The Biggest Game Project on this Planet

Mario Story

Also known in the West as Paper Mario.

This game was released on N64 as a "kind of" sequel to Super Mario RPG on SNES, only done by a completely different team. It does have some similar themes though.
Like Super Mario RPG, there's a big emphasis on well-timed button presses during battle, to add extra damage of increase defense.
Also, the ending features a long parade, like SMRPG, which was also redone in the next sequel, Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga, so that seems to be some kind of rule for the Mario RPG's.

Now you might think "Mario? In an RPG? That's just plain Stoopid!", but you couldn't be more wrong. It's amazing how well an RPG can work based around a character that became famous in a platform game by jumping on baddies and breaking blocks with his head. This game makes good use of Mario's jumping abilities and most of his attacks in battle are based on some of his older trademark moves, so it doesn't feel out of place at all. In fact, I'd almost go as far as saying that Mario Story does a FAR better job at implementing the real Mario feel in a (semi)3D world than Mario 64 ever did.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Mario 64 was bad (overrated, yes, but not actually bad) but I can only wonder what people are thinking when they say that game retains the feeling of the old 2D Mario's so well, because it totally DOESN'T. I can hardly think of a way in which it could have been any MORE different.

Anyway, as Square had already shown us before, Mario blends in perfectly in an RPG environment and it's really great fun! It's not a very heavy RPG by any means, it's not even half as serious or "dark" as Super Mario RPG, but that is exactly its charm.
It's a wonderfully carefree "action" RPG, filled with the trademark Nintendo self-conscious humor and actually really clever and entertaining dungeons.
Also, the game clocks in at around 20 hours, which is very respectable, and seems to be the exact right lenght. It never felt like it was dragging on, and I never had the idea it was taking too long to reach the end.

In the beginning when you haven't really unlocked anything yet, you might be a bit flustered by some of the running back and forth you have to do (for subquests only though, so that can be skipped), but soon you will find warp pipes and you'll be able to move between different parts of the world pretty quickly.
And that's a good thing, cos this game is FILLED with side-/sub- and mini-quests, loads of things to gather and collect and if you want to indulge you can easily expand the longevity of this game with several hours.

It is however, a very light, easy to digest RPG. It doesn't get really hard anywhere, puzzles are pretty simple, some bosses can be tricky but never too much.
Die-Hard RPG fans might find it a bit on the childish side. Also, don't expect to run around with a beefy mario with 9999 hit points and 255 attack power, all numbers stay very low. Your HP and MP only have two digits and you can only choose to raise either of the two with 5 points every time you level up. You also get BP, or Badge Points, which you can use to equip any of the MANY badges in this game, which have a variety of effects, like increasing attack power, adding special abilities, and loads more.

Experience is earned of course by defeating enemies, which will drop star points. Get 100 star points and you will level up, allowing you to choose which of your parameters you want to increase. The higher your level, the less star points you get, making levelling up almost impossible, but it's not really necessary anyway.

The only other thing that might bother people is Mario's innate cuteness, and the high Happiness factor of the game. Everything is really sweet and sugary, and even the bad guys will make you go 'awwwwwwww'. I understand many people are put off by this, but it is undeniable that regardless of kiddy factor this is just a fantastically enjoyable game.
If you're offended by the non-offensiveness of this game, then just do like me and give answers in Mario's stead. Mario doesn't talk, so if you want to increase the PG rating just say FUCK every time someone asks you something.

"Oh, Mr. Mario! Princess Peach has been kidnapped by that meany Bowser! He has the Star Rod to make him stronger, so we need to make sure we find all the Star Spirits and pray to them so we can get it back! First we need to go to Creamy Lovely Happy Cuteness Valley to defeat Mr. Fluffy and his evil Kittens, will you help us?"
"FUCK!"
"Oh Mr. Mario, I knew we could count on you, let's take the Flower Train of Happy Stars there right now!"
"FUCK!"

Worked for me.

A very royal 9.4 for this one, for being so much fun!

posted by Ingen! @ 11:52 AM 3 comments

Marvel vs Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes.

Mario Story is taking slightly longer than expected, so since there is no rule that states I can't play more than one game at once, I decided to move on a bit already and do Marvel vs. Capcom 2, since it can be finished in a half hour anyway.
Up next are a whole bunch of short games, and since I'm pretty much graduated and without a real job at the moment, I have a LOT of time for games for the moment at least, so I might just as well make the most of it and get this project running FAST.

Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is the....I think...fourth, possibly fifth game in what Capcom calls the VS series. Starting with X-men vs. Street Fighter, followed by Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, and then Marvel vs. Capcom 1, and I might be forgetting one. I think it's the first one to get a really good, that is perfect, conversion from the Arcades.
I fondly remember first spotting this game in a Japanese Arcade, waaaaaay back in, oh, 1999 or something. I was alive already back then? Seems so. Wow, I must be really OLD.
I any case, I instantly loved it SO much that I waited very patiently until it was released on a home console, being the Dreamcast, which was the only machine powerful enough to handle it at the time. So I bought a Dreamcast JUST to be able to play this game, and play it I did, oh yes.

To prevent you from having too much fun and not spending enough money on Capcom products though, Capcom thought it nice to give you only a small selection of the entire cast of 56 (!) characters at the start, and you had to earn the rest by gathering points to buy them.
There were D-points, earned by playing the Dreamcast game itself, which was no problem, but THEN there were N points, which you had to get by taking your Memory Card to the local arcade, jacking it in and playing the machine (100 Yen per credit, please) and V points which required your going ONLINE and playing people across the world.

In other words, you had to spend a GAZILLION Yen to get everything. The fun thing was, by playing you also earned Gametime/Experience, shown in the Secrets Screen, and the higher your experience, the LESS N points you would get in the Arcades. GREAT! Extortionists.
So I basically said "Fuck you, Capcom" and bought a Maximum Savegame off Yahoo Japan for a lousy 1000 Yen or something, saving me a lot of Arcade and Online costs.

I assume that they took this out for the Western version, since Arcades are harder to come by here, and I'm not even sure if the Dreamcast's online capabilities were supported here. A good reason to go for the Western version then.

So you have a Beat-em-up with 56 (!!) characters taken from the Capcom and Marvel universe, HOW COOL IS THAT!? Let me answer that for you: Extremely Cool.
And the fact that this game was handled by Capcom means you also get really pretty background graphics, great gameplay and a FANTASTIC Soundtrack. Really.
Here and there around the Internet you might find people who think the soundtrack sucks. Kill them. KILL THEM NOW, for the Greater Good. They are the weaker race and they should be annihilated to protect the Ubermensch from dying of weak genes.
Anyone who thinks Upbeat Jazz does not suit a game like this simply has no taste and should have his head examined, before it is placed on Internet and newspapers across the world with the message "Do not listen to this guy. He is an idiot"

So with this many character, you need a system that allows you to play as several of them at the same time right? RIGHT. So each side gets to choose 3 characters, which can be readily exchanged at any time, and also your allies can be called for support attacks during battle, or join in on one massive Super Combo Attack which will leave everyone dizzy, not in the least the people playing.
It's wonderfully frantic, incredibly energetic, high-paced, adrenaline-pumping goodness, and definitely THE most action-packed beat-em-up in the history of Video Games. It's completely INSANE.

There are some downsides though.

First of all, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise: The Dreamcast Controller SUXXORZ. Verily, 'tis the suckiest controller to ever suck the face of the earth, in a sucky way. Why? Because it bloody sucks.
Not only is it shaped clumsily but the back buttons are extremely prone to malfunctioning, which is a needlessly complicated way of saying they fucking SUCK.
This game relies HEAVILY on the use of the back buttons for assist attacks, and all to often I found myself bashing the damn things to no avail. Fortunately though, this is a Sega defect, who are now rightfully out of the Hardware business, and this game has also later been released on PS2 and XBox, so I won't hold that against it.

