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JCGamer

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Downloading games

By JCGamer 2 Comments

After seeing the sweet footage from Blizzcon, I decided I needed to play a Blizzard game and I decided to get the Warcraft III battlechest from Amazon.  When the game got to me, I was all excited (I even took a "personal day" off from work).  Well, to my disappointment, neither the WCIII disk or the Frozen throne disk would install.  I had corrupted disks.  Well, after a bit of being bummed, I decided to look at the Blizzard site and somehow I ended up on Battle.net.  I signed up and registered my keys, and low and behold--I could download the games directly to my HD and play the game without the disk.   This just blew my mind and is totally awesome. 
 
I know that Steam lets you download games to any computer (and even savegames), but I'm been out the the PC gaming scene for the past 4 years, and my newest computer is a Macbook pro--so my gaming options were very limited.  So I was shocked that in this day of DRM and limited activations, a company would just let you download a game and play without the disk.  This is the way all PC games should be.  I always hated the requirement of having the disk in the CD tray to play a game.  Steam, and Blizzard have managed to move away from that, and it's awesome. 
 
Hope Blizzard continues the downloading/no cd thing for Starcraft II and Diablo III.

2 Comments

Playing Warcraft III

By JCGamer 3 Comments

So after seeing the Blizzcon footage, I was craving for a Blizzard game.  I was really hyped for the Diablo III footage, so naturally I decided to get the Warcraft III battlechest.  I'm a story guy and I knew that DII didn't have that much of a story, but WCIII did.  So WCIII it was.  Man, this game is great.  And it holds up, even today.  Now I'm not a WoW player, but I did play the original WC and WCII back in the day.  And back in gradschool, I did play WCIII, but didn't get too far.  So I came back at it ready for some cool story/RTS action.   Like all the Blizzard games, the production values are great.  The story is engaging, and the characters are interesting and fun to play/interact with.  The best part about this game is the fact that the missions are so varied.  One of the reason's I stopped playing RTS's was that I just didn't like building bases, making a huge army and then killing the other forces.  While this games has a fair share of that, it wraps it in a shell that makes the game seem varied, and fresh.  For anyone out there who hasn't played this game, man get it.

3 Comments

Loved Star Trek (spoilers)

By JCGamer 5 Comments

Well, just got back from a showing of Star Trek in IMAX and I loved the movie.  I suppose you could call me a bit of Star Trek fan (seen all the movies, loved TNG, and know more random facts about the lore than I realized) and both my wife (who usually dosen't like movies like this) and I came out excited.


I like the fact the movie is both a reboot (like Batman Begins and Casino Royale) and an offshoot.  The fact that the movie creates an entirely different timeline for this batch of Trek movies opens up the possibilities for so many reinaginings of prior Star Trek stories.  Like the way current comic book movies gets inspiration from a bunch of different comics, this new Trek can take some of the best ideas in the show and put them together into one kick-ass movie.  Already people are talking about how cool it would be to bring back Kahn.

More than anything, I really appreciated how the movies had acutal production values.  I loved TNG on TV, but when it jumped to the big-screen, they always felt/looked like a made for TV movie rather than something made for the movies.  Oddly enough, the original cast Trek movies seemed to have better production values than the TNG ones.  

I thought the action was well done (perhaps a bit too much shakey-cam) and the acting was top-notch.  I thought everyone was well cast as their respective characters.  And for anyone who says that Kirk and Spoke were underdeveloped...have you seen the other movies?  Sulu, Uhura, Scotty, and Chekhov are total window dressing in the old movies with NOTHING to do.   The pacing was fast, and while some of the story really didn't make sense (did Kirk ever graduate from the Academy?  How does a cadet go from school to 1st officer just like that?  Is the entire crew of the Enterprise new grads?  Did Nero just sit around in space for 25 years waiting for Spock?  Did Nero really have a plan to destroy planets or did he come up with that after he captured Spock?) it was fun and interesting.

