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Greetings all. Today is September 1st and as a result it is labour day. This day is a day that most North American businesses ( perhaps in other parts of the world also) do not open. Ok, but enough about that! So due to unforseenable circumstances, we were unable to produce a podcast this week, however, I will still post what I’ve been playing as well as comments. The show must go on!

What I’ve been playing this week:

Tales of Vesperia

Admitedly, I was not a huge fan of the demo that was released on XboxLive and I thought that I was gonna skip on this. Then I looked at the release schedule for the upcomming weeks and realised that there wasn’t going to be much to keep me busy for much longer. I will also admit that the only exposure to the ‘Tales’ series that I had was with Tales of Symphonia on the Gamecube for a few hours at most. Nothing really developed from that. However, after picking this one up, I was surprised by the level of quality that the game has to offer. Now it’s not your run of the mill rpg where it’s turn based and the characters wait their turn to attack. After entering a battle, it turns more into a hack and slash, unless you’re more skilled that I am and switch characters on the fly, that definately has something to offer to the rpg genre. The AI is balanced properly to help you through rough patches and your healer will usually heal on cue and your mage will usually fend off attackers when they are being pursued. Better than that, you can always bring up a menu that will allow you to select any Aert, or magic skill, from any character and target whatever is necessary. That gives you some control over a seemingly chaotic battle system. Even though you do have a certain level of control over your team, there are always gonna be those battles that just move too quickly. That is one of the problems that I had with this battle system. Since everything is running in real time, then it’s not just a question of how poweverful your characters are but how well you have grasped the battle system itself and knowning when to block, attack or re-think your strategy. Fighting some of the more powerful, or even much quicker bosses, makes having to juggle each character individually a chore. Unlike in Eternal Sonata, another NamcoBandai action rpg, TOV creates a much more frantic play style that some gamers may be more accepting towards.

The musical scores in the Tales series are definately masterpieces in their own right. Every note hits the same notes of feelings or emotions or heart racing action that you feel as you play. There is a very good balance of the music used and you never feel that the music overwhelms the action on screen or even unwhelms it to the point of becomming unsuporting. The music could easily be put on a standalone disc and it would still be able to evoke a variety of emotions.

Interestling enough, TOV also supports a local multiplayer option. However, the problem that I have with this are that I wouldn’t necessarily want to play with someone who was unfamiliar with the battle system since it is easy to become overpowered or if they were familiar with the game then they would most likely be playing it at some point and wouldn’t want to play if it wouldn’t progress their game. This is a general problem with rpgs who attempt to include a local multiplayer aspect. There just isn’t as big of a group that still plays games locally and this would have been much more interesting if there was some form of online play. This is not to say that TOV does not have any XBL features. There are leader boards that track such statistics as quickest playthrough time, longest combo, most damage and other in game stats. It may not be ground breaking but at least they thought of something.

Overall, TOV does offer something for those of us who do enjoy j-rpgs and it does have a battle system that is not overly complex to scare away those who aren’t overly familiar with the genre. Is it the best rpg on the x360? I can’t say for sure but does it offer you a good bang for your buck? Definitely.

Fable 2: Pub games

Pub games is a small collection of mini games, 3 to be exact, that offer the opportunity to gain gold and items for your future Fable 2 character. However, the games are not overly original. They include: Fortune’s Tower, Keystone and Spinnerbox. Fortune’s Tower is a game which cards are revealed in the shape of a pyramid until you either get to the bottome of the 5 story pyramid or there is a pair formed adjacently from a higher and lower level of the pyramid. There is no real strategy to the game itself, it just requires guess work and some card counting to be somewhat profitable.

Keystone is a game that is similar to roulette where you place bets on dice rolls attempting to guess the number, colour, shape and other variables. Keystone is the game, of the three, that you can actually use a strategy and it will yield results.

Spinnerbox is your basic slot machine game, I wish I could say there is a strategy but there really isn’t.

All three games are completely random and what’s misleading is that these games are suppose to ‘help’ you in your game of Fable 2 but on the contrary. These games will usually result in you owing more than you started with in the first place or you will invest much time to leave with very little profit. As an 800 point game, it is a steep price to pay if you will never play Fable 2 and if you will be playing Fable 2 then pre-order it and get the unlock code for free.

p.s. Due to an exploit found in Fortune’s Tower, Pub games is a very easy way to become a millionaire in a matter of hours. There is reports of a patch that will fix the situation so until then, do your best with what you got since THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS!

So that concludes this weeks typecast, join us, hopefully, next week, for another podcast. Until then, I bid you Adieux.

-Rick  

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