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Review: Katawa Shoujo

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:05:00 +0000

A game five years in the making, dating back from a doujinshi artist called RAITA scribbled an idea for a Visual Novel (VN) in the back of one of his pieces in 2000 which ended up stickied on 4chan's /a/ board in 2007. From this initial idea, a bunch of passionate individuals created Four Leaf Studios to realise RAITA's dream. But is it any good? Has anonymous managed to make a mockery of disabled people, or has 4chan managed to produce something lasting?

[note this game does have erotic content which can be disabled, I give a passing mention to this content]

I think first, a primer is in order of what a Visual Novel is all about. Think of them as a novel that uses sprites, graphics and music, along with a "choose your own adventure" feel and you're pretty much there. Professional VNs can be more game like with RPG elements or more linear depending on the story and the developer. Now I wouldn't say I was an expert in VN's but I definitely have played a few in my time. The main thing to remember about a VN is that it has to have a strong story element, and VN's have a strong track record in being so popular that they get made into anime. Maybe you've heard of Clannad? Or Fate/Stay Night? Hirugashi When They Cry? Shuffle? Steins;Gate? All visual novels. VN's due to their limited market tend to have at least one or two erotic scenes to get people to buy them, cynical as it may be.

[When I talk about route I am making note of the fact that the main character is chasing after one specific girl]

Katawa Shoujo starts out fairly typically with our main character, Hisao, clutching a letter that told him to wait in the field as someone wants to speak with him. Luckily for him Iwanako, a girl he's had a crush on tells him she loves him. Unfortunately for him, he proceeds to have a heart attack which is then diagnosed as arrythmia. Hisao ends up staying in the hospital for a few months where people stop coming to see him, including Iwanako. He eventually gets released and has to go to a private school specifically for disabled kids called Yakuno where he meets five (technically six) girls with various disabilites and are the main plots for the game.

Each route is fairly different to the last with only a few sharing the same scene from different perspectives. The relationships of each person differ from person to person and they all have their own hardships that they have to get through. Although Katawa Shoujo literally means cripple girl, a better name might have been broken girl with the amount of personal strife that these girls have to go through.

Special mention has to go to the writers though with the amount of effort that has went into making each character memorable and not using their disability as a defining characteristic. Shizune, who is deaf, happens to be one of the more playful characters, even if her route happens to suffer from the worst writing of all the paths. On the whole though, the writing is one of the best I've had the pleasure to read in games, visual novel or not. Each charater is seperate and defined, and if theres any criticism, its that the comic relief character Kenji, is more annoying than anything, and the sex scenes are a bit short, though that might be down to the artists.

The art throughout is generally of high quality, with the event art like the one above typically being good but sometimes suffering from poor quality control with the art looking a little ragged with the lines being unjoined. The sprite art however is very good with it easy to tell each characters moods instantly.

So the girls, what are they like? Emi, is a double amputee of the leg, below the knee, she is still very active though and is a member of the track and field team. Her friend Rin is a double amputee of the arm above the elbow and an artist, she lives next door to Emi and is reliant on her to dress, but she manages to do every day things with her feet. Lilly is blind and gets by with a cane, she's very well off and has an air of prestige around her yet she's independent of her parents. Hanako is Lilly's best friend and spends time with her in a disused classroom drinking tea. She also has burns over one side of her body which seems to have given her a very shy and easily startled persona. Finally we have Shizune and her interpreter and friend Misha. Shizune is deaf, and Misha signs for her and they are both part of the student council.

Some sound stereotypical and generic, but believe me, once you actually get into and read each girls story and how they became who they are, you'll come to love them in their own ways.

Another note has to be made about how fantastic the music is in this visual novel, from simple piano pieces to arrangements with violins, the music is bouncy and fresh whilst tending to fit the scenes perfectly well. Not much else to say about it other than the music is fairly memorable and well above anything I've heard before in a viusal novel. One thing that is conspicuous in its absense is voice acting, you may or may not miss it, depending on your take, but it seems it wasn't added to the game to allow translaters to translate the game and give fans in different countries the same experience as English fans are getting.

So, final thoughts? After playing the demo years ago, I was waiting to see what would happen to this game, but promptly forgot about its existence until a month ago when its release was finally announced. Does it feel like a game that came from 4chan? Not at all, and that isn't a slight at 4chan. This game feels, not professional, but not amateurish either. Its a fine game with some aspects that blow modern, expensive visual novels straight out of the water. The music and animated intros (viewable here) are some of the best I've seen in any visual novel or amateur game ever. I have but two wishes for Katawa Shoujo that will probably go unfufilled. Firstly I want to donate money to Four Leaf Studios who have graciously given this 30 hour game away for free and are not accepting donations of any kind. My second and most heart felt wish is that Four Leaf Studios wouldn't disband after this game like they say they are. It would be such a shame to see a group of people as talented as this not make anything together again, as much of a labour of love this was.

Katawa Shoujo manages to be a game about disabled girls where the girls are the most important thing first and the disabilities are handled with respect and care.

Give it a play, it may even make you cry...

[Katawa Shoujo is available to download via torrent (with DDLs later) here]

Operation Rainfall Is Something to Get Behind

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 20:12:00 +0000

Great games for the Wii? There's been a few, but the well has run dry over the past year, especially if you're adverse to any game that has Mario in it. If you're itching for some new games, and wondered why nothing has came out recently, well, its not all the 3rd party publishers fault.

