The NEW Game Journal

[Desert Walker]

Those having trouble with Jet Set Radio might find Jet Set Radio Future for the X-Box a bit more accessible.  You can find it pretty cheap used, or at least, you used to be able to.

[(Tunnels)]

I did get FFIV for iOS. I forgot how sexyawesome Kain's voice is.

I'm tempted by this, too. But for $15?! That's rough. I think I can wait for a sale. If Square ever actually HAS sales?


I DLed episodes 3-5 of the Walking Dead.
Then played 2 hours worth of Ep. 3. Oh, my god! The choices this go around are so tough. And the things you have to do and go through. Heart wrenching.  This game has a better story and characters than most movies I've seen recently. If my wife hadn't come in the room...

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Carley! That bitch shot Carley! This floored me. She was my favorite character, and then BAM, she's gone.
And then the whole Duck scenario. I sent Kenny's wife(her name is something weird that I forget) to take care of him, and she shoots herself! Then poor Kenny has to kill his kid. This especially tore me up due to having a son a little older than Duck.

I'm really angry about that first part too.

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I pulled for Lilly in ep. 2, and Kenny turned into a huge d-bag, despite all I did for him in ep. 1. To have Lilly betray me after all I did for her was a kick in the pants. It's crazy how much this game pulls you in, the characters feel like real people, and when I disappoint one or have one betray the others, it almost kinda hurts for real.

[MeshGearFox]

The Alien Breed games are immensely stupid and have done nothing but further convince me that the Amiga, as a gaming platform, only existed to show of its graphical prowess :|

(On the other hand, I do like Silmarils' (decidedly weird) stuff).

Playing bad games makes me depressed and not want to game :D

[Kevadu]

Been working on my PSP/Vita backlog (I have backlogs for every system...).  Mostly been focusing on Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time lately.  I think I've mentioned this before but this is my first Growlanser game so I wasn't quite sure what to expect.  Thus far I've found it both quite addictive and incredibly frustrating.  The addictiveness stems from the combat system, upgrade system, and occasionally the story (though sometimes it advances at such a breakneck pace I don't know what's what).  The frustration, on the other hand, stems from poorly explained bullshit mission objectives/parameters combined with a lack of goddamn save points.

Look, I don't mind a challenge.  In fact I like a challenge.  I just want to know what is going to make me fail a mission ahead of time instead of having to figure that out by trail and error.  And if I do fail because of that then I want the opportunity to retry a mission without having to go back and trek through a forest fighting minor battles for half an hour first.  I guess I could deal with the first problem if it wasn't for the second, but the combination of the two is a killer.  Withholding save points is unforgivable this day and age.  Or at least have a retry mission option or something.

Heck, there was one time when I was supposed to escort a merchant back to my little town to setup shop and immediately when the mission started I accidentally took a step back and went to the previous screen.  Instant game over.  For walking off a fucking screen (f you're going to give a game over for something like that why even let the player do it?).  Of course there was no save point before this mission, so I had to work my way back there and do it again.  Then somehow (don't ask me how...) I accidentally walked the screen a second time...I was about ready to chuck my Vita at a wall or something.

[Klyde Chroma]

Been working on my PSP/Vita backlog (I have backlogs for every system...).  Mostly been focusing on Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time lately.  I think I've mentioned this before but this is my first Growlanser game so I wasn't quite sure what to expect.  Thus far I've found it both quite addictive and incredibly frustrating.  The addictiveness stems from the combat system, upgrade system, and occasionally the story (though sometimes it advances at such a breakneck pace I don't know what's what).  The frustration, on the other hand, stems from poorly explained bullshit mission objectives/parameters combined with a lack of goddamn save points.

Look, I don't mind a challenge.  In fact I like a challenge.  I just want to know what is going to make me fail a mission ahead of time instead of having to figure that out by trail and error.  And if I do fail because of that then I want the opportunity to retry a mission without having to go back and trek through a forest fighting minor battles for half an hour first.  I guess I could deal with the first problem if it wasn't for the second, but the combination of the two is a killer.  Withholding save points is unforgivable this day and age.  Or at least have a retry mission option or something.

Heck, there was one time when I was supposed to escort a merchant back to my little town to setup shop and immediately when the mission started I accidentally took a step back and went to the previous screen.  Instant game over.  For walking off a fucking screen (f you're going to give a game over for something like that why even let the player do it?).  Of course there was no save point before this mission, so I had to work my way back there and do it again.  Then somehow (don't ask me how...) I accidentally walked the screen a second time...I was about ready to chuck my Vita at a wall or something.

I completely sympathize with you on two accounts.... A. having such a large backlog that it could arguably warrant therapy..... and B. finding growlanser WoT to be a bittersweet experience..... It is one of my backlogs now as well..... I really didn't expect to put it down, seeing as how all the other growlanser titles proved to be SRPG favorites of mine and I LOVED this one when I started it.... fast forward 20 hours or so into the title and I needed a break due to precisely what you have described.....

