All posts by davepoobond (DPB)

davepoobond of Squackle. Items under this user name are original works by davepoobond.
Games, Game Reviews

Overlord: Raising Hell (PS3) Review

Leave a comment

Developer: Triumph Studios | Publisher: Codemasters || Overall: 8.5/10

It’s not too often you get to be the bad guy in a game. In Overlord: Raising Hell, you’re given the primary role of being “The Overlord” – the master of the Minions. With their help, you’ll rebuild your evil kingdom, confronting those that have killed your predecessor and rebuilding your once-fear-inducing-yet-humble abode. Throughout the levels you’ll find pieces of your tower, power-ups, and more minions to help you.

Essentially, Overlord is a mish-mash of a few genres – action, RPG, and real-time-strategy. The action influences come from the obvious gameplay mechanics such as controlling a menacing dude who goes around beating people with his axe, solving puzzles, and the like. The RPG elements come in with increasing your stats by gaining new weapons and getting new power-ups to help you maintain those stats. The most interesting aspect of Overlord, however, is how it accomplishes being real-time-strategy in tandem with the aforementioned aspects of gameplay.

Fundamentally, the importance of succeeding in Overlord is using your Minions in a strategic fashion to accomplish goals. Sure, you could go in and swing your weapon around at your enemies, but that would take a long time — not to mention there are some very difficult enemies where taking them on alone would be nigh impossible. Thinking of Minions as your “units” in a real-time-strategy game, you send them into battle and watch the mayhem unfold, modifying their focus as needed. While it starts simple, more strategy is involved when certain enemies are susceptible only to certain types of Minions’ attacks.

There are four different types of Minions – Browns, Reds, Greens, and Blues. The Browns are multipurpose melee fighters; Reds are long-range, fire-based attackers; Greens are stealthy, poisonous melee fighters that are weaker than your Browns; Blues are weak but they swim in water and can resurrect other Minions. Using all the different Minions and their unique skills to your advantage is the real challenge of Overlord.

The control scheme is something to be appraised. While you don’t normally see RTS-type games on consoles, Overlord has an advantage from being in a 3rd-person perspective. If you just want to tell your Minions to go somewhere, you move the right stick and control your group to go wherever you want without moving The Overlord himself. The camera also follows your group of Minions without getting far away from The Overlord, just in case something starts attacking you, but it also keeps the focus of the game of you being The Overlord at the same time. This comes into use when you meet obstacles that only Minions can go through, and you must use them appropriately to solve the puzzle or defeat the enemies at hand. If you just want to send your minions in to destroy anything they see in front of you, you just press and hold the R2 button and you’ll be able to watch the carnage, get the rewards, and not have to get your own hands dirty at all.

While the graphics aren’t the most beautiful you’ve ever seen, there is a style to the game that makes it feel like if it were any different, a certain charm about the game would be lost. The visuals match Overlord’s zany humor, with all the different quests you’ll be going on and different things your Minions will say. In a sense, it’s almost like playing a cartoon. Your Minions say some clever/funny things at times like “Treasssurreeeee!,” or “For the master!,” or “For the Overlorrrrrd!” while they bring treasure and other items back to you. There are also some offhand Minion comments that are context-specific.

While visiting your Tower, a Jester will follow you around calling you different things based on the quests you have already accomplished. My personal favorite is “Persecutor of Pumpkins” — referencing a quest in which you kill evil pumpkins that are eating townspeople. While that may sound off, considering that you’re supposed to be evil, the way the game rationalizes doing any good for people in the first place is that if they’re all dead, there’d be no one to boss around and torture. However, you are given the option of killing any of your subjects at any point, which raises a stat called “Corruption.” A certain amount of Corruption allows you to gain more power and skills, but must be taken in moderation, as there are disadvantages to gaining Corruption percentage.

Overlord: Raising Hell for the PS3 includes the DLC that was available for download on Xbox 360 and PC. The DLC adds a good 10 or 15 hours of playtime on the 20 hours or so the normal game had previously. There are also some other improvements and additions to the game that are integrated, along with the extra levels compared to the initial release of Overlord.

Probably the only things that I can complain about is the loading and other small technical issues that make the game a bit cumbersome to play at times. Loading usually takes a bit longer than I would hope for, especially since there’s about a minute of loading as soon as you start up the game as well as loading whenever you enter a new level. I encountered a few bugs that would result in the game becoming broken, forcing me to either load the game from my last autosave or restart my PS3. The minimap is almost a pain to use: while it is definitely a needed and welcomed addition from the normal version of the game, it can be hard to find your quests sometimes since you can’t really zoom out on it. There is a full-size map, but it’s not nearly as useful as the minimap.

