Strategy Guide Reviews

A Strategy Guide for your Strategy Guides

Monday Gaming Diary: Tell Me What I Should Play Next

By 2 Comments

Dragon Age

Yeah, I know it’s ridiculous I haven’t finished this game.

Fuse is done, I’m wrapping up Remember Me as fast as I can (as this game is NOT fun, unfortunately), and I’m finally going to wrap up Resistance 2 this week. Animal Crossing: New Leaf is slowly taking over my life, but it’s something I play for about 30 minutes at a time, usually while cooking dinner or eating lunch. A staffer is taking care of The Last of Us for me (thank youuuu very much), so I have nothing on my schedule until either Thing 2 is born or Saints Row IV releases, whichever happens first. So how shall I fill in the void?

I went to my sad stack of shame and picked three time-consuming RPGs that I really want to play or get rid of entirely. But which one shall I play? I’m leaving it up to all of you to tell me!

The three on my list are Skyrim, Dragon Age: Origins, and Dragon’s Dogma–and I swear I was not consciously picking games relating to dragons. The only one I’ve started is DAO, and I’m about halfway, maybe a little over halfway, through. I’ll probably have to start a new character, relearn the system, and then go back to where I left off. I’ve never played any part of Skyrim or DD.

Please note that picking one does not mean I’m going to toss the other two. I just want some input on which to work on first (or in the case of DAO, finish).

The poll is in the sidebar for everyone, and feel free to comment here and let me know why you think I should play one game over the other. I’m eager to get one of these off my stack of shame! I’ve actually made good progress with my stack this year, and the more I can finish before the next-gen releases, the better; in other words, if I don’t finish them before the next-gen launches, the likelihood I do finish them drops severely.

I look forward to seeing what everyone says I should play next!

Monday Gaming Diary: The Franchise(s) You Never Finish

By Leave a Comment

Final Fantasy XI’d say we all have them–a franchise or two of games that you enjoy yet never finish–but I’m not sure everyone really does. I know many people have one, but I have two, and no matter how much I know I won’t finish these games, it doesn’t stop me from buying the next installment. It doesn’t matter if it’s a remake, a port, or a brand new game; I can’t seem to help myself. I’m talking about The Legend of Zelda and the Final Fantasy games, two long series of games that I can’t seem to finish and can’t seem to quit.

I own every Final Fantasy (mainstream, not counting Tactics or other off-shoots) game in the series except for the MMOs, FFXI and FFXIV. I’ve started I, III, V, VII, X, and 4 Heroes of Light. I rage quit III at the very end once I discovered that even after completing every single side quest, I needed to level grind about 40 more levels in order to survive the onslaught of multiple boss fights at the end. The story wasn’t great enough for me to do so or start over to begin with, so that one will remain unfinished. With V and I, I just got distracted and stopped playing them for arbitrary reasons. I played VII up to the point of recruiting Cid Highwind, but then the game released on the PSP, so I started over to play it there, and then I just got burned out. I played X all the way to the point where the game releases the linearity and opens up. I had been so focused on the game up to that point, I walked away to take a brief hiatus…about 4 years ago. Now that X is coming to the PS3 and Vita has an HD remake, I’m debating whether to forage on or start over. I have a feeling I’ll play it more if it’s on my Vita than on my larger console, for whatever reason.

The only FF games I’ve finished are XIII and XIII-2. I wish I never started XIII-2.

I’ve suddenly been thinking about my unfinished FF games as I played a little bit of Final Fantasy Theatrhythm this weekend. Listening to the music has reminded me that I really do want to finish the games I’ve started, save for FFIII. Not only that, but I want to finish the other FF games I’ve bought and not started, namely VI, VIII, and IX. Since all of these games are now on my Vita (except for V…not sure what is up with that one, Sony!!), and I’ve moved my handhelds downstairs to stare at me every night, I’m hoping motivation to play them will come to me.

But I need motivation for more than just FF. There are some Zelda games I’d like to actually finish what I start as well.

