New games and pending stuff

Two Saturdays ago I went to browse at JB and managed to score myself a bunch of 2nd hand xbox360 games and I am pretty happy with my purchase. I spent around $130 for 3 games and a wireless charging kit for my controller which is pretty damn good value I say (comes to about $30 a game).

I bought the following:

• Armored Core: for answer
• Blue dragon
• DOA4

I have been playing AC for the past week and it is such an addictive game! I mean who doesn’t like giant robots who kill each other? It is in the same “simulation” vein as Mechwarrior but much faster paced like Virtual On which combines the best of both worlds, fully customizable mechs with awesome gameplay and unfortunately poorly presented story. I have played through most of the missions and still have no idea what the story is about but it is so much fun I just don’t care anymore! Although it is a bit frustrating in that the difficulty levels are seemingly random. Buying parts is also an expensive affair and it is hard to earn money off the limited amount of missions you can undertake. I think they are going for replay value as there is no way of buying all the parts in 1 play through, but I am up for that.

Blue dragon is one of the best known JRPGs for the xbox360 and although I haven’t started playing it yet I am quite excited to have laid my hands on it for so cheap. They say it takes 40 hours to finish, which is about right for an epic adventure. I only worry that the comparatively weak plot and DBZ art style will put me off but at least it was cheap!

DOA4 is a rather interesting game, a very different fighting game than what I am used to in terms of difficulty, depth and sheer amount of babes on the roster. It’s just too hard to play the damn thing and I am having troubles learning moves because the learning curve is so huge. There is only 1 punch and 1 kick button with a grab command and “free” which is like a block or parry. Too much thinking if you ask me, I just want to beat up the other guy! But cannot beat lovely virtual ladies trying to kill each other.

I also bought Tales of Vesperia and it arrived in the mail today. Quite happy that I found it cheaper than retail but I have too many games to play to start it. I have played Tales of symphonia for gamecube and liked it quite a bit, and since most Tales games have roughly the same control scheme the only thing left to ponder over is whether or not the story is any good!

Onto more serious business, I need to buy new tyres for my car 235/45R17 front and 255/40R17 rears and was quoted $1000 for pirelli pzero neros fronts and kumho rears with alignment and fitting. Then I went elsewhere and was quoted $575 just for kumho asx fronts and kumho mx rears without fitting and the alignment. Alignment and fitting will probably cost around $200 max so I reckon it is a better deal. When I was told the price I couldn’t believe it was so cheap! I was expecting around $1200 but I am glad that it does not have to be the case. I also need to replace my suspension bushes (cost unknown) and change my brake discs because they are getting very thin (around $4-500+installation). I am going to be rather poor these next few weeks…