Rebel leaders and murderers don't like me

I finally got to the city at the west most point in the map, and when I got there I had to play CSI:Skyrim.

There was a murder in the graveyard (appropriate place) and I had to question witnesses, investigate the crime scene, get a warrant to investigate a house, follow up on clues, and then confront the guilty party. The first time through all the clues appeared to point at the court wizard, so I had him arrested (he denied it), but then I realized that I needed him around to buy magic items. So I loaded a save from before he was arrested and asked him about the crime, it turns out that some one else was really the murder and trying to bring his dead wife back to life. So killed the correct culprit just before he struck again and got a bunch of now powerful spells from the wizard!

Also the leader of the city is also the one running the rebellion against the empire, and since the rebels are a bunch of elitist racist jerks, I tried setting him on fire. Turns out you can't kill him, he just faints, and his guards can kill you really quick.

Long dead dwarves and stairs don't like me

Spent the whole time playing today trying to get through an old dwarven ruin.

First there were a band of bandits squatting in there, who we no problem to get rind of, and then there were more falmer to deal with. The real chalange were all the steam punk robots of various sizes to deal with, they didn't go down easily with any magic and at one point I had to use the most deadly opponent in the lace to kill them... the stairs!

Some sick dwarf thought it would be a good idea to put huge spinning blades of death moving up and down the middle of the stairs. Even touching one slightly would take off half my health, and I had to leave my follower behind since there was no way that her AI was good enough to avoid getting killed.

Cannibals and miners don't like me

Kinda slow day, mostly just cleared up a couple side quests. One quest was getting into a cannibal cult, but it only got me a useless ring (who would want to eat a bandit or a wildman?). The other quest was to clear out a mine that was taken over by outlaws. It was rather easy and outside the mine was a smelter to convert all the gold ore I found into easier to carry bars. Then when I get back I find that an NPC there boght gold ore at full value, not the 45% i get for the bars...

Robot spiders and ball-mechs Don't like me.

Cleared out a old dwarven ruin today. Not only was the place filled with giant spiders, but it also was crawling with falmer, and if that wasn't enough it had every sort of robot attacking by the end of it!

But I finished the missions related to that place and finally bought the 2nd rank magic spells for fire, ice, and shock. I also got a nifty spell that reanimates the dead for a short time to fight for me.

Daedric princes and town guards don't like me.

Got to a third town (of 9) today and it's a rather large one all carved out of stone. While exploring some monk asked me to help clear out a house that was used for daedric worship. turns out there was a magic mace possessed by a daedric prince there and caused the monk to attack me. after dispatching the monk the mace then told me to tack down a follower of a rival daedric prince.

The follower was in a heavily guarded wild-man camp and by the time I cleared it out I have almost half a ton of loot to sell. So I finally bought a hose so I could fast travel between towns and sell it all off. While inside the towns I used the speed forwards shout, which caused the guard to keep telling me to stop disturbing everyone.

In the end the follower died and I got the evil mace, which has a spell to automatically fill soul-gems.

Rats and hagravens don't like me

While exploring I came across a house that was over run by giant rats, there was half a dozen in the yard and even more in side the house. It looks like the guy living there was raising them but died in his sleep so they went feral.

I also came across a weird creature that was art witch art bird called a hargaven, fortunately she had a bird brain couldn't figure out moving around my simple cover. I also fought some weird wild men wizard that had an artichoke in place of their heart (big gaping wond and all showing it).

Challengers and thralls don't like me

I made it to another town today, 2nd of 9, and right off the bat there is some big brouhaha about a new wizard and a burnt house. So I investigate the house and at firs it sound like the husband killed off the wife and kid to marry again. When I get to the house though the ghost of the girl says that she wants to play hide and seek at night. since it's 5 am it's just barely night still, so I go around the back of the house and the dead wife, now a vampire attacks me! I then found that the vampire was digging out the girls remains to try and turn her to a vampire too, and this is told by the girl's voice from her little coffin. Really morbid stuff!

So I tell the head of the down they got a vampire problem and I'm set to find evidence that one of the residence is a vampire. I break into her house, torch the vamp, and bring her journal back. The head of the town then organizes a group to hunt down the master vampire, and I'm supposed to lead them. Out of nowhere though comes some idiot that challenges me to am magical duel. I decline but he still attacks, so I'm trying to kill him in the middle of this mob of angry villages out for vampires. I wind up scorching some of the locals and then the whole village turns hostile to me!

So I had to reload the auto-save and the idiot wasn't there the second time. I then stormed the vampire master's lair and fight him and his thralls. It was a ridiculously hard fight and I had to re do it 6 times! Meanwhile all the villagers are too afraid to even go into the cave! There wasn't even much loot in the cave, but the vampire had a very extensive boot collection (weird).

Vampires and cat's don't like me

When I started playing today I fast traveled to the last place I explored the horse that often appears when I fast travel was there (some bug). So I got on the horse and started riding to the next unexplored location, but along the way I got ambushed by some saber-tooth cats. I get off the hose and use my fire spell on it, but it's so close to the hose that both get hit. Now the horse is aggressive to me and tries to attack, this triggers my companion to see the hose as hostile and attack it. I use the "calm animal" yell to calm both the cat and horse, but my companion is still trying to kill the horse! I get on the hose and that stops the companion, but I can't fast travel because the horse is seen as an enemy and I can't get off the horse or else the companion would just start killing it again.

So I had to go back to my last save before that mess all happened.

The unexplored location turned out to be a den where a vampire and his 2 servants "lived", good thing that they are weak to fire! As far as I could tell I wasn't infected by the vampire, but it's really hard to tell when you get a disease in this game (unless I'm missing something).

Next I found an old tomb filled with traps, and the ghost of a bard gradually bringing me through it. In the end I found the bard's remains and read his last song, and then he opended up the final chamber where he helped me battle a hoard of undead knights and a dead king. Not only did I get a lot of good loot (but no lute), but I learned a new shout that zooms me forwards about 100 feet in a second.

Bears and the undead don't like me

More exploring today, nothing too crazy happened.

Found a couple of shrines protected by skeletons and mummies, and also cleared out another cave of bandits.

While walking along I found a old camp that a trapper was using, and then out of nowhere 2 bears rush me. I just barely made it to higher ground where I could snipe them. It was only after they were dead that I realized that I could have just used my "calm wild animals" shout...

Crabs and giants don't like me

I went exploring in a new direction today, and passed by another camp of giants with mammoths, but this camp didn't ignore me like last time. As soon as I entered into their territory one of the giants ran up to me and killed me in 2 hits, those things are stronger than dragons!

So when I reloaded I kept clear of that camp and investigated a mine that was taken over by bandits. The bandits were nothing strong, some were even killed by their own trap, but they had some good loot and one interesting spell book. The spell turns iron ore into silver ore and silver ore into gold, and I was in an iron mine. So I went around mining all I could then turning it all into gold. I figured this would be great way to get rich, but when I went into town to sell the gold ore it only went for 35$. It's a huge jump from the 1$ the iron was worth, but isn't going to get me rich until my merchant skills increase a lot more.

On the way back to get the rest of the loot from the mine there was a random dragon attack! I ran around after it, but the thing was more interested in taking out the mammoths, the giants didn't like that much though and killed the dragon before I could even get to it. The giants then turned their attention to and whacked me with it's club, triggering the hilarious bug where I get shot up hundreds of feet into the air, like when you stand on a dozen landmines in fallout!

I then reloaded (fortunately I saved right before fighting the dragon) and this time the dragon stayed clear of the giants, giving me more chance to attack it. This time though, while attacking annoying little crabs started trying to fight me, so I had to waste time and magic to kill them before continuing on the dragon.

After killing the dragon and selling my loot, I went to an old fort that was also filled with bandits, and along the way had another dragon encounter! This time it was around the tower that I fought the first one at so it was a pretty easy battle. The bandits in the fort were much stronger than the average ones, but I cleared them out and almost killed the maid (which they kept from the last residents) by mistake.

Falmer and robots don't like me

After finally figureing out how to buy a house and then locating it, I went exploring more.

First I found a cave where a bunch of thieves were hiding out, made quick work of them, and then found the cam of the rebel faction. Then I wandered found a cave with a couple trolls living in it, they're not any more... and then I visited Shimmermist cave.

Right when I enter I notice that the place is really dark with a glowing blue mist everywhere, very creepy and there's a goblin-lizard thing on a ledge across from the entrance way. I try to sneak up on it and trigger a trap, causing a big metal claw to fall from the ceiling on me, taking off a third of my life. I try fighting the thing, called a falmer, and it's really tough, but I eventually kill it and get some rather heavy armor.

After killing several more of these (each time nearly dying), and some very nasty giant black centipede creatures, I come to the final room. In the room is another falmer, but this one has super powerful magic spells... and a giant robot! Some how this one can control a dwarven steampunk robot! After they kill me a dozen times I found a spot where I hide and snipe at the robot with arrows, and when it finally died I attacked the falmer wizard with full fire magic, chugging health and magic potions until it was dead.

Guards and dragons don't like me

I went back to where all my stuff was kept and found that after I cleared the place out of wildmen, a troupe of imperial guards moved in, and they were not happy about me barging in to get my stuff. After killing them all I spent a long time hauling all my loot into to town (with the help of their horse) and selling it, I then started on the main quest line.

The first part was simple enough, travel from one town to another an talk to the guy in charge. The second part was even easier, go to a temple I already been to and fetch a stone tablet I already had. Finally I had to fight my first dragon!

I went to the location that it was attacking and climbed to the top of the tower so I could shoot it with fire balls as it flew by. I managed to hit it, and it landed on the ground near the tower. Not wanting to waste any time, I jumped off the tower to fight the dragon!

The tower was higher than I thought...