Gamers in the USA have started a grass-roots campaign to get 3 great, yet untranslated, RPGs that Nintendo of America own the rights to publish, yet seem unwilling to release.

Xenoblade

A sprawling RPG epic that rewards exploration and an engaging, and long, storyline. Estimates put the story at being 50-80 hours long, without sidequests. This game was a massive hit in Japan, immediately selling out everywhere, and who can blame them? A sprawling action-JRPG? By the director of the Xenogears/Xenosaga series? Sign me up!

The Last Story

Developed by Mistwalker, creators of the great Lost Odyssey, and Directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series, this game has an impressive pedigree. The Last Story is a clever RPG in that it takes cues from games like Gears of War and Metal Gear Solid, where players can hide behind walls to sneak up on enemies, or even draw fire so team-mates can attack freely with spells. The colour pallette leaves more to be desired, being as it is quite brown, but it looks like its a lot of fun and well worth the inclusion in the Wii's library.

Pandora's Tower

The red-headded stepchild of the trilogy of games in Operation Rainfall is Pandora's Tower. A mixture between Devil May Cry and Castlevania, Pandora's Tower has a pretty interesting story to go along with it, involving a girl who has to eat monster flesh in order to stop turning into a monster.

All three look like being great games and well worth any RPG fan's time, so why the delays Nintendo of America? Luckily for us Europeans used to being witheld of great games (999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors anyone?) Xenosaga has been confirmed by Nintendo France that it's coming, and some gameplay has leaked of a very British sounding dub with English subtitles. Nintendo France has also teased that Pandora's Tower may be getting a release in 2012.

So, come on Nintendo America, do the right thing, let gamers experience these games, it'll might not be great for business, but it would be good for Nintendo's reputation which you can't put a price on, only gain or lose.

Review: Deathsmiles

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:30:00 +0000

Developer: Cave
Publisher: Rising Star Games
Released: February 18th
Price: £24.99

Rising Star Games may be one of my favourite publishers out there right now, with their knack of bringing great games to Europe by publishing some greats like No More Heroes and Luminous Arc, but will the publishing of the first retail Cave-developed shooter be another string to the Rising Star bow or will it be just another shooter.
First, history quiz for Cave. They are THE daddies of the side-scrolling shooter, having produced vertical and horizontal games for arcades and later consoles since 1995, though, granted the list of games they've produced doesn't sound like the household names they should be. On to Deathsmiles. As said before this is the first game to make it over to the game shelves of Europe, so is it any good?

Deathsmiles puts you in charge of one of five playable girls who have the ability to shoot all the demons in their path, you have to help guide them through the moving maze of bullets and try to kill everything that moves. The graphics have an old school sprite charm to them, much like the whole game. Getting through the game unscathed will take hours of practice and many playthroughs until you find the sweet spot for getting through the game without dying, and this is where the main chunk of the game is, memorising your paths to get a good score at the end of the game.

Now, you'll notice I haven't spoke much about the story as, well, there isn't one. Or at least one in game. There isn't any huge cutscenes or epic CGI videos to gawk at, instead you'll have to read the manual to understand what the overarching story is, and how all the girls ended up in the "Otherworld". Not much else to say on the story front, its there, but you won't really notice it all that much.

There's several different modes of bullet hell you can choose, the original Arcade version, a version which was optimised for the xbox 360 and a version 1.1 which up's the difficulty even more. Also included is the appropriately awkward sounding Mega Black Label DLC which adds a 4th difficulty from the normal levels of 1, 2 and 3 called the ominous sounding level 999. Is it deserved? Oh yes.

Level 999 gives a whole new meaning to the term bullet hell that the shoot-'em-up genre is famous for. Bullets will be coming at you from all angles and it'll feel like the game is just determined to make you give up and run away. Of course it's Level 999 that provides the most points so if you want that precious leaderboard postitions then it'll take lots of practice and watching replays.

But what if you haven't played a "bullet hell" game before? Does Deathsmiles still provide a fun experience for newcomers. Unquestionably, you can easily "complete" the game in a half hour with a character and the levels do get progressivly harder, but you'll feel yourself get better at them. It also doesn't take itself too seriously. In one of the most memorable boss battles I've seen in a while had me facing off against Mary. A GIANT COW. It was a truly epic experience and still makes me laugh even now. The boss battles are definitely a lot of fun and will frustrate but when your final boss battle is against a demon called "Tyrannosatan" you know its going to be an thrilling ride. Oh and that isn't a typo. Tyrannosatan. Let that sink in....Tyrannosatan.

So if you've ever been interested in the shoot 'em up genre of games or maybe would just like a change of pace from everything else out there, I definitely recommend Deathsmiles. Now if you don't mind, I've still got to kill Tyrannosatan again.

Coming In The Next Few Weeks

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 19:05:00 +0000

If you follow my twitter, you'll know I've pre-ordered Deathsmiles which comes out this Friday so expect a review soon. Also coming up is Pokemon Black/White and Dragon Age II which I'm trying to figure out what to get so maybe you'll see a review of one, or both, or maybe neither depending on funds.

Guitar Hero: An Eulogy

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 21:39:00 +0000

As many of you should know by now, Activision has announced that it is shuttering its Guitar Hero Licensing division and will cease development of all further games and DLC for Guitar Hero and it's sister game DJ Hero. Guitar Hero was a game very dear to me and I would urge all readers to post their memories as I will also do this below.

