The NEW Game Journal

[MeshGearFox]

Dicked around in Populous: The Beginning. It has... incredibly gratifying physics. Lightning sends dudes flying. And they drown. And it's beautiful.

Also attempted to play Stronghold (SSI) a bit but that game has a lot going on and I am the dumb.

[kyuusei]

Started Black Ops II. Wait, I get to choose my guns, attachments, camo, grenades etc. before each mission? IN SINGLE PLAYER?

Did.. did I put in the right game....?

Didn't get far because I forgot to pop gravol. More later.

[MeshGearFox]

Discovered I could take the Silvera Keys out of the key slots in KF2. Made considerable progress after doing that.

[Dice]

Fully beat Resident Evil 6's story mode.

Ada's chapter was interesting.  I found it got easier with every level -- the submarine at the beginning sucked some serious ass and I was playing on 'amateur' (I didn't get killed, you really don't on that difficulty, but it takes a LOT of resources anyways, and the time parts within the sub are pretty unforgiving if you take your time even a small bit).  I'm mixed on a lot of the rehashing of certain levels, but I guess that can't really be helped.  The final chapter was a but of a lame finale, but fun nonetheless to...

Use the 'chopper for about 90% of it....  GET INTO THA CHOPPA

Great fucking game.  Ta hell with all the reviews, it was a lot of fun and the co-op experience is definitely one of the best (especially great for those who are sick of co-op FPS').  The story, even if really campy and filled with American balls-to-the-wall action and "wit", was still pretty well done, and I loved the multi-campaign approach.  I really don't think Capcom can ignore this type of game style in the future.  Can't wait for the next Res....

...secret ending seems to clearly spell out that Jake will be getting his own spin-off or definitely be in the 7th game.  Yay!

I definitely enjoyed the puzzle-solving aspects, be great if they put more of that in this title...

Also Playing Professor Layton and the Mask of Miracles.

I *love* the puzzles, but a lot of the story elements are really tiring and tedious.  And while I love Layton, between he, Luke, and sort-of newcomer Emmy, there's really, really little character variety among them.  They're pretty lax, but serious about puzzles, and dandy about everything else.  I always respect Tales games in comparison who, say they're looking at a painting, one character will love it, one will hate it, one won't get it, etc...  Layton folk: "looks amazing!", "I should come to galleries more!", "I'd love that in my house!".  Occasional humour gets put in, but I'm in it mostly for the puzzles I think (the story this time around is kinda predictable...).
The 3D transition is actually brilliant.  I was sad the French animation was done away with, but the models are fantastic and well animated.  And the music is catchy and beautifully melodic (I'm happy with the new puzzle song too!). 
Good game. :)

[Aeolus]

snip

Also Playing Professor Layton and the Mask of Miracles.

I *love* the puzzles, but a lot of the story elements are really tiring and tedious.  And while I love Layton, between he, Luke, and sort-of newcomer Emmy, there's really, really little character variety among them.  They're pretty lax, but serious about puzzles, and dandy about everything else.  I always respect Tales games in comparison who, say they're looking at a painting, one character will love it, one will hate it, one won't get it, etc...  Layton folk: "looks amazing!", "I should come to galleries more!", "I'd love that in my house!".  Occasional humour gets put in, but I'm in it mostly for the puzzles I think (the story this time around is kinda predictable...).
The 3D transition is actually brilliant.  I was sad the French animation was done away with, but the models are fantastic and well animated.  And the music is catchy and beautifully melodic (I'm happy with the new puzzle song too!). 
Good game. :)

Your first mistake was expecting any sort of characterization from a Level 5 game beyond having deep seated mommy issues, existing solely for the sake of becoming cheap, disposable, drama-fodder, or just being a conflicting clusterfuck of shallow, one-dimensional traits.

Your second mistake was believing that Level 5 didn't hire all of its writing staff off from crappy kids merchandizing anime like Beyblade and the like.

At least they know how to put a game together (provided they don't include any playable females lest they suddenly forget how to balance PC skill sets and wind up with a character that's literally worse than every other PC in nearly every conceivable way).

