Pure gaming bliss~ ^_^
Gaming has been fun lately. Very, excessively, almost illegally fun. At the same time as Chains of Promathia is released, so is Burnout 3, WarHammer 40K: Dawn of War a new Dance Dance Revolution and some other stuff. It's a very confusing time for me, now. I mean, Chains of Promathia looks like it adds some pretty new locales to FFXI, though I likely won't get to see half of it as the beast is a time-sink in a most horrendous way. WarHammer is a bout wargaming splendor that is not only fun to play (thank you for getting rid of mining for resources!) but a beauty to watch in motion, as they've gone way over their heads in animating every little unit to interact with one another individually instead of just having generic shoot and die motions. Very nice. Dance Dance Revolution is, well.. It's Dance Dance Revolution! The song list is nice and BIG for a change, with a generally catchy set of songs (Never-Ending Story~~ na-na-na~ na-na-na~ na-na-na~~) and the interface is clean enough to be usable, though I very much miss the 5th Mix gui -- definitly the cleanest of the set. But could they have possibly named it anything lamer than "Extreme"? DDR: Extreme.. *puke* Not that they didn't already shoot themselves in the foot with "Max". I mean, if this one is the "Max", where do you go from there? Apperently they felt the next step up was "Max 2". Clever. Real clever. But no, even the second level of maximums is not enough to stand toe to toe with the extremities of.. Extreme! I await the next iteration to be subtitled "Infinity" and watch in amusement when they realize that the only direction in which they can move from there is "Infinity +1".
Burnout 3 is insanely fun, as they've managed to make a high-speed arcade racer that's not only easy to pick up but a thrill to play. What sets it apart is the 'takedown' aspect: driving recklessly and ramming, or even outright crashing, your opponents fills up your boost meter, allowing you reach incredible speeds. What makes this thrilling is that you're not just racing against your opponenets to reach the finish line first, but that you're often doing so through heavy traffic, resulting in some of the most spectacular crashes that can only remind one of Matrix Reloaded's car chase scene. In fact, besides the insane high speed feel of the game, the crashing is just so much fun that they went out made modes of play that revolve purely around seeing how much devastation you can cause in a single intersection. Cousins were over on the weekend and we wasted four hours just wreakin' through the city streets. It's so catchy and easy to play that even my uncle not only joined in on the fun, but apparently bought it the next day. I am a bad influence. ^_~
I just discovered that Jeremy Soule wrote the soundtrack to Dawn of War -- this explains why I liked it enough to hunt down a torrent for. It's a definite departure from his usual John Williams-style flair, and has a very mechanical militist feel to it.. if that even makes any sense. Most of it either tuneless, or leaves the tune to be but a hint in the background, and instead relies on portraying a 'feeling'. I've never been one to analyze music in either a comprehensible or intelligent manner, however, so I'll stop there and simply say I like it.
But really, nothing of the above compares to, or has received half as much attention as has this one little gem that seems to have snuck its way onto store shelves the other week. You've likely already heard me mention it's name, and chances are you might even heard a word or two about how its eclectic soundtrack simply oozes with the pure feeling of bliss. I speak of no less than Katamari Damacy. The soundtrack is wildly ... wild, and the game, well... it's wilder. Let's see.. The King of Cosmos, see, he 'accidentally' (re: got drunk) broke the night sky, leaving nothing but a barren slate of black. Obviously, everyone is none-too-thrilled about this, so he enlists (re: do it or you're grounded) you, his son the Prince, to fix it. But how does one go about replacing the stars in the sky? Naturally, but taking a sticky ball -- called the Katamari -- and rolling it around Earth like a snowball to collect junk like mahjongg pieces and thumbtacks until it's grown large enough to launch into the sky and twinkle with.. glee. It's simple, extremely addictive, and makes so little sense that it's just glorious. But the sheer scope of it all.. As you grow larger, so do the things you can pick up. At first, your whee 5cm Katamari might find itself the target of a playful kitten, thus prompting you to flee of the backyard garden.. Revenge, however, becomes yours when you return some 40 centimetres later and watch the cat flee in terror as your bear down upon with your rolling ball of star-creativity. *Meow* Kitty's going to be a star now! The game's absurd premise only truly comes to climax when you begin pulling whales out of the ocean and ripping the clouds from the sky. Granted, there's definitly something slightly twisted about the idea that you're picking up animals, and soon enough people, only cast them into the empty confines of outer space, but hey -- when you're doing this to the bliss-inducing tune of Lonely Rolling Star. ^_^
