Lunar Shards

Wow, so this month started off bad for me. Caught the flu so it’s wrecked quite a planning and play time.

Final Fantasy XIII
Platform: PS3
Started: 2010
Status: Complete

Sonic Generations
Platform: Playstation 3
Started: November 5, 2011
Status: Completed

Overall this is one of the best Sonic games I’ve played since the Dreamcast. The final boss was a bit annoying but eventually got it. The music is amazing though I wish they would release it officially in the US.

Star Ocean: The Last Hope International
Platform: Playstation 3
Started:
Status: Ongoing

Argh… I haven’t been able to concentrate on this. I think it’s the camera angle and feel of the game. It feels off for some reason.

Z.H.P.
Platform: Playstation Portable
Started: 2010
Status: Completed

Tongue in cheek style humor and insane combinations. Who ever came up with this game really went all out with the references and humor. Funny thing is I only came back to it after finding out several of my favorite anime character outfits were available in the US version. Right now I’m running around as Holo from Spice and Wolf.

Tetris
Platform: Playstation 3
Started:
Status: N/A

I’m amazed I was able to play this game as far as I did. I was able to complete Marathon mode which requires you to clear every level’s target number of clears. At 15, the game moves so damn fast it was hard to keep up at times. Then again it’s not as bad as the radical mode i eventually unlocked… omg… that mode is nuts. The pieces start center, against the bottom of the screen and you only have a second or two to move it before it locks in place.

Well this is going to be fun to fill out :O Thank Valve for this

Final Fantasy XIII
Platform: PS3
Started: 2010
Status: Ongoing

FINALLY! Beat that damn boss! So I pulled this out to see if I could get further into the game and possibly finish it before XIII-2 releases. I’m in the process of maxing out my characters… my usual shtick with the series… before I face the final boss. I have access to the double CP item however I can’t even put a dent in the boss. So I’ll need to do a bit of upgrading on my equipment. Sadly the FAQs are poor in terms of clean information so I’ll need to do some research tonight.

Valkyria Chronicles 2
Platform: Playstation Portable
Started: 2010
Status: Completed

Pulled this out to play with friends. Wow does this game get broken the more players you add in. You can really draw enemy fire to sneak up behind them. Also doesn’t help that each of us have overpowered units to throw out there

Anomaly: Warzone Earth
Platform: PC
Started: Dec 19th, 2011
Status: Ongoing

The first of the Valve winter event. Anomaly I originally started months ago but I lost the safe file due to a demo/full patch snafu. The game is very unusual as you play the attacking side of a tower defense game. That means trying to setup your team to survive the onslaught of towers to get past. It’s a lot of fun and REALLY gets challenging. I wish there were more of these games out there.

Spiral Knights
Platform: PC
Started: Dec 20th, 2011
Status: Ongoing

Another Valve achievement. I originally played Spiral Knights with friends so I never got around to playing PvP. Overall the PvP isn’t bad but I didn’t have my controller setup so I was a bit overwhelmed.

Audiosurf
Platform: PC
Started: 2011
Status: N/A

Here’s another fun one. This is very much a music game and I played a lot of it back during the Portal 2 release. The holiday achievement wasn’t bad but required some very good reflexes to get right.

And Yet It Moves
Platform: PC
Started: Dec 24th, 2011
Status: Ongoing

My cousin got me this some time ago, but never got around to playing it. This is an interesting game as the goal of the game is to move your person to the exit but in order to make it, you need to spin the world which causes gravity to take affect. The Achievement was easy to pull off but dang is it a pain just to get there. Damn lizards…

X3: Albion Prelude
Platform: PC
Started: Dec 26th, 2011
Status: Ongoing

I still haven’t gotten this achievement as this game is NOT easy. First thing I realized was I forgot all the damn keys for this game and every key does something. I’m going to have to research this one to see how best to get this achievement. The game does look beautiful though.

Bastion
Platform: PC
Started: Dec 26th, 2011
Status: Ongoing

Oh man… this game is gorgeous. I’m really surprised this was made by the former C&C4 team. The game and the narrator… oh man that narrator. I really need to sit down and play this.

Final Fantasy XIII
Platform: PS3
Started: 2010
Status: Ongoing

With PSN back up Saturday I decide to see if I could get further into Final Fantasy XIII and earn a few more trophies to sync up with. The stage I’m at is relatively easy but annoying if your in the wrong setup like I found myself in. Avoiding enemies in this area is difficult and I couldn’t beat the boss due to the damn Doom timer that showed up towards the end of the battle. I almost had him but Fang just couldn’t dish out enough damage. I may have to break open the strategy guide one more time to figure out how to beat him. I’ve been using it as weapon references and such but avoided looking at the boss tactics until after I’ve banged my head against the wall. Still… that strategy guide is a bit big compared to the other games. It’s about as big as oh… say the Exalted RPG book by White Wolf!

X-Men
Platform: Xbox 360 Live Arcade
Started: May 14th 2011
Status: Completed

This was out of no where. While over at a friend’s place we decided to run through the old X-Men arcade game. OMG… I suck at it! I knew I was bad at it even in the arcades but I seem to have gotten worse! I died more times then i wanted to count in that game. We played the Japanese rom which was even more embarrassingly bad then the US arcade rom. This is also the first time I’ve seen the later half of the game. In the arcades when i use to play it, we couldn’t get through stage 2 without spending a bucket load of quarters. The game is coin eater, and that hasn’t changed even in the XBLA version.

