Sony RetardedStation 3
Remember kids! You can't spell "Playstation" without "Palsy"!
Now let me get one thing straight first, I am NOT a fanboy, never have been never will.
Well, okay, I USED to be a Nintendo Fanboy, way back when, but that was before I actually got to try out Sonic on the Megadrive, and as soon as I did, I discarded my ridiculous prejudices and learned to love the world of Video Games in its entirety.
Geez, just look at my Collection and you'll immediately see that I am not particularly partial to any Console in particular, I have just sold my soul to Capcom, and they can do with it whatever they want.
I most certainly do not have anything against Sony, in fact, I would say that if you enjoyed the NES and the SNES after it, like any sane person with taste, then the most logical next two steps would be the PSX and the PS2, rather than Nintendo's two successing consoles, the N64 and the Gamecube.
Similarly though, I feel that the Xbox 360 is by far and away the best choice to continue your life as a gamer with access to actually good games.
But I digress! Sony in itself has done perfectly fine in the past, and the PSP is also holding up very well against the Unslain King of Handhelds, it's just that the PS3 is completely stupid, retardedly expensive, and just not very well equipped.
We all know that Microsoft's success has led to Sony stealing some ideas, and that's FINE, as the Dutch saying goes, "better well-stolen than ill-conceived", and it's perfectly acceptable to steal someone's idea and implement it in your own console, it simply means that owners of other consoles can enjoy the same features as other consoles, people should be HAPPY with that, and I know I am.
In fact, I am still waiting for Nintendo to include some kind of Achievement system on the Wii, but that will probably never happen.
And that's what I wanted to talk to you about today, boys and girls, the PS3 equivalent of Achievements, Trophies.
I actually really like the system, it works exactly the same as the XBox Achievements, the sole difference being that the points you earn are not just points, but are actually used to "level up" your gamertag. Each game has Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum awards, each type of metal ranking in a specific amount of points, which goes towards your "experience" so to speak. Which still means you're dealing with meaningless numbers, it's just that it's slightly more interesting than a score. Experience points are better than simple score points, right? RIGHT!?
Exactly.
The only problem is that very few PS3 games actually support trophies. Unlike the XBox, where achievement support is MANDATORY (smart move Microsoft!), Trophy support is still only optional (rumors are that Sony is working on that though), meaning that not many games actually have them.
On the other hand, some games are patched to include trophies, so that's good!
An example of one of those games would be Fallout 3.
I did not know that Fallout 3 would be getting a patch to include trophies, and I did not find out, oh the irony, 2 days after I completed the game. HAHA.
Nope, they're not retro-active either, so you have to do everything all over again.
Still, Fallout 3 is a really good game, so doing it over again is not any kind of punishment. I'd been the goody-two-shoes I always am on my first playthrough of an RPG, but this game looks like it might reward you for being a total fucking arsehole as well, so playing through a second time might prove fun.
And even if it didn't, I just wanted to get ONE trophy, just to see what it's like.
So I pop in the game, and start a New Adventure. The first trophy you can earn is VERY near the beginning, awarding you pretty much just for creating a character and sitting through the basic Control Tutorial.
You get it for recieving the Pip-boy 3000, which is this game's goddamn Menu-screen, so it's not even POSSIBLE to miss.
So I sit through the opening...no wait, I SKIP the opening sequence, watch myself being born, choose my sex (loads of it please, hur hur), create my avatar (using a preset face), skip all the feature customizing features, watch mom going into cardiac arrest (am I THAT ugly!?), fade to white.
One year later, control tutorial, crawl out of your baby-pen, read the picture book to determine your skill levels, follow daddy into the hallway, fade to white.
Nine years later, your 10th birthday. What do you get for turning 10 in vault 101?
Your very own Pip-boy! Yay! Here comes my first Trophy!
So I get my Pip-boy, slightly salivating in anticipation, and silently a message pops up in the upper right corner of the screen. That's a shame, no fulfilling ploppy sound as with the Achievements, a sound that I keep hearing every waking moment of the day, but whatever, as long as I get the trophy.
So the message! It reads:
"You did not earn a Trophy"
...
...
...
Wait, what?
...
I did NOT earn a trophy?
You are
telling me I did
not earn a trophy?
Anger, frustration, confusion, and a slight feeling of amusement fueled by the ever-persistent comedian in me who actually sees the irony of the situation, surge through my body.
See, I'm not pissed I
didn't get the Trophy, like I said, it's stupidly easy to get, you just TURN ON the game; it's not like I just finished Megaman 9
without taking any damage or anything.No, it's that the console goes out of its way to tell me I DID NOT GET IT.
Could you imagine the XBox telling you at key points "achievement still locked!"!?
That's like going on a date with a really hot chick, only at the end of the evening to be left outside in the cold in front of her door, and then her quickly popping her head out to tell you "you did not score!"
FUCK!
So, as always the Interwebs shows that more people have had this problem, and it seems it has something to do with having changed your PSN account password, which I might have done recently, I can't really remember, but I had to go through quite some trouble before I was able to get Super Street Fighter II HD, and now it seems I need to delete my user account, and then recreate it, in order to fix the problem.
