Hack 'n' Slash 'n' Shoot 'n' Run

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danielkempster

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Edited By danielkempster

First things first. I'd like to apologise for my recent absence from the Giant Bomb blogosphere. I've been a little preoccupied with writing an essay for my Early Modern Literature module (a rather interesting one, actually, concerning racism and sexism in Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta). While I still have yet to finish said essay, I'm also up pretty early for a Sunday morning, so I figured I'd use this time to briefly update you on what I've been playing since I finished Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony, as well as to let you know what I've got planned blog-wise before this year comes to an end. 
 

Lost Odyssey

Lost Odyssey looks great and offers a solid combat system 
Lost Odyssey looks great and offers a solid combat system 
Ever since I wrapped up The Ballad of Gay Tony, I've been sinking pretty much all of my game time into this awesome JRPG. While I'm intending to save my thoughts on this for a slightly longer write-up upon completion, I feel obliged to say a bit about it now. I'm currently on Disc 4, having just beaten the first part of Grand Staff and seen off the Nefarious Saints. I'm absolutely loving it so far, to the point I'm willing to say it's one of the best games I've played this year. Lost Odyssey offers pretty much everything I could ever want from a JRPG - it tells a brilliant story, the gameplay is a solid mix of dungeon-based puzzle-solving and extremely well-balanced turn-based combat, and it looks absolutely incredible. It's also well and truly staved off my JRPG blues. That's not to say it's perfect - long load times and an unusually low encounter rate are among its issues, but they are (thankfully) minor. I don't want to say too much else, for fear of ruining the Discovering Gaming Greatness blog that I'm planning to write for this in the near future. For now, all you need to know is that Lost Odyssey is great. If you need a JRPG to fill the void in your 360 until Final Fantasy XIII comes out next year, you could do a lot worse than this game.
 

Team Fortress 2

I can see you... 
I can see you... 
A bit of an interesting story behind this one. Last weekend here in the UK Microsoft held something called the Winter Xtival. For the uninitiated, it was essentially an Xbox LIVE free weekend, with some cool multiplayer events thrown in for good measure. As somebody with only a Silver membership, I decided I'd make the most of the Winter Xtival and play some online multiplayer over the weekend. My first thought was to play a little of Grand Theft Auto IV's multiplayer, I ended up changing my mind in favour of popping my Team Fortress 2 cherry. While the 360 version of the game may not have much of a community, I had a blast playing it over the long weekend. I spent my first few matches under the guise of a Medic, and ended up experimenting with all the classes before I settled on the Sniper as my class of choice. Now I've caught the TF2 bug I wish I could pick up the PC version and keep on playing, but sadly my laptop doesn't have enough "ooomph" to run it. Hopefully while I'm at home over Christmas I'll be able to get it running on the family PC and maybe even engage in one or two holiday Bombing Runs.
 

A Most Difficult Decision

That's essentially all I've played since I last blogged, with the exception of a couple of games of Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved (which I still suck at, by the way). One thing I've noticed while looking over the list of games I've played this year, though, is that my beloved PS2, my favourite games machine of all time, has been largely neglected in 2009 in favour of my Xbox 360 over the last six months or so. I intend to put this right by picking up a PS2 game and playing through it before Big Ben chimes midnight on December 31st. My question to you, the Giant Bomb community, is which game should that be? I've managed to narrow it down to a personal three-way choice between Deus Ex, Primal, and Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, but if you'd rather head on over to my Pile of Shame and suggest something else, I'd be more than happy to consider it.
 

Blogs To Come...

Between now and Christmas there are a few things I intend to put out into the blogosphere. Here's a brief summary of what you can expect to see on this page in the coming weeks:
 
  • 2009: The Year In Review - As the name suggests, this will be a blog looking back on my own gaming experiences of 2009. Think of it as a kind of sequel to the 2008 review I wrote earlier this year. Expect this right at the end of December.
  • Why Red Dead Redemption Will Probably Be My Game Of The Year 2010 - Red Dead Redemption is the 2010 release I'm most excited for. This blog will shed a little light on the reasons why.
  • Return Of The Christmas Mega-Blog - Remember last year's three-partChristmasMega-Blog? Well, I'm planning to write another one this year as my Christmas present to the Giant Bomb community.
  • Lost Odyssey: Discovering Gaming Greatness - As I mentioned earlier in this blog, I'm intending to finish Lost Odyssey before the year is out. As soon as I do, you can expect a lengthy write-up expressing my opinions on the way it plays, as well as what I liked and what I didn't.

I think that's enough to constitute a decent update. Until next time guys, take care. I'll see you around. 
 
 
Dan 
 
--- 
 
Currently playing - Lost Odyssey (X360)
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danielkempster

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#1  Edited By danielkempster

First things first. I'd like to apologise for my recent absence from the Giant Bomb blogosphere. I've been a little preoccupied with writing an essay for my Early Modern Literature module (a rather interesting one, actually, concerning racism and sexism in Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta). While I still have yet to finish said essay, I'm also up pretty early for a Sunday morning, so I figured I'd use this time to briefly update you on what I've been playing since I finished Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony, as well as to let you know what I've got planned blog-wise before this year comes to an end. 
 

