Game Progress Topic #1 Raistlin Pirate Posts: 49 (11/28/03 7:33 pm) Reply Anyone Feel Like A Game Progress Topic? I don't really see the equivalent of one around here, but you can get rid of this topic if there is. If not, feel free to post your progress in any games you've been playing. I've been playing through Final Fantasy VI again, and I'm up to where Setzer rejoins the party in the WOR. I'm really surprised how much I'm enjoying the game. Aside from the Mario titles, I've probably never completed a game as many times as this one. I really need to try a low level game, or no magic challenge someday to make things more tough. I also have been playing Disgaea, a FF Tactic style game for the PS2. I got kind of sidetracked with FF6, but this is an excellent game for strategy fans. There's really no limit to level gains, and there are lots of different classes and abilities. The story is a total comedy too, which is a nice change from the very serious story of FF Tactics. Flying Omelette Mover and a Shaker Administrator Posts: 6433 (11/28/03 8:41 pm) Reply Re: Anyone Feel Like A Game Progress Topic? Yesterday, I beat Conker's Bad Fur Day again. My file was at the Count Conkula's Mansion, so I finished that part, did all of the War chapter, then the Matrix chapter, and then beat the final Alien boss. Today, I just played a couple of games of NBA Jam on the Genesis. I tried NBA Hang Time awhile ago, and didn't like it. I thought I'd try NBA Jam, instead. They're practically the same game, and I still think it's kind of boring. I can see why they had to release a Tournament Edition of the game, because just playing exhibition games seems really pointless. I don't even really care if I win or lose. I guess the real novelty of NBA Jam was being able to play as the hidden character, like Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Flying Omelette Mover and a Shaker Administrator Posts: 6438 (11/29/03 1:04 am) Reply Re: Anyone Feel Like A Game Progress Topic? Actually, I just discovered that NBA Jam does keep a record of all the teams you've beaten if you enter your initials. I guess it doesn't seem quite as pointless, now. I can set a goal for myself of defeating every team. Raistlin Pirate Posts: 61 (11/29/03 6:27 pm) Reply Re: Anyone Feel Like A Game Progress Topic? In Final Fantasy VI, I went through the tomb and got the Falcon. I have to say that, for me, the new airship rising up giving the party another chance to save the world from Kefka is one of the more emotional scenes in the game. I wasn't really sure how I was going to handle the nonlinear portion of the game this time, and I still don't know exactly what things I'll do and in what order. I did get Gau from the Veldt, since that's really easy. I had Duncan teach Bum Rush to Sabin. Then I fought Phunbaba and had Terra join. At that point, I took Sabin and Terra to the dinosaur forest, Vanish on both of them, and had Terra gain about 10 levels equipped with the experience egg. I think I'll retreive Cyan next. I know I could simply level up the characters I have and the rest will join at higher levels. But that takes some of the fun out of the game. And there's also the negative side effect of not getting as many level-up bonuses from Espers, but I usually don't pay much attention to those anyway. Flying Omelette Mover and a Shaker Administrator Posts: 6452 (11/29/03 10:44 pm) Reply Re: Anyone Feel Like A Game Progress Topic? I beat about 4 teams in NBA Jam, but I don't remember what they all are. One thing that annoys me about this game is that sometimes my player "head fakes" when I want him to shoot. I thought it only happened when opposing players were surrounding him, but a few times, I've made it to my net with NO ONE else even on the screen, and when I go to shoot, he head fakes. Crawl and 1OOO FO's Sexy Smoosh! Administrator Posts: 2124 (11/30/03 1:32 am) Reply I LOVE FO! I don't know if I'll dedicate myself to it, but I played a couple of hours of Rebel Strike tonight. The game's missions seem to have a branching structure, and I've beaten a few missions along each of the available branches, and earned a couple of medals as well. Eh... I'm not really impressed with the game so far. Iron Ball of Destruction Pirate Posts: 485 (11/30/03 2:56 am) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! About NBA Jam: If it serves no other purpose at all, it reminds us of a great time when the Chicago Bulls were THE team to beat. For the most part, I'm currently playing Megaman X5 and Tales of Destiny II both for the PSX. Megaman X5 isn't quite as good as I thought it would be, but it's still playable and good nonetheless. Tales of Destiny II is so far a little better than I'd have thought. It uses a real-time battle system not unlike the one used in Star Ocean Second Story although so far I'm liking this game better than SOSS. Shykid More Ammunition than God Posts: 188 (11/30/03 2:56 pm) Reply Re: FF9 Got up to Ipsen's Castle in FF9, but I've decided to stop playing for awhile. If I don't, I'll never get my college applications done :p Crawl and 1OOO FO's Sexy Smoosh! Administrator Posts: 2130 (12/1/03 12:04 am) Reply I LOVE FO! I beat a couple of missions in Rogue Leader, and maybe 3 or 4 in Rebel Strike. I really don't like the on-foot parts of Rebel Strike. The lock-on targeting seems to suck. You can't strafe if you're not locked on, so there are a lot of times when you turn to face another enemy, and Luke (or whoever) will turn his back to the enemy. MDK2 this ain't. Speaking of locking on, I have no idea how the targeting computer is supposed to work, or even what it's supposed to do. I even read the manual and it didn't mention it. All I can tell is that it's supposed to help you discriminate between friend and foe, but that can't be all. The ranking when you finish a mission mentions "target computer efficiency". Normally, mine is at 100% because I don't use the targeting computer at all. However, when I do activate it, I end up getting something like 1%. I might have thought it would do a small amount of auto-targetting, a la Goldeneye: If you're close to targeting an enemy, but aren't bulls eyeing them, the targeting computer might compensate so you'd hit the enemy. Nope. I can have my target directly overlap an enemy with the targeting computer on, and the enemy still doesn't get destroyed. A lot of the time in these games feel like it's spent flying all around, searching hopelessly for enemies when none are on the screen. However, I finally figured out a little bit about the radar. Rebel Strike helped me with that; it seems it's just ever so slightly more user friendly than Rouge Leader. I believe when I left off on Rogue Leader, I had no idea how to fire my tow cable during the battle of Hoth; Rebel Strike helped me figure that out. Both games have the battle of Hoth. However, they're dealt with a little differently. In Rebel Strike, you play as Luke after his snow speeder crashes in the movie. In Rogue Leader, you have to use your tow cables to take down AT ATs. That turns out to be not as much fun as I would have imaged. You take them out all the same way, and it seems there's about a dozen during that mission. It feels rather repetitive. Then add in that the missions usually have several segments, making them feel quite long. They may feel longer than they actually are; the clock claims they last about 5~12 minutes. So, if I'm having trouble with things like flying around without seeing enemies, how the heck am I beating missions? Well, some missions (but not all; I don't want to be misleading here) are very easy, in a sense; they're just not easy to do well. (I personally am beginning to hate this style of goal structuring in games; the point of a game should be to beat it, not to get some dumb ass rank while beating it. If a game is worthwhile to play while only attempting to beat it -- as is the case with, say, Goldeneye -- than extra goals -- eg., the cheats -- are okay). So, I might beat a mission in a couple of tries, but be 15 seconds too slow to earn a medal. Hooray, I get to replay the entire 10 minute mission. No thanks. Anyway, I can think of one mission where I sort of used strategy after losing a couple of times. It was the battle of Hoth in Rogue Leader. The AT ATs kept making it to the command center before it was evacuated. If this happens, you automatically fail the mission (meaning, it's worse if that happens than if you die once). The AT ATs are sort of in a parade. You can skip a few, and start trying to destroy some further down the line. However, this means the ones behind you will be shooting at you as you do your thing with the tow cable. So, I started at the back of the procession, and worked my way up the line. I think I destroyed all but two when they reached the base. The next time, I killed a few at the back, but then began killing only every other AT AT as I worked my way up the line. That thinned their ranks out enough so that I didn't have to worry too much about fire from my rear. And I destroyed them much faster. Then I went on to the next part of the mission. And then the AT ATs destroyed the base! I thought that part of the mission was over! Guess not. That's another problem I've had with the game: Simple confusion over mission goals. So, the last time I tried that stage, I used a similar strategy for dealing with the AT ATs. But when that stage of the mission was over, I tarried a bit longer, killing the few more AT ATs that were closest to the base. Then I went to the area of Hoth where the last part of the mission took place (and successfully cleared the mission). cuttersDCut Pirate Posts: 157 (12/1/03 1:28 am) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I am in the process of playing: Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga. I have to collect these Beanstar pieces. Fun mini-games and puzzles though. Mario Kart: Double Dash!! - I blew through 50cc and 100cc, but have yet to work on 150cc. Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy - This game is pretty fun. Better than Outcast. I hear it is short though. Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic - I enjoy this thoroughly. I stopped playing, but will probably get around to it soon. Raistlin Pirate Posts: 68 (12/1/03 1:41 am) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I'd like to play Jedi Academy, but my video card isn't quite up to it, I think. I think I'll download the demo sometime and give it a try just in case. KOTOR also looked fun, but that definitely won't run. I think it's really likely that I'll get Outcast though. It should run great on my PC, too. Anyway, in FF6, I've got a bunch of the characters back. Sabin is at level 82, and the rest I've got are at level 50-53. I'm still missing Mog, Gogo, Umaro, Locke, and I think that's it. I enjoy mindless leveling. Using vanish on your characters is really useful for fighting Tumbleweeds and other high exp. enemies before you should be ready. It works on Tyranos too along with Sabin's Bum Rush, but sometimes they use Meteor and mess everything up. Flying Omelette Nightmare of Dreams Administrator Posts: 6476 (12/1/03 9:20 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I've beaten about 17/27 teams in NBA Jam. I'm on an 8-game winning streak right now. Crawl and 1OOO FO's Sexy Smoosh! Administrator Posts: 2132 (12/1/03 10:49 pm) Reply I LOVE FO! Hint: Do not accidentally type the escape key with internet explorer. It will delete your entire post with one press, and you may not even be able to undo it. I am starting to get a little more into the GC Star Wars games. I still think they're missing an "act 1" however. They are probably the only games I've played whose "training mission" is harder than the first 5 or more (and thus an appreciable fraction of the total game) normal stages. I tried Rogue Leader's training mission three times tonight. At 20 minutes an attempt, that means I wasted an hour on it. I've been able to finish all the objectives; I just haven't been able to do them all at once within twenty minutes. It seems like a lot of the challenge of these games so far comes from just understanding the game: Knowing how to read the radar, knowing how to use the weapons, knowing what the mission goals are, etc. Is this a legitimate source of challenge? Maybe. I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand, but I think it's something that designers have to be cautious about. In any case, I think the existence of a training mission means the designers acknowledge that players might have trouble acclimating themselves to the game. That being the case, a training mission should be a training mission. You don't have to worry about "wasting" a level by making it easy. I'm proud to say I haven't met anyone dumb enough to complain that Glass Joe in PunchOut!! was easy. R-Type II was only 6 stages long, and it still managed to fit an act 1 in (as well as the full rest of the difficulty curve). Anyway, because the idea of playing a 20 minute stage, only to miss the last objective in the last 30 seconds, rubs me the wrong way, I spent the rest of the night on Rebel Strike (avoiding the training mission in that game, too). I cleared a few stages and earned a few more medals. On Luke's side of the missions branch, I had a few on-foot missions. I read a couple of reviews today that complained about Luke's Trials of the Jedi stage being too hard. Actually, I thought it was fairly easy. I got a game over on my first try, but earned the silver medal on my second (and was only about 30 seconds too slow, and needed to kill about a dozen more enemies, to earn the gold). It was probably the best on-foot stage so far, mainly because it was mostly platforming, and had virtually no shooting. I also played and beat my first bonus mission, the rescue of the princess from the Death Star, as seen in the first movie. This wasn't much of a mission. Most of the time is spent watching clips from the movie. But let's face it: You probably won't bother with a game like this if you're not a fan of the movie. So, it was still sort of cool to see the clips. I have the trilogy on tape, but it's in full screen format; the clips on the game are letterboxed. I think I only beat one mission on Wedge's side tonight. It was the one where you start by flying down a tunnel, which becomes an obstacle course with lasers. Then, you're in a huge open area and have to dogfight with some TIE fighers. I've said before that there were some stages where I'd just circle around and around, desparately trying to find some enemies. Well, that doesn't apply to this stage - until the end. When there's only one TIE fighter left, it can be a pain in the ass to track it down. I came up with a little trick to help me if I was having trouble, though. The area where the fight takes place is sort of football shaped. If I can't face the other ship, I'll fly to one of the tapered ends of the area. Then, I'll turn back. When I do