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July 09, 2007
No sir, away! A Papaya War is On!
Here is some wisdom from Justin Spaeth:
"His penis is only a dick's length away."
This has been wisdom from Justin Spaeth.
So, Phantasy Star Universe. If you liked PSO and don't mind paying the monthly fee, there is a lot to like. Being able to switch between Hunter, Ranger, and Force at will is a nice ability, though I haven't been a CAST so I don't know if they can be a Force in this one... Anyway, your TP is now, well, a weapon statistic. Each weapon you have has TP. Each weapon can be equipped with 1 or 2 Photon Arts, which are either neat special attacks, like a spinning vortex attack on the Swords, or the spells you're used to from PSO, like Resta, Zonde, Barta, etc. You equip Photon Arts to the Y button (I'm playing the 360 version), and X is your normal attack. Spellcasting weapons, like Staffs and Wands and such can have spells equipped to both X and Y, but have no regular attack. Switching weapons is very easy, and is mostly the point. You have a "Healing Staff" for casting healing spells, and a "Attack Staff" for casting attack spells if you're a Force, for example, and switch between them when you want. That, combined with new visuals and like 5 planets to explore, and there's plenty to get a PSO vet giddy.
However, as an offline experience, it's not as full as, say, PSO Ep 1 and 2 for the Gamecube. On there, you could do 2 player split screen offline co-op (you could do 4 player, but it really wasn't optimal. There was lots of lag), which was a ton of fun, and in some ways, better than playing online, just because it's someone you know who is right there. There is no option like that on PSU. In fact, you can't even play a lot of the content of the online game offline. You have to play the Story mode, riddled with cutscenes that are long and boring and serve exactly 0 purpose. Once you get to the fighting, it's pretty fun, in normal PSO style, but it's bogged down with all of that. You're also stuck playing as Ethan Weber, with his green space hoodie. As you play the story mode, you unlock Extra mode, which is "playing the online game offline," with all the character customization and stuff you're used to, but even when you unlock it, it isn't complete, requiring you to play through ALL of story mode to have access to everything. Also, all of the achievements are tied to this story mode, and put together really lazily, honestly.
It's not all perfect, but it is fun, and if you're willing to buy a GUARDIANs Licence (which is on top of my Xbox Live Gold fee, which is just about the stupidest thing ever), it's sure to be a great time. I'm enjoying the combat in the story mode, but I'm sure I'll be burned out on the game by the time I beat it and get all the achievements. Which is fine. I have another used game sitting here, and another that should be arriving in the mail tommorow. I should be set until Bioshock arrives.
Wingin' It 3D's lack of F-bombs is retarded. There, I said it. Also, if they really expect me to put a dollar in the jar for saying fuck, then they shouldn't bleep it out. Also, anything encouraging words that replace fuck but serve no purpose but to replace fuck (like, say, frack and frell) is an incredibly bad thing.
I need to accomplish things this week... yeah...
Posted by poetfox at July 9, 2007 03:31 AM
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