One of these days Alice...

Each chapter of this game seems to try hard to break from formula, making it impossible to guess what's coming next. For example, getting the next star crystal after the train trip was easy enough but the trip itself was the challenge.

First I had to get the mob boss' daughter back, but that was easy enough, to get the train ticket. Then once on the train Mario received a note about an impending stick explosion if he did not get off the train, what followed was a long line of false leads as Mario and a wanna be detective tried to figure the mystery out. The detective first went to racial profiling and suspected the rich Bobomb family also on the train, then a gluttonous passenger, a stowaway ghost, and finally correctly suspected a famous actor on the train (who was actually the ghost who impersonated Mario before).

After the sleuthing Mario had to navigate through a unusually large train station to close a bridge preventing the train from continuing. Along the way he also got the super jump ability, which will open up more hidden areas later.

Finally on the last day of the train ride all the passengers except for Mario were kidnapped by hundreds of smoke monsters and Mario had to fight a huge gestalt smoke monster boss fight on the top of the train just before it arrived at it's destination. Once there the crystal was easy to get like I said, and Mario even picked up a green set of clothes to make him look like Luigi (who the detective mistook him for the whole time).

Peach meanwhile finds out that the bad guy's base she is trapped in is actually on the moon (you would think the 1/3 gravity would be a tip off) and that the need her in some way to release the demon held behind the 1000 ear door. Unfortunately the computer that was helping her because it was in love was formatted.

Bowser's segment was taking again from the classic 2D Mario games and was dungeon level (compleat with rotating fire bars). In the end he some hoe finds the Rawk's dressing room and proceeds to pound him.

So now Mario has to get to the moon some how to get the last crystal star and rescue Peach, I'm betting the large cannon in the snow town on the map will have somethign to do with that...

Fans of grass!

The trip to the island was a bit delayed due to Mario having to convince an old sailor bobomb to be the ship's navigator, but a letter from his late wife soon convinced him. On the way to the island the ship was taken down by a hard of evil ghost flames, as luck would have it though everyone washed up on the island safely.

After exploring the island and the ghost pirate cave (with the old bobomb as a new part member) Mario finally got the ability to turn into a paper boat, which opens up a lot of new areas for him. At the end of the cave Mario found the survivors of all the other boats that got taken down by the ghost flames, and then he went on to fight the giant skeleton ghost pirate.

After the boss fight Mario got the next star crystal, but the area was not don yet, they were all still trapped on the island and the main bad guys showed up in a battle ship. So the guy who Mario hired to take him to the island did his first brave act of the game, he convinced the ghost pirate to sail his ship out to the battle ship for one more boss fight.

After the fight the game shifted again to Peach, where this time she had to make a potion to turn invisible (the hardest part was the timing of it) to gather some intel on the bad guys. The cute thing about this segment was that the data was on a Famicom disk and even the computer displayed the disk loading animation.

Bowesr's segment wasn't as interesting though, he just got into an argument with the main bad guys and wound up blowing each other up.

Now to find the next star crystal Mario has to go back to the island and get the mob boss's daughter back so he can get a train ticket...

Yar har, fiddle di dee!

Well after starting over from m last save point I grinded till I leveled up and put the points into health this time instead of abilities, which seems to make the difference. In the end Mario and Vivian finally stomped the ghost, got the red star crystal, and joined up with the rest of the party again.

Peach meanwhile was called again by the computer, who was conflicted by wanting Peach to be happy and it's mission to help take over the world. It then gave peach a little quiz in order to leak to her the whole plan of the bad guys (to use the demon sealed in the 1000 year door to take over the world) and then let her contact Mario.

Bowser tried to fly to the sky city again in his clown copter, but it malfunctioned and stuck him in a parody of the underwater Super Mario Bros. levels.

Back with Mario, he finds out that the next star crystal is on a haunted island and makes a deal with a pirate to gain passage there. which is where I'll be going tomorrow...

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?

Continued along towards the steeple that had the guy turning people in pigs, and after navigating the relativity small building I got to the boss fight. The fight was easy enough, even after the ghost bad guy did the old trick of mirroring Mario as a shadow, and then I got the red star crystal.

I was thinking it was a rather short level, and even the end of chapter text said as much, but after that the screen just stayed on the empty room with the defeated shadow, so I pressed a button and the shadow jumped.

