Upgrading Nostalgia

Ahh nostalgia, something that is treasured by every gamer. It's a funny thing, not something you earn or create, it just seems to happen, the fond memories of the past only coming back now and then when a certain event triggers them.

Now you can look at OutRun 2 in a few different ways, cashing in on nostalgia or introducing the classic OutRun formula to a new breed of gamers. I lean more towards the later, simply because I think Sega Ages 2500: OutRun is a better candidate to cash in on the past.

Either way, OutRun 2 is a welcome addition to the current generation of games. Brandishing new looks with old skool gameplay, OutRun achieves what it sets out to do. Now most gamers today are older, have a full time job and little free time. They you don't always have a lot of time to sit down and play a really involving game or just don't always want to. OutRun 2 is a real winner in this regard, you can play for half an hour and really get a kick out of either Arcade Mode or Challenge Mode. Plus being an arcade game, the whole feeling of it is conveyed much better in small doses.

The addition Mission Mode in this type of game is a very welcome one, adding may more hours of gameplay and interest to the title. Completing differnt missions to unlock new content is always great and really adds to the whole experience.

Sorry for the delays in updates, I've been kinda busy of late buying a new car and all. But check back soon for more regular stuff.

Gaming on a Budget 3

I recently picked up another wicked gaming bargain from the lovely people over at CD-Wow. This was my first order from these guys, and they provide a bloody great service. Anyway with a bit of strategic barganing I managed to pick up Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution for a tiny $32. The great thing about CD-Wow is they post free worldwide, and most of their games are PAL, so for people in Australia and the UK it's a great place to check out.

On to Virtua Fighter 4:Evo though. I haven't really played a VF game since Virtua Fighter 3: Team Battle on the Dreamcast, and that was pretty lacklustre anyway. I had thought about picking up VF4:Evo before now, but just hadn't gotten around to it. Though now I'm really glad I did. This has to be one of the most polished fighting games around, and is up there with Soul Calibre 2.

You can see why this game has had so many rave reviews, there is just so much in it to do. Plus the fact that this game looks great for a PS2 title really helps, very clean with some pretty decent audio to boot.

It's not an easy game and will really test your patients at times, as it can become frustratingly hard in Quest Mode. Though this just forces you to become a better player, though in a harsh way. However as you do play though you notice that you start to use differnt tactics and moves as you up the ranks and take on tougher opponents.

The Quest Mode is huge, allowing you to take each character though it, conquering arcades and colleting items and status to become the champion. There are a heap of items for each character to collect, plus a load of other great stuff!

To complete this game 100% would take far too many hours, I think I'll just stick to my favourite characters and see how far that takes me. Though for $32, it's a lotta game!

I As In Ninja!

Ahh Ninja Gaiden, the game that is said to be extremely hard. But with good reason, because the game is pretty goddamn difficult.

However Ninja Gaiden must be one of the few games that is very challenging but also so rewarding and great fun. Sure you die a lot, have to replay certain areas of the game over and over, and have to keep trying to defeat a certain boss, but when you do, you feel like you have really accomplished something.

Plus the strange thing is that you never seem to get frustrated with the game. It's hard, but not "I'm going to put this damn Xbox controller through the window" hard. I think the only time I really got angry was at the beginning of the game during one of the first boss battles, and I had already taken the boss on 4-5 times, and then died just before I defeated him. But I learnt what I did wrong, and next time round I kicked his arse!

The other thing you remember when playing the game is that it is hard, and getting pissed at it isn't going to help at all. The best thing to do is to just keep at it, plus having to replay certain areas isn't a chore it's great, you improve you skill and get to behead strange creatures.

Though the thing that simply impressed me the most when I first battled an enemy was simply how fucking solid this game is. The gameplay is simply some of the greatest ever. It just feels great, this is how an action game should feel SOLID!

Even the controls for simple movement are great, though a few things can be a bit tricky and the camera at times can do a few strange things, it's still one of the best out there. But the range of moment and action you can perform are just insane.

The gameplay is just fantastic, and the other things like the weapon upgrade system, magic and additional weapons just add the proverbial icing to the cake.

TeamNinja this time have really out done themselves, the only thing that could top this would be a sequel with more of everything!