After I respawned I decided to fight the dragon on the ground this time. After killing it I got the power to push things around by going "POOF!"

thieves and ghosts don't like me

I set out to try and find a city so I could sell my trunk full of loot, but the nearest one was at the top of a huge mountain. Half way up I found a ruined castle guarded by ghosts that kept screaming that they were being controlled against their will while attacking. Inside that castles was a mad wizard that was luring adventuress into a trap by placing a big chest in front of a trap door. First time through he caught me and quickly killed me, the second time I went around the trap door and found the chest was empty, but there was a word of power in the area (don't know what they do yet). I then found a back entrance and snuck up behind the mage and toasted him, the cleared out all his stuff.

Exiting from the far end of the castle I came across a injured mammoth who just won a fight against 3 saber tooth cats. With only half health left I was able to dodge back and forth long enough to barbecue it. Higher up the mountain the path was blocked by ice trolls. I was able to take out the first one, but the second was too much, so I decided to finally go back to the main quest.

While heading back to the first village I was suppose to go I came across a old mine that was filled with bandits. after fighting ghosts, mammoths, and ice trolls, these bandits were easy! I found in the center of their base facilities for crafting and forging weapons and armor!

I finally got to the town, but before I started the next step of the main story line I found a new side quest to retrieve a stolen golden claw. The thieves took it to a nearby temple, and after taking out the goons, skeletons, and spiders in the way I found out that the claw was the key to a treasure room. In the room I got some more great loot and another word of power!

Tomorrow it's time to get my trunk of stuff and cash it in!

Nature and wildmen don't like me.

Well the mammoths and giant were not aggressive and didn't even notice I was there.

While exploring I found a cave filled with wolves, bears, and dryads, all trying their bed to kill me (and the succeeding). took forever to clear it out.

I was running short of inventory space so I stated looking for a town. Turns what I thought was a town was a fort filled with a band of high level warriors wearing animal parts. Only by exploiting a glitch in their path-finding was I able to gradually pick them all off. Once the lace was clear I found a trunk and stashed all my loot in it. Now I really need to find a merchant and make a few trips back and forth...

Witches and wizards don't like me

Started Skyrim today, and it's very much like Oblivion, just with nicer graphics and an odd interface.

IT starts out that your a prisoner (like they all do) and just when you're about to be excited, a dragon shows up and touches the town, allowing you to escape. Seems that there is some kind of rebellion going on between the ruling imperials and some one who claims to control dragons. I haven't found out much about the plot yet since as soon as the tutorial was over I literally headed for the hills.

My first encounter was with an old woman living in a hut. She basically says "oh don't mind me", so I check the hut and find there is a basement. Turns out the basement is full of witchcraft stuff, so leaving everything as it is I go back to talk to the witch. She didn't like me going down there and before I can even ask for some lessons in witchcraft, she starts attacking me. After she's dead I steal all her stuff out of spite, and come across 2 more witches dueling in the woods. The are not any more friendly and after killing them I got a spiffy rod that casts lightning.

I continued south until I found a cave that cut through the mountain. The cave was occupied by a necromancer who was also not friendly. After several tries I killed him and took all his stuff too. On the other side of the cave was a rocky flat land with giants and herds of mammoths, so I called it a night before one of them could step on me.

Well that's fifty-six down...

Finished off Shadow of the Colossus today.

The final fight was against a huge giant that had a tower built around it. The first part of the fight was just trying to get up to it since it kept throwing huge fire balls. Then I had to climb up the tower and get to the exposed parts. The hardest part was figuring out what to do next.

I would stab it's back, causing it to bring a hand around that I jump on, then I tun up it's arm and stab it's shoulder, it's other hand would reach out and I would grab that. Then for the longest time I couldn't figure out what was next since there were no targets visible. Finally I discovered that if I stabbed the back of the hand it would hold still long enough for me to shoot an arrow at it's neck, causing it to move the hand to it's head. Then it was only a matter of climbing the head and stabbing the staby point until it died.

In the final cut scene it's revealed that all the colossi were the parts of a got that a religious order tore apart to remove it's power. The same religious order shows up just as the last colossus is killed, and try to kill the Wanderer. It's too late though and the god turns the Wanderer into a huge shadow monster. The order retreats and uses the Wanderer's sword to cast a magic black hole to suck up the shadows. The girl then comes back to life, finds that the Wanderer has turned into a baby with horns and brings him up to the garden above the castle.

I won't have time to finish Infamous before Skyrim comes out, so I'll take 10 days off to work on my other projects and pick back up on 11/11/11!

Quit monkeying around and vanquish him eh!

That was an annoying fight!

Spent an hour and a half fighting just one colossus, a dumb giant ape. First I couldn't figure out how the heck to even get up to him, then I came across the tick that he has to stand on a stone platform to tilt it so I can reach the next level. Then I had to get him to whack the wall with his sword so I could climb up another platform. I manged to get up on his head and stab his weak point, but he still didn't die. Turns out he had another point on his elbow that I had to hit too. So I climbed all back up again and took out that point.

Still wasn't dead!

Took me a while to find that he had a third point on the palm of his hand, and even longer to figure out how to get it. I had to be just far enough that he dosen't try to step on me, but not too far so he chases me, at the right distance he punches the ground and I can grab his harry palm (ew).

Fortunately it looks like I miscounted last time and tomorrow is the final fight!

This bull is hard to steer!

At first I thought the fight with the giant electric bull would be back to the simple "climb and stab", but as I got to the top of it's head there was no stabby marker. Turns out that there are some weird teeth growing out of it's head and when you hit one the bull veers in that direction. So the objective is to maneuver the bull over to some platforms and jump on to them, the bull would then rise up on it's haunches to attack, exposing it's stabby point.

The next monster had a cool design but a rather simple trick. The thing would rise up out of the sand and fly around in the sky, and you would have to shoot out the air bladders keeping it up. Then as it runs around close to the land you have to chase it with your horse and grab one of it's wings. Then it's a matter of finding the stabby point and repeat.

Last was a big dog thing. The objective was to get the dog to knock over various pillars so that you can make your way to an area to trap it. Then the trap would break the armor and allow you to hit the stabby bit (if you can catch it).

Reaching the end, only 3 left!

14 Colossus
74 lizards
128 fruit

The more bones they break...

The fights are certainly getting more tricky, no more just "climb the big thing and stab it".

The first thing I fought today was a giant crab, but before I could hit it's weak spot for massive damage I had to figure out how to get to it. Turns out I had to lure it out over one of the geysers in the area (without being stepped on or shot with it's laser eyes) and then while it's being lifted I had to shoot an arrow at an exposed gap in it's feet. It would then fall on it's back and I had to quickly climb up it's side to get to the weak point.

Next was a sand worm, which was a recycled sea serpent from before. This time I had to figure out that I had to ride my horse as it charged me, then shoot at it's eye from horse back(which i didn't know you could do before). Blinded, it would then run into a wall and I could get some hits in before having to repeat the process.

lastly was a rhino thing, not much bigger than a real rhino, but covered with armor. The trick was getting a wooden stick and lighting it on fire, then using the fire to scare the rhino off a cliff to break the armor. After that it was just a matter of hanging on to it's back for dear life as I tried to stab it.

Total:
11 Colossus
74 lizards
128 fruit

The bigger they are...

Three more colossus down! I finally beat the colossus of the tomb, when I played the original version I got stuck on this one and never got past it, so everything from here on out is new. I also killed a sea serpent colossus, and a lizard colossus. The lizard was the first one to actually pose a threat, it had a powerful projectile attack and a tricky way of killing it.

Total:
8 Colossus
74 lizards
128 fruit

Missed my flight

Well I finished collecting all the fruit and lizards that I can for now. There are some more fruit in the hidden garden, which removes health, and 3 more lizards that can only be gotten at the 16th colossus. So now all that's left to do is kill lots of huge monsters, oh well...

Also I wasted a bit of time running around trying to grab a bird in flight, if you can hang on to one long enough (they gradually fall due to your weight) you get a trophy. Unfortunately I could never grab a bird just as it was going over a cliff to get enough air time.

Total:
5 Colossus
74 lizards
128 fruit

To the max!

Cleared off another row of lizards and fruit today, but didn't go after the next colossus. Each time a colossus is killed the game takes you back to the main temple, and since the rows I'm doing are on the far end of the map I don't wasn't to have to trek all the way back to do the rest of them.

Also I managed to max out my health bar, even though I have about 27 fruit left to get. I guess they put more than enough in the world so that you don't have to find every one for max health.

Totals:
5 Colossus
55 lizards
101 fruit

My Little Colossus

Finished 2 more rows today, only 3 left to go, and finished off 2 more colossus, the horse and the bird.

Totals:
5 Colossus
45 lizards
67 fruit

You're not helping big voice!

Covered a lot of ground today and cleared off two more rows of Lizards and fruit, nearly have half the lizards already.

I also killed of the second and third Colossus. They were not so much difficult than just time consuming.

Totals:
3 Colossus
35 lizards
56 fruit

Chasing tail

Started on Shadow of the Colossus today, and my first goal is to max out the Wanderer as I go.
All over the map are silver tailed lizards that expand your grip meter when you kill them and eat their tail. Although this only expands it by a pixel or less, but it adds up eventually. There are also fruit in trees that extend your health bar when you eat them, and these fortunately have a bigger impact.

The map has a grid pattern on it, which makes following a lizard/fruit walk-through much easier. So I went back and forth across the middle row that you start in and cleared out all the lizards and fruit. Then to cap the day off I killed the first colossus.

The game looks really nice in HD, and would almost look current gen if it wasn't for the horse's very angular plot and mane. There is also a very apparent popping in of textures which would have been much less on a modern game.

Total so far:
Colossus 1
Lizards 15
Fruit 25

Well that's fifty-five and a half down... angain...

Finished Lonesome Road today, and it's worse than The Pitt.

