This Month in Collecting - October 2011

Had a decent month for pickup.  Nothing particularly fancy or rare, mostly just rounding out the collection.

So without further ado, the photo!:

Click for larger image

Here's the breakdown details

Need for Speed Shift 1 & 2 - Basically these were acquisitions to make sure I don't get too far behind in this series.  Now I'm only missing Hot Pursuit and (in a couple of days) The Run.

DarkStar One: Broken Alliance - I've been eying this for a while now.  I love a good space sim and they are few and far between so I figured I'd give this one a whirl.

Dark Souls Collector's Edition - As if I wasn't going to get this.  I really enjoyed what I played of Demon's Souls so I'm all dialed in on this.  Course I need to beat Demon's Souls first, and since my PS3 died and I lost all my savegames, I'm going to have to start that again.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 - More filling out of the collection and I've heard alot of good about this game.

The ICO & Shadow of the Colossus Collection - Duh

Batman: Arkham City - I loved Batman: Arkham Asylum (so much that I've got the Platinum Trophy to prove it) so there was no way I was not getting this game.

Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors - This seems to have a lot of positive buzz, so when it asked to be part of my collection, I agreed.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village and the Diabolical Box - I recently finished the third Phoenix Wright game and starting looking into some of the other Phoenix Wright games and saw that they are doing a PW/PL crossover game.  Well I've heard much good about PL so I figured I'd pick up a couple.

Class of Heroes - Read a review; sounded fun.

Phantasy Star Portable 2 - See above

That's it for October

Some collection pics

I've not posted any recent collection pictures (other than recent pickups) so I figured that I'd snap a few of the current setup and post them up.  I recently acquired a new media shelf so it allowed me to put the titles up nicely and not randomly scatter them around my office.

I'll start with the stuff in my office:

Here's the shelves that used to house the PS2 titles now repurposed for Xbox, GameCube, Wii and DS (Click the images to enlarge)

Xbox, GameCube, Wii and first part of DS

Last bit of Xbox, GameCube, Wii, DS and Dreamcast

PSP Collection, Wild Arms XF, Wipeout Pulse, Yggdra Union and Ys Chronicles are behind Ys Seven and Ys: The Oath of Felghana

As I stated before I finally bought a new shelf (one designed specifically for DVD/Blu-ray cases) and I've put that up with the TV and moved it all out of my office.  It's now upstairs with the TV and the consoles (which makes more sense).  Here it is in all it's glory:

All the PS2, PS3 and Blu-ray

I'm planning on picking up another one of these and putting all the Xbox and Xbox 360 titles in it and a third for the Nintendo games and handheld titles.   Then I can rest with the knowledge that my collection has a nice home.

A 9-Year-Old and inFamous 2

My 9-year-old picked up my controller when I had inFamous 2 loaded and thought it was great fun to knock people over.   Imagine the fun she would have when she realizes that she can toss sticky grenades around.

1 Goal down; 4 more to go...

So at the beginning of the year, I posted up my goals for 2011.  We are now in Q4 of 2011 and I finally knocked out one of the 5 goals.   Goal number #1, Beat or Complete 50 games.   On October 11, 2011, I beat Gears of War 3, making that the 50th title on my backlog that I beat in 2011.

I'm also on track for beating goal #3, Finish a Zelda game.  I'm on the last dungeon in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, so that should be a goal we will see knocked out before the year is over.

As for the other three, well, I'm not so sure about those.  I've pretty much screwed myself on acquiring to many titles so goal #2, For every 3 games I acquire, I must beat 1 game, is pretty much unreachable now and goal #5, Beat all my SNES titles, actually got harder over the year as my SNES collection count went from 6 to 8.

Ah well, there's still goal number #4...

This Quarter in Collecting - Q3 2011

I'm long overdue with my collecting posts and pic so in order to catch up, I just posting three pics, one for each month, of the game acquired for that month.  It actually takes quite a while to setup the individual pictures for each game like I've done in the past so for this period, I'm going with the group photos.  Who knows, maybe I'll post some collection vids of my box sets, down the road.  Anyway, here pics for Q3 2011!  Click on the picture to see view at the full resolution.

