Some Other Castle » re5

Some Other Podcast, Episode 40: Midget Zombie Clowns

Leah — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 01:23:21 +0000

We hope everyone has had/is having a perfectly wonderful holiday season! We know we are; after all, thanks to this week’s special guests, Dan and Joe, we finally get to gorge ourselves upon the long-awaited Fudgie the Whale! What better way to celebrate the coming of the new year than with chocolate crunchies and talk about (what else?) VIDEO GAMES? Rather than our usual setup, we have a chat about the games that stood out for us in the year 2009. Do you agree? Let us know!

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

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

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box

Pokemon Platinum

Resident Evil 5

Wii Sports Resort

Chronicles of Riddick

Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story

Shadow Complex

Star Ocean: The Last Hope

Punch-Out!

Katamari Forever

Gyromancer

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix

Guitar Hero: Van Halen

Confessions of a Backlogged Gamer, Week 17: My Wilting Dahlias

Leah — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:12:13 +0000

The Cooking Mama franchise and I have a history. I scorned it to begin with, in the belief that it was just another method for game developers to push girl gamers into stereotyped roles. Then I played the game. Four iterations later (I have to confess that I didn’t really care for the Wii versions, but the DS ones stand as some of my most horrible addictions to date), Mama has moved out of the kitchen and into the garden, and given my previous enjoyment of the series, I thought Gardening Mama might be worth a whirl.

Gardening Mama is, put simply, Cooking Mama with flowers. I don’t say that as a put-down, I just say that as a way to identify for those of you who may, like me, have enjoyed the previous games; if you’re looking for more, Gardening Mama is it. The biggest difference gameplay-wise seems to be that while you do have a limited degree of choice in what you can do and which plants you can tend to, you actually get shuffled from place to place pretty directly; the “wilting” mechanic of the game ensures that there isn’t a whole lot of room for you to get started on too many things at once, at least not without suffering some consequences. However, while this means I haven’t gotten started on my rose garden yet, it also means that the one-more-level lure is especially strong in this game; after all, I can’t very well stop playing when my anemone are being attacked by viruses, can I? Not in good conscience. Other than that, the game remains faithful to the franchise: Mama still speaks with a horribly stereotyped Engrish accent, the minigames are still addictive as all hell, and you still get rated on your progress at the end of each set of tasks. I’m loving it so far!

I haven’t really made much gaming progress otherwise; I had a moment of sheer terror when it looked like my PS3 had eaten my now-62-hour Persona save (all is well, no worries), and I made it through some more of Resident Evil 5 in co-op mode (fuck.Lickers.), but I haven’t actually gone back to Disgaea yet. I am, however, anxiously awaiting the arrival of Crimson Gem Saga and Steal Princess, the latter of which I ordered from Amazon due to its disappointing unavailability most other places, and the former of which should be coming in any day now… (neither is in my possession yet, though, so they don’t count on the backlog stats!)

Current backlog total: 106

Now playing: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 (PS2); Gardening Mama (DS); Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness (PSP); Resident Evil 5 (360)

New games added: Cross Edge (PS3)

Games completed: none

Confessions of a Backlogged Gamer, Week 7: Addiction

Leah — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 14:37:37 +0000

A few days ago, I made a comment to Elaine that pretty much sums up my recent gaming habits, and it was this: I can’t just like a game; I have to be obsessed with it. That’s about where I am this week. I’m still playing Star Ocean (even though it’s gotten weeeeeeeird), I’m still pretty much ignoring Ratchet and Clank (even though I really do enjoy it when I get around to it), and I’m right back to my old habits with Puzzle Quest: Galactrix. There’s Resident Evil 5 as well, but that’s a bit of a different story.

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

Some Other Podcast, Episode 2: Tequila of the Dead

Leah — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:28:06 +0000

What better day is there to drink and talk about games and drink than St. Patrick’s Day? Yeah, that’s what we thought too. To make up for the delay caused by my zombie plague, we are extra awesome this week, even though we forgot to introduce ourselves: for those of you not paying attention, I’m Leah Haydu, the one who talks too much, and the lady over there with the actual technical knowledge and the bat is Elaine Stryker. Tune in for discussion on Resident Evil 5, Bioshock 2, the DS as a puzzle platform, and more! Just remember, zombies love tequila too.

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.

Confessions of a Backlogged Gamer, Weeks 5 & 6: The Plague Intrudes

Leah — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 02:11:31 +0000

The reasons I didn’t update my backlogged adventures last week are twofold: first, because I came down with a nasty case of the death (this is also the reason the podcast has been delayed), and second, because…. well, because not much happened in Week 5. However, I have made some progress since then, and I’ve also made a resolution, which I’ll hopefully be able to stick to (although really, I’m not holding my breath…)

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)

New and Shiny

Elaine — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:39:22 +0000

Today is Friday, March 13th and that means it’s Resident Evil 5 day. I swung by my local best buy to pick up a copy on my way to work this morning and I figured I would upload some pictures of what’s in the collectors edition for those of you who are interested.

The box includes some slightly weird stuff. You get a pendant, a patch and a messenger bag as well as a slightly shitty Chris Redfield figure. The most annoying part about the whole package is that the game itself does not come in the standard box but instead in a steal tin. That is just going to bother the OCD part of me that needs all my game boxes to look the same.