Well it may not be weekly but its tradition!

• 17Apr 08

  No. XXVIII:(K-view) New Take On Old Titles: Harvest Moon (SNES 1997)

  

  Harvest Moon provides all the fun of running a farm without all the manual labor. Who wouldn't love that? For the past 10+ years, the Harvest Moon franchise has been farming its way into the hearts of gamers since its premier on SNES all the way through to present time. 25 games spanning multiple platforms later, with more on the way, it is clear that these little farmers are going to be farming their way around for another decade at least. While its technical claszification is an RPG, Harvest Moon feels more like a farming sim. There is no fighting of monsters, no leveling up system, no sorting through party members. There is item use, but not in the traditional RPG stile. But then again, putting this title in with the sim games might be a bit of a leap as well. I suppose, in short, you could say Harvest Moon is in an experience all its own.

  This title is all about, er…well harvesting. Whether you're harvesting from your crops or harvesting eggs and milk from your livestock, the name of this game is selling your goods. The game works on a year cycle. 30 short days a season, four seasons in all. Your days pretty much consist of watering crops, feeding livestock, chopping a few logs, harvesting if you can, and exploring the world around you. The amount of time you get to do the latter is entirely dependent on which season it is. You will find that there really just isn't enough time in the day to get it all done. Therefore, planning and strategy is key in figuring out just how much you can plant and how many animals you can take care off. As the seasons change, what you can do changes with it. Spring opens the year with potatoes and turnips (yum yum!) with summer also boasting crops in the variety of tomatoes and corn (even better!) Throughout both spring and summer you can plant grass as well, which is harvested for livestock feed. Autumn sees the end of harvesting crops, where the only thing you can harvest is the grass you planted for your chickens or cows. Then winter is devoid of harvesting all together, forcing you to rely on provisions that you stocked up on all year.

  Livestock offer an even more diverse farming experience where you can care for cows and chickens. Each has its benefits in offering you something to sell, be it egg or milk. Chickens are cheap to buy and yield early and often. Though the eggs aren't worth much, you could choose to keep it and raise a new chicken to either join in the egg harvest or sell for a cool 500. Either way, you rally need a lot in order to make it worth your while. Milk on the other hand is worth at least 3 times as much. Cows have the ability to produce small, medium, or large amount of milk for you to sell depending on how happy they are with you. Drawback is that the cow costs more to buy and takes a long time to develop to the milking age. Plus you have to buy a brush (which you must use on every cow every day to keep them happy) and a milking machine. All that equals up to being quite an investment.

  So while your not watering crops or caring for livestock, the game does have sort of a storyline. (If you can call it that) In short, your parents go away for a while and leave you to fix up their old ranch and become a mature adult in the process. This equals out to having little over a two and a half game year time limit. In this time you are saving up to build extensions to your house, find a girl to fall in love with you, and raise a family. Along the way you will discover strange things going on under your ranch, acquire berries that boost your stamina, and upgrade your tools in one way or another. Heck, you even get a horse to use for storing harvested crops or getting from one place to another quickly. Aside from this however, there really isn't too much else to say about the story. Basically it is about keeping a farm. Who doesn't love that?

  Harvest Moon ( orig. 1997, VC rel. 2008 ) Developed by Natsume (1990 - Present)

  The Good:

  *Tons of stuff to keep that farm fresh feeling alive.

  *Annual festivals every season help create the atmosphere.

  *Crops change depending on season.

  *Weather effects are a good addition

  *Not having to worry about space for expansion is a plus.

  *Easy to jump right in and get started. The starting money amount is right on!

  The Bad:

  *Though there is plenty to keep you busy, the tasks are mainly the same and can grow a bit repetitive.

  *Not enough time in a day creates limitations.

  *Seasons are only 30 days long, making it hard to keep a steady crop.

  *The time limit to accomplish everything in the game is too short.

  *The wife doesn't actually do anything to help around the ranch.

  *Not being able to ride your horse around everywhere is kind of a disappointment.