THAT BLOOD GHOST TURNED MARIO INTO A SHADOW AND TOOK HIS PLACE!

So now I'm stuck as shadow Mario with no helpers, and I quickly learn how to run from fights (somethign I never needed before). Soon after though I team up with the cute Shadow "bad-guy" Vivian (who I just found out has Birdo levels of gender confusion) and we set out to find the ghost's name so Mario can get his body back.

After I got the name (In a neat twist a letter in the name is missing from the name entry screen until you find out the name in game) I confronted the ghost and he ran off. Taking chase I run into a normal group of bad guys and the party is killed by a golder flower!!

The thing first absorbed about 12 hit points and then turned around and hit Mario and Vivian for 20 hit points! This was just a normal enemy encounter and it hit harder than an boss in the game so far, what the heck? So I'm back at just after getting the name and going to have to confront the ghost once again tomorrow...

Village of the hamed!

Well I beat the arena owner, it was easier than it was the first time I tried (must have been bad luck), and I got the next star crystal.

After that I tracked down the next star to a village of twilight (quite different than the one Link went to, and no sparkly vampires) which has one small problem...

People are turning into pigs!

So now mario has to navigate through this bleak dark landscape and reach a evil bell tower where some one is cursing the villager in to swine, and still find the star crystal (which is most likely being used for the transmogrification).

So far I think I'm just half way to the tower, and the bad guys are much tougher, but at least Mario has a new ablity to roll up like a tube and roll under places.

More intrigue than pro wrestling!

Went briefly back to Fable 2 to get that million dollar castle and a couple related achievements then on to paper Mario.

The arena circuit was a lot more interesting than the other ones I played in RPGs, while going up the ranks Mario had to investigate where the star crystal was. Along the way he got a new party member, a yoshi I called Metroid, received help from a mysterious X, uncovered the disappearance of former champions, and beat the Rawk for that championship. A lot more interesting than just fighting 7-12 waves of bad guy.

In the end it turned out that the owner of the pace was using the star crystal to drain the power of former champions to keep himself young and strong, and I think X is the suspicious manager.

Unfortunately I went into the final fight under prepared and the boss trounced me in a couple rounds. Tomorrow I'll restore from a save and stock up on items first.

Can you smell what the Rawk is cooking?!

This chapter took way too long and too many coins to get going.

At the start it sounded easy enough, get a blimp pass from the local mob boss, but the trick was finding him. First I looked underground with no luck and then after asking everyone I could find some one told me a guy on the far side of town might know. The guy across town said to ask the other mob boss, who was hidden between 2 buildings, and that boss charged me about 60 coins for the info.

Then I had to bu 2 items and give the password to see the mob boss, who sent me to find his wayward daughter an her fiancee. I looked all over the place, even to the town in chapter 1, with no sign of them and no one would say anything about them. Finally I tried paying the fortuneteller to get a hint on the next path, who said that the 2 were waiting to take a trip. After checking again at the blimp and train stations I found them at the very first location in the game, at the boat dock!

So after after paying the other crime boss, the shop owner, and the fortune teller I could finally get the blimp pass and start chapter 3, which is ANOTHER arena level! So far I'm on my 3rd fight, but they seem easy enough.

Puny little Puni Man!

Finished the first and second chapters today, and considering the took about 3 hours each, this is going to be a long game! I figure at least more 10 days, at about a chapter a day, longer than the past 5 games. Also, technically this is already my 2nd post about this game since I made one about the prologue chapter when I first started this blog.

In the first chapter Mario with the help of a young koopa took down a dragon that was afraid of crickets. The there was a epilogue where a computer begins to fall in love with Peach (I think after watching her shower), and Bowser gets ticked off that some one else kidnapped peach.

In the second chapter a voluminous cloud and 1 to 102 little punies kick the aliens who kidnapped Peach out of a black and whit tree. In the epilogue Peach dances with the computer (who uses a hologram of peach for an avatar), and Bowser runs trough a level like "New Super Mario Bros." only to get fooled b a poster of peach (a common mistake in a 2D world i guess).

Tomorrow I find out the location of the 3rd chapter, and more weird stuff will probably happen.

Well that's twelve down...

The ending of Fable 2 isn't what I expected, it kind of just stops... but keeps going.

