Hobbit Witch Shop

On 07/14/2014 at 12:56 AM by KnightDriver

I played a lot of LEGO: The Hobbit while my buddy Mark played Assassin's Creed 2 on our respective Xbox 360s this weekend. It all changed suddenly though as a game ending glitch stopped my game and sent me to my 3DS for relief.

sgf

I've been good for weeks, but today, I could resist a little Philly delicacy.

I spent about 13 hours with LEGO: The Hobbit. It was going great until I got to the Dol Guldur section where Radagast and Gandolf venture into the old castle and eventually meet up with Saron. I won the final boss fight but after the cut scene and the fade to black, when the tally-up screen is supposed to appear, it just stayed dark. I replayed that boss fight three times before I started problem solving. I checked the disc for scratches and found a hair but other than that it looked perfect. I tried installing the disc to the hard drive. I even stopped playing for an hour to let my 360 cool down and then tried it again. No dice. I was up to 6 plays of that boss fight (which was always fun and exciting btw). Finally, I thought about starting all over with a fresh save file, but that would have meant another 10 hours to get to spot I was at. So I'm done with LEGO: The Hobbit.

Gandolf - "We're going to make it through Dol Guldur aren't we Radagast?"
Radagast - "Suuuuuure. No problem."

LEGO: The Hobbit was really fun and pretty relaxing. There aren't any great challenges in the game other than the occational platform jumping section and melee fighting (the key is to slow down and don't mash the buttons). Overall production in the game was excellent. It's the best looking LEGO game yet and chock full of puzzles, secrets, and side missions. I only wish it didn't have this one game ending glitch. I was looking forward to getting a perfect thousand gamerscore on it.

I had a few hours to kill after LEGO: The Hobbit failed me, so I pulled my 3DS out of my bag and played Weapon Shop de Omasse.

What you do in the game is tap the screen with the stylus in a rhythm game to forge any one of a large variety of weapons and rub the screen with the stylus to polish them. How well you do both determines the weapon's stats. You can also add buffs with special matterials which you can buy with your rental fees or be given them by your customers after a sucessful mission.

NPC's enter your shop and you rent them the weapons you've made. You try to give them what they want and what you think will suit the person's skill level and the type of monsters they will fight. Then you watch a kind of Twitter feed called the Grindcast to see how they're doing in the field. They make all sorts of funny comments about their quests. The feed pops up on the upper screen as you are doing things in the shop, so you don't really need to stop working on weapons to read them. A NPC entering your shop will pull you away though.

wso

Here's the forge screen and the text above is the Grindcast.

Your object is to keep making better weapons to ensure sucessful NPC quests. The Evil One is on his way, and there's a bar at the top that shows how close he is to arriving. There's a day/night cycle and so you want to make lots of weapons in a timely manner. I'm having a lot of fun with the game so far.

whk

I think tomorrow I'm going to trade LEGO: The Hobbit in with a few other games and pick up The Witch and the Hundred Knight for PS3 and play that tomorrow. It's been about eight months since I played my PS3. The last game I played was Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus last fall.

Super Step Contributing Writer

07/14/2014 at 01:12 AM

When you post food pictures, all I can focus on is the food pictures.

KnightDriver

07/14/2014 at 01:32 AM

Food does trump games. And games get me hungry for food, especially food that is incredibly bad for a diet. What's up with that?

07/14/2014 at 01:35 AM

Which cheesesteak place did you get that cheesesteak and fries and how would you describe that IPA?

07/15/2014 at 01:13 AM

I got the cheesteak at a place called Boccella's Deli in Havertown, PA and the beer is dark, but not too heavy. I really wanted the German beer I got at Boccella's once, but this was the next best thing. Plus I like the name "Black Cannon". Makes me feel like a pirate, "yarg!"

xDarthKiLLx

07/14/2014 at 05:16 AM

Im looking forward to reading your writeup on Witch and The Hundred Knight. Those sammiches look tasty. I think im gonna go heat up a pizza now.

07/15/2014 at 01:16 AM

Just posted what I've played so far, about three hours worth. I'm liking it. It's got the humor of a NIS game and the gameplay of a Diablo. That girl Metallia curses like a sailor. It's shocking! (ok, not too shocking).

Cary Woodham

07/14/2014 at 07:54 AM

I didni't encounter any game breaking bugs in LEGO Hobbit. Although some of the cutscenes would get a little wonky. But every LEGO game has bugs in it that keep me from wanting to get 100 percent on any of them. You'd think they'd have better QC by now.

Glad you liked Weapon Shop. I enjoyed it.

But I couldn't get into The Witch and the Hundred Knight. It's one of NIS America's better games, though. Right now I'm working on reviewing another NIS game: Battle Princess of Arcadias.

07/15/2014 at 01:42 AM

Wow, because in addition to the bug I couldn't get past, the game crashed on me about three different times before that. Each time it was different. Once it was just because I moved behind a tree. I didn't have any problems with Lego Star Wars the Complete Saga.

I looked online and people say Lego Marvel has tons of bugs too. That really disappoints me. I want to play all the lego games.

Matt Snee Staff Writer

07/14/2014 at 08:47 AM

you're killing me with these cheese steak picture, man!!!!

07/15/2014 at 02:08 AM

Hurting my stomach with pictures,
Filling my mind with the steak,
Killing me softly with cheesesteak,
Killing me softly with cheesesteak,
Making my whole sight nothing but cheese,
Killing me softly with cheesesteak.

Sing that to the tune of Killing Me Softly by Roberta Flack.

Alex-C25

07/14/2014 at 05:24 PM

Because you are enjoying Weapon Shop de Omasse, what did you think of Travi's rather negative review of it?

07/15/2014 at 02:41 AM

Just read Travis' review. I'm pretty early on in the game, but he says doing the rhythm game well doesn't really create a better weapon. That it seems to be random. I keep thinking I have to hit the weapon in certain locations, but I'm not sure if that'll make any difference.

I'm liking it now, but I may start seeing the things Travis is talking about later on.

NSonic79

07/16/2014 at 12:42 PM

Looks like I'll hold off on Lego Hobbit. Don't care for game freezes. It's what stopped me from playing FFX, besides the obvious issues with it of course.

07/16/2014 at 04:04 PM

Cary says she had no problem with the game. I forgot to ask what version she played though. I don't know what was going on in my case on Xbox 360. The disc was perfect. I did read online other players complaining of crashes with LEGO Hobbit though. It's a shame because the game is really well done.

goaztecs

07/22/2014 at 11:22 AM

Damn that sucks to read about that game freeze. I wonder if it's something with the disc. That's the one thing I found with the Lego games, they usually have these little glitches, which suck.

07/22/2014 at 01:14 PM

That disc was shiny brand new looking, not a scratch on it. I carefully dusted it. There was a hair on it. Then I reinstalled it to make sure an error hadn't been put there the first time because of the hair. No change. I guess it could be the save file got corrupted somehow or that the disc had a factory made flaw in it - never heard of a faulty disc before though.

The day after I traded it I thought of another solution, which was to try and warp my character out of the level with the Eagle and then come back later to see if it fixed itself. I wasn't sure if you could travel in that boss level though. Somehow I doubt it.

PixlBit