Via 1UP, we learn that the highly-respected Famitsu magazine has given up a review for The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. The regularly relentless reviews by the team, there, rarely praises games for their excellence. However, this time, a near-perfect score of 39/40 was given. It’s no Nintendogs, which, of course, managed to score perfectly.
The sequel to Wind Waker comes out this weekend in Japan and sometime this fall in Europe and North America.
The epic story of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker continues as Link finds himself lost and alone in unknown seas in a new adventure. Featuring intuitive touch-screen controls and innovative puzzles, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass offers new challenges for fans of the series and an easy-to-grasp introduction for gamers new to The legend of Zelda. But time grows short, and only the Phantom Hourglass can buy Link the minutes he’ll need to survive.
Over on Wired, Clive Thompson explores the ever-increasing phenomenon of voice chat in on-line games. After all, for games that don’t have it built in, such as WoW, it’s almost necessary to use it when joining a guild.
Yet, somehow it changes how people act or speak. An interesting commentary on the state of gaming. Me, I think it’s a great thing to have, but then again, I don’t have a squeaky 11-year-old voice …
I’m a little behind on this, but now I’m even more stoked about the North American release of Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.
Many people bashed the cel-shaded styling of Wind Waker, but I was quite a big fan. Needless to say, I’ll be picking this up as soon as it hits English release. Heck, I might even have to pick it up here in Japan and try desperately to figure out what the text says.
It’s pretty sad when my work desktop computer is better for gaming than my own home PC. I can rock out some of the newer, as in the last couple of years, games but nothing new. I do want to upgrade, but it’s just not happening any time soon. Perhaps a MacBook Pro with Bootcamp and XP would be best … Any suggestions?
Over the past year or so, I’ve been playing World of Warcraft. It’s a fun game, really. I played a character all the way to the current max level of 60 and joined a guild that does regular end-game raids. This is the story of the last few months of that life.
These are 40-person dungeon crawls over the so-called most difficult stuff the game devs throw down. Basically it’s a bunch of really nerdy guys sitting at 40 computers in 40 different places beating up extremely large bosses. Over and over and over again. Why over and over again? Well, the challenge isn’t over-coming the obstacle of the boss. No. After we’d mastered the technique neccessary to do so with ease, the whole idea is to garner the Phat Loots!! from the boss.
See, each of these bosses drops 2-3 fairly rare game items every time it’s defeated. However, since there’s 40 people of different class types, it doesn’t distribute out very quickly. And it’s not as if each of those 40 people are always there, nor is it the case that only 1 item is sufficient. No, no. These items are part of a set! So, over and over we must travel into the depths of these dungeons to fight evil and all that crap. I haven’t reached the “goal” of getting all of my set pieces. Oh, I should also mention, there’s, so far, 3 different sets, now, for every one of the 8 classes. Complicated loot distribution rules become normal to understand. After awhile it all becomes a blur of colours and button pushing and (at least!) laughing at jokes on the voice comm.
Oh, yes, I wore a headset to play. After all, it’s really hard to button mash and type to 40 people. Communication is key, people. Uber-nerd-dom… very uber-nerd. Anyway …
So, now I’m left with some cool UBER PHAT LOOTS, but not ‘all of it’ for my game character. I’ve grown weary of the same thing over and over again and trying to find creative ways to make in-game money to pay for item repairs and consumable items and all that. I’ve grown tired of the bickering of people who don’t get to go, who don’t get the item they want, fuck, just the general bickering of socially mal-adjusted teenagers and emo-20-somethings. I mean, get a life! I decided when the heat was on at work that maybe, just maybe I didn’t want to go home to a 4-hour raid every night just to have the chance at that new fucking dagger or helmet. No, I had enough stress at work, why would I want to add to it? So, I just stopped playing. Then I went on vacation. I didn’t play then either.
Then a month or so ago, one of my friends that I had made during this time while playing, who also was feeling rather disillusioned with the whole raiding thing, decided to start a new character on another server, from scratch. You know, to relive the old days, pre-raid. It’s fun. Doing the standard RPG questing. Wander around, do this, do that, kill a rat, kill a dog. Whatever. Collect 10 of these things, find my lost slipper. Silly, pointless, yet fun things. Great! Something new to do. Not the same endless boss fight.
And here we are today. I loved playing WoW, but I think it’s time to hang up my daggers and take my own advice and, “get a life”, again. I’m just not even seeing the point in playing this new character that is quite fun, but in the end, where’s it going? Heading in the same direction, I think. More raids, more loots, more crap like that. And who wants to pay $15/month to just … be mindless. I gave up cable television years ago for that very same reason. So, I decided it was time to take action.
Hope you all will have a happy Halloween this year with the 12th installment of the Final Fantasty series. It’s dropping on Oct. 31 according to a release on Gamespot and press release on the Square-Enix site. If you’re interested in what it’s all about, check out the Gamespot review of the Japanese edition.
I think it’s briliant, especially in this day and age when the industry is really trying to figure out how to reach out to the fairer sex instead of staying in a niche on the testosterone side of the fence.
Game Revolution has posted up what they consider to be the top 50 worst video game names of all time. The bottom 10 or so are a really reaching, but it’s still a funny list. Included: Yo! Noid. Which may also be one of the worst games of all time, too.
[digg]
Now, since it’s not a full-on notice from Blizzard, I’ll caveat this that it could still be rumour. I mean, after all, the “everything Blizzard will be MMO” notice was shot down (although, who knows, press spin is a funny thing). Via Kotaku, Australian Vivendi office tipped atomicmpc.com.au that starting today you can pay a $25 fee to transfer a character between your own accounts or to another realm.
Via 1UP, we learn that the highly-respected Famitsu magazine has given up a review for The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. The regularly relentless reviews by the team, there, rarely praises games for their excellence. However, this time, a near-perfect score of 39/40 was given. It’s no Nintendogs, which, of course, managed to score perfectly.
Over on Wired, Clive Thompson explores the ever-increasing phenomenon of 
Yes, you, too can download and enjoy them. 
Rakka, over at Aeropause, posted up a 
Now, since it’s not a full-on notice from Blizzard, I’ll caveat this that it could still be rumour. I mean, after all, the “everything Blizzard will be MMO” notice was shot down (although, who knows, press spin is a funny thing). Via 
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