Breaking on through to the other side of Devil Summoner Overclocked

Let’s travel back in time. About a year ago, a crazy hurricane named Irene tore through the eastern side of the United States, doing insane damage and just being overall terrible and freaky. Let’s hope she never returns. It also forced Tara and I out of the house we had just begun renting, pushing us to stay with her parents until power was restored in the Pennsylvania area. Before all of this happened, as a handheld gamer is wont to do knowing that a lockdown is imminent, I bought a new game for the Nintendo 3DS to help…ahem weather the storm. That’s the second time I’ve used that joke, and no, I’m not apologizing for it.

Anyways, that game was Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Overclocked, and it seemed like something I’d like at first glance, but proved a little too difficult early on to overcome. Which is a shame, as the story was very promising and had all its hooks in me. And so I set it aside, disappointed in my second retail purchase for that nifty videogame system that displays things in three dimensions with no use of special glasses, only to pick it up nearly a year later to try again and knock down the wall blocking any and all progress. The main reason behind this? Well, I have finally begun watching the lengthy and amusing Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 Endurance Run at Giant Bomb, and all the talk of fusing different Personas and casting of spells like Bufu and Zio and growing relationships amid chaos and disaster reminded me that I had a game quite similar to that. Just a SRPG instead of a JRPG, that’s all.

And so, I hopped back into the thick of things. If you’ll recall, I put Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Overclocked down at what I assumed was a boss-like battle early on during Day One of the lockdown in Tokyo, but was really just a traditional battle that stood in the way of the story progressing. My problem with it is that monsters would encircle a character and his or her team of Personas, and then they would KO super fast, then causing the other teams to follow just as speedily. This time around, I strategized and planned to move my trio of teens directly at the toughest enemy on the screen, killing it as fast as possible while keeping everybody close to each other. Also, I learned how to better use certain spells like Aggravate and Dia, as well as exploiting certain weaknesses for specific enemies, which then grant extra turns vital to staying alive. And lo and behold, I was victorious.

As Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Overclocked continues on, I’ve entered a few more battles like the one that stopped me in my tracks before. It can be a little frustrating, but I’m beginning to see my mistakes and how I can handle things better. The opening few turns really do foretell how things will go, and one can grind on free battles if they need to level up their teams and Personas. In short, I’m definitely getting the hang of battles more, and I hate–with the deepest and darkest passion you can hold in the blackest spot of your heart–the demon Moh Shuvuu. One thing I still haven’t learned is to not attack her unless you can kill her in a single fight, because she will just Dia (heal) herself immediately after.

Last night, I completed Day One of the lockdown, and am now waking up to Day Two, with the counter on our collective deathclocks reading…one. Aww, boo. The story’s still fantastic, and Yuzu says some hilarious things, especially when nonchalantly talking about summoning demons from handheld COMPs and that one time they all took down a snowman. The voice-acting has really helped keep me engaged as the battles are most stressful than enjoyable, though I have only just gotten into them at this point. Learning to steal skills from enemies gives me a good goal towards perfectly the Personas currently in my party.

But yeah, I’m pretty stoked to have broken down that wall and gotten to continue on in the game. Don’t quote me on this, but it’s looking like I won’t be getting a new game until late September 2012 when Borderlands 2 drops, and so re-visiting a number of games from my backlog and continuing on with them is a good thing. Saves me money and makes me feel better about some of these purchases. Well, maybe not Game of Thrones: The Game; maybe not ever.

Back to Borderlands for a little bit

Well, since beating Rage last weekend, I’ve been kind of meh about anything new to play on the ol’ Xbox 360. The truth is, I still have several incompleted games in my collection that I should try to beat one day–Eternal Sonata, Game of Thrones, Grand Theft Auto IV, Nier, Quarrel–but none of those look the least bit desirable right now. Especially the newest of them all: Game of Thrones. Sorry, not even a hardcore fanboy can enjoy that mess, though I will at some point soon talk about why it would probably should’ve sank fast and furiously during the Battle of Blackwater.