Multiplayer is also a huge disappointment on the PS3. There is no one to play with online, so that means you can’t even use the multiplayer mode. This severely diminishes the value of the game if you had ever intended on checking out the multiplayer portion. However, since I’m a big proponent of single player games, it’s not a huge dent to my overall opinion about the game, though it is still something to take into account when purchasing it. It is also worth mentioning that seven multiplayer maps are part of the additions to the game from the first edition. Even though on the box it says you can play multiplayer in split-screen, I couldn’t find the option to do so in the menu.

Overlord: Raising Hell is a fun title, especially if you can pick it up for cheap. Overlord: Raising Hell offers a unique combination of several genres that creates an enjoyable and humorous addition to any PS3 owner’s library.

Games, Game Reviews

WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2009 (Xbox 360) Event Preview

Leave a comment

Developer: Yuke’s Media Creations | Publisher: THQ

I had the opportunity to go to THQ’s offices in Agoura Hills recently, braving three hours of traffic and the possibility of being burned alive (not really). Traveling from safe Orange County, into the middle of a triangulation of raging fires in the canyons, I was able to play an early build of WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2009 for about an hour.

After my somewhat scathing review of 2008, I am very glad to say that the game has been improved quite a bit, with nearly all of my concerns addressed. Personally, the ranking on the the fun-gauge has increased from “Annoying” to “Could Be Fun.”

If there was one thing that I’m most excited about, its that the loading times have been drastically cut down. Load times aren’t nearly as excruciating to wait through anymore. Not only that, there is a simple way to turn entrances off — right before each match you can select On or Off, resulting in even less possible load times, and more getting right into the action.

Unlike the former WWE 24/7 mode, the new Road to Wrestlemania tells scripted stories for particular superstars rather than a bunch of generic ones for your selected wrestler. As a result, you feel like you’re playing through an actual storyline, the likes of which you’d see in the actual TV show. This alone alleviates a majority of the problems I personally had with the WWE 24/7 mode, as this revamped mode will definitely be more appealing to play and finish. There is still a “career” mode in the game, but it’s a little different than what you may have seen before. Instead of going through the day-to-day aspects of WWE 24/7, you can have your wrestler fight his way up to a particular title that you select. You can also reassign titles to make the roster reflect the current WWE champions. However, even though there are many features being added, that doesn’t come without cuts, as Create-A-Championship mode will be left out this year.

Frame rate has also been stabilized, and the biggest improvement can be seen in matches with more than four wrestlers, which is a welcome improvement for those Battle Royale fans or six-man “Money-In-the-Bank” marathoners. The graphics are about the same, but since the frame rate has been improved upon, the game visually feels better for it.

There are a few new features that will be good additions, provided they don’t get dropped before the game’s release. The massively improved user interface allows you to get into the kind of match you want to play faster and easier, with at least as many options as have been offered before. The Inferno match will make its first appearance — the ring is lit on fire and the goal is to beat up your opponent and raise the temperature to 300 degrees and throw him out of the ring, setting him on fire. Some additions to Tag Team modes have also been made.

Controls remain mostly unchanged, but there are a couple of things to take note of. The most significant addition to the gameplay is the recovery button. When you take a hard hit and are about to come up, you can defend yourself by pressing a shoulder button and block any incoming attack from the other player, allowing you to get back on your feet and perhaps swing the match back in your favor. In the Wii version, opening entrances have also become a little more interactive, with the option of getting the fans riled up by doing certain expressions at the right time.

There were no online capabilities shown, but there will be a feature called the Highlight Reel that allows you to record certain matches and share them online in a YouTube-like fashion. The capability allows you to put reels together with a video-editing tool, and add in graphics or sound from the effects provided. The clips can be up to a minute long.

Another interesting addition is the Create-A-Finisher feature. A “Finisher” can consist of up to ten different parts. Depending on which move you input when doing the finisher, you are given yet another list of animations to continue it. You can have the resulting combo be one part or ten parts, its all up to you — on top of that, you can speed up or slow it down in certain parts. Something that I found humorous was if you picked up someone you could keep flipping them back and forth on top of your back over and over before you actually did anything harmful to them. You can assign your Finishers to any superstar or created wrestler.

Since this is Yuke’s second try at the game on the PS3, you can definitely notice the improvements. Toss in some user interface enhancements, as well as some new modes, and WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2009 aims to be the wrestling game you should own if you’re a fan of the WWE.

