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Krib and I have started up some War3 again. I’m trying to get back into the mindset of RTS games on a general level. War3 is a completely different game than Starcraft or than what Starcraft 2 will be so I can’t carry over a lot of the same practices that I employ.

Depending on how Starcraft 2 does replays I may throw a few up here unless Battle.net has a really great system for sharing innately. So this is also a test of how this pans out on the site.

Anyway, we’re very rusty, but I think this particular game was very crazy because the level of skill of our opponents is clearly better than ours so there’s a lot to learn from our mistakes in this game. Hit the break for a brief summary.

Read the rest of this entry

Ok so I finally played through Crisis Core. There are some good things and bad things but overall it was enjoyable.

The story! First of all, it’s cool to see this person that’s mentioned very briefly in FFVII and how his story plays out. Zack also makes a super brief cameo in Advent Children. This whole situation revolving around Cloud kind of made no sense in FFVII. All these years later the bulk of what I can even remember from FFVII is a haze and playing through Crisis Core actually does fill in the gaps pretty nicely. Overall though, I’m not sure if it’s due to the portable nature of the game, but it felt like I was moving from event to event and there wasn’t a strong connection between the events that were unfolding. Some elements of the story were a lot weaker than I expected them to be such as relationships between Aerith and himself. I also played this over the span of about 1.5 months even though the actual playtime was under 20 hours, so maybe I didn’t feel as strongly due to the gaps in my personal play. The end is where everything wraps up and feels really strongly connected to FFVII, enough so that I’m very compelled to load it up on the Playstation and give it a run through.

The gameplay is totally monotonous. Combat is super simple X button spam and minor tweaks in equipment and materia make it so that never really changes much, but hey, is that so different than usual Final Fantasy games? You can cast spells and only in maybe 2 fights do I feel that even mattered. In those fights you can’t reach the flying opponent so you’re forced to deal with the problem at range. Leveling up and limit breaks are handled through a random roulette wheel. I suspect that there’s an actual experience counter and that once you reach certain points it levels you up, but then again it may just be totally random. That aspect really irked me since the very very few times I was stuck I didn’t actually know how to deal with the situation. Typically I’d just go kill monsters, get a few levels, but in this game it’s erratic. You feel less in control of that.

On the flip side, you are a Soldier 1st class. You feel very powerful throughout the game. It would be strange to see Zack struggling even though he’s this very elite mercenary. So maybe I can forgive that element just due to the strangeness if he were in fact weak.

Only much much later did it even occur to me to run through missions to power up. What they’ve devised is a sort of side-mission setup where you go into the menu and you can look up all these missions that get unlocked through the course of the game. Though the missions you can gain new summons and various other items, however only 2 of the mission types are so overtly named. The rest have more storytelling elements. I completed about 25% of them as of now and feel foolish since one of them is called something like Valuable Treasure Hunter and with the first 2 sets of those missions I was able to equip 2 more items which made a huge difference in the end. The missions are very repetitive though. They’re practically all identical (search for the unique monster and kill him) but I think it’s made for the portable nature of the system.

My major grievances with the game are the horrible camera angles. Some fights would start and the camera would just jam up in a horrendous spot. This ends up tweaking your directions and most importantly your ability to target monsters to attack. That was a separate problem of it’s own for a few fights where I’m hacking away at the wrong monster because of the way the auto-targeting works.

While I didn’t get stuck too many times, the times I did get stuck were typically on bosses. Bosses that required you to sit through 2-3 minutes of UNSKIPPABLE dialogue. The game even has a new game+ mode where I imagine you simply don’t care anymore about what’s going on and you want to zoom past this stuff but sorry, you have to watch it.

The soundtrack is very off. There are a few tunes that are remixed versions of songs from FFVII but the original stuff isn’t memorable at all.

Anyway, despite that stuff, which isn’t so bad if you play smarter, the game is enjoyable. I’m resisting the urge to plop in FFVII and continue trudging through my uncompleted game library.

