Thursday, 30 June 2011
Final Fantasy IV: Better Than Child of Eden
At least as far as price goes, anyway. A couple weeks ago, I walked into my local Gamestation with the intent of buying Child of Eden
, but the price blew the steam out of my sails. 40 of my english pounds for a pretty shoot-'em-up was more than I could possibly justify, so I poked around and found myself taking Final Fantasy IV: Complete
to the counter, much to my surprise. I've never been much of a Final Fantasy person, Breath of Fire is my JRPG of choice, but I'm always open to trying something I've never played before.
It's not the first Final Fantasy I've played, or even the first 2D one, those accolades belong to 7
and 1
respectively, it is, however, the only one I hadn't played up until that point. I was happy to discover that the story involves crystals, which every one up until 5 has. The ones which don't have a completely different feel - more serious, more epic. Which has its place, but I like a more friendly feel in my Japanese turn-based story adventures.
Anyway, long story short, you are Cecil, the worst Dark Knight ever, the Dark Knight with a conscience, who's having second thoughts about slaughtering innocent people to get the crystals for his King. The King realises this, promptly demotes him and sends him on a quest which ends up with him murdering a village of summoners by accident. Whoops! He saves a little girl, meets an old guy, finds old guy's daughter, who promptly dies, and goes on a journey to save the next crystal from capture, but not before curing his love interest's desert fever. Quite the adventure for two hours in.
The story is happening rather quickly. In two hours, two out of four of the world's crystals are in the hands of the corrupted King, and I am racing to save the third (which will undoubtedly fail, where would the story be otherwise?). I am wondering where the story has to go after he has all the crystals, but I guess I've got to play more to find out!
A brief comment on the sound. I'm not sure what it is about the music, but it hits my nostalgia brain cells hard. Which is strange, because I didn't play a FF game until I was almost 14, on the Playstation 1. Is it something about the SNES-ish sounds? I did spend a large amount of my youth on one of those things. Something to muse upon until next time, I guess.
, but the price blew the steam out of my sails. 40 of my english pounds for a pretty shoot-'em-up was more than I could possibly justify, so I poked around and found myself taking Final Fantasy IV: Complete to the counter, much to my surprise. I've never been much of a Final Fantasy person, Breath of Fire is my JRPG of choice, but I'm always open to trying something I've never played before.It's not the first Final Fantasy I've played, or even the first 2D one, those accolades belong to 7
and 1 respectively, it is, however, the only one I hadn't played up until that point. I was happy to discover that the story involves crystals, which every one up until 5 has. The ones which don't have a completely different feel - more serious, more epic. Which has its place, but I like a more friendly feel in my Japanese turn-based story adventures.Anyway, long story short, you are Cecil, the worst Dark Knight ever, the Dark Knight with a conscience, who's having second thoughts about slaughtering innocent people to get the crystals for his King. The King realises this, promptly demotes him and sends him on a quest which ends up with him murdering a village of summoners by accident. Whoops! He saves a little girl, meets an old guy, finds old guy's daughter, who promptly dies, and goes on a journey to save the next crystal from capture, but not before curing his love interest's desert fever. Quite the adventure for two hours in.
The story is happening rather quickly. In two hours, two out of four of the world's crystals are in the hands of the corrupted King, and I am racing to save the third (which will undoubtedly fail, where would the story be otherwise?). I am wondering where the story has to go after he has all the crystals, but I guess I've got to play more to find out!
A brief comment on the sound. I'm not sure what it is about the music, but it hits my nostalgia brain cells hard. Which is strange, because I didn't play a FF game until I was almost 14, on the Playstation 1. Is it something about the SNES-ish sounds? I did spend a large amount of my youth on one of those things. Something to muse upon until next time, I guess.
Wednesday, 29 June 2011
:B: - Tiny Tower
I've passed 5 hours on Tiny Tower, so I'm considering it beaten in liu of an obvious 'win' status. The only one I can think of really is getting all of the achievements, and that to me feels like more of a :C: status.
Play is slowing down a little now. Things are getting really rather expensive to build and my income isn't quite matching the increase. But I suppose that's a big part of the game, keeping you playing for longer. And more likely to buy TowerBux to speed things up. That sounds a bit cynical, but it is a Freemium game and so it's designed to get its hooks into you and get you to buy lots of little bits of stuff. I don't mind though, I have other things to play too, and this is good for bathroom breaks at work.
I've given it 5/5 stars because it is rather good. I might downgrade it to a 4 later if the cost of new floors keeps rising to ridiculous levels, but for now, I'm still having fun, and the things my Bitizens post on 'Bitbook' are still totally funny.
