"Is there anyway to get the footage from a DS to componant like the PSP?" "No"
I have been playing Dragon Quest IX. So far the first three hours have been me trying to go through story line and get to the actual character creating process for my other party members. In the old days of DW2 I would haul ass all over and skip battles to get my next party member to try and keep them all in line for levels. I even would purposely kill off the main character and grind to equal out the levels, and do this for subsequent characters as well.
In DW3 they let you create them straight off. This game, however, is not DW3. It does borrow heavily from DW3 though.
They had a class system, an advanced class, and the other three members of your party had no bearing on the story whatsoever. You created them so they don't need to have a bearing on the story. I recently saw someone on gamefaqs say they hated DW3 because of this but to that I always like to ask if they liked FF1, which essentially has NO main characters at all. There are differences as well.
You are expected to create your characters, but you have to go through monsters, traveling, and bosses to get to that point. Than the game does not let you know you can because the place you try to create them at does not exist yet. It is essentially part of the inn with no indication that is what it is for. It is just a person next to the main innkeeper. DW3 at least had a sign and people who told you to go there. This made me very mad because the way i played the game made me think I had to do an additional quest before I could get the option to create my other party members. Oh yeah, I was already at lv 6 by the time I got to my members. Most of the people talking about this game were much higher levels. by the time they reach 9-10 their other party members barely hit 5.
One more gripe is that in the original DW3 there was a special class that was pretty underpowered and would allow you to get to the advanced class if you could level a weak character up. I thought the minstrel class was this and ended up parting out my usual mage in exchange for that character..... TURNS OUT THE MAIN CHARACTER IS A MINSTREL! What this means is instead of being a unique HERO class, your character is not special at all. The whole idea behind the main character is he should be a little of everything, and no other class except the single advanced class, should be able to touch those skills. Instead you, the main character, are just a run of the mill bard, and most likely can change classes. So essentially my previous knowledge with 3 made me make a bad decision in my eyes as I opted to have no high dealing magical damage in the party, and instead have two weak casters for magical damage.
Last thing is the manual tells you NOTHING about classes or what the stats do. they give vague descriptions, talk nothing of skills, not even that the thief learns steal (common sense I know, but why should I have to guess at that and be surprised that he can apparently lay pit traps that serve no useful purpose to my knowledge), or that you are forced to start off as a minstrel. Hell i don't even know if when I get a chance to change classes if half my stats will carry over like the used to, or any of my skills, no forget skills, if any of my skill points will even carry over.
The manual is huge, and for it to be large and say nothing is a feat. I really feel like I have bought a game that came with no manual. Whats worse is there is a HUGE manual as if it is saying "hey dumbass, with all this here, how can you not find the answer!?" Well if it was never there that's why!
With that said, me being a die hard DW/DQ fan I am going to be playing this game through. I just believe it's unfortunate that you need to play 20 hours in to change classes and maybe screw it up so bad you feel you need to start over again or spend another 10-20 hours grinding to fix what you did. Than again because I have NO idea how it works yet maybe all this is unwarranted. Still to even feel like this in the first place is a shame and poor planning.
I don't know what is going on with the whole RPG scene these days I guess, but I know that I am not for games that take 20-40 hours to get 'good' I am looking at you new age FF series. It was hilarious watching Gabe and Tycho call in a co worker who was 30 hours into the game and was speechless when asked "so what is the game about". At least DQIX is not that bad!
Update: I checked and I have been playing for 22.5 hours in the span of less three full days. i would say that means I really do like it, but it can be frustrating at times. So why can't I put it down?
The 4th of July is over and I have a burnt eyebrow, scar from burning ember forming on my left wrist, minor blood blister on right thumb, burnt shirt, and possibly more as a result of 'fun'.
So with the new system for games you can always play a trial of the game before you buy it. I bought Death by Cube. The name is right, the price right at 50% off, and the trial/tutorial had me liking it. I actually thought this would be a game I could let's play. So I took a break, got 7 on 7 for Halo 3, played some Megaman 10 (no I did not buy it on sale x() and than dove into the game. I started to record audio and play the game while recording it. I found two things.
It's loud as all hell! (need to do -4 more decibels than red faction)
It's frustrating to the point of losing it's fun value
This leads me to believe the game may not be let's play material. Than I just told myself every game is let's playable, it just may never be watched fully due to annoyance. It feels a bit like Rocket Riot, except that game was at least predictable and had a strong base to work on and stay consistent. While Death by Cube seems to be a robotron and tetris combination with gradius and rpg elements installed. Well maybe not rpg, maybe just gradius when it gives you a choice of different vehicles, except that in gradius the vehicles were usable and none of them were gimped unless you meet a specific situation.