I returned to the hero of skill and that triggered a sequence where we had to escape from hordes of evil guards, at the end of the chase there was a boss battle against a giant evil magic rock. It was pretty fun, but I didn't know at the time I just beat the last boss of the game.

After that there's a cut scene were the big bad kills my dog and kidnaps all the heroes then tries to kill me. Then a dream sequence with no enemies before I wake up and confront the big bad. I use the music box from the start of the game to power him down and either I or the hero of skill kills him in 1 hit. After that I got to choose if I want all the people the big bad killed back to life, or my wife(s) and dog back to life, or just a mountain of money. I chose the good of the many (after getting the achievements for the others) since I'm the big noble hero and then the other heroes bugger off.

End of main story line. No climactic end battle. No grand FMV ending. Just dead dog, dream, music box, 1 shot, then NPCs are back to life, roll illustrated credits.

At only 8 days to complete is is one of my shorter RPGs, almost half as long as KotOR and nearly 1/3 of Fallout 3, but it was fun and worth the 20$. I still have some achievements left but several need me to buy the 1 billion gold castle, so I'll let the game rack up money for a week and I'll briefly go back and get a few more.

Tomorrow it's on to Paper Mario: The Thousand-year Door.

Oh the thigns you hear in Bloodstone...

"I'd love a game of Keystone!"
"They have that game in this town."
*Vomit sounds*
"Thank you"

That may not have been the same 2 people, but I overheard it lined up like that at random.

Today I went around finishing off more side quests and tracking down more gargoyles while racking up more money and buying more places. I have just 2 more gargoyles to get left, but one of them is in a tower I have to bu for 250000 gold and I currently have about 7000. Good thing that I get money while not playing, by tomorrow I should have 75k and I'll reinvest that in more shops so I get it back even faster.

The ambiguous penguin

I think I'm getting close to the end of fable 2, things are beginning to snowball.

After doing the task for the skill hero (which took another 10 years off my life) I was told that talking to the hero again will trigger the next step right to that big bad, so I'm holding off on that a bit.

Currently I'm doing all the little side quests I have left over and also amassing a lot of gold and skills along the way. After investing m gold in a few buildings I'm getting so much interest hourly (even when not playing) that I could probably bu a few more stalls with the money I make while writing this with m 360 off.

So tomorrow will be getting more money and finishing off more quests, and I think I'll be done the game by the weekend.

Killing dead people

Started on trying to track down the skill hero, but a few hundred bad guys tried to get in my way.

After dispensing with a hoard of evil lackeys I then had to trudge through a haunted marsh filled with zombies, banshees, and a wood troll I finally got to the the town the skill hero. Before I visited him I did a couple side quests, one being very lucrative and one being pretty pointless (aside from getting me the sneaking achievement).

When I did finally found the hero he sent me on a quest back into the marsh, most likely to kill more zombies tomorow...

The world is my bivalve mollusc

So I finally got around to going off to the spire to save the hero of will, and it's a good thing that I took so long to get ready since it took 10 years to get out!

Oddly enough, those 10 years disguised as a guard in the dark evil spire didn't help to shed 1 ounce of fat from my character. I guess guards eat well (the food certainly didn't go to the prisoners).

After I got out only a few things had changed in the past 10 years. The arena is now a family tourist location, the order of light is super prosperous, and the order of shadow is in ruins.

I resumed collecting archaeological artifacts, but I kept being attacked b assassins hired by the big bad guy (I guess he didn't like that I busted out of his tower and not through a window this time). The assassins also each have a part of some map that I have no idea yet what it's for.

The stupid smelly darkness

Did quite a bit in Fabel 2 today.

Found the place in the old cit where the hero and their sister use to "live", made clear b the fact that the dog found the sister's old diary... :(

So in a odd sense of nostalgia I decided to buy the home that was on that spot and make it m main residence. Also it was a fair sight better than the gypsy caravan. In order to get it though I had to work like crazy at the local blacksmith and even went up a rank.

After I bought the house I spent way too much time gabbling, but it paid off when I went up a rank in that too. Now I could place large bids for quick large payoffs, instead of winning 20 gold on 2 gold I get 500 on 50. SO i was able to make several thousand pretty quickly.

After that I gave back to the community by freeing lots of slaves, finding old historical artifacts, and giving generously to the church of light.

