Ty’s Weblog

Bought three games on Friday

• Anachronox
• Max Payne
• Paper Mario

Paper Mario is basically the sequal to Super Mario RPG, but with some new twists. Instead of a true party, you have Mario and one other character, but you can change that other character during combat. Each character adds something different to the party. It’s a pretty fun game, and It’s making me think about running through SM RPG once again. Oh, the game also has the gimic that all the characters are paper thin. Kinda cute, but doesn’t add any real game play value either way. Mostly got this game because it looked interesting and it’s something I can play in front of Xander.

Max Payne I most certainly can’t play in front of Xander. It’s on the PC anyway, so it’s not likely, but I still thought I’d mention it. It’s not as bad a Soldier of Fortune, but it is a little harsh and bloody. On the up side however, Bullet Time rocks. It’s quite a thrill to pop into bullet time and take careful aim on a couple bad guys while diving to the side. The game also has a good story to go along with it, which I enjoy a lot. Kind of like Deus Ex, but without the worry of who you should or shouldn’t kill. It’s seems to be a shoot everything that moves kind of game so far.

Last, but not least, is the gem of the pack, at least to me. Anachronox is just a ton of fun. It’s not at all a shoot-em up game. I’ve had relatively few fights in it so far. It’s at its core an exploration game. I’m still fairly early in the game, but here’s what I know. You play a down on his luck detective by the name of Sly Boots. At this point, I’m just trying to earn so money to pay off some debts that seem to keep getting me thrown through windows. I have no doubt that things will get out of hand from there. Most of my time has been spent walking around the city talking to people and finding quest goals. I’m having a blast. The world is very well done so far. It is reall pulling me in. I don’t really expect to get around to playing Max Payne much more till I’m done with this.

I’ve been remiss in my duties by not pointing out that the official patch for Black & White has made things much better. I’ve had quite a few hours of enjoyable play since the patch came out. Of course, I’m still going through the game kind of heavy handed. Not really using a lot of strategy. I’ll most likely regret it later in the game, but oh well. I’m being as good a god as I can be without too much headache. My creature is coming along fine though. He’s even starting to glow a little bit.

In other gaming news, I played the demo for Anacronox(Uh-nak-ruh-nox) over the weekend and I’m interested now. It’s a party based, turn based combat RPG made with the Quake 2 engine by the people at IonStorm, makers of Deus Ex. The demo was just enough of a teaser to make me want the game, so I may end up with it soon.

Gamespot has a Final Fantasy X Hands-On article up looking at the final Japanese build of the first Final Fantasy for the PS2. I wish I didn’t have to wait till next year to get the English version.

The X-treme Gulp is getting more exposure. Check out this cartoon over at PVPonline.

NPR’s All Things Considered had a story on the X-treme Gulp yesterday. Scroll to roughly the middle of the page to the story called Bigest Gulp. Sadly, it’s in Real Audio format.

I’m trying not to be disapointed with GT3. I’m currently sick with a nasty cold, so maybe that’s part of the problem. Don’t get me wrong, the graphics are great, but I can’t help but feel like I already own this game. I’m going to play it some more this weekend and see if it can spark my interest a little more once I’m doing more racing. All I’ve done so far is mess around with the beginner level stuff.

Got back from “vacation” Monday afternoon. Was a long week. Kate got sick on the road with a viral ear infection which laid her out for a few days. On top of that we were in a strange place, which Xander wasn’t thrilled about. That adds up to a long week. Anyway, we are back home now. Kate’s feeling better and Xander is getting back into his routine.

Speaking of my wonderful wife, she went out this morning and picked up Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec for me from ElBo. So I can hardly wait to get home and give it a try. More on it later.

The official patch for Black & White finally came out. I’ve not had a chance to download it yet, since the servers are so busy. Hopefully I can get it soon though. They also released the in game mp3 controls, which look to be pretty cool also.