Inside the thoughts of an average gamer.
Archive for February, 2009
Quick Update
Feb 27th
First and foremost, I apologize for the lack of content as of late. I don’t want to get too deep into my personal situation but unfortunately my mind has been elsewhere as I sift through a few changes in my personal life. It definitely hasn’t been easy, though.
I do have quite the backlog of posts to get through, and I do intend to get through all of them, hopefully starting early next week although things will get spotty due to prior commitments (if at all, expect very little in the means of updates from the 5th to the 10th and none from the 11th to the 15th, but that shouldn’t be so hard.) In the meantime I’m looking to write a bit about the PSP remakes of Star Ocean: First Departure and Second Evolution which I’ve thuroughly enjoyed, as well as a couple of top 10s: Top 10 RPGs I’ve played that I think everyone should play, top 10 Fighters, and if I ever feel like getting through it and writing about my most disturbing video game memories, top 10 things I never want to see in the gaming industry or community ever again.
I’ve definitely been heavy on gaming over the past while trying to shift my focus onto something away from my personal issues at the moment. Interestingly enough I find myself picking up my PSP to play some Super Stardust Portable in which I’ve improved quite a bit on now. (Enough to make me just download No Gravity as well.) I’ve also been messing around with a couple of free MMOs, and I think I’ve settled on Drift City (a quirky little MMO-style racing game) and Lunia (part RPG, part beat-em up I guess) for the time being. Both games are provided by ijji games and so far I’ve been impressed with them. They actually have quite an interesting lineup of free games to try (Gunbound and Gunz: The Duel also come to mind) and are definitely worth checking out.
In the meantime, happy gaming.
First Impressions: Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon
Feb 20th
I have a couple of top 10s lined up, but for now here’s something that I can effectively write about.
For once, American Fire Emblem fans had to go through what European gamers go through in general. Believe it or not, Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon has been out in Europe since mid December. The game finally made landfall in the US early this week, although it sucks to be you if you live in the land down under right now as you still have a couple of months to wait.
Realizing that I had some extra cash to spend, I ended up picking this up. Although I’m not all that great at this notorious difficult SRPG series, I’ve always picked them up starting with the first, but now how does the latest version of the game that started it all hold out?
And Now For Something Completely Different: Sega Announces Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games
Feb 12th
Pardon my eagerness to write something about this, but as I’m an Olympic fanatic and the next Olympic games happens to be happening in my hometown, I just have to go through with this.
On a day where Canada is marking the one year countdown to the start of the opening ceremonies for the 2010 winter games, Sega decided to mark the occasion in their own way by uploading a teaser video on YouTube for their second Olympic-based game following their Mario and Sonic mashup of Beijing 2008, Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games.
Impressions: Phantasy Star Portable (PSP)
Feb 9th
Sega’s been really busy with their long-running RPG franchise in the past while, first releasing this, Phantasy Star Portable, in Japan, and then Phantasy Star Zero on the DS, and then getting their localizations underway. The demo for PSP, which takes you up to the first boss then leaves you to explore the multiplayer option as much as you choose, has been available for download on PSN for a good portion of the last week now. With turn-based combat pushed aside a long time ago, being replaced with the real-time combat of MMO entries Phantasy Star Online and Universe, how does this fare on the handheld?
Indie Gaming: Fidgeting with M.U.G.E.N
Feb 6th
Running around with your head cut off for a week leaves me little time to write a blog post, so today I will be trying my best to do a double update.
Fighting games are quite the genre of its own. One on one fights in which you try to bust out absolutely insane combos and memorize complex button combinations make it one of the more difficult and more competitive types of games out there. I remember back in the days; I was so bad with Street Fighter II that I couldn’t even throw a Hadouken. The game when it initially made its way to the SNES was a hit with all the boys at school. They would go home and that’s all they’d play.