So in the end Ulysses was just a mad man who wanted to use the rest of the nukes to bomb the NCR, since he was inspired by how the Courier was able to destroy a whole town the same way (unintentionally). There was a way to talk him out of it, but I had enough of his pretentious crap just killed him in one punch.

In the end I only came out of the DLC with 1 thing I liked. There's an encounter with a giant deathclaw named Rawr, an after killing it you can make a super deathclaw gauntlet which was more powerful than my Super-heated gauntlet or Pushy (which I used to one shot Ulysses). Also it's cute that on the Wild Wasteland perk it's called "Fist of the north Rawr"!

So on that downer note I am no fully done with Fallout: New Vegas (unless that make more DLC), and it's back to start Shadow of the Colossus.

Did I do that....?

Well after running around and setting off more nukes (which isn't as interesting as it sounds), I got to a point where Ulysses explained in his roundabout and pseudo-philosophical way what is the point of the DLC.

Turns out that at one point the Courier had a trade route through "the divide", and a town sprang up along that route. Ulysses was a Legion spy who posed as a courier, and tracked the Courier to this town and he thought it was a nice place to live and not connected to the NCR or legion. Then the Legion had the Courier deliver a package to the town, and in that package was a device that activated all the underground nukes in the area after the Courier left.

So Ulysses blames the Courier for destroying this place and wants to deal with him, but he's still honor bound to Casar not to kill any other couriers (weird priorities), so he wants to see if the Divide can do it.

Also I found that this DLC has one other new enemy, glow in the dark tunneling lizard people that look like the new Silurians from Doctor Who. They go down in one hit with my power glove, but they also have quite a knock-back and do a fair amount of damaged, so it's get them before they get me.

All the colors of brown!

Started Lonesome Road today, and it very much the opposite of Old World Blues.

The premise so far is that Ulysses, the courier that rejected to carry the platinum chip and all around wet blanket, asks the Courier to navigate a bombed out wasteland in order to have a face to face chat. Along the way are nuclear warheads that must be detonated in order to progress. This may sound insane, but these are the weakest nukes ever! A mini-nuke has more power than these! I was able to stand on one and explode it under my feet and only lose half my health and get a medium dose of radiation.

While OWB had a great motivation (find your brain!) there is no motivation here other than find out what Ulysses wants (other than to ramble on about history and destiny). While OWB had brightly light and diverse locations, LR has bust up brown roads and busted up brown towns. While OWB had robo-scorpions, lobotomites, trauma suits, and cyber-dogs, LR only so far has red ghouls. At least you get an eyebot companion, but my stealth suit is better company.

I really hope this gets more interesting quick, or this will be even more dull than The Pitt!

There's no place like the Mojave

Well I finished Old World Blues today, and it was rather interesting.

After going back over all the locations in the ma a second time to pick up any items or quests I missed, I was finally ready to confront the b rain of Dr. Mobious.

Whom was actually a rather silly and eccentric hero.

Turns out that the whole "robo-scorpion" menace was part of part of a larger plan to keep the other brains occupied, along with some digital OCD, so that they would never figure out a way to escape Big MT and subject the word to their crazy science. When the Courier showed up the auto dock that removed the brain had to compensate for the bullet wound, thus recalibrating and figuring out how to do proper brain transplants. So if the think tank ever got the courier's brain back they would be able to analyze it and reproduce the results backwards, getting new bodies and walking out of the Big MT.

So after finding all this out I had a chat with my brain and decided to talk it over with the think tank. Due to the side quests I did earlier all the brains but the leader agreed that killing me and leaving the Big MT was a bad idea, and the leader agreed that me killing him was not in his best interest. The epilogue starts and I remember that I still don't have my brain, so the story says that my brain stayed happily in it's tank for the rest of it's days.

So I got a nifty gun that teleports me to the Big MT whenever I want and so I go back and get my brain back, contradicting the ending instantly, and retrieving my sine and heart while I was at it. Also I made off with over 2400 pounds of weapons, armor, and junk. I would of had more but I had to keep repairing my expensive talking stealth suit and then selling off junk to get my money back. By the end of it I reached the final level cap of 50 and took the perk that gives me strength and health promotional to my moral standing in trade. Since I was really good, I'm now really strong and tough, and I'll regain my morals in Lonesome Road any ways. :)

Also the whole brain, hear, and sine thing was all a clever allusion to the wizard of Oz. neat! :)

No talking doors?

Well I didn't get to go back and explore the other areas with my force field opening gun, since the last place I had to explore took up all my time.

The area was a small suburban area housed inside a giant hanger, and looked to be the same one in the pleasantville simulation in Fallout 3. This is the place where the brains lived when they still had bodies, and and it was pretty easy to figure out who lived where. While looting the place I not only got over 1200 pounds of stuff, but all the remaining parts to activate the appliances in my room (and fought with a ridiculously strong mini death-claw).

Now I have a smooth talking jukebox that can recalibrate my sonic gun, an old sawbones of an auto-doc that can change my appearance and even personality, a fanatical book processor that removes all "seditious" text and gives blank books in return, and a botanical converter that would make the light switches blush.

Also today I picked up the new Professor Layton game for the DS!

Down boy!

Well a lot more happened in Big MT today.

I was able to activate 2 more of my appliances, another flirtatious light switch and small robot obsessed with coffee cups (which her turns int more usable items). Also I got the ability to turn off force fields, so I'll be revisiting some places tomorrow.

One area I went to today was a training area set up like a school, where I got about 800 pounds of loot. I was getting so much loot that I had to keep stashing it in various spots as I kept going. Then when I had to collect it up I would find a hand or a head of some lobotmite that I killed before and load it up with all the items. Since one part of a body acts as the whole thing, I could then easily carry the body part around in mid air with 800 pounds of stuff in it's inventory at full speed. I then just had to take all the stuff back before leaving to building.

In the school though was another new enemy, evil militarily cyber-dogs (like King, but evil)!

The kitchen sink

Explored more of Big MT today, since the map is circular it's easy to keep track of where I've been, unlike the maze of cliffs in Honest Hearts, so I juts kee moving clockwise.

Aside from the normal huge pile of stuff, I didn't find much of note other than activating a talking sink that hates cleaning dirt. I didn't find any plot related things either, but I'll likely be going back through the same area once I get the ability to turn off force fields.

I did come across though some of those vault 22 plant people and spitting plants (wonder if they originated here), and a giant glowing legendary bloatfly.

Who can I hide you from today?

Mostly exploring around the Big MT today, and inadvertently completing quest lines as I loot everything not nailed down. Since this DLC is very much like Mothership Zeta, I'm taking the hoarding route and planning on leaving with over a ton of junk to sell, and with my Long Haul perk I could do it in one trip!

There are so far 3 new enemies in the game, Lobtomites who have had their brains removed and are basically zombies, Trauma suits that are still walkign even though the bodies inside are dead (even quotes the similar suits in Doctor who), and Robo-Scorpions! The quests I finished so far was to get an antenna array, which I can now swing like a club, and a super stealth suit that even talks and administers meds when needed.

Also I have restored functionality to a flirtatious light switch that I can turn on, and a power mad toaster that can converts other appliances into energy weapon ammo and gave me a spiffy new gauntlet more powerful than Pushy!

And that's just from exploring less than 25% of Big MT!

Cyber puns!

Well I started on Old World Blues, and it is rather silly!

The Courier gets teleported to a old scientific research base in the middle of what's known as "the big empty", and the place is run by 5 brain in floating robot bodies with 3 monitors for faces. Upon arrival the courier's heart, spine, and brain are roved, the last one disappearing some how. Now the courier has to help the 5 brains in order to recover their own and take down the evil 6th brain.

Turns out the place is actually called Big MT, but the first ones who escaped read MT not as "mountain" but phonetically as em-tee, hence "big empty". A Piers Anthony level pun. The brains have very weird personalities, one can't talk, one always shouts, one is filled with cold war paranoia, one is an incompetent robotics expert, and one has a fetish for organic movement.

The hard way

Finished off the second ending of Honest Hearts, after exploring a bit more.

I decided to track down all the old logs of the "father in the cave", a survivor of the war who spent the next 53 years living in the caves of that area. The logs describes all the different hardships that he goes through over the years, from survivor's guilt, to fending off Vault 22 jerks, to losing his new wife and child. It adds a lot more weight to the DLC with just segments of text and shows another side of the wasteland after the war.

Then I did the escape ending, which had a lot more side quests and things to do than the fight one. The ending was mostly positive this time too, except that the trading company still went under and there was no word of what happened with the burned man. After it was over I leveled up and picked a new perk that came with one of the DLCs, The Long Haul, which lets me fast travel even when over burdened (which was handy since I had 100+ pounds of new loot to drag back).

Next it's off to Old World Blues!

The easy way

Well I finished the Honest Hearts DLC, and it falls a little flat. Yesterday I though I was about 30% in, but it turns out more like 75%. Compared to the Fallout 3 DLC, this is Operation Anchorage (well a little bigger), while Dead money was more The Pitt, good thing it only cost 5$.

The last leg of the DLC is having to decide if you're going to help the burned man fight off the invading White Legs, or help Daniel move them all to safety. I picked the fighting route first since it looked to be the shortest and I'll do the escape route tomorrow. I was expecting the ending of the fighting route to be all about how the tribes became barbaric and all was lost, but aside from Daniel being depressed it turned out the best for everyone but the white legs. I'm wondering if the escape route will be just as upbeat, if not I'll have to play the fight route again and have that as my cannon ending.

Take drugs! Kill a bear!

Well slight change of plans today, Fallout New Vegas DLC went on sale so I figured now would be a good time to get all caught up so I can get any references in Fallout: Equestria!

I restored my game from just before finishing the Dead Money DLC so I could go back and get the snow globe from that area, somethign I regretted missing.

