David's Gaming Escapades: Last Week Edition
By hexogen 6 Comments
As you probably know, E3 was last week, and as you would expect, most of my blogging that week was E3 related. I finished two games that week, but I never got around to talking about them because my E3 blogs were already pushing 15-20 paragraphs, and I didn't want to make them any longer. So I'll talk about those two games here instead.
The first game I finished was Sly 2: Band of Thieves. I had originally started this game back around 2006, stopped playing it for whatever reason, and somehow bought and completed the other two Sly games in the meantime. I promised myself this summer that I'd finally get rid of some of the games on my monstrous backlog (actually, I originally said I'd get most of them, but I quickly realized that is not going to happen), and Sly 2 was one of them, so I had been playing it for the past week or so.Anyway, I finally beat it. I'm not really sure what caused me to stop playing it back then, because it really is a great game. The game is very nice to look at, even by today's standards, due to its colorful and original cel-shaded look. The gameplay is tons of fun as well, and the objectives are extremely varied, so it's almost impossible to get bored of. There are some mission types that repeat themselves a few times, such as Sly's recon missions at the beginning of each episode and Bentley's hacking minigame, but it does a wonderful job of keeping things fresh, unlike some games that involve running around on rooftops (I'm looking at you, Assassin's Creed!).
Sly 2's plot is really well constructed. There are some pretty big twists in the game that help keep you interested in the story, including a pretty big one at the end (but of course I was stupid and played Sly 3 before finishing this game, so I already knew about it). When it's revealed exactly how each Klaww Gang member fits into the grand scheme of things during the final episode, the story really comes together, and that's when it claimed the title of my favorite Sly Cooper game, just barely edging out Sly 3 for the crown.
I also beat The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. I already gave my impressions on the game a while back, and my opinion on the game hasn't really changed since then. The game was pretty damn great. The only thing I really didn't like about it was the repeated trips to the Temple of the Ocean King. It was really annoying having to go through the same exact floors and solve the same exact puzzles over and over again. To be fair, the items you gain throughout the game do open up new shortcuts, and about halfway through the game, you even get a warp point to the sixth floor of the temple, so it's not as bad as it could have been, but still. Never make me visit the same exact dungeon six times in a row again, Nintendo!
In other news, I bought The Who Track Pack on Rock Band last Wednesday, and while playing through one of the songs on drums my pedal snapped in half. I was a little pissed because I had just spent $20 on those tracks and now my only option was to sing to them (I'm garbage with the guitar). I was also a little worried that support would say I "abused" the pedal and refuse to replace it, but when I called them up yesterday I had no problems ordering a replacement. I went with the express replacement option, which means that they will send me another pedal immediately, and ship the old pedal back in the same box I got the new pedal in. However, choosing this option means they place a $125 hold on your credit card, which is am absurdly high amount for a pedal. You can buy an entire Rock Band drum set for less than 2/3 of that price. The hold amount should be no more than the part that is being replaced costs. I really hope that pedal doesn't get lost during shipping.
Fast forwarding to the present, I'm currently playing Pokémon Ruby, and even a little bit of Pokémon Diamond. Why? I have no idea. In the six hours of Diamond that I've played in the past few days, I have done absolutely nothing worthwhile. I'm trying to get a Milotic in Diamond, so I rode my bike up and down the same stretch of road for 2 hours hatching a ton of Feebas eggs until I got one of a certain nature. The reason I need one of a certain nature is because its nature determines what kinds of berries it likes, and different kinds of berries increase different stats, and Feebas evolves by maxing out a certain stat, and now I feel like a nerd for knowing all this so I'm going to stop talking about that now. After I got the Feebas I needed I spent a half an hour mixing the necessary berries and feeding them to Feebas. But of course my berries weren't strong enough, so the stat didn't get maxed out and I had to turn my game off. Since then, I've been trying to find and grow more berries, hoping to find a combination of berries that will max out the stat I need and finally cause Feebas to evolve. But I've been at it for six hours, and I still don't have a Milotic. Pokémon is the only series that can make me run around the game world and do absolutely nothing for six hours. At least I'm actually playing through the story in Ruby, though.
I've also gone back to playing Crackdown. There are only a few key criminals left to defeat, so I should probably finish that up soon. After I finish either Ruby or Crackdown, I think it's time to finaly finish Okami. I say this every month, but I really (maybe) mean it this time! I don't think I've ever procrastinated on a game that I love this much before.