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Against my resolution to buy less games, I got Lost Planet and Wario Ware: Smooth moves today right off the new releases shelf :(

Not had time to play Lost Planet, but WW:SM is hot so far. One 'microgame' where a screaming girl is falling off a roof and you have to extend your arm out to save her is particularly lol.

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Struggling to think of something to play right now, I just played a few games of Dynamite Deka / Die Hard Arcade from the PS2 Sega Ages collection.

Still fun and kinda hilarious, I wish you got more than three continues mind.

Every so often, I get a desire to finish DQ8. I put ~25 hours into it this time last year, and a little more in summer but I'm not sure if it'd be wiser to just start a new game, or play one of the earlier DQ's that isn't quite so long. Any advice which one would be a nice introduction to the series?

Either that, or I'll wait till next week and pick up Final Fantasy VI Advance and Hotel Dusk and read a book this week.

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After getting a PSP last weekend, I've been playing a lot of Lumines and Parodius Portable.

Lumines feels just generally much, much nicer than Lumines Live.. not that I find anything really wrong with Lumines Live. I just guess it suits being on a handheld more. As for Parodius, it's my first time with a lot of these games and I'm enjoying them quite a lot - I suck at horizontal shooters, so them being what I perceive as a tad easier than Gradius is good.

Also playing Battle Garegga a lot on my mac 'cause macs don't play games and waiting on FFVI-Advance to arrive so I can continue my conquest of playing old games on current-gen hardware.

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The Genki Rockets skin on Lumines Live is fucking hypnotic or something.

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I beat Final Fantasy VI Advance this morning.

The new translation is really tight as were IV/V. There aren't any of the pop culture references that irked the traditionalist nerd types in those ports, either.

The sound isn't half as bad as those videos of the rom on youtube made it out to be. It's not as good as the SNES audio by a long shot, but you do get a couple of tracks that sound kinda sorta better, like the opening bit of Kefka's tower & Celes' voice in the opera, which sounds less like a hard drive dying this time.

Unfortunately, the extra dungeon and weapons are, like IV advance, unlocked when you finish the game. I'd have preferred it if they were just around the World of Ruin with everything else, I think. It seems much harder than the final dungeon so far though and you just might have to level and equip the entire cast to get by.

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I started Earthbound for the first time ever earlier. It never came out in the UK so I never had chance to play it at the time of release but it's something I've been curious about for the eight-odd years we've had SNES emulation.

I'll just recycle the usual stuff people say about this game: It has style.

What's the general consensus on Bullet Witch then? Worth a look if you like that sort of thing?

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I picked up Bullet Witch on Friday, beating it last night. Its a nice, short game and it's kinda nice and unusual to be playing something like this on the 360.

The final boss is terrible, though. The entire fight is incredibly slow paced and never really presents you with any difficulty either. The Twilight Princess of final bosses, I dare say!

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TMNT 4 player co-op is kinda nice for button mashing while you chat to your friends with the headset, but you have limited continues so we never got past the beginning of the technodrome.

The achievements are crazy arbitrary nonsense.

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I began the Oblivion Shivering Isles expansion yesterday. Quick thoughts:

You're thrust into a new world map with two entrances, both leading to the same place, only one version is bright and vibrant, the other dark and grey. Nothing has really been done with this thus far, and there isn't any real difference between the two, same NPC's and whatnot.

The world is ruled by the Daedric prince of madness, so the NPC's and quests are all so ZANY AND RANDOM!!!!!! : An early quest has you re-activate one of his torture dungeons while a group of unsuspecting adventures come to loot it. You choose at several points between a physical or mental torture for the group. Another quest has you as an 'Inquisitor', with a torturer NPC you can ask to electrocute uncooperative NPC's. I get the impression the devs have been reading Marquis de Sade.

Oblivions critics might be pleased with some aspects of this expansion. The world is obviously smaller and there are only a couple of 'main quest' lines, rather than half a dozen guilds and so forth, so the whole thing seems more focused!

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There's a portal to the Shivering Isles world map stuck in a previously empty island, so you can just get right to it after the initial prison break and skip the old stuff entirely.

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Every six months or so, I try and get back into DQ8. I'm at the part where you have to escort Prince Charmles and have been since last summer or something.

I want to like this game, it's beautiful and charming, but the battles take so fucking long. Are all of the Dragon Quest's like this? I don't mind high encounter rates or a bit of grinding, but battles where every other turn an enemy calls for reinforcements and it takes five minutes to get out of there is just boring.

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I played through the Final Fantasy 20th Anniversary remake of a remake of a remake over the weekend.

Sacrificing any credibility here: I kinda liked it? Granted, it's my first time with the game outside of the first half hour... but as a 20 minute a time grind it was fun. The handheld format does a lot for these ancient RPG's, I think.

Also Gilgamesh's theme sounds really nice.