Then I went and started the Honest Hearts DLC, which like all the others boots you out of the main game and into an isolated area. The area is rather large open canyon and the main story seems to be about a tribal war between between two factions. On one side is the "white legs" who want to kill everythign to get on Caesar's good side, and on the other is the "dead horses" and the "Sorrows" who are lead by the former second in command of the Legion. Oddly enough the former legion head, now "the burned man", seems like one of the most down to earth and rational people in the wasteland (I guess being set on fire and thrown off the grand canyon would do that).

And the area has Yao-guai, which I can one shot with my Pushy glove!

Also today I managed to track down a copy of Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny for the PS3. It was like Natsume didn't want to sell this game! EB Games never heard of it, Future Shop didn't have it in their database, and Game Buzz (normally has all obscure Japanese game) didn't order any. Once again Micro Play had it when no one else did!

Well that's fifty-five and a half down...

Well I was partly right, the save point was right before the end of the game, but there was a large chunk left in the the final segment.

After solving the puzzle for the other half of the gateway, which was easy once I noticed there was a chain that I had to climb up, Ico and Yorda make their way to the giant doors. The doors open up and a bridge extends, but when they are half way across electricity from the doorway zaps Yorda and the half of the bridge she's on begins to retract. Ico leaps back to the other side of the bridge, barely making it, but the shadow woman claiming to be Yorda's mother shows up and zaps him off the bridge.

Ico wakes up and finds that he somehow managed to land on some large cages hanging fall below the castle. The rest of the game is a series of simple puzzle areas that Ico has to navigate in order to get back into the castle. Along the way he finds the energy sword that the people that put him there used to open doors, so now he has a powerful weapon and can go anywhere without Yorda. Going back to the room he started in, he finds that Yorda has been turned to stone and he has to fight the shadow spirits of all the children with horns that came before him.

He then makes it to the shadow woman's room and is told that Yorda is to be the new body of the shadow woman. After a big boss battle Ico manages to kill the shadow woman with the sword but has both of his horns broken off and is knocked out cold. All the shadow energy from the sacrificed horned children then goes into Yorda and she gets up looking like the shadow form from the start of the game. She picks up the unconscious Ico and carries him to the bottom of the castle where she puts him on a boat as the castle collapses. After the credits Ico wakes up on a beach and discovers that Yorda had washed up too, alive and looking much more human.

It's a neat game and I could see how speed runs can add to the replay value, there is a trophy for 2 hours, my time was just over 6. Next it's SotC!

Water hazard

Well I finished 2 more areas today, and one was a complex and tricky one involving a water-wheel, a waterfall, and a spring platform. After those made it to the second gate control, but it was getting too late to solve the puzzle.

I must be getting near the end of the game though since when I saved I got a trophy for saving at every save point. So either the the game end just after this puzzle or I have to back track like a metrovainia game...

Snicker Snack

Didn't play much more today, just cleared a few more rooms, but the sword works MUCH better than the stick! The sword kills in 3 hits what use to take a dozen, turning fights into quick action instead of long stand offs waiting for the shadow to get close.

Have sword, will travel.

Well it looks like I got to the next big check point in the game.

There was no story advancement but the main character (Ico?) did manage to get a sword and unlock half of the main gate. I'm hoping that the sword deals with the shadow things better than the stick and isn't just for cutting rope.

Hand holding

Well right off the bat it's easy to see why ICO has such a reputation. The game is 10 years old but has much of the style and ascetics of current gen games (or more accurately they have the style if ICO). There is no HUD, no map, barely any narrative, and no tutorial, so in a game where the main mechanic is holding someone's hand, there is no had holding in the game play. The graphics also are really good. Since the look is very stylized it hold up over 10 years much better than a game that tries to be realistic.

So far the story is that some kid with horns growing out of the side of his head was locked in a big weird castles and left to die because he has horns growing out the side of his head. He manages to get out and while exploring he finds a cage dripping with black stuff and a black shape inside. He's then grabbed by a shadow creature and wakes up back where he started. He then find the cage again but it now has some woman that's glowing white. He lets her out and drags her along as they try to escape. Every now and then shadow things come out and try to drag her into a shadow hole (game over if she goes all the way in) and the boy has to beat them up with a stick he found. Eventually they make it to the front door but they close and a woman made of shadows except for her head shows up and claims the other woman is her daughter. After threatening the boy she disappears and the two continue exploring and solving environment puzzles to progress.

Well that's fifty-five down...

All the pieces fell into place during the final case and the real conspiracy was revealed.

The plan basically was to buy up a bunch of houses for cheep, and those who didn't sell would have their house burned down while away on a trip they "won", then build prop houses on them as cheep as possible. The new houses would inflate the value of the property ten times, and all those houses just happened to be where the new highway would go through. So when the government bought out the land at the inflated price all the conspirators would become insanely rich.

The problem is that Cole's old platoon kept getting mixed up in it. Part of the money used to build the cheep houses came from the morphine that half the platoon stole. Then the guy they used to burn the hold out hoses happened to be the flamethrower operator of the platoon (and crazy). Then you have Cole assigned to check out the burnt houses, and the other guy investigating the insurance claims.

And the whole story of the platoon got explained too. Cole survived a major battle in the war by freaking out and hiding, but being the only survivor made him look like a hero and he got a big metal. Feeling that he didn't deserve it Cole then became obsessed with completing every assignment to the letter, much to the frustration of his squad. On one assignment they had to clear out cave systems the enemy were hiding in, but due to Cole's obsessive orders they charged in flamethrower first on a cave that was actually a civilian field hospital. The flamethrower operator lost his mind over the mistake and the medic got so pissed that he shot Cole in the back. Cole gets sent home early due to his injury and becomes a big shot cop, while the others are left to mop up. Pissed that Cole gets all the praise and promotion despite being a cowardly screw-up the medic comes up with the idea to steal the morphine so that the troops can at least get some money for their troubles.

So the last case of the game switches back and forth between Cole and the new guy as they track down the flamethrower guy who kidnapped the German singer, ending in a shootout in the aqueduct tunnels. The new guy escapes with the singer but Cole is killed when the place floods. Half the conspirators turn on the other half (the ones that happen to be dead) and posthumously claim Cole as the hero that brought them to justice.

So now it's on to the The Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Collection!
Also today I finally was able to pick up my copy of Atelier Totori ~ The Adventurer of Arland. While adding it to my title bar I decided to cut off the last 10 games I finished to get it back to a reasonable length, not that it will stay like that for long since I'm getting Rune Factory for the PS3 next week...

Aggressive negotiations

The game continues with this new guy as he hunts down the people who wanted him dead.

After punching out his boss and demanding information he investigates who else in involved in the conspiracy, getting shot at every step of the way. Eventual he tracks down the land developer and storms his mansion with the remain members of his old platoon (the ones not killed by the mob for the heroin deal).

After shooting him in the leg the guy interrogates the land developer, but then find out from Cole that the German singer has been kidnapped by the crazy guy who was starting the fires.

Change of face

The case started off rather odd since the protagonist suddenly changed to someone that Cole knew in the war that now works on overseeing insurance claims. He's a much more likable character and seems to be more interested in doing what is right, while Cole is more concerned with doing what the law says (and German singers).

So the woman that Cole cheated with and is now living with gets a huge insurance settlement from the crooked housing developers on behalf of some one she knew that died working on the house in a plot point I must have missed. Cole tells her that it's actually a payoff to keep them quit and to get the guy he knew in the army to investigate it.

The new guy gets told right away to stay away from the case, but that just gets him more interested. He then find out, after nearly being killed, that the housing company is cutting very corner they can building the houses, including using old prop wood from a closed film set.

After some more instigating the guy gets named by a bunch of goons and beaten up, then he barely escapes them and gets back to Cole and the woman just before passing out.

Catch a trolly

Well, in the case today I manged to catch the person who may be actually responsible for setting the fires, but no close to the ones actually behind it.

After a couple more house fires, one of which had the family inside positioned together after death by the arsonist, Cole stats directly questioning the housing company linking them all together. Since the head of the company is a powerful big-shot, Cole and his partner get told in no uncertain terms by their higher ups to drop it. In the the person most likely for starting the fires lead them on a high speed chase after he hijacked a trolly car, so they close the case and get to keep their jobs for now.

Fire sale

Well it's nice to be back solving real cases that actually helps people.

The case today was two house fires that were both linked to a tampered water heater. The twist though was that both of the owners of the houses were supposed to be out on a trip they won, from a company that just happened to be tying to buy out their land, when the fires happened.

Neither of the two suspects were the actual culprit though, it was clear that a third party is involved, so since I had to convict one I picked the one with the closer ties to the company involved.

Cole can not brain today, he haves the dumb

Well Cole's now the dumbest video game character I ever played as.

The case revolved around some of his old army partners and the huge shipment of heroin they stole (as told in the odd newspapers). After nearly all of them get killed by the mob, Cole nearly gets the head guy to confess, and then he gets called to the chief's office. Turns out that Cole has been cheating on his wife with some singer, I have no idea why he would and it seems rather out of character considering how moral he's been most of the time, so he not only gets demoted to arson but his wife leaves him and takes their kids.

Way to screw everything over idiot!

Hit and run

The case I did today was a rather odd one, in that there wasn't really a case and all the crimes were peripheral.

The jerk partner loses a lot of money when the fighter he's betting on dosen't take a dive, so he and half the organized crime in the city are looking for him, and Cole gets dragged along. All the while Cole is getting more and more fed up with how corrupt vice squad and the higher ups seems to be. In the end Cole lets the fighter escape (he committed no crimes) and annoys his partner in the process!
Nice to see that he plays by the law and not by the politics.

Bipolar bear

Well my first case on the Vice squad wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. My partner manged to down back his racist jerk levels to more manageable level.

