So This week i've mostly been playing: Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 X-men:Wolverine:Origins:Uncaged Edition Jump Ultimate Stars Disgaea 2 Prinny: some stupid subtitle dood.
NGS2: I may be imagining it, but is this game easier than it originally was...even though i'm playing it on normal? Anyway, its pretty much the same as it was before. The camera is still annoying as hell, spider ninjas still rip you apart until you get the staff. One thing that really annoyed me was the lack of onscreen prompts during the boss battles. Take the statue of liberty boss. I whittled down her health until she put her head down...and, after my time with Bayonetta I thought i had to run up the arms and then hack. It took me 8 go arounds to work out that all i need to do is press triangle. With at least 1/5 of the health left. seriously. WTF. and that infamous flying worm boss in the subway? Took me 7 goes on the 360. Killed him first time on the ps3. Another problem i had was playing as Momiji. After playing as Ryu for ages, playing as momiji with her shitty staff thing was a nasty wake up call. Sticking with a single weapon that goes against your own playing style is..while an understandable mechanic switch...a good way to break the flow of the game.
XWOUE: So much better than the film. I've mentioned it before...so all of that continues I just had a level long boss fight with Remy Pickard (+1 internet if you get that joke) that drove me kind of bonkers. The fighting gets slightly boring after a while, even with the counter/xp/leap mechanics. Something that needs to be played in spurts. Talking of spurts - Wraith as Nightcrawler's father? Logical and far better than the demon storyline originally used. It's always nice to see Mystique in anything, though little is ever made of her age. Being a shapeshifter allows her to slow her ageing. As i understand it she's older than Logan...which would make her birth some time in Early 1800s or perhaps earlier.
Jump Ultimate Stars Shrink Super Smash Bros onto the DS, mix in Shonen Jump properties and some unlocking/level mechanics. So you've got characters from Naruto Shippuden/Bleach/D-Greyman/Hitman Reborn/One Piece/Hokuto No Ken etc etc. You complete levels, much like in SSB with certain rules (ie Survive for 3 mins) with secret rules on top of that. Completing these objectives will net you either new character panels (its set up in manga format) or gems which you use to evolve you character panels. Evolution can get you either more powerful characters, more support characters, stages, unlocks or branch main characters evolutions. All this is governed by the manga screen. You can only fit so many character panels/support panels etc into the space. The more powerful the character, the more space they take up. There are a lot of intricacies to the system, and the battle system works well too. Its about time we had a new instalment.
Disgaea 2. Its D2...just with more stuff. I like the DLC, though it kinda breaks the early game with everyone being lvl 100..but it does make some of those shitty Geo puzzle parts of the game go quicker.
Prinny Well. I don't see why everyone is calling this game hard. It takes a lot from Ghouls and Ghosts as well as Megaman. A sidescrolling platformer where you have 1000 lives, and can be hit 3 times before you die on normal. Sure there are some tricky parts and some blind jumps, but thats to be expected. It looks great, and prinnies are awesome. Oddly enough the whole 'Dood' thing doesn't annoy me. I can see how it could, but for once I seem to be immune.
The games arriving this month are: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (possibly awful, but it was dirt cheap..and you can play as G1 starscream with the DLC..so sold)
Lost Planet 2: Again dirt cheap, and i really enjoyed my time with the first game (see previous blog post)
MGS: Peace Walker: Anyone shocked here?
Uncharted 2 platinum: I sold the original a week after it came out and got only €20, so buying the plat again at £14.99 made sense.
Ratchet and Clank: A crack in time plat: I love R&C, and a plat release was too good to pass up
Transformer: War for Cybertron: I gotta have faith, faith, faith.
I'm going to go back to Yakuza 3 at some point, and I still have no desire to continue playing RDR.
Anyway, let me know if you have any obscure suggestions for me to take a look at on my ds or psp...I'm not a mario/pokemon/zelda player so forget about those. hmm I feel like i should make some mention of how I don't understand women, but I got my teaching from the Old School:
It's a funny old world eh? 4 Years ago (or there about) LP came out for the 360. Being a card carrying member of the 360 brigade back then (nothing worse than a reformed sinner) I was mighty interested in it. I always give Capcom a fair shake in any of their games. So, I slapped the game in and played it for a couple of days. I can't say I liked it much. At the time I thought the game was janky, clunky controls and cheap bosses. I stopped at the spider mech boss on level 8?....Frustration got the better of me, and Dead Rising was calling.
