[:plant:] The Game Review Thread - No Posts By Skills Because He Never Finishes His 10000 Games

Yes, this thread is essentially for those who finally finish their games JUST RECENTLY which they had bought or downloaded.

There's majority of purchases/downloads you made over the years but they cannot be just sitting there looking pretty and neglected aren't they? They should be played and to finish and to be mini/exhaustive reviewed in here. They can be VERY OLD titles from Commodore days to recent trash you picked up at the bargain bin. Also please don't forget to spoiler tag with "spoilersa" code on words necessary. Dates are optional, they're just there to show that you finished these recently for a multiple review post concerning the chronological order.

Feel free to conclude whether if it was possible or impossible to complete the game. IE 1000/1000, 100% or unlocking everything.

Reviews:

I had been on a crazy gaming itch lately.

8/3 - GTA: Liberty City Stories - Not bad game overall, it was in the aftermath of San Andreas that I wanted MORE GTA and I had this on the back burner for years. Made me glad I had this on reserve for some GTA craving. Its better than GTAIII, at least a bit more polished.

7/29 - GTA: San Andreas - I had left off about more than mid way in 2 years ago because well some of the missions were frustrating and getting more tedious. It doesn't help that the world and the bits was just LARGE. But its a good standalone GTA though. Something new to the table here and there but yeah its HARD to get back into from GTA IV which I played earlier. All those contrast colors (ORANGES holy shit) was killing my tv. But the best bits of this game were the voices and the dialog.

7/25 - Color Cross - Rental and beaten it in two days. Its a picross game but with colors. They did it alright, but it was awkward to a veteran player like me. I had seen some programs implementing different colors in a picross puzzle better than this game did. But still, it was easy nevertheless since they only punish you by your time. You can still unlock the rest of the game anyway.

7/21 - Limbo - Such an AWESOME little xbla title. For its price, it was well paid for both of us. I liked it for what Braid and Flower had to offer me. Something new, something refreshing, something neat.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I swear to god, you must have some kind of mental psychic link with me, because I was thinking of doing a thread exactly like this in the next couple of days. The only difference is that it would focus on completing games and how hard or how easy it is to complete them. Damn you Philia, stealing my ideas - just kidding (we're cool).

On to the game:

Spoiler:

Lunar: Silver Star Harmony (From a completionist point of view)

- I had just completed this game just about an hour ago. To be honest, I wasn't really overly impressed. I still prefer the PS1 version, over this version by a long-shot. It is not a very difficult game to complete. Obviously to consider it completed you need to collect every bromide, open every treasure chest and get every secret item. There are missables in the game, but if you already completed Lunar: Silver Star Star Story Complete for the PS1 you should already be aware of where many of the secret items are located.

- They have changed some of the locations of some of the bromides, the majority of them you can actually buy from Ramsus's Shop, even the three sisters of the vile tribe you can get from his shop. I would recommend doing your research to make sure you don't miss out on any of the items. There are also new items you can buy for each of your characters to give them a new special attack.

- Some gripes I had about the game, is the voice acting wasn't nearly as good as the ps1 version. I thought that while this game was a decent attempt for the voice acting, the ps1 version was far superior. The game is also much easier, the fact you can carry 99 of every item, especially star lights made it a hell of a lot easier and you didn't have to micromanage your items into each persons inventory. Each character except Alex, had two special attacks which were completely overpowered. The dungeon maps instead of being a wide spread map was divided into several smaller sections, and every time you moved from one section to another the enemies always re-spawned which was a little annoying

In terms of completing this game, there are missables so always keep an eye out, and some things have changed from the other lunar games. It is not difficult, I never got the game over screen once while I was playing this game.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

LOL, I'm sorry! But yeah I wasn't that much of a completionist though, only WITH RPGS I do. And only with jrpgs and grindfest rpgs. There's some games that are impossible to achieve with 100% completion and only people I know that likes that number often is Skills. xD

With THAT said, I should mention I did complete Color Cross because its not that hard to unlock all of the puzzles and to finish them fully. The only thing that seemed to be deterrent to that is your time score but that wasn't even formulated properly ingame either. The game personally was a rushed mess for some reason.