The case was about a drug trafficking ring dealing with military grade morphine, and after running all over the city it lead back to a warehouse that was shipping it in blocks of ice.

It seems that at the end of each disc there is a spike in side missions that come up. the end of the first disc had those 7 missions in a row, and this case had 4 missions come up and it was the last case on disc 2.

Having a falling out.

The case I finished today finally warped u all the missing points of the story, and it turns out nearly everyone I arrested for murder previously was innocent (more or less). After running around the city to figure out Riddler style clues, I finally caught up with the man really responsible for all the murders. Then I find out that he was the half brother of a powerful politician, so everything is going to be covered up and swept under the rug with all the people previously arrested being discreetly let go for various reasons.

To add insult to injury, my "promotion" for solving the case is to be dumped over to Vice and partnered with the arrogant jerk from earlier in the game! Arson can't come soon enough...

One surreal moment while driving was when "Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall" started playing on the radio. It may have been a scripted event, since it was raining at the time, but I mostly couldn't get over the Fallout 3 deja vu!

I tried to pick up Atelier Totori today, but the shipping was apparently delayed, but I was able to get the Ico/Shadow of the Colossus HD set!

Write wrongs

The case I did today was very open and shut. Some woman got killed by the train tacks, and the evidence lead to some write she stole a book from. an odd thing though is that some evidence that was missing from a previous case showed up linking it directly to the black Dalia murders.

Creepy kids...

Finished off two cases today, and both had their odd quirks.

The first was a typical BD copy murder, but the killer left a blood stain trail all over the place, littered with evidence and even clues how to solve the last puzzle. In the end I arrested a guy who was selling black market liquor and had tons of evidence in his hidden room. Just seems off that he would literally lead the cos right to him.

The second case was more clean cut, for the most part...
Only connection to the other killings is that the woman as strangled and her jewellery stolen. In the end the case leads to a crazed hobo who more or less confesses the crime. The main problem is that the first evidence you find is that the body was dropped off by car, yet everyone in involved took public transportation and I doubt the hobo has a car hidden away.

Also, in the second case the cops visit the family of the victim, and she had 2 creepy daughters. Not only do they have uncanny valley heads stuck on quickly modeled bodies (since there are no other children in the game, I bet they are just scaled adult bodies), but when I visited the house I looked into the window and they were just sitting on the couch staring blankly at the father as he smoked, not moving. Now it could just be they never bothered with an idle animation for them since they have such a small scene, but it was still unnerving as all heck!

Pushing a thought

The case I did today was rather odd..

The game is starting to play with the nature of the storyline, and it's no longer just a simple matter of get the evidence and arrest the bad guy. This case was much like the last one, the victim was killed to look like that Black Dalia case, but there was 2 suspects and neither of them was likely. One was the husband of the victim and the other was a local pedophile, neither had any motive but both have some evidence linking them to the murder. Since the press is going crazy about the case there is no time to look for a third option and the police chief forces you to arrest one or the other.

This is starting to show how the internal politics of the department and related spheres of influence can make it that the result you get is not always justice but what is the most convenient for everyone.

A really weird thing about the case is that the husband is played by Mat Parkman from Heroes, and it's down right creepy how much it looks like him...

Stop calling me!

Well first off, I was not put on vice like I thought I would be, yay!

I was upgraded to homicide, and my first case was pretty straight forwards, at least when I finally go to it. I try to do the side quests as soon as they come up, and for some reason every time I tried to get to the first stop in the investigation another side quest showed up. I wound up doing 7 in a row, ranging from stopping a guy from jumping off a church to a crazy old guy shooting up a farmers market.

The main case was a simple case of some woman getting drunk and going off with a guy who kills her and tries to pin it on the Black Dalia murders. There's a brief red herring about the woman's husband but the real guy was found right after taking t him the first time.

A problem I keep having is that this game wants you to check everything before talking to people so you have evidence if they are lying. Yet, at any point following a lead to get more evidence could solve the case before you talk to the person you were long for evidence on.

Bad and worse.

The case I did today revolved around trying to catch up with a attempted murdering child rapist, and in the end he's the one I have to save from the mob. At least he didn't get away, and any other Rock-Star game he would practically be the protagonist. By the end of the case the character I play got promoted, most likely to vice squad, and he metes the arrogant scum bag that he will most likely be working with...

I hope this section passes quickly, so I can go on to something more cheerful, like arson or homicide!

sharp as a bag of wet mice

Finished 2 more cases in LAN, still on tragic detail though.

The first case started off as a hit and run, but while looking around I fond a big bloody knife in the trash near by. After talking to the wife of the dead guy the morgue calls and says that he was stabbed to death before the car hit him. So I go go back to arrest the wife but her accomplish kills her and I have to shoot him. The only big mistake I made in the case was not following up the drive of the car, but that was due to following the wrong ma marker and getting to the end early.

The second case was the free DLC that game with the game since I gout it at Walmart. It starts off with a stolen car being found and I then have to drive all over the place tracking down leads on who was reselling stolen cars as legit. The best part of the case was the used car salesmen, only one with a sense of humor so far in the game.

The hardest part of the game so far is getting a grip on the truth/doubt/lie dialogue system. It's often easy to tell when some one is lying, but unless you have the exact evidence the conversation fails, so you have to go with doubt. It's hard to tell though what results selecting doubt will have since the cop in game may have different ideas why the person is lying than I do.

A fun part is the quick side missions that come up while driving, but since there is only 40 of them and I have finished 10 all ready I wonder if I'll clean up all crime in LA long before the end of the game.

Also I picked up a used copy of Star Ocean 3 for the PS2 at Best Buy for 7$. It's rare enough for them to have used PS2 RPGs, but having one that I'm missing for cheap was not somethign to pass up. So now I have all the Star Oceans games across 3 systems, not sure when I'll actually play them though...

Uncanny valley of the dolls.

The first thing I noticed about L.A. Noire was that the faces are a trying a little too much to be realistic. Not only are the motions mo-caped, but also the textures are animated, so the lines and wrinkles shift correctly. The trouble is the texture animation are not always in sync with the mo-cap, so it looks like the skin moves a fraction of a second after the face does. Also everything from the neck down uses the same animation quality as RDR, which is really good but looks stilted next to the very fluid facial animation.

So far there isn't much in line of a story, just a cop who started on the street and is now in traffic patrol. Also there are flashbacks of when he was in training for WWII, and a side story about a psychiatrist who helps soldiers with PTSD, not sure where either are going yet.

The game play is fun though, yet the questioning parts are unforgiving, get one whole and it's all over. It's a nice change to be a good guy in a game like this, much better than the jerks in GTA-IV or even the gray area of RDR.

Well that's fifty-four down...

Fortunately the game gives you the option of going back in time to before the big boss fight, so I was able to back track with out losing too much progress.

The optional boss fight was rather tricky, mostly because you start off against a huge army of robots and there is no place to refill your ammo. Since I had used up nearly all my ammo in the final boss fight I didn't last long on my first attempt (I could have just used the turret, but where's the fun in that?). So I left and stocked up on ammo and took on the army again with better results.

The fight against the boss was much like the other times, he just had more health now. After several attempts I finally killed him with 1hp left and unlocked the Insomniac Museum. The museum was just like in the other games, a big environment laid out like the offices at Insomniac and filled with items and info about the making of the game, and lots of deleted content. After sending a long time exploring all over (I don't even know if I saw everything) I went back into the game world and took out the final bosses again, this time it took much less time.

I won't be playing through the game a second time on challenge mode since all that I'm missing is a few skill points and I'd rather move on to L.A. Noire.

Insomniac

This is being written later than it actually is, I played so much today that it's now tomorrow...

Fist off was the epic final battle with the main bad guy. The fight started with the simple shooting at him like crazy, then there was running around a giant ring away from a huge laser. Then there was more shooting and a tricky bit where the huge ring was exploding and Ratchet had to jump from fragment to fragment at ridiculous speeds. The final part of the fight was on top of a small flying saucer that was out of control while shooting the bad guy more.

At the last minuet Ratchet and Clank are saved from the out of control ship by the other Lombax and go back to the great clock to return Clank. The Lombax gets pissed that they won't use the clock to save the lombaxes and kills Ratchet. Clank runs to the clock and goes back in time just a moment to save Ratchet and the real final battle starts... Almost.

There were some gold bolts left in the great clock that I missed the first time so this was my last chance to get them. Since the great clock levels are very linear and full of puzzles, I had to redo almost every areas over again to get the bolts. Also there were two more of those challenge puzzles that took hours to finish! Half the time was figuring out the solution, then it was down to shaving off seconds on the time to get it completed.

With those out of the way I went back to take on the lombax, with a good old "shoot until he dies" final battle. In the end Clank chooses to stay with Ratchet and the end credits roll. After the credits the mercenary that Ratchet had to fight several times shows up and basically says "you forgot to kill me and get the Insomniac Museum".

...crap!

Monkey!

After some more time travel shenanigans (why can't they just open a time hole to when the lombaxes got betrayed?), Ratchet and Clank manage to get a new ship and fly back to the bad guy's base. Along the way I managed to max out the rest of my current weapons and find the last parts for the RYNO V! While the RYNO IV was a swarm of mini nukes, this one is more like a shotgun/riffle/missile launcher/machine-gun all strapped together and firing at once while playing the 1812 Overture!

Even on level one, the RYNO V was enough to clear all of the last arena stage with little effort, getting me a new gun that turns bad guys into monkeys!

Also, I collected up the 40th zoni, so now I'll be able to unlock the Insomniac Museum in the final level. I was surprised when there wasn't one in the previous game, the museums was the most interesting Easter egg of the original titles.

Marroned

I continued on with the plot missions today, and mainly focused on my lesser weapons so I could max them out.

