What did you do this year regarding games? Played, loved, hated, indifferent to; how was your year in gaming?
I'm still on the last generation, trying to finish it up by playing all the games I'm told I should have been playing all along. I don't remember the order I bought or played the following in, so I'll just break it down by system.
Gamecube:
An uneventful year for my Gamecube. I bought Zelda: Minish Cap for my Gameboy Player and have yet to finish it. I've put quite a few hours this past semester in to Mario Kart: Double Dash and I've gotten pretty good at it. My friends won't play against me anymore. I had intentions of getting Zelda Twilight Princess for my GC, but now I'm not so sure as I think I want a Wii now.
Playstation 2:
I finally finished Final Fantasy VIII. It took me two years of forcing myself to play, and in the end (quite literally about 5 hours before the end) I enjoyed the game. Not my favorite Final Fantasy, but a good one.
I bought Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy Tactics for the Playstation. I've given both some considerable play time and now I don't feel like playing them. I think they're too difficult, and I don't want to waste the little time I have for games on something that's going to frustrate me. I've heard they're both wonderful games though...pity.
I also purchased my first Dragon Quest game, DQ VIII. I had heard how wonderful this series is, and particularly how great this installment turned out to be. I've only put about 12 hours on it but I'm not impressed. The animation and music are absolutely superb, the story is quite good too, but the battle system is about as simple as they come and makes battles more of a chore than an engaging fight. I will finish this game.
Final Fantasy XII; The best Final Fantasy I've played. I've put about 42 hours on it and I'm about 2/3rds the way through (Phon Coast). It's almost unbelievable how high quality of a production it is. I'm eager to finish it.
Just two days ago I picked up Shadow of the Colossus. I'm a little disappointed in myself that I initially wrote this game off, saying it would be tedious and boring only fighting the colossi and finishing them off in the same way. I was so wrong. This easily goes on my top ten list of amazing games for this past generation.
I also picked up Crash Bandicoot Warped (3) for the Playstation. I found it in a bin at Gamestop and the clerk just let me have it. He said they don't sell them anymore, that it must have been overlooked. I played it for a few mintues the other day...I can't believe I used to think they were fun.
My roommate bought Dance Factory and a dance pad. This particular dance game lets you play any cd you want. I went through my entire collection of what I consider dance music. Quite a bit of fun but I got over it in about a two months' time.
Xbox:
Heh, my Xbox got a little more love than my Gamecube, but only because I had fallen so very far behind in Xbox games. Earlier this year I purchased Unreal Championship 2: Liandri Conflict; it's beautiful, fast, and addiciting; easily one of the most underrated games for the Xbox. Melee combat ftw.
I am currently borrowing Fable from a friend. The graphics are not all that. In fact, I think it's rather ugly. The gameplay is good, but not great. I'm thinking this game will take me quite a while to complete as I'm just not that interested. Then again, I've only spent about an hour with it thus far.
About two weeks ago I purchased Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge. I'm usually not a fan of shooters but it was only $4, so I gave it a shot. I'm sorry I passed it up for so long. I spent a good chunk of last Saturday playing the game, and I wish I had brought my Xbox with me to my parents' house for the holidays. A lot of fun. Really pretty, too.
I tried my hand at Panzer Dragoon Orta again. It's still one of the best looking games of last generation. I bought it years ago but got stuck at a boss. I'm hoping to finish it someday, but I'm not going to try too hard. (I'm thinking this game needs to be made for the Wii...it would kick some major arse). Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay is another I bought some time ago, and I would like to finish it. I kind of lost interest though about half way through it earlier this year. A really great game, but I'm not good at the sneaking around like I need to be.
Looking in to 2007:
I plan to finish most of the games I listed here. There are still other games of this last generation I need to play:
Xenosaga II, Xenosaga III, God of War, God of War 2 (assuming I like the first), Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, Grabbed by the Ghoulies (not a typo), Fuzion Frenzy, Prince of Persia Warrior Within, Prince of Persia Two Thrones, Katamari Damacy, Jak X Combat Racing, Ratchet Deadlocked
I hope to complete a number of those by summer so I can start on my next gen gaming. The DS will likely be my next system (so many games, OMG). I'm committed to getting a 360 but not until I do it properly with a HDTV (which I'm hoping is right around the time Halo 3 releases).
Hmm...I don't remember EVERYTHING I played this year but...I know I replayed FFX (that's almost a given for me...), FFVII, OOT, Metal Gear Solid, GTA San Andreas F-Zero GX, and Fire Emblem Path of Radiance (moving out leaves little money for new games, so I brushed off some old favorites :D).
