What Games Are You Playing: 2008

[Meeplelard]

MMXCM: Replay picked up again! Got as far as Beating Wild Jango.  Would have played more but mrf to early shifts.

FE9: Up to Chap 17! Think I finished all my equipment preparations for this EVIL LONG CHAPTER OF DOOM!! or something!

...nah, its not that bad.  Actually, should be easier this time since I lack Rhys in place of someone like Rolf.  The ability to get attacked by a Myrmidon and NOT DIE helps in two regards:
A. One slight overlooking of enemy formations won't eat you alive.
B. Means you can actually plan on using that character to bait a hit!

Game still rocks, etc.

Also, Sothe has been getting quite good Level Ups lately; maybe I can use this file for SUPER JEIGAN SOTHE!!! in FE10.  Also haven't used any stat ups yet so...<_<

DMC3: Got Rudra/Agni.  Good fun and such.

[Smashy]

Oh yeah, RKS is talk is going on too.  Who else has beaten the Rider mode so far?  I suspect Smashy and Alex, at least.  Cid?

Wall = no.

[Grefter]

Not enough hate on the camera and platforming Snow.  They are even worse than that.  You don't need to dick around with different camera angles like a retard though, just let the camera move through walls, you know, make it an ACTUAL free floating camera.  Pretty much every 3d platformer in existence fails to do that and they almost universally have shit camera because of it.

[Ranmilia]

Got past the wall on RKS Rider.  Once I memorized an exact pattern it wasn't too horribly bad.  Got up to the boss rush and stopped, NOW I have no real plans to go further due to the time involved.  No choice but to harvest energy tanks ad nauseum, and then lose to one mistake because Rider has no defense and loses half her health to any hit and have to reharvest all the tanks you used over again.

[Sierra]

Oh yeah, RKS is talk is going on too.  Who else has beaten the Rider mode so far?  I suspect Smashy and Alex, at least.  Cid?

I'm not making a serious attempt until the weekend, for reasons illustrated by Alex's most recent post. The boss rush is going to be horrific and I know it'll take me ages to get it right. Man, I wish they'd give you another code to use for the second castle. Having to do both in one sitting is going to be a hassle on this mode.

[Smashy]

Megamari: Completed a run just like Alex is doing.  Having experience with buster-only helped a ton, seeing as you have to do that during the Alice solo.  The late bosses have enough weaknesses that you're bound to have one even in one of these runs.

Ghost Cutter is still in the running for Worst Megaman Weapon Ever.


RKS:  Killed the Wall. Then decided that I wasn't going to kill it again and ran through the rest of the game.  Thankfully you have the option of brute forcing your way through with plenty of E-Tanks.  The next major roadblock is Yellow Devil.  Rider has the same issues as Fate, except for the ability to hit weakness.  About 3 E-Tanks see me through.  Boss rush... when I did beat it (after 3 failed attempts), I still had 7 E-Tanks, which allowed me to splat Token Megaman Battleship-like.  Re-figuring out the bosses helped.  Final boss was tricky.  Probably had something to do with how tired I was and the fact that the way I beat it with Fate was 'Fling fairy, win'. Once I figured out how to easily get around the multi-waypoint beam, it just became a matter of getting past the tricky first half, using an E-Tank, and hitting when safe to eventually win.

Rants later. Sleep now.

[Ranmilia]

7 tanks left after Rider boss rush?  I'd like to see the replay of that.  White Ren was my main annoyance, since she's all random, and I definitely can't get the second half of Rei and the first half of Fate down without chugging tanks like a madman. 

Anyhow, went back and finished the Megamari run.  It's not the having terrible weapons that gets you, it's the lack of the good weapons you need at certain points.  That and my being terrible at the Super Marisa Land stage and inevitably getting a game over to falling into pits between that and the Yukari fight. 

Homing Amulet - MVP.  Excellent utility.  It hits weakness or otherwise easily kills most of the things you'd want to use it on, takes out grey fuzzies and wisps like nothing else, and deals decently with Remi.

Ice Vulcan - Actually not bad.  It mows down stage enemies like red fairies, maids and rabbits quite well.  Useless on non-Eirin bosses of course, but so be it.

Quicksilver - Another great weapon that you can use through most of a stage.  Lots of power, lots of spread, nearly self-sustaining on ammo.  I may start taking this now that I can do the lasers without time stop.

Resurrection Ghost - Poor man's Rolling Slash.  Sometimes handy but it's not something you pull out too often.