Haven't tried that yet, but I hope it works.
I any case, this is another fine example of Sony COCKING up immensely.
Fix it. FIX IT NOW!
And while you're at it, get some decent exclusives, make sure they STAY exclusive, and make sure they're GOOD, cos right now, I don't really know WHY I have a PS3 in the first place.
Fuck Other People
I believe the phrase is "ZOMG".
Yes! It's another update! I, unlike this blog, am NOT dead!
Actually, I've been meaning to write something for a while, and actually finding out I had some responses to the last review I wrote encouraged me to at least vent my frustration one more time, whether it be read or not.
Thanks Bert and Anonymous!
So, to the topic at hand, Fuck Other People.
A bit broader in scope than last time's FFIV review because it obviously involves a lot more fucking, about 7 billion times more, but it needs to be done, and who am I to deny the world its well-deserved fucking?
Now, don't worry, this post is not going to be quite as misanthropic as the title may imply, but I found it to be an accurate way of conveying my current stance towards the video game market, and the troublesome direction its heading in.
So what I would like to rant about, is Multiplayer, and how it is destroying the world of video games as we know it. Now I'm not even going to whine about all the sad sad people on XBox Live and PSN, spouting profanity and racism and leaving moral destruction in their wake, with names like "NiggaBlasta", "GayBlower69" or "Bob", we KNOW about those, there's plenty of people warning you for this kind of behavior, and it's definitely a worrisome trend, but it's just people being complete assholes, which is not the game's fault, as such. Also, the mute button.
No, what pisses me off nowadays is the fact that every single fucking game and its DOG, HAS to have multiplayer it seems, be it online or off. Now there's nothing wrong with hanging around with yer mates, drinking way too much, eating greasy snacks and generally treating your body the way it's SUPPOSED to, but it should not be obligatory, and it should most definitely not be included as an afterthought, or, adversely, be the sole purpose of playing a game.
If you're going to include multiplayer in your game, make sure it makes sense, and compliments the single player mode, instead of fucking up the entire game just for multiplayer's sake.
Now, a good example of a game doing this right this year, would be Gears of War 2. In fact, I daresay that Gears of War 2 is a good example of doing pretty much EVERYTHING right this year, putting a huge amount of what's on the market to shame, in terms of scope, setting, grandeur and bloody ass-kickingness.
But that's not the point, the point is that Gears 2 delivers a superb single player campaign, that works awesome in co-op as well, plus it has some really good multiplayer mode, with the much-lauded Horde mode standing out as a shining example of how absolutely fantastic online multiplayer can be.
Never does it feel as if concessions are being made for the sake of allowing other people to play at the same time. Sure, you have to switch weapons on the fly, there's no pause button or menu screen during gameplay, but switching weapons is a matter of pressing one of the four directions on the D-pad, with the up-button always linked to Grenades, down to some handgun or other, and left and right to two kinds of Big Guns of your choice, so it's really easy to manage, and you don't need anything more (well, actually, it would be nice if you could carry another Big Gun instead of a Handgun, but that's nit-picking).
But you see, the problem with Gears is that it became too popular, and now EVERYONE wants in on that "hot multiplayer action", even those who have no real business being there.
I'm looking at YOU, fucking Resident Evil 5!
FUCK YOU, Capcom, for (once again) fucking up this brilliant series.
You know what? I read this game is NOT made by Shinji Mikami, original creator of the series, the Big Brain behind masterpiece Resident Evil 4, and just all-round Badass, and not only that, but he explicitly stated he would NOT be playing RE5, because it would only "piss him off" (that's how you should read "cause him stress" anyway):
And how right he isNow in case you haven't played the Demo yet or followed the uproar around the "mowing down loads of black people" trailers, RE5 takes place in Africa (and there's nothing wrong with that, but I ain't opening that can of worms) and pits you against a horde of African Genados this time (I'm going to miss that "Un Forastero!" line) alongside some Hispanic Chick named, uh, Shiva or something? Is that her name? Is she made of Ice too? I don't even care.
By the way Capcom, smart move, you get thousands of people complaining about that whole "Caucasian shooting Africans" thing, and what do you do? You give him a
Hispanic side-kick! Hellllllooooooooooo? Way to miss the boat there hunh?
A Hispanic side-kick? In Africa? To help you kill lots of Black People?
COULD YOU NOT THINK OF A MORE APPROPRIATE COLOR TO PERHAPS EASE THE COMPLAINTS?
So yeah, she could have been Asian as well I guess (D'oh!)
Anywhore, playing the Demo, you get to chose from 2 different areas. One of them does that whole "onslaught of countless enemies" thing we already saw in the
first fucking village in RE4, way to be original there, guys, and the second one is a more linear affair, and to be honest, good fun actually.
