This remark could be summarize for the amounts of hatreds on the giantbomb forums, granted that this subscription system may be flawed but it doesn't warrant flaming/trolling and havoc. The main thing that comes up to me when this subscription system was introduced, was that the costs isn't really expensive despite of many complaints; first of all, other websites that provides subscription services like Gamespot, IGN and Gametrailers costs even more than this site combined. True that their subscription services provides some interesting things like winning prizes and access to live events but things like the Big Big Live Show Live! (which will be changed into 'Friday show') and a plethora of video content with hours of viewing (especially BBLSL!.. more than five hours of entertainment) is rarely seem in those other sites.... Gamespot used to have long-ass marathons but now they don't!
Furthermore, this MONEY DOESN'T GROW ON TREES, the bullshit that came from the forums whether its 'them' being greedy or that remark that absolutely doesn't make sense at all is just mind-blowing and retarded at the same time. DOES people even go to school or something, like take a course in Business/Math or have COMMON SENSE the reason why Whiskey Media is doing this type of thing... THE ANSWER is because this company is independent and unlike any independent site, this one gets about A MILLION or MORE views a day, with coverage and content consumption being watched.. DO YOU EVEN KNOW that each time you do that type of thing the site's bandwidth and costs starts increasing AND THE FACT since they moved into the SAN FRANCISCO OFFICES that they wouldn't pay anything for the costs OF NOT GOING BANKRUPTED! And and again that they go to events like E3, PAX and the like and have to pay for their expenses?! Would you guys rather have a subscription service or seeing Giantbomb completely gone and the four/five main dudes out of work?! JUST THINK FOR A MOMENT!
And the fact that they rarely use ADs unlike other sites.... the fact that you have ADBlocker or whatever doesn't mean that you have to complain. BE LUCKY that this site doesn't use ads LIKE YOU ALWAYS WANTED! A BUNCH OF SELFISH IDIOTS!
The second part that I would like to elaborate on is the features, I would agree on everyone's sentiment on the features being useless (moblie version, HD videos etc..), I for one hated it in my first impression but then I realize that there's going to be more with these services and it would be appealing to see the entirely of it rather than bitching and moaning about it. The impressions made in the podcast seems like they are going to do more than these features and will probably have more amazing content in the future and a cool-ass new t-shirt..
And the final thing that is in everyone's minds is the new podcasting format, we heard that 2-Hours of batshit crrazy will be available for subscription users when Ryan decides to put it up and the first hour will only be for the non-user BUT the full two hour will be available the next week following. Yes this sounds prosperous having a podcast being segregated but THE REMARKS made by the recent podcast is reasonable, downloading costs money for them and having two full hours with everyone hitting the download button is alot...
Late Impressions I know but when I'm playing games like P3P, I didn't have the time to play it earlier.
In a short summary, Singularity is a neat game even though people think its too similar to Bioshock or Dead Space, it really isn't. The controls are a bit similar to Modern Warfare with the exception of E99 Power that you'll grant later - the sprint button feels too much like that game. The game-play, its quite alright - the starting is somewhat a tutorial where you get antiquated with the controls and the story of a island off the coast of Russia where nasty experiments are created and where E99 was founded. The starting, you, Renko get introduced to Devilin voiced by Nolan North is on some mission sent by the US Marines to discover the mysterious anonymity in this island but a EMP blast soon knocked down their helicopters and you are strangled away from your buddy. Before that, there's a opening cinematic about Russia discovering this new source of power to rival the American Atomic Bomb and conquer the whole world with it. But when you transverse through this abandoned island, from the evidence of voice recorders and film archives - you discover that everyone in this island is dead due to the horrific experiments, scientists are conducting resulting on mutants rampaging through the facilities, killing everyone including kids who came here to get education.
Oh earlier on, you somehow warp back in time to save some scientist from dying in flames and then in the future he becomes a hero and receive a merit to propose a statue of him.
In the game, E99s cores are somewhat currency to purchase/upgrade your weapons. You start with a Centurion Pistol which later will be discarded by the Valkyrie Machine gun, making it useless to have it. The mutants are not that hard per say, but sometimes if you aim somewhere not by the head and use your knife which is often tedious for me to use it, they will seriously cause some damage. Ammo and Health packs/Stimpacks are somewhat scarce but there are enough for you to survive, plus when you and Devilin hold the position in some place, there's a shit-ton of ammo and health packs to kill an army of Commies that want to kill you. But before that, the Sniper rifle has a slow-down feature which slows down time so that you could place head-shots, kinda like when you hold your breath in Modern Warfare but it lasts a tad longer. Also, there are upgrading stations, kinda like the ones in Dead Space where you get to upgrade your weapons (extend clips,damage or faster reload), I will suggest upgrading the Valkyrie and the Shot-gun because later on, there's no time for Sniping.
The story.. after being swarmed by Commies, you and Devilin attempt to escape but you then got knocked off, waking up tied with Devilin and some evil General with a cape kills Devilin and wants something from you but was interrupted by a girl. You then proceed to run your ass off to her, following her introductions down to the basement and get more history about your character and the past of the island. After that, you have to get to Barisov's lab to go back to time but first grab the TMD gauntlet which the mechanics is similar to the gravity gun in Half-Life 2 but you could age/renew objects, as a part of puzzle solving, only those with E99 stuff inside them. Anyways, after getting the device and solving a starter puzzle with renewing columns which had fallen and the vault door being closed, you get to time-traveled to the mid 50s where the chaos is starting of the government sending their soldiers to this island and killing the scientist and you are required to rescue Barisov from death. When you rescued him, with a new mechanic of utilizing the Dead Space tracking thingy, he gives you some kick-ass weapon called the Seeker which the title implies, is some sort of homing bullet that can you have control over and can deal splash damage.