Escape From The Bay

Well after a bit of a delay I finally managed to check out Riddick for the Xbox. Now I haven't really seen a bad review about this game, and for the most part with good reason. One of my favourite sites because of their fair reviews, NTSC-UK hints at most of what isn't so hot with the game, but are still partial to it, fair enough.

First of all Riddick has what I believe the Beastie Boys would say "The skills to pay the bills", which in essence is very true. This game looks bloody fantastic, thanks in part to the power of the Xbox and of course StarBreeze who put it all together.

I went into Riddick with high expectations, and when this happens you are usually disappointed. The problem being I had read a few reviews and was sort of caught in the hyped about it. How can you not be, when you have so many people saying something is great, well you kinda believe it.

Riddick is a FPS, but it dose bring a new feel to a worn genre and a few new things. Though I'll say it out right, I don't like stealth in my FPS's, I play MGS, Splinter Cell and Thief for stealth, I don't want to have to fucking sneak about in a game when I can just shoot people. Since your in prison in Riddick, you don't have a gun, and even when you finally do all the work to get one it gets taken away from you. This is where things went sour for me, no gun, having to use stealth and having to fuck around to complete vague objections.

That is my other main gripe, if you get lost in Riddick, you aren't given a hint or any help. This game isn't hard, but with all the vents and locked doors you can get lost and end up wondering what the hell you are doing.

It may seem I am very down on the game, and while I didn't like all the vent crawling and stealth palava, when you do get a gun it's a great game. The sound (loveley 5.1), graphics and atmosphere are top notch and everything just looks great. Also one of my favourite little additions are the cigarette packets you can find to unlock hidden items, very nice.

I would have to say that the main problem is I wasn't into Riddick expecting something it wasn't. For some reason I imagined more Half Life and less Thief, where I ended up with more Thief. Defiantly worth a rent, and if it's $50 pick it up.

A Delay of Sorts

With all the talk about Doom 3 lately I though I would post something different. The fact that I don't currently have a PC that will run Doom 3, and won't until I've bought a car, doesn't factor into it. Though I very much want to play Doom 3, I can wait. Plus I'm looking forward to Half Life 2 much more. Which by then I hope to have said PC.

Anyway onto more pressing issues. The other day as I was reading the usual sites I read on a daily basis and I came across this interesting article. Lost among the mounds of Doom 3 news posts, I'm fairly sure many sites dismissed it. What caught my attention though was the mention of a completion percentage of GT4. Now I'm sure with GT4's imminent release status many people would assume that GT4 is almost complete, as did I. However the article quotes Yamauchi as saying that GT4 is currently only 75% complete, which really thew me. 75% isn't a very comforting number, its a whole 25% away from 100%, which is exactly one quarter. Now this really doesn't fill me with confidence, especially for a release this year.

Maybe it's possible (a release this year), maybe I'm just making a mountain out of a molehill, and maybe 75% to Yamauchi is a lot closer to 100% than I'm thinking. But this game has been in the making for a bloody long time now, and I just keep seeing delays. I was hoping that they would be at around 95% now and just finalising little things and fixing bugs.

I guess we will just have to wait and see, after all there are 5 months left in this year. This isn't a rant about Polyphony Digital or GT4, as it's one of my most loved gaming franchises, it's just an observation. I would rather wait till next to play a perfect version of GT4, it being everything I hope it will be, and not some buggy rushed version. I'm sure many fans of GT4 will agree, as perfection is what makes GT4 a great racing series.

A console by any other colour

I was thinking about this on the way to work the other day. It's not really overly interesting or intriguing, but it made me think non the less. With consumer trends as they are at the moment, what colour are we going to see the Next Gen consoles in? I would say silver, to match the many similar coloured TV's, DVD Players and other various home theatre equipment.

When you look at the current consoles, the PS2 is black, the Xbox is black and the Gamecube is purple (yes, I don't know either). However each manufacturer has produced other colours of their console. Though in the Western World non can claim as many colours as Microsoft. It seems that they have to produce a new colour of their beloved Xbox with each promotion they do. Now this isn't a bad thing. So far I think I've seen, Green, Clear Green, Crystal and Silver, so you have a few choices and I'm sure I have missed some others. I don't mind black, it goes with all my other gear and looks fine. The thing is these other colours are only around for a limited time, and though you might not want a clear green Xbox, a silver one would be quite nice. Also in Japan Microsoft have produced a large range of colours for the Xbox that I can only assume is to try and gain more interest in their product.