that, almost the entire area is in front of me, which means I should be able to find the tie fighter easily. After that, there's another corridor with a lot of lasers, and it's somewhat difficult. Then the mission has one last part. It's sort of complicated to describe, and so I won't even bother. The first time I tried it, I not only lost, but spent most of my time unaware of even what I was supposed to be doing. In the last instances, I figured out what I had to do. I failed the mission that time, but beat it the next. Raistlin Pirate Posts: 69 (12/1/03 11:58 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! "Anyway, because the idea of playing a 20 minute stage, only to miss the last objective in the last 30 seconds, rubs me the wrong way..." It's because of that very problem that I never completed Rogue Leader. I have a low tolerance for frustrating things in games, and I could not put up with how much the game would make you do over if you messed up. And messing up did not seem particularly hard to do. In FF6, I'm really ready to beat the game, but I'm still just powering up characters. I have all the characters back (...oops, just remembered, I still need to fetch Gogo), and I've done almost all the sidequests. There's still the one with Hidon, and two more dragons to beat (the ones in Kefka's tower). I also want to turn the cursed shield into the Paladin shield to learn Ultima. Not that I'd need it. Sabin is at level 93 (I used him to help everyone else level), and the rest are between 50 and 63. I got the Illumina sword, and I've used the Gengi Glove + Offering combo lately. I'd like to get some rages for Gau and have Strago learn some lores, just for a greater sense of completion. I probably missed some enemies and I wouldn't have the patience to get every rage anyway. And maybe I'd like to have every character learn every spell. But the game is essentially finished at this point. TWEETER911 I learned from both Jushin Lyger AND Mr. Pogo, you insolent fool! Posts: 1350 (12/2/03 10:16 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! "Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga. I have to collect these Beanstar pieces. Fun mini-games and puzzles though" Doing the same thing. Only I HATE those damn minigames. I'm a little after the beginning in Fire Emblem GBA. I've gotten every single LV11 Weapon IN Dynasty Warriors 4 XL. ....other misc stuff not worth mentioning..... Crawl and 1OOO FO's Sexy Smoosh! Administrator Posts: 2140 (12/2/03 11:52 pm) Reply I LOVE FO! More Rebel Strike. I actually liked the Speeder Bike stage quite a bit. It had some challenge - it took me quite a few tries to beat it. It seems impossible to memorize that stage (it all looks alike), and the scrolling is very fast, so it seems to in part be a test of skill and reflexes. After I got used to dodging through the trees, I had some trouble with ramming the enemies' bikes. If an enemy's bike is ahead of you, you can simply shoot at it. If the enemy is next to you, though, you have to ram it. If you don't, it'll try to ram you. Those who've seen the movie will remember a part where Luke put on the brakes to drop behind the enemy to shoot at them. Well, that doesn't work here. If an enemy wants to fly ahead of you, it'll fly ahead of you; and if it wants to fly next to you, it'll fly next to you. The problem with ramming is that you bounce back afterwards, and it seems like you lose control of your bike for an instant (and it might take a little longer than that to readjust yourself). Considering how tight space is here, the net effect of that is that you'll probably bounce into a tree even if you kill your foe. After this happened to me several times, I thought over the situation a little, and tried to use the ram more defensively, and also tried to hold off on using it until we reached a relative clear spot. All in all, I can say that was easily the best stage of the game so far. I also beat the Sarlac Pit stage. It's a 3d platforming stage of sorts, where you have to jump from skiff to skiff to reach Jabba's barge. I beat another stage of Wedge's (where you have to destroy a super laser after commandering an AT ST). At first, I was having little luck in the middle third of the mission, until I leared how to make my AT ST fire homing missles. I beat that mission on my first try after that. Somewhere along the line, I unlocked the original Star Wars game in the arcade in the special features. (Not that that's much of a big deal, since that's also available on the bonus disk) The Empire Strikes Back machine is also visible there, but unplayable. A bonus mission - a fight against a Super Star Destroyer, I think - is visible, but it takes 30 points to unlock, and I currently only have 20. Maybe I should have held off on buying the earlier bonus mission. Whatever. ScarletMewMew Pirate Posts: 3 (12/3/03 12:37 am) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! The last game I seriously played was Disgaea and that was about 2 weeks ago. I made it through a second cycle to get the good ending, and then used a somewhat cheap technique to get Priere into my party. I haven't tried to beat any of the other super-bosses though. Great game, definately washed the bad taste of Castlevania: Lament of Innocence out of my mouth. I also beat Mighty Bomb Jack for the first time in 15 years of owning it. Well, with the worst ending. But hey, it's something. Red Clawbot Pirate Posts: 451 (12/3/03 4:20 am) Reply Re: I LOAF FO! I got to play GBA for the first time last week, playing Metroid Fusion that i borrowed from my brother. Got to Area 4. But now he's not around with his game boy, i'm back to stupid old reality. I'm bored & i'm setting myself up for a frustrating task of trying to beat Castlequest, the shittiest & most horribly designed game ever made. I swear, it's a demon's soul enraptured in an NES cartridge. I know, i've ranted several times about it, but how can you not!? I work my way through about what seems to be half the rooms until i run into a dead end where the only way of getting out is hitting the reset or power button. You have to be lucky if you can commit suicide when you get stuck. Twice the game put me in a situation where i had to appear over a certain space that happened to be right above an enemy after i died...which made me inevitably lose all my lives because i had no choice but to fall into the enemy after i start up! I also hate that if you destroy a block once, you can't get it back, that usually results in getting stuck too. & must i mention that terrible music & those slow ass elevators! The game is something you an experience that clearly shows to you how unfair a game can be. The more i play it, the more i hate it. It's tough to play games like that. Camira Breen The Baroness Posts: 173 (12/3/03 11:34 am) Reply Re: I LOAF FO! I've been working hard to try to finish Ninja Gaiden, but I still can't do it. Level 6-2 seems to be about as far as I can go. I did replay Ninja Gaiden 2 a few times in the past few nights. For some reason, I'm much better at that one, and I can beat it consistently. It must be an easier game. Raistlin Pirate Posts: 80 (12/3/03 4:34 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I realized that I missed a dragon in Mt. Zozo, so I went back there to take care of it. I equipped Terra with the cursed shield and a ribbon, so the only negative effect is the condemned status. And it doesn't take the party that long to defeat just about any enemy, so it should be fine. I went to the Fanatics Tower, but I sort of "cheated" with the Moogle Charm. When I fought Magimaster, the plan was to use Life 3 on someone, then use Berserk on Sabin, who's equipped with the Gengi Glove and Offering. But he took me by surprise at first with his rapid powerful spellcasting (I didn't have wall rings or anything) and I almost lost. But I recovered and beat him right away once I remembered to use Berserk on him to nullify his magic. I once defeated him in the past using Osmose (or was it rasp?) to drain all his MP (he dies once he runs out and then can't use Ultima as his final attack). That was time consuming but interesting. Morgannon Queen of the Night Posts: 118 (12/3/03 4:47 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I've been playing a Genesis shooter called Biohazard Battle. All your ships are based on insects. O_O Crawl and 1OOO FO's Sexy Smoosh! Administrator Posts: 2145 (12/3/03 11:09 pm) Reply I LOVE FO! I haven't played anything yet tonight. But I heard my brother's up to 6-C in MDK 2! (And he's only allowed to play a maximum of one hour of games a night) Good for him! Flying Omelette Nightmare of Dreams Administrator Posts: 6492 (12/3/03 11:19 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! If I beat 7 more teams in NBA Jam, I will have officially completed it. Brigade Delbrack Electric Boogaloo Posts: 298 (12/4/03 10:58 am) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I've been trying out Ikaruga on the Gamecube and EVO on the Super NES. Minerva K Red Some Assembly Required Posts: 261 (12/4/03 11:53 am) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I've started playing Earthbound and this game roXors the boXors! I'm trying to get through the caves in Onett to the Giant's Step, but those blank antoid and rowdy mouse enemies keep frying my tail. Before that, I had trouble with the sharks gang. Does it stay this difficult throughout? Flying Omelette Nightmare of Dreams Administrator Posts: 6506 (12/4/03 8:17 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I'm about 8 teams away from beating NBA Jam, but damn, San Antonio gave me big trouble! I fought them three times, and won on the third try only after the game had gone into triple Overtime. TWEETER911 I learned from both Jushin Lyger AND Mr. Pogo, you insolent fool! Posts: 1357 (12/4/03 9:27 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! "The last game I seriously played was Disgaea and that was about 2 weeks ago. I made it through a second cycle to get the good ending, and then used a somewhat cheap technique to get Priere into my party. I haven't tried to beat any of the other super-bosses though. Great game, definately washed the bad taste of Castlevania: Lament of Innocence out of my mouth." Disgaea. ROCKS. [= Totally awesome game. ...... Anyways, I'm around Chapter 16 in Fire Emblem. CodieKitty Kitten Pokemon Posts: 482 (12/4/03 9:32 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I got some good stuff in on my birthday (two days ago), and Wild 9 looks extremely promising. However, I haven't felt like hooking up my PSX, so all I played today is Mario & Luigi. Raistlin Pirate Posts: 87 (12/4/03 10:01 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! In FFVI, I got Gogo finally. He actually seems to be more useful than I remembered. And I leveled up some more. I'm trying to turn the Cursed Shield into the Paladin Shield. I sure hope you don't have to fight all the battles at once to do so. I started Warcraft III, and completed a few missions in the Human Campaign. Its really a lot of fun, and it starts out simple to keep from being overly confusing. Its also fun to play against the PC on easy mode, but I stand no chance playing online at this time. Also tried out Jedi Outcast, and it also seems like a lot of fun. Runs on the Quake III Team Arena engine, but has a story, puzzles, etc. And the 3rd person perspective lightsaber fighting seems like a lot of fun. I tried it out on multiplayer mode against the computer. Crawl and 1OOO FO's Sexy Smoosh! Administrator Posts: 2147 (12/6/03 11:59 am) Reply I LOVE FO! I "beat" Rebel Strike. By which I mean, I saw the game's ending credits; there still are a couple of remaining missions. It does seem like it was over kind of quickly... (Bear in mind I haven't played at all the last couple of days). The mission that shows the credits is Triumph of the Rebellion. It's based on the part in the movie where Chewie gets an AT ST on the moon of Endor. The hardest part of that mission, for me, was just staying on track. A couple of times, I inadvertently walked into a thick part of the woods and couldn't get back out again (and subsequently lost the mission, as it's timed). After you guide the AT ST to the bunker, you play as Han and have to set bombs and then escape the bunker. I beat this part on my second try. So it was a rather anticlimactic end. You don't get to destroy the Death Star; it's shown blowing up in the ending cinemas (which are taken from the ending of Return of the Jedi). FO thought it was weird that you didn't get to blow up the Death Star yourself, but I imagine that you probably did that in some other game. I'd say the fundamental critical issue of this game (or a possible thesis statement for a review) would be, Aside from their relations to the movies, there is no organizing principle to the missions. It's no surprise that there will be some disjointedness between a mission where you fly an X-Wing, to one where you trudge around in an AT ST, to one where you're running and gunning on foot. But I'm not just talking about diversity; the missions aren't even really organized to give a difficulty curve. Levels are by turns easy and hard with no pattern or progression. I use the word "hard" relatively. The game's challenge level, for the most part, sort of reminds me of Life Force's challenge: Something might seem hard at first, but with a little effort the challenge evaporates. And I don't think the game taught me very much: Even though I was able to "beat" the game, I still don't feel like an expert X-Wing fighter. Being an expert is not a requisite for success. Crawl and 1OOO FO's Sexy Smoosh! Administrator Posts: 2148 (12/6/03 12:19 pm) Reply I LOVE FO! Quote: "ending cinemas (which are taken from the ending of Return of the Jedi)" I just realized something. Most of the cinemas in the game are from the Special Editions. (For instance, in the cinemas of the Sarlac Pit, there's that creature in the center). However, the ending from Return of the Jedi is the original ending: It only shows Endor (not all the other places, such as Coruscant), and it has the original ending music. Raistlin Pirate Posts: 90 (12/6/03 4:24 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I finished the second level of Jedi Outcast today. I posted on another topic about my experience with the first level, but to sum it up... Level 1 was indeed entertaining but too maze-like, and it was very easy to miss an important switch that would unlock doors elsewhere in the level. Now level 2 was much easier to navigate. In fact, it was almost impossible to get lost. But there were some more tricky things that took a while to figure out. One of them has you remote controlling a small droid. You have to drive it through a small hole in a wall (to a room full of dangerous radiation apparently), and eventually find a switch to turn off all the hazardous stuff so the human character can go in. Another "puzzle" has a