My commitment to an hour of gaming each day has held up so far. I haven’t been so good at sticking to just one game at a time, though; as I mentioned on Twitter, I’m something of a poly-game-ist — a pun so terrible no one even replied. Shucks. I’ve been plugging away at Curse of the Crescent Isle a little bit at a time, and I’m enjoying it, but I admit it’s better in small pieces. As fun and inventive as it is, the game has enough quirks and glitches to be frustrating in large doses. Also, my Xbox 360 hard drive ended up crammed to capacity last night, so the game was seriously stuttering and choking until I figured out what was going on — no fault of the game, of course. I blame Crackdown 2 for eating up a sixth of my drive’s space on a game that was basically just Crackdown, except crappy. On the whole, I’d rather play Crescent Isle. Guess that makes it easier to decide which one gets deleted!
I’ve been playing more of The 3rd Birthday in the meantime. It’s supposedly a 10-12 hour game, and I have seven hours on my clock. So I should be about halfway through it, right? Well, no; I’m not even finished with the second of six episodes. I replayed the first mission in several different permutations in order to better grok things like Overdive Kills, weapon customization, the Over Energy system, and the in-game achievements for the sake of my 1UP preview.
Funnily enough, now that I’ve moved along and made significant progress in the second mission, I’m enjoying the game a lot more. I’ve gotten a feel for the flow of combat, the process of taking down enemies with OD Kills (when you see the triangle in the image above, that is your cue to blow up a monster with the power of your brain), the way to game Aya’s special powers by combining mutant DNA, and so on. I’m annoyed by the fanservice, the camera is pretty bad, and I wish the shooting mechanics were more complex — but it’s shaping up to be a much better game than I had originally thought.
Square cheated a little with the second mission, though. The combat scene music is a new rendition of the battle theme from the original Parasite Eve. How could I not love that?
And no, I still haven’t unlocked Aya’s Santa costume. Or any other silly costume, for that matter. I am OK with that.
“I’m something of a poly-game-ist — a pun so terrible no one even replied.”
That’s because it KILLED THEM. Didn’t you know that Twitter’s strict 140-character limit amplifies the stopping power of wordplay? A few more lethal puns like that and we can kiss social media goodbye.
Back in my college dorm, the proper response to such a pun was a *THWACK* upside the head, even if it was only administered verbally from across the room. Consider yourself *THWACK*ed.
P.S. Just a shout out to Kirin. It’s fun to unexpectedly cross paths with an Inertia Suite alum!
Whoa, hi… Greg, right? Small ‘net. Noticed the sneaky real names in the GSQ article attributions, did you?
Yeah, pretty much. I browsed through your articles and forum posts to confirm my suspicions, though.
Now to cleverly disguise the fact that this thread is becoming increasingly off-topic! Um…er…yeah, Crackdown 2 really stinks! Ha ha! (I wouldn’t know; I haven’t actually played it or the original.)
The Lightning costume is pretty cool.
I dunno why, even though I enjoyed the first two games, I can’t really get too excited for this one. I guess I’m just sorta… done with my PSP. Ready for a new handheld.
I loved PE2 – I never played the original as it didn’t come out in Europe, but the change to survival horror couldn’t have been better for me. Resident Evil was my favourite 32-bit series, and PE2 was basically a RE game with better combat and customisation. Plus I loved the Dryfields setting with it’s day/night cycles and puzzles.
I received a PSP for Christmas and PE3 is the main reason I wanted it along with Persona 3 Portable, but I’m not sure of the date for either being in PAL land. Imports may be in order.