The NEW Game Journal

[Tomara]

I have always wondered if this was a bad habit or not... I mean, logically it should shorten the system's lifespan right???

I imagine overheating would be the biggest threat, so as long as you make sure that doesn't happen, it should be fine. Plus, I'm sure handhelds like the PSP and 3DS were designed to be on all the time.

[MeshGearFox]

It'll burn out the drive motors on PS2s and Dreamcasts.

Looking at a PS2 the wrong way will break the drive motor though.

[Dice]

I've been in love with Far Cry 3 and about an hour ago the fucking dog knocked over the brand new halo 4 Xbox and the disc is ruined. Yay:(.  No use crying over spilled milk, right? Can't smack the dog so I'm just quietly fuming:/

Chances are a disc resurfacing will fix you right up.  A local game or cd store probably does it for five bucks or less.

Nope.  Unlikely, if the system was knocked over, he probably got the "perma-ring" fried onto the CD.  I don't think even resurfacing fixes that. =/
Hard to hate a dog even for that...they're too fucking cute. :(

Playing FF9.  Um, I have a nasty habit of leaving the system on, and I have clocked over 100 hours, when the clock only goes to 99:59:59.  I love what happens after.  It kinda creeped me out too, the it starts back at 00:00:00, but the letters change colour and it looks like: 00:00:00.  Maybe a warning that you've been playing too long.

Doing all sidequests.  I happily beat Hades on my first try (yay!).  I love all the weird ass secrets in Memoria (well, except that I clearly missed any hope at Excalibur II...over 90 hours late...).  It's weird that a lot of the strongest stuff is easily obtained through Choco Quest than final dungeons or character sidequests... kinda sad my party is already pretty jacked for challenges.  I'm training against the Van's on Vile Island.  Fuck they're a frightening enemy based on the sheer fact they love launching comets at your face.  ...why do enemies cast float on you??  What for??

If you leave the game on for another 99:59:59 you'll change the clock's color to green and again for blue and so on until you go back to white which conveniently puts you back on the clock for Excalibur II.

Haha, omg, is that for real???

I hate the ExcalII quest... what's the point that late in the game besides bragging rights?? :(

[Aeolus]

I've been in love with Far Cry 3 and about an hour ago the fucking dog knocked over the brand new halo 4 Xbox and the disc is ruined. Yay:(.  No use crying over spilled milk, right? Can't smack the dog so I'm just quietly fuming:/

Chances are a disc resurfacing will fix you right up.  A local game or cd store probably does it for five bucks or less.

Nope.  Unlikely, if the system was knocked over, he probably got the "perma-ring" fried onto the CD.  I don't think even resurfacing fixes that. =/
Hard to hate a dog even for that...they're too fucking cute. :(

Playing FF9.  Um, I have a nasty habit of leaving the system on, and I have clocked over 100 hours, when the clock only goes to 99:59:59.  I love what happens after.  It kinda creeped me out too, the it starts back at 00:00:00, but the letters change colour and it looks like: 00:00:00.  Maybe a warning that you've been playing too long.

Doing all sidequests.  I happily beat Hades on my first try (yay!).  I love all the weird ass secrets in Memoria (well, except that I clearly missed any hope at Excalibur II...over 90 hours late...).  It's weird that a lot of the strongest stuff is easily obtained through Choco Quest than final dungeons or character sidequests... kinda sad my party is already pretty jacked for challenges.  I'm training against the Van's on Vile Island.  Fuck they're a frightening enemy based on the sheer fact they love launching comets at your face.  ...why do enemies cast float on you??  What for??

If you leave the game on for another 99:59:59 you'll change the clock's color to green and again for blue and so on until you go back to white which conveniently puts you back on the clock for Excalibur II.

Haha, omg, is that for real???

I hate the ExcalII quest... what's the point that late in the game besides bragging rights?? :(

Pretty much just that. The attack increase is marginal and by end game Steiner will already be slamming the damage cap with Shock anyways. There's also the stat growth thing that FFIX has (where your characters' base stats improve based upon what they're equipped with during level up), but again it's not particularly worth it (especially if you take the long way around and hit level 100 in the process).

Granted I forget just how many months it'll take to actually get there without a speedup/frameskip option but it can be done.

[Tomara]

Final Fantasy XIII - I kept getting my ass kicked by a certain Chapter 10 boss after he transformed, so I kicked his ass before he could transform. I feel pretty awesome right now.

[MeshGearFox]

Did the kidnapped yama kid quest in TLR. Is there any way to check enemy elemental weaknesses?

[Mickeymac92]

Final Fantasy XIII - I kept getting my ass kicked by a certain Chapter 10 boss after he transformed, so I kicked his ass before he could transform. I feel pretty awesome right now.

Wow, now that is a feat. I never remember being able to do that.

[Esper_Crusader]

Dragon's Dogma. Its a good game but some of the early side quests are nigh impossible. I finally gave up on certain ones like finding Quina and the well after getting stomped by lizards or bandits. Back on the main quest line for now. Much easier going.

[Monsoon]

I originally planned to beat Valkyria Chronicles before 2013 happened, but alas 'twas not to be.  I'm on episode 14 out of 18 and company is coming over soon.  It'll be my first finished game of 2013. 

[Akanbe-]

Mario Kart 7:
I'm having a lot more fun with this than I thought I would.  32 tracks is enough to keep things fun through repeated playthroughs even if half of them are reused from older versions (never played the DS & Wii version so new to me).  I wish they had the n64 4-base battle map though.  Decent stream of unlockables.  150cc feels like a nice difficulty setting without feeling like it's really rubber-banding me.  Was expecting piss-poor online modes but I'm pretty happy with what they have.  Either endless lobby or 4 race series with the same people.  I prefer the 2nd mode, but half the people quit before the 3rd race even starts which is shitty but not unexpected.

