Let's Play Mickey's Safari in Letterland: Best game ever fucking made

Ok, so QC and I were in a call because I did some commentary for his LP of Nemesis, which I kinda sucked in, but this video was a lot of fun to make. Of course I'd play in "Super Advanced" mode...this game was made for fucking 3-year-olds. You can NOT die, and there is voices. MICKEY HAS A VOICE. "Oh boy!" is definitely my favorite line. We try the voices ourselves in the video, and I have to say, I think I did the best. This game was made for educating kids in the alphabet...how sad. The game was developed by Beam Software, who made titles such as "The Way of the Exploding Fist" and "Sherlock" for the Commodore 64. They're based in Australia now...fucking Australia. I would definitely reccomend playing this game if you want to laugh at something. Go check out the video on the title to see what I mean.

Disney......OH BOY!

Let's Play Forum and Super LP Bros. combine to form Let's Play Bros!

This procedding is quoted from the Let's Play Forum:

Well, we didn't really catch a good start with the new LP-Forum Super LP Bros - but that's past.
In past weeks we settled our differences and even more: We made plannings. Plannings to become the one - the one ultimate LP-Forum: Let's Play Brothers
And today is the day we ultimately announce it. On Thursday, April the 2nd at 00:00 (GMT +1) - there will be no LetsPlayForum anymore, also no SuperLPBros - only LPB: Let's Play Brothers.
The site is already setup, the forum databases are merged and cleaned up, so there's nothing in the way that this site will be online at the crucial date.

Q&A

Q: So LetsPlayForum and SuperLPBros won't exist anymore?
A: Yeah, that's what I told you, dummy. :p Of course the old sites will redirect to the new letsplaybrothers.com-site so people who missed this day won't be lost.

Q: I got an account on both forums, so which account will be used in the end concerning my settings, password etc.?
A: The LPF ones.

Q: How does the new forum structure look like?
A: The new forum structure will be a mix of both. There will be still a Spam Can and also still the LP-Status request.

Q: Yeah, LP Status - is this still going to be the same?
A: Pretty much. Just with the difference that there are two different kinds of LP status now - "Offspring LPer" and "Seasoned LPer".
The Offspring LPer Status is the first one you get, the demands are very basic so that also younger and unexpierenced people can get this status without any problems if they put a little bit of effort into it.
The Seasoned LPer status has higher demands plus the member needs to be an Offspring LPer for quite a time before he can become a seasoned one. But you'll see how it works out in the end when the site is up.

Q: I was bannd once from LetsPlayForum/SuperLPBros - Am I still welcome at the new forum?
A: Yes you are. We cleared the list of bans for people who got banned in the meantime. (except for trolls or other scum)

Q: Who are the administrators/moderators of LetsPlayBrothers?
A:

Admins:
- FalsePower
- LuigiFan64
- Grawl
- Cauchemar

Moderators:
- dannychic
- GabrielWingue
- Soapynome
- Rainiac

If there are any questions left - ask, just ask.

In this sprit, let's look forward to the new age of LP'ing communites: LetsPlayBrothers!

So then, with argueably the best two LP Forums merging (SA notwithatanding), what are your thoughts on the whole thing?

The Adventures of Alundra ~ A Dragonatrix Review

Alundra is a good ol' classic 2D ARPG (Action Role Playing Game) made by (the now-disbanded) Matrix Studios in 1997. This game went practically unnoticed then, and it'd take the "patience of a saint", as some would say, to find either a CD copy of the game or someone who has even played it in this day and age. It's one of those games that you either love or hate, and personally I love this game.

The Adventures of Alundra follows, perhaps unsurprisingly, the tale of a young male named Alundra. Alundra is both blessed and cursed as he is one of the last few members of the Clan of Elna - an ancient race whom have the power to enter people's dreams as they sleep - and he must use his power to rescue the village of Inoa from their eternal nightmares. Initially, Alundra sets off to Inoa on board a vessel guided by the sage-like Lars, someone who has no tangible form and initially only appears to Alundra in his dreams. On route to Inoa, the ship gets caught in the most ferocious storm it's ever been in (the captain says it's been in worse but based on given evidence I find this hard to believe) and ends up getting TORN IN HALF by a tidal wave. By sheer luck, Alundra ends up washing ashore on the island he was heading to and a villager by the name of Jess finds him, and takes him to Inoa, where Jess used to work as a blacksmith. After meeting a few of the local villagers - such as Sybil, a young girl who dreams whilst she is awake, and Nadia, someone to whom sleep is not a reprieve as it causes nearby objects to violently explode - he encounters an old man named Wendell who's locked in a fierce nightmare and no one is able to help him. Wendell's grandchildren, Bergus and Nestus, ask Alundra to go fetch a man by the name of Septimus as they believe he may be able to help. Septimus is a scholarly man who has studied the nightmares that have plagued Inoa and is distraught with his failure to be able to help on his own. Realizing Alundra's potential, Septimus sends him off to the manor of Tarn - Septimus' old master - to retrieve an old book. Once he reaches the manor, Alundra encounters Melzas - the game's main antagonist - who threatens Alundra before retreating for the time being. Alundra eventually retrieves the book, and returns to help Septimus and Wendell. Septimus helps Alundra enter Wendell's nightmare, and the dark overtures of the game slowly become more noticable from there...