Rocket Launcher (or whatever Reisen-M is called) - Marisa MVP weapon.  Hits hard, has a large clip.  "Why does it need all the ammo", I wondered.  Then I got to the endgame.  If you fill it up after Cirno and don't miss too much you can dispose of both forms of the battleship with this.  Still not great, I'd still take Mental Sacrifice over it, but at least it did something.

Bloody Curse - Overhyped and under-useful.  Short range, mediocre damage for its high ammo consumption, low rate of fire.  The range really kills it.  I used it on orange Tewis (needs two hits to kill them) and bosses and not much else.  At least it can dispose of Yukari and the final.  Great against the final really, much better than Red Magic there, but not enough to make me like it.

Ghost Cutter - To its credit, it WAS useful on rare occasions when Marisa had to tear through a swath of enemies at close range.... but only because I had nothing better for the job.  Slightly better than it gets a rap for, but its rap is the worst weapon ever, so that doesn't say much.  Ammo consumption far too high, but not like I'm using it much.

Black Lotus - I wound up getting this too late to evaluate it properly.  It's more of a situational weapon and I only found a couple places where it was handy despite actively looking for them.  Piercing enemies is its best feature.  Also can kill grey fuzzies.  It did the job on Manrisa and the UFO, but didn't do it well (the UFO is actually much better dealt with by Homing Amulet, but I needed to conserve Alice's life for the final).

Eirin's stage is still a hellhole. 

I don't want to think about doing Marisa Clone/Manrisa without a weakness for at least one of the forms.  Both require luck.

Shiki is outright immune to all the Alice weapons I took except for Bloody Curse, which does pitiful damage and requires standing under her.  Yeah, right.  Go Shanghai!

[Hunter Sopko]

.hack//GU 3- Through the tournament, found Yata (you went from good to suck so fast), now about to contact someone about rescuing Sakubo... not that I want to. Sakaki's FINALLY GONE! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. Taihaku was cool, and interesting how they bring up the Forest of Pain so brazenly. Anyone who hasn't seen the anime will be confused as hell. Game's good all around thusfar. It hasn't managed to drag at all like the second did.

[Sierra]

Eirin's stage is still a hellhole. 

I don't want to think about doing Marisa Clone/Manrisa without a weakness for at least one of the forms.  Both require luck.

Point A seconded for truth, under any circumstances.

And...I didn't even know Marisa Clone had a weakness. I guess I just got lucky wearing her down.

[Grefter]

ToPr - Got Suzu, I could probably have mugged her parents, but I was playing it on the train, didn't really feel like resetting and trying again, meh will do it on a replay, probably an emulated one.  I really should go talk to the king in Alvanista and look up when I can start some of the other side quests.

Game still kicks arse.

WoW - We took on Void Reaver tonight, first night at it, we probably should have downed him, 1% wipe  on our third and final attempt.  Would have had it if a guy new to hunter had not died early on or if we were a bit more geared up for some people.  I am running out of places I can tune out more DPS.  Leatherworking instead of Mining and making haste drums would do it and chain potting haste pots, but meh.  The badge reward gloves and Akilzon's Talonblade off ZA Eagle boss are really the only pieces I am aiming for outside of the Dragonspine Trophy which Gruul is being a whore about.

So working on Shadow Priest instead, got a half a truck load of Water's to get to make FSW set.

[Smashy]

7 tanks left after Rider boss rush?  I'd like to see the replay of that.  White Ren was my main annoyance, since she's all random, and I definitely can't get the second half of Rei and the first half of Fate down without chugging tanks like a madman.

In fairness, I did lose 2 lives.  Fruedia's pretty easy with Rider, mainly because she can get around the star danmaku attack easily.  Actually found Trauare the hardest boss there, since once she gets under 50% it's near impossible to safely hit her. That, and you die if she contacts you while you're under half life.

First half of Fate? Doesn't have too much life, so I usually just rush it down <_<

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

ToPr - Got Suzu, I could probably have mugged her parents, but I was playing it on the train, didn't really feel like resetting and trying again, meh will do it on a replay, probably an emulated one.  I really should go talk to the king in Alvanista and look up when I can start some of the other side quests.

Her parents are easy and get owned by Cless combo skills of doom. I don't think I even used healing on them.

KH - AGRABAH WAS A HELLHOLE. Fuck the platforming. Monstro, on the other hand, was much easier than I remembered, and god, do I love getting High Jump. Also slaughtered the Phil Cup and lost to Leon/Yuffie combo in Pegasus Cup, but it was actually pretty close. Fun fight, will try it again when I get a new weapon. Now, for Atlantica, I believe?