I first played the original Guitar Hero in late 2006 when a friend of a friend brought over the original one to a party and I only got a chance to play it once, and that was doing horribly to Franz Ferdinand's Take Me Out. It felt pretty alien to use my hand eye coordination in time to the beat of the song, but it was fun. I could see the concept of it being addictive, but having no PS2 at the time, and costing a fair amount of money for one game I held out. Until Guitar Hero II on the Xbox 360.

I was utterly addicted to Guitar Hero II, and it introduced me to some great music, bands like Rush, Heart and the guitar playing of Johnny Winter. I can still remember playing (and getting annoyed at) Nirvana's Heart Shaped Box as I tried to move up difficulty levels. Even today when I hear Cherry Pie I go back to when I was playing it in guitar hero and a big smile always crosses my face.

But during this time, Activision bought RedOctane, the guitar controller manufacturer, Harmonix was bought by Viacom/MTV Games and Guitar Hero 3 came out. Guitar Hero 3 was developed by long time Tony Hawk Pro Skater makers Neversoft and brought a lot of licensed music to the table. Gone were the shoddy covers that plagued previous games, like that of Killing in the Name in Guitar Hero II. There was a greater mix of recent and old tracks, with AFI's Miss Murder and Priestess' Lay Down bringing the modern rock, but there was still classic rock from The Who and The Rolling Stones. The main difference from Neversoft and Harmonix and their charting styles was that Neversoft definitely added a lot more notes that made the game harder, but not specifically accurate for the song. Well that and hammer-ons were now a million times easieras you didn't have to "hammer" in time.

Harmonix on the other hand were busy making their new game which expanded the guitar experience to drums and vocals so that four people could play at once. It came out a month after Guitar Hero 3 in the US, but took a few months to come out in Europe. Guitar Hero meanwhile released the first band-centric game in the series based around Aerosmith. This seemed to be a creative and critical mistake as the game itself was very bland and and only really for fans of the band, though sales of Guitar Hero Aerosmith sold in excess of 3.6 million units.

The release of Guitar Hero World Tour was where the wheels truly started to fall off. By expanding the guitar gameplay to a full band instead of just focusing on just the guitar, a few of the tracks were dull for certain instruments. Add in to the fact that vocals were pretty broken and near impossible to 100% a track unless you sounded EXACTLY like the original vocalist for the whole song. It was entirely possible to get all the phrases in a song, but not get 100% accuracy. One thing I personally hated was that the animations were stiff, cheesy (seriously, why does the vocalist moonwalk on the Michael Jackson track?), and at the end of the track praised the instrument you were playing as if you were playing solo, which totally ruined the feeling of being in a band.

The Guitar Hero games kept coming with Guitar Hero Metallica and Guitar Hero Greatest Hits (Guitar Hero Smash Hits outside of Europe). With both games coming out in a relatively short time, and in under a month in Europe, why Greatest Hits came out as a full priced game instead of DLC for the Guitar Hero games was questioned, especially as all the tracks in Greatest Hits were all just remakes of tracks that had appeared in previous games.

For me this is when I stopped playing Guitar Hero, the exports were weak, the support for DLC and integration into the games was shaky at best. Sales for both Guitar Hero and Rock Band are down, and it seems like the rhythm game fad is over, and it remains to be seen if it will continue at all at it's present pace. For the fans of Guitar Hero, my condolences. It was a great ride when it lasted, but the show is over, and there's no encore in sight.

My Repetance for the 45K challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 19:37:00 +0000

So Nic's made his decision for me, and in doing so came up with a great idea. So how did he choose, did he prefer to punish me with my biggest disappointment of 2010, or resign me to staring at misproportioned women with their own, entirely unique, physics. Well read on...

Have you been to my friend's Nic blog? It's very good, and he has a friend to write more articles for him. And he wears a Fez, how cool is that? But anyway Nic has passed his judgment in a blog post HERE and decreed that I should complete FINAL FANTASY XIII.

This will be an arduous task that I will complete over the next couple of weeks. Nic also brings up a good point about giving each other challenges and tasks to complete and I think I might post one for Nic when I'm done with FFXIII

My Failure at the 45K Gamerscore Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 12:46:00 +0000

It's been a while since I've wrote about this and with good reason, I got a bit ill, hurt my self under the influence of alcohol (Don't do that at home kids, especially when there's drinking games) and as a result I got no where near my goal. So what shall I do to make up for it, read on to find out.

I feel that my punishment should fit the crime somewhat so I have came up with two potential punishments, both are awful and somewhat difficult and I will not choose which one to pick, instead my good friend Nic (who you can see in his gaming blog HERE). So, Nic, here are your choices...

OPTION 1

Complete Final Fantasy XIII

I mentioned in my best of earlier that FF XIII was my biggest disappointment of the year, and rightly so. I never did get very far though, and if truth be told, I've never been very good at RPGs even if I do love them. But to complete FFXIII from start to finish would take some considerable time, patience, effort, and maybe some tears from me to have to do it. But I would...eventually.

OPTION 2

Get an achievement in Dead Or Alive Xtreme 2

This one would be somewhat humiliating, and an exercise in tedium. This is quite possibly the worst game I own, and the hardest for achievements. To get one, ONE, I have to collect all the swimsuits for one character, to get them all, I'd have to get all the swimsuits about 9 times over, for all the characters. That would possibly take weeks or months of constant playing. Put that into a game where gambling is the most fun, and the titillation has the worst physics in a game I think this is a hefty punishment. I think THIS comic sums it up nicely, in what will be probably my only link to Ctrl+Alt+Del.