As for my gaming excursions.... I BEAT X-COM TODAY...... I think this is the first game in a looooooong time I started and finished within a month.... not that it is long, but I typically juggle a few titles and am in no particular rush to finish.... This one just demanded all the attention I could give it from the door! Didn't get bored with it once... I think I'm gonna give it a break now though, before starting a new campaign to see the DLC package that came out this week.

Now its onto Mugen Souls!! Which is sooooo cool because I bought the LE, wrapped it, and placed it under a little charlie-brown christmas tree in my living room to gift to myself for christmas....gee golly I love synchronicity!

[Monsoon]

Playing Valkyria Chronicles and Persona 4 (regular-ass Persona 4 on the PS2).  Loving both of them.  Gonna try and beat VC before the new year (on mission 7... not sure if I can....) and Persona 4 sometime in January.  Gonna be a nice few months of gaming. 

Pokemon White 2 is on hold until MAGFest in a few weeks.  Got a few online pals that want to trade-battle in person.  Still zipping through the game with Excadrill, Haxorus, a baby Deino and that's about it.  Love those first two.  Reuniclus was put on hold so Haxorus could rip through the last two dungeons.  Serperior got benched shortly after evolving. 

[Dade]

So Spec Ops happened. What a game.

Now, to continue down the rabbit's hole.....Far Cry 3. #GonnaGoCraaaaaazy

[MeshGearFox]

Eador:

Kiiinda fucked up on the current shard. Went entirely for heavy units. Enemy lord went for light units. Why is this bad?

- Crossbowmen's primarily advantage is that they have better armor than bowmen and armor piercing shots. Enemy isn't really using armored units, so this doesn't help much. Negative is that they do NOT have a very good range. Enemy's bowmen can basically cherrytap them to death.

- Warrior hero managed to get cut off from the rest of my holdings. And some of his equipment is broken.

- Enemy lord I'm facing currently is really overleveled.

On the plus side my economic base is good.

Managed to take out the enemy stronghold. Reclaiming some of their old provinces and doing some cleanup work in MY provinces. Considering getting a mage out.

Grimrock:

Got to the second dungeon level. I think I'm going to like this a lot.

Crusader Kings 2:

Wages a small war against some rogue territory in Georgia. Need to optimize the settings a bit.

[Aeolus]

Jade Empire:

Still no Silk Fox but at least I've cleaned house of the dead. Can't progress in the Arena until I advance the plot. Made a second, somewhat less useful Configuration (ups spell effectiveness for all the enemies that are immune to magical damage (not really)).

Also Catan and Angry Birds. The latter is virtually unplayable due to the game pieces having the aerodynamics of a waffle.

[Mickeymac92]

Fez - So this game is pretty fun. I'm sure this surprises no one, but it surprised me at least. I was expecting it to be pretty boring, instead I'm having a blast. I just don't get what was supposed to be super unique/deep/artsy about this game, though. Not yet at least.

[Bytor]

played a little Dementium: The Ward earlier today. Early impressions tell me it's gonna be a short game but the atmosphere, sound and visuals so far are pretty good

[MeshGearFox]

The Last Remnant - Just did the intro stuff and got up to the first city. Herumgefuckte with my video adapter drivers and got a /huge/ performance boost. This also propagates outwards to Crusader Kings 2 and presumably Grimrock.

currently downloading New Vegas.

Also I forgot how to get Casus Belli in CK2, since it's not like vanilla CK1 where you can just attack any Muslims.

[John]

Bought a bunch of crap on Steam sale:

Darksiders 2, Endless Space, Spellforce Complete, Dark Souls, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Universe Sandbox, Nexuiz, Half Minute Hero, Scribblenauts Unlimited, and Galactic Civilizations Complete.

Also, did you know that Scribblenauts Unlimited for PC has a variable MSAA feature?

My only question is "WHY?!"

[Annubis]

Starting X-COM:EU which I didn't even get from the Steam sale =/
It was actually much much much cheaper on some European site that sells to Canada (but not US... go figure?)

I'm hoping I can find a 66%+ The Walking Dead at some point.

I also take pleasure in saying in a French Canadian accent 'Saints Row: the Turd' instead of 'Saints Row: the Third'.

[DPB]

I'm a few hours into Bioshock, and I'm enjoying it more than I expected, since I'm not usually into FPSes unless they're hybrids with RPGs and/or stealth games. So far I haven't had to do a great deal of shooting, I've mostly been using plasmids. I do find it very annoying that they restrict you to only two slots at the start, I keep finding new plasmids before I've had much of a chance to try out the previous ones.

I also replayed Grim Fandango for the first time since 1998, and it was just as great as I remember it being, still the best adventure game. That said, the controls and inventory are pretty awful. It works better with a controller, but moving around is really awkward, and it's cumbersome having to scroll through your inventory one item at a time.