1Emulation.Com - Reviews and Rants

[02/14/12] Mass Effect 3 - DEMO Review

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 03:15:08 +0000

GAME: Mass Effect 3 (DEMO)

Systems: PC, PS3, Xbox360

Soooooo yeeeeah.... The demo came out today and if you didn't know please get up from the rock you've been under and smell the sweet smell of ME3... However... I expected a fresher smell. Btw I'm reviewing based on the Xbox360 version.

Single Player:

I played the single player session and found that part to be underwhelming.
First off the game is set into 3 different types, Action, RolePlay, and Story.
The first being COD style, an what do i mean by that? Well all the cut-scenes and conversations can be skipped and - I love this- you don't make any dialog choices because the game will do all that for you! Gotta love the new-age RIG theses days. The second being "standard" ME experience which seems fairly true. AS for story... it's just roleplay but a lot easier(??).
You'll also notice quite a few set pieces in the first map but i guess that's fine. Now MIND YOU, all of these different styles are changeable in the settings menu so I'm sure they wont ask us what style we wish to play in the real deal. hopefully.

Half the demo you are on Earth with a pistol and an assault rifle and fighting off new fat Geth who pretty much just walk to you while shooting,
The second part, you're dealing with human armored dudes and they perform the usual shoot and cover stuff. I was hoping some aliens to mix it up but i chalk that up to bad decision making on the demo.

THe action is there! The intensity, the way the guns feels when shot. It all feels awesome! The graphics are beautiful and there are some slight audio sync issues i ran it during the talks but these were glitches. Everything is smooth for the most part and did i mentions how nice it feels to get a head shot in this game. ANd don't get me started on the BIonic Charge

MultiPlayer:

The multi-player is basically horde mode for M.E. You fight wave, after wave, and if you lose your health(incapacitated) a friend can heal you. But if you dot get revived up in time you die. Also the enemy can curb stomp which kills instantly(GOW type thing). The slight difference is you will occasionally have to hack a few terminals during a wave or kill a certain group of enemies in a time-frame but the latter makes the horde mode seem sillier to me.You can level up just like in single player although from what i saw, they gyve you five or six powers(four are usally used for the ammo change, grenade power and the passive things like "Fitness" and "training" powers and you just keep upgrading those powers. This caused me to raise an eyebrow, especially on the campaign( which does provide slightly more to work with, by giving you about seven or eight powers to upgrade) since they stated they were gonna address the concern for the game being more shooter than rpg--- I didn't see that addressed at all.

Bottom line is it fun?... Well yea..kinda. The single player was dull because everyone did the same, duck, cover, and shoot. It would have been better to demo Shepard fighting some Krogan or Asarians who usually posses powers and specific attack patterns. Other than that, it was standard cover action.
The coop/horde was really fun with friends who know what they're doing. It becomes thrilling but i guess i feel a little empty due to my expectation of thinking the coop would be Single-player-like missions but with friends. Instead we're on this one map that doesn't expand and we fight until we die..... Doesn't fit right at all for a ME game. But i will keep playing it and I'll see if my seemingly negative opinion changes, but there isn't much left to do but level up on coop now.
If it does i will love to come back on and retract my statements. Keep in mind, so far the game does not seem bad, and i'm still gonna get it, its just a franchise like ME- if you're gonna go with a demo, then go hard.

Plz comment an lemme know what ya think.

[12/14/2011] Deus Ex Human Revolution - Technical Review

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 03:23:08 +0000

First of all, this is not a gameplay review, or one that says "The bosses suck"
This is just a review and a study of the mechanics implemented in the game, what possibly was done to make the mechanic happen, and what was done to be optimized or efficient for lower hardware.
It is practically a console port, but it isn't a bad one.
I used my knowledge as a developer to break things down from what I observed, and compared to other examples for a few things.

I thought I might post something here since we're about to hit 2012, and nothing has been posted since 2010.
GAME: Deus Ex Human Revolution
Systems: PC, PS3, Xbox360
Emulatiors: None that I know of.

Deus Ex Human Revolution Analysis:

After playing the game in full after 50 hours, here’s what I have to conclude…

Physics:
The game has simplistic box and cylinder physics. There’s also rag doll physics.
The player seems to be a basic collision ghost object in the shape of a sphere. This shape is further used for AI visual detection.
When it comes to the player standing on objects, the following can be observed:
The player seems to exert no forces on objects that are being stood on.
I noticed this when I set two boxes roughly centered on a rail against a wall as a frictional surface, which I then proceeded to jump on top of to jump over a high wall. I was on the edge of the boxes in such a fashion that the boxes should have been knocked over by my weight forcing more torque than the wall friction could negate.
Now that I think about it, there were almost no cases where torque in general could be observed.

I tested for this in the Source Engine as used in Portal 1. The objects do fall over with my weight on an unbalanced setup. The source engine has more realistic physics in the case of standing on things.
When it comes to the player bumping into objects, the following can be observed.
There seems to be a 100-200 ms, possibly purposeful, lag before the object will move when the user collides with said object. It could be the result of ground friction, though it could just be a simulated lag to give the user a notice that they are indeed colliding with another mass-filled space.
Most of the layout in Deus Ex is a static physics tree, so there aren’t many objects to manipulate the environment with, except for moving around boxes, crates, fire extinguishers and breaking glass with a gun.
However, the user can only bump into large specific objects, such as boxes, large crates and vending machines. All other items are not considered when collision occurs. Such is the case with rag doll bodies, guns, ammo, and other various small things, like fire extinguishers.

Rag dolls however do collide with the smaller objects, such as guns.
When it comes to ground detection, this is what I hypothesize is happening.
There are two cylinders, one that has the width of slightly less than the diameter of the sphere I hypothesize represents the player, another that is slightly larger than the diameter.
The two cylinders create a list per frame of what they are colliding with, excluding the other and the sphere. When the two cylinders do not have lists of equal length, the smaller cylinder is used. This way, we aren’t counting a wall as something that we are standing on. However, when there is no wall around, and the larger is used, this gives the player a bit more tolerance in foot room.
When the inner cylinder has no contact, the player is considered free-falling.
To clarify on the specifications of the cylinders, I believe that they are the height of the player’s shape, plus a little and then shifted down a constant. I have yet to figure out what the constant is, or a margin of what it should be. The idea is though, that it is long enough, that if the platform beneath were going towards gravity but not at the acceleration of gravity, then we should still be able to walk on such a platform.
Continuing floor detection:
In Deus Ex HR, elevators and other moving platforms still allowed for movement, but declined to allow jumping. This may be so that players didn’t kill themselves from fall damage while in elevators(now that would just be silly) because the engine was not taking into account the relative velocity of what was underneath.
Next is crouching and potential space the player could move in.
As previously mentioned, I hypothesize that the player is represented as a sphere. While the player is in a normal posture, such as standing, walking or running, the sphere is the height/width of the max of the base of the head to the belt-line and the width of the shoulders. Its most likely the shoulders.
When the player crouches, the sphere is simply brought to the ground.
There is an interesting case when the player is brought to the following situation
The player is presented with a wall that they are facing. There is a vent at upper-chest level. In DEHR, the player will automatically go into the vent and be in crouch mode. Depending on the player’s settings/preferences, the crouch is toggled when they enter this mode.
Here’s my hypothesis on what’s going on to allow this. It may be something entirely contextual, or a simulation test. If a simulation test, the engine is simulating dual cylinders again, but they are only as long as the sphere is deep(or its diameter). The cylinders are facing so that the round side is facing the ground, and the flat sides are facing the user’s chest/face and directly in front. Both cylinders are placed in front of the user, the center of the circle face is between the chest and head. The second cylinder is slightly smaller for tolerance reasons. Now if the smaller cylinder can fit in the space without any static physical objects in the way, then a second test is ran. This is where the larger cylinder is used. There would likely be 2 tests which are simply to find the center of the vent hole. Since we know the points of contact already, we now shift away from those points of contact. Now, we detect if the cylinder is still contacting something. If not: we can proceed and enter. If we are contacting something, then we calculate relative to the first set of points where the center would be and move there. This is the second test. If there are no contacts, then we are free to enter.