[Cotigo]

So, it's a week until school resumes so people are moving back into the dorms.  Including my friend who owns Super Paper Mario.

Beaten.  The epitome of a game that started out promising and then just ended up pissing me off.  It was soooooooooo obvious that they were trying to extend the amount of time you were playing the game.  Here's a list of things the game made you do:

Chapter 2-3: You spend about five minutes jumping in place.  Bribe a guy, get a code, spend 15-20 minutes running in place.  Get a code, find a Pixl, end level.  Yeah, that's all the level is.

This wasn't too bad; the next two worlds were awesome (particularly World 3, the Geek dimension), funny, and *GASP* had well designed levels.

Then we get to 5-1.  Here's all it is:  You land in a world populated by Bro cavemen ("Hook us up, brah!").  After agreeing them to help fight some flowers, you follow this band of flowers to a dead end.  You go back to the first spot, get the code, and then return until you hit another dead end.  Here's where it gets lame.  You go aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall the way back to the beginning of the level (which is a long, uneventful journey), and talk to one of the Bromagnon men.  He tells you the code, but only after you type "please" into the name entry screen 5 times.  Ugh.  If you accidentally type "Please," it won't accept it.  Ugh.  Then, the code that you get is 20 entries long. "Hit the right block, then the middle, then the left... then left right middle right middle left left right left left left..." etc.  That's the end of the level.  So pissed off at this point...

But not enough to give up and quit playing, because they made up for it by the rest of World 5 being good. 

Then we get to Chapter 7-2.  Here, you climb up a decently long level in the dark.  After you get to a certain point, you need a key.  You talk to an NPC who has the key, and... get transported back to the beginning of the level!  You have to do it again!  Fuck off!

7-3: Another climbing level.  About halfway through, you need to find one of 5 different apples and give it to someone.  The game doesn't tell you which one you need, though, so you could either go all the way back to the beginning, get every single one and try them all out, OR you could not be a thicky and check a FAQ.  Fortunately, the apple you need is a little bit ahead but not too far.  Anyway, once you get to the end of the level, you meet someone else who needs an apple, and once again the game does not tell you which one.  Now, fortunately for me I had checked the FAQ and discovered this before I had to go back and hunt for that fucking red apple, but potentially this already decently long stage could have needed to be repeated twice if you didn't have outside help.  This is just bad game design.

Then you're at the end, which luckily doesn't have any of this bullshit, but on the flipside has the Tower of Salvation / FF4 syndrome.  Ugh.  The final boss was amazing (because of who it was), but the ending was generic RPG tripe "yay power of luv" and not particularly funny tripe at that. 

Huh, but something feels missing.  It's like I'm forgetting something...

Oh!  Yes! Sidequests.  See, there are two Pits of 100 Trials in this Paper Mario.  One of them is awesome in how early you can do it and what the reward is, and the other is the worst offender of the game trying to extend how long you play it.  See, once you get to the end of THIS one, you come to the boss room... and he tells you to do it again!  No reward!  So this hour-and-a-half long endeavor... you have to do twice.  After the second time, you fight a stupidly easy boss and earn your reward... CARDS.  CARDS.  MOTHERFUCKING CARDS.  WHAT THE HELL.  I SPEND 3 FUCKING HOURS DOING THIS WASTE OF TIME AND YOU DON'T REWARD ME WITH A PIXL OR SOMETHING USEFUL, BUT WITH WORTHLESS CARDS.  UP YOURS.

Now, in fairness, you do get one more reward for doing that, but it's stupid.  Your gauge that drains when you go into 3D no longer drains.  Sounds useful, right, since you'll basically never take damage again, but keep in mind that when that bar drained, you would lose one HP and the bar would refill again.  By the end of the game I had 75 HP, so this hardly mattered.

All in all, this entry into the Paper Mario universe is probably the worst of them, easily, and I haven't played PM1.  It started out funny, but then just kinda gave up on the pretense of being a good platformer/RPG.  It had moments of sheer brilliance (3-4), but for the most part sucked.  It doesn't help that it was pretty clear that the developers weren't trying with the game; not that one should judge things based on game art, but come on, most of it could have been done in MS Paint.  The concepts for the power ups were lame (one was simply taken directly from NSMB, the rest were beyond useless), the Pixls were cool at first, but then it became a pain to switch between them (take note, L/R buttons for power switching is a great idea. Too bad the way SPM makes you play means that there are no shoulder buttons)...

