Stumbling into Animal Crossing’s pitfall yet again

Hi, my name is Paul, and I used to be heavily addicted to Animal Crossing: Wild World. It was the kind of thing that overtook me swiftly, silently, softly; I would go to bed playing it and wake eager to play it again. My lunch hour was not about eating food, but rather using that time wisely to interact with my town’s villagers, find fossils, and collect whatever bugs/fish were only available at such a time. If asked what my Saturday night plans were, I’d have to figure out a solid way to lie and not reveal that I was going to see K.K. Slider play and get a new song for my red boombox.

Yes, it was that kind of addiction, but I did eventually overcome it. This was, naturally, only after I had done everything possible in the game: 100% bugs found, 90% fish caught (curse you, Coelacanth!), all fossils found, all true paintings donated, a good percentage of my item list filled out, house fully paid off and filled with kick-ass furniture. All that and more. Deep down, despite still playing it even after the fact, I knew the magic grip was loosening, and eventually I did wean myself away, passing the cartridge on to Tara to get addicted to.

At some point last year, my wife got Animal Crossing: City Folk for the Wii, and I watched her set it up, doing the same meaningless tasks for Nook to get started. It didn’t look any different gameplay-wise than what I had already spent a year obsessing over, and so I ignored it, uninterested, disappointed, especially with the slim new offerings like going to the city. I decided to wait for a true sequel.

And then something happened a few months ago: I started to play it every day or so, only for about 15 minutes. It’s a great distraction. It’s a nice change of pace after stabbing assassins or shooting aliens or staring at RPG stat screens for far too long. I told myself that it wasn’t a race, and that if I didn’t pay off my house as soon as possible that the (animal) world would not end. I found myself enjoying just running around and methodically rebuilding my collections (only going after what I wanted then at the moment versus buying everything just to have everything), and once I started gathering Mario-themed items from floating presents, well, I knew I was back. At least for a bit. Until the Nintendo 3DS version drops, of course:

Granted, the magical hold is definitely not as tight as before, but I am excited now that winter has ended in-game to get my net out and collect some fun insects.

DEMO IMPRESSIONS – LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars

LEGO Star Wars started it all in terms of popularizing the idea that LEGO elements + videogames = addicting fun. Unfortunately, that well dried up quickly after two games, which covered all six movies. You rescued Padme and fought Count Dooku and saved Princess Leia and blew up the Death Star and played around with a bunch of ewoks. What was left? Well, evidently the TV series Star Wars: The Clone Wars was ripe enough for LucasArt and Traveller’s Tales to make a third game, LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, and a demo recently popped up on Xbox Live the same day as that shoddy deal-breaker we know as Dragon Age II.

Anyways, wars…in the stars. To be honest, I’ve never once watched that titular TV series, and so a lot of what is happening story-wise is a bit lost on me. I mean, I guess we’re somewhere between Episodes 2 and 3 here, but where exactly is any Wookie’s guess. So feel free to mock my inaccuracies; I promise not to throw a lightsaber at your neck.

After some classic scrolling yellow text, the demo opens with Padme Amidala and C-3PO looking a bit worried, and that probably has something to do with General Grievous taking them prisoners. It’s up to Obi-Wan, R2-D2, and Anakin to save those dunderheads. We can walk down a straight chamber, destroying items for studs, slaying generic enemies, and solving puzzles by using, none other, the Force. At one point, the gameplay does mix it up, requiring Obi-dobbi-doo to actually throw R2-D2 across a huge gap to gain access to a new section. Otherwise, the demo plays out as expected for these LEGO games, with the only new curve being that, when the reunited group eventually gets split again, we can switch between them at whim to help solve more puzzles.

I eventually got to a sort of bridge room, where I was trying to move something in the middle to…uh, do something. Except the Force was being extra finicky. Couldn’t figure out where to place it or how to get it to do a magical dance. Yeah, I didn’t even understand what I was supposed to do, and the fact the enemies constantly respawned in the room left me little to no time to experiment. That’s when I hit PAUSE and exited out of the demo.

