Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=278https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1481I got slightly farther in my second session of game play, but I didn't make it to the 'boss', or if I did, I must have died before he showed up on the screen. I got to some part where there's two volcanos and they spew rocks out, and I got hit by one and that was game over for me. Gradius is quite difficult. I think the power ups make the game harder than it should be. For someone playing Gradius for the first time, you're not going to know that you should shoot all first enemies you see. You're placed around the middle left part of the screen and the first enemies approach from the top right. You could stay there and shoot them as the come at you and move in a Z like pattern, but you'll only hit 3 out of the 4. Or if you try to move around to hit them, your ship will most likely be too slow. If you hit all 4, you get a power up and getting power ups early on is important because your ship moves slow without the power ups. Its rather difficult to dodge the fireball things when your ship moves very slow. I think the flaw in Gradius is that its heavily dependant on the power ups. Without that speed power up, you're probably going to die a lot. However, I'm thankful that Gradius had checkpoints along the level, so when I died, I did not have to resume from the beginning. The game is hard as it is, so I can imagine it being frustrating to start all over from the beginning each time you die. (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Sat, 24 Feb 2007 02:21:20.)Sat, 24 Feb 2007 02:20:08 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1481&iddiary=3124https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1481For this session I chose to play Gradius, since I have never played it before. My first impression of the game is good. Though I'm not too picky about graphics, I thought Gradius had some nice graphics. Unlike some other NES games, the sprites in Gradius are quite detailed. The sounds in the game were fine, nothing that got on my nevres and I enjoyed the music in the space cave thing... I didn't get very far at all in this session, but the levels look strange. The background is space and as you progress through the level, there is a floor with trees and mountains and there's some at the top of the level as well. I like the trees and mountains there, but I'm not sure why they're in space. Also, aside from the enemies, the level itself posseses no real obsticles. Only thing so far I've seen is you have to watch out for the mountain while dodging fireballs and incoming enemies.Sat, 24 Feb 2007 01:52:51 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1481&iddiary=3116https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=610For my second session, I tried to progress with the story. I played about an hour and didn't get much done. Since I don't play Suikoden II as often as I'd like, I tend to forget what has been going on since the last time I played. I started in my castle and had a meeting with the hero's advisors. I was told to go north to the Knightdom of Matilda and ask for their aid. Getting there took a few minutes, since I had to go through a forest path and had a lot of random encounters. Once I got there, the Lord of Matilda refused to aid me. After some more dialogue, the Highland army appears at the borders, attacking some refugees from the City State's capital, Muse. The knights mobolize and my hero was given the choice to take action. My options where, "I'll join." , "I'll be watching", and a third option that I don't remember. I chose, "I'll be watching". I don't know if that changed the way the following events unfolded or not, but after I said that, I got to see a strategic battle between Highland's army and the refugees. The refugees were defeated and one of the knights was upset that Matilda did not aid them, so he rushes off to Muse. I was supposed to follow him there, but I was reaching my hour of playtime. I got to explore the Knight's town and I found a few more characters that I need to recruit. I guess my only complaint about Suikoden II is the time spent in recruiting people. While its not necessary to get everyone, having more people in your army makes your battles easier against the Highland army and I heard you get a better ending. Sometimes, I'd spend my whole gaming session on just recruiting people, and these were maybe two or three hour sessions of play too. Some of the characters appear randomly in battle, so you have to fight them just to be able to recruit them. Finding them can be tedious and boring. I really like the storyline of Suikoden II, since its more than just recruiting people for your army. Though there's lots of characters in the game, you'll care for the main characters and you'll be interested in their stories, which you either like or not. As long as it gets some emotion out of you, because there's RPGs out there with characters and storylines that you just don't care about. So, I just wish I was able to focus more on the story of the game because I really do want to find out what happens between the main hero and his friend Jowy, the City