All and all, if you liked Paper Mario or Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door, skip SPM.  Or Rent it, get to chapter 3, then give up.  If you're a thickheaded numbskull who loves repetitiveness in their games, you're probably too busy playing Fire Emblem to have noticed the game anyway.

[Ranmilia]

Fruedia's pretty easy with Rider, mainly because she can get around the star danmaku attack easily. 

Do tell how!  That's the one that's a guaranteed hit on me, every time, and I lose if she randomly does it more than once or twice. 

[Smashy]

Fruedia's pretty easy with Rider, mainly because she can get around the star danmaku attack easily. 

Do tell how!  That's the one that's a guaranteed hit on me, every time, and I lose if she randomly does it more than once or twice. 

Stay to one side (but not right on the wall) and dash once the moment you see her teleport above you. After that you can just walk slowly to avoid the aimed shots.  You do have to react fast though or you'll get hit in the foot by the fixed shots.

[Ranmilia]

Ah, but if you stay on the side, the ice pyramid attack can get you, and you may not be able to jump over her if she appears on the opposite side and does the laser attack. 

I hate that fight.

[AAA]

OS-Chapter 3. What an annoying fucking boss. Considering his damage output I guess I have to just slowwwwwwwly chip away at him with constant dive-bombing or something. Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame.

[Pyro]

Hit him with combos a few times and his armor falls off. Once its gone you can hit him for full damage.

[Tide]

Wild ARMS 4 -
Speedrun: So I went back and touched up the file. I got the time down to 5:44:53 seconds. My general thoughts are that I'm really satisfied with it. I want to get the last segment up but Farmel hasn't been cooperating. And there are so many things to mess up that it gets discouraging after the 27th reset or something. It's possible for the time to be faster. But we're looking at around 1 minute at most with the time I have gotten around.

Ways to make it faster...mm...not as much stuff as last time since it was really polished this time around. The steals I made sure to do as fast as I could. You can save I guess 1 minute at most from the Tiny Flower. The big time savers I guess will be from Etemananki, which is always a giant mess since that dungeon is non stop for both sides. The save point isn't there until you fight Enil. So Guardian Chimera + everything else before can easily screw you over. I'm pretty sure it was sloppy this time around too! Palpatta passage is the other place where things are usually bad. But this time through...aside from one random battle I think it was decent. Not sure how much more time I can save on that. The prologue might see some improvement since it's an area without accelerator so you're bound to run into some fights. But yeah, other than that, maybe Earthbound Dead? No idea. Belial I can probably test for a faster method with Tal's neat discovery.

In general, better strategies were used. Joint Struggling more also gave possible use to Genocide Edge. So this was a key thing that happened and I want to jot it down before I forget.  Tiny Flower/Full Carrot is just a nasty combination that lead to a lot of cool options that weren't available before. One other thing that I want to improve on is the lost "invisible" time with menu handling. I need to get much better at this. Menu use should be fast and I think at some points this wasn't maximized. I'm willing to wager up to an extra 10 minutes can likely be saved. But yeah, we're probably looking at a close to optimized Wild ARMS 4 fastest completion time from start to finish without any Alter Code F data. Maybe Tal has something he wants to add since he's been working on this with me more or less, but I can't see anything myself that I haven't covered. All the bosses past Enil are basically set in stone for strategy.

Jude/Arnaud Solo: Well since Tal uploaded all his segments >_>. Expect Arnaud/Jude solo segments eventually. I'm preparing a file right now (getting all the items I need to avoid random battle boringness) so I can do the main game and post game stuff. But this will soon be taped. Coming soon!

Ar Tonelico: Went back to this and decided to finish Misha's tale. Ugh. The first 2 hours was spent travelling down the stupid f'king tower. Thank god for initiative RUN AWAY. Poochena would be proud.

After that, hrm. I got to the Tenba Lab. And then, the game makes me walk up and down the same path three times in a row -_-. What. I will probably enjoy this story more if it wasn't for all this tedious running. Anyways, waiting until Phase 3 before I shatter the game to hell and back again. This will be fun.

[Captain K.]

P3:  Beated.

Outstanding game.  One of only two RPGs to ever earn a 10/10 rating from me.  And the last one was 15 years ago.

That isn't to say the game is perfect, but it really doesn't do anything badly.  Any complaints I have fall strictly in the nitpicky department.  (Example: If the MT version of Bufula is Mabufula, why is the MT version of Agilao "Maragion"?)