Now, with the plot summary out of the way, I can begin this review in earnest. Alundra is one of those few games that has aged exceptionally well. It's just as thought-provoking, and immersive now as it was a decade ago. Some people may be instantly turned away from such a classic due to it being in 2D. If this game were in 3D, it'd be a step in the wrong direction. This is a game that deserves to stay as 2D as it plays perfectly fine as is. The graphics leave nothing to be desires, and the visual effects that many take for granted as of late - such as smoke emenating from a chimney - only enhance the visual factor. The only noticable downside is that depth perception is remarkably annoying; there are many jumps that look like they can be made but actually can't, and vice versa.

As a whole, the soundtrack is exceptional. Some tracks, such as "Torla Mountain" aren't overly good but others ("Gemini Dreams" (I believe it's called) for example) are far superior, and as a result help average out the few bad tracks. The intro alone has a splendid guitar track playing, and is a beautifully rendered CGI scene to boot (it sort of has an anime style to it... but it does lead to the question: is Alundra's hair ginger or blonde?). There isn't much that I can say about the OST other than it's certainly worth a listen.

Now, one of my first real problems with this game: the puzzles. Many of these puzzles are exceptionally difficult, to the point of frustrating. Several are - literally - trial and error affairs. The first truly difficult puzzle is in the third non-dream dungeon at the very beginning, as it requires you to talk to 5 characters in a certain order. This is the first time you'll need to write down key information to try and piece together the solution (the instruction manual even recommends that you keep a pen and some paper at hand while playing), and even then it can take a while. The puzzles get exceptionally harder as the game progresses, but there is one puzzle in particular in one dream sequence that annoys everyone. It looks easy, and with some lateral thinking it is, but you need to treat it like a chess-game: think several moves ahead. Some of the puzzles in this game are insanely difficult the first time through and when you grow up playing this game, very few puzzles become a challenge any more (there's one classic puzzle that appears in this game on a very difficult scale; many switches, have to get them all the same colour, flipping one changes the colour of those around it as well... that puzzles is notable twice and it's not overly easy either time; the second time isn't required but helps).

The plot is also overly convoluted at first, and may take some time to understand. Nothing overly major seems to happen (aside from a few NPCs dying) for a while, then as you approach the end of the game a lot of plot gets thrown outta nowhere. This game may actually offend some people, as it has an anti-religious plot... only this isn't known, prevalent or even brought up until past halfway through the game.

There's very little I can genuinely critisize this game for, as it's a masterpiece that outshines many of the modern mainstream games. Even better news, is that it's apparantly available on the PS3 version of PSN (as to whether or not it's a Japan exclusive I'm not sure) so it's easy to get access to play if you'd wish.

Yugioh SSLP Update and a new guy

The Yugioh SSLP has been updated! Chapter 1 is up and once again hosted at The Let's Play Forum and Super LP Bros. Chapter 2 will be up as soon as I stop being lazy and put it in BB Code.
Wait.... laziness.... procrastination.... hey look, I'm turning into what was Dragonatrix. :P

Also, we have another author who just signed on! His name is TheAdamantArchville, and is quite the funny guy. He's said he might do some abandoneware game reviews, which is good because many of those go unnoticed and unplayed, but are very good. Then again....

New LP from the one and only Jim Daddy!

It's been "highly publicized", and it's finally happening. I got the OP done for my very first SSLP, Yugioh: Forbidden Memories.
You can find it hosted at two different spots at the moment:
Super Let's Play Bros. and The Let's Play Forum as well. Both the links go straight to the thread. You should go check it out now... go ahead, I'll wait...
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You go see it? Pretty cool I'd say.... 'course then again I am the author, so I'm just a bit biased. :P
Keep it tuned here or one of the other two mentioned above for updates!
EDIT: Thread was locked on LPF because Grawl thought the OP was an advertisement for said LP.

