Bastard&#39;s Notebook

Mmm. yep- might need to go back to that one again soon....

From:

mahariel.livejournal.com

I'm getting ready to replay it again, but with an evil party, as you get some different outcomes to a few quests, and some different quests altogether.

-Victoria

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jgreywolf.livejournal.com

Rise of Nations. I really liked it. The expansion pack just came out. Play it. I actually had a hand in it. I was the "expert" they worked with for the Lakota Nations stuff :) Yay for me! I got a free game out of it - that I could have bought for $10 at the Company Store :) Still, it was fun.

If you want - Ill even let you use my copy :)

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Hmmm.... Interesting.... I may take you up on that- gonna try the demo later this week.

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yeah. Rise of Nations rules. infact... if you get goin' on it, lemme know and hit me up for an online game sometime. :D

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for platform/RPG -

sheer fun/silliness:

Ratchett & Clank 1 & 2
Jak & Daxter 1 & 2
Vexx

for adventuring style:

Dark Cloud 1 & 2
Final Fantasy X & x-2
The entire Legacy of Kain series (start at Soul Reaver 1 though, Blood Omen 1 is really not so hot)
Ico
The Mummy returns (oddly enough, a really good game)
Metal Gear Solid
.hack// - the whole series

for sports/trick type fun:

Tony Hawk Underground (my current love)

for really fun run around goodness:

Grand Theft Auto III & Vice City

AND FOR ALL YOUR GAMING NEEDS -

go to GameTown on Greenwood at the end of the block heading south from 85th, on the west side. No, really, go see Ed - he fucking rocks!!! *and* if you tell him what games you *like* he can give you some really good suggestions. Games rent for 1$/day for up to 10 days in advance (3 day minimum) and for late games they are 1.50$/day. he has a few movies. He also rents PC games. And games for a large number of other systems INCLUDING HAND HELDS!!

:D tell him Stax sent you. (I don't get anything special for it, but *you* might - Ed already treats us REALLY well... besides, he's a local business owner)

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Did the Ratchet & Clanks, loved those. Still gotta try Jak out though.

Also did the entire FF series, though personally, i couldn't stand X-2 enough to finish the thing.

That and simply loved the Soul Reaver series- have you picked up Defiance yet?

Need to get my hands on .hack//

GAME TOWN- um, no. Not after my bad experiences there picking up a pre-owned copy of Metroid Prime. nuh-uh. Much as i'd like to support a local business over the mall chains, my experience there was bad enough to turn me off from that store permanently.

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what? What happened?

did you take it back?

and of *course* we have defiance. We beat it for christmas.

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Bought a pre-owned copy of Metroid Prime. Admittedly it was damn near the MSRP, but I figued "It's an independent store. I don't mind paying more for games if I'm supporting local business to boot." I then made (admittedly) a couple of classic mistakes.

I went straight home without examining the box or the disc.

Get home. Pop the game into the 'Cube. Check out the cover (since there wasn't a manual included) and realize that not only is the cover in spanish, but it's a cheap-quality color photocopy of the spanish cover. Byt this time, of course the "cube is displaying only one thing: "DISK READ ERROR- turn off this system and consult your manual." Or words to that effect. I turn off the system, pull out the disc, and lo and behold, the game looks like it'd been thoroughly cleaned with steel wool.

Of course, I did what anyon would do next. Took the damn thing back. With my recepit. After the first ten minutes spent arguing that the was no way in hell my system could have done that level of damage to a game disc, I was fairly annoyed.

When he refused to exchange my damaged copy for a clean preowned copy (of which he had several in stock) I got a bit more pissed.

When he told me that since the game was under his "in-store warranty" and that I'd have to wait a week to get that same, utterly ruined disc back from his "repair service," I was downright outraged. Only so much damage can happen to a disc before it starts losing data in addition to just being unreadable, and I was fairly certain that game had crossed the line. So I was supposed to wait a week for a game I'd bought with the intention of playing on one of my very few days off from everything.

But, I calm down, think to myself "Ok. It's a local, independent store. Must be good. Must support. We'll, give the warranty system a try. It's only a week."