Ratchet and Clank manage to sneak into the main bad guy's space station and then Quark helps them with a surprisingly successful plan, the guy's an idiot and a coward but he does come up with good ideas now and then. They storm the base by the back entrance and then spy on the bad guy to get a holo copy, then ratchet impersonates him in order to blow up his own fleet.

This goes well until the bad guy catches them and flings Ratchet and Clank out in to space on an asteroid, just like he was at the end of the 3rd R&C game.

Need bigger guns!

Since Ratchet is finally back with Clank, I figure the end of the game is coming up shortly, so I went back to all the old areas and got the items and skill points that I wasn't equipped to get before.

I hen wen to the area again to get he remaining skill points there and found that the final set of battles was unlocked. These fights were even harder than the previous ones, but I managed to get more zoni/gold-bolts/holo-plans and even an item that shows hidden things on the map (wish I had hat before running around those old planets). The final battle turned out o be a little too tough for me, it consisted of 20 rounds of increasingly tough opponents ending in a fight with 2 bosses. On my first try I some how managed to get up to the very last boss, only to die right before i could land the final hit. After many more attempts I couldn't get that close again, so I figure that I need to max out my weapons and get the rest of the RYNO V plans.

Got your back

Having finished the arena (for now), and with nothing left to do in that sector, I sent Ratchet to the next area, which switched the game play over to Clank. Clank's segment was nothing new and it had a couple time puzzles in it, but nothing as tricky as the challenge mode. Then at the end of the segment Clanks gets captured again just after unlocking the main hub to the clock.

After that, the first ratchet mission was to take out a big space ship trying to kill him. Since I have found so many zoni, Ratchet's ship is nearly maxed out on weapons and armor, making the fight easy. Then I set about exploring the new area of space and visiting all the min-planets and side quests.

Finally I went back to the quest missions and Ratchet had to storm the base of the main bad guy's head lackeys. It was straight forwards but still challenging with the number of opponents to fight. At the end of it Ratchet finally frees Clank, but when he agrees with Clank that using the clock to alter the past is too dangerous, the other lombax takes off to find the clock himself.

Shotty workmanship

First thing I did while playing is go around and collect up all the bolts/parts/zoni that I skipped yesterday while ding the plot play through.
After that I did the next lot segment where Ratchet has to save the other lombax. It was a good challenge on hard mode and I made the last segment even more challenging by forgoing the turret your supposed to use to take out waves of bots and took them on one on one. It was a good way to level up a lot of my weapons.

Lastly I continued the wanton destruction kick by finishing off the rest of the arena challenges (more will unlock later I take it). And I got some nifty new weapons in the process, including a customizable shotgun.

Never trust a cragmite!

Finished a couple plot mission today and not only got some exposition but also a nifty new tool and at new game mechanic.

The new lombax finally reveals why he was exiled. Turns out that he was the one that let the annoying little bugger from ToD to have access to all lombax tech. Which lead to the blighter taking over a big chunk of the galaxy and the lombaxes fleeing to an alternate reality. Also the death of Ratchet's parents... So this lombax is now obsessed with finding the clock where Clank is so that he could change time and fix his mistake.

Along the way Ratchet picked up a new tool that is basically a water gun. Ratchet uses this to suck up various fluids and then dispense them to solve puzzles.

Also Ratchet finally got in contact with Clank and was able to set up a hole to the past, winch allowed for some temporal puzzle solving where Ratchet would set somethign up in the past that would allow him to progress in the present. Which brings up the question, if it's so easy for Clank to arrange time holes where he wants, why the need for the Lombax to even get to the clock? Just have Clank make a time portal to before the mistake happened.

Hi ho Snowball, Away!

Ratchet entered into a new area of space, so I started checking out the moons and other things to do there before getting on with the story line missions. After clearing out what planetoids I could, I then found out that the area has the arena segment of this game.

The arena this time was more like the one from Deadlock, where there is a more varied range of goals other than just "kill everything" and "kill everything fast". I managed to get through the fist section of challenges, and having it on hard more really showed since I died at least once every round, but it was fun! The last challenge was against a giant beast, and after beating it Quark some how tamed it and became the hero. At least it will keep him out of Ratchet's fur for a while longer.

Probe away

Back with clank a large chunk of the back story is revealed.
Long ago the zoni gave a race of beings (the same ones that Ratchet met on the first planet) the ability to time travel, but these beings were stupid and irresponsible and over used the ability. The fabric of time got so strained that it cracked and destroyed dozens of solar systems, so in order to stop the damage one zoni (Clanks creator) created a massive machine that helped to regulate time and fix the damage.

Clanks main job is to monitor planets and repair any time crack that show up on them. This boils down to a mini-game where you control a laser that you use to zap targets on a small model of the planet. The whole thing reminded me of the resources mini game in Mass Effect, but much faster paced and more fun.

There is also an optional puzzle game using the time recording mechanics. It involved having to press 7 switches to open a door, which is tricky since you only have 4 time copies to do it in. After much trial and error I finally figured out the solution and got the bonus bolt!

Baggage claim

The next stop for Ratchet was to visit another planet in the same sector and find out the location of where Clank might be.

The world was a pretty standard level but it had a massive boss fight at the end against a giant tentacled laser ship. First ratchet had to run around the sides of the thing with this grav-boots, and remove the bolts holding on the tentacles while avoiding all the lasers. Then he had to break down the dome protecting the core of the ship, and then take out the core, all while avoiding missiles, guns, and more lasers.

The hardest part of the level though was trying to get one of the skill points. The point required smashing every bit of luggage in the level, without dying since that would reset all the luggage. After trying several times while going through the world on my first pass, I finally had to go back to the world after completing it so most of the enemies were gone and I didn't have to worry about dying as much. In the end I had to circle the level twice before finding the last piece of luggage that I some how missed (I smashed the ones around it) near the start.

One step over the Hover Board

Spent most of the time playing today clearing out all the mini planets in the sector before going on to the new sector of space, then clearing out the moons I could there too.

Moving on with the plot Ratchet finds an outcast lombax (not told yet why he's an outcast) who was friends with his father. The lombax gives him new hover boots that lets Ratchet zip around much faster and glide without Clank's help. half the level was trying to get to him, the other half was a detailed tutorial of how to use the new boots.

SPAAAAAAAAACE!!!

In ACiT I managed to save Quark, then sent him back to the planet they crashed on to be out of the way. Then I had a rather difficult boss battle, but I was on hard more and it was the first real change so it was reasonable.

I also found out that the space areas are not just for combat but also how Ratchet travels from location to location. You actually get to fly to the planet and around it's solar system. Also there are moons you can land on that act like the mini planets in the PS2 games (long before it was done on Mario Galaxy).

In Clanks side the really weird new game play mechanic was introduced. Clank get the ability to record himself doing an action, then play it back while doing a different action. Like he would record pressing a switch and standing on it, then he would play it back and be able to exit through the door the switch opened. Temporal puzzle solving is going to be weird...

Didn't miss much

Well, looks like skipping Quest for Booty didn't leave me out of the loop much. At the start of the game there is an recap of the previous 2 games, 90% is about ToD and 1 sentience sums up QfB. Basically "Ratchet finds out that the bad guy from the PS2 games is responsible for Clank's disappearance."

The game play is much like the older games, but also rather different. You start off controlling just Clank and he has a new triple jump ability, but all his time altering powers from ToD are gone. Then it switches to just Ratchet only and he new has the wrench throw again from the PS2 games, but of-course lacks the hovering jump Clank allowed him.

Some of the weapons have a different mechanic too. In addition to the normal leveling up Ratchet can mod his pistol, bombs, and shot gun with extra abilities, but only one type of ability at a time. Kinda like swamping out beam weapons in Super Meteoroid.

The last change is that the flying missions are in a open area of space but on a 2D plane, so he's free of the rails but still can't go up or down.

In the game so far Clank wakes up after a year of captivity and find himself in a giant clock in the center of the universe. He's captured again by the bad guys and the story switches to Ratchet and Quark looking for him. Some energy wave shoots their ship down and they crash land on a jungle planet. Quark gets captured when different bad guys invade (looking for a different Lombax) and Ratchet uses his new tool for collecting Zoni to repair his ship and go after him.

Also I got Disgaea 4 today with the art book and figurine. I was suprised that the figure has little magnets in her feet so she always stand up on her metal base. it's ranked higher that Disgaea 3, but they are so close that I figured I would play them in order.

Well that's fifty-three down...

Finished Catherine today, and managed to get the bad version of the end where Vincent chooses Cathrine.

Near as I can tell, I got that ending because all through the game I was making the positive moral choices, but when I got to the last section I was siding with chaos instead of order. So Vincent turned out to be a positive and upstanding man who loved chaos, which lead to him confessing his feelings to a succubus and asking to marry her. Cathrine rejects his offer since he's too nice for the underworld, and when Vincent runs out after her he gets hit by a car (but survives).

In order to get all the ending I'll need to finish the game at least 3 more times and get gold on every level, and I'm rather tired of pushing blocks for now. So the game is going on to my "Completed" shelf until I get a chance to take another crack at it.

The last 3 levels of the game were not to hard compared to level 3, and two of those were simple boss climbs.

Tomorow i'll be picking up my per-order deluxe copy of Disgaea 4, but unless it quickly gets a score over 87% on Gamerankings.com I won't be laying it for a while. Next up is Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (skipping Quest for Booty since it hasn't gone on sale).

When you see a for in the road, take it! Free fork!

Finished two more levels of the final (I hope!) stage tonight.
level 2 was relatively easy and I got through on a couple of attempts. Level 3 was a nightmare.

The tower had a left and right column, each side ridiculously hard to climb, and check points set way too far apart. To make things worse, each checkpoint was other on the opposite tower, so I had to quickly try to make a bridge to the other area. To make things even more fun a third of the towers were random blocks. So while one attempt would be smooth sailing with sold blocks appear, the next could be filled with crumbling blocks and spike traps of death! Also I discovered that the freaky looking red sheep in the level can kill Vincent instantly, so even when I made it near a check point those things would get me anyways.