I didn't bother completing with GTAs because by that point, it wasn't all that fun when half of the time was spent saving, spray painting your cars and getting away from cops/gangs.

With Limbo though, I should go back someday for the achievements. The game's great enough to warrant another replay.

Nice Lunar review, AoL, I should take note of these missables when my copy get played. And yeah, old rpgs weren't that hard to complete once its set on finding every item may it be a reward or chest. Regarding gaming completion, I think its a neat addition to ask for in a review of a game. Hope you don't mind my integrating it in here too. Beating/finishing the game was the major hurdle, and we still get gamers that couldn't make it this far!

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Philia

LOL, I'm sorry! But yeah I wasn't that much of a completionist though, only WITH RPGS I do. And only with jrpgs and grindfest rpgs. There's some games that are impossible to achieve with 100% completion and only people I know that likes that number often is Skills. xD

Speaking of which, I recently got 1,000/1,000 out of Sacred 2!

Spoiler:

Sacred is dead easy to finish but damn near impossible to complete. Starting a new bronze campaign, you could probably get to the end in well under 20 hours and that would include a lot of exploring. My focused run through to get the achievements for uncovering less than 20% of the map and not buying anything took me about 12 hours. You pick up a lot of achievements just by playing through but some require a bit of effort. None are particularly hard to get, just time consuming. My longest running character, the first one I started, is a level 80 odd Shadow Warrior, up to Platinum difficulty. I got the Niob achievement by joining a game online, I've not yet reached it offline. The max level is 250 too which must take forever to get to, I've spent over 200 hours on my SW game. The annoying thing about Sacred 2 is that skill choices are permanent, meaning that my SW is a dubious build with a few wasted skills. With what I know about the game now, I could have built him much better. That said, he's more than hard enough, rarely takes more than a couple of combos to kill most bosses and the last avhievement I got was the one for drinking 1,000 health potions because he never really needs to (I'm carrying over 3,000 of the things too).

Getting the achievement for visiting all the temples probably needs a guide. I've explored 90% odd of the map and I still managed to walk straight past a couple of them. Getting to level 15 with every character is time consuming, requiring about 12 hours per character and doing the same missions from the start of the game over and over can be dull.

I loved the game (Or I wouldn't have spent over 300 hours playing it) but I can't imagine ever completing it. Doing that would require getting to Niob difficulty, maxing your character and finding all the employees dotted around which would take forever as far as I can tell. If you're a fan of loot-em-ups though, there's few better games out there.

The only other games I've got 1,000/1,000 out of are Last Remnant (Which is another one that requires time rather than skill, although beating the proper last boss and a few of the optional ones takes a good understanding of the game mechanics) and the Vandal Hearts game on XBLA.

How ya doing, buddy?

Sacred 2 is fantastic, and I frequently think about going back to it and would like to; just a question of too many other games to play

8/3 Splinter Cell Conviction

Spoiler:

So I beat the single-player today in one sitting, hmmm. I never could really get into the older Splinter Cell games, I always felt like I was "playing it wrong" (similar to the older MGS games) and it was just frustrating. Decided to give this a rent since it seemed to be much more focused on the action. Also bashing a dude's head through a urinal is always cool.

From an Achievements perspective, the game's a bit rough but doable. I only got 280 points from my Normal playthrough; there appears to be a lot of Achievements tied to completing all of the co-operative and competitive multiplayer gametypes. I've heard some of them are a bitch on the higher difficulties, but overall the Achievements in this seem more grindy and time-consuming than anything.