Secondly, enemy difficulty is really unbalanced. It doesn't matter which difficulty you play on, the first couple of battles will always be terribly easy, with characters just standing around not blocking at all, and only in later fights will they become harder, even frustratingly so on some levels. If I say "Storm on Steriods" there shouldn't be a single person on earth who doesn't break down crying.

Thirdly, and this was to be expected in a game with so many characters, there is no personality. No uniqueness. That is, each character of course plays differently, and the whole pack is very well balanced, but there is no individuality in the game itself. Well, I say balanced, but you try and pitch three Kobun (Servbots) against three Sentinels and see who wins. Still, at least Kobun is really small and hard to hit, and Sentinel is almost impossible to miss, which compensates for something.
What I mean is that there are no backgrounds for specific characters, and no individual endings at ALL. In fact, the entire ending is only saved by the great music that plays during the credits (the credits ARE the entire ending), cos otherwise it's completely not worth the bother.

That said, even though I greatly enjoy this game on my own as well, the lack of individuality and enemy AI make this game less interesting on a personal level, but extremely varied and endlessly entertaining if you play with friends.
I love this game to death since it offers a unique kind of gameplay that has not been matched to this day. Its overdose of energy and over the top-ness might not placate everyone, but then, there's no pleasing some people, eh? EH?

The pinnacle of action-packed fighting, this game deserves a 9.2

posted by Ingen! @ 4:55 PM 2 comments

Free Pics Nude Celeb Asian Ass Cum

Haha, man, my statcounter is going to go CRAZY this week.

And yes, this post even has something to do with the above mentioned keywords (well 2 out of 7 ain't bad at least), for I have recently taken some pictures of most of my impressive game collection, to share on a Gaming Forum I frequent.

Hold on to your hats, cos this is a LONG ride. It's not totally complete, but it's about 98% of my games. I have a lot more soundtracks still, but that's not of importance. Sorry for the bad quality of some of the pictures by the way, my Digital Camera sucks hairy balls.

Gamecube European:


Gamecube Japanese:


Baten Kaitos REGULAR Edition (gotta love Japanese Packaging) and Ocarina of Time + Ura Zelda:


Dreamcast, all Japanese:


PS2, All Japanese:




PSX European + USA Xenogears:




PSX Japanese:


SNES European, that's the Dutch version of Lufia with Guide:


SNES USA with Super Street Fighter II and Chrono Trigger Soundtrack:


SNES Japanese, including Romancing Saga 3 OST


SNES Japanese, cartridge only including Super Mario RPG OST:


Shenmue 1, 2 and Sonic Adventure 2 Limited Editions:


Plus 10 Nerd Points if you know what this is:


My ENTIRE collection of European GBA games. YES!


GBA Japanese. No box for Tactics Ogre, damn its infernal hide:


N64 Japanese and USA:


Classic NES games, most of which were bought this year:


Chrono Cross Junk:


FFIX Junk:


Bunch of PSX Final Fantasy's and related Soundtracks:


FFVIII Junk:


FFX Junk:


FFX-2 Junk:


Kingdom Hearts Junk, the only game of which I own BOTH the original and the International version (Limited even!):


Seiken Densetsu Junk:


Onimusha series plus making of DVD. Forgot to put the soundtracks in:


LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOCKMAN!


Saga Frontier, not Junk, but Crap:


My most Prized Possessions, again without soundtracks:


All my Megadrive/Genesis Games, Japanese:


Nice Bundle, plus EXTREMELY Limited Perfect Works Album. Only 5 trillion ever made:


Valkyrie Profile Junk. Expect a rating approaching full score for this one:


Tales of Whatever Junk. This series just DOESN'T STOP:


And finally, some Suikoden Garbage.


Whew, that's about it, and all of this is stacked in my very small room.
I have more game related materials, but this is the most important stuff.

Oh, and I would also like to point out here that I have an EXTREMELY Large Penis as well.

posted by Ingen! @ 7:29 PM 6 comments

Mario Kart: Super Circuit

Man, I suck at racing games.
One need only look at my pitiful Gran Turismo 3 Savegame to see that I deserve to be ridiculed and scoffed for eternity when it comes to racing skills.
It's a good thing therefore that some companies also produce considerably less serious racing games, that focus on fun and surrealism, and usually some kind of weaponry to turn the tables to your advantage as well.

Super Mario Kart on SNES was one such racing game, and it proved a huge hit, and rightly so. It spawned several sequels, the first of which was Mario Kart 64, which was 'meh', the third one was Mario Kart Double Dash on Gamecube, which pretty much threw everything that was fun about the series overboard and replaced it with Dung on Wheels, and then there's the second sequel, Mario Kart Super Circuit, which I am reviewing today.

Fortunately, this game stays a LOT closer to it's founding father on SNES, than the 3D outings, both of which just lacked the great fun feeling of the original.
It is obvious that the GBA cannot handly complex 3D circuits, so Mode 7 (or God Mode as I like to call it) is taken off the dusty shelf again to perform its amazing tricks. Mario Kart 64 influences are apparent in the design and selection of drivers and items, but that's where all comparisons end, because this game mostly plays like the SNES original, with some differences in handling.
I like this style of gameplay a lot better than the 3D Mario Karts which seem to put a ridiculous emphasis on Drifting and Boosting. Success in the old style games depends on how well you actually DRIVE, driving without fault makes you go faster and you are rewarded for you skill. This opposed to, say, Double Dash, where your success solely depends on your ability to get blue sparks out of your engine at EVERY single turn you take, thus emphasizing a repetitive playing style and joystick waggling over carefully negotiated curves and accurate driving.

The game supports 4 player gameplay, with only one cartridge needed (!) which seriously helps its lasting appeal, but the meat of the game lies in the normal 1 Player Mode. You get the standard GP and Time Challenge modes, and you get to choose between 50cc, 100cc and 150cc, same as usual. Difficulty is rather low though, and even NOOBs like me will be able to play through without too much trouble.
There's a good incentive to keep improving on yourself by a Rank you get at the end of each cup. Score enough high ranks and new shit will be unlocked, amongst which are ALL the tracks of the SNES original!
This is a great addition to an already great game, even though the old tracks are not recreated completely faithfully, and fans will absolute love it.

In fact, any racing game fan is likely to enjoy this, provided you can handly the cutesyness and cartoon-style of the game. Don't try this if you're a Gran Turismo buff only, but then, you should shut up if you are anyway.
Retains the fun gameplay of the original, but is really rather too easy. It still deserves a 9.3 as probably the best racing game on GBA.

posted by Ingen! @ 7:45 PM 3 comments

Magical Vacation

No, this has nothing to do with Disney.

This was a game released on GameBoy Advance in 2001 by Brownie Brown, a company that does not only sound deliciously chocolaty, but was also partly responsible for Legend of Mana on PSX. By which I mean that some people behind the original Secret of Mana games left Square, and formed their own company funded by Nintendo, and this was the first result, released only in Japan.
It is obvious from the get-go that this game was made by the Legend of Mana team, because it uses the same character and environmental design creating luscious and colorful graphics on the humble Nintendo Handheld (although of course nowhere near as detailed as the PSX game).

Do these people however have the potential to create a hit game in the same brilliant vein as the Mana games of yore? Well the answer to that question kind of depends on you and how much patience you can have with one game, but it's definitely something unique. And when I say unique, I mean annoying, in the very same sense that Britney Spears has a "unique" voice.

Magical Vacation revolves around a bunch of students at a School for Magic (hence the "Magical") who go on a trip with their teacher (hence the "Vacation"! It's all falling into place!) to a beach-side resort. Little do the snotty brats know, that this is a ploy of the Head of School to test his students in their defensive and offensive capabilities against the Dark Beings known as Enigma. Nice man.

