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Blogcraft - This world is MINE! craft...

By animateria April 29, 2011 8 Comments

I haven't blogged on GB forever after my second Monster Hunter blog got gobbled up by a GB web error. I was severely traumatized that time and well....

.............. sniff..............

ANYWAYS! Minecraft has inspired me to try again. I'm planning on posting a couple of these, show casing a couple of my creations. I'd do it in one blog but man... It's a lot of images.

Welp. Here we go.

Welcome to my spawn point!

I hated my spawn point to be honest. It was right next to a large body of water and only dirt and sand all around.

No trees. No nothin. The first thing that happened to me when I spawned for the first time is a confusing walk around the area. Nighttime. Then death. Worst game experience ever.

Anyways, I found shelter in a floating piece of land over those stairs I've made. Turned it into a small dirt fortress. Looking out a small window, despairing at all the zombies, skeletons and creepers that walked around my shelter. Had to fight off spiders that would crawl around the roof too.

It was dirt at first. But now it's my secure gateway.

Well the first thing I did was convert my dirt shelter into something bigger and roomier. I added ledges so spiders would never bother my roof.

Then I started converting it from dirt into cobblestone. And finally when I felt secure and relaxed I made it what it is today. A entrance gateway that I use as shelter as well as a hub to all my other buildings. Wasn't easy you know? Building in the air... I had my fair share of death by falling off the ledges and everything.

At the beginning of time... This was all dirt.

And well, that started my mad craze to dig to the bottom of the World of Minecraft. And I had so much excess Cobblestone I had to do something with it.

It started humble enough... Making floating passageways to explore the world from above in my floating fortress. But man...

It got crazy.

I welcome you to Altaria. The Land of Wings..... Cause you know, it floats like it has wings.

First was the fountain. I had to make a fountain. It's just you know? The first thing any civilization should start with. Fountains.

Then of course I needed a farm. A floating one of course.

And what do I need to do to make all of this happen? I need to mine!

This is my mine entrance. Yep. It's floating as well. You probably get the theme by now.

I mined sideways, upwards and downwards. But you know what? If I'm going to mine. I want to see how far down I can go. So I started digging straight down.

You can actually just freefall... Just don't forget to grab the ladder near the end!

And down and down I went... Making a ladder that would take me straight up to the entrance I made.

And one day, I made it! I made it to the bottom of the world!

I mean to be fair there was lava all over where the ladder was so I had to dig around my origin point. Filled the area around the lava with glass to commemorate my dig. I hit rock bottom. In a good way.

I almost got killed a couple times trying to do this. But bottoms of worlds need special things.

It was glorious. I've fallen into pits that contained a bunch of monsters. Got attacked from caves that connected to my downward tunnel. Got blown up countless times by creepers hiding in corners of said caves. But I made it to the bottom of the world.

High on my victory I decided to make the most amazing thing I can think of. A giant building that would serve as the worlds first wonder.

You can already see the building here but the story is for another day.

Oh and my two Hubs that are on different Biomes. Nothing much to be said... Connected by a long 'floating' passageway, they are just small shelters for now.

8 Comments

The monster's I've hunted so far.

By animateria April 22, 2010 11 Comments

By order I hunted them down. I mostly used a hammer against these guys, it's as over powered as ever.

1. Great Jaggi

He might look bigger than your regular dromes from the other Monster Hunters, but he's still just a drome in the end. Easy as pie. Or cake if you prefer that. I pounded his face in with a hammer and he gets easily dizzied (KOed), and he dies rather quickly compared to his size. No more bugging the village for you, Great Jaggi.

2. Qurupeco

Deceptively easy to kill until it summons other monsters. It's fine when it summons a Great Jaggi, the monster hates the Qurupeco (the damn bird always summons his minions by mimicing him, of course he's pissed) and will attack the Qurupeco often enough. But when it summons a Rathian, better have a dung bomb ready or you'll just have to run out of there. The other thing it summons is a Royal Ludroth... Pretty much a pain in the ass. I heard it also summons a Deviljo in higher online content, and that sucker is huge! But yeah otherwise I had no problem killing the Qurupeco

He was on my farm list for his armor, one of the best early armors you'll get. It increases defense, evasion time, and potions do more healing when you have full gear.

3.

