The NEW Game Journal

[sandiny0ursh0es]

About to head over to the third town in Pokemon Black.

I also started up Kirby's Epic Yarn, which is underwhelming in every way.

[Dice]

I also started up Kirby's Epic Yarn, which is underwhelming in every way.

From a creative standpoint, it was through the roof.  My love for it was over soon when I realized that without giving a crap about "furniture", you can beat the game in like 3 hours.
Otherwise...
- Sluggish controls
- Can't actually lose
- Annoying "other" gameplay elements
- Kirby lost what made Kirby Kirby.  He can't get abilities....  I don't see how being unable to inhale would make turning yourself into a parachute any better.

[Esper_Crusader]

I tried the demo for Dishwasher: Vampire Smile and looove iiit.  Full game unlock VERY soon.

[dalucifer0]

Tales of Graces F. 3 hours in. In the "present" time now. Probably won't play much for the rest of the month. Projects and more projects to do.

[Lard]

Found a copy of Atelier Iris 2 today. If I can just find a copy of AI3, I can play all three this summer.

[Dice]

Trails in the Sky

Great game, what everyone has said was true.  Bizarre anime/jazz sounding soundtrack, but it works I guess.  Estelle is adorable, and Joshua is like the perfect guy.  Surprisingly tough game, and yeah, the plot is moving nowhere fast -- but I do like it, and hope we'll get the rest ASAP.

PS: Bro and sis are a cute couple, I am totally cheering on some taboo.

[Leo]

Found a copy of Atelier Iris 2 today. If I can just find a copy of AI3, I can play all three this summer.

Atelier Iris 2 was better than 1, imo.

[Dice]

Found a copy of Atelier Iris 2 today. If I can just find a copy of AI3, I can play all three this summer.

Atelier Iris 2 was better than 1, imo.

I remember enjoying 1, getting bored with 2.  Didn't play 3.  Then I asked, "what the hell did I like with 1?"

[Leo]

I remember enjoying 1, getting bored with 2.  Didn't play 3.  Then I asked, "what the hell did I like with 1?"

Haven't played 3 yet. All three Iris games were more-or-less fetch quests, with some story sprinkled over them. But of the two I've played, 2 seemed to resonate better towards me. I think it was the characters that I enjoyed more.

[Yoda]

Found a copy of Atelier Iris 2 today. If I can just find a copy of AI3, I can play all three this summer.

Atelier Iris 2 was better than 1, imo.

I remember enjoying 1, getting bored with 2.  Didn't play 3.  Then I asked, "what the hell did I like with 1?"

I'm playing it for the charming sprites

:)

[MeshGearFox]

I picked up Relentless/Little Big Adventure at Half Price Books the other day, having heard nothing but positives about it from various abandonware sites and Finnish people. I'm not sure how I feel about it.

* Basically it FEELS like a weird mash-up of FFVII, the Mercenary games, the Crusader games, Alone in the Dark, Tong Nou, Zelda, and Omikron. Yeah.

* It has a really stupid save system. You auto-save when switch between levels and can't save on your own, which is totally fine, but, like... you can't NOT save. And you also save when you die.

* The death system is stupid too. You have lives represented by four leaf clovers which you find lying about, and you can only have as many as you have boxes. If you die without having any clovers you get sent back to the starting prison which is short and easy to break out of but also really fucking tedious.

* This SORT OF kills your desire to explore and experiment since you can't really just reload if you die.

* The game sort of relies on stealth a lot, apparently, but the screen doesn't really autoscroll sanely as far as I can tell. Also if you run into walls, you lose health. Walls and enemies have a bad tendency of being just outside the viewport.

* You get stunned when you get hit. If two enemies start shooting you at the same time it's really easy to just die without being able to ever respond.

* I heard the game had a lot of interactivity and interesting NPC AI. I haven't seen that so far although I'm still very early in the game. The lack of interactivity is sort of annoying though and I've run into situations where I've just been searching in garbage for health pickups and that's kind of it.

[D-Rider]

Damn, the Chaos Rising expansion campaign is short.  I tore through that shit in two days of half-assed playing.

I'm trying to decide if I want to pick up Retribution or not.  It seems multiplayer oriented, but I never play online.

[CDFN]

Yakuza 4 is like crack, fucking game is dominating my gaming time. When I get tired of Kamurocho I go into Killzone 3 MP.

[Yoda]

Goose, did you ever play Homeworld?

How difficult would you guys rate dead space? I'm playing through on medium, trying to only use the plasma cutter to get a lame achievement :)

I played on medium for a while, then switched to casual because I'm a wuss. I've actually read that the game is pretty easy on medium due to the abundance of ammo. I would agree with this, as you are constantly getting restocked. My problem is more to do with slow reaction times. I love games like this, but mostly suck at them because I suck at aiming without a "lock on" feature. Hence the casual setting. I'm sure you'll do just fine on medium. You might even want to crank it up if you consider yourself good at these kinds of games.

I'm on level 8 and it gets dicey. At the start of the game I had more ammo than needed but now it's normal for me to only have about 25-30 rounds. That's more than enough for just running around but I like to have a big buffer.

God is this game good. Focusing only on my suit and one gun my gear is leveled pretty good. I think I'm going to try a hardcore playthrough when I beat it and try and level everything up and play w/ the bigger guns.

I just love looking around in this game. Such a well done environment. It's like playing through Alien/Aliens with the awesome lighting and sound. The actual encounters aren't that frightening for some reason. Mostly because it's just so damn loud w/ the screaming and the music cues.

I can't wait to give #2 a whirl, probably much later this year.

[CDFN]

The only problem with DS1 is the lack of variety in the environments, I played it again after finishing DS2 and man, the whole game is brown. Except for the hidroponics level there's no other color in the game. DS2 is a huge improvement in that regard.
As for the difficulty, normal felt right for me. I never beat DS1 on a higher difficulty but I did beat DS2 on Zealot and ammo was pretty scarce. It's even worse in the Severed expansion, on normal I was constantly throwing stuff away because I had a full inventory but on Zealot I actually had to melee the bastards because I was completely dry.