I dunno. It’s definitely got a lot of that solid, fun LEGO gameplay, but I’ve already done this before. Y’know, sliced through troopers, moved things with the Force, blocked incoming shots with my lightsaber. Doesn’t seem like there’s much originality here, and if I had to do it all again, I’d rather go back to the original trilogy. Think I’ll just let this one pass on by and wait for LEGO Pirates of the Carribean or LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7.

A million Claptrap parts is still not enough for Patricia Tannis

I used to love Claptraps. Y’know, those adorable, dancing robot thingies that would give you more inventory space or provide you with access to hidden weapon caches. I even drew them from time to time. And now the romance is over, thanks to the mission flow in Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution, the last bit of DLC for Borderlands.

Upon arrival in Tartarus Station, players meet up with Tannis in her secret workshop. She’s trying to build something and needs claptrap parts to get it done. Thus, you’re given the first mission of the DLC:

• Patricia Tannis needs parts to build her magnificent…something. Head down to the Hyperion Dump and search the scrapped claptraps for parts and bring them back to her. (Clap-Components: 0/5)

Okay, five parts. That should be easy enough, and it is. You head off to the Hyperion Dump to shoot up seemingly endless swarms of angry Claptraps. As their robot bodies explode, they drop parts like gears, wires, and motherboards. Five are quickly acquired, but picking up extra parts don’t add to your collection. In fact, you can’t even really tell how many you have as nothing is actually listed in your inventory. Which sucks considering the next quest from Tannis is this:

• Tannis needs some more parts to complete her creation’s Infinite Improbability Drive. If you can’t find any lying around, just rip them out of some claptrap spines. (Clap-Components: 0/42)

That means any extra parts you previously picked up are nulled. There’s no point in gathering more than what is needed. Kind of stupid in terms of a design process, but whatever. It’s not like we’re gonna have to collect a stadium-load more of these things, right? On to the next quest!

• Tannis needs more parts to ensure the protection grid holds on her device’s ecto-containment unit, safeguarding against total protonic reversal, which would be extraordinarily bad. (Clap-Components: 0/75)

Dammit. Enter Hyperion Dump, shoot Claptraps, exit Hyperion Dump, enter again, rinse and repeat and feel bored. Gee, I wonder what the next quest will be?

• The “popcorn” setting on Tannis’ device is malfunctioning. Well, it’s not so much malfunctioning as creating deadly mutant corn. A few more parts should fix that! (Clap-Components: 0/100)

Oh boy. Good, good. I haven’t collected claptrap parts in ages.

• Just a few more parts and Tannis’ magnum opus shall be revealed! Tremble in fear at the might of Tannis and her fearsome…what is this thing, anyway? (Clap-Components: 0/150)

Go sleep with a badmutha skag, Tannis. You suck.

Let’s do some math. That’s a total of 372 claptrap parts collected. The most frustrating aspect though is that you simply can’t collect claptrap parts as a collectible. Only during these missions do they matter, and once you’ve acquired your target number, the rest are voided of purpose. I know for sure I could have cleared a few of these missions out faster if I’d been allowed to use the previous parts I found while out on the hunt. Would it really have been terribly hard, 2K/Gearbox, to design a slot in your inventory for claptrap parts? Me thinks not.

So, the first five missions in the DLC are a straight collect-a-thon, and not a very fun one at that. And all that work results in Tannis building an android version of herself so she won’t be so lonely anymore. Um…what?

The Collector (50G): Completed Tannis’ crazy request

Crazy disappointing to be more exact.