Problem is though, your little lady-friend, whom I shall refer to as "Poorly Chosen" from here on cos I can't be arsed to confirm if it was really Shiva or not, so miss Chosen, she's with you ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Sure, you get to split up now and again (again, Gears of War stylee) but you're playing alongside the whole time, and from what I've heard, that's what the WHOLE GAME is gonna be like.
Now like I said, it actually WORKED in Gears, because Dom, stupid asshole he may be, at least is not too much trouble to look after. He does his job, and only occasionally will he be downed, and reviving him is simple. And the fact alone that you CAN revive him instead of going Game Over immediately is also a VERY smart move from the creator's side.
Now I don't know what happens in RE5 when Poorly bites the dust, but she looses health pretty quickly (Dom could take a very tough beating, even on Insane mode) and she requires you to actively look after her, which is a total PAIN if you have to do that all game long. To quote The Nerd, "Fuck that Shit!"
What's even more of a pain is that to allow for simultaneous co-op, the menu-system is now ACTIVE, so no pausing or opening screens, you just get a small window popping up, on the fly, to select weapons and healing items.
THAT SUCKS!
In Gears, you don't have to heal, because that happens automatically over time, but in RE, you're still fucking around with those dubious Herb things, so to account for all the weapons and healing items you're going to have to carry, you have like 8 or 9 slots. 8 or 9! (note to self: just look it up you lazy asshole!)
So, on the fly, with loads of Genados coming at you, you have to start plowing through your inventory actually SELECTING the item you want to use or equip. No quick selection, no nothing, open the menu, find what you're looking for, move the cursor there, and then CHOOSE whether you want to Equip, Use, Drop, Mix, Hand over, Marinate, Polish or Stick Your Dick Up the item in question. ON THE FLY WITH DOZENS OF ANGRY GENADOS COMING AT YOU WITH SCYTHES AND PITCHFORKS, not to mention the inevitable Huge Bosses you're going to have to face off against.
One more thing, RE4 was scary as Fuck! Why? Because it was just you, on your own, in a strange isolated foreign area, where people don't speak your language, and everyone's out to get you. Now most of that remains in tact, apart from the very important fact that you're not ALONE anymore. You constantly have Poorly hovering around you, being a nuisance, it was bad enough with Shelly or whatever the Hell her name was (I is good at remembring stoff), but at least she wasn't around you ALL the time. Imagine if you play a game like this with a friend! Where's the creepiness? Where's the tension? Ah well, the atmosphere is probably already ruined by the fact that it takes place in bright sunny daylight anyway.
That's one, how about another?
White Knight Chronicles.
It's being released here tomorrow, but reviews have been pretty average. Famitsu, always ready and more than eager to dish out 9s and 10s to a game, just for throwing enough money around, gave WKC 7, 8, 7, 7, which is very poor for such a hotly anticipated game, especially considering it was made by Level 5 who fucking KNOW what they're doing.
Not this time it seems...
The first shock came when I saw the commercial on TV a while back.
Here was me, really looking forward to this great JRPG, which the PS3 really desperately needs, because Disgaea and Valkyria Chronicles are slightly too niche, only to find out that what I had thought to be an old-school single player RPG experience, had now somehow turned out to be an ONLINE RPG.
Rumours abound that Sony ordered Level 5 to throw in Online capabilities to satisfy, well, someone or other, I'm not sure who on earth was waiting for this, but there you go, Sony being clueless as usual, and although it's just a rumour, the reviews pointing out the poor implementation and borkedness of the online components seem to substantiate the word on the street.
As the official Homepage states, the game will have Story (offline) segments and Live (online) segments which supposedly "blend seemlessly", but apparently do not if the rating are anything to go by. Besides how the Hell do you pull something like that off "seemlessly" anyway?
Does that mean that only the cutscenes are offline!? That seems rather pointless to me. But WHY did this game, that was looking to become such a beautiful much-needed single player JRPG, suddenly get dumbed down to poorly-executed Online RPG!?
WHY!? WHY OH WHY!?
Well, at least it still looks pretty...
It seems everything that looks even halfway decent nowadays needs to get butt-raped to provide for some unnecessary online/co-op mode, it's really pissing me off!
Co-op should be COMPLIMENTORY, not obligatory. Remember, there are still a lot of people out there who enjoy playing games on their own you know?
I Fucking Hate Final Fucking Fantasy IV
FUCK!
So, now that we have the introduction out of the way, let's get straight to business: Final Fantasy IV DS.
In case you were wondering, the DS stands for Dual Screen (as in Nintendo DS), not Damned Shitty, which is what I found myself thinking most of the time whilst playing this game.
This is the remake of the SNES original, which was also rereleased on PSX and GBA, but this time, rather than a more or less direct port, you get a FULL remake, 3D graphics, remastered sound, bells, whistles, the WORKS.
It follows in the footsteps of yesteryears FFIII remake featuring the same kind of improvements and also being amazingly similar in terms of frustration and unforgiving difficulty. In fact, I was amazed at how much FFIII and IV resemble each other in many many ways, which only goes to deepen my suspicion that in fact, every Final Fantasy before VI was total and utter CRAP. YES, that includes V. Cos V comes before VI donchaknow. Ask any Roman!