Normal crouching, like any other movement test will be a “Can my sphere go here without any contacts?” if so, then allow the movement to occur. Otherwise, calculate if the contact is at a non tangent angle. If so, then calculate with cosine where the object can go with a decreased force/velocity.
The same happens with walking. If you walk at a tangent angle directly to a wall, then you might as well be testing the cosine of 90 deg which is 0. Now in the case of walking towards a corner where the sphere is in contact with two walls, depending on the yaw of the view, then the forces will be negated. Either way, until the user changes their plan of walking into a wall, it will become a harmonic motion of moving where the forces go between walls to find equilibrium.
Ground friction with the player and objects
It can be observed with a box on a sloped road that it will slide down. However it will slide down at a slow rate and stop after a foot or so, depending on the incline. There does seem to be a simulation of ground friction for small objects.
With the player, there are no areas/levels where the surface is slippery. I’m betting that it is a situation where the character’s velocity is averaged and reduced to 0 after 35-100ms
There are no cases of vertical velocity averaging as all cases of moving platforms are locked in terms of jumping(it can’t be done)
Graphics:
There are numerous tricks employed to have low geometry but high visuals. Most of it has to do with bump, parallax and normal mapping. Examples include the vent lines and indention of where they would, if real life, connect; brick walls, asphalt on roads, et al.

There are also many shaders that seem to be in effect. I noticed that the rails were square in form, but looked cylindrical by how the lighting shown on them. It is likely that they are in fact square extrusions which have a shader applied where it seems like the light looks reflective as if cylindrical.

Next up are the newspapers that will sometimes, as an environmental decal, fly up from random winds and disappear in the sky. The newspapers looked like it was at most 3 polygons which would be randomly twisted(pre-animated) which would have interpolated keyframes of rotation and position as they fly up, and then fade.

They also used lower-resolution geometry as a form of art, as seen in the Biotech labs tower, where the furniture had solid-sculpted-white-granite sides which had large triangle sides.

They used many portals. Not in the sense of Portal the game, but in an older designing sense. When presented with a large scene outside, there were not many features which were geometrically complicated. When you went through a doorway, you usually enter a small room, or a corridor. When you pass through the other side of said area, then you enter another area which is rendered separately from the rest of the world. Such world partitioning is a speed increase when it comes to pre-enumerated objects which are in the area to be considered to render, as opposed to generating this list in runtime periodically or even each frame.
In older game engines, if you didn’t specify portal sections when level designing, then it would render the whole world and become very slow.
Though not necessary for many computers of today, it was likely implemented to assist consoles with limited memory or resources such as the Xbox360 or PS3(it has 256MB of RAM and 256MB of VRAM)

They had a very decent Level Of Detail(LOD) system. They switched textures on separate intervals than they did with models. They seemed to have more levels in textures than with models. I think they had 4 texture levels and 3 model levels.

Regarding human conversation and movement, They seemed to have too much weight on random bumpiness with the human muscles. Try holding your hand in front of you about a foot away and try to hold it still. You may notice small twitches and shaking. Most places that implement this do not provide it at a realistic level. The face seemed to be a completely different animation system than the rest of the body. While in conversation they usually had the neck move around, as well as gestures with the arms that were generic.

As most games do, they did not include any working mirrors, which may show how weird the player’s character may be holding things in order to get it to look right for the first person camera view. When changing to a third person perspective, the animation is likely to be averaged/morphed to the third person animations while the camera swings slightly away from the player and to where the target is when doing stealthy moves.

This is essentially a copy and paste from my blog that I sometimes post to.
http://blog.kloplop3...man-revolution/

I'm not the best writer. Did I make sense?

[11/29/2010] Demon's Souls

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 12:21:07 +0000

Demon's Souls

Publisher -- * Atlus Co.
Developer -- * From Software
Genre -- * Action Role-Playing
Release Date -- Oct 6, 2009
Rating -- Mature

Demon's Souls is a non-linear, dungeon crawling, RPG game released exclusively for the PlayStation 3, developed by From Software, the creators of the King's Field series, making this game a spiritual successor to this title. The game is set in an Americanized Dungeons and Dragons esc fantasy world, where users can create their own hero, male or female. The Kingdom of Boletaria has been shrouded in an accursed fog that attracts demons who feed on the souls of humans. Many heroes have gone into the fog, but have never come out alive, but you in particular, have been chosen to rid the area of Demons through slaying monsters and collecting sacred souls. There are ten different classes of heroes to choose from, who all start off with different stats, weapons, equipment, magic, and miracles, so it's wise to spend your souls accordingly.

The first dungeon archstone in the Nexus.

Magic is usually classified by augmentation of weapons, a defensive shield, or an attack / projectile, while miracles are in the realm of healing yourself and other priest like spells and enhancements. From the beginning of this game you'll be taken through a tutorial mode where the game explains how the game will and should be played, given that you basically have no choice but to follow its advice down to the last letter. What makes the game hard right off of the bat is that you cannot haphazardly slash your way through hordes enemies, because you have a stamina bar that monitors your action, from sprinting, doge rolling, back stepping, blocking, attacking, and parrying. The game demands that you find a way to balance all of these abilities to conserve your stamina. You're able to increase your stamina bit by bit, but you also have to consider that the farther you get in the game, the more you will be using these abilities anyway, so if you don't want your stamina bar virtually gone after one block, you're going to need to increase it, along with everything else. It increases almost instantly but that’s only if you’re standing still, and standing still near an enemy equates to death.

Killing a NPC.

Here's the main thing, you can't buy weapons or armor at one particular shop, you'll either have to accidentally come across it by killing something, or by finding it somewhere. All items dropped appear as yellow glowing objects so it makes it easier to spot. If you have too many items on hand, you’ll have to sacrifice space, (drop some items), in order to grab it, and you can’t warp back to the Nexus, and return because the drop will disappear, however, no matter how long you wait in a certain dungeon, a drop will never disappear, adding to the extreme realism the game devises. Some merchants sell armor that you might desire, but the merchants are located in later dungeons, even though there's no particular order as to what dungeon you complete, it's a bad choice to waltz into a later dungeon thinking that you won't get killed, so it's best to be prepared. The game's realism limits your freedom and equipment choice. Your character will have an Item burden and an Equip burden, your Item burden is how many items you can have on hand without getting your body overweight, the same goes with Equip burden and you can equip only two accessories at once, some arrows, some bolts for Crossbows. You also have 4 slots, 2 slots for each hand, where you can carry both a Shield and a casting catalyst on one hand, and a Sword and a Bow on another.

The equipment screen.

Your armor comes down to your head, torso, legs, and hands, along with 5 slots for items. So with every single slot on your body filled, you have to make sure that your Equip Burden isn't over 50%, as a result, your body will be more sluggish than normal, meaning that dodge rolling can either become impossible or slightly impaired, and you'll be able to run slower, and your stamina bar will also take more juice to use as your already carrying enough weight. If you’re miraculously overweight your character will lack the ability to run, which makes the game unplayable. You can basically run through dungeons naked, your defense will be poor, but your speed will increase dramatically. There’s no getting accustomed to heavy armor over time, either you equip light armor or you increase your Equip burden by leveling.

You would think that the pause button would pause the game but it doesn’t, so if you’re in a boss fight, you will have to retreat far away, and know menus well, so you can quickly choose an item, you only have 5 item slots, which can be assigned to the Square button as a shortcut, but there can only be so many items mapped to that button. No matter what happens in the game, the game will autosave, if you kill a boss, collect an item, kill a monster, or die, the game autosaves instantly, once again adding to the realism.

Online play with a Blue Phantom.