July 2011

 

Yes, I picked up the Killzone 3 Helghast Edition in July.  And because I waited so long, I got a great deal on it.  Best Buy had it on sale for $10 less than the standard edition.  Who ho!

What else did it get?

• Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues (PS3)
• Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (PS3)
• Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (NDS)
• The Conduit Collector's Edition (Wii)
• Endless Ocean (Wii)
• Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law (PSP)
• Rayman (PS1)
• Vandal Hearts II (PS1)
• Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (SNES)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (PS3) - not pictured

August 2011

 

The big pickup for August was Catherine: Love is Over edition.   I wasn't originally planning on picking this up but it seemed to be just too unique to pass up, so I had my local GS manager track one down for me.

And the other titles?

• Ghostbusters: The Video Game (X360)
• Medal of Honor Heroes 2 (Wii)
• Medal of Honor: Vanguard (PS2)
• Metroid Prime: Hunters (NDS)
• Armored Core: For Answer (PS3)
• Cross Edge (PS3)
• Incredible Hulk (PS3)
• NHL 08 (PS3)
• Medal of Honor (PS3)
• Scooby Doo! Night of 1000 Frights (PS2)
• Scooby Doo! Mystery Mayhem (PS2)
• Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc (PS2)
• The Operative: No One Lives Forever (PS2)
• Loco Roco 2 (PSP)
• Valkyria Chronicles II (PSP)
• Death Jr (PSP)
• Death Jr II: Root of Evil (PSP)
• The 3rd Birthday (PSP)

September 2011

 
September was the biggest month this quarter, at least from a collection standpoint with the addition of 3 separate box set additions, Disgaea 4 and Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland (not pictured) for the PS3 and Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 2: Innocent Sin for the PSP.

And a bunch o' other stuff:

• God of War Origins Collection (PS3)
• Resistance 3 (PS3)
• Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty (PS3) - Imported this on disc so I now have all the R&C games on disc
• Prince of Persia Trilogy (PS3)
• Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 2: Summit Strike (Xbox)
• Scooby Doo! Unmasked (PS2)
• Sports Champions (PS3)
• Battlefield Bad Company (PS3)
• Gear of War 3 (X360)
• Crackdown 2 (X360)
• Total Overdose: A Gunslinger's Tale in Mexico (Xbox)
• Amped 2 (Xbox)
• Phantasy Star Portable (PSP)
• God of War: Ghost of Sparta (PSP)
• Knights of the Nightmare (PSP)
• Maken X (DC)

Well, that's it for Q3.  Q4's got some great titles in store with Batman, Uncharted, and another Assassin's Creed in the mix.

I love this commercial

This is probably one of the best gaming commercials I have ever seen.   Absolutely love it!

Too many good games this Fall

I'm looking out at the release calendar for this Fall and it's looking mighty full of games I want to play.   As of right now, the games I'm looking forward are:

• Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 2: Innocent Sin
• Batman: Arkham City
• Atelier Totori: The Adventure of Arland
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
• Uncharted 3
• Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary
• Gears of War 3
• Assassin's Creed: Revelations
• Resistance 3
• Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten
• Driver: San Francisco
• God of War Origins Collection

That's a lot of games.

How am I going to play all of those?  Geez.

What I want to see in the next Assassin's Creed

So a new Assassin's Creed is coming soon (November to be specific) and while the core gameplay hasn't changed there's been tweak and changes that have had major impacts to the overall feel of the game.

Going forward, here's some changes I'd like to see in future games.

