Phantasy Star: Fringes of Algo

I only like fantasy style MMOs. I don't care for the super hero or space MMOs. I just love how MMOs play, and the character progression is so much fun to me. I think one of the biggest problems with MMOs is that there are so many of them now, and you really need to weed through the crap to find the good MMOs. I'd say that for every MMO I find that I really like, I have to play maybe 10-20 bad MMOs first, but when I find one I like, I get hooked for a long while.

Back on topic here. I just finished Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow HD last night on PS3. Pandora Tomorrow is much shorter than the original Splinter Cell and Chaos Theory, but it's an excellent game. It's almost more of an expansion pack to the original. It plays almost the same, but it give you some new moves, and some new gadgets. Pandora Tomorrow has some really great missions, like the Train Mission, and one of the most notorious missions in the Splinter Cell series: the Jakarta mission. It took me hours to get through the Jakarta mission this time, but I still had fun every step of the way.

Looking forward to finishing up the HD Trilogy with Chaos Theory, but I'm going to re-watch all of the Saw movies first.

Beat The Last of Us today. I spent about 5 hours playing it yesterday, got very close to the end, stopped playing and then played through the last couple sections this afternoon. Here's what I have to say about basically the entire second half of the game.

1. After meeting Sam and Henry in Pittsburgh, I knew something bad was going to happen to them eventually. I was right, and the way it happened was done brilliantly with just a tiny bit of foreshadowing if you're paying attention to a small detail during a fairly tense section.

2. Escaping from the cannibals and rescuing Ellie…yeah. Tough, tense, maybe a tad cheap at times, but emotional.

3. Going into Salt Lake City, getting to a very contemplative moment with giraffes escaped from the zoo, then finding that last group of infected in the underground tunnel (which featured THREE bloaters), was a 180 and made surviving that feel even more tense. Fortunately, my usual strategy for infected of using the bow on the runners, then using distraction + molotovs for the rest carried me through well.

4. I have no idea how I feel about the ending, and I'm not going to write it out here, not even with a spoiler tag.

Just play this game. All there is to it. Top ten material for me. I will also play through the Left Behind DLC at some point, but not now.

Now not sure what new game I'll pick up. Still haven't finished BioShock, which has a story and setting I love but FPS gameplay just isn't my thing. I took advantage of this weekend's PSN flash sale and got some stuff cheap, including a few indie games, which made me realize I hadn't looked at the indie stuff on PSN in a while, so I also downloaded a few demos for games I might be interested in (and will buy if I like the demo). I also still have LA Noire DLC untouched, and I might want to replay Crusader of Centy. Decisions, decisions!

So you finally beat The Last of Us Wolf Bird, good job. How many hours did it take you to complete it? Is there any extra stuff to do in the game? I was going to ask you if you played the DLC, but you already covered that.

My save file says 21 hours and 50 minutes, and I was pretty slow and methodical with it…despite that, I still clearly missed some collectibles, as I only got the trophy for finding all the training manuals (there are also artifacts, comics and Firefly pendants). For extra stuff…well, not really. When you complete the game, you can do the new game +, which I presume lets you start a new game with all your current weapons, upgrades, etc. It's a linear game, with some limited exploration, and you can't do any backtracking. If you want to get all collectibles and did not get them all on your first run, you have to replay the game to get them, or keep multiple save files. It also has achievements if you want to keep playing to get all of those. And then there's the DLC, and also online multiplayer, which I have not tried…and don't really have much interest in.

Finished off Double Dragon Neon after it sat in the backlog for a bit while I was doing my LP of Ys: The Ark of Napishtim.

DDN actually is pretty worth playing. WayForward really knows what it's about, the music remixes are all good stuff, plus there's enough meat to the game- it does reward learning the minutia of the game.

Since I'm ramping up to finals season and just finished a game I got VERY invested in emotionally and in time (The Last of Us), I'm switching my gaming habits, at least in the immediate future, to games that are shorter and/or more for mess around purposes. Nothing terribly deep for the next couple weeks. So, I finally played the indie game Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons that I downloaded on PSN a little while back. I enjoyed it for what it was. It's a puzzle game more than anything else. The interesting thing is that you have to control both brothers simultaneously to navigate your environment, and naturally, they have different abilities. The older brother is stronger and can operate levers and such that the younger brother can't. The younger brother can get through small gaps and spaces the older brother can't. Controls (at least on PS3) are all analog sticks and shoulder buttons, and the controls were definitely what I had the hardest time getting used to. It's not too hard of a game (I never got stuck on a puzzle, all my retries were related to having trouble getting used to the controls), nor too long, and once you've beaten it, there's very little in terms of replay value except getting any achievements you missed, which is easy with the chapter select. All in all, I probably put in 5 hours, at most, and got 100%.

All that said, if you have PS3, an XBox, or Steam, download this game as it's very good for what it is.

I just finished FF VIII, and...I actually really liked it. I was prepared to trash it because I'm a hipster NES player, but it was actually a good, interesting game.

Also, dat music.

Bragatyr wrote:I just finished FF VIII, and...I actually really liked it. I was prepared to trash it because I'm a hipster NES player, but it was actually a good, interesting game.

Also, dat music.

FF VIII has a really great soundtrack. I'm one of those people that really liked FF VIII too. In fact it was the last canon Final Fantasy game that I liked.

FFVIII ? Hmmm for me not a great game at all ! yes the musics are great (not all of them...) and the story is good BUT the big flaw is the game system ! Help !!!! What an horror .. I've never finished it and I'll never BUT I'm happy that you people have enjoyed it

It's actually the first Playstation era Final Fantasy I've played, so I'm looking forward to seeing FF VII, IX, and X. VIII was the only one I ever heard bad things about from that time frame, and I liked it, so I'm optimistic.

myau, I totally feel you on the mechanics, I wasn't sold on the game either until I was well into it. I agree with you too in that it has a good story. Kind of wonky at times, but definitely interesting.