The pitch I’d heard when this game was running the preview circuit was that it was a wrestling game targeted at average joes, and I can definitely see how that would be the case. The premise itself is transparently designed to sucker in the non-fan: half the roster is made up of superstars from the 80s and 90s — the sort of guys you remember seeing on TV when you were a kid — and the other half is made up of dudes that are rasslin’ in the WWE of today, presumably there to bolster the interest of the nostalgia crowd (though how even over the top attack animations are supposed to make the likes of Jack Swagger or Drew McIntyre interesting is a mystery to me). The game plays less like your typical Smackdown vs. Raw affair, and more like a Marvel vs. Capcom game; they even put out an All Stars branded arcade stick to coincide with its release. And the gameplay is actually pretty compelling and, more importantly, approachable.

At face value, the fights are a fairly straightforward affair. There are two buttons each for strikes and grapples, and certain combinations can pull of a wrestler’s signature moves under the proper circumstances. In contrast to other games in the genre, there’s a heavy emphasis put on executing combination attacks — while each wrestler has only a handful of standing striking moves and grapples, stringing together a combination of light attacks and either a strong attack or grapple can result in pulling off a move you wouldn’t otherwise have access to in your arsenal. Beyond that, each wrestler is designated as either a grappler, a brawler, an acrobat, or a big man, and each style has its own unique qualities. Brawlers and big men can charge up a powerful striking attack, acrobats can perform quick springboard arial moves from the second rope, and grapplers can execute not just striking combinations, but can transition their grapple attacks into multiple successive suplexes with proper timing. Brawlers and grapplers can also charge up their grapple, but near as I can tell the only move you can actually execute with it is a boston crab, which leaves me kind of scratching my head.

Beyond that, countering is actually a fair bit more intuitive than I’d normally expect. Every move can be countered, and the timing varies from move to move. An on-screen indicator signals your opportunity for a reversal, but by the time you see it, you’ve more than likely missed your chance. It’s not really there to test your reflexes though, but to give you a gauge of what to shoot for in the future. Despite some early frustration, before long I was countering strikes and grapples on a fairly regular basis. You can even counter counters, which makes dealing with an often cheap AI a lot less stressful.

While there are a lot of great ideas on display here, unfortunately they fall flat just as often as they hit. Starting with the obvious, this game redefines ugly. THQ decided to go for an over the top style here, and this manifests in the form of insanely stylized moves (for example, Hulk Hogan leaps fully 25 feet into the air for his signature legdrop while simultaneously doing his “listening to the crowd” gesture) and character models that run the gamut from hideous (Big Show) to goofy (The Rock) to downright terrifying (Edge). As a bonus, each character’s torso is about as big around as an oak. Sadly, their heads have not been inflated to match.

Beyond that, there’s not a whole lot of depth to the game modes available. Match types are sufficiently varied — there’s 1v1, triple threat, fatal four-way, handicap, extreme, steel cage, and tag team (tornado only; this here’s an arcade game!) — but the single player story offering is fairly shallow. There are three “story” missions that task you with taking on The Undertaker, Randy Orton, and DX respectively. However, aside from a couple of poorly cut promos, each one is practically identical; win 9 matches, then take on the title character(s) in the 10th. Bonus points for the inclusion of Paul Bearer were quickly revoked once I remembered how annoying he is to listen to. There’s also a mode labeled “Fantasy Warfare”, but it’s just a series of 1 on 1 matches between old and new stars with similar gimmicks. Each one has a video introduction, for whatever that’s worth.

Still, the most disappointing misstep on display in WWE All Stars is the lack of variety in wrestlers’ moves. While each wrestler has a handful of signature maneuvers, beyond that every grappler, big man, brawler and acrobat shares a virtually identical set of grapples with only about a dozen varieties of striking moves between them. If you’re of a mind to circumvent that by rolling your own created superstar, prepare for disappointment; created wrestlers can only be given one of the existing wrestler’s predefined move sets. You can select a finisher, but most of those are locked away at the onset. Even with the anemic single player options available, some more dynamic move sets would have really helped give All Stars some lasting appeal, but unfortunately the developers dropped the ball.

