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I always really liked this Halo 3 trailer, just really well cut gameplay footage showing off everything new about the game and setting the tone perfectly, it did way more to get me interested than any of the other elaborate marketing around the game. I mean, and i was going in really skeptical, i thought Halo 2 sucked.

I am now a fair bit further into the game and i continue to to feel very strongly about this game just being absolutely great, i think everybody should play this. I do have a few fairly niggling issues with it though. I think the streetpass/spotpass/dlc features, while initially impressive, also come across as a bit inelegant and kind of mess with the game's overall balance in a somewhat unpleasant way. (The legacy characters in particular feel just kind of thrown in.) I also miss the magic triangle from a few of the earlier games. Magic is still a big enough thing in this game that it feels like it should be in there. (It was like the weapon triangle, but for different schools of magic.) Also, ultimately, i think the design of the game exhibits a sort of half-hearted commitment to permadeath. For example, many earlier games would open up additional chapters in the story if you had lost a certain number of characters, thus presenting more opportunities to earn experience, gather supplies, and recruit additional new characters. A perfect run would actually miss out on a good deal of content, and so losing characters is easier to accept as just part of the flow of the game. This game, in contrast, cannot be designed around death opening up new avenues because of the casual mode, and instead definitely feels like it wants you to keep everybody alive. (Indeed, much of the most interesting content that can potentially comprise the back two thirds of the game largely depend on you keeping certain characters alive.) It's not exactly an explicit negative, but it is an example of how this game seems fundamentally a bit different from some of the other FE games.

That is absolutely true! It's one of the major features that makes the game stand out, and it's hard to talk about because it spoils a few big parts of the story. With a few exceptions, the identity of the child is specific to each possible mother, but the stats and skills are derived from both parents, and they will have unique supports with those parents. (Additionally, look at a character's list of possible supports, the S-ranks indicate possible romantic partners.) The player avatar also has the unique trait of having supports available for every single story character in the game, including the offspring. (The avatar's gender determines who can be married.) Speaking of which, the player avatar also has the unique trait of being able to reclass into absolutely any class in the game that isn't character specific. (This is important: There's two kinds of seals, one for promotions and one for class changes. Any skills a character earns are retained between these shifts.) As for the killing off of non-essential characters that are closely tied into the narrative, usually how FE handles it is simply saying that they have been gravely wounded and can no longer fight, but without saying that they've actually died. I assume it's the same here, so they're probably still going to pop up in cutscenes, but will otherwise be completely gone from the party. (So no supports, no side stories, none of that.)

Am i the only one that thinks the game is actually kind of ugly? I'm actually legitimately curious. I don't think it pulls off the look it wants to have, It's a little too shiny and a little too blocky. Jumping back and forth between the Ghibli-animated scenes, at the very least, is not doing it any favors.

I'm far enough into the game that now i'm now starting to deal with the big lasting decisions about promotions and reclassing and which relationships i actually want to push for. I'm loving it, i'm completely hooked, they're doing some awesome things with the series tropes in this game.

You guys have heard the stories about the PS4 likely doing exactly the same thing, right? Always online + CD keys? Isn't the "Well i guess I'll just use Steam" thing kind of a double standard? I mean, what doesn't Steam do? It doesn't let you resell games, and there is an offline mode, but it kind of doesn't work all the time and a lot of games require active internet connections anyways. (Either as a matter of functionality or of DRM.) Sure, sure, devil you know and all that. Steam has proven itself. How about we give these next gen platforms a chance to make their case too? Ask me things! I'll point you towards some of the lesser known 360 exclusives. I mean, if you're interested in really dumb games.

Did they read that on the podcast? I think i remember hearing that. I'm amused that somebody other than myself actually did that with Metroid Prime.

Well, about Frederick, i hope you're not making the mistake of letting the early game tank eat up all the exp. Either use him as bait to pull enemies into a situation where other units can easily finish them off, or use him for pairing buffs to help somebody else get some exp. Also, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around all of the Wireless/Streetpass/Spotpass/DLC stuff in the game, it all seems kind of crazy. For the Streetpass thing in particular, it looks like you can set up a team that will then populate the world map of another player's game as a random battle to engage in. You might be able to recruit other people's avatars by winning fights that have been seeded into your game? I'm not clear on how it all works.