Games, Game Reviews

Wii Music (Wii) E3 2008 Preview

Leave a comment

Developer/Publisher: Nintendo

At E3 2008, there were about four WiiMusic booths set up in the Nintendo area. WiiMusic, if you didn’t know, is basically a game where you can play songs with your friends. Except, there’s no score, no points, no punishment for being off beat, you just “play” your instrument using the WiiMote in a couple of ways. After you go through a song, you get to watch the performance again. Miis are the characters that are in the game, just like other games in the WiiBlank series.

Although WiiMusic is pretty pathetic when compared directly to Rock Band 2 (it was the loudest thing at the whole show), there is a little bit of enjoyment still to be had. It took me a little bit of instruction from the Nintendo employees as to how to actually play the game, and how to play each particular instrument. There are a vast majority of different instruments that range from trumpet, piano, organ, bagpipes, and the triangle to weirder instruments like the jaw harp, the aptly named “Dog Suit,” and beatboxing.

Categories of instruments dictate different methods of play. For wind instruments, if you tilt the controller up and down, the pitch changes. You press the 1 and 2 buttons to change the notes. For percussion instruments, you move your hands up and down in a drumming-fashion to make different beats. You can also hold onto different buttons while waving your arms around to create different sounds. The guitar is played like an air guitar, except you have a Wii controller and Nunchuk in your hands.

When you are actually performing, there is a metronome to help you keep to the beat, but you can basically go crazy and not go with it at all. The result, at least while playing Yankee Doodle, was that it sounded nothing like the song at all.

In the end, the game itself is pretty barebones. The current songs are pretty lame, since they’re all folk songs or the like. Although there are supposedly “60” songs planned to be included, they’re all going to be lyric-less MIDI-quality songs that sound nothing like their originals. To get an idea of what pedigree of songs will actually end up being in the game, think “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” “Yankee Doodle,” “Super Mario Bros.” theme song, “From The New World,” and “Turkey in the Straw” since those were the songs actually featured in the playable demo. Other songs that are known of are the Legend of Zelda overworld theme, “The Overture” (from an opera called Carmen), and an F-Zero song which was played at the Nintendo conference. I can only hope that “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and “Pop Goes the Weasel” are included in some fashion when the product finally comes out at retail.

The whole idea around the game appears to be creating performances and sharing them with your friends. You can play a performance over and over, providing the instrument for up to 6 different parts of a band. The Nintendo employees at the booth didn’t appear to actually know HOW you’d be able to “share” the performances with your friends – whether it was in video form or save file over the WiFiConnect 24. If you’re supposed to share with your friends so that they add their performances to yours, it will most certainly have to be some sort of save file.

There is also a drum simulator thing where you can use the WiiFit Balance Board as drum pedals, while you wave your arms around with the Wii controllers. There are no beats to play to, there are no other bandmates. It’s just you and an audience of Miis. There is literally nothing to do in the mode. Too often did I walk past the Nintendo booth and see a forlorn Nintendo employee drumming with WiiMusic having the worst time in their respective lives playing out in front of them. Not only that, the Rock Band booths behind them were so loud that they probably couldn’t even hear what they were doing. Eventually it seemed like they’d actually try to play drums to the music Rock Band was playing – it just seemed sad because the feature of actually having music playing while you’re drumming is lost in the mission for simplicity and appealing to the casual market. You have to ask yourself if someone would ever want to casually play this portion of WiiMusic for any more than 5 minutes before never returning it.

Unlike WiiPlay and WiiFit, WiiMusic isn’t going to come with a peripheral. Even the next Wii-titled game out next year, WiiSports Resort, comes with a peripheral. It’s questionable as to whether or not WiiMusic will have the same sort of appeal as its other siblings on account of that. In addition, the game itself just doesn’t have a real point to it. There are no points, there’s no sense of progression, all it is sitting around and listening to crappy computer instruments pretending to be real instruments. I don’t know how that is supposed to be enjoyable, especially with games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band already out on the market and already appealing to the same demographics WiiMusic aims to sell to. Unless WiiMusic has some sort of feature that will validate its purchase (let alone its existence) that we don’t know about, it will be a huge disappointment.

Screwed Up Chronicles, Dave's Kingdom

The Worst Ralphs in the World

Leave a comment

The worst Ralphs in the world appears to be within the same vicinity as the worst Burger King in the world.  Same people must own them, or something.

So when I went to Ralphs to find some eye contact solution, I couldn’t find any cause I needed some that had Saline in it.  Apparently most eye contact solution does not have saline in it for whatever reason.  I don’t use it, I just had to get it for someone.

So I had to ask a lady about it, and she said “top of the shelf aisle 7.”  I told her I already looked and that I couldn’t find any.  She said “oh, then that’s all we have then.  SORRRYYYYY.”  She didn’t try and help me look or anything.  Would have been nice customer service to do so, don’t you think?  That’s what I do at my job every time someone is looking for something.  I actually help them!

