I have been playing a ton of games and ignoring the crap out of this blog... remember when I used to post every week, even if it was pointless? Remember when I used to post at times multiple times a week? Remember when this blog didn't suck? Okay, okay, that was a bit extreme, but point is I have to attempt to write in this sucka, it's not like I don't have anything to talk about. Turns out since I procrastinate like the dickens (whatever that means) I have a TON to talk about, so this is an EPIC blog warning... oh yeah, remember when I used to write 1,700+ word blogs?

On today's agenda: Twitter-itis, Bionic Suckage (Finished: Bionic Commando), Finished: Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, Playing Mediocrity: Sacred 2: Fallen Angel, Klonoa (Wii) Impressions and Closing Out. This is bound to be EPIC, like I said, so let's get to blogging: Now Loading s.tyle!

Twitter-itis
One of the reasons that I haven't blogged as much was because I started using Twitter. Now, I don't update as much as I should, but I plan to start using it more often. I also post links to my latest blogs on there so you can get my latest updates quicker. If you would like to follow me, my twitter address is: http://twitter.com/alpha99. Enjoy the tweets.

Bionic Suckage (Finished: Bionic Commando)
So on Saturday (May 23) I picked up Bionic Commando for the 360 and spent the week playing it (between other games) and finally finished it yesterday (May 28) and holy shit, that development house GRIN just cannot develop a decent game. Between Wanted: Weapons of Fate" and Terminator Salvation, Bionic Commando is another development disaster. While those first two games clock in at a grand total of maybe 10 hours combined, Bionic Commando (BC) takes about 10 hours to complete alone, which I guess is an improvement, but that would only be if it was 10 hours worth playing. BC over-stays its welcome with boring lackluster gameplay, brutal level design, artificial restrictions on freedom of play and its hammy all too serious melodramatic and cynical story and voice acting.

First the gameplay, sure the swinging is kind of fun, but because of a few reasons it is rendered a gimmick. Most levels are coated in blue radiation, which is just the game's excuse to artificially limit the range of the levels, GRIN may as well of put flashing red walls all around the levels. Some buildings have a blue tint and you can't grapple those and then there are flatout clouds of radiations that will kill you in seconds if you get to deep in to it. You know what, fuck all this talk, the biggest thing that makes BC not fun to play is how easily you can die. Some enemies can kill you in two hits on Normal difficulty, there are bottomless pits (represented by water (you can't swim because of your heavy bionic arm and iron boots) and blue radiation cloud pits) all over the place where one missed swing can send you back 10 minutes of gameplay and it takes 15+ seconds for your health to fully regenerate. The checkpoints can be brutal (most of the time they are pretty nice), there are few long sections where if you die (which is easy) you can be set back 10 - 15 minutes or more.

In terms of enemies there are these "Biomechs" which chase around areas, have a jumping smash attack that takes away half your health, they are impervious to bullets except on their tiny weak point on there back, usually come in pairs and later in the game shoot blue balls of energy at you (which in a clever touch throw at you using a "hadoken" animation). It becomes a stupid cat and mouse game, where you run for your life (they are capable of killing you in two hits), hope to get a explosives based weapon or buy enough time to throw something at them. It is a pain in the ass and not fun in the least, exciting and thrilling yes, fun, no.

Speaking of weapons, what a boring lot. The default pea-shooter pistol and the other weapons you get like 8 shots for and then discard when a new weapon drop appears. If all that didn't prove how much Bionic Commando sucks ass, it basically boils down to this... Kill enemies, hack node, checkpoint, walk into a tunnel, loading screen, kill enemies, hack node - disable minefield, checkpoint, kill all enemies, hack node, checkpoint, cut scene, checkpoint, fight mechs for an unessicary 10 minutes, miss a swing, game over, loading screen, kill mechs over again, exit area, loading screen, next area... repeat all steps for 10 hours. Though you might want to add a few more game overs in to those steps. There are areas that are five minutes long and they are separated by loading screens... you make a game about swinging and you close off the world to the degree that GRIN did... epic fail.

That's not even mentioning the decent voice acting which is destroyed by a terribly forced script that has characters being all melodramatic and cynical about the world using forced "badattitude" s.tyle too many cigarettes s.tyle voice acting. I'm stopping now because this is becoming too ranty... I will say before I leave this alone I really enjoyed the music, but other than that one good point, I'll probably NEVER play Bionic Commando ever again and you should never play it at all, its not worth your time.

Finished: Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World
About two weeks ago I finished Tales of Symphonia 2 (ToS2) and had mixed feelings about it. If you read my thoughts about the game in NLU Weekly #77 (see post below) I was pissed about how the story was written with the main characters from the first game being portrayed by the two new main characters as being the enemy. Turns out you get to have everyone from the first game in your party in the last few hours of the game, that still does make up for the fact you can't play as them except in multiplayer. The dialog in this game is insipid and annoying... full of shitty made up words like Ratatosk and the word that is bound to make even the most professional voice actor sound like a dumbass... GINNUNGAGAP (Gi-nung-ga-gap). The gate blocking out the demon world is called the Ginnungagap... fucking Ginnungagap!

Continuing on with insipidness, the relationship between Emil and Marta is probably the most fake-ass, immature, forced and obnoxiously Japanese "romance" in history with Marta's clingy, annoying teenage-s.tyle idolizing behavior towards Emil. It is enough to make you sick. "I LOVE YOU EMIIIIL!" God, just saying doesn't make it true, though in game's reality all you have to do cling on to someone and squeal "I love you!" enough and by the end of it all you will get to have a kiss after the end credits. GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK! I'm going to puke just thinking about that absurdity, there is just not enough character development to deserve such an ending.

The other problem of that ToS2 suffers from is cutscene-itis. I would almost believe it if you told me there are more cutscenes than game. It's like they shoved the cutscenes for a 60 hour RPG into a 30 hour RPG. It also over uses the exposition to other characters fade to black. Characters rejoin the party and ask current characters what happened... well let us tell you... fade to black... oh, I get it. Sure it saves you having to go over exposition that YOU (the player) just experienced moments ago, but I have never seen it so many times in one place. In fact he final cutscenes of the game including the final fight and credits are nearly an hour long (with the fight maybe being 10 minutes of that hour). I complained there was too little story in Final Fantasy 12, but there is too much story in ToS2.

The thing I did enjoy about the game is the battle system. Similar to the usual Tales battle systems with the free movement button and massive combos this one has a little touch that makes it one of the best of Tales franchise. AERIAL COMBAT! Not only can you start off an enemy with your standard 4-hit ground combo you can use the 5th and final hit of that combo to launch the enemy up in to the air for a 7 or 8 hit aerial combo finished by using one of your aerial special artes and you can get a total of 15 or 16 hits. The best part of launching a monster is that it does not die until it hits the ground so you can really set up some brutal overkills if you time things right. As usual the battles are short, the game listed my average battle length as around 22 seconds. The original Tales of Symphonia is a GameCube c.lassic, this pseudo sequel is not really worth your time unless you can stomach the worst of kiddy anime romances and cutscenes up the ass.

Playing Mediocrity: Sacred 2: Fallen Angel
I went in to Sacred 2 not knowing what too expect really, I haven't played too many Diablo/Neverwinter Nights type PC RPGs before... turns out this is not really a good one. There is a pointless main story and about 600 side quests to do it Sacred 2, but before you get too excited out of those 600 quests... please realize there are about three types of them: get item, kill certain amount of specific monster (variation collect items from killed monster) and escort. That's it... you grind and grind and grind on three types of missions, slog through boring ass combat (you just hold down an attack button and feed yourself health potions) and listen to terrible voice acting. You have to be careful though this questing can suck you in... stuff like that is the exact reason I avoid all MMORPGs like the plague because I would become hopelessly addicted to completing quests and grinding the next level. Unfortuately for Sacred 2 the loot collecting and quest grinding has really worn on me and I am not sure I really care to play any more after 50+ hours. Don't PLAY THIS GAME.

Impressions: Klonoa (Wii)
Damn, I haven't had much luck with videogames over the past couple of weeks, but we are finally getting to one that is worth your time and that IS fun to play. Klonoa (Wii) is a remake of the first Klonoa game for the PS1. I never played the full game, though I did try a demo I had on an old US OPM Demo Disc and the first two levels are identical at least in layout to the Wii version. There isn't too much that needs to be said about Klonoa, it is a c.lassic side scrolling platformer with super tight controls and fun gameplay. The problems that I have found is that the game is really easy and really short... I just hit "Vision" 6-1 which means I have only 2 stages left. I also have 25 extra Klonoas... The other thing I don't like is Klonoa's short damage recovery time, it's not unusual to take two hits from a mistake... oh and he says what sounds like "hung-yah" every time he gets hit. With that said though, YOU SHOULD PLAY THIS GAME. It's charming, cute, fun and even has a neat little story too it.

Closing Out
That should do it for this epic blog entry, it only took two hours to write, but hopefully you enjoyed it. I also have been playing Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and it is growing on me... some of the Wii controls are cool (activating mechanisms and using your grapple beam), but I really could do without the "point to aim" controls, it takes a toll on your wrist to hold the Wii-Remote up like that. I also finally caved and got a new Xbox 360... not because it RROD or anything, but because the DVD drive just became a pain. I finally realized how busted it was since getting this new system... it's a pleasure to play games again without having to worry that the games are going to lock-up or get dirty disc errors. I got an arcade system ($200 cdn) and just stuck my harddrive to it, worked like a charm, though I will have to remain online at all times or deal with DRM issues (until I feel like messing with microsoft's DRM transfer tool). I gave my old system to my dad, he can play stuff like Pac-Man, Tetris and Bejeweled without using the DVD drive, so he should have fun with that.

I think that about covers all I needed to say, so I will talk to you later, hopefully next week with the next edition of NLU Weekly. Nathan "Rad" Spencer sums up his own game: "This shit is starting to piss me off!" Loading Complete!