So, while WWE All Stars has a face only a mother could love, and while you can blow through the single player modes in a matter of hours, it still manages to be a pretty entertaining little game. I certainly don’t think it’s worth $60 of my hard earned cash, but neither did I feel particularly cheated by Blockbuster’s exorbitant $9 rental fee. If you’ve got even a passing interest in wrestling games, and especially if you’ve got a like minded friend, at the end of the day it’s definitely worth checking out. Just don’t tell THQ you bought it used.

Fallout (Mac)

Unfortunately, the seeming inability to play the game in a windowed mode (exacerbated by the fact I’m playing the mac port) combined with copy protection means that there won’t be any screenshots this time around, but I’ll try and make these amusing enough to make up for it. Let’s get some of the preliminaries out of the way before moving forward.

The Choice
Thanks are due to everyone who responded to my twitter and facebook posts, and to all the Talking Tyrants that filled up a thread with suggestions. I ended going through a lot of choices before deciding on where to start. At first, I thought I’d pick something that I’d either already played through a fair amount of (Dragon Quest IV) or that required a very small time investment (Half Minute Hero), but at the end of the day, I realized that my initial problem was games boring me. To that end I wanted something oozing with story, and that knew how to tell it well. All signs pointed to the Fallout series being as close to a sure thing as I was going to find, and considering I’ve been chomping at the bit for some post apocalyptic action after renting Fallout 3 a few months back and subsequently watching A Boy and His Dog and every Mad Max movie, there wasn’t really even a choice anymore. After scrounging up a mac port, I ended up playing a trial game for a few hours, just so I could get a feel for the interface and the way the game worked. Now that I’m pretty comfortable with the game’s world and systems, I’d say I’m ready to start the honest-to-goodness playthrough.

On Spoilers
I’m not going into this completely spoiler-free, as I did some research ahead of time. That said, I’m only using spoilers in the net-hack sense (game mechanics) and not the Final Fantasy sense (story). I’m fully prepared to fuck myself over as part of the learning process, but wanted to arm myself with at least a bit of information about which stats are important, and some benefits/drawbacks to different traits/perks, and inventory management (pickpocketing your allies for great profit!). To this end, I found myself a pretty decent FAQ and just read up on the author’s general character design philosophy. Beyond that, I’m keeping myself as free from information as possible, beyond what I was already privy to. It’s also worth noting, though this may be obvious from the LP nature of this endeavor, that I will not be spoiler tagging any of my content here. If you’re planning on playing Fallout at some point, and don’t want to have plot points revealed to you, turn away now. For the rest of you, let’s begin.

My Character
After a bit of thought, I decided that “Dirk Kiljoy” was a suitably ridiculous name for my vault dwelling explorer. As far as my character build is concerned, I ended up using a pre-defined sniper class I found in the aforementioned FAQ, with some slight modifications to fit my play style. I ended up going with a sniper build, as that seemed more user-friendly than a melee build for my first playthrough. I am also using the Gifted trait, even though I know it’s kind of overpowered (since a good INT stat can make up for the skill hit, and 3 free points is pretty crazy good). My feeling is that on my first go-around, I don’t mind being a little unbalanced so long as I can enjoy the story and get my footing. I’m going for low CHA, mediocre END in favor of high PER, INT, AGI and LCK. Primary skills are Small Guns, Lockpicking, and Speech. Traits are Gifted and Small Frame.

Our Story Begins

War. War never changes.

In the late 21st century, all of mankinds greatest fears came true when total nuclear war reduced most of our planet to an irradiated wasteland. Most people living on the surface died instantly, and those that remained found both their bodies and their way of life forever changed in the holocaust that followed. A particularly lucky subset of the population were able to escape unmolested by nuclear winter in airtight underground “vaults”, though only designed for short term use, these survivors were able to extend their stay for generations, at the expense of cutting themselves off entirely from the world outside. I am one of these fortunate few. My name is Dirk Kiljoy. My home: Vault 13.

