Robot Alchemic Drive

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Lately, I have hated just about every new game that I have purchased, and/or just stopped playing it. Here's a quick rundown of some of them. I'll make the time cut-off point when Vitriola moved out here, because we just had this conversation and the games are all fresh in my mind.

Republic: The Revolution: It ran very poorly on my 1100 Pentium III computer, which was unacceptable because it was basically a board game. For some reason, a bunch of Russians trying to get over on one another cracks me up. However, it was obvious that I was going to have to read the instruction manual to learn how to play the game. If I wanted to read, I'd get involved at a local level with my town library. Reviews of the thing were very negative, but I didn't read a review, really, from a name I trusted and there's a lot of bandwagonning in game reviews. I plan on going back to it, especially now since my PC is twice as fast, but it's towards the bottom of the queue.

FINAL FANTASY X-2: Hey, which dress would be the best for this battle? Ha ha ha, this game turned me into a nine year old girl. That being said, they ran a bunch of ads where it looks like Tidus is going to come back. So there's that. It has been brought to my attention that at least one member of my family finds console games like this to be relaxing to watch and quite stress-reducing, so again... I'll be back. This one is actually at the top of the queue.

MAX PAYNE 2: THE FALL OF MAX PAYNE: No problems here. Great game. Just a little, ah... too much like the first one. But still! It ran well. It looked great. Sometimes, developers just can't win. If they make their sequel too different, they get slagged for it on-line. Too much the same... they still get abuse. I'd finish this one. Hopefully I'll get back to it before Half-Life II and Doom 3 show up, or before I get round to getting Far Cry, though.

UNNECESSARY ROUGHNESS '96: OK, I bought this because it was $1.99 and my old copy was sort of "pirated" and when I lost the hard drive it was on, I lost the game. I played two complete seasons of this. Both times I did not get to the Super Bowl because -- even though I went 15-1 the first season and 16-0 the second -- I lost to the Detroit Lions in the NFC Championship game. At one time, Herman Moore, Barry Sanders, Johnny Morton and whoever the fuck they had at QB were pretty potent. For sheezy, my Detroit Lioneezies! I doubt I will ever install this game. BUT IT'S MINE, AT LEAST.

MR. MOSQUITO: Yeah I kind of blew it with this one.


... But this brings us back to ROBOT ALCHEMIC DRIVE. Here's the game in brief:

o It's a mech game. Giant mechs clobber each other.

o It's got "episodes." With characters, designed -- apparently -- by whoever did Cowboy Bebop

o The episodes are brief, and you can save after each one. At least so far, on both counts.

o The voice acting is terrible, but who cares, I guess.

o You can't bypass the cut-scenes. Argh.

o The "hook" of the game is that your little person in the game who is remotely-controlling the mech... is in the game. So basically, you have to find a place for her to hide or otherwise be where you can see all the action, and where she doesn't get hurt.

It's all coming together so far. The game claims 50 episodes, and I've done 7 of them. The mech I chose (there are three for starters) has many controls, and the game walks you through how to properly get the most out of it. The mech is also not a terrible pussy, and can take a lot of damage as well as dish it out. I'm not sure, but I think the other mechs are aliens. As someone diagnosed with rampant, terminal xenophobia, I am glad that my last few years on this (the SAFE PLANET ONLY HUMANS ARRRE SssSSsSSAFE!!!!) I enjoy killing giant aliens wherever possible.

The game also has the most annoying of japanese characters: the pony-tailed scientist guy. With purple hair. Who fucking interrupts your battles to blather on about worthless shit to you, and you have to hit the "O" key to get him to shut the fuck up and then the other mech gets a free shot at you. Hey, whose side is he on? ^___^

Anyway. Sometimes it's frustrating to get your avatar in a spot where she won't get crushed. But I knew that going in, and it adds "strategy." I mean, there are dozens of mech games where you don't have to worry about that, so I made a deliberate choice to play this one this way. (And frankly, other mech games sort of bored me.) The game is pretty liberal with blood, too -- the last mission I was on showed the latest, baddest mech just stomping on a bunch of screaming, running Japanese citizens. Crushing them with each step. Hot! Got my juices flowing. And when I savaged that (not so) little bitch and knocked him straight on his ass, well, I took off my pants and just sort of cock-slapped him through my TV set as well. He totally knew what I was doing, too, but since he was in the process of blowing up all he could do was blow up at me.

And while my TV screen transmits force feedback, it doesn't transmit shrapnel..

Jones 1, Aliens 0. (Well, zero except for the hundreds of citizens it squashed, natch.)

[Worm]

o It's got "episodes." With characters, designed -- apparently -- by whoever did Cowboy Bebop

o The episodes are brief, and you can save after each one. At least so far, on both counts.

As Cowboy Bebop is the only good anime, I think this is a pretty big plus.