a copy for years, but recently lost it to the dreaded little cousin monster. Pissed me off to no end. Time to ebay it again.

Aside from getting Madden on release night, I just purchased Breath of Fire 3 for PSP sealed on ebay for $29.99

Hopefully that will give me a good fix on an RPG to play when I don't feel like getting out of the bed and too lazy to deal with the PS3 ---> PSP remote play lag crap.

Christmas shopping early, my fiance is getting an XBox 360 Elite from me this year, so I was picking up the games he always has to play when he's over at friend's... Halo 3, Guitar Hero 3, and I'm working on getting Rock Band... first big christmas trying to make it worth it in the family, even though they're old games, he's never had them and if he gets them maybe he can satisfy his lust for them and move on to some newer ones hahaha

Picked up a few things lately, all of which have been pretty good.

First up was Orcs & Elves; that cell phone RPG by id that was ported over to the DS by EA.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y27.../orcselves.jpg

The game is basically a really simplistic, first-person rougelike. You move tile by tile, and enemies don't move without you moving first. You can tell the game is definitely from cell phones, but it's still a fun little time-killer. I'm not sure if magic is in the game or not (with a talking wand as a sidekick, I hope so), but so far the game has been giving me a lot of weapon and item options.

The entire game is a trek down into a dwarven mountain overrun by an orc/dark elf coalition. It's very light on story, but there are some Tolkien spoofs every so often (like the note There and Never Back Again). The top of the mountain is home to a greedy dragon that will trade you weapons and armor in exchange for gold and any rare treasures you find in the dungeons. And with all of the sprites having just a touch of Doom in them, you almost feel a bit of nostalgia when you first start playing. If you can get it for cheap, I say buy it. Otherwise, it might be a bit too short and simple for most people.

Next is Age of Empires: Age of Kings for the DS.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y27...AgeofKings.jpg

I knew the game was turn-based rather than real-time, but I had absolutely no idea how well that would translate. Turns out it did very well, and the game has a distinct Age of Kings feel (probably the sound effects) without being a port. I like how each hero represents a certain difficulty, but it stinks of you wanted to, say, okay the Joan of Arc campaign on a harder difficulty.

Besides that, the units follow a rock-paper-scissors system for deciding a unit type's strengths and weaknesses. You know, cavalry defeat infantry types and whatnot. It's a little simplistic, but it gets the job done. What's unfortunate is that, while the town-building aspect is still present and very enjoyable, there was no easy way to translate the "lower villager hp = slower building rate" formula. So, even if a villager has 1 HP, it can still build whatever it wants in a single day.

Lastly is the Glory of Heracles: Proof of the Spirit.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y27...2370516685.jpg

This is game is pretty hard to describe. It's a very traditional RPG with some touch-screen capabilities thrown in to power up magic spells. The graphics are a very nice, with cel-shaded 2D sprites giving the characters a very... unique and colorful appearance.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y27...7102004_02.jpg

I like the Greek atmosphere to the game, but it's about as Greek as Valkyrie Profile is Norse. Battles can take several minutes in many cases which makes the game feel pretty damn slow, but the battle music is good. Helps pass the time in those long fights.

10-12 hours for a $20 (probably even cheaper by now) DS game was pretty good to me. And while it seems simple at first, it definitely ramps up in difficulty later on. If you ask me, this is one of the overlooked gems on the system.

Oh, was it $20? I thought it was $30 when it came out, and I got it for $15 the other day.

In that case, yes, it's very much a good deal.

It actually was $30 when it first came out, but it dropped to $20 so fast that most people probably didn't even notice it was ever $30. Seriously, it took less than a month for it to drop in price after it came out, so most likely EA realized it should have been a $20 to begin with and just lowered the price.

Virtua Fighter 5 Online for the 360. Compared to the 35 bux I would've paid at Gamestop, I bought it at Blockbuster for only 20.

