Brief vent: I visited seven retailers tonight and none had Phantasy Star Universe: Ambition of the Illuminus in stock. Six said they weren't planning to get it in, and one said that their distributor didn't even carry it. Meanwhile, this week's EA releases clog the shelves. I have a minor problem ordering online, because I feel like local businesses should pay taxes and employ my neighbors. You know, on the off chance that my quality of life is linked to local prosperity or something. Am I just in a backwater that doesn't get new releases on time, or is this something happening in other places? I'm in the States, just to narrow the focus of the inquiry.
See, lowkey games like this annoy me because there impossible to find! Tomb Raider Aniversary took me 5 stores in a week of release date till I finally found it. I also found that "release date" pretty much means "it was shipped that day and we'll have it in stock in a few days" on games like this.
From what I understand, PSU hype fizzled very quickly after the initial release. I waited ages for that pile of shit. Played it a month, gave it a fair shot, and hated it. Tried it again during Famitsu Cup. Canceled soon after. Wonder if they'll make PSO2.
Yeah....I looked forward to this, and played the demo on 360 and the game is just uggggg. I don't get how they expect people to pay the monthly fee. I might buy it anyways just to play the free month since the game itself is dirt cheap. Oh, that exansion is on marketplace....you must be playing the PC one OP? Or PS2?
The single-player game is awful though. And playing for a month will be lame. Everyone (even people w/ low level characters) will have pimped items, and you'll be getting your ass kicked. Such a downer. It's all for the best though. I don't have 1000 hours to spend on a game these days.
If they got rid of the stupid Hunters Licence PSU could be a huge hit as it is a decent enough game, just not £6.99 a month good.
Fair warning: DO NOT BUY THE 360 VERSION! For some very, VERY retarded reason, you cannot cancel it from your 360 or from your PC on the official site. Even calling in will get you some guy in India that has no idea what you are talking about. Took me 6 months to get that shit off, and I had a few times where they would charge me right after a major bill was taken out of my bank account, costing me overdraft fees. Needless to say, it sucked major ass. Single Player was nowhere near as fun as PSO (Which is ironic, since they were trying to make the singleplayer the main focus), and the multiplayer had most of the singleplayer stuff cut at launch. Doesn't help that the 360 version doesn't even offer achievements for online play, which shows how lazy they were with the 360 port.
Yeah...PSO Xbox was like that too, you had to call 50 times to cancel it. It's also still Xmas there.
The expansion is supposed to address a lot of these problems. The single-player mode is more rewarding, and the online play is more balanced. Also, the original PSO combat areas (Forest, Caves, Mines) appear as mission areas, so they're making some kind of effort to bring in the PSO fans. But all the criticisms are still valid, and Sega isn't doing a very good job of marketing this thing to people beyond the hardcore Phantasy Star lunatics. Like me. I'm playing the PS2 version, which has the least bugs (as compared to the 360 version) and the least hassle (compared to the PC version with its Starforce protection and ridiculous system requirements.) It's actually a lot like Guild Wars, with all it's instanced missions and hidden content. It's more satisfying to play on the higher numbered servers, where the European and solo players hang out, since Universe 1-01 and 1-02 are crowded and full of obnoxious teenagers. EDIT: I forgot to say that I ended up ordering the game from Amazon. The idea of supporting your local economy has gone all to hell.
I only played the Japanese version. Even at busy times, there were only two busy Universes. They also just merged the two worlds, which shows the one server can now handle the entire load. I guess my main problem with it was it was released as a portion of a game. Took them ages to release anything good. I know this keeps it fresh... but you know what else does? Simply adding more content, not unlocking higher levels and different areas.
No Gameshark exploits in the PS2 version. All data is saved server side, and every action is validated by a clever little server-side CRC that makes sure your weapon/spell is valid. That stinks a little when there's a lot of network traffic, but if you're on a cablemodem or a fractional T1 the performance is otherwise fine. Also, Sony has the additional DNAS validation upon logon that makes sure your console is unmodified. That's not to say there aren't exploits. The popular ones are based around fooling the server-side validation to let you have certain costime or weapon combinations that the game rules wouldn't otherwise allow. Stuff like a wand in both hands, or a skirt and a bikini top. But for the most part, these exploits don't affect player balance. Sega is also not shy about banning people who are hacking, although this is more in response to internal logging than any user complaints. I only play online with people I know, and the online teams are much better organized than they were in PSO. Relatively speaking, you spend way more time in battle than you do in public areas, so there's not a lot of risk of being screwed by strangers. At very worst, players with female characters get hit on a lot, and that's common to every MMO game.
