Planning out the next set of purchases

So, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about time and money and videogames. Because, as most of us know, they all go hand-in-hand with each other. You need money to play games; you need time to play games. You also most likely need a job, but the Catch 22 of that is if you have a job, you have less time, but more money.

To be truthful, I have enough money for games, but not enough time, and that therein causes me to feel guilt about buying new games when I’ve yet to get through a good chunk of my collection. I mean, I did toss down $5.00 for six games thanks to the Humble Indie Bundle, and of them, I’ve only played a few hours of Aquaria. Haven’t even touched the others yet. Problem? Problem. Plus, I’m still working on Borderlands, Pokemon HeartGold, playing Dragon Age: Origins a second time, and a slew of other abandoned children.

Right. Chances are I’m just babbling here, but basically, I’m not going to be making a Purchase of the Month for May 2010. Generally, I allow myself to buy one new videogame–often ranging in the $30 to $40 range–each month as a reward for working hard and staying alive. However, I have more than enough on my plate right now, and there’s actually nothing terribly new calling out to me…save for Red Dead Redemption, which a lot of reviews are giving the thumbs up on. Yet…I still do not enjoy GTA IV and think maybe, just maybe, I should stay away. Who knows. I might cave over summer; I’ve always wanted to ride a donkey into the sunset.

I do, however, know with certainty some of my next purchases. And here they are:

• June 2010: LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4
• July 2010: Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies
• August 2010: ???
• September 2010: ???
• October 2010: Fallout: New Vegas

And that’s really all I know at this point. Nothing else on the radar. Nope, not even Fable III. Feeling kind of meh about it at this point. But I do like having a battle plan and things to look forward to…

Do not invite Crusty Demons to your Dream Day Wedding Destination

Tara and I went to GameStop yesterday to pick up a gift card for my mother as it’s her birthday real soon. The original plan was to find her a new Nintendo DS game, but she seems to buy more games than I do, and I have to admit to losing track of what she has in her collection versus what she used to have, but traded in. So…a GC it was. That way, she can pick what she wants, and I do believe a yardsale hidden objects game comes out on her very day of birth…so there we go. Though Tara and I did see a hidden objects game all about planning one’s perfect wedding:

Oh man. Doesn’t that look exciting?! We thought this would be hilarious to give to her, but I told Tara that I didn’t think I could physically carry the case over to the counter and then pay money for it. Maybe next time? Most likely not.

Also, while perusing the shelves of old Xbox games (they had a deal of buy one, get two free, but I didn’t buy anything as I really have no clue what games are backwards compatible on the Xbox 360), a title caught my attention. And made me laugh. Out loud. In front of total strangers. Now, these games were lined up like books, spine out, so all I had to go off of was the title alone, but man did it make me pick up the game. Are you ready? I don’t think you’re ready for it.

…

What? You’re dying to know? Hmm…

Okay, okay. Here it is:

Ah ahahahahaha. Crusty Demons.

Sadly, this was not a videogame about a fantasy land dastardly overrun by…crusty demons. Instead, it’s about–I guess–some people riding bikes and doing daredevil-like tricks. What a tease!

In short, some videogame covers are just plain silly.

It’s a bird…it’s a plane…it’s Super Scribblenauts!

Honestly, I totally expected the sequel to last year’s fun-but-flawed Scribblenauts to be…Scribblenauts 2. Completely boring, but that’s usually how this industry works. Thankfully, that’s not the case. It’s titled Super Scribblenauts, and that title should key you in on the game’s new focus of adjectives.

Throwing in words like fuzzy and purple and incandescent will now allow your rooster hat-wearing character to modify the things you create to solve the numerous puzzles the game will toss at you. This could definitely be a recipe for even more random fun, but the core problems found in the original Scribblenauts need to be fixed, and they need to be fixed hard before I even come close to considering picking up this sequel. Namely, the controls. Just let us use the d-pad…please! Puh-lease!

That said, enjoy some new screenshots below, which show off the love of adjectives:

Naturally, people are scared of zombie dumptrucks.

Telekinetic-Man, Telekinetic-Man, does whatever a Telekinetic-Man can.

Two videogames beaten, but not over with yet

Over the past couple of days, I beat two videogames. Namely, Dragon Age: Origins and Pokemon HeartGold. Both will be getting full reviews from me in the near future, one most likely here and one most likely over at The First Hour, but I still want to talk a little bit about them at the moment…since their deaths are so fresh in my mind.

Both of these games are now beaten. I have seen the end credits roll. And yet, against my power, both of these games demand I continue playing them. In different manners, of course.

