2. Finished Gears of War (finally) on Casual. Preparing to go back in for the next level.
3. Finished Mass Effect, sadly. I didn't want this game to end. I just hope the continuation doesn't take too long to be released.
Other than that, I have discovered the iPod game by Square. The single best iPod game released to date. This stunning game is a full game, not just a quick "game on the go".
You can find out all of the information at the official site here, but this is my quick run-down...
1. The game starts off just like any Final Fantasy type game from Square would. You are introduced to the main character and the conflict they must overcome. In this case it is Ziggy and the conflict is that his younger brother has been kidnapped. Luckily, a strange old man, the Soul Master, comes out of nowhere to aid and saves you with the help of your magical pendant.
2. The scene quickly fast forwards to after you have spent some time training and becoming a "conductor". This is where you are introduced to the mechanics of the game's battles. At the "Hip-O-Drome" you begin building Tune Troopers by selecting songs from your iPod playlists. The game figures out from that song what your Trooper will look like and its battle stats. There doesn't seem to be much to the reasoning behind why the stats are chosen, but the Soul Master will give hints on what to choose at a specific time. He will say things like "choose a song with the word 'soul' in it". I chose a few different songs in different genres and the best character I came up with is Andre 3000's "Hey Ya" which gave me a "Special" rating, the highest rating available.
3. After you have "trained" by building your troopers (up to 16) you can move to the first city in the game. You are attacked and the game goes through a quick tutorial on how to deploy troopers and use their abilities in a fight.
It plays like a Final Fantasy Tactics other than the theme of using music to make characters. Even for those who don't typically enjoy RPGs, this was easy to pick up and fun to play.
THE DOWNSIDE: The game is great. The story is okay. The price is awesome for a full length game on iPod. So the only bad thing I can say about this is that the game drinks the iPods power to handle all of this awesomeness. I first loaded this up after a full charge from 0% (I had not used the iPod in a while). The first time I played it I got to the Hip-O-Drome and made my 16 tune troopers, started and won my first battle. At this point the battery was very near 0% again.
