Final Fantasy Tactics A2 is finally out!  Looks like I have something new to play while riding the train to work.  I’ll report back in a couple of days and let everyone know how it is.

Other then my time playing Space Invaders Extreme, I haven’t been gaming all that much.  While I have played to much I have picked up a couple of games on Steam.  With all the news of Beyond Good and Evil 2 from Ubidays I decided I should probably go back and finish the first one.  Since, I lost my copy for Xbox long ago Steam was the obvious place to get it.  Of course, I haven’t made it past the point Jade recieves the mission to take pictures yet.

I also picked up a copy of Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One.  The longest video game name that I can think of is a pretty decent game.  It is a point and click adventure role playing game.  Which almost makes me wish there was a version on the DS as well, since I would love to play on the train.  I’m actually a bit glad I’m not just playing through in one sitting since, it seems to have fallen into the “kill x number of y” game play mechanic pretty early in the game - Steam reports that I’ve played for about 1.3 hours.  I have faith that it will break free of that as the time goes on - I hope.

Other games I’ve played for more then ten minutes include: Metal Gear Soild (ePSXe), Resident Evil 4 (Wii) and Shadow of the Colossus (PS2).

Well, I’m starting to get settled in the new apartment - Comcast was here today and installed my cable and internet.  So, things should be getting back to normal.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to catch up on the gaming during my commute to work using Portland’s public transportation system.  Thats one bus and then the MAX train - which should be perfect getting in some time with my DS.  I’ve been bringing it along but haven’t actually played any games since, I’ve been using it as an MP3 player.  I’ve got a few games to catch up on, including a fresh copy of Space Invaders Extreme from Play Asia.  We’ll see what the coming week brings though.

Finally, a free moment - moving across the USA is hard work it seems.  That’s right no more New York for me, I’m now in city of Portland in the state of Oregon.  It’s been a crazy time with the website going down just moments before I got on the plane.  I wasn’t in a position to get it fixed quickly so, down it stayed.  Of course, once that was fixed we released there were problems with all of the e-mail accounts…  Anyway, it’s all fixed up and hopefully that won’t happen again.

So, what does all this have to do with gaming?  Well, I may have been incredibly busy but I have managed to shoe horn in a bit of time playing.  I spent almost the entire plane ride playing The World Ends With You.  I’m currently on day 5 (out of 7).  Of course I haven’t played since I landed at PDX - I’m hoping to get back into it once I move into my place this weekend.  The game is strangely good.  One of the better RPGs I’ve played recently.  I’m (surprise) pressed for time so I won’t go into the entire story - check out Siliconera for that.

Aside from the DS, I’ve been lucky enough to clock some time in Steam playing a couple of games.  I even got to sit down and play Team Fortress 2 in the same room with a couple of people I know out here.  Working on the new achievements was tons of fun and Gold Rush is pretty fun.  Just remember kids drinking and gaming isn’t always a good idea.  My other Steam favorite has been Trackmania.  If you haven’t checked it out and like arcade style racers then get going…  Now, if only I can hold on until my main computer gets here - I’m dieing to play some Company of Heroes.

Was just scrolling through my RSS feeds and saw that Brinstar has taken a job as a Community Manager for Guild Wars! Congratulations Brinstar! In celebration I will stop what I’m doing and play Guild Wars for a little while.

*edit* Not sure if it was me or this new version of WordPress but, the original post somehow ended up as a “page” and not a “post” so - I’m fixing that now…

I keep finding excuses to get myself out of the house - maybe it’s because the weather is starting to get a bit nicer.  My play time has really suffered because of it.  It’s OK though, it really is - I have managed to squeeze in a bit of gaming time…

Rock Band (Xbox 360)

Mike and I finally sat down this past Friday (or was it Thursday?) and played through a bunch of Rock Band.  We hadn’t really played since St. Patrick’s day and I’m not sure you can really call that playing.  We had to start a new band because Mike, the drummer extraordinaire, managed to break one of the drum sticks.  We still have quite a way to go before finishing the Band World Tour so who knows if we’ll actually do it.  Don’t tell anyone from Activision but, Guitar Hero is terrible in comparison to Rock Band.  Especially, if Harmonix and MTV come through with the in-game music store.

Company of Heroes (PC)

I finally reinstalled CoH and started inching my way through the rest of the campaign mode.  Hopefully, by the time I finish it Opposing Fronts will be less then $29.95.  It’s a bit of a pain - only playing a few minutes at a time.  Although, I’m ending up with a ton of save games so if something goes wrong I’ve got a bunch of fall back points.