Now with Sony, they have currently released a phenomenal  range of colours for the PS2 in Japan. This isn't anything new in Japan though, as the Gamecube enjoys as many variations to it's colour scheme also. There are so many variation to the colour of the PS2 in Japan it just makes the mind boggle. The strange thing is the only other main stream colour I can rammer being released in Australia is Silver. I'm pretty sure the US may of had other colour as well, I kind of recall something similar to the picture above.

The only company to offer a multitude of colours in their console at launch is Nintendo, with their Purple, Black and Orange Gamecube. Though these days I rarely see anything other than the Purple one. Also in Australia I'm fairly sure we didn't get the Silver model.

I don't think I have ever seem so many variation to a product, ever. Either way I digress.

Back to my original thought regarding new console colours, I would have to go with something that's sleek and sexy, probably silver. Something like the current Sony PSX (their hybrid PS2/DVD Recorder).  I'm sure we will still enjoy a myriad of colours from attention starved console manufacturers. However, I can only assume that companies like Sony and Microsoft who are trying to make their Next Gen consoles more Home Theatre integrated and become more of a main feature in the Home Entertainment realm with want the console to match all the current displays people are buying. This being things like plasma screens, the new LCD TV ranges that are appearing, silver coloured TVs and also a lot of other silver coloured appliances.

No more black boarders?

 

With SquareEnix's recent announcement regarding their expansion into Europe, I'm still left wondering about the quality of their up and coming releases. Now SquareSoft/SquareEnix, have made some really great games and some not so great, but for the most part they are up on top.
 
Now I'm not really talking about the games themselves, because games like Final Fantasy XII are just destined to be great, it's their thing, it's what they do. No I'm talking about the PAL conversion, ahh yes. My main concern being the black boarders that Square, nay the companies that are responsible for the conversions love to lump on us PAL users with.
 
Now I don't pretend to know what goes into the process when converting a game from NTSC to PAL, I have a basic understanding of what's involved, but I would say for the most part it could be fairly complex. However, it's always amused and shocked me that such large ranking games like the recent Final Fantasy X-2, have an immence amount of black. This was expectable with the PSX, but it's really not with the PS2 and especially this far into it's life and development cycle.
 
Now I know many people have complained about this time and time again. Especially with Final Fantasy X and X-2. But this isn't a rant about those games, that's in the past and nothing can be done about it. What I hope SquareEnix will do now that they are focusing more on the European market (that includes Australia) is that they really try hard to make the conversions of up and coming games the best they can.
 
It obviously can be done well, as the recent release of Disgaea is a great conversion with no boarders at all. I just hope SquareEnix have learnt from passed experiences/releases and really do improve on future PAL releases.

Next Gen

I've decided to start writing up a few comment on the gaming news, instead of just writing up game impressions, simply because I don't have a new game every few days to write something up about. So basically I'll just put some news up about a game that interests me or some news that's interesting.   So to kick it off I thought I would discuss the current state of the next generation consoles.  
 
Now I'm sort of torn between feelings for the news of the PS3. While it's great that Sony have announced their plans to show their new console at E3 2005, I can't help but feel it was what I was expecting. As most people have been assuming a 2006 launch for the 3 next gen consoles, it makes sense that Sony would show it a year before at one of the biggest electronic based expos. I think I'll wait until E3 2005 to get excited about seeing it, it's still a year away after all.   The other thing is now though, because of all this news surrounding the PS3 that Sony have pushed onto the press, making the PS3 the most know and talked about next gen console. Microsoft have come out guns blazing making more statements that, while maybe achievable should be something they should be aiming for in the future, not second gen.  
 
You just have to look at what happened a few years ago in the console market. Sega and Sony were head to head with the Saturn and the PSX, Sony won it big time and had themselves a big portion of the videogame market. This allowed for some great things. Nintendo was there with the N64, but only in the background.  So for a long-time you just had the PSX doing it thing in the console market and Sony built a huge reputatition and fanbase. Now you have the console wars back again, minus Sega, but being replaced with Microsoft. I think it's great! I love a good console war, and I'm not biased either way. Microsoft like they say have come a long way, considering the competition, plus they have built the best online gaming service to date, and kicked Sony's arse doing it. Though not surprising, Western gamers have accepted online gaming faster than Japan, we have just had it a long time.
 
