Posted by Gary Hodges at 7:31 PM Jan 05, 2009
Note: If you're thinking of playing VC and/or haven't gotten to Chapter 7 yet, this post contains very minor SPOILERS.
As someone who's been a Sega fan since the SMS days (yes, I'm old), it's hard for me to admit I haven't really
loved a Sega game for years and years. The last Sega game I really went bananas for was Skies of Arcadia*, and that was back in 2001. Other than the little thrill of seeing Green Hill Zone in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, it's been pretty sad since then. Sega is like the god of the Old Testament or George Lucas: rather than nurture they prefer to test the faithful, inflicting plagues, boils, poverty and even
Gungans to see how devout they really are.
But then I found Valkyria Chronicles. Yummy.
While Anton was lost in Fallout 3's bleak horizon, my end of '08 and beginning of '09 has been spent playing VC. And even though I'm only about halfway through it, it's already a game I'd mention as a personal all-time favorite.
I've just come off days of trying to get through the most brutal map in the game so far, the Chapter 7 desert battle against Emperor Maximillian's ridiculous, factory-sized tank. After slipping through every battle prior with little trouble, I was stopped dead in my tracks by this one. It took me a half dozen failed attempts to finally eek out a narrow victory... but it was so pyrrhic I went ahead and reloaded anyway, just because I couldn't stomach all the (permanently) dead team members.
In shame, I finally turned to YouTube - and watched a much better player blow through the map with ease. I was dumbfounded, but also intrigued: I hadn't realized how shallow my understanding of the game was, or the number of strategies I had been totally ignorant about. Just watching the video has improved my game tenfold.
Anyway, this game is AWESOME - a must-have for any PS3 owner. And for other VCers having trouble with that sonofabitch in Chapter 7, I've linked the YouTube video.
*: Probably not coincidentally, Valkyria Chronicles came from the same crew that did Skies of Arcadia: Sega WOW, formerly AM1 and the brains behind the fucking awesome Streets of Rage and the even more fucking awesome Phantasy Star... so maybe I'm not a Sega fan at all, maybe I'm more precisely a Sega WOW fan.
Posted by Anton Gordon at 9:07 AM Jan 05, 2009
Welcome to 2009! I hope you survived New Year's Eve and found plenty of time to play games over the holiday break. I know I did, although everything I insert into a console tastes a bit stale after completing my 2008 Game of the Year, Fallout 3. I've had my say, as has Gary. Now it's your turn. Tell us your picks for the Best of 2008. Lets hear it in the comments section!
Posted by Anton Gordon at 12:24 PM Jan 01, 2009
Happy New Year, folks! Welcome to Day 2 of Joystick Division's
2008 Year in Review. One of the advantages of posting my write-up second is
that I've had a chance to read Gary's take and react to some of it. And while I
agree with Gary that 2008 was a year packed with excellent games and
interesting stories, in my mind 2008 will be more remembered for its
disappointments than its highlights. The long awaited Spore disappointed,
Sony's "system-seller" LittleBigPlanet failed to set the sales charts ablaze, a
solid sequels like Gears of War 2, Ninja Gaiden 2 and Devil May Cry 4 didn't
generate the kind of excitement that the previous games did. In late 2008, the
economic slowdown came to the supposedly recession-proof gaming industry in a
big way, with layoffs and studio closings being announced left and right. That
being said, 2008 did deliver a huge number of strong games, including polished
sequels and promising new franchises. Hit the jump to read my picks for my Year
in Review Awards!
Read more "Anton's Best in..." >>
Posted by Gary Hodges at 7:48 PM Dec 31, 2008
I can't speak for Anton, but
I know I've slaved and agonized over my Best of 2008 picks for weeks now, and
settled on a few of my choices only minutes before I clicked "Publish". While
I'm not sure I want to declare 2008 the BEST YEAR IN GAMING EVAR!!! or anything, we certainly did have an embarrassment of riches, with many, many
titles deserving of a mention.
I don't pretend to be an
authority on this sort of thing, and certainly not the final word (part of why
Anton and I have filed our lists separately rather than try and synchronize our
picks, or even our categories) - so I genuinely look forward to your thoughts
on my picks, and hope you share all your own (whether by the comment section or
e-mail)!
One last note: some categories
you might be interested in won't be here - for example, I didn't name a Best Sports Game. If there are voids like that, it's because I simply didn't play
enough games to make a declaration... sorry!
Click on through for my picks
for the Best in Gaming in 2008!