Later on, killing Commie after Commie - you then travel back to your time where Barisov survived and he needs you to go to the tower and rendezvous there with the help of that girl of course. There are new monsters who are smaller but you have to use your Impulse power to knock back them and go for the kill, and plus gravity manipulation is used often especially when you pickup a explosion barrel and launch onto the mutants.. its quite spectacular and remembers the times playing Half-Life 2. Though sometimes these monsters throw barrels at you like Donkey Kong and you have to catch it, sometimes it tend to be tedious to catch them especially when you get to face the first boss.
Yeah the first boss, he wasn't too hard - I haven't died but got hit by his barrels a few times, but I managed to kill him and the girl returns to ask you to follow her to the tower where Barisov is located. The part before going to the elevator to Barisov tower was by far, a fun part - renewing the electric fences to electrocute the mutants without using your guns is a relief. And then, when you are on top of the tower, you meet Barisov in person and tells you about after saving him that Russian invaded the world and you need to stop him or something.
That's pretty much it after playing a few hours of this game..
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My first few fours of playing this game has left me fascinated, playing more of it and venturing up to the 13th floor of Tartarus is somewhat hard to a degree. That I almost died due to not leveling up my personas so they could deal with them, the secondary mini-boss a few floors earlier almost killed me and I had to resort on items from aliments to medicine, There are tons of things that I didn't mention from my previous or recent blog.
The graphics looks quite spectacular for a PSP game, the fidelity in the levels is just impressive and the sharp and nearly perfect textures and artwork for the characters is mind-blowing. One of the surprises me is customization of the equipment, at first I didn't really look at the characters but when I eventually did, when you equip something like armour, you see what they're wearing and not like Persona 4 where the gear is just some sort of buff to your stats. It's cute and appealing.
The Shuffle mini-game is similar to Persona 3 and 4 to an extent, the only exception is the empty non-blank cards gives you benefits from getting more money, experience, restoring health to getting some items. It's another unique mechanic when as I am playing this game.
The third is the soundtrack and boy... I totally crave for this soundtrack and it makes the Persona 4 soundtrack bad.. it got the Persona 3 vibe with a black guy (or I presume a black guy) singing and I'm seriously digging the beats and rhythm of it... The town map soundtrack is my favourite so far!
Around 3-4 years ago, back when we used to go another website that airs On The Spot every Thursday, showcasing demos, interviews and such there are games that I'm really interested in. One of them is Persona 3 for the ps2 demoed by Greg Mueller which I recall is featured on the 100th episode of On The Spot with Navarro drumming like a mother-fucker and cake was spread among every to celebrate this occasion. Reflecting back on him demoing Persona 3, I was quite reluctant to try that game as reading his review and many gameplay videos, that it seems to be a quite difficult game to play though it's looks very promising due to its turn-based gameplay and anime dudes blowing their brains out to summon a persona. It's quite a hilarious mechanic, I would say and the battle system and the HUD looks quite appealing. And that how do they get guns, suddenly? They have their own weapons to fight shadows but then proceed to blow their fucking brains out to summon a persona... just weird.
Though, after the bomb was built and video content was exceeding my wasteful days - spending hours of quality entertainment to watch four dudes play games and getting some insightful information from them. There was Persona 4, which they called it the Endurance Run where they playthrough the whole game in its entirely, from Monday to Friday - first understanding the mechanics and gameplay and then progressing in duration of longer videos and kicking some ass! Like almost everyone else, we're all tried to have our own endurance run, playing pass, in-between or before them in the game's progression. The ever-loving Chie eating steaks, teaching you leap-frogging to finally going on a date with you is what we all love and envy to many of the snide and hilarious remarks made by Vinny and Jeff on the journey to (not) cast Bufu and their reactions to many of Persona 4, strange, awkward and funny events. But there are times that people don't like their style of playing, specifically when they are facing shadows in dungeons as a number of dedicated users tend to give them hints and what do to in the boss battle; though there are times that people assume that they won't beat the boss but then surprises everyone when they do.
When I started my endurance run playing Persona 4 after purchasing it, somewhere a tad bit cheaper than purchasing it in Ebgames. I like Vinny and Jeff was enjoying the game as a whole - the lovable characters, Social Links, the easy to understand battle system, fusing personas, leveling up your characters and gearing them up, and especially the events which not only gains your social links that leads ''popularity leds to intimacy'' but having the best moments of laughing at either Kanji or the cross-dressing show. The whole thing must come to a close as leveling up the social links to level 10 to fusing the best personas that I could find and choosing my fate as Kenji (my main character's name) and choosing whether to have to good ending or true ending to continue on. Of course I chose true ending as I managed to defeat the boss, changing from form to form but dying a few times due to getting the wrong personas to fight it and having to fuse another badass Persona, the Trumpeter to defeat him,,, her.
Persona 3 Portable Impressions
Anyways when they announced Persona 3 is coming on the PSP, I was quite stoked that I could finally play Persona 3 after not purchasing it three years ago. And since then, Atlus has changed the game and compressed it into a portable device, sacrificing some things but compensating it for another. I was eager to purchase this game as I didn't pre-order knowing that it will only come with Junpei's lame hat and not the soundtrack which was implemented within the first Persona that they transferred into the PSP. So I purchased this game today, and played about 2 to 3 hours of the tutorials as I get introduced with characters from Persona 3.