So why one achievement and not them all? Well, there's a thin line between punishment and a war crime, and I think having to deal with always having this game in my achievement list is punishment enough.

Those are the two choices, I think they're the right side of awful so over to you Nic, what will you choose?

Unsung Heroes Seem A Bit More Vocal Than Most

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 22:12:00 +0000

As a follower of Jim Sterling's twitter, he posts some very interesting things, and one of them definitely got me going. In an article in the Wall Street Journal, Daniel Dumas has listed the games that he feels were unsung in 2010, proudly proclaming, "No Mario Kart. No Beatles. No Halo." The problem is, it might just as well have been.

My main problem with the article, which you can find HERE, was that the games mentioned (Gran Turismo 5, Mass Effect 2, Goldeneye 007) had large budgets and large advertising budgets. Its the equivalent of saying the unsung artists of 2010 were Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber, or the movies you should've seen but didn't were Inception and Toy Story 3. Its beyond ridiculous. I'm not saying that Wall Street Journal should have a heavy gaming presence, but at least do some research.

This feeds into another point I find interesting, why is gaming so misrepresented by newspapers? Often its 3 paragraph reviews that consist of what was printed on the back of the box with an obligatory score, usually out of 5. You don't see the same with albums and movies, so why should gamers put up with the same? Is it because we know that the papers don't matter and will just read reviews from trusted websites like Destructoid, Kotaku or Eurogamer? I would like to see one newspaper have one side in their entertainment weekly devoted to reviewing that weeks game releases, where the reviews are thorough and are given a weighted score where reviewers actually use the breadth of scores available to them. If they put a review score on at all.

Why do we arbitrarily put a score on a review, surely the tone and what the reviewer says should be more than enough to convince us that a game is worth £40 now, £20 in the sales, or not bothering at all.

I'm ranting too much, so for Daniel Dumas I'll post 3 proper "Unsung Heroes"

Minecraft

All it takes is one game to capture the collective consciousness of everyone who plays it, with knowing nods between everyone who plays it. Minecraft was that game. With blocky visuals and a great crafting system, Minecraft captured the imagination of everyone who played it. It was the videogame equivalent of lego, but a lot more interactive. And with Creepers...and zombies. The things people made in Minecraft was staggering, from a giant recreation of Earth, to giant mansions. It was the one game this year where players could go wild with their creativity.

Deadly Premonition

Here's a game that divided opinion on release, though 9 out of 10 of you will not know what this game is or what its about. Think Twin Peaks in video game form, mixed with some cheap B-movie horror, and you have Deadly Premonition. With some great voice acting and a script that will make you cringe and laugh at the same time, you have one of the few games this year that didn't take itself too seriously and was better for it.

Super Meat Boy

A game that is very reminiscent of another game that shares the same initials (Super Mario Bros) with it's simple 2D platforming, though a word of warning, just because it's 2D does not make it easy. In SMB, you play Meat Boy, who is trying to rescue his girlfriend, Bandage Girl, from the evil Dr Fetus. Yes the characters are a bit...gory, but that's part of the games appeal. With Meat Boy running, jumping and sliding, he leaves a deliciously red trail, and with plenty of circular saws to trap Meat Boy. This game is fantastically addictive and that "one more go" will last well into the small hours of the morning.

Best of 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 00:35:00 +0000

So 2010 has been and gone and has left in its wake some great gaming news stories. Harmonix being sold, the falling out between Activision and Infinity Ward's founders (and subsequent hiring by EA) and at E3, Sony and Microsoft showed off their motion controllers to the world.

More about 2010 after the jump...

And then there was the games. 2010 was a pretty good year for gaming on the whole, with some excellent games released such as Rock Band 3, Call Of Duty Black Ops, Deadly Premonition, Red Dead Redemption, Halo Reach, Gran Turismo 5 and many many more released this year. I shall honour my favourites (that I've played) in this post.

Anyway on to the awards:

Best Beard in a Game

There can only can be one possible winner for this one and it goes to....

The beard in this game is as fine of an example as you're likely to see.

Best Flash Game

There was one flash game that kept me going back to it with its bright visuals, fun battle system and it doesn't take itself too seriously.
That game is Epic Battle Fantasy 3.

With a score that would put some other games to shame, this game hooked me from the start and wouldn't relent until I did. At 3 a.m.
A notable mention has to go to Pixel Purge and being the best "twin stick" shooter I've played on PC
Epic Battle Fantasy is playable on Kongregate here
Pixel Purge is also playable on Kongregate here

Biggest disappointment of 2010
This could be a long one. There were many things in 2010 that were disappointing, from the SSX reveal trailer to Sony's Move controller with its confusing configurations for games. There was the long delays (and eventual release) of Gran Turismo 5 which somehow ended up looking worse than Forza 3 which came out a year earlier, though that might not be totally fair as ALL the Forza games have been released in the time its taken Polyphony to release GT 5.

Although all this was disappointing the biggest disappointment of them all was...

I was personally looking forward for this game to come out for so long, I was demolishing every preview and screenshot I could find and D-Day came and...it was crushing. I remember Final Fantasy as being sprawling epics where you can get sidetracked and lost for hours and hours, having to endure random battles to get where you want or just go wherever you want.