The pre-battle screen tells you everything you need to know. A chance for a coordinated attack and a chance to nullify damage by blocking the enemy's attack, and if neither of those happen, you just get stat boosts based on the support level. I think that's how it works. (Additionally, in the case of multiple adjacent units, the one with the highest support rating seems to be the one that joins in.) So the pairing system would actually be helping you out a lot here. You can take a strong unit, and based on their class and the support rating, they will buff certain stats of the joined unit. You can give the weak ones the slight edge they need to start catching up. Paired units will also ensure affinity gains and coordinated attacks no matter the situation, in addition to the unit in the "back" being protected from damage. (Switching the lead unit in a pair is also a free action and can be done after moving and before another action.) So you make your units safer and stronger, but the reason you don't want to just pair everybody up is that you generally won't be able to then deal enough damage in a single turn to hold back an aggressive enemy group. (The back unit in a pair can only assist in coordinated attacks.) Also, Serene's Forest is a great resource, I've been looking to myself as well. You might want to actually hold off on checking it out, though. There's some big game systems in Awakening with functions that kind of serve as giant spoilers.

It was my understanding that the names of the colossi were first revealed in a Japanese art book that was produced to detail the game's development. On the topic, is Wander's name ever actually said in the game? Is Mono's? Is Dormin's? (I feel like i heard Dormin's name mentioned somewhere, but i don't think anybody ever says Wander's or Mono's name aloud.) Agro's is obvious, you hear Wander yell it every time you call for Agro. (I love how conditional those barks are, the tone of the call is constantly shifting to suit the situation.)

It's up on eShop as a digital download, is that world wide? As for Sacred Stones, the one that came as part of the ambassador program, that is actually a really fantastic game. Of the games in the series we've seen released outside of Japan, it's probably my personal favorite, and it's also the one most like Awakening. Have you ever played a Fire Emblem game before? You haven't played any of the GBA games? Awakening gives you the option to play with the permadeath disabled, and i decided i would split the difference and play this "casual" mode on the hard difficulty, but i'm a few hours into the game and really regretting the choice, I really don't like what it does to the game. It's not about the reality of being able to permanently lose a unit and having to deal with the fallout of that, nobody plays the game like that, people will always restart missions if they lose somebody on a dumb move. Generally you only want to let that stuff stand if it was an exceptionally difficult mission where you feel like you did everything you could. Ultimately though, that's not the path you want to keep going down. If you've lost more than six or eight guys in a playthrough, and especially if you've lost units with unique functions, you're heading down a rough road. (It also just sucks! It hurts losing a character you like and have not just put effort into building up, but have also watched develop relationships with the other members of your party.) So what the permadeath actually did for Fire Emblem was set a flow and tone to the game where every move has weight and so you're cautiously evaluating enemy ranges and trying to intuit the actions the AI will take, always making sure never to put your units into needlessly risky situations. The thing is, with the cautious pace and the occasional mission restart, you end up spending like three times as long on the game than you would otherwise. That is the main reason i decided to play on casual, i've been through these games before, i know what it's like, and... I don't know. I'm torn. I'm probably going to end up playing through it twice if i decide i like it enough. (It seems awesome, and i didn't really actually like the last few FE games.) Anyways, i'm saying that i think i would recommend playing the normal classic difficulty for a first exposure to the series. The easiest difficulty with the permadeath enabled. Also, make sure your units all get some of the exp share, letting strong units eat up all the experience is a bad rookie mistake. Let some of the tougher guys soften up enemies for the weaker guys to get the kill. Support bonuses are also pretty essential, make sure you're placing your units such that they're building affinity while performing actions. Stronger relationships mean stronger support bonuses. ALSO. This game has DLC hooks and there's a time-limited free DLC on the eShop. Except it's not actually on the eShop, you have to download it from an in-game store that isn't accessible until a certain point in the story. Combined with the shipping delays, that's all kind of insane.

How about Metroid Prime? Now, that game actually has really great music, but try turning it off for extra immersion, because there is also a really phenomenally rich soundscape in that game. While I'm at it, Super Metroid too. The opening to that game is still eerie and affecting all these years later.

If you collect enough turtles, you can fashion them into a shield.

