Post here when you beat a game. I mean it!

[Brad Gallaway]

Just finished LostWinds on Wii... knocked it out in about 2 hours or so. Pretty good stuff.. maybe i'll bang out a review.

[Brad Gallaway]

Finished Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness tonight.

Not too bad, really. It needed some polish in a few areas, but the core of what's there is pretty good. Jerry Holkins' writing is as comedically idiosyncratic as ever, and Mike Krahulik's signature artwork permeates the entire experience.

a pretty good game on its own despite being rough in spots, and even better if you're a PA fan.

i put in a line to the PA guys to see if they'd be up for a postmortem, hopefully they'll be up for it.

[Brad Gallaway]

Finished FFCC: My Life as a King yesterday.

Pretty good for a $10 download... it felt almost like a full-scale game from the GameCube era. Simple but with enough complexity to keep my interest up, the graphics were decent enough and the sim angle was appreciated.

it started to drag *a little* at the end when I was leveling up to defeat the last boss (or rather, ordering my adventurers to go level up) and I have to admit, i was a little disappointed there wasn't any cutscene of my subjects toppling the evil overlord.

i guess the downside of being a king is that you miss out on anything outside the castle walls. hearing the last boss was defeated while i was talking to shopkeepers lacked some of the gusto you'd expect from the usual endgame scenarios.

there's a pretty substantial amount of add-ons for the game already, i may try some of them out later on. anyway, definitely worth the money.

another win for WiiWare.

[Brad Gallaway]

Ok, this is getting a little silly. i'm sure *someone* on these boards must have finished something recently.

anyway, i just finished Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3 today.

I'm going to dash out a quicke for it, but thumbs up... it's probably the best thing Backbone's ever done. pretty enjoyable for the most part.

[shun]

I've finished something recently, all right. I just didn't think it was worth posting since both games are old and I've already finished them more than ten years ago. I just replayed and re-finished them yesterday, that's all.

Anyway, Donkey Kong Country 2 and Donkey Kong Country 3. DKC2 is much much better than 3 and, as a sequel, it was more than inspired. DKC3, on the other hand, feels lazy, and is too easy.

Still, I've managed to unlock the Lost World of DKC3 this time, which is something I've never done before. Disappointingly, though, DKC2's Lost World is more challenging.

[jdingo]

Originally Posted by Brad Gallaway

Ok, this is getting a little silly. i'm sure *someone* on these boards must have finished something recently.

Brad, are you playing these games on "Easy"?

Are you unemployed?

How is it that you can knock over so many games in quick succession?

It took me weeks to finish Shining in the Darkness (VC), and Super Metroid (VC); and months to finish Metroid Prime 2. I've been playing Phantasy Star (SMS emulated on PS2) for weeks. It took me almost two months to finished Condemned: Criminal Origins, (although I played it only 8 times in that period).

So what's your secret?

- jdingo

[Brad Gallaway]

Ha, no secret... I just like playing games, I guess.

As for the last few, Persona 3 + FES took me 100 hours, so that was a pretty sizable time investment.

Jericho was a pretty quick actioner, 8 hours or something like that.

LostWinds can be finished in 3 hours, Penny Arcade is around 6, MLAAK was about 6-ish, and Commando 3 can be polished off in 45 minutes or so, if you're playing alone.

I just happened to have a string of shorties lately, but on average i get in at least 3 or 4 hours a day, maybe more. that's on top of working, and writing.

i dunno... i'm efficient, i guess?

[jdingo]

Originally Posted by Kin Korn Karn

Keep it spoiler-free. If you want to discuss details of a game then mark it CLEARLY, please.

For the second time in my life, I just finished Phantasy Star for the Sega Master System.

The first time was about 18 years ago, in 1990 or thereabouts, with a Power Base Converter sitting on top of my Sega Mega Drive.

Today I finished the emulated version available on the Japan-only PS2 title "Phantasy Star Complete Collection".

After investing so many hours (and 13 days) in this game, it was a huge satisfaction to see the end credits appearing on-screen.

Favorite lines:

• It's not possible to pass through ant lion on foot.
• This is a first food shop.
• Alis is not need to be healed.

- jdingo

[Kin Korn Karn]

Originally Posted by jdingo

Favorite lines:

• It's not possible to pass through ant lion on foot.
• This is a first food shop.
• Alis is not need to be healed.

- jdingo

Those are good. I always liked "Of course! Sega games are best."

PS1 is indeed a great game, still in my top 10 all time favs.

