Link the halls with boughs of holly…. (in no particular order and probably missing a few… gimme a break, I was drinking…)

Street Fighter 4

inFamous

Borderlands

Halo 3: ODST

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Forza 3

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

New Super Mario Bros. Wii

Assassin’s Creed 2

Uncharted 2

Left 4 Dead 2

Dragon Age: Origins

Persona PSP

Persona 3

Persona 4

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box

Pokemon Platinum

Resident Evil 5

Wii Sports Resort

Chronicles of Riddick

DJ Hero

Rock Band: Beatles

Brutal Legend

Scribblenauts

Ghostbusters

Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story

Shadow Complex

Star Ocean: The Last Hope

Punch-Out!

Katamari Forever

Gyromancer

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix

Saw

UFC 2009

Torchlight

Wet

Tony Hawk: Ride

NHL 10

PixelJunk Shooter

Trash Panic

Noby Noby Boy

Flower

Trine

Mega Man 9

Guitar Hero 5

Guitar Hero: Van Halen

Contact us in the new year with your questions, comments, and hugs!  podcast@someothercastle.com

Well, except for this first game, as I have yet to meet anyone who enjoys this steaming turd (except for Leah, but she’s a crazy person).  Taken by itself, and if it were released first, Puzzle Quest Galactrix (hereafter referred to as “Galactrix,” or “dung-vomit”) would surely have been hailed as a phenomenal game; but it can’t be, and it wasn’t.

Two-Thousand and Seven was an awesome year, full of amazing games that I am still catching up on.  One of my very favorites was Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (hereafter referred to as “Warlords” or “the good one”).  I bought this game for XBLA, then shortly thereafter I grabbed a copy for PSP , and PS3.  Oh, and at some point I snagged a download version for PSP as well.  That’s right.  I boughtfour copies of this game.  I loved almost every aspect of it.  Needless to say, I was quite anxiously waiting for Galactrix to be released.

For those not in the know, the fine chaps (hereafter referred to as “fine chaps”) at Infinite Interactive managed to take the story of their oldWarlords franchise and force it into some bizarre mating experiment with Bejewled and they came up with gaming genius.  It’s an RPG in which all of the battles are played out by matching three (or more) colored gems together to attack or cast spells at your foe.  It had catchy music, bright artwork, a decent (if somewhat clichéd) story, and some genuinely funny dialog.

Galactrix has none of this.  It really is as if the runaway success of Warlords went entirely unnoticed by the team, as they took everything that was great about the first one and pooped on it.  It is dark, has little music, poor pacing, almost no attempt at fleshing out the world and characters, and is full of absolutely broken and unrewarding gameplay.   Warlords made a point of rewarding the player for each and every encounter, even if it was only a few gold pieces or some experience points.  Prepare for having 70% of the encounters in Galactrix to go unrewarded, and perhaps, repeated.

Imagine, for a moment, that the next Final Fantasy game required a timed battle after every single room in every single dungeon.  The player would have access to none of the awesome abilities and spells that have been collected over the last 25-40 hours, and would be randomly and arbitrarily forced, five percent of the time, to repeat these battles.  Oh, and you gain no money, experience or items from these battles. Would anyone enjoy that?  There’s nothing a gamer enjoys more than having to replay sections of the game, right?  I was tired of these leapgate hacking sequences after the fourth one.  I estimate that I’m less than halfway through the story and I’ve done over seventy of them.

In fact, I’m adding Leapgate hacking to my list of things that have made me stop playing a game.  So far, it includes unpausable cutscenes (Metal Gear Solid 3–I was on call and my pager went off), Quick Time Events (Too many poopy games to count), trapping me in a dungeon with no way to refill health or escape, (Dragon Quest VIII—after sixty hours, the bastards) and not being able to pause (Phantasy Star Online and Universe).

Why don’t I stop?  Well, if I stopped, I’d be out twenty bones and material for this little thing here.  I’d be finished with the game a lot sooner, but I’m finding myself having to grind for money to buy better ships to even survive the random encounters.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go play dung-vomit some more because I hate myself.

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)

Links will be incoming once Leah survives her other job.  (edit: sorrysorrysorrysorry  ~Leah)

Star Ocean: The Last Hope

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix

Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure

Pokemon Platinum

Storage solution for Wii (sort of)

New Zelda coming to DS

Square Enix buys Eidos

OnLive

Break music for this episode is “Ladies and Gentlemen” from Star Ocean:  The Last Hope.

One again the title came from silliness that made it into the outtakes.  We are just on a roll!  Send us any questions/comments/thoughts at podcast@someothercastle.com.

Let me start off by saying that yes, I do realize that I am playing a science-fiction/fantasy game.  I know that this isn’t real.  These are fictional characters.  I get it.  So when I say that the believability went straight out the damn window with Star Ocean, you can probably take that with a rather large grain of salt.  I don’t want to spoil anything for folks that are playing the game, so I won’t go into much detail, but I will say this: up until the thirteen or fourteen hour mark, there was a certain degree of consistency involved with Star Ocean’s story.  Then, things kind of went off the rails.  I believe the phrase, actually, is “jumped the shark.”  I really, really want to give details here, and I can’t figure out how to start without spilling pretty much everything, so let me simply say that while I was playing, I was giving a sort of running commentary to Elaine, and her replies mainly consisted of expletives and capital letters.  I think she was a little confused.  I know I was.  Anyway, now there’s a cat girl, and a chick with wings, and the cat girl wants to eat the chick with wings, and… well, that’s beside the point.  I’m still playing; in fact, I think I’m playing more than before.  The gameplay hasn’t changed a bit, after all, and the story… well, the story is fucked right up, and I kind of want to see what happens next.  After my departure into Crazyville for a few in-game hours, I appear to be back in… Consistencyland?  (It’s the best I could do…)  I’m curious to see where the next diversion takes me.