Four years later. I've just finished LP on my ps3...and I have to say, cheap boss fights aside, I really enjoyed it. Even the godawful storyline. Why? Well to begin with I fixed the controls to something more my taste. I stopped that weird floaty targeting by turning it off (the reticule now moves like a normal TPS). Next the graphics were certainly helped by my HDTV, I thought it looked great. Is it still 'janky' (whatever that actually means) Meh...sure. Some of the animation is a bit too long, the AI of the human enemies is closer to arcade cannon fodder than modern gaming and...yes those bosses are cheap. Don't get me wrong, I have a love/hate relationship with cheap bosses. DMC is one of my favourite series. The controls are still clunky, but I adapted pretty quickly. I'd like to be able to use the hook more, a la Just Cause 2. They could also make dodging easier to pull off, clicking in the stick then pressing X can go awry some of the time, but otherwise I didn't have much to complain about.
The story..well...it is what it is. Wayne (I thought only Ice Hockey players, Footballers and some dude who works out of his basement were called Wayne) and his cohorts take on a very..Blue Gender style mission to eradicate Green Eye, the giant Akrid that..ahem...Supposedly killed Wayne's father Gale. Along the way a..erm..sort of 'conspiracy' to wipe out all living things on the planet in order to terraform EDN III becomes the main..erm..'plot'. As you might be able to tell, my feelings on the plot are relatively negative. It was the character interactions I enjoyed between Wayne, Yuri, Luka, Rick and SUPER JOE. They could have gone more into the Harmonizer and its effects on the wearer...It was a little too much Deus Ex Machina for my taste. Which leads me to perhaps my major gripe with most games of this mold these days. You're a single guy taking down millions of other guys. They really need to come up with ways where that actually makes sense. For instance, in this case they could have made Wayne's harmonizer a little more an active part of the game. Sure it heals you and powers stuff..but thats all passive. Perhaps a background which would explain his piloting abilities and shooting skills. Anything to make the Rambo act seem more realistic. Its a small flaw in a very flawed storyline, but sometimes thats what stands out the most.
Anyway, I enjoyed my time with the game..which surprised me no end. I spent my time playing this instead of RDR...which may say more about my taste than the overall quality of the product. I look forward to playing LP2 to see if it deserved the lamblasting it got by critics or the praise it gets from fans.
I'm in Mehico, first couple of missions done, got Dead Eye Level 3...great. So I'm vaguely enjoying myself just riding around till I go meet the mexican version of Tony Montoya who seems to be the LT for the big Jefe. He's got a mission for me...gotta go ride with him to capture some rebel scum (cue imperial march) So I say, 'okay' lets go shoot us some banditos. Next thing i know we're protecting the train from assault on all sides while on horseback..... ..... aaand then i turned it off. Why? Well...apart from dying twice (which happens..) I'm kinda bored of shooting random people on horses while defending things. There's only so much scrubland and arid wasteland a guy can take in one go. It's just not what i call fun. So yeah, nothing against the game, but I'm gonna leave it a while and come back later.
While we're on the subject, RDR appears to have circumvented one of the major flaws that R* has in its narratives. I'm talking about the disconnection between the narrative drive of the character and the player's penchant for destruction. GTA has always been as much about blowing shit up and going 'say hello to my little friend' as it is about the storyline. Moreso perhaps. RDR and John Marston don't appear to have that problem...at least not how I play. If you go all Dick Turpin on people it may be different...but by restricting the player's destructive capabilities and toning down the comic violence it would appear that in many ways R* has grown up as a storyteller. Of course I'm only a 3rd into the game, if that..so I could be completely off the mark, but I hope not.
So..what did I play to act as the polar opposite (see what i did there?) of RDR? Well...its in the title. The original lost planet (lets...overlook the second for now shall we?) I played Lost Planet on the 360 when it originally came out...and i was not best impressed to be honest. The controls were clunky, the game looked crap on my tv (tiny screen and a CRT so..that may explain that) and it wasn't what i'd call fun. Fast Foward 4? years. I really enjoyed it. Especially after RDR's scrubland seriousness. Some silly fun with mechs and snow was what I needed. Game still feels clunky, but a good kinda clunky. I don't know if this is due to the fact that I've played so many abysmally controlled games of late, I'm beginning to enjoy bad control schemes. Annoyingly it has the same shooting buttons as RDR, and they can't be changed either. It also, shockingly, looks much better on my 30' HDTV One of my favourite games on my 360 was Earth Defence Force. Pure Arcade giant ANT action. This kinda reminded me of that...in a good way. After being savaged by wolves and cougars, its nice to blow away Aliens with conveniently placed glowing weak spots.