The first thing that is unique to this game is the gender - you could choose either male or female and both of them are a different experience than the other as I chose the girl due to being a guy (I know there isn't gender choosing in P4) in Persona 4 before. The opening cut-scene sees a reluctant or our reluctant hero wanting to pull the trigger to commit.. or to try to summon her persona but she was unable to and then transiting to the p4 opening which you see the city and a new transfer student coming to Tatsumi Port Island by subway I guess to start my new life. As midnight approaches and I suddenly see weird-ass coffins surrounding me and then proceeding to the dorm which will be the place that I would be living. Then a creepy-looking little boy (unknown kid) shows up and says some creepy things and asking you to sign the contract or something as I entered my name; Kasumi Eclair (random on-the-spot name i made up) and that creepy guy disappears and two hot teenage girls shows up asking who you are. Those two girls are Yukari and Mitsuru Kirijo who then proceed you to go to bed as Yukari guides you to your room.
The next morning, Yukari and Kasumi commute with each other to school as she's transfer to Gekkoukan High School which you're in the 11th grade. Yukari asks you to go to the faculty office to meet with your teacher. After talking to Yukari, you cannot walk/run to the faculty office as it is now changed to point-and-click like some sort of adventure game, as you just click on people to talk. You are supposed to meet with Ms. Toriumi, your teacher who teaches literature and tells you that the class is 2-F (a Wrong Image I know.. cannot find another good onetad bit similar to P4) as you also bump in Ekoda which will probably be like your teacher in P4. Later on, you come back to your dorm where you are introduced to Shuji Ikutsuki (his last name is difficult to pronounce as he stated), the chairman of the school board which welcomes you to their dorm and such. I then saved and went to bed as I get sucked into the Velvet Room and that ominous iconic music playing and Ignor siting on a couch in some empty room that is painted blue, welcoming you and asking to fulfill the contract and gives you the Velvet key so that you could go into the room. Also Ignor's voice isn't the voice from Persona 4 which I didn't like, sounding like some sort of Asian stereotype tying to be Ignor but not,
Oh, and I was introduced to the Junpei earlier and like Yousuke in Persona 4, is a comic relief and the guy who often goes to sleep, asking me to answer his questions which the first one was about some Japanese author that Ms. Toriumi likes and then Mr. Ekoda which was about the the Jòmon period and the huts that they lived in, raising my charm and academic skill as I chose wisely and getting popular. It's also weird that when both Kasumi and Yukari first arrives in the High School that people started to spread rumours about the new transfer student like they did in P4, kinda weird and totally japanese. Also that Akihiko was introduced as he took a brief stroll outside and then a cutscene where some dude on a radio suddenly becomes cover with black slime.
Anyways, the evening comes by, you see Shuji, Yukari and Mitsuru is spying on Kasumi as she might have the 'potential' and is surprised that she isn't harmed by midnight and some kind of syndrome that affects other people - and not in some kind of coffin. Akihiko then comes back, as a shadow comes after him to the dorm and Mitsuru and him both fight the shadow as Yukari goes to wake up Kasumi and goes to the roof. But another shadow shows up in the roof and in a in-game cutscene, you see Yukari unabling to shoot herself in the head and the huge deformed shadow thrashes her away and the gun is thrown to Kasumi and she was able to blow her brains out as a Persona comes out and sprouts the same thing as Izamagi in P4 but he's the master of strings, Orpheus which then transforms into his bad-ass bigger persona and defeats the tentacle shadow. Then a shadow appears and you have to fight it, utilizing the battle inference from P3 with a touch of P4 as I used bash which drains the HP and won, leveling up my persona. I fell unconscious and woke up a week after (in some sort of coma) in a hospital where you find Yukari as you wake up, and tells you her past about her father dying in a car accident and her mother being in bad terms with her, and proceed on to the dorm where everyone tells you the truth of the club, becoming a member of Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad(kinda lame name) or SEES in short to combat shadows at midnight, receiving a revolver to summon your persona. Junpei then comes into your dorm as he is also joining SEES due to being rescue by Akihiko by shadows surrounding him.
Later on, Akihiko and Mitsuru asks everyone to go with them during Dark Hour inside Tartarus, a dimension hidden and in-between midnight as your group ventures on to your high school turned into some sort of tower of shadows. Inside Tartarus or the school, after being explained by Mitsuru and Akihiko, I went into some sort of portal gate and saw the Velvet Room again but this time, Ignor welcoming me and showing his 'special guest', a male guest Theodore which I chose to see what he looks like and will be an aide to me when I go to the Velvet Room again. After that, Yukari and Junpei questions you about acting 'like some sort of zombie' and entering the portal to the tower. Also Mitsuru will be the analysis assistant to assist you in battle like Teddy or Rise in P4 and Akihiko backing down in this one. Finally in control of the character in the dungeon, the movement feels like the two another games without the extra analog stick to move the camera which the left and right bumper supplements the camera. In his almost top-down dungeon crawler, you stumble upon shadows and chests, as I picked up alot of mana items and a medicine. With Mitsuru talking about the mechanics of surprising your enemy by whacking it first, it then proceed to battle and cast Agi as it is the weakness of the shadow. Then proceed to do it again and again through the first level of this dungeon and Mitsuru refusing us to venture higher and also introducing another mechanic, asking everyone to split up, to either find a exit point, pick up chests or fight shadows so I don't have to. Which is a quite a neat mechanic to have in the dungeon.
