Guadia Quest is an awesome little NES-style RPG that comes on Retro Game Challenge. It's a lot like Dragon Warrior on the NES, but much easier and more approachable. You can save whenever you'd like, as often as you'd like, so you can play without worrying about losing much work. The game is very enjoyable, but the items and spells are not explained at all, so you will have to experiment to figure out what everything does. Because it is a game within a game I have not been able to find any guides for the game, so here are some notes that I have put together. You won't necessarily need them but in case you want to do the best that you possibly can without a ton of grinding, they'll probably help. [This mini-guide is a work-in-progress. It is woefully inadequate at the moment.] FAQs 1. How to I revive a dead character? Naga pint (item) or Imup (spell) 2. How to I get mana back? Stay at an inn or use elixir. -- What items do: Naga Pint: Revives a dead character Burrito, Drumstick, and jerky: restore hitpoints (in order, more to less) Uni-tear: about 50 hit points given to every character Wild herb: Recover 100 hit points for every character Orbs: Help you fight the guadias. Red cow: Wakes up a sleeping character. Grim coin: Instantly kills some enemies. Naga wing: Returns you to the main city (Centraan). Incense: Titaniun, Silver, : Holy Key, Demon Key, Dark Soul: Allow to you progress in the game, by opening doors or getting past guards. -- What Spells do (from Gamespot): Green character (the tank): Level 3: Warp (Warp to Towns and Dungeons)[1] Level 10: Funko (Reduce Encounter Rate) [3] Level 11: Ragua (Low-Damage to all enemies) [3] Level 15: Fasta (Increase Field Movement Speed) [2] Level 20: Chero (+5 STR & SPD) [6] Level 28:  Healt (Heals ~70 HP for all) [16] Orange character (the healer): Level 2: Heala (Heals ~40 HP) [2] Level 3: Prota (+10 DEF) [4] Level 4: Megra (Low-Damage) [3] Level 9: Healo (Heals ~60 HP) [9] Level 10: Getup (Cures Sleep) [2] Level 12: Degra (Mid-Damage) [4] Level 13: Healy (Full HP) [8] Level 15: Dropu (Steal) [5] Level 17: Dynow (Instant Death Spell) [6] Level 20: Imup (Revive) [24] Level 24: Fegra (Heals ~70 HP for all) [16] Purple character (the sorceress): Level 2: Megra (Low-Damage) [3] Level 3: Dormi (Sleep) [2] Level 4: Heala (Heals ~30 HP) [2] Level 7: Movit (+10 SPD) [4] Level 8: Zegda (Mid-Damage to All) [5] Level 10: Healo (Heals ~60 HP) [5] Level 11: Degra (Mid-Damage) [4] Level 12: Weaki (Lower Enemy Stats) [8] Level 13: Hitta (+10 STR) [4] Level 14: Healy (Full HP) [8] Level 16: Harda (+10 DEF to all) [6] Level 17: Magda (Heavy Damage to All) [7] **Level 21: Metamega (Massive Damage) [6] Level 25: Imup (Revive) [24]

World of Goo is here! Just finished the download (only 70MB) from Steam and just started up the game. Been looking forward to this one for some time. Should be one of the better indie titles this year.

This week Lian Li announced a very cool replacement case for the Xbox 360. It's called the PC-XB01. Since the Xbox 360 is basically a computer and it has all the problems of a small form-factor system (overheating, cramped layout, etc) this is actually a pretty cool move. Plus the case is just as great looking as all over Lian Li's gear. Improved thermals, quiet operation, better looking, nicer design... so what's the problem? Why not put your 360 in a cool aluminum case?