[Brad Gallaway]

Just finished MGS4, finally... i'll reserve my comments on it for the spoiler thread and my upcoming writeup.

finally finished Switchball on the 360, also. not a bad game except that there are like, 3 or 4 levels where the difficulty is skewed to f'ing hell. i liked it for the most part, though. definitely worth the price of download.

[Harry Caul]

Tomb Raider Anniversary

Damn what a fun game.

I really liked Legend, but looking back on it now, having played this much more atmospheric and stylish game, it does pale.

[Zanbatou]

I just finished Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. I found it recently for five dollars, and figured I'd get it to remind myself how much I hated the Metal Gear series.

And then I was shocked when I kindof loved it. The gameplay was varied and fun, and it offered a surprising amount of freedom. The boss battles were at least interesting, and one in particular (The End) was amazing. And the cutscenes, though they never really added much, were never unbearably long.

I'm really not sure what happened. I hated part 2. I hated it so much that I became convinced that my love for the first game must have been misplaced (I was young, it was new and different). But now I'm thinking part two was just really bad. Or at least, not at all for me.

[Brad Gallaway]

Finished Draglade for the DS.

i'm not sure if this game is based off of some license or what, but for a random DS game, it was pretty high-quality for the most part.

the animation was surprising... shocking, even, and the combat engine is pretty robust.

it seems clearly aimed at a younger crowd, but i found it to be mostly satisfying. if they chopped out the story bits and just made it a fighter, it'd be pretty awesome.

[Reharl]

Originally Posted by Boy

Bad Mojo on the PC. A great game, but it really shines when there are no cutscenes playing and you can pretend there isn't a plot.

It's not that the plot was especially bad (though it wasn't good), but that the plot was kind of tongue-in-cheek silly, while the bulk of the gameplay had an almost Silent Hill feel. There was a big disconnect there.

Just thought I'd bump this because I finished Bad Mojo Redux for the PC as well and can agree with most of these sentiments. It wasn't that the plot was exactly silly; ghost stories are usually this absurd, illogical and challenging to any suspension of disbelief. However, the FMV cutscenes were awkward and wooden, turning what could have been a self-contained tale about tragedy and starting over one's life into a grotesque caricature of two blundering idiots who were too daft to notice the obvious bonding signs right in front of them. The final cutscene is excruciating in this regard, not to mention insulting to the player's intelligence.

A double shame, perhaps, because the way certain narrative elements are revealed during gameplay is nothing short of elegant. You can climb into chests and read old correspondence, crawl along a desk and examine an important character's death certificate, inspect newspaper cut-outs that lay out an entire lifetime or chronicle the decay and bankruptcy of the waterfront diner in which the game takes place. A considerable amount of attention was poured over these details, and by the end of the game there is an undeniable sense of painful humanity behind some of the characters' bleak lives.

Bad Mojo oozes originality and sports an appealing spin on the adventure genre. It's simple to control (WASD is all you need), it doesn't force you to manage a bulky inventory or crack difficult puzzles while making witty jokes. It merely asks for some patience, making your own exploration carve the way for any problem-solving you may happen to stumble upon along your path (I do admit becoming stuck on the circuit board puzzle though). At first, I resented the relative difficulty involved in getting a good view of the several playing areas, but then promptly awarded this light frustration to the game's credit in making me feel like a minuscule and worthless roach. The various rooms are quite large and intricate with visual details, which makes traversing them a constantly unexpected adventure. You can only see a few tiles in front of you at any given time (unless you find ways to climb to vantage points and scope out your surroundings). There is no telling what hides on the next screen.

Of course, making it run under XP is hell. Had to end up getting a Quicktime alternative just so I could watch the videos. In the end, I was extremely happy to rediscover this gem; screenshots and trailers of the then realistic gameplay used to flash on a local games show in TV, and the iconic sequence with the moribund bloody mouse became one of those gaming memories one can't quite trace to a specific game until it suddenly pops out of nowhere.

Not to be missed.

Next up, perhaps the Orange Box.

[Reharl]

Finished Portal. I have a hard time remembering the last time I played a game with such childish glee. This game is just playful. The humour is delightful, shrewd and fresh. It's a puzzle game at heart, and yet one of those experiences that never feels constricted by the mechanical limits to the interaction dictated by your own imagination and a very simple and effective set of portal rules.

Yes, I know I am extremely late to the party as usual. But Portal is a wonderful little gem, and without question my favourite Valve game (with a thankful nod to the talented developers of Digipen).