PixlBit

I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed this game despite the crippling load glitch.  I'm not sure which version you're playing, but the PS3 version required me to load my save and then immediately quit.  After that, the game would properly load the quest log upon loading the save again (the glitch would randomly drop a quest, including the main quest line).

That said, War in the North's combat system was very satisfying.  The characters had a nice heft to them, and the ability to instantly kill a downed enemy or land a high-damage headshot never got old (especially against the bosses).  It was also nice to see that the game valued your playing skill, instead of relying too much on your stats.

The game's brisk pace was greatly appreciated, too.  Even though I played this game in full co-op across the three difficulty modes, it went by very quickly.  There's never any moments where you need to grind levels to press forward, and the game is very generous in handing out gear.  The game gives you plenty of opportunities to strengthen your character (those skill cool-down abilities can make the game very easy for the lore-master) and there are very few useless skill paths to choose from.

Anyway, I hope you continue to both enjoy the game and avoid that nasty glitch.

Just to let you know, I found the script that triggers that function: jquery.  Now that I've activated it, I can hit Enter while in the password box to log in.

I'll fiddle around with NoScript's options to see which script it requires.  But, even if I cannot get it to work, it's not all that difficult to hit Tab and Enter to log in.  It's still a great deal simpler (and far more convenient) than 1up's system where we needed to go to a seperate page each time we wanted to log in.

I was wondering why I had messages when I logged in today.  That's a very nice addition and makes it so much easier to track everything.  I'm not sure what's going on with the log-in, though; I tried hitting Enter, but nothing happened.  I still need to tab over to the Log In button and hit Enter there.  Then again, it could just be me.  I run NoScript and Ghostery, so I might be blocking a few important bits.

I wish these tiny Japanese developers had more faith in their games, without resorting to questionable art to market it.  Then again, some games don't have anything else going for it.  Also, there's nothing more exhausting than action prompts in a turn-based setting.  Unless you're only encountering a handful of battles per floor, it's better to have a fast and breezy system.  That alone is enough to keep me away from this game.

That must be rough.  I've heard that Uncharted takes up a significant amount of a 4GB card (I'm actually surprised it can install), which really limits the system's digital-copy capabilities.

Metroid Prime was such a huge surprise.  I fully expected the game to flop by being Nintendo's answer to Halo.  But, for it to come out and uphold Metroid's adventure roots was unbelievable.  Within the console space leading up to Metroid Prime's release, there was only a handful of first-person adventure games/rpgs that really showed what the genre was capable of.  I only thought that King's Field would be able to deliver that kind of experience, full of exploration and adventure, and I was happy to see that Metroid could do it as well.

As for Metroid Fusion, I didn't like it at first; the linearity and inability to explore (until very late in the game) simply irritated me, and I shelved it after a brief playthrough.  I have learned to appreciate, though, after additional playthroughs and have come to enjoy its unique direction.

Finally, I'm actually quite interested in playing through Other M.  I picked it up on clearance last year as a curiosity to try the game out for myself.  I want to see what it carried over and what it dropped from previous games, and to see if the game's bad reputation is exaggerated.

The other game was Makai Kingdom.  I know there's a bunch of copies floating around on Amazon, but I'm not sure if any of them are in the condition that you're looking for.

I'm glad to see that you're enjoying this game, Rodney.  I know I told you about some of the games more unusual gameplay mechanics and that I couldn't recommend it to you, but now I'm having second thoughts about the game myself.  I've been avoiding the game for silly reasons (it's not like losing hard-earned equipment is the end of the world), and I might go ahead and buy the PSP version.  These games lend themself very well to the portable format and it might be worth it for me to pick it up for future use.

I remember the sour grapes over this game when it first came out.  So many of my friends were expecting the next Contra game to come out on the SNES, and they simply saw Hard Corps as an insult because it was on the Genesis (the same thing happened with Bloodlines).  All I can say is that they missed out on a damn fine game.  To tell you the truth, I actually like this one over Contra III.  While Contra III did have some really great music, effects, and weapons, those top-down stages dragged the game down.  Hard Corps didn't have any of that baggage, and focused on providing some of the toughest side-scrolling stages in the series (not even Shattered Soldier was that hard, unless you were going for 100% completion).  That said, my favorite moment in Hard Corps had to be the Castlevania spoof; I just loved the Contra rendition of a classic Castlevania tune.