What follows is a traditional RPG with turn based combat and random battles, lots of items to be gathered, loads of dungeons and of course, plenty of talking animals. No, this is NOT, I repeat, NOT about Disney.
What distinguishes this RPG from the majority though, is its emphasis on Elements. That is, most if not all RPG's have elements, but few of them have this many (16!) and few of them weave these elements into the story and battle-basics as much as this game.
Every Character has one element, which cannot be changed, and for every element there's only one character available. Elements are connected in a Strong vs. Weak circle, for instance, Nature beats Beast beats water beats electricity etc., until you come back to Nature, like in those crappy survival shows you get on cable.

Only three elements stand outside of the circle: Love, which has no weak and no strong points, Darkness, which rules all, and Light, which rules darkness, implying therefore that Darkness does not in fact rule all and I think we're back to Disney again. Bunch of Nazi's!

Elements are represented by Spirits in a true Secret of Mana vein, but this time they can be called to appear on the combat screen, not to perform attacks, but to increase the power of attacks that use their element. One spirit means twice the damage, two means four times as much, three means 8, and this keeps increasing exponentially until you do a SHITLOAD of damage. The maximum amount of Spirits of the same element is 7 though, but that still means 128 times as much damage, which is considerable.
Spirits do not join your team easily though. First of all, you have to find them hidden throughout the gaming world, and then you have to give them specific items, as well as answering to some conditions. For instance, Slash (spirit of Blades) will not join you if you have Frog Gummi (the main source of healing items) with you (yeah, that makes sense), Nirva (spirit of Darkness) will ask you to fight some of his monsters (which are hard!), and most others require specific coins that can be found everywhere.

When venturing through dungeons you will meet monsters in the same variety of elements, so a large part of the game consists in making sure you have the right people with you, with the right elements. Monsters are not vulnerable to their own element, nor to the element they dominate obviously, so you need to keep your party well balanced and varied.
The idea of the game is great and most dungeons are entertaining in that they always offer some kind of gimmick or something to do, rather than just being a run from point A to B. And if the whole game had stayed in the same light, "don't worry" tone as in the beginning it would have been great and it would have earned a higher score, but as it is, it becomes REALLY hard towards the end, requiring massive upleveling to make sure you can get by even the most common enemy, since leveling up once only increases your status slightly and hardly noticeably. And that is immediately where the most painful omission of this game stands out. You don't get ANY information on experience points. NOTHING.
At the end of battle you just get a screen telling you how much money you won, and some items perhaps, but no information on experience, and even in the menu screen you cannot see how much experience you already have. There's only a colored gauge beneath your characters profile, indicating how close you are to levelling up, but no real numbers are apparent, making levelling up extremely unattractive.

Basically, you don't even know which enemies will earn you good experience and which won't! For a game that focuses so heavily on uplevelling towards the end, this is really unforgiveable. It's plain and simple, towards the end you are going to have to put a LOT of effort into this game to make it through, and this has made me painfully aware of the question "do I really want to do this?". Especially considering the ending is not that good anyway.

It's got some good ideas and it's fun while it's still normally challenging, but in the end, this game falls into the "die-hards only" category because of unforgiving difficulty. A 7.3




Oh, and I have a confession to make. I never finished Kindergarten. It was just too hard I tellz ya! All this stuff about sharing and not hurting other people!? If you want some of my Lego's you can retrieve them from your backside!

Oh, no, wait, the other confession.
I have a criminal record. Of sorts. Actually, it's not really a record, more of a muffled cassette tape. You see, I have bought some illegally copied games in the past. "Honestly officer, I didn't know, that Chinese man looked so trustworthy!"
That's right, when I was in China, I bought 3 GBA games, being Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga, Rockman EXE 4, and Sonic Advance 3.
You can tell they're bootlegs because of the "we just printed this out on our commodore" packaging and cartridge. And also the fact that when you start them up it says something like "WE ARE THE ROMHACKZORZZZ! WE PWNED UR GBA! PHEAR OUR L33T SKILLZ!" all in Chinese of course. Also, YOU try and buy a LEGAL game in China. It just won't work.

Funnily, the box "art" of Mario & Luigi proudly proclaims in Chinese that the game contains Chinese dialogue, and it does, for like, the first 10 minutes, then it goes back to Japanese (fortunately for me). So it really looks like they just translated the first couple of minutes, so any idiot Chinese boy who tries the game thinks "Great, now I can finally read my illegally copied games!" (if they could read. Or think.) only to bounce on that infernal Japanese language WHICH THEY STOLE FROM US, and will then go off to resurrect Mao in a strange plottwist that will overthrow the world all because of a Nintendo game.

In the meanwhile some shady salesman is going "haha, that miselable little ass just blew his palent's monthly wages on a game he doesn't even undelstand! LOL!", whereas I'm going "Haha, that idiot just sold me a perfect copy of a great game for the equivalent of a new pair of shoelaces! NOOB!", but it is him having the last laugh, cos he only downloaded it for free and jammed it on a 10 cent plastic GBA cartridge, making him a profit of about 490%, so now I know why the Chinese Economy is supposed to be rising.

Henceforthnotwithstandingly, I have decided to erase these three games from the project, and indeed, off my entire Collection List, in accordance with the rules, which state that this project only encompasses LEGITIMATE games, and no copies or ROMs.
So this means that up next is Mario Kart Super Circuit, which I can already tell you I finished in 10 minutes just now, so expect the review tomorrow, but up REALLY next is Mario Story. Cool.

posted by Ingen! @ 4:48 PM 0 comments

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance

Time for another Backlog, and I was still working through the Castlevania's if I remember correctly. So, Castlevania, Harmony of Dissonance then, being the Second outing on the GBA, after the incredibly annoying Circle of the Moon.

This game fortunately stays a lot closer to its Symphony of the Night roots, although it's still not quite as good. You play as Juste, the umpteenth whippersnapper (pun intended) in the Belmont Clan, wielding the trusty family weapon against the evil hordes of count Dracula, who is not only immortal, but also very stubborn and doesn't really learn a lesson, like most people from Eastern Europe, and most aristocracy. And most game villains. And most people with long hair. And people with long teeth. And I could go on and on.

So cue another adventure in what has been dubbed the 'Metroidvania' style, complete with blue area maps and breakable walls. Difficulty has been toned down considerable from the previous game, which is another way of saying that this game is NOT fucking frustrating and actually fun most of the time.
There's nothing in here to rub you the wrong way, apart perhaps from the obligatory medusa heads floating around. This basically means that the game is pretty much a standard affair, and not likely to surprise very much. It looks good, it sounds a little bit less good, and it plays great. If you're a fan of the series, and especially of the Symphony of the Night style gameplay then you can't go wrong with this one, but it lacks anything really special to make it a classic.

Actually not much words need to be spent on this review, cos there's nothing really much to say. Nothing to really annoy you, and nothing to really make you go "wow" either. The tried and tested formula means the game's as enjoyable as you would expect, so there's nothing more left than to call this a solid platformer/RPG with few surprises. An 8.5 seems about right.

posted by Ingen! @ 5:09 PM 0 comments

King's Log: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

CRAB BATTLE!

If I were to describe Metal Gear Solid 3 in a one-word-review kind of way, ripping off other people's ways of reviewing, it would be: FUCK.
Not only because we can safely assume this is what happens at the end of the game (go, Snake!), but because it is the word that was zooming through my brain most of the time while playing this game.

FUCK, this game looks good.
FUCK, this game has a good story.
FUCK, this game is AWESOME.

Fuck, I haven't played a game this impressive in a long long time. It has EVERYTHING. Not only does it have insanely gorgeous graphics and really cool boss fights, it also has a lengthy story (about 15 hours, chock-full of cutscenes) with a great ending.
Finally Hideo Kojima has gone back to his roots of making a deep story involving war and nuclear weaponry, and no bullshit about clones and virtual reality. Those who are afraid of being screwed over by some insane plottwist near the end do not need to fret for this game, it all makes sense from beginning to end.
Well, that is to say, of course there's a whole SLEW of plottwists in the ending, thrown in for good measure, but they're believable (sorta) and in line with the story. I just wish they'd spread them a little bit more instead of just throwing them at you all at once.