switch you need to hit to lower a bridge. But you can't access the switch through the small opening provided. The solution is to throw a thermal detonator (they work like Grenades here) through the opening, and when the thing blows up the switch is activated and you can access the next area. There was nothing too complicated, and it was generally a fun action stage. We were talking about difficulty levels in another thread, and let me just say that I'm glad I picked the easiest one for this game. Those first two levels took place in a high-tech Imperial base, but level three sounds like it might be entirely within a mine. So maybe the change in setting will prove interesting. The story isn't bad so far... it seemingly has something to do with the Empire trying to make people force sensitive using technology. Crawl and 1OOO FO's Sexy Smoosh! Administrator Posts: 2149 (12/6/03 5:14 pm) Reply I LOVE FO! I played a little more of Rebel Strike and Rogue Leader, and made no progress. In Rebel Strike, I guess I finished Luke's path, so I still have a mission or two of Wedge's to beat. The one I'm stuck on now (an attack on an Imperial Shipyard) is divided into at least three parts. The first part is one of those fly-everywhere dogfight missions I'm not very fond of. For this one, though, you don't have to shoot down any enemies (in principle, at least); you just have to defend a thing until it crashes into the imperials. The second part is very short. You just have to shoot a shield generator. The problem is, you just have to fly straight towards it (meaning you can't really dodge without getting off target), and your wingmates are terrible at providing cover. Still, these two parts are relatively easy for me now. The next part seems like it could be good. It's more like a traditional (Star Fox-ish) shooter stage, in that you fly through paths. It's an assault on a Super Star Destroyer that's still being built. The thing is, it seems impossible to avoid taking hits during this part. You can't really dodge lasers, because they seem to move faster than your ship. What I tried to do, during my last run or two, was just try jittering back and forth, in an attempt to keep the gun towers from drawing a bead on me. It didn't really work. And you can't really shoot the towers. The only way you can shoot anything is by flying straight at it, so if you're shooting at a tower, it will be shooting at you. In Rogue Leader, I also made no progress. The first part of the mission I'm on is boring. It involves a lot of flying through empty space, and you have to fly for a while before the mission even really starts (before any enemies appear). I did, however, learn that Wedge is a total jerk. His wingmates ask him something like, "Do you really think we'll find anything in this rubble?" Wedge snaps back, "Cut the chatter!" Anyway, the first part is really easy, but I keep dying or failing in the next part. You have to destroy some gun towers, and it seems they only take damage from bombs, which I really don't like using. Using them causes an awkward perspective change: You're still flying forward, but the view is now a tilted one from above. I've destroyed a bunch of these towers, but the mission still isn't over. After one point, some NPCs say something about how they need to arm themselves. But it seems like you finish that subsection of the mission by again destroying more towers (?). And then after that, the NPCs say something else, about some communications thing, but I think you're just supposed to destroy more towers. I'm not really sure. I guess this goes back to what I said earlier about a lot of the challenge from these games coming from just understanding what you're supposed to do. Crawl and 1OOO FO's Sexy Smoosh! Administrator Posts: 2153 (12/7/03 11:37 am) Reply I LOVE FO! I finally beat that stage in Rogue Leader where you have to help the prisoners in the train. I expressed confusion above about whether every goal was just destroying guard tower guns. They're not. There's like three or four goals that are destroying guard towers, and one where you have to destroy a bunch of satellite dishes. Anyway, it seemed like a fairly difficult mission. (Though I still didn't like the first half much). I wonder if Rogue Leader is more difficult - and therefore better - than Rebel Strike? Flying Omelette Nightmare of Dreams Administrator Posts: 6539 (12/7/03 12:17 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I just have the Bulls left to defeat in NBA Jam. I'm going to attempt it now... Flying Omelette Nightmare of Dreams Administrator Posts: 6540 (12/7/03 12:33 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I did it!! I beat the Chicago Bulls with the Seattle Supersonics, and I beat NBA Jam. It actually has an ending sequence. It shows a trophy, then a player (I don't know which one) going through all the different jump shots in the game during the credits. Facilitypro Slow Daddy Posts: 493 (12/7/03 3:20 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I've been playing Mars Matrix. The DC controller's D-pad hurts my thumb after awhile. I'm using a fairly new controller, so the D-pad is stiffer than my orignal one. I didn't beat any scores. I let the VCR run while I was playing just in case something cool happened. I recorded myself getting 920 billion on 2B, but aside from the high score, it's anticlimactic, so I don't think it's worth the trouble to digitize. Raistlin Pirate Posts: 95 (12/7/03 6:20 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! Well, I just completed FF6.... yet again! I didn't really do anything else since my last post on the game, aside from going through the tower and beating the last two dragons. I didn't have much trouble because of all the high level characters. But the final battle up to and including Kefka was great fun. I didn't remember the music during the battles being so good. And the ending of this game is absolutely perfect. I'm really glad I played through it again. My next classic game to replay may either be FF4 or Chrono Trigger, I haven't decided yet. And I may still work on my current FF6 save, building up the characters, when I get bored. I also played some of the Mine level in Jedi Outcast. It hasn't been bad, but nothing really great about it so far. Its a little less technological in design, and there's larger rooms and outside areas, but the gameplay hasn't really improved any. I hope that when the Jedi abilities are available, they make for a less repetitive experience. outcastdeathspork Ship Captain Posts: 691 (12/7/03 6:37 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I practiced going through the expert levels in Super Monkey Ball 2, because my brother borrowed part 1. (Yeah, it's absurd that I let anyone borrow one of my favorite games, but my bro is the one who bought me both games, not to mention my Cube, after all.) That a lot of SMB fans consider this the best installment is mind-boggling. It's a good game, though. The common complaint against part 2 is that it's all based on luck, which is a statement that skilled players quickly shoot down. Stages are busier here than in the first game, so strategies, on average, are more complicated. But strategy is still necessary. The problem I have is that the focus has shifted from lay-of-the-land based challenge to obstacle-based challenge. What made part 1 unique were the moments of concentration when the player needed only to deal with the contours of the stage - razor thin ledges, warped platforms, crowded bumper fields, etc. SMB2 has some of that too, but when it does, it's a stunning contrast to the rest of the game. Where part 1 was a fresh departure from other video games, part 2 is more similar to the convention. It's less often about good instantaneous control and more often about figuring out the trick to passing the stage. Not to say that the first game didn't have a good deal of obstacle-based challenge, either. But in that game, stages with a good deal of mechanical activity were a carefully placed break from the norm, helping to give the game its perfect balance. In SMB2, almost every stage has something crazy going on. The worst part of the game is the switches. Basically, the switches are the controls found on a VCR, and the player presses them to manipulate some part of the stage. While this is a horrible idea, I would have thought nothing of it had it been used in only one stage. But, no - the designers thought this idea was so great that they use it over and over again. There are twice the amount of mini games this time around, but almost every one of them SUCK. Monkey Bowling is a good game that almost deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the SMB1 mini games, and Monkey Tennis is a remake of NES Tennis - a good, but basic ripoff. Forget about the rest of them. Not one returning mini game is close to as good as it's SMB incarnation. gaimeguy RVD and Ducky Fan! Moderator Posts: 818 (12/7/03 8:19 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! Some of the battles in Rogue Leader are VERY tough. Like the 2nd to last one (Excluding the secret stages) It's called the Battle of Endor. You defend the medical frigate from waves of bombers, and go up against three (or was it four?) star destroyers. >) . But the most INSANE stage is the Endurance secret stage. 100 waves of 30 fighters. Yes, you heard right. THREE THOUSAND FIGHTERS AGAINST YOU! TWEETER911 I learned from both Jushin Lyger AND Mr. Pogo, you insolent fool! Posts: 1371 (12/7/03 9:11 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I remember BoE. I found it kind of fun and easy. ScarletMewMew Pirate (12/8/03 12:40 am) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! My friend just beat me at Yahoo Scrabble. I had no place to put my V. :( TWEETER911 I learned from both Jushin Lyger AND Mr. Pogo, you insolent fool! (12/8/03 7:42 pm) Reply Re: lalalala A kingly fellow named Stifu fixed my SVC rom problems.... Praise be to him.. .... SNK vs Capcom is cool, and rather different. I'm mostly using Zero right now (the same Zero as Shykid's pic.). He's hideously overpowered, it seems.....so yay. I creamed several opponents, except when I get to Violent Ken (aka Evil Ken). Ken as a crazy bad guy = extremly strong. He makes Evil Ryu look like a baby, too. ..... Backgrounds are a bit....dull... Music is decent. Need more time with it. Oh, it also has GEESE HOWARD. So, this MIGHT become a favorite of mine. ( : I'm waiting until someone passes the Samurai Showdown my way... Raistlin Pirate (12/8/03 8:39 pm) Reply Re: lalalala Jedi Outcast is frustrating me, so I'm not playing it as much lately. I may finish the mine level later today if I don't get stuck again because of another poorly designed aspect of the level. Warcraft III is lots of fun so far. I'm pretty far into the human campaign now (there are four campaigns, not counting the ones on the expansion). Things are starting to get a little tougher and the story is more interesting. I still can't beat the computer on the custom battle mode, even on easy. I was thinking about replaying FF6 with the natural magic only challenge. Meaning the only spells you can use are those that characters can learn naturally without Espers. Raistlin Pirate (12/9/03 4:17 pm) Reply Re: lalalala I finally finished that stupid mine level in Jedi Outcast. Turns out that I didn't really have much more to do. The next level, which I've probably played less than half of so far, has been a lot more fun. It's had (so far) a linear structure, meaning you can concentrate on fighting the enemies, not trying to figure out the completely illogical and unworkable layout of the building. On a side note, the weapons available in the game are terrible. You have the stormtrooper style blaster, which is very innacurate, but the most useful of everything. There's a wookie bowcaster thing which either fires 5 seperate shots in all directions, that usually hit nothing, or fires one shot straight ahead that's too slow. And there's a charging blaster weapon that's only good if you can sneak up on enemies, which is pretty rare. Maybe they're trying to make lightsaber combat seem that much more amazing once you finally get one. CodieKitty Kitten Pokemon (12/9/03 8:56 pm) Reply Re: lalalala This was about a week ago, but I finally beat those damned vampires in Illusion of Gaia. Then I proceeded to lose interest in the game again. Raistlin Pirate (12/10/03 12:30 am) Reply Re: lalalala I finished the level I was talking about in the other post, and it actually stayed entertaining all the way through. It's the first truly fun level in the game, IMO. Lots of combat, and only a little bit of hitting switches and navigating strange corridors. The next level takes place partially inside, and partially outside in a rocky area. There's lots of neat stuff going on all around. There's AT-ST's, giant cannons, etc. Mostly another straight-foward action mission, with less of the ridiculous puzzles. And so it was also entertaining, though it dragged on a little longer than I would've liked. The next level is where you finally get your force powers and lightsaber. Its not like the standard missions, it's more of a training scenario, where it teaches you how to use each of the powers you get. Some were actually pretty tricky. Anyway, all force powers start off at level 1 and advance at predetermined parts of the game to be become more powerful. Apparently Kyle is able to use both Lightside and Darkside abilities because of his past experiences. Since this is the latest in a series, it was probably explained in the other games. I only have the lightside stuff now, though. There's force push (for switches and pushing enemies), Force Pull (for some switches, and also used for stealing enemy weapons I think), Enhanced Speed (also obvious), Enhanced Jump (really useful), and Lightsaber throw (for attacking enemies, and cutting some ropes in the training level). The lightsaber combat is hard to explain. The direction of the saber attack depends on which direction you're moving when you hit the attack button. Move forward, and it's a straight top to bottom slice. But move forward while strafing right for example and it's another kind of swing. Easier than it sounds. Flying Omelette Nightmare of Dreams Administrator (12/10/03 11:56 am) Reply Re: lalalala I beat three more teams in NBA Jam last night on my replay. I'm replaying on Extra Hard difficulty, but for my first game, I forgot to change the setting and played on Normal again. I could immediately see the difference. The CPU opponents are nowhere near as fast or aggressive and it's much easier to steal the ball from them. I ended up winning by 10 points. There's no way I can play the game on that setting anymore, because it's far too easy now that I've gotten better at the game. For the other two games, I set it back to Extra Hard. TWEETER911 I learned from both Jushin Lyger AND Mr. Pogo, you insolent fool! (12/11/03 6:45 pm) Reply