That’s right, Lameish had an even more insane weekend than I and thus, his Call Me Lameish feature is pushed to tomorrow.

Still, let’s focus on the positive. Riddles is playing Kirby’s Epic Yarn, I’m picking it up tonight, and Lameish has promised to have Fallout: New Vegas in his grubby little hands soon as well. Maybe he’ll even write something about it? Who knows?! Not me, that’s who.

Either way, I just wrote this post as a good excuse to bring back one of my favourite classic Ethos MS paintjobs.

What have you fuckers been playing?

Sony Holiday Preview Event

Infamous 2 -
This was the game that I was most excited to play. It was one of the few titles at the event to have a 2011 release date, so I felt lucky that it was even there. I only had 10 minutes with the game and I walked away sadly underwhelmed.

Firstly, the demo was the previously only cinematic moment when Cole needs to take down a helicopter. So the content was not new to me, except for the new old Cole. That was a small let-down.

Secondly the game seemed to run like crap. I haven’t played Infamous since just around when I bought my PS3, so I forget how that game performed, but I feel like even if it wasn’t amazing, it was definitely better than this demo.

Thirdly, it felt very claustrophobic. There was lots of impressive action all around me – people running and screaming, the environment collapsing around me, limos trying to drive away from me – but I felt like I could never see the things I wanted to. When I had to chase after said limo, I had no idea which direction I had to go in. Once I lost sight of it, I had to wait until it gave me a “mission fail” screen to try it again. Maybe I missed a mini-map or something, but I’m usually pretty adept at picking that sort of thing up.

Fourthly, I hated the melee combat. This complaint is probably the one that is most likely to carry over to the actual game, as my other complaints can be chalked up to my short time with the game, and the fact that I was playing unfinished code. The reason I didn’t like the melee was largely because of the focus on it. Cole is about his electrical powers, I don’t care about smacking things with a stick. I have Batman for that sort of combat. I especially don’t care for a slow-motion shot every third time I take out an enemy. It is overkill.

Finally, I disliked how powerful Cole was. This is something that The Broken Finger and I agree on. I loved the progression of powers in the original Infamous, and if Cole starts out with his hover move, electrical grenades, zap move, plus a massive thunder tornado, I fail to see how he can progress from there. Like I mentioned, this could be a result of playing a demo, and so all of these options might not be available to me off the top. Plus, maybe there’s a point soon after that when I lose all my powers and have to regain them all again (think: God of War). I’d be more than okay with that.

And that is, sadly, all of my thoughts on Infamous 2. I didn’t get an excited feeling to be playing Infamous again, and I didn’t find many redeeming qualities beyond being able to climb buildings faster and being able to grind along more things for quicker transportation. I’m aware how misleading demos can be, so let’s hope that that was the worst experience I’ll ever have with the game.

Jetpacks as cool as they look

I’m aware that I’m just not very good at shooters, but when I wasn’t able to look down my scopes or take cover or crouch, I failed to see the strategy involved in trying to avoid being shot by the Hellgast. But hey, if you’re into Killzone, you’ll probably love this one. You’ll definitely love the visuals. And I’m not going to lie, the jetpack was fantastic.

Gran Turismo 5 -
This is another game I tried in 3D, but with less success when compared to Killzone 3. Granted, the only GT5 units were in arcade-like car seats with gaming wheels, so the viewing angle was shit. But when I got in the non-3D unit, I loved my experience. As to be expected, the game looked brilliant, and it controlled like a dream.

That is to say that I crashed a lot.

But GT5 is the ultimate simulation racing game, so that’s to be expected. Although I really liked Forza, Gran Turismo just has its own very unique feel and I felt giddy behind the wheel again. This demo was, surprisingly, my favourite of the event.

I accept

Oh, and I played LittleBigPlanet2, but I honestly played so little, and there is so much in that game, that I truly feel like I could not define a proper difference at this point. I played a mini-game, so that was different. I’ll have to wait for a proper demo or hands-on to talk about this one.

Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs

I love this underrated series. However, the jump from 2 to 3 doesn’t seem as big as the original to the sequel was. They made so many things better with Shadows of Almia, it appears as though Guardian Signs is more of the same with the added Pichu and mini-games gimmicks. Both I could do without. Still, the games are fun, and it’s interesting strategy to decide which Pokémon to keep, and to note where you’ll be able to come back later. I also like that “S” ranking is far more difficult to obtain in “battle”, but the rewards are much bigger. I’ll discuss more in the Sunday Soapbox and potential review if I beat the game quick enough. As is, this Scatter Storming is going on long enough and I’m not even done yet!

Housekeeping

Hey! You! Guys! Yeah! You! Click the “Upcoming” tab. Notice the change? Yeah, it’s not much, but now we give little explanations and teases for the future Theme Weeks. This is to help alleviate confusion and because who doesn’t love a good pitch? We hope to add more to that page soon, including some sort of content schedule. But I’d like a higher level of consistency before going ahead with that. Also look forward to a proper TV review format in the coming days. I’d like to talk about The Office and how after 3 pretty bad seasons, it’s looking pretty excellent again. But more about that later, I’m already over a thousand words. Peace!

_e

Love this guy

Unfortunately, a full-fledged redesign isn’t in the cards yet although it is definitely on the priority list. However, that being said, we’d still like to start making a number of changes to start a new school of thought regarding Riddlethos leading up to the inevitable redesign. Riddles and I have been talking for a while about many ideas, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t ask you guys about what you’d like to see on the site. Do you like the weekly features? Organizational things you’d like changed? Don’t like Riddles’ hair? Anything is fair game, we’d love to hear from you.

So hang tight while we sort a few things out. Next week we should be back up and running, albeit with the start of some new ideas and changes. Until then, make comments in this post, and play DeathSpank! Because this would definitely be DeathSpank Week otherwise.

Although it may seem like it, it will NOT be a fortnight long theme week. Riddles and I are actually going to make a bit of an experiment with the rest of this week, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

As you all probably know, I’ve been playing Metroid: Other M all week and just recently found out that I’m allowed to review it as soon as tomorrow. That likely won’t happen. Still, I am on track to review it by when it comes out on Sunday so you can look forward to that as well. I might take advantage of the embargo lifting tomorrow, however, and write up some impressions as I’m a fair way into the game now. I’ll give you a little spoiler in that my impressions will be largely positive.

Until all this happens: HOLD YOUR HORSES!

Iced Latte Count: 2

I’m uploading it to YouTube now and I’ll post it here once it’s done and you guys can form your own opinions. Then I’ll come up with some sort of new theme week.

Oh, and I have some AMAZING Spam Comments, so expect another installment of that feature.

*Update: Forget it, I’m going to bed. I’ll post it here tomorrow, but keep your eyes peeled to the Riddlethos Youtube Channel. It’ll be up on there around 2am EST.*

Anyhoo, as most of you know, Tuesday and Wednesday are my longest, busiest days of the week, so the quickie impressions have been slow going up. But I got Puzzle Quest 2, played it, and am going to Cow’s house to record a podcast amidst other things. Stay tuned!

*Update* I’m home, sunburned, and exhausted. I’ve got my stories picked out, but the feature will go up tomorrow.

Ahhh, that's better

Anyhoo, welcome back to reality! I hope you all had as much fun as Riddles and I did during the madness of last week, but it’s also a relief to return to the regular proceedings of Riddlethos. We decided to kick things back to (our brand of) normality with a celebration of our beloved Final Fantasy franchise.

Especially considering the disappointment that FFXIII was to a lot of us, Riddles and I thought it would be a good idea to remember the good times with a series of awards given throughout the week ending with our pics for favourite Final Fantasy game (spoilers, I’m going to choose IX). And that’s also it, because Riddles and I feel so strongly and so differently about so many of the games, and it’s a oft debated series in general, we’re going to give an award from each of us in every category. There’ll be more to agree and disagree with that way. Also, for clarification’s sake, we’ll only be tackling the numbered entries in the series, but we are choosing to include X-2.

Anyway, I’ve got one fuck of a busy week ahead of me, so the unemployed Riddles is taking more of a hand in the organization and schedule, so I’ll let him preview the awards for you later today. All I know is that we’re starting things off with Best Battle System today. See you around!