Let’s start at the beginning of the series.  I hate RE1-3.  Any game that makes my inability to move a focal point of tension is poor.  I mean this from a control standpoint where they completely abandon the regular left moves you to the left side of the screen and instead turns your body.  On the one hand, I imagine with how the levels are set in the dimensions delivered, you have no alternative unless you make it 3rd person over the shoulder as opposed to 3rd person fixed viewpoint.  But that’s in the past.  I played RE4 and really enjoyed it.  In one vein it still sets up a situation where it’s shoot or move and not both which can be very tense, but it’s much less frustrating.  But how does this relate to RE5?

Well RE5 is basically RE4.  There’s a few exceptions but fundamentally the gameplay is identical except for a few bits where you can take cover behind things.  So if you liked RE4, you’ll like RE5.

They added a second person, computer or co-op player, to help you solve very easy puzzles but also mostly make no sense.  I’m chasing after a villain, a lone villain mind you, and I’m having to do all these 2 person things like pull this lever here while my friend pulls this lever way over there, but how on earth did the person I’m chasing do this???  I played co-op first, which was extremely enjoyable.  I’m thinking if I play solo it would be a much different affair, but I haven’t gotten to that point yet.  Overall, I wouldn’t say the second person is tacked on, but I also wouldn’t say that it was extremely necessary to have a second person.   There will be points where it’s tedious and there are points where you’re thinking “Oh man if Sheva wasn’t here I’d be toast!”

The game length is almost disturbingly short.  We played normal difficulty and beat it in under 10 hours.  Now if you want this game ONLY for story, you’ll probably be vastly disappointed in how quickly the game is over for you.  However if you truly enjoy this game for all it’s unlockable stuff, and the replay value, you’re probably going to push out another 20+ hours (including that first run through).   After beating it, surprisingly I want to replay it.  RE4 wasn’t that way.  It was intense at parts making me take breaks, and EXTREMELY frustrating at parts (taking control of Ashley) making me just simply not want to do that at all.  But RE5 never had those kind of moments, and it’s mostly attributed to the co-op thing taking the edge off.  But even despite that, I never faced anything truly nerve wracking like I did in RE4 that kind of makes you want to take a break for a bit.  I genuinely wanted to keep pushing through.

The boss encounters were really great to me.  However some suffered from a lack of understanding.  The game does a good job sometimes of nudging you in the right direction of figuring it out on your own, but some where just mind boggling.  Maybe it was just me and my friend, but generally, to me it’s annoying to sort of force a loss while experimenting with what works and what doesn’t.   I guess I can’t talk about it too much because of spoilers though.

Real time inventory was tough to get used to.   The worst part is when you’re full and really need to pick up some healing item, the interface sort of breaks down, especially in the heat of the moment.  Additionally, I really miss the creepy guy in RE4 that sold stuff, but the buy/upgrade system is overall much improved.

Ok now for stuff that matters kind of little to me.  Graphically the game is truly stunning.  I don’t know that there were any hiccups or stutters and overall I’d say in a few years you’d still probably think, “Man that game looks great.”  Sound unfortunately I can’t comment as much on.  I was doing co-op via Xbox Live so I had to turn the TV down enough to hear my partner.   It was typical RE4 style music though, music when there’s danger about and none when you’re safe.

Overall, what lingers in my mind after beating it are:

• Main story seems short
• Hit and miss co-op dynamics
• Great graphics
• Not too innovative over RE4

It’s almost like a negative review but the game is still really fun.  I’m not much for a number system but I’d give it between 90%-95%.  I won’t say 92.5 because that makes no sense to me.  What is 2.5% of fun really?  Overall it’s worth buying if you like RE4.  Even more so if you have a friend that liked RE4.  If you didn’t, then you should skip it.

Going beyond the basics a bit.  Some of this stuff is a bit beyond what I currently try to work in, however I never thought of trying to focus cancel my way past fireballs.  Very cool trick.

I’m on the edge of my seat (mostly because my cat is hogging the majority of it) waiting for it tomorrow.  I’m going to renew my interest in the fighting genre and try to really go beyond an average grasp of the game and see how I end up on the online ladder.

IGN Strategize has some great tips for those who have missed the last few years of Street Fighter.