The game is quite stingy on all accounts. There are items that can increase your Equip burden by a certain percentage, but by that point you've already used one accessory slot, and if you think your Equip Burden can be increased, while your body can be more resistant to fire attacks, and magic attacks, you would be mistaken. The slot management system takes time to develop. When entering a boss fight, you will have to temporarily equip accordingly. Upon the start of the first dungeon, you're basically a weak prick who can only get stronger by studying the enemies’ attacks. It's a better choice to never attack first, the enemy's attack patterns are otherwise unpredictable, and they also will wait for you to attack first, once you attack you're left completely vulnerable. Parrying only works when timed right, and if you time it incorrectly, you'll be left completely open, if you try to block while your stamina bar is low, your character will also be weakened by the recoil of the failed block, which makes your defense temporarily staggered, to a point where you can’t move for 2 seconds, and the enemy can one hit you at this point, which makes the ability very risky.

Example of Sasquatch bosses.

Once you defeat a boss, a new checkpoint will appear, now you can summon yourself into a dungeon without having to be spawned all the way at the beginning of it, each dungeon has 3-5 different checkpoints, all of the dungeons are massive, and luckily the game requires no loading after a certain amount of progression through a certain dungeon. Once a boss is killed, it will never return unless you aid someone in their game or start a new game.

The first, unbeatable boss in the tutorial.

Of course, not all shields can parry, some of them can be small or extremely large. Another factor to take into account is the durability system, all equipment has certain durability, after while your armor or weapons will break due to overuse, blocking very large attacks can decrease your durability beyond natural circumstances. There are so many things to worry about aside from the grueling difficulty itself. After a while the enemies can be read to the point where they are no longer a threat, which takes time and patience, lacking these two virtues will get you killed in a heartbeat. When you first start the game, you're only a soul, where your health is decreased by half, in order to regain your original body, you have to, use a Blue Eye Stone, which enables you to put down your soul and offer help during boss rights online, use a Black Stone, where you can evade another person's game online as a Black Phantom. If you successfully kill the user of the world you evade, you get your body back, as well as their souls.

But if you lose, you lose one soul level, and you gain nothing. This is where the jeopardy comes in, so it's a better choice to aid someone in combat during a boss fight. You can only do this if the boss you're helping to defeat is a boss you've already killed in your down adventure. Once you help slay a boss, the user who you helped can rate your performance, so if you slacked off and let him or her do all of the work you’ll get a D rating, but if you went in and got the job done you would get an S rating, this is only considering that the player you’re aiding isn’t a fart pirate, who’s going to screw you over. As a host, you have to be alive, and you can summon up to three different souls. You can also use an item called, Stone of Ephemeral Eyes, these items are rare, and cannot be purchased anywhere, you can either trade them with another player, or find them in the game, where there's only a limited number of them in existence. Upon being killed all of your experience points, (Souls), are lost, so no matter how many souls you had before you're death, they will all be gone, only able to be retrieved from touching your bloodspot. It'll be located in the exact spot where you died, or if you died from a large fall, it'll be located somewhere near the cliff of the exact fall.

Dungeon 4

If you die again in your quest to retrieve your souls, all of them will vanish. Being online while playing can be a good thing or a bad thing. Black Phantoms can evade your privacy, from whatever you're doing, and can kill you, take your souls and time put in away, in this case you could disconnect from the internet if you don’t want to fight them. It can also be beneficial to where other players can leave messages on the ground, giving you warnings that you can utilize to make the game slightly less difficult. You can't type whatever you want, however you can make a statement from a database of preset statements and words. For example, I could post a message saying, "Use spears on the enemy ahead", or, "Beware of the trap ahead", and if your message is useful, other players can recommend it. The more recommendation points your message has, the more chance it has towards not vanishing, if your message is useless it will vanish over a long period of time due to ineptness.

An example of you and a soul of another player playing together Online.

If you die while logged into the server, the game will keep record of the most recent death. At the spot of the death, your bloodspot will be permanently marked on the ground, where another player can press the X button, to see a hologram of your player dying, in the same exact spot of your death, so a player can use your mistakes to his or her advantage. The creators stop at nothing to make the game unbearable. Some weapons require a certain amount of speed, attack power, dexterity, etc., in order to use that weapon. If you try to wield it without the requirements, the attack power and attack speed while using the weapon will be impaired and faulty. You'll find yourself grinding levels to increase a certain skill in order to use a particular bow or weapon. You can't even use magic or miracle spells until you have a certain amount of the a certain characteristic, and even at that point you can only start out with one magic or miracle spell slot, meaning you can only hold and use one spell, and it takes 4-5 skill levels to increase a slot by one, you could have a lot of Intelligence but only have room for three spells. It's all strictly about balancing your options. This is what takes so much patience. It is not a surprise to finish this game at 100 hours, there are so many items to collect, bosses to kill, level to grind, weapons to upgrade, before completing the game. Once you complete the game for the first time, there is a New Game + option available, but not without a risk involved of course.

Yes, two dragons, and they can both be killed through time.

The first New Game +, all monsters’ stats are increased by 40%, so if you're going into a New Game at level 90, the first dungeon which should be a realm of weaklings, will now be the same it was when you were at level one on the first playthrough, and the experience they give remains the same. The stronger you are, the more souls you need to get past a certain level. At level 10, 100,000 souls might seem like plenty, but at level 120, you might only be able to level up once using 100,000 souls, so if the difficulty is increased by 40% while the experience is left untouched, a New Game + is a very perilous choice to make. Every New Game after a New Game +, which would make it New Game ++, etc., the difficulty increases by 8%, so after the first hump the hassle is lifted slightly.
Although, a New Game + can be convenient. Upon killing each boss, you will obtain their Soul, which can be consumed for experience points, or can be used for certain unobtainable weapons. If you contain a soul from a certain boss and a certain weapon, you can forge a special weapon exclusive from the boss itself. Or you can use it to create a skill useful for Pvp purposes. This means that missing them upon the first playthrough means that you can obtain them again.

An example of a player who has progressed considerably far.

As much as the equipment burdens you, your skills tie into the everything, how much Dexterity you have will be the deciding factor on whether or not this certain jump will kill you or only damage you. Every ounce of realism in this game works against you. You can even attack NPCs, and if you do you'll change the World Tendency of each dungeon, if you kill many of the enemies in a certain dungeon, and help people only as a Blue Phantom, your World Tendency will be white, where the enemies are weaker. But if you kill NPCs, and kill players in other worlds, your World Tendency will be Black, where the enemies are much stronger, but the experience points they give increases. There's no way to sell anything, selling is non-existent, because your experience points, also work as money, so not only do you have to worry about leveling, but you also have to worry about buying items, and strengthening, repairing weapons and learning spells. In the main hub, the "Nexus", there is an NPC called Stockpile Tom, who can hold unlimited amounts of items you don't care to hold on to.

The World Tendency Map

Collecting many different ores and stones for upgrading weapons can easily over take your Item Burden. You can kill this man to get an item, but if you do this he will be gone forever along with all of your deposited items until you start a new game. Certain NPC warriors can be found in certain dungeons, and if you rescue them, they will return to the Nexus and become an NPC, if you kill them all of their benefits will be lost, but you can take their armor. You can kill anyone in the game no matter their status, but doing so is not always the best choice.

Another intimidating, optional boss at the start of the game.

Frankly, Demon's Souls doesn't care about your inability to play efficiently as it will boggle you down if you aren't patient. Many critics have praised this feature; it gives you a sense of accomplishment once you master the system. Music is absent unless you're fighting a boss which makes the game more realistic, hopeless, and cold. The graphics are stellar but the character creation system is quite limited and the faces could use some work. The environment and art design is based upon emulating the American style dungeon crawlers, everything looks quite generic but suitable. The sound effects are quite realistic, for a dungeon crawler, they would have to be. The difficulty alone can be a big turn off to the casual gamer, it isn't for pansies to say the least, but if you're looking for a demented but also satisfying RPG experience, I recommend this title.