State and Highland, and with Luca Blight, the antagonist.Fri, 09 Feb 2007 19:15:25 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=610&iddiary=2716https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=610I've been playing Suikoden II for a while now. I started last quarter but I still haven't got around to completing the game, mainly due to other work and such. Though I don't play it as much as I'd like to, Suikoden II has become one of my favorite RPGs. Like Suikoden I, this game is also about war, but in Suikoden II the story revolves more around the characters than just the war. In Suikoden I, you have to recruit people from around the world to join your army and set up a castle for them. There is a total of 108 characters that are destined to help the main character and you can recruit them for your army. You don't have to recruit them all to complete the game, but there is little strategic battles against the enemy army and it helps to have these characters, since they add numbers to your army. In Suikoden II, the idea of having your own castle and your own army is back. There is also 108 characters again, some returning from Suikoden I. The castle in Suikoden II was improved greatly from its preceder and is more interactive. Before I go into my gameplay, I want to give a bit of the back story. If you plan to play this game skip the next paragraph. The game starts off with the main hero and his friend, Jowy, as members of the youth brigade for the Highland army. They are stationed at the border of Highland and the City State and the two nations have just signed a peace treaty. While at the border, the youth bridgade gets attacked by the Highland army. The hero and Jowy escape confused, but later return to their leader. They find out this was a plan to make it seem like the City State broke the treaty. Jowy and the main hero once more escape by jumping down a cliff into a river. The main hero is found by a mercenary army of the City State and is taken in. Later, Jowy comes to the mercenary fort to help you escape. They both return to their home village in Highland, but they are blamed for the tragedy at the border and are labeled traitors. They escape again, to the City State and join the mercenary army. At this point, the Highland has made its move to attack the City State. After the fall of the capital city of the City State, the main hero becomes the leader of the remaining forces and takes an old abandoned castle as his base. The castle in Suikoden II is one of my favorite aspects of the game. When you first take the castle, its sort of in shambles. As you recruit people for your army the place begins to look nicer. When you return to your castle at various points in the game, you'll see its progress. Also, some characters you recruit will make changes to your castle. For example, if you recruit the guy who makes baths, next time you visit your castle, you'll have a large bath, which you can decorate with antiques that were aquired as rewards from battle. After not exploring my castle for a while, I returned today to see if anything changed. My castle has certainly grown livlier since the last time I visited. In Suikoden II, theres civilians also living in your castle and when you talk to them they give you bits of information about the place. Also, as you walk around your castle you'll find your own characters going about doing their own business. For example, you might find some of your characters in the inn having a drink. The castle also provides various mini games, including a fishing game, gambling, a cooking competition, and a whack-a-mole game. I really enjoy all the features of the castle. The mini games are a good break from the other aspects of the game, for example, if you're tired of recruiting people or tired of grinding for experience or money.Fri, 09 Feb 2007 17:53:32 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=610&iddiary=2697https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=991For my second session, I spent the time going through Butter Building. The levels were really easy up until the boss. This boss was probably the toughest I've encounted in the game so far. The boss for the Butter Building level was the sun and the moon. This match was quite challenging and required more than just spamming Kirby's abilities. I've lost count of how many times I tried to beat these guys. For this boss, I found that no particular ability gave you an advantage. The moon and sun alternate in attacking, but their attack patterns are the same. One will fight you at a time, throwing a projectile and sliding across the screen, while the other will float across the top of the screen and throw stars at you. I had the most trouble after I got hit by a star, since Kirby would lose his ability and had to eat the ability star again, and the bad thing is that Kirby doesn't move very fast. The other annoying part in this battle was when I got hit by the sun, Kirby would 'fry' (he turns red as he falls back to the ground), and lose time in regaining the star. Kirby moves slow and its not easy trying to regain the star with either sun or moon sliding around the screen or the other tossing stuff at