I also gave Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm another go. Odd fact: Neither of these games have trophies. Not really a problem, but I thought they were necessary by late 2008 when these games came out. I know MGS4 doesn't have them..but.. Anyway. Not that great a game. I understand why they chose this mission structure (need to get X mission points to be able to do Y storyline mission). Its kinda like Saints Row 2 in that respect. It just feels rather forced and the 'minigames' really aren't that great on the whole. They're short..but you can only search for Konamamaru so many times. Also Naruto kinda annoys me. It would be much worse in English but still... Why couldn't we select a character (Shikimaru) and play though the campaign as said character...leveling up and gaining new abilities. NUNS just seems to forced into the anime format..sure it looks great, but the single player just feels tacked on, like many fighting games.
In other news: Pre-ordered P3P from videogameplus.ca Atlus are really bad at supporting the handheld markets in the EU in regards to SMT. Still don't have Devil Survivor in the EU let alone Strange Journey. They need to pull it together. Geeze Demon's Souls was hard enough to get over here.
So.... *cringes slightly* If I'm enjoying the first LP (purely for single player...my connection can barely handle video let alone online multiplayer) is there a good chance I'll enjoy LP2 (whose price is plummeting like a stone) Let me know after the *beep*
Well now, I'm 5 hours into it. Thats 2+ hours than GTAIV so its got to be doing something right. After my initial complaints, I'm getting used to the controls. I still think that tapping X to sprint is stupid as hell..but there you go. There was one mission, I'm sure those who have played the game know which one I'm talking about..with the Treasure hunters which is just plain broken. I ended up repeatedly getting off my horse and DEing them. Oh..and I'm playing on expert so thats why driving and shooting is a wee bit difficult. Anyway the storyline keeps getting better..perhaps because you begin to become invested in the characters. Getting there in time to shoot the rope is always a good feeling. Giving the guys who did it a severe case of lead poisoning is an even better one. So, yeah, RDR has currently won me round to thinking that its a pretty damn good game so far. Not the greatest by a long shot, but not half bad. If it continues to get better we may have a real winner here boys. ...... okay..perhaps i've been playing it too much. Lots of cowboy lingo coming in there.
Playing through RDR has reminded me of some great...I suppose 'exponents' of the western in the modern age. Thats my long winded way of saying, if you like RDR, take a gander at these:
Jonah Hex: by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Grey I just read the first trade. It reads as a one and done tale. Each issue stands on its own. Set in 1870s Jonah Hex follows..well Hex...as he goes about his business. Which usually involves lots of shooting, scalping and double crossing. Well worth a look if it sounds like your sort of thing.
Scalped: by Jason Aaron. I'll make this one easy. Do you like comics? Do you like good stories that are well written? Do you like ambiguity in your heroes? If yes..why are you not reading this? If no...well, why are you not reading this? Scalped tells the very modern story of Dashiell Bad Horse as he returns to his Reservation 13 years after he left...WITH NUNCHUKS. He returns to find a Casino being built by Red Crow..the local crime boss. Dash starts to work for him, as a...hmmm...enforcer/cop. but theres (cue music) more to Dash than meets the eye.
One of the best ongoing series since Y: The Last man. Buy it.
In other news. I've been bitten by the Disgaea bug again. I've been playing D2 on my psp and..well just this afternoon blasted through a couple of levels of D3 on the ps3. God those are good games. Looking at the trophies on the ps3, I wonder who has had the time to do any of those...if not all. Madness I say. I had another go at SF4. I can't play it. I just can't. I don't know if its the ps3 pad which is making it so difficult, or I'm just beyond the mechanics. Playing as..erm...French dude who kinda looks like Cody on the EASIEST setting I can get to Seth..and then I can get no further. Whatever I do. I'm loath to blame a pad for my problems, but I was damn good at SFA3 and SNKvsC2. That was some time ago..so perhaps I'm just shit these days. Well..apart from Tats vs Capcom. I kick ass in that. Maybe I'll wait for MvC3 and buy a decent pad.