Lost Odyssey

Lost Odyssey looks great and offers a solid combat system 
Lost Odyssey looks great and offers a solid combat system 
Ever since I wrapped up The Ballad of Gay Tony, I've been sinking pretty much all of my game time into this awesome JRPG. While I'm intending to save my thoughts on this for a slightly longer write-up upon completion, I feel obliged to say a bit about it now. I'm currently on Disc 4, having just beaten the first part of Grand Staff and seen off the Nefarious Saints. I'm absolutely loving it so far, to the point I'm willing to say it's one of the best games I've played this year. Lost Odyssey offers pretty much everything I could ever want from a JRPG - it tells a brilliant story, the gameplay is a solid mix of dungeon-based puzzle-solving and extremely well-balanced turn-based combat, and it looks absolutely incredible. It's also well and truly staved off my JRPG blues. That's not to say it's perfect - long load times and an unusually low encounter rate are among its issues, but they are (thankfully) minor. I don't want to say too much else, for fear of ruining the Discovering Gaming Greatness blog that I'm planning to write for this in the near future. For now, all you need to know is that Lost Odyssey is great. If you need a JRPG to fill the void in your 360 until Final Fantasy XIII comes out next year, you could do a lot worse than this game.
 

Team Fortress 2

I can see you... 
I can see you... 
A bit of an interesting story behind this one. Last weekend here in the UK Microsoft held something called the Winter Xtival. For the uninitiated, it was essentially an Xbox LIVE free weekend, with some cool multiplayer events thrown in for good measure. As somebody with only a Silver membership, I decided I'd make the most of the Winter Xtival and play some online multiplayer over the weekend. My first thought was to play a little of Grand Theft Auto IV's multiplayer, I ended up changing my mind in favour of popping my Team Fortress 2 cherry. While the 360 version of the game may not have much of a community, I had a blast playing it over the long weekend. I spent my first few matches under the guise of a Medic, and ended up experimenting with all the classes before I settled on the Sniper as my class of choice. Now I've caught the TF2 bug I wish I could pick up the PC version and keep on playing, but sadly my laptop doesn't have enough "ooomph" to run it. Hopefully while I'm at home over Christmas I'll be able to get it running on the family PC and maybe even engage in one or two holiday Bombing Runs.
 

A Most Difficult Decision

That's essentially all I've played since I last blogged, with the exception of a couple of games of Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved (which I still suck at, by the way). One thing I've noticed while looking over the list of games I've played this year, though, is that my beloved PS2, my favourite games machine of all time, has been largely neglected in 2009 in favour of my Xbox 360 over the last six months or so. I intend to put this right by picking up a PS2 game and playing through it before Big Ben chimes midnight on December 31st. My question to you, the Giant Bomb community, is which game should that be? I've managed to narrow it down to a personal three-way choice between Deus Ex, Primal, and Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, but if you'd rather head on over to my Pile of Shame and suggest something else, I'd be more than happy to consider it.
 

Blogs To Come...

Between now and Christmas there are a few things I intend to put out into the blogosphere. Here's a brief summary of what you can expect to see on this page in the coming weeks:
 
  • 2009: The Year In Review - As the name suggests, this will be a blog looking back on my own gaming experiences of 2009. Think of it as a kind of sequel to the 2008 review I wrote earlier this year. Expect this right at the end of December.
  • Why Red Dead Redemption Will Probably Be My Game Of The Year 2010 - Red Dead Redemption is the 2010 release I'm most excited for. This blog will shed a little light on the reasons why.
  • Return Of The Christmas Mega-Blog - Remember last year's three-partChristmasMega-Blog? Well, I'm planning to write another one this year as my Christmas present to the Giant Bomb community.
  • Lost Odyssey: Discovering Gaming Greatness - As I mentioned earlier in this blog, I'm intending to finish Lost Odyssey before the year is out. As soon as I do, you can expect a lengthy write-up expressing my opinions on the way it plays, as well as what I liked and what I didn't.

I think that's enough to constitute a decent update. Until next time guys, take care. I'll see you around. 
 
 
Dan 
 
--- 
 
Currently playing - Lost Odyssey (X360)
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natetodamax

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#2  Edited By natetodamax

Nice blog. I considered getting Lost Odyssey for a while, but I was turned off by some of the criticism. Despite that, I'll probably end up getting it at some point.

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Video_Game_King

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#3  Edited By Video_Game_King

Wait, the UK had a free online weekend? Why didn't this carry over to other areas? Or why didn't they tell anybody so all the Silver people could go on a temporary mass exodus to the United Kingdom?

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sparky_buzzsaw

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#4  Edited By sparky_buzzsaw

I enjoyed Lost Odyssey, but I thought there were a lot of little niggling details that annoyed me.  The largest of those were Cooke and Mack - those kids had a great lead-in story, but I don't like kids being a part of my RPG's.  Just a personal thing, but it always seems silly to see ten year olds helping to save life, the universe, and everything.
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Claude

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#5  Edited By Claude

Deus EX wasn't a bad game at all on the PS2. I played it on that and then bought the PC version. I would play that, but just remember it looks old on the PS2.

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ElectricHaggis

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#6  Edited By ElectricHaggis

The Jew of Malta?  Sounds like The Merchant of Venice.  Who ripped off whom, I wonder.  I suppose I should look it up.  This is a terribly lazy post, I'll admit...

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