  Basically, Harvest Moon is not a bad little game. You can play through it fairly easily, and feel satisfied in doing so. The game must be popular to some target group seeing as it has spanned generations of consoles and is still kicking. I wouldn't say this game is worth a try for everyone, but any aspiring green thumbs that might enjoy the aspect of keeping up with a farm, well this might be right up your alley!

  • Posted Apr 17, 2008 8:16 am GMT
  • Category: Editorial
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• 22Mar 08

  No. XXVII: The White Box Of Magic Has Arrived.

  

  What is the White Box of Magic you may wonder to yourself? Well, part of me feels that if you need to ask that question then you don't belong on this site. Nevertheless those who are a step behind the rest, yes we have acquired our Wii. The time was right and the opportunity was there so nature took its course. So how has our lives changed? Well funny you should ask. The thing to remember here is the control. Going from gaming from the lap, where your control sits idle and there is hardly any movement to speak of, to full on movement control, that ladies and gents is a transition.

  The first thing that I noticed immediately is that it is hard as crap to keep that pointer steady. This makes the point and click keyboard that is used for inputting names a pain. Especially when you are trying to put the correct WEP password to access your wireless network. Yeah, well after spending far too long trying to figure out why I couldn't get online, I found that there is a sensitivity setting. Well after toning it all the way down, I finally found a bit of a groove to set into. The other main problem with the point and click method is if you go a little too far to a side, boom, you lost your pointer. Where did it go? I don't know, off to the void somewhere. Well it takes a few passes to find it again. Annoying to say the least. But hey, as with every console, it just takes some getting used to. It wouldn't be fair to judge the console before you have given it the customary adjustment period.

  So how bout that Wii Sports you ask? Well, that is some kind of fun. As most of the guys have figured out by now, the boxing mini game is the best. Sure there are others, (Golf, Bowling, Baseball, Tennis) but boxing is the one that stands out. The only one that comes close to being worth the while is bowling, and lets face it, at its best, bowling is only semi fun. No, nothing is quite like bobbing and weaving going toe-to-toe with some random Mii. Now there are other titles out that take a crack at being the definitive boxing game for the Wii, but none really do any more justice to the experience then Wii Sports does. As for said experience, well, lets just say a lazy person like myself worked up quite a sizeable sweat jabbin' and punchin'. This equals out to the inability to really play it the next day. Between that and the pitching in Baseball, my arms were shot.

  So what to do? Virtual Console, duh! I was finally able to play a game that I thought I would never get to see thanks to the power of said console. Yes of course I speak of the mythical Streets of Rage 3. Being an owner of the first two in the original glory, and pointing out the fact that it was a staple in my very growing up, I was finally able to see what this the final chapter of the Streets trilogy was all about. I couldn't rate it fairly in today's day and age because I don't think I would rate it very high and that's just not fair since it is one of my most cherished franchises. (I did point out at some point in time that they should bring this one back to the big leagues, and I am not alone on this, I mean, Golden Axe??? Why not SoR?) At any rate, it was something to do without worrying about strain in the extremities.

  Where does that leave me now you ask? Well if you really must know, someone purchased the smashing VC title, Harvest Moon for the SNES. (No seriously, not me, it was the Mrs.) Have you heard of this game? Apparently there are like a zillion of these around though how I managed to stay oblivious is beyond me. I am not going to go into it too much at the moment because I plan on typing up full thoughts on it a bit later when I have completed it. It won't be a full blown review, I feel funny about doing reviews for titles outside of the Sony regime, call me a fan boy if you must. (I would like to point out that I don't flood the site with anti Microsoft fluff). No, it will be another Kotaku look-alike I really admire their review structure. So look for that soon.