[GrimReality]

Witcher 2 -
Still hanging around Flotsam. I was out trying to find some Endregas, when I bumped into some dude. I then entered some really cool haunted asylum type place. I encountered some Wraiths that totally kicked my ass. I re-loaded, properly prepared myself, then had a darn good fight with them. I like that I couldn't just hack and slash them to death. I had to THINK. Use alchemy and timing. Basically, the whole RPG side of the action/rpg. Excellent.
Anyway, I made it a bit further in, but had to stop. I'm liking this game more and more.

[Lard]

Getting back into Xenosaga because Catherine is tedious.

But, so is Xenosaga's back tracking. This game really needed some trimming.

[Monsoon]

Trying to beat Torchlight 2 with all four classes by the end of November.  Should be doable.  Already beaten with Engineer and Berserker, Embermage is in the middle of Act 3, and Outlander is near the end of Act 1.  Mage is on Normal and Outlander is on Veteran, and I sort of wish it was the other way around.  My poor summoner-outie is struggling a bit. 

Also made headway into Okami.  Just arrived in Kamui after doing sidequest stuff in Sei-An City.  For the life of me I cannot draw a heart pattern.  At all. 

[MeshGearFox]

Played Geneforge 1 for a few hours (when was the last time I just sat down and played a game for three hours non-stop?) Did the tutorial, cleared out the abandoned school, cleared out the... spawner monster infestation. My little fire lizard is rather powerful for my purposes.

He spits out fire and shit dies. It's good.

[Lard]

Found a copy of EX Troopers in Seoul. Impulse purchase since Capcom has said it's not coming to North America.

[Desert Walker]

Roughly 25 hours into Assassin's Creed 2.  Altair's armor is awesome.  Beautiful, in fact.  Meanwhile I've been grabbing random trophies and progressing through the story as needed to open up the world -- I'm on sequence 10 -- but I spend more time admiring the architecture and compulsively hunting down treasure and codex pages than I do assassinating people, with the notable exception of archers trying to keep me off of rooftops.  Bastards.

I must say, one thing Assassin's Creed has taught me is that there are very few simple pleasures that are quite as satisfying as punching a really bad lutenist in the face and then hauling ass.

EDIT:  Does anyone else get songs not from the game stuck in their head while playing games?  When playing through sections of Sly 3 that involved using the Guru to jump on guards' backs, possess them, and then ride them into various crap you wanted destroyed (killing them in the process) the Waylon Jennings song Ride Me Down Easy or rather, the line "Ride me down easy lord, ride me down slow, leave word in the dust where I lay..." seemed twistedly appropriate.  Also, when I'm rowing around Venice in Assassin's Creed 2 The Congos song Row Fisherman tends to pop up in my head.

[(Tunnels)]

Been playing Persona 4, the vanilla version not the Ponyboy version. I'm bound and determined to actually beat it this time. I'm nearing the 2nd to last dungeon and trying to finish up all the party member S-links. Every time I play this game I'm so amazed by how stylish the presentation is. The transparent silhouettes of the main characters on the main menu blows my mind every time.

[Dice]

Been playing Persona 4, the vanilla version not the Ponyboy version. I'm bound and determined to actually beat it this time. I'm nearing the 2nd to last dungeon and trying to finish up all the party member S-links. Every time I play this game I'm so amazed by how stylish the presentation is. The transparent silhouettes of the main characters on the main menu blows my mind every time.

I thought the menu screen was the coolest fucking thing on the planet; probably tied with the 1 second FMVs that played in FF13's menu (and then proceeded to forget about that milestone in the second installment).

[Desert Walker]

After having put the game on hold for a ridiculously long time I've started on Radiant Historia again with the help of a YouTube guide to find a single fucking stick I managed to miss which held my game back for a couple of hours and caused me to put it down.  I managed to put a couple of hours in tonight and once I found that stick things picked up very quickly and started to become interesting again.  I'll make sure to put in some more hours tomorrow and try to refresh myself on the story up to this point.

I'm going to end up picking up a Vita at some point (likely next year after the price drop) and I have to admit that Persona 4 is a big factor in this.  Well, that and portable Metal Gear.  I've never played Persona 4 and I'm certainly looking forward to the experience when the time comes.

[Yggdrasil]

Finished watching The Walking Dead walkthrough I was seeing on YouTube.

What can I say, pretty solid experience and the bastards left you all hyped for the next season which I didn't even want to get interested in the first place... but what the hell.