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I just grabbed Ouendan 2. It's identical to the first one besides having a different song set and the ability to skip intros (which is in elite beat agents i guess?).

ergo; it's fun.

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So I've been playing Third Strike quite a bit on XBL - I don't know anyone who plays TS locally anymore.

I just so happened to play who I think was probably the stereotypical basement dwelling nerd earlier, a guy who, after after getting hit by a couple of perfects by my absolutely terrible scrubby Yun decided to pick Gill every time.

Particularly funny when I almost beat him in spite of a resurrection and he still spammed taunt.

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Max Payne should really be played on a PC, it's like first person shooters and Hitman games. Shit just don't feel right on a console, you know?

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So FedEX brought my copy of WARTECH: senko no ronde complete with hideous box art over this morning.

I don't really know what to think about it so far; I like it, but put it one way: I'd be mildly annoyed if I had paid the UK RRP of £50 for it. There doesn't seem to be any presence at all on Live besides half a dozen super laggy Japanese games at any one time. I was hardly expecting Halo 3 levels of activity, but come on - not a soul is playing this one.

I've also been playing a lot of Dragon Quest 8, resuming my ~25 hour save game from 2005. Now 40 hours in I'm having a lot of fun with the monster arena. I might just complete it this time!

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So I finally beat Dragon Quest 8, which I got in November 05 or whenever the hell it came out.

It was pretty great, I dare say. I'm toying with the idea of playing through the unlocked dungeon, though I suspect my party will need a ton of grinding - I beat the game at ~36 or so and Trode kept complaining about my terrible levels in the select menu.

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Yeah. Installing Shivering Isles basically sticks a portal in the middle of the original map for when you want to play that content.

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Totally. Exploring, levelling and taking your time getting through dungeons is great in DQ. It's most enjoyable when dungeons and the world map aren't just vehicles to get you to the next cut-scene or whatever as they frequently are in RPG's these days.

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I played the first couple of hours of Dragon Quest V, only for zsnesxbox to seemingly lose the save next time i booted up.

hnng.

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For gods sake, is the DQV translated rom bugged or something? I've lost saves twice now.

I think maybe I'm cursed to never play this game.

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It has happened on the xbox version of zsnes and on snes9x on my mac :(

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I picked up Armored Core 4 which just launched here yesterday and managed to get Dragon Quest V saving correctly.

I've never played a mech game before, but I was curious and it was cheap. It's kinda confusing and feels weird, I'm not entirely sure I like it at all! I'll certainly try though.

Dragon Quest V is the second DQ I've tried after really enjoying VIII and hearing tons of hyperbole for it whenever there's DQ discussion here... it hasn't quite hit me why this is supposedly one of the best super famicom rpgs yet but it's charming enough for me to give it more time.

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I beat DQ5 earlier today coincidentally, that was some good shit I dare say. I'm contemplating where to go next with this series after beating VIII/V, I may just wait for IX to arrive.

Tonight it's time to play Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition, celebrating the first time since the Christmas holidays I've turned the thing on.

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Talking of the GBC DQ remakes lameboy now has sound support, so you can now play them on your DS.

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I've put another couple of hours into Armored Core 4 and I just find it unwieldy and horrible. I'll most likely trade it in or something this weekend.

Also had a play with the Blue Dragon demo, the system definitely feels like FFV-2, which can only be a good thing.

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Today I played a ton of third strike and some earthbound (my first ever playthrough, just got out of saturn valley and into the desert traffic jam).

Doesn't get much better than that!

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I picked up Forza 2, having not played a driving game besides outrun 2 since Gran Turismo 3 some 6 years back.

It's pretty nice so far, the interface is very slick and the achievements look like actual achievements for the most part. Are there any of those horrible hour long endurance races from the GT games here?

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I've been using my 360 as an upscaling xbox more than anything recently. Tons of Third Strike and my first ever play-through of Halo 2 - it was kinda good, man.

Genei Jin is, well, wow on the 360 d-pad.

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The Xbox version looks gorgeous upscaled on a 360, but temporarily we have the issue of: that fucking controller.

You can't do uriens unblockable stuff on the DC version, right?

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I beat Blue Dragon today. After a slow start, it was pretty damn nice. I still think I prefer FFV, though.

For a forty hour game, I got a whopping 60 achievement points!!!

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I... I.... I kinda like PSP Rondo. Maybe I just feel compelled to after reading the hilarious reactionary NeoGAF thread with lots of anime avatars calling for IGA's beheading.

The new boss theme is great.

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Virtua Fighter V 360. I'm terrible at it, but it's nice and the netcode doesn't suck.

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Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker.

It's fun I guess. Looks like a low resolution DQ8.

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I'm starting Lost Odyssey tonight. It has a gorgeous box and title screen, so far so good.

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Played some Gradius II: Gofer no Yabou on the Virtual Console. After beating GTA IV, it's a nice change of pace... and difficulty.