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?