But it all lies in the presentation, which is truely phenomenally ass-kickingly fantastic. The cut-scenes are nothing short of brilliant, and there's plenty of them. Choreography and camera angles are spot-on, and, dammit, most of the time I wasn't even aware I was playing a video game, it's like watching a goddamn movie. A really really GOOD movie. Good storytelling goes a long way in my book and definitely earns extra points, as does good presentation, and this game has got it in oodles, and I don't even know what an oodle is, so that should tell you enough. The scene of the final battle is one of the most beautiful events I've ever witnessed in any game in the history of mankind and forms a suiting end for one hell of a rollercoaster ride.

The story is realistic, based on actual events, but with some fantasy elements thrown in, as usual, and the bosses are a colorful bunch. They're all completely insane and fighting them is sheer joy and difficulty seems to be pitched just right.

Is this game perfect then?
No, of course not.

Fact of the matter is, most of the gameplay is not all that special. You've sneaked around before, but you've probably never done it in a jungle before. This means you get a lot bigger and wider environments than in previous Metal Gear Solids, which doesn't really work to its advantage. I loved the narrow hallways and facilities in the old games, which put a real emphasis on good stealth, but environments are so big in this game, that ofttimes it's just easier to run through from one end to the other, since guards are too stupid to get you anyway.
And that's a shame. Being caught sucks, but it's pretty easy to get away, and chances of your getting killed are extremely slight. You can run through, guns blazing, and you'll be fine most of the time. If you do get caught and you want to retry, swallowing the suicide pill will kill you off quicker than the guards ever will, so that's a helpful addition. Fortunately, you always get to restart at the beginning of the area, so there's not stress at all.

Actually, the producers make it pretty obvious that the focus on this game is not really in stealth, but it's firstly and foremostly in story, what with lengthy cutscenes waiting at almost every corner, and secondly in survival.
And that last element brings two new features into play: Stamina and Cure.
Beneath your health gauge is a stamina bar that decreases as you play. As long as it's high your health will restore automatically at a decent rate. There are no health restoring items, so all you can do is keep your stamina high to stimulate your self-healing abilities.
To keep your stamina high, you need to eat, which is where the title of the game comes into play: You have to eat wildlife and plants. Snakes, frogs, rats, crabs, mushrooms ANYTHING you see can be eaten or used as medicine. You won't run out of stamina restoring items anytime soon, which is good, even though it might get on your nerves every once in a while. In some areas your stamina will deplete like crazy, in others it's pretty much stagnant. These are the good areas.

Secondly, there's the Cure system, where you have to heal your wounds. Snake will get hurt a lot, and every once in a while, he will sustain serious injury, which you have to cure immediately to prevent dying from bloodloss or whatever. You have bandages, splints, detoxins etc. to heal your cuts, gunshot wounds, food poisoning, broken limbs etc. It's a very original idea, but this also will get on your nerves after a while.

A big part of me is screaming to give this game a 10, because the experience just cannot be described. It's something every self-respecting gamer should play, and even though it gets off to kind of a slow start, it gets SO good real soon.
There are however some annoying elements that need not have been there and that take away from the experience. Everything else more than makes up for it though.
Put simply, you HAVE to play this or you will get the chair. And not the comfy chair with soft cushions either, no, the one with the iron clasps and the electrical hat.

It's slightly too pockmarked gameplaywise to warrant a full 10, but I'll give it a 9.8 anyway. Go and get this NOW.

posted by Ingen! @ 11:19 AM 0 comments

Alpha and Omega

I'm kinda starting to loose count here, so let's just say I bought another 2 new games today, or actually one new and one second-hand, and I don't know exactly what the total is now. IGN says 234 but then, IGN says a lot of things and it tends to give numbers that are too bloody high.

In any case, I bought Splinter Cell Chaos Theory new, which was only 30 Euros. Ubisoft's games tend to go cheap pretty fast for some reason, and I greatly enjoyed the first two Splinter Cells, although I have yet to finish them, so I figured I might as well get it now.
Moreover my interest in Stealth games has been rekindled by my current playthrough of the magnificently stupendous Metal Gear Solid 3. GOD what a game that is. Not so shocking gameplaywise perhaps, but the story, graphics, music, cinematics and presentation are absolutely PHENOMENAL. Truely, this is one of the greatest cinematic masterpieces I have witnessed in Video Gaming EVER. I highly suspect Mr. Hideo "Tits and Guns" Kojima had a good long talk with the Silent Hill department of Konami before making this game, cos some of the scenes in here are definitely not for the weak of heart. Expect a full review once I finish it, which is probably not too long now.

The second-hand game I bought is Viewtiful Joe 2, for the ridiculous price of 15 Euros, which was too good to pass up. Looks like Holland is finally developing a decent second-hand market and buying games is becoming almost as affordable as in Japan. Still, there's a lot that needs to happen before the second-hand market can become as big as in Japan though, but at least most shops are doing something about it now, even the bigger and more mainstream ones.

So, with all these new games I'm buying and all the stuff I'm borrowing from friends, my patience with the project is starting to wear thin. Just look at what I bought! An "S" and a "V"! Dammit!
At the moment I'm far more eager to play all the new stuff I got, than replay all the old stuff I already had. One of the main reasons I started this project anyway was because I didn't have the money to get any new games, but that situation has certainly changed and I want to get my hands on some new stuff.
Fret ye not, of course I will continue the project, and I WILL play all my old stuff, but it may have to take the backseat or be put on hold for awhile, or maybe I'll just discard the whole Alphabet idea, and just start drawing lots!
Hey, that sounds kinda fun too, I'm going to consider doing that.

At the moment I'm working on MGS3 as I said, as well as Magical Vacation on GBA, which is also entertaining. I skipped Lunar Silver Star Story because last time I played it, I bloody hated it, and I couldn't bring myself to start it up again.
The way I see it, with over 230 games, I'm entitled to using a Joker, Passcard or Fuck You Card, whatever you want to call it, every once in a while.
I already used one for Estpolis since it was so excruciatingly awful, and I'll use another one for Lunar.
Got any complaints? Haha! I laugh in your general direction!

SO, I don't know what I'll be doing, perhaps some feedback can send me in the right direction, but probably not, since I'm pretty stubborn anyway. I like the idea of drawing lots actually, throw a random element into things, but for the moment I'll go on with the alphabet, especially since there's a whole slew of Mega Man games coming along shortly, don't wanna miss out on that.

And don't worry my little punters, nothing will change for you, other than that I will start making this a paysite with subscriber exclusive content like nude pictures of my cat, interesting lectures on the life of the wombat and extensive discourse on the meaning of Sporks. ARE THEY FOR EATING SOUP OR MEEEAAAAAT!? IT DRIVES ME MAD!

And now, I am done for today. Thank you, and goodnight.

posted by Ingen! @ 9:03 PM 0 comments

Bortlog #2: Waverace 64

WWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVERACE!

Man, I love that announcer dude. BANZAAAAI!
Stupid ass.

I should point out here that there's only a handful of genres I generally don't play. I'm a HUGE gamer with a VAST amount of games, and I play practically every genre, except for the following 2:

1. Sports Games. Hate 'em. Don't see the point in 'em. Very much like with actual sports as a matter of fact, which explains why I can cut myself severely on a smooth plastic ball. This includes games that only Nerds consider sports, like Chess, Go, Shougo and American Football. I have never ever enjoyed games like this, not even with cute mascottes, like Mario Golf, Mario Tennis, or the criminally insane Megaman Soccer. Can't stand 'em.

2. Racing Games. Don't hate 'em, but don't really see the point in them either. I need some kind of quest in my games, unless I'm playing a puzzle game, just having to race to win a cup is not interesting enough. Normally I only enjoy non-serious racing games, like Mario Kart and Wipeout, which is where today's game comes in.

Waverace 64 is a racing game in the vein of games like Gran Turismo.
Only without cars or realism.
So actually completely different.
I need to think my comparisons through next time.

