Some Other Castle » henry hatsworth

Confessions of a Backlogged Gamer, Week 13: WTB A Decent Map, PST

Leah — Mon, 04 May 2009 14:58:40 +0000

Remind me, when all is said and done, NOT to believe people when they tell me that a game is linear and that I don’t need a strategy guide. I am incredibly directionally challenged. Even the map isn’t enough sometimes, and when that map consists of little more than big blocks without even a nifty little arrow that says YOU ARE HERE, I get frustrated. Nay, infuriated! At least I didn’t throw a controller this time. Did I mention that I threw a controller before?

I finished Ratchet and Clank this week. Ratchet and Clank is not a game that should make anyone angry enough to break a fifty dollar controller, but guess what? I did. There’s this part toward the end where there’s these guys, and they’re shooting, and I didn’t have any way to refill my ammo, and they’re really tough, and…. well, it’s not important. I am currently down one SixAxis; that’s the part that matters. Thankfully I have a backup, and have already preordered myself a silver DualShock3, much to the delight of my compatriot, who has repeatedly voiced her displeasure that I persist in using “toy” controllers for my big, expensive, weighty system. I don’t think the controller arrives until June, but I’m not in a big hurry. At any rate, I did finish the game, and that little episode aside, I did enjoy it; I’ll probably investigate the next retail installment, which is supposed to drop towards the end of the year, although I doubt I’ll bother with the DLC for this one.

Upon completing R&C, I suppressed my urge to start playing Persona 3 again (it’s coming, though, you can be sure of that) and instead delved into Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, which I obtained for the PS3 as part of the Dark Athena disc. I was advised to start with this installment because I hadn’t played it before, and because it’s supposed to be a really good game, and because, well… it’s the first adventure on the disc. Makes sense. I (wisely) decided to tackle the game on the easiest setting, and even still, I’m proving to be pretty bad at it. It’s fun, don’t get me wrong, but the lack of a reliable map is starting to give my brain mini-seizures (as you may have inferred from the first paragraph). Example: while in the mine section of the prison, I purchased a vent tool from someone. Apparently, this is quite important, because when I died before the next checkpoint and didn’t actually re-purchase said tool, I was made to regret it. There’s this vent, see, and you need a vent tool to open it and progress. The problem is that I had a hell of a time finding my way back to the gentleman in question who could sell me the tool. Like, an hour’s worth of diversion. I was pretty miffed about that one. I’m not sure whether this is a fault in the game itself or merely a quirk in my own style of gameplay (I’m inclined to think the latter, since no one else seems to have this particular issue with the game) but I found it notable enough to mention. Also, who the FUCK is shooting me? There always seems to be someone, and I can’t find the fucker half the time. Dear everyone: please stop that. Kthx.

Recap:

Current backlog total: 116

Now playing: Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena (or Escape From Butcher Bay, if you want to get picky… it’s the same disc) (PS3); Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure (DS)

New games added: none

Games completed: Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3)

Some Other Podcast, Episode 8: The Re-Peggling, OR: Corn Brain Salad

Leah — Fri, 01 May 2009 14:31:39 +0000

We couldn’t decide on a title this week, so you get two! Aren’t you lucky? I may sound a bit stuffy this week, but that’s only because I’m on the verge of death. It’s cool though, because cold meds and booze combine to get me through the podcast in one piece. Join us for spirited discussion on Japanese schoolgirls, addictions packed within other addictions, and the probable diets of zombie pigs. We also finally discuss Wil Wheaton’s Just A Geek, and ask for your input on what to peruse for next time.

Linkativity!

Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction

Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure

Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Dark Athena

Persona 4

Pokemon Platinum

Resident Evil 5

Wil Wheaton’s Just A Geek

Marvel vs. Capcom 2

The GameBoy turns 20

Peggle now available in WoW

Trojan virus infects some visitors to Atlus’s website

Square Enix admits they take too long to make games

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years site goes live

Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Complete sells 271k

Texas bill gives tax breaks to game companies

Break music is “Master of Shadow” from the Persona 3 OST

Feedback! It keeps me from succumbing to the zombieism, you know. Send it to podcast@someothercastle.com and make me a happy girl.

Confessions of a Backlogged Gamer, Week 12: Loose Ends

Leah — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:47:21 +0000

I’ve never actually played a Ratchet and Clank game before; yeah, I know it’s a really big series, and being a fan of platformers (although not, of course, a bigger fan than I am of JRPGs), I probably should have picked one up before now to give it a whirl. I didn’t, though. After the all-encompassing sea that was Star Ocean, though (haha! See what I did there?), and before that, the fifty-plus hours I spent traversing Tales of Vesperia left me needing something a little lighter to cleanse my gaming palette. Ratchet and Clank is proving to be just the thing.