Imagine my hurt when I loaded up the game and was met with corridors...lots and lots of corridors. I checked the guide, which I thought would help my epic adventure, and noticed the game's maps doesn't open up until you're at chapter 11...of 13...

Add that into a battle system that, again, holds your hand until chapter 9 i think with a confusingly told story that you need to read pages and pages of background information to understand, and this game crushed my love for Final Fantasy. I may crawl back like an abused lover, but the love will never be the same.

Now for the big one, my favourite game of the year that I actually played. If you believe that I'm wrong, its either I haven't played the game you're talking about, or you're entitled to your opinion (even if it is wrong)

Game of 2010

There was only one game this could be, one game that captured my heart and although I disagreed with some of the design choices, it was still head and shoulders above everything else in scale, scope and just sheer joy for the player. That game is of course:

The saga of Commander Shepard is one of the most well told stories in gaming this generation with so many little side stories of rifts that are hundreds of years deep like those of the Krogan and, well, almost every other species. The great thing is though that you can play this game 30 times with 30 different Shepards and have a unique experience every time. My current play through has a female Shepard who was going to get busy with Garrus (a turian) and at the last second she cockblocked him, thus being in my books, a space slut. But you can be a patriotic war hero, or just a dick.

This is all without mention the combat which has been tightened up, at the expense of all the pesky RPG gameplay getting in the way. The interrupt system in cutscenes is also a welcome addition and allows you to really feel involved in the story as it all unfolds around you. Add in lots of callbacks to the previous game and Shepard meeting up with a lot of his/her old team mates, and if you're a male Shepard, finally getting it on with the quarian Tali.

Honourable mentions go to Enslaved, which managed to be a gaming equivalent of a Hollywood blockbuster and still be fun, Halo:Reach which proved jetpacks improve EVERYTHING, Rock Band 3 which allowed us to finally realise that we can be the Piano Man, Dragon Age:Origins if only for "Morrigan Disapproves", BlazBlue for proving there's a space for 2D beat 'em ups and Scott Pilgrim for proving that a licensed game can be good (and had a kick ass soundtrack from Anamanaguchi)

And that neatly wraps up my impressions of 2010. It's been a good year, here's hoping 2011 will provide enough stories to keep us all entertained inbetween all the games.

Rebooted SSX Seems A Step Too Far

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 00:41:00 +0000

First, an admission. I was a HUGE SSX fan back in the day. I'd go as far as to say it's probably one of my all time favourite game series out there and I've been wishing it back for a while. Well at the Spike VGA's it was announced, and the fans went mild.

To put in perspective, here's how I remember SSX games in the past: Big crazy ramps, impossible tricks, over the top characters and generally a lot of fun to begin with.

So why the fan backlash to the new game, surely anything that follows the tried and true formula would be popular again, right? Unfortunately EA has decided that SSX needs "rebooting", an awful catch all term for games that have been around a while in order to get new fans. In their preview video, SSX:Deadly Descent comes across more Call of Duty than snowboarding arcade game.

Video Games | SSX: Deadly Descents | VGA 10: Exclusive Debut Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Will this game be good, hard to say, I'll pass judgement till some gameplay is shown, but I have to say I am feeling disenfranchised if this is the direction they're going. Still, I always have that copy of SSX 3 to remind me how good snowboarding games can be.

Finally hit 40,000 thanks to Sgt Slaughter and others.

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 19:55:00 +0000

Well, I finally broke 40K, which is not bad going seeing as I now have 6 weeks to make 5000 points. This week has been full of ups and downs, playing Mini Ninjas, Naruto: Rise of a Ninja Bionic Commando: Rearmed and passed the 40,000 mark with WWE Legends of Wrestlemania. My thoughts about each game are below.

Mini Ninjas: so far, its a good game, combat is a little dull and boss battles are a bit of a joke, but its really cute and doesn't take itself too seriously.

Naruto: froze on me, kind of hard to figure out what you're supposed to do, but looks gorgeous. Combat is fun too.

Bionic Commando: Rearmed: I got a little bored though this I have to admit, the story is kinda dull and the gunplay is generic if nothing else. The swinging arm sections save it being a complete lost cause though and saves it being wholly awful.

WWE Legends: Arcade wrestling game, not much else to say. The relive matches are fun, but the controls are a bit clunky. Graphics are good though but the game itself is a bit of a grindfest.

Current total: 40,007

How I learned to hate Pat Benatar: 45K Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 20:32:00 +0000

This weekends been busier than I thought it was going to be thanks to an unexpected Paramore ticket (thanks Allan, still will pay you back in some way for that) so I've been unable to play as much as I'd like. I thought I'd get the annoying Band Hero achievements out of the way.

In Band Hero, there are acheivements for hitting all the "secret notes" in certain songs, with the only hints being in the achievement description, and being awkward at best at describing them, for example, *v***s***c* is obviously Evanescence so you'll need to hit the secret notes in Bring Me To Life to unlock the achievement. Got that? OK. Now being secret notes there's no way in knowing what you need to hint, in what part, or for how long.

Annoying?

Very...

Which leads me to the reason for the Pat Benatar hate.

OR as I see her

I could never get the secret notes in Love Is A Battlefield, I knew where it was, as I'd gotten everything perfect up to a certain part, and I'd just choke.It took about 5 attempts and actually practicing (and dropping down a difficulty level, I'm not proud) I somehow managed it.

