Star Ocean, Braid and The HotSpot, Oh My!

Star Ocean: The Last Hope came out yesterday, and I spent approximately nine hours playing it. The review scores so far have been a bit higher than I expected for a JRPG - 8/10 from IGN, 4/5 from X-Play. Those are not bad scores by any means. Considering the fact that I'm a fan of the genre, some of their cons would likely not even register with me. I'm sounding a bit reserved about this game, don't you think? I mean, it’s the Xbox 360 system-seller for me, its why I bought a 360 in the first place, it’s a game I've been looking forward to for quite a while. Why am I not gushing in joy about this latest Star Ocean?

Trust me, there will be plenty of time for gushing when I finish my review. I don't want to jump to conclusions or spoil that review by discussing things before hand. I'd like to play at least 30-40 hours before I finish things up and put the last polish on, even though I've started the review already. Its more than the bullet-point pros/cons list I've had in the past, and will hopefully be my new standard for game reviews here.

In other news, I wanted to buy Braid ever since I played the demo and this week is probably the best time to do so, since the game is being sold at a discounted price to Xbox Live Gold members. I bought it and played through the first level (which was on the demo, so I breezed through it). I likely won't continue until I'm done with Star Ocean, but I wanted to get it this week anyway, since its discounted by 33%.

What else do I have on deck after Star Ocean? Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride and Tales of Vesperia most likely. I can finally dust off my DS for some portable gaming action.

I also must say, I love The HotSpot, GameSpot's weekly podcast. Those guys crack me up. I used to listen to it all the time, but since I didn't have an iPod for a while, I wasn't able to listen to it at work and didn't have time at home. I can once again (new orange 16GB nano) and it is glorious!