1. You have to completely take apart your Xbox 360. Not just remove the case either, but completely dismantle it. Here is page one of the five pages of instructions. You better have a Torx 6 handy, as well as an hour or two.
2. In case there was any question about it, this will void your warranty. In fact, this is the warranty-voidingest thing I can think of that does not involve purposefully destroying the console.
3. The case looks pretty big, so forget about putting the Xbox next to your TV or on a tight shelf.
4. Like many of Lian Li's more open cases, this looks like it's a dust magnet. You will definitely have to open it and do some cleaning every few months, especially if you use your Xbox a lot.
5. The case is $150, so that about half the cost of a new 360.

So who, aside from hardcore modding fans, is going to buy into this? I'm not really sure, but the only people I could see going for it, is someone with an older Xbox 360 that has not died or RRoD'd yet. The improved cooling could save your Xbox and if the warranty is already up than that is not a factor. The 360 has been out long enough that there is a significant number of people that fall under this category, but the number of them that will want to roll the dice and piece apart their console is probably not very large. So it's a cool move for Lian Li, and it's great too see some carry-over from the PC world into consoles (which are becoming much more PC-like every generation), but I'm not sold on the idea. If it came with a warranty (would require a factory installation) and was, say, $100 over the price of a standard Xbox 360 Pro, I could see myself going for it, but considering that the new units are running cooler and quieter I probably won't be making the upgrade to the PC-XB01 any time soon.

Inverted Castle, a site that I admittedly have never too to before, has a great essay on Everyday Shooter. It's smart, readable, and highly entertaining. Not to knock video game writing, but it's really refreshing to read posts like this now and then. Found via the Indie Games Blog

I'm pretty late to the BioShock party, but it's been on my "To Play" list since well before the release. I'm getting a bit tired of big-name FPS games, but was really excited about this one. So much so in fact that I held off on buy into until I knew I would have the time to give it the proper attention. As it turns out, BioShock is as good as everyone says it is. The game is beautifully designed, the game play is excellent, and the RPG elements clearly set it aside from every FPS of the last few years. Unfortunately, the game is insanely unstable. As in, I am about five or so hours into the game and it has probably crashed about 50 times on me. This seems to be a widespread issue with the PC version, especially with Nvidia graphics from what I have read. I have the newest version with new graphic drivers and a system that is more than powerful enough to handle the game, but it just keeps crashing. I'm trying to work with 2K's tech support team. Right now I am playing on a notebook with 3GB RAM, Intel X7900 processor, and Nvidia 8800 GTS M graphics, on Vista. Before calling 2K I made sure to shutdown any unnecessary programs/services and clean up the startup. So far I have tried playing the game in DX9 mode with no intro (-dx9 -nointro). These have allowed me to get games up up to an hour here and there but I'll have to restart about five times before I get lucky enough to get one of those. I just entered Fort Frolic and at this point the game is unplayable. I've given it about 15 attempts, but every time the game crashes under a minute. I've tried a number of variables as to the in-game settings, but none seem to help. Currently I am waiting to hear back from 2K. On my first call with them they just said to run "msconfig" and kill any unnecessary startup programs. I have been waiting about four hours on my support ticket with the advanced team on the next fix, so hopefully I'll hear back from them tomorrow. Update 4/12/08 - So no progress, actually things have gotten worse. This seems to be related to the Fort Frolic level, but now the game is crashing every few seconds and it actually corrupted a save file. I did get about an 30 min game out of the system by playing at the lowest levels on every setting at 800x600, but now even that is not working. 2K's support staff had two tips (that is after an initial phone call where they said to make sure and shutdown any background processes or extra startup programs): First Ticket:

Hello, To further assist you with your issue we require you to send us a DXDIAG report from your computer. To do this: - Hold down the Windows key on the keyboard and press "R". - Type "dxdiag" and click OK. - This will open the DirectX Diagnostic Tool. - Click the Save All Information button at the bottom. - Save the file to your Desktop with the name "dxdiag.txt". - Attach the file to your reply to this email. With the information contained within the DXDIAG report we will be able to investigate your issue further.

Second Ticket:

Try running the game in DirectX 9 mode. To do this, go to the Windows Start menu, click on Games in the right-hand column, right click on the Bioshock icon and select "Play DirectX 9".

Third Ticket:

Hello, To run the game in Windows Compatibility mode. - right click on the shortcut for the game. - left click on Properties. - click on the Compatibility Tab. - tick the box called "Run this program in compatibility mode for." - select a version of Windows to run the game in. - click on apply. - click on ok. Then, do the following: 1. Delete all temporary files from your system. WIN9X/ME Navigate to C:\Windows\Temp and delete all files in this folder. Win2000/XP Navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\*Your User Name*\Local Settings\Temp and delete all the files in this folder. You may need to turn on the ability to view hidden files and folders to do this. To do so, double click My Computer, then click Tools and Options. Then click View and select the option to view all hidden files. 2. Close down all background tasks. To do this click Start, then Run, then type MSCONFIG and click OK. From there click on the tab marked startup. For Windows XP users click the button marked as Disable All, then click Apply and Close. For Non Windows XP users, please remove the ticks from all of the boxes apart from the below four and then click Apply and close. LoadPowerProfile ScanRegistry SystemTray TaskMonitor Once this has been done, please reboot the computer and then try the game again.

I am still tinkering with the registry and I might start to experiment with driver versions. I am going to try it on a few different computers as well, though I'll have to find a way to move my save files over... Update 4/13/08: No word from 2K yet (it's the weekend), but I have had some modest success in getting Bioshock running. I got tired of waiting for help and took a pretty big step and moved to the newest Vista 32 drivers from LaptopVideo2Go. These are modded drivers and INF files specifically built for notebooks and it's an incredible resource if you want to do some tinkering. Next I started trying to isolate the game settings to see what was causing rhe problem. It seems like Bioshock is only crashing and freezing when the game quality settings are on medium or high. So keeping them at their lowest points and playing the game at 1024x768 seems to get me a relatively stable environment. If I do this and the game survives the first save, map screen, and store screen then it is generally good to go for as long as I want to play. The game will crash if there are any interruptions though. For example if I accidentally hit caps lock or the Windows button the game will lock up and I will not be able to get back into it from windows. The good news though is that the gameplay is improved overall and the game will not nearly freeze every time I use the camera (which was happening before).

http://www.lionhead.com/diaries/

Video diaries from the guys behind Fable. These are pretty solid...

Looks like a great place to work...

They have been doing great HOWTOs on each character. Each character is different from the others and there are tactics that can be used to take advantages of their strengths and serious weaknesses that have to be taken into consideration as well. It's really cool to see this much attention being paid to a FPS. The strategy and tactics that goes into it is much more than most people would think, and definitely not the spray-and-pray that most people imagine.

Easily one of my favorite video games of all time. Here is an amazing run by Bo Jackson.

http://community.lionhead.com/blogs/... I don't care what anyone says, Fable was a pretty great game. Yes, it was much too easy and, yes, it was too short and it was over-hyped, but it was still a lot of fun. I think that Fable 2 is going to correct these issues and it will be one of the most enjoyable games of the year. I'll have to borrow an Xbox 360 from someone and buy the game, but I have high hopes...

There is some foul language in this, so turn the volume down if you're at work.

Thanks to the Retronauts for knowing about such gold...

Here is an awesome article at Gamasutra that looks into 20 very challenging games from way-back-when and examines how difficult they actually are, what made them difficult, and what lessons we should take from them. Given the average quality of games released lately this is just the type of article I like to see. The article is long, but it's worth a skim for anyone interested in game design or development.

A lot of people have been spilling ink over Chrono Trigger lately. If you are not a fan of classic RPGs or you did not have an SNES, you might not be familiar with this games, but it is one of the greatest role playing games ever. Seriously- ever. Some people prefer Secret of Evermore, and I don't blame them for that, it is great as well, but I really think Chrono Trigger has a better story line. SOE may win out because can has better replay value, but Chrono Trigger's near perfection can't be denied. I'll stop right there, but if you want to read more about the game Action Button has a piece on it.

Everyone has been talking about this today... and it's pretty cool. I found about it early (from Techcrunch) so I actually got to play it for 30 minutes or so before Digg totally owned the site's servers (server? shared box?). If you didn't get a chance to play before Duels went down like the Hindenburg, it is an online RPG, but all you do it duel other players. You can buy new weapons and earn levels as well as complete quests, but you don't control the action. You tell the guys to fight and then you either win or lose. Not a lot to it, but that is part of the magic- you can play while reading or on the phone or something like that. No download is required. The fighting can either be done in this incredibly ridiculous flash animation (I slash you, pause, you slash me, pause, I slashed you back, etc.) or text (much better) and you have no control over either so what will keep people coming back are the new weapons not the fighting. The site is somewhat buggy and has a number of design issues, but it should be enough to keep me interested for a few days. Apparently Duels.com just doubled their server capacity (good turn around time) so now the site is running okay.

Before we start, a brief caveat- I have always been a Sim City fan. I am not a fanatic, but I have owned just about every release, even the one for SNES and I was really excited for it to come out on the DS. I though the Nintendo DS version of Sim City was going to be excellent. As in, the ideal game for the way I use my DS- when commuting and traveling and trying to kill some time while doing something that is interesting, fun, and (that makes me feel) productive. Previous versions of Sim City had always satisfied me in these always and I have always been relatively happy with the newer versions of the game. Well, this was not at all the case with Sim City DS. What sucks-  While the game adapts well to the use of the DS' stylus, the fundamental problem is that it is asks too much of the system. This can be seen in a number of ways, each of which contributes to this game overall being pretty bad. First of all, you can only save one city. Just one city! So you can't start a city, save it, try a crazy idea, and save it as YourNameVille II or work on two cities at once, or even save a really cool old city. Other evidence of a lack of robustness from the DS (something that no other game I have played has a problem with) can be seen in how the game takes about 30 second to save. Next, the controls. The reliance on the stylus is fine, commendable even, but given the small size of the display it can be very difficult to make the accurate commands that are needed (this is near impossible when traveling on a bus). Luckily there is an undo button which you will become very familiar with, but you can't undo demolitions and it is annoying to have to do so many things twice. Thirdly, the game has constant interruptions. Every few minutes you are always to shoot fireworks or to attending a meeting (which is generally the same as the previous month's). Fourth- you can't control the start date so you are stuck are the most basic level or building options (this used to be called year 1900). You don't even have buses, highways, or solar power or any of the things that were fun to build a city around. Fifth- when you are building the time is automatically paused. This was actually the detail that made me stop playing the game. It means you have to build, watch the city grow, then build while the city is paused, and so on. It makes getting from year 1900 onwards extremely tedious. Sixth- the city does not look that good. The DS' normally excellent graphics look terrible because the cities are packed with all those buildings Seventh- the graphing and analytics tools are very limited. You can no longer really examine the city the way you once did. Eight- there are no hills. That's right, the boards are totally flat except for some trees and water. This was just ridiculous, plus you lose the challenge of building on a hilly landscape, there are no tunnels, and the maps boring plains, and you can't use any of the cool bulldozer tools to raise or lower lands. Actually, there is one thing you can do bulldoze water. Yes, it cost's $7 a square (an acre?) to bulldoze that stupid river in the middle of your map. What doesn't suck- Come on, it's Sim City. On the DS. That's got to count for something. And it does. If you just want to casually burn some time here and there without any regard for the old games, it's not that bad. Next, it's great that there is no plumbing to deal with. This was always something that people argued over with the newer Sim City games- the plumbing, was expensive, annoying, and unrewarding. Personally I did not mind in and thought it added another element to designing a city, but it was tedious at times. Ultimately Sim City DS is not worth the time or money. It could have been a perfect title for the DS but I found out that hard way that this implementation of Sim City was not well done and that the game is simply not suited for playing on small screens and portable systems. For this reason the developers are not totally to blame here, but they made a lot of poor decisions when it came to the game play, the look of the city, the zoom controls, the inability to save multiple cities, and the features that are unique to the DS version. From what I have read, most reviews are sympathetic to the attempt to bring Sim City to the DS and they take it slightly easy on the game, but when it comes down to it, this is a failed attempt. If you want to play Sim City on the go get a notebook and a version of Sim City 4. If you have a DS and you simply need to buy Sim City, I would say, limit your expectations, get a comfortable stylus, and try to be as patient as possible.