Basically, your goal is to do what you have to do in EVERY single Racing Game on earth, which is to score loads of girls and get as drunk as possible. And avoid hitting the sand along the road (pun intended), like the brilliant Jos Verstappen, only not.

The main difference though, is that you're not racing on turf, asphalt or Poker Tables but on WATER (hence, the waves) which looks pretty cool.
In fact, if I'm not mistaken this game was rather a big hit and spawned a bunch of crappy wannabe games on other consoles, that also featured water racing in some way or other.

The question is though: why was it such a big hit?
Upon playing this game after a LONG while (I think the last time I played it was in the year it was released, ie 1996!) I can still account for its entertainment value, but it's really not that special gameplaywise.
The graphics were unbelievable for their time though. And I'm not talking about the crappy character models, but about the fantastic water effects and wave physics.
Nowadays it's not so special anymore, but for that time the waves were incredibly realistic, and I'm going to rate it by the standards of that time.
The waves are not so impressive to look at anymore, but Drake Lake still looks very nice with it's quiet waters and misty environment.

The great thing is that the water is actually used to full effect. Every stage has several weather conditions (although most of them can only be accessed through the time trial and 2P mode, and not in Championships), but conditions may change as you race, as may the water level and other things, opening up shortcuts and alternative routes for faster lap times.

And that's all the game has on offer, the challenge for self-improvement. There's hardly anything to unlock, except for harder difficulty and 2 new stages. As it is, the game is not very hard anyway, so its only real problem is that it is far too shortlived. Even in Stunt Mode the amount of point you have to gather for top position is very low and broken in no time, so the only lasting appeal of this game lies in your own desire for self improvement, which in my case is not too high, since I'm already so marvellously fantastic at everything I do, and even at most things I don't do.

The idea was original enough and good use is made of the concept of racing on water, but it's simply too easy and short-lived to be of interest for long, even in 2P mode.
It deserves an 8.0 just for effort.

posted by Ingen! @ 8:36 PM 1 comments

Luigi Mansion

Nope, that's not a typo, the box actually says "Luigi Mansion" in a great example of the Japanese's grasp of the English language. "Me fail English? That's unpossible!"

So, Luigi Mansion then, I believe this was the first Gamecube game to be released and it was supposed to sell the machine. There is no doubt that it's a great graphical showcase of the GC's capabilities (or at least it was back at the time) but you can't help but wonder why the chose to give us this weird game instead of a new real Mario game. Not that I have anything against Luigi, au contraire I like him better than his overrated fat-ass brother, whenever I played Mario games with my friends, I ALWAYS wanted to be Luigi, which seemed to work out fine for everyone involved.

The story is that Princess Peach is NOT kidnapped and it's your task to find out why, and along the way maybe save your good brother Mario who has misplaced himself somehow in a Big Mansion full of ghosts. Luigi bravely ventures after him and is aided in his quest by Professor Oya Maa (or E.Gadd in English) who hands Luigi an Obakyuumu (or Poltergust 3000) to suck up the ghosts and a Gameboy Horror to check out their location. As you can see, puns and wordplay run rampant and I will kill everyone responsible.

So what follows is a rather short game which is really not special enough to waste a lot of words on. That's not to say it's not fun, because it is, for as long as it lasts, or perhaps a little shorter. Basically, you're just running from room to room sucking up ghosts, and finding keys to go to the next room, interspersed with some puzzles and treasure hunting. The ending you get depends on the amount of money you gather in the game, which gives you a rank, earning you a nice mansion of your own, in a similar fashion to Wario Land.

The game gives you a side objective of finding 50 Boos, which appear after clearing each room of ghosts, and it's a good thing this is only a sidequest cos it's really rather annoying. Boos can move to other rooms when they flee which means a lot of running back and forth between rooms before you can catch them.

Other than that the game has little to make you excited or angry, it's fun and original but in an average way, so I give this an 8.2.

posted by Ingen! @ 11:23 AM 3 comments

Word of the day: WOW.

No, that doesn't stand for World of Warcraft, but it sure as hell is going to give me a whole bunch of hits this week! :D

It's amazing what people with powerful computers can do when they put their minds to it, and I experienced two such technical wonders today.
The first was Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, GOD how spectacular it is.
Will not be released until tomorrow, but you can trust the Internet to leak it out before, and I suggest you download the torrent RIGHT NOW.
Never mind the fact that the story, as I had expected, is stupid and useless and rapes the original game, IT LOOKS SO GOOD. And it has lots of Matrix effects and slow motion and freeze frames, so you KNOW it's cool. AND it has big breasts. God I love Titfa. Uh. Sorry bout that. And those breasts are not the only things that defy gravity in this movie, let me tell you that. Dragon Ball anyone?

But arguably even more impressive was my next instalment in the King's Log series: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Only played a rough 2 hours yet, but so far this game is blowing me AWAY. The cutscenes are brilliantly choreographed, it looks astoundingly beautiful, the story looks like a nice mix of real facts and completely bullshit fantasy characters again (I've got a glimpse of some of the upcoming bosses already, and they're a colorful bunch I can tell you) I might enjoy this even more than its prequels.

Tomorrow I have to play interpreter for a whole day, for some nice people from Kirin, not the beer department, mind you, no, the seed-handling department. Great.
Well, it's a shitload of money for one day anyway, so I'm not complaining.
They'd better give me a lifetime's supply of free beer though, or I'll show them some parts of Amsterdam they'll NEVER forget.

posted by Ingen! @ 9:47 PM 2 comments

King's Log: ICO

I keep having to think up these alternative side-logs to indicate that I'm also playing games that do not strictly belong to my project, and the next in line is the King's Log, named after the King Ruler who gave me a couple of his most legally acquired DVD-Rs (he bought them in a store, it's not my fault what he chooses to do with them. I only borrowed the discs!), and this has resulted in me playing one of the most hyped games of the last couple of years, ICO.

Or to be exact, one of the games that was most hyped for not being hyped enough.
Fans of the game keep clamoring that it's wonderful and a real work of art, but I am here to give the final, no nonsense low-down, and definitive opinion on this game, so don't believe anything you read anywhere else.

In ICO, you play as ICO. Think about that sentence, and you'll see it makes perfect sense. And it is your task to keep Yorda, the princess of Light safe from the Monsters of Darkness, and to safely get her out of the Castle of Darkness, free from the clutches of the evil Queen of Darkness.

If you are sensing a pattern of light and darkness, you can advance to reading on a third grade level now. Good for you. What this setting leads to, is your being stuck with a princess alongside you, and you have to safely get her out of the castle, but she is not as nimble as you are, so you'll have to open up alternative routes for her.
Now you might think, "God, not ANOTHER game where you have this stupid bitch tagging along", and you'd be right, cos this has been done WAY too much lately. But this game's from 2001 and I wouldn't be surprised if this game is what started it off in the first place.
And that's understandable, because it does by far the best job at it. Rather than putting you up with a stupid cunt who doesn't know right from left, the creators give you a Princess who's actually pretty smart.

By pressing the R1 button, you can call her to you, and she'll be able to find you no matter where she is, just as long as there's a way for her to safely cross without your help. She can climb most steps, ladders, rocks and such by herself, so your task mainly consists of placing stepping stones in the right place, lowering bridges, opening doors etc. etc.
Press the R1 button when she's next to you, and you'll be able to hold her hand and drag her along, which looks REALLY cool, they did a really good motion capturing job there. The rumble function of the controller will let you feel her heartbeat, and it will shake if you pull on her arm too hard, which I liked to do A LOT, simply because it looked cool. Princess my ass. This is a VERY welcome addition though, because it eliminates the frustration of NPC's getting stuck behind objects and such.

Gameplaywise, the game is most reminiscent of Prince of Persia: Sands of time, even though that game came 3 years later, it is the most accurate comparison I can come up with, and it still disregards the factor of guiding a princess. You have to perform acrobatics, swing along pipes, climb stuff, the works. It's also kinda like Tomb Raider in some ways, mixed in with some elements of Lemmings if that makes any sense.