Another day, another arena...

The main quests in this game are a little uneven.

First I had to go find this guy in a village I was just at, then pay 1000 gold (which is barely anything), then fight 1 troll.

Then the next quest I had to travel on foot along a bandit filled road, through a werewolf filled dungeon, to get to a massive castle where i had to take part in a 8 stage fighting contest!


At least by the end of it I had so much money from the prize winnings that I went back and bought ever caravan in the gypsy camp my character grew up in. Figure that will get me a constant income and help the community.

Not sure what will happen tomorrow in the game, I'm going to save the hero of will but everyone is talking like it's the last quest of the game. there should still be 1 more hero I haven't even found yet.

Hammer Time!

Got a bunch done in the game today.

Finished off the first part of the main quest and even got a chicken costume out of it from an on line thing. Then after doing some side quests (including getting married) I helped the biggest shrine maiden I ever saw with a quest, and then after her father was killed b the big-bad's goons she became the hero of strength for my side.

Next I went after the Hero of will, but he was abducted before I could get to him. So between working as a blacksmith and a wood cutter I'm looking for some former butler to help me find a way to stop the big-bad.

You will believe a sparrow can fly!

Started Playing Fable 2 today, just in time since I started to get Pikmin themed nightmares, but haven't gotten very far.

The first mission I did was to get 5 gold for a magic box, and it got me thinking, If the can get 5 gold in 10 minutes at random then why are the so poor? Rose says the can eat for a week with 5 gold, and even if this was a really luck day I would think the could get at least 1 gold a day doing odd jobs (people seems to give it away practically). So each week the can eat for that week and have 2 gold to spare, in a years time the would have over 100 gold saved up for a small apartment and enough experience to land a real job (doubt there are child labor laws).

Oh well, maybe the have just been on the streets for a week so far. So after getting the gold and Rose make a wish on the magic box to live in the castle. That night Rose and the hero (mute of course)are taken to the castle where the are both shot and the hero is defenestrated. Next time I'll make the wishes -_-;.

Next I woke up as an adult with full play control, and while messing with the inventor I found that people react if I run around in my skivvies. While it's a great touch that most games ignore, did they have to make it that NPCs see you as more ugly undressed? I'm going to have a hero with a self image problem!

So now, after finding 100 gold at random (those kids weren't even trying), I'm in the tomb of heroes trying to find my destiny...

Oh, and apparently you can't say "fab" in your Xbox motto. O_o

Well that's eleven down...

Alternative title would have been "Army of Pikmin: the 40th day"

I managed to get my arm of Pikmin down into the last level were Louie was and through a long battle killed the creature. Surprisingly the fight went more of less according to plan (except for losing 50 pikmin along the way). First I took off the shocking weapon since that kills pikmin instantly, then I took off the poison weapon since it's hard to avoid, then the fire weapon since it's fire, and finally took down the water weapon last since it was the east dangerous.

After rescuing Louie (or defeating him, it's hinted that he was controlling the monster) I stuffed him in the cargo hold and went off to find the remaining items. I found near the entrance a cave that was basically a boss rush map and it had one of ever kind of monster in the game. It was actually rather easy compared to Louie's level (which I think was meant to be last) but after 15 levels I went from 100 pikmin to 7 by the time I killed the final boss (at least it was the easiest boos in the game).

Finally I collected up the last remaining surface item, and oddly enough it was an acorn located at the crash site of the first Pikmin game! I then watched the end video and the stats at then end of the game listed that I played just under 32 hours and took exactly 40 days in game time.

I didn't do any of challenge missions, but I did look up the video it would have unlocked, turns out Louie's hunger was the reason the whole mess started in the first place!

Sot Tomorow it's on to Fable 2.

Louie Louie, oh no, Me gotta go

Well today I found Louie again, unfortunately he's passed out on top of giant spider thing that shoots fire, water, poison, and electric mines! Also, the thing is incredibly hard to kill since the pikmin have to rip each weapon off one at a time, and it takes 30 pikmin 10 attempts to get 1 weapon off. Oh, and did I mention it was on the 14th floor of a huge hard dungeon?!

After getting my butt kicked several times with my 30 remaining pikmin, I escaped the dungeon and I'm now halfway back with 94 pikmin to kill it tomorrow!

