Since this is still the week before my Beckett MOG deadlines are due, there’s very little ‘fun’ gaming that I get to do. Most of my time is spent getting organized and writing articles – but there was still some great things going on last night!
This weekend I picked up an elite XBox 360 bundle for $300, on sale (woot) 120g with GTA4 (which I will never personally play, but I can trade it in) and I also picked up Fable II and The Last Remnant. I’m working my way through Fable II right now and I’m having a BLAST with it. Keeping in mind that I’ve never really been a console gamer, so controls are still a little clunky for me – it’s been amazing fun to explore and the added bonus of having the dog companion (I know, I shouldn’t grow too attached to the little mutt unless I’m willing to fork out some cash) has been a fantastic experience. I thought I would miss the ‘MMO’ portion of playing an RPG (since I mainly play MMOs exclusively) but so far I haven’t. I also have to admit that it is a HUGE nice thing to be able to play a FEMALE avatar. Now, I realize how difficult it may be to program a game for both male and female avatars, and I realize it’s a game and it shouldn’t matter to me who I am playing but for a personal preference of mine I will be FAR more inclined to play a game where I can be female then one where I can not. Call me strange, but that’s just the way I am.
Anyhow, when I wasn’t glued to the Xbox playing Fable II I was in EQ2. Hamal, Ultann, and Calreth spent their time questing away and they’ve been working on the chapter updates. I’ve mainly been hanging out on the other server, working up my illusionist – although yesterday I played the troubador for a Place of the Ancient One raid.
The troubador is poorly geared. We’re talking not-even-T1 gear. She was never really a raid character of mine, and while she does have her fabled epic and a few steps into her mythical, it was never a character I had planned to take anywhere. Of course the first named in the zone dropped a troub / dirge / shadowknight / paladin charm with some pretty nice stats, and it was a HUGE upgrade over the Everfrost charm I was using, being the only poor geared bard on the raid it was given to me (thank you!) and I was thankful for it.
I was asked to bow out for the Anashti Sul fight, since there was no way I’d be able to survive through it any how I had absolutely no issues with that. I went back to Fable II for a little while before finally calling it a night and getting some much needed sleep. Before the palace raid we did a quick Emerald Halls run for fun (the zone is so huge it’s not really that much fun!) which I also managed to get a lot of achievement from (the main reason we were there). All in all, it was a good day, and aside from the insane humidity here today, I’m looking forward to what the new day holds!
Happy gaming, and I’ll see you in Norrath!
Yay! I received Fable 2 as a Christmas gift last year and spent a solid week playing nothing else. I think it is a great example of real “role playing” in a console game. The Last Remnant is a game very near and dear to my heart as well. It is gorgeous, but it has a steep learning curve. For example, if you just run out and fight stuff willy nilly, you will raise your battle rank, but gain very little in the way of stat boosts from fighting. Battle Rank doesn’t do much for you. Stats do. So the idea is that you want to always try to fight things that are difficult for you. This will slowly raise your battle rank, but you will gain tons of stat boosts per fight. I suppose in this regard it is like an MMO. You gain little to nothing from fighting things that you can steamroll.
Anyway, despite the steep learning curve, the game allowing you to shoot yourself in the foot, and the graphical hitches, I LOVE The Last Remnant. In order to mitigate the graphics loading issues and pop-in, I suggest installing the game to the xbox hard drive. You will still need the physical media to play, but textures and other graphic assets will load off the hard disk much faster.
If you need any help in Fable II or just want a friend hang with, feel free to send me a friend request (This also goes for anyone reading this blog as well). I am cacophonic7 on xbox live.
I don’t like ganster movies, Sopranos, or anything of the sort – which is why I won’t be playing. :) It’s just simply not my genre. Nothing against the game at all!
No GTA4? How come? It’s not like you’re forced to beat hookers — and that was in GTA3 anyway, not 4 — and whatever. It’s basically just playing through a gangster movie. Violence and language in the (skippable) cinematics but nothing we haven’t heard in a typical gangster movie or Sopranos episode. Like Fable2, it has a lot of features (especially the AI of the citizens, for me) that I’d like to see implemented and improved upon in MMOs.