After a long time of doing the same sections over and over I finally lucked out and past the stage, then saved.

Behind curtain number 1...

Didn't play much tonight, just got past the first area of the new stage. It was rather tricky and there was a new block introduced. A mystery block that randomly changes into another block when stepped on. so it could be a normal block on time or a spike block another. Fortunately I never seen it change into a black hole block.

What do you say we head on out of creepy town...

Well things finally went full Cupcakes in the story.

During the day Vincent discovers that all the info on his phone for Cathrine is missing, every email and photo and even her number are gone. Then he find out that no one ever actually saw her, even during the big fight the day before. Vincent starts freaking out and wonders if she ever existed in the first place, then he remembers that the bartender spoke to her the first night she showed up.

He roughs up the bartender until he admits that he has seen her. Then the bartender admits that he's surprised that Vincent saw through his plan and that he survived all the nightmares. Vincent says he has no idea what the bartender is talking about, but then demand that he tells him the whole story.

Turns out that the whole tower thing is a method of population control. When a guy gets into a long term relationship with a woman and dosen't produce any offspring it slows down population growth. So the bartender, named Mutton of course, weeds out all the dead weight by killing those men off in the tower, allowing the women to find new relationship and expand the population. To make the death easier to take, he some times arranges the men to cheat (or at least think they are) with a succubus named Cathrine, who takes the form of the guy's ideal woman.

Vincent makes a deal with Mutton to take on one last tower, and if he wins all the nightmares will stop. If he loses, then he's dead.

Also, of all he people that Vincent could save by talking with them, looks like I only saved 1.

That didn't go as I planed...

The 8th night was weird...

Vincent wakes up in the morning all refreshed and didn't have a nightmare, and Catherine is not there. Then as Katherine shows up at the door Catherine appears in the room out of nowhere. The two of them have an argument and Catherine pulls out a knife, during the fight Vincent gets cut and Katherine kills Catherine with the knife. As Vincent and Katherine panic the room changes into the tower and the action area starts where Vincent has to lead Katherine up the tower as a giant zombie Catherine chases them.

The tower in this section wasn't too hard, it was made more difficult though with Catherine constantly getting in the way. She would either stand on blocks I need to climb on, or take the wrong path up and get stuck, or hang from edges until she's killed.

Finally I beat the level and then Katherine wakes Vincent up in his room. Turns out everything that just happened was a dream. Vincent admits to cheating on her but that he wants to make their relationship work. Cathrine tells him that the results of the pregnancy was mistaken and that she already suspected he was cheating. So she leaves him.

There was a save point here so I called it a night. Did I some how get the Bad End?

Love hurts..

I finally finished stage 7, and it was a long one! The stage had 5 levels that got progressively harder. The later levels introduced the "black hole" block which sucks in anything that stands on top of it, killing Vincent instantly. The boss of the level was a giant shadow version of Vincent. It didn't really attack much, but the stage it was in was a really tough climb.

In the story section Vincent finally broke up with Catherine, and she didn't take it too well. She beat the crap out of him in the bathroom then left him alone at the bar. One odd thing she said while beating him was that she was protecting him, which I suspect has some deeper meaning revealed later.

Tomorrow is the last night!

Ants?

Didn't play much today, only got past the first section of Level 7, which was oddly easy.

Story wise things are changing around. Turns out that the guy calming to be Catherine's boyfriend was dating a different Catherine (unless one of them can shape shift). Also little bits of Catherine's personality is showing that she's not just a 1 dimensional character out to get into Vincent's bed, and I'm starting to feel sorry for her.

super giant mecha death baby!

The rest of level 6 was very tricky.
Not only was there 4 stages instead of the normal 3, but each one was mostly walls made up of exploding blocks. The start of 4:3 in particular was difficult since every 10 levels of bricks was like a separate puzzle I had to figure out with next to no time, and if I failed I had to go back and to it all again. Most stages I can run along and make up the solutions as I go, but this area only seemd to have 1 way of solving it and it was only trail and error that got me through it (and about 60 lives).

And I was way off for the end boss, turns out it was a return of the giant baby, but this time it was a robot version with a chainsaw, a shotgun that shoots chainsaws, and a laser! At least it was was enough to dodge and run away from.

Catherine Vs. Irene

Well I managed to progress a little in Catherine before the remains of hurricane Irene knocked out the power for the rest of the evening.

I managed to get to the second stage of level 6, and it's getting ridiculously tricky. luckily I banked 90 continues on the last level so I have a bit of room for trail and error.

On a story note, Vincent finally wakes up without Catherine in the room! The down side is that he's woken up by a call from a man claiming to be Catherine's boyfriend and he's out to kill Vincent. Catherine says that she has no idea who the man is and Vincent starts to wonder if it's really Katherine's boyfriend. This all is messing with his mind so I'm betting the boss of level 6 is a giant psycho boyfriend.

Ya big baby!

Finished floors 4 and 5 today, and the boss battles were thankfully not as disturbing as 3. Level 4's boss was a giant demonic baby, and the 5th boss was a giant undead version of Katherine in a wedding dress. Also the blocks are getting trickery too, there are blocks with spikes in them, frozen blocks you slide on, crumbling blocks, all manner of fun.

Also it seems like both women in the story line are upping their play to higher levels to snare Vincent. Catherine always shows up in Vincent's bed in the morning no matter what happens the night before, and Vincent never has any memory of how she go there. meanwhile Katherine tells Vincent that she's pregnant and that he has no choice but to marry her now. Of course since Vincent has all the backbone of a larva he just sputters and freaks out with his mouth open in either situation.

Which button is to slap Vincent?

In the action segments I got past the 3rd segment, which had one of the weirdest bosses I have ever seen, and the challenges is clearly ramping up.

As for the story line, I'm quickly getting tired of Vincent's indecisive and weak personality. Shinji Ikari was better at facing up to his problems than this guy. He keeps complaining about how screwed he is because he some how keeps unintentionally cheating on Katherine. It's weird, he keeps waking up and some how Catherine is in his bed, but he never remembers how she got there and dosen't just says "I have a girlfriend already!". Also, whenever he's with Katherine he never says "hey, there's this weird girl who keeps breaking into my apartment at night" or very much of anything for that matter. Any time either of the women start making decisions for him he just freaks out bug-eyed with his mouth open. This whole thing would have been solved the first day if he would just spoken up to either of them.

Only time he makes and decisive action is in the action parts where I'm controlling him, I just with I could do the same in the story parts aside for limited e-mail answers...

Etna or Raspberyl?

Started playing Catherine today and it's a very odd game...

The game play is split between story segments where you can talk to people and answer e-mails that affect to flow of the story, and the weird frantic puzzle platforming levels where you have to climb up blocks to survive.

The platforming segments are intense, but the 360's controller is a little too inaccurate for it. The analogue stick is a little too lose, causing me to some times run off the side, and the D-pad is a little to stiff, making quick movements tricky. It may have been better if I got the PS3 version, oh well...

For the story side I'm a little conflicted. The main plot revolves around Vincent dealing with choosing between is long term girlfriend Katherine who wants to settle down into the typical married life, and the easy going impulsive girl Catherine who seduces him. For my first play through I'm making all choices the way that I personally would make them, siding with Katherine and leaning towards good. The problem is that Catherine is voiced by Laura Bailey (in a kinda older version of her Rise voice)! Oh well, I'll hear enough of her in the other playthroughs.

Well that's fifty-two down...

Well after about 2 hours of grinding weapons against the same group of bad guys, I finally got all of them maxed out to level 10, and got the skill point!

Then when I checked the unlock-ables there was another one for getting all 750 skill points, which includes insane things like getting every enemy in the game to dance, and clearing those flying level skill points.

So I figure I did all that I wanted to do in the game and getting 660 skill points is good enough!

Now on to Catherine!

So that's where I put my Shard Reaper

Today I go a lot finished:
-Collected all the parts for the RYNO IV gun.
-Collected all the golden bolts.
-Finished every location based skill point (except 2 from a flying level since I hat those).
-Got a hand full more general skill points.
-Finished the final boss a second time (much easier with the RYNO IV)
-Gridded all the weapons in the 3 quick select menus to level 10

And that's when I discovered that I had several weapons not in my quick select that I haven't touched in ages and piratically forgot about.

So to get to the 600 points to get the last unlock-able I'll be grinding some of the least useful weapons for 4-6 levels tomorrow...

Undying disco!

Got through several more levels for a second time, but I didn't get all the skill points in them since they are easier when done with a gun I haven't unlocked yet.

But I did earn enough crystals to unlock the gold groove-a-tron! Which allows me to stun all enemies into disco dancing as many times as I like!

Also I made it up to 450 skill points, so I now unlocked the weapons concept art!

Ice ice baby

Finished off the ice level again and managed to get all the skill points. Now I'm up to 400 points, which is half way there!

Another round of mayhem

After picking up a couple more kill points I returned to the arena and finished all the challenges with the new powered up weapons. The opponents were strong too, so in the end it was just total madness of explosions, bolts, and poisonous wasps.

There were no skill points for it, it was just for the crazy fun of it! :)

Also I bought the Raspberyl DLC for Disgaea 3 since it was half off. I have no idea what it is and barely even touched Disgaea 3, but it's more Laura Bailey for 6$ so it's worth it!

Because ponies!

Just over a month ago I started watching My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and I instantly kicked into fandom mode. I was able to keep it in check for a few weeks, but when I started reading Fallout: Equestria my OCD reached critical mass and all my free time has been pony related since then... much to the neglect of my gaming.

In the interim I bought Catherine (because it's Atlus), and L.A. Noire (becaseu it was on sale). I'll be playing Catherine after ToD, even though it's jumping the normal cue, so I can finish before coming across any spoilers. Also it gives Quest for Booty more time to go on sale before I buy it.