What else. Hmm Well Now I've finished my CELTA (Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Adults thingy) I'm gonna.... Learn some Arabic. Why not eh? Writing right to left is going to blow my mind..but It'll be good practice for learning Japanese before I go. Or maybe i'll just go to Syria. Beautiful country.
Whew its been a while. Celta course has now finished, so i can actually string more than 3 words together in a comprehensible sentence....which is nice. UPDATE. This week, I've mostly been receiving in the post:
GOTY Edition
and, if you're interested: Red Robin: The Grail (Yost is a great writer) Jonah Hex (first trade) Scalped: Dead Mothers (read this series now) 100 Bullets (First Trade) and I just got Disgaea 2 off PSN.
Im going to give a quick round up of what I think about the games of been playing recently: Keep in mind i have a 40gb model, and no I'm not going to upgrade it. I'll just fuck it up.
Far Cry 2: Nice idea, lovely scenery, god awful execution. 5gbs install....no fucking way.
Naruto Ninja Storm: OOOOOOOOOOOO pretty. okay. Fighty Fighty. Nice system. Not bad. 5gbs install. Nope.
Yakuza 3 Yes. This is what I'm talking about. Fantastic game. Will continue to play. 5gbs install? Totally worth it.
Brutal Legend: Hey...now thats a cool idea for an intro. Yep, thats kinda cool.....oh look its Ozzy. Yep. Gotcha. Ill come back for that. 2gbs install. Meh.
and so..onto RDR.
I'm on record , many times, for saying how much I dislike GTAIV. So, I wasn't much into this...but the promos won me over. Okay, lets deal with what I like about the game first: The voice acting and the script. Sensational. Best I've seen in this type of game so far. Kudos for that. Still prefer Yakuza though. The sky is gorgeous. The atmosphere is also second to none. For a place that is supposed to be sooo empty, it has a hell of a lot to do. Horses and wildlife look great.
On to my problems (I've only played an hour so far mind you) The controls. I don't....They're just don't work for me. Press X repeatedly to run? Why can't i just hold it? R1 to stick to cover? why not use square..why do you need to jump? my biggest problem is not allowing me to change the aiming and shooting buttons to R1 and L1. I can see why they chose otherwise, but I'd like to be able to make that decision. Why can't we customise the controls? Also just generally how the character moves and pivots everywhere. To me its much more pronounced than in AC2 which has a similar problem, but AC2 is much more fluid and graceful. This just feels like controlling a robot who needs a massive turning circle. Also..tons of pop up on my ps3, but that may just be me. Who knows.
Most of my problems with RDR are little things that may just be how R* make games these days. I can't really fault them for what they've done, it is a masterpiece...it just may not be MY kind of masterpiece...which is a bit sad.
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Another thing I don't understand: Immersion in video games.
According to Steve Woyach over at illumin.edu.usc this is Immersion: Immersion is the process by which a media element entices a person to suspend their disbelief and accept what they are viewing on a screen or page as actual reality. Through non-linear dramatic elements and interaction between the player and the computer, a video game achieves a level of reality that demands very little suspension of disbelief and is therefore a more compelling experience. Further advances in artificial intelligence and new ways of modeling interactive environments serve to make the environment more immersive, until suspension of disbelief is no longer necessary. (http://illumin.usc.edu/article.php?articleID=103)
Does anybody actually do that? Suspend your disbelief and accept what they are watching on the screen as reality? Is this why we've lost the health bar and the majority of the HUD in recent games? As I've mentioned before, this is not something I personally like. Give me health bars and floating combat text and I'm happy. I'd probably play Mario if it had that added. (Not a big mario fan by a long mile)
What are your thoughts on the future of player/game interaction? Does increased interaction between the two lead to the breaking down the barriers between reality and..hmm..'hyper' reality.
Reminds me of Tad Williams 'Otherland' series. Well worth reading if you like Sci-Fi sort of things.
edit: let me reiterate the question: do you think Immersion as understood by the industry is a good thing?
Since we've all heard about Kotaku and Konami recently, i thought this might interest (forgive me if i'm behind on this)
An Australian Zoo Weekly editor claims to have been fired from his position for blowing the whistle on Rockstar's attempts to influence his Red Dead Redemption review:
A magazine editor who claims he was sacked for posting part of an internal email on Facebook says he was blowing the whistle on video game companies pressuring publications for favourable coverage. Former Zoo Weekly deputy entertainment editor Toby McCasker last month posted on Facebook part of an email that seemed to show a game maker demanding a positive spin on its latest title.