I was just about to walk out with this copy until I decided to look at the CD. You know that ring you get when you move your 360 while it's on with a game inside? Yeah, it had that. I wasn't gonna settle for that shit. At least they let me return it for a better copy with no hassle.

I've been in a fighting game mood as of lately, so I'm looking forward to playing this later.

Even though I already own the Gamecube version, Steam's 50% off weekend encouraged me to buy the PC version of Beyond Good and Evil for $5. I've never actually finished it [though I think I got pretty far], and have been wanting to play it again for quite a while.

Next up this week is Tales of Vesperia, and hopefully Braid.

Much needed bump.

Picked up Rock Band 2 today. Weird how I'm the only one out of my friends who doesn't have everything from the first one and I'm the first one to get it.

Still loads of fun though. :3

Just Vesperia and Mercenaries from "GAME" Last night at the mall.

It was about a 100$us all in all, so i really hope Vesperia is good as everyone say it is.

And i loved the first mercenaries, Nothing better to see the biggest building in town get destroyed by at least 6 C4 charges. And the script is hilarious =D

Well, I've very much spoiled myself lately.


I recently sold my PSP and slim ps2, and used the money there to purchase the american version of The King of Fighters XI. Great game, just I had the import and it was a hassle to put it on my ps2 all the time between swapping the disc.


The next day I went to my new Best Buy which just opened up on that day to see what they had. Obviously, everything was nice and new...but I saw something i've been really meaning to get but was waiting for a price drop. Sure enough, they had Call of Duty 4: GOTY for 50 bucks. I thought that was a great price. When I went up to the counter though, it said it was 60, but since on the shelf it was 50, so they honored the 50 and I got it.


Then the next day I was in the area, so I went to Circuit City and they had the Street Fighter: Anniversary Collection brand new, for only 12.99. I've seen that shit for 40 on ebay used, so I had to get it. Not only that, but my roommate owns a Wii, and the ONLY game I would ever buy for a Wii is the game NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, and sure enough it was there, brand new..for ONLY 16 bucks. I couldn't refuse that offer either.


So basically, it's been a very spoiling couple of days for me hahaha.

As mentioned in my journal, I picked up Gears of War and Too Human on 360 yesterday for a grand total of £45. Played some co-op Gears last night, it's awesome. Probably won't get into Too Human for a while until I've finished some other things.

Did a bit of video game shopping over the last few days:

The games I picked up are:
1.) Dragon Quest IV (DS)
2.) Yggdra Union (PSP)
3.) New Super Mario Bros. (DS)

More games to add to my backlog.

I found a new copy of Beyond Good & Evil for the PS2 for $10, so I figured I might as well get it now instead of waiting for the GH version. I really don't know much about this game, but people tend to act like it's the best game ever, so I should at least try it out.

Why would there be a GH version of BG&E? Only four people bought it.

I'm sure you'll enjoy it though. It's quality.

Plus the game's 5 years old. It'd be odd for them to release a greatest hits version NOW. Maybe stick it up as a download on Live, but not a new Greatest Hits version.

That's exactly what I thought, but my sister showed me this (it's from Kotaku, so it should be taken with a grain of salt...a huge fucking grain) so I figured it could be true. I mean, with games like Okami, Disgaea, and Odin Sphere also becoming GH titles (arguably good games, but they don't exactly reach the number of copies sold requirement), it seems as if Sony is getting pretty lapse in what it qualifies as a PS2 GH in the system's later years.

Hmmm, that's the first I heard of it, but a reprint of that now seems so...odd. The timing's all wrong, how soon it's to be released doesn't make sense, and the fact that it showed up in Canada first are all kinda fishy.

It's be nice, but it seems like a very, VERY strange decision. Gonna have to see if it's bullshit or not, I guess.

It wouldn't really be fishy for it to have showed up in Canada first, what with the fact that the game was developed at Ubisoft Montreal . . . right? Still, if it gives more people the chance to get their hands on a new copy, why not.