Now I already vented my frustration on the PSX remake, and I thought, why go through the trouble of writing all that AGAIN, when I can just copy and paste the whole lot (I'm good at that) and perhaps write in a bit more sparkly letters, thusly providing a rather clever allegory to the game itself. Man, I rock.
So here goes, my entry of May 1st, 2005: Setting things straight. The original text is in italics (that'll be the Romans again), my new comments are in standard text. Standard seems to sum me up pretty well, I think, ahaha. SHUT UP!
Okay, I have to be honest here, I may have been overreacting in my angered response to FF4 just a little. See, thing is, what was annoying me most were the battles, which just seemed unfairly hard, but I found out there is a mitigating factor. The game, like most FF's I think, offers a configurable Battle Speed Option, and I, being the impatient freak that I am, set it to the fastest speed.
Now this shouldn't be a problem, cos it never has been, it merely means the pace of the battles is upped, and they won't take as long as is the standard.
That's how it works in all the OTHER FF's at least. Not here though.
No, here it means the enemies are 5 times as fast, and you are NOT.The DS remake offers the same adjustable speed, but does not seem to suffer from the same inane mistake Square made before. Mind you, I never really took the risk long enough and just kept playing at the default speed to avoid unnecessary frustration. I was having plenty of that as it was already. It looked to be okay though.
And now, I shall switch to Boldface, just to screw with your mind.
There were basically 3 kinds of situations:
- Back Attack: You are attacked from behind and will get hit by every enemy before you can do anything.
- Surprise Attack: You are attacked from the front and will get hit by every enemy before you can do anything.
- Preemptive Attack: You surprise the enemy and your fastest character can hit once, and the rest have to wait until they are hit by every enemy before they can do anything.
Technically speaking there are also plain battles, but I hardly got those for some reason. They just mean that 3 out of 4 enemies can attack before your fastest character can move. Nice.This still holds true. The game's rate of non-normal battle-starts (How the HELL am I supposed to describe it in any other way?) is friggin' ASTOUNDING. I guess I should be happy that it's not just Back Attacks and Surprise Attacks but Preemptive Attacks are plentiful too, but still, it gets real annoying real fast.
Fact remains, you are at all times insanely overpowered by the enemy, new equipment has no noticeable effect and levelling up hardly helps. In fact, I've read that once you hit a certain level, around 70 or something, your status actually starts GOING DOWN. I swear, this is so insane, I can't make this stuff up!True again, although Levelling up actually seemed to make some difference this time round. Also, I can confirm that Cecil at least will keep groing UPWARDS even after hitting level 70, so either they fixed that or my sources on the original were not reliable. Or it happens AFTER level 74 or something.
Beware that you WILL have to level your characters up to these lofty regions if you want to stand any chance against the final boss, or indeed, practically ANY enemy in the Final Dungeon.
It amazed me to find out that the original game is so incredibly popular in America.
I mean, I can understand Japanese loving this, they're friggin INSANE. They're masochist freaks who spend hours and hours cheerfully levelling up to Level 99 at the START OF THE GAME so this will be right up their ally.
Also, they tend to have Lolita-complexes and get turned on by criminally young girls, which I guess further proves my point that they like things that are hard to get into (Man, I'm classy)
Later, I found out that back in the SNES days, America actually got a DUMBED down version, known in Japan as Final Fantasy IV Easy Type, and that explained a LOT.
I've personally never played that one, but it might actually be enjoyable.
The game just feels like it should have been better, gameplay-wise. One one hand, you see, you have an RPG of a decent size, with a great soundtrack, and above all a great storyboard.
There's so many things happening at every turn, it's really overwhelming, in a good sense of course. The story is rich and rewarding and there really never is a dull moment. My opinion on this also, remains unchanged. The story REALLY is great, there is such a fantastic shitload of stuff happening after practically every dungeon and in any new town you get to, it is quite understandable that this game scores lots of points with story-loving RPG-freaks, which makes it all the more painful that you have to go through the insufferable game that accompanies it.
Dungeons are a slightly different affair. They're all pretty much the same, walk from A to B kind of affair, loaded with treasure though, that's nice. No puzzles, no gimmicks, nothing, just pathways. Not too maze-like, just dull and pointless.That point also still stands, but the DS version does you the IMMENSE BALLWARMING favor of supplying you with a map on the bottom screen. The map fills in as you move along (get 100% for a handful of items), but it helps a LOT, oh man does it ever help a lot, plus you can see all the treasure strewn about the place, which is extremely convenient. Kudos to Square for that.
Not only battles but also the shop and equipment system totally suck. Shops only show who can equip what, nothing more. You can't see how many pieces of a certain item you are carrying or already have equipped which is annoying enough, since you might be buying something you already have on. So first you have to look at all your equipment and memorize it. This would also be easier if you could go into the equipment screen and scroll from one character to the next using the L and R button as is customary in, well, EVERY game on earth, except this one. So you have to go into and out of the equipment screen for EVERY character. Nice.