Should have listend to Danny Kaye and the Andrews Sisters...

After being side tracked too long trying out Civ 4, I finally got to playing some Pikmin 2 today.

I managed to finish off the tough dungeon I was in, including a ridiculous boss battle, and get out with about 20 of my original 57 Pikmin. Although by the end of the day I managed to have more than I started with!

To be continued...

I finished off the last dungeon of the first 3 areas, and only lost 14 out of 100 pikmin in the process.

Now I'm on the 1st dungeon of the new area, and it sure is a challenge. Each level is a very different set of obstacles, some I have to sneak around not to wake the monsters, other I have Olimar go off alone to clear the way, and some I have to get giant armored frogs to eat exploding rocks! Of the 57 various Pikmin I went in with I now have around 30, most of the ones that died were blue, so I'm in trouble if treasure falls into water.

So far I'm at level 7, and there is no sign that the end is near, and most dungeons had 7 or less levels, so I ma be down there a while.

Giant Spider Invasion!

Today I finally got back at that giant invisible frog and killed it good! I then went back into the cave with a larger Pikmin force and cleared it out of items. After that, I searched around the rest of the swamp area the the remaining surface items (amassing more Pikmin as I went).

So now all the items renaming in the original 3 levels are stuck in the underground complex, including the giant Gatling-gun spider monster. I'm going to go in there tomorrow with 100 pikmin and see if I can kill that thing.

Giant invisible death frog!

Been clearing out more of Pikmin 2, now up to around 14k, but I've been running to more challenges.

One boss I fought was a giant flat slug thing, and it would move too fast for ant of my pikmin to get a hold of. I then noticed that the room it was in had several entrances that were bared off, so I had Olimar behind one of the closed entrances out of reach of the slug and while it was distracted with him I had the president sneak up behind it.

One level I was greatly under prepared for was one that has this weird invisible monster with steamroller that shows up after a couple of minutes, and I only went in with 15 blue pikmin! To make things worse most of the level has water in it, so only blue pikmin can get around, and I need purple Pikmin to kill the monster!

You win! Now finish the game...

Today I payed off the 10,000$ dept and won the game, and then have the option to continue collecting items with a new area unlocked and a new quest to rescue Louie.

While most of the games on this list I just try to do as much of the side quests and main quest as I can in 1 play through, I don't go back to it once the game is done, but this is an odd case. Basically it's not a "new game plus", like could be done on mass effect or eternal darkness, I guess it's more like a direct built in sequel, like the prime trilogy, where I get to keep my old stuff. Pikmin 2.5 basically, so I'm not counting it as the game is finished yet.

Also the game is really fun so I don't mind continuing it longer.

I only briefly been to the new area, long enough to see that it's quite hard and I need at least 100 purples to lift the first object available. So I went back to the previous areas to get all the items I missed and greatly bulk the numbers on all my pikmin (which were really low by the end). It helps that now the area select screen and catalogs have spaces marked to show how man items are left to find.

I wonder if it has the batmobile...

In my defense I technically didn't buy another game... it came free with my Xbox Live subscription.

My Xbox Live subscription will run out in a few weeks, so for a while now I've been debating on if it was worth the extra 20$ to get the combo back that comes with 12 month card, the chat-pad, a headset, and Project Gotham Racing 4. Then today at walmart I saw that the had the combo pack for the same price as just the 12 month subscription, making all the extras free.

Surprisingly this isn't the first experience with the Project Gotham series, one of the only games I ever played on the original XBox was the first Project Gotham Racing. I just briefly tested the game and the kudos system is just as I remembered, and there was a lot less Christan rock!

As for Pikmin 2...
Louie: Hey Olimar, what's the reading on how much we payed off?
Olimar: It's over 9,000!

Sorry, couldn't resist.

I figured out a handy way of getting through levels now. Basically I have Olimar and scout ahead and kill any nasty monsters while Louie watches the pikmin, then when it's clear Louie takes the pikmin treasure hunting while Olimar stands by the exit. That way as few as possible pikmin are killed and as soon as the last treasure is found Olimar can leave right away.

40 to 4

Not sure if I'm getting better or worse at this game...

so far I'm over 50% paid off from the debt (unless the pull a Tom Nook ad jack it up just as I get to 10000) and have all 5 colours of Pikmin, but I keep barely scrapping by.

