Wild Giant Magnetic Goose Chase

Last night we played Shadake. The snow was mostly melted, so the only dangerous part of driving around was parking. I did get stuck picking Snowwy up at his work, but luckily there was someone there to push me out of the lot. Namely, Snowwy. The parking spaces on the street near Lazar's place looked even scarier -- but the scary hill people were trying to park in them to avoid was salted and perfectly drivable. Go figure.

I did get a huge chunk of ice or something stuck under my car making scraping noises down the street when we went out for dinner. Between trying and failing to dislodge it (it came loose on its own eventually) and tracking down the asshole who double-parked behind my car at the apartment complex, the other half of the group had to wait a long time for us to catch up...

Anyway, we eventually played the game.

( game summary )

Game Reviews:

Some demos mostly...

Schizoid: You'd have to be crazy to (be able to) play this game

Eetz: Wow, lemmings -fun. Lemmings would be a much better game if you only had one lemming and had to start the level over if it died, right?

Banjo and Kazooie Nuts and Bolts: I guess this could theoretically be fun, but I was frustrated and bored before I finished the demo. Think Spyro the Dragon 2 with nothing but the annoying minigames.

On the Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness: PACING. The narrator talks so.... slow... and then the battles somehow manage to make a turn-based RPG into a twitch-fest. Sort of like the really old Final Fantasies with the active turn system -- you know, the ones I hate? Only they don't automatically select the character whose turn it is, you have to scroll around with the bumper buttons to select them. So it's even more annoying.

Rez: Still a really good rail shooter.

Too Human: Too Short! Seriously, it took me 12 hours to get the Champion through the story (with another 9 hours spent on other characters that turned out to suck... er, I mean, that turned out to be for Advanced Players Only), and it felt like the first half of a story. Maybe the first third. Seriously, it was Act I in a narrative as well as a duration sense. Which sucks because the game has decent writing and visual design and pretty damn awesome gameplay (even with the characters that die a lot).

Lost Odyssey: Playing this now. I like it. Good turn-based RPG with the occasional long, somewhat boring but heart-wrenching artsy story interludes. It has four disks, so hopefully it'll be a bit longer than Too Human was.