7/30 Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations

Spoiler:

Game was pretty awesome overall; the last case was ridiculous and crazy and awesome. The twist at the beginning of the last case where you play as Edgeworth was pretty great. Like all the PW games though, my only real complaint is that I found myself getting stuck from time to time. While occasionally it was due to me just missing something, often times I completely understood what I needed to do. The problem is that the game either wanted me to do something that was either inane or didn't make sense to reach that resolution, or I had made a leap in logic that the characters hadn't yet. Mildly annoying, but not a huge deal.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I wanted all of you to know that I am pretty jealous. I haven't been able to pick up any new games let alone complete them because I just moved. You know how it is though, you move and money is tight for awhile then eventually everything picks up and you can afford things. I can't wait until I can afford things. I need to pick up some new games for the 360.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

This will kind of mirror my backloggery, but I suppose I could express more here without the character limit.

I guess my most recent achievement would be Ar Tonelico: Melodies of Elemia (PS2):

Ar Tonelico: Melodies of Elemia (PS2) - August 30, 2010:

Fun game, to be sure. I may be biased because I absolutely love JRPGs. I've only recently begun playing niche JRPGs (usually released by Atlus or NIS) and this game reminded me heavily of Atelier Iris, which I had beaten a while ago. I'm pretty sure some of those graphics were recycled from AI, but nonetheless, the story and mechanics were enough to suck me in for the ~40 hours it took for me to beat it.

What is there to say about it? Well, I suppose this is the first game that has had bits of a visual novel style gameplay in the form of Reyvateil Cosmospheres. I went into the game thinking that this would be the lull and dull parts of the game, but as it turns out, these became my favorite parts of the game. It's really just reading a bunch of text, but games like Phoenix Wright prove that when done well, text is just as gripping as a flashy cinematic.

As for the game mechanics, I found the battle system to be very fluid and intuitive once I got to learn the basics. I'll admit, it took me at least a few hours to completely grasp it, but once I had it, each battle was fun for me. I will say that it's probably one of the more confusing looking games to the occasional passerby, but in actuality, it's not too complex.

I didn't come anywhere close to 100% completion, namely because I already have a huge backlog of other 40 hour RPGs to go through and secondly that it'd probably take about another 20+ hours to really flesh out for 100% completion without the help of a FAQ. Finding conversation crystals will take a lot of exploration, and a lot of topics only come up under certain conditions (e.g. buying a certain item at a certain shop, singing a certain song in battle, talking to a certain person in a town, etc.) By the end of the game for my run, I had explored roughly half of both Aurica and Misha's cosmosphere and barely started on Shurelia's. Finding every kind of Grathnode crystal and getting all of the items to rank S will take quite a bit of time. I didn't even craft the best weapon (assuming Lv. 4 weapons are the highest) for each character because I hadn't found recipe cards for some of the materials.

On the flip side, levels are easy to grind out. I was level 80 by the end of the game and I was STILL leveling up at least 1 of 8 characters every other battle. So, assuming 99 or 100 is the max level, I could have hit the cap fairly easily. The game is also not very hard, so even though I was still leveling at a brisk pace, I would consider Lv. 80 overleveled for the endgame.

Fun game though. I paid $60 for it on eBay to get the game and the accompanying art book. At the time I thought it was a bit much, but after playing through it, I thought it was worth it. Of course, at the time, there was no Ar Tonelico 2 or 3, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Nonetheless. Fun game.

That turned out a bit long...sorry if it is too long.

Note to self: Need to change my avatar finally.

FELIPE NO

Time to go to the 16 bit era for another game, I just recently completed

Spoiler:

Star Fox (From a Completionist point of view)

- The SNES has always been my favorite system and out of all the games I have played for it; Star Fox has always remained one of my favorites. I'm pretty much going to speak blasphemy, but I actually prefer the original Star Fox over Star Fox 64 because I consider the original one that much more memorable and it has such a beautiful soundtrack especially for a SNES game.

- In terms of completing the game you have to play the game at least 4 to 5 times to make sure you do everything that each game has to offer. You play the game three times for the number of routes you can take to reach Venom.