I’ve never been that big a fan of the Resident Evil games (not that I have anything against them, really, I’m just too slow to get the hang of the controls for the most part), but the fifth installment, I have to say, is pretty awesome.  If I were playing it by myself, I don’t think I’d be having nearly as good a time with it, but since they made co-op play such a big part of this, I’m really enjoying the game.  Elaine and I have been playing it in chunks, and contrary to what I’ve been hearing, I think they actually got the “scary” part down pat (particularly with those damn dogs).  Ammo is scarce, enemies come in swarms, and the bosses require some creative thinking and quick moves.  If you’re not on your toes, you’re zombie food.  That’s scary to me.

And then there’s Puzzle Quest.  Sigh.  Puzzle Quest and I have…. something of a history.  The first installment of the series was the very first game that I played on my pink DS (after I traded in my original silver system), and the cart didn’t budge for literally months.  Not because I wasn’t playing it, mind you, but rather because there was just SO MUCH to do that the game kept on going forever.  I’ve said before that I’m glad there wasn’t a game clock, because I don’t think I would want to know; there isn’t a game clock in Galactrix either, and I’m equally glad.  It’s only been a week, but I shudder to think about how many hours I’ve already pumped into questing the galaxy to challenge all comers to a rousing match of Bejeweled.  It took me a while to get used to the new board, which is hex-based instead of straight up-and-down like the first game, but now that I’ve found my stride, I find it very hard to put down my DS (not without One More Match, anyway).  I think the fact that I am a very task-based person plays into this game’s basic premise very well; I love methodically working my way through the side missions of every planet out there before I go back to the main quest line, because I just can’t bear to leave any little silver question marks or exclamation points on the board.  And there are plenty to clear.  Like, right now.  I, uh… have to go…. take care of….. stuff…….

Recap:

Current backlog total: 112

Now playing: Star Ocean: The Last Hope (360); Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3); Puzzle Quest: Galactrix (DS); Resident Evil 5 (360)

New games added: Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure (DS); Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume (DS); Suikoden Tierkreis (DS)

Games completed: none… shame on me

Linkity link link links:

Resident Evil 5

Star Ocean: The Last Hope

Peggle DS

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix

Bioshock 2

The Behemoth (make sure you check out the trailer for Game 3!)

New Play Controls on the Wii

Break music for this episode is from Beethoven’s “Ode To Joy.”

Feeeeeedback!  Send it to podcast AT someothercastle.com, pretty please.  I like it when people write things to us.  Keeps the violence at bay….. sometimes.

My resolution is this: unless it starts with the words “Disgaea,” “Fire Emblem,” or of course, “Final Fantasy,” I’m not buying any more tactics games.  I’m done.  I never finish them, and they generally end up frustrating me, because I’m not very good at them.  They’re tricky, though, because they like to masquerade as the type of hyper-Japanese game for which I have a regrettable weakness.  What this ultimately means for my backlog is this: aside from weeding out a bunch of those games which didn’t make the cut (I’m not listing them all, but you can check out my backlog page if you’re really interested), I also stopped playing Ninjatown.  Ninjatown was great for the time that I continued to manage progress through it, and it almost made me forget that it was a strategy game because it was just so gosh-darn cute.  Eventually, though, the truth will out, and once I got to a particular stage that defeated me a solid dozen times in a row, I decided it was time for me to pack up and move on.  That’s about when I made my resolution, too, so there has been a noticeable reduction in backlog size as a result.

Okay, I have another confession to make.  I…. I sorta like Star Ocean.  Just a little, I swear!  It’s really pretty, and the battle system is addictive…. truth to tell, I’m a little afraid I’ll end up like I did with Tales, just playing in ridiculous chunks until my friends are worried about me.  I do have one complaint, though (well, aside from the voice acting, which is downright abysmal in a couple of cases…. Lymle, I’m looking at you), and it’s at least partially of my own making.  Right now, the game just seems really *easy*.  I don’t need for it to be cripplingly difficult or anything, but I’m beginning to wish I’d picked the next difficulty level up (I went with the easiest… yes, I know, cop-out, but after my last experience with the series, I wasn’t taking any chances).  As we’ve discussed before, I am a bit of a completionist, which often leads to me being a bit of a leveler, by necessity if nothing else, but I haven’t even really done that much of that, and I’m still tearing things apart with minimal effort.  This is a complaint you won’t often hear from me, but I find myself wishing it were harder (hehe, that’s what she said).

Upcoming will be Puzzle Quest: Galactrix as well as Resident Evil 5; the first I’m playing at the same time as my esteemed colleague, and the second we will be playing together, so it should be good times all around.  It’s good to have someone else to help you scream at things.

Recap:

Current backlog total: 109

Now playing: Star Ocean: The Last Hope (360); Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3); Puzzle Quest: Galactrix (DS); Resident Evil 5 (360)

New games added: Phantasy Star Portable (PSP); Avalon Code (DS); Resident Evil 5 (360)

Games completed: Ninjatown (DS); a bunch of strategy games (various)