Roderick

Phaedrus' Street Crew
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Posts posted by Roderick


  1. Knightmare was AWESOME. And I loved the space-shooter Xanax to death. I should download an emulator or something, because it'd be the ultimate nostalgia trip. And the ultimate cold turkey, to see how all those wonderful games turn out to be unplayable pieces of crappy coding in reality.


  2. Goldeneye rocks and it's one of the best Bondmovies. So there. The other three suck (well, haven't seen the last one yet), but Goldeneye does everything right.

    And fuck it, Bond is SUPPOSED to be able to dodge 439681 bullets, snap a one-liner and straighten his hair. Possibly raise an eyebrow. That's just the Bond way. Bond is the quintessence of the guy who's able to pull off all that stuff.


  3. Alright, I just finished the wonderful Beyond Good & Evil, and a few things pop to mind.

    [EXTRA SPOILER WARNING]

    The final battle seemed disproportionally hard. Nothing I couldn't handle, but the increase in difficulty seemed inappropriate. The whole game is rather easy, focusing on progressing the story rather than posing the player with challenges to do over again and again. Then suddenly, the elaborate endboss appears and it's a whole different ballgame: Not only does it play distinctly different (reminiscent of Baal in Diablo II: spawning enemies instead of fighting himself at first), it's also very challenging. It took me a truckload of K-Bups, especially when I had to face the DomZ foe in a complex face-off where Jade musn't get hit or it's back to square one. When this challenging game repeats itself, this time with the controls reversed and visuals down, even I couldn't help but yelp.

    The ending makes up a lot for it in terms of charm and poignant atmosphere. Although the whole end-sequence saddles the player with maybe a bit too forced revelatory plottwists and wouldn't-you-know-it style surprises which it then, at the end, refuses to clarify, I can't help to like the ending where Jade goes Messiah-like and just smiles.

    But then why, OH WHY did they HAVE to do it? After a charming roll of the credits, showing off for the last time the insane artistical beauty of the games visuals, we see Pey'j, sighing depressedly. He flips open his hand, and up pops a little DomZ mutation. AAAAAAAARGGGH! Gone is the beauty of the closed book, hurray for the open door, make way for th sequel! Fudge, after all the things they did, you'd think they'd be able to resist the inanely tedious practice of leaving an opening for a spin-off or sequel or somesuch. It really boggles my mind. Beyond Good & Evil functioned so well as a one-shot story. Now it's just the first in a line of a series that may never exist or never live up to the first one. Where it could have been a classic game, it falls back into wanting to be a run-of-the-mill series. The game showed such audacity, but then turned chicken at the very last.

    This could all be extremely overly dramatic, but I'm just annoyed, because I think it really affects the whole freaking game.


  4. What actually surprises me is the difference in the public's perception of Valve in comparison to Blizzard. The latter is widely known to work on a game until it's perfect, crossing deadline after deadline. This fact is all but adored by the fans, who know damn well they'll get the best there is if only they show some patience. Valve seems to wisely approach gamedeveloping in the same way, but in this case the eager audience speaks of them being 'beyond terrible with deadlines', explaining it as a curse rather than a blessing. A strange way of seeing it, if you ask me.


  5. Aha, but that I where my little brother comes in, who owns the nefarious device :grin: Even though I live on my own and he's in the old house still, I could easily buy a PS2 game and play it as soon as I'm home. So katamari Damacy is not beyond my reach ^_~


  6. I just saw the Japanese commercial for Katamari Damashii and it RULES! It's so funny and introvert. In that way it's unlike many exuberant Japanese commercials, but the same silliness is present. I suggest you google and download it, as it's worth the effort.

    How I wish we had creative commercials like they have in Japan... but no, heaven forbid there would be the slightest chance of the audience not understanding them... sigh.


  7. I noticed this too. But we don't know what went ahead of this. It may very well be that they had all already figured out he was just a stark mad loony toon and decided they weren't going to waste any more energy on him. I have a strong impression that this is precisely the case. I hold German journalists higher than that. They wouldn't just send some novice to host an event of such importance as the elections.

    But honestly... APFEL!


  8. Ironic, isn't it? Yesterday we were celebrating the infamous operation Market Garden with truckloads of old veterans who had come to the Netherlands. And later that evening, we saw on the news how the elections in east Germany had been won by the neo-nazi party. I hope it's not just a little bit of history repeating.

    The whole thing made me cringe though. In the aftermath where all the party leaders were gathered at the ZDF studios, the victorious right extremist spoke of 'a glorious day for all Germans who want to remain German', after which all the other leaders left the studio and the female host asked him angrily when he would admit to the viewers he was a neo-nazi.

    Utterly terrible.


  9. For your convenience, I'll copy some of my ramblings on Jedi Outcast live from the Adventuregamers forums, so you can slap them onto the article and finally republish it.

    Here it is:

    I still uphold my belief that Stormtroopers are the best cannon fodder ever. I relished in the experience of killing them in Dark Forces, and the fun hasn't died away since then. It's still grueling fun in Jedi Outcast.