One week goes by, without a call from the stor saying the game was in. So I stopped in that afternoon. Nope, it wasn't back yet.

Week and a half. Still nothing.

Two weeks from the original purchase, he finally calls me up to tell me the disc's in. So I go in that afternoon, with the original receipt still with me.

He puts the scuzzed-out photocopy cover case on the counter for me when I come in. I open it, flip the disc over, and lo and behold- it's still just as damaged. I ask him if he's even tested it in a system to see if it'll work. He says he has. So I ask if I can real quick just to make sure. So, he hooks up a 'cube, I put in the game, and guess what- the good old "Disc read" message was back. I demand my money back, he offers to replace the game with a new copy at a $5 charge, and I simply walked out. Indy or no, I had had enough at that point.

From:

wow is that the opposite of our experiences with him.

so far the opposite it makes me wonder if we are talking about the same guy even.

when was this?

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Mph- durin the Man who came to Dinner rehearsals, so three, four months ago?

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herm
weird.

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I've got a copy of .hack:Infecton if you want to borrow it. I've been doing the nostalgia snes thing lately, so I probably won't mess with it for a little while. I've got a bunch of other titles too. I'll just have to make sure I write down that you have them, so I don't forget who I loaned stuff out to.

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Sure!

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Okay, get on IM sometime, and I'll shoot you a list. You'll probably need to come to a Rocky showing or something for me to get them to you, I haven't been making it downtown all that much lately.

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Mmph- of course, I may just buy these- considering most of 'em are down in the $16 range used, and if i like 'em, I'll want to keep them.

From:

FREEDOM FORCE! (http://www.myfreedomforce.com/index_ff2.html) seriously can't recommend this enough, a (semi)real-time strategy superhero game, that. just. plain. rocks! and now it's like... 10 bucks at joints like EBgames. (the sequel should be out later this year)

Lords of Magic (can't find an official page, but search in any gamesite and you can snag screenshots and reviews)... not a bad game, and you should be able to still find the "special edition" for about 10 bucks in your local fred myer or kmart, etc... Good strategy turnbased/realtime combo game... very involved army management and unit-trading with any of 8 playable races. good game.

Age of Mythology... RTS classic. you probably already know about it ;)

Freelancer: not a super-awesome game... but a nice fluffy spacefighter-combat game... with smuggling, and pirates, IN SPACE! :D (should be reduced in price... but still cheaper if you've got a friend at M$)

Neverwinter Nights: needs a lot of RAM... so you may not be able to play. 128 should fly, but you'll be happier with more. Still though... the closest thing to Role Playing the video-game industry has managed so far. fucking RULES! seriously.

longterm fan of the Myst games, and the Tex Murphy series (which now that i think about it, may require you to still have Win95, cause i don't think they were ever updated)... uh... i kinda dug Dungeon Siege, even if it was basically a "tracked" diablo with better graphics (and the price has dropped significantly due to a recent expansion)... used to be a huge SIMs freak... but it's the ungodly amount of expansions that really make the game there; which means more sys-reqs that you may have/care for.

and of course... when in doubt... Z-MUD is so cheap it's free! (who needs these new-fangled MMOGs and there fancy shmancy graphics... why, back in my day, it was N., S., E. or Dennis!) lol

Consol games i'm not nearly as hip on... mainly because the nature of the console, means that i can't tweak or mod the game to my little geeky heart's content... and what i do know/like is mostly related to the X-RAWKS! however;

PS2 has the FFx games and FFonline which look pretty slick, Kingdom Hearts was a pretty freakn' cool game (dude, Jack Skellington is a playable character!), the GTA games aren't bad (especially Vice City). big Tekken series fan here, loved 4 and Tag. Medal of Honor: frontline was fucking great... and it's been out long enough that it should have dropped in price, i've heard the new Peal Harbor based game is good too (if you're into FPSs)... the last Silent Hill is something i've heard nothing but praise for. there's the D&D game, the last Buffy game had Spike as a playable character, freakn' LOVED the Spider-man games (neversoft rocks!), and there's a DareDevil game using the same engine due out soon. Ninja Gaiden is hard as all fuck, but pretty cool... by the same note the last Tenchu: stealth assassin looks great, haven't played it personally, but i was fucking addicted to the last Tenchu. the LotR games look pretty, and i hear they're fun for hack&slash... but not much else. not really into racing games... so don't know what to tell ya there. Soul Caliber, rules... a lot.