New, I played FFXII (I've played over 100 hours and still haven't beaten it. I'm just so caught up in side quests I can't bring myself to finish the story, even though I'm at the final area), Also, obviously, Wii Sports and Twilight Princess. I beat Kingdom Hearts 2 three times, uh...Hmm. I had a short Mega Man burst when I bought Mega Man X collection and my never-ending love affair with Melee continued unabated. I randomly got the urge to play SimCity 4 on the PC for a while and had a big Counter-Strike jones for a while.
That's...all I can think of at the moment. Then again it is 1 in the morning. Perhaps another time I'll have a clearer head with which to remember such minutiae.
Gamecube:
-Generally a quiet year for the Gamecube, with some long bouts of SSBM, Wario Ware, Timesplitters 2, and Super Monkey Ball. Other than that, I didn't play much aside from Beyond Good & Evil for a second time.
Xbox:
-Psychnauts: One of the best platformers in a very long time. It's got some amazing level design, interesting characters with good voice-acting, and really good music. Everyone should buy it and play it. Aside from that, not much in the way of Xboxen.
Xbox360:
-20 or so hours of zombie killing in Dead Rising, 30 hours of car driving in Test Drive: Unlimited, 170 hours of Oblivion, 10 hours of Gears of War, and some amazing multi in Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. In a word: fun. To put it in a longer sentence: The Xbox360 has some really good games that I'm glad I got to play because they are really good. Oblivion for life, man.
Wii:
-Can't forget about the Wii in all this. Wii Sports is some awesome fun, especially in four-player multi. Seriously, don't take this one lightly. Then, of course, we've got The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess which, despite a bit of a weak ending in some ways, is an amazing experience with some really great parts in it. Not to be missed by anyone that enjoys games. There are some other Wii games out there, but none quite as good as those two.
Nintendo DS:
-Quite a few games, actually, and a bit more than I really want to get into in this post. Suffice it to say, Mario Kart, Contact, Magical Starsign, Children of Mana, and all those other DS games I played this here have been quite a bit of fun. Dragon Quest IX next, boys!! WOOO!!!
Eden, what do you like so much about FFX? What level are you in FFXII? Did you already find all the espers? Go to the Necropolis?
GR, do you know if Psychonauts is best on GC or Xbox? I've only rented it before and didn't get very far. I saw it just the other day for $20 and almost picked it up. Is it a pretty long game or no?
Paco Wrote:Eden, what do you like so much about FFX? What level are you in FFXII? Did you already find all the espers? Go to the Necropolis?
I have not found all the espers, only about half actually, and there is one that I have access to, yet I haven't been able to beat him because you cannot use magicks when you fight him, and he summons endless backup, and crowd control can be difficult without magic spells. I've been spending most of my time with hunting marks. There is always new stuff to find too. Like, right now, there is an item in my Bazaar that costs 250,000 gil. That has GOT to be something good, so I'm saving up for it. I'm halfway there. My characters are all hovering around level 45.
Regarding FFX, it's difficult to explain love, no? :D Seriously, I love the characters, the story, the world in general, Blitzball, the monster arena...you name it. The only part I don't like is it's slow beginning. The game doesn't really pick up steam until somewhere around Kilika, IMO.
Quote:GR, do you know if Psychonauts is best on GC or Xbox? I've only rented it before and didn't get very far. I saw it just the other day for $20 and almost picked it up. Is it a pretty long game or no?
There's no GC version, just a PS2 and Xbox version. I'd imagaine that the Xbox version is the better of the two. You can probably beat it in about 10-15 hours.
oh, thanks. I was hoping there was a GC version because I prefer its controller for platformers.
EdenMaster Wrote:I have not found all the espers, only about half actually, and there is one that I have access to, yet I haven't been able to beat him because you cannot use magicks when you fight him, and he summons endless backup, and crowd control can be difficult without magic spells. I've been spending most of my time with hunting marks. There is always new stuff to find too. Like, right now, there is an item in my Bazaar that costs 250,000 gil. That has GOT to be something good, so I'm saving up for it. I'm halfway there. My characters are all hovering around level 45.
Regarding FFX, it's difficult to explain love, no? :D Seriously, I love the characters, the story, the world in general, Blitzball, the monster arena...you name it. The only part I don't like is it's slow beginning. The game doesn't really pick up steam until somewhere around Kilika, IMO.
My characters are all over the place. Vaan is about 38 with Basch at 25, the others landing in between. Do you know if I can just stick with three characters for the rest of the game, or is it going to split me in to two parties at some point?
The battle system was my favorite part of X. Did you play X-2?
Well, I started the year playing Resident Evil 4, but other than that my GameCube didn't get too much love. On XBox I played Pandora Tomorrow and Chaos Theory to catch up on the Splinter Cell series a bit. I also got the Godfather for XBox and played it close to 100% completion. I got my DS at the end of 2005 so 2006 saw me playing Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, and New Super Mario Bros along with a bit of Tetris. Playstation 2 was a bit slow, but I did get a start on Final Fantasy XII before I set it aside for the Wii. I played a lot of Wii Sports before getting Zelda, and I just finished Zelda today. I also bought Sonic and Bomberman from the Wii Shop.