From GosuGamers
I gotta say, HD quality Youtube videos are pretty awesome now.

The last video before release this week!

When Burning Crusade came out, I skipped the preorder phenomenon and hoped and prayed that I could still get one.  I headed to Wal-Mart that night and got in a decent sized line.  I was about the 10th person in or so.  Midnight hits and they go on sale.  As I approach I ask, or maybe it was the person in front of me, about the collector’s edition.  The clerk gives us a weird look like “There’s another one of these?”  to which they proceed to go to the back.  Everyone behind us groans, they didn’t hear us, thinking we’re holding everyone up.  However, they come back with crazy amounts of collector’s editions and everyone rejoices.

This year, I’m hoping my luck will hold out and the same thing will happen.  Though I moved so the Wal-Mart from the last story is across town, I still had 2 to choose from in my vicinity.  I head to the first one and I’m about the 15th person in line.  I ask the clerk about a CE version to which the guy in front of me says they only have 6 and that they’re probably already taken.  Gee dude in front of me, you think?  So I leave and head to the second Wal-Mart around me.  I end up about 10th in this line and make the same inquiry to which this store replies they have zero.  Zero is a weird number for me to digest so I leave and consider going to the Gamestop in the parking lot.  I glaze over and notice that there’s this huge line about 20+ people long and I say forget it.

Now I’m not one to plan things without backup plans.  Oh yes I had many actually.  My first backup plan was knowing a friend of mine was going to the Wal-Mart that I got my Burning Crusade copy from and hoping that they were again going to have a boatload of them.  However, she calls and says that they in fact have zero, which even a second time is hard to digest.  So I’m aimlessly driving, but I’m near Best Buy and on the phone she says that they were having a midnight opening.  I think about how strange that is because my BB is not known for such things.  But I head out there anyway.

Getting to Best Buy the parking lot was lit up and there were a good amount of cars on the side lot.  I park in the front and notice two managerial types at the door looking anxious to lock up.  I can’t blame them, it’s about 12:20 at this time.  They greet me courteously without a drop of weariness or “Ugh, people are still coming in” kinda feeling.  I walk in and see a nice big table with all these copies of Wrath, and one with a CE box on it.

“I NEED THAT!”

“You’re in luck!” says the employee.  I asked knowing my buddy and her brother will want one if they had more.

“Oh yeah we got tons under the table.”

Ecstatic, I call them up and hurry them over.  But knowing I was the only customer and seeing as lots of employees were looking very tired, I just bought 3 copies and left.  I had a pleasant conversation with the cashier who plays Alliance even though her co-employee beside her plays horde.  She gave me her server and character name though it’s impossible for me to move servers but I was friendly.

So I’m 5 for 5 on collector’s editions spanning from Diablo 2, Warcraft 3, and the 3 incarnations of WoW.  I had to call in my backup plans and tell them I had lucked out.  I didn’t get it installed completely until around 2:30AM so I only had time to head to Borean Tundra and log out.  This felt more hectic and I’m hoping I have a bit less stressful time picking up a Starcraft 2 CE for whenever they decide to come out.

Quite a mouthful for a title.  I’m really hoping it comes out before Thanksgiving.

I’ve been using WoW Matrix since the death of WoWAceUpdater and noticed I can export my list of addons! Check it out!