For Pokemon HeartGold, they are asking me to play the same game again. The only difference is a new skin to it with new Pokemon to collect, but the fundamentals are all the same: explore the land, collect pocket monsters, defeat gym leaders, and rise to the top of another league for ultimate bragging rights. I’m going to do it, but considering that I just did exactly that for 49 hours…well, I’m not terribly excited for déjà vu to set in.

For Dragon Age: Origins, it’s all about playing the game as drastically different as possible. Because what’s done is done. My Grey Warden character defeated the darkspawn (I don’t consider this a spoiler as, duh, you knew it was going to happen) and now there’s nothing else to do. Can’t reload and venture about Ferelden to do sidequests until the cows come home. Instead, thanks to the numerous origins and different classes and varied dialogue choices, one can play BioWare’s fantasy RPG a second time and experience the complete opposite of what they did before. That’s nice. And also, I didn’t do that Achievement boosting trick where you save before you make a big decision, unlock the Achievement, reload, and then unlock the other one. So I’ll be heading back in to side with the werewolves and help the mages in the Circle Tower and so on. To be honest, I’m looking forward to experiencing it all over again.

Now…about these games’ endings. They were totally lame, especially considering the hours spent to get there.

Pokemon HeartGold tossed an extremely tough battle in your face unlike anything your Trainer ever fought against, and I suspect a lot of players were in the same boat as me. Meaning…lots of grinding to catch up and be halfway formidable. And once that’s said and done, you’re treated to a short scene stating your awesomeness and then credits with little animated Pokesprites running around and being silly. Fade to black. Reload to discover you basically only “beat” 50% of the actual game. Laaame.

Talking about the ending in Dragon Age: Origins is a bit more challenging. I don’t want to spoil specifics, but I really felt like there was a lack of imagination in the final battle. Honestly, your team just moves from zone to zone, fighting wave after wave of darkspawn until you make it to the archdemon, and then you fight it and it releases wave after wave of support enemies and then you kill it and then you’re done. And treated to–and I’m not kidding here–static paintings with some tiny text boxes telling you about what happened to people and places in the years to come. BioWare couldn’t even shell out for some voice actor here after all the speaking that when down during my 41 hours of gameplay. Sigh. There may or may not be more to the game’s ending though depending on some choices you previously made. Time will tell in that department. Either way, it felt kind of lame. Like, that boss battle with that giant tentacle-wielding woman-thing was much more exciting (and original) than this. Oh well. Maybe my second playthrough will reveal something else.

But yeah, despite the fact I’m still going to be playing these for some time, they’re definitely getting crossed off the backlog list as completed.

Meet the three Pokemon Black/White starters

Earlier in the week, Pokemon fans got teased with the following silhouettes, which represent the three new starters from the forthcoming Pokemon Black/White games:

Many guessed that, seeing as there’s been little innovation in this aspect, the three Pokemon would fall under the usual category of being fire-based, grass-based, and water-based. Sure, some hoped for new elemental types to start out their next adventure. Personally, a baby dragon-based Pokemon would be killer to train from the get-go, but alas, it’s been revealed what they look like, knocking down all theoretical walls and solidifying that they are what they are, which is adorable/freaky and just more of the same:

We have a fire-based pig, a rather stoned-looking grass Pokemon (inside joke?), and some kind of…demented beaver? Really, your guess is as good as mine. Their Japanese names are reportedly Tsutaja, Pokabu, and Mijumaru, but I’m sure they’ll swiftly be made into something more punny for us silly Americans. Either way, I’m not overly excited for Pokemon Black/White. See, HeartGold will definitely be keeping me busy for a long, long time, and if there’s a severe lack of innovation in this next iteration of the series and just, oh, a hundred more Pokemon to ultimately collect then there’s no reason to jump on it. Chances are I won’t even have half of HeartGold‘s Pokedex filled by the time this comes out. And I really do think the series needs more than a graphic overhaul to spice things up.

If I had to pick one though, I’d go with the fire-based pig. Naturally, his nickname would be Bacon.

An update of many things

Apologies for the lack of an update yesterday. See, I had a crazy busy weekend and was really nothing more than a puddle of ooze come Monday. If I had tried to type any words, they most likely would’ve came out like so, “Ghkfer eere yh jkyyu isood kgkgkgx zzdfzzzzZZzZzz.” Yeah, a good time for all.

For starters, I became an uncle. And then I also celebrated with my fiancée Tara as she graduated from college. Woo on both fronts!