• Bring back the Kingdom - The first game had this rather huge area that you had to travel through to get to and from each major city.   There was a number of viewpoints, Templars, and flags to collect there.   It was a huge wide open space that made the game feel rather large.   For the impatient, once you had traveled to a particular city you could fast travel but I liked knowing that I could ride through the kingdom.  With the exception of a single road at one point in the ACII (which I actually really liked), the game never let you travel from city to city.  And since ACB was all in a single city, well there you go.
• Add difficulty levels - Let's face it, Assassin's Creed is easy.  It would be nice if the game had additional difficulty level or maybe even a New Game + option.  The full sync addition to the missions in ACB was a really nice addition, but why no Achievements/Trophies for my electronic bragging rights?
• Try to stay historically accurate (aka - Don't get too crazy) - The War Machines from Brotherhood provided an interesting diversion, but it started to take the series in a bit of a, "Hey that's not in my history books" direction.
• Bring back the investigations - I don't necessarily mean that you need to have it quite as rigid as it was in the first game, but every once in a while (more so in AC II), you'd get a contract with no rhyme or reason and somehow you know exactly where they would be and what they would be doing.   I actually liked doing some of that find out myself.
• Pickpocketing - I used to be able to pickpocket.  Bumping to people is all fine and good for small change but I want to be able to take that nice shiny dagger they have in their belt.
• More Cities - Rome was nice, and it was huge, but I kinda wanted to be able to go to other places (and travel to get there).
• More side missions - I love all the hidden catacombs and places that you can explore in ACII and ACB.  Keep that stuff coming.
• Keep the flashbacks coming - I loved the bits with Altaïr in ACII and the sidestory with Cristina in Brotherhood.  Let's have more of that please, maybe some Desmond backstory would be interesting.
• 100% Sync Achievement/Trophy - There should be an achievement/trophy for this.  And while we are at it, how about a bonus cutscene or something.

Of course, I also want them to continue the great story and gameplay, but I think the above would help.

Cleaning house

I was cleaning up and putting away some games and I realized I have quite a few duplicates of games.   More than I actually thought I did.  Why?

For years I was a PC only gamer. Consoles were for the unwashed masses.  The only people who gamed on them were kids, or uneducated adults who couldn't find their way around an autoexec file.

PC gaming controls were better, the graphics were better, the customization was better, the multiplayer was better, everything was better on the PC.

However, there were a few titles here and there that made me consider getting a console, that is, until they actually released a PC port.

Those days have long since passed and I now embrace all forms of gaming, from consoles, to handhelds, to smartphones and of course, the PC.  But as a result of my stance against console gaming, I had picked up a few titles that, once I began collecting console games, I ended up getting another console copy.

Which takes me to my dilemma.  Most of the duplicates I have were ported to the PC and while they may actually look better on the PC due to higher resolution, they generally don't control as well, as they were designed with a controller in mind and they are, in some cases, a pain to run.

I do generally frown on eliminating titles from my collection as I have done it in the past and always regretted it, but this time is different as I am not ridding myself of the title completely, just the duplicate copy.   So what should I do?  Should I get rid of the duplicate copies?  Or keep them for posterity's sake?

In case you are wondering, here's the duplicate game list:

• 007: Nightfire (this one I could arguably keep as the PC game differs in content from the console)
• American McGee's Alice (I now have a copy of this with my Alice Madness Returns on the PS3)
• Assassin's Creed (Extra content on the PC! Who hoo!)
• Call of Duty 2
• Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
• Darkened Skye (I can't even get this to run on XP/Vista)
• Dune 2000 (This is one where I think I should get rid of the console version)
• Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind + Expansions
• Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion + Expansions
• Fable
• Final Fantasy VII
• Final Fantasy VIII
• Grand Theft Auto III
• Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
• Gun
• Half-Life 2 (This is the CE version just FYI)
• Half-Life 2: Episode 1
• Halo: Combat Evolved
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
• Jade Empire
• Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
• Metal Gear Solid
• Oni
• Red Faction
• Star Wars Episode 1 Racer
• Star Wars Rogue Squadron
• Tomb Raider
• Tomb Raider II

It would pain me to do so, but there's alot of those that I know I'll never play, so I feel like I should just be done with them.

What do you think?

Wow, just, wow...

This tech looks amazing...