Now Microsoft want to win the next gen console wars. They want to beat Sony, who are in Japan, the country that has supported the console market for the last 8+ years. Maybe Microsoft can do it, with the right developers and a console this time that doesn't look like something a VCR just gave birth too. Microsoft really have to win over Japan this time, they will need companies like SquareSoft to make decent exclusive Xbox games. I'm talking Final Fantasy 13.
 
Though the console and gaming market in general is a fickle one, you can never quite tell who is going to what. Something like Microsoft buying out SquareSoft could arise. Hey, it would be a better investment that Rare.
 
All in all I like Microsoft and the Xbox console, I just have one final thing to say regarding XboxNext. I just hope that Microsoft learnt some very valuable lessons with their first Xbox and make the hardware for the second one goddamn well work. I don't want to be sending back a 2 month old Xbox Next because it won't read games or have problems with it later down the track. (Yes my Xbox still crashes during games, it's the only thing that disgust me)

More Hours of Darkness

After spending nearly the weekend with Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, I can honestly say that it is one of the most addictive RPGs I have every played.

I think it's mainly due to a combination of things, one of them being that the game is never overly hard. This is helped by the fact that it's so easy to level up characters. You can either choose to go back and replay a mission that you have already done, which is a great help as some levels contain areas that allow for bonus EXP. Or you can choose to enter the item world. Each item in the game can has it's stats increased by travelling into the item it's self and completing 10 lvs at a time. The levels for each item are randomly generated but the best thing about it are the bonus items acquired.

The game has a bonus meter, when this is filled to the next level you receive a bonus be it an item, HL (money) or bonus EXP. The great thing is you can obtain items in the item world that would cost a fortune from the shop, or ones that are marked rare or legend items and cannon be bought.

It's not hard to pull of giant combos to gain bonuses on many of the levels in the item world, thanks to special geo markers around the levels. These markers add certain attributes to a square that you or an enemy are standing on. However if you destroy a blue marker on a yellow square, and the blue has the "change to" attribute, then all the yellow markers become blue. If another geo marker it hit during the combo, another colour combo is set off. So you can see where this is going, and believe me there is nothing like pulling off a 1000+ combo and filling that bonus meter all the way to 9!

One of the other great things about the game is the sheer amount of characters to unlock, as well as enemies that can then be created and added to your party.

At the end of it all you have a game that is just a joy to play and with it's great anime styling there is never a dull moment.

Oh and one of the best things, that is so minor but I just really love it, is that when you equip a human character with a weapon, it is actually different on screen. It's just great to see a character brandishing a new sword on the battle field.

The Many Hours of Darkness

It's been a while since I last posted, and that's only because I wanted to have sometime with Disgaea before I did post anything. The problem was finding sometime to get into it, since I knew it would be a game that would consume time like some sort of magical time continuum. It of course dose.

When I first started thinking about picking up a copy of the game, I was sort of worried it wouldn't gel with me. I'm a huge RPG fan but not so much of the strategy league. But after playing it for a few hours, I now can't wait to get home and start levelling up all my new characters, earning extra HL, and of course buying new gear so they go back into battle and really show how things should be done.

The only thing I find is that I'll play the game for maybe an hour or so and find I've achieved only a few things, which isn't a bad thing, it just really surprises you.

I'm only a few hours into it at the moment, so I haven't really started kickin' it. But I'll post some more impressions as soon as I can.

Disgaea: Woo, Woo Indeed!

Well my copy of Disgaea: Hour of Darknes just arrived, after I get some time to play it I'll post some impressions.

Disgaea Discontinued in Australia

After receiving a newsletter from GamesMarket saying that Disgaea: The House of Darkness had been discontinued, I began to panic.

After emailing then and asking what was going on, I've found out that in their wisdom EA Games the distributor, decided to only bring in 1 shipment, and no more.

Now maybe it's just me, but I would have thought that a title like Disgea, even though it would have only a small sell through, you would import more than 1 shipment, because there is going to be a demand for it.