Play is slowing down a little now. Things are getting really rather expensive to build and my income isn't quite matching the increase. But I suppose that's a big part of the game, keeping you playing for longer. And more likely to buy TowerBux to speed things up. That sounds a bit cynical, but it is a Freemium game and so it's designed to get its hooks into you and get you to buy lots of little bits of stuff. I don't mind though, I have other things to play too, and this is good for bathroom breaks at work.
I've given it 5/5 stars because it is rather good. I might downgrade it to a 4 later if the cost of new floors keeps rising to ridiculous levels, but for now, I'm still having fun, and the things my Bitizens post on 'Bitbook' are still totally funny.
Tuesday, 28 June 2011
Annoying Things About Tiny Tower
- Waiting for my money to slowly trickle in.
- Restocking shops pretty much constantly.
- The elevator never goes fast enough.
- I always get the construction VIP when I have 1 minute left on my current construction, never when there's 7 hours left.
- I have no friends to compare to on my friends page.
- The Bitizens don't stay on screen so it can be difficult to find them when tasked to.
- And, I can't stop bloody playing!
Might and Magic World of Xeen - Slowly Catches the Dwarven King
So I finally finished mapping out the original town, and, much to my chagrin, I found an in-game map button. However, my maps are 10x more useful, so I'm going to keep doing them. I've done the first quest, and the ungrateful mayor just gave me another one! Now I have to go to the mine to kill the crazy dwarf king that's taken over their local mine.
No problem! Or so I thought. My sorceror keeps dying to the orcs outside. Guess I've got to level some. Any tips for levelling up the back characters quicker?
No problem! Or so I thought. My sorceror keeps dying to the orcs outside. Guess I've got to level some. Any tips for levelling up the back characters quicker?
Sunday, 26 June 2011
Tiny Tower - SimTower for Beginners
My latest iPhone obsession is Tiny Tower. It's one of those games that's ten times better than it sounds. You build a tower, attract people to live in it and earn money to put more levels on your tower. Sound familiar? It should, the concept is almost identical to SimTower
.
However, Tiny Tower shakes it up a little. It takes cues from social network gaming in that you can compare with your friends, and spend some money to get a little ahead. Unlike Farmville and the like, however, there are no extra items for those with the extra kaching to spend. It also takes the idea that it should take time to do anything. Build a new level? You need to wait for it. Restocking items in a store? Also takes time, depending on the store and the level of produce. However, if you don't wish to wait, you can use TowerBux to speed it up. You can buy these, or perform little tasks like taking customers to a specific floor, or playing a little game of 'Where's Wally' with your citizens.
The people that move into your tower each have their own skills, and their dream job. There are five categories, Food, Service, Recreation, Retail, and Creative, and each category has many different kinds of stores, which is where the dream jobs come in. If you put a person into their dream job, the amount of time it takes to restock an item goes down, so it's preferable to put people in their dream job, or at least put them someplace they have a high skill in.
Needless to say, there is an addictive quality about this game. I've found myself coming back to it regularly all day. It's a fantastic introduction to the sim genre, and is something I've personally been waiting for for years.
Now, if only I could figure out how to consider it beaten.
.However, Tiny Tower shakes it up a little. It takes cues from social network gaming in that you can compare with your friends, and spend some money to get a little ahead. Unlike Farmville and the like, however, there are no extra items for those with the extra kaching to spend. It also takes the idea that it should take time to do anything. Build a new level? You need to wait for it. Restocking items in a store? Also takes time, depending on the store and the level of produce. However, if you don't wish to wait, you can use TowerBux to speed it up. You can buy these, or perform little tasks like taking customers to a specific floor, or playing a little game of 'Where's Wally' with your citizens.
The people that move into your tower each have their own skills, and their dream job. There are five categories, Food, Service, Recreation, Retail, and Creative, and each category has many different kinds of stores, which is where the dream jobs come in. If you put a person into their dream job, the amount of time it takes to restock an item goes down, so it's preferable to put people in their dream job, or at least put them someplace they have a high skill in.
Needless to say, there is an addictive quality about this game. I've found myself coming back to it regularly all day. It's a fantastic introduction to the sim genre, and is something I've personally been waiting for for years.
Now, if only I could figure out how to consider it beaten.
Might and Magic World of Xeen - Slow Going
I have been playing Might and Magic: World of Xeen (which is 4 & 5 combined into one long game). The clock currently stands at 2 hours, 10 minutes. Do you want to know how far I've got?
This is a map of the first town. I haven't even finished it. I keep getting lost, and once I had to start over because I somehow mixed the orientation up and the map was bleeding into itself. Moral of the story? Even in videogames, I suck at maps.
Having said this, I am quite enjoying it anyway. There's something about slowly piecing something together which is very rewarding. I am, however, playing it with the sound off. It's super-repetitive.
 |
| This is my second attempt at mapping, too. |
Having said this, I am quite enjoying it anyway. There's something about slowly piecing something together which is very rewarding. I am, however, playing it with the sound off. It's super-repetitive.
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