THEN, even if you're not carrying said item already, you have NO clue whatsoever if it will improve your status or not, until you actually equip it. So if you don't want to waste any money, you'd have to save your game, buy what you want, try it on, then load your game to buy what you actually need. Super.This, I am glad to say, has been completely fixed. You can see who can equip what, and how much it will improve their offense, hit rate, defense and evasion rate. There are however, much more status elements which might go DOWN with a new weapon that you will not be able to see until AFTER you bought the item, but that is a minor gripe. Still kinda annoying though.
Speaking of hit rates, the DS version also maintains the INSANE amount of misses that plagued the original. GOD, how frigging annoying. Lots of RPGs have hit rates and you will occasionally miss in even the best games out there, but FFIV is retarded. Seriously, at some point I wanted to go inside the screen (EITHER OF THEM) and STRANGLE Cecil, the Paladin PUSSY, because he seemed to be the biggest offender. Not that Kain does much, mind you. Fuckheads.
Furthermore there are no helpful descriptions for magic and skills, you don't know what ANYTHING does until you use it, and even then the effect might not be immediately clear. It's like the creators assumed you are familiar enough with the series that you don't need any explanation. Stupid.Man, I don't know who wrote this, but give the guy a Cigar! Brilliant! Spot-on!
You do get item descriptions, which is a BIG help, and you get magic descriptions in your normal inventory screen, but NOT in battle, when you need them most.
Also, some descriptions are completely inane.
"Ifrit: Summons Ifrit", WELL FUCK, SHERLOCK, THANKS A SHITLOAD.
Which brings me to another thing, Using Magic and Items in the Inventory Screen (man, I love how I can bridge all this stuff together).
You see, this game has full detailed (for lack of a better term. Oh wait: Crappy) Polygon Models for the once 2D rendered characters, and apparently Square is so proud of this feat, that they want you to enjoy, even savour, this new-fangled technology at every turn in the Inventory screen.
But you know what, clocking in at a hefty 128MB, this is a rather sizeable cart, and apparently the DS has some trouble conjuring up these models on the fly, so it takes a couple of seconds (and any gamer knows that seconds of waiting can seem like HOURS when they become frequent enough) for the model to load. So while you are just trying to QUICKLY heal/cure your character, which is something you have to do a LOTLOTLOTLOTLOTLOTLOTLOT, you are sitting there, pointlessly pressing buttons to no effect, because the game is busy LOADING THE FRIGGIN CHARACTER MODEL!
And do we actually NEED to see the model at that point!? FUCK NO! There is no point to it WHATSOEVER! IT ONLY SLOWS THINGS DOWN! THANKS SQUARE, I LOVE IT! MAYBE NEXT TIME YOU CAN KICK ME IN THE BALLS EVERY TIME I TRY TO REVIVE SOMEONE, WOULD THAT HELP THINGS!?
Christ.
And you know what, the game also suffers from all these polygons during battle scenes. There is no real slow-down as such, but that's largely because battles run at a frighteningly low framerate in the first place, which in turn can lead to unresponsive controls, such as your cursor not moving quite as speedily as you want it to. This is really only a minor gripe though, it's not that much of a problem, but it's a minor gripe on a pile of steaming dung, so it doesn't exactly help thins.
Speaking of which (bridge!) who on God's Motherfucking Green Earth ever decided it would be fun to have Dungeons with TOXIC/LAVA puddles strewn about the place!? Is it anyone's idea of fun to HAVE TO run around on flooring that will HURT you with every step!? Seriously, can someone explain to me what's fun about this!? And they did this in every FF BEFORE this one too! GREAT IDEAS ARE HARD TO LET GO HUNH!?
Thirtyfifthly, WHAT'S the DEAL with all these invisible walls and pathways!? Every dungeon has like, several THOUSAND. And it's fine if they just lead to hidden treasure or something, but as the game progresses, you NEED to find these hidden passages just to progress, and you can't see where you're going, if you didn't have the map (which you DON'T in the original) you can't even see if you're actually moving because of all the darkness around you. You just have to randomly press directions to see if you end up somewhere. LET'S PUT THE 'FU' IN 'FUCKING FUN' RIGHT!?
And you know WHAT!? You get these invisible passageways in dungeons WITH TOXIC/LAVA FLOORS TOO! HUZZAH! God I can't tell you how much I love all of this.
Did I mention the insanely overpowered bosses yet? I think I did, but they deserve second mentioning. This is the kind of game where you HAVE to put a lot of effort into EVERYTHING to just be able to get by.
Only Masochists need apply.
Anything positive?
Well, the opening movie is gorgeous, as always, the 3D revamped graphics are pretty decent, the vocal version of Theme of Love is quite beautiful (you'll have to finish the game to hear it though), the newly added Voice Acting is really quite good and you can throw the game at passers-by and watch them sneer at it. Most fun I've had with it at least.
For Die Hard fans only.
5.0
Ingen's Game of the Year Awards 2007
Yes! Finally!