Why did I put myself through this? There was a big pot of gold for getting all these secret notes in this really quite pants game, 490G. Add to that the 5G's for getting the secret notes in the 19 songs, and you have a tidy increase.

Now if I can go through my life without hearing Love Is a Battlefield I'll be happy.

Current total: 39,762

45,000 Gamerscore Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 15:37:00 +0000

I've been really bad at blogging for the past few months, mainly due to unemployment = no games but I digress. I checked my gamerscore earlier and saw I was just off of getting 40K. Now with nothing to do in the foreseeable future, I've decided to go for 45,000 Gamerscore before the new year.

Before I begin, I have to admit, I am not great at gaming, far from it. I see this as a good chance to complete some games in my back catalog that I've been meaning to get back to and finish. (I'm looking at you Mirrors Edge). If you do want to give me a hand, then please feel free to lend me any game that you may not be needing, Or anyone else reading this, send me free stuff!

I'll be posting (usually) daily posts of any achievements I've been getting and thoughts on games. I've got a list of games I'm wanting to play through: Batman: Arkham Asylum, Mini Ninjas, Mirrors Edge, Dragon Age, Fracture, Prototype. So I'll see how things go and post back with updates.

Current Score: 39187

Just Cause 2: A Dissection

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 18:51:00 +0000

Just Cause 2, for all intents and purposes is a good game. Unfortunately it could have been a lot more than that due to several factors. Why was this game only good, and not the great game it could have been?

Just Cause 2 starts you off as Rico Rodriguez being deployed into the South East Asian island of Panau, which has gone over a regime change and in all honesty, it all descends into generic action fare. The main draw of Just Cause 2 was the destructive element, the ability to create more exciting explosions than a Michael Bay/Jerry Bruckheimer film which it does very well.

The main gimmick is that you have a grappling hook to attach things together, like a soldier to the back of your car/bike/jet plane. Mainly though, you'll use the grappling hook to climb up buildings, and then you'll use the parachute, which is the other main gimmick, to land safely on the ground. It has to be said that it is really fun to fall a good 15,000 feet and at the last second pull out your parachute and glide safely into an enemy base to cause some mayhem.

Sounds pretty awesome no? Well unfortunately there are some things which makes it only a good game rather than a great game. Normally I'd moan about a game adding a multiplayer or co-op mode because it feels obligated to in the increasingly more online way we play our games. Just Cause 2 shirked this, and frankly its screaming out for a co-operative mode, which brings me onto the second problem, the size of the island.

I'm not for a second that Panau should be a large GTA style suburb, but because the island is supposed to be a relatively poor Asian country, there is lots of little villages, which would be fine. But Panau is around 1000km2. That means most of your time will be spent just finding stuff to do as the game doesn't really want to help you along the way. There's just a lot of empty forest life and mountains, and with the lack of a quick jump to a specific village you've been to before, it takes a lot of time and effort to get around. It does bring up why would you make it that big? Surely we've gotten away from the "my map is bigger than yours" dick waving?

There is also problems with the game literally just dumping you in the middle of this huge island, it tells you the main factions, and then tells you to work for them. That is literally what the game wants you to do, explore the vastness of Panau to find missions to do for the 3 warring factions. Sure, there's some points on the map, but you'll find that you'll have to walk, drive, or fly to them which can take 15-20 mins to get to.

There is a lot wrong with Just Cause 2, but is it a bad game because of it? No, far from it, but the game doesn't really want you to get to the meaty goodness without a fight, extending the length of the game, just due to the sheer scale of the island. If only they'd thought about what they were doing, we could've had the greatest online co-op game this side of Crackdown.

Dragon Age Gets A Sequel

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 13:49:00 +0000

Dragon Age:Origins was very much the black sheep of the BioWare games portfolio when it came out last year, overshadowed by the similarly excellent Mass Effect 2. Now though Dragon Age gets the sequel it most rightly deserves with it's existence announced by US games magazine Game Informer. I can only hope that Dragon Age 2 follows on from the excellent Dragon Age as it was most definitely in my top 3 BioWare games.

Picture is after the jump...

[source]

Forgotten Classics: DS

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 23:48:00 +0000

This is the first in the hopefully regular series in games that you should check out for each console. I'll not be going over the games that you SHOULD have for each console. For the DS, the games you should have are New Super Mario Bros., Mario Kart DS, Brain Training, Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/HeartGold/SoulSilver.

So onto the first game...or is it games..... Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan (押忍！闘え！応援団)

Developer: INIS
Released: July 28, 2005

The first game that I believe that everyone should play is in fact in Japanese. Don't let that put you off though as there is an English quasi sequel in the form of...

Elite Beat Agents

Developer: INIS
Released: July 13, 2007 (UK)

So how do you play these games? These games are rhythm games that use the touch screen to tap or swipe in time with the music. Both games control the same and both are a lot of fun.

Why should you buy them? They are very addictive to play, they follow the mantra of "easy to play, hard to master", and they do get difficult. But the real charm is their quirky humour. The games do have a definite Japanese feel to them, from the characters exaggerated anime styling, to the manga style song/story intros.

It's very clear that there is a lot of love given to these games though. Rather than recycling animations when the theme didn't fit, Elite Beat Agents in particular, changes the intro too the song you'll be oh so familiar to by the time you reach them that it makes you sit back and smile.

Songs chosen for Elite Beat Agents, are quite varied, though the fact they're covers is a bit disappointing though these games did come out in a time before we were spoiled by Rock Band and Guitar Hero's track lists.