Recently, I visited my local GameStop to pick up a new wired Xbox 360 controller as my previous one was on the brink of failure, and even then, with shelves full of names and images and discounted prices, nothing jumped out. Well, maybe Dragon’s Dogma and The Witcher 2, but those are still a little too pricey for me. I’d call this a summer slump, but the truth is I do have some stuff to play, but it’s mostly on my laptop thanks to the Steam Summer Sale or on my Nintendo 3DS.

I did, however, pre-order Borderlands 2, which then gave me the itch to return to the 2009 original title. Turns out, there was still more to do with my Playthrough 2 character. Like collect items in that Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution DLC and finish missions and kill some giant crab in The Secret Armory of General Knoxx DLC and hit level 61 and then beyond and even more things. But first…a patch to download! This patch gave me hope that the drop rates for oil cans, bobbleheads, pizza slices, and so on got fixed, because in its original form it was nearly impossible to find any of those items. And yes, it seems to be better, but still not great. Since the game doesn’t keep track of what you pick up as you crawl upwards toward those Achievements, I kept track. Check out this blurry photo:

Sorry, my camera phone is pretty lackluster. I will reproduce it below:

• Oil Cans (need 25): 4 so far
• Bobbleheads (need 15): 5 so far
• Panties (need 3): 3 found, completed
• Fish in a Bag (need 5): 5 found, completed
• Pizza Slices (need 15): 0 so far

And that’s after playing for a few hours and taking on the MINAC twice. So yeah, it’s still pretty slow. The barren wasteland of pizza slices has me worried the most though, considering I’ve yet to see even a single slice drop off a Claptrap. But I’ll keep trying because, if anything, it’s at least more experience points towards a new level. I’ve read some tricks online about hiding from the MINAC so that it keeps producing Claptraps and then runs them over, endlessly producing loot. Will have to try that at some point, but I’ve moved over to running through the Robot Revolution DLC a second time on my Playthrough 2, which is at least providing a challenge for my LV 56 soldier. Also, I got taken for a ride:

Sucker born every minute (10G): Paid for a worthless tour of the world’s largest bullet

Well, that was $8,000,000 spent on an Achievement. Which is fine, really, as I don’t need a lot of money at this point as I have a ton of weapons and love, and I never see anything in the shop worth buying. Though I am still keeping my eye out for a better shield.

So, I’m back in Borderlands, at least for a little bit. Borderlands 2 comes out in the middle of next month, and I’m pretty excited for it. The pre-order bonus comes with some special guns and access to a new class, but I predict I’ll be rolling with the soldier again, as I love that turret. It is like having another soldier on the field, which is vital to me, since I pretty much play these co-op ready games solo.

Outernauts and the nature of the human being to face challenges

It seems like, once a year now, I try another Facebook game. I gave The Sims Social a go for a decent bit back in late 2011, eventually moving away when my house full of trees and bushes took forever to load, as well as the fact that I was running out of complete-able quests. Before that, in 2010, I enjoyed my short time–and I do mean short–as a chocobo rancher. I don’t really desire gaming on Facebook other than the occasional round of Words With Friends, and I’m totally aware of its constant trappings and never-yielding plot to annoy my online friends, fill my wall up with ridiculous claims, and attempt to have me spend real cash-money on things like Sim coins and star gems and poodle bucks.

And so, here we are in 2012, and I’m just getting into Outernauts. It’s got some good and some bad, and, for the time being, I’m willing to overlook the bad to embrace the good. But I can’t see this experience lasting for very long though.

Right. So, Outernauts. Basically, it’s Pokemon in space. And there’s nothing wrong with that. At all. In fact, it’s a stellar idea, and I’m somewhat surprised we haven’t seen it yet; if a game like this already exists, I missed it or it didn’t shout its premise loud enough for the world to hear. I mean, there are plenty of Pokemon clones out there–Digimon and Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker, for instance–but neither of those focus on space critters and traversing different galaxies. Outernauts does, and it makes much more sense when you realize that Insomniac Games is behind it. Yes, more from the creative minds behind all the zany weapons, monsters, and planets in the Ratchet and Clank series. That’s actually what grabbed my interest first before the whole “gotta catch ’em all” aspect.