I was quite fortunate to play Persona 4 and know how the play in Persona 3 Portable, knowing how to take the advantage when the shadows get knocked by their weakness and ''All-in Out'' annihilate them in a blow. Playing the first few hours of this game is a blast and I will continue on to play it, the game will probably be my top ten games of the decade and I'm loving it so far. Now, if you excuse me, I'm going to play Persona 3 Portable...
The hack-and-slash genre hasn't been very fond of me, the repetitive button-mashing, hordes of bad AI to annoying bosses. One that comes up in mind is the Dynasty Warriors franchise, that has gone too much to be derivative, bland and frustrating - now that's not me bashing that franchise, I liked the second and the third one to a extent and had fond memories of playing as Lu Bu or Liu Bei hacking and slashing hordes of Mongolians to prevent them from climbing up the Great Wall of China. Besides that, that franchise has gotten me interested more in Chinese history, learning more about Genghis Khan invasion of China and the Civil Wars between factions in China - it was interesting reading about the history.
But anyways, another game that comes in mind with hack-and-slash quantities is Ninety-Nine Nights by Q Entertainment - as frustrating as Dynasty Warriors gets and such. When that game was released, I was only playing the demo of it and having no fun whatsoever only that its very boring and the fingers hurt like a motherfucker. Recently when they announced the sequel, Ninety-Nine II - I didn't care for it but was reluctant to have another try and still is rather disappointment and annoyed that I played this game. Developer Tak Fuji said this game will remain more ''extremee'' and seriously it is fucking ''extremee'' to a point of getting huge headaches and being bored by the combat, a few hours in. How many times do you see this?
As I started the campaign and had to live through the boring-ass cinematic and some emo-ass, revengeful duel-wielding swords faggot whose started crying out his sister's name because of her being killed in the battlefield, it then proceeds to him charging to a mob of guys and doing the same damn stunts like any other games with battlefields(not the game), ending with a special ability that has a huge AOE effect with magical swords in a circle and then a explosion knocking the mob. And then, you get the control of the character and I must say there are some redeeming qualities to it, the camera is abit better, charging and hacking/slashing the enemy is quite entertaining and the special abilities that I said earlier looks impressive. Besides the camera, the controls of hacking and slashing, camera switching especially when you're surrounded by mobs is quite a difficult task to do, making you a target for being raped by the mob. The tutorial pretty much sums up in displaying the controls but not telling you them at the starting, making you figure out by yourself. But nevertheless, the first mission is to destroy the three spawning points where the bad guys spawn and then the barrier disappears as you have to fight a group of monstrous horseman and a presumed mini-boss or elite (shaded in gold), the problem is that the golden horseman has some assholish special shock-wave ability that knocks you out and takes an amount of damage. I had died once killing them and having to use my special abilities to kill them.
After killing the dreaded horsemens, another stupid-ass cutscene appears and you're suddenly dropped in the throne room, as you are ''greeted'' by the Elven Chancellor and your name is revealed to be Galen (quite ironic), you are also introduced to a hot elven princess chick with alarming boobs - thanking him for preventing the Lord of Night minions from invading their castle, and then proceeded to ask him to liberate a fort near the castle... oh before that she tells him about the Lord of Night growing to one million minions and annihilating those who threaten them and intended to rid of hum.. or elven civilization - as previously they started to invade their lands. As the reluctant hero or Avenger accepts - I proceeded to the Coliseum instead for some hack and slashing bloodbath, with senseless killings which I killed up with up to 5000 kills as I had grown tired of it. Oh by the way, the achievements in this game is quite easy, the starting had me racked up a bunch of points and the coliseum had me racked up more. Also that after you are finished with the first stage, you proceed to the character stats -- the settings they called it - as through the battlefield you earn red orbs or something like Devil May Cry, you can redeem it by either leveling up your character, your weapon or your skills upgrading your character in general.
And the bitch or princess that you probably want to bang is playable character that has a separate storyline from Galen - as from the introductory cutscene with her, is to escape to the sewers from her safety from the invading armies. Though I didn't chose her and continued on with Gaylen's storyline which is to liberate a fort near the castle. The objectives in your first assigned mission is to pretty much hack until its light blue on the crystals to proceed as not only its to activate the triggers to the blasted gate but opening doors, and also the enemy catapults had the glowing crystal thing that you had to bash them to destroy it. Other than that, this area introduces more of the tough minions, from stronger foot soldiers, obnoxious archers to even more obnoxious stronger horsemen which there's an area that is FUCKING crowd with these ''elites'' that will seriously gang-rape Galen (not that he matter considering that it looks like he likes it). The map also is filled with crates and pillars that is require to bash to do platforming from, sorta like God of War as you climb up and murder those pesky archers and catapults.
HULK that shouldn't be mess with!
After activating the four main crystals, the blast gate opens with your reinforcements arriving to protect the outside and asking you to go in. What's unfortunately and undoubtedly inside is a boss that I'm still stuck at, which is fucking annoying due to the main spawning generators that seems invulnerable to my attacks as the huge-ass rock boss keeps on hulk smashing me and also smashing his minions. It is pretty frustrating fight and the one that I won't be finishing because of those annoying-ass archers and knights and ALSO that HULK killing me over and over. Seriously THAT princess bitch might have a problem but I have 99 problems or nights for have you...
I might or might not decide to play this game anyone, its rather frustrating and a chore to play.. Again as I stated earlier, I'm not fond of this genre and will probably never play these types of games...