Re: lalalala Almost at the end of Mario and Luigi. I think I'm overleveled, too. YAY. Buying Sowrd of Mana tommorrow. outcastdeathspork Ship Captain (12/11/03 10:28 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I've done all but 5 of the floors in Super Monkey Ball 2. Besides one floor that I haven't seen because it's near impossible not to warp past, only the end of Advanced Extra remains. I thought I was going to hate this game when I first began playing, because some floors on Advanced (the second of four difficulty levels) are incredibly complicated and frustrating. Having finished the game, I now see that these floors would fit better in Master Mode (and would still be harder than any Master floor). It took me one day to go through all of Expert Extra, Master Mode, and Master Extra (a new addition since part 1). Master Mode, something that used to be legendary, is way easy. I would have been disappointed if it weren't for the very last floor in the game - Master Extra 10. This floor kicks unhealthy amounts of ass. Even though it took me a hundred tries at first, I was never frustrated or thinking about quitting. SPOILERS The stage is a Gamecube that flips in 90 degree intervals until the disc cover is facing up. Only then does the goal pop up. There is no way to air drop into it like in some other tough stages. Flying Omelette Nightmare of Dreams Administrator (12/11/03 10:44 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I've won some more games in NBA Jam, and strangely enough, I'm still winning by about 10 points every game, even though I'm playing on Extra Hard. Right now, I'm gonna try beginning work on a review of Conker's Bad Fur Day. Raistlin Pirate (12/12/03 1:57 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I've been too busy to play much lately, but I did get a little farther in a couple of games. In Warcraft III, I'm on the third mission of the Undead Campaign. Its funny suddenly playing as the race who was the enemy for the entire first part of the game. The game is also getting more challenging. What's interesting though, is that if you lose a mission you can replay it on a lower difficulty than is normally available. In other words, the game actually makes you try before letting you use the easy setting. On Jedi Outcast, I made only a little bit of progress. Got the story moving in the next mission. It'll be fun using the force powers for the first time on a regular mission. amitrius17 Pirate (12/12/03 2:11 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! Been playing Sword of Mana, which has given me enthusiasm to also play (replay rather) FF Adventure. My love for the games has made me remodel my FF Adventure subsite with Sword of Mana coverage, and improve its existing FF Adventure content. Gengarian Junus The Great Behemoth (12/12/03 4:44 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I'm up to Kline's dream sequence in Alundra. A lot of really tough sliding pillar puzzles in this one, but the music of this area is really nice. Raistlin Pirate (12/13/03 12:50 am) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I'm having some trouble with the latest chapter in the Undead part of Warcraft III. There are lots of enemy bases, and its tough to defend all of your bases from the random enemy attacks and still attack the enemy directly. And lots of times, there's more than one battle going on at a time on different parts of the map. I'll keep trying, and there's always the easier difficulty if I really can't do it. ScarletMewMew Pirate (12/13/03 2:50 am) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I defeated my friend in Yahoo! Scrabble with a 131 point difference. I'm the greatest. Crawl and 1OOO FO's Sexy Smoosh! Administrator (12/13/03 2:06 pm) Reply I LOVE FO! Is that scored the same way as regular Scrabble? 'Cause if so, I guess that would be a pretty big lead. IIRC, players normally end Scrabble with around 200~300 points each. Anyway, I briefly picked up Conker again today, and made it through the part in the Vampire's mansion where you have to get the three keys (which then takes you to the It's War segment). That part of the game was just sort of bland. There's not much action (you're often encouraged more to run away from zombies than to kill them, since they sometimes regenerate, and you are unable to attack them when you're carrying a key). Raistlin Pirate (12/13/03 4:20 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I was able to finish that mission without resorting to easy mode. The main goal was to get an item from each of the three enemy strongholds (and preferably to make their stronghold and its resources your own) Since I had three bases already (my original one and two of their three), I decided that when the enemy attacked one base, I would just move the hero (most important character by far) and the rest of the troops to another base, and let the enemy waste time destroying what I left behind. I was able to finish the mission long before they could do enough damage to really mess things up. I haven't mentioned this, but you don't have an infinite amount of time to finish these levels either. Every building you create and every new character you make takes up Gold. There are usually around three gold mines on each level. And if you run out, you really have to finish up quickly because you won't be able to replace troops you lose or rebuild damaged buildings. The next mission seems tough, but I've only just started. You have to take a particular part of the enemy territory. But there's also an enemy base that keeps sending small numbers of troops at you. And they also send runners to get reinforcements. You have to deal with their constant attacks, take care of the runners before they reach their destination, and still try to build up your own forces. Destroying the enemy base is optional, but it seems like the only way to make the rest of the mission easy enough to handle. I really love this game so far. One of the highest quality titles I've played in a really long time. CodieKitty Kitten Pokemon (12/14/03 4:25 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! Played a lot of Eternal Darkness yesterday. I picked up on my file of the beginning of Max's chapter and played through it (I felt sorry for Max, but hey, who wouldn't?) and Edwin's chapter (Man, this chapter's long, but I had already figured out putting "Protect" and "Self" together was a shield spell, so it was easy. And I got the Mantorok alignment rune, but forget to get the Codex. Oh well. Not that I really need it.), then stopped in Paul's chapter (at first this chapter really annoyed me. I went straight for the bell tower, neglecting to go find a weapon, and soon found myself fighting a bonethief with my bare hands. I restarted, wandered around for a while, and finally found a mace and a crossbow) after beating up Anothony. He's been sitting there for at least 500 years (I don't know the actual time differenct between the two), so he's not looking too good. He limps toward me with his big ol' Double Edged Sword and here I am with this little mace, thinking "I'm so dead". But the fight was easy. It takes him a while to swing, so I eventually (after taking a couple hits from mindlessly hacking at him from the front) figured out I could taunt him into swinging the sword, then run behind him while he starts his attack and give him one or two whacks in the back of his head. First time I knock him down, the magick revives him and I'm thinking "Aw, crap, he's invincible...". But thankfully, a few more smacks and he went down for good. Then Paul swiped his sword :evil . I wander around for a while, then I decide to open up the autopsy file from Max's chapter. When I wander into the file for the Xel'Lotath Zombie, Max starts saying something about the Zombie and its tortured life. I didn't know what it was, but when I was done, I said "Okay, I'm done for the night." I recommend this game to anybody with a Gamecube. And Gamestop only asks $15 for this game. I've noticed a possible reference, and an SAB in this game. First the SAB. I just realized that Mantorok looks almost exactly like the Profound Darkness' first form in Phantasy Star IV. And they're both somehow related to omnipotent bodies of darkness (Eternal Darkness? Profound Darkness?). Second, Edwin Lindsey seems to have been based on Indiana Jones, even if he doesn't have a whip. TWEETER911 I learned from both Jushin Lyger AND Mr. Pogo, you insolent fool! (12/14/03 7:22 pm) Reply Gee, I'm making a long post for a change! G.A.S.P. Been playing Sword of Mana as the dood. I'm almost beat it, I think. I KNOW I'm over halfway. One thing I hate about it is normal enemies have been giving me more trouble than most bosses. All the bosses, save the last 2, have been horribly easy. But, it is still a pretty fun game. I have never played the original FF Adventure, sadly. .... .... .... A friend sent me a cheat patch thing for my SVC Chaos rom. I can now play as the bosses, particuly Athena and Red Arremer/Firebrand. Athena is rather loosely based on her old NES incarnation, only not horrible, like that game was. She even wears different costumes during some attacks. She's horribly overpowered, too. I've slaughtered poor old Terry Bogard in what seemed like 5 seconds. Yikes? Red is not as horribly overpowered, except for his "Exceed" type super attack. It seems to take off one full lifebar (you get 2). He has no crouching animation, yet he has a few crouching attacks. If I were playing humans this could lead to cheap mindgames, I bet. A few of his moves summon creatures from Ghosts and Goblins, like a zombie and those burrito things. He almost seems like a better than average normal character after playing around with him for a while. CPU Orochi Iori beat me into the ground with both of them a few times. Still puzzled as to what happened there... Still waiting until March for Sengoku Musou / Samurai Warriors. and uh guess that's it! Raistlin Pirate (12/14/03 10:39 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I've stopped playing Jedi Outcast for now, because it's just plain bad lately. And I feel confident that its not just me, but rather serious gameplay and story flaws that keep me from enjoying it. I'm up to the second-to-last mission in the Undead Campaign of Warcraft III. I got pretty far into it, but eventually couldn't make anymore progress. The enemy base is extremely strong, and I might have to be more creative than usual to get past it. So I'm going to start the mission from the beginning, and do things differently, instead of just loading up the last couple of quick saves. Facilitypro Slow Daddy Posts: 503 (12/15/03 11:31 pm) Reply Re: Gee, I'm making a long post for a change! G.A.S.P. I played through Shinobi as a warm up for lots of gaming. Then for some reason, I beat the NES Commando. I've been playing Totaled! for XBox. It's a demo derby game, and I love demo derbies. The cars are hotrods and musclecars, and remind me of those in an SSP Smash Up Derby set I had in the 70's. It's not the deepest game in the world, but it's fun to go smashing into other cars, and the damage looks great. It's also one of the few post-1978 games my Dad will play. I also started Chaos Legion (yes, I broke down and bought it awhile ago). As Crawl said when he first started DMC, I don't get this game. The manual is confusing, so I figured I'd just try playing it. I have the basics down, but...when I play it, I think "This is it??" Raistlin Pirate Posts: 126 (12/16/03 12:56 am) Reply Re: Gee, I'm making a long post for a change! G.A.S.P. I started replaying Chrono Trigger today. I didn't get very far into the story, as I spent a lot of time playing around at the Millennial Fair. After going back to 600 AD, I leveled Crono up in the forest to pass some time. I wanted to have him learn his second tech attack before I quit. I'm not too excited about going through it again so far, though the quality is obvious from the first minute. Red Clawbot Pirate Posts: 473 (12/16/03 3:35 am) Reply Re: Anyone Feel Like A Game Progress Topic? I continued to make my own Legend of Zelda through a hex editor today. I re-made Level 9, well, in one sitting... :( On the bright side i'm almost finished with it. Also, i was playing Zool the other day for SNES for the first time, and i was at stage 2-1 for a good while and i couldn't find out how to finish the level. I guess it's going to be one of those annoyingly necessary things where you just have to figure out how it all works out. outcastdeathspork Ship Captain Posts: 695 (12/16/03 8:13 am) Reply Re: Gee, I'm making a long post for a change! G.A.S.P. I beat Gunstar Heroes. Crawl and 1OOO FO's Sexy Smoosh! Administrator Posts: 2181 (12/16/03 9:50 am) Reply I LOVE FO! Good? Bad? Mediocre? Anyway, I haven't played anything the past couple of days (though I did just finish my exams). My brother's been stuck for a few days on 7-A of MDK 2, though. outcastdeathspork Ship Captain Posts: 696 (12/16/03 11:39 am) Reply Re: Gee, I'm making a long post for a change! G.A.S.P. Middling. It's got a lot of silly stuff in it, which is good to see once or twice and makes for a fun two-player mode, but other than that, I wasn't sold on it. Not like Dynamite Headdy. My favorite part was the title screen -- it's a polygonal title done in Soviet Russia type letters against a huge explosion, and in the middle of it, the end-boss stands in a beam of light looking he could take on God himself without even trying. Of course when I reached that boss, he was more of a daffodil lots of hit points than a planet crushing badass. In fact, that screen is the only thing from the game that stands out in my memory. It's a mediocre Metal Slug where precise strategies aren't often needed, basic enemies come in, like, two types, and midbosses don't put up a challenge . So it all just runs together for me. Some of the weapons are so powerful, I feel cheap after using them, as though I need to play it again without them to see if I missed all the challenge. But I shouldn't have to handicap myself like that. Changing the difficulty level - fine, that I'll give you that, but not avoiding the most powerful weapon combinations on purpose. One phase of the much touted Seven Force boss is so similar to a Metal Storm boss that it can't be accidental (the stage 3 boss of Metal Storm, I believe?). For a game that is considered original, I'm surprised no one has brought this up before. You can even gravity flip in almost the same way at this particular point (the only difference is, you have to do it in mid-air). Raistlin Pirate Posts: 128 (12/16/03 9:59 pm) Reply Re: Gee, I'm making a long post for a change! G.A.S.P. I finally finished mission 7 of the Warcraft III undead campaign. It wasn't exactly fun, since I basically played the whole thing twice... and it's 40+ minutes long. But I figured if I didn't do it now, I'd never find the motivation. The way I was able to win, and do so