My name is Bhaal and I’m here to talk about my latest addiction. I’ve been addicted for two weeks. “Hi, Bhaal.”

For so long my shiny white Nintendo Wii has sat in dust. Just a neat idea with very little purpose. So, with gift certificate in hand I spun the wheel of chance in the Nintendo Wii games section. My heart landed on the shelf next to Mario Kart and the two have yet to part.

Now to the point: Nintendo managed to create a racing game that requires little to no racing knowledge or talent. Instead they channeled the lack of complexity into pure fun.

To start there’s the plastic steering wheel it comes with. It provides no functionality like a gun accessory’s trigger, but it’s not as useless as the plastic extensions they sell for Wii Sports that just remind you that you’re swinging a virtual bat. The wheel comfortably lets you hold the wiimote sideways and tilt it left and right. It seems awkward at first as you wonder about the effect of tilting the wheel forward and backward, but the first race proves that the game doesn’t care. Oh yeah, did I mention the wheel is free?

Next are the menus. I admit I was worried how I was going to use this wiimote-swallowing-wheel to point and click my way through menus. Fortunately the menus are linear and you can navigate them with the D-Pad on the wiimote. The linear progression of the menus reminds me a lot of my iPod. The game even remembers where I was last in a menu - again, just like my iPod.

The character selection and subsequent vehicle selection is quite massive - especially when you start unlocking new characters and vehicles. I think the “baby” versions of mario, luigi, etc are a bit too much. However, some of the characters seem to share vehicles, so I guess that cuts down on the complexity of choice. For instance, all of the “baby” characters I mentioned have the same 3 cars to choose from.

When you pick a vehicle you also choose between “Automatic” or “Manual”. I found this to be confusing because they’re using standard car terms that apply to gears and trying to reapply them to a system where there’s no gears. “Manual” just means you have the ability to drift when holding the brake in a turn. The benefit of this being that you get a boost depending upon how long you drift for. I found myself even more confused as the menus tried to explain this to me because I kept mixing up the word drift with draft. Drafting is something you can do in both driving modes by following closely behind someone. This is indicated by blue streaks going past your character. If you draft for long enough you get a boost for that as well. It’s a bit odd getting a boost when you’re directly behind someone, but they take care of that by knocking the character in front of you out of the way. Be careful though, you never know when you’re drafting behind someone with a banana or fake box that can knock you out.

As far as difficulty and goals, the game does well to separate your experience into layers. First you choose a vehicle engine size from 50cc, 100cc, and 150cc. This affects the vehicle types to choose from and the speed and difficulty of the races. 50cc and 150cc offer karts only and 100c offers karts and bikes. Then each division of engine size has it’s own “cup” to compete in. Each cup has multiple races in which your finishing position and performance give you points for that cup. The best 3 characters get gold, silver, and bronze trophies at the end. You also receive a letter grade for your driving abilities. Getting gold in these cups unlocks new cups, characters, and vehicles to play with.

Each race is pretty unique and each track has different ways of getting to the end. Every track has a series of “?” boxes that when touched starts a slot machine effect that chooses what you get from that box. The results vary greatly from a simple banana peel to transforming into a giant bullet that flies past everyone to the front of the race. These are the real game changers and how good of an item you get is based off of your position in the race. This system does well to inspire hope during those times when you fall off the track and come back in last place.

In the end the game is based mostly on boosts. Boosts come from starting the race with just the right timing, drafting, drifting, items, and doing tricks. If you time things right you can chain all these different methods into never-ending boost power throughout the entire race.

Once you’ve mastered the single player part of the game, there’s plenty more. You can race people in your living room or across the globe online. You can also download “ghosts” of other peoples’ race performances so you can see how the pros race.

In the end, Mario Kart Wii is an addiction I’m proud to own.

I like Wii Ware, and I like RPGs. RPGs for Wii Ware? That’s totally boss in my world.

For months, I’ve read about this great little RPG for Wii Ware that was an extension of the Final Fantasy franchise. I wanted it, but kept getting distracted by other shiny Wii Ware titles that offer challenging puzzles, quick fights, classic gameplay, and monkeys. I like monkeys.

As 2008 came to an end, I found a site that listed the most popular games of the year, and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King (say that five times fast!) was on there. I felt ashamed for forgetting about this apparent gem of a downloadable game. Hey, it’s Final Fantasy, they wouldn’t put that legendary franchise name on something I won’t love, right?

So, over 7 months after this game was launched, I downloaded FFCCMLAAK, feeling a feverish excitement come over me. It was as though I knew Santa Claus was in the neighborhood, about to drop off my Ferarri 911… with Christian Bale in the passenger seat, holding my brand new puppy. I was really, really excited.

From the very beginning, the game is super cute, super cuddly, and super fun. Chime is this sassy little helper, instructed to watch over the young King as he makes his way to the mysterious land he has inherited from his father. Hugh Yurg is a loyal friend and warrior, determined to protect his young King no matter the consequences. As the young King, I find my new kingdom alongwith a large group of crystals that magically talk and grant me these great powers of creating buildings, aka Architek. To try out my powers, I find a glowing patch of grass nearby and, with Chime’s help, construct a house. And the house came with two residents! I try it again, and again, but find out that every time I build something, I drain my supply of Elementite, a crystal necessary to make buildings with my power. Before I can run out and start getting this stuff, though, Chime tells me I have to go to bed. Um, hello? I’m the King, last time I checked. Sassy little helpers don’t get to boss me around!

Apparently, they do.

I wake up the next morning, ready to start my day of adventuring, find some of this Elementite stuff, and battle monsters (it’s an RPG, it’s bound to happen!). One of my new Residents, Frederick, tracks me down and asks if he can be of any service to me. I will forever blame my disappointment in this game on Frederick, and this pivotal moment in the game. I’m instructed to appoint Frederick as an Adventurer, someone to go outside my kingdom’s walls and gather the Elementite for me. The Adventurers will also explore the lands outside my kingdom, fight the monsters, etc. etc. because I’m not allowed to leave the kingdom ever again. As the King, I don’t even get to control the actions of these Adventurers. I get “reports” on how they’re doing, and that’s about it. Instead, I’m stuck inside the castle walls, talking to Residents, building some establishments, and waiting for Frederick and whoever else becomes an Adventurer to come back. Frederick gets to have all the fun, and I’m stuck doing manual labor.

That’s how I spent the rest of my game experience. You can prepare your Adventurers for battle, arming them with particular weapons, but that’s as close as your character gets to fighting. You depend on the Residents for the daily tithing so you can hire more people to go out and explore. You’re stuck inside the castle walls, day in and day out, building things for your residents. You don’t get much of a choice as to what you build either. The Residents are pretty candid in their desired establishments. Frederick, for example, tells me that he wants a park so he can take Chime there and ask her out on a date. Chime is MY sassy little helper, Frederick the Adventurer, you better keep your crystal-grubbing hands off and let her do her job. You already stole the best part of the game away from me, now you’re trying to take my assistant? I don’t think so!

It was around that point that I began to ignore Frederick and encouraged all my female Adventurers to battle future goblins, so they leveled quickly and left him in the dust. Frederick, you crossed the line, and the King will never forget. Chime became a thorn in my side, as well. The days in the kingdom are really short at first, and Chime kept stopping me in my tracks, telling me to go to bed. I began to wonder if she knew I was snubbing Frederick, but wrote it off as paranoia.

To be fair, this game has generally received good reviews. I’ve found a lot of people commenting on its lack of real RPG experience, and its slant as a little city-building game, but still finding it enjoyable. I like building cities (SimCity Creator deserves a shout-out here), but that is not what I expect or want in a Final Fantasy RPG game. I want the real RPG experience. I may never finish this game (Frederick harasses me daily about answering one of the quests, aka “behests”, that I’ve ordered), but I will acknowledge that, if I had known it was not the RPG that was advertised to me through Wii Channels, I would enjoy it more. I read that the game gives you a little more freedom in your commissions later, and your days get a little longer, but it still maintains the same ’stuck in the castle while everyone battles for you’ mentality.
It’s back to the monkeys for me.

(PS- It’s worth noting that you can pay to download extra content, such as wardrobe upgrades. Apparently, Chime the sassy little assistant can get some pretty sassy upgrades, including bikini tops.)

This is my review of the series. Wow, this game has sucked away a lot of my time. If you’re a fan of strategy RPG’s then you will love this series, oh yeah you also have to be a fan of spectacular sprite animations. Dio quote, “Go Old Skool or Go Home!”

