TITLE: Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst (BETA), or what the heck am I doing amidst these blue eyed freaks? AUTHOR: Jim9137 DATE: 5/16/2005 11:22:00 ip. ----- BODY:

Phantasy Star Online, is, as far as I can tell, anime superduber scifitech thingles I have no idea what the heck it is. I was persuaded by random third parties to leech the game, which was roughly 500 megs in size, (psobb.com) give it a try on my 450mhz (min is 700mhz), and well, play it. Open beta, free! You can't lose anything if you try! I did. Which brings you to this blog post today, which I promised for Trey to write. Sigh, and I thought having other people to write would remove the "work" factor. Especially since I'm so late with my schoolwork and things WANTEITN#"%"#4. --- Okay, I blink. I'm not totally sure what the heck I was thinking when I leeched this thing. My computer is for reference, 450mhz with 390 megs of ram (give or take) and a GeForce 2. Yes, it is a piece of rubbish at the modern standards, but it does it's thing for me. Then we get this new MMORPG, Phantasy Star Online which has debuted on Dreamcast if I'm not terribly mistaken, and then later switched over to PS2. Still, I had no bloody clue what I was doing when I joined the party line, so to speak. I HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS DOING WHEN I REGISTERED AT THE SITE AND INPUT THE CORRESPONDING INFO ON MY CLIENT! Don't shoot me! So, I zoom in the game and see if the thing agrees to cooperate nicely. ... Ship? Block? Lobby? Excuse me, this begs for few dozens of lost players lost in the matrix. I mean, the whole character creation process was scaringly simple enough, with few robots and anime girls and boys and things like that. But ingame! What do I SEE! DOOM! Okay, not doom. It's actually rather nice scenery, high tech and the like. Calming music pours into my ears, and I relax. Then I actually start playing, after that moment of screaming. I press forward. Nothing happens! Okay, WSAD works. Phew, so I can move around. And that's it, I can't even figure out how to bring help screen on. Website tutorials are manga comics, and I find them not particularly helpful. I quit. Next day, I try again. The mentioned 3rd party agrees to guide me through, and after few hours of furious clicking and keyboard bashing, I finally gain few levels and gasp, a new gun! And that's what is most important in any MMORPG, big guns or swords. This being anime/manga style, this has both. except my huge robot has skimpy pistol at the moment. *cough* I'm not sure how I should describe PSO. It's very confusing in the start, as you might realize (especially to one who hasn't read the help at all), it's very leaned towards teamplay, taking in consideration all the game is taken place in games that support people up to 4. Or one, but it's mainly a team game. Well, I've had the honor to play with most understanding chaps, so I don't what the scary peeps who say !¤#"!ing constantly. Oh yeah, the game censors blowing as "#%"ing. Funny trivia that. Back to the game. Basically you go down to Pioneer 2, after you have organized a party. Pioneer 2 has all the hospital, shop and quest things. Nothing new, and a teleport on to the surface where all the game related stuff actually happens. This is just a rest room, actually. Well, I sort of like the combat system. It's not good, it's not magnificent, and even HL2 tops it. But hey, it's more interesting than Anarchy Online's and that's just a good thing. The controls are designed to work with the PS2 pad, so it's not terribly intuitive on keyboard, but it's bearable. Aiming is arse, though. Pads are supported along with joysticks, thankfully. Basically you just bash heavy/normal attack key to make "combos". These are apparently very important, because the ROF would be drudginly slow otherwise. It's like a rhythm game! Then you have techniques (magic) and traps (traps) to throw at enemies and help your allies. And... The MAG. What the heck is MAG? It's a pet clearly, you feed it items and it grows. But ah, it's not all! It also GROWS! And not only visually, but it also gains abilities! Photon Bursts if we're exact, it gains photon bursts. Ever played Final Fantasies? Know what Limit Break is? That's a Photon Burst. So MAG gives you this and few bonuses to your abilities as well, and hover happily over your shoulders. Funktastic, if they weren't quite ugly. Well, points for trying, I suppose. NEXT. Items! What are items you ask? Items. Okay. I don't know if it's just this Beta, but you don't have that many choices. Just few Dim that and +4 there, and that's it. You first get handgun, then a rifle, then a mechgun, then autorifle and so on... Speaking about Rangers here. Oh! The game has three classes, Hunters (Sword wielding hack'n'slash), Rangers (Snipers), and Force (Magi's). They all have their own little gimmicks, and the races have ones as well. Androids and robots can't use techniques, but can use traps and are immune to status effects. I'd say it's rather balanced, from what I've experienced. Areas! I hate them! Locks! Push switches! Crates! Enemies! Move on! Quests. Okay, this game has a plot! That's awesome, better than the "DARKNESS IS COMING ALL 200LVL COULD YOU PLEASE STEP OVER THIS WAY THANK YOU." ones. The game is surprisingly balanced, there isn't THAT much of a difference between 10 and 20 level char, just that the other one makes wee bit more damage. You can still hang with him or her. And to top that, the guns have no difference at all. None, zero, nada. Well, they do, but it's quite minimal. Your abilities is the major deciding damage factor. Good or bad? You won't be getting bazookas at 1st level, boy. Negative things? The damn thing gets VERY boring if you don't have a good solid, fun group to play with. Well, I just got called "you get out of our turf niggah" moment ago. "Heil Hitler" by the same guy. I responded appropriately. Sigh. The things you do. Oh, the game also sports huge animated emoticons. And you can edit them. I can't count how many pot smoking emotions I have seen so far... This game has so many features I won't bother commenting them all... *shakes his head*

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:  Jim9137 EMAIL: URL: DATE: 01:42 Okay, PS2 thing I pulled out of my behind. And yes, FDevil raises valid points which I'll shoot down later. Or not. Anyway, thanks for watching. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:  Anonyymi EMAIL: URL: DATE: 07:47 Played free version in private server. No Blue Burstage.

Was pretty fun. Better than Anarchy Online, at least.

Anyways, got boring after a while. :B ----- --------