easily, was by learning some key combinations. They made it so much easier to organize the various forces and be more strategic in attacking the enemy. Its something I wish I had known about a long time ago, but its only in the instructions. The game's tutorial never mentions stuff like that. The next mission is a survival type... you have to keep a particular character alive for 30 minutes. Shouldn't be as bad as it sounds, since you have one particular thing to focus on. The missions where you have to keep track of multiple situtations all occuring at once are the toughest. Crawl and 1OOO FO's Sexy Smoosh! Administrator Posts: 2185 (12/16/03 10:52 pm) Reply I LOVE FO! This isn't "progress", per se, more like a first impression. I finally played a little of my Sega 2K1 sports games. I started with NBA2K1. Well, it seems made well, from a technical perspective. There's seems to be a lot of in game commentary, and it sounds very natural (as opposed to sounding like spliced-together sound files). There's lots of options, create-a-player mode, "super" teams from various decades, etc., etc. In games like NBA Jam or Hangtime, if you make a shot, it'll almost certainly go in. It might not score if it's blocked, but shots never simply [i]miss[/i]. Not so with NBA2K1. Let me just cut the crap. When I play a basketball game, I want an experience like the one described in PWOT's review of NBA Live. I just want to foul the computer over and over, and make hundreds of baskets. Okay, maybe not. But it'd be nice to have a balance between a game like NBA Hangtime, which is sort of accessable but seems pretty shallow, and a game which might possibly be deep but only if you know everything about basketball that is or ever was. Or at least lets you sometimes make shots if you're playing on the easiest difficulty setting. Anyway, I then tried World Series Baseball 2k1. You'd think these two games would represent about the same level of technical profiency, but this game seems more primative. It doesn't even let you know what the controller settings are (so I had to waste several at-bats trying to figure out how to swing or bunt). The videos are of in-game graphics (NBA2K1 has has videos of actual games), and the voice-overs aren't as good. You can clearly tell where the variables have been spliced in. ("The .... Yankees .... are up by .... two.") And when I first started playing, I don't believe I was even controlling anything. I started another game, and things were different. When you actually do control what's going on, a box showing the batter's strike zone is displayed. Then, you (as either batter or pitcher) can move a cursor around that box to determine where the pitch or swing will be. For the pitcher, the control of the cursor is much more sensitive. For the batter, the cursor controls fine; the trick is timing the swing. I suppose that makes sense. (Though you're lacking the binocular perspective necessary to gauge how far away the ball is; but you probably can get used to that in time). Anyway, maybe because baseball is a simplier game (in the sense that at least during pitching, you only need to worry about controller one person, and one opponent), this game seemed a little easier to have fun with on the first play. But I doubt I'll be sticking with either of them right now. Flying Omelette Nightmare of Dreams Administrator Posts: 6635 (12/17/03 7:22 am) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! Damn San Antonio Spurs broke my 20-game winning streak! I hadn't lost a game since I started replaying NBA Jam on Extra Hard. We were neck-and-neck, but they threw the ball from all the way across the court at the buzzer and it went in for three points, putting them ahead of us by 1. That is so damn cheap! The Spurs seem to be the best team in the game. They gave me a lot of trouble when I played on the Normal difficulty, so I was kind of expecting that I'd lose. Something just isn't right about this game's difficulty, though. Not only did I win 20 games in a row on Extra Hard, but I won most of them with a lead of somewhere between 10-20 points. Raistlin Pirate Posts: 135 (12/18/03 1:38 am) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I played some more of Chrono Trigger, but like before, I'm really taking my time. I went to Guardia castle in 600 AD to progress the story, and beat the bosses in the start of the Cathedral. Once Frog joined, I went back to the forest to learn another couple of techs. I had forgotten somewhat how the tech system was setup, but its pretty clear now. As far as what I was saying about Chrono Cross in another thread, silly as it may seem, I'm just not willing to consider that game part of the CT storyline. Maybe a kind of what-if scenario, but nothing more. It takes away from the ending(s) and the story overall if you factor in that everything you did ends up being pretty much for nothing and that the characters don't get to have any real peace. Facilitypro Slow Daddy Posts: 505 (12/18/03 5:30 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I finished Totaled!, and am now mainly working on Chaos Legion. I'm understanding it now, maybe I'll make a topic about it later. It seems like it's good so far. But I can see why some people think it's almost impossible and others think it's easy. Also beat Kung Fu on the NES. The I beat the last boss on the first try withou taking a hit. Raistlin Pirate Posts: 136 (12/19/03 1:17 am) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! When I used to do these topics, they'd usually get locked around 80 to 90 replies and a new topic would be started. Not sure if that's necessary or not, but feel free to start a new thread at any time if you wish. In Warcraft III, I finished the mission I mentioned, where you have to keep a character alive for 30 minutes. I reduced the difficulty a little and used some extra items found in the level to make things easier. Still a little challenging, though. That concluded the Undead Campaign. Next is the Orc Campaign, and I finished the first mission of that. It wasn't difficult at all, but the story developments were very interesting. There's still the Night Elf campaign after this one. Beyond that, I can start on the game's expansion, "The Frozen Throne". It has more campaigns which are said to be very challenging. And then there's supposed to be some more traditional RPG styled stuff to do at the end. Not only that, but the new official patch released yesterday adds even more story to the game. CRAWLand1000 FO's Sexy Smoosh! Administrator Posts: 1602 (12/19/03 11:53 am) Reply I LOVE FO! My brother got past 7-A of MDK2, and all on his own, too. Raistlin Pirate Posts: 138 (12/19/03 6:22 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I finished the Cathedral. Even though its a very simple dungeon, being the first in the game, its nicely designed. I had fun going through it. Right now, I'm just outside Guardia Castle in 600 AD with Marle now in the party. I want to get both of the Techs she has available now. I can't remember what's necessary for characters to learn more techs later on. It tells me how many points I need to learn the first two, but doesn't mention the others. Could be a level requirement, or story requirement. outcastdeathspork Ship Captain Posts: 698 (12/19/03 6:28 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I beat Sol-Deace, and had a very good time doing it. It goes to show that the Genesis library is an endless well for quality shooters (Sol-Deace and Sol-Feace have almost no hype at all). Thematically it's your standard shooter. The gimmick is that your ship can pick up adjustable guns and shoot straight ahead with full force or in increasingly broad V patterns. Simple, but I like it. The first 4 levels were really easy, though they kept my interest anyway. Level 6 has a tough-as-nails boss with about 8 phases. I feel like playing again just for that stage. I get a kick out of shooter translations, but this one is actually really good (for the most part. There is a bit of engrish in the ending). The bullet patterns are what make Sol-Deace stick out. The game is riddled with bullets. The ship is a bit bigger than I would like, and the bullets are small (Phalanx-size, though easier to see because of color), but the bullet patterns are more manic than any other Genesis shooter I've played and they seem to be well thought-out. Crawl and 1OOO FO's Sexy Smoosh! Administrator Posts: 2203 (12/19/03 8:06 pm) Reply I LOVE FO! Isn't that the same as one of the first Sega CD games (well, the Sega CD version of the game, anyway)? outcastdeathspork Ship Captain Posts: 699 (12/19/03 8:15 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! Yeah I'm fairly sure it's the same game as Sol-Feace, an original Sega CD pack-in, except that Sol-Feace has more cutscenes and CD quality music. Raistlin Pirate Posts: 140 (12/20/03 12:25 am) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! Played some more. In Chrono Trigger, I went through the whole trial sequence... guess I did everything perfect at the Millennial Fair. The level itself was easy, but again, I just enjoyed the way it was designed. The dragon boss was a little tougher than I expected. If it had a little more HP, I might have had a bit of trouble with it. Anyway, once I escaped the castle and reached 2300 AD, I saved and quit. This is probably my least favorite part of the game coming up now, but there are still a few good parts from what I remember. I'm really looking forward to the Magus stuff, as that's when CT is as its best, IMO In Warcraft III, I finished the second mission in the Orc Campaign. You have to guide a caravan to three different locations, while protecting it and yourself. It wasn't really that hard, as the game is still trying to ease the player into the gameplay changes associated with the new race. Its a big switch from the Undead Campaign, just as that was a big change from the Human Campaign. The story is developing well, and is more interesting than I expected when I first started the game. The big focus here is still the gameplay, but its fun looking forward to the next plot developments. Crawl and 1OOO FO's Sexy Smoosh! Administrator Posts: 2212 (12/21/03 1:26 am) Reply I LOVE FO! It's been a long time since I played as much in a day as I have today. I'm planning on going through all the difficulty levels of Goldeneye in order. While I may not need to go through Agent, say, doing so is a good idea so I can see which cheats are earned on each difficulty. So far, I'm just up to the caverns, and have earned all the Agent level cheats. I played a couple of hours of Donkey Kong 64... and am only about 4% finished. So I imagine I'd have to play for 50 hours to earn 100%. I had a file on FO's copy of the game. I don't remember where I left off... Maybe 30~40% complete? This game isn't really fun, but it's sort of addicting, in a very bad way. I only played up to level 5 so far in Perfect Dark. All the stages so far just feel like huge mazes, with stage 4 so far being the biggest and most confusing. I was lost in stage 4 for quite a while (I think it took me about 40 minutes to beat the stage); however, I beat the stage on my second try. I lost on my first try within about ten seconds. Your first goal is to try to save a hostage by sniping her captives, but you only have a limited amount of time, and I didn't know where they were at first. Mission 3 reused mission 1's map. I guess that's not too bad a thing (even Goldeneye reused some maps, or had maps that were very similar; heck, even Castlevania III did it once). The only gimmick stage 3 had was that part of the stage had no lights, so you had to use night vision (which I found sort of annoying). Raistlin Pirate Posts: 146 (12/21/03 2:00 am) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! Played some Chrono Trigger today. I don't even know the name of the place I went through, but its the first dungeon-type area in 2300 AD. Like most areas in that time period, I don't like it. The dreary graphics and unenjoyable music make the whole place a chore for me. I really enjoyed the scene where Robo joins your party for some reason. I think CT has the largest number of interestingly written characters. The only one I'm not too fond of is Ayla. I started the next dungeon area, I think it's called the Factory. It has a more interesting design than the other futuristic areas, and I enjoyed it a little more. Since you can only have three characters at once, I left Lucca behind to take Robo. And as far as all the humans still living in that future time period... Chrono Cross does bring up one interesting point. When the gang changes history by defeating Lavos, they essentially are killing many of the people living in that time. Because with history altered, you can assume that many of them will probably never be born due to changed circumstances and such. CodieKitty Kitten Pokemon Posts: 502 (12/21/03 6:33 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I finally finished Eternal Darkness last night. I played it for so long I got a headache. That's a very good sign, actually. No other game has been able to keep my interest for more than an hour at a time lately. Raistlin Pirate Posts: 147 (12/21/03 10:00 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I played through that factory in Chrono Trigger. I remember when you first start, there are two ways to go. From what I recall, going to the right eventually helps you learn the password for later on in the area. But I didn't realize this at first, and went to the left side. I got to the computer that asked for a password, and it said something like Zabie... hinting to you I suppose that the password is X,A,B,Y. Like I said, I'm pretty sure it tells you this specifically if you explore the rest of the dungeon, but it looks like I didn't have to. And I'm glad, because I remember that place being kind of annoying anyway. So after that, I went to the End of Time and learned magic. I also defeated the easy form of Spekkio that was there. Then it was back to 1000 AD to fight Heckran in his cave. Lightning with Crono, and the dual tech Antipode (sp?) with Marle and Lucca defeated him easily. I still can't really figure out what purpose it served in the story, as the information Heckran tells you about Lavos being summoned by Magus can be learned elsewhere. The whole point of the cave seemed to be teaching the player that some enemies are only vulnerable to magic attacks. Next, I took Crono, Marle, and Robo to 600 AD for the next part of the game. Rushifell Lord of the Closest Island to Hell Posts: 207 (12/22/03 11:51 am) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! Been playing a ROM of Secret of Evermore. Made it to the pyramid area where you have to split up the boy and dog. Got kind of lost, so I put it aside for awhile. R U $ h 1 F 3 || CRAWLand1000 FO's Sexy Smoosh! Administrator Posts: 1606 (12/22/03 12:32 pm) Reply I LOVE FO! After so much gaming