Why 15 and not 10? Because I can't make up my mind
1
Baldurs Gate 2
Release Date: September 24, 2000
Great story, great sidequests, characters, villains, and combat (unlike Dragons Age stupid MMO sty1e gameplay). Tons of c1asses and spells to choose from. Still my favorite game of all time and fun to play now. Most of the characters that join you have great dialogue and I loved the way they often interacted with each other. Excellent mods were also released for this game, one adding Xan (who was a character that could join you in the first game) and who is probably my favorite character of all time (the mod also gives the character a lot more dialouge in the first Baldurs Gate).
First time playing it: I enjoyed the first Baldurs Gate and I think my parents bought me this for Christmas in 2001. It took a backseat to the other games I got because you start off having to fight through a dark dungeon, I always hate going through small dark areas in games. After I started playing about a month or two later I was quickly out and grew to love the game. The first disk broke somehow after a few years and I didn't own the game again until a few years later when I ordered the collection that came with the expansion off half.com
2
Resident Evil 4
Release: January 11, 2005
I love the way you control your character in RE4 and RE5, even though most people don't after the release of newer games like Deadspace. Shooing enemies is satisfying due to how they react to the shots and the melee attacks are fun to watch (suplex).
First time playing: My aunt bought it for me while I was looking at a Gamestop when we were in San Francisco for something.
3
Release: November 12, 2001
Release: November 17, 2004
Release: January 12, 2008
Metal Gear Solid Series
One of my favorite series. I've loved every entry in the series. Snake in Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2 is one of my favorite characters (Big Boss in three isn't that great and Snake in four is horrible) as is Ocelot in all four games. Great gameplay and story, as well as some funny moments (one hit kill groin punches in MGS2). The second and third games also have two of the best endings I have seen in video games. Portable Ops doesn't make it just because of how annoying it is to play on the PSP.
First time I played: I played the second Metal Gear Solid the same way I played the first, my friend bought it and brought it over to play. He left the second one over at my house one of those times and never seemed to want it back, even when he was over and I told him I still had it, after three years of that I ended up keeping it. The third game I bought when it came out. The fourth I had to wait a few months to play, I bought my PS3 in August and I rented MGS4 the same day. It made some great changes to the series but because of some missed gameplay opportunities and Snake acting like a grumpy old man throughout the entire game it is my least favorite. The second is probably my favorite game of the series (that is including the first game, two MSX games, and Portable Ops).
4
Fire Emblem 7
Release: November 3, 2003
I've played all the games in the Fire Emblem series and this is my third favorite (the fourth and fifth on the Snes being my favorites). This was the first game I played in the series and the first to be released in America, even though it was the prequel to six. I loved the gameplay and the support conversations with the characters. Usually in games where you can recruit a lot of characters (Suikoden, Fire Emblem, Valkyria Chronicles) you don't get to know anything about those characters (unless the game gives you some short text bios), Fire Emblem adds a bit more personality to most of its characters. I think every character gets somewhere between three and ten other characters in your group that they can talk to during battle. Every two characters that can talk get up to three conversations throughout the game and they can each have five conversations in total. It might take awhile to have the characters stand together long enough (and a lot of playthroughs) but they add a lot of personality to the characters and whenever you do finish a conversation the game saves it under the extras menu. I've gotten every support in both Fire Emblem 7 and 8 (nine I don't own and ten took them out to replace them with a worse feature in between levels).
First time played: Parents got it for me for Christmas the same year it came out. I forgot if I read about the game on a site or in a magazine.
5
Final Fantasy 9
Release: November 13, 2000
The first entry in the Final Fantasy series that I played, it also might have been my first RPG. I think I have played all the FF in the main series, besides FF7 and FF11, and this and and FF6 are still my two favorites.
First time player: Again, I got it Christmas the year it came out. I had read about it months before in a magazine, not sure which one, the only magazines I ever remember getting was Game Informer from their 100th issue on and EGM a few years later. My parents let me open one gift on Christmas Eve and this was the one I opened. I played it all through the night and had little interest opening the rest of my presents in the morning.
6
Paper Mario
Release: February 5, 2001
My favorite Mario game, even more than Mario 3. Very funny, a battle system I can enjoy a lot more than normal turn based RPGs and great characters that join you, each with their own special abilities. I rented this game and after I bought my Wii this was one of the game I bought on the Virtual Console.
First time playing: I don't remember
7
Ogre Battles 64
Release: October 7, 2000
I love this and Ogre Battles: March of the Black Queen for the Snes and Playstation. This game has my favorite battle system of all time, having a large group of characters, customizing them, and splitting them up into multiple groups to fill out your army. The only games I know of that have a battle system like it are the two mentioned and Soul Nomad and the Wolrd Eaters. There are at least two other games in the series one for the Playstation and Knights of Lodis for the GBA but those two play like Final Fantasy Tactics, though the GBA one is still a great game (I don't have the PS one). I believe all games focus on the same continent or kingdoms at different times during their history, with OB64 being a sequel to Black Queen, even letting the main character of that game join your army in this one (now with the ability to talk). Great battles, and interesting world, tons of c1asses, and branching paths make this and Baldurs Gate 2 my two favorite games of all time.
First time played: I rented it about seven times from a gamestore. I finally bought it a few months ago when I found two copies in a pawn shop for $15 each. Much cheaper than it is online.
8
Call of Duty 4
Release: November 5, 2007
The Call of Duty series has always had my favorite FPS gameplay and Call of Duty 4 had other great features like an excellent muliplayer, exciting story and locations, surprises, the ability to shoot through walls (finally, glad pretty much all games started to do that once this came out), and likable characters (except Griggs, who sucks and died in the stupidest way possible). I can't forget to mention the fun extras like ragtime warfare and slow motion (which MW2 stupidly left out).
First time played: I got into the multiplayer beta and bought the special edition when it came out.
9
Star Wars Jedi Knight 2 Jedi Outcast
Release: March 26, 2002
The cheats, the cheats are awesome. They easily made the PC version the best. Slowing down time, going into third person with your guns and cartwheeling and back flip to avoid blaster fire while gunning down an army of stormtroopers. Controlling yourself mid roll with the game's speed set on .2 and watching all their gunfire go right in between your arm and head or in between your legs during a backwards somersault. That is my most memorable thing but the lightsaber combat and force powers were also great. This game is so much better than Force Unleashed. All they should have done was make a fourth game in this series instead of that.
First time player: We had just gotten the internet and this was the first game I ever ordered online about a month after it came out.
10
Halo
Release: November 14, 2001
The reason I loved the first Halo so much more than the others in the series was because it was the first time I got to fight with a group of allies that were not only helpful but who could actually survive throughout the level (unless you were on Legendary or fighting the flood). The marines had funny dialogue and were a joy to be around, which is odd because in just about every game or movie I can't stand marines (the rest of the Halo series takes care of my love of these marines pretty quickly though, ending with ODST where your allies would just charge through all the enemies just so they can run into a wall on the other side). The game also had great weapons and was one of the few games to introduce driving into an otherwise FPS game with great success. It is also one of the first games I played co-op in and helped to fuel my love of co-op gaming.
First played: I think it was about two years after it came out, the day that I bought my Xbox
11
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic
Release: July 17, 2003
A battle system that was exciting and fun to watch. Introduced a great morality system to the genre. The story was so much better than the prequel movies. I love this game like Anakin hates sand.
First Played: The day I bought my Xbox sometime in the same year
12
Phantom Dust
Release: March 15, 2005
I love card games. Phantom Dust basically gives you a card game but mixes it was an action game. You make your deck of abilities, then pick up energy and power as they appear in your spawn point, a move could be equipped to each of the four buttons (A,X,B,Y). The single player was fun and had an interesting story but it mostly served as a way to get your cards/abilities/glowing floaty balls to use in multiplayer which was excellent. One of the best and most original games I have ever played, so of course it sold poorly and has yet to have a sequel.
First Played: Bought it shortly after realease. I thought it was only out in Japan until I saw one of my Live friends playing it while I was on Halo 2, I quickly got out of that crap and bought this.
13
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2
Release: March 6, 2007
A great single player game but mostly it just added on to the first games terrific multiplayer. Ignoring both of those things since Ghost Recon 2 (2, the expansion, GRAW, and GRAW 2) Ghost Recon has had some of the best co-op gameplay I have played (I never played the first game in the series). Co-Op missions that are separate from the single player story, defense missions (see if you can last an hour), assault (kill all enemies), recon (check out zones while killing enemies that get in your way), etc all allowing up to 16 people to play. Tons of maps, some that could be played day or night and map packs to add even more maps and co-op missions. No ODST did not steal it's crappy firefight mode from Left 4 Dead's crappy survival mode, which stole from GoW2's crappy horde mode, which stole from Resident Evil 4's pretty fun Mercenary mode (I'll leave COD5's zombie mode out since the whole zombie thing kind of changes the games gameplay) they all stole from Ghost Recon 2's (and maybe one) awesome 16 player co-op modes (that's modes, with an S, not just one mode like all the other games had).
First Time Played: Bought the day it came out
14
Persona 2 Eternal Punishment
Release: December 22, 2000
A great RPG, the earlier Persona games and SMT series are the only JRPGs that actually require strategy in battle and the game gives you the option to recruit enemies through different dialogue options. Making this one of the only series to do anything good with the god awful turn based JRPG battle system, it's also (along with SMT) one of the only JRPG series that is challenging. A dark an interesting story (with many censored swear words right from the get go, telling you that the game will be edgy). The conversations you can have with the demons are also pretty funny, combining certain characters lets you do anything from having the two female characters talk about cute boys to having a cop and a mobster interrogate the poor things. Depending on how they react to each conversation they can become scared, angry, or start to like you. Then can either be forced/asked to leave a fight, give you items, join you in the form of a card which you can then use to create a demon (a much better way than the idiotic ways of Persona 3 and 4 where you go around fighting stupid **** like tables and only finding demons through random minigames after a fight). Best of all, there is no ******* JPop music, only music that is actually, fitting.
First Time Played: Bought at Gamestop along with Xenogears, both for $20 on one of the last days they would sell Playstation games. Good deals
15
Deus Ex
Release: June 26, 2000
An excellent FPS with well used RPG elements (not like Bioshock) all the skills were useful there were many different weapon and ways to approach most situations (stealth, shooting, hacking, lock picking). The game also had a great story and this is still the only game that has made me feel bad about killing people, luckily a stun prod, dart gun, and crowbar...I mean police baton to the back of the head give me many nonlethal ways to take down my enemies.
First Time Played: I forgot
Almost made it
Suikoden 2
Release: August 31, 1999
Valkyria Chronicles
Release: November 4, 2008
Most hated feature of the decade
Matchmaking
I will always hate Bungie for starting this crap with Halo 2. Remember the good old days when you joined a persons match, sometimes you had a few regulars that would join the same guys game with you all the time, you could make some friends and vote about things together (or the host could decide alone) to keep everything how you wanted it. Magical times when you could do things like pick what map and gametype you wanted instead of being forced to play crap all the time (bringing up Bungie again, their idiot matchmaking game choices pretty much destroy Halo 3, at least Call of Duty 4 and MW2 give you enough options so you know what gametype you are playing).
Remember when you could play a game knowing that the host is not going to leave anytime soon because you could either ask the host in person or because the host was not there but only setting up a dedicated game for you all to enjoy (making the game run even better). Now we get to have the host randomly chosen to pretty much ensure that the games will lag and if that host should get killed or start losing he will most likely quit forcing everyone to leave the game or wait through a long loading screen to pick a new hosts, which will usually only result in us waiting to be kicked out of the game (CALL OF DUTY AND HALO and your **** communities).
Games like Left 4 Dead 2 make you have very difficult times trying to find games when you have a friend or two on, since you have no idea if it will throw you into a game that only has one person, only needs one more person, or is already in progress.
Games that don't randomly choose a host now like to use their own dedicated servers which are always horrible. I haven't been able to play Left 4 Dead 2's versus or scavenge mode for weeks (duh, being one of the most preordered games of all time gave us no indication that a lot of people would be playing and crashing our garbage servers).
Again with Halo, a game that people have made great maps and gametypes for, thanks to Bungie's matchamking crap the only way to ever enjoy any of this is to have friends on who can join you for private games. How ******* likely is it that you are going to get on Halo 2 or 3 (or any other game you want to play a private match for) have 15 friends on playing the same game as you, who are all willing to join you. It takes a pretty awesome person to get people to leave their friends, possibly real life friends who are online, to exit out of games that are in progress, to forget about anything that they had to do in real life, just to join you so you can try out your new Juggernaut gametype.
Well today is my 18th birthday. It fells pretty good to be an adult now. Also I do have a ps3 now and my psn name is xxRob213xx, you can either send me a friend request or you can leave your name in a comment and Ill add you.
seems that these days on gamespot theres no such thing as "free speech" or even talking about something just incase it might upset a small number of people oh no we cant have that can we?
this site needs to realise its world wide and not everything is a taboo subject or you cant mention something even if true just incase you might tick off some folk..
thats it enjoy the rest of your holidays everyone..
I hope that everyone else is having a good Christmas so far. Mine is going quite well and I'm here to update you on the items I've received. There isn't a lot so this'll be short, but there's certainly enough here to keep me occupied for a long time.
The first gift I received was World of WarCraft.
Yes. I'd only played a 10 day trial of this in the past and was fairly addicted then, so now I have no excuse to stop playing, which is good and bad I guess. lol
The next gift I received was Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story.
I loved the previous installments in the Mario & Luigi franchise and I loved the demo I had played for this one. I've already started it and it's just as good as I expected it to be. It's funny, it looks great, it plays great, it sounds great, it feels great, it tastes great... wait what? Yeah. It's a great game, let's just say that. Definitely one to pick up for any DS owner, but you already knew that, didn't you?
The final gift I received was a $50 GameStop Gift Card.
I'm still contemplating what to use it on. I could buy some World of WarCraft game time or just a bunch of DS games. Possibly some cool game merchandise? Or maybe even put it towards a console of some sort. Whatever I use it on, it's sure to be a good purchase.
(Also got razor blades, chastick and chocolate. lol)
That's all for my Christmas day gifts. I'll be doing a lot of gaming in the next few weeks before I have to get back into the college routine.
Once again, I hope you're all having a great holiday. Please share your stories about your own gifts that you've received. Take care!
Thanks to Homer Rabara for the image.
Happy Thanksgiving Everybody! I'm spending Thanksgiving in Bastrop Texas at my sister-in-laws house. Got practically the whole family going here for a big Thanksgivings day feast. It's nice country out here, very peaceful and quiet. Lots of big ranches and farms around these parts...
Anyway Happy Thanksgiving everybody! Enjoy the holiday with family and friends!
I got tagged by ArmoredCore55 and now it's my turn to write five interesting facts about me, so here we go.
1. I have two favorite TV Shows, and they are Top Gear and 24.
2. Most of my games are racing games.
3. My favorite car that is affordable is Honda S2000
4. My favorite color is Black.
5. My color eyes is blue.
The other day, I was playing COD4 online free for allon the overgrown level. Ijumped off the bridge down to those riverbanks and I suddenly got shot. I look over were theshot came frombut I saw no one. I started scrambling to see if I can catch this person and get a shot but another shot hit me and that was the end of me. When it went to the kill cam I noticed this person was hiding inside the bank itself, like if he was underground. That made me disgusted. I went back to the same area and just fired awayat the side of the bank at random. I actually got him, but as soon as he respawned, he went back under and stayed there, I was never able to get him after that and he just kept on getting me. I decided to forget it and to just stay away from that area to avoid giving him free kills.
In the end, he was using a glitch to cheat and get free kills for himself or for his clans reputation. This made me mad and im going to do my best to avoid this level. Im just wondering, why hasnt Infinity Ward done something about it? Oh well, I just hope Modern Warfare 2 will be rid of these glitches. If anyone has had a similar problem, rant away here.
Well, I'm in college now, and I've updated my setup for school. I'm keeping the Wii with me as well as my DSi - all the other games are at home (my PC is with me as well). My room mate has an Xbox 360 and we have two tvs set up to display the same picture simultaneously as well as 2 Aiwa stereo speakers and a Bass amp being used as a subwoofer.
So I've been saving up for a long time for my dream system. Not as long as many, since I get accommodations and discounts from working at Best Buy (that I can't discuss in great detail), but I'm still shelling out around $2500 in the end.
So I've ordered my Klipsch speakers. I'm getting three XL-23 LCR and two XL-12 LCR speakers with a 12" Subwoofer. I'm hooking this up to my new Denon AVR-790 (which is the same as the "higher end" AVR-1910). I'll have my Xbox 360 and newly bought PS3 slim to hook up to it! All the highest end Monster cables.
A buddy from work is helping me mount everything and conceal all the wires behind the wall in exchange for some co-op gaming on my new system plus I'm buying him a game of his choice.
Yeah, I bought one yesterday with money I had saved up. It's pretty awesome. I got the $500 160GB bundle. I also bought:
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (came with the bundle)
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (of course)
Killzone 2 (loved the first one)
SOCOM: Confrontation (loved all the other games in the series, plus it came with a bluetooth headset)
Taken on Blu-Ray (awesome movie)
Pineapple Express on Blu-Ray (hilarious)
So I've played all of the games except MGS4. I'm saving that one for this summer so I can knock it out all at once. I beat the first level of Killzone 2, and it's pretty amazing. The graphics are astounding, and it seems to be following in the tradition of the first one with due improvements. SOCOM: Confrontation is pretty neat. Easy to pick up and play; I went 14/12 kill/death ratio my first round that I played. Unfortunately, I'm having trouble getting the bluetooth headset to pair with my PS3, so I'll have to mess around with that some more later. I've gotten through the first few levels of Uncharted, and I like it so far. It's cool how it's like a treasure hunt platformer and everything.
So yeah my PSN ID is Rocker531, same as my 360 Gamertag, so all of you PS3 owners out there...feel free to send me a friend request.
That reminds me, I haven't really been updating my blog a lot on here recently cause I've been really busy and....lazy. So I apologize that I haven't been keeping track of yall's blog as well. I guess I'll just see you guys around on XBL or PSN then.
PEACE
Both bands were really awesome.
Turisas played: The Messenger,Rasputin,Battle Metal,One More and some other songs I can't remember.
Dragonforce played: Soldiers of the Wasteland,Heroes of our Time,Fury of the Storm,Reasons to Live,The Warrior Inside,The Last Journey Home,Operation Ground and Pound,Valley of the Damned and Through the Fire and Flames.
Both were amazing live.
And especially how everybody likes to go around saying Dragonforce can't play for ****...Here's some advice for the haters..Try and see the band LIVE before saying they suck LIVE.
Herman and Sam both pulled of all the solos without any errors and ZP's voice was mindblowing.
I also got to shake Sam's and Frederique's hand.ZP commented on my facial hair that it looked good
The vocalist of Turisas said I looked like a good drinker and also said that the beer in America tasted like piss and that he was glad he was back in Europe where the real beer is.
The girl with the accordion and Vadim had a showdown that was quite awesome.
Here are some other pics.1 2 3
I must apologise for the quality...I was in a moshpit trying to take pics with my cellphone..not the easiest task.
Well this has been a rollercoaster ride of a season 360 gamers I suspect, with the release of some major games that we have been waiting for and the fact that my wallet now hates me I will through some major releases so I can get some things off my chest.
Fallout 3-
This game had me sold when I first saw the teaser a long time ago, now that the game is out and I have beaten it once I can honestly say that this is the game I wanted to see...it has it's little fumbles but they pale in comparison to the level of detail and humor that this game maintain all the way through.
Fable 2-
This game suprised me, I went in expecting a kinda jarring adjustment back to the cutesy world of albion and was greeted by a harsher and more gritty game that still maintains that story book quality and fun. The game is everything I wanted from the first one but it is still to damn short!
Gears of war 2-
I liked the first one but I got bored quick without any real narrative to latch on to, this game has a decent story and moves at a better pace than the original...I still fear that multiplay will be kinda crummy but I can't pass jugments yet...overall I hope that epic can keep up the momentum and make a even better game than this...that would be something to see.
This has been a tough year on our wallets but I think that most of the big releases were really worth the wait and I hope that we see a even better run of games next year.
The new xbox experience thing is really starting to grow on me, I am glad that they game the menu's a little bit of personality and added some really needed functions that make the whole system feel more usefull.
On another note...the new Star Trek trailer is really worth a watch...download it on the dashboard and see what I mean.
Till next time
Mike
XBL GT: I CAN HEAR ALL
360 owner dec 25th, 2005-september 7th, 2008. october 9th 2008-present
PSN ID: Zonmom25
ps3 owner june 29th, 2008-october 9th, 2008.
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Merry Christmas everyone, and Happy Holidays to anyone who doesn't celebrate Christmas. I hope everyone had a good Christmas Day, I know I did. A cell phone, Super Mario Galaxy and Superbad are just some of the cool gifts I got, and then there's the random assortment of clothing and chocolates to sort through. So, once again, Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays,to everyone, and soon we will all be bringing in the New Year.
You probably know by now, that I am am emotional person. Sometimes when I realize something I am doing is wrong or feels wrong, my emotions get to me, and I end up doing all I can to change it. Because I feel it is God watching over me, telling me I have to change something.For instance, in my last blog, the message was a bit over exagerated to the emotion I was going through at the moment. I wont deny the fact that I am a gamer. But, I also wont deny the fact that I am a Christian. Once you become a Christian, or you grow up in that kind of setting, it is near impossible to ignore what you believe is the truth about how you should live your life. But, I also realise I am human, and can easily make mistakes in sin. If you want to know more about that, feel free to PM me.I am not totally removing my life from gaming. But, I am trying to make some more careful decisions in what I play, and how long. Especially because I want to get out and make more friends. You may remember I had said that I want to get out to make more friends at church. Truth is,I do have friends from church, a lot who areout on missions trips, so I dont see them very much. Mainly because I choseto take a differentcareer path than ministry. May have been a mistakem I dont know. Maybe Ill end up using my artistic skills in ministry some day.I have been going to different churches to see what kind of people I could socialise with. Its easy to put a mask on over who you truelly are in CYBERWORLD. But, mainly, THIS IS THE TRUTH ABOUT ME. YOUR TRUTH ALWAYS FINDS YOU OUT IN TIME.
