This Week In Imports: Ni No Kuni Goes Gold

Yes good old [http://disqus.com/Lee_Eni/]  We talk a lot on twitter, I practically begged him to bring a camera to Comic-Con so I can see some of the stuff too. lol He took a lot of pictures and I have to say the Bandai show had an awesome display so many figures and models of classic robot animes. Oh and talking about Swag they were givin’ out giant foam Layton hats at Comic-Con (another thing to be jealous of XD).

I was just watchin’ the videos they were putting up here on this site for Skyward Sword but I stopped halfway through since they kept getting more spoilerly. lol Still keep up with all the Nintendo Commercials on their youtube channel though since lately their commercials have been lots of fun. Would you believe me if I told you that Robin Williams and his wife at the time were such big Zelda fans that they actually named their daughter after the series. There’s some cool parents for you. ^_^

Panzar Dragoon on the Xbox is another great game we played back then. It’s the only one I played though, the Saturn game is one of my holly grails of gaming right up there with Suikoden II. I search the Flea Markets like a fiend for those games but to no avail still. Shenmue on the Xbox was how I got introduced to the series and Jet Set Radio got me into that series too. I did manage to go out and get their prior games on the Dreamcast thankfully.

Speaking of Xbox do you remember MechAssault? Everyone had MechAssault back in the day they gave the game away for pretty much everything. Bought a controller: here’s a copy of MechAssault. Bought an Xbox console: here’s your copy of MechAssault. Bought an issue of XBox magazine here’s a copy of MechAssault, bought XBox live here’s an added bonus you guess it MechAssault. XD lol We must of had like 5 or 6 copies of that game. We started to give them away as gifts. lol I use to love that game for some reason when I was younger. Now I can barely remember the game play. Oh yeah I also loved Crimson Skies that was another classic. Oh and Fable 1, I liked Fable 1 a lot when I was younger then I got into Elder Scrolls. lol Now I feel nostalgic for the original Xbox.

Aoshi you sir are a shopping master thanks for the heads Up. :)

Never really liked the Halo games after the first one, due to some annoying level design.

To put it mildly, all the games after the first one are geared toward a long-range experience. While it’s possible to clear the games with weapons like the machine guns and needle guns, the levels are designed so that you’ll almost always find yourself in big areas that are much longer than larger, effectively rendering them “corridors” where advancing toward the enemy is too dangerous a choice. If playing on Legendary, you’ll run out of bullets often, forcing you to try and rush the enemy, leading to many a death. It’s made even worse by the fact that enemy numbers have been made higher, probably due to the assumption that your rechargeable health makes you stronger than before.

The only solution to this is to only carry long-range weapons (pistols, rifles), but those might eventually run out of bullets. So you have to get incredibly good at aiming machine guns from a distance… and in Reach, where Elites have once again rechargeable shields, it’s not a solution: either rush, or suffer eternally in a trench.

The first Halo is the only one where the design is either pretty small (like in most shooters, for example Half-Life) so that you can engage the enemy in close combat, or big and large enough that you can take a round-about path to them. Either way, your machine gun weapons are not useless. Almost all the weapons in Halo have some use. Can’t say the same about the sequels, not even Reach or ODST, which were supposed to be more like the first game (hint: they really aren’t).

Halo is still one of my favorite FPS, so I guess it’s good that you’re starting with it. But if you like it, don’t be surprised if the latter games ain’t that good. I still like them, but I only consider them a bit above average.