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This year's Sony presser was not as appealing as last year as the conference was only filled with ps3 games' montages, 3D implementation and more emphasis on Playstation Move. Aside from move is set with a price and kevin butler in full glory with his inspirational speech, the conference was pretty boring and thanks to the Gametrailers stream, which continously loops over and over again, making it a tad unwatchable. Anyways, Butler giving an inspirational speech and everyone pumping up to him seems out of sight to me because I don't even know him until I saw him in this conference and everyone praising how awesome and enthusiastic he was on the stage. Having said that and my lack of willing to write a blog, here is my notes (horrible ones) of the Sony presser!
starting with a montage of games, explosions and consoles
jack tretton comes to stage, mocking nintendo... kazuo hirai
3d world created by Sony, experience in content, true 3d experience
Killzone 3 demoed, Hermen Hulst - 3d key pillar, integration from the ground up, two separate, arctic north sections, dynamic new weapons, enemies, graphical improvements/3d, fucking 3d, looks distorted without stupid 3d glasses on, crashed for a second, helcaust fighting in a ship, jet-packs, being pulled up to a cliff and then proceed to use jet pack on ice bergs, into a destroyed ship, duel guns with jet packs awesome, voice acting sounds terrible, sixaris controlled then destroyed AA gun, then on helicopter mowing down with Gatling gun from death from above, dropships, shooting in the air. Avaliable feb 2011 exclusive, fully compatible with playstation move
fucking 3d glasses again... some video montage again in 3d fuck
again with the ps2 talk, boring
peter dille, talking about move - camera and controller, three sensor - talking heads praising move, wow saying that this is unique and innovative, bullshit, buttons precision will be played in booth
Exclusives; Workshop, Sorcery - third person fantasy-oriented game, move controllers, guy stretching, fable-esque weapon, spells/combing spells, fable-esque spells, trine using environment interact to make bridge, utilizing spells to defeat enemies
Andrew, Tiger Woods PGA tour 11, move-controllers with precision, guy is nervous, golf ball fallen to the sand, audience clapping, guy pot into the hole. psn download, this fall.
advertising, Coke? Kevin Butler then comes in, Seinfeld fashion - mocking microsoft briefing with french-canadiens. kevin pumping up the audience, as audience is ecstatically pumped up. Inspirational speech with music.. came out from nowhere?
September 19 released move. 49.99 price, 29.99 navigation controller, sports champions bundle, 99.99. 399.99 sports champions move bundle,
Ruse, Time Crisis, singstar, echochrome, toy story 3, resident evil 5 gold edition, enabled move controllers. then a montage super star. Wii controller rip off
psp talk - black little kid rapping about more psp games/marcus
inizimals, augmented psp game, ghost of sparta psp cinematic trailer, kingdom hearts bs, ace combat, 3rd birthday, new psp entertainment
sales talk, 50 registered users, tester (bullshit not successful) - season 2, july 1 deliver service in canada(finally), virtual e3 only to playstation 3 for pshome
littlebigplanet, goty edition/modnation racers popular game. Alex evans - new features, character enchantment, creative tools, community implementation. introduce some demo created games, multiplayer. create different genres
playstation plus, options to expand and enchance, features subscription, exclusive digital downloads, betas, psn theme and such, discounts. downloads automatic. Rip off, subscription doesn't sound appealing despite exclusives quirks and such.
john schappert - craig goodrich ( MOH) with beard, shows gameplay trailer showing afghanistan and team units, october 12 2010 launched. June 28, shown in tier 1 interviews? unlockable beards, awesome! customizble. Multiplayer map, predator missiles, uaf mw use, perks and experience. limited edition exclusively, remastered 2002, frontline? why that game.
Dead Space 2(ps3) live demo(again), continues off with the ea demo, facing the necromorph boss, facing off to space. limited edition, extraction with move support
Portal 2 shown, glados pops out and gabe in stage - confirmed best version, gameplay, cinematic, coming 2011
Final fantasy 14, revealed cinematic, iconic theme still gives me the chills but still hate it
Mafia II, exclusive day one, assassin creed multiplayer exclusive gameplay, assassins duking out, ezio owning everyone
finale - exclusive, david jaffe game announced, twisted metal game! Everyone saying WTF! A clown then appears on stage with a icecream truck, released in 2011. Gameplay shown, helicopter, motocycle and carnage, deathmatch, another mode - class-based, called nuke dilapidated city environment. clowns vs dolls factions. basically destroy faction statues, to capture faction leader and sacrifice them in the missile launcher and keep them long enough. More Jaffe chilling.
Last year the Nintendo presser was considered to be a disappointing with games hitting for the casual market and doesn't appeal whatsoever to the main targeted audience. But this year, with Microsoft presser being terrible and Nintendo taking the reverse role of being the best conference so far. The Conference has been nothing but a plethora of games and exclusives and the 3Ds. Most of the games featured on the Nokia theatre, actually pumped for games to be released in this holiday season, plus it wasn't awkward or boring, I had a blast watching this presser and hopefully will buy half of those games. The presser conference begins with Reggie welcoming everyone to the theatre and revealed the new Legend of Zelda game, called Skyward Sword. Then Miyamoto shows up on the video screen, talking about this exclusive game and everyone was pumped. We see his translator after, playing the game and coming across a monster plant which he's having difficulty beating it, as Miyamoto tells him to use the motion plus to shield Link by pretending to shield yourself. After attempts of not failing to kill it, Miyamoto, suddenly teleports from the video to the stage in an awesome fashion and handed the controls. The game looks like it has improved graphics and the motion plus seems very sensitive, seeing that the way, he interacts with the shield and sword. After killing the monster plant and walking around some open-world area, he opens a Fable-esque wheel to show the new weapons; a beatle-like gadget that is use to sight-see things and pick up items and a whip that whip-lashes to enemies. He switches to the bow and unfortunately was too sensitive or broken due to people using wifi? I could hardly believe that but the game will be scheduled next year and be playable at their booth.