Everything taken into account -- 8.7

[2010/08/03] Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 09:10:13 +0000

Review: Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
System: PSP

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (MGS PW) is the latest MGS game by Kojima
Productions. The main protagonist is Big Boss and it tells the story and
events that lead to the founding of Outer Heaven. The game is set in 1974,
ten years after the events of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, four years
after Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, and just two years after the
Les Enfants Terribles project and the location is set at Costa Rica.

Graphics:

This will be how the cutscene look like most of the time

Graphically, this game is pushing the PSP capabilities to the limit. Not
many games on PSP can match the level of details shown on the map or the
characters itself. The jungle environment are lushfully done, the
details on guns, equipments and vehicles are very detailed and the day/night
settings are done so well in the same map. Best graphics by Kojima and his
team (well, until Ready at Dawns released Ghost of Sparta anyway )

Graphics: 9.5/10

Sound:

MGS PW has one of the best sound offering on a PSP game so far. The voice
acting is superb with David Hayter reprising his role for Big Boss, the
main theme "Heaven's Divide" is a great song, and the MGS Main Theme music
in this version is even better. All the codecs are fully voiced now if the
game is installed to memory stick, unlike MGS Portable Ops which give us
texted codecs only. And the sound effects are all nicely done with bgm
that really suit the situation you find yourself in.

Sound: 10/10

Controls:

Some contention on the controls. the previous MGS on PSP, Portable Ops
have controls that are modified to fit the PSP. It is not so well-received
by some gamers so in this game, MGS PW offers 3 types of control scheme.
1st is the shooter type, where the camera are mapped to the face buttons,
which most fps/action shooter games on PSP choose to use. 2nd is the action
type where the action buttons like using equipments, changing weapons are
mapped to the face buttons instead, the old MGS Portable Ops control style.
And finally, the Monster Hunter control type, where weapon-changing and
equipment usage are mapped to the trigger buttons instead. So, basically
there is a control scheme for everyone's tastes and preference but being
on PSP, the controls are still lacking especially on camera controls.
This is hampering the gameplay a little (not by much) and make some
noticable changes to the gameplay (which will be explained further later).

Overall, i think the controls are adequate and not really game-breaking
but it can be daunting to those new to PSP.

Controls: 7.5/10

Gameplay:

the mission preparation screen

in MGS PW, Kojima Productions have retained most of the Portable Ops core
gameplay, which is soldier gathering. Big Boss can recruit soldiers and
prisoners of war during the course of the missions, and these soldiers
can be used to help build up his team, the Militaires Sans Frontieres
(Soldiers Without Borders). These soldiers have skills that can helped
in researching new weapons or equipments, providing food to the team,
healing wounded soldiers or getting intel on the mission areas. With more
soldiers recruited, your base will grow and become more efficient.

Gotta catch 'em all!

Soldiers are recruited in missions using the new Fulton system, where you
airlifted captured soldiers instead of the tedious system in Portable Ops
where you need to drag the soldiers to nearby truck/teammates to capture
them. Soldiers will also automatically join you if you have enough Hero
points and can also recruit via WIFI points. Recruiting soldiers are
really an important aspect as you will really need to level up your base
especially on the R&D section. R&D will develop better weapons and equipment
which you will use in missions, especially boss battles. Without these,
you will find that it is very hard to win in boss battles.

*if this game is called MGS Pokemon, i will not be surprised *

Other than this, most of the aspect that makes MGS famous has been keep
intact. We still have stealth missions, over-the-top boss battles, compelling
storyline (IMO even better and more revelant to MGS series than Portable Ops)
and side information that tied characters to the backbone story of MGS.
In fact, this game is so chokeful of features and gameplay that you would
have think this game is not on a handheld console. Other than the main storyline
missions, you will have extra operations, where you are given missions to
hone skills, gather more soldiers, finding documents to develop new weapons
and equipments and to gather vehicles. Soldiers and vehicles can also be
send to hotspots around the world to help waging wars, mercenary style.
These missions named Outer Ops are basically mini game where you plan the
soldiers and vehicles to send to battles and you get to review the outcome
in a turn based style with no controls on the battles. The mini game is
not really fleshed out but then, its sole purpose is to give you more
soldiers, items and documents for research purpose. For what its worth, it
done its job fairly well. There are also lots of informations that you can
listen to via recorded tapes to help you immerse in MGS universe further
and unlock more missions. Also, you get to review character models and
weapon/equipment models in details with brief description on it. Very
thoughtful of Kojima and his team to include this as bonus. You can also
build your own Metal Gear as the game progressed.

your own Metal Gear

Now the downside.
Due to the limit of PSP controls, the gameplay has been tweaked significantly.
The AI of the enemies are downgraded severely and they seems to have a very
bad eyesights. The gameplay has been slowed down a bit in order to compensate
for the camera controls that you are battling with. This is not very
noticable but veteran MGS players will surely notice this. However, enemies
still have acute sense especially in hearing, so the stealth missions does
not suffer that much. Also, you will have to suspend your logic sense when
playing this game in term of storyline (as usual) and gameplay. One fine
example is when you are collecting soldiers. Using the new Fulton system,
captured soldiers will be airlifted to be carried to the base. However,
enemies seems not be able to notice the airlifted soldiers no matter how near
they are Not game breaking, just a minor irritation to me.

Main irritations however are the boss battles. *Major spoiler ahead*
The boss battles in this game are simply vehicles (helicopter, APV, tanks)
and the AI sentries on prowl. Meaning, you will not find memorable
personalities like Psycho Mantis, Sniper Wolf or Laughing Octopus in this
game. but the AI sentries are still great with eerie background music
playing in some of the battles, and the battle against Metal Gear is one
of the best in the series IMO. Still, I do miss battling against human
bosses.

Gameplay: 9/10 (would have been higher if not for the minor irritation)

Overall:9.5/10
Sound : 10/10
Controls: 7.5/10
Gameplay: 9/10

Overall : 9/10

MGS PW is a nice addition to the growing MGS series. The story is just appropriate
and the gameplay did not suffer much despite the game is on handhelds.
One of the "killer apps" for PSP.

[7/18/2010] Dante's Inferno

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 21:05:06 +0000

* Electronic Arts
* Visceral Games
* Beat-'Em-Up
* Release: Feb 9, 2010 �
* ESRB: Mature

Dante�s Inferno is a down-right in your face hack and slasher for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PSP. Developed by Visceral Games, the story is labeled from Inferno, the first canticle of Dante Alighieri�s Divine Comedy, involving the adventures of a Templar, scythe wielding knight, Dante, as you travel through Hell to obtain the tortured soul of his lover Beatrice from Lucifer.

The game tells a story in a matter of in-game cutscenes, along with simple cartoons in-between major events, told from within the sown cross on Dante�s chest. Dante�s Inferno�s lineage is instantly encountered upon the first hour of gameplay. Many reviewers have inevitability compared this game to the God of War series. Bound with a Death Sythe, a Holy Cross, and about four main magic attacks, Dante does not contain much versatility in weapon choice. However, like most hack and slashers, the player has the ability to upgrade his weapon to obtain new combos, health, mana upgrades, and attacks. Revolving around the devil, religion, and repentance, depending on whether or not you decide to either, absolve a withered soul, or punish it, brings your powers into consideration.

For instance; you have two vines beside your health bar, one blue, one red. The red vine has around five different thorns, which signifies different unlockable levels of attacks that can be upgraded, and will otherwise show up as faded unobtainable ones. The blue vine does exactly the same. Absolving a soul accrues �holy� (blue), points, which fills your blue vine. The opposite vine, simply the opposite. Most powerups in the Holy category deal with powers that have to do with your Holy Cross, and the red powerups deal with just about everything else. However, absolving or punishing a character more than the other doesn�t necessarily make you evil or good in particular, so there�s absolutely no reason to stay exclusive to any side, since you need both Holy and Undead powers to get the job done at hand. There is no justice system, it is purely experience based.

