Heart of Angel

I played a lot of game, and, mind you, own quite a collection. Sometime I have the patient to finish some of them, but mostly they’re left somewhere in the middle, just because I don’t have enough time to play everything I bought. Games in Vietnam is dirt cheap, I know. That’s a part of the reason I have too many games in my hand to play.

In Vietnam you can’t just go out and buy a legal version of the game you want. No one sells it because majority of the population don’t have enough money to spend 60$ on each game released. Games are generally sold for about 1$/DVD/game here (yes we price game by the number of DVDs it takes, 4 or 5 years ago it’s priced by CDs). I have about 10-20games lying around and only managed to completed 1 or 2 games I really like. The only console which have games selling legally is PlayStation 3, just because it’s unhackable. If Gamestop have a store here they will go bankrupt because their pricing on used games can’t compete with stores in Vietnam. Generally customers can just bring old game to store which they bought their PS3s and have another game in exchange for like 6$, as opposed to Gamestop where you lose like 20 or 30$ when you sold it back. I dare you enter our realm, Gamestop !

Because of that, finishing a game is a real achievement. Every game I finished really meant something to me. Somehow I just want to take a look back to each and every games I can remember. A lot of games in this list are Bioware/Black Isle games or Square Soft game. Somehow I just love games from those 2 studios.

The most memorable series I’ve played are Legacy of Kain and Baldur’s Gate. For the former, the story are just fantastic, maybe you don’t believe it but I spend more time studying the back story than actually playing them. You follow Raziel, the blood-turned-soul-sucked vampire through out the land of Nosgoth, jumping back and forth in time for your revenge, and just dying for your free-will sake. Foolish guy maybe, but Amy Hennig (story writer, who moved to Naughty Dog studio which are famous for Uncharted series on PS3) did a awesome job leading gamer to the land of Nosgoth, but left early leaving us hungry for the last part of the journey. Come on Amy!

The later is much more famous, Baldur’s Gate series. I started with Baldur’s Gate 2, finish it twice with two different characters (one of them are everybody’s favourite Fighter-Wizard dual-classes variant:  Kensai-Wizard). I didn’t finish BG1, for the sad part. BG2, BG2 Throne of Bhaal, Icewind Dale 1 + exp, Icewind Dale 2, I’ve finished each one of them at least twice. There’s no word can describe how good these games are. Stories are good (generic hero-rescue-everybody-kill-bastard-in-the-process over D&D world setup), but they manage to make it one of the best game series ever made. You need to play it to believe. 😀

/rambling start 🙂 . /order finished-time desc

• Batman Akham Asylum: really cool hero game, imo best hero-theme game I’ve every played. A masterpiece really.
• The World Ends With You: DS game from heart. Utilize every DS feature to the fitness. Second and most memorable game I played on DS.
• Final Fantasy Crisis Core: FF VII prequel. Masterpiece CGs, okay gameplay. I play it mostly for the story.
• Final Fantasy 8 + 9: sadly I cannot finish FF7 for the fourth try. Good games indeed, FF8 probably the most popular FF game in Vietnam, everyone’s entry to FF series. FF9 is good, old school and captivating. Finished each of them thrice.
• Mass Effect (twice) : another game from Bioware, fantastic voice-over work, good combat and all.
• Knight of the Old Republic 1&2: Bioware and Obsidian’s work. Jedi-in-d20-dice game. I cannot believe they can do it until I play it myself, and now I cannot believe if they can do it any otherwise.
• Fallout 1 & 2 & 3: legendary series. A post apocalyptic game.  Finished 1 and 2 twice. Cannot imagine how Bethesda can make Fallout 3 any better but 5 minutes into the game I actually said: “That’s how Fallout 3 should really be”. Must play.
• Warcraft 3 & TFT: campaign finished. Love the gameplay so much, managed to get to lvl 40 on battle.net with 75% win rates on Random race, how lucky I am 😀 .
• Bahamut Lagoon: really old game. nice combat and story until you figured out how to make invisible dragon and everything are just too easy.
• Ace Attorney series: finished some of them. a-ok games. 6/10.
• Fable 1: funny game from Lionhead studio.
• Metal Gear Solid 1 & 2: I must admit I hate the stealth gameplay but good story is what make me still playing it.
• Ninja Gaiden 1: THIS-IS-MUST-PLAY-NO-MATTER-WHO-YOU-ARE. crazy combat. I was beaten up and down, got my friends keep giggling at me on the first boss. That’s how hard this game is. Same for Ninja Gaiden 2, but I don’t have time to finish it. I remember it took 3 of us 1 week to beat this game.
• Guitar Hero 2, 3, WT, Metallica, Aerosmith: really funny games. I love it so much that I bought 1 PS2 guitar, 1 Xbox 360 and 1 World Tour pack for it 😀 .
• Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2, Defiance, Blood Omen 2: the most beloved game mostly for the story. Ok gameplay.
• Syberia 1 & 2: Beautiful adventure series. Nice voice work and story. Must play if you are into these kind of game. Too bad the next game of Benoît Sokal

That’s it for now, dunno if I missed any. But these games are most memorable to me. How about you?