Reggie enters and talks about the new sports games that are coming to the Wii, first revealing NBA Jam and then a Mario Sports Game, called Sports Mix. Featuring volleyball and basketball in a Party-esque game with Mario characters playing sports at a beach and a stadium. After, Reggie rambles about how game analyst and journalists are wrong that people only buy the Wii console and not the games, showing the statistics and people actually buying games more than any console combined. Hard to imagine but when people are playing Carnival Games and dumb Party games for the Wii, its that audience that shows how high the sales charts is. He elaborated on another Wii game featuring Mii sport, calling it Wii Party featuring board games, balance boat and house party, with a fun-happy family included. Also thirteen party games and 70 other games, it goes to show that games like Wii Play will be show every year. Just Dance 2 was then shown and blah blah blah.
He then showed, last year's announcement, Golden Sun DS with actual gameplay, called Dark Dawn with potentially good gameplay and graphics, arriving this holiday season. After that, we see a video of a bunch of ''so called'' gamers praising the best shooter/multiplayer game and was showed to be, the new Golden Eye Game for the Wii and hopefully will not be as terrible as Conduit. Plus, I would want to this game to have a stellar split-screen multiplayer that would remind me of those Goldeneye 64 days of playing this game and then switching to Perfect Dark, all night long to holiday. Adam and Warren comes up to the stage and demos, Disney Epic Mickey, setting a unique art style and platforming gameplay and features. The demo takes us to Wasteland where you play as Mickey and a feature that utilizes Mickey's paint to dynamically change the world, having some sort of morale system to choose the faith of this world. Oh yeah, the art style reminded me of Fantasia and how the style they created implements with the paint tool and your decision in this world - with two worlds to jump to, Action and Travel Zone. The one featured in this demo is Travel Zone with Mickey in a 2d sidescroller in his first debut appearance, the steamboat/train black and white cartoon.
Reggie announced another game, which revealed to be a Kirby game setting in a unique and artistic direction. The gameplay consists of a 2d background with, Kirby pulling yarn in a nostalgia-esque experience that looks translucent and promising. There are also, two player co-up like New SMB last year with mechanics to co-operatly do and a fucking kirby mech! This game will be released this fall, and Reggie had pulled two Epic Mickeys/Yarn!
A new Dragon Quest Game, titled Sentinels of the Starry Skies for the DS with 120 quests, 300 monsters, 900 items and infinite amount of treasure hunting is only promising to Japan. Also three friends to tag along you and a new feature called tag mode which when you close your ds and seeks other players. But it is coming to America in just 26 days, around August! Metroid the Other M, by team ninja with new gameplay revealed - the gameplay is a third person shooter(yeah we know already) but utilizes a system familiar to Super Metroid with how the camera looks in that trailer, it looks rather disappointing due to its third person-ness, I'm already missing the first person aspect from the first two games and it comes out in August the 31.
Retro Studios then revealed a fucking new DONKEY KONG game which looks like a nostagia presentation to Donkey Kong Country for the N64 with side-scrolling and Diddy and Donkey helping each other in a game that would be potentially awesome to play. Called Donkey Kong Country Returns, a dumb name but I like it, will be released this holiday.
After that they talked about the new DS handheld, 3Ds and agreefully says that putting 3d glasses is a dumb idea, and announces that the new 3ds will not have glasses use and you could take it anywhere. Showing people with glasses and a video of the timeline where 3d was introduced to the use of 3d glasses now in theatres and in games. Then Iwata pops up with the modeled 3ds and presents the features and new things on this handheld - with 3.5 inches display on the top screen, fully capable 3d, graphical improvements, slide pad or analog controller, motion sensing and two camera lenses which will take 3d pictures as the crowd applauded. This will be on the show floor to witness, later - it was announced that three companies; Disney, Warner, Dreamworks will feature movies played in 3ds - How to Train your dragon and etc. He then proceeds to talk about social connectivity and how the online would be freee or something.
Then he talks about Project Sora, a project announced earlier this year(or last year?) and was later revealed to be the new Kid Icarus game called Uprising with everyone fucking applauding. The game looks pretty neat, with an action-oriented gameplay plus Icarus flying and was voiceover by two annoying voice actors/actresses who narrated the upcoming story to the revitalize Icarus that everyone had been bitching about a new game for years - demo will be shown on the showfloor.
That exciting announcement comes another, starting with Nintendodogs with cats and then proceeded to the third-party category as a plethora of companies are listed to feature games as everyone was going wild with these announcements; Dj hero 3d, Kingdom hearts, WTF Saints Row?, Madden 11, Resident Evil Revelations, Assassin creed, RIDGE RACER, Metal Gear Solid and yeah, a PLETHORA of games shown as everyone was wooing at these amazing games coming out...
After the show is starting to end as talking heads of developers praising the new 3ds and such. As another video shows Iwata, Miyamoto and Reggie in some quirky place where they are sucked into a dimension, hilarity ensues and then Reggie's suit being torned (probably went to destroy his suit or was destroyed before while everyone is watching that) and as the finale ends with hot and sexy booth babes - an army of them asking everyone to sit down while they have some sort of fashion show and then said that there are game booths that popped up from the ground as Reggie wants the press to not go to the Sony presser and play Zelda. Hot girls showing in third dimension... what?
