Week Four - April 1st, 2000

Id -

When you're sick, probably the best way to spend your downtime is to play some videogames. Well, with me being sick the past few days, I spend these few days doing what I do best, playing videogames. The week was more or less focused around one game, Grandia, the RPG that I've been playing for over a month. Though I've been playing Grandia for so long, it never seemed to lose its shine. The deeper I got into the game, I got more attached to the characters and so on. However, when you pay too much attention to one game, you obviously start to single out its flaws too. Grandia has one thing about it that annoys me to hell. The dungeons are horribly designed. For example, many of the dungeons are either large mazes, are just "castle" like areas with high walls, and long hallways. Many of these maze dungeons are just areas with paths that go into dead ends, and around, and around. In one rather "short" dungeon, I found myself lost for 20 minutes because the dungeon simply had no direction. The only thing to guide you through the dungeon is a little compass on the top corner of the screen. Without that compass, I'd probably be lost forever.

Another game that I spent some time on was Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. The game itself was good, but it just didn't scare me that much anymore. There were still one or two sequences that made me "jump" a little, but none got me as scared as the surprises from the original Resident Evil. In the end, I didn't even beat RE3. When I managed to narrowly beat the Nemesis using my Grenade Launcher, I was killed by another weaker enemy just minutes later. I was somewhat frustrated by that, since I hadn't saved for a long time (I don't like to save a lot in games). For that and that alone, I decided to put the game on hold, and move onto something else for awhile.

On an entirely unrelated topic, I saw Pulp Fiction for the first time (late enough eh?). In brief, it was the best movie I've ever seen in my life. It's amazing how all the stories manage to tie together so well. A unique blend of humor, violence and satire is what makes the movie so brilliant. The script and dialogue is also amazing too, which truly shows Quentin Tarention's directorial genius. If you're looking for a good movie to see, go see Pulp Fiction, a fantastic movie. (Mind you, it's not for kids).

Another week, another R&R. The weeks sure are passing quickly, aren't they? Personally, after spending a good amount of time with my Playstation this week, I've noticed something that I felt wasn't so obvious before. The Playstation truly is showing its age. Look at it this way, there hasn't really been any truly revolutionary games released lately. Look at the SNES when it was nearing its end: it came out with games like Donkey Kong Country and Yoshi's Island, games that were revolutionary and just plain amazing in that era. (SMW2: Yoshi's Island is still my favorite game of all time). The Playstation needs a Donkey Kong Country. The question is, when [It needs a game with big robots beating the crap out of each other. Well, it needs another one --Zero]?

Zero -

Whew, it has been a while, hasn't it? I haven't had much time for games as of late, because I just returned from my vacation over spring break. However, I did catch a few movies, one of which was Romeo Must Die featuring Jet Li. It really wasn't that bad of a movie, and Jet Li made me crack up with his one-liners and that accent of his. Although the story was convoluted and there was way too much talking for a Jet Li movie. The fight scenes were average, but there were some points when he pulled some slick moves.

Pokemon Stadium caught my eye, and I played a little bit of it. Unfortunately, I was disappointed by it. The turn-based system got really old quick, and it really just wasn't what I expected. Maybe Pokemon is reaching its peak, because there aren't as many kids buying up the Pokemon cards anymore. If I were you, I would sell them for as much as I could as fast as I could.

If you have been following the past R&Rs, you can see that I have this infatuation with Japanese Animation and giant robots fighting each other. SquareSoft's new release, Front Mission 3 definitely turned my head, and caused me to buy it. After ripping open the package, I popped it in. The game was not what I expected. It was a reminiscent of Final Fantasy Tactics, and I never moved my avatar around. All I had to do was battle and talk to other people.

While watching as jagged lines filled the screen and ugly textures floated around, I could only shake my head. The game uses its engine for the cinematic through most of the game. It isn't horrible, but the PlayStation is finally showing how long it has been. Luckily, the PlayStation 2 will be here very soon.

There was one more robot game that I just caught wind of. I cannot recall the name, but it was for the PlayStation 2 and had robots dueling and fighting each other. After seeing a movie of it, I can say that game is beautiful and will please any Anime fans out there. The storyline is a little like Evangelion, for any Anime buffs out there.

Other then this unknown game, there is only one other one that excites me. The name is Perfect Dark, and it will be here in one and a half very long months. I'm sure many of you have heard of it, so I won't bore you with details. Unfortunately, it seems that Rare has not ironed out the framerate for certain multiplayer modes, yet. Let's hope that they fix it and release the Game of 2000.

That's it for now. If any of you made it into the Diablo II Beta, give me a ring and tell me how it is. I envy you guys.