The biggest compliment I can give to this movie is that it managed to make Star Trek just as enjoyable as Star Wars (espically the prequel ones).  It finally managed to stop all the talking and actually do some doing (which is ironic becuase the Star War prequels took the doing the the original trilogy and did a whole bunch of talking).  
5 Comments

Thinking of quitting FFXII

By JCGamer 9 Comments

Well, after the excitement of watching the FFXIII demo on-line, I decided to get FFXII.  I acutally loved the first 8 or so hours and liked the combat system.  I still do.  There is something satisfying about the way the real time aspect of the combat works and how many enemies you can plow through just by running through the world.  But after about 15+ hours into the game, I might be done with it.  


First of all, I don't really like the license system.  While I think it's a cool idea and it reminded me of the system in FFX, found that getting new gear seemed overly complicated because of the license system.  While in old games you can easily see who could use such and such weapon/armor, now if my dude didn't already have the license for the item I was thinking of getting, I have to go the the license screen, see where that item is on the license board, and if I can't see it, open up other licenses to hopefully see the thing.  It really makes upgrading your gear not that much fun.

The second thing that drives me crazy about the game is that the battle sometimes get way too crazy and out of control.  I realize that I can stop the action at any given time to select what I want to do with each dude, but when there are a bunch of ememies attacking you (usually the party leader), it can get a bit out of control.  It almost seems like this aspect of the game really wasn't balanced.  I found that the combat system worked great with attacking 1 or 2 dudes, but more than that--and the system fell apart from me.

So far, the story has been alright, but nothing really memorable.  And it seems like all the characters sound alike, look alike and all have similar sounding names.  When the story references people outside of my party, I have no idea who the hell they are talking about.  Usually the story of a FF game is game keeps me going, but so far it's the broken combat system.

I don't know.  Perhaps I'm being a bit too harsh on the game.  I do like the combat system when it works, but I feel like with a bunch of enemeis, or sometimes when you come across a random superpowerful dude that kills your entire party in the frickin' overworld--it gets frustrating.  Perhaps I'll give it another shot, but inFamous is coming out at the end of the month and I still need to finish DQVIII.
9 Comments

Just got FFXII

By JCGamer 19 Comments

Well after seeing some of the new videos from FFXIII, I was inspired to go out and get FFXII.  I thought--for $12.99 new, you can't go wrong.  So far, I'm 3.5+ hours into the game and from my past experiences with JRPGs, I haven't really even started the game yet.  


Anyway--what's up with the camera controls?  The camera is driving me crazy.  It has what I consider "inverted" controls where you press left and the camera swings right and when you press right, the camera swings left.  After playing a bunch of FPS's on the consoles now, I cannot stand controls like this.  First of all, it seems like a Japanese thing to do.  What's even more Japanese is you not being able to customize your controls the way you want.  Being a long time gamer, it's seems like customization and open endedness has been a hallmark of western developed games.  I first started to notice this in PC gaming, and as a kid, didn't like it too much.  I thought of western developed games as games where you could totally screw yourself and find yourself not being able to continue (see any Ultimas).  Japanese games, on-the-other-hand, seem to be designed to have everything you need around.   Today though, it seems that western developers has gotten the hang of the "not screwing you" thing and manages to provide open ended gameplay, along with mostly customizable stuff (controls, characters, etc...).  The Japanese though, makes you play the game they want you to play.  I do appreciate both, but really hate it when people make you play with jacked-up controls, and it seems like the Japanese are the primary culprits.  

Whoa, kind of got of tract there.  Well, the game seems pretty fun so far and look forward to getting some more party members and see what this battle system can do.  I've been playing DQVIII for 53+ hrs and needed a break from the old-school game design.  I guess I've always been more of a FF fan.  Well, hopefully I can finish both this and DQVIII before Infamous comes out.
19 Comments

Finally won Gears of War 2!!!

By JCGamer 5 Comments

Well, I got this game for Christmas and finally got though the game on regular difficulty, single player.  While I can see how the game had improved from Gears 1, about half-way through the game, I just didn't feel like playing it any longer.  And I was getting really tired of the entire "DELTA, get ALPHA to BETA" talk that was all throughout the game.  I suppose I'm just tired of the entire military macho crap--the vids of Killzone 2 turned me off in the same way and I haven't played beyond that demo...