I’m still not sure if I’ll ever re-pick back up Ocarina of Time 3D after having so much difficulty aiming at a particular boss and all of the pots in the boss room having zero hearts in them, but there are other games I’d like to finish on my own one day. I still have A Link to the Past as a GBA game I can play on my DS, and since its spiritual successor is coming out soon, I’m feeling a stirring to pick it back up again. Also, I recently snagged Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons during Nintendo’s recent eShop sale. I never played either as I never had a Gameboy Color, but they’re part of the Zelda universe, so I feel the need to play them for whatever reason. I admit this is part of the reason why I want to buy Wind Waker HD as well. But maybe I’ll actually finish the game this time. I hope.

In other news, now that E3 is over and is no longer taking over my work day, it’s time to finish up Fuse (so close!) and start Remember Me. Should be getting The Last of Us strategy guide soon as well, so my writer extraordinaire can get cracking on that one. We’ll be fairly slow in July as usual, but we’re excited about things picking back up in August!

Monday Gaming Diary: It’s not another brown shooter! It’s orange, thank you.

By Leave a Comment

Fuse

See? It’s orange. Not brown.

When I have been playing games this last week, it’s been all Fuse all the time. Yeah, yeah, another shooter that’s probably just like every other one. Believe me, I’ve heard all of the snooty snide remarks and seen all of the eyerolls. Bottom line is, I’m reviewing this strategy guide and I don’t care that it’s cool to not like shooters right now. I’m having an absolute blast playing.

First off, before you criticize, get one thing straight: it’s not a brown shooter; it’s actually quite orange.

Secondly, it’s actually quite fun. It has that Binary Domain vibe, and I absolutely loved Binary Domain. Each character has their own unique abilities and weapon, and you’re able to switch characters whenever you want to tap into these abilities. I could see how this game would be more fun to play with another person, like Binary Domain, but I’m having just as much fun on my own.

One complaint I am seeing is that the game is too hard to play on your own, and I have NOT found that to be true. The #1 reason why I quit playing Epic Mickey 2 was that I found it to be impossible to play well without co-op. While you could switch to Oswald whenever you wanted, it was incredibly difficult to manipulate him to do what you needed him to do, especially if he had to team up with Mickey for a purpose, such as flying across a chasm or tossing Oswald up to an out-of-reach area. With Fuse, even though some areas would definitely be easier with a co-op partner, I’ve found nothing to be impossible or even frustratingly difficult to accomplish on my own.

I’ve enjoyed the story as well, but I’ll get more into that when I write up my mini-review. But I know no one cares about this today, as today is the day of the E3 press conferences, something I actually have to cover as part of the home team for both Game Revolution and Action Trip. I’m curious if today will dictate which next-gen console I will buy first.

Monday Gaming Diary: Getting Sad about E3

By Leave a Comment

E3-2013

It’s starting to hit me how grossly sad and disappointed I am I’m not going to E3 this year. I know many people are going to roll their eyes at me when I discuss this, but just indulge me for a minute. I know I should be just happy that I’ve been able to go over the last three years at all, since many people who’d love to go have never gone and may never get the chance to go. But the fact remains that as we close in on the week before the big show, and I’m seeing people’s party plans on Twitter, I’m seeing the press announcements, and I’m seeing my team’s plans for that week, it makes me sad that I had to pull my name from the list of E3 contenders.

I know after the show is over, I won’t feel so sad anymore. In fact, I bet I’ll be happy that I got to stay at home and watch all the press conferences at my leisure. However, I really wanted to play each of the new consoles with everyone else. And most importantly to me, I really want to see all of my friends who I only get to see at these gaming shows.

That’s the biggest kicker for me; when I first went to E3 in 2010, I knew I would want to go every year after that just to see my friends in person again. In fact, when it looked like I wasn’t going to be able to get a press pass, I seriously talked about going anyway just to hang out with my friends at night. It’s not that I don’t have friends in real life where I live, so don’t get mean; it’s that when you work with and have worked with certain people as closely as I have, you get attached to them. Fortunately, I was able to see a good group of them this year at PAX East, so I don’t feel as removed from them.