for Gamecube; the Resident Evil games are pretty slick (although Outbreak, and Zero are fucking GARBAGE!), i thought Super Smash Bros. Melee was a lot of fun... Eternal Darkness is a great horror game (nearly shit myself when my insanity level made the game act like my TV had shut off... seriously, you wouldn't believe some of the obnoxious things that game does... but really cool too!) that Rogue Squadron Gamecube game had my attention briefly as a decent flight-shooter. I hear Zelda: windwaker was great... but the cell shading was something i couldn't get past. Metroid, of course. the TMNT game for the gamecube has Casey Jones as a playable character, but overall... it's a cheesy button-smasher, so that may not float your boat. Game Cube's Soul Caliber has Link... and that's just plain rad.

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Dude, check out his system stats. There's no way in hell he's going to get any playablity whatsoever with pretty much any of the games you listed for PC.

On that note, he really should let me hook him up on the computin' side, yo. If there's one thing I know, it's how to stretch a dollar on computer hardware.

From:

Hrm... I did miss that he didn't have a 3Dcard of *any* kind.

Course, on that note... you don't need something good to play most of this... you can snag a crappy-but-functional card for less than the cost of most of these games.

Then it's just a matter of having the available drive space... might run slow... but most of'em will probably run (except NWN... but, hell that's a game worth getting a new computer for. Heh)

From:

That of course, assumes I have a dollar to stretch in the first place.

From:

izzbot.livejournal.com

I'd give you some suggestions, but I've been too busy playing Final Fantasy Online nowadays. :P

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Grrr.

No fair, I've been wanting to hit that game for a while now. Especially not fair since I'm stuck paying about the same exorbitant amount either way to get one of my systems up to spec to run that game.Well, maybe a little less to upgrade the PC, since I wouldn't have to deal with getting a seperate broadband connection for that. (When your house is using a wireless networrk, it sometimes sucks to be a mostly-console gamer.)

From:

izzbot.livejournal.com

From what it looks like, your computer shoould be able to run FFXI easily, as long as you have a decent video card. If you're right about the stats listed above, your computer's faster than the one my roommate plays on.

I'll find the benchmark site for the game once I get home. You can see if your system is up to snuff there.

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Like it says above though- No 3d card- just software rendering. Ergo, no FFXI for me.

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If you actually want to talk and interact with people, I'd probably suggest the PC version. Hard to talk to people with any speed without a keyboard.

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doesn't the PS2 version use voice-recognition software with the headset?

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1. Not "compatible" with the Sony headset.
2. No voice chat.
3. I'm not sure about the voice-recognition, but there doesn't seem to be ANYONE talking about it, and it would be a huge selling point if it existed.
4. That's ANOTHER $40 added on to a game that you're already shelling $100 for the PS2 version ($140 if you don't have a broadband adapter)

All in all, I'd rather buy the PC version, as I already have a hard drive, network connection, keyboard, headset, and all the other stuff. Paying that much money to play ONE game is way too much, even if it is a Square title.

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i agree... the fact that you have to buy a hard-drive for the stupid PS2 is dumb... (why not just call it the PS2-box and be done with it.

Like i said in a previous post... i'm largely unfamiliar with PS2/Gamecube stuff... and have only played various games using other people's consoles... (and a MOG on a consol, apart from disliking MOGs in a general way, seems... ridiculous). So i was going on the assumption that there had to be headset/voice-rec involved to play the thing... cause... how the hell do you type with a PS2 controller? this baffles me.

FF is cool... but i agree... it ain't that cool.

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Well, they've got a menu-driven chat system, which also translates "common phrases" in to native languages, (which is probably what you mistook for the voice recognition), so it's not terrible. However, it's not ideal, especially for the price. If they wanted a hard drive, (and they had been planning for that expansion when they designed the damn thing), they should have just included it to begin with so all the developers would use it. Now you've got a niche add-on that probably only 1/100th of the developers will actually use, and that's not cost effective.

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