Between yesterday and today, there is all kinds of news to share…

I spent a few solid hours getting through the latter part of Darksiders, I plan to have a full review out in the next couple days, so stay tuned for that, but I will say this, the ending was solid, wraps up the whole story while foreshadowing a sequel. The latter part wasn’t nearly as amazing in terms of environment and level design though, I’ll go into more detail in the review.

Secondly, Plants vs. Zombies is out for iPhone, I loved this game on PC, but it seemed like a shame to have to play it on one. I put in a little time at lunch and the controls translate very well to the iphone, and it is full of the same charm so far. I think it’s just a port, but this is the kinda game that I’d love to have for a minute or two…

Finally, I started White Knight Chronicles, it was a pretty long introduction to the game where you are a boy working for a man, who sends you on a trivial task, and ends with a directive from someone else, and/or moral obligation to save the princess… how one goes from A to B is a mystery solved only by leading characters in RPGs, and Mario… In any case… I’m not a fan of the combat system at all… you basically configure a glorified action bar, with some abilities. You gain points you can spend to learn new ones. The problem I have is that all the ones that I’ve learned so far don’t really improve my damage output. I feel as if I’m missing some fundemental information regarding how to setup my party to be effective, it feels like I’m using the same ability over and over, it’s not really fun. On top of that… the interface is very cluttered, you’ve got a combat log looking pane that takes up so much of the screen its ridiculous, you’d think they’d have some way to customize it or at least make it so it doesn’t take up a quarter of the screen. I’m going to give this one some more time to see if it gets compelling story-wise, otherwise this may fall into the DNF bucket.

I’m on the road this weekend so not much gaming outside of Zenonia on the iPhone. It’s pretty good for a portable action RPG, ign gave it a 9 and from what I’ve played, which is probably 2-3hrs so far, they might be right. I’m still getting used to the controls and using the special abilities. It reminds me most of soul blazers for the SNES.

Here’s a little glimps:

My copy of Valkyria Chronicles arrived on Thursday so I’ve been playing that, lots of positives to post on that one, and a couple minor gripes that I’ll get to when I get back to a keyboard. That’s a really good game that anyone who is a fan of turn based strategy games should play…. Buy a ps3 if you have to…