This is becoming more a review of a game than a blog so I will cut to the chase. I am going to do the game, but it will be more or less to see someone complete the game. I am going to be skipping hard parts, and instead of trying to record my first win on it, I am going to just show what I did, if I do it again, cool, if not, tough. The levels require me to almost try every different robot body to figure out which ones can make it, and which ones are ideal, I don't think I can do a gold on each level and show it and be entertaining with all the failures. The first 8 episodes show this transition, and the second 8 will be full fledged like this where my score will jump up from going back and completing levels for points and lower from buying bodies.
I will give the game credit for making me want to play and figure it out, but when every level requires you die before you make it through because you have no idea which body your going to need because the enemies are usually new to you for every new stage, it's a little less fun. Especially to watch......Combine this with a poor tutorial system that does not really tell you how to play and yeah. The tutorial tells you what buttons do what and that's about it. Although it's probably because each robot has their dash and shield act different than all the other robots lol.
I am missing robotron, and that is why I bought this game, however all these different elements make it interesting, but I am still unsure if I classify it's interesting factor, near a fun factor. The trial play said nothing about bodies and that maybe about half the levels have a specific goal and are set in a way you must choose the right body. Without proper training on each of them your just guessing. Even megaman could at least see how the enemy used the weapon before he got it, and he even gets a quick animation of himself using it to know what it does! Not this game, no! I will give one example and end this blog.
Goal says "defend the base" I buy a guy called Base Master and his description reads "good at defending and attacking bases". He worked, but the homing missile robot was better anyway. And than you get to one where you need to attack a base and oh, that's when he deals more damage than the strongest bot in the game! But try using him to defend on a defense level and the enemies are impervious to bullets unless you dash them first, well too many enemies and bam, he loses every time. So now I have to buy a dash robot since they need to be dashed first and that works best on this level alone. I am not sure if I will ever use the dash or base robot again.... I take that back, I WILL use them again I just don't know if they will EVER be effective again until I watch myself get my ass handed to me.
Frustrating or fun? Don't play the trial game to tell, because it lies!
Recently on the front page was a topic that interested me. It was about D&D the P&P game. P&P stands for Pen and Paper. Essentially any game that does not require a board, but has rules, and calculations to carry out qualifies. This led to someone stating that the D&D franchise is failing due to WoC focusing on MTG and YuGiOh CCG's. regardless of who is right it brings back memories of my old days of gaming. My problem was I could not find anyone to play with. Well that's not true I did once.
For the most part I was a Magic: the Gathering baby. I believe 4th edition was just coming out and I had a 3rd edition starter. We are talking this is when starter decks cost $20 which is unheard of now as they cost much less. I was really into it, I never went of the deep end though because I could not afford it, and I never asked my parents for money for this hobby, I earned it, I spent it. fast forward to a few years ago. I had been on and off with MTG my whole life at this point and very happy I refused to sell my cards to this day. I have them all, well the ones I owned at least.
I remember walking into a store with my buddy and we had old decks. Why we went in, I forget. I think one of his friends was into MTG and he wanted to go back, and of course I got brought along, not that it is a bad thing. So we are intending to buy some packs and bring our old decks with us in their sleeves and are ready to throw down with other players...... Only problem was our decks are old, and long story short we have to play with people using banned cards. Now cards get banned for many reasons, mainly to keep new sets fresh and from people using old strategies that are considered broken. We had a few matches with each other and a few other people and it was all fun and games again and we are relaxing and enjoying it all. This is until an 8 year old challenges me.
I have no problem playing younger people at games like this because it's like chess, and your assuming that people have a sense that the whole thing is a game for fun and thinking. kids are usually really good at these things, so maybe I will learn a thing or two. This is what I learned. 4 turns and I lose. The kid pulls out over 1k in cards that are from beta, and truly banned for a reason. They can be huge game breakers, but the idea was no one believed anyone would be able to have more than one since they were so rare. In comes ebay, a whining kid, and parents who probably don't give a shit as long as the kid is quiet. Not deterred from a challenge I play him again. I really do forget how many games went by, but I remember he said those famous words that kinda broke me on collecting these cards, or building a new bad ass deck. "I quit let's start over". I could not believe my ears, after losing so many times and seeing it out until the end, this kid quits because his 'combo' did not come up within 4 draws and I can potentially stop him in his tracks.