By some miracle I actually did find what I was looking for, because only after I ask people for help do I find what I’m looking for.

So I grabbed what I went there for, and went into the “Express Lane.”  There were 2 lanes open at the time.  And the Express Lane had like 15 people in it.  Ok, whatever.

Some old black lady stood behind me for like two seconds.  I didn’t notice until later that she wasn’t behind me anymore, and already a line of like 5 more people was behind me.

All of a sudden the black lady comes back and cuts everyone.  The person that was behind me asked “excuse me, ma’am, are you in line?”

The black lady said “I am, I am behind him” and she touches my shirt sleeve.

I was about to say “Lady, you can’t leave the line and then come back in where you left,” but I just said “Umm…I don’t remember you behind me.”  How can someone expect me to remember who was behind me in a line at a supermarket?

So the black lady doesn’t even move, she just stays there and crowds my ass, giving me barely any room to move around, because the pussies that were behind me let her stay in line and cut everyone behind them too.

So I had a crazy old black woman buying some frozen chicken and two little red peppers behind me, and some weird black dude with a weird hat you’d see some Prime Minister of an African nation wear on their head when they’re not killing peasants.  He also had a gold cane, and was buying two packs of Lipton white ice tea.

When the cashier rang up the ice teas for the guy, the fucking things were supposedly on sale, but the computer wasn’t reflecting that.  So I had to wait like what seemed like ten minutes for them to figure out the whole deal.  And it really wasn’t that complicated to figure out, it was just taking them a long time to do.  Sad thing is, the cashier was an “assistant manager” as dictated on her name tag.  Pathetic.

During the wait, the crazy black woman that cut everyone in line started complaining, muttering things under her breath while she was three inches away from my face.

Instead of actually figuring out how the iced tea should be discounted, the assistant manager just punched in some “customer satisfaction” non merchandise code and gave the dude six bucks, three dollars off for each of the iced tea things.  How nice of them.

Now where’s my customer satisfaction payoff?  Some Ralphs executive is probably wiping his ass with it and flushing it down the toilet.

Screwed Up Chronicles, Dave's Kingdom

The Worst Burger King in the World

Leave a comment

Just went to Burger King, and it was the worst one I’ve ever been to.

I got the chicken fries meal, and it was pretty much all room temperature — aren’t you supposed to fry this stuff?

Not only that, I coulda sworn that the fries were fried using spit, not oil.  I got a bunch of crappy pieces of chicken instead of actual chicken fries — it seemed like they gave me like 13 or some weird number.  I only asked for a 9 piece meal…

Assholes.

Games, Game Reviews

Dragon Age: Origins (PC) E3 2008 Preview

Leave a comment

Developer: BioWare Corp | Publisher: Electronic Arts

I partook in a presentation for Dragon Age: Origins that was given at E3 2008. Giving the presentation was BioWare’s Dan Tudge, who is the project director for the game. He didn’t give us a lecture about the game before we actually got to see anything; we jumped right in with another BioWare employee showing us the game, with Dan explaining as we went along.

Dragon Age: Origins is BioWare’s spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate. The game itself actually melds Knights of the Old Republic with Baldur’s Gate, from what I saw. As experienced in Knights of the Old Republic, you are able to pause the game and give orders, as well as make decisions during the story scenes that can impact the way the story is told to you. The Baldur’s Gate influence obviously comes from the actual theme of the game – you’re fighting in a medieval-style game with many types of ogres and stuff like that. Maybe even a dragon comes along sometime, not that I saw in the demonstration, however. From the ground up, the game is built as a fantasy game for core RPG fans.

Similar to other recent PC RPGs, there is a bar along the bottom that you can select for certain attacks. This comes in handy when you pause the game and give orders to your allies and your own character. Seemingly, you can change your main party character, although I might be confused to that fact, since I didn’t actually see them change it. Hit points and mana seem to recharge as time goes on, not particularly needing someone to heal outside of battle, though it becomes vital to have someone healing as battles get more intense.

The battle system is party-based tactical. You can have a single member or up to four at one time. When I asked how many party members you could have, they said “what we’ve shown is four.” This sort of implies it might be possible to have more than four party members, as they said multiple times that the game is “scalable” combat. If this means you can have a whole army under your command, then it’d be an interesting thing to see, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Obviously a big part of these sorts of RPGs is loot and the inventory system. There will be loot — that much is certain. As for the inventory system, it is said to be more like Baldur’s Gate than Mass Effect, which supposedly had complaints about its inventory system. The inventory and equipment system was shown briefly.