In one cave I went in with Omar, Louie, and 40 pikmin of various kinds, 7 levels later and I just barley completed it with Omar (at 5% health) 1 purple and 3 whites. the main thing that got me was discovering that the things that fall and count down are bombs! I even managed to kill the final boss with just 5 yellows, whom all died in the process, leaving the last 4.

The last area I did before stopping for the night was were I discovered the blue pikmin, but they were behind an electric fence and I only had 2 yellows left. so in a mad dash I got those 2 to cut down a 1 pellet, then those 3 get 3 more pellets, then those 6 and 4 reds get a 10 pellet, and then those 15 and 6 reds get a 20 pellet. When I had about 30 yellows I dragged them to the fence and had then wail on it, and with 5 seconds left in the day it finally came down and I made contact with the blues.

Now that I have the blue pikmin that can go in water it opens up a lot more of the areas to explore tomorrow.

Flower Power!

When I first got Pikmin 2 I played it for about an hour and then set It aside when I started this blog up again, so when I got back to it today I was rather confused at what the controls were. so, I decided to start all over again so I could get up to speed with the tutorial.

The game is pretty fun so far, and quite simple, but I expect it will get more complex as I get more Pikim colours (only have red, purple, and white so far). One odd thing is the amount of blatant product placement, everything from Duracells to Kiwi shoe polish and of course Nintendo products. While it may make the game more realistic than just generic items, I would think that the game should be next to free with all this advertising (although m cop was only 9$ used).

Tomorrow it's on to more exploring with the Pikmin.

Well that's ten down...

Just finished Jade Empire, and while it was a little shorter than Mass Effect (and not built as much for multiple play through), it was still a very solid and fun game.

The odd thing is that 2nd to last boss fight against Death's Hand was actually much harder than the final battle. Only by fighting cheap with an over powered gun and exploiting level obstacles to leach magic was I able to win that battle after several attempts.

The best part of the game by far though were the end credits. They had a very Working Designs style to them with "Dawn Star" and "Sagacious Zhu" acting like they were trying out for their roles, even down to Star's dramatic rendition of "There are FOUR lights!". At the end the master talks about all the misadventures the student had in training, including having their head cut off and then punching a mountain... in space!

Tomorrow it's a drastic change of pace from all this RPG and fighting games, Pikmin 2!

"You bastard! I'll get you for that!"

Well, after finishing a few more side quests and trashing the lotus assassins base I got to fly my airship to the palace and face the emperor (who turns out to be behind everything) and save my character's master (thought the game was a little short but still good)... and then my character's master kills me.

Damn.

It turns out that the kind and noble master is actual just as evil and insane as his brother the emperor, and was just using my character to kill off his brother and collect up and the magical items I was destined to collect to gain him more power.

It's a great plot twist but now I am stuck with a bunch of questions until I have time to play it tomorrow. Are all my companions dead? do I find new ones? Do I just have to get back to life and kill the master? Is this only the first half of the story?

To top it off, tomorrow my holiday vacation is finality over so I can go back to work, but it also means I have less time to play the game in the evening.

Your appearance and manner of dress are insufficient to determine gender!

Busy day in the Jade Empire, today I:
-Cleared the necropolis of unhappy ghosts.
-Had a battle of wits and a duel with an irate John Cleese.
-Teamed up with the princess.
-Rose in the ranks of the arena to become champion.
-Flew several aerial missions.
-Discovered the home of the god of science.
-Preformed in a play.
-Got admitted into the executioner branch of the Lotus Assassins.
-Raided the tomb of an emperor on behalf of a little girl.

Still more to do tomorrow...

And in this corner...

I finished off the haunted mines and then, after completing any remaining side quests for that area, flew off to the Imperial City where so far I've mostly just been around seeing what side quests I could find. First I sorted out the problem between two masters in a dojo (one was insane and one was dead). Next I found that just like KotOR and Oblivion there was an arena in the game, but due to plot pacing I could only get to the next level after i complete an other quest point.

The odd thing is that since the beginning I have been using the same fighting style and it's been working really well so far. This is odd since one of the main traits of the game is that you can collect and use many different styles, but so far I haven't had an need to even try any other style other than the one that restores magic. Maybe as I get further in the game the opponents will be too strong and I'll have to change styles.