I refused to play him again and thanked him for the games and walked over to my buddy. I told him the story and he flat out refused to play with the kid. Apparently a lot of people knew not to play with him. So from than on I left the whole CCG thing behind. well not entirely. Whenever there is a drafting tournament I did frequent those, but at $15 a tourney, it seemed like a waste of money eventually and me and my buddy petered off and just stopped going. There is a moral in the story somewhere but it almost feels like what's the point. You buy packs of cards to form a deck that is probably not that great anyways unless you buy a pack for every card in that series. It's almost better to just read what they all do, come up with a strategy, practice with it and than just ebay all the cards you need. I have chosen the latter and refuse to play unless it's in a digital setting like the XBL MTG game
As for P&P, well, it takes a lot of time and cost's a bit of money if you get extravagant like the Penny Arcade guys do. Were talking build your own props and have a meeting room dedicated to the game. Not everyone can do that, but the idea is you need a huge place and lots of cash to do so. The only thing more important is having people you enjoy playing with.
I played with a group for a little while. I created my character before hand for our D&D game and was ready to roll for stats on him. I submitted it to the DM and was opting to be the cleric since no one wanted to. They rolled the dice wrong and played by their own rules for the most part and tried to one over the DM all the time. the final straw was someone claiming to me my arrow must do less damage because I am 5 feet away from the enemy instead of 30, and that a barbarian can have a buckler on his left hand while wielding a large battle axe that requires two hands two swing. Both are wrong according to than current rules and I refused to show up. I think I blew 20-50 hours of life on that between traveling and playing and being in a freezing garage.
Maybe these are the some of the reasons WOW is so popular?
"I own a playstation 3 because i use it to watch blu rays and I have been a playstation guy my whole life"
Twisted metal is awesome. For those of you who know me I have a huge achievement score for XBL(look up JuanSolid). I have sold my Wii to a friend who uses it as a living room exercise machine practically. These three are the big three with PC games still alive and well, except if you play farmville your considered a 'pc gamer' these days.
The point is that I have chosen XBOX360. There are many factors that have lead up to my choice and the eventual blasphemy of dropping my wii system because I would play the xbox360 more. I can not even refuse to not go into detail over this because of the opinions voiced by many. Some of my friends would ask me "why not all three" while another openly states that he will buy it on xbox if it is multiplayer and it seems we are planning on buying it as well, or we may later, otherwise ps3 is his choice for "better" graphics.
Well the best graphics are a PC with great video card and good monitor. I consider this connoisseur Mode due to the equipment needed. if you believe a monitor is the same as a TV for gaming, you fall in this category and will fail at resolutions over 1080p. Most people do not care in my exp unfortunately. And really unfortunately that includes me..... Well I notice it, I just don't care as much i should say because between a 19 and 37 inch I will choose the 37..... Except maybe prenumbra series because it is so damn dark..
Oh yeah the point. everyone has different reasons for choosing a system....However if you choose your system in the hopes of a game coming out and not something that is physically present or hyped as hell, you may be in for a long wait. Twisted Metal is AWESOME and one of my favorite games ever, any of them, but I would not buy a PS3 5 years ago for them to announce that and the freaking moove or whatever bovine item they want to call 'their' black wii. And no I doubt I will get on the kinect bandwagon that fast due to issues that may occur. It could be another virtual boy for all we know right now after all the rumors and what we saw. Anyway do not tell me that the great FF game or TM is ps exclusive and that's why you suffered through bad games for years. Also as the quited person said "most are cross platform anyways". My question is wh settle?
Well I settled, but I have about the best library on XBOX. and guess what? I don't have freaking time to play even just those. So all these people who have to schedule time to do all three have to remind themselves that these are for fun. Once you schedule time to play because you have too it is not a entertainment device.... Worse is you pay for the privilege to be put on this schedule many time over so you can jsut say you did it. MS got me because I can prove I did such and such while my buddies with ps3 are trying to did something difficult over to get a trophy NOW..........
The whole thing is ridiculous and I gave up chasing my score higher these days in place of Let's Plays. I still want to own all the XB games.... I am just in no hurry to spend $60 on every new title when I still need to play games like superstar tennis etc......
This is something that Hauppauge can not answer me in regards to older video game consoles, talking non component PlayStation and older. The issue is that the videos recorded with the device and that I have put up on www.JuanSolid.blip.tv are on component from an xbox 360, which allows me to record perfectly in s-video, or composite, from 360. For whatever reason an OLD MARTY (FM Towns) computer using normal composite works fine as well.
For the life of us we can not figure out why all means to capture super, genesis, saturn, and PS1 will not capture footage at all. there is usually some delay, but when hooking up these systems it goes from a 1 second or less to a 5 second or more delay. Also when hooking up the video directly to a tv, it stretches fully and plays perfectly, were as the footage is choppy when looped through the PVR and stays letter boxed. We don't mind the letter box, just work damn it!