[Intimidate] You will simply love this post about intimidating in Dragon Age: Origins

I’ve been working very hard at Dragon Age: Origins recently. In fact, just the other night, Natia, our hard-as-nails dwarven Grey Warden, preserved the Anvil of the Void, sided with Bhelen to get the steel men on our side, and then had some decent sex with Leliana after listening to the bard prattle on and on for, lack of a better word, ages. That’s all well and good, but what I was more excited to see Natia accomplish was the following:

Menacing (20G): Succeeded at 10 difficult Intimidate attempts

See, Dragon Age: Origins is all about the dialogue options. That’s BioWare’s thingy. Mass Effect allowed you to go down the paragon or renegade path by choosing different ways to answer folks. The same thing exists in Ferelden. Characters can either be persuaded or intimidated, the former being the nicer route and the latter a little more direct and threatening. On my first playthrough, I went with the nice personality, and quickly got the persuasive Achievement. This time around, I knew I wanted to go after the intimidate one, and so I made sure to construct Natia in the right manner. The odd thing was that I’m positive I did well over 10 intimidate options before unlocking this Achievement, which leads me to believe that some are classified as more “difficult” than others.

And here’s where the problem sits: how does one know if it’s a difficult intimidate option or not?

I mean, the dialogue option that helped unlock Menacing was about forcing a scared little boy to give us a key to a treasure chest in his mother’s bedroom. Pretty sure the nicest, sweetest, kindest old man in Orlais could intimidate a youngling like that. However, it was a “difficult” attempt. Guess it has more to do with behind-the-scenes dice rolling than anything story-related, but still, I’d like to know a bit more before trying out anything. Fallout: New Vegas handled it decently if a bit perfunctory for its skill checks, and Dragon Age: Origins could do it in the same vein, with a percentage of success or a visible indication that there’s no way the option will work.

At least going forward on Natia’s quest to save Ferelden from the darkspawn, I won’t feel compelled to immediately select the intimidate option. Sure, I might…because roleplaying her as a cut-your-throat badass dwarf (with a hidden soft side) is a lot of fun. If only I could intimidate Alistair into getting down and funky with a dwarf; I think I missed my chance to woo him as he’s disapproved of a lot of group actions. Wah.

FIRST HOUR REVIEW – The Hobbit

If you’re an attentive Grinding Down reader, then you’ll clearly remember me picking up The Hobbit (GameCube version) recently. Well, I’ve now played the first sixty minutes of it, and you can read about all the exciting stuff that happened during said time over at The First Hour: http://firsthour.net/first-hour-review/the-hobbit

When asked if I’d continue playing, I answered “yes.” Alas, I’ve yet to dive back into The Hobbit and sneak past those three trolls, but I will. All in due time. Hey, Frodo didn’t destroy the One Ring in a day after all!

Humor is not the weapon of unarmed people

I’m pretty sure I’ve mused before about all the things I’ve never done in the Fallout universe, such as keeping a good distance from using big guns to actually not seeking out Dogmeat as a companion. Another tactic I’ve never tried in my 300+ hours logged over Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas is that of fighting unarmed. Now, to clarify, unarmed doesn’t necessarily mean totally unarmed; some weapons like spiked knuckles, a bladed gauntlet, and the zap glove count, as does using just your bare fists. Regardless, one will have to get pretty dang close to their opponents to do some heavy unarmed damage, and I generally like to keep my distance, imitating a ninja or dustwheel as best as possible. This sort of guerilla style gameplay took a while to get used to, but I did eventually, and soon found myself charging fists-first into battle, ready to uppercut NCR troopers to their new home above the clouds.

And so I’m pretty proud to see this baby pop late last night after I gave a large fire gecko a swift smack to the back of its head:

Old-Tyme Brawler (15G): Caused 10,000 damage with Unarmed weapons.

Zelda, the fiend of the Mojave Wasteland, is around level 17 currently, with an unarmed skill of 55 points. Not bad, and it will surely grow as she’s already rocking a 100 cap in melee weapons. She also has a wonderful perk, which will sometimes knock an opponent to the ground from an unarmed attack, allowing for more free punches and kicks. Teamed with ED-E for support from afar, she’s a decent warrior (except against Deathclaws). And this weapon helps a lot:

What a beauty! That’s a power fist for the uninformed. It’s an armored gauntlet that uses a pneumatic ram to really send the message home. There really is something special about watching Zelda, a thin, redhead dressed as homely as possible, wielding this fist of death and knocking the heads off enemies with ease. I really have to make a conscious effort to make my evil characters appear more evil.