The story was solid and interesting.  I liked the basic premise of the Dark Hour, and they did a good job of building up the details over time.  Strega was a bit weak.  I would have liked a bit more development with them.

Gameplay was great, both the School Sim part and the battle system itself.  Which brings me to the best overall thing about the game:

The pacing.  The game kept you entertained continuously without boring you.  If you got tired of Tartarus, just go build up S. Links for a while.  If you're itching for battle, go spend more time in Tartarus.  And just when it seems you're in a rut, they throw in something different like a school trip to break the monotony.  This should be required playing for aspiring RPG designers so they can learn how to keep things moving.

Final game clock was 92 hours, main was level 77, others were around 70.  I maxed Academics, Charm, and Courage, and maxed 13/21 S. Links.  Completed all of Elizabeth's requests except for defeating the Reaper.

Characters follow (minor spoilers):

Main:  What can you say about the most intelligent, charming, badass person in school?  Mr. Hair-in-his-face was damned useful in battle, as you might expect.  In the DL?  Godlike.  While he's not filled with raw power, almost nobody has his sheer versatility in battle.  And the few that do can't be versatile as quickly (like Ryu 3).  Hates status though.

Mitsuru Kojiro:  Attack mage.  Had generally the highest magic damage throughout the game, losing only to the main on occasion.  Was a bit frail though, and had SP issues at endgame.  In the DL?  Heavy.  Solid offense with full healing is groovy.  Wouldn't hype her status though.  Hit rate was terrible on Tentarfoo.

Akihiko Sanada:  Good immediately after he joins, then sucks for almost the whole rest of the game.  Did have some use for the last few Tartarus bosses where his debuffs were needed.  In the DL?  Middle.  Mediocre physical and magical damage, but he also has full healing.

Yukari Takeba:  Was the Mary Sue character, without actually being a Mary Sue.  Spunky, and owned Stupei hilariously on multiple occasions.  Also, Hotel scene for the win.  In the DL?  Middle.  Her role is party healer, which doesn't translate as well to healing herself.  She's Mitsuru-.

Junpei Iori:  Started as an unlikeable person, and gradually became a very good friend to the main.  Excellent character development overall.  He really seemed like a real person, which is something few RPG characters achieve.  In battle, he was pretty weak in the beginning, but gradually became a respectable source of physical offense.  In the DL?  Middle.  No healing, but his offense is above average and he has fire magic as a backup.  Can also buff defense.

Ken Amada:  Least favorite character.  Didn't fit in with the others, and I didn't like that he came at the same level as everyone else and already expertly trained with a spear.  WTF?  Still, he was a solid backup healer.  In the DL?  Middle again.  Needs more offense, although he does have ID and the requisite cast full healing.

Koromaru:  Jeigan of the game.  Awesome when he first joins, then just gets worse and worse as the game goes on.  Lacks offense, both physical and magical.  ID is good at the beginning, fail by endgame.  Probably the best overall Persona in terms of resistances though.  In the DL?  Light.  Has evasion, and little else.

Aigis:  Nobody notices a robot in school (Chachamaru rule).  Slow talking voice was obnoxious.  Was rather ineffective in battle.  Lacking attack magic hurt.  Lategame, she got all her good buffs and was actually useful.  In the DL?  Middle.  No offense, but durable with her buffs plus the usual full healing.

Shinjiro:  Was really surprised by his temp status.  That was a real curveball, especially since he was the most recent to join.  Was pretty damn good in battle, due to lacking weaknesses and having solid offense.  In the DL?  Do not rank.

For the endgame, I used Yukari, Aigis, and Junpei.  Strega failed, especially Takaya.  Nyx was decent, but I wasn't in serious danger of losing to him.  Godlike in the DL.  He's much scarier against a single opponent rather than a party.

Captain K.'s updated top 5 list of RPGs:

1.  Final Fantasy 6
2.  Persona 3
3.  Star Ocean 2
4.  Valkyrie Profile
5.  Lufia II

[Niu]

.hack//GU 3- Through the tournament, found Yata (you went from good to suck so fast), now about to contact someone about rescuing Sakubo... not that I want to. Sakaki's FINALLY GONE! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. Taihaku was cool, and interesting how they bring up the Forest of Pain so brazenly. Anyone who hasn't seen the anime will be confused as hell. Game's good all around thusfar. It hasn't managed to drag at all like the second did.

Yata is weird from the first place. His persoanlity swap from the original to GU is just unrealistic.