DMiller Wrote:Well, I started the year playing Resident Evil 4, but other than that my GameCube didn't get too much love. On XBox I played Pandora Tomorrow and Chaos Theory to catch up on the Splinter Cell series a bit. I also got the Godfather for XBox and played it close to 100% completion. I got my DS at the end of 2005 so 2006 saw me playing Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, and New Super Mario Bros along with a bit of Tetris. Playstation 2 was a bit slow, but I did get a start on Final Fantasy XII before I set it aside for the Wii. I played a lot of Wii Sports before getting Zelda, and I just finished Zelda today. I also bought Sonic and Bomberman from the Wii Shop.
How is the Sonic game? The 360 and PS3 versions turned out to be disasters.
It was the Genesis Sonic that I bought from the online store, not the new Sonic.
I hope Sonic the Hedgehog 2 gets released on the VC.
2006 was the first year I've actually started gaming since probably 2003. One hightlight was playing through Resident Evil 4. I doubt there has been a better game released this generation. I also made it to the final boss of Paper Mario 2 before my memory card broke and everything on it was completely erased. That game was a hell of a lot of fun. I can't recall a game being that fun (not necessarily good) since, well, Paper Mario on N64.
Alongside RE4, the Wii is my other gaming highlight for 2006. Zelda and Madden as the games.
Paco Wrote:My characters are all over the place. Vaan is about 38 with Basch at 25, the others landing in between. Do you know if I can just stick with three characters for the rest of the game, or is it going to split me in to two parties at some point?
The battle system was my favorite part of X. Did you play X-2?
Really, your characters are that unbalanced? I try to keep everyone with even numbers since that gives you a party of 6 effective fighters. Yes, your big three can plow through a lot, but if they fall, you're left with weaklings to tie up loose ends, and that can be bad. As a rule, if one character gets too high, they get pulled out of battle for a while so some lesser-leveled members can catch up, and if one DOES get left behind, they're in the party non-stop untilt hey catch up. I only use my best players during boss fights or mark hunting, otherwise my weakest go out. Normally it's Basch who bursts ahead in levels for me, Ashe gets left behind (used to be Fran, but I've developed her into a strong magick wielder AND does good physical damage too). So yes, theoretically you could just stick with your three (you aren't split up at all). Although, truly, it's not the levels that matter. It's the LICENSE POINTS, and since those are evenly distributed (as long as the member is alive), it's tough for some to fall really far behind. My advice to you, go buy some Golden Amulets and give them to your lesser players so they can stock up their license boards, it'll give them a batter chance should you need them!
Yes, the battle system was definitely a plus in X. I forced myself to play through X-2, I felt I was obligated to by loving X so much. I actually have played it through a couple times. It's a fun game in it's own right, but trying to compare it to X is apples and oranges, aside from familir names and places, there is nothing similar about the two games, which is what turned me off to X-2 originally. Once I tried it again though, fully expecting it NOT to be FFX, I did enjoy it.
You're on the Phon Coast now? That's a great place, come back there later and talk to the group of Bangaa standing by one of the buildings in the camp, then you can join the Hunt Club. It's free, and the rewards are worth it.
Hmm... I bought a ridiculous number of games, almost all used... have only six games released in 2006... had no working current-gen console for the last six months of the year and an out of date PC...
... pretty good year. No thanks to the current generation of systems, though... :)
I just beat XII :D. The ending was a tad lackluster but the final boss was incredible (I hope that doesn't count as a spoiler).
I still want to go back and check out that bazaar item, and now I've fulfilled my one self-imposed roadblock: I refuse to look at a strategy guide or GameFAQs until I beat the game (that is, finish the storyline). Now that I have, I need to check out some of the many, many things I'm sure I missed.
On the plus side, now that I've beaten XII, I can devote myself fully to playing Twilight Princess. (Even though I'm probably about 3/4 of the way thru as it is :D).
EdenMaster Wrote:Really, your characters are that unbalanced? I try to keep everyone with even numbers since that gives you a party of 6 effective fighters. Yes, your big three can plow through a lot, but if they fall, you're left with weaklings to tie up loose ends, and that can be bad. As a rule, if one character gets too high, they get pulled out of battle for a while so some lesser-leveled members can catch up, and if one DOES get left behind, they're in the party non-stop untilt hey catch up. I only use my best players during boss fights or mark hunting, otherwise my weakest go out. Normally it's Basch who bursts ahead in levels for me, Ashe gets left behind (used to be Fran, but I've developed her into a strong magick wielder AND does good physical damage too). So yes, theoretically you could just stick with your three (you aren't split up at all). Although, truly, it's not the levels that matter. It's the LICENSE POINTS, and since those are evenly distributed (as long as the member is alive), it's tough for some to fall really far behind. My advice to you, go buy some Golden Amulets and give them to your lesser players so they can stock up their license boards, it'll give them a batter chance should you need them!