on Saturday, I hardly played anything on Sunday. I only played about an hour of DK64 (putting me at about 10% complete) as I waited for the laundry to finish. But I got some other stuff done yesterday: We went for a walk in the woods, we did some last minute shopping, etc. Flying Omelette Nightmare of Dreams Administrator Posts: 6674 (12/22/03 10:42 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I beat NBA Jam on Extra Hard difficulty last night. Can't say it left me feeling like I accomplished much. Now, I'm playing Two Crude Dudes on the Genesis. Man, this is one really goofy beat-em-up! It has some really funny-looking enemies and you can throw cars, stoplights, and other large objects around, and you can also trash Soda machines! However, the gameplay doesn't seem as good as Ninja Warriors. Crawl and 1OOO FO's Sexy Smoosh! Administrator Posts: 2216 (12/22/03 11:15 pm) Reply I LOVE FO! I just played some more Goldeneye. I don't think I'll be able to meet (or get anywhere close to) my game playing goals this holiday season, since I won't be taking off very much time from research. Raistlin Pirate Posts: 150 (12/22/03 11:34 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I played more Chrono Trigger today. Not too much, just the defense of Zenan Bridge. The boss battle there was pretty easy. I attacked it's top half first, but found that the monster changed it's attack pattern after that half was defeated. The lower part was also more difficult to damage with the stuff I used. A lot of things seemed to heal it, and physical attacks weren't that effective. It didn't have all that much HP, so it didn't take very long to win. Next, I went to the two towns there and through that short forest area to Frog's home. I thought he joined at this point, but apparently you have to do another area first... the Denadoro Mountains, I think. One person said you can use fire spells to destroy enemy weapons there, so I went back and got Lucca back in the party. I didn't like using Robo much anyway. CRAWLand1000 FO's Sexy Smoosh! Administrator Posts: 1607 (12/23/03 12:03 pm) Reply I LOVE FO! I played a bit of DK64 last night before going to bed. A lot of it was the same old, same old. Get-new-ability, then re-explore every stage to see what you've left behind that that new ability can get you. I now have all the kongs, a lot of their basic abilities, and can enter four stages. I'm still not close to where I was when I left off on FO's version of the game. There was one part that was a stand-out, though. It's a slide race as Tiny Kong against a bug. It's easily the best part I've seen on this current file. It might even be better than the best part I've seen on the other file, which would have been the Jack-in-the-Box boss. I haven't beaten yet -- it was the last thing I tried last night, and it was really late -- but it seems to require a mix of strategy and skill. It's not enough to simply stay on the track and out race the bug: You also need to collect 50 coins on the track to win. After completely falling off the track several times, I decided I need to approach the situation a little differently, and made staying on the track my one and only priority. After that, I easily survived the race; of course, I lost. But! I didn't lose by much, and I had 41 of the necessary coins. After you make it through the whole race, you have an idea of when you can pick up speed and get a huge lead, and when you need to break to avoid flying off. The trick for me now seems to be to slow down in a couple more places to get more coins. I've won a couple of times by huge margins, but only had 46 coins. It seems to me that a lot of times races like this are the best part of a lot of 3D platform games. This is obviously directly based on the slides in Super Mario 64, which I thought were some of the best parts of that game. The inner tube race in Conker is one of the best parts of that game, though it's a little different. The speeder bike stage was one of the best parts of Rebel Strike; that's even more different, but it has some of the same principles. And Super Monkey Ball is sort of like what you'd get if you took stages like that and expanded them into an entire game. Raistlin Pirate Posts: 153 (12/23/03 9:21 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I finished the Denadoro (sp?) mountain range in Chrono Trigger. The area itself was easy to get through, but I lost twice when fighting Masa and Mune in their combined form. It uses some very powerful attacks, one that hits all party members. I was just more careful, and won on my third try, receiving the broken Masamune. Next, I went to the town and got the Hero Medal from Tata and brought it to Frog. But he still doesn't join until the sword is repaired. Melchior tells you that you need to get the Red Stone from the prehistoric era to fix the Masamune, so I went there. After the story stuff where the gate key is stolen, I went through the forest maze (again, very simple area) and saved outside the cave. Crawl and 1OOO FO's Sexy Smoosh! Administrator Posts: 2217 (12/24/03 1:43 pm) Reply I LOVE FO! I made a lot of progress in DK64 so far today. I'm nearly 30% complete. I didn't play at all yesterday. But I suceeded with the Tiny Kong bug race fairly early this morning. I also figured out how to win the Beaver Herding mini-game earlier. While I still haven't gotten as far (in terms of stages) as I had on FO's cart, I think I've accomplished more in the early stages. I know I gave up on that Beaver game. I also found the entrance to another structure in the second stage, which gave a golden banana to each kong, and I'm pretty sure I didn't find that last time. I also have enough bananas to fight the boss in the third stage now, though I haven't tried it again yet. Crawl and 1OOO FO's Sexy Smoosh! Administrator Posts: 2218 (12/24/03 7:33 pm) Reply I LOVE FO! I beat the Donkey Kong arcade game in DK64. You have to play through the four levels of it twice (not on the same run); first, to earn a gold banana, and the second time to earn the N64 medal. It's sort of amusing: The second time, Pauline is replaced with the medal in the game, so Donkey Kong hauls that up the tower, etc. This is yet another thing I don't think I accomplished the first time I played this game. I also beat the factory boss again, which is one of the other better parts of the game. The first time I beat it, I kept jamming on the R button until it finally stayed locked behind my back. This time, I coudn't get the camera to behave, so I tried something else. First, I zoomed the camera out, so it looked like an overhead view (as opposed to 3D) game. There still are camera problems: If you move too far, the camera will swivel around. And if this happens during a jump (which it will), there'll be a portion of your jump where you're pressing in the wrong direction, so you might not clear the gap. So, I just stayed in one corner of the arena, hopping between only two blocks, while avoiding the boss. This is actually much simplier and easier than my earlier strategy. I almost completely cleared out the first area of the game. I found both banana fairies, everyone's normal bananas, all the blueprints, the battle arena, and every golden banana except one (one of Chunky's). I have yet to explore the fourth stage (some galleon stage) much. It only required about 30 Golden bananas to get in, and I had about 68 by then. Raistlin Pirate Posts: 156 (12/24/03 8:03 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I started Jak and Daxter, but only played a little bit. Just got used to the controls. Really nice camera system and visuals. And its nice to have a game where the main character doesn't yell every time you press the jump button. I also noticed that there's a character named Kiera. I played some of DBZ: Budokai today, too. I like it so far. You have access to story mode, which follows the show from the beginning through the end of the Cell saga. It also seems to have the same voice actors as the show, which is a big plus. You seem to gain access to more attacks as the story mode continues, and you sometimes play as different characters. I played through the first saga, which is through Goku's first battle with Vegita. I have it on an easy setting, since I'm terrible at fighting games, but even I found it a little too easy to progress. I'll have to change the setting later. Moves are easy to pull off, and the game tells you how to do them, rather than making you try and figure it out yourself. Another great thing for those who aren't frequent fighting game players. Probably a serious problem for the experts, though, as they're also quite easy to do (so far). Progressing in the story mode also unlocks stuff for other parts of the game. There's a Duel mode, which is a basic quick battle against the computer or another player. You can use any character that's been unlocked. There's also a tournament mode which I haven't tried yet. But I know its the main gameplay choice after story mode is completed. It lets you unlock a lot more stuff if you do well with it. After reading all the reviews saying how poor the graphics were, I actually found them pretty impressive. Characters are very true to the show, and the backgrounds aren't that bad. It doesn't look like "just a nice PS1 game" as some have said. At least not in my opinion. Flying Omelette Nightmare of Dreams Administrator Posts: 6684 (12/25/03 12:00 am) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I've made it up to what I think is the final boss of Two Crude Dudes, but I ran out of continues. I seem to have significantly improved at playing the game, but there's still no way to avoid taking damage in some situations. There is a horned boss that rams you like a minotaur, and there doesn't seem to be any way to avoid his charge. You cannot jump high enough to jump over him, and nor can you counter his charge without taking damage. There is a werewolf boss with a similar problem. The problem, as I've figured it out, is that when you hit the bosses, there is no recoil, and they become invulnerable to attack for a few moments, but they can still attack you. So you hit the boss, then it becomes invincible and since your attack didn't push it away, it's still right on top of you, only there's nothing you can do about it since you can't damage it or pick it up, and you can't dodge out of its way, either. Crawl and 1OOO FO's Sexy Smoosh! Administrator Posts: 2222 (12/25/03 1:00 pm) Reply I LOVE FO! Briefly went back to Goldeneye. Finished Agent (again). I earned every Agent cheat except the Jungle, which I'll have to go back for. I also made some progress in Secret Agent. Raistlin Pirate Posts: 158 (12/25/03 2:44 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I'm officially playing too many games at once. The holidays... In Chrono Trigger, I finished the cave in the prehistoric area and recovered the gate key. It wasn't challenging to get through, but the regular encounters in the cave took more work to defeat than most other enemies so far. The boss seemed tough at first, somewhat like the Masamune boss, but he turned out to be even easier. He's the one where you have to use lightning to lower his defensive power. After that was done, I went to 1000 AD and had Melchior repair the Masamune, then I went back to 600 AD and had Frog join the party. I made sure to take him back to the End of Time to learn magic, then I saved outside the cave to the castle of Magus. In Jak and Daxter, I finished the first level, which is bascially training. Since I've played this kind of game before, I found it extremely basic. But some parts of it were probably necessary, assuming you don't read the manual. I got the next mission, something about unblocking some vents, then I saved and stopped playing. There are some possibly interesting things like getting a charge of some sort from collecting Blue Eco, but whether it gets implemented well later on, I don't know. In DBZ Budokai, I finished the basic story mode and beat Cell, but haven't totally completed the mode. You have to go back and play through parts of the story that weren't shown the first time through the game. Some of them might have to be unlocked, but I'm not sure. And by working on these new parts of the story mode, you unlock new skills and things for other parts of the game. There's really a lot of bonus stuff here and plenty of reasons to keep playing. Flying Omelette Nightmare of Dreams Administrator Posts: 6688 (12/25/03 7:22 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I beat Two Crude Dudes on the normal difficulty without cheating, so the game can be legitimately beaten. I may have been a bit too harsh on it in that other post, but it's still not a good game. There still seems to be no way to avoid taking damage against that minotaur boss, and he seems to be in the game only to wear away some of your lives, no matter how well you may be playing. The method of beating the final boss seems to be a matter of getting up to him with enough lives and continues and cheesing him. And, overall, it's still not as fun as Ninja Warriors. Raistlin Pirate Posts: 159 (12/25/03 9:09 pm) Reply FFX-2 I got around to playing Final Fantasy X-2 today, and I think it has the potential to be fun. The story is a lot more lighthearted and goofy of course, but still may be interesting in that the player wants to know the true fate of Tidus. And its interesting how the success of the party FFX has changed the world. The game is also nonlinear, with access to the entire FFX world from airship early in the game. Apparently, there's a mission setup and after each mission you can explore the world looking for sidequests and secrets. To keep from accidentally continuing the story, the game will mark the areas that will cause the game to progress. I've also heard that there's a New Game + mode for those who want to get 100% completion and a better ending. The job system is back for this game, which is one of the reasons I wanted to play it. Yuna, Rikku, and Paine are the only playable characters, but each has many different jobs (called dress-spheres) to use as the game progresses. Aside from the gimmicky outfits, it sounds much like the old job system from FF5 and FF Tactics. The ATB system is also back, replacing the new system developed for FFX. One difference is that the battles are now extremely fast. It was actually a little disorienting at first how everyone seemed to be acting at once. The graphics seem a bit better than in FFX. But the main problem is that most areas are going to be recycled from that game. Probably a combination of Square being lazy and also a bit of logic. Afterall, it is still the same planet. Towns and things aren't going to shift around for no reason. And just sending the characters to some previously unexplored part of the planet would seem even more ridiculous. I haven't played enough to get a good sense of how the music is going to be. Voice actors