Either way, I just ordered mine, I wasn't going to get it right now but considering the circumstances I had to. If you really want it, try some stores, I know many of the online Australian game stores are already listing it as "Discontinued"

I'll post my thought on it when it arrives next week.

Spys will have their trinkets...

After playing Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow for an hour or so, it seems very similar to what many people have said about it in numerous reviews.

Since I've just been playing the original Splinter Cell I guess it makes it easier for me to compare the two. First of all, Pandora Tomorrow is much harder than the original right off the bat. The second level alone requires you to use many of your skills just to do a few simple things. There seems to be more lights to shoot out this time round which can make it easier to go undetected. However, the AI has been greatly improved and now guards are alerted to gunshots and lights being shot out much easier, especially if a guard is already on alert and another light is taken out. This alone adds to the difficulty, or can work as an advantage as it provokes guards to move over to a certain area.

With regards to the graphics, they have been improved over the original, there not as ground breaking as the original SC but the lighting is now much smoother as well the environments having more character and detail. One this though, I can't get over this weird effect that you get when Fisher is in a dark area, the light on the back of his suit creates this weird distortion. It kind of looks like low quality video, when MPEG-2 video breaks up. It's really the only thing that ruins the great looking graphics. Though the guys at Gamespot also noticed it, so it's not just me.

The audio is a delight in Pandora Tomorrow and Dolby 5.1 shines as always. One thing you notice now is that everything seems to make so much more noise. Wooden stairs creek as you walk down them and broken windows are something to avoid.

A few other smaller additions to the game that a nice are the inclusion of a meter showing you when a body is well hidden. The alarm meter, this shows you how many more alarms can be set off before mission failure, and a little notice at the bottom of the screen telling you when you can use lethal and non-lethal forces.

After just playing a little of Pandora Tomorrow you really get a feel for what's improvements have been made to it.

I'll play through some more and write up anything else I find that's interesting.

Gaming on a Budget 2

Well on the weekend I buckled under the pressure of the giant EB sale. I picked up Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow and MechAssault, and for a song at that.

Now you're probably thinking, "What you never played MechAssault !!!" Any you would be right too. I just never got around to picking it up, plus I wasn't sure if it was my kind of game. Though since I have always wanted to see what all the commotion was about I grabbed it. Blowing stuff up is fun!

I've always enjoyed mech games, Armoured Core being a personal favourite of mine. I've only played a few levels but it seems great. Now I really want to see what MechAssault 2 is going to offer, since the articles and interview about it make it seem like it has a lot to offer.

As for Splinter Cell: PD, I'll check it out and write up some impressions soon.

Gaming on a budget

Well with all the talk about Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow around the traps I decided to go back to the original that I never finished. I remember playing to about the 3rd mission within the CIA, but I got frustrated and gave up.

Well as luck would have it our good friends over at The Games Wizards were having a sale and I picked it up for a measly $14 on the Xbox. Yes a bargain indeed. But, and this is the best part, being a re-released "Xbox Classic" title it came with a second disc, including the 3 new maps available over Live and some behind the scenes movies. Considering I don't yet have Live, this was a great bonus. So I'm still currently involved with the classic Splinter Cell, and even though it's a few years old now it still looks great.

And yes, it has re-ignited my interest in SP:PT, which I will defiantly have to pick up in the future. (Not necessarily when its $14)

The Prologue

Paying for a demo of a game isn't something I would normally do, or even condone. I simply think it's a waste of money that could be put to better use, e.g. buying more games. Plus I never understood why people bought a game just to get a demo of say a new Final Fantasy title that was coming out in X amount of months, maybe it's just clever marketing. But alas I have fallen on my own sword an done the unimaginable. Gran Turismo 4: Prologue was far too much gaming goodness than I could resist. While the wait for this game has grown and grown, peoples interest in a title will start to feign. GT4:P is a great way to say "Hey, It's still coming, just a little longer". Plus it came with a bonus DVD, how can you go wrong.

For the record I'm talking about the Australian version if anyone is wondering.

First of all if you are a fan of the GT series and don't get excited at the opening of GT4:P, you are dead inside! I'm not kidding, the goddamn intro is worth the price of admission alone!