Stella Deus:
So I randomly decided to start a new game on Sunday.  I'm not quite sure how, but I played this for about 5 hours straight on Sunday and for another hour after eating dinner.  Managed to make some badass weaponry from the get-go which are owning enemies left and right, but it's gonna suck when these eventually even out as I don't think I can keep up with being ahead of the weapons curve.  Horrible, horrible voice acting, but I really like the sprites.  Gonna try to see this one through, or at least mostly through.  I feel like it's going to require a fair amount of grinding in the catacombs along the way to make the game fun as levels seem very important and one of the prevailing strategies seems to be turtling.  When I last played this, my ideas of strategy and group comp were much weaker than now so hopefully things go better this time around.

[MeshGearFox]

TLR - Beat the fire idol after screwing around with my formations, taking Rush out of the party, and getting my M. Def up, so that flare only did ~90 damage a hit, which was manageable. Also tried to take on Bluejaws although I definitely need two unions for that (or at least more than three guys in the union I DO have).

Dave and Rush are so massively in gay with eachother it is ADORABLE.

Still trying to figure out how to optimize formations. Ideally I want Rush in a formation so that he gets stat increases. I think he gets SOME by being on reserve, but not much. Formations seem to matter rather a lot, especially since I only have one union at present and limited battle options.

[Tomara]

Final Fantasy XIII - I kept getting my ass kicked by a certain Chapter 10 boss after he transformed, so I kicked his ass before he could transform. I feel pretty awesome right now.

Wow, now that is a feat. I never remember being able to do that.

To be honest, it just kind of happened. I planned on being more on the offense and go for atleast two staggers, but I managed to stagger him just before he transformed and threw him up in the air right away. That's where he stayed until the end of the battle.

My team consisted of Lightning (with my only piece of upgraded equipment: one of those things that boosts attack), Hope (great ravager, decent healer, and I just like him, so whatever...) and Sazh (his buffs are awesome). I started of with Commando - Ravager - Synergist, then switching to Ravager - Ravager - Synergist after the first few attacks. Then RRR or RMR until the chain was nearly full. Finally I switched to CRR, staggered him and threw him up in the air. After that it was easy going. I had a buffed up team, he was a flying piece of butter. Maybe I could have done even more damage with CRC (and some more upgraded equipment), but I finished him off mere seconds before the bar ran out.

[Klyde Chroma]

I completed all of Asura's Wrath yesterday!! Just a few hours short of the the new year too.... What I will say is this..... It may have been short.... but I couldn't stand to perform another 5 minutes of QTE's if you paid me by the end of it..... so in light of that fact, I think it was alright... visually impressive title for certain.... Asura himself bothered the hell out of me though, and the overall "ma'-cheeeez-mo" level of this game got to me as well.... Happy to have seen it through.. doubt I will EVER come back for seconds though....

Continuing my quest to complete my backlog, I am back to hyperdimension MK2..... I really freakin love this game, I don't know why I ever put it down.... No, its not good by any measurable standard.... but something about it makes me happy.... maybe I'm just happy the gameplay doesn't resemble the first in any way and I can actually heal my characters at will... who knows...

On that note though, I will say this.... As comfortable as I am with the perversity transmit in these niche titles, last night I got to a boss and scene that was over the top even by my standards..... I couldn't help but feel creeped out as the two youngest cpu candidates in the game were "licked" compulsively by the villain until his "saliva" ruined the one candidates attire.....

Lastly..... LEGO THE LORD OF THE RINGS..... yea, I thought it was awesome when I tried the demo.... never played a lego game before.... now after meandering through a good 5-6 hours of this game I think I made a mistake here... glitches galore aside, I can't help but find this game to be mind-numbingly freakin slow and boring...... I feel like I'm playing an old action rpg like secret of mana or zelda on slow-motion and stripped of all content, save the ability to smash pots, slash through grass and collect coinage.... Couple this with the fact that 90% of the optional stuff can't even be done until the full story is played through compounds my dissapointment... I may not finish this..... I may not even count it unfinished as backlogged... I may just pretend this never existed and go back to being of the opinion that the best Tolkien esque' work was and is the books, end of story.... This is what I get for sticking my nose in western gaming again...

[GrimReality]

My son is constantly looking for new games to play. He played through Ys Seven and Oath in Felghana on PSP, then tried out Ys I & II. He gave up on that one, though. I gave him tales of Symphonia to play thinking he'd love it, but he couldn't get the fighting mechanics and claimed it was too hard. If I can play through a game, it is NOT too hard.
Anyway, he got some money for Christmas, so, on my recommendation, he bought Okami for the Wii. He's loving it so far, so I figure he's set for awhile. That's a long game.
When at Gamestop, I spotted Jeanne d'Arc for $4.99, so I bought it. I always heard it was good, so I figured, why not.
I'm still in Chapter 2 of Witcher 2. Still great.

[MeshGearFox]

I have no idea how I feel about Commander Keen. On the one hand the levels are very good at creating a sense of place -- in terms of looking like actual places. The game is supposed to take place in various cities, and while there's obvious concessions made for being a platforming game, they mostly look like what they're supposed to be -- as well as creating a sense of scale -- the levels are either large and have lots of optional stuff, or do various things to look a lot larger than they really are. Both of these combine to create a really... evocative, mysterious atmosphere.

On the other hand, the actual method for getting through the levels can be pretty straightforward, and most of the optional areas in them can be ignored, and exploring them doesn't even really grant good rewards a lot of the time. They're like made to have INTERESTING designs but not necessarily PLAYABLE designs.

---edit---

Did the first Nipton quest in NV and fixed Ed-E.