To keep this videogame-oriented, I got her a super shiny cobalt blue Nintendo DS Lite as a graduation present. I think she likes it (see above). But you can’t really have a DS and not have a game to play so I picked up Boing! Docomodake DS for her, which is a decidely odd little puzzle-platformer starring…fungi. Love the music though. And then my mother hooked her up with some “find hidden objects” game from her collection, meaning she’ll have plenty to do now that she has some freedom.

But yeah, given the weekend’s events, I did not get to do much gaming. But I surprisingly did some. Like more grinding in Pokemon HeartGold so I can beat the Elite Four (my Ho-Oh is at LV. 55, and I plan to stop grinding when it gets to LV. 60). I also played some more of Aquaria–surprisingly well too, considering I was without a mouse while traveling–and though I originally thought I was going to review the first hour for you-know-who, I’m passing that torch along to another writer for the site. Which is fine, really. My time and creative mind space is extremely limited at the moment, but trust me–I will have a lot to say about this game in the near future. And yesterday, shortly before my brain leaked out of my head, I put another hour into Borderlands and just about did every quest in my log save for the one to take out Sledge. So that’s next on the list…

Oh, and one more thing. That Humble Indie Bundle I wrote about a few posts back? Yeah, they added a sixth game to the collection, readily available for those that already purchased the bundle: Samorost 2. I only downloaded and ran it to make sure it worked, but it seems like a very stylized point-and-click adventure. Aliens took my dog? Will definitely check it out soon.

If the Humble Indie Bundle reaches donations of $1,000,000, the developers will release the source code for several of the games. It’s currently at $949,491 as of 1:oo PM today, and there’s only so much time left. If you haven’t checked into this yet, PLEASE DO IT RIGHT NOW. It’s a wonderful collection of games with no restrictions as to where you play ’em and how you share them. I can’t recommend it enough…

Stroll down the Winner’s Path in the latest Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver DLC

Sure, it’s still a little weird to have downloadable content for the Nintendo DS–and a pedometer game accessory, at that–but I’m never gonna knock free content.

So, from May 6 to June 25, Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver players can download via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection the Winner’s Path, a new course for their Pokewalker that gives way to more special Pokemon and items. Such as a “Bouncy” Magikarp, an explodable Munchlax (hee), and holdable goodies. Actually, to be more specific, here’s what one can find when out on a stroll:

Catchable Pokemon: Munchlax, Beldum, Horsea, Duskull, Bronzor, and Magikarp
Pokemon hold items: Leftovers (Munchlax), Shuca Berry (Beldum), Dragon Scale (Horsea), Reaper Cloth (Duskull), and Occa Berry (Magikarp)
Items: Focus Sash, Choice Scarf, Choice Band, Choice Specs, and Power Herb

For those not in the know, to download these special paths you have to select Mystery Gift from the main menu’s options. After that, you gotta head into the game and visit the closest Pokemart, as if you were to pick up one of your mother’s purchases. There you’ll find a dude who will pass along the path to you.

So start downloading, and then start walking.

The slow death of videogame manuals

At the end of April 2010, Ubisoft announced it was no longer printing videogame manuals as part of a green initiative to save paper and reduce the publisher’s carbon footprint. Good for them! Boo for us that actually like manuals (in other words, me) and not just for nostalgia’s sake. This is a first for the industry, with no other publisher following suit just yet, but while I can see the pros and cons in this action, I also know that, ultimately, videogame manuals are going the way of the dinosaur.

Thankfully, there’s a site called Replacement Docs, which allows you to download manuals of many, many games, some bereft and others not. The archive is well worth scouring. Do check it out.

Right. So I like videogame manuals. I like them a lot. Some nostalgia points slip into this factoring in that, during both the middle school and high school days, I used to get dropped off at the mall, buy an SNES or PS1 game with allowance money/job money, and then sit in a predetermined meeting area until my mother came to pick me up. I’d use this time wisely by devouring the game’s manual page by page, word by word, image by image. Some times I even read the manual more than once. Trap Gunner comes to mind instantly, and after reading about the game for 20 minutes, I just couldn’t wait to get home and play. At that point, I felt like, thanks to the manual, I was more than prepared for whatever the game was going to throw at me.

And even though nowadays we have extensive previews and reviews online, on-screen button prompts, and in-game opening tutorials, the straightforwardness of “training” yourself page after page feels much more natural. You usually see a picture of the control scheme, some plot background details, learning the menus, maybe some pages devoted to key characters, and so on. Also, some tips and tricks are only mentioned in the manual, like how to crouch in Maximo, a game I bought used and without a manual, leading me down a dark and destined-for-failure path until the Internet told me what I was doing wrong. Thanks, Internet, you big manual yourself.