Anyways, I can’t believe I went this long without trying out an unarmed character; it does have its downsides, as big groups of enemies can basically surround Zelda and riddle her with bullets, but otherwise it’s been a lot of fun. And once she hits around level 25 or so, I think I’ll give Dead Money another try, now that I’ve got a character built specifically to handle all their melee and unarmed weapons, as well as a high survival skill for turning junk food into the most delicious thing ever.

Cass was murdered in Fallout: New Vegas by accident, I swears it

I’m tepidly hopping back in and out of Fallout: New Vegas. This second playthrough of a very straight evil run is not as exciting as my first playthrough was though I do love Zelda’s skills with the Rebar Club; currently, I’m stuck on the Render Unto Caesar quest, which gives The House Always Wins a run for its money in terms of being the longest, slowest quest in the game. Given to the Courier by Caesar, Render Unto Caesar is made up of eight parts: Part 1, use the Platinum Chip to downgrade the security bots; Part 2, dealing with Mr. House; Part 3, gaining the Boomers’ help; Part 4, gaining the help of the White Glove Society; Part 5, dealing with the Brotherhood of Steel; Part 6, Caesar’s Illness; Part 7, taking out President Kimball; and Part 8, protecting the Legate’s Camp.

Yeah, that’s a lot of parts. What makes things even worse is that each part might very well be made up of several other quests, making this a neverending story of sorts from a gameplay perspective. For example, getting the Boomers to help means getting them to like the Courier, which also means doing at least five nice tasks for them. I got bored after solving their ant problem that I just went and slaughtered Loyal and that old grandma with a Power Fist. And now I’m stuck on dealing with the Brotherhood of Steel, which leads me to the main point of this blog post…

I accidentally murdered Cass, and she’s dead dead! Can’t get her back. Whoops-daisy.

See, I’m trying to do the alternate method of Part 5, wherein you just kill the Brotherhood of Steel patrols outside the bunker at night. For some reason, according to the world of wikia, this works and will trigger Part 6. The problem is that these BoS dudes take Zelda and ED-E down rather fast, and I’d like a second fleshbag in my ranks to absorb some heat. Can’t have Boone as I’m BFFs with the Legion; can’t use Veronica as I doubt she’d like to help murder her BFFs. Cass was my next best choice as I’ve already visited with her before, but that was back when the NCR and I were pals. Now they shoot on sight, and I guess Zelda was swinging her Rebar Club a little too wildly–and a little too closely–to Cass as she sat at the bar drinking her woes. She died. Quest failed text scrolled by. I looted her body nonetheless and put a bottle of scotch atop her corpse out of sorrow, out of respect.

It’s weird that once they become your companions, they can’t die (at least in vanilla Fallout: New Vegas), only go unconscious, but until you recruit them, they are fair game. I guess I could go after Raul or Arcade next. Not sure if they’d want to join my forces though. We’ll see. I really don’t want to have to do that whole sneak through the Brotherhood’s bunker and sabotage it phase as I’m a level 15 character and have point ZERO points into sneaking. It just can’t be done.

As I mentioned before, this second Fallout: New Vegas playthrough is not as grand as the first one. In fact, it feels like a lot more work. I wonder why that is.

Cracking skulls and standing still in Halo 3

I was feeling rather aimless last night after getting some good work done on the latest Sekrit Projekt, and I figured I’d give Halo 3: ODST another go even though I have no clue what’s going on in the game and can’t really kill more than three alien enemies before having my armored ass tossed aside. Only I ended up putting in the second multiplayer disk instead and found myself playing…Halo 3. Well, not the main campaign, but all of its online maps and modes. Weird. Even weirder was that running this CD also tricks my Xbox 360 into thinking I’m playing all of Halo 3, and thus I now have a new list of Achievements separate from Halo 3: ODST to get. Except I can’t get them; I only have the multiplayer aspect of that game, and while meaningless in the longrun, I do find it a bit annoying now that there’s going to be a slew of unlocked Achievements on my system that I didn’t ask to be placed there.