The email was allegedly sent by a publicist for Rockstar Games to staff at the magazine, concerning coverage of the company's new title Red Dead Redemption.
"This is the biggest game we've done since GTA IV, and is already receiving Game of the Year 2010 nominations from specialists all around the world," it read. "Can you please ensure Toby's article reflects this — he needs to respect the huge achievement he's writing about here."
McCasker told news.com.au the email was an example of growing pressure from game companies for favourable media coverage.
"I did not sign up to become a journalist to write advertorials masquerading as editorial," he said. "This 'cash for comment' culture that is fast becoming the status quo within print media bothers me a lot."
I could be wrong but I think Zoo weekly is a 'lads mag' in the vein of a dumbed down (if thats possible) FHM. So it's hardly a gaming mag, or particularly reputable, but its interesting nevertheless.
Of all the games coming out this month, I didn't think this would be necessary considering how the critics love nigh on everything Rockstar put out, even if its a piece of crap like GTA4.
So over enthusiastic PR person, or a conspiracy of control (tin hats at the ready)?
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First off...I've had a reaaaaaaaaaally long week, so forgive me if I somehow forget how to either spell or use my rhetorical skills. Subject+verb+have+-ing ending
What? Where?
Whew. So here are this weeks Bargain Bin gaming. Looking at how the economy is committing suicide due to the Hung Parliament in the UK, it might be my last for a while. (by the way, told.you.so.)
First up
£24.99 Special Edition (with DLC). The annoying thing was that the game was £17.99 the day before, but i held off because Wednesday is PS3 bargain day on the site. Apparently it was 'lets bump the prices up' day instead. Either way, I had to get it. Looks awesome and it'll help my Japanese. On a side note: I.dont.care.about.the.cuts.
Next:
Yep, NUNS for £17.99. Its got Kakashi in it. Look, I used to watch Naruto way back..when..2 years ago, but I kinda got bored. I've played the demo and it was very purrrty and played well. I loved the gamecube ultimate ninja 4 or whatever it was called. Had a look today and its £22.99, so....lucky on that one.
Next:
£14.99. Yep. I thought that was pretty sweet too. Demo was awesome for what it was, and to be honest the RTS idea kinda intrigues me. Also..awesome soundtrack.
Now..its not like I'm actually going to be able to play these for a while, serious cellophane (plastic covering) games on the shelf...Demon's Souls is still around and, well, my course takes up all day and all night. I barely get a lunch break, and lesson planning is not cool. Luckily the students make it all worth while.
Not a bargain bin game by any means, but you may..but probably don't..know that Ive been a wee bit pessimistic about Red Dead Redemption. Why? I fucking Loathe GTA. Hate it. I'm not a big fan of open world games to be honest. Give me a corridor which goes in a straight line, some things to do and an excellent storyline and I'm happy. Red Dead is made by Rockstar, Rockstar=Shitty overblown games as far as I'm concerned (notice the emphasis on I'M, and yes that is a contraction of I AM, being the present continuous) Then i remembered I REALLY liked what i played of Gun, and Deadwood (what I saw of it) was really interesting. So I had a look at some videos of the game. That's not GTA Pre-ordered for £34.99. Shit, the gun holstering motion was enough to make me want to buy the game. Lets hope it's as good as it looks...and damn it looks good. Now If only Alan Wake was on PS3.
(collapses on Keyboard)
EDIT: Fixed pictures hopefully. Back to Burn Notice.