Well, that's the Nintendo Conference and its considered to be the best presser for me, even though the Sony presser is coming up next, this one was actually entertaining and most of the games shown here are actually worth playing and not hitting on the casual games more than the previous one. It just jaw-dropping to see that much exclusive games being shown in this conference and how Nintendo didn't forget about the main target audience, they should be aiming for. Kid Icarus, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Kirby and Goldeneye's announcements surprised me as well as the fans who praised for these games in past years, hopefully these games would be the best games of this year, if not for Nintendo pumping up the audience with surprise exclusives and hardly ever been leaked out with games before the presser, that's why Nintendo is good at announcing these games is because of that and how hyped up everyone is when they show it on the press conference. I will gladly look forward for these games and see more amazing games, that Nintendo would offer!!!
E3 has landed upon us, the first two days had been conferences and exciting reveals. Although the main event, the Microsoft press conference was a disappointment to everyone, despite receiving FREE XBOXs, the EA and somewhat Ubisoft is the one that is actually better than the Microsoft one.
Microsoft Press Conferences
Revealed Natal or Kinect (which is a dumb name), motion sensing
Games... well ''games'' being played through motion controllers by waving your hands like an idiot, one of the games was from Rare
More social media being implemented, video chat and shit
Xbox 360 slim revealed, totally similar to the PS3 slim... BUT ITS WAS FREE TO EVERYONE IN THE SHOWCASE
Thoughts:
Yeah it was disappointing, the lack of new games and appealing to the casual audience is a wrong idea. Nintendo has that market cornered, and having this new device, Kinect to play these kind of games is a good idea but making too much causal games would go into the Nintendo route and will rarely appeal to the hardcore audience. That said, yes it was rather disappointing.
EA Press Conference
Blasts off with a Need for Speed game developed by Criterion Games, with a Cops and Robbers sort of game. It looks pretty neat but looking back at Burnout Paradise's dlc.... meh though they want the series to go back into the roots
Dead Space 2, AWESOME! Still wearing a mining suit with his mining accessories fighting necromorphs in some church. But a church of genology, at first I thought it was the Church of Scientology, with Katie Holmes greeting Issac and then I thought Tom Cruise or John Travolta to pop up at any moment, but you get to kill fucking babies! Then a helicopter pops up and you fall down into the underground where monster Katie Holmes greets us again!
Medal of Honour Multiplayer Demo, Dice and EA LA is working together to make this game similar to Bad Company. Dice with the Multiplayer and LA with the SinglePlayer. I'm disappointed with the crap of introducing the multiplayer first, and seeing that the engine is sorta running like Battlefield and not feeling like Medal of Honour. Oh MOH, where thou art? Though 24 fucking screens were played in front of us, with 24 other people
Vietcon has come to Bad Company 2, an expansion and awesome
Some wannabe Will Wright shows up to talk about philosophy and then Sims 3 on consoles... boring not even close to how awesome Will Wright is
Crysis 2 looking awesome but the part where you put the 3D glasses is fucking lame. Probably will buy a high-tech PC to play the levels of an city being destroyed in the future where shaky cams are always on and you are the resistance fighting something
Bulletstorm, no interested but looks pretty nice with the shooting
Stars Wars: The Old Republic cinematic trailer ends the presser... looks awesome but like Jeff said, its a fucking MMO and like WoW, it isn't awesome when you see the gameplay aspect of it
Thoughts:
This presser is the best of that day, games were actually shown and games that I'm hyped for. Though I'm rather disappointed with Medal of Honour being multiplayer-oriented, Dead Space 2 and Crysis 2 looks astounding. The Will Wright clone is rather lame and boring but its better than the press conference featured below!
Ubisoft Press Conference
Starts with Child of Eden, the neo- Geometry Wars game looks unique and eye-popping
New Assassin Creed game, Brotherhood... new features and such and such
Shaun White on stage with a new Snowboarding game, didn't care much about that and was busy doing something else because I hate Shaun White's freakishly orange hair
Oh yeah, Joe from the previous presser is still the host, using his lame one-liners and getting ambushed by ''attractive' people with plastic toy guns, or laser tag. Pretty awful to waste time, shooting like a moron and then having the host play some dumbass minigame with the creator, shooting at the sensor and using so- called clips of ammo as checkpoint or whatever.
Innergry being introduced, Ubisoft stealing from Nintendo's Vitality, and a hippie talking about claiming your stress level. Fucking lame
Then: Some fitness game, and other fitness game... yeah like gamers are fatasses who just sit on the couch and having a virtual excerise is being active
But Raving Rabbits redeemed this show, being quirky and hilarious at the same time and the rabbits are now time travelling!
Future Soldier demo is shown, pretty neat and cool. People didn't like the active camo, I didn't like it when you team says, tango down and setting in a post-apocalyptic world is being creative. Though the team-oriented AI, graphics and stealth looks mindblowing even though there isn't not fucking CQC and that dude just silently walked close to an enemy and shot his face.. like CQC!
Driver having 100 license cars and kinda looking like Wheelman with how it feels and looks. But in San Fransisco!
Rayman Origins being shown, pretty funny at the starting to not reveal the name until the titular character is shown on the screen. Quirky!
Ending with Michael Jackson' Beat it with sexy and hot dancers, including that blonde lady with clothes that wouldn't look like it would fit her
Thoughts: Lame but Future Soldier and Raving Rabbits looks pretty great, other than that its fucking Shaun White and fitness games that I bet noone will play. The finale where everyone danced is awkward, there isn't a game for it, just people dancing to the famous song and doing the dance routine. The host, isn't funny and there are alot of awkward and lame moments at this show but its not bad as the Microsoft one.
