Jimothyjim's adventures in gaming 2

So, another roundup. Biggest news being my purchase and completion of shadow complex. That game world was surprisingly big and I enjoyed the whole exploration aspect a lot more than I thought it would. I'm not even sure what it is I liked about the game, but, it just works surprisingly well. The graphics are pretty awesome, it doesn't look like an XBLA game so much as just a stylized retail game, the cutscenes especially. I actually completed it by accident, but luckily once you've completed it, it lets you reload the game just before you completed it so you can carry on trying to get all the items in the world, which is what I'm currently doing with varied success. There's a couple rooms I can't work out how to get into yet, andthere is still parts of the map I haven't explored. Ideally I wanna do this without using a guide because collecting is actually fun in this game. Probably because the items you collect make you even more awesome,whereas in other games where I'm just collecting random items with no benefit it's just a pointless grind. I wish more games would make collecting serve a purpose other than just using it as a lazy way to add to the games 'lasting appeal'. Or in other words, playing on peoples addiction to gamerscore to do a repetitive and dull task for a much needed achievement, and then calling it a great success that so many people spent so long with the game, even though they all died a little inside. That was a side rant, shadow complex does not make me die inside, probably an advantage.

I also actually played Penny Arcade Adventure something something today, even though I bought it months ago. It was half price for gold members at the time so I bought it thinking that one day I'd be in the mood, and today was that day. It's like a turn based RPG with point and click elements, kind of. It's a lot more linear than a proper RPG, and when you level up you don't get to choose stat points, all of which was actually rather refreshing considering every RPG is full of neverending choices these days. Graphics are so so, good enough for XBLA but definitely not retail. There's no vocal dialogue but if you take the time to inspect things and read all the onscreen dialogue it's pretty good though, and the storyline is fairly odd. The combat is timed/turn based, each attack needs to recharge, and although there's no chronological ordering for attacks (if you just sit there the enemy will just keep attacking) only one attack can happen at once, so things get queued up. You can also time blocks against your enemies attacks which is a nice feature. I'm enjoying it but I got it for half price, full price might be a bit too steep, I seem to remember it's in the upper region.

Less detailed news from me, Dirt 2 demo was very well done and played like codemasters games always do, Section 8 seems good if you know what you're doing but there's some debate as to whether it lives up to the PC version. I try not to judge games too much when I've only played the demo so that's about it for those. I sent Turok back after I just didn't have the motivation to complete it, and I'm trying to finish Dark Sector but the bosses in that game are a tad frustrating. Oh and I briefly tried Gaia online, it was ok but I'm not sure I care to go back. I only tried it as a friend wanted a referal.

That about sums things up. Another week where most of my time has gone on Arcade games instead of retail games. I didn't bring it up much but I'm still playing Trials HD most days so I reckon 80% of my recent gaming has been Arcade. I R caZu4l gAm3r?

Edit: The grammar and sentence flow is kinda meh throughout this, but I just woke up after a blech (as in not nice, not sheet metal or whatever that means in German) dream and I wrote this to take my mind off of it ^_^