For a free-to-play Facebook game, surprisingly, there’s a story. I can’t remember the specifics or names, so I’ll just use this generic text from Insomniac’s website for Outernauts:

As a member of United Earth’s elite Outernaut force, you’ll encounter both friends and foes as you uncover the riddle behind the mysterious “ancients” while battling pirates and evil corporations seeking to control the galaxy.

All in all, you’re looking for a thing, and so is an evil corporation, and to stop them from getting the thing, you need to battle and beat them with a team of exotic beasts. You level these beasts up by battling them and tweaking their abilities.

Right now, my cosmic team of battling beasties consists of these:

Note that those are the nicknames I gave my beasts, not their actual names. I think my leading one is a…Pumasear? Scorl is a Scorling. Can’t tell you what the other two are. I don’t remember. I have too many ‘mon names in my brain to differentiate this from that and that from this. Anyways, Purrburn is my strongest beast, mostly because I used all my Star Gems on it, not knowing that those are the “FarmVille bucks” of the game, limited and then only acquirable thereafter with real money. Oh well.

The music and artwork and design of everything is great, classic Insomniac charm. Colorful and inventive, with the gusto of space opera and pomp of Buzz Lightyear. Everything is easily explained and clear, and there’s lots of carrots on sticks to chase after. However, as with all Facebook games, the most disappointing and distrusting element is…energy. To battle, use 3 energy. To clear a path, use energy. To gather fuel, use energy. Need more energy? Pay up or wait awhile. The point is, you run out of energy real fast, and so playing Outernauts quickly becomes a game of management over experiencing, and that’s not too much fun. But I’d rather do as much as I can at once rather than blow my time on a wasted fight, which ends with my beasts being knocked out and unable to battle any more.

I’ll keep logging in for now to give Outernauts ten or fifteen minutes of my attention each day, but eventually I’ll walk away. Too many strange limitations in how many beasts I can have in my party and what I can actually do in a certain span of time, and I can just easily go back to my copies of Pokemon HeartGold, Pokemon White, or Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker to fill in the gaps.

Level-5’s Fantasy Life surfaces after too much silence

At long last, some news about Level-5’s Fantasy Life.

Don’t worry if you forgot that a game of this name even existed, as it’s been some time. Years, in fact, when you consider this blog post of mine from August 2009, in which I am excited and jumpy and full of anticipation for what looked like a great life simulator with a retro look to it from Level-5, a company that I hold in high beams of holy light. That Mother 3-esque visual style eventually got scraped, as did the idea of putting the dang thing on the bereaved Nintendo DS, but the game has still been in the works, now brimming with polygons and a plan to hit the Nintendo 3DS. From a gameplay standpoint, everything still looks the same: create an avatar, select one of twenty jobs, and then do whatever you want.

Some new news is that Fantasy Life will mainly take place in a single city called Kulburk, which will serve as a hub. The city is divided into three sections: the main street, the craftsman’s ward, and a downtown area. The main street houses Kulburk Castle, the library, barracks, and various shops. The craftsman’s ward contains different workshops and will likely be a regular location for players with crafting jobs. The downtown area serves as an entertainment district, with a bustling marketplace and hotspot for social gatherings.

But it’s not just all about running fetch quests for neighbors and decking out your sweet abode with green-themed furniture. This YouTube video clearly reveals moments of combat in what looks like a dungeon. So yeah, that’s cool. Doesn’t seem turn-based either. Hmm…I wonder if only certain jobs get to fight though.

And so we got a bunch of Japanese text-laden screenshots this morning, as well as the promise of a release date by early next week. Here’s hoping this slides on in before holiday 2012 is dead and done as I need some kind of life sim–any life, but my own, really–for my 3DS now that I am totally finished with Professor Layton’s London Life, and it definitely doesn’t seem like Animal Crossing is coming out in the states any time soon. Sigh.

Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy is one earworm of a 3DS game

In case you’re not up to snuff with your urban dictionary terms, an earworm is “a song that sticks in your mind, and will not leave no matter how much you try.” This can be either a good or bad thing, depending on who you are. For me and for Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy, it’s a delightful problem to have right now. To hammer home this point, let me inform you that I haven’t missed a single daily Rhythmia bonus–extra points alloted to those that play every consecutive day–since I bought it on release day, way back on July 3, 2012. Mm-hmm.

