The Billionty-Oneth Geek: Older Than 8 Since 1991

Amidst the shooters that have dominated the play space in the past while, I found reprieve with Tales of Vesperia , a Japanese RPG that was originally released in America in 2008.   Tales of Vesperia follows Yuri, a former-knight turned rebel who starts off the tale chasing down a thief who’s stolen a magical artifact (referred to in the world as blastia) from his city.  Yuri tracks down the thief alongside with his trusty pipe-smoking dog, Repede.  In the middle of this mini-saga, you are joined by a doe eyed princess and a valiant hearted young hunter.  Like all good adventures (and pretty much every Japanese adventure!), what starts off as a small adventure spirals off into an enormous affair.  Your party becomes entrenched in a rivalry between the Empire and the free people (called the guilds), amidst a cosmic ballet of magic. The game is an epic adventure, to say the least, requiring around 40 hours to complete the journey.  But that is to...

Playing Mass Effect 2 reminded me of a few years ago, watching Spider-Man 2 in the theaters on its opening night. It just about improved on everything I loved about the first movie: the action, the thrills, the laughs and so forth. With the exception of the story, everything about Spider-Man 2 was better than the first (in my opinion, easy now). And likewise, Mass Effect 2 . ME2 takes place years after the end of the first game (here). The story kicks off with a bang as your beloved spaceship, The Normandy, is destroyed in the opening segment by an alien species called The Collectors. And like the olden days, "the captain goes down with the ship", as the returning lead, Commander Shepard is killed off in this introductory segment. But the game would be a bust if it just ended there. Through their miraculous technology, an organization called "The Cerberus" is able to revive him. Under their employment, he is charged with the task of uncovering the mystery b...

So I started and stopped about five or six posts last summer, and for whatever reason, never got around to finishing them off. Anyhow, this is just one such posting. Final Fantasy XIII is one of the most highly anticipated titles originating from Japan this past year. The release was met with some criticism for its linearity but on an overall basis, it fell on the positive side of reviews. Even though Final Fantasy is my favourite series of games, I came out of this game liking it, but not loving it. I guess that puts me into the majority of people who have played this game. The story follows a character named Lightning who was a former soldier of a government organization called Sanctum, as part of the floating city called Cocoon. The soldiers are branded with the task of suppressing people labeled as Pulse l’Cie, who are people infected with magic after coming in contact with the land called Pulse, the world below. The Pulse l’Cie are feared because of their control from god-...

I had an urge to play old Game Boy games recently and so I went to one of my childhood favourites, Final Fantasy Legend II . If I recall correctly, I think my dad bought us the game when I was in grade 4 or maybe 5, so I was somewhere between 9 and 11. The game had such a lasting impact on me. It was an epic adventure filled with strange characters, unique combat and quite a memorable soundtrack. When you first load up the game, you're allowed to pick the character combinations for your party. There are humans. who are well-rounded fighters, mutants. who are adept at magic, robots. who are great with mechanical tools, and monsters. who have the ability to shapeshift after eating meat dropped by bad guys. The story is quite simple. There are pieces of magical fragments called MAGI scattered throughout the multiverse. You and your party traverse across all the different lands to recover these pieces of MAGI, to keep them away from the hands of evildoers. At the same time, you meet a...

And so 50 hours later, I have finished my first playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins . What a game. It seems the number of traditional role playing games are decreasing these days. All the biggest and hottest games of the current generation are first person shooters. And so the RPG genre has adapted accordingly; rather than the tried and true style of RPGs from yesteryear, nowadays, more hybrid RPGs are being released. These games are primarily action shooters, but also combine elements found in RPGs (eg. Borderlands , Mass Effect , Fallout , etc.). I think that's why I was so excited for Dragon Age: Origins to come out. Though I love all sorts of games, RPGs are still where my heart's at. I miss this genre. I miss the dungeons, the dragons, the elves and the dwarves. Couple that with Bioware production, for me, solidifying it as a surefire hit. And you know what? They delivered. Sure there were some technical hiccups, but it never was to the point that it hurt my in ga...