I’ve always had a curious nature, never entirely satisfied with life in the safe but relatively dull confines of the vault. When a crisis arose, perhaps it was this very nature, combined with my nimble hands and aptitude with a firearm that made me the perfect man to leave home in search of a solution. Perhaps denizens of the vault just didn’t want my curiosity to spread. Whatever the case, it was on an otherwise uneventful December morning that the Overseer, top man and spiritual leader of the vault, approached me with a mission. The cornerstone to the vault’s self-sufficiency has always been in its ability to produce clean drinking water, a feat made possible by the water purification chip every vault has installed. However, Vault 13′s chip has finally seen its last day of operation. It’s malfunctioned, says the Overseer, and without a new one, the vault will be out of usable drinking water in a mere 150 days. While the chip cannot be repaired, and parts aren’t available to build a new one, there are rumors of another vault, not far off, that could be the key to vault 13′s salvation. My task will be to investigate that vault, and bring home a new chip by any means necessary.

150 Days Left: Shady Sands

After dealing with some rodents that had made the caves outside the vault their home, I emerged and looked upon the sunlit wastes of what was once California for the first time. There wasn’t much time to take it all in, however, and immediately I headed east, in search of my quarry. It wasn’t long before I encountered what would be the first of many very odd sights — I was set upon by a pack of what appeared to be oversized praying mantises. While proving little challenge for the vault-issued Full Metal Jacket rounds in my trusty sidearm, the sheer enormity of the beasts gave me pause. I had no idea they would be just the tip of the iceberg.

It seems the last traveller to come by these parts was not so lucky, but his corpse did at least provide some extra ammunition, sundries, and a spare pistol. Curiously enough, he also seemed to have a copious amount of what looked to be soda bottlecaps. While I didn’t necessarily understand, I knew enough to pocket the caps — they could come in handy, if I could discern their purpose.

After a few day’s journey, I found myself at what looked to be a makeshift settlement. The sign on the gate read “Shady Sands”, which the guard posted there confirmed to be the name of this tiny hamlet. His name is Seth, and while you couldn’t call his demeanor inviting by any stretch of the imagination, he was at the very least courteous. He greeted me, and explained that their town is fairly self-sufficient, but not used to seeing strangers come calling. However, he noted that if I wanted to make myself useful, the town’s been having some problems that they could use some help with. Raiders are a constant problem, but he cautioned me not to approach them alone. The more immediate threat was the Radscorpions, apparently another larger than life irradiated version of creatures I had read about in my youth. He cautioned that they’re not to be taken lightly, and in fact he’d already lost his brother to them not long before. Razlo, the town doctor, might be able to help with a cure for their venom.

Before making my way to Razlo, I decided to talk to some of the locals. Katrina, another former vault dweller, actually used to live in vault 15 — the very vault the Overseer had sent me out in search of. She confirmed that they did indeed have a working water chip when last she was there, but cautioned that the elevators weren’t working, and told me I may want to make sure I have some rope handy before trying to explore. She suggested that I try bartering with the people in Shady Sands, as they are always on the lookout for supplies and bottlecaps, the universal currency of this brave new world (so THAT’S what they’re for!).

It’s worth noting at this point that in my trial playthrough, I managed to miss out on talking to Katrina, and made my way to vault 15 woefully unequipped. I had even noted that one of Shady Sand’s residents had a rope, but didn’t bother trying to trade for it! Suffice it to say, I wasn’t going to make the same mistake this time around

The next person I spoke with, at Seth’s urging, was Aradesh, the town’s leader. He seemed happy that I wanted to help, but was very reserved throughout our conversation. He balked at my request for payment in return for clearing out the scorpions, but he did have a rope handy that he was happy to trade for a few caps. All in all, not an entirely wasted encounter.

Finally, I met up with Ian, formerly a bodyguard for merchant caravans, but after some injuries in the line of duty, he decided to settle for a more peaceful life in Shady Sand’s relative comfort. He’s a bit more worldly than the rest of the town’s residents, and as such was able to point me in the direction of a few larger trading settlements, should my journey to vault 15 prove fruitless. While he was reluctant at first, I was actually able to convince him to tag along with me, in exchange for a share of whatever profit I end up making. After all, bottlecaps won’t be much use to me, once I return to the vault, and Ian seems like he’d be a valuable asset. While he got ready to go, I flipped through some of the books on his shelves, and found a fascinating volume entitled “Scout’s Handbook”. There were some bits about hand gestures and badges that I kind of glossed over, but I learned some things about tying knots and lighting fires that I won’t soon forget. Once Ian had made ready, I decided to head for Razlo’s, to check in before heading out.