As you would have read, as I did, the game is comprised of a "School Mode" and "Arcade Mode". The School Mode is 46 lessons, and are similar to the Licence Tests undertaken in the GT series. Though they have now changed, and for the better. First of all there is a lovely voice over from an English lady, who takes you through the test and give you tips about what you must do. This is similar to previous GT games where you could watch how to do a certain test, but now it's just a lot nicer. The tests vary in difficulty, and while passing them isn't really hard at all, getting a gold on certain tests can be quite a challenge. After each test is passed, the car used in the test is awarded for use in Arcade mode. Nice!

Arcade mode is really just 5 tracks and all your cars, that's it. 1 track is a rally track and 2 are city/street and one circuit. Though it's nice to be able to test out the cars you have unlocked on a full track, though with limited in laps.

The DVD included with the game is great. A little short but great. It's got a main feature called "The making of a driver" which is 30mins long and very interesting, with a great deal of excellent footage. Then there is another section called "Behind the scenes", this however is only 2mins long?! I have no idea why it's so short, there must be so much footage from the making of GT4 its not funny, yet that's all there is.

Prologue is what it is, and nothing more. It's a glimpse at GT4, and to keep fans entertained until November. It dose it, and dose it well.

Innocence It Is Not

After playing through about 60% of Castlevania: Lament of Innocence you sort of get the feeling you have already been there. Even though this game has gotten some pretty favourable reviews, you can't get over the feeling that its just a few monsters connected via a lot of hallways and big rooms. That's pretty much all you do, run down a hallway, which leads to a room, which contains a few monsters, this then leads to another hallway. Repeat.

Though the other thing that really got me, is at times in the game you might go though about 15 rooms and you think your going to get some great item at the end of it all. Sure you get an item, but it usually doesn't do much of anything.

At times its fun to explore dungeons, kill monsters, and collect treasure, but this just got repetitive and boring. The monsters just keep respawning, all of them! Plus you don't even get anything for all the work. You might get some useless trinket at the end, woo!

If you were a Castlevania fan, you might want to run though the game once and collect the keys that open up other areas on certian maps to possibly collect decent items. But even then, it's not even "Diablo II" cool when you kill something.

The Sequel

Well it finally happned, Square Soft now Square Enix did what everyone wanted. They released the sequel to a Final Fantasy game. That games happens to be Fianl Fantasy X-2. For the most part people seem to like it, and I am one of those people. Which is funny really because I wasen't a huge fan of FFX. I just didn't get into the whole story and the water thing bugged me.

I think what makes FF X-2 such a pleasure to play is the whole light hearted story line and the fact that there isn't a real whole feeling of impending doom you tend to get with FF games. With the main characters being 3 girls, it just makes the game that much more fun. Also the addition of the new battle system and dress spheres makes for much more fast paced gameplay, which is different in a FF game. Accept when your trying to get too many commands out at once and hit he wrong one. But that dosent happen often. Im glad the Square Enix decided to change the sequel a bit, you dont want to spent $100 and play the same damn game again. Hi Capcom!

I checked out Castlevaniva: Lament of Innocence on the PS2 the other day, which I will post some impressions of later in the week.

Bloggins

This Blog is still alive, I know it hasn't been updated in months and I feel really bad about it. I really wanted to try and start a decent gaming blog. Also after reading this article in Wired I thought I better start it up again. And put some damn effort into it...

Anyway, I've just been kinda busy. Which I know isn't an excuse but I just haven't had time or effort or something.

Also Final Fantasy X-2 just got released here and a few other decent looking titles like Kill Switch, which I hope to have some play time with soon.

I Needed Too

After reading a few things about JAK2 I decided to invest last weekend in it, and Im glad I did. It's a great game, the fact that it looks great and is very different to a lot of platformers is even better. I was just expecting a platformer, I would never have guessed that JAK2 would give you so much freedom in a GTA style world. When I say that getting to the next mission is fun, it really is.

I also got my hands on (finally) a copy of Devil May Cry 2, and yeah it really doesn't live up to the original. It had tanks in it for fucks sake, I mean tanks, in Devil May Cry 2! It's just wrong. The fact that the battles were boring, the camera far too long range and the level design was terrible was enough. I know another design team did it, but I kinda wonder why. Maybe DMC3 will notch up on the original.