But what is Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy? It’s a good question, and one nobody should be afraid to ask. The answer is both simple and strange: it is a music rhythm game à la Elite Beat Agents, as well as a “thank you” to fans of the Final Fantasy series.

For the rhythm part, you tap the touchscreen via three different on-screen prompts to the beat of a song: a single tap, a tap and hold, or a directional swipe. Sequences vary in difficulty, and you play them across three different types of scenarios. The most enjoyable for me are Field Music Scenarios (FMS), which has the leader of your party of four strolling across the screen from right to left while you handle all the prompts. The other two are Battle Music Scenarios (BMS) and Event Music Scenarios (EMS), both of which are enjoyable, but can be distracting due to too much happening outside of the button prompts. For the EMS, you’re basically tapping over a movie playing, and it can be hard to not focus on Zidane chasing after Garnet, especially for a fanboy like myself.

Speaking of that, the other half of Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy is all about the fans. Whether you think Final Fantasy IV is the best or still can’t get over your nostalgia and claim that nothing beats Final Fantasy VII or are somehow head over heels with the latest hall-walker Final Fantasy XIII…all the mainstay games from the series are represented here. Each game seems to get three songs (with each song getting three different difficulty ranks), and for your party of four, you can pick some recognizable people, all with their own skill sets. And this is where rhythm game and RPG fuse, letting your team level up, earn items, and unlock spells to cast during events. My team of four–all now around level 50 or so–has been like so since the get-go: Zidane (leader), Squall, Vaan, and Terra.

At first, the game seems to be limited on things to do, but after just a bit you’ll have opened up new levels of difficulty, as well as Dark Notes and CollectaCards and music not tied to a specific game. And those Dark Notes…oh man. They are basically randomly generated levels, each containing a FMS and a BMS, but you won’t know which ones until you try it out. Often, they are extremely tough and really challenge your response time, but clearing them successfully is an exhilarating feeling. When you beat one, you unlock another, which is always a higher difficulty. However, there is plenty of reason to replay Dark Notes as you fight one of three potential bosses, and they all have a chance to drop rare items or colored shards, which you use to unlock new characters. Right now, I’m working my way towards getting Vivi on my team–see ya, Squall! I know, you’re surprised.

So, it’s a surprising game, and might not be for everyone, but I’m enjoying it a lot. Not enough to consider buying DLC at $1.00 a song though, as I think there’s plenty of tunes here for my enjoyment, but yeah. For those curious, my favorite songs to play are “Mambo de Chocobo”, “Terra’s Theme”, and “Over the Hills”. What’s your favorite Final Fantasy song? You are not allowed to answer with “One-Winged Angel” by the way.

All right, back to it. The music, it’s a-calling…

The highs and lows of playing through Deus Ex: Human Revolution a second time

Clearly, I forgot to buy an intelligence-at-reading-menu-options augmentation while playing through Deus Ex: Human Revolution for a second time on its hardest difficulty. Because I got through it, struggling in a several sections, but otherwise racking up Praxis Points and bullets for my silenced Machine Pistol with ease and blasting down anybody that got in the way. Because I beat it using a mix of stealth and sniping  and straight up shooting and watched the credits roll and waited patiently for that bloop that would confirm I did it, that I mastered a game on its most straining setting, from beginning to end. But it never popped. The one for viewing all the different endings did though. Confused, I went back to my last save to check my option settings, and there I discovered that no, in fact, I was playing on medium difficulty…the whole time.

::frustratingly funny facepalm::

But man, it sure felt like a harder difficulty than that.

If you’ll recall, my first playthrough of Adam Jensen’s journey to living a new life and stopping…whatever did not go smoothly. With a battle plan of full-on stealth, I struggled to take down two of the three main bosses, sadly learned that I goofed up a non-lethal playthrough by rewiring a robot to kill enemy guards, and then ran into a nasty door glitch. I decided long ago that I’d play it all again, this time throwing quietness to the wind and shooting down dudes when it seemed like a quicker and simpler solution. The actual doing of this took longer than I expected, but we’re in the dry season currently for exciting videogames, and so I found some time recently over the last two weekends to plug away at this.