Soul Calibur IV
Platform: Xbox 360
Started: ??
Status: I think I finished my copy…

Rusty? Good grief, I forgot a lot of the moves. I couldn’t get Ivy to do her usual crazy attacks and couldn’t remember Kilik’s moves or Seong Mi-na’s attacks. Also it was the first time playing on the controller. I had always played on the 360 joystick I have. Talk about embarrassing when i couldn’t remember the block button. I had it programmed for my thumb on my joystick but on here, I couldn’t remember which one it was. I may break it out and practice a bit…

Final Fantasy XIII
Platform: PS3
Started: 2010
Status: Ongoing

With PSN down I decided to pull this out and see where I left off. Originally trying to max out my stats early game had me running back and forth in chapter 9 during the airship raid. Good money early on and decent CP gains. That went out the window when I hit the next chapter. The CP costs went through the roof between stage 3 and 4 of the skill tree. At this point I’ve hit a situation where I’m unable to upgrade equipment because I lack funds to buy materials and really don’t know where to farm. The next gil farm location isn’t till I return to Cacoon which isn’t that far from where I am in the story however a lot of the mobs that might carry free catalyst materials are down on Pulse. Hmm… what to do…

Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Platform: Sega Genesis, PS3
Started: I don’t remember…
Status: Completed

With PSN still down, I decided to dig through some of the free stuff my PS Plus subscription got me. One of that is the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 game. I’ve been the game with my cousin years ago on the genesis. It was a pain to beat too considering the difficulty level spikes in the game. Doesn’t help that Tails is a ball and chain in the special stages. Even with the state save feature in the PSN version, it’s still difficult since Tails could easily run right into a bomb costing you the special stage.

Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity
Platform: Playstation Portable (JP)
Started: Feb 28th
Status: Story Mode Completed
Demo Available: http://phantasystar.sega.jp/psp2i/trial/download/ (in Japanese, sorry!)

After plowing through chapter 5, I hit the first road block in the form of Dark Falz. Talk about unfair! Depending on which stage of attack your facing, if your on the wrong level fighting him, prepare for a one hit kill. I’m not quite level 125 which I’ve seen videos of people facing him but I was able to take him out. I eventually went back and fixed the chapter that I screwed up on and unlocked the right ending finally. The second time turned out better for Dark Falz after I proceeded to remove any problems in the first round.

Afterwards is an extra story which features both Emilia and Nagisa and a very truncated PSO experience which puts you in contact with Red Ring Rico. The boss however is a pain. It’s Dark Falz of course but from Episode 2. He’s a lot more unfair in his full form which is screwed up considering you have to spend like 25 minutes getting to him through some of the most mean spirited monsters of PSO. I didn’t bother trying again and played with the stat boosting feature which ups your base stats but knocks you back to level 1.

So instead of getting to Final Fantasy XIII last night, I ended up fighting with a fickle piece of hardware. No, the game ran the opening fine but my audio system would only output normal stand ran the movie while fiddling with my audio. At the same time dropping into every Audio/Video forum to figure out if there’s a particular problem with my setup. I originally bought a Pioneer HTS-GS1 some time ago. It’s a lovely system. Everything plugs into the sub woofer and the control panel sits away from the sub-woofer via a sorta wired panel which has the nice Xbox 360 look to it. It was built with the Xbox 360 in mind anyway

The system is suppose to do DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 which is why I got it. My previous system, a Klipsch GMX D-5.1 was giving me problems towards the end with the sub-woofer popping when I switched sources and also the fact there was no remote to the entire bloody thing. Would require me to get up and examine the disc base to change to any other source. It’s a nice system if you are using it with a PC or something where the disc model is close to you but not if you have to getup and reach over past the TV just to change a setting.

Anyway, the system Pioneer system is suppose to be able to auto detect the audio format coming from my system, PS3 or Xbox 360. In normal operation it’s suppose to use Dolby Digital when playing games or movies but for some reason the system refused detect it right and instead ran stereo mode. I must have missed this the last one or two times I watched something but I immediately caught it when i had to pick up one of the rear speakers my cat knocked over when I got home. No sound. My first fear was, oh great, she broke it! But then I realized it had a quiet buzz of a powered speaker but no sound. I immediately started messing with the remote seeing if I accidentally dropped my system into stereo only. Dropping into my PS3 menu, I found that DTS 5.1 was disabled. Odd, this system supports DTS 5.1 so I selected it and went back to the game’s opening. Still nothing. I switched the system to Dolby Pro-Logic but that wasn’t the right setting either. It’s suppose to have a DTS or Dolby Digital lighting up on the panel.

So I pulled out Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and started to test with a blu-ray movie that I knew worked on the system. Well past tense was right. It did work the last time I watched this movie. I like it, it’s cheese but it’s my kind of cheese :3 Well, as it turns out the movie had the same problem. I switched over to my 360 and had the same problem too while attempting to use wings of Honneamise to test the 5.1 from there. Same problem which was odd. I hit the forums for a bit then decided to directly patch my system into the PS3 instead of passing it through the TV. I had read along the lines that TVs even though they accept HDMI inputs may not pass 5.1 digital sound data out of it’s optical port except from a cable source.

I did the same tinkering routine as I did with the previous setup but no luck. It seemed odd because the system gave me far less choices in as far as audio options that I can use. DTS and Dolby weren’t detected properly either which was odd. I ended up watching the movie almost 1 and 1/2 times before I found the problem. I switched the movie from PCM Linear to Bitstream and my audio system went “Hey! That’s a Dolby Digital signal!” and switched over to Dolby Digital mode. For the love of… the setting was in a hidden away inside a menu while watching the movie. I ended up dropping in FFXIII after I turned off the audio system and back on to clear the Dolby Digital and yup, game fires up in Dolby Digital mode. WTF… Seriously? What’s the point of having multiple HDMI ports on a TV if the optical output won’t pass the audio channel to the sound system properly!? Gah! Now I have to buy that HDMI A/V cable for my 360 just to get proper digital output from that system. I’m going to do a bit more research and call my uncle. He’s a bigger audiophile then myself.