On with the gaming!
Not really much to say... Got several more skill points, not all too frustrating, and unlocked more artwork and another trailer. The commentary bots are interesting but so tech orientated I'm not too sure what half they are talking about means...

Commentary track!

And more skill points!

Today there wasn't any skill points that were too hard to get, just one that was tricky and was awarded when I thought I failed, and I got enough points to unlock the commentary bots!

Now sprinkled throughout all the levels are little robots that when you interact with them they play a recording of one of the dev team talking about the production of the game. This will and some freshness to the second play through, the draw back is that you can only hear them when you are close to the bot, so I can't get other skill points while listening...

ARRRRRG!

I sent 2 hours trying to just one stupid skill point in a flying level!

The skill point is to shoot 10 targets, but the targeting is so off that you can't hit them until they are right up close, and then you have half a second before they pass by. Compound this by the fact there is often several together, so you have half a second to shoot 2 or 3! Then if you miss any you have to either finish the mission and go back or reload the level, so missing the 10th one means trying to get them all over again!

I was almost at a point where I was going to just give up on the skill point and move on to the next game, but I then finally got all of them and saved for the night.

Do what I do, not what I say.

Collected a few more skill points today, one of them was rather frustrating...

The requirement was to use just the wrench until the half way point in the level, but that's actually only part of what's needed. The real task is to get to the half way point without using any destructive weapons other than the wrench, and to use all the methods of transport along the way.

This threw me fore a loop since at one point there is a section you can use a gun that shoots jello blocks to get to a higher area, or you can just jump around it. Since I figured that the jello gun counts as something other than a wrench, I would always jump around it, negating the unwritten second half of the task while unnecessarily avoiding the first. In fact you don't even need to use the wrench at all, just follow the correct path while avoiding all bad guys and you get the skill points!

At least with all the trial and error I got enough bolts to upgrade my super missile launcher (most powerful gun I have) to an ultra missile launcher!

Mega bolts!

Started off on the challenge play through and one thing that really stands out is how much more expensive everything is. In this mode the bad guys are much tougher, so to balance it there are super versions of all the guns, but they tacked on several zeroes to the price of all of them. To cover this increased cost the game now has a bolts multiplier, so the long Ratchet goes without getting hit the amount of bolts he earns increases exponentially.

I also have unlocked several of the cheats by pulling off some skill feats. On my first play through I only got a couple skill points at random, but now I'm looking up how and where to get each one.
So far I got cheats for:
-An old GDC trailer for the game
-Big head mode for Ratchet (more tiny/big/HUGE head mode)
-Neat concept art for the characters and some ships
-Enemy big head mode.

Sequel bait

Well I finished ToD today, and it wasn't exactly the most epic of endings.

In the final level you have to fight through many waves of bad guys, but since there is often an ammo vender near by there's not much to worry about, just destroy things with the most powerful gun and reload when you run out. The last boss battle didn't have a vender at hand but it was a very simple straight up boss fight, I just had to shoot it with everything until one of us died, and after a few time of that being me, he took his turn to die. There was no strategy, there was no multiple boss forms, just shoot and try not to die to win the game.

In the epilog the macguffin is broken and the little robot aliens show up out of nowhere (visible to all) and take Clank away to set up the sequels.

Like all R&C games, the game over screen is just half the game, now I'm going to play through on challenge mode to get all the guns, cheats, extras, and other goodies. Also I'll most likely will get the middle game, if for nothing else, just to hear more of Tara Strong as Talwyn (who is apparently not in the 3rd game).

Dread Pirate Lombax

Two more levels down, and it is getting even more challenging, but not quite for the right reasons.

The first area was pretty straight forwards, and even had a bonus side map for an extra item to collect up bolts from boxes. The end of the area though had a huge boss fight that started in a rail grinding segment and every time I died I had to do that segment all over again. The boss fight itself was tough too since the giant robot would take off a quarter of my health in one hit. Finally I beat the boss and ratchet got the macguffin, only to have it stolen by the pirates that have been bugging them the whole game.

Next was a huge level with hoards of pirates everywhere, and half a dozen mid boss fights, it was good that they had reload stations every 10 minutes since I was almost fully out of ammo every time I found one. The final section of the level started with Ratchet on a small air ship fighting off waves of pirates while every now and then a bigger ship would pull up beside and blast him with cannons. I was doing rather well my first time though, and then suddenly the other ship went away, I clear off the last of the pirates and waited for the next wave... and kept waiting...

The game had glitched out again and the next area wasn't loading, so I had to make Ratchet jump off the ship to re-spawn at the start again. This threw off my momentum and it took half a dozen tries to get back up to the final boss fight, but in the end I beat him and not only won the loyalty of the pirates but also a handy map tool that shows secret areas and power ups. Too bad Quark got away with the macguffin...

Great scott!

Finished a couple more levels of ToD today and the difficulty level is beginning to catch up with me, now it might take several attempts to get through a section.

First level I finished was the ice planet (more an asteroid with an atmosphere) that the space pirates hid a gigantic computer on that ratchet needed to access to find the macguffin. The second planet was a giant prison that Clank insisted that Ratchet had to go to to rescue a character that they met earlier.

These missions served to heavyhandedly show the schism forming between Ratchet's obsession with the macguffin and Clank's reliance on the invisible aliens. All of which will come to a head with dramatic effect when they get separated (as stated on the description of the sequels).

I also bought today on PSN all 5 parts (last not out yet) of the Back To the Future game for 10$ (thanks to my remaining free Playstation+ account). I only played a bit of it, and I'm not sure when I'll be able to lay more, but I doubt that I would see it for cheaper ever and I do want to play it.

Who's next?

The level of difficulty seems to be gradually rising just under the level I'm playing at, so these later levels are just as easy with my super weapons as the first one was with my basic weapons. If was wasn't leveling up as often they would most likely be harder, but then why would any one do that?

Plot wise Ratch and Clank have been hoping around from planet to planet looking for a old Lombax mcguffin that may or may not save or destroy the universe. Next stop is Deep Thought from HGttG.

Also along the way I stopped by the arena again to clear out the latest group of opponents, and finished all the new challenges with out much difficulty.

This sure looks familiar...

Finished 2 areas of ToD today and one of them had the old WRPG standard of an arena battle, but more accurately it was the arena battle from the previous R&C games. I can't remember which game it was but this level had the same circular arena where waves after waves of bad guys would come in from all sides, it was hardly original but still lots of fun.

The other level had a weird gravity shifting element, where you alternate along the sides of a cube in space. By the end of the area you find out your next destination is a remote moon run by pirates.

The normally super powerful weapons in the game are are quickly upgrading themselves to be ridiculously over powered, and I have only found less then half of them. either the difficulty will increase steeply soon or this will end up being a explosive walk in the park.

Instructions not included

I came across a couple bugs and design problems while playing today. First, when I started exploring the Lombax home world I spotted a path off to the side, so I followed it up and found a space ship repair part at the end. I was a bit confused as to what it was for until I went back to the start and just a few feet past the path was a cut-scene where Ratchet finds a broken ship and decides to repair it, but he needs 6 parts. They really should have arranged it so you could not get to the parts without first knowing why you need them.

Next design issue was in a part where I controlled Clank on his own. The section starts with 3 robot like floating aliens greeting him and saying they will help. Then i find myself stuck in the room with no way out and the only abilities Clank seems to have is a levitate option and to slow down time, neither are helpful. Turns out that Clank has an option when he's near the aliens so that they follow him around like Pikmin, but that is never told to the layer and I had to find it out by trial and error. The first time I was in the room I thought that the game had glitched and the next section didn't load right, this was backed upped by the fact that when I stood on a high rock and jumped all the textures on the ground would turn white.

After that section though things went smoother and I was able to collect up all the rocket parts and fixed the ship, so now I am free to travel to any of the planets I have been to before, or to go on to the next planet where an obvious trap awaits.

I expected something more grand, less... fuzzy.

After playing a few areas of ToD I remembered why I liked the series so much. Aside from the over the top humor, the game is filled with huge amounds of smashable destruction, and upgradeable weapons for even more crazy levels of chaos.

The story so far is that some evil alien is out to kill of all the Lombax and Ratchet is the last left, so to escape Ratche steals the guy's ship and rides it to the bad guy's home galaxy. I just made my way off of the first planet they get to and now landed on the ruined Lombax home world.

The upgrade to next get is pretty fluid, by Up Your Arsenal it was near next gen already, but for some reason they gave Ratchet an uneven fur filter on his skin so he looks like he has just thin clumps of hair here and there. I hope they balance it in the next game. Also the game has very pointless 6-axis segments here and there which seem to just serve to show "hey, Sony gave us a bunch of money to include this to justify motion control!".

Well that's fifty-one down...

Well Chapter 18 wasn't nearly as hard as Chapter 17, which is odd since it was the final battle.

The chapter had 2 parts, the first being an attack on the weak point of the super mobile fortress. The fight was very straight forwards, relying heavily on my anti-tank guys I took out the thing's turrets and then blasted a path to take out it's main weapon. All in all I finished it on my first shot.

The second half was a direct attack on the emoror who was responsible for the whole war, and it turns out the whole thing was to one up the other members of his royal family since he was not eligible to be king (and they tried to kill him). The fight consisted of taking out the generators powering his force field and then laying into him with the remaining turns. After Welkin's tank getting a prtable rail gun in the face on my first attempt, I changed out some of the squad for the first time since adding Vyse and Aika to add enough anti-tank guys to fill the squad. Using this over powered group I got into a pattern or quickly taking out the generators and then popping out and blasting while using the tank for both cover and extra fire power.

In then end everyone lived happily after and a new game plus was unlocked, which I'll lay if I ever get back to this. For now it's on to Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction!