My Burnout Paradise

(tags game, Xbox 360, racing, Burnout)

This has been the best video gaming I've had in a while. 51 hours of pure driving mayhem. According to the stats, I averaged 76 MPH.

I got 100% at the 45 hour mark, but the offline Xbox 360 Achievements were left. 100% Power Parking wasn't so hard. I finally cleared the Million Dollar Stunt Run and the 20x Boost Chain, w00t. Both took a number of tries.

Stunt run is fun, well, at least when you land the jumps and the points are awarded. But the latter achievement was aggravating. Except that on the run that I got the award, I hit the zone and set the 37 Burnouts. I tried a number of things like the Oncoming on I-88 and taking my foot off the accelerator and tapping the brake but I finally settled on boosting starting from the Naval Port going towards Lone Stallion Ranch. It helped that I had the worst boosting car as well. putt putt puttering through Paradise City.

Other things of note: I can't remember where I got my 457 yards of drift, but perhaps it was at the basketball courts spinning my wheels. I want to know where I got my longest non-cheating drift, but that record is long past.

I don't really feel like playing multi-player online.

So after I was done I was checking the forums and Gamefaqs to see if I could some more cars through inputting sponsor codes. I have the Asia version and there wasn't anything published, so no new cars for me. I read upon on other peoples stunts and I was surprised by the 60+ stunt multipliers, the tens of millions Showtimes, 6x barrel rolls. Amazing.

Finally, I read a comment where another game with free roam like Burnout Paradise was Need for Speed: Most Wanted. I bought that game for 1000 yen new, so I tried out that game today and it feels like a PS2 port. So slow. What is this, 30 fps? Is it fair I'm comparing a 2005 game to a 2008 game? The drama scenes are laughable. I keep wanting to change the language to English, because lip-sync or lack thereof makes it so laughable. I should play this after playing something slow and different.

Oh well, I wish it wasn't over. I even free roamed the city just taking in the sights again. I am definately going to try out BP again when they update it for motorcycles.

Hello Xbox 360, jealous of my Game Boy Micro?

(tags Idolmaster, purchase, Xbox 360, demo, Burnout, racing, RPG, Final Fantasy)

Well I have to turn on my Xbox 360 today, because I have to buy this month's sale DLC in Idolm@ster. Bye bye 2800 points. Yeah, "Japan Downloads Idolm@ster Content Big Time" (thanks Kotaku). It doesn't seem like there's any announcement for the next catalog or sale. It's time to concentrate on Live 4 U.

Yesterday, I finally checked out the Burnout Paradise demo. I want this game. It looks pretty cool and I can really dig into the stunts. With a city this big and seamless, it would be a shame to not have any taxi mini game. But no Burnout to date has any images of people, so it doesn't make sense. Some parts of it remind me of driving around Los Angeles, like the big white Paradise sign and the beach area. Oh yeah, the announcer is in Japanese, except for the part where he says "right here, on Crash FM". It sounds okay, but wierd. Japanese radio announcers are so cool, they speak perfect intonation (American) English while shredding it up in Japanese. I wanna be like that.

I bet you Xbox 360 owners have downloaded your Undertow for free right? It's an apology gift. (Game Watch: マイクロソフト、Xbox LIVE アーケードで「Undertow」を期間限定で無償提供 )

And I am still playing Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. It's not hard, it's just a easy treadmill of leveling up and acquiring spells/skills through combat points (AP?). 43 hours, probably most of it in bed before I go to sleep.

Putting off new game purchases? Mario & Luigi and Wipeout Pure

(tags game, Dual Screen, RPG, PlayStation Portable, racing)

On Thursday and Friday, I tried to see if that PlayStation Portable game Suzumiya Haruhi no Yakusoku (涼宮ハルヒの約束) was up for purchase, but it looks like it totally sold out at all the stores I know. And the inevitable Yahoo Auctions (search phrase:「涼宮ハルヒの約束」) shows a seller's frenzy. I'm not really in the mood for a text adventure which is why I didn't bother to pre-order, but the completist in me is saying that my DVD set needs a companion. (The voices, I hear them.)

I am still trying to put off game purchasing by playing games I have. Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time is still slow going because of my need to collect everything. It's... slow. But at least it should be more rewarding that trying to play Final Fantasy Tactics (GBA) or Final Fantasy 1 (PSP). Both of those just sounds like work to me.

And I woke up yesterday, playing WipeOut Pure. I haven't even gold-award cleared the Venom single races (Venom is the second step of five difficulty levels) so I spent some time on it. Sometimes it feels slow but that's only because I am trading paint with the walls. Still it feels pretty smooth when I don't.

My mom said yes to Peggle on the iPod, but I think I'll purchase it when I go back to work early next month. That is, if I don't want to play Rubik's Cube on the bus, which is unlikely.

Unstack: Gradius Portable, Loco Roco, Street Fighter Alpha

(tags game, PlayStation Portable, shmup, PlayStation 2, fighting, Xbox 360, racing)

I'm reinforcing the "no" to Patapon by unearthing my stacked games. First off, though, I forgot where I put the PSP stuff so it took much effort. I decided to try out Gradius Portable before getting serious with Loco Roco. I've never played Gradius 1-4 or Gaiden enough to remember what they are. I was hoping that the game I know as Life Force (also known as Salamander) was on it but this is a different series.

So I tried out 2 and 4. Ouch, don't get hit. PSP D-pad sucks, no I suck. What!? Who is selecting my ship upgrade path? Oh "semiauto" setting. Wait, didn't I see this flaming ball stage somewhere before? Uh, that's what I get for jumping in to the series at Gradius V. I cleared some stages but no game clear. 4 seems to be a little easier than 2. I was credit feeding though, because "you (I) need more practice".

Now that I think about it, I haven't seen those Moai heads yet. Isn't this Moai head/halo bullet game(s)?

Then I hooked up my PlayStation 2 to some power to play Street Fighter Alpha. Oh, this looks great! I have one of those clamshell monitors for the PS2 with the widescreen aspect ratio. Wide makes it feel like the arcade, but too bad the screen is only 7 inches diagonal. But the best part is that there seems to be no loading times, apart from the game selection screen. Thank you Capcom, thank you. I'm going to have to track down the other Street Fighter for PS2 games like 3 Third Strike and Hyper-Fighting. I would really like to see X-Men: Children of The Atom with no load times, though.

SFA 1 (also known as Street Fighter Zero) must be my favorite Street Fighter, because Guy has those fun moves and they do meaningful damage. Ah, this Logicool pad is servicable but unsatisfying. I need a 6 button D-pad or I need to break out my HRAP (Hori Real Action Pro arcade stick). Laziness wins out.

Though I like SFA 1, credit feeding against Vega (M. Bison) got tedious. "Psycho Crusher"... "nurui wa" I played some SFA 3 but I'm not familiar with it at all. There was a "Dramatic Battle" option which I tried for the first time today. Oh, 2 on 1 huh, not much of a fair fight but die die die Vega. :-)

And as far as Xbox is concerned, there was some Burnout news eariler this month but since my region is Japan I couldn't download the new demo. Bah, I wasn't in a racing mood anyway. PGR 4 for 3000 yen? "No".

Idolm@ster DLC sale 2 ends tomorrow though. Grudgingly "yes". :-/

Finish the fight? Halo 2 and Burnout: Revenge

(tags game, Xbox, FPS, racing)

All last week I've been finishing up Halo 2 single-player campaign. I forgot how or why my Xbox is connected, but I think its because its been a long time since I played a game on this LCD monitor. In any case, I finished it on Heroic difficulty which makes it really slow. I tried the first level on Legendary but I can't make any progress on the first level, even after two hours of work. Still this game is fun on Heroic.

I also dug out my old copy of Burnout: Revenge. I forgot why I stopped playing this one but I think its because I don't like any of the tracks. The old Xbox says that its been since 2005/12/11 since I've played the game. Wow. Now on my 19 inch LCD it looks great. I really love the feel of speed and the vibration. (I tried MotorStorm PS3 on Friday and it was visually appealing but my hands were literally unmoved).