It's here! The biggest event known in the world of Video Games, The (almost) Annual Ingen Game of the Year Awards, 2007 edition (limited!)
Which makes it, what?, the second time already? Man, this is some
exclusive shit!
Actually I was thinking of doing one last year too, but you know how these things go, no time/interest/money, and besides, 2006 pretty much sucked BUTT, so you're not missing anything anyway.
But not this year! Oh man, this year was SWEET. For some strange reason pretty much all the good games were released in the last 3 months (how do these things happen?) whereas the first 9 months of the year were pretty uneventful (with a couple of exceptions), causing lots of empty wallets and poor people around Christmas time, quite unusually, thus neatly explaining the increased crime rates around this period as well. I'd show you statistical evidence, but I can't be arsed.
Anyhow: Games!
This year's categories are: Best PS2 game, Best Wii game, Best 360 game, Best DS game, and Best Game Overall, and maybe Most Disappointing Game, depending on whether I feel like it, I don't actually know that right now, and it's far too much trouble to go back and edit this later.
Notice the absence of a PSP and PS3 category in these awards because they are Ass...uh....AS...of this moment not worth the money. Yeah, yeah that's it. Phew. Nice save there.
Also, expect random opinininininions (FUCK!) on random games in here somewhere, I'm drinking shochu right now and the glass is still far from empty.
So without further Ado, let us proceed to PS2 game of the year!
PS2 Game of the Year! (I think I already said that):
What!? GOD OF WAR!? II even!?
Yeah, so it was a slow PS2 year. REALLY slow. I mean, the thing is breathing its last breath for Pete's sake! (yet still outselling the PS3)
Well, to be perfectly honest, this game would have been a strong contender either way, cos, and let's be honest here for a change, it KICKS ASS. Serious Ass. Not the kind of ass you find at a second rate petting zoo, you know, the kind of ass that has seen better days but is now a mere shadow of its former self, with patches of balding skin all over its body, but REAL burly, testosteron Ass. The kind of Ass that follows you into a dark alley at night, and just when you turn around to see absolutely nothing, it pops up behind you and gives you a Somersault JUSTICE in the face. That's the kind of Ass I'm talking about.
Seri-AssThis is not a game about subtlety, beauty, art or poetics. It's about brutal, viscious, vis
cerous single-minded KILLING. Kratos is definitely not someone to mess with, and he doesn't mind letting you know, and leaving no fractions of doubt.
What this means is that you are playing an enormously bombastic game, with HUGE Boss Fights, lots of violent Finishing Moves, Big Shiny Graphics, large worlds and especially, LOADS OF NUDITY, all of which makes this an instant classic.
They fixed the lack of boss battles from the first game and threw in a lot more variety, so in the end, everyone's happy!
Everyone, it seems, except for Kratos himself, who is SERIOUSLY pissed throughout the entire game. And this is pretty much my only gripe with this game. Kratos is an immensely unlikable character. He's too much kick-ass and too little good guy. His purposes are entirely self-serving and don't make that much sense at all, and he is extremely serious (and violent) in evertyhing he does. Would it have hurt to give him some semi-comical quips, or SOMETHING to show that he is not taking himself too seriously? I rather dislike the guy, which prevents me from forming any kind of emotional interest with him or the story.
He does know how to smash people's heads between a door though, DAYAMN!
Rather short, but great fun all the way. And lots of boobies!
Disclaimer No.1: Of course I have been watching other Game of the Year Awards on other sites, I can't be expected to play EVERYTHING that's released (I'm damn well trying though), and it seems I am missing out by not having played Odin Sphere or Persona 3 yet. Both of them are on my To Buy list, but I still have so much other stuff to do!
Best Wii Game:No contest here.
Super Mario Galaxy.
Well, yes, it HAS been a rather slow year for the Wii, but even if it hadn't, this game would have stood head and shoulders above its competitors.
I may have mentioned in the past that I wasn't that much of a Mario 64 fan, and Mario Sunshine abhorred me so much that it became the only Mario game in existence that I didn't bother to finish for the full 100 percent (I finished the game, but I didn't get all the Shines, because it was WAY too much trouble, mainly due to the blue coins)
I am a HUGE fan of the old 2D games, especially Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World (I have trouble acknowleding Yoshi's Island as a Mario game), and I for one have never been convinced by Mario's foray into the Third Dimension (I seriously do not get how some people can claim that Mario 64 does a good job of translating the original 2D Mario gameplay into 3D. Did I somehow play a different game than all those people!?), but shit, Mario Galaxy is about as good as it gets.
See, whereas Mario 64 and Sunshine threw you into the same stage over and over again, with minor changes, to find all the stars/shines/coins/coke addicts, which was a rather repetitive and BORING ordeal, Mario Galaxy starts you out at the same point in every galaxy, but very soon whisks you off to new asteroids that you couldn't reach with previous tasks.
This way, the game perfectly maintains the short 'episodic' structure of the old 2D games, with short but fun and varied stages, each with their own theme and gimmick, offering a LOT more fun than any of the previous 3D games were ever able to offer.