have returned from the first game though, and the new ones seem to be of the same generally high quality. Flying Omelette Nightmare of Dreams Administrator Posts: 6689 (12/25/03 11:41 pm) Reply Re: FFX-2 I just beat the hard mode of Two Crude Dudes. The only real difference between normal and hard is that a few more enemies appear in some areas. Bosses are exactly the same. This game also has a really lame ending. At least when you beat Bad Dudes, you got that funny ending with the President asking you if you'd like to go out for a hamburger. Raistlin Pirate Posts: 162 (12/26/03 3:19 am) Reply Re: FFX-2 One more post tonight, mostly out of boredom. I finished the introduction mission in FFX-2. It was exploring a mountain area to find a sphere before another group of bumbling villians can get to it. The area itself wasn't reused from the first game, but was pretty unexciting. Tons of random battles, but very short and easy ones. I think I'm getting the hang of the job system as its implemented here. Battles are almost too fast though. Hard to tell what's going on sometimes. After finding the sphere, the party views it, and it appears to be a scene from Zanarkand as Tidus knew it. I think the Tidus stuff is going to be the only part of the plot that'll actually be interesting. For those who aren't aware, the ending of FFX was at least partially unresolved. Depending on how you look at it. Once that first mission was finished, I could choose to go to many different areas. Two are "hotspots" which will advance the story and cause you to lose access to sidequests. And the rest are locations from the first game that you can explore and maybe get missions in. In DBZ Budokai, I played the new story part where it shows Vegeta as a super saiyan for the first time. I got something for it, but I don't recall what. I also played with the tournament mode some. You can use standard or customized characters on three different levels of challenge. When you win or take second place, you win money, more of it on the harder settings. You can spend it on new skills and things to further customize different characters. TWEETER911 I learned from both Jushin Lyger AND Mr. Pogo, you insolent fool! Posts: 1408 (12/26/03 4:17 am) Reply 100 Near the end of Sword of Mana. Also started a game as the girl, and I'm in Jadd. My "helper" is oh so useless, and even though I've raised my character to be a magic user, my ATK stat is highing than my past 2 helpers...I got lucky when I choose random, I guess.. ..... Waiting for DYNASTY WARRIORS 2 to arrive on my front porch anyday now. I've never played Shin Sangoku Musou (DW2). I've heard its stages are better than 3's and 4's. I'll feel odd being limited to 4 hits though. 5 hit and 6 hit weapons came in DW3. ..... 3 new Characters revealed for SENGOKU MUSOU/SAMURAI WARRIORS. Only a few months and it'll be mine. Mmmm....yess. ..... Oh yeah. I'M BACK. FLEE IN HORROR, HUMANS. Flying Omelette Nightmare of Dreams Administrator Posts: 6691 (12/26/03 8:25 am) Reply Re: 100 BTW, although I said I beat Two Crude Dudes "legitimately", I did use a turbo controller. I don't know if others would consider that "cheating", but it's difficult for me to consider it cheating when the game seems like it was specifically designed for use with a turbo controller... Sotenga Boomstick Shinobi Posts: 420 (12/26/03 9:16 am) Reply Re: 100 Turbo controller? Bah. My fingers are unnaturally quick. I can obliterate those snowmobiles in Contra with ease, sans machine gun. I need not turbo. :=) Anyway, I... haven't got anywhere in Viewtiful Joe. I died on the helicopter boss. Damn, that's a hard game. :O I'll let you know when I figure out what to do... Flying Omelette Nightmare of Dreams Administrator Posts: 6692 (12/26/03 9:28 am) Reply Re: 100 That's a fallicy that you need turbo to beat those Contra snowmobiles with the regular gun. All you do is stand over as far left as you can and fire away. When they start moving, stand your ground, and they'll explode right before they touch you. I never understood what people thought was so impossible about that. But Two Crude Dudes really does seem like it was designed for use with turbo. When there are three or more guys in a row, you can only punch fast enough to take out the first two. The third will get you every time without turbo. Also, the turbo function nullifies the enemies' abilites to damage you when they grab onto you, because you'll throw them off right away. This may seem like cheating, but it's the only plausible way of beating the werewolf boss without losing several lives on him. Also, the fact that the bosses become momentarily invulnerable after taking a hit seems to imply that the designers were aware of the possibility of gamers using turbo to pummel the bosses with ease. Crawl and 1OOO FO's Sexy Smoosh! Administrator Posts: 2229 (12/26/03 9:40 am) Reply I LOVE FO! I use one extra trick for the tanks in Contra: Before I move all the way to the left, I move right up against the tanks, This guarantees that they'll shoot at the ground in front of the tank, far away from me. Flying Omelette Nightmare of Dreams Administrator Posts: 6693 (12/26/03 9:59 am) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I'm pretty sure they shoot at the ground anyway, my love. Crawl and 1OOO FO's Sexy Smoosh! Administrator Posts: 2229 (12/26/03 10:19 am) Reply I LOVE FO! If I recall correctly (and I might not), they change aim once before ramming you. Therefore, you need a bit of extra space between yourself and their initial target. If that's not it, there's still some reason why I do that. Yes, they aim at the ground, but maybe every once in a while tanks killed me by shooting my feet, and that last little trick eliminated that from happening. Raistlin Pirate Posts: 163 (12/26/03 10:19 pm) Reply Budokai and FFX-2 In DBZ Budokai, I'm pretty sure I've completed the story mode. There was some more scenes and battles from the show, as well as several amusing "what-if" scenarios. One where Vegeta becomes a Super Saiyan very early on, one where Goku and the rest are all defeated on Namek, and a third dream sequence of Cell's where he imagines what would happen if he absorbed Krillen instead of one of the androids. In FFX-2, I explored the town of Kilika, which is totally rebuilt. There was a tiny bit of story stuff there, but no missions or anything yet. Next, I went to Luca, where the game's strange opening sequence (concert) is fully explained by Yuna in a playable flashback. There was a goofy mini-game which involved Yuna dressed in a Moogle Suit handing out balloons to people. I got a new job class for it though, I believe. I also went through all the tutorials and glossaries to refresh myself with some stuff from the first game and learn more about the surprisingly complicated garment grid system. I was actually rewarded with an item for taking with the tutorial. Sotenga Boomstick Shinobi Posts: 422 (12/26/03 10:51 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! Got to the midpoint of stage 2 in Viewtiful Joe, and it can only become more difficult from there... wait, can it? It's a f**king hard game, but I think it kicks ASS. 8) TWEETER911 I learned from both Jushin Lyger AND Mr. Pogo, you insolent fool! Posts: 1409 (12/26/03 11:20 pm) Reply Henshin a byee~byee! "Got to the midpoint of stage 2 in Viewtiful Joe, and it can only become more difficult from there... wait, can it? It's a fUCking hard game, but I think it kicks ASS. " You playing on Kids or Adults? The game gets a lot harder.... If you are on Kids, V-Rated will eat you alive...And U-V-R will swallow your soul... [= .... *wishes he had VJ soundtrack* :"( Raistlin Pirate Posts: 164 (12/27/03 2:20 pm) Reply And yet again In DBZ Budokai, I was able to be the tournament on adept mode. The unlocked a new gameplay mode, which I didn't realize existed. Its basically a humorous series of battles where you control Hercule...with a jetpack to compensate for his lack of flying ability. There's a series of 10 battles against various characters during the time of the Cell games. Not sure if there's a reward for winning as I lost about halfway through. You do get points after each battle, though. In FFX-2, I went to Luca and explored a little. I knew there were no new missions, but I felt like wandering around a bit. I was rewarded by getting access to the Sphere Break game. Its the equivalent of the card games from previous FF's. A little complicated, and I might not bother with it too much. But you never know. After I was done there, I went to the highroad area. Far as I can see, there's nothing important here either... except random battles. My first chance to level up a little and learn some new abilities. Sotenga Boomstick Shinobi Posts: 424 (12/27/03 6:21 pm) Reply Re: Henshin a byee~byee! "Kids" difficulty? Me? Tch. Yeah, right. I went straight to "Adults." And I'm doing pretty damn good. Just three days of playing Viewtiful Joe, and I'm already at level six! >D ... you weren't kidding about it getting harder, Tweeter. :x You have to fight all the bosses again, and they're on steroids. You also don't get any checkpoints either... I guess not until you face the last one, Fire Leo. I got all the way to Another Joe, but I was on my last life, I died, I nearly sweared up a storm, but I was out of energy, and I quit. I'll tackle this painful ordeal again later... Raistlin Pirate Posts: 167 (12/27/03 11:17 pm) Reply FFX-2 Been nice having so much time to play games (and actually enjoy them, too!) I've been exploring the world of FFX-2, still. I haven't even done any of the mandatory missions yet. I heard that you can miss stuff permanently (until the new game + mode anyway) so I want to go to each available area before advancing the story. I'd like to have as high a completion as possible my first time through to get a better ending. With each new area, Yuna narrates for a short while about how things are now compared to 2 years ago (in FFX's time). I wonder if the narration isn't directed at Tidus somehow. The first game did something like that. Anyway, I did a couple new missions and got items. Really basic stuff, some of it I don't even remember. I did get a letter giving me permission to dig for treasure and stuff in a desert later on. And a new job class, called Gun Mage. More importantly, I've leveled up quite a lot. The three characters are at level 12 now, compared to the starting level of 6. I've also had Rikku advance pretty far as a Black Mage (all second level elemental spells), Yuna and Paine are pretty decent Warriors and Gunners. Wish I had the White Mage class available, though. TWEETER911 I learned from both Jushin Lyger AND Mr. Pogo, you insolent fool! Posts: 1410 (12/28/03 2:19 am) Reply Re: Henshin a byee~byee! "You also don't get any checkpoints either... I guess not until you face the last one, Fire Leo. " Yeah, but you can't save there. :p Sotenga Boomstick Shinobi Posts: 427 (12/28/03 8:15 am) Reply Re: FFX-2 Yeah, but you can't save there. :p *whew* It's a checkpoint. That's good enough for me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to kick the viewtiful crap out of villians on steroids. 0] HENSHIN-A-GO-GO, BABY!!! (who didn't see THAT one coming?) :rolleyes :b Crawl and 1OOO FO's Sexy Smoosh! Administrator Posts: 2235 (12/28/03 1:50 pm) Reply I LOVE FO! I had played a bit more Perfect Dark. I just finished all the stages in the Area 51 mission. My favorite stage so far is the first of the Area 51 stages. It had a bit more of a Goldeneye feel to it than the other stages. It frequently mixes up ranges that you'll fight enemies at, and other factors in combat. For instance, you begin fighting a few enemies in close range. Then, you move down some narrow canyons, but there are sentry guns there. You have to be able to take cover and hit the guns while they can't hit you. Then you reach a large open area and you have to hit some enemies from a distance with a scoped weapon. Then there's more in-close combat, and some exploration... and that's only the first part of the stage. While the other stages have various goals, the combat itself feels often more like just Doom (just point towards enemies and shoot). To name a non-combat type of activity... in one stage, you have to infiltrate a building and secretly video a meeting. This involves remote controlling a little camera-bot along some girders in the ceiling, until it reaches a vent where it can enter the meeting room. CodieKitty Kitten Pokemon Posts: 509 (12/28/03 8:40 pm) Reply Re: FFX-2 I restarted Eternal Darkness last night, taking the Ulyaoth path (my first one was Xel'lotath), stopping right after I found Edwin's chapter page. Man, this path is freaky since you don't get the Xel'lotath alignment rune until Max's chapter (which is the chapter after you get what you need to Recover). The designs on that "To Be Continued" message beat that skull design that appears after loading up a game in my book. Speaking of freaky, I don't know where it was, but Gamieguy once said something about seeing Alex in a bathtub and him having the volume maxed out when there was a scream. I found lots of bathtubs (The Roivases must love their bathrooms. There were at least two of them, maybe three, and Maxamillian seems to find that indoor outhouse quite lovely by the description you get when you examine it), but no scenes with Alex in the bathtub. I didn't have the faintest what he was talking about. But last night, I found out what he was talking about. I saw it, but I didn't scream. I came very close to tossing my controller into the air, and I felt very cold after I saw it, but I didn't scream. On my previous route, I didn't even go down that part of the hallway until completing Karim's chapter and picking up the Xel'lotath alignment rune, then recovering my sanity to max (all I experienced was that damn phone ringing, which confused me as my sanity was maxed). I have to remember to get the Mantorok Codex this time. Raistlin Pirate Posts: 168 (12/28/03 9:03 pm) Reply Re: FFX-2 Eternal Darkness really did get pretty creepy sometimes. Especially playing it in the dark late at night. I really loved it for being scary without resorting to having things jump out at you all the time. Anyway, I made some more progress in FFX-2. I did some of the main story missions this time, exploring both Besaid and Zanarkand. I'm working on finding an important sphere near the Kilika woods. So far, I'm liking how the two stories are connected. The plot really isn't as stupid as a lot of people said... it does have some bad moments, but there are some serious and emotional parts too. Especially for those that remember the first game well. So I think the idea of a direct sequel was a successful one. The one area where the sequel falls short is the music, though. Hardly anything memorable, while the first game had one of the best soundtracks in the series. In Jak and Daxter, I got some more power cells. These are like Mario 64's