Fantasy Table of Elements and Other Things

Whilst browsing on my favourite general gaming site, I came across the picture in the post title. Yes, it's a periodic table of elements. Yes, it's consisting entirely of Final Fantasy characters. For a better quality picture, just click on it. (Bad thing is, I recognise almost everything on it...)

Now for the alternate reason to this: My LP. No, I'm not posting an SSLP here, so hush. It's of a little known PSX platformer called Croc 2... only I'm playing the gameboy colour port (hindsight has allowed me to see this was stupid, but I'll live with it).

YouTube videos:
Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm05FyTK1Po
Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xrXfcuPdb8
Part 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyIVZbSrl08
Part 4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP0lieLXRps

Viddler videos:
Part 1 - http://www.viddler.com/explore/Dragonatrix/videos/7/
Part 2 - http://www.viddler.com/explore/Dragonatrix/videos/8/
Part 3 - http://www.viddler.com/explore/Dragonatrix/videos/9/
Part 4 - http://www.viddler.com/explore/Dragonatrix/videos/10/

Daily Motion videos:
Part 1 - http://www.dailymotion.com/user/Dragonatrix/video/x8os3i_lets-play-croc-2-part-1_videogames
Part 2 - http://www.dailymotion.com/user/Dragonatrix/video/x8p4uf_lets-play-croc-2-part-2_videogames
Part 3 - http://www.dailymotion.com/user/Dragonatrix/video/x8pbs8_lets-play-croc-2-part-3_videogames
Part 4 - http://www.dailymotion.com/user/Dragonatrix/video/x8s5t7_lets-play-croc-2-part-4_videogames

Ordinarily, I'd do part 5 today but I didn't have the time to record so :( (I'll be back on schedule next week though; this just means this weeks updates will finish on Saturday instead of Friday).

New Name possibly

So, we have decided on a name for our blog: The Blog for True Nerds. As such, I want to change where the blog is located. Instead of being located at jimdaddyscorner.blogspot.com, it would be located at truenerdsblog.blogspot.com. So, what do you think? Is it too much trouble to move the blog? Should we keep it where it is?

China bans Youtube, again [Rant]

The link in the title is the article I used to base this rant on. There are many others that have simpler messages, but that was the longest one I could find.

Ok, so guess what: China bans Youtube. What does that mean, exactly? Well, if you live in China, and you want to get on Youtube, you are screwed. Now why does this make me angry? Oh yeah, THE SAME THING HAPPENED LAST YEAR. Of course, I can understand why China did it last time. I'll link you to the article to save me some time http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9895796-7.html. Anyway, the thing that is bugging me is what the Chinese spokesperson had to say about it. He totally avoided the question. Here is the exact quote: Chinese government has taken up management of the network according to the laws," Now, I don't know about you guys, but I'd expect China to at least admit that they BANNED the site. This doesn't seem fair to the 300 million internet users in China that most don't care about the political stuff, just looking for some entertainment. There is also another website that Youtube faces "stiff competition" with the other Chinese video hosting site, Tudou.com. I don't know if China is trying to make people use that instead of Youtube, but I doubt that.

Of course, we shouldn't be surprised at all. China is well known for blocking foreign websites that have "objectionable" content. This all started because of the March 20 video Tibetan Government in Exile. Since China doesn't like hereing about Tibet for some reason...which I'm too lazy to research.

To conclude, Youtube has been banned by many countries. Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, and Thailand have also banned it for various reasons, many relating to religion or the high authority. The main point I want to get across is that it's Youtube. Nobody is gonna start a war because of a video that seems questionable. I'm not Chinese, so they might differ in this view, but I've seen loads of videos dealing blows to America and our friends, and I don't see us really caring. And another thing is that China would not give the press an honest answer. That seems fair, but I think the people of China should know WHY the site was banned.

Disagree with me if you want, but I was kind of mad when I read the article. And, meh, it was my first rant. It might not have some key points, but I thought it was ok =D

The End Of Mobile Emulation?

Originally posted on the Let's Play Forum:

'Now, how many of you guys own a DS?
How many own games?
Illicit games?
A mobile emulation card for it e.g R4 Cards?

Well, that might be all changing. Anyone who has a DS game case for a game that's brand new [Sonic Chronicles is what I have], go look at the back of the box. If you compare it to an older game box, you'll see a little difference. Namely a big red box.