I've been looking for the perfect stylus for my DS Lite for a few days now and I have come up with nothing. The stocks one is not only too narrow, which makes it uncomfortable during extended use, but it's also too short, which is a big problem. A number of companies have attempted to solve this by making larger items- but why pay for something that is not going to fit in the DS Lite's stylus holder?

My search for the perfect stylus has come up with a few contenders. Here are the top three so far:

1.  PDA Panache: It's all metal, it looks awesome, and it fits in the holder. Seems like a winner right? Check out that price tag- $15.95 for one. Add in shipping and you could have yourself a game. Plus, it is the standard length, which is still too short.
2. Brando 2-in-1: It's metal, though definitely not as solid as number 1, and uses an extendable design that I really like. Plus it doubles as  pen. It's $6 which is not bad, though you still need to pay for shipping
3. NDS Stylus Pencil: It's a stylus, that looks a little bit like a pencil, awesome. But it's $10 and does not fit in the DS.

Out of these I would probably choose the second one because it is the most practical and the cheapest, but I can't avoid the temptation of the shiny PDA Panache. I am still making my decision though, and I will probably end up getting the cheap plastic extendable ones available at the NYC Nintendo store. In the meantime I put together one that may just be the best, or at least the coolest DS stylus out there. It doesn't fit in the case, so by my own parameters it needs work, but it will do until I get something better.

My version is actually a stock DS Lite stylus cut down to the right size and placed in a Pilot Hi-Tec-C Coleto pen. I also put in a little bit of rubber from the grip from an old pen so that the stylus tip has a little bit of give. It ended up taking about 5 minutes to put together and it was free, which is always nice. I used an old stylus which, as any DS Lite user knows, starts to fall out of the holder when the little stopper ridge wears out. The extra size makes the stylus a lot more comfortable and the added width helps as well. I should be easy enough to do with any old pen body so long, though the Coleto definitely scores some extra points for style.