- Route 1 and Route 2 are actually fairly easy and it makes a good solid transition in terms of difficulty. When you decide to do Route 3, you have a lot more levels to go through and the difficulty dramatically increases to an insane level. Route 3 doesn't start to get insanely tough until you take on Fortuna which is the giant animal planet. Sector Z in route 3 has always remained on of my most hated levels throughout all of star fox. The only bit of advice I can give to make battling through Star Fox a lot easier is to pick up a twin laser power up as soon as possible. This power up actually makes the game a little easier and a lot of the bosses that much more manageable.

- Once you have actually completed all three routes, there are two more things you can do before you can consider this game fully complete.

1.) You can choose route one, and go to the asteroid level . When you see the spinning asteroid belts, don't shoot the center of them right away, wait till they get incredibly close to you, than shoot the middle section. Do this for all three spinning asteroid belts. If you do it correctly, you'll see a laughing asteroid, shoot at it and you'll see a black hole. Fly into it, and you'll gain access to the black hole level. In this level it is pretty much a ship graveyard, but there are three warp points through the level which will take you to various levels across the Star Fox map. It will either take you to Sector Y on route 2, sector Z on route 3, or the first venom level for route 1.

2.) You choose route 3, and go to the asteroid level. Shoot at the second large asteroid to blow it up and a bird like object will come out of it. Fly into the bird and you'll be taken into another dimension. In which you fight paper airplanes, and you fight a big slot machine as the boss. Shoot the lever until you get three 7's. Then the machine will explode and you'll get the credits. You can even shoot letters to make the word THE END.

Once all these things are done you have successfully completed Star Fox.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Just unlocked Prime Mode in Transformers: War for Cybertron. I think that classifies as complete.

Fuck year this game is awesome. SO AWESOME. Bitches don't know 'bout my MOLECULON BOMB. Even after 350 matches, bitches still don't get it. It is somewhat embarrassing.

Now that I prestiged it's time to DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN

This time bitches won't know 'bout my NULL RAY RIFLE (and perhaps they will still be in the dark regarding my ENERGON SLING. I swear to God, if you don't use whirlwind or barrier or dash, bitches really have NO IDEA how to deal with you)

I am surprised that this is my game of the year so far. I haven't had this much consistent fun with a shooter in forever, and even after 52 hours of multiplayer I am still excited to throw down.

How ya doing, buddy?

Yesterday, I finally finished a rpg I had been neglecting in my psp for a while.

Popolocrois:

There's not really much to say about this cute rpg. But yet, I want to explain a bit about why this game should be checked out regardless of its flaws.

In 2D sprite gorgeous landscape and well developed characters, there was a 3 stories to be told in a long game but it doesn't feel long since I only played at least 40 hours or so, but it was just epic in several treks and discovering so much 2D awesomeness. From some mad serious animations of the characters to cute enemies (panda with tire?) to the adaptation of the anime and their scenes being used to tell the heavier graphic parts of the story made this game pretty darn neat to look at.

There's Pietro, the prince of Popolocrois that you play as the main character, you'd discover a lot about him as well as you also discover about the girl you love, Narcia, the forest witch. You also recruit several characters later on that gives your party a neat balance and an awesome set of skills in 2D goodness. An armored Knight, a mechanical evil genius with a major (but CUTE!) ego, a barely born dragon that looks like a sourpuss puppy (in size too), an arabian arrogant tomboy princess, and a kind animal-speaker archer. The story was woven quite well for you to meet all of these characters eventually as parts of the story. At most, they were held hostage of circumstances at some point.

The game was incredible in its finer details. Surpassing any other 2D rpg I could ever recall. Even Chrono Trigger and FFVI is getting their run for their fame with me here. When you visit several townships, you'd understand the massive scope of work involved. Especially the mechanical genius's two purely mechanical kingdoms. And there were a large amount of text involved too since citizens would not only say something new after some minor/major events that occurred outside of their walls, they say in two separate instances and sometimes three. What was astonishing was there barely any "negligible text" or translation errors or all that made jrpgs famous for. That's why I had to give this game major props for the work involved and dedication for finer detail.