So I went through either five or six 360's, my last one was an elite and has survived for a good 4 years now. Here's the thing though, i've also had failures with 3 gamecubes, a dreamcast, two DSs, my GBASP, and multiple dead-on-arrival PSPs at that thing's launch. (I take good care of my stuff, i swear!) There's also some fairly hard to pin down failure rates on launch PS2s, but some stories suggest that it was extremely high, and i think there not likewise being a massive outrage over that owes to the internet coverage not being as comprehensive as it ended up being several years later with the 360, which was firmly post-blog. I feel like a lot of hardware failures go unreported in a way that isn't true with the 360. I mean, my examples up there, i've had loads of problems with the latter-day Nintendo systems, but there's still that perception that their stuff is built as strong as it used to be. Clearly though, another RROD fiasco is not acceptable. (Again, FIVE OR SIX, it was so many that i can't even remember. I'm not touching the Durango if there's any evidence of there being problems.) No matter how you fudge the numbers, the 360's failure rate was incredible. Even from their standpoint, the 360 still ending up being a huge success, i don't think they'd tolerate another serious design fault like that. I've heard it said that early on in that thing's life, honoring those warranties was cutting deep into Microsoft, so many systems were being exchanged.

If anybody loves some good dystopic sci-fi, let me recommend this currently ongoing series. The first few episodes are pretty rough, but it gets better, and i think it starts absolutely kicking ass at its tenth episode.

So the fourth colossus!

Well, it's tuesday, so everybody go enact horribleness upon that 4th colossus

Any Zone of the Enders fans here? I had only ever actually played the first game and felt pretty ambivalent towards it, and i never played the second game despite always wanting to. (That game did not get a very widespread release.) Seemed like the HD re-release was getting some pretty decent response and i thought it would be a good chance to check the second game out. Right now though, i'm just burning through the first game's clumsy, awful Gundam-inspired story. The game itself holds up much better than i thought it would, however. I always remembered the sub-weapons being uselessly underpowered, but this time around it's clicked that you're more supposed to use them to stagger the enemies so you can close in for melee. Everything kind of fell together after that, so i find that i still like this game well enough, but i was definitely never in love with it. However, I've been told repeatedly that the second game is uniformly superb, so i'm looking forward to checking it out. I've always dug this style of mech game though, i wish stuff like this got more love in the west.

Bah! Oratorio Tangram holds up phenomenally well, that is an incredibly deep, awesome game. If you're just spamming dash attacks against low level AI, you're completely missing everything interesting about the game. At least bump up the difficulty or ideally find somebody to play with. There are so many layers to its mechanics and its move lists are very expansive. (None of which is surfaced anywhere, it's easy to completely miss the point. It helps to have somebody explain what is actually happening in that game, it gets crazy once you crack things open. Suddenly you're modifying moves on the fly to set traps and control the opponent's movement.) Also, i think this probably means that I am the Video game snob.

Try Virtual On on XBLA!

The camera doesn't shift though! I went back to that spot and checked it again! Were you trying to line the camera up perfectly and take a direct run at it or something? Is the camera resetting after doing that? If you just leave the camera alone and make a jump that is just slightly angled to the right, there's no issue. As for making the jump from the handhold, you can tell which direction Wander will leap in by observing the direction he leans while charging the jump, just fiddle with the analog stick until it's right.

I think the Netflix thing is super dumb, i'd have an easier time arguing a defense for X-box Live if it wasn't for that. The equation simply used to be: Do you play multiplayer games and value a service that facilitates that in some really great ways? Then pay for a sub, otherwise don't, because everything else on the service doesn't require it. (This scenario is, of course, why Microsoft is starting to paywall other things. They're afraid of people finding reasons not to have a gold sub.) Me though, I do play a lot of multiplayer games, and i think the online experience on the 360 is unparalleled amongst the consoles. I think it's even better than the experience on the PC a lot of the time. So it comes down to me not having a problem paying for a service that i think is really, really good. There's no specific thing to it beyond that.

Man, what were you guys doing that was making that jump so hard? I don't get it.

Even on the 360 it runs much slower than the original game, but it's not as bad as the PS3 version. The little dodge attack is done by hitting the boost, ascend/descend, and attack all at the same time while up close to the enemy. It's kind of hard to do reliably and isn't particularly flashy, but it has a unique animation that will let you know you've done it, though i don't know if it would help against that boss.