It went much easier the second time around, as well as quicker. I no longer had to wait and watch a guard until he turned his body ever so slightly to slip by him; this time around, I merely poked my head out, aimed with a silenced weapon, and dinged him in his dome. Sometimes I’d drag the body away. Sometimes I wouldn’t. Fearless, this Jensen he be. The boss battles were a snap thanks to Typhoon ammo and a ton of augmentations I missed the first time around, and I only had a hard time in certain rooms full of dudes where ammo was scarce and enemy count was high. It did seem like Jensen lost health super fast until I upgraded his skin perks, and that’s probably why I felt like I was playing on the hardest difficulty the whole time. Hacking emails and doors is still a strangely fun minigame, if a bit daunting at first. Towards the end though you’re breaking into level 5 rooms and emails like a pro, which does feel rewarding in its own way.

Anyways, here’s a few of the Achievements I unlocked on my second go in Deus Ex: Human Revolution that I’m pretty pleased with, especially considering that I’m probably never going back for a third time:

Deus Ex Machina (50G): Experience all the different endings that Deus Ex: Human Revolution has to offer.

Good Soul (15G): Against all odds, you saved Faridah Malik’s life.

Lucky Guess (10G): Next time, Jacob better use a more complex code to arm his bombs.

I only wish that I had been able to get either one of the really hard Achievements (beat the game with no kills, beat the game on its hardest difficulty, or beat the game without setting off an alarm) to show off my mad Deus Ex skills. I guess all I’m doing now is showing my lack of ’em. But you won’t tell anyone, right? ::tosses a gas grenade:: Right?

Still a hundred and one things to do in Skyrim

Over the weekend, after putting some healthy time and work into my newest and craziest comics project thus far, I played some more Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I kind of wanted to see if I needed the recently released DLC Dawnguard just yet or if I could hold off for a wee bit. Aye, seems like I need not rush. Will explain more on that in just a moment, but for right now, check out these two Achievements I pinged after over 90 hours of traversing the realm and being all sneaky and meticulous:

Thief (30G): Pick 50 locks and 50 pockets

Delver (40G): Clear 50 dungeons

For the Thief one, I most definitely picked over 50 locks a long, long time ago. It was the pickpocketing that took forever. Despite my love and desire to always play a sneaky sneaker, I generally roleplay it in the way that keeps me a great distance from enemies and people. So there is little chance for me to steal from bandits since I’m filling them with arrows from across the room, which leads to me robbing from unaware citizens of Whiterun as they snoozed or were out for a morning walk. Shame on me, but whatever. The Delver Achievement one just requires you to kill all enemies in a dungeon/cave, and sometimes I wanted nothing more than to escape back out to sunlight, leaving a single dude or bear still breathing. Didn’t take long to clear out a few, especially since I was working on a lot of miscellaneous quests where you are tasked with killing the bandit leader, often hiding out in a cave.

Oh, and that miscellaneous quest log? It’s never ending. Still there, still growing. I cleared out a few, but still have plenty to keep me busy, as well as the larger, more story-driven quests. Mainly trying to restore the Thieves Guild to its former glory. I think I’m two-fifths of the way there, as I’ve now gotten to complete two big quests to get cities to support us and bring in new merchants to the Ragged Flagon. But it’s slow going. Basically, you have to do a bunch of small thieving jobs in a randomly picked city, and once you do a certain amount you can then do a special task for Devan which will then help you improve the Thieves Guild. All in all, a whole lot of back and forth, which in Skyrim terms means fast travel loading screens.

So, right now, with a long laundry list of things to do, I just don’t see Dawnguard happening immediately yet. But I will get there, if only for the crossbow action. Not really interested in being a vampire. But spearing one from afar with a magical crossbow? Yes please.