As party members go through more and more battles, we see blood and gore that was sprayed by defeated enemies still left on characters. I don’t know if it goes away eventually or if it is replaced by new blood, but Dan Tudge was apt to point out that the characters do show signs of being in earlier battles

BioWare is determined on establishing Dragon Age as a new franchise. The “Origins” subtitle is symbolic to BioWare because they are going back to their own “origins” by creating this new game franchise. On top of that, Dragon Age: Origins is meant to be the first in the series, so its meant to give background information that the later games fall back on. They’ve been working on the game since 2004, so they are definitely planning for the game to be out in 2009 for the PC only.

Games, Game Reviews

Fallout 3 (Xbox 360) E3 2008 Preview

Leave a comment

Developer/Publisher: Bethesda Softworks

The Xbox 360 version of Fallout 3 made an appearance at E3 2008 in Bethesda’s meeting room. Gamersmark, along with a select few others, was given the opportunity to play for exactly 30 minutes. While a half hour isn’t exactly a long time to be playing a game of this size, it definitely does let you get enough of a taste and a feel for what the game will offer.

Fallout 3 takes a first person shooter approach to the RPG genre. This approach is unique since we don’t see many AAA games that combine those genres. As such, it is really vital to use the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System, better known as the VATS, which essentially makes the game into a 3D-Tactical RPG. The VATS is very important to use as most of the enemies you encounter will be hard to shoot in a normal FPS way. Using the VATS depletes an AP counter in the bottom right-hand corner. When you run out of AP, you’re able to shoot the enemy using your traditional FPS skills until it recharges. Couple this with a chance that the shot you make doesn’t even go straight, on account of your weaponry slowly degrading with use, and the VATS becomes a necessary element of gameplay. We definitely found it difficult to shoot when outside of the VATS.

The gameplay pauses and allows you to choose your target carefully while using the VATS. A percentage will appear for the different body part you want to shoot at and tell you what the chances of hitting it is. You might want to disable an opponent by shooting out their legs so they can’t run away or shoot them right in the head if they’re about to beat you with a baseball bat. Depending on how much AP you have, you can tell your character to shoot up to four different times – this may change if they let you get more AP or if shooting with different weapons costs more AP.

The only weapons we were able to find and use were a couple of different pistols. The shooting was pretty fun though, as every time you use the VATS system it goes into a cinematic slow-mo shooting sequence. The camera follows the bullet as it shoots through your gun and into your enemy. When you shoot normally, you won’t see any of that. We’re not sure if there is a way to turn it off, either. Visually, reloading seems a little funky – we couldn’t really see what was going on too well for the pistols we used. You also have a flashlight at your disposal at all times, since it is attached to your Vaul-Tec console.

While we weren’t able to explore the world in-depth, the game itself looked expansive while we ran around the desolate area that was once a city. There are tons of dead trees, rocks, burned out cars and radioactive water. You could technically call the game a post-apocalypitc Oblivion. The content itself, however, is all about Fallout, so it should be pleasant for series fans once they adapt to the new way to play the game. We were also able to venture into Springvale Elementary and explore the burned-out and barely recognizable remains of the school.

There weren’t any noticeable frame rate drops while playing, which is a pretty big change from Oblivion. The graphics are okay, and the sound is also enjoyable. Some textures aren’t exactly that great, but the scale of the game is quite large, excusing some of the graphical inconsistencies. Looking out over the expanse of the desolate wasteland is something lends a feeling of awe, similar to the first time we walked around the world of Oblivion.

There are a lot more features in Fallout 3 that we didn’t get to experience. Perks, repairing weaponry, finding gear, choosing whether or not to be good or evil; there are so many things that the game will offer. Fallout 3 will definitely appeal to anyone who liked Oblivion, or want to experience something in the Fallout universe.

 

Games, Game Reviews

Resistance 2 (PS3) E3 2008 Preview

Leave a comment

Developer: Insomniac Games | Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

At E3 2008, I had the opportunity to extensively play the multiplayer mode in Resistance 2. The demo was a 60-man multiplayer game, full of Sony and Insomniac Games employees. The single player demo was only available in a limited-access Sony meeting room.

The map we played on was pretty large and looked like a destroyed mountain town. There were cars strewn about, large holes and vastly different areas to see. There was a lumberyard as well as cabin houses surrounded by lots of trees and water.