But what is this bullshit about people clamoring this is a work of art? Well, I'll try to explain. As I said, light and darkness play a big role in this game, and the visual directors of the game decided to make light somewhat of an issue in this game, taking great care in creating really terrific lighting effects. The light in this game is really really bright, lens flare is without a doubt the most realistic I've ever seen and eye-poppingly gorgeous. The bright lights and the kind of surreal environment of a HUGE castle slam in the middle of nowhere on a small island in the sea somewhere create a great, dreamlike atmosphere that absolutely has to be seen to be believed and properly experienced.
There are several areas and scenes in the game that look insanely beautiful, all because of great art direction and level design. Just making great graphics is not enough, this game has the presentation and originality to back it all up.

However, I will say that this game was NOT underhyped at all. Seems to me it got exactly the attention it deserved, because behind the layer of mesmerizing graphics, gorgeous presentation and oodles of atmosphere, there's a game that is not all that special.
Throughout the game, I kept likening it to Prince of Persia, which does a considerably better job at it if you ask me, but this is not a fair comparison, since PoP came 3 years later.
There are some irking elements though, that should have been better.

For one thing, again very much like PoP, there are battles in this game that seem totally out of place. Occasionally (like, after solving every major puzzle, and then some) you will be attacked by Shadowy creatures, which wouldn't be so bad, if the combat system hadn't felt like it was thrown in at the last moment. It was like "Okay, we have a great puzzle/adventure game now, but we need something more, something to change the pace, some action bits maybe?" and they threw in a very shoddy battle system, where basically you just walk around waving your sword or stick about in a very unbalanced way. Stray too far away from the princess, and she'll be abducted to a shadowy hole (oh, I could make ALL kinds of jokes here), and if you fail to pull her out again, the whole world'll be drenched in darkness and it's game over. Like PoP, these battles are too long and annoying, and take too much away from the entire experience.

Secondly, like in most 3D games that are not the Wind Waker, the camera SUCKS, and control over the camera sucks as well. All too often I found myself totally misjudging a jump, only to plummet to my untimely death, which brings me to point 3.

And this is something I don't often complain about. Usually, I'll critisize a game for what it has and what's wrong with that, I won't often judge a game for what it doesn't have. I was once witness to a conversation between some avid Gran Turismo 3 fans, and some other guy who thought it sucked, because there were no changing weather conditions. This seems kinda like a stupid point. Sure, it would have been cool, but it's stupid to say the game sucks because it doesn't have what you would like to see.
But this time I will say that this game should have had a quick restart function, exactly like Prince of Persia. One of the things I really liked about Metal Gear Solid was that you could die without worry, because you'd get to restart at the beginning of the room anyway. This was part of MGS's great gimmick that stimulated you to just mess about with guards and see what you can do to them, cos the worst thing that could happen was that you had to restart at the beginning of the area, same as in PoP.

Not so, ICO I'm afraid. You have to restart from the last save point, meaning that if you die, you will often have to redo entire puzzles, and if there's one thing I hate, it's REDOING PUZZLES. Action bits, sure, no problem, but puzzles, NO.
Save points seem to be distributed a bit unevenly. There are plenty, but sometimes they are far between, and towards the end you won't be able to save at all.
Occasionally you'll get to restart from a cutscene, and you can always restart from the point after opening some of the green doors you need Yorda to open, but this should have been quicker and more user-friendly.

Phew. So what's the final verdict then?
Well, if you're sensitive to esthetics and great presentation, which I am, you will absolutely love this game no matter what. You'll just keep playing to see what happens next, and the ending was pretty much worth it, I thought.
Gameplay is fun, but I guess I was a bit too harsh on it, because I'd already played PoP, which does a better job at it. But it's totally unfair to make that comparison, so I won't let it affect my score.
The fact that the game is very quiet (there's hardly any music, which according to fans is a good thing, cos music would have ruined the atmoshpere. Bullshit I say, as long as you get a good composer, music'll only help the experience) and uneventful otherwise might not appeal to everyone, and controls, camera and save system could have been better.

I do appreciate the unique qualities of this game, and the presentation earns it a good score, but it's not everything people make it out to be. An 8.8, which is me being nice.

posted by Ingen! @ 11:27 AM 0 comments

Bortlog #1: Tetrisphere

I guess everyone enjoys the odd puzzle game every once in a while, and I know for a fact that EVERYONE on this planet has at some point in his/her life been addicted to some form of Tetris, so it was about high-time I played Tetrisphere again.

The above statement, by the way, is 100% accurate. EVERYONE, every single person in the WORLD, even bums, vagabonds, poor people, recluses and presidents of the US have at some point in their life been totally hooked on a Tetris game, at least for a little while.
The concept of the original game was ridiculously simple. There's a bunch of 4-block-shaped puzzle pieces dropping from the sky, and you had to organize them into complete lines to get rid of them and get points. It's any bookkeeper's wet dream!

By night-time you would get to bed, close your eyes, and all you would see were blocks, blocks, and even more blocks until you went totally insane and did something terribly stupid, like signing up for ballet classes.

I recently watched a documentary on BBC 2 that was all about the phenomenon of Tetris, and that dealt with its origins and the tremendous amounts of bureaucracy, politics and backstabbing involved to get this game to your home console. It was a great documentary, albeit presented in a way a bit too heavy for such a light subject, and you could tell the producers were thinking "Oh dear, we have to do a documentary again! Get out the melancholic music, weird camera angles and sedated voice-over! This has to look intellectual!"
But it was educational all the same (damn you!) and if there's one thing I learned, it's that good old Alexei Pejitnov (the inventor of Tetris, and a really nice guy) got totally screwed over by his country and is now a corporate drone at Microsoft. Poor little blighter.

Still, one good thing came of it, and that was Nintendo outsmarting the entire software world (Howard Lincoln was telling his story extremely unctuously) and getting the exclusive rights to Tetris for the console market causing a world-wide craze with their Gameboy version.
Practically everyone in my entire family (of extremist non-gamers) has played and absolutely LOVED the GB version of this game and there were times when I couldn't even get hold of my own GB because it was occupied.

But that's all for much later, cos we'll get to the GB Tetris, once we hit the T.

One thing that this craze led to, is a whole Slew of spin-offs, one of which is Tetrisphere. Here you have a ball (or sphere, if you will) with a lot of Tetris pieces on it, and it is up to you to erase enough of those pieces by dropping similar pieces next to them, or on them, to expose enough of the core to release some freaky robot inside.
I don't know where that last bit came from, but it's really rather disturbing.

The game offers a plethora (I love that word. Plethora. Plethora. Plethora) of other gaming modes, but they all boil down to exposing the core to some extent.
Also, there's a great puzzle mode where you have to get rid of all the pieces in a set formation, with a predetermined amount of slides and drops, and these can become EXCEEDINGLY hard.

As with any Tetris game, music is of great importance, since you'll be staring at the same screen for a long time trying not to go insane, and, like it's addictive GB counterpart which has pretty much become examplary of Tetris music, this game has a phenomenal soundtrack.
No Russian Cossack ditties (heheh. I said ditties) this time round though, but great techno music that pumps out of your speakers and through your brain and arteries.
These tracks are all of great quality, especially considering they're running off a cartridge, and an N64 cartridge at that.

If anyone's interested I can put up the soundtrack on YouSendIt, but it's a bit of work so I'll only do it if people are actually going to make use of it. Just post a comment or send an E-mail or something.

In short, this is another wonderful game in the Tetris vein that will likely get you totally hooked for awhile, although probably not as long as the original game. It's not quite as accessible and easy to get as the original Tetris, so not everyone will enjoy this, but it's a great addition to any puzzle fan's collection. Another 9.0.

posted by Ingen! @ 3:23 PM 6 comments

In between V

Just a short status report on my life at the moment, written separately from the Lufia Review below, cos it was kinda long. If you have no interest in my life (and why should you, I know I haven't) just scroll down to the Fall of the Sinistrals.