If you're a fan of rhythm games like your Guitar Heroes and your Rock Bands, and want a unique experience that can only be replicated on the DS, then the best bet it to pick up a copy of Elite Beat Agents. If you enjoy that then go on and pick up a copy of Ouendan.

Here's the kicker though, as good as these games are, they never sold that well. Ouendan did well enough to garner a sequel, but any thoughts of a sequel for Elite Beat Agents seems unlikely to happen with Microsoft tapping them to churn out endless songs for Lips. But as it is, enjoy these games as they are, the best rhythm game you can pick up for your DS.

Dance Central, Kinect's Killer App?

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 19:14:00 +0000

At Microsoft's E3 press conference, Harmonix, creator of Amplitude, FreQuency, Rock Band and many other games, announced that it will have a game for Microsofts new Kinect motion camera called Dance Central.

In this game you will be able to use Kinect to recreate the dances of several famous pop, hip-hop and R&B songs from the comfort of your living room. Shown off in the presentation was an expert Demo of Bell Biv Devoe's Poison which features on screen prompts of each dance move you're supposed to be doing and rates you if you're in time and accurate with your poses.

So far so good.

Harmonix has been working with several dance instructors to make sure that the dances that you're doing are accurate and fit the style of song.

They then showed a member of the Harmonix team who announced that he was rubbish at dancing and obviously playing at an easier difficulty to No Doubt's Hella Good he was doing some elbow throws, air guitar and some side punches. This will be what most people will play and seems to be a bit of a laugh, especially if the background dancers can be swapped out for your real friends.

So why do I think this will be Kinect's killer app? After the success of Just Dance, this is the natural progression of the dance game and seems to be able to teach you to dance. It also seems to be a great way of keeping your body in shape as some of the dances will be very tricky to do and very quick and up tempo.

So all in all a fun game to keep your eye on and could help you lose weight a bit better than wii fit could...

And as an added bonus,

E3: Nintendo

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 12:30:00 +0000

This years E3 is probably the biggest for Nintendo. After talking about what I feel will happen to the big 3 in their press conferences, I will finally talk about Nintendo.

Nintendo has a lot of momentum going into E3. With the release of Mario Galaxy 2 only a few weeks ago and the announcement that the 3DS will be revealed to the ravenous gaming press should give them the edge over Microsoft and Sony's conferences.

The 3DS was announced with the claim that it would be able to show 3D without the need for those stupid glasses. Will this be the major coup for Nintendo as it proves that it can do better 3D than Sony with out the need for a ridiculously expensive yet "affordable" TV sets? I'm not entirely convinced.

This will be the 5th hardware revision of the DS since its launch in late 2004 and is it just me or is it all a bit much? Hopefully for the survival of the 3DS system there will be 3DS exclusive games that won't just be downloadable games, like Nintendo said there would be with the DSi.

Again there is the much rumoured Wii HD. I cannot see this happening at this time. Although Wii sales may be slowing down a bit, a HD Wii does not fit the Nintendo ethos of making games for everyone. But if it does happen (and it IS E3) I'll be surprised.

Onto the games, and the big rumour is a new Zelda for the Wii. This would be much welcomed and would be big news as the Wii is desperate for some more Hyrulean adventures. One thing I can see happening is the new Zelda game using/needing the Wii Vitality Sensor. If this happens, well, it'll suck all the air out of the room. I hope they don't make the Vitality Sensor a necessary controller, but this is the same Nintendo that thought that we wanted Wii Music.

Yeah....

Other games that could be seen is Metroid Other M, Just Dance 2, Golden Sun DS, EA Sports Active 2.0...I honestly have no idea.

E3: Sony

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 01:16:00 +0000

E3 is starting tomorrow so I shall be taking a little look at what to expect from the console developers. I already talked about what to see from Microsoft, so now on to Microsoft's biggest rivals.

This year's E3 should be dominated by the Playstation Move. Expect to see a lot of games using Move in hopefully interesting ways. Hopefully the big publishers (EA, Activision, Ubisoft) will be showing some exclusive Move based games, or at the least exclusive in the way they're controlled games.

The price of the Move for other regions and a firm release date should be announced.

PSP, is there a console that has been so unloved out there? The PSPgo was an interesting idea but was too expensive and the games the games that were available were too expensive. Will there be a PSP2 announced? I'm unsure. It seems a bit soon for a new PSP and a lot of changes to the current hardware will need to be made. An ideal PSPgo would get rid of the cumbersome and unnecessary UMD drive and replace it with some sort of flash memory, maybe some riff on Sony's proprietary format the memory stick pro duo. Add in a second analogue stick for some twin shooters, a multi touch screen, some improvements to the graphics and Sony will be onto a winner.

The PS3 will be showing of it's 3D capabilities as well with probably some new titles that will be 3D out of the box. A hands on demo of Killzone 3 is a lock in to happen at E3 but I doubt the press presentation will be showing off 3D for obvious reasons.

Other things that should happen is another trailer or a demo of LittleBigPlanet 2, SOCOM 4 showing off its Move capabilities for more traditional games, some PSN downloadable games and hopefully a lot more of Final Fantasy Versus XIII.

Up next Nintendo....

Apologies

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 23:24:00 +0000

Wow, this hasn't been updated in a while, and for that I apologise. Its been a busy few weeks for me personally with some unplanned events (jury duty, trip to Dundee) and as a way of saying sorry I will strive to post something at least once a day. I will be adding the final 2 E3 predictions, some E3 analysis and some other game guides for console owners, starting with the DS.