Yet, I didn’t get to see any of my strategy guide contacts at PAX East, and that really bums me out I won’t see them this year. I always have a good time just discussing love of strategy guides and games with the folks at BradyGames, Prima Games, Future Press, and Piggyback. Last year was the first year I got to meet anyone at Piggyback, and it was a fantastic pleasure talking to these guys for the first time in person. It’s one thing to talk over email, but there’s something about putting a face to a name and just sitting down and nerding out over strategy guides over a cup of coffee.

It is best for everyone that I’m not going, considering I’m huge already, I can’t stand on my feet too long as it is, and I have to go pee every hour or so. That doesn’t make for pleasant line standing, as fun as that is while not pregnant. And I know I’ll get my hands on a next-gen console soon enough, so it’s silly to really be disappointed I won’t get to just a few months early.

Besides, this is good time to focus on the strategy guides I’m currently reviewing, right?

Monday Gaming Diary: Gears of War 3 Insanity vs. Halo 4 Legendary

By 1 Comment

suicide_grunt_motivatio-600x480This past week, I finally gathered my team together for a co-op Legendary run of Halo 4. After having so much fun (mostly) playing Gears of War 3 with a team of four on Insanity, I really wanted to do the same thing with Halo 4. When we played Gears 3, our goal was to get through at least one Act a night. Sometimes it happened, and sometimes it didn’t. Some of the scenes in Act III and Act IV are a complete bitch to get through on Normal, and even with four of us, Insanity play was an absolute beating. There were times where we said we weren’t having fun anymore after playing the same scene for over an hour. I was honestly expecting a similar, really tough, really long experience with Halo 4. I’m not going to say that playing Halo 4 on Legendary isn’t tough, because it is quite difficult, but it’s definitely not going to take us very long to get through the game. In three hours, the four of us blazed through half the game.

The differences between the set-up between the two games is quite remarkable for their hardest difficulty settings. Both games put the players at 2-hits-and-you’re-dead, and both games definitely added far more enemies in the higher settings, so those have not changed. In Gears 3, I didn’t notice that the enemies had different weapons from my Normal playthrough, but the Locust were quite the bullet sponges; the lowest ranking were able to take a full clip of the Lancer before falling. Conversely in Halo 4, the HP of the enemies hasn’t seemed to change as much, but they wield far better weapons than before. I cannot tell you how many times I was killed by a lowly Grunt holding a Fuel Rod Cannon. In addition, all of the Covenant are sticky grenade happy! So much blue streaked across the screen…actually, there was so much blue and so much green from the vast amounts of Fuel Rod Cannons, I thought I was going to have an epileptic fit.

So if you asked me if I died less in Legendary Halo 4 than I did in Insanity Gears 3, the answer is definitely no. In fact, near the end when I was so tired, I’m certain I died more often.

The reason why it’s not going to take us nearly as long to get through the game is how differently Halo 4 handles teammates dying.

We played Gears 3 in Arcade mode, so there was no “bleeding out” time for players to crawl toward other players in hopes for revival. You died and you were out of the game for 25 seconds. Once the clock was up, you respawned, no matter what was going on in the game. Twenty-five seconds is a LOOOONG time to be out while playing on Insanity. Our team had to constantly give a rundown of how many seconds we had left, especially if only one person was still alive. As you can imagine, this is why we had to replay a scene for over an hour. This was far preferable to regular campaign mode, though, where anyone dying would trigger a game over screen.

In Halo 4 co-op, when a teammate dies, they’re out for a grand total of 4 seconds and will respawn next to a teammate who is not under fire. So if everyone else is in mid-battle, the dead player will have to wait until someone gets clear. As a result, we had to restart checkpoints a grand total of three times.

We were surprised we made it through the chapters so quickly, but wow, we had a great time. We actually goofed around a little bit, beating up on one another and running over one another with Warthogs that were on fire. We never did anything like that in Gears 3 because we just wanted to get through the chapters. We’ll probably finish our Legendary run in 2-3 play sessions tops, but that’s honestly fine with all of us. I have Fuse coming out next week, not to mention a large back log that requires my attention, so it’s nice to be able to play through this in record time. Besides, season two of Spartan Ops should be out soon, so we’ll be back in Halo 4 Land before too long.

 

Top Posts & Pages