I’ve been kind of half-heartedly playing a bit here and there of R&C in the midst of the other stuff in my systems, but the bigger games just kept sucking me back in, so now that I’m devoting my full attention to it (or as full as my attention gets, anyway), I am happy to report that I’m thoroughly enjoying the game. There’s just something about beating the crap out of robots with a giant wrench that makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. Although I mostly only use the Combuster gun-wise (and the Predator gun is quite fun as well), it’s nice to have a wide variety of shooty-things available to me, and since ammo is plentiful, I can mess around with different stuff pretty much freely. I also have to say that it’s a nice little change to be playing something in which I feel like I’m making quantifiable progress pretty much every time I pick it up, as opposed to Star Ocean, where managing to find three blue roses was a good session.

Not that I’m busting on Star Ocean, mind you. As of last writing, I’d finished the main storyline, but I hadn’t finished the post-game content. Well, as of THIS writing, I still haven’t finished the post-game content, but I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’m not going to. I ploughed my way through the first of the two bonus dungeons, arriving at the final boss with Edge at level 102 (yep, 100 is apparently not the max level… I wonder what is?), and I just got smacked. Like, it wasn’t even close. I had zero chance. Rather than pumping more time into grinding levels so I could go on (and we all know how much I looooove doing that), I decided to call it quits on Star Ocean. I feel like I accomplished all I needed to, and I’m not disappointed with my experience overall. I certainly feel like I got my money’s worth.

Right now, the only other game I’m really playing is Henry Hatsworth; I finally got around to playing it on my shiny new DSi (well…. shiny is a metaphor in this case, as the actual finish is matte), and yes, as promised, the increased screen size is very nice. I’ve still only managed one more level’s progress since last time, but at this point in the game, I feel like that’s pretty much cause for celebration. This bitch gets HARD towards the end. It’s a challenge that I enjoy dealing with, though, regardless of how many times I may scream POPPYCOCK! Hey, he says it, why can’t I?

Recap:

Current backlog total: 118

Now playing: Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3); Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure (DS)

New games added: Docomodake BOING! (DS); Afro Samurai (360); Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom (360); Growlanser: Heritage of War (PS2); Tomb Raider Anniversary (PSP); Astonishia Story (PSP); Ys: The Ark of Napishtm (PSP) (Come on, there was a buy 2 get 1 free sale!)

Games completed: Star Ocean: The Last Hope (360)

Some Other Podcast, Episode 7: I Love Dwagons

Elaine — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 17:44:14 +0000

This episode our girl party was interrupted by a boy! It’s cool though because we invited him. Steve (one of our newly added writers) joins us to talk about Henry Hatsworth, JRPGs (and how Leah ruins lives), Leah’s Star Ocean problem, NPDs, and all sort of other miscellaneous news like stuff. We also answer some awesome listener questions about bears and dragons, oh and a few about video games too.

Links will be incoming when Leah is finished working or some such thing. (Again real life invades…. and if you listen carefully, you may be able to pick up why I didn’t just do this last night… ~Leah)

Godfather 2

Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure

Suikoden Tierkreis

Resistance: Retribution

Pokemon Platinum

Persona 4

Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction

March NPD numbers

Evil Ben Franklin axed Henry Hatsworth boss

NIB Dreamcasts at ThinkGeek for $99

Amazon selling WiiWare titles, starting with World of Goo

85 million Final Fantasy units and 50 million Dragon Quest units sold over respective series’ lifetimes

Matthew Perry attributes hand pain to too much Fallout 3

Washington State child brings gun to school to trade for PSP

This episode powered by Bacardi 151 Zombie!

Break music is “I face myself – Battle” from the Persona 4 Soundtrack

Want to send us mail? Email us at podcast AT someothercastle.com or find us on Twitter or Xbox Live. We all know how Leah feels about listener mail.

Confessions of a Backlogged Gamer, Week 11: Just When You Thought It Was Over….

Leah — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:28:27 +0000

Yeah, I was kind of under the impression that when I defeated the final boss of Star Ocean, around hour 59, that the game would be over. Not so! During the movie-length cutscenes that followed the battle, I idly flipped the page of the strategy guide which had become pretty much permanently glued to my lap to find…. two more dungeons. So really, I tried, but I’m not done yet. I am in hour 64, though.

