Phantasy Star Universe: Ambitions of Illuminus has been revealed as the sequel to my obsession, PSU on the Xbox 360. Here is the site, unfortunately it is in Japanese, but there are 8 pics. The site contains some information about a network trial that is going to be held in Japan (or so I have been told), but there is no information on how to sign up for it. I can only hope that there will be a download for it on the 360 marketplace. Scheduled street date right now is rumored for the holiday season.
February 7, 2007 – 1:37 pm
I was recently playing on Xbox Live (PSU again) and came across a guy that started to talk about the old days before video gaming was big and how he used to play table top games. I thought I was part of a minority that enjoyed these games as a kid, but I guess I was wrong. At 26 years old now I can remember playing D&D, Marvel Super Heroes, Top-Secret and Car Wars as a kid and having a blast, although my general strategy was to shoot anything moving. Table top gaming definitely helped spark my imagination and my love for role playing games. These games paved the way for all RPG’s to follow from the Final Fantasy series to Fable. Talking with this guy just made me think about the hours of game play we got out these games and the lure of rolling ten and twenty sided dice, these games helped shape my imagination as a kid and gave me a great appreciation for detail and character creation. Kudos to the days of old and the classic table top games.
February 5, 2007 – 12:12 pm
I’m sure I am like every other RPG player, more specifically MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game), which gets drawn in full force and twitches if his/her fix of online enjoyment is not met. In all seriousness the addictive power of these MMORPG’s is ridiculous, it is like any other drug that man can get addicted to. Right now I am addicted to PSU on the 360, I want to start to wean myself off but it draws me in, it talks to me, just one more run, just one more level. I recently went to Best Buy and saw the Burning Crusade expansion for World of Warcraft, I held it, looked at it, sniffed it (ok I didn’t really sniff it, but you get the idea) and decided against it. I am still thinking about getting the expansion and firing up my old WoW character, but I recall the utter engulfment it had over my life, I would get home from work and fire up the PC play for hours and eat by the PC, and constantly fight with my wife over logging off. My life became instance runs, leveling, grinding and I always had something else to try and do that would only take me a bit longer. I look at the burning Crusade and I say not again Blizzard, you will not get me in the clutches of your crack, I fear Sega has already drawn me in and it’s too late, but I won’t do WoW, not again. The major problems with these games is there is no end, there is no final mission or goal, and if there was the developers will put out some new content, missions, weapon, item, etc. that will make you continue to play, they are truly and open ended scenario where you take your character as far as you would like, some just never know when to stop.
January 26, 2007 – 11:41 am
There will be another content update today (January 26) for Phantasy Star Universe. The update will fix certain bugs and add more items, missions, and weapons. Of most notable addition is the new S2 rank missions, which will be the hardest in the game and also items to change how your Partner Machine looks and functions. Look for me to be online tonight getting the new update.
As a side note I actually stopped playing PSU long enough to get some Lumines Live, Wario Ware and Heavy Weapon Demo in last night.
January 22, 2007 – 12:49 pm
Since the update 2 weeks ago I am officially addicted to PSU, I was actually debating quitting the game all together because of lack of content and then bang, a huge content update to get me hooked. I have neglected playing everything else on my 360, DS, PSP and my brand new shiny Wii as well. The update brought in higher level spells, weapons, new missions and increased the level cap to 70. I am currently trying to make a high level force (magic user), I find hurling fireballs into crowds quite entertaining and having a huge cane taller than me amusing. There is soon to be another update for the US to fix certain bugs people are using to mix certain types of clothing together and cancel synthesing items so they don’t lose their items. The update will also add additional new items, weapons and options to change your Partner Machine to different forms. This version of PSU is starting to build up steam and they are doing things right, although a suggestion to Sega would be to add in options for clans, right now there is no clan grouping or anything. I am hopping to play for a month or so more and then cancel the account and get back into the rest of my gaming checklist and real life.