The gameplay itself is largely intact from the original Resistance. There are a few things however that felt downgraded – at least from what the demo gives the impression of so far. The Chimera themselves seem to play more like the Human characters now. The Human side basically has the same benefits as the Chimera. All characters are able to use one of several special Chimera abilities called “Berserk.” Berserk powers are different depending on which side you’re on, but you are able to choose your weapon load-out and powers from the get-go. Berserk powers include things like invisibility (while not firing), increased health recovery, more ammo dropped and the like. A Chimera player starts out with one hedgehog grenade this time as well. While this evens the playing field, it feels like it sort of goes against what the first Resistance tried to accomplish.

Some weapons are a little different as well. A few of them got a face-lift, like the Auger and Bullseye. The M5A2 and Rossmore look the same, though. There are also one or two new weapons that are new, namely the Marksman, and the HE Magnum. The Wraith is also allowed for use in multiplayer, which was only available after you completed your primary run-through of Resistance: Fall of Man.

Oddly, I didn’t notice any rocket launchers. It could have just been the game mode, but it seems logical that the Wraith is replacing it. Or perhaps you just don’t start out with a rocket launcher and must find it on the map before you can use it. The Auger makes a bubble shield now instead of a door-shield, which seems weird, but it makes it easier for shooting through at different angles. The handgun is hard to aim precisely with, though adjusting the sensitivity might fix that. The new shotgun feels worthless; even if you’re at point blank range, you’ll have a hard time trying to kill someone.

Something I find very disappointing in contrast to the original Resistance is that you can only hold on to two weapons at a time, meaning you have to switch weapons lying on the floor for the one you’re currently holding. I enjoyed being able to use any weapon I found on the ground, as it was different than what most popular shooters nowadays like to do.

The game seems to emphasize strategy less than the original in this build. I’m hoping that element of the multiplayer isn’t lost when all is said and done. The map we played was just a big open map with a few interesting elements, but in the end it felt like a run-of-the-mill FPS map to me, which is also sort of disappointing considering the first game’s maps all had something unique about them.

Resistance 2 looks good for a third-generation PS3 title. The most obvious comparison I could make was against Killzone 2, which was right around the corner, though the games have vastly differing art styles. Here’s hoping that the single-player mode has some nice things in store as far as level design and character design.

During my play time, I had an unusual seven-kill spree. I was quite an avid Resistance player when I first purchased my PS3, and I’m definitely looking forward to playing Resistance 2’s multiplayer. However, Resistance 2’s single player will be the most compelling aspect when it comes to retail.

The demo didn’t let me customize controls, but one of the exhibitors said they’re still going to add more stuff to the options menu. Pressing R3 for melee was less comfortable than pressing X. You can also now shake the controller to perform a melee attack, which is a fine use for the Sixaxis motion control.

People who liked the first Resistance will probably like Resistance 2. It might appeal to more people because it aligned itself closer to the elements of today’s popular shooters. Since the single-player mode aims to continue the story-line, we can expect to at least learn a little bit more about the world that is created in the Resistance games.

Screwed Up Chronicles, World

USA: “Blame” In American Society

Leave a comment

Americans have a tendency to shift the “blame” of something on to something else.

Examples:

– “Homosexuality is biological. Its not my fault I’m gay! It’s the way I was born!”

– “It wasnt my fault I killed my friend, that movie/video game/tv show/song made me do it!”

– “I don’t know where my child learned how to shoot his teachers. It must have been those video games, not me beating my child or my horrible parenting skills!”

–

It doesn’t stop there, either. Global warming — its the corporations fault that they aren’t building better cars! Not ours!

Typically when you are “blamed” for something, in American society, you never want to take that blame — it HAS to be something else. and that is typically the social institution, genetics, or big corporations.

In more particular with homosexuality, there is a large part of the community that seems to want to pass their sexual preference off as basic to the genetic level. They were built that way — not socialized or events in their life that make their brains wire differently in that department after the fact. I personally find it a bunch of horse shit, and its just a way to shift the “blame” onto something else that is out of their “control.”

The only reason its gaining any steam is because there is still a stigma against gay/lesbian people, that that community seems to want to find themselves a scapegoat. They can’t blame society since not everyone is a gay/lesbian. They can’t blame corporations, since they’re too busy trying to make money, not caring that individual people with individual lives/circumstances actually exist. So it has to be genetics! Great! That’s an easy target, since NO ONE UNDERSTANDS THAT SHIT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Games, Game Reviews

Persona 3 (PS2) Review

1 Comment

Developer/Publisher: Atlus || Overall: 9.5/10

Persona 3: FES is the answer to any RPG gamer’s beckoning for a true, hardcore RPG. In recent years the non-turn-based “Action RPG” has mostly taken over the genre, moving away from the pen-and-paper games they originated from. Developed and published by Atlus, Persona 3: FES is the expanded version of last year’s Persona 3, featuring a whole new story arc and an ending to the whole storyline.