  The only other thing on the agenda is buying up some Wii games. I have a bunch of great titles on a list here that I need to get into. Okay, okay, so the list isn't terribly long, but hey, makes it all the easier to get through it. Needless to say that Galaxy is high on that list. Anyways, that's the state of the business here. Check back for the full thought and opinions on Harvest Moon soon. Other then that, just playing some games. Till next time.
  • Posted Mar 22, 2008 2:06 pm GMT
  • Category: General
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• 14Mar 08

  No. XXVI: PC Game Freelancer (2003), Thoughts and Opinions.

  

  I think I shall make this one brief. As most of you know, I don't review PC games. The reason for this is simple: money (and my computer!) Put simply, I am pretty much unwilling to put the money into a true gaming PC capable of running Half Life 2 or Crysis. There was a time when I was going to go that path, but think about it, having to reinvest in the same thing about every year to keep up with the games, not to mention new operating systems. Whatever, waste of money, that's all I'm saying. I am quite contempt console gaming and its steady flow of games without having to upgrade at all save for a bigger hard drive perhaps.

  Anyways, I do buy a computer game every once in a while, that is to say that I do have a few. There are games for the computer that I absolutely love and are timeless to me. When you have a game you can play for a while. Hang it up, uninstall, put in a box, then after some time passes look at it and say, "Man, I could go for some of that right about now," that to me says something. Rounding out that list of short games that I play time and time again, Age of Empires (mainly the first one, the wife and I play that networked for some fun times) Starcraft, X Beyond the Frontier (Just recently got the expansion for that looking forward to it) Dungeon Keeper, and Roller Coaster Tycoon. I do have more games, but those are the ones I have played time and time again. Luckily they run on almost anything.

  What is the point to all this you ask? Well aside from getting totally sidetracked back there I have been playing a game that I can't help but put comments on. Freelancer has been out for quite some time now but more recently you can pick it up at the attractive 10 dollar price point. After reading this review here (gosh who doesn't miss Greg?) for it, I figured it was worth a moment of my time. Since I don't review computer games I will simply use the Kotaku form of reviewing. So pending further sidetracking I give you my impressions of Freelancer.

  Freelancer (2003) developed by Digital Anvil (Born 1996, Died 2006)

  The Good:

  *The systems you fly around in are beautiful for their time and all of this is virtually load free.

  *Not much of a mouse and Keyboard person, but even for a lack of game pad support, this game does surprisingly well with overall controls

  *The ability to upgrade your ship is a big plus for the title. Upgrading shields, weapons, etc are fine and all, but upgrading a ship, now that where it's at.

  *Okay, so the story isn't fantastic, but in games like these, it is important to have an at least interesting story, so there you go.

  *The environmental sound is also nice. Not overbearing to the point of annoyance, but there enough to make it feel more lifelike.

  The Bad:

  *Horrible voice acting. Some people do all right but in the whole package, I just can't stand it.

  *This game is pretty much X-Beyond the Frontier (1999) just redone. Now that isn't to say that that's really a bad thing in itself, I just like the way X did it better.

  *Game difficulty starts out a bit steep. The enemies just seem to always have a slight advantage.

  *Repetitive Gameplay. Sure its great to have a bunch of different stuff to do, but you can only do the, "Go here kill these guys," so many times before its just old

  *I know I said the controls are good, and they are, but to not support the use of a game pad all together, I mean why would you do that?

  Well there you have it. Those are just some thoughts I had on it while playing through it. There is no rating given here because I can't fairly judge it based on my crummy PC it was running on. Though aside from some choppy-ness from too much action on screen, it ran pretty smooth. I will say this much for it, if you are a true fan of X, then you won't have a problem getting into this game. I also here there is some craziness going on over at this site. Apparently some people love this game and go all insane in mods for it (they're up to 2.7 now!). Hey, anything to bring life back into a game that's a bit used huh? Well I totally support their work and just to show them that, I shall plug their mod again here. Till next time peoples.

  UPDATE: Along with spacing issues, it would appear that Microsoft Word doesn't transfer Hyperlinks well. Atleast not ones pertaining to GameSpot content.

  • Posted Mar 14, 2008 8:29 pm GMT
  • Category: Games
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