Also, the Fire Flower is back! YES!
It's truly amazing the amount of variety, love and imagination that has been poured into this little gem, and it doesn't get boring for a second!
What it DOES get, though, is FRUSTRATING. Believe you me, once you finish the game for the first time, you'll unlock the Purple Coin challenges, and those can be SERIOUSLY annoying.
I'm willing to accept this though, as it provides a very decent challenge for the more experienced player, appeasing pretty much every single person in the audience.
Add to that a marvellous Orchestral Soundtrack (WHY did it take them so long!?), wide screen and progressive scan support, and you've got yourself one immensely impressive Wii game.
I'll admit, I had kind of given up on the little fat plumber, but Nintendo totally proved me wrong by kicking me in my jaded gaming nuts.
And being kicked in the nuts has NEVER felt this good.
Best DS Game:Man, this was a tough one.
Hoohoo, bet you didn't see THAT one coming!
Like I...um...haven't said yet, I adhere to the release date of the version I've played, regardless of whether something has or has not been released in the West/Japan (yet/still/not/ever/if/through)
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2 (damn, that's a straight road to RSI, right there), not so aptly named because it was NOT made for the Gameboy Advance, was released in Japan this year and, to be honest, spent most time in my DS.
I have to acknowledge the brilliance that was Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, it was definitely a superb game, MUCH better than its spiritual predecessor, the Wind Waker, and I loved every second of it (well maybe not the Temple of the Ocean King), but in the end, I found that FFTA2 kept me coming back time and time again to finish every little subquest I could find, and I had non-stop fun for the entire ride, so yeah, I guess it comes out on top.
Basically, it takes Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (DAMN you Square!), improves the graphics, music (well, "rearranges FFTA1 and FFXII" is more like it. Hitoshi Sakimoto is not known for his variety, that's for sure), ditches the unforgiving "Disobey and DIE" Law System in favor of an "Earn Bonus Stuff if you Bother to Obey" system, adds another 100 quests on top of FFTA's already impressive 300, gives you a whole buttload of jobs to choose from, adds auctions and whatnot, and in the end creates an incredibly compelling deep tactical RPG, that, although rather easy and family-friendly, manages to keep you glued to your dual screens for HOURS upon HOURS just to get that next subquest done. It's very easy to just pick up and play for 15 minutes, and it pretty much dominated my free time for about a month after I got it.
And that, after all, is what games should be about, no?
Best 360 GameCliffhanger! Seriously, I don't know what the Hell is going on here, but ever since Blogger changed their service, it's become completely incomprehensible and impossible to work with. It seems I CAN save a entry without posting it, but the stupid system refuses to recall it when I want it to, so I'll just have to resort to posting a provisory version. Sorry about this, you can complain at Blogger Headquarters if you want. More coming soon!
Overachiever
ZOMG! Update! And
within 15 months!
I spoil you.
I have been having...Writer's Block! Yes! That' s it!
Quite a severe case of it in fact, so much so that I had to go see a doctor, and he ordered me to take lots and lots of rest, preferably playing LOADS of videogames, and who am I to argue with medical science? So rest assured, plenty of gaming has been done, and who knows, some day, I might even write about it, but not today! Today I am here for you to bring you my latest rant, and because I know noone is reading this anymore, it is a most excellent opportunity for getting things off my chest.
Actually, this is just a separate special post in preparation for an upcoming even larger one. I was initially going to include this topic as a tangent, but then I decided it is worthy of its own special space to separate my brilliant insights from my...uh...
other brilliant insights.
Right.
So without further ado, let me introduce today's topic: Achievements.
And I don't mean the kind where you score a Drunk Bulgarian girl at a Student Party, that's hardly an achievement and the only thing it will earn you is your friends' ridicule, massive trauma, and some worrisome greenish pustules on your penis that you should probably get someone to take a look at.
No! I speak of the Achievements you can earn by playing XBox 360 games.
You know, the ones that are indicated on your profile with a bright shiny G behind them, implying that they are some kind of Final Fantasy currency, but good looking trying to get hold of a
Potion with these, cos they don't do squat!
Initially, the point of these points (ahaha) escaped me completely. All they do is amount to a particular score, and that score won't do you ANY good. Apparently you can take your score online and see how many people have a smaller penis than you, but that's about it really.
Wouldn't it be SO much cooler if these points could actually be used as some kind of currency? I don't mean that you should pay your rent with them or anything, but wouldn't it be nice if XBox live offered some kind of, I dunno, skins, backgrounds, demo's, trailers etc. in exchange for points? The way it is, it seems totally useless to me.
It seemed all the more pointless to me, because the way games hand out points is completely random. Every game has to have 1000 points apparently, but it is obvious that some developers don't feel like bothering with them at all. Some games will give you all 1000 points gradually whilst making your way through the game so that you can't actually miss any (Enchanted Arms), but most others give you some nice side objectives to complete.