I have mixed feelings about the inclusion of extra content after the end credits to a game have rolled. On one hand, extra content is always good, particularly if I was enjoying the game to begin with. More is better, right? On the other hand, though, why not simply include that content within the game itself? That’s what side quests are for, in my opinion: to give you something to do outside the main storyline that serves as an acceptable alternative to running around in circles grinding levels. It’s a minor complaint, I guess, but I did find myself a little irked at the way TLH set things up. That said, these dungeons, or at least the one that I’m currently dealing with, are full of some pretty serious motherfuckers. They are not kidding when they tell you that the difficulty curve here is more like a difficulty cliff-edge. I smacked around the final boss of the actual storyline with little trouble; in fact, throughout the game, I never lost a boss fight. Not once, actually. Just as a for-instance, the boss that I most recently fought in the current dungeon (called the Cave of the Seven Stars) slaughtered my entire party multiple times… I never actually lost, due to swapping folks out and resurrecting them, but at the end, Mr. Edge Maverick was the only one still standing. I’m glad he was, too, because I would have lost about an hour and a half of play if he’d dropped.

I didn’t purchase any new games this week, but I did purchase a new system… sort of. That’s right, I caved and picked up a DSi (it’s black). What this practically means for my gaming queue is that I ditched all but two of my GBA games (Final Fantasy V, which I have played many times before, and Tales of Phantasia, which I have not). I obviously don’t actually have a system to play them on at this point, but I figure I’ll probably just snag a used SP when they price-drop a little more, as they are sure to do due to the current influx. I’m told that Henry Hatsworth looks quite snazzy on the bigger screens, but I have yet to play since I picked up the system, so I suppose that remains to be seen.

Recap:

Current backlog total: 112

Now playing: Star Ocean: The Last Hope (360); Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure (DS)

New games added: none

Games completed: none (balance!)

Some Other Podcast, Episode 6: Porn and Pokemon

Leah — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:49:43 +0000

Hi, kids! Did you miss us? Yeah, us too. But you really have to stop calling so late…. people are going to talk. Instead, you can listen to us ramble on about Elaine’s tentative steps into the RPG realm, the problems with collector’s editions, and the perils of importing fancy shinies. I also do a lot of crying in this episode. Thanks a lot, Squenix.

Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure

Star Ocean: The Last Hope

Pokemon Platinum

Just A Geek by Wil Wheaton

Rock Band: Beatles Edition

God of War 3 collector’s edition vote

Patapon 2

Nintendo DSi in pink!

Final Fantasy XIII demo with Advent Children blu-ray

FFVII on PSN in Japan

Break music is “Wild Pokemon Battle Music” from Pokemon Platinum.

Do you see how happy mail makes me? It sort of compensates for all the crying I do. So send us more at podcast@someothercastle.com!

Confessions of a Backlogged Gamer, Weeks 8-10: Poppycock!

Leah — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:03:19 +0000

I know, I know…. lazy Leah, right? Sorry for the gap between updates, folks, but to make up for it, I *do* have a significant amount of progress to report! As of this writing, since last time, I have finished one game, blasted through most of a second, and put a cool twenty or so more hours into a third. I’ve purchased a few more as well, of course, but let’s just overlook that for the time being….

First things first: it’s true, ladies and gents…. I have, in fact, finished Puzzle Quest: Galactrix. Not even just finished, actually, but rather stomped. Massacred. One might even say trounced. I hunted down those little punctuation marks scattered all over my beautiful galaxy and I wiped them out for good. I really don’t want to know how much time I spent doing so, but at the end, it felt good. Kind of. You know, in a “wow, I really have absolutely no life” kind of way. Hey, whatever I can get.