Once an enemy has suffered enough damage, you can press the trigger button to initiate a finisher, similar to just about every other hack and slasher within the last decade. Once this finisher is activated you will have the choice whether to punish or absolve a monster. Absolving involves sending them to Heaven, before this can be achieved, (and everytime you decide to do so), you will have to play a mini-game, where you collect their sins. The more sins you collect, the more soul points you accumulate for your �holy� vine. The mini-game works on a cross which is represented by the four face buttons, once a sin flows over your button, you�ll have to press the button in time to collect that soul, much like the, �Guitar Hero�, system, and once more sins are collected, the faster the sins will move, at the end of sending them to Heaven, the experience points you receive is based on how many sins you collect.

Punishing a character just gives you all of the experience points after a gruesome insta-kill. Working more towards describing the gameplay in general, this game borrows just about everything from God of War, whether unintentionally, coincidentally, or intentionally. There is a hit meter that counts the amount of hits you can land without getting hit, or not hitting something for too long before the meter resets. The more combos you can pull off in a chain of dance steps, the more experience points you can gather. The enemies themselves are irritating, seldom challenging, unfair, overpowering, monsters that get in the way most times than not. Much like God of War, some rooms require you to rotate a lever to raise a platform or whatever the case, but you can�t do this while demonic bats, zombie gypsies, and axe wielding minotaurs are trying to attack you. So instead of killing all of the enemies, and then pulling the lever uninterrupted, the game forces you to balance, killing off enemies, and pulling the lever, (in the time that the enemies are re-spawning), which gives you about three seconds of lever pulling. Once the lever is let go, the platform goes back down slowly, so if you try to pull the lever and kill monsters you�ll end up right back to where you were before.

It also doesn�t help that the game allows the player to fall in pits of lava that just happen to be around the little land of mud and dirt that combat is taking place on. You can push enemies into the lava to save all of the boundless combat, but sometimes you�ll end up falling in there with them. For some odd reason, while participating in airbone battles, an enemy can barely hit you while in mid-air, you�ll automatically fall in the lava. You don�t even have to be remotely close to it, as the game gravites you towards death.

The game strictly operates on cryptic, uninteresting puzzles, at just about every single moment after defeating a mob of enemies. It also incorporates random death traps, and bottomless pits, (this game loves bottomless pits), that you would not otherwise carefully notice without dying in a place more than once. The wall climbing from ropes contains some death traps, like trying to swing a rope to get from point A to point B, while there are fire trappers, blowing fire at you, trying to kill you whilst it happening. Not to mention the random things that happen, the game says, (this platform is going to lower at a fast rate, and without warning you�re going to die). The player will often question, how was I supposed to know this was going to happen? The platforming is abysmal, with Dante�s heavily uncontrollable sporadic jumping animations. In combat the hit detection is slurred, and there�s no camera control at all, (unless I overlooked the options menu).

The boss fights have really grotesque character designs, and interesting voice acting, that are all faltered by obscenely repetitive boss battling structures, with unfair instances of, (there�s no way that hit me), because visually it didn�t, the game just said it hit you. Dante is a sentimental warrior who is cascading through undead monsters, and even his relatives, just to get to Beatrice, for of what that seems completely futile. Some parts of the game force you to take control of a gigantic monster, (by impaling it's forehead, another God of War trademark), which is also broken, you have to climb walls and navigate numerous stages with these large incompetent beasts that provide nothing intriguing.

The quick time events are the major downfall of this game, they are completely terrible, only considering boss fights. The game requires you to be able to consistently predict when these button prompts are going to appear. Quick time events were never appealing to me, not in Resident Evil 4, not in God of War, not in Uncharted, they do nothing for me except aggravate the suck out of me. This game gives you two seconds to press the right button, or, the right thumbstick direction for this matter, and if you don�t, you�ll die, and instead of coming back to where you were, you go back to the beginning of the boss fights. Some of these boss fights have parts in-between you kicking the actual bosses� butt, where you fight his or her little minions and these guys have the potential to tear you apart. Blocking and invading are in synchronization, but there�s a delay between evading and blocking, a one second vulnerability that most enemies exploit. Considering most of them have long range attacks, shields, and fast paced dodging the Dante wasn�t built to endure.

The graphics themselves are filled with dark brown, fiery red and orange scenery, with extremely disgusting, but also brilliantly created character designs. The structure of this game would stupendous if the God of War series just didn�t exist, but ironically without God of War existing, this wouldn�t either. Dante�s Inferno is God of War�s less attractive, less keen, and less socially engaging brother that not many people tend to prefer.

* Story: 7
* Gameplay: 6
* Graphics: 7
* Controls: 7
* Sound: 8

7.23

Metro 2033 [21/03/10]

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 23:27:13 +0000

This sucker caught my eye late last year and I have been eagerly awaiting this arrival.

First things first the basics the storey and the type of game we are playing:

I'm sure by now you know that metro 2033 is a FPS set in post apocalyptic Russia in the surprising year of 2033.
the game roots its ideas from Dmitry Glukhovsky, a writer who wrote metro 2033 (and with the looks of it other books set in the metro theme) and as far as I can tell the Russian people love it so THQ signed him up and laid down the groundwork for a great game.

Now you may or may not be surprised to know that the team behind Metro 2033 worked on the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R shadow of Chernobyl - S.T.A.L.K.E.R endured many set backs and many pitfalls on it's way to becoming a real on the shelf game, and when it did finally get here it was as politely as can be possibly said 'rough.' But never the less S.T.A.L.K.E.R was an original and enjoyable game.

Could some of the origanal S.T.A.L.K.E.R team pull off another game with high expectations?
Mostly yes, and with a small, and by small i mean very tiny hints of no.

You are a guy by the name of Artyom - born and raised in the subway systems of Metro, he has never seen the sky or been outside he only knows about topside life through pictures and storeys from his fellow subway buddy's.
To cut this short Artyom decides to go and kick some ass and heads out into the world of Metro 2033 and this is where you take over.

It's time to kick ass.

The game immerses you from the start, as you move from point A to point B the game world starts to come alive, there is no money in Metro 2033 there are only "military grade ammunition" that counts as currency, and this is where things get a little more interesting you can get dirty bullets so called because they take one military grade round and take out the gunpowder and mix it with "filler" to make more bullets - these "dirty rounds" are no where near as powerful as clean rounds but are a lot easier to come by than the elusive clean rounds.

I'm all out of clean rounds but I got plenty of dirty rounds so get pulling and pushing I wanna go faster!

You spend most of your time underground moving from station to station they act as mini rest areas and interaction spots for your character these are also a place to exchange ammo types and buy new weapons but early on Dont worry too much about scoring high grade ammunition or bigger better guns most of the game I used dirty ammo constantly throughout the game and had no real need to use the clean ammo, so it makes you wonder a little about the point of all this.

Metro 2033 is set like a movie and an FPS there are many enjoyable moments in the game that put this FPS above a lot of its competition, the game does a great job of building a claustrophobic atmosphere, especially when you have to put your gas mask on, you can hear the character breathing sucking in air as your visor mists up and distorts your vision giving you that feeling that shit is right on top of you and you better keep on your toes.

Combat has good and bad point's firstly The AI of the human opponents is pretty good, they take cover, spot you , blow your face off all the usual stuff, but on the other hand you have the mutants AI which i have to say is actually quite ropey, for example I was just getting hidden in this alcove to reload all my weapons and charge my light source up again (you get a dynamo that you have to manually charge to keep your light working) when all of a sudden about 6 mutants just all ran at me into this small gap... The mutant AI is basic, it attacks you, thats it.

Another mention has to go to the flying dragon things, these fuckers are a pain in the ass but are really predictable in how they attack you - you Dont spend much time fighting these guys but when you do it's not too enjoyable.
It's much more fun and engaging to take on human AI its not stupid and does an impressive job of behaving in a way you would expect it to, for instance these idiots are peddling their cart up and down the track so I toss a pipe bomb right under their carriage and it blows them to shit, the carriage keeps rolling and comes to a stop and two of the enemies react to it and come looking for me.