Also, brand new manuals smell, and you know it. Sure, it’s an acquired taste much like a new car or a really old bookstore, but I tell you this, and I tell you this in all seriousness…it’s a smell I’m going to miss. Ripping off the plastic sealing and stickers to crack open the case and give the game manual its first breath into this world is truly a great feeling. So is taking it out and fanning yourself with it during the summer months. I kid on that front, but I love videogame manuals so much that when I bought Fallout 3: Game of the Year edition back in November 2009, I still read the manual front to end before popping the game disc into my Xbox 360 despite waiting over 12 months to get the game. I think that says something.

Will have to look through my collection later for some examples of great and not-so-great videogame manuals. Cause some are truly a waste of paper, but others…well, they’ve got personality. And do more than just tell us how to play the game; they show us what it’s all about.

The Elite Four wall

Well, I gotta come clean. The Elite Four, more specifically the first member of the league with his/her psychic-themed Pokemon, completely pwned me. Of my six Pokemon I’m currently using, only three are over LV. 40, which seems to be where the Elite Four’s Pokemon start out at. Plus, psychic attacks had my Ho-Oh eating dirt fast, and it’s my strongest fighter at this point.

So you know what that means, right?

Time to grind.

I don’t have a huge problem with this because grinding in Pokemon HeartGold is relatively simple and easy not to pay attention to. What do I mean? Well, you basically find the cave or spot of grass with decent leveled Pokemon, equip the Pokemon you’re not using as your lead-in with the EXP share item, walk around until you get into a fight, spam your hardest attack, repeat until you run low on health or PP, heal up at the closest free healthcare center, and then do it all again. You can also watch TV during all of this.

No, what bothers me more is this severe spike in difficulty. Because if the first member of the Elite Four is trouble enough, you then have to take on three more without a chance for free healing and such. That means…I need all six of my ‘mon in great shape, most likely around LV. 50 to LV. 60. Oh boy. That’s a lot of experience to go around. Or maybe I can get by earlier than that. I will most certainly try, as I really just want to “beat” the game and open up more paths on my Pokewalker (wow, that’s kind of a sad goal).

And I dunno…given the length of the plot and major storyline events, I don’t expect many players to reach the league battle with extremely high level pocket monsters. Maybe one or two, but not a full team. Unless they played previous games before and just loaded in their super powerful team and whooped some major butt. But then phooey on them. It’s us newcomers meant to suffer.

So we’ll see. I’m definitely at a standstill currently. Maybe I can get through them with just four strong ‘mon or maybe I can see if anyone is willing to trade something good my way. The problem, naturally, is I have nothing great to give back, unless HeartGold exclusives count.

I’ve got a Ho-Oh in my pocket

There are most likely a number of ways one can consider “beating” Pokemon HeartGold. There’s the boss battle against the respective game’s legendary pocket monster (Ho-Oh for HeartGold, and Lugia for SoulSilver), there’s defeating the Elite 4 after smiting the previously mentioned legendaries, there’s collecting all 493 (?!) Pokemon and completing your Pokedex to the max, and lastly there’s hardcore breeding and building the perfect team with the perfect stats for perfectly kicking other Pokemon in the face during online battles and such. I guess that last one’s more of a goal than anything else, but I’m sure there are some players that use it as a measuring stick for beating the game.

Anyways, of those, I just ticked off the first one. And alas, it was a huge disappointment.

See, every time you start HeartGold, you’re treated to a 3D model of the legendary phoenix ‘mon Ho-Oh flying through the sky, looking all majestic and bad-ass. Obviously, you will meet him/her/it in mortal combat. It’s only a matter of time. The graphics used here get you excited for more lively-looking Pokemon, but unfortunately that never comes to fruition. It’s sprites through and through, with 8-bit sound effects, too. So, just before you do battle with Ho-Oh, you visit Professor Elm (or is it Oak? Dogwood? JUNIPER?!) and he gives you a single Master Ball. This is a special, extremely limited Pokeball that will catch a Pokemon with 100% accuracy, no fail, no problems. Use it wisely.

I used it on Ho-Oh on my very first turn. Fight over. He/she/it is mine, and Ho-Oh now proudly owns the nickname of Bombadil. Sure, I could have used this opportunity to test my skills and probably earn some killer EXP, but I also wanted it for my collection. The timing and convenience of the Master Ball naturally played into my plans.

I was expecting something more epic. I had the opportunity to make it so. Then again, Game Freak made it so easy to go the other way.

Up next, the fight against the Elite 4. From the few postings I’ve read online, this set of battles will definitely test my skills. As well as open up a whole new cut of land to explore. Hmm. Wish me luck, fellow Trainers.