!StopTheSpam – Finally! No more AddOn loading spam.
!Swatter – Debugging tool for handling and displaying of error messages in a useful way.
Align – Grid to align UI elements.
Atlas – Instance Map Browser
Atlas_Battlegrounds – Battleground Maps
Atlas_DungeonLocs – Dungeon Locations
Atlas_FlightPaths – Flight Path Maps
Atlas_OutdoorRaids – Outdoor Raid Encounters
AtlasLoot – Shows the possible loot from the bosses
AtlasLoot_BurningCrusade – AtlasLoot loot tables from the Burning Crusade
AtlasLoot_Crafting – AtlasLoot loot tables of Crafting Items
AtlasLoot_OriginalWoW – AtlasLoot loot tables from pre-Burning Crusade
AtlasLoot_WorldEvents – AtlasLoot loot tables from world events
AtlasLoot_WrathoftheLichKing – AtlasLoot loot tables from the Wrath of the Lich King
AtlasLootFu – Minimap button for AtlasLoot
Auc-Advanced – AuctioneerAdvanced, An addon to help keep track of items values. You must at least enable a statistics extension (like Auc:Stats:Simple) to start tracking stats.
AutoProfitX – Automatically sells low quality gray items and selected white items to the vendor.
Bagnon – Single window displays for the inventory and bank
Bagnon_Forever – Stores inventory information about your characters
Bagnon_Options – A configuration menu for Bagnon
Bagnon_Tooltips – Tooltips for telling who has what
Bartender4 – Simple and Advanced combined – Bartender4 ActionBar AddOn
BeanCounter –
Bejeweled – The popular game Bejeweled, now for World of Warcraft!
BigWigs – Modular, lightweight, non-intrusive approach to boss encounter warnings.
BigWigs_BlackTemple – Big Wigs Black Temple Modules
BigWigs_Extras – Big Wigs Extra Plugins
BigWigs_Hyjal – Big Wigs Hyjal Modules
BigWigs_Karazhan – Big Wigs Karazhan Modules
BigWigs_Naxxramas – Big Wigs Naxxramas Modules
BigWigs_Outland – Big Wigs Outland Modules
BigWigs_Plugins – Big Wigs Core Plugins
BigWigs_SC – Big Wigs Serpentshrine Cavern Modules
BigWigs_Sunwell – Big Wigs Sunwell Modules
BigWigs_TheEye – Big Wigs The Eye Modules
BigWigs_ZulAman – Big Wigs Zul’Aman Modules
Buffalo – Customizing your buff display
ButtonFacade – Dynamic Modern Button Skinning
ButtonFacade_Elegance – Elegance skin for Button Facade.
ButtonFacade_Entropy – Entropy skins for Button Facade.
ButtonFacade_Serenity – Serenity skins for Button Facade.
ButtonFacade_Sleek – Sleek skin for Button Facade.
Cartographer – Addon to manipulate the map
Cartographer_Battlegrounds – Module which provides maps of battlegrounds.
Cartographer_Coordinates – Module to add coordinates to the bottom of the world map of the player and the cursor.
Cartographer_Data – Cartographer_Herbalism, Cartographer_Mining and Cartographer_Treasure data updated daily
Cartographer_Foglight – Module to show unexplored areas on the map.
Cartographer_GroupColors – Module which turns all your party’s and your raid’s POIs into circles colored based on class, and shows a number on them based on their raid group.
Cartographer_GuildPositions – Module which shows you your fellow guild members’ positions, as well as allowing them to see you.
Cartographer_Herbalism – Herbalism mapnotes for Cartographer (based on PinPoint by Ammo)
Cartographer_InstanceLoot – Display of loot on instance bosses.
Cartographer_InstanceMaps – Module which provides maps of instances.
Cartographer_InstanceNotes – Module which adds default notes to the instance maps.
Cartographer_LookNFeel – Module which allows you to change the transparency, position, and scale of the world map.
Cartographer_Mining – Mining mapnotes for Cartographer (based on PinPoint by Ammo)
Cartographer_Notes – Module which allows you to put notes on the map.
Cartographer_POI – Module to manage points of interest.
Cartographer_Professions – Stub for loading Cartographer module addons based on your professions.
Cartographer_Waypoints – Module which shows an arrow to direct you to a specified note or location.
Cartographer_ZoneInfo – Module which on hovering over a zone, will show the levels of the zone, the instances in the zone, their levels, and the number of men the instance is made for (e.g. 5-man, 40-man).