However I should also mention that a lot of people would complain about the load times in this game. Between the next area to the battles, yeah, you'd be feeling the pain there when its frequent. But I've gotten past that and loved it for what it had to offer.

Second, the battle system is a little tedious since you have a grid to work with and it turns into simple tactics from there. Each character have a range of skills that affects range, size of the area, and synchronicity with another character to create a combo skill attack (but these are often complicated to pull off and quite often not worth it). This is not new of course, but the loading times that took to the battle scene was pretty big part of the reason why it was rather tedious at best.

I had beaten this game at level 32 (I did not powerlevel, just played normally til I discovered very late of a "battle evasion" skill I didn't know I had), and the game was still rather very easy which can be another deterrent. What's the point of leveling when most of the bosses can be beaten purely by the massed stock of healing items you can buy quite cheap? There's only one point in the game (quite close to the final boss) where all 4 of you were split up and follow the path to meet up with each other. A lot would say, this point of the game was the hardest if you weren't well stocked with items and didn't have a whole lot of levels of hp/def stats behind you. Even at level 30s, it was a bit trying and a little unnerving because I had never died ONCE. I didn't like the idea of starting over the whole THING lol for some random sudden critical hit.

But never mind all that, what this game also lacked the most which would have been made it much more wonderful was music. Its quiet for most part with battle/animated scenes exceptions. But maybe it wasn't LOUD enough lol, my psp was darn quiet for most part.

As for completion, I found out a bit later after this had happened that I missed a small (great finer details again) graphic of a counter being opened and I barely even saw the stairs going down to another shop that sold souvenirs. I only missed two but I realized eventually at end game that I was missing more than that somewhere and couldn't be bothered to try to get everything when I already am missing some of those. Sad face and all, but this game has a several neat quests that you should attempt at completion for anyway. IE recruiting back your people at end game, and you explore a new town or two and finding those summons for the baby dragon was a neat thing to do to attempt on your own. I did happen across one by accident!

In all, this game was a precious little gem of a rpg I liked very much. I just am glad I got the chance to play it. The game seemed rather obscure and graciously so. If you like what I have to say about it, please feel free to pm me and see if you'd like to buy this game from me.

And then this little gem today!

PixelJunk Shooter:

Great little game that. Its not all that hard since you don't really die and start over and such. Its probably the easier PixelJunk I had played (haven't checked out Monsters yet). And yeah, I finished it in one sitting today, aka 8 hours or so. That's because I was trying to be diligent in collecting gems as well as clearing away debris to find them.

As for completion, I'll probably go ahead and attempt to find all of the gems and get the trophies out of it. It doesn't seem all that hard to achieve 100% soon enough.

And god damn Skills, your awesome/stupid Crackdown 2 signature is so distracting.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I remember that point in PoPoLoCrois when you split up. That was the only time I saw the game over screen because Narcia was in my party. Narcia's great for support, but horrible by herself.

I don't remember my level, but I don't recall ever having to grind either.

Most amazing jew boots

On to another game, I actually managing to get a lot completed on my days off before I start my new job.

Spoiler:

Nostalgia (From a completionist point of view)

- With Nostalgia, what you have is a good old fashioned rpg that doesn't try to do anything new, but works well for what it is. In my eyes it is actually a very enjoyable and very basic turn based rpg. The fact that it doesn't try to revolutionary is what makes this game very enjoyable. The story is your typical jrpg fare, but it is fun to travel around the world from continent to continent. Since this game takes place on the planet earth with real earth cities.

- In terms of completing this game. What you need to do to fully complete this game is you need to fill out something called the adventurers notebook. The adventurers Notebook categorizes anything and everything you can find in the game. The adventurers notebook covers:

1.) Quests (You can get these at various points in the game when you visit the Adventurers Association; you'll get more quests after you beat the main game.)

2.) World Treasures (You can activate these by talking to various people, and then traveling the world to find these world treasures. Think along the same lines of finding secret locations in Skies of Arcadia.)

3.) Diary (As long as you progress through the main game and do each characters side quest. You'll fill out the diary quite easily.)