Today I have finally handed out my thesis to my guidance councellor and my secondary reader, both of whom told me that I was pretty much graduated now, only the paperwork needs to be finished. The ceremony will be on wednesday December 7th (check your Study Guide!) and then I will be Student No More, and I will fall into the eternal abyss of Common Life, until I die. Yay.
That is, unless I can get my hands on that elusive scholarship in Japan. I got a letter from the Nuffic organisation today, assuring me again that I have been elected as a possible candidate (as if the word of the embassy was not yet enough) but they also told me I was the 3rd Main Candidate, whatever that means.

I guess it means that I'm third in line, but as long as they're giving away 3 scholarships, that should be no problem. It probably will be though, cos that's how things tend to go. They also stated that my documents have been sent to the Japanese government and that they will contact me about the results. This is kinda odd, since the embassy told me I had to acquire a Letter of Acceptance from Osaka University first, so I'm not sure what this means either. Still, the less I have to do the better, just as long as people throw money at me.

It's kinda scary to realise that the end of my study as a Japanologist is nigh, seeing as how I've been doing this since 1997 now, it's like a huge chapter coming to a close right there. I'm scared mommy. Still, it's nice to know that I have no obligations anymore, like exams or PAPERS and that I can finally start life as a Porn Star in Thailand. Eeeeeeexcellent.

Gamewise, the benevolent Sir Damen has gracefully bestowed me with some of his extremely legal PS2 games, meaning I am now in the proud, if temporary, possession of ICO (can't wait to play this), Metal Gear Solid 3 (this either), Dragon Quest 8, Suikoden IV, and some fighting games so it's a good thing I'm almost graduated and already unemployed. And there's still a bunch of N64 games I got from Bort, so happy times are here.
I'll try to maintain the project as best I can. Next up is Luigi's Mansion, which I am looking forward to playing again, but first ICO.

No wait, first some Porn.

posted by Ingen! @ 9:10 PM 2 comments

Fall of the Sinistrals

So that's Lufia over with, and the results from the judges are in and they are.....
Very positive.

After all playing this game and loving it was what drove me to buy the prequel and sequel, which in turn drove me to drink and abuse. It really is unbelievable how one game in the middle can be so good, when both the PRECEDING and the SUCCEEDING game are so terribly awful. How is that possible?

Why is this game so good then?
Well, I'll get to that in a moment, but first let me tell you what is NOT good, so that we can get that out of the way, and it's a considerably shorter list.

First of all, story and dialogue are really cheesy. I own this game in Dutch, purely for novelty value since this was one of the very first console games in existence to be translated into Dutch, and I liked the idea.
But dialogue is painfully bad in some cases. Now I don't know if the original Japanese script writers are to blame, or that the Dutch translators are idiots, OR (and I suspect this is the real reason) the Dutch version is merely an accurate translation of the butchered American version, which has totally raped the original Japanese script.
It is entirely possible that the original Japanese dialogue wasn't too intelligent to begin with but some of the jokes are excruciatingly bad and some dialogue is just really childish and dumb.

Secondly, the game is really far beneath graphical and musical standards of that time. I found out it was released in 1995, at which time the SuperNES was experiencing a prime a graphics and sound. Before this we had already witnessed the marvellous sounds of Final Fantasy VI and the stupefying graphics of Donkey Kong Country, and it was only a couple of weeks before Chrono Trigger would hit stores and shake the gaming world. In other words, this game, by all rights, could and should have looked and sounded a LOT better than it does. Towns and dungeons are very plain and the sound system is also very average. Mind you, it's never really BAD, plain is really the adequate term, but it's evidently beneath SNES standards of that time. Quite a shame, especially considering the fact that this game has no problems ripping off gameplay elements of some of the bigger SNES titles, but not graphics or sound unfortunately.

Those are the only things that really bothered me though, but what it DOES excell in more than makes up for this.

Firstly, the shop system, or the buying and selling equipment system is quite easily one of the very best in the history of RPG's. I sometimes still like to point out how enjoyable Chrono Trigger was in terms of equipment management, but this game has it beaten to a bloody red-haired spikey pulp.
Basically, your party consists of a maximum of 4 characters at ALL times, and all 4 of these characters will be visible in the shop window, including their ENTIRE status. So that's Attack/Defense/Speed/Intelligence etc. all immediately visible.
Highlight any weapon or armor and the changes in status are immediately apparent for every character that can equip it. Blue means increase, red means decrease. Press the X button and you can read a description of that item and see any special effects or attributes it might have. Choose the item and you can opt to equip it immediately, or press down on the Control Pad and just purchase it for later use. When you're done, you can immediately sell the stuff you took off, so all your business can be done WITHOUT CHANGING WINDOWS.
Now, why not every RPG has used this kind of system since is a complete fucking mystery to me. It is the ultimate in equiping comfort, it can't really be any better.
Even the mighty FF series has been bumbling about with their equipment system for ever now, despite the fact that it's as simple as all of the above.

Secondly, the game has some cool ideas and gimmicks. Next to the standard HP and MP your characters also get RP (Rage Points), which fill up when you get hurt during battle. When you have enough points, you can use the special abilities embedded in your weaponry for support attacks or strong magic. Not every weapon has a Rage function though, adding a new element of strategy to buying equipment; will you buy the stronger armor with no effect, or will you buy the weaker one that has a healing function? I love this system, and it makes battles more interesting as well.
Another idea is the Capsule Monster system. Capsule monsters are monsters that help you during battles. There's 7 or 8 of them, hidden across the world and when you find them you can use one of them in your party, alongside your 4 main characters.
Capsule monsters will help you with support attacks and healing magic etc.
You can increase their status, raise them and change their appearance by feeding them items and equipment to shape them into a powerful being at your side. Very cool.

Thirdly, the puzzles in this game RULE. They RULE everything there is to RULE. They RULE the ROOST, as they say. I have NEVER seen so much variety and so much originality in puzzles within one game. Well, maybe in a Zelda game, but this game definitely does not underperform even to that mighty series. Zelda does get the advantage because it has more thematic dungeons though. In Lufia basically every dungeon looks like the next one, and you only have 3 kinds: Towers, Caves/Basements, and Mountains. But every single room has a unique, fun puzzle, some of which can really squeeze your brain into a helpless pulp screaming for something easier, like the theory of relativity. Honestly, puzzles are what this game is all about and what keep it exciting and fun to the end. If you don't like puzzles in your RPG's then you're going to hate this, but you should really shut up and die anyway.

Also, I really like the pace of the game. Not a lot of time is spent on story or cut-scenes, which is a godsend, compared to PSX-era games like Xenogears when it seemed to be the hip thing to throw one hour+ dialogues at you. No, this entire game can be summed up like this: Visit Town, be told where to go (most dungeons have names like the West Tower, or South Cave, so are VERY easy to find), go to dungeon, beat boss, go back to town, be told where to go next, rinse and repeat.
And this makes the game go delightfully FAST. You're just walking in and out of towns and dungeons, no stupid fetch quests, or finding out what to do next, you just have to worry about solving the many puzzles, and you're good till the end. I loved this pacing and I propose all games go back to this basic form from now on.

Finally, this game has THE best subgame EVER. A subgame that has become the staple of the series, and one that is in its own rights a complete game all of its own: The Old Cave.
This is an optional dungeon you get to halfway through the game. It has 99 (!) stories, is virtually impossible to finish and is filled to the brim with rare treasure.
Only catch is, you can't take anything with you. You are stripped of ALL your equipment and items, you only get 10 elixirs, you are RESET to level 1, and you have to gain all your levels anew and find equipment along the way. Floors are generated randomly and contain lots of treasure and monsters usually, so this is for the real battle buff and for fans of dungeon crawling. The only way out is if you find the Exit-item, which is only available from the 20th floor downwards (you go down all the time). You can't keep what you find, and of course you are restored to your old status, but what you can keep are any of the Rare Iris treasures (10 of these in total) and any equipment you got from Blue Treasure Chests (usually very strong).
Needless to say, finding all Iris treasures or getting to level 99, where supposedly a very hard boss is waiting, is nigh-on impossible, and I've never actually met anyone who has managed to pull this off.
It's really great fun to just sit down and explore this Old Cave every once in a while though, and I still do that from time to time.