'Tis a good time to be a gaming geek. \(´^_^)/
Addendum: Chains of Promathia's North American box is not only the same as the Japanese box, but consists entirely of a single work of Amano art. It's about time we stop seeing horrible amateur photoshop jobs being passed off as marketing crap. -_- Also, Super Monkey Ball Deluxe is coming to PS2 this winter. Huzzah! We need some good four-player party games, badly. >_
Burnout 3 is insanely fun, as they've managed to make a high-speed arcade racer that's not only easy to pick up but a thrill to play. What sets it apart is the 'takedown' aspect: driving recklessly and ramming, or even outright crashing, your opponents fills up your boost meter, allowing you reach incredible speeds. What makes this thrilling is that you're not just racing against your opponenets to reach the finish line first, but that you're often doing so through heavy traffic, resulting in some of the most spectacular crashes that can only remind one of Matrix Reloaded's car chase scene. In fact, besides the insane high speed feel of the game, the crashing is just so much fun that they went out made modes of play that revolve purely around seeing how much devastation you can cause in a single intersection. Cousins were over on the weekend and we wasted four hours just wreakin' through the city streets. It's so catchy and easy to play that even my uncle not only joined in on the fun, but apparently bought it the next day. I am a bad influence. ^_~
I just discovered that Jeremy Soule wrote the soundtrack to Dawn of War -- this explains why I liked it enough to hunt down a torrent for. It's a definite departure from his usual John Williams-style flair, and has a very mechanical militist feel to it.. if that even makes any sense. Most of it either tuneless, or leaves the tune to be but a hint in the background, and instead relies on portraying a 'feeling'. I've never been one to analyze music in either a comprehensible or intelligent manner, however, so I'll stop there and simply say I like it.
But really, nothing of the above compares to, or has received half as much attention as has this one little gem that seems to have snuck its way onto store shelves the other week. You've likely already heard me mention it's name, and chances are you might even heard a word or two about how its eclectic soundtrack simply oozes with the pure feeling of bliss. I speak of no less than Katamari Damacy. The soundtrack is wildly ... wild, and the game, well... it's wilder. Let's see.. The King of Cosmos, see, he 'accidentally' (re: got drunk) broke the night sky, leaving nothing but a barren slate of black. Obviously, everyone is none-too-thrilled about this, so he enlists (re: do it or you're grounded) you, his son the Prince, to fix it. But how does one go about replacing the stars in the sky? Naturally, but taking a sticky ball -- called the Katamari -- and rolling it around Earth like a snowball to collect junk like mahjongg pieces and thumbtacks until it's grown large enough to launch into the sky and twinkle with.. glee. It's simple, extremely addictive, and makes so little sense that it's just glorious. But the sheer scope of it all.. As you grow larger, so do the things you can pick up. At first, your whee 5cm Katamari might find itself the target of a playful kitten, thus prompting you to flee of the backyard garden.. Revenge, however, becomes yours when you return some 40 centimetres later and watch the cat flee in terror as your bear down upon with your rolling ball of star-creativity. *Meow* Kitty's going to be a star now! The game's absurd premise only truly comes to climax when you begin pulling whales out of the ocean and ripping the clouds from the sky. Granted, there's definitly something slightly twisted about the idea that you're picking up animals, and soon enough people, only cast them into the empty confines of outer space, but hey -- when you're doing this to the bliss-inducing tune of Lonely Rolling Star. ^_^
'Tis a good time to be a gaming geek. \(´^_^)/
Addendum: Chains of Promathia's North American box is not only the same as the Japanese box, but consists entirely of a single work of Amano art. It's about time we stop seeing horrible amateur photoshop jobs being passed off as marketing crap. -_- Also, Super Monkey Ball Deluxe is coming to PS2 this winter. Huzzah! We need some good four-player party games, badly. >_