Terraria Coming Soon

I had heard of Terraria, but didn't pay it much heed since it was a PC game.  I don't have anything against PC games (just the elitist players), but I don't like playing on computers near as much as consoles.  So once it was announced that it was coming to Xbox 360 and PS3, I decided to check out the trailer and some screen shots.

So, it's a 16 bit looking, side scrolling action rpg/dungeon crawler/minecraft.
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Yeah, I want to play this now.  According to the trailer, it has split screen play on HD TVs.  I think I can find a person to play it with around here...

It's supposed to come in "February".  We will see when exactly if February it comes out, and I'm hoping it's soon.  Here's hoping I can get a review out for it, too.

Dynasty Warriors 7 Empires (Japanese Demo Impressions)

Being a big fan of Koei's -Warriors games, you had to know I would be looking forward to trying this.  I was hoping that it wouldn't be too hard to figure out, since it isn't in English (yet?).  I can read enough Japanese to muddle through most of the menus, but some of them were way beyond me.  It took me a bit to figure out English is written on the back of the menu icons, so that should help people with even less skill at the Japanese language than myself.

The menu starts on character edit, which is perfect since that's what I wanted to try first.  There are lots of options to make a character, but I still wanted more.  If more are purchasable/ unlockable in game, I would be very happy.  If more were released as DLC...I'd be less happy, but I might still bite on them.  I ended up making my character look like Miles Edgeworth from the Phoenix Wright games, and named him "Edgey".  You can change the character input to the English alphabet, so I actually named him that, not just an approximation.  I also tried to give him posh-looking robes to match his personality, since I couldn't get 'the ruffles' his suit is so famous for.

I fiddled with the stats, but wasn't sure what I set the growth type as.  At least it seemed like the growth type, but since it's a demo, it's not as important.  Next was picking a primary weapon type.  After looking through them all, I decided to try new ones, since I know what most of the others are like.  First up was the rapier with a dagger on a wire attached.  It was ok, I just seemed to drop the combos a lot.  Next up was a giant ring blade (which my buddy DTJAAAAM informs me is Ding Feng's new weapon) and it was ok, but didn't seem that good compared to the numerous others offered.  Third was a pool cue...which I think I tried in Warriors Orochi 3, I can't remember.  It was gimmicky since you could get multiple balls and it would make the attacks stronger/better.  It's ok, but not one I would be itching to use.  Last one I tried was....a canoe.  Seriously, it was a canoe.  My friend tells me it's Huang Gai's new weapon...and surprisingly, it rocks.  Several charge moves throw out a big wave and then ride it, meaning big areas of damage.  It was also stronger than I thought it would be, and hit big groups, so it's really good.  It looks ridiculous, but I'm probably going to put it on a character I make.  Seriously.

The hardest part of the demo was figuring out how to actually enter a battle.  When on the edit character select screen, press the Square Button and you can do the mock battle to try them out.  Sadly, I failed this mission the first time, since I wasn't paying attention to the time limit.  Good musous will help you kill the officers, but you have to know lots of kanji to figure out what each is without using it.  I just randomly assigned two each time.  When the NA version releases in a month or so, it will be much easier.  It's harder for me to play those games with Japanese dialogue, but I'll easily live with it if it means we get the game.  I'm hoping to review it too, so here's hoping Koei helps me out!

Ebay's Great Logic

In an effort to get rid of some of my excess crap and get a few bucks in the process, I reluctantly put some more stuff on eBay.  I started using that site years ago, right as it started to skyrocket in popularity in 1998 (holy crap I feel old now).  I didn't use it much between 2003-2010, so I didn't really pay attention to all the changes it went through.  A little over a year ago I decided to use it to (again) sell some crap and make some money, and was startled at some of the things they had done.

You pretty much need a Paypal account to do anything there.  That was ok, since the wife and I have one.  Still a bit extreme, but I can deal with it.  I was annoyed after selling something that I had to wait so long to actually get my money.  "You need 10 positive transactions to get your money right away" was pretty much what it said.  Well, 10 transactions since they implemented this.  I guess the 100+ positive and no negatives (half of those from selling) counts for nothing.  It's pretty stupid, but sadly not the height of stupidity they have.  Also, you need to actually get 10 people to leave feedback.  One thing that bothers me is that there are more than a few people who don't even bother.  Most times they are buyers, and it isn't eBay's fault, just terrible human behavior.  It sucks just the same, though.

The honor of 'height of stupidity' belongs to the "maximum shipping" charge.  It's some BS rate that is close to what Amazon charges.  That's great if you are Amazon, but I wager most sellers aren't (weren't, since I'm sure many left the site), so...we just lose money.  My favorite part is even if you select "flat rate priority", the max you can put is based on the item, not on what the actual charge for flat rate shipping is.  So for a video game, you can only charge up to $4 shipping.  The flat rate is $5 and change.  It's not even an opinion at this point, but simple math proves how stupid that is.

Really, someone needs to step up and offer an alternative.  I wondered why I would hear of people leaving eBay a few years ago, and now that I've tried selling things recently, I can understand why.  It's stupid, and if something else came along, eBay would get destroyed.  I guess the only other choice is Craig's List, so I'll have to start there.  It's sad how the might have fallen.  Back in the late 90s and early 2000s, eBay was awesome.  Now they concentrate so hard on helping buyers that they will chase away the sellers.  I guess you don't need to sell stuff to have buyers...wait a minute.  Idiots.

EX Troopers (Japanese Demo Impressions)

This game is basically the manga version of a Lost Planet game.  Sadly, it isn't coming to this country, since it was pretty fun.  As much as I liked the demo for Lost Planet 3, I don't like that we get that instead of EX Troopers.  This is a much more colorful game, and would have been a great Lost Planet 2 instead of the Lost Planet 2 that we did get.

I did think LP2 was ok, but this game seems much better.  I really like the manga style the game has, and the characters look cool.  It seems a lot more action packed than the first, but keeps some of the multiplayer component of the second.  It makes the playable people characters, though, so they aren't just some faceless mercenaries.  Plus you can wear Rathalos armor, which is always cool.  Sure, you could do that in Lost Planet 2, but only for the PS3, and unfortunately, that was not the version I had.

The controls are somewhat similar to the first two, but the jump button is now a dodge button.  This was fine for most parts of the demo, but on the boss the jump was sorely missed.  The boss is someone in one of the LP mechs, so it was pretty crazy fighting that on foot.  I hope the player gets a chance to pilot some of them, since they were lots of fun to ride in the first two games.  You can also jack the pilot out of the mech, which was pretty fun.  I'd like to play the full game, but it's not coming here.  Thankfully the PS3 is import-friendly, so I'm hoping to snag a cheap copy on ebay or something.