Grandia II

WHERE IS MY MOUTH!?

Yes, I was in the mood to play another old game, so out came the Dreamcast. It's still a really good game, though I think I was much more forgiving about bad voice acting back in 2000. The bird especially. What the hell were they thinking? Go to around 5:30 on the video to hear Skye's awesome voice.

Catherine. Or possibly Rapunzel.

It's a puzzle game. With a huge story.
And boss battles.

I love Atlus. I don't know what they put in the water in that company, but they come up with some crazy awesome ideas. Like the later Persona games - take a rather hard dungeon crawler and cross it with a sort of dating sim, and it turns out to be great. Or take a reasonable idea like making an operation game but then add magical abilities, viruses that are closer to monsters, and at one point have you operate on a bomb. And now there's Catherine, which is a puzzle game surrounded by a whole lot of plot about cheating and starring a guy in boxer shorts.

Phantasy Star IV

Yes, instead of doing some sexy block pushing I'm playing a PSP port of a 17 year old Genesis game. That just happens sometimes. I'm also doing a puzzle which is completely non-electronic and is eating up gaming time. Though Chris discovered it today so it probably won't be a distraction for much longer.

Puzzle Agent 2

Gnomes they are scary

I liked the first Puzzle Agent game quite a bit. The writing was good, the art style worked really well, the story was different and interesting, and the puzzles were generally pretty fun. And once in a while a gnome would pop up and scare the crap out of me. So I was excited to play the sequel, though that excitement took a hit when I read the one-line summary of the Adventure Gamer review and learned that something had apparently gone wrong. After playing through it I sadly agree. Figures that the one I actually paid $10 for wouldn't be worth the money. Oh well. At least my friends enjoyed the free copy of Puzzle Agent 1 that came with it.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

You're the hardship, buddy

OMG I hate the owl. Every time I'm trying go somewhere he's all "Link, up here!" Not like there's a choice in the matter. I've tried to sneak around him in Zora's River and it's freaking impossible. And what's with the "Should I waste even more of your time repeating all this bullshit again?" ARGH.

Stupid owl.

I love difficulty select

Dammit game - no need to rub it in

I love the seemingly mandatory difficulty select on all action games now. Because I suck at games. Especially if there's shooting involved. Like Shadows of the Damned - apparently it's really easy but I'm terrible at it anyway. Half of it's just laziness and impatience. Dodging means having to line up the shot again and it's just not always worth it. It also annoys me to hide behind cover, take one shot, and then hide some more. So I end up getting shot a bunch in order to speed things along. Not like it matters with most games also going to auto-regenerating health. Hiding behind a wall is now just as effective at healing bullet wounds as your neighborhood inn.

Back to the Future

It's Michael J. Fox!

Finally played the last episode of Telltale's Back to the Future. Overall I liked it, though there were some rough patches in the middle. Just like how the visuals in Tron weren't quite good enough to carry two hours of movie, the nostalgia factor didn't quite make up for some gameplay issues.

Starcraft

Hard to tell what's going on with over a hundred units there

Earlier I mentioned that the Civ V icon on my desktop can be terribly distracting when I try to play other games that aren't Civ V. The Starcraft II icon also causes problems. I don't like playing multiplayer after the brilliant single player campaign, so I end up replaying that every couple of months. Mostly to do the train robbing level and the one near the end where you get a truly massive army. Unfortunately there are only so many levels, so it seemed like it was time to play something new...

A short interlude

Looks so innocent

Today I noticed the "Next Blog" icon. It's up there at the top of your screen. I'm not sure what I was expecting - maybe to go to another blog I'm following, maybe to whatever was created just after mine. I certainly did not expect two sites on BDSM followed by three on "spanking", including my favorite which is named "Spanking Ann". Apparently it's not just because I named my blog "stick-towel" because there are a lot of people commenting about the button always taking them to spanking blogs.

The indescribable beauty of rubble

Maybe two pieces of rubble?

I always love it when the main character has some completely random hatred or love for certain items. Guybrush has an unexplained fear of porcelain. George Stobbart declares a random piece of coal in the inventory to be his "lucky piece of coal." And Brian Basco seems to have a rather unhealthy obsession with rubble.

Brian is way more excited about this piece of rubble than I am

Runaway: A Twist of Fate

I started playing this maybe a year and a half ago, but then we were moving and I got distracted, and the desktop computer I installed it on isn't in a great spot for extended gaming in the new house. But now I've got the new gaming  laptop so I'm giving it another shot. Took a while to get downloaded, but I was finally ready to go...

My love/hate relationship with Emolga

I'm going to F- you up

Apparently it's going to take another 2 hours for Runaway 3 to download, so time for some Pokemon. Specifically, this stupid flying squirrel thing named Emolga. And I don't care that Yahtzee already complained about it - it deserves it.

Hector: Badge of Carnage

I just finished Hector: Badge of Carnage, this raunchy adventure game from the UK published by Telltale. I got it for free because I had preordered Jurassic Park which was going to come out in April but got pushed back till the fall, so Telltale refunded the money and gave me a free game. Turns out that it would have been worth buying anyway.

Patented Stobbart Stick-Towel

I think maybe I'll start posting about the games I'm currently playing. The blog title is from one of my favorite moments ever in an adventure game - when you combine a stick and towel in Broken Sword 1 to produce what George then names the "patented Stobbart stick-towel." Couldn't find any pictures of that, so here's a pic of the most annoying puzzle in the game.

I seriously hate this goat

Even the writer admits that this puzzle was not well thought-out. Still, any game where you can wander around Paris showing every passerby your sewer key, clown nose, and handkerchief covered in greasepaint gets points from me, and it remains my favorite adventure game.