so Gaald, hows ya cousin?

With all the trauma Elysium's been experiencing from the Witcher and now The World Ends With You, I have a feeling next year he might have a horizons avoiding project in which he just plays WoW for a year and then rights an article about it afterwards.

Poor, poor Sean. I absolutely adore The World Ends With You, but I have trouble explaining why. Basically, I have pretty much the same reaction to it as is detailed in this comic.

I propose a simple psychological test. I will describe an aspect of the game, and you can tell me what your first thought is. Here goes: every area in Shibuya has a chart of different brands of clothing that are popular, and you have to pick out your fashions according to the trends in your area in order to get combat buffs, or you can affect the trends by wearing something unpopular and doing well. Before you can wear more bold outfits, however, you must level up your "Bravery." Also, to get the most out of your fashion, you need to make friends with store clerks by visiting their shops and spending money - they will then give you tips that unlock secret abilities in the different clothing items. When I first read about that system, my reaction was to immediately drop everything and go buy the game. If your reaction was utter revulsion, maybe you won't love it in the same way that I do.

Yeah, in hindsight the Half-Life 2 ending was amazing. At the time, though, when we didn't know if we would see another Half-Life at any point in the next 5 years, it made people very understandably want to scream.

I think we could classify Fable 2 as not having a very good ending. I mean, it gets built up from the beginning to be a very personal encounter for the hero, and when it finally arrives, it just isn't very satisfying.

Regarding: Getting into Demigod after the ship has sailed

The GwJ community rocks. What doesn't rock is the fast-pace that you all blow through games. Exceptions (for me) are Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2, which have enough people playing that I can still jump into a game.

This is why I don't buy a lot of the latest and greatest multiplayer games. By the time I would have purchased Demigod, most of you would consider it old news. This is not a complaint, just an observation. It's the price I pay for being in the presence of folks on the bleeding edge.

Great show guys, really enjoyed this one!

Okay to sum up the show topic: Star troopers, Gilbert and Sullivan incest!, Star craft and doody.....

I was going to make a few comments on game endings but it got too long and i made a thread instead.

[edit] Oh yeah, can we tone down the iPhone love please? I would have thought that after his rants over flower that Cory would have been at least measured in his opinions over that.....

Also, Certis' point about the games being remakes from other platforms is a good point. I mean, every time the same game comes out on the PS3/PC a year after the 360 version we don't start talking about it all over again... do we?

I think the worst part was when you drop kicked my cat across the room and set fire to the kitchen. It was really uncalled for.

The one thing about the World Ends with You is that it really doesn't pick up until the 2nd week(which takes about 4-5 hours). The first week is pure JRPG-clicheness. Amnesia, androgynous character, save the world, etc. After that, the story really does get more interesting.

As for the game:
1. Lowering your character's level(the slider on the bottom of the start menu) only impacts your HP pool and pin drop rate. It doesn't change any other stats-those are gained through food(when you digest something completely, you gain a few points of stats) and clothing.
2. Battle difficulty(starts at normal, you then unlock easy, and hard later) determines enemy stats and drop tables. A harder difficulty does NOT mean that pins drop easier.
3. Pins are like pokemon(seriously). They have individual Exp pools, and level up accordingly. And, like pokemon, you want as many as possible. Since the descriptions are fairly bad, it's much better to experiment with each pin you get.

Battle system:
1. DO NOT equip anything that changes your partner's attack map(the arrow thingy). During battles, I generally just hit right or left constantly, and concentrate on using my pins on the noise.
2. Don't equip multiple pins that need the same action(tapping, slashing, etc.). They'll interfere with each other, and it's difficult to get the right attack at the right time.
3. The Light Puck(the green blob that goes between Neku and his partner) is incredibly important. Since it multiplies the damage the final attack of a combo does, proper use can give you some pretty insane damage. Get used to switching from Neku to the partner to keep the multiplier up. It's actually better to ignore the one without the puck-use that as your focus rather than just running Neku around.

Listen. I told you that was a big misunderstanding. Out here in Crescentwood, drop kicking a cat is a sign of celebration! I was happy you guys won the battle! How was I supposed to know that you pacifist hippies in Osborne would have an "issue" with that?

Sorry about the kitchen though. Next time I'll build my mini's funeral pyre outside. Without gasoline. Sheeesh.

That was a beautiful game!

I have no problem with being critical about it, I was just feeling a bit annoyed that somehow we were questioning whether the entire platform should even be open for discussion. As if we were trying to wedge a discussion of car stereos into it or something. And I was way over-reacting, in retrospect!

Guilty as charged.

But can't you hook it up to a car stereo via audio input (or even the ipod dongle) if that stereo, in fact has that input? Sounds completely tangental but relavent to iphone/pod discussion to me.

Be hunting within a week?
What kind of crazy laws do you have over there?
Over here it is pretty much like getting a pilot's license. Well, not quite, but you need a really long education

As an iPhone owner who's not super into it as a gaming platform (less to do with the phone, more to do with portable gaming in general) I also tend to feel like we've crossed some kind of line when we spend five minutes on games you can play in a browser or 15 years ago on the PC. I think Cory's takeaway in yesterday's article was the perfect tonic for this:

"Why don't we do this: I'll take a much more serious look at the games I decide to rant about on the iPhone. I won't bother you about two-minute time wasters like Uno or iBowl or whatever. But when I find something I think holds some serious value, I'm going to tell you about it. Shout it from the rooftops. Because if it's really good, you'll want to know."

Same goes for web-based games and some of the shorter download games, honestly. It's not that there's nothing to discuss there, but something free that takes 5 minutes to play probably doesn't need equal time to a 10 hour adventure game people need to make a purchase decision on. I know there are shows when all I've had time for is a "small" game and I kind of feel like I need to stretch it out like taffy to have it on the show