New Dog, Old Tricks

Lost Odyssey is not a bad game. It’s not a great game, but it’s not a bad game. I’m actually enjoying the game rather thoroughly, but I just can’t help get over the fact that I am playing a game with the same mechanics from the original Playstation. Turn based combat, ok. Invisible, randomly generated enemies, I can deal with that. What I can’t deal with, however, is being painfully forced to remember painful memories of my past gaming experiences. I’m not sure if the designers were intending to recreate Kaim’s agonizing flashback sequences, most of which are all in text format, or if they were just lazy and needed to fill the game with unnecessarily mundane tasks. For those of you who haven’t played the game, they literally ask you to go collect “N” number of flowers, then when you return with your bouquet of boring, they ask you to go and collect “N” number of sticks. STICKS!!! This game wasn’t even original enough to come up with something interesting to collect. YOU ARE COLLECTING STICKS!

One of the other meaningless areas of the game was when you were required to make it from point A to point B without being seen by the flying eyeballs. FRICKEN FLYING EYEBALLS! I am sorry, but I feel like they were almost poking fun at video game clichés when they were designing these pointless parts of an otherwise rich experience.

The enemies are interesting and varied. The characters are filled with personality and charisma. The “comic relief” character, Jansen, is wonderfully voiced over by actor and comedian Michael McGaharn. The production value in this game even rivals that of Heavenly Sword.

The game, all-in-all, is a good game. It’s not going to win any awards for innovation or ignite any fires for those seeking evolution in video games. Although my largest complaints are regarding the gaming mechanics used in this title, as barbaric as they may be, I have a feeling that Mistwalker new what they were trying to accomplish, and accomplished it. Playing this game almost forces you to walk down memory lane, weather that be for the best or the worst. Luckily for me, it was for the best, and I am still enjoying all 4, cutscene packed discs.

Culdra's Cepters

I am usually too lazy to post multiple blog entries in the span of a week, but I am too excited about my recent addiction to lay idle. I even went to the extent of creating a club to tame my obsession, Culdra’s Cepters for any of you who may be interested. Culdcept Saga has me so hooked that I’m tempted to trade the left kidney of my first born child for those beautifully crafted stone cards.

For the lucky Culdcept virgins out there, which are probably many of you, who have not experienced the uncontrollable infatuation of constructing the perfect deck, I will give you a free hit from my pipe. The game is basically a trifecta of geek games Monopoly, Magic: The Gathering and an obscure JRPG. You first build a deck of cards and then wage battle on a strategic board that requires you to claim territory by defeating your enemies and collecting tolls to gain a desired amount of magic. The combination of cards and abilities available create a never ending chain of calculated destruction. Describing this game in any further detail would send a caffeinated insomniac with ADD into a deep slumber, so I will spare you the details.

Even the few gripes I have about the game somehow manage to add to the overall experience. One of the first things I noticed about the game was the unbelievably melodramatic voiceovers. Obviously, story mode is not the main attraction for this game, but the main character sounds like he just came from a failed audition for Peter Pan. Although you play as a young boy in this game, they could have at least cast someone who doesn’t sound like they drive a Saturn plastered with rainbow bumper stickers.

Along with the poorly done voiceovers, there are some slight graphical annoyances in the game. Once again, this is only a gripe about the story mode, simply because I haven’t opened Pandora’s Box yet and given multiplayer a shot, which I understand is the hook of this title. After I cut through the cheesiness of my characters first voiceover, I saw one of the main enemies, Rilara, for the first time. Rilara essentially looks like stripper who has just survived a c-section gone horribly wrong. For some reason, they gave the clear sex symbol in the game the most hideous looking belly button imaginable.

As I said, the few tiny “complaints” I have about the game almost add to its obscurity and charm. This is a game that I only hope will grow a larger audience with its Xbox 360 release and I can play it for months, if not years to come. For any of you Culdcept fans out there, or even newcomers who want to know more about the game, feel free to visit cepter-club.1up.com and join the fun. I look forward to seeing you all on the battle field!

New Horizons

After listening to Gabe and Tycho’s podcast from Penny Arcade regarding one of their recent comics, I’m starting to see the genius behind their ways, and more importantly, the shallowness behind mine. I’ve never really put much thought into my feeble attempts of humor represented in my comic strips. Probably the largest reason behind this weak attempt is the fact that I know that nobody is really reading them, and they are mostly for my own entertainment and self fulfillment. My most recent comedic barren comic illustrates one of my two favorite games that have arrived since the overly populated holiday season. The game I’m referring to of course is Poker Smash. For anybody who calls them selves a puzzler fan, they would be doing themselves a tremendous injustice not to give this game a gander. The level of polish put into this game rivals that of Mario Galaxy, the only difference, is that I’m driven to come back and play Poker Smash, but that is another topic in itself. I’ve just recently started to really enjoy puzzle games such as Puzzle Fighter and Puzzle Quest, but this one is on a level even more fitting for my interests. I’m also starting to realize how horrible I am at the mandatory ability to plan multiple steps ahead in order to gain any kind of real success in these games, especially on a competitive level.

The other game that I briefly referred to earlier which I have been enjoying lately, is completely new to my gaming repertoire. The game is called Culdcept Saga, and for anyone who listens to the 1up Yours podcast, you will no doubt recognize this title coming from the outspoken mouth of Shane Bettenhausen over the past few episodes. Since this article is starting to border on the length even beyond my own attention span, I will save my discussion of this game for my next post, but all I have to say now is that I am infatuated with this game and everything that comes with it. Once again this was a gem on the PS2 that was effortlessly overlooked by yours truly, like so many others that were off my narrow gaming radar at the time.

If anybody does ever come across any of my posts, no doubt by accident, and manage to make it to the bottom of this article, I would be more than happy to take other suggestions of games that may have slipped, no, consciously passed through my fingers when my peripheral game vision was drastically constricted.