what i'm playing this week (whatchoo playin'?)

so, as the man who is always at least a year behind the times, i'm digging on two games that are way old, and one that is brand new this week.

right now, i'm dedicating the majority of my time to completing every last offline objective in skate. holy crap is it good. but i'm guessing you know this, as it came out like 6 months ago.

and even further back, dead rising came out. yes i've had a 360 for only a couple months, so give me a little credit, but oh man, once you get above around level 14, this game becomes fun defined. i've plateued as of late, but i may go back to it for a few more achievements and unlockables.

but most recently, i was sent, without asking for it, a copy of the 4-disk epic lost odyssey.

now, before i got ahold of a copy, i was seriously making fun of this game.

i mean, not only was it made by mistwalker, the company behind the atrociously long and boring blue dragon, which i have infamously not spent more than 2 hours on, but it was rumoured to clock in at 4 disks long, and was touted as 'too simplistic an rpg to be exceptional'.

well, take everything you've heard so far about lost odyssey and forget it.

like the protagonist in the story, get amnesia, and then pick up this game.*

i mean, if you hate rpgs, or if you've never played ff vii (or don't know what that means) then skip it.

but for everyone else, this is epic. it's a lot of reading, yes. and it's a lot of long cut scenes. there's also a fairly simplistic fighting and weapon/skill management system, but this is what makes the game so fun.

it's not just about the battles and the collectibles (though those themselves are still really, really fun), the game is as much about the story as it is about the journey.

it's just a rad rad japanese cinema epic, housed in a four disk game. i really expected to hate it, but i've been missing out on precious hours playing skate for this game. and as for value, it's 4 disks, which i've heard are almost 10 hours apiece if you're not snooping around too much, so you get a pretty nice ton of gameplay.

it may be a little too much like ff vii, and that may have something to do with why i'm so infatuated with it, but either way, the implication of a game being too much like ff vii is preposterous to begin with. it just increases its cred.

either way, i'm having fun with a game i expected to yawn at and place neatly in the pile marked 'don't open til bored and poor' with tony hawk: proving ground and blue dragon.

dreaming dreams of a thousand years,

JD

*if you need help with this, there is a rad episode of south park where cartman attempts to knock himself out so he can travel back in time in a vision to see the signing of the declaration of independence and not have to do research for his report. it's f-ing fantastic! it'll give all you kiddies loads of great ideas for conking yourself out, amnesia or no...