[Grefter]

ToPr - Up to Dhaos Castle (ie millions of side quests, which is a good thing since ToP owns you).  Got all the loot pretty much.  Anyway, translation of the character plot climaxes was really good, much better than the Dejap one which felt fairly rushed and disjointed (Even Klarth who was their best in that scene, comes out much smoother and Klarth still > the rest of the cast).  Game still kicks arse.  It is a shame you don't really get the chance to master the end game Cless moves before you get new ones (I did Vorpal Sword dungeon first and got the skill from that mastered just in the fight with Origin and I spammed the skill on everything...).  Twice the learning time does that I guess.  Almost done with the Flamberge learnt skill, so on to Teleport or whatever it is called.  Hopefully it is still game best like it was before, the Dimension Slash redo is wwaaaaaay better than the original, so it might even be comboable.

[Hunter Sopko]

.hack//GU 3- Through the tournament, found Yata (you went from good to suck so fast), now about to contact someone about rescuing Sakubo... not that I want to. Sakaki's FINALLY GONE! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. Taihaku was cool, and interesting how they bring up the Forest of Pain so brazenly. Anyone who hasn't seen the anime will be confused as hell. Game's good all around thusfar. It hasn't managed to drag at all like the second did.

Yata is weird from the first place. His persoanlity swap from the original to GU is just unrealistic.

His personality swap from the previous GAME to this one is unrealistic. He was the same up until that moment.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

ToPr - Up to Dhaos Castle (ie millions of side quests, which is a good thing since ToP owns you).  Got all the loot pretty much.  Anyway, translation of the character plot climaxes was really good, much better than the Dejap one which felt fairly rushed and disjointed (Even Klarth who was their best in that scene, comes out much smoother and Klarth still > the rest of the cast).  Game still kicks arse.  It is a shame you don't really get the chance to master the end game Cless moves before you get new ones (I did Vorpal Sword dungeon first and got the skill from that mastered just in the fight with Origin and I spammed the skill on everything...).  Twice the learning time does that I guess.  Almost done with the Flamberge learnt skill, so on to Teleport or whatever it is called.  Hopefully it is still game best like it was before, the Dimension Slash redo is wwaaaaaay better than the original, so it might even be comboable.

Did you find the Red Lantern? I managed to miss the island with the Red Lantern, meaning I couldn't do Shadow's dungeon. -_-

[Fudozukushi]

Mass Effect: So I was planning on writing a rant about this earlier after my first playthrough, but then I thought I might as well do everything before I rant.  Then at the end of the 2nd playthrough I was 57 or so.  Then I choose to not rant until I hit 60.  So now that I actually hit 60 it's rant time.  On the note of level 60, fuck that, it takes roughly 1/4 of the entire amount of EXP you'll ever need to get to 60 from 59.  Errr pointlessness aside.

I'm gonna just do this in a weird, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly way.  Special guests being The Incredibly Awesome, and The Most WTF moments.

The Good:
-Plot was decent enough to make me want to see the end.
-The Paragon ending was pretty kickass for how short it was.
-The Geth are a cool race, hell all the races are cool.


The Bad:
-The Villains were shallow.
-Enemies can get cheap shots off like nothing.  Not as bad as some other games, but being shotgunned to death by a guy who was firing a pistol half a second ago is cheap.
-With the exception of three or four tracks, I found the music lackluster.
-The 60 grind.  I must vent!!!!!!


The Ugly:
-Almost every damn sidequest in the game forces you into the MAKO.  I don't really mind the MAKO since the psychics being broken is fun to look at but combat with it is incredibly boring.
-Mentioning how bad the villains are once wasn't enough so I'll say it again.  The villains are really bad.  I had high expectations for Saren going in (Stupid I know) and was utterly disappointed.
-How painful getting most of the achievements are.  Having to do the same five fetch quests in three playthroughs to get six achievements is a pain.


The Incredibly Awesome:
-Wrex
-The final Charm/Intimidate with Saren.  That was sweet.


The Most WTF Moments:
-At the end of the game I got the Achievment for taking more shield damage then health damage.  As a soldier who went through 2/3's of the game with two shield bars.
-So I was going to loot this object and an enemy Anti-Vehicle unit gets in my way.  I kill the bastard but he gets a shot off taking me down to half health.  I grab the lootsack and turn around to leave.  Only to see the enemy magically alive and somehow kill me despite shooting my party members.  This royally sucked because I hadn't saved since the beginning of that planet.

Next time I went their though I pumped enough shots into it to overkill the toughest enemy in the game.  I grab the lootsack and lo and behold it revives.  Things didn't end well for it this time.