For some reason, I don't think I'll get Gears 3.   While I did think the game was fun, it was a chore to get through, and the story was all over the place.  I also wasn't that impressed with the graphics.  While the first gears looked beyond anything the 360 had before it, this game looks more of the same.  I think it's more of the art style that any technical thing going on.  I think that Killzone 2 and MGS4 had a better look, but that just me.

Well, while fun, the game ran out of gas half way through for me.  I might be done with shooters for a bit (at least until Half life 2:  Episode 3), of course Infamous is looking pretty good and by all accounts is a 3rd person shooter with some platforming...we'll see.
5 Comments

51+ hrs into DQ VIII

By JCGamer 1 Comments

Well, did some serious grinding and got past the dark realm, and now found the city where the monsters roam.  Looks like I need to do some more serious grinding for some cash to buy some of the stuff in that town.  Wonder how much longer this game is?  Knowing the way this game works, still have a ways.  Hopefully I can bust this thing out before Infamous comes out.

1 Comments

I am really excited about Brutal Legend but worried...

By JCGamer 2 Comments

Man, after reading all the GDC coverage of Brutal Legend, it makes me want the game more and more.  Really, all you had to tell me was that this game was Tim Schaffer's next game and I would have been sold:  he is to video games as Joss Whedon is to TV in my mind.  But with the inclusion of Jack Black doing is "metal" thing (I'm a big D fan) and the high concept of a totally metal game--you got me hooked.  But I can't help but worry that this game will once again be ignored by the masses and we'll have another Psychonaughts on our hands--great game, critically acclaimed but flops sales wise.



Now I usually don't care about sales, but Double fine is a independent studio that was founded by Schaffer, and has been screwed during it's existence--first my MS, then by Activision (any really starting to hate them yet?), and I feel that they really need a hit on their hands to continue making great, funny games.  I'm really hoping that EA will put some marketing muscle behind it and push this game (and it has gotten a fair amount of press), but I still can't shake the feeling that this game will tank sales wise.  I think it just might be too "high-concept" for some people and they won't even give it a try.  It sort of reminds me of the movie "Speed Racer"--now I loved the movie and thought it was brilliant, but I can understand why some people wouldn't like it.  But for me, the moment I saw the trailer I thought, "hot damn!!!  This is an anime come to life" and instantly was into what the Wachowski's were trying to do, but could easily how people would be turned off from it without even giving it a chance.  If a entertainment can't be neatly packaged and explained, it seems that the mass market just will not give new things a shot--and I'm afraid Brutal Legend will fall into the same trap Psychonaughts did.  I really hope not.


Anyway, I look forward to buying the game and the only question for me is what system I should get it for:  360 or PS3?
2 Comments

43+ hrs into DQ VIII

By JCGamer 3 Comments

Wow that was really, really annoying.  I was doing the Herb level in the snowy mountains, but I couldn't trigger the meeting with the herb dude.  After searching the internet, I finally figured out I needed to talk to some people?  Not sure, I spoke with the item dude before and he told me to go to the cave.  I guess I never actually went into the bed room but did make it to the room with is cauldron.  Oh well--whatever it was, I went back to the town, entered both his rooms, talked to the item dude and his wife and back in the cave looked at his campfire--that worked.  I suppose it did give me more leveling up and money.


After 43 hours into the game, I came across the first real annoying part of the game.  I forgot that in past games, normal random enemies could cast magic to kill your entire party.  This is totally annoying and wish it didn't exist in this game, but I suppose it is an old school JRPG and that's what they do, but it doesn't make it any easier to tolerate when your entire party is wiped out by a random dude in the overworld.

And I guess Jessica is the only character in the game that can change outfits?  I realize that she's "va-va-voom", but I really wouldn't have minded the other characters changing their wardrobe depending on what they were equipped with.  I mean you get to see the new weapons and shields, but new outfits would have also been nice.  The first game that let me do this that I can remember was Ultima VII:   the Serpent Isle and that was in 1993.  I think that DQ IX will let you dress up your character though...
3 Comments

Vegas trip

By JCGamer 3 Comments

Well, totally off topic but I just got back form a little Vegas vacation and thought it was really, really fun.   This was my second time in Vegas, but really, the first one didn't count because I was in 5th grade and that was like 20 years ago.  My wife had never been to vegas either--so we were both looking forward to the trip.