Upon completion of Puzzle Quest, I picked up a different variety of puzzler on my DS (the system really seems to be good for that these days, and as long as they continue to be of this quality, I am certainly not complaining about that). I’m speaking, of course, of Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure, which Elaine started before me and has been talking up so much that I could hardly wait to get started. I was rewarded when I did, because the game is fantastic. I love that although you do have to keep track of both screens, you don’t have to manage both together; the platforming gets put on hold when you need to go fool with your puzzle screen. I’ve reached a point where the game is getting really hard…. like, I-may-want-to-tether-my-DS-to-my-wrist-so-I-don’t-chuck-it-through-a-window hard. Here’s the major difference between this and the last platformer I tried to trudge through (Prinny….. remember Prinny? God, I do.). I want to keep playing Henry Hatsworth. I enjoy it, because it’s not punishing, it’s just challenging. It’s not impossible, it just takes a few tries (or in some cases…. many tries). I didn’t enjoy Prinny. I wanted to stuff Prinny down a garbage disposal. That’s why Prinny got traded in post-haste, while Henry Hatsworth is still in my DS (waiting for the blasted thing to charge back up, because I’ve run the battery down yet again). So yeah, I yell at the little British dude, and the phrase “Are you FUCKING kidding me?!?” leaves my mouth a lot (and it’s always that specific phrase…. I dunno why, but it always seems appropriate), but the important thing is that I’m still playing. I’m in what I believe is the second to last world, and if the goddamn Puzzle Realm is this tricksy, I shudder to think what the world after it is going to be like. I intend to find out, though.

Up until I finished Questing, I’d kind of been neglecting my other main game of the moment, which is, of course, Star Ocean. No more, my friends! Now that the galaxy is safe from glowing punctuation, I have returned to saving a different galaxy from what ails it. I’ve actually put a considerable amount of time into doing so…. I’m in hour 45 right now, and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. I’m not even off of disc 2 yet….

I understand that I have, apparently, inspired a few folks to play Star Ocean themselves after hearing me ramble on about it, so if you are one of those people, or if you simply don’t want to have the plot spoiled, you may want to skip the rest of this paragraph. I won’t be too offended. For anyone still reading, though, I have to rant just a bit about something that happened circa hour 42 that really made me angry. It’s what I like to call the “Final Fantasy VII syndrome”. I didn’t get particularly attached to Aeris (in fact, I only used her when forced to do so) but I know people who did- who, in fact, spent a great deal of time leveling her up as far as possible, only to have her cut in half at the end of the first disc. (Yup, Aeris dies. Sorry kids, statute of limitations is up on that one.) I had Faize in my main party ever since he first showed up; when I started messing around with different combinations of characters as you gain more recruits, my two constants were always Edge and Faize. I even took Reimi out eventually, but never Faize. So OF COURSE, in hour forty-fucking-two of the game, they took him away from me! I was PISSED! Now, granted, they do give you Arumat as a sort-of replacement, and he’s far more badass than Faize was (and less girly to boot, if considerably more emo), but it’s the principle of the thing that matters. I was completely comfortable having him in my party, and then I had to rearrange everything this far in. Not cool, Squenix. Not cool. I think I’ve pretty much settled on a core party for now unless they take someone else away from me: my frontline fighters are Edge and Arumat, my caster is Myuria (who is a raging badass if set up correctly) and my healer is Sarah (who is annoying as hell, but extremely useful as long as you turn her voice off in the options menu).

Okay, spoilery ranting over. You can come back now. It’s the end for this week, though, so just check out the stats.

Recap:

Current backlog total: 117

Now playing: Star Ocean: The Last Hope (360); Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure (DS)

New games added: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time (Wii); Peggle Dual Shot (DS); Pokemon Platinum (DS); Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena (PS3); Gardening Mama (DS); Rhythm Heaven (DS) ….remember though, that’s three weeks’ worth! That’s not so bad, right? …….right?

Games completed: Puzzle Quest: Galactrix (DS)

Some Other Podcast, Episode 5: She Got Cupcaked

Leah — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 04:14:55 +0000

We’re just a bit late this week due to zombie plague and various scheduling unpleasantness, but fear not! Your intrepid hosts are back for week 5. Speaking of zombie plague, Elaine tries very hard to hack up a lung during this episode, but don’t worry, she’s still alive…. mostly. I didn’t even have to pull out the shotgun! I’d say that counts as a victory. Tune in for discussion on the end of a Puzzling era, Elaine’s complete 180 on the DSi, and whether virtual baby seals need love too.

Here comes the link train! Choo choo!

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix (for the last time, I swear!)

Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure

Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

Pokemon Platinum

Nintendo DSi

Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition

Wil Wheaton’s blog (To order a copy of Just A Geek if you’d like to read along with us, go through the Amazon link on our front page. Thanks!)

Leah’s thesis

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

PS3 outsells Wii in Japan

Lego Rock Band?

2.5 billion achievements on Live

PS3 Tales of Vesperia

PETA protests baby seal clubbing in WoW

Break music is “Cake Or Death” from the Henry Hatsworth OST.

Send us mail at podcast@someothercastle.com! We loves it, precious!