I've been a devoted fan of the Square Enix's Mana series for a long time and I have no trouble admitting that Secret of Mana is one of my favorites video games of all time. For this reason I was quite exciting to find out (this was months ago) that Square was releasing one of the last games to hit the PS2, Dawn of Mana. Being a late game it was exciting not only because I have a PS2 but because the developers would be able to really take advantage of the hardware. Throw in Havoc physics and some killer graphics, and you have yourself a great game, right? Once again we learn that the answer is "Not so much...". What Square has been trying to do with other not-so-great titles like Heroes of Mana and Children of Mana is to make the World of Mana games into another big series for them, one that can counterbalance Final Fantasy. To do this they have been pumping out Mana games like crazy for every system available, in hopes that the series will catch on and people like myself, who have liked some of the games in the past will become rabid fans. Well, it's not happening. The new Mana games, namely Children of Mana for the DS and Dawn of Mana for the PS2 are definitely worth skipping, even if you loved Secret of Mana. And I don't even mean don't buy them (like I did), I mean go ahead and play something else. I'm not going to get into a long review for either one, as I originally intended, but I would feel remiss if I did not take a few minutes to voice my displeasure. Dawn of Mana is an action RPG, as you would expect from Mana, but moves to a 3D style with a lot of interaction with the environment. The game is beautiful, but the gameplay is terrible. After a few hours of playing the game I was still not used to the controls and found it practically impossible to master the commands. I was very impressed with how the game looks, but the action is all about knocking enemies into one another so as to scare them, so there is so much reliance on the physics of knocking enemies together and rolling rocks and logs (etc.) into them that almost all of the good action is lost. The game ended up being a mess of hectic action where you spend entirely too much time swinging around a vine from your arm and searching around for powerups to replenish your magic supply. Children of Mana is a DS game that looks just like you would expect a Mana game to. It is, in almost all aspects, not bad, but it is not great either. The game is tedious and extremely repetitive and after getting through less than half of the game I felt no reason to keep on playing. I did keep plugging away at it, just because I had spent about $30 on the game, but it was not enough to keep me interested. In the end the game was a simple dungeon crawler with a few cool weapons (the hammer is awesome), but really unimpressive magic capabilities and a plot that is not worth following. There was very little feeling of building up to anything and all you can do is keep playing until it's over. I like the gem system of powerups, but this is not nearly enough to salvage this unexceptional game. I would recommend that Mana fans check out this http://zdmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o1/Podcasts/Retronauts/051007.mp3%20" target="_blank">Retronauts podcast, it goes over a lot of my thoughts and has some very interesting retro-gaming discussion (though it's really long). Metacritic sums things up well (Dawn of Mana / Children of Mana) and I think the respective scores of 56 and 66 are right on the money.  That's really all there is to say- Dawn of Mana was not looking great, but I let myself get excited about it, despite what everyone said,  and I was totally let down. In Children of Mana I was hoping for something entertaining to pass the time while commuting, but it ended up being unexciting and I would have been better off if I had kept on playing Advance Wars.

Some rumors and art are floating around about a possible addition to the Monkey Island family. The four Monkey Islands as well as Grim Fandago (a personal favorite) and Day of the Tentacle are some of the finest PC games ever to come out and though their heyday is clearly over, it would be amazing to see MI5. Well, amazing so long as they stay true to the original series and they give us a little bit more LeChuck's Revenge and a little bit less Escape from MI (the not-as-great fourth game in the series). Kotaku has the story as well as three pretty awesome concept drawings that may or may not be evidence that the game is on the way...

If you have any work to do right now, or tomorrow, stop reading right here because, chances are (if you are reading this blog) you will want to download this game and play it for a pretty long time. La Mulana is a free platformer for Windows that is kind of like the original Castlevania (for NES obviously) but insanely hard. When I say insanely hard I mean, like pull-your-hair-out, punch-your-computer hard. It is a type of difficulty that I have not need in years- not really since Ghosts 'n Goblins, in fact the two are quite similar. The graphics are rudimentary (8-bit) but that does not hurt the gameplay. The game is huge and it's pretty interesting, but you will have to get around the astounding difficulty in order to play it enough that it starts being really fun, so some commitment is required. Even if you don't like it, it's worth the download, for a few reasons- 1) indie gaming is awesome 2) hardcore gamers will think you are cool b/c you have played it 3) it will make everything else you do this week seem easy.

I don't know why, but this game is looking kind of awesome. It's side scrolling RPG which is not necessarily a good starting point, but it looks like it could be enjoyable. I am afraid that it's going to be really repetitive and mainly based on doing ridiculously long combos until your thumbs bleed, but I'll probably buy it anyway. I am really in the mood for a good game or two so I am hoping that this and Dawn of Mana (both for the PS2) can hold me over until Sim City DS hits.

17 minutes of SimCity goodness. It's kind of long, but it give you all the information you could ever want about SimCity DS. The game looks like a lot of fun, so long as your a sim fan and like to use the stylus. It's already out in Japan, which is why this review is possible, but here in the US we have to wait a few more weeks. I heard the date is 6/19/07, but I don't know if that's official...