For those of you who don't have one at hand, it reads:

'IMPORTANT: The use of an unlawful device with your Nintendo DS system may render this game unplayable.'

So, what does this mean? Well, I'm presuming it's cracking down on copyright breakage. For example, I think that when either an illicit game card or a mobile emu. card is used on a DS, it has to use some sort of copyright bypass, similar to 'chipping' your old PS1/2. The DS then logs that fact, creating the event that all new DS games are unplayable.

Or I may just have a hold of the wrong end of the stick

Anyways... Anyone know any more about this?'

Questions about the Blog

I have a couple questions here that I wanted to ask you guys. They entitle a couple pretty important things if this blog is really gonna work out well, or be a total fail.

Question 1: Who do you guys think we should add, if there would be anyone else?

This question has a couple meanings to it. First off, should this be an only LPF kind of thing, or should we include others? Since this first came up and is all JimDaddy's idea, I'll leave that up to him. That doesn't mean there can't be a discussion or anything. Anyway, I was just wondering if it would be an LPF thing or a whole "internet" thing, but we should know them somewhat before having them join.

Question 2: Does a Skype chat sound like a good idea?

I was talking to QC, and he said he would host it, since he's on the most apparently, but I was wondering if there should be a big chat for all of us to share ideas, help each other with LPs, reviews, or just talk about whatever the hell we want. Of course, another group has something like this(You know who it is...don't be an idiot), and it seems like a really good idea.

Question 3: Are we going to advertise on Youtube?

Simple enough question. My first answer would be 'no', because the idiots would just want to join or bombard with stupid posts. I want this to be a somewhat mature blog, to say the least. What do you guys think?

Question 4: How often should we update?

This was an idea from QC, and by update, he means post in the blog. I think what he's asking is should we update every day, or whenever we feel like updating. I'd go with the 'laissez faire' method, but that's up to you guys, I suppose. This also depends if it will be just us 4 or if others join.

Question 5: Would a Youtube page be a good idea?

Another brilliant question from our gay blogger, QC. What this would entitle would be we could post whatever we wanted on this page, sorta like a vlog type thing. We could do some LPs together and such, or just post random crap there or updates on the site. I would say it's a great idea, but what bothers me is what some peoples reactions would be if they thought we were copying "Blog for Non-Losers". There channel is posted right here -- http://www.youtube.com/user/nonloserschannel. I'm sure all of you have seen it. Again, discuss.

This is all I have for you guys today, so what do you say? (haha, rhyming closer =3)

Psychonauts ~ A Dragonatrix Review

Psychonauts is often regarded as a game that is one of the best ever made by reviewers (professional or otherwise) and players alike. Whilst it's remarkably difficult to find people who have even heard of the game - let alone played it - should you happen to know someone who has, chances are they'll tell you the same thing I'm about to (unless they're a first person shooter fanboy, then that's just weird): screw Halo 3. This IS the best game ever made.

(One of the main reasons why the game didn't sell as well as it should have, may be that it was never actually advertised properly. I certainly had never even heard of it until sometime two years ago when I chanced upon it in a backdated copy of my then favorite PS2 game review magazine; I have yet to even find a TV advertisement for it, or even some snippit from a magazine that wasn't said review.)

Since you've likely never heard of the game, I might as well give a minor explanation as to how the game came into creation; Double Fine Productions is a company created by Tim Schafer (the guy who helped create Grim Fandago and the first two Monkey Island games; you just know this game is gonna be good with that knowledge alone) in 2000 shortly after he left LucasArts. It's personel is made up of the Grim Fandago development team and several other people. If you've never heard of Double Fine either, I'm not surprised, as at the time of writing, Psychonauts is the only game they've ever made; 5 years after the company was formed and 4 years before the predicted release of their second game.

Well, I'm four paragraphs in and I haven't even started discussing the game yet so I might as well start now, otherwise this'll have been a giant waste of time. Psychonauts is about a child named Razputin Aquato (Raz for short) who runs away from the circus to go to Whispering Rock Psyching Summer Camp where psychics are trained to become the elite agents known as Psychonauts. He manages to get in with minimal worry, but quickly gets caught and is technically not allowed to participate in any camp activites as he doesn't have parental permission to be there and thus one of the camp councellors - Mia Vodella - calls his father (who caused Raz to run away in the first place, because he hates psychics) to come and collect Raz. This leads to Raz attempting to complete the entire camp course within one day to prove his worth, yet he manages to get involved in something much bigger...