Chinchilla – Minimap addon of awesomeness. *chewing sound*. It’ll nibble your hay pellets.
ClearFont2 – Funky font switcher
Clique – Simply powerful click-casting interface
CooldownCount – Display Cooldown Count of Spell Icon and Item
CowTip – Tooltip of awesomeness. Moo. It’ll graze your pasture.
CT_ExpenseHistory – Detailed log of character expenses
CT_MailMod – Heavily improves the in-game mail functionality.
DBM-BlackTemple –
DBM-BurningCrusade –
DBM-ChamberOfAspects –
DBM-Core – Deadly Boss Mods
DBM-EyeOfEternity –
DBM-GUI – GUI for Deadly Boss Mods
DBM-Hyjal –
DBM-Karazhan –
DBM-Naxx –
DBM-Outlands –
DBM-Party-WotLK –
DBM-Serpentshrine –
DBM-Sunwell –
DBM-TheEye –
DBM-ZulAman –
Decursive – Affliction display and cleaning for solo, group and raids with advanced filtering and priority system.
EasyMother – Easy Mother
eePanels2 – Create and modify panels and art
EnhTooltip – Used to display enhanced tooltips under the original tooltip or in the original tooltip, contains hooking functions for almost all major in game item tooltips [5.1.3715] This AddOn is licensed under the GNU GPL, see GPL.txt for details.
Examiner – Advanced Inspection Mod of Gear, Talents, Honor and Arena Details.
FishingAce – Simple right click casting.
Forecast – Xiven’s incoming raid cast watcher
FuBar – A panel that modules can plug into.
FuBar_BagFu – Keeps track of space left in your bags.
FuBar_ClockFu – A simplistic clock.
FuBar_DurabilityFu – Keeps track of durability and pops up a dialog to repair when you go to a vendor who can.
FuBar_ExperienceFu – Keeps track of experience.
FuBar_FuXPFu – Lightweight XP Bar
FuBar_LogFu3 – Small plugin for enabling/disabling of combat logging
FuBar_MoneyFu – Keeps track of current money and all your characters on one realm.
FuBar_NameToggleFu – Toggles player names.
FuBar_PerformanceFu – Keeps track of performance of memory, latency, and framerate.
FuBar_RecountFu – A FuBar plugin to show Recount.
FuBarPlugin-2.0 – A library to provide a means create a FuBar-compatible plugin.
Grid – A modular, lightweight and screen-estate saving grid of party/raid unit frames
GridStatusHots – Separate indicator for your HoTs: Renew, Rejeuv, Regrowth, Wild Growth, Lifebloom, Sheath of Light, Glyph of Flash of Light and Riptide + timer and total HoTs.
GridStatusThreat – Adds a simple threat display to Grid.
Incubator – Mob Respawn Timers
Informant – Displays detailed item information in tooltips, and can produce item reports by binding an information window to a keypress [5.1.3715] This AddOn is licensed under the GNU GPL, see GPL.txt for details.
Instant_Health – Significantly speeds up health updates.
ItemRack – Makes swapping equipment easier through equip slot menus, equip slot buttons, gear sets and automated swaps.
ItemRackOptions – Load-On-Demand modules for ItemRack
kaliClient –
kaliDKP –
KLHThreatMeter – A Threat Meter
MagicMarker – Automated smart raid marking to speed up trash clearing in instance runs
MinimapButtonFrame – Collects the minimap buttons and puts them into a moveable frame.
MinimapButtonFrame_SkinPack – Skin Pack for MinimapButtonFrame.
MinimapButtonFrameFu – Fubar Plugin for Minimap Button Frame.
MinimapButtonFrameTitanPlugin –
Miv –
NugRunning – Buff/Debuff tracking
Omen – A lightweight, flexible, multi-target threat meter.
OPie – 1. Bind infrequent actions to rings. 2. ??? 3. Eat pie.
oRA2 – A CT_RaidAssist alternative
oRA2_Leader – oRA2 Leader modules
oRA2_Optional – oRA2 Optional modules
oRA2_Participant – oRA2 Participant modules
phpRaidViewer – Views and manages raid information from phpRaid
PitBull – Unit Frames of awesomeness. Woof. It’ll bite your face off.
PitBull_Aura – Show buffs and debuffs for PitBull frames as well as highlight frames that need cleansing.
PitBull_Banzai – Adds aggro coloring to PitBull.
PitBull_BarFader – Adds fading this to the health/power bars.