you. I eventually beat it with save states, but I'm not too happy about that. It kind of bugs me that I didn't beat it 'fair and square'. Oh wells. On to Grape Garden...Wed, 31 Jan 2007 18:25:25 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=991&iddiary=2353https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=991This is my first time playing Kirby's Adventure. The first thing that stood out to me was the game's graphics. For an NES game, they look really nice and detailed. In this session I played up to the Butter Building (level 3). I don't really know if there's a story in this game, but it felt entertaining none the less. I really liked the look of all the levels, so I think that also kept me wanting to play. The first place you start off is Vegetable Valley. Kirby enters each level through a door labeled by a number. The individual levels are fun and not too challenging. If it was too challenging at the start, it could potentially draw players away from the game. Raising the difficulty over the levels is a better idea; make the game easy to pick up and then make it harder as it goes on. However, I haven't gotten far enough in the game to find out if the game gets more challenging. Kirby has many abilities available to him in the levels. Kirby can suck up an enemy and use that enemy's ability. For example, if there's an enemy in the level that uses swords, Kirby can eat the enemy and use that sword ability. However, not all the enemies in the level have abilities that you can use, but Kirby can eat an enemy and spit it out at someone else. The bosses I encountered so far in the game, have not been too hard. I think the difficulty might depend on what ability Kirby is using. Tuna played the game before me, and I watched him fight this tree boss. I noticed him move around and dodge things falling from above. When I fought that same boss, I think I had the fire ability and I just went up to tree and spammed it and it died. Not hard at all. Later in the game, I fought some guy with skates, and he was more challenging compared to the other bosses in the game. It required some strategy, and not just spamming an ability. The other aspect of Kirby that I enjoyed was the mini games. After beating a level, some new doors would appear. One would be for the next level, another would take you to a mini game. One mini game had one of those crane machines and you had to grab a Kirby for an extra life. The other mini game I saw was one involving Kirby eating eggs and avoiding the bombs. I'm hoping that as I move further along the game, new mini games will be introduced. (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Wed, 31 Jan 2007 03:31:08.)Wed, 31 Jan 2007 03:28:32 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=991&iddiary=2181https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=669I tried out the single player mode for Soul Calibur III. I noticed several new modes, but I decided to try out Tales of Souls first. I chose to play as Siegfried first. This mode plays similarly to the story mode of the previous game. Your character travels across the map fighting various opponents along the way until your character reaches his goal, or final opponent. I noticed that this mode felt shorter than Soul Calibur II's single player story mode. Also, the opponents were much more challenging in SCIII, which is a good thing. I remember having no trouble with the final opponent in SCII, but when I fought Abyss, I found myself getting beat. I was actually amazed by this Abyss character. Once he grabbed me with his scythe, he threw me around. Abyss also threw some fireball thing at me when I moved away too much, but I threw him off the stage afterwards. After defeating, Abyss, there was little cut scene, which was pretty neat. I enjoyed playing Tales of Souls mode the first time through. As you travel along the map, you are given choices on what action to take next, and depending on what action you take, you fight different opponents. Which is nice, since you can take a different path, if you play through with the same character again. Also, along the way, theres little events which a found very amusing. I guess I'm easily amused. In my fight with Zasalamel at the Clocktower, there is a big gear that is heading your way and you're supposed to move out of the way by pressing the directional pad, but the I didn't know so I got knocked out. I found that so amusing. There was another similar event where Abyss is going to hit you, and you're supposed to block I think, but I let myself get hit for fun. I tried Tales of Souls a second time with Nightmare. The opponents were mostly the same, Zasalamel, Tira, and Taki again. Though I gave up when I fought Taki. I didn't feel like fighting her at the moment. The last thing I tried was the custom character creation, which is a new feature. You can pick your character's gender, job (thief, dancer, and I don't remember the rest), and you can further customize your character's looks by choosing different hairstyles, faces and clothes. With your custom character you can play this other mode in the game called Chronicles of the Sword. I also forgot to mention that in Tales of Souls, in