stars. I need 20 before I can move on to the next part of the game. I don't really feel like elaborating on how I found them all, but mostly standard platformer stuff so far. The game's biggest fault so far is that it doesn't really do anything significantly different from other games of it's kind. Flying Omelette Nightmare of Dreams Administrator Posts: 6708 (12/28/03 9:08 pm) Reply Re: FFX-2 I'm up to the Sealed Mine in Virtual Hydlide. Bomberguy221 Hit and away is my style! Posts: 438 (12/28/03 9:56 pm) Reply Re: FFX-2 Well, it's post-Christmas, so I have a few new games. Soul Calibur II - I am about to beat the weapon quest, I think. I've been purchasing weapons after fighting in that bonus arena a few times, and I've been buying a lot of costumes. My favorite characters are Mitsurugi and Kilik. I'm thinking of working on my skills with Cassandra, whom I just beat Arcade Mode with today. F-Zero GX - I'm stuck on Chapter 3. People were right about this game being hard. I haven't been brave enough to venture past Novice mode, since even then I'm struggling to stay in first. This one will keep me busy for a while. I finally beat Metroid Fusion, so that means the original Metroid will be playable soon. I just have to remember how to link the games together. I know it's "hold a button on the GBA while its loading on the Gamecube" or something like that. On Animal Crossing, I got a few things from Jingle, including an emulation of Balloon Fight. I passed a few levels into that, but I can't recall my high score at the moment. Crawl and 1OOO FO's Sexy Smoosh! Administrator Posts: 2236 (12/28/03 11:10 pm) Reply I LOVE FO! I elsewhere made some comments about it being strange that PD is rated M when, even if it is violent, the violence is rather goofy. One thing I forgot to mention in regard to that is the intro cinema to the last Area 51 stage. You break into a lab where area 51 scientists are about to perform an autopsy on a (living) alien. When you save the alien, the scientists try to stop you by releasing poisionous gas. At first I thought this was something unintentionally stupid, but no: It's actually supposed to be funny, I think. The gas eventually kills the scientists right after they realize what they did might not have been a good idea, and Joanna calls them idiots. Facilitypro Slow Daddy (12/29/03 1:03 am) Reply Re: Anyone Feel Like A Game Progress Topic? I'm 90% through Metroid Prime. I'm sick of having it in my backlog. Not a bad game, but I won't be replaying it. On the XBox, I finihsed Otogi and started Halo. Well, the tutorial, at least. The intto to Halo is the biggest Aliens ripoff ever. There these dropships being prepped that look exactly like the ones in Aliens. Marines line up and a black sergeant psychs them up. (TOTALLY Apone.) Then Master Chief is awaken from a hypersleep chamber straight out of the Sulaco. For all the people claiming Halo is the best looking game ever, I'm skeptical. People walk like they have shit in their pants. If Halo isn't any better than GTA 3 (which shouldn't be hard), I'm never buying another blockbuster again in hopes of it being good. Sotenga Boomstick Shinobi (12/29/03 12:16 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! WHAM! Viewtiful Joe has been flogged! It wasn't easy, lemme tell ya. Now, I get to go through the game again, on a higher difficulty! Hey, I have no problems with re-beating it. It IS real damn fun, so here we go again! Turn it up, bring the noise! >D Facilitypro Slow Daddy (12/29/03 7:42 pm) Reply Re: Anyone Feel Like A Game Progress Topic? On the first level of Halo, there's a bulletin board with a flyer that reads: "Lost Cat--Answers to 'Jonesy'" I finished the first two stages of Halo. They're pretty long. I wonder how long it took me to beat Goldeneye's stages the first time. GTG. More later. Flying Omelette Nightmare of Dreams Administrator (12/29/03 8:14 pm) Reply Re: Anyone Feel Like A Game Progress Topic? That game sounds as shamless as Law & Order. Raistlin Pirate (12/29/03 9:39 pm) Reply Re: Anyone Feel Like A Game Progress Topic? I finished the Kilika Woods mission in FFX-2. It was pretty straightforward, same as in the first game. There were a few checkpoints where you could give a password to avoid a fight and get an item. But when you mess up, you just have to fight a pretty easy battle, and lose the item. At the end, there was a boss fight. It might have been pretty tough if my jobs were different. I had Yuna and Paine as Gunners, using the special attack of that class (hit R1 repeatedly for lots of hits). But more importantly, Rikku as a Black Mage used Firaga a couple times (did 700+ HP damage... VERY good). The boss hit hard, but the fire magic did it in pretty quickly. This was the end of Chapter 1, and the important sphere is a movie of a person that appears to be Tidus (who should not be alive). I already know how this will turn out, but not all the details. Playing this really makes me want to play through the original FFX again. So I think I may do that sometime soon. Once I finish a few more of the newer games, anyway. Crawl and 1OOO FO's Sexy Smoosh! Administrator (12/29/03 10:01 pm) Reply I LOVE FO! I wonder how long it took me to beat Goldeneye's stages the first time. I rather clearly remember the first time I put much time into a Goldeneye stage. But my recollections of that experience were taking a long time to type, so I'll save that story for later. It's probably easier for me to relate my first Perfect Dark experiences, since I just started that game not long ago. It took me over 15 minutes to beat the first stage my first time. I've now beaten it in less than 2 minutes. To earn the cheat, I have to beat it in less than 1:30 on medium difficulty. Flying Omelette Nightmare of Dreams Administrator (12/29/03 10:36 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I'm up to some kind of weird castle made of mirrors in Virtual Hydlide. Ugh. It's very annoying because it's full of skeleton enemies that appear to be unkillable. You can knock them down, but they reform after a few moments, and they block the way to most treasure chests and items, making it nearly impossible to get them. I'm also finding the flaws of this game are starting to overtake the enjoyment of it. I don't really feel like exploring out the mazes anymore. I just want to get to each goal and get it over with. Raistlin Pirate (12/30/03 2:51 am) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I'm posting in this thing too much, but I've got nothing else to do right now. In FFX-2, I started Chapter 2. There's a cheesy, but short, song and dance by Yuna, and then a short dream sequence featuring Tidus. First time he's shown in this game in any form. After that's all done with, you have the option of returning the recovered sphere from earlier to either New Yevon or the Youth League. I read on some message board topic that the youth league option is better for completion. And Yevon was evil in the first game, and is probably evil in this one, too. So I gave it to the youth league. Then the Leblanc Syndicate, the comical villians, steal one of the party's items. So the next mission is to disguise yourself and sneak into their hideout to recover the thing. But like earlier, you have the option of completing lots of other sidequests and missions first. I did one minigame where you had to lock on and shoot enemies while going through an area with a time limit. You need a score of 500 to win, and the more enemies you beat without getting hit yourself, the quicker the score increases. I managed it on my third try and got a new garment grid thing. Now I'll probably level up some more and learn new abilities. Haven't done that in a while. TWEETER911 I learned from both Jushin Lyger AND Mr. Pogo, you insolent fool! (12/30/03 3:30 am) Reply !but I digress! HUH? Ono. Dynasty Warriors 2 arrived shortly after I woke up today. Been playing nonstop. ..... Fun, even though the enemy generals fucking cheat non stop by instantly refilling its health or doubling its attack or defenese for a moment.. This problem was fixed in 3 , though. In 3 and 4, they have to pause a few moment and "gather energy" like they are charging for a musou attack(super attack). If you strike them when they are "gathering", the heal/powerup fails. In 2, it just happens when they get up, and you can't stop it.It's only really caused me to lose once, but its still annoying. Lu Bu and some other characters are totatly different playwise. Other characters are basicly clones with different skins and stats. Still, its good to see how much the Shin Sangoku Musou series has evolved so much. Sotenga Boomstick Shinobi (12/30/03 8:34 am) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! Tweeter, I've got a tip against the generals. They only give theirselves an item to heal them, make them stronger or whatever ONLY if you knock them down. Just keep attacking them without knocking them down, and they won't have a chance to use an item. No need to thank me. :) Raistlin Pirate (12/30/03 6:12 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! In FFX-2, I finished another sidequest. This one was rather pointless, but at least there was a regular boss battle at the end. It involved chasing down a Chocobo, but there was no real skill involved. And none of the dialogue was all that funny. I got my completion rate up to 30%, though. I found out that to get the better ending, you don't need a full 100%. You just have to do certain things during the course of the game. Total completion gets you an extra scene at the ending, but it reveals nothing new. So I'll probably wait until I feel like replaying to get total completion... especially since the percentage carries over to the next game, but not levels. You just have to do things you missed the first time. TWEETER911 I learned from both Jushin Lyger AND Mr. Pogo, you insolent fool! (12/30/03 10:22 pm) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! Knocking people down is fun and effective, though. And they don't do it all the time. It seems pretty random to me. oh well I beat Musou with Zhao Yun, gonna use Xiahou Dun next... Raistlin Pirate (12/31/03 3:40 am) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I played Jak and Daxter some more today, and it started to get more entertaining. At first, I thought I had to get 20 power cells to access the next area, but that's not really the case. One I cleared the vents as one of the first objectives, I'm told to go to Misty Island by boat to accomplish another objective. But the boat operator is in a jungle area, and you have to go retrieve him first. So the jungle becomes the next main area to explore. And I like it. There are bridges with large gaps for a little actual platforming, more enemies than before, and better graphical detail. Overall, I think I have around 15 power cells. There's 100 total in the game. Which leads me to believe this might not be such a long title... but as long as its fun, I don't care. I played some more of FFX-2 and got one of the three disguises I needed, along with accomplishing a couple other sidequests. More importantly, I leveled up and learned several new abilities. Rikku is now very skilled as a Black Mage, probably the strongest overall character because of this. I also have Paine as a white mage, with several useful abilities, including Life, and all three levels of Cure. Raistlin Pirate (1/2/04 12:07 am) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I'm pretty much finished with DBZ Budokai now. I completed the main story mode, as well as all the optional chapters. I finished the tournament mode on easy and normal. I then completed the Hercule mode on easy. Beyond that, I've been replaying the tournament mode to earn more skills to customize characters. But its starting to get boring now, and the harder difficulty settings aren't as much fun. The tournament mode is getting quite frustrating, as you can lose by being thrown out of the fighting area, like on the show. But its a pain being in the final fight, at almost full health, and losing this way. And each fight has this annoying announcer telling you who's fighting... it takes about 10 seconds before each fight, not counting normal load times. So its not fun to keep starting over. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the game, but I think I've done all I can do and still have fun playing. I might go back later and try for full completion with all skills and difficulties completed, but I'm considering this game beaten for all intents and purposes. I would considering writing a review, but I'm not sure how it could come out well with my lack of experience with this genre. TWEETER911 I learned from both Jushin Lyger AND Mr. Pogo, you insolent fool! (1/2/04 1:12 am) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! ...I still haven't beat FFX. I'm like right at the end. Blargh. Other wise, I might consider buying 10-2. I knew what the ending was long before I played FFX, btw. .... Uh, DW2 is still great. I still think Hu Lao Gate in 3 is best. In 2, there are too many paths to take, and in 4 it is horribly easy (even Lu Bu when you are halfway maxed and have a 5 hit weapon) and most of the map doesn't get to see any action. 3's is all around bliss. .... Gonna buy some more stuff this weekend. Wish Sengoku Musou/Samurai Warriors was out now though. :( Facilitypro Slow Daddy (1/2/04 2:49 am) Reply Re: I LOVE FO! I finished Metroid Prime a few days ago. Meta Ridley took me two tries to beat. I didn't really like that boss much; it sort of seemed thrown in--like "we need to get Ridley in the game." Besides, once you get him on the ground, all you have to do is hit him with the Wave Buster. I didn't like the final boss much, either. I think in MP, the bosses start off good and get worse as the game progresses. Metroid Prime (the boss, not the game) seemed like it had little thought put into it. It uses the "use the appropriate beam for the color" routine that the game falls into in it's later half. There's really no reason to try and figure out how to dodge its charge attack, since it barely hurts you. The second haf of the boss fight is boring. It's just sitting there jumping the fire blasts while waiting for it to appear. It's like the designers thought "It's too easy, so let's throw in a couple of Metroids to disract/knock around the player." I'm also on level 9 of Halo. I'll post about it in the other HALO thread in modern gaming. But the Aliens ripoffs are coming fast and furious. Lots of soldier dialog seems to be paraphrased from Aliens. For instance, there's one part where a soldier says, "I got a bad feeling about this," and another replies "You always got a bad feeling about something." And the main ship looks just like the Sulaco. BTW, I also noticed the picture of the Elite covenant troop looks JUST like Schwang Schwing from MDK 2. Right down to the "sunglasses." CodieKitty Kitten Pokemon (1/2/04 12:56 pm) Reply Re: I LOV