But yeah, Halo 3 multiplayer. I played a round of Oddball and a round of King of the Hill before moving on to fiddle about in the forge mode by my lonesome. In each game mode, I made a single kill and was summarily destroyed every time I pushed forward on the analog stick. My best defense was standing still and hiding from other players. Don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to be played, but whatever. I’m at peace with the fact that I lack significant sniping and sticky grenade skills. And now I’m definitely spoiled by Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, which rewards players with losing streak perks if they’re having a hard time keeping up.

A quick scan of Halo 3‘s Achievement list–quick because, well, there’s 79 Achievements to look at, and most of them don’t apply to the multiplayer–mentioned finding hidden skulls on specific levels. I tried to do this on my own, just running around and flying around in Forge with the floaty camera, but alas, these hidden skulls are seriously hidden. I had to look up a guide to find two of them:

Orbital Skull (25G): On Orbital, found the hidden skull.

Assembly Skull (25G): On Assembly, found the hidden skull.

I’m not sure what’s more creative there. The Achievement name or the flavor text. I’m just kidding. They both suck. I might look up a few more guides for the others though some seem really complicated, such as the hidden skull on Sandbox. These might very well be the only Achievements I’ll be able to unlock here. Le sigh.

Unfortunately, I still don’t get Halo. The multiplayer felt so quiet and repetitive, and the graphics were spotty. I dislike having to hold down a trigger button to pick up a weapon, and I don’t know if there’s a sprint button, but I hope so. It feels like an uphill climb no matter what the elevation. I just can’t see what I’m supposedly missing here, that’s all.

Epic Mickey, epically forgotten

I received Epic Mickey for Christmas, and since then I’ve played it twice. Two times, people. One…two. That kind of says it all, but this is Grinding Down after all, and I always like to say more than is probably necessary.

Epic Mickey is a sad game. It’s sad for many reasons; sad that it can’t be what it wants to be, sad that its controls don’t work like we’re told how they’ll work, sad that its camera is disgruntled and ready to quit at any moment, sad that its best aspect has nothing to do with gameplay. Just sad, sad, sad. And for a Disney product, that’s astounding. Certainly, this would have been much more stellar with all the in-game levels removed, the controller denied access, and released as a straight-to-DVD bargain bin flick. It’s a great story. It would make a great family film.

And here’s a summary of the story: Epic Mickey is set in a world crafted by the wizard Yen Sid (pssssst, that’s DISNEY backwards) which houses all of Walt Disney’s forgotten characters.  Our titular hero Mickey Mouse accidentally spills paint thinner on a page containing the world and is dragged inside. Here, he’ll discover the Phantom Blot has been manipulating the world in very evil ways. Using paint and paint thinner, it’s up to Mickey to set things right (or maybe not at all). Also, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Walt Disney’s first ever cartoon hero, who hates the Mouse with unbridled passion, is out for revenge. See, it’s good stuff. It has layers, and it’s a real treat to see many of the forgotten characters actually dealing with their depression and anger. And poor Mickey is just kind of thrown into the mess of it all. Storyboard-style art really helps bring to life the characters and world, and I wish someone else would come over to my apartment, play the game to unlock all the movies, and then go away so I could just watch them one after the other. Yes, that is my wish.

The story is not Epic Mickey‘s problem. In fact, it’s its only sparkle of light. I’ve never been excited over using the Nintendo Wii for anything other than Wii Sports as the WiiMote and Nunchuk are prime examples of masochism. Pure hate against the consumer. They are the worst controllers in the galaxy, and playing anything with them is a minigame on its own. Using the WiiMote to aim the paint/thinner weapon is pointless because even if you do aim it right, the game doesn’t shoot the paint/thinner where you are aiming at. It always falls short. So that’s fun to work with. The controllers also don’t make general platforming easy, especially with that camera that Epic Mickey game designer Warren Spector won’t even admit is more horrid than Goofy doing disco. And good platforming is kind of key for a…platformer. I mean, when I say that I can’t get any further in the game, I mean that in the sense that I physically can’t get Mickey to where he needs to be because the jumping and climbing and clinging controls are broken and he keeps falling to his death. Looks like Mickey is doomed to the same fate as Smee and Oswald, abandoned, stuck in limbo, forever forgotten.