Some sections are dark enough that you can sneak about, and if you have bought or scavenged a silenced weapon you can use it to good effect,also there is the addition of throwing knifes but my experience with these varied sometimes i would hit the guy and it would just piss him off and all his buddies come and kicked the crap out of me, while other times it was a one hit kill ninja style.

The graphics in my opinion are tip top, and there is a LOT of use of lighting effects in this game and sadly this can put quite a bit of strain on any ageing graphics card out there, my 8800GS started off on "high" settings with a high resolution, but in the end I had to turn the settings to normal and bring my resolution down a good few steps just to keep the game from lagging during combat.

The game is a darkly lit affair and at first I thought "if its too dark it will just burn my head out" but in the end it keeps a great balance of lighting and dark and gets it spot on to create a dark oppressive mood.

Sound effects are second to none, voice acting to a good standard, and that gasp as you suck on your mask for more air will have you feeling like your close to choking.

Metro 2033 is a great game and it is one I will play again, if you're sat on the bench about this sucker and you cant make your mind up just do your self a favour and go bag your self some Russian gaming goodness.

Pros:
Great storey, good amount of unique memorabilia weapons such as "the bastard" gun for its overheating problem and shit accuracy, storey sucks you in, gritty set pieces and PLENTY of surprises on the way. Good scavenging, reasonably long single player campaign, and i love the feeling that every bullet you find is priceless.

Cons; Mutant AI is piss poor and stupid and predictable, some set pieces or areas will see you die quite a few times before you figure it out or "get lucky."

Overall Metro 2033 has done a great job of doing something a little different and focusing on single player only, a dying art of the FPS with recent games, it's russian roots are there for all to see hopefully another metro game is just around the corner and hopefully we wont have to wait too long. Hopefully next time round it will work on the mutants AI and rid the game of some repetitive sections that just kinda get in the way of the flow of the game.
Bag it - play it - enjoy it.

8.5/10

[11/02/10] Resistance fall of man 1 and 2

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:49:11 +0000

It's shit.
Outdated graphics - outdated - period.
Boring.

My next review: Resistance 2

It's shit.
I managed to play to level 2 - those alien guys come at you, you shoot them - some big indestructible fish swim round in the water at a bit you need to get across - they eat you - you can't kill them even though their body's are exposed.
It felt like frogger.

Get Killzone 2 Instead - Avoid these two games altogether - The gaming mechanics are SO OLD AND CLUNKY.
Gamespot can go to hell for telling em to get this game.

Overall: If you like generic shooting and embarrassingly bad "move from point A to point B" and shoot some stuff in between, then get this game.
This is the pinnacle of what an FPS looks like tarted up only Killzone 2 is genuinely hot and these two are the uglier sisters.
I don't need to take a poo right now but when I do I will poop on these games and use the manuals as toilet paper.
Im glad the developers can feed their familys after me buying these games - that is the only positive I can take from these two piles of luxury toilet paper.

The AI is god awful and predictable - just clunky - square like combat - I don't care that the Bosses are huge because I'm a spoiled FPS player, so if you're gonna mix it with the big boys at least do it right.

[30/1/2010] Uncharted 2

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 01:52:37 +0000

First of all I want you to know, in no uncertain terms that this game is one of my favourite games of all time BUT Uncharted 2 does not claw its way into my current top 10 of best games ever. Now you may be thinking "Emsely that's insane I hate you." "How can it be one of your favourite games of all time but not get in to your own personal chart?

Good question fuck nuts - To explain this I will now review Uncharted 2 among thieves.

First of all I want you to walk to the nearest window in your house - stand in front of it - and head-butt it through. If you successfully shattered the glass even if it was double glazing that was pretty neat - if you did not shatter the glass open the window and leap out of it head first on to the floor.
Because one way or another this game is gonna bust your head or knock you the fuck out - Period.
And I needed you to feel what it was like.

When I was a kid me and my buddy's always found a way to turn every day things into something life threatening, we used to make rope swings over gulleys of death and dare each other further till one of us would chicken out. Leaping from high places, dodging trains on the train tracks, sneaking in places we were not supposed to go only to be chased by caretakers with dogs or angry guys (who sometimes caught us) strangling us till we agreed never to go back.

Basically Uncharted 2 is the fantasy world you lived in when you were a kid and everything was possible with just a smidgen of imagination coupled with a stomach full of guts and an adventurous attitude. (Or mere stupidity) Only without the risk of pain and death!

I lost count of how many times my jaw dropped playing Uncharted 2 - this game is of epic abilities from start to finish it is the finest of roller-coaster rides, in fact its like been on a roller-coaster which never seems to go down hill but just one steeper and steeper drop like you started off at the top of the sky and dropped to earth but when you go to earth there was a hole to the core of the planet and when you got to the core you are thrown on to a F16 which flys you all the way back up again while the G-force yanks your face all the way back to the start of the ride.

Pure delightful fun is to be had, wherever that's leaping like a fearless psychopath over gaps which really do seem bottomless to finding little dints in the wall to shimmy across, all the climbing and leaping is flawless one button "X" is all that is required along with some nifty finger control if you fuck up and die it is normally your fault for not been careful enough or planning slightly ahead.

You're stood at the door of the plane and you pussy out ready to parachute - to late someone kicked you in the back and you're out also the mean bastards threw you out without a chute and you see it in the air above you, better get to it you only have a mile to drop - a constant feeling through out Uncharted 2.

Combat is improved from the last uncharted, although early on you still feel like they might have "got it wrong" but these early annoyances clear up as the game progresses - combat becomes fun, changing weapons and planning ahead, you get that good at dodging grenades that when one is thrown at you in tight cover you roll away then watch as the nade burns your eyebrows then emphatically re root to your cover position unfazed, as you play more, when the bad guys do show up instead of going "FFS!" You say "DIE!" And you do enjoy kicking the crap out of everyone and eventually every thing.

A special mention has to go to the graphics - I was that impressed with the visual whirlwind that I saw on screen I started asking "Is it even possible for human beings to make stuff like this?" What kind of creative skilled artist naughty dog has they can count me in there group of guys that worship them - in fact from now on if a games company even tried to impress me with jaw dropping visuals its got a very steep hill ahead of it to impress me.

Quotes from my mother

"Ohhh he nearly did not make that!"

"Ohhhh look how far he fell how awful!"

"He is like a monkey!"

"How does he hold on in the snow he would slip!"

My mother does not give a shit about video games but she actually sat and watched me play this. (To my annoyance)

Uncharted two is a delightful epic game that thrills and pleases from start to finish it assaults the senses at every turn wherever that maybe leaping around, the amazing gorgeous visuals (which will make you question how is it possible) to the semi old school but solid shooting mechanics to the old fashioned and cheesy storey.

Buy it - put it in - (it has to update your PS3 from the disk) - and enjoy what has to be the pinnacle of action adventure games in the history of man kind.

You are Indiana Jones, Jackie chan, and Clint Eastwood rolled into one.

Get ready for the best video game ride of your life!!!

Roll on uncharted 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and so on, Naughty dog really do need praising for their work on this mere human beings make games, Naughty dog are currently one of the best developers on the planet they actually make modern day bibles - but back to the question "why does uncharted 2 not feature in your top ten games list of all time?"

Simples: Its not a game but a ride the only part that is a game is the shooting sections and these shooting styles have been bettered many times in many other games.

I baptise a new category of media: Interactive Roller-coaster ride of kick ass.

Emsley.