Insomniac Games New IP To Be Multi-Platform

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Tue, 25 May 2010 15:22:00 +0000

Insomniac Games, creator of Ratchet & Clank and the original Spyro The Dragon games, has announced that its new IP is going to be published by EA and will be coming out on Xbox 360 and PS3.

This marks the first game that Insomniac has made a game that isn't under the Playstation banner and is a major coup for both EA and Microsoft.

Expect to hear more about the new game at E3 in June.

[link]

Fable 3 Comes With Out Of Albion With A Collectors Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Fri, 21 May 2010 14:03:00 +0000

I'm a sucker for a special edition of a game I'm looking forward too, give me a making of DVD or some artcards and I am happy to pay a little bit more. Give me some special DLC as well, and we might have a deal. Fable III is coming out later this year and comes complete with some nice treasures for you to paw over. Full details inside.

Included in the Fable III Limited Collector's Edition is:
• A new quest - discover a new dungeon and complete a quest that will earn you a legendary sword called the Wolfbane, providing a deadly advantage during encounters with wolves and balverines.

• Fable III playing cards – created by Lionhead, the cards represent every type of player in the game, featuring the heroes, royals, rebels and baddies from Albion and beyond.

• Guild Seal Coin – just like in Fable III, the coin features a good side (blue) and evil side (red) to help you make critical decisions that will impact the fate of the world forever.

• A new canine breed – renowned for its faithfulness, the Boxer is a brave canine companion worthy of great queens and kings.

• An exclusive unlockable location.

• One unique outfit - look closely and uncover one male and female outfit from the mysterious land of Aurora,

The Limited Collector’s Edition of Fable III will cost £59.99, and the standard edition, £44.99.

[link]

Some Japanese Music Finally On The Way To Rock Band?

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Thu, 20 May 2010 20:37:00 +0000

Anyone who knows me personally knows that I'm a huge fan of Rock Band, I don't hide that. I also have a soft spot for some Japanese music.

With it looking seriously unlikely that the Rock Band Japan project that was announced last year, Harmonix contacted JRock fansite JRockRevolution's readers to list the bands that they wanted to see in Rock Band. The results were maybe a little surprising or unsurprising how you look at it.

the GazettE
Dir en grey
X JAPAN
MIYAVI
GACKT
An Café
D'espairsRay
Nightmare
L'Arc~en~Ciel
Versailles ~Philharmonic Quintent~

What do I think? Well after a day of rooting about on spotify, it seems a lot of it seems very similar. I would've prefered to see a list that shows of the wide variety of music in Japan. Bands like Maximum the Hormone, Electric Eel Shock, Mad Capsule Markets, Nana Kitade, Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her, hell maybe some Utada would show that.

The other problem is who would buy the songs? I know some of these bands have a hardcore following outside of Japan, hell Dir en Grey have been on the cover of Kerrang, but are these going to sell that well? Is your average Rock Band player going to want to sing in Romanji? Who knows?

I just hope that Harmonix isn't stuck down a generic Visual Kei path because its what "some" J-Rock fans want.

ModNation Racers Just Got A Little More Awesome

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Tue, 18 May 2010 21:08:00 +0000

Sony's new tag of "Play, Create, Share" needed some help from the VP of Artistic Modification, Kevin Butler, and SCEA SCO Jack Tretton to really drive home that ModNation Racers will try to do to kart racer what LittleBigPlanet did to platforming games, though it's not just platforming for the sequel.

Seriously though, why does Sony not show the brilliance of Kevin Butler in the UK? It has to be better than some of Sony Europe's previous adverts.

ModNation Racers comes to the UK this Friday.

E3: Microsoft

noreply@blogger.com (Marty) — Sun, 16 May 2010 19:47:00 +0000

Have you got E3 fever yet? The biggest gaming event of the year (arguably) is just around the corner with the Big Three showing off their goods to the world. I'm going to take a guess at some things that will happen in each developers conference.

Microsoft

This Christmas season is an important one for Microsoft. With Project Natal coming out they're hoping to get their tendrils into the rich vein of money that Nintendo opened with the Wii and DS called "the casual market". Sony is doing the same thing with the Playstation ~~dildo~~ ~~backmassager~~ Move and expect both Sony and Microsoft to follow the Wii with its minigame collections using their motion technology.

The Microsoft press conference is going to feature the Cirque du Soleil for their "World premiere of project natal". Now wasn't Natal shown last year? I think what they mean is that they're going to show actual games and not just some mini-games. This conference is also being shown on Spike TV and MTV in the USA at least. Handy for the Americans out there, but it should mean that the new Rock Band 3 is going to have some prescence. Hopefully it'll be a better demo than 2008 when they let Peter Moore loose on The Hives.

Also expect to see: Fable III and Peter Molyneux make some wild accusations that doesn't actually happen in the game, Microsoft announces Natal Sportz that comes onstage to rapturous tumbleweed, Activision shows off Call of Duty: Black Ops that will feature "exclusive" DLC featuring your favourite maps from Modern Warfare 2 and cost 1600 MS points for 5 maps.

Crackdown 2, Halo Reach, Gears of War 3 and Bulletstorm should all see demos or trailers too.

I'll do my expectations on Sony and Nintendos press conferences over the coming days.