The first installment of the game is Disgaea: Hour of Darkness for the PS2. The game takes place in the Netherworld, and you are Prince Laharl who has recently lost his father. Now with the Overlord’s death, all the Netherworld is trying to lay stake to his throne, but you must defeat all the Netherworld to become the Overlord. (Pretty much short intro summary) The game is filled with a comical blend of witty humor and odd lines. If you can’t laugh at something they say, you might not know how to laugh.

The second installment of the game is Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories for the PS2. The game takes place in the human world as you are Adell, the young man who is trying to save his family from becoming demons. The whole world is been turned into demons and to make matters worse, Adell has been cursed by Overlord Zenon. Now you must help everyone turn back to human and remove this curse before it is the end of you! (Pretty much short intro summary) The game has more comical humor; it adds a whole new cast of characters to the story. (Even a few old friends from Disgaea 1, show up)

The third installment of the game is Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice for the PS3. The game takes place as the Evil Academy in the Netherworld where you play as Lord Mao, the number 1 honor student. Here at Evil Academy, Mao’s wish to defeat his father the Overlord is fostered. Through his studies of comic books, video games and other wonderful media, Mao desires to capture a Hero and steal his title. This will be his plan on the way to defeating the Overlord. (Pretty much short intro summary) The game has more comical humor, another entirely new cast of characters.

A Nintendo DS version of the game is also available. It is basically Disgaea 1 w/o as much voice overs.

The other interesting features is Item World, which is a “random generated” world which you and your party must battle through in order to “improve” an item. Basically, if you have a Super Light Sword of Destruction, and you wish to make it stronger, you enter the Item World and defeat the inhabitants in there to gain levels in this weapon. (This mode alone makes the game unique and fun, although can be “REALLY DIFFICULT” at times and if you die in the Item World = Game Over.)

The Dark Assembly is another interesting feature of the Disgaea Series. This is where you create new characters to help you in your adventures. The amount of different characters is in the hundreds. Almost every enemy you defeat can be made in the Dark Assembly. So say you just defeated that Ice Dragon on level 29, goto the Dark Assembly and create him if you have the mana it takes. Not to mention there are secret characters that can be accessed through leveling up this character and that character. Replay-ability is endless. Not to mention you can do “Reincarnation” to any of your characters and come back as another class. So for example your favorite healer just needs a bit more umph in the battlefield. Reincarnate him back as a warrior. Now you have something like a paladin. Although your character being reincarnated starts back at level 1 if you decide to do so. But if you do he retains a certain amount of his previous class skills.

Another neat feature in the game is Geo Panels. These panels are found on the battlefield, each panel might have different bonuses or penalties. So watch where you step and pay attention to where your enemy steps too. For example if you are on a map with 2 different panel types. Panel 1 has “Silence, +1 Counter Attacks” effect on it. Panel 2 has “Enemy Boosts 20%”. From looking at this you realize that you don’t want the enemy to stand on Panel 2.  So you can either stand on Panel 1 or 2. But if you stand on 1 you can’t cast spells so sit a melee type there and watch him counterattack left and right. You can also destroy these panels by removing the Geo Blocks. This will remove all the effects and do damage to anyone standing on the panels. It also improves your Power Gauge, which determines what loot you get at the end as bonus.

I hope you enjoyed my review of the series. Oh yeah, the developer is Nippon Ichi Software or NIS. I pretty own almost all their titles except those on PSP. All their titles are unique in their own ways and have something for everyone. If you like to think out your moves and think about how to defeat difficult situations and have a comical sprite filled time, then this series is for you!

 http://disgaea.us/dis3/

The above link goes to Disgaea 3. It contains a pretty well done sight for further explanation of systems and how the series works.

Oh yeah, if you read this and had any questions or just a fan of the game feel free to message me.  http://www.duels.com/diocyatchin

Lately, I haven’t had a lot of time to spend buried in a world of my choosing. Heroes of Might and Magic V was the last epic adventure that I played front to back - ask my team, I wouldn’t shut up about it for a while. So where does Blerg go to get a fix these days? The iphone.