[1/16/2010] Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 02:15:07 +0000

* Square Enix
* h.a.n.d. Inc.
* Action Role-Playing
* Release: Sep 29, 2009 �
* ESRB: Everyone 10+

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is a side-story iteration of the Kingdom Hearts series. Released for the Nintendo DS portable console, it's a decent adventure for a transportable gaming system. The game itself takes place after Chain of Memories, and before Kingdom Hearts II, while Sora is asleep is his hibernation chamber. The Kingdom Hearts story presents itself to be complex while it is ultimately flawed instead. This game can clear up certain mysteries, such as Xion's true identity, Riku's actions, Namine's decisions, and so on. A player who is unfamiliar with the Kingdom Hearts storyline will be lost, because the game fails at fully explaining anything, using cutscenes with ambiguous messages to create a facade that Xion's past and ambitions are significant in every way. They are made especially for the die hard Kingdom Hearts fans who are aware of the characters.

Throughout the entire game, you will play as Roxas, Sora's nobody. All missions are proposed and taken in the main hub, The World That Never Was, the castle owned by Organization XIII, and also, the ending world in Kingdom Hearts II. The game starts off rather rocky, as you will be participating in many simple tutorial missions with surprisingly good writing. Voice overs are only present in certain cutscenes, in real-time scenes, text boxes appear, but the writing style that wonderfully depicts the different characteristics of each Organization member compensates for the lack of actual speech.

The story begins from Roxas's birth, and as you progress through the game Roxas becomes more socially experienced and emotionally attached to certain members. The combat system involves the occasional button mash wail around your keyblade malarkey. In this iteration, there aren't certain keyblades to equip, etc. Instead, the game implements the simple "panel" system. As a new mission is a completed, a new box will appear in the grid of the panel system. Certain objects, (Hi-Potion, Blizzara, High Jump, Lvl Up), will take a certain amount of boxes to use. Similar to Tetris, you can customize your panel so that all desired items will be equipped in an orderly fashion. Instead of certain keyblades, there are "Gears", fully customizable groups of boxes that can be filled with, Power, Ability, Guard, or Magic, more than one can be equipped in one Gear, or vice versa. Other groups include Double Cast, or Level Up Doubler, which are used to be filled with their specific counter-parts. The Level Up Doubler, doubles one Level Up box, if it has four open slots, four Level Up boxes can be inserted, making you level 8 instead of four, multiple Level Up Doublers and Triplers do stack up. The same applies to magic, and the system is better understood while in-game.

Momentarily after certain missions are completed, a special cut-scene will trigger, 90% of the time, having to do with the Clock Tower of Twilight Town, whilst Roxas, Axel, and sometimes Xion will sit with each other, discuss wonders and feelings, and consume sea-salt ice-cream. The worlds are taken directly from Kingdom Hearts 1, and instead of having Donald and Goofy accompany you throughout missions, you will be assigned certain Organization members to fight along side you instead. This is where Roxas will engage in conversation with said members, and trigger some rather interesting dialouge, mostly involving an Organization member insulting Roxas upon his feeble skills, or his stupidity. The missions are unsurprisingly repetitive, on seldom times, you will fight alongside two other Organization members simultaneously instead of one, but more frequently one is tagging along.

All worlds are empty of Sora, Donald, and Goofy, considering the time-line. The Disney characters are indirectly and directly involved with Roxas's main objective. Nine times out of ten, you'll be completing objectives entailing, "Seek and destroy the Giant Heartless", or, "Kill all Heartless, Collect Hearts", and so on. After each mission is completed, depending on how many Heartless you've killed, and how many points you've gained, you will receive a Level Up block instead of physically leveling up, where the Level Up block can be equipped or un-equipped at will.

The Moogle has made a return, coming back with the Synthesizing system, Level Up blocks can be bought or synthesized, every item mentioned above and even more can be created through the synthesizing process, including more. Items can be bought with money gathered, and ranking up will allow you to synthesize more powerful or complex items. Different keyblade gears comprise of distinctive combos and abilities, provide a somewhat fresh vibe to the standard one-two-three flip in mid air combos. A new limit ability has been implemented. On a certain section of your health bar, an orange overlay of color indicates that your Limit can be activated. After a certain amount of damage is taken, holding the attack button repetitively will unleashed a many rapid blows with the Keyblade, and only lasts for around seven seconds, Organization members also have this ability.

As you engage in memorable Disney worlds, on the bottom screen of the DS, will be Sora also doing the same action as Roxas on the above screen, in a faded Television screen filter, of one needing better reception. Characters such as DiZ, Namine, Riku, make countless appearances, virtually no one is excluded from the story. Ties between Roxas, Xion, and Axel keeps the player considerably interested in progressing through the game. The gameplay is conspicuously repetitive, but to any Kingdom Hearts fan, this is of minor concern. The cut scenes are compressed videos using the PlayStation 2 graphics engine, and the graphics themselves are reasonably decent. Considering the cartridge size, the music is also slightly above mediocre, only because they are dumbed down versions of Yoko Shimomura's original compositions for Kingdom Hearts II. The game's multiplayer involves a Mission Mode where characters who aren't playable in the main game can be controlled.
They are direct imitations, with exception of the music for Castle Oblivion and other dungeons not seen in any other installations.

With no surprise, the time is constructed in days, obviously leading up to the 358th work day of Roxas. Roxas's boss Saix refers to your missions as work, and not 358 days are actually witnessed, sometimes the game skips 20 or 30 days, indicating that those days were insignificant and best omitted or skipped. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days isn't right for a person who loves games with good stories, especially when the story can only be understood by playing the other main titles first. It can be picked up and played by any Action-RPG enthusiast, and is a game barely woth indulging in for the Nintendo DS, clocking in around 20-30 hours of gameplay.

Overall: 7.7

[01/11/2010] Bayonetta

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:25:06 +0000

Title: Bayonetta
Platform: PlayStation 3 (PAL)
Developer: PlatinumGames
Publisher: SEGA
Release Date: January 8, 2010
Misc: Online Leaderboards, Trophies, No HDD install option, Video: 720p/1080i/1080p (uses highest available)

Originally released for the X360, the PlayStation 3 port of Bayonetta was handled by SEGA. There has been a lot of talk about problems with the port, mainly framerate issues and very long loading times, as well as the texture work not being as sharp as in the original X360 version. So let's see how this EU PS3 version stacks up against expectations.

"500 Years In a Box Does Nothing to My Complexion" aka The Story
Being part of an ancient sect called the Umbran Witches must be cool: Call upon the powers of the moon and the dark, as well as demons from the depths of Hell to do your bidding. Adding to the allure is the fact that these powers manifest through the witch's hair, to the point where even her clothes are made of hair. However, things are not going too well with our Umbran Witch heroine Bayonetta, who was sealed in a coffin and dumped at the bottom of a lake, after being treated as an outcast and then apparently falling prey to the witch hunts that ravaged across Europe. Fast-forward 500 years and Bayonetta was freed, having no memory whatsoever of her past.

Wasting no time in trying to unlock the mysteries surrounding her past her past, she teams up with a demonic arms dealer Rodin and a sleazy, cowardly, trash-talking informant named Enzo. One day, Enzo found info about something called "The Eyes of the World" which the angels apparently want very much, and are willing to go to war in order to get it.

"Demons Have Some Serious Attitude" aka The Characters
Bayonetta: The titular heroine, with a huge bag of tricks at her disposal. Her penchance for lollipops is weirdly endearing.
Rodin: A demon who took a human form. Works as an amsdearler/bartender/record collector in his bar at The Gates of Hell. Has a way with vocabulary and mannerisms that perfectly match Bayonetta's.
Enzo: a Human working for Bayonetta as an informant and researcher of sorts. A fat, sleazy and cowardly man.
Jeanne: Another Umbran Witch that Bayonetta meets early in the game. Her skills are easily on par with Bayonetta's and two seem to have a long, sordid history together.
Luka: A womanizer and a journalist who witnessed Bayonetta's awakening all those years ago. Due to the trauma of the event, he's become obsessed with Bayonetta and tries to track her down, despite witches and humans living in different planes of existence.