Yes, the battle system was definitely a plus in X. I forced myself to play through X-2, I felt I was obligated to by loving X so much. I actually have played it through a couple times. It's a fun game in it's own right, but trying to compare it to X is apples and oranges, aside from familir names and places, there is nothing similar about the two games, which is what turned me off to X-2 originally. Once I tried it again though, fully expecting it NOT to be FFX, I did enjoy it.
You're on the Phon Coast now? That's a great place, come back there later and talk to the group of Bangaa standing by one of the buildings in the camp, then you can join the Hunt Club. It's free, and the rewards are worth it.
Yeah, I tend to pick a party of my favorites and stick with them, and then level up the others as needed. I leveled up for about 5 hours over the last two days; Vaan is now at 42, Balthier - 41, Fran - 38, Ashe - 30, Penelo - 28, and Basch - 25. What I'm doing is taking the party down to one character and fighting as many enemies as possible. I was managing a level up every 30 minutes or so.
This feels kind of wrong, but at what level did you beat the last boss? Did you fare pretty easily or not? I kind of just want to finish the game; I have so many others I need to play. I feel that I'm going to come back and do the marks some time later. The last one I tried kicked my ass so I got a bit discouraged.
Quote:No thanks to the current generation of systems, though...
You could have gotten a PS2 though.
Quote:You could have gotten a PS2 though.
Maybe, if I'd gotten it last year or early this year instead of the SNES, Genesis/SegaCD, and PSone, but... I didn't. And don't really regret it. :)
but you could have gotten a PS2 that played all your PSone games.
Yeah, unlike the PS3, the PS2 does backwards compatibility very well.
For $100 more... and then I'd have yet another system to buy games for, and often expensive ones at that... I don't just get a system and say "a few games is okay". I want a good collection. PS2? That's going to cost me quite a bit... so as I said, to do that, there's no way I could have gotten the SNES and Genesis+SegaCD, and I'd have fewer PS1 games too. And I like having a SNES and Genesis!
As for now, Wii and DS are well above the PS2 on my 'to get hardware' list. Though in all three cases, I'd love for there to be a price cut (particularly the DS and PS2, they should have had price cuts by now, but are selling so well Sony and Nintendo won't do it yet... GBA-SP too.)
If you remember, there was also a handful of PS1 games the PS2 had trouble with.
The PS3 plays most games just fine, and unlike the PS2, they can fix other games with patches. Unlike the 360, they don't do the compatibility via emulation. HOWEVER, it lacks PS2 controller and memory card ports. There's a silly expensive adapter one can get (silly expensive because all it does is adapt a SINGLE memory card and nothing else), but that doesn't fix the lack of support for oh so many custom controllers, from dance pads to drums to guitars. Really, it's sad. Also, such controller ports could be used to add rumble back into old PS1 and PS2 games.
Fortunatly, such an add-on (and the support for it) can be made. It's just a question on if Sony actually cares enough to go about it.
Oh yeah, and one other thing. PS1 games on the PS3 lack the PS2's fast loading option (as well as texture smoothing, but that I can take or leave).
A Black Falcon Wrote:For $100 more... and then I'd have yet another system to buy games for, and often expensive ones at that... I don't just get a system and say "a few games is okay". I want a good collection. PS2? That's going to cost me quite a bit...
Aside from Final Fantasy XII and Shadow of the Colossus, I haven't paid over $15 for a PS2 game in a very long time. Browse your local game stores' used bins and save some money. Right now is a good time to do it since most shops are clearing out their inventory to make room for the new consoles.
Quote:Aside from Final Fantasy XII and Shadow of the Colossus, I haven't paid over $15 for a PS2 game in a very long time. Browse your local game stores' used bins and save some money. Right now is a good time to do it since most shops are clearing out their inventory to make room for the new consoles.
Certainly true, and something I well know (I bought over 100 games in 2006... two of which cost me a full $50. And only maybe five or so more were even $20 or over...) but that still doesn't change the fact that it'd double the amount of games to choose from for the system, thus straining my limited finances even more (and that's not counting the $70-100 more for the system itsself! That's a significant difference.)... and I was thinking "get the PS1 first, maybe PS2 later if it goes okay"...
Quote:If you remember, there was also a handful of PS1 games the PS2 had trouble with.
Very few though. Under 15?
Quote:Also, such controller ports could be used to add rumble back into old PS1 and PS2 games.
Which is exactly why they are not there. Have rumble in PS3 games and Immersion can add the PS3 to their lawsuit...