PitBull_CastBar – Show a casting bar each of the PitBull unit frames.
PitBull_CombatFader – Adds alpha changes based on combat.
PitBull_CombatIcon – Show an icon based on whether or not the unit is in combat.
PitBull_CombatText – Show information like damage taken, healing taken, resists, etc. on the unit frame.
PitBull_ComboPoints – Show combo points on the unit frame if you are a Rogue or Druid in Cat form.
PitBull_DruidManaBar – Show a mana bar for your Druid when in Cat or Bear form.
PitBull_ExperienceBar – Show an experience bar on the unit frame.
PitBull_HappinessIcon – Show an icon on the pet frame to indicate its happiness.
PitBull_HealthBar – Show a health bar on the unit frame.
PitBull_HideBlizzard – Hide Blizzard frames that are no longer needed.
PitBull_Highlight – Highlight unit frames on mouse-over or on targetting.
PitBull_LeaderIcon – Show an icon on the unit frame when the unit is the group leader.
PitBull_MasterLooterIcon – Show an icon on the unit frame when the unit is the Master Looter.
PitBull_Portrait – Show a portrait on the PitBull unit frame.
PitBull_PowerBar – Show a mana/rage/energy/focus bar on the PitBull unit frames.
PitBull_PvPIcon – Show an icon on the unit frame when the unit is in PvP mode.
PitBull_RaidTargetIcon – Show an icon on the unit frame based on which Raid Target it is.
PitBull_RangeCheck – Range checking for PitBull unit frames
PitBull_ReadyCheckIcon – Show Ready Check icon based on if the unit is ready or not.
PitBull_ReputationBar – Show a reputation bar on the unit frame.
PitBull_RestIcon – Show an icon on the unit frame when the unit is resting in an inn or city.
PitBull_Spark – Graceful display of energy ticks and the spellcasting five-second-rule.
PitBull_ThreatBar – Show a threat bar on the unit frame.
PitBull_TotemTimers – Shows Totem timers for the PitBull player frame.
PitBull_VisualHeal – Visualises healing done by you and your party/raid members directly on the unit frames.
PitBull_VoiceIcon – Show an icon based on whether or not the unit is talking.
Prat-3.0 – A framework for chat ehancement modules.
PreformAVEnabler – Synchronized solo queuing of battlegrounds
ProgTrack – Xiven’s progress tracking mod
Quartz – Modular casting bar.
RaidCopy – Displays current raid attendance in a easy to copy format.
raidTemplate – Automates the distribution of players in a raid
RatingBuster – Item stat breakdown, analysis and comparison
Recount – Records Damage and Healing for Graph Based Display
Routes – Routes on your worldmap and minimap!
sct – Adds Scrolling Combat Text above your character
sct_options – Options menu for SCT (LoadOnDemand)
sctd – Adds your damage to Scrolling Combat Text
sctd_options – Options menu for SCTD (LoadOnDemand)
SharedMedia – Inserts some media into LibSharedMedia’s storage.
SharedMediaLib – Shared handling of media data (fonts, sounds, textures, …) between addons.
Skinner – Changes the look of the default UI
sRaidFrames – CT_RaidAssist style raid frames
Stubby – Allows on-demand addons to load automatically based upon simple event notification hooks [5.1.3715] This AddOn is licensed under the GNU GPL, see GPL.txt for details.
Surfaces – Texture Library
WIM – Give whispers an instant messenger feel.
XivenCatch – Xiven’s raid listing mod
XLoot – A remake of the built-in lootframe. .
XLootGroup – Minimalistic Group roll frames.
XLootMaster – Highly configurable master looter dropdown menu
XLootMonitor – A live monitor of loot picked up by yourself and your group
XRS – Compact and configurable raid status window

Why run both BigWigs and DBM?  I’m currently evaluating which is the better raid mod.  I’m leaning towards BigWigs.  KTM and Omen have been duking it out forever.  I prefer to use KTM, but since Kenco isn’t as diligent with updates, I settle for Omen.  The list may look menacing, but everything is modular so there are lots of folders that belong to a single mod.  I’ll add a screenshot of my UI later because even with the incredible list of stuff, it’s fairly clean.