This time of year, people often compile a list of their anticipated games for this year. So I guess I will compile a top ten list that is FPS/Shooter oriented though some games in the EA conference looks intriguing. Anyways;
Since Fallout 3, I had played more than 200 hours and completed everything with the exception of the dlcs. When I heard that this game is being published by its original developer and set in California, its a buy for me.
The first GRAW was an awesome game because of its team-oriented game-play and amazing graphics. This game takes a whole new level - set in the future where gadgets looks more awesomer and the team AI might be better. Also set in a post-apocalyptic world..... The demo in the Ubi conference though, just had to copy, MW - having said ''tango'' a couple of times.
Since Gun and Call of Juarez, there isn't any good western-theme adventure/action games that derives from broken gameplay and bad handling on controls. Games like Call of Juarez had proven to be quite unique due to its dueling feature and a first person view that feels fitting for my tastes towards this genre. When Rockstar announced Red Dead Redemption - like other Rockstar games, everyone is always hyped for it and pumped because its potential for being the best western-game yet, and the best game of this year. To me, I avoided the trailers, previews and livestreams so I would not be spoiled or derived from anybody's opinions on this game and just wanted to try to play it blind unlike other games. Unfortunately I never preorder games so I ended up with the regular edition and the map of the game - as The Intro should be like this! this game's world seems to be the largest seen in a Rockstar game. It's surprising actually to see the open-wordiness of this world and how fun or boring this game could be if you are traveling across this world map.
When I boot up the game and downloaded the update, the introduction of this game seems to be a bit boring - at first I thought it would be something awesome like Tombstone or the Good, Bad and the Ugly but you are a lone outlaw, John Marston who's sent to capture or kill former gang members of the government. First, I was met up with a old led at a saloon who asked me to follow him to their hideout by horseback. Now this is where it starts to get ugly or the learning curve is just difficult, the controls for your movement on foot and on horseback seems frustrating, its quite similar to GTA4 and quite annoying because it utilizes those controls that I hated in that game though I hated it more in this game due to the mechanics of keeping the stamina of your horse stable, holding the A button when you're prompted to follow someone or maintain a certain speed. Despite the controls, the handling of the shooting and recycled mechanics like the cover system is quite good, though the reticule of your sights seems too small to see and there isn't a lock-on feature like GTA 4 which makes it a pain to shoot down people on horseback, though when you aim at them, it somewhat follows the target.
Back to the story - as you followed the old crook to your objective, he tells you that they are hiding in an abandoned fort that they claimed as their own stronghold and was outnumbered and shot until someone saves you. You then wake up in the town where Bonnie MacFarlane (the person responsible that save you from death) shows you around town and then makes you do night errands - tutorials on shooting on horseback then racing her in a race which has proven to be tedious to me due to the fact of falling off my horse and the controls. After you can finally roam through New Austin, though Bonnie wants you to travel to Armadillo to buy medicine and to visit Leigh Johnson, the Sheriff on that town as you and her travel on a horse carriage to its destination. Like GTA 4, you get those quirky conversations that Dan Houser is famous for with a western flair to it. Arriving at Armadillo and receiving free medicine from a doctor that had save you, Bonnie left you so that you could talk to the Sheriff and do other activities like bounty hunting, watching movies to buying stuff. I didn't hesitate to start the Sheriff quest as the first mission is to kill or capture some convict that rides to his hideout - arriving there and utilizing the cover mechanics and popping everyone, I succeeded on capturing him and getting some notoriety. Yeah, this game has a moral system, like any other games today, I won't go into detail.
After that, I decided to do some roaming in The Frontier - killing bandits ambushing me, raiding and looting them and the hides of animals (ewwww) to doing side missions that linger upon this part of the world. My first one was to rescue someone's daughter in Cholla Springs where bandits had taken hostage of her and it is up to the rancher's father and me to save her. Minutes later with shooting them off the cliffs and using my slow-motion, I managed to save the daughter and was received more good notoriety. Through the course of traveling, I leveled up my survival to level 2, picking up flowers/herbs that heal diseases, starting on a stranger quest where I need to find a mother's missing son, finishing a bounty to kill someone and having wave after wave of bandits harassing and finding a treasure map that I wish it will point out where the treasure is - there is alot of things that I maybe to invested to for a while. Regardless, I managed to do another Sheriff quest where he and the rest of the deputies got a led on a gang and we had to take them out. The ironic thing is I ventured through that place when it's empty, looting the chests and such and I had to go there again but this time with an army of outlaws against a group of four as we branched off from a fork into their hideout, we managed to finish the mission. I went back to Bonnie's town and save and saw a poker icon where I decided to play. Now, this mini-game is Texas Hold-em and I had never played this game therefore I keep on losing - though I had researched this game and it says that its a game about surviving in a suitable amount of chips and playing it sort of like Big 2. My game with the fine gents of the poker table took about two days, game time - seeing that morning to night transition - and had eliminated two of them but the other two is too hard for me so I decided to quit.
And so after that I traveled a bit, shooting down bandits that raided Armadillo and knifed a dirty bandit that was sexually harassing a prostitute near a saloon.... then saved and stopped playing.
When I first que up this game, the intro made me think about not only Tombstone but having this theme in the introduction. With Kurt Russell and Val Kimler walking all non-cholant in the streets of tombstone.
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