Took some time, but I finally stepped up to the challenge in Fallout: New Vegas

The Gun Runners’ Arsenal DLC for Fallout: New Vegas added a number of things to the desolate and barren play-realm known to all as the Mojave Wasteland. Mostly weapons, obviously, but also new recipes , ammunition types, gun mods, and–the topic of today’s blog post–in-game challenges. These new challenges are given different ranks, ranging from one star to three stars, and are tied to some Achievements. Also, they ain’t easy, like the “kill 10 bloatflies” ilk.

Anyways, a few weeks ago, as I continued slowly down the path to a Mr. House playthrough, I finished off a third one-star challenge, earning this little darling:

Up to the Challenge (20G): Completed any three Gun Runners’ Arsenal (GRA) one star (*) Challenges.

Now, there are a total of six possible one-star challenges, and, of them, four seemed doable. The other two? No. No way, no how. One asked of me to kill Mr. House with a golf club, which went against my entire playthrough, and the other wanted the Courier to obliterate animals with the Fat Man or Fat mines, of which I’ve never used either before in all my long hours. And so I went after the reasonable ones: cripple five right arms with a shotgun, kill 15 robots using a 5.56mm pistol, kill 15 feral ghouls using specific weapons, or destroy 10 abominations–which range from evolved centaurs to spore carriers–using things like katanas, dynamite, machetes, and throwing spears. It’s a lot of specifics, and unfortunately for my Courier, that meant constantly carrying around a lot of different weapons just in case a situation popped up where I could use X against Y to obtain Z.

Right. I was able to cripple arms and kill robots rather easily as I went along my merry way, but a third challenge constantly seemed far off. I was not interested in fighting feral ghouls, and abominations seemed few and far between as the Courier stuck to the main storyline path based around the Strip. That is until I went to Vault 22. That place is full of horrible creatures not right for this world, but it wasn’t just a matter of slicing them to pieces. Because my Courier is high in guns and low in melee and throwing weapons, I would first try to lower a spore carrier’s health–without killing it in one shot, natch–before finishing it off with a thrown spear to the face. This worked a couple times, but then I ran out of spears. So it was jungle fever action time with a machete, and I had to use a lot of health/food items to make it out alive. But regardless, I did it, and it felt nice to have one challenge-based Achievement dead and done.

However, the other two are looking like even bigger mountains to climb. I already failed my attempt to get two via fighting Caesar, and it is highly unlikely I’m going to go and punch some Deathclaws to death, considering just how much they freak me out. I can’t seem to sneak machine guns into the casinos to kill Chairmen, White Gloves, and Omertas. Burning Cazadors to a crisp is risky business, and I think I’ve done it twice so far. It’s all looking hopeless. But we’ll see. I mean, I guess that’s why they are called challenges.

Back into the wild to remember which Pokemon I liked

I haven’t posted my haiku review of it yet, but I “beat” Professor Layton’s London Life the other night. And, of course, in an Animal Crossing-esque mini-game made up of fetch quests only, beating the thing is not a terribly difficult mountain climb, but rather a nice walk around the park until the sun goes down and it is time to head home lest a shadowcat eviscerate you. And I sure did take my time, as I’ve been chipping away at fixing Little London’s problems since November 2011. But it’s over. Surprisingly major crisis averted, minute problems of every townsperson resolved, happiness earned, and credits scrolled. The actual main plot through and through is a bit silly and confusing, but I’ll save that for another post. Dangerously, after the credits are done and some ineffectual text plays, I am dropped back into London Life to continue doing all the tiny tasks again and again and again, which is fine, really. But I wanted to play something else for a change.

All of this is to say I took out the Professor Layton and the Last Specter cartridge from my Nintendo 3DS…and replaced it with Pokemon White, a game I haven’t touched in over a year. Shocking, I know. I basically got all the way up to the final fight (or series of fights) and couldn’t beat a certain tier, which meant blatant amounts of grinding, something I wasn’t interested in at the time. And I then put the game aside and forgot about it. Obviously.