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Unsurprisingly, Demon'sssss Souls has been the game that has taken up the majority of my play time. I've had the place to myself these past couple of days, so before i start my CELTA course on monday, I've been hitting those Demon's..souls hard. With a pointy stick. Just to make one thing clear before we start: Demon's Souls is not hard. It certainly punishes 'run and gun' behaviour, but if you move slowly and carry a big wand you'll be fine for the most part. I've killed the bosses of 1-1 (Phalanx) 1-2 (Tower Knight who was ridiculously easy with a royal) and 2-1 (spam soul thing at giant spider) so I feel pretty secure in the game now. 3-1 was a complete bitch to begin with. Trial and Error are a massive part in this game. One minute your fine, the next 7 prisoners stab you at once while the bells keep coming closer. The Bells. I've never been scared of anything in a game as much as i am of those goddamn bells. The Cthulhu wannabes get smoked quickly if you can see them, but...the bells. Gods. I had my first Black Phantom visit as well. From what I understand, you can't go all black Phantom on someone till you get a certain stone from a boss or something. I'm miles away from that, so it was a bit unnerving to say the least when this random dude showed up, wrecked my gear and than sliced me in 2, leaving me with an 8000 soul bill. Not cool, especially when I had very nearly killed him. Anyway I'm up to the boss on 3-1 when i get around to it... I played around with some other low level characters. I'm very fond of my Thief and Hunter as well, the problem is that neither can cast magic, and at the beginning of the game thats the easiest way to roll, especially with a mp refilling ring. 100+ Arrows into that Spider boss only took it down to 1/2 with my Thief so i was fucked right there.
Next up is:
Xmen:Origins:Wolverine:Uncaged Edition. There are nearly as many colons in the title as there are ripped from random dude's abdomens in this game. To be honest, I wasn't expecting much. I'd played the demo, and that had some nice bits to it..but nothing much. I'm not the greatest Wolverine fan...I've got the first black and white Essential from the Claremont era and Miller's Enemy of the State, but thats about as far as i go. I'll pick up Jason Aaron's run on Weapon X when I get time though..Scalped is a seriously good comic. Anyway back to the game, as I said I wasn't expecting much so I got a rather nice surprise. XOWUE as I like to call it, is a solid 3rd person hack and slash with a good story. Guggenhiem wrote the story, so that kinda makes sense. It's far superior to the movie which was a major disappointment in nearly every way (do I need to mention Deadpool?). The story is told through Flashbacks, so If you're not familiar with the back story it may confuse you a wee bit. One minute we're ripping apart Wakandans (i assume thats who they are...Vibranium? Adamantium? UNOBTAINIUM?) the next we're having a drink with Creed (whoever thought the half brother thing was a good idea has problems) and then we've lost our healing factor and duking it out with a WENDIGO (again..wtf) You'll notice most of my problems stem from continuity...which pretty much sums up the only glaring fault in my eyes with Wolverine (TM)...sorry XOWUE. Ive had a freeze or two..which may have been because the PS3 was hot, but..just so you know. If you remember waaaay back, there was a pretty solid ps2 wolverine game that used stealth as a mechanic, and I think it could have been used a bit more in this game, and whats with all this slow walking/ear piece Gears of War crap now? The reason you have an ear piece is so you can move while talking, not take a quiet stroll though a military facility . 50 Cent had it too, and its really not needed. Gears can keep it..its a signature of the game. Otherwise its just stupid. There are some really great moments, like jumping on to a helicopter over a ravine, or the tunnel escape. Cinematic cutscenes are the name of the game with n'arey a QTE in sight...something that, after Bayonetta, makes Dudeglove twitch. If, like me, you like hack and slash games but thing God of War really only needed 2 games..take a look at this game. Get it for less than $20/£10 and you're in for a surprise.
Moving on:
Another game i didn't expect much from, and another surprise. Yes, there are some major flaws to this game, especially with the whole 'radiation on buildings' fiasco, but otherwise it's a solid game. What shocked me was, after playing XOWUE, i put this in and whoom Wolverine's back again. Kinda through me off. 'Super' Joe is voiced by the same guy who does Wolverine..so that was fun. Anyway, swinging. Doesn't always work the way you want to. You have to actually be facing where you want to go (which, if you overswing, can be a problem) and sometimes the lockon..doesn't lockon (LOCKOOOOOOOON NOOOOOO) cough Otherwise you got yourself a full functioning old school 3rd person shooter. Much more 'arcadey' than i thought. No Cover system here bub. You shoot, you punch, you swing, you fall from a great hight and punch...you fall from a great hight and get Rad poisoning (see what i did there?...no?). Its an old school game. Throughout you get bonus objectives that you can complete (kill 25 guys at once with a floor slam) to get upgrades or trophies. Oh and everyone hates everyone else. Especially Spencer..ooo Betty. Anyway for under a tenner, its not a bad game. Full price? Hell no. Really need to pick up Wanted when i can...
