Penny Arcade

As the title makes clear, these words are not for saying.  We don’t all have time daggers, let alone magic sand, in fact neither of those things are real.

The actual Prince of Persia never engages in misogyny, not even for a second!  He mostly runs and jumps.  This in and of itself wouldn’t be noteworthy if it weren’t some of the finest running and jumping that ever occurred on a television screen.  The game is so good it’s almost impolite to release it, and there is a real chance it could discourage other developers.  I’m all for that.  If your game doesn’t look as good, play as good, or just feel as good against my bare skin maybe it should never see the retail shelf.  There’s also the fact that the people who made it were hard-bitten bad-asses.  Read this feature about the project over at Gamespot - they made the entire game on a pirate ship at sea, having legendary adventures and dealing with adversity as they learned the true meaning of friendship.  They each have a special power and one of them - we know not which - is said to be a lost heir. 

As a gamer, I feel constant satisfaction as I do battle in the most stylish combat system ever.  But as an Internet Demagogue, it pleases me that I can recommend every version of Prince of Persia for every platform.  They all look completely excellent and play right.  You can make your decision based on which system you have, which controller you prefer, if you need HDTV resolutions, whatever, and not on whether or not Electronic Arts is going to fuck you up the ass for not using their preferred platform. 

Gabe is extremely busy at the moment, but I know that he loves you.  If he could be here, he would tell you that Links 2004 is a supernatural golf experience that is a feast for the senses.  I had typed up this whole thing about the round we played yesterday, but you wouldn’t believe how incredibly boring it is to describe a round a golf.  It just went on and on and on.  When we were actually playing, I couldn’t breathe it was so exciting.  But reading about it was like reading about crochet, which had a brief surge of popularity in the early nineties.  Sadly, even innovations like the “stitch-cam” couldn’t make it palatable to a mass audience.   

I have felt somewhat bad for constantly discussing Final Fantasy XI when the large preponderance of you probably couldn’t give a fuck about it one way or the other.  Hopefully some portion of it has amused you.  So anyway, I’m LEVEL EIGHT.   

I think maybe I should go.

(CW)TB out.

we’re not the fortunate ones

Tycho is right, I have been super busy lately. Any free time I’ve had has been spent on games though and I wanted to share my thoughts on a few of them.

Mario Kart:DD - It’s interesting. Playing the single player was no fun at all. The tracks are kind of boring and most of them are really short and uninspired. Playing cooperatively with Kara though was fun. The new dual rider system works really well. The player on the back handles the attacking as well as helping out on power slides. The driver, well he pretty much just drives. You can switch it up at any time though and that makes for some fun maneuvers. The new power slide feature is a nice addition. I have to say I like it better than the hopping in previous games. By fiddling with the control stick during a drift you can get a little boost around corners. Next week we are gonna try a Lan game with two Cubes and more people. I’m thinking that should be pretty fun. I think Gamespot gave the game a 7.9 or something like that. If I was in the business of applying numbers to subjective experiences, I think that’s about what I’d give it.

While I was at Nintendo I also picked up Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga for the GBA. I’ve only got about an hour and a half in it but it’s pretty cool. It’s actually really funny, which is something Nintendo has a hard time pulling off . It’s got a fair mix of action and RPG elements. The role playing stuff is pretty basic though. If you are looking for something a little more in depth I’d recommend Fire Emblem which I grabbed before we took off for Vegas. Since no one came to the convention I actually got to play it quite a bit. The best way to describe it is FF:Tactics Advance meets Advance Wars.  It’s more linear than both those games though, with a very good story that takes you from battle to battle. Be ready for a lot of reading though, this game is heavy on the dialogue. Thankfully most of it is actually pretty interesting.

I got Links 2004 yesterday and played a few rounds online. It’s just as good as I hoped it would be. I’m excited to try out XSN and see how that works. Tycho and I won six grand off a couple guys last night in a two on two best ball skins game. I can’t wait until Microsoft figures out some way to let me use the money I earn beating people in Links on real shit like games or candy.

I also got Prince of Persia. We should just save everyone a lot of time and give these guys game of the year right now. Hell give them game of the last five years. It’s one of the best games ever made. I put it right up there with REZ and ICO. Unfortunately it doesn’t have a three letter title which sort of ruins my theory. I guess I can stop development on WEX now.

I got a new staff last night in Final Fantasy XI. Actually it’s an Ash Rod. With it I can totally decimate a common wild rabbit with only one strike. Sometimes I like to blind them first though and then hit them. I know it’s not necessary but that’s the sort of person I am.

-Gabe out