Thing is though, some games have really HARD challenges that only earn you like 20, 30 points or something, whereas some games like Lost Odyssey have the nerve to give you 125 points (that's pretty hefty) just for clearing a CD! Considering this game is 4 CD's long (Mister Sakaguchi obviously still has his head stuck in the PSX era), that's 500 points earned without any real effort!
And then there's Avatar, where you can get
all 1000 points in two minutes apparently.
So what's the point in going online and showing off your enormous WAD, when points can be gained this easily in some games and are so hard to come by in others?
The answer is, there is none. In fact, I daresay that XBox live is one very good reason to never go online anymore EVER (Halo is a fine example of Darwin's Missing Link).
But then along came The Orange Box.
And the Orange Box opened my eyes!
The Orange Box has 99 (!!! Count 'em!) Achievements, which is such an insane number that most of them are only like 5 or 10 points (well there ARE 5 games in here), and Valve were apparently so proud of their ideas that they even included these achievements in the PC version, where you don't get any points at all apparently.
And that's what opened my eyes, Achievements are exactly that, Achievements!
It's not about points at all, it's about getting something done, it's about challenging yourself (or being obsessed if you look at it from another angle) and The Orange Box provides plenty of fun challenges indeed. In fact, I even replayed Half-Life 2 Episode 2 several times just to get some of the more elusive ones, and it was a goddamn blast.
So if anything, Achievements are about bragging rights, about being able to say you put that goddamn motherfucking asshole Gnome on board the Rocket, that you played through Episode 1 with only 1 bullet, that you defeated Generaal RAAM on Hardcore difficulty and what have you. Points don't mean Jack, so going online and showing them off to the world is completely pointless.
The Orange Box has rekindled my interest in Achievements though, and I even went back to some games I already finished long ago, just to get some of the Achievements, not for the points, but for the feeling of accomplishment, for the satisfying *plop* sound when your XBox tells you you unlocked something!
The point system can be dismissed for all I care, unless they actually DO something with it at some point, but as it is, it serves no purpose and worse, has no meaning, because the points don't tell you WHAT someone actually achieved.
Getting 40 points for killing every Antlion Grub in Episode 2 is considerably more impressive than getting 1000 points on Avatar.
And that's why I think there should be something to reward you for getting particular achievements. Not points, but something useful.
I think this was one of the early rumors on Sony's Home format: that accomplishing certain tasks in a game would earn you objects to adorn your humble virtual abode with. Posters, action figures, furniture, the possibilities are endless.
I don't know if this idea is actually going to be executed, but Sony have a potentially very exciting format in their hands if they do.
Knowing them, they'll probably mess it up though.
So if anyone from Sony or Microsoft is reading this, AND I THINK THEY ARE, then, please, get some kind of system that earns gamers achievement-specific virtual objects to brag with, not meaningless points. It'd be SO much cooler.
The Results are In
For what it's worth, the winners of the BAFTA Video Game Awards have been announced, and although Shadow of the Colossus did not get the Music Award, at least it was acknowledged as the best Action/Adventure game, and it got Artistic Achievement, which is indeed the LEAST it deserved.
The world is not yet completely hopeless after all.
BAFTA
Crushing the Competition
Finally finished Dirge of Cerberus yesterday, and MAN, it certainly wasn't a walk in the park.
That is to say, the game's pretty easy most of the time, but as you progress you'll get into some EXTREMELY annoying boss fights, and you'll face plenty of them before you get to the actual final boss, which, adversely, was pretty easy.
Overall, Dirge of Cerberus is kinda enteraining although the fun definitely does not last as long as the game itself, and with the game being a measly 11 hours long or so, that IS saying something. It could also have used some variety.
It sports some absolutely stunning FMV, this is still Square (-Enix) we're talking about, on par even with the mighty Advent Children (same character models probably), which makes it all the more sad that the actual in-game graphics are totally pathetic. Seriously. This looks like a first generation PS2 game, it's exceedingly lacklustre and dull. In fact, it reminded me of one of Square's first PS2 games The Bouncer, which might even have looked a bit better.
So, um, unless you want to see some nice FMV, stay away from this game.
In fact, even if you want to see nice FMV stay away, and get FFXII instead, which has even nicer FMV, much better graphics and is just a much better game.
What!? Was I just praising FFXII!?
Well.....uh.....only in comparison to Dirge of Cerberus of course. Ehem.
Actually, quite scarily, I'm enjoying FFXII considerably more right now than I did the first time. It's still not as good as, well, any of the PSX games (including 8!) but it is more fun than I have previously led you to believe.
I
might even make a review some time in the future.
Maybe even before FFXIII comes out.
On a side note, the British Academy of Film and Television Awards (BAFTA!) apparently also has a Video Game category (nice one!) and october 5th will see the winners for 2005 (only 10 months after the actual year!), and I was pleasantly surprised to see that Shadow of the Colossus has been nominated in just about EVERY possible category.
Here's hoping Justice will finally get served.
Still, it's enough of a victory to see that God of War isn't even ANYWHERE in there:
BAFTA Nominations