Psychonauts gameplay is one of the places where the game really excels, due to the nature of every powerup being a plot-related unlockable (even the seemingly optional ones are needed at some point) that can be upgraded eventually. Each powerup takes the guise of a new psychic power, and they are fairly predictable for the most part; Psi-Blast is the main offensive powerup but it isn't actually the first (the easiest way to describe what it does is by simply calling them "mind bullets"), that works as a gun in an action game; it actually has ammo that CAN and frequently does run out. Pyrokinesis is the standard psychic ability of burninating (yes, I said burninating) with the mind. Telekinesis is another standard ability for anything to do with psychics (telekinesis is the ability to move things with the mind for those that don't know). Invisibilty is one of those things that do exactly what you think it does. Levitation is a rather interesting one; it can be used to make Raz float but it's also used a method of moving faster than normal (at the slight cost of ease of control) via a colour-customisable sphere that appears like a balloon. Shield is nothing worth using overly much, aside from in a few specific areas where it's needed, it prevents all ranged damage done to Raz for about 3 seconds. Finally, the power of Clairvoyance. This is normally a power associated with the ability to see into the future but in this case it does something a bit different. By holding an item, when you activate Clairvoyance you can see exactly what this item will show you; more often than not, it's what the other characters see Raz as, but some items show things like a bonus scene, and one is used to solve a puzzle via this very method. [Don't worry, none of these powers are surprises or anything; they're all in the manual.]

These abilities allow for some interesting gameplay choices that you can make, but I invariably end up using Psi-Blast, Levitate, and Pyrokinesis. Everything else isn't really all that useful or is merely designed for puzzle solving.

The really interesting gimmick that Psychonauts has, however, is the ability to enter specific characters minds. Some of these are pretty much exactly what you'd expect, some have hidden secrets that the character doesn't want you to find out about, and some are just plain weird. The minds, as well as being fun little romps inside a characters psyche, are technically the levels of the game. There aren't really many minds to enter [13 in total; not everyone's can be entered] but some of them are pretty lengthy, and/or really difficult to compensate. Each mind has a pretty interesting mini-plot that goes with it (for the most part anyway), but there is one mind in particular that no one can ever forget because it's just so awesome (and random). I would explain it, but since it comes pretty late in the game it's a spoiler. Of awesomeness.

Another really good quality of Psychonauts, is that there's never a moment where nothing is really happening, unless you intentionally just stand in an awkward spot. In almost every screen, there are a couple of bonus scenes that tell you more about the other campers, or are just little short scenes. A lot of them are really easy to miss as well; I've played through this game many times and I don't think I've seen them all yet!

I might as well give my opinion of the unimportant details now, like the graphics. The graphics are pretty good for a 2005 release game, and still manage to hold up well today. I don't find myself looking at the graphics of the game that often though, because I'm normally having fun doing, well, anything. The music is also very good, but some tracks are pretty boring and dull (these are only found at the end of the game though). Another little quirk with the game, is that even though it could be considered a childs game with regard to the difficult of a good 98% of the game, some of it is actually pretty scary all things considered. I dread the end-game optional backtracking, due to some of the stuff that can be encountered then. And if you don't get this one specific item, you have to do it. That's pretty much my only qualm with the game; you need seemingly optional items that you aren't even told you need until the very moment you need them.

In conclusion, I highly highly reccomend giving this game a try. Don't worry if you have neither a Playstation 2 or an original Xbox (any more), as it can be bought through Steam for the Xbox 360 or PC. I'm not entirely sure of the price, but I highly doubt it'll be too expensive; even if it is, you can also try someone elses copy. This game is worth playing at least once just for the experience of doing so. And there's a lot to be experienced in a world as detailed as this one is.

New Stuff already?

Yes, you heard (or saw) me correctly, we are going to have a few more authors to make this blog the most awesome blog ever-ish. So now we have an issue, I want to rename the blog since it's not just my corner anymore. It's several people's now. Jim Daddy, Dragonatrix, and in the very near future (or already past) Quantum Crayons, and CFBalla and possibly more people. So now then, what to call this awesome piece of awesomeness? Also, how many more times can I say awesome in this post?! You decide.

Stupid Xbox 360

So I went to put in the new disc I have for RockBand 2, and guess what... that stupid disc unreadable message comes up. Turns out, the eye is just a wee bit dirty. DIRTY! I've had my PS2 now for... 6 or 7 years and have never had that problem. Never did I have a problem with the original RockBand when I got it for PS2. Way to go Microsoft, if the eye is that sensitive, you should probably not put out a game system until you learn how to do it right. At least the original Xbox never gave me any trouble.