Read more "Gary's Best in Gaming..." >>
Posted by Gary Hodges at 10:24 PM Dec 30, 2008
Anton's and my Best of 2008 coverage is coming soon - tomorrow in fact.
You have been warned.
~gwh
Posted by Anton Gordon at 3:48 PM Dec 22, 2008
The end of the year is nearly upon us, and I am (as always) far, far behind in my gaming. The other day Gary ran down the list of games in his backlog*, now here's mine:
Prince of Persia
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3
EndWar
Shaun White Snowboarding
Left 4 Dead
Will I get to them all? Probably not. I've got a good chunk of time off over the holidays though, so you can be sure I'll try my best to get through them all in time for Best of 2008 coverage. It's all about sacrifice.
*Photo does not represent my actual backlog. I don't play Wii games. Ha!
Posted by Anton Gordon at 3:26 PM Dec 19, 2008
After reporting a little good news about the birth of a new studio and a possible Crackdown sequel, it's time once again to get back to bad news. Industry giant Electronic Arts is once again
cutting jobs, bringing its cuts up to 10% of its workforce, or about 1,000 jobs. Nine studios are scheduled to be shuttered, although the only one mentioned by name is EA Black Box. The Skate/Need For Speed studio is being consolidated with another EA team in Canada, so the Black Box name is likely to stay attached to those franchises.
On the other end of the spectrum, small publisher Aspyr also cut jobs yesterday. The company is best known for Mac ports of popular franchises like Call of Duty and Guitar Hero, as well as the Xbox title Stubbs the Zombie. The Asypr layoff rumors claim that a dozen people were let go, although Joystick Division spoke to a source close to the company, who stated that the number was much higher - 34, to be exact.
Stupid global recession. Everybody hates you, you know.
Posted by Anton Gordon at 9:46 AM Dec 19, 2008
There's been a lot of news lately about studios shutting down lately, so its great to be reporting on a new one starting up for a change, especially one that has me this excited. It seems a group of developers from Real Time Worlds have formed their own studio, called Ruffian. Real Time Worlds, as you may remember, was the developer of the deliriously entertaining Crackdown, and Ruffian's staff includes several key members of that game's design time, including lead designer Billy Thomson.
The formation of Ruffian has been confirmed, but the really exciting part is still a rumor: Ruffian will be handling the development of
Crackdown 2. I really hope this news is true. Crackdown remains one of the most fun titles in the Xbox 360 library, and the news that Real Time Worlds moved on to other projects after Microsoft dragged its feet on a sequel was a huge disappointment. But, after the
teasing earlier this month by Microsoft, I'd say Crackdown 2 is looking like a strong possibility. Rejoice, Agent!
Posted by Gary Hodges at 3:22 PM Dec 18, 2008
Amidst questions like "Was the Secret Service
in the other fucking room or something?" and "Doesn't it look like there had to be a second shoe-er?" (
rimshot!), some people are finding...
other ways to pass the time after Bush had a pair of size 10s hurled at him in Iraq: namely, making
a Flash game of the event. You have a time limit, pick from a variety of non-deadly projectiles (e.g. a fish, an iPhone, an Elmo doll) and try to hit the leader of the free world for gold and points... er, just points actually.
Free tip from the tinfoil hat brigade: don't enter a name in the high score list. For all you know the fucking feds set up this game to see who plays it, and thus whose phone to tap and taxes to audit.
Posted by Gary Hodges at 1:07 PM Dec 18, 2008
For days, the status of my Xbox 360 repair has been stuck at "Repair in Progress" - so imagine my surprise when the UPS man showed up with a box from the Xbox Repair Center just the other day. On the down side, I didn't get my own 360 back (I didn't realize it was that fucked up); on the up side, this one is a hell of a lot quieter - huzzah!
Though I have to admit I probably prefer the 360 to the two other consoles this gen, it's not like being left with the PS3 and Wii to pass the time was so awful (though being left with a Wii alone would've been a steady diet of gaming gruel I wouldn't have weathered so gracefully). No, the real issue was my backlog, especially since much of it are titles I need to play before we can put together our upcoming Best of 2008 feature(s?).
And because a few have asked, here's the list of titles I have on the docket to play over the next week or so (and which console I'll be playing them on) - some just a little bit, others a full playthrough, but all needing to be played for one reason or another before I start making "BEST OF 2008!" declarations:
Call of Duty: World At War (360)
Fable II (360)
Farcry 2 (360)
Left 4 Dead (360)
Mirror's Edge (360)
Prince of Persia (360)
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 (PS2)
Tales of Vesperia (360)
Valkyria Chronicles (PS3)
