Mostly gaming stuff
Aug. 18th, 2010 08:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amethyst73First, the opening cinematic is out for Epic Mickey. It looks completely charming! Clearly, a team with a whole lotta love for Disney put this together. (Including a visual ref to Kingdom Hearts near the end.) And apart from Skyward Sword, it's the only thing on the horizon for Wii that I'm excited about. As I've mentioned before, my gaming hours are few, so I need to be careful about what I lust for.
Second, went back to an earlier save in Crystal Bearers and won the balance game. It is not well-designed. Throwing around background objects (whose direction you can't seem to affect at all) may increase the frequency of Opponent Girl getting hit with an object at some later point. Basically, I think you have to get lucky, waiting for Belle (your occasional companion) to get in an attack and then helping pull Opponent Girl into the water. Belle then likes you. A bit. For a moment. The stealth sequence on the train was much more entertaining, and I suspect rather easier to win.
One thing I appreciate about Bearers is the music. While MIDI violins were obviously used in the background for a number of tracks that I've heard, I think that Squeenix might actually have hired live musicians to play the solo instrumental lines on top. They're just so.. clear, and live. Of course, sequenced instruments may have improved over time.
The sound engineers really should have done a better job for some of the cut scenes, though. In the opening cinematic (before I had a chance to turn on the subtitles), I had a fair amount of difficulty understanding what Layle and Goldenrod were saying: the spoken tracks seem muffled and too quiet compared with the surrounding music. Funnily enough, the quality of the voice track varies from scene to scene: it's the ones with Goldenrod that suffer most. Layle is much clearer in his segments with Belle or Whazzizname his partner. There's really no excuse for the lack of uniformity there. Oh, and Layle's voice acting could have been better. Everyone else seems basically fine - nothing hideous like the disastrous Arc Rise Fantasia voice work.
Back at Berkeley this week! Today's commute, which was supposed to be simple, grew unnecessarily complicated by the fact that I discovered I'd left my (absolutely required to get onto campus) ID badge back at home, long about time I'd reached the West Oakland stop... over half an hour into my BART ride, from the station that's a 20-25 minute drive from home. 2.5 hours after I'd originally left the house, I was ready to leave the house AGAIN. *sigh* Unlikely to make that particular mistake again for a while...
Second, went back to an earlier save in Crystal Bearers and won the balance game. It is not well-designed. Throwing around background objects (whose direction you can't seem to affect at all) may increase the frequency of Opponent Girl getting hit with an object at some later point. Basically, I think you have to get lucky, waiting for Belle (your occasional companion) to get in an attack and then helping pull Opponent Girl into the water. Belle then likes you. A bit. For a moment. The stealth sequence on the train was much more entertaining, and I suspect rather easier to win.
One thing I appreciate about Bearers is the music. While MIDI violins were obviously used in the background for a number of tracks that I've heard, I think that Squeenix might actually have hired live musicians to play the solo instrumental lines on top. They're just so.. clear, and live. Of course, sequenced instruments may have improved over time.
The sound engineers really should have done a better job for some of the cut scenes, though. In the opening cinematic (before I had a chance to turn on the subtitles), I had a fair amount of difficulty understanding what Layle and Goldenrod were saying: the spoken tracks seem muffled and too quiet compared with the surrounding music. Funnily enough, the quality of the voice track varies from scene to scene: it's the ones with Goldenrod that suffer most. Layle is much clearer in his segments with Belle or Whazzizname his partner. There's really no excuse for the lack of uniformity there. Oh, and Layle's voice acting could have been better. Everyone else seems basically fine - nothing hideous like the disastrous Arc Rise Fantasia voice work.
Back at Berkeley this week! Today's commute, which was supposed to be simple, grew unnecessarily complicated by the fact that I discovered I'd left my (absolutely required to get onto campus) ID badge back at home, long about time I'd reached the West Oakland stop... over half an hour into my BART ride, from the station that's a 20-25 minute drive from home. 2.5 hours after I'd originally left the house, I was ready to leave the house AGAIN. *sigh* Unlikely to make that particular mistake again for a while...