Separated into two parts (The Journey and The Answer), Persona 3: FES includes both the original game and expansion released in Japan on the same disc. Taking advantage of a re-release, Atlus added new Personas, events, and other small enhancements to the main game that you wouldn’t have seen in the original version. If you hadn’t played the original version, you won’t notice the difference at all. If you have a Persona 3 save, you’re able to import it into a new game of The Journey to play/replay it, or just skip it altogether and go right to the expansion, named The Answer.

Put simply, Persona 3 is a game about a group of high school students who have powers called “Persona.” A Persona allows its user to do lots of things like use magic, special attacks, and other stuff an RPG normally lets you do. Essentially, the game could be thought of as two separate but equally important parts: one part of the game, you are going to school, the other part you are fighting monsters.

While at school, you are able to build relationships and gain more power for your Personas with Social Links. Social Links are basically little storylines with particular people you meet. About 20 Social Links are available to explore, and you’ll have to tread carefully as going out with two girls at the same time might lead to putting one of those Social Links in trouble. Make a wrong decision in any of your Social Links, and they’ll be stuck in a rut. In addition, you have three types of statuses: Education, Charm, and Courage. You’ll have to build them up to an appropriate level to discover new Social Links. The most interesting part about this part of the game is that you literally go through every day and choose which events to partake in, just like a normal high school student in Japan may. There is about one year of time to play through, which means nearly 365 days to experience. On the average, it takes me about 10 to 15 minutes to complete each day, not including trips to the dungeon.

The real meat of the gameplay is certainly in the dungeon crawling, which happens during The Dark Hour, a time that most humans are not aware of. With a maximum of four people in your party, you will climb ever-higher in a massive tower called Tarturus, trying to solve the mystery of the tower and the existence of The Dark Hour. The goal at large is to defeat the enemies called the Shadows, who are wreaking havoc on humanity in the local area but could escalate to posing a threat in a larger scope.

You journey through Tarturus, gain more levels, complete mini-quests (called Requests), find loot, and beat the ever-living crap out of all the enemies you encounter. That is the game in a nutshell. Similar to the other Shin Megami Tensei games, you have control over “monsters,” but in this case they are called Personas and are your allies in the struggle against the Shadows. The key to victory in any battle is finding and exploiting your enemy’s weakness and defeating them as fast as you can by using the appropriate skills. There is also a Persona Fusion system, which you can use to create new Personas. Fans of the series will find that this is pretty standard for the series and not that hard to grasp. Every time there is a full moon, you’ll encounter a unique boss fight that breaks up the pace of the game a little bit.

Your main character is a more-or-less mute character that relies on the choices you make to communicate to the other characters in the story. Even further, the choices you make impact your Social Links and, at times, story as far as what other characters say. Usually you don’t have a second chance to choose what to say, so you’ll have to choose wisely.

The art in the game is pretty nice; you’ll feel as if you’re in an anime, as it’s mostly cel-shaded. Occasionally you’ll be treated to an animated cut scene, but they are few and far between. There are quite a few “events” where story takes places, as well as voice acting. The voice actors are almost certainly very enjoyable to listen to, except a couple who are just sort of lame-sounding. In particular, I don’t like the voice acting for the character of Ikutsuki, who is the chairman of the high school the main characters attend.

Music is somewhat of a concern, as it sounds Japanese Pop-like. It can get on your nerves since you’ll be hearing the same songs constantly over and over. Probably the worst part is that the songs you hear the most have lyrics, and if you actually listen to them, they are embarrassingly bad, especially the Battle Theme. There are some very cool tracks to listen to, however, so it’s not a total waste as far as the soundtrack goes.

A lot of time is to be had playing the game. The Journey itself probably would clock in at around 80 to 100 hours (or even more) if you take your time and enjoy it. With the additional episode called The Answer, boasting around 30 hours of extra playtime, the value is there, as long as you like the game to begin with. There is also a “New Game+” sort of thing, so you can replay the main storyline as many times as you like.

To explain what The Answer is without spoiling it, The Answer is a perpetual Groundhog’s Day, in which the main characters repeat March 31, 2010 over and over and try to figure out how to stop it after the events of The Journey. Since the same day is repeated, the whole “go to school” thing is pretty much eliminated from the gameplay and you almost exclusively dungeon crawl. Unfortunately, it seems like a few things you are used to from The Journey are taken out, I’m sure for the sake of the story, but in the end it feels like you’ve lost features.