The good doctor is something of a cold fish. He didn’t offer much in the way of advice, but told me that if I was able to bring him some tails from any radscorpions I kill, he should be able to concoct an anti-venom from them.

142 Days Left: The Radscorpion Cave

Seth was able to lead us to the edge of the scorpions’ lair, and he did not exaggerate with his description of the place; it was positively teeming with the beasts. Immediately I was glad to have Ian with me, as his dead eye and quick hands made short work of our adversaries. An extra pair of hands was also more than welcome, as their tails are positively massive, and I wanted to make sure to bring back absolutely as many as we could carry.

it’s also worth noting that, thanks to my piss-poor charisma, Ian wouldn’t agree to go with me in my trial playthrough without payment — I guess I just got lucky the second time around. That, combined with the fact that I had initially thought my turns would come sooner if I didn’t spend all my action points (not the case, it would seem), I ended up not learning that it’s probably a good idea to use my remaining AP to put some distance between myself and the scorpions until I’d blown through the vast majority of my stimpacks. The second time around was FAR less painful.

Once all of the beasts had been dealt with, we travelled back to town, hands full with spoils from our encounter.

I had a conversation with a friend the other day about beating video games in which I divulged that I can pretty much count the RPGs that I’ve played to completion on my fingers (on one hand, depending on your definition). He was, of course, appalled by this revelation, and when pressed for a reason, I came back with what tends to be my problem with games in general.

The thing is, I have some real OCD behaviors when it comes to gaming. It’s not that I need to min/max my stats for ideal efficiency or that I need 100% completion before I’ll consider a game done. Rather, my compulsion is that I need to feel like I own 100% of whatever accomplishments I achieve. This makes sharing a controller difficult, because even if someone else plays through 30 seconds of a Mario game while I’m taking a piss, when the controller finds its way back into my hands, it feels like my playthrough has been tainted somehow. Odd, but true.

This tendency gets exacerbated when RPGs enter into the mix, because as I’ve gotten older, I’ve lost the ability to play games for more than a couple of hours at a time unless I’m really into it, and as this can stretch a 40+ hour game into multi-month territory, I almost always find myself playing something else at some point. This would be all well and good, but once I return to an RPG after a significant enough amount of time has passed, I invariably feel lost. I don’t remember what I was doing or what plans I had made for my equipment, skills, et cetera. Even when I turn to an FAQ or walkthrough for a refresher, I still feel like I’ve picked up somebody else’s save and am taking control from where they left off. This of course leaves me at an impasse and I end up starting games over from the beginning countless times — see previous paragraph.

I’ve started to slowly ease myself out of this mode of thought, but it’s still a work in progress. I was able to play Pokemon Platinum and Dragon Age: Origins to completion, both of which I’d put down for a while somewhere in the middle. As it stands, however, the list I was able to come up with when pressed in that conversation was:

• Chrono Trigger
• Final Fantasy III/VI (SNES)
• Final Fantasy IV DS
• Final Fantasy X
• Kingdom Hearts
• Pokemon Leaf Green & Diamond
• Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga

Yeah, that’s pretty much it. I’ve beaten a couple of 2D Zeldas (LttP and LA, if you’re wondering), but nothing else springs immediately to mind.

Now, I love RPGs — they’re probably my favorite genre — so I want to broaden my horizons somewhat. I came up with the idea the other day that I’d ask the same friend for a list of 10 RPGs to kind of serve as a cleansing of the palette, and I’d see if I couldn’t use that as a jumping off point. Here’s what I got back:

In no particular order:

Final Fantasy V (SFC). Do not play the buggy and slow PS1 version. Do not play the GBA remake with the screwy extra job classes. Get the original. I waded my way through this with a faq and rudimentary kana ability – the story is a throwaway anyway! – and had a blast.

Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (PS2). It’s not the hardest RPG ever created – well, unless you go for the best ending anyway – but it will try your patience in ways Persona games never will.

