purchased lost odyssey.

bought it and had a read through the instruction book. i've decided to finish eternal sonata for good before i get cracking on it, then resume blue dragon another time.

slitherlink: the return of.

i've picked up my slitherlink habit again. it's amazing how many more logical maxims you can pick up just when you thought you knew them all. i'm trying to get maximum stars on every puzzle whilst hoping for a sequel.

lost odyssey.

definitely plan on picking up lost odyssey on friday. i'm a sucker for traditional jrpgs so i can see myself sinking a lot of time into it.

i'm torn on whether or not to try to finish blue dragon first though.

component/vga.

tried to set up my 360 on my new tv over the weekend, when i came to the realization that my tv doesn't have a proper component input. egads.

what you get instead is a vga input and a vga-to-component conversion cable. this is fine in itself, however the audio input is a 3.5mm earphone jack, whereas the supplied 360 cable is a red/white stereo RCA cable.

so what i've got now is a hack-job: the rca cables go into a composite cable switcher, which then has an rca-to-earphone-jack cable running into the tv. so i've ordered one of these.

advance wars: days of ruin.

playing through this just now, up to the 15th or so campaign mission. so far i really like the change in art direction and the new units/gameplay changes, it all feels necessary and suitable to take the series forward.

those tactical maps can gtf though!

gears of war 2.

just saw the teaser trailer, eagerly anticipating the next instalment of chainsaw madness.

quite looking forward to trying out these free XNA games too, though i won't have an internet connection until the 5th of march. boo-urns.

hd gaming is here.

again, just for me. managed to set-up my ps3 in the new abode last night and had a quick go on motorstorm and the heavenly sword demo. it was nice.

hopefully i'll be all set-up in my new house by the end of the week. just now, i literally don't have any time to play games. sad panda.

hd gaming is coming.

coming for me, at least. i'm moving to a new house this month, and waiting for me is a brand new 37" LCD TV.

it'll be HDMI for the PS3, component for the 360 and probably still scart for the wii. can't wait!

finished eternal sonata.

finally finished eternal sonata last night. total playthrough time was under 30 hours, including the optional dungeon, which to me is rather low for an RPG.

the ending, oh god, the ending. possibly the most bizarre and jarring ending to a game ever. over 15 minutes of each character reciting monologues running the gamut from politics, environmentalism, globalisation through to socialisation and self-belief. seriously, having an over-sized anime head peering at you through your tv shouting "I GUARANTEE YOU, YOU STILL HAVE TIME!" ranks among one of the most insane things i've ever seen in the videogame.

then there was the conclusion to the story; chopin dies, of course, but the game world inexplicably continues on in his absence despite the fact that it was a fabrication within his dream.

the most annoying part was the cute animation of a snail and a caterpillar at the end - entirely narrated in japanese but with no subtitles. i think the localisation team dropped the ball here, though i'm not sure if having english voice-acting turned on would've changed it.

now i'm onto the second playthrough to scalp some more achievements, and you ebtter believe i'm skipping every cutscene.

rpg and the art of grind.

i take a dim view of games that seem to impose mandatory grind in order to progress in a game and/or gain secret/extra items. we've all been there; coasting through a game until the brick-wall boss or ultra-dungeon stymies progress. it's rarely worth sitting through repetitive random battles just to increase an attack stat by a few digits.

however, if the battle system is varied enough, sometimes it can be worth it. take eternal sonata; the first half of the game presents no challenge at all, and battles can all be won with the exact same tactics. however in the other half, particularly in the optional dungeon at the end, the difficulty is ramped skyward and a different strategy is required for each battle. it's a shame that this difficulty couldn't be spread over the whole game to achieve an even balance throughout, as a consequence many people were probably put off by the game.

this all relates to the single-player experience though. in a mummorpoger (to quote yahtzee) the grind has an ulterior purpose that can translate into real world gains. but let's not go there.

the february lull.

i'm almost at the end of eternal sonata now, just doing the optional side dungeon at the end since it's meant to make the second playthrough easier (to get all achievements). it's the first time in the game i've had to grind, since the boss on the 11th level completely owned me.

i'm looking forward to lost odyssey a bit now, after the twee style of eternal sonata and blue dragon it will be great to get stuck into a more gritty rpg. definitely picking it up at the end of the month.