The response from hauppauge of 'please follow these steps' giving me special software to remove the applicationa nd newer software to install them is weird. I know video capture and editing is never full proof, but this is all types of odd. I can't understand how this machine that can decode 1080i easily and transfer it to a unit via usb, could get caught up on a smaller frame size and weaker graphics.
Lol looks like were going back to an old dazzle and trying to keep the file sizes smaller. Sigh. The HD PVR could encode 1 hour of footage into 4GB or less, while I get about the same from 480P using the Dazzle and sometimes it drops frames.
"I got this scar on my face from a mighty battle" "I hope you have learned to quit picking your nose"
This game is a classic and playing through it on XBL is great. I do have complaint's about the controls, but that's better left for a video review or a let's play. It is just really hard to explain the problem with menu switching and item selection here. well, maybe I will try. Left trigger is how you pull up your use action menu, and right triger is how you pull up your use item menu. You use left stick, or Dpad to move around in these menu's. This is fine except that the action menu always over laps the item menu, requiring you pull left trigger again to hide the action menu if it was up at any time you wish to access the item menu. What is also troublesome is the rules of how to move within these menus. For example for a puzzle that requires you 'use' inventory items on other inventory items you must use the analog stick for all selections. Well not all of them, but up to the point where you select use on the first item you want, you will have to pull up the inventory screen again and use analog left to choose what to use item 1 with. If you use Dpad here, it disregards what you had selected and goes to the hot Dpad action the direction your pressing is ties too as well as disabling Dpad movement in the menu until you reset everything , and you have to start all over again. This little conflict with the controls, which feels like a bug, but is most likely not since the hot keys are supposed to be known I suppose (although they never activate in the menu until you physically have something selected), has ruined a quest over 3 times for me until I figured out what the hell was going on.
I do let's play's and this is one I may never end up doing, even though it seems like it would be great too. I have played about 3.5 hours with friends and everyone has given me their input, but we all had a unanimous 'wtf' moment when I kept failing to use the action menu and item menu within itself twice, 3 times in a row. It's embarrassing, and now that I know, any play through after this would be less pure. Maybe more entertaining since I know what the hell is going on though.
One more moment we were all confused on was a push and pull puzzle. They give you the answer on how you need to move a directional handle in 90 degree increments. You go up there and push (B is default for this) the proper amount of times, select pull and do that over and over the proper amount of times, than push B to pull and it fails and you have to start over. WTF? Turns out the B button apparently remembers the push or pull command used last. so you only need to select the action once from the action menu and it hotkeys to B besides the basic hot keys to the Dpad.......
I remember good old king's quest where the menu would pause the game and let you choose stuff without worry of passage of time. this game is real time and there is no way to pause and use figure out what to use in this XBL version. I never played the original, but I imagine a mouse and keyboard were more useful for these types of games. Hell, if they would just let me use the mouse/analog to access a menu that gave me inventory and action options, I would probably have no complaint's at all. well I would have 1, the analog moves too slow, but what do i care when I can pause time while choosing my action?
I make let's play Videos. Let's play is where someone plays, records, and comments on a video game. It can be done many ways. There are a hell of a lot of these out there, but finding them is hard. The let's play archive has a lot, but I found out you have to pay something awful forums $10 and than your stuff is only picked up from the forums over there. This is as closed format a website I have ever seen. They have a hell of a lot of let's play games on there, but they are in reality only about 10-20% of all the content out there, if it is even that high of an amount.
The content on that site has a better chance of being seen though because the site is pretty search-able. However the closed format makes people believe the game has not been played before when in fact it has been done to death.
I am hating how this blog thing works on GB because I can never see what I am typing on the last line and if I make the windows huge it goes back to right underneath my current line. Someone may think this is efficient, it's just annoying as hell to me since I ahve to stop and grab the bottom right and make it big so it can go small again. Either that or I can hit enter an assload of times before it fixes itself to break again later.
So in short there needs to be a place like a wiki where anyone can post up a new let's play that is now search-able by users and they can vote if it's good or not to let others know which let's play is the best to watch for a specific game by popular decision. By example I have seen way too many videos that feel like my first Age of Booty video, except it's not their 50th episode or later, it's like their 100th plus episode and they still seem feeble and weak. However since they gave $10 to awful forums they get into the archive.
I am starting to think unless I make a site like this it will never exist and do to the content overload that is the internet, tons of great shows will stay in the wayside forever.
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