But I’m back, and boy was my first few minutes disorienting. First of all, I guess I last saved my progress within some shopping mall, but one that also contained trainers ready to fight. Y’know, not exactly a safe zone, like a health center or neighborhood house. Not knowing this, I immediately went to chat with a young woman nearby. Her name was…Waitress Flo, and she wanted to kick my butt; I guess I had forgotten to previously leave her a nice tip. Alas, many of my Pokemon were weak and low on health, so I had to scrape by. As soon as the fight ended, I got the bleep out of there and took some time to re-learn the menus and what items I had, as well as familiarize myself with my team of pocket monsters.

Only three stood out as memorable, the ones I’ve used since the dawn of time, and the other three felt immediately like space-fillers. But anyways, yeah. My trio of attackers included the following:

• Trashy, a LV55 Garbodor who uses a lot of poison-based attacks
• Snape, a LV 45 Serperior who loves his grassy ass
• Vick, a LV 53 Victini, which is a special non-gendered Pokemon that was only available for a short time

The problem is that these are my only heavy hitters, and after they fall, I don’t have anyone else strong enough to take their places. So now I am looking around my storage box for three worthy contenders, and then I guess I will grind them up to the mid-forties or low fifties via Victory Road and hope that I can take down the Ferocious Four (or whatever they are called) in one fell swoop. If anything, the time spent grinding will help me get back into the groove of the game, as well as continue to grow Trashy into the biggest, baddest pile of punching trash you ever did see. I told the world I’d beat Pokemon White with garbage, and I plan to see that promise come to fruition.

An update from beyond the Wall

I am still here, you just can’t see me. Walls, they work wonders.

My absence on Grinding Down as of late has been both a choice and a consequence. My day job–which, if you’ve paid attention, is something I rarely discuss here on my videogaming blog–has turned the level of busy up to eleven, and I am trying my best to not go insane from it. The days are long and stuffed, and there is only so much quiet time, during which I’ve chosen to not spend writing silly words about the silly games I’ve been playing, such as Minecraft and Metroid Fusion and Rage and so on. Also, I have a secret art project in the works–and it’s a doozy. A lot of work on my part, but I think it’s going to pay off and just be fun through and through. “Like” my page on Facebook to find out more, as I’ll be revealing it very, very soon.

But I’m making an effort. See, this is efforting. I’m putting down my numerous thoughts to e-paper and publishing it for all of you to skim past. You’re welcome.

Yesterday, after work ended, I popped over to the local GameStop to see if they had that game that everyone was clamoring for on May 15, 2012. No, not Diablo III. No, not Max Payne 3. No, not even Akai Katana Shin. I’m talking about…Game of Thrones. Yeah, that’s right. It came out in all its quietness. The store had copies, just not on the shelves; they were behind the counter, which I found odd as I went to the shelves first and was surprised to not see them right underneath the NEW RELEASES sign.

Anyways, as it turned out, like nobody pre-ordered a copy–myself included–and so the store had a bunch of extra art books from Atlus to give away. That’s both awesome and sad, but whatever–I got my book, which is neat, if filled with some inaccuracies, like a picture of Jeor Mormont with the name Jorah beneath it. At least it’ll help me come up with some better clothing ideas for my drawings at All of Westeros.

The game itself…well, I will reserve a lot of judgment until I’m much farther in, but so far it’s been highs and lows. Game of Thrones is sick with a terrible case of tiny text syndrome, as well as a knack for using white font on light-colored backgrounds, making said font unreadable. The combat is surprisingly bland, like watching broken robots hacking and slashing until their commands run dry despite the promising look it presents. I do like a lot of the story bits, especially the Night’s Watch stuff, and the lore and tone seems to be right. I just wish I could read a lot more of the menus, but whatever. My fault for not having an expensive HDTV, right?

Some Achievements then after an hour or two of play:

Winter is coming (10G): Finish chapter 1

Family is hope… (10G): Finish chapter 2

Merciless (20G): Mete out 5 deathblows

The majority of Achievements are labeled as “secret” and hidden away behind locked text. I kind of appreciate that as it definitely helps to not spoil story beats. As someone who always peruses the lists of unlockables before playing, it’s nice to not know everything or even the hint of something to come.

All right. Time to go back behind stone and brick. Maybe I’ll resurface soon again. If not, knock the secret knock, and we’ll work something out.