4.) Character Data (You can fill out character data quite easily, but you need to complete the extra dungeons after the main game, in order to fully complete the character data section.)

5.) Monster Data (You can visit any dungeon or any area at any time to fill out the monster data. You need to do all quests to fight all of the secret monster data. However there is one section of missable monsters late in the game when you explore the London Exploration Agency. You can only fight monsters there once, and if you don't fight all the monsters there the first time, you'll never get to fight them again, so keep that in mind.)

6.) Map (In every dungeon, and on the world map at medium and low altitude, the entire area is blacked out. In each dungeon you have to walk around on the designated floor to light up as much as the blacked out area until the map flashes and everything turns clear to show that you've explored all the map of each floor. With the world map, it works the same way, with each area of the world map, you have to fly around to uncover much of the world map as possible, once a section of the world or continent is cleared, the rest of the map will clear, showing that you've explored it all. With the map data, there are two major missables.

1.) The Siberian Base (You need to uncover all of the map when you go to Siberian base for the first time. If you don't complete all the map, then when you pass the Siberian Base it becomes the destroyed Siberian Base. Then there are areas you can't explore.)

2.) Mount Fuji Base (The same goes for the Mount Fuji Base, you need to complete the map the first time around, because after wards its becomes destroyed and there are certain areas you won't be able to access.)

The problem with completing all the map data, is that you get into a lot of unwanted random battles, but if your going for 100% you absolutely need to do it.)

7.) Treasure (I think this is the only area you won't have a hard time trying to complete. The map will show you where every treasure chest is, and even with the destroyed bases you'll still gain access to every treasure chest. Possibly the easiest thing to complete in the adventurers note book.)

8.) Item Data (To collect every item, gadget, weapon and armor can be very tedious. A few reminders to make sure you get everything. Every town has hidden secret items scattered all over. You'll need to use a guide to make sure you find them all. Every time you visit a new town for the first time, fly back to London and new weapons and armor will always be available. You need to buy everything at least once whether you need it or not. Remember to also do every quest of the adventurers association, and every character side quest.

9.) Theater (You can access every cinematic in the game. Just finish the main game and do the extra dungeons and you should get access to all the cinematics.)

10.) Game Data (Just records your game data in the adventurers notebook, that is all.)

- In conclusion, I would recommend using a guide to complete this game. There aren't many missables but there are a few. Especially in regards of doing 100% of the map and filling out the monster list. I also took the liberty of maxing out all the skills for my characters and their applicable air ship skills. I think altogether it took me 80 hours to fully complete this game. I'm sure a lot of you guys could probably complete it faster. The only other thing I can recommend is that be prepared when you take on the extra dungeons after the main game, they are insanely tough and make the final dungeon of the main game a joke. Be prepared.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Omnislash124

I remember that point in PoPoLoCrois when you split up. That was the only time I saw the game over screen because Narcia was in my party. Narcia's great for support, but horrible by herself.

I don't remember my level, but I don't recall ever having to grind either.

Yeah, I read beforehand to NOT USE her at all in that dungeon. I knew she was weak but lol, her skills were already massively weak overall. She's exactly like you said, a good support but that's it.

And to AoL, wow, 80 hours? DAMN, in a good way too. That'll show me a good rpg to blow through for a week. Definitely got me excited about this game. Props for a good comprehensive review!

And on with the topic, I recently completed PixelJunk Shooter. It wasn't all that hard really, just taking good care of finding the diamonds on your second playthrough. The rescue of men were easy enough because you can notice whether of ONE man dies and you'd retry to save him for sure. Got all of the achievements for it, a couple of them were a bit trying but no matter. Good game. Now only if I could do the same with PixelJunk Eden! That game is ridiculously hard to complete.

I was speaking idiomatically.

So would you say Nostalgia is worth the grab, Angel?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Denicalis

So would you say Nostalgia is worth the grab, Angel?