Prey (PC)

It was on sale for $4.95 through Steam last weekend and so far it’s a decent game.  The portals and gravity effects are pretty cool.  Nothing too special besides that though.

Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword (NDS)

Dragon Sword is without a doubt my favorite DS game ever!  The graphics are fantastic, the controls are perfect and the story is spot on.  I’m about four and a half hours into it and hopefully will get around to finishing it some time soon.  I pretty sure that beating it unlocks hard difficulties which, for once, I’m looking forward to.

Persona (PS1)

I haven’t made it nearly as far as I wanted to but, I have been playing a little bit here and there.

If you saw my PS2 pile of shame list you saw that one of the top titles is Persona 3: FES. It made the list because I’ve heard from so many people that it’s a great game. I have never played any of the Persona titles - actually, I’ve never played any of the Shin Megami Tensei titles. I’m not sure why, it’s just that these games just never crossed my path when they came out but I’m going to do what I can to make up for this. As with all Atlus games the Persona titles are going require a small investment if your getting them from eBay. I got extremely lucky with my copies and managed to actually hunt down both Persona: Revelations and Persona 2: Eternal Punishment and stay under $20. As always the cheapest way to pickup older games is yard sales or thrift stores, although finding exactly what your looking for right when your looking for it is a

At this point I’m only around two hours into Persona: Revelations so I can’t really say too much about it yet. I can however talk about why I decided not to play it on my PSOne. That’s right I decided to begin playing using the ePSXe emulator. Why would I do this? Well, I’ve got some trips to NYC coming up in the near future so that means time on the Metro North Railroad. So, I’ll be playing on my PSP as well since, the save games between the PC emulator and PopStation are compatible.

Also, it looks like I’m going to pick up a copy of Persona 2: Innocent Sin from eBay. Innocent Sin was never released here in the states but, a few days ago Siliconera posted a link to a blog about a fan translation project.

*Note* The last screen shot is from the released version of Persona not from the fan traslation.

I just logged into Steam to play a quick game of Audiosurf and saw that everyones favorite game publisher Atari has decided to release several of it’s titles for download.

• Act of War: Direct Action
• Act of War: High Treason
• ArmA: Combat Operations
• Atari 80 Classics in 1
• Death to Spies
• Desperados 2: Cooper’s Revenge
• Indigo Prophecy
• RollerCoaster Tycoon 3: Platinum
• Tycoon City: New York

I played Act of War: Direct Action around the time of it’s release and remember it being pretty fun.  But, the only game I think I’ll actually pick up is Indigo Prophecy well, until The Witcher is released that is.  It looks like Atari make seriously try and save themselves…

It’s been around for quite a while now, Sony’s PlayStation 2. Yet for some reason I never made room on my shelf for one - until now. Target has decided to celebrate my birthday by lowering the already low price of the PS2 to $99. That’s just the thing I said it would take for me to dive in and finally get the dying system. Now, that I’ve got the PS2 it’s time to start working on a PS2 pile of shame. I found a copy of Shadow of the Colossus on a nearby shelf so, I’ve got a good start I think. Unfortunately, Target was out of memory cards so a quick trip to eBay was in order. Hopefully, the card will be here tomorrow. I did, however, start the game and defeat the first Colossus. It’s a good start of what looks to be a great game. As if I don’t already have enough games that I need to find the time to play here is the start of my pile of shame list:

• Shadow of the Colossus
• Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES
  
• God of War
• Okami
• Devil May Cry
• Final Fantasy XII
• Ico
• Katamari Damacy

Anyone out there have any other suggestions?

*edit* Added Katamari Damacy and updated Persona 3 to the recently announced Persona 3 FES.

id Software appears to be gearing up toward a beta for the upcoming “browser based” Quake Live.  Get over to the site and sign up now!

Via Maxconsole

A couple of days ago Rock Paper Shotgun ran a round up of ModDB’s Mod of the Year poll. I decided that since I haven’t really been following the mod scene very closely, it was time to get reacquainted with it. Three out of the top five mods are for Half-Life 2 (lucky for me since I don’t own Battlefield 2 which covers the remaining mods). So, starting with number five on the list: MINERVA: Metastasis.

Minerva is a single player stand along side story set within the Half-Life universe. The back story is pretty vague - all you know at the beginning is your being air lifted to an island that is under the control of Combine forces. The player receives instructions from the mysterious Minerva via text messages that appear on screen. I don’t want to go into too much detail since I don’t want to give away any aspects of the story. Developed by a mod team consisting of one person, Adam Foster, Minerva should land this guy a job with Valve - it’s that good.

If you own a copy of Half-Life 2: Episode 1 I suggested trying this out - you will not be disappointed.