addition to the Soul Calibur characters, you fight these custom characters along the way. I thought that was pretty neat. (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Fri, 19 Jan 2007 03:37:35.)Fri, 19 Jan 2007 03:36:40 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=669&iddiary=1717https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=669I played some Soul Calibur III with my friend earlier. It was my second time playing this game. I use to play a lot of Soul Calibur II on my Gamecube years back, so playing SCIII on the PS2 wasn't terribly different. I noticed there were some new characters, but I didn't get to try them out today. Instead, I played with characters that I was familiar with from the previous game. I tried out Siegfried first, since I was told he plays like Soul Calibur II's Nightmare. I played a few matches with my friend Anthony, and Siegfried's moves were indeed similar to that of the old Nightmare. It felt like I had to relearn all the moves again and get use to the PS2 controller. But overall, the game seems to be easy to pick up for new and old players alike. After a few matches, I got use to the controls, and our matches became more even. Against Mitsurugi, our matches were pretty close. I'd win some, lose some. With Maxi...Maxi is annoying so I made sure to give him a good beating. In our last matches, my friend switched to Zasalamel and got revenge for poor old Maxi. Even though I probably recieved a beating most of the time, I had fun. I usually have fun with friends when I play Soul Calibur. Whether I win or lose, I'm satisfied that I have at least annoyed someone with Siegfried/Nightmare. Next time I play, I want to try out the story mode and see if its similar to Soul Calibur II's story mode.Wed, 17 Jan 2007 02:29:03 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=669&iddiary=1528https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=531Earlier I found a group for the instance Blackrock Depths and it turned out pretty bad. I had a feeling it would from the start, but I joined my friend either way. We gathered two others who were somewhat low leveled, and then I had hope, when a level 60 shaman joined the group. This was my third or fourth time going to BRD, but I've never fully completed the instance before. With this group, we started at the Shadowforge area. Everything seemed to be going well at first. The shaman pulled and we didn't have much problems with aggro either. We continued and we got to some room with various dwarves and fire elementals. The shaman pulled the mobs and it seemed alright, but then one dwarf ran away and our warrior chased after it and then aggro'ed more dwarves and elementals. Soon after that we wiped. We ran back to the instance and picked up our corpses, and tried to continue, but someone aggro'ed again, which led to another wipe. The shaman self-ressurected himself and then ressurected the priest, and then he revived my friend. My friend unfortunately died two more times in the same spot due to aggro and the priest and shaman got frustrated and left the party. And thats where my BRD run ended. I was hoping to see some more bosses and maybe get some gear for my rogue, but I guess I'll have to go again later and hope that I find a good group... Fri, 12 Jan 2007 13:31:39 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=531&iddiary=1389https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=531I've been playing World of Warcraft for a little more than a year, and surprisingly I don't have a level 60 yet...or 70 soon. I've spent a lot of time PvPing, ranking up in the PvP system, and creating a lot more alts. Currently I have 2 mains (characters that I play the majority of the time), a level 51 Tauren Shaman (actually I don't know if I should consider her my main anymore, my mage alt, uh, became my main) and a level 59 Undead Mage. I should've leveled my mage to 60 before the expansion just for the sake of being at the max level, but I've decided to leave him in the 50s bracket for a bit longer to rack up more honor points. Instead, I've been leveling my rogue. I got him to level 53 by grinding in Felwood and it hasn't been that bad. Usually I quest with all my characters, but in the 50's I've been just purely grinding in Felwood and Winterspring. Grinding in WoW doesn't feel as bad as it does in other MMOs to me. Repeatedly grinding in the same areas have led me to quit other MMOs because I get bored so fast and get sick of the leveling areas fast. Also, I don't like the thought of me being in that same place for another number of levels. In WoW, I at least have to the choice to go to various areas to level up. I'm not limited to one sole area and at least on my realm, these areas aren't too crowded. Having other players steal your monsters isn't too big of an issue either. I'm hoping that I can level on my next session. My goal is to at least reach the late 50s on this character, so he can be more useful in battlegrounds. Right now all I do in Alterac Valley is stun someone, and run back to my team. Its kind of fun, but I want to do more. 8D Fri, 12 Jan 2007 03:28:10 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=531&iddiary=1334