Persona 3: FES is a massively enjoyable game that can be taken in small doses. A lot of time can be spent with it, and while it may be daunting to undertake a nearly 100 hour game, the hours will seemingly fly by since the fast-paced nature of the gameplay makes it seem like you’re actually in high school, developing friendships and hitting on the babes.

Games, Game Reviews

Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening Special Edition (PS2) Review

Leave a comment

Developer/Publisher: Capcom || Overall: 9.0/10

The Devil May Cry series has been one of the more talked about games recently with the release of Devil May Cry 4, all with the exclusivity to Sony platform being thrown up into the air – but back in the day where none of that mattered, there was a game called Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition for the PS2. The Special Edition is the refining of the original game, Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening, and includes a bunch more goodies that the first version didn’t have, as well as a shuffling around of the difficulty modes. Usually action games peak out around ten or fifteen hours, but it’s easy to spend at least twice that with Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition.

Put simply, Devil May Cry 3 is an action game with horror and gothic elements. It’s not exactly scary, but the game goes back to its roots after Devil May Cry 2’s “offensive” locale. Not only that, but there is an actual story that you can comprehend, unlike any of the other games in the series up to this point. Though the story is actually worth its weight in words this time around, the main appeal comes from the gameplay itself, and it speaks volumes. Unlike most games, Normal mode isn’t for the faint of heart, and even that is considered “easy” by the original version of Devil May Cry 3’s standards.

The Devil May Cry series doesn’t have a combo system utilizing different buttons like in God of War. There is one button to use your melee weapon (typically a sword), one button for your guns, and one button for a special move. Used appropriately, you can string together all the different types of attacks to lay some serious hurt on the demons and rack up some impressive combos. Unlike Devil May Cry 2, you’ll have to hit the square button over and over if you want to shoot Dante’s guns (in Devil May Cry 2, you could just hold it down and it’d fire). As far as Dante’s pistols go, the faster you hit the square button, the faster he’ll shoot them. As you get different weapons, they all have their own firing rates, so clicking the button as fast as you are able to does not help you all the time. Melee weapons follow a bit different logic, however. A melee weapon has two or three different combos that rely on the timing of your button pushes. This can change a little from weapon to weapon, but it’s basically the same execution. In total, there are five guns and five melee weapons for Dante to acquire through the game.

The circle button comes into play when you want to use one of Dante’s Styles. The basic styles are Trickster, Swordmaster, Gunslinger, and Royalguard. Trickster allows you to make use of dashing and running up walls, which I found to be practically useless. Trickster is a hold-over from the circle-button command from Devil May Cry 2, but Devil May Cry 2’s execution in that regard was leagues better. Swordmaster is a bit more useful, and allows you to do some cool stuff with your sword (like throw it) once it levels up. Gunslinger is the one I used the most, and allows you to do quite a few things, like shoot your guns faster, charge them, and target two targets at the same time. Not to mention spin in the air like a tornado while shooting your gun! Gunslinger is by far the coolest of all the styles. Royalguard is kinda boring and only blocks. If you block enough, you charge up some power and can release it onto an enemy to kill them. It’s sort of ineffective at times, because you’ll still get damaged, and it’s not really smart to take damage since it’s very hard to find something that heals you. Other styles are acquired as the game goes on, but for about 80 percent of the game you’ll be stuck with those four. The more advanced styles you gain later on don’t allow you to level up at all.

The graphics are pretty nice for a PS2 game, but do sort of show their age as we get further into the current generation of consoles. The voice acting is not terrible at all, so that is something to be thankful for. The sound effects are good, but the music is where the game lacks. Every time you’re near an enemy, a cheesy battle score with horrible lyrics starts playing. I hated the song by the end of the game and tried to just ignore it, unfortunately to no avail. It would have been nice if they didn’t have such a horrible song, but what can you do? The story is good, and really the first competent piece of writing the series has shown after the first two games.

Overall, the game is very hard, even at the Normal difficulty. The easy difficulty allows for less experienced action gamers (or people who just suck at games) to get into the game to actually beat it and *gasp* enjoy it. Even hardcore gamers will probably at least take a pass through all modes of play the game has to offer, as it’ll add towards fully completing the game in every facet. Once you finish the game, a new gameplay mode called Bloody Palace will be accessible, not to mention being able to play as Dante’s brother Vergil in a new game. There’s plenty of stuff to unlock, so you’ll be playing the full game quite a few times, although it’ll be easier after the first time since you’ll know how to figure out all the puzzles.

Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition is a good game to play if you’re into action games. Since it has been out for a while now, you’ll be able to find it at a very cheap price. The Devil May Cry box set includes all three of the PS2 games in the series, and it’s a good value. Regardless of your feelings toward the second game, you’ll get a loaded action game in Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition.