Press Start to Continue needs your help! If you enjoy my comic, spread the word! Advertise my comic in your signature! I'll give you money...er... Monopoly money!

• 25Dec 09

  Ghosts of an MMORPG's Past

  First of all, a very Happy Friday to you all! I don't celebrate Christmas, or any of the other holidays in December, so a Happy Friday is the only thing you're going to get from me. Anyway...

  As many of you know, I am a five-time recovering FFXI addict. No, this isn't about me relapsing. No, this about a game that I'm now playing that is constantly bringing up memories. This game is noneother than:

  

  Just so you know, this isn't the version I have. There is no annoying red Greatest Hits bar on the top of the case. I have the original release.

  So anyway, why is this game bringing back so many memories of FFXI? It plays a lot like it. The battle system is very similiar just because it's real time. There are no random battles. You can spot your enemies right there on the field. When you're engaged in battle, you can run all over the place. Basic attacking is done automatically. Just like FFXI. I even found myself getting behind an enemy while my partner was attacking it to try to hit them from behind to get a critical hit, like I used to do all in the time in FFXI. It was almost like it was automatic for me.

  The enemies even behave like the did in FFXI. You have passive monsters, with a green health bar and aggressive monsters with an orange health bar, and if you get close enough to aggressive monsters, you get aggro, which means they'll start to attack you. Like enemies that are near to one who spotted you, or one you're attacking will "link", meaning they will join the fight. And this is where bad memories of FFXI come flooding in. Aggroing and linking are just freaking annoying when you're not prepared for it. You try to be careful to avoid an enemy for them to turn right into you at the last second, or you have what it takes to take down a tough mob, only for the fight to be ruined by another one joining in.

  They even throw in some incredibly hard monsters in the same area where there are easy ones. For instance, I was having a good day, just killing rabbits and wolves and bird people, and then I saw a couple of werewolves. I knew they would be harder, but I had just no idea how hard. So I attacked them, and it was three hits. Them hitting me, them hitting my partner, and us hitting the floor. Factor this in with aggroing and linking, and I even DIE like I'm in FFXI...

  However, the similarities to FFXI will not deter me from playing it. On the contrary, I can see myself becoming quite addicted to this game. I have no problem being addicted to a game that ends, though, so I don't really see this is as a problem. So what does that mean for me and the forums? Yeah, you're going to be seeing a lot less of me until I finish this game. I'll still try to be around though.

  • Posted Dec 25, 2009 9:34 am PT
  • Category: Games
  • 9 Comments
  • Tag
  • Print
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Digg
• 24Dec 09

  GameFly's Year End Xbox 360 Sale

  I can't believe I'm actually beating ImaginaryFriend to this, but GameFly is having yet another used games sale, and it pretty much seems to be focused on Xbox 360, as there are 104 titles under 20 bucks, while there were only 15 PS3 games under that price. I'm not going to list all the sales, though, so if you want to know what's cheap, just go over there and browse like I did. I will instead list what I just ordered.

  • Afro Samurai - $9.99
  • Wanted - $9.99
  • X-Men Origins: Wolverine - $9.99

  These are three games that I've wanted, waiting for the price to come down like I pretty much do with everything else, and and $9.99 is the perfect price! I was even willing to pay 30 for Wolverine! Oh, by the way, there is currently free shipping on ALL used games, and you don't even need to be a member to take advantage of it!

  Happy shopping everyone!

  • Posted Dec 24, 2009 6:27 am PT
  • 12 Comments
  • Tag
  • Print
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Digg
• 23Dec 09

  Welcome back to my gaming collection, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7

  As some of you know, my long term goal is to eventually reacquire all the great games I have let go in the past. This has proven to be rather slow task, as the only games I can think of recently that have been reacquired was Assassin's Creed (although I owned it for the PS3 and repurchased it on the 360), Mirror's Edge and Grand Theft Auto IV. It kills me that I let Crisis Core go, and actually, it's one of my stupidest mistakes. Here's what I had originally:

  

  That was the limited edition. You can't really tell from the picture, but the cover was nice and shiney, sorta metallic. This is what I have now:

  

  No shiney. Big red thing on top of case that remind Lucas he one stupid jackass.

  Anyway, I took advantage of an awesome sale that spazzx625 tipped me on to and bought it for just under 10 dollars. While I was at it, I managed to score a copy of The World Ends With You for the same price, and I also added a strategy guide for FFXII, since I plan to start that game next.

  It feels good to have this game back in my possession. It really is one of the best PSP games I've played, and some day, I'll get around to playing it again. It deserves it. Also, for anyone who's interested in reading my review on the game, you can find it here:

  http://www.gamespot.com/psp/rpg/crisiscorefinalfantasyvii/player_review.html?id=574790&tag=contributions;review16

  • Posted Dec 23, 2009 12:40 am PT
  • Category: Games
  • 20 Comments
  • Tag
  • Print
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Digg

See Previous Blog Posts »