I’ll admit I don’t have any of the latest gaming gadgets such as the DS or the PSP and I don’t think I’ll ever need to based on what’s coming out for the iphone. I usually browse through the app store a couple times a week to see if there’s anything new that’s worth checking out in the gaming section. I’ll talk about a few games I found that caught (and held) my attention enough that I actually played them while I could have been doing other things as opposed to just using them as time wasters while I’m waiting on my half-caff, double-whip mocha caramel machiatto.

Aurora Feint The Beginning

What is it? I thought I was going to enjoy an RPG but no…it’s a puzzle game where you level, gain new skills and, well, solve puzzles. There are one million and one of these types of games (sort of like desktop tower defense) but this one has a couple aspects that make it stand out. First is the ability to rotate the game board so the pieces “fall” based on gravity and stack up differently depending on how  you rotate your phone. This allows you to make some creative solutions to your puzzle solving problems. The second is the rpg aspect of leveling and selecting new skills - one of the core mechanics of any rpg is growing your character.

What went awry? The game allows you to solve the “puzzles” by sliding blocks around and lining them up in stacks or rows of three or more identical blocks. The issue is that with the sliding and rotating, there is essentially not much that’s puzzling as there are so many ways to change up the board. You do get bonuses for more complicated moves where as you line the blocks up and they disappear and blocks fall to fill the space that create more stacks/rows that then disappear. However, I really couldn’t see much benefit other than the intellectual curiousity of whether you could do it. The game apparently has 100 levels. I lost my motivation around 40. They recently came out with some multi-player stuff that sounds interesting but I’m not sure I’m going back.

Rating: 3 Blergs         

Jewel Quest II

I can’t really tell you how I ended up with this game. Probably because it has the word Quest in the title and I do like a good quest. The game actually ended up being much more interesting than Aurora Feint for me. One of those “Yeah I’m really supposed to go meet someone but I’m just going to finish this level….ahhhhh….did I really just screw up and have to start over again!??!!?!? Sorry mom be right there, just need to finish this durn level” kind of games. There’s a bit of a fictional tale along the lines of Indiana Jones that sort of leads you to believe there’s a reason why you’re solving these puzzles and you get rewarded with some new graphics from time to time. The difficulty is ratcheted up and new mechanics introduced in a fairly steady progression. Not too fast but not too slow. Kept me engaged and when I finished it, I was all like “that was well worth $0.99″ even though I’m still not sure I was on a real quest. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it just yet but I’ll try just about anything for $0.99.

Rating: 4 Blergs              

Warfare Inc.

Wow! Are you kidding? I can play C & C on my iphone. Yes! Well almost. This game is a total Command & Conquer knock-off and a very good one. RTS is a genre I’ve been hooked on since the days of Dune (if you’ve played Dune, you are by definition cool). I tried Strategic Assault first but was bored before completing the first mission. Perhaps I didn’t give it a chance but it seems terrifically simple, sort of low budget. Next up, Warfare Inc. Loading, loading…..okay, the graphics are really sharp, there’s a tech tree, various strategic pieces, a mission system and even decent audio. You can even save/load games while on missions. They really nailed the elements necessary to make this little iphone app a real game. The only bad thing I have to say about it is the interface could use a little improvement. I found myself selecting the wrong thing (the finger is not a good pointing device) a lot. I also missed being able to assign hot keys to groups of units (which you could actually do in Strategic Assault by the way). All in all top notch work by the guys at spiffcode. For $2.99, a steal.

Rating: 4.5  Blergs               

That wraps up this edition of Blerg’s iPhone App Review. If you’ve got an iphone, feel free to share what games you’re playing on it. The great thing about iphone games is you don’t have to play them while you’re waiting for your take-out, but you can.

As the launch of The Elemental Age draws near, I will be stopping in to drop (at least) weekly previews of various items, features and art work.

Today, I have art, lore and stats for the new Legendary Mace:

Malus - The Mindhammer Power Rating: 781 One Hand: Mace 45-135 Damage +75 Perception +10% Hit The Elemental Age Legendary

“I know what you know before you know you know it. I am there in each step that you take, each decision that you make, each law you decide to break.  I have seen your folly and your triumph, your petty jealousy and inspiring kindness. Even now, I am there in your head. These words are in your mind because I put them there.” - Life in the New Elemental Age

Malus represents another very basic but powerful addition to this set.  Next up, I will show you something a little different.