Xenosaga vs. EQ Adventures

[Destil]

Ok, so spring break is comming up next week. Not particuarly wanting to go home I'm working on scamming my way into staying in the dorm for the week. More to the point, about a month ago I pre-ordered Xenosaga from Amazon. Today my room-mate mentioned that EB had a special deal where they give away a copy of EQ adventures with the order of a PS2 Network adapter....

Both are scheduled to arrive this friday. This of course begs the question: which to play first?

Xenogears was a single minded obsession of mine for a month or more, and was partily to blame for me failing out of school the first time around. I've since played it through three or four times. Much of the devlopment team for Xeno-saga / Xenogears also contrubited to some of the finnest other RPGs I've plade, chrono trigger and chrono cross in particuar. I know a primary complaint with the game amoung critics is too many cut scenes, but it sounds tame compaired to Xenogears (CD 2, anyone?) which I didn't mind at all.

Everquest has equally held my attention for weeks at a time. My oldest PC likely has at least a month or two of /played time logged. While I love to rag on the PC game for various reasons (particuarly given my long time love of MUDs in general, and annoyance with the claim of the media that EQ or Ultma Online was anything really "new") I know once I start playing it'll be hard to stop.

So, which to play first? I'll have a full week uninterupted with little to do but suck bandwith (it's all mine, mua ha ha!) and game. once I pick one up I doubt I'll be putting it down, I'll more likely do school work than switch games if I need a break...

Any suggestions?

 

[Milo Taproot]

Well I did not play Xenogears, and when a co-worker recommended Xenosaga to me I was a bit skeptical, but I picked it up. Boy am I glad I did, it is fantasic!

The story is great, and the gameplay has enough hooks to keep me interested. Now mind you its pretty linear and there are a lot of cinematics; some very long. But I feel they are placed well; I am eager to see the next one, and just when I am ready to have control again they give it to me. Plus the designers were smart enough to allow you to pause and skip the cinematics.

I could go on with more info, but most is covered elsewhere on the web in reviews, but I will say my wife mentioned she has not seen me this hooked on a game for a long time.

Now on to EQOA. I played this game in beta and only a short time since release, and its ok. To be honest even with all the good design changes they have over PCEQ (better death model, less downtime), I just could not be hooked after playing PCEQ for so long. And with all the great stuff they have added to PCEQ in the last two expansions (in game map, plane of knowledge portals, and more) its hard to play EQOA and not feel like I was missing something.

So my recomendation is: If you want to get back into the EQ experience, start back on the PC with all the new expansions. But if you want to play a great single player story driven (though linear) RPG then pick up Xenosaga. Of course if you do not finish by the end of your week off, you may be in trouble

 

[Arnwyn]

I'd go for Xenosaga.