Next Up is:
This is an easy one. I haven't touched it, because
has completely taken over my psp. I'm gonna come out and say it..this isn't a great game by any measurement. The controls aren't bad, but could use some work. Targeting is a joke, and guys with lightning powers and two brothers are waaaaay too cheap at level 9, but by the gods it's addictive. Turn it on, tune out, and hope that you level up enough and have the right mats to get the next badass weapon. Its mindless fun without too much negative things going on. Once you get your Chi boosts on, jumping as high as Superman isn't a problem. I'm probably gonna take a look at Warriors Orichi 2 as well. Mindless fun for the zombie in you.
So, that covers my playing so far. Resonance of Fate has taken a back seat due to time and the MASSIVE difficulty spike in Act 14. As if Act 13 wasn't bad enough....since when was I the fucking Post Office? As I said I'm starting my course on Monday (hour to get there, start at 9:30am finish at 5:30pm) which last a month, so I won't have much time to do anything but work and sleep...and get lost in Madrid on the bus trying to get home.
In other news I saw Kick Ass last night. It was okay. Take out everything that doesn't have Big Daddy and Hit-Girl in it and it would have been a far better movie. John Woo would have been proud and Nicholas Cage's Adam West voice was absolutely hysterical.
Nothing else to add really. I'm doing everything I can to ignore the British Elections, so no spoilers please!
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NO, Not that DW.....unfortunately. So after waiting a good month; I'm the proud owner of an Asian version of Demons' Souls, or Demon's Souls, or as they call it in the game, Demon Souls. First thing that really stuck in my mind about the game? The old school ragdoll bodies. Its like playing Psi-Ops all over again. Bodies crumple to the ground and erm 'hump' the ground every time you walk near them. Its almost charming coming face to face with 2004 again. I take it that its the Havok physics engine that does that..the way the benches etc break really remind me of Psi-Ops (which really should get a sequel, that or Second Sight. Great games). Anywho, I picked my character a 'Royal', the mixture of sword/shield and magic was my sort of thing. So after fiddling with the character presets and making my dude look as 'strangely normal' as possible, I started the game. When people who haven't played DS think of it, at least in my case, I thought 'its a bloody difficult game innit?' Well...not so much. I've played up to the first boss, Mr Blobby (Blob like and allergic to fire...just like Mr Blobby himself) and died a total of twice. Once i got burned to death by sneaky skeletons at the bottom of a tower (bastards) Second time, and this is embarrassing, I took the advice of a note (great idea for a game by the way) and attacked something that you need to be a wee bit more careful around. I then re-enacted that scene from raiders of the lost ark...but without the surviving bit. Blocking is your friend. I suppose watching Vinny on the quick look prepared me for a hell of a lot further in. Dodged the dragon, killed blue eyed dudes left right and centre. No problem. My one big problem? Took me twenty minutes to find the Avatar the last Airbender reject. Seriously. I thought she meant the statue. Statue=Monument=Monumental. Not so much apparently. If you're on the fence about this game, like Diablo or feeling smug cause you know its actually not that difficult...Buy it. Totally worth it.
In other news Dudeglove finished Bayonetta on Infinite Climax mode last night. Round of Applause please. .... ....
See, told you.
Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce for the psp. Well it was an impulse buy on my bargain bin gaming session (see previous blog posts) and..well...hack and slash is my kinda relaxation technique. That, and Gunpla building. Zen Gunpla building. I've had a brief go on it this afternoon. My previous experience with DW has been solely though the two Gundam games which are a guilty pleasure of mine. Being able to hack the fuck out of Shin Auska and Kira Yamoto with Domon is my idea of heaven..but i digress. I think by now everyone has an idea of what DW is. You vs A million dudes who all look the same. Usually with your own legion of guys who all shop at the same store. Thats pretty much strikeforce, but this time its either you on your own, or you and 3 other guys via ad hoc. It uses a village concept similar to Monster Hunter. Ie you get your quests, weapons, quest mates, random people...and go kill lots and lots of people. Couple of things that actually work for me: Lock on: If there is a 'boss' type character, holding L will lockon to him. Makes life a wee bit easier in the melee. Fury Mode: Going SSJ3 is always fun. Levelling and the amount of characters: Massively different characters with different weapons and traits.
I'm interested to see how the flying battles turn out..can't say im holding my breath..but we'll see.
I leave you with a question: Is the colour yellow that I see, the same as the colour yellow you see?
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