Getting excited for Skylanders Giants
It's been around a year since the launch of Skylanders, and I finally finished collecting all of the first gen. I knew it would take off when it first came…
It's been around a year since the launch of Skylanders, and I finally finished collecting all of the first gen. I knew it would take off when it first came…
Lego Batman 2 released Tuesday, and Gus is anxious to play the game he was born to play. Unfortunately, things take a turn for the worse when a spurned Norm…
E3 2012 begins next week and the coverage around the web is going to explode with details about new consoles, release dates, and reasons for gamers to anticipate upcoming games. …
I used to like long games a lot. I used to think games should definitely be a certain length. Maybe I'm getting older, but I don't like it when games…
It's that time again! Spring is in the air, summer is right on the horizon, and we once again have backlogs of backlogs of backlogs, and lots of games are…
I’ve been wanting to play Xenoblade Chronicles for a long time. XC is a Japanese game that localized in Europe first since NOE has been localizing more games than NOA. I modified my Wii to play import games, thinking that would be my only way to actually get to play, but my importing plan fell through. Luckily, only a few months later the Stateside release was announced and released last Friday. You can pick up XC from Gamestop (exclusive, which sucks) now!
Xenoblade Chronicles has a really interesting game world. The world, instead of on a traditional planet, is on a vast ocean. On the ocean are two gigantic mechanical beings with people inhabiting them. From the perspective of the people, they know they’re on these beings but it looks like a normal planet to them. It’s like Halo; you think you’re on a planet but you’re not. The humans (Homs) live on the Bionis, and the machine enemies (Mechons) come from, I think, the other giant entity. From what I can tell, I think the enemies cross over from the other giant entity to fight.
The story starts out where the Mechons were thought destroyed, but then resurface and attack a village. The only thing that can harm the Mechons is the Monado Sword, which was originally in the hands of another character that was injured a year previous. The main character, Shulk, finds that he has the ability to use the Monado Sword and has special abilities that the previous wielder did not have, such as seeing the future. Now Shulk and his friend are leaving the colony to find the Mechons and get revenge for the death of their friend.
Game World
The world feels very large and open. XC feels a lot like a MMO. There are NPC’s with side quests that give rewards and experience. The quests can be to kill certain monsters or find things and bring them back. You don’t have to do any of these side quests if you want to focus only on the main quest. When fighting monsters, some will BAF (bring a friend, aka they are social). Like EQ2 had, there are collectibles to find on the ground (glowies) that you can put in a collection book to earn rewards. Lots of to do. The best way I can describe the feel of the world is an offline MMO.
Some very cool features of the game world are the day night cycle and monsters appearing at only certain times of day. You can form connections with towns people and really get into the world beyond what you would normally expect in a JRPG.
We've been bothered by the increasing number of games pressuring the consumer to buy right away. In the past we would want to buy a game right away because we're…
We want to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! This year we had fun making 3D Nintendo Christmas Tree Ornaments! We set up a workshop…
My brother and I have always been really big Mario Kart fans. I doubt either of us can even calculate the many hours battling and racing against one another, friends,…
Happy Thanksgiving to all of our celebrating readers and happy deal season to everyone! We've updated our Holiday Buyer's Guide 2011 to include a section called Games We Want. These…