The first monster that forced me to use mega potions a couple times. He's also the first that I had to fight underwater. He's a slippery one, likes to lunge at you and roll around on the surface. The Qurupeco hammer, which does fire damage, is pretty excellent against the guy. The hammer is great underwater thanks to it's Full Charge attacks. You can either do one strong pound or do a spinning attack similar to a spinning lariat Gief does. The spinning attack moves forward pretty fast underwater so it's perfect against this guy. I need to hunt a couple more to make my water element hammer but otherwise his materials are pretty useless.

Fighting underwater is actually fairly easy. Just remember you can use the dodge button in underwater as well, a lot of attacks can be dodged even if you feel a bit sluggish.

4. Gobul

He can be a bit hard to find since he burrows under the water bed, but you'll see a lump of sand shifting around. My advice? RUN THE HELL AWAY. He likes to do a vacuum attack where he sucks water into his mouth and you can't dodge it once you are in the vacuum. He only does it when he burrows under the ground so it's easy to tell, just don't be near him when it happens. Best strategy is to stick as close to the water bed, and swim away from the lump of sand moving around. Otherwise he's similar to the Royal Ludroth. He occasionally goes on land and likes to lunge and roll something I got used to with the R. Ludroth. I didn't have much problem with the guy.

On a side note, his tiny flipper feet are really cute.

5. Great Baggi

He's just a Great Jaggi but with one more attack. His spit puts you to sleep, no big deal. I'm just hunting him again to upgrade my Great Sword. Easy as Ice cream cake.

6. Barroth

Okay he's not getting the big image treatment because he's special or anything. The webpage I'm getting these images from didn't seem to have scaled this dudes image. As the first Brute Wyvern I encountered he likes to get real aggressive and intimidating. So I guess he does deserve a special treatment... He wasn't too hard for me to hunt down but he's also the first one to knock me out. It was a bit of bad luck with Jaggis nipping at my feet and then eating a full charge and a tail whip from this guy.

He also likes to roll in mud, then shake it off around him, if you get hit it doesn't do much damage but it does prevent you from attacking for awhile, my Cha-Cha usually hit the mud off or I used the bugs flying around to attack me to get the mud off. For co-op you have the handy 'kick' button for this reason.

Encountered but not fought:

1. Rathian

The damn Qurupeco decided to summon her, I'm a bit undergeared to fight her so I just threw a dung bomb at her and she flew away. Another time she didn't run away, I nearly died trying to deal with the Qurupeco while ignoring her. A pretty deadly gal if you ask me.

2. Gigginox

Encountered this weird guy while mining some ore. I decided to ignore him since I just wanted to mind, but he tried to literally devour me, I had to mash buttons to get out of his hold. He also spits out a glob of poison or lays a massive puss ball that has tiny baby Giggis crawling out of it. Bleh.

So far my hunting progression has been silky smooth with no hiccups, however the chief decided I was ready to go against this bad boy.

The Lagiacrus!

The first monster that I feel uneasy about fighting even before the fight. The other monsters so far are small fry compared to this guy. But he's also the one that I could use to make my first Long Sword.

Welp, that's my Monster Hunter Tri progression as of today. I'm probably going to go online, but I don't know how good random people are. It would suck to not accomplish easy tasks because they get knocked out. And the lack of communication is hard, I can't ask if they want to do any particular thing. I'm buying a USB keyboard for this game (No Wiispeak because it's a waste of money for just this one game).

Anyways, how far did you guys progress in the game so far?

11 Comments

Finally got a Wii!

By animateria April 12, 2010 24 Comments

After much thought I decided to get a Wii, of course it helped that I got enough money from my birthday to cover most of the costs.

I managed to snag a Wii bundle from Target that comes with Wii Sports Resort for free, which means I got my Wii Motion Plus on as well.

Those in the US, this deal lasts till the 13th so it's a good time to buy a Wii. If they don't have it in the display they might have it in storage, I asked one of the workers when I didn't see any in the display.

Anyways, short comments on the games I got (Besides the original Wii Sport anyways).

Wii Sports Resort is pretty entertaining, though a bit shallow in the content. Not surprising since it's pretty much the demo for the Wii Motion Plus, something even Nintendo seems to be ignoring after it's launch. Again, not surprising at the very least.

Then I popped in my demo copy of Monster Hunter Tri, boy was I in for a doozy. Thanks to the limited number of buttons on the Nunchuck all of the left hand's work moved over to the right hand. B is to dodge, A is to attack, (-) is the alternate attack and 1 is item usage, and the D-pad is for camera controls. WHAT THE FUCK! My right hand has to constantly move up and down the Wiimote. Well, I did beat the two bosses easily with the hammer since it only uses the Z for charge attack, A for triple pound attack, and B for dodge. And since I mostly use the Z button 80% of the time, my right hand could just work the camera and the dodge button. The game is still great, I wish I had a CC at least to tryout the other weapons properly. This game should only come in a bundle like Wii Sports Resort, using the CCP is the only proper way to play the game.

Last but not least, got a used copy of Muramasa for $27 bucks at Gamestop. Pretty sweet deal, and the CD was in mint condition without a single scratch. I'm liking the style of the game a lot. The game is pretty hectic, and fast (to be fair I put it on the harder difficulty in the beginning).

Anyways so far I'm enjoying my Wii and I know I'm going to use it quite a bit thanks to the pretty big back catalog. Older game suggestions anyone?

24 Comments

God Eater Preview (Import Demo)

By animateria March 22, 2010 4 Comments

I’m a loot whore, always has been, always will be. Monster Hunter Unite has been the meat of my PSP playtime, and Phantasy Star Portable the desert. I’ve beaten Demon’s Souls and collected most of the loot, played through Borderlands a couple times, and finished Torchlight.

Of all these games though, I found that Monster Hunter Unite was the most challenging and satisfying game of them all. So it isn’t any surprise that I’ve become interested in God Eater, a blatant Monster Hunter clone (I guess killing gods in Japanese games is too cliché nowadays, eating them is definitely the way to go).

God Eater is a success in Japan, topping the sales charts two weeks in a row after it’s release. It’s probably no surprise since it’s inspiration single handedly revived the PSP in Japan.

While the game has been announced for the US in Q3 2010, the demo remains a Japan only deal. Thankfully the demo is also available through a PC download, giving me an opportunity to try out the game. Keep in mind that I might miss certain elements of the game due to my lack of understanding of Japanese.

The customization when you start up a new character is pretty limited but gets the job done. You will be able to pick various options like the hair, face, and customize their colors as well as the characters skin tone. You can then mix and match your character’s outfit, but this option as well as hair style can be changed in the game as well.

After a cut scene and some dialog between several characters, I gained to control over my character in the main hub. This area gives you the option to purchase various goods such as potions, outfits, and weapons. There’s also an NPC that gives you various quests, a computer looking device that gives you options to store/take items, craft or upgrade new weapons and outfits among other things.

The game features an interesting weapon mechanic, your weapon can either transform into a sword or a gun. So in any given situation you can choose to use the most effective type with just a push of a button. The various parts of the weapon can be customized before the battle, there are three different gun or sword types you can use depending on their weight. While the gun doesn’t feel drastically different, each of the sword types have a different speed and damage parameter as well as their own unique special attack.

The weapon can also eat enemies and bosses for crafting material and gun ammunition. By holding down the triangle button in sword mode, the sword changes into a giant black mouth that takes a chomp at the enemy when the button is released. It gets fairly important to use this mechanic whenever a monster is staggered to gain a temporary boost in movement as well as some special ammo.

The transforming animation from gun to a sword, or vice versa, looks smooth but ultimately makes no sense what-so-ever. During the transformation the two parts either shrink or grow to impossible levels. It’s a rather unfortunate design decision since I think they could have easily incorporated a method that made physical sense.

The transforming animation from gun to a sword, or vice versa, looks smooth but ultimately makes no sense what-so-ever. During the transformation the two parts either shrink or grow to impossible levels. It’s a rather unfortunate design decision since I think they could have easily incorporated a method that made physical sense.

After a couple training missions I finally got into an actual quest with 3 other A.I. buddies. The fight against the monster was pretty easy thanks to the dodge button that lets you quickly dash away from enemies. The tactic I found best was to hit the target with a short combo and dash away, then look for another opportunity to attack.

The game features a lock on system that can target individual body parts. The feature is useful when focusing on breaking a specific body part, which leads to better rewards, but the targeting can occasionally be finicky since you might need to cycle between different parts to get to your intended target.

The A.I. companions make the game much more newbie friendly than it’s inspiration as well. They are more than capable of dishing out damage and distracting the enemy. They can also revive you during a fight as many times as they want. After another quest against the larger monster, however, I’ve found a few problems with the game.

As with Monster Hunter, you expect the enemies to deal massive damage to your character. But I found that I didn’t need to waste my potions even when I have very little health left. The healing potions only heal a miniscule amount of your HP, while A.I. partners can infinitely revive you. I ended up just fainting every time while waiting a couple seconds for the A.I. to save me. In all honesty, I believe the A.I. companions can defeat the boss without a singe input from the player. They are just too capable.

Thankfully, you can actually choose how many partners you take along in any given quest (from 0-3 partners). But since grinding for materials is an important aspect of the game, I wouldn’t be surprised if most players just exploit the system they have in place.

Another problem with the game is the environments. While it’s nice to have a single large area with no loading screens, the game has many drawbacks from using such a design.

First, there isn’t a whole lot of detail in the surroundings, making the game world feel really bland. One of the best aspects of Monster Hunter is that it manages to create an illusion that there’s a living world and ecosystem in the game. While the post-apocalyptic setting in God Eater can explain the lack of a thriving ecosystem, the areas mostly consist of square platforms and flat surfaces with little to no signs of rubble or destruction.

Secondly, if they have more than 1 boss type monster in an area there is no way to lure one out and fight them alone. While they aren’t grouped together from the start of a quest, considering that all boss monsters wander the given area, you’ll eventually end up with all of them bunched up together. In one particular quest, the game decided to pit me against 3 bosses. Oh, and here’s the kicker, I can’t bring any A.I. buddies to tag along. It’s an impossible hurricane of fury that only leads to a swift and confusing death.

There’s a similar sense of progression you’d expect from a Monster Hunter game. The crafting and upgrading of weapons is a pure joy. And while the bosses and creatures in the game aren’t as engaging in design or behavior, they are competent and unique in their own way. The combat is good and it doesn't hurt that it feels faster than Monster Hunter.

Overall, it’s a decent stab at Monster Hunter, but similar to many games that clone successful titles, it ends up feeling a bit shallow and soulless in the end. Here’s hoping that I missed some key elements either due to the nature of a demo or the language barrier. I’m still looking forward to playing the US version of God Eater. Expect a review or another in-depth preview when the game finally arrives in the States.

4 Comments

Fuck you, Nargakuga! Why no Tekken 6? And warriors are lame.

By animateria November 30, 2009 2 Comments

Finally killed HR8 Nargakuga solo!

I decided that I'll just smack him around with my Great Sword, and on my second try, KO!

My solo Monster Hunter career is finally back in motion again! Fuck you, whal.... Nargakuga!

Ahem... Anyways...

After looking through Black Friday deals on Amazon (I'm too lazy to get up early in the freezing cold), I found a pretty sweet deal for Tekken 6 for $33 dollars.

After putting it in the cart and getting ready to pay for it, I decided that I'd rather save that money for next year releases. One of which being Super Street Fighter 4.

So essentially I'm skipping on a new game, for a relatively incremental update? I find my reasoning confusing and illogical.

I've enjoyed Tekken 5 DR on my PS3 for quite a while, an logged a lot of time into it. But Tekken 6 just doesn't give me excitement the way Street Fighter 4 did when it came out. Maybe it's because it looks like it plays similar to TK5DR? Then again Super isn't really a new game either...

I can't figure out whats going on my mind.

Speaking of (tying of?) Black Friday deals, Trine was on sale for 10 bucks on Steam yesterday (sorry folks, it's gone), which totally is the ball park number for me to purchase the game.

It's pretty awesome. The graphics are beautiful, and the physics in the game work well. I probably don't need to elaborate on the game much, with reviews and all, but it's definitely something everyone should try.

I must say though, the warrior or knight or whatever he is, not that important in the game. His specialty is blocking... that's about it.

The wizard is essential in many platforming puzzles summoning blocks and planks, using telekinesis to move objects, the Thief is nimble and can grapple similar to Bionic Commando, and shoots 4 arrows at once and wall jump. The Warrior? He blocks and swings his sword. He gets a hammer but can't block with it, not a particularly sound idea when your main thing is to block.

Makes me wonder why I rolled a prot Pally when I used to play WoW.......

........

But yeah, Trine, awesome.

2 Comments

Copy of Warhammer that Amazon sent as Pre-order bonus for WOTLK?

By animateria July 26, 2009 11 Comments

I've just got up to go to the bathroom and noticed a box piled around other random stuff I have in my room.

Warhammer Online?

Pre-order bonus?

But... I've never ordered Warhammer?

That's when I remembered that my WoW: Wrath of the Lich King Collector's Edition last year had an odd orange box accompanying it. Which I have promptly ignored...

First thought, "Huh, I guess the pre-order bonus for WOTLK was Warhammer..."

Second thought, "Wait that's not right! That can't be right at all?!"

On closer inspection... They gave me a copy of the Pre-order Bonus Edition of Warhammer Online!

Now I'm not sure if this was Amazon policy to throw down some games to remove inventory, but this is pretty ridiculous.

Has anyone else got some random items shipping to them from Amazon or any online store like this?

11 Comments

Natal + Space Channel 5 = Win?

By animateria July 7, 2009 3 Comments

While watching the MJ tribute video it occurred to me that a "Simon Says" music game is totally viable on Natal.

Did I say viable?

I mean... IT WOULD BE FRIGGIN AWESOME!

All those quirky rhythm games and arcade games can be played with only one add-on. Which would be cheap for the consumer and easier for game makers to bring already existing arcade franchises without worrying about hardware.

As an example, or initial game I thought of, doing the motions of Space Channel 5 is pretty easy already. But instead of pressing up, down or buttons, you can just act it out one-to-one. I think this makes a better use of Natal than its usage as a sports, FPS or racing game. Which honestly, will never have the options and fidelity of a controller.

However, I generally have doubts of any camera or motion devices as a pure gaming device, The PSeye isn't doing much, And I don't think "waggle" only games on the Wii are interesting either. Unless MS can pull something out of their ass, I doubt that they would have a whole lot going on either.

Anyways, a Natal or the Sony camera (to a certain extent) can probably pull off a Space Channel 5 pretty easily. I do hope we see a sequel of some sort in the future for those devices.

Oh, I haven't forgot about the Wii. With a Wiifit board (For foot input) and the controller combination, one would wonder why they haven't made a decent and quirky rhythm game yet. (Unless I totally missed one?)

3 Comments

LATE TO THE GAME: Braid

By animateria April 24, 2009 6 Comments

LATE TO THE GAME : Braid

I missed the whole Braid boat due to the fact that I didn't have a 360 at the time (Or even now for that Matter). I found those discussions on its storytelling interesting.
It has been hyped as THE indie game or THE 'art' game during those days and I wanted to experience what people were talking about. A demonstration of how games are becoming more mature.

And finally, the PC version of Braid was released on Steam, I bought it when it came out and beat the game in the next couple of days.

Excellent, excellent gameplay, I absolutely enjoyed every moment of it. I liked the twist at the end too. A narrative that changed depending on whether its on 'play' or 'rewind' is quite the mental feat. The art direction was very beautiful, and fit the game nicely. The audio was superb. (I don't need to go into details since all the reviews covered that bit anyways.)

And yet I'm puzzled why people made such a big deal out of its storytelling.

It was dry, disconnected, and overall unnecessary for the game. I believe the game would have given me the same satisfaction without the story. This is mainly due to the fact that it was, in fact, not connected to the game at all. As a short story it already bored me, it was predictable, uninteresting, and overall I didn't feel sympathetic to the main character. And the fact that such writing was just laid there with no presentational value, exasperated the problems. The disaster that was described at the end, the final narrative, was the game itself. Building this tower that, because the creator was so focused on his ideas, his ideals, he lost the essence of what made his game unique. It felt much like a gem that was beautiful on its own, but because of the greediness of its owner, became covered in dull rusty metal that just devalued its original splendor.

Its a great game to play, and I highly recommend everyone who didn't play it to buy it off of Steam or 360. But saying its art, saying that its deep is a bit, ironically, shallow. It doesn't have any artistic value in the writing itself, or how the narrative is presented to the viewer. I find it hilarious that some sites actually discussed the game in a deep pseudo-philosophical way, it just doesn't have the content to be discussed in such manner. As gamers, we sometimes want to argue that games are becoming mature. But let's not try to idealize and raise up every game that we think has depth, it just creates openings for over-analyzation and ignorance. Let's not get full of ourselves.

(Late to the Game is a blog trying to discuss games in a different manner from reviews, because there is enough competent reviewers, why bother. It's about older games, mandatory spoilers, shoddy writing, and trying to find out why I would enjoy a game. Not what would make a game enjoyable.)

6 Comments