I would say its worth a grab deni, but I wouldn't pay full price for it. Its a cute little rpg that doesn't try to be complicated. There are a lot of nods to Skies of Arcadia when playing this game. Its nothing revolutionary, but it can be a little cutesy. There are really no dark overtones in this game, but it is a solid traditional rpg. Get it if you can, but I wouldn't pay a lot for it.

FELIPE NO

Stayed up super late last night to finish Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice

Spoiler:

Overall the game was a lot of fun. I have to agree with the general sentiment that Trucy was a waaaaay better support character than Maya was. While I'm still super interested in finding out what the hell happened to everyone else from the first games, Maya didn't have much of personality and Trucy had it in spades. Overall Phoenix is probably a better main protagonist than Apollo, but I wouldn't say by much, I could take it or leave it just in terms of being a main character.

A little disappointed that there was only 4 cases, but eh. As with all the other Ace Attorney games, my only big gripe is that oftentimes I will understand a revelation or clue either way before the game will let me acknowledge it, or the game will want me to do so in a way that doesn't make sense to me. In this regard this one was not nearly as bad as the first three games were for me though, I think there was only maybe 2 or 3 times where I was baffled at how they wanted me to prove or show something I already knew but in some batshit crazy way.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Some wrap-ups from the last week.

8/14 Sin & Punishment: Successor to the Earth (N64 original via VC)

Spoiler:

Not bad; once I figured out a control scheme that wasn't garbage (I think I used 3?) it controlled okay, but that was still the main thing holding it back the whole time. I guess I can see why people go apeshit for that game, but playing it for the first time now it's pretty dated. Eh.

8/14 Torchlight (PC)

Spoiler:

Pretty enjoyable straight-forward loot game. Worth the money, although it just got announced for XBL/PSN so I'd probably wait for that. Obviously it being single-player is the main knock against it, but I enjoyed my time with it for sure.

8/15 Sin & Punishment: Star Successor (Wii)

Spoiler:

Actually pretty awesome; especially going straight from the original to this, the controls are a billion times better and more accessible. Actually had a good time from beginning to end, except with one or two bosses that are bitches and/or force you to use the melee which is a bit awkward.

8/17 Trine (PC)

Spoiler:

It was alright. I don't really get the praise some people heap on this game; it's a fairly straight-forward puzzle platformer, but I never found any of the puzzles to be particularly challenging at all. It's main weak spot was the combat, especially with the enemies that like to respawn a billion times before stopping. It was gifted to me one on one of the occasions where it was on sale for either $5 or $10, which I think is a fair price for it.

How ya doing, buddy?

Why would you rather have Torchlight not on the PC? Then you miss out on all of the mods/tweaks people make for the game.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

SD lives and dies by gamerscore, RR.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Hardly; I would just rather play it with a controller as it feels more like a Dark Alliance-type of game to me, probably because it's only single-player. Also since it's only single-player, I didn't really find myself having any interest in mods or anything like that. Also my desktop is old enough where it didn't run great on that, and our laptop ran it fine but I don't really like using a laptop to play games. Ultimately in all scenarios I prefer to play games on my big-ass TV, which is why I don't play a ton of portables, PC games, etc.

How ya doing, buddy?

O come on. I'm not making a judgment one way or the other, but you and Skills are the only guys I know who will play a terrible game to completion just because you don't want a gimped GS on your record.

I'm sure all your other points are completely true, I share a lot of them, but you are a gs whore. Not that I'm saying there's anything wrong with that.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Dude, what the fuck? Are you confusing me with someone else? I super rarely play anything for points, and I only work on getting all of the points in a game if a I really really like it, of which there have been very few (I think I have 100% on like 12 games). I've gotten probably less than 5,000 points in the last 12 months, and I never play a game I don't like just to get more points on it. You're crazy.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Deni I think you're getting Daravon and Omagnus mixed up

Either that or you're just attaching Skills' traits to Daravon.

FELIPE NO

Everyone just wishes they could be as cool as me.

How ya doing, buddy?

I don't think anyone would have to wish very hard for that

Jam it back in, in the dark.