Having installed a whole pile of tracks into rFactor, I spent a bit of time over the last couple days installing a bunch of car packs and racing series as well. These were a bit more annoying since they tend to use executable installers or have more complicated install instructions, have more patches and versions to chase down, take up a lot more space, etc.
But it was worth it in the end, as I can now live out my dream of racing lawnmowers at Monaco.
Just noticed this on the back of my Persona 3 box:
All of this E3 stuff reminded me that I still hadn’t updated my PS3’s firmware, so I did that and redownloaded Super Stardust HD as well, since the new version of it adds trophy support.
Trophies are the new PS3 equivalent of the 360’s achievements and, well, they act pretty much the same way. The main differences are that there’s no point value to them (which doesn’t really matter to me, and Steam’s achievements are the same way), but they are divided into bronze, silver, and gold categories, to reflect how hard they’re supposed to be to get.
So I played SSHD for a while and got two trophies, one for clearing a planet and another for not using boost (I’d just forgotten that there was a boost ability). When Home is released we’re supposed to be able to show off our trophies in a virtual environment, but I’ve never really understood that aspect of it. Are people really going to hang around in Home rather than actually play games, and drag their friends into it just to show off their trophy collection, or go visit a friend just to stare at theirs?
I couldn’t resist getting the Who pack for Rock Band today (I’m going to need a bigger hard drive at this rate), and the songs are pretty good overall. The two most notable bits were the start of Baba O’Riley, which is completely silent for a good minute or two on the guitar track, and Eminence Front, which has a hell of a lot of notes even on medium difficulty.
Sony’s show was mostly dominated by sequels that were already well-known or expected (Resistance 2, GoW 3, Ratchet & Clank). Otherwise:
Riddick: Also a sequel, but a bit of an unexpected one since the original was an older PC/Xbox game. It was a good one though, so there’s promise here.
Little Big Planet: Yeah, it looks cute and fun. It did at last year’s E3, too…
Flower: Another abstract flOw-ish pseudo-game that’s going to be hard to predict.
GTTV: Eh, I already watch enough racing on regular TV.
MAG: Now this is a bit more intriguing, as a Battlefield-style game hasn’t really been done on this scale (256 players) yet, just in MMOs like Planetside and WW2OL. It’s still really, really early and there’s little other information, though.
Overall, there wasn’t really enough new and exciting things though; it was mainly just confirmation of things people were already suspecting. All three presentations turned out to be rather underwhelming, in their own ways.
MotionPlus: The cynical side of me might think of it as a fix for the remote not being as good as it could have been in the first place, and I didn’t really have a problem with it in the first place, but oh well, more accuracy is still better than nothing. Wii Sports Resort might do a good job of showing how useful it’ll actually be.
Animal Crossing: City Folk: I enjoyed the DS version of Animal Crossing a fair bit, so I’ll almost certainly pick this one up. It doesn’t really look like there’s an awful lot new over the DS version so far though, aside from the setting.
WiiSpeak: Dammit, I’ve already got way too many accessories and cables running around here…
GTA DS: I still have yet to finish the other GTA games, first. I passed on the PSP-based versions of it, so I’ll probably not bother with this one too.
And there was a bunch of other stuff that I’m sure will keep the kids busy, but wasn’t really interesting, and a distinct lack of Mario or Zelda news.
With E3 almost here, the news is starting to roll in at a faster pace, of course. Of stuff known so far:
Final Fantasy XIII: Not really a huge surprise that it’ll be on the 360 as well. Even with the 360 doing horribly in Japan, it’s just too big in North America and Europe to be ignored as a source of revenue for major titles, unlike the original Xbox. It’s kind of surreal to think that the 360 is the major console right now and for the near future when it comes to RPGs and the PS3 is rather lacking, when it was the complete opposite in the last generation…
Rock Band 2: 84 new songs, most of which are great, backwards compatibility, and a lot more band flexibility? Pinch me, I must be dreaming.
New Dashboard, Avatars: Eh, whatever. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with the look of the old one, but I guess MS feels like they have to at least try and ride the Wii’s coattails a little bit. I just hope it makes managing all the games and DLC a bit easier, since now you have to deal with lists hundred of entries long.
Installing To The Drive: Loading times haven’t really been a problem for me, but the DVD drive is rather loud and has been a source of glitches in previous units, so this lets us avoid those problems at least. The downside is that I only have a 20GB drive, you can’t provide your own, and MS charges an arm and a leg for the larger sizes.
With the release of a couple high-profile demos, I realized that it’s been a while since I’ve checked out the latest 360 demos and XBLA trials. So, as a quick roundup:
Elements Of Destruction: Fun at first, but it quickly gets a bit old. It feels more like a Flash game than something I’d buy and play regularly.
Happy Tree Friends: Reminiscent of Lemmings, but not nearly as much fun.
Schizoid: It’s definitely a unique game, with its coop-dependent play and interesting presentation, but it’s more of a temporary diversion than something I’d really pay for.
Sealife Safari: More of a toy than a game.
And then for the big ones:
Too Human: It has some silly dialogue, and bad camera control, but the combat is really fun and it has the addictive Diablo-style loot. I didn’t get far enough to see the more advanced combos and skills, but I think I’ve seen enough to convince me to get it.
Tales of Vesperia: It has a mix of the Eternal Sonata art style and Star Ocean combat, and otherwise looks like ye olde generic JRPG. There was no tutorial, so maybe I’m missing something, but the combat was a bit too light on tactics and heavy on the button mashing. I don’t really dislike it, but it would go on my “eh, maybe eventually” list, which with my current RPG backlog essentially means…never.
With Hellgate’s future uncertain, I turned back to Diablo 2 for my action-RPG fix and finished taking my HC necro through the rest of Act 5 normal today.
Baal himself is actually a pushover, and I just had to make sure I kept Decrepify up while the skeletons whittled away at him. The dangerous part of Act 5 for an HC player is actually the Ancients, since you have to fight all three at once, they like to move around a lot, one of them has a nasty whirlwind attack, and another can throw axes. They’re not *too* bad in normal, and I just had to run around a lot to keep throwing Decrepify on them, but I’m really not looking forward to them in NM and Hell, where they can spawn with random abilities as well.
So, I can now technically start the NM difficulty, but the usual suggestion for HC is that I farm Baal for a while until I hit level 45 or so, just to make things a bit safer.
I finally broke down and bought the Penny Arcade game, since it was on sale for half-price on Steam, and completed it in one shot. It’s a fairly short game and took me just over five hours, but it was still well worth the price. My impressions of the demo held up pretty well through the whole game, and it remained funny to the end.
Combat did take a bit of getting used to once past the first area, when enemies suddenly got tougher, but I got into the habit of using more items since they’re plentiful. I had to reload a few times though, after enemies got in some lucky shots, in order to go for the Immortal achievement. And the final boss also took me a few tries — the first one, Tycho got knocked out, and the second time was successful, but then I remembered I hadn’t gotten all the collectibles yet, so I got them and beat him again so that the flags get preserved in the final save (it might affect something in the next episode).