Dragon Quest VIII (PS2). I was initially going to put DQV here – I’ve played about a third of it on the SFC and love it to death – but I haven’t played the DS version yet. DQVIII gets the nod for having probably the best localization I’ve ever seen blended in with comfortable DQ gameplay. Shame about the new menus, though.

Final Fantasy III (FC). The prototype for Final Fantasy V, and easily the best of the FC games. I’ve played this to completion on actual hardware, and it was the most soul-crushing gaming experience of my life (the last dungeon, with no save points, takes well over an hour to get through – and that’s if you know where you’re going). Naturally, you should use an emulator if you value your sanity.

The Bard’s Tale III – Thief of Fate (PC, Apple //, C64, etc.) Not the first first-person dungeon crawl I’ve played, but one of the best. Also, automapping.

Demon’s Souls (PS3) – It’s an action game. No, it’s a RPG. No, it’s a dungeon crawler. Whatever. I was on the edge of my seat for fifty hours with this game. It’s frustrating as hell, but every little bit of progress is so, so satisfying.

Front Mission 3 (PS1) – it’s like Armored Core and Final Fantasy Tactics had a baby, but without the shitty controls and nonsense localization.

Quote:
Originally Posted by nick
but…but… that’s only seven! your counting skills need work!

Well, yeah. I could have stretched it out to ten, or even twenty, but I would at that point have to start getting into games that I liked, but I don’t necessarily think someone else should play.

I guess if I did have to make an honorable mentions list, it would go something like this!

-Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga (1 and 2, although I haven’t finished the latter)
-RoboTrek
-Faxanadu (not really an RPG!)
-Fallout 3
-Wasteland

This is a great jumping off point, but he was quick to remind me that his own scope is fairly limited and recommended I open the forum to a larger group, which is what I aim to do now. Here’s what I’d like y’all to do for me, if you can spare a moment:

Recommend an RPG to me. It can be from any system or console generation, and I’ll sort out the details of how to play it, if in fact I choose to do so. I’d like you also to include a brief description of why you feel that this particular game is worthy of recommendation (feel free to recommend multiple titles). Japanese-only titles are more than welcome (I’m rusty, but I shouldn’t have any problem with ‘em), and if there’s a particular version you think needs to be played, I’m all ears. I tend to favor story over mechanics, but the right unique quirk can absorb me for quite some time.

Once I take a look through the list, I’m going to try and pick a few that interest me the most, and attempt to play them from start to finish. While I’m doing so, I’ll try and chronicle my progress in an amusing fashion of some sort (I haven’t really given it much thought, but I’m thinking more thorough than a brief summary, but not quite as OCD as a Let’s Play). Until that point, I leave myself in your capable hands, internet. Do me proud.

You’re welcome.

Edit — My better half never misses a beat:

Luana: oh, snap. typo!  
“mediocrity”
me: ah! good call
Well, at least mediocracy is a word — I could have done worse
heh
Luana: well, I guess 
me: WE WILL BE GOVERNED BY MEDIOCRE 3DS GAMES

The piece I bring to you today is by an up-and-coming artist. Her name is Lorelei, she’s eight, and she’s obsessed with Persona 4.

She likes to look at (mother-approved) fanart, watches the cutscenes on YouTube whenever she can, and listens to the OST on her DSi. She can’t stop talking about hiimdaisy’s Persona comics and has ads and reviews cut out from magazines stuck on her bedroom wall. She wanted to be Chie for Halloween last year, and while that didn’t work out, she still bugs my mom about making her a Chie-style jacket.

I mean, she even wants to make a gaming ‘zine with me and write about P4, but is worried that nobody will want to read it. I told her that if she were serious, I’m sure that there would be quite a few people interested.

Lor’s a bit weird, I’ll admit.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when she busted this rough sketch out the other day. While it’s nowhere near her best quality of work (she makes books and draws constantly), I just can’t get over it — I mean, it’s Chie! Drooling over steak at the Junes food court! You can’t get any cooler than that!

Maybe I’m weird too, but this is way better than being the (token) Student of the Month (which she actually is but doesn’t know it yet).