Well, what can you say?  I think the best way to sum up Vegas is to say that it's an adult orientated theme park.  While visiting some of the casinos, I couldn't help but feel like I was at Disney world or something similar.  At some places, you are sitting in a model of another city chillin'--like you would at Epcot or Six flags.  It was surreal.

Well, we stayed at the Bellagio, and I have to say that this was the fanciest hotel I have ever stayed at.  The "deluxe" room was nice and spacious and the bed was very comfortable.  Thought the sheets could have been softer, and thought some of the pillows we had could have been a bit better, but overall a very nice room.  Of note, there was a snacks box sitting on top of the wet bar that was a weight sensor.   When you sign into the hotel, the dudes up front tell you not to touch anything or you will get automatically charged for the things you touch--this could have been a problem if your with kids, or are very, very drunk!  The casino was fancy, but seemed a bit intimidating.  I've never really gambled, so I never really got comfortable there.  The Spa, according to my wife, was magnificent , with showers, lotions, shampoos, gym, baths, etc...you would expect from a nice spa.  The pool area is a classic design, nothing fancy, but nice and high class--much like everything else at the Bellagio.  Of note, this hotel had the best elevator system I have even encountered--I was on the 15th floor (goes up into the 30's) and the rooms don't even start until the 14th floor.  Each group of floors had 6 elevators assigned to them (14-20, 29-25, etc...) and I never had to wait longer than 10 seconds for an elevator, usually less than 3!!!  Suffice it to say, I was impressed with the hotel.

Well, the first night we ate a Fix--a restaurant in the Bellagio and I was a bit disappointed.  The food is fancy american, and while the meals were good, they were nothing special--especially when you consider that each entree ranges from 30-50 dollars.  The service wasn't that great either.  It's the service you would expect at a normal $20 entree place and not a place charging so much for a meal.  Oh well.  

That first night we saw Cirque du Soleil "O".  I've seen 2 other Cirque shows in the past and I have to say that this is the best one I've seen.  Cirque du Soleil is a group that does fancy acrobatics set to live, modern, music with french lyrics.  And the shows are generally impressive--but this one does everything the other shows do, and sets it above a pool.  Really, fun stuff.  

The second day, we cruised the strip and visited most of the casinos on the strip-Paris, Flamingo, Bally's, Harrah's, Venetian, Wynn, Treasure Island, Mirage, Caesars Palace, NY NY, Luxor, Excalibur, Mandalay Bay--probably the most impressive ones were the Venetian, and Wynn, although the Excalibur is a freakin' castle with wizzard laser show at night!!!  I would have killed to go to a place like this when I was a kid.

That night, we went to dinner at a place away from the strip called Casa di amore--it seemed like a family run Italian restaurant, that's a bit cheesy, but man--the food was great.  The service was great, and it was a nice change a pace from the rest of the Vegas fair.  They also sent a limo to pick you up and drop you off for free.  I'd highly recommend this place to anyone looking for some good homecooked Italian food.

The final night we say Cirque du Soleil "Zumanity".  This is advertised as the "sensual side of Cirque", and it really a cabaret show with some acrobatics mixed in.  While a fun show, it didn't have nearly enough acrobatics for my tate.  Although the topless girls were a plus, it didn't make up for the fact that it really didn't feel like a Cirque show.  Wouldn't make this the first Cirque show you go to.  

For dinner, we went to Mon Ami Gabi--a french themed streakhouse located in the Paris Hotel.  This is a great meal.  The steaks were wonderful, fun atmosphere and the "Frites" that come on the side of every seak--were great!!!  They are hand cut fried that are all like the really crispy fries at the bottom of the box at McDonnalds.  Tasty--highly recommend this place for steak lovers.

Well, that was about it for our Vegas trip.  We did do some gambling, but not all that much.  Never was into loosing money.  Now for those people that say "what's the difference in spending $100 on dinner, or $100 at a blackjack table"--well, my answer is that after dinner, I'm full and tired.  After blackjack--I'm pissed off and still hungry. 
Here's a final message from Vegas:


No Caption Provided


3 Comments