Alas, Epic Mickey is not the second coming of Mickey Mania.

Over at The First Hour, Nate answered with “doubtful” to if he’d continue playing Epic Mickey, and I have to echo his sentiments though I might give it one more try. An epic shame in the end.

Games Completed in 2011, #4 – Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies

::deep exhale::

If I had cool technology, a better cell phone, or awesome lighting, I’d take a picture of my Nintendo DS screen that listed all my stats for Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies at the time I kicked the end boss to the mortal curb. Alas, I failwhale in that department. You’ll just have to lovingly accept what I give you here as proof that I worked–and am still working–hard to do everything possible from Angel Falls to the Realm of the Almighty:

Time spent playing: 103: 39
Time spent in multiplayer: 01:35
Battle victories: 3,071
Times alchemy performed: 170
Accolades earnt: 43
Quests completed: 41
Grottoes completed: 12
Guests canvassed: 2
Defeated monster list completion: 74%
Warddrobe completion: 37%
Item list completion: 56%
Alchenomicon completion: 33%

Hmm. I know. It’s not as pretty as a screenshot, but it is, as a whole, a wonderful way to sum up my experience with Dragon Quest IX. My fab four, Hadwynnn, Tarla, Kingsley, and Juniper, who I’ve pretty much had since the very beginning of the game, have done a lot; conversely, there is still a lot yet to do. “Beating” the game is a hollow experience. Sure, there’s an end boss, some loose plot resolution, and an ending eeriely close to Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past‘s, which shows us how all the famous locations are going about their days now that true evil has been vanquished. But it’s only then, after the credits roll on by, that the game really opens up.

New quests unlock, and there’s also the bonus content gained from using the DQVC and such. I think I have over forty quests titled ????? just sitting pretty, waiting for this day to come. More grottoes to clear, more clothes to collect, more fiendish thingies to make, and I’m also contemplating changing my main character’s vocation now that he is capped at 100 in his whip skills. Maybe something that lets him wield a boomerang? Evidently the new story-related quest I’m on now, the first post-game one, will net me my own personal flying train to let me travel around the map kind of like the magical phoenix form from Dragon Quest VIII did. That’s gonna be sweet because I know a few unreachable spots on the map have been teasing me for far too long.

Unfortunately, this quest is a bit of a mindmess to put it politely. Let’s take a looksie at what exactly we’re being asked to do:

Quest #039 – Follow That Fish
Location: Porth Llafan
Request: Summon Lleviathan by wearing a Watermaul Wand, Flowing Dress, and Silver Shield and then defeat him.

Yeah, sounds simple, right? It’s not. Two of the three items require rare ingredients to create. Thankfully, I already acquired a Watermaul Wand earlier on. I was able to use the Krak Pot and make a Flowing Dress. Really hope my male character doesn’t have to equip that to bring about Lleviathan. The problem I’m having now is that I don’t have enough items to make a Silver Shield. My next best option is to buy it new from the upgraded shop in Stornway, but it’s around 30,000 gold. So, my options are as such: 1) grind until I get 30,000 gold or 2) grind until I get enough alchemy items to make it myself. Either way…uh, grinding.

At least this game continues to keep me busy, keep me interested. That said, I’m really not looking forward to battling Lleviathan…again. But yeah, this is going on the “2011 games completed” list because 103 hours is far too many hours to devote to a single piece of media and not feel like you’ve done far and above what was set. I can’t ever imagine re-playing Dragon Quest IX a second time, but the good news is I never will have to…I can just keep on playing it from my very first time, from way back in July 2010!