"TNA + Funky Hair = Did I Just Witness Something Great?" aka The Graphics
From a comparison standpoint between the screenshots from the X360 and the real-time graphics on the PS3, the PS3 has less detailed textures. However, the graphics are still superb nonetheless. Whatever loss in quality the PS3 graphics have suffered, the game moves in such a fast pace that you often don't have the time to start gawking at the finer details. When you do stop to look at your surroundings, it's great a great view for sure. Chapels, gardens, cities and other locations feel and look the part, complemented by some nifty lighting and particle effects, not to mention gore - and lots of it. Character models are wonderfully crafted, from the humanoids to the often grotesque and downright bizarre angelic creatures.

Also, whatever screen-tearing/framerate issues the original japanese release had, they seem to be mostly gone now, although there are a few places where I thought I spotted some tearing or a dip in the framerate.

"Umbran Witch's Breakdance of Bullets" aka The Gameplay
Where to even begin? The Devil May Cry series is know to have a fluid, highly customizable and fast paced combat system with swordplay and gunplay integrated nearly seamlessly together with lots of different ways to experiment way to lay down the punishment. Bayonetta runs with all of this, and kicks it up to 200.

Bayonetta's main selling point have been the quadruple-weilded pistols, two for each heel, two for each hand, and the use of Witch Time, Bayonetta's answer to Bullet Time. The basic fighting repertoire consists of punches and kicks (or whatever additional weapons you might have) that can be combined in a mindboggling number of ways. Each combo can be "extended" to include gunplay in the end. Then there's the "Wicked Weave" in Which bayonetta's hair forms a giant fist or a foot bursting out of a portal, and they act as combo finishers. However, because of the way the combat system is designed, Wicked Weaves are more like powerful combo linkers. The combat system in general is so flexible that it allows very long combo strings, provided that the player is fast enough. Any weapons you get can be assigned as either 'Set A' or 'Set B' and you can freely switch between the two at any time, similar to the system found in DMC3.

Witch Time is activated when you dodge an enemy's attack at the last possible moment. The world slows down for roughly five seconds, making Bayonetta faster and leaving enemies completely defenseless. Witch Time is an integral part of the game as it makes Bayonetta invulnerable during her dodge, and certain enemies can only be defeated during Witch Time. Then there are the much-hyped Torture Moves that can be pulled off when Bayonetta has enough Witch Magic in store. These moves are basically instant kills where Bayonetta summons various torture devices from the Underworld, such as an iron maiden and a guillotine, and let's a poor angel receive punishment unlike nothing else. Highly entertaining to watch (require some button mashing to reap additional benefits) and required to finish off certain enemies.

"Gravity? What Gravity? - And More Lollipops Please" aka The Gameplay Part 2
Bayonetta's sense of style is completely off the wall, and the game loves to showcase improbably physics, spectacular action and Bayonetta's "assets" every chance it gets. The game's fully aware of its naughty antics and often plays around with the design concept, so the game's 18 / M rating is deserved. Quick Time Events are also prominent in the game, and they are very well integrated, be it during battle or during cutscenes. Chapters are broken into Verses or fights, which are graded after completion. At the end of a chapter, each Verse is tallied and final ranking revealed. Many stages contain several verses, many which are sometimes well hidden. Some of these hidden Verses are portals leading to special, often very difficult fights, with very stringent rules.

Outside of combat, you need to get more weapons and items. As an arms dealer and a record collector, Rodin is more than happy to take the Angelic LP's you find in exchange for new weapons at his shop. Aside from weapons, Rodin also sells items, techniques, accessories and a number of other things - for a certain number of Angel Halos of course. Rodin isn't cheap either, you'll find that many weapons and techniques are can be very expensive, ranging from 15,000 to 100,000 easily to start. The developers also give the player a choice to compound items using materials found in pots, vases and the like. A great option so that you don't have to worry about whether you have enough Halos to buy more lollipops to suck on.

"Stuck In Your Head" aka The Sound effects, Music, and Voice Acting
The soundtrack is fantastic, featuring many upbeat battle tunes, be it akin to J-Pop or not. Bayonetta's own theme is ridiculously catchy and plays during regular battles. Sound effects are also on par with the rest of the presentation, with a special mention going to the bone-crunching effects of the various torture devices. Voice acting is also great. How did they manage to find a voice actress for Bayonetta that fits the character so well? It's wonderful to hear Bayonetta talk, and all the other characters certainly don't get overshadowed - voice acting in the game is really that good.

Another aspect that surely plays into the Mature rating is the raunchiness of the dialogue. Strong language such as motherfuckers, fucks and shits can be heard during cutscenes, but in some weird twist these profanities fit well into the game's dialogue and they aren't overused. Well, it's not like the game would be worse without them and Bayonetta doesn't seem use them at all.

"Twitching Fingers" aka Difficulty, Controls, Camera
At first Bayonetta gives you two cohices for difficulty: Easy, which automates many battle-specific aspects, and Normal. The game starts easy enough and boasts a very comprehensive tutorial for every imaginable technique. After the first chapter, the game does get noticeably harder, though. each new encounter is harder than the next, and mastering Witch Time and dodging becomes essential - stages are surprisingly long, and you'll face lots of enemies simultaneously with unexpected boss/mid-boss fights. With penalties for damage, items used and continues it can be quite an effort in perfection if you want the best rankings. The game's first "true" boss fight in Chapter IV drives the point home that bosses require some really twitchy fingers and even better understanding of their attacks. Multiple health bars certainly don't do any favors in lessening the beatdown.

In the controls side of things, they are as tight as they can be in a game like this. Each button is in use with multiple uses for each button depending on the situation. Of course, the Taunt button is also there, which can be used to pose, taunt and thus enrage enemies for a bit of gained magic power.

The camera is once again somewhat problematic in a game of this genre. You won't have time to adjust the camera in the heat of battle, so it's inevitable that some enemies will attack you from off-screen, making any audible cues crucial. The Lock-on feature helps in some situations, but it's not an all-purpose remedy.

"Game of the Last Year?" aka The Conclusion
The PS3 Bayonetta has nothing to be ashamed of. Period. The game is so well designed all around, that whatever gripes anyone might have had based on prior info will be playing second fiddle to the sensory overload and gaming joy that Bayonetta offers. The game's funny, downright naughty, technically competent despite some hitches in the port, and completely off the wall with it's presentation. The music is great, the action and art direction is something you have to see for your own eyes. Having its roots in the same pit as DMC, Bayonetta borrows a number of features from DMC while polishing them to a whole new shine. Bayonetta has an incredibly deep battle system with countless way to string up moves, and after a while you'll become fixed at getting the best rankings, grinding chapters just because the game is so much fun. Even if the difficulty eventually shows it's darker side to the player, you'll blame yourself and not the game.

For the final touches, a few words about the loading times in the game. I can't really compare with anything since I've never seen the japanese release in action, but the loading times can be fairly long. It's not really a problem for me personally, as there is a practice mode you can occupy yourself with and try out different moves while data loads. PlatinumGames' (or SEGA's) decision to completely omit an option for HDD installation strikes me as a bit strange though, as such an option would undoubtedly help with the loading times. Make your own call on this one.

For whatever graphics or other technical problems remain in the game I'm that future patches alleviate them. Had Bayonetta come out in the West in 2009, it would have been the best game of the year. No such luck now, but man what a way to start 2010.

Pros:
+Great audiovisual presentation
+Story is surprisingly good and makes Bayonetta a very likable protagonist.
+Action is over the top and non-stop
+Gameplay is deep, involving and very satisfying
+Angelic enemies are a sight to behold, bosses especially
+Dialogue is often funny, even in the more darker parts
+Soundtrack is catchy
+Excellent characters and voice acting

Cons:
-Loading times are still pretty long
-Some slowdown and tearing issues still remain.
-No HDD installation option
-Hard to put down when you get into it
-Soundtrack is maybe too catchy at times
-Can get difficult fast if you're not paying attention
-Camera isn't the best possible. Again.

Story (so far): 9
Graphics: 9.5
Sound/Music: 10
Controls: 10
Difficulty: 9
Feel: 10

Total 9.6