Jeanne d’Arc, a PSP game that combines tactical RPG gameplay with French history?!
The latest PSP title I’ve recently played through over the last several weeks is the classic tactical RPG, Jeanne d’Arc. The game was developed by Level-5, the Japanese studio behind such monster franchises as the Professor Layton series and the latest Dragon Quest games, Dragon Quest VIII and Dragon Quest IX. How did their first ever game in this genre and on the PSP turn out?
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How did my top picks at the beginning of this year ultimately turn out?
Hope all of you had a great Christmas weekend! So we’ve made it once again to the end of another year, and cmfl3x and I decided to recap our 5 most anticipated titles for 2010 since we’re getting ready to share our top 2011 titles for 2011. Hit the jump to see the games I was most looking forward to in 2010 at the beginning of this year and my thoughts how they eventually ended up.
Welcome to Leveling Down’s 3rd Annual Gaming Awards/Holiday Shopping Guide! For those of you that are first time readers of our awards/holiday shopping guide, cmfl3x and I have basically compiled a list of various games released this year into different categories. We choose a “winner” of each category, but at the same time, all games mentioned as nominees in each category are worth considering – hence, the shopping guide aspect of it. If you can only pick one game from the category, go with the winner. If you enjoy that category a lot, consider checking out all of the nominees on that list!
As cmfl3x and I discussed the various categories and selected winners for each one, some categories we did not always agree on the same winner. This year, instead of forcing one another to see agree on the same game, we have instead allowed for ties – so there is a potential of two winners for each category. Our gaming tastes are not exactly the same and I didn’t think any of you would gain much from us forcing only one winner.
Our 2010 Gaming/Awards/Holiday Shopping Guide will span across all gaming platforms, and will run over the next two weeks on our normal Monday, Wednesday, and Friday posting schedule. Next Friday’s entry will conclude this year’s feature with our 2010 Game of the Year.
Without further ado, hit the jump for today’s categories: Best Action/Adventure Game and Best Role Playing Game.
Being able to play Final Fantasy VII on my PSP for $10? Sign me up!
I’ve been traveling a lot for both personal and business reasons for this past week or so, and the PSP has been my only source of gaming on my trips. One of the things that I think is really cool about owning a PS3 and a PSP is the PS One Classics line. These are PS1 games that are sold through PSN between $6-$10 in price, and are digital downloads that can be played on both the PS3 and the PSP. Considering the PS1 graphics aren’t too great on our HD TV sets these days, I’m not a big fan of playing the games on the PS3, but on the go with my PSP? Perfect! Hit the jump for a list of PS One Classics currently available that I will probably purchase at some point and a list of remaining PS1 games that I hope come out for download in the future for us here in the States.
Is the Wii the only answer to getting non-gamers interested in games?
Any gamer who lives with a non-gamer (generally, the Mrs., but I don’t want to assume) knows the inherent tensions that can arise in the household. “Do the dishes!” (Five more minutes…) “It’s time for bed!” (Let me finish this level.) “We’re going to be late!” (I’m fighting a boss.) “I’m going into labor!” (Let me get to a save point!) These tensions exist in my marriage as much as they might in any other and are compounded by the fact that my wife dislikes glowing rectangles in general. Thus any game that Mrs. cmfl3x and I can find a common interest in is like pure gold.
In this two part feature, I’ll be looking for some of the general principles that a gamer can use to try to find a game that can be enjoyed with a non-gamer. Obviously, your mileage may vary, and each individual user knows their significant other the best, but since I have a particularly difficult to please spouse, I figure I’d share some of my experiences. In Part 1, I’ll be looking at some general guiding principles and some general types of games, while in Part 2 I’ll discuss some specific genres that might house these diamonds in the rough. With examples!
Final Fantasy X’s Tidus & Jecht square off once again in Dissidia: Final Fantasy.
Not owning Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops when I picked up my new PSP with Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, I instead spent my “honeymoon” phase with my new PSP playing Dissidia: Final Fantasy. I’ve spent several hours playing the game on my commute to and from work lately, but I think I’ve played enough at this point that I’m ready to move onto a new PSP game. Read on for my thoughts on what this game is all about and whether it’s good or not.
Seeing the Peace Walker bundle everywhere in Tokyo definitely didn’t make things any easier.
This past weekend, my wife gave me the permission to buy the PSP Big Boss Bundle! Good thing too, since I had already secretly pre-ordered it last weekend (was worried they would stop the pre-orders too close to release date). Originally I thought I would hide it from her, but that’s no fun – I don’t want to play my PSP in secret…so I made some strong arguments: told her that my commute to and from work every day is basically an hour long on the subway, and I’ll probably be on this commute for the the rest of my working career and I need as much stuff as I can do on the train. Plus, Gamestop is having various trade-in deals (50% bonus trade-in credit on anything through the end of this week) so I was able to trade in some older 360 games I’m no longer playing to minimize the cost of my new PSP. That and she got a new job, so I was able to ride off her happiness by sneaking in a request for this purchase.
Now that I’m going to be a PSP owner tomorrow, I’ve sat down and put together a list of games I plan to pick up for it. And like the DS and its classic franchises: Advance Wars, Phoenix Wright, and Professor Layton, the PSP also some excellent titles. Read on to see what titles I am finding noteworthy enough to start tracking down…
For every positive Final Fantasy XIII implements, there seems to be a corresponding negative.
I beat Final Fantasy XIII this past weekend. I can’t go so far as to say I’ve completed it, but I at least got to see the game’s ending! The core campaign was about a 50 hour game, but the game is actually split right down the middle in terms of the first 50 hours being the very linear main storyline, and the second 50 hours being all of the optional sidequests that are the more traditional Final Fantasy aspects that you would expect. The verdict is still out on whether or not I will end up going back to trying to do all of the optional stuff after beating the game, but I have an idea of what they are about so I believe I have enough to share my final thoughts on the game in this review.
My fond memories of Dragon Age: Origins have been dulled by the number of extra DLC that “expand” the game.
Last Friday I posted about how I felt that EA’s Project $10 initiative is working, and I’m a supporter of it. Hey, I’m all for supporting developers and publishers to make money off their own products and if it came down to it, I wouldn’t mind if the used market disappeared altogether. EA has been coming back into the spotlight in a positive way with gamers these days, while Activision has gone the other way. But there’s one thing that EA is now more guilty of than others at this point that I am annoyed with: DLC for single player games. Read on for my thoughts why.
Trying to get through Final Fantasy XIII, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Dante’s Inferno, and Mass Effect 2 before the end of the month is shaping up to be a bit ambitious…
I’m bad. My backlog continues to balloon even though I thought I solved this problem before. Now with the entire PS3 exclusive library (pretty large, actually) going to be a part of my backlog later this month, I have to seriously figure out what I’m going to do. Apparently I can’t stop myself from buying games that go on sale, so the next best thing I can do is to try to make an estimate of what I will be playing over the course of the next month and come up with some realistic goals to give myself some sort of control. Read on for what I am forecasting my gaming time to be within the month of April…