With that said, this game has SO much on offer for RPG freaks it's amazing. I understand that some people will not appreciate the puzzle-centeredness of the game, and some will be annoyed by the stupid story, bad dialogue, the many blatant rip-offs of Zelda and Final Fantasy, but I greatly enjoyed all of it, it's not very hard, so you can just breeze through the game at leisure, have fun, and use your brain for once, instead of killing it with beer.

It's not a sure-fire hit, but it's more than enough for RPG fans. A 9.0.

Oh, and just to illustrate how stupid some of the dialogues are, let me quote some of them. I refuse to believe that these are deliberately funny, this is just shoddy script-writing:

Maxim: "Something about this bothers me...."
Guy: "What, you mean those Superbeings that are trying to destroy the world?"

Me - No, I was talking about this fish down my pants, actually. Idiot. I swear, the setting of the scene did not imply that this was deliberate sarcasm, it really felt like a stupid thing to say.

NPC: "That man who sank all the ships looked like a very mean person."

Me - I dunno, I thought he was kinda cute. Geez, talk about understatement.

And this one cracks me up every time:

"That Dragon is the Incarnation of Fire. People call him the Fire Dragon!"

Me - I bet they had to call a town meeting to come up with that name. I would've called him George, though.
Haha. Really, that last one makes me laugh incessantly for some reason.

Seriously though. Great game, go and try it out.

posted by Ingen! @ 8:09 PM 0 comments

Capcom vs. SNK 2: Millionaire Fighting

So, guess it's time for another backlog, and, hey what's this!?
It seems I skipped from Capcom vs SNK to Castlevania, totally forgetting CvS2!
THANKS FOR POINTING THAT OUT!

Bunch of assholes.

Okay, well actually, there's not much to say about this game after the first Capcom vs SNK, except that this time, you get more characters and 3D backgrounds, instead of 2D. That means no spiffy intro sequences, but they look better in any case.

Also, the ratio system has been adjusted so that it is not fixed per character but that you can ascribe ratio points to your favorite characters yourself, meaning you can make any character you want very strong.
Also, there's a normal 1 on 1 mode now, for traditionalists, and there's a lot more grooves to choose from. The first game only had two, this one has three....PER COMPANY, so that makes a total of 6!
The Capcom grooves borrow from Street Fighter Zero 2 and 3, and Street Fighter 3, the SNK grooves from Samurai Shodown, King of Fighters and probably something else that I never bothered to play. Sucky games.

Capcom know how to make pretty graphics, but they also know how to keep reusing old stuff, so you get all those old characters sprites you've been getting for years now (move on already!), but you get nice new renditions of SNK characters, cos we can't have Neo Geo-type graphics in this day and age can we? *cough*Capcom vs. SNK Chaos*hack*. What was that? Did you hear something? I sure didn't!

I can't help but think this is all a bit too much of an old thing, and there's nothing really new or interesting here. Backgrounds may look good, but in this day and age where Sammy have proved with the Guilty Gear series that 2D sprites can look goddamn good in Hi-Res too, it's a shame Capcom keeps using old 16-bit sprites.
Also, some of the grooves are just plain annoying to work with/fight against.

The only value this game has is if you want to pitch Capcom characters vs. SNK characters, which is admittedly fun, but it could have been so much better if they had just UPDATED it a little to fit modern times.
It's a VAST improvement over the first game, in any case, but it's nowhere near as good as some of the old Street Fighters, and I'm sure SNK fans will prefer old KoF's or Samurai Shodowns over this as well.

It's not a bad game by any means, it just lacks appeal because it's too much 'been there, done that', only in a new environment. Once again, character specific endings have been thrown out the window, and you get the same old tired ending for every character you pick. When are they going to bring all those cool endings back again?

Capcom needs to release a Street Fighter (Zero) 4 pronto, or I'm going to platchek plootchek some ass over there. This game deserves an 8, because it's solid and entertaining, but nothing to really write home about.
Now give us something new already, dammit!

posted by Ingen! @ 8:03 PM 0 comments

Fiddlesticks and Sugar

I think I have a reputation of being a mild-mannered person. I pride myself on being virtually impossible to enrage, and I don't think anyone has ever seen me actually angry. Annoyed or irritated, sure, but never really angry.
I tend not to let things get to me so much that they make me freak out, and I've been able to keep that up pretty succesfully for all my life now.

That is, until a couple of hours ago, my computer decided that the Word Document containing my near-completion Thesis was corrupt and needed to be disposed of WITHOUT PROMPTING. I can't remember EVER having been this motherfucking, bloodsucking, rampageing angry at anything in my entire life. I think the neighbours'll stay well clear of me the next couple of months.
As will my cat when she decides to come out from under the couch.
It's a good thing I didn't have an axe with me (untypically) or I wouldn't have been able to make this post. At least not from the comfort of my home.

EXTREMELY fortunately, I intensely distrust PC's as it is, so I had a back-up stored safely in my mail-box, which is where I store most of my important documents, so that I can access them anywhere and everywhere, and, of course, always have a safe back-up. This back-up was 6 pages short of the finished version, and lacked the recent modifications I had made to it, but I've already adjusted them again, and am nearing calmness now. Most of the time I have spent on it recently involved editing pictures and the like, and those still remained intact as separate files, luckily.

Needless to say though, we are not amused and Bill Gates needs to die. Like a BITCH.

posted by Ingen! @ 11:16 PM 0 comments

Lufia

Despite the considerable albeit temporary increase of my Game Collection at the moment, I still haven't actually started anything outside of my project yet.
The game I have currently fired up in my SNES and ready to go is Lufia.
This is the European version, not to be confused with the American Lufia, which is part 1 in the series, or known as Estpolis in Japan. In America this one is known as Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals.

For Europe however, this was the first Lufia game, so they decided to drop the 2 and just call it Lufia, and for the Dutch market even translated it into Dutch! This was (and is) a very rare thing in console games, and it's nice to see people bother with our cute little language, although it definitely doesn't have to become a trend or anything.

It's strange that I still want to play this game after the abysmal Estpolis and Estpolis Gaiden on GBA. But the only reason I bought those two was because I had already played Lufia before and totally LOVED it. It's weird how both the prequel AND the sequel can suck so much, with this game being so great in the middle.
I'll tell you all about what makes this game so good once I finish it and write the full review (only 10 years after it was originally released! What a deal!).

For now, this is only the introduction so you know what I'm doing and are not worried sick or anything. I expect this game to take awhile, but I plan to definitely start playing some Bortlogs along the way. I now possess a wealth of N64 games I haven't played for awhile, or not at all, like Perfect Dark, Goldeneye, Tetrisphere, Waverace 64, Conker's Bad Fur Day etc., and I also have a modded PS2 now, meaning I can play some games I haven't been able to before as well, which I may give a rent some time soon, I've been really looking forward to playing God of War for awhile now, and perhaps I'll find some other stuff.
Who knows, I may finally get that DVD-burner and just download a bunch of games, because that is totally legal in Holland, like marihuana, prostitution, threatening people, owning blueprints of important buildings, killing politicians and columnists (not related to the Sega game) and selling violent video games to children.

Don't you ever dare put your feet up on a bench in a subway-train though, cos that'll cost ya.

posted by Ingen! @ 9:58 PM 2 comments

Backlog: Blast Corps

What with poor Bort's passing away (to Japan) I have been gratefully bestowed with the honor of safeguarding all his game-related junk until he gets back, or until I sell it all for a hamburger.
This means I can catch up again with some games I have not been able to play because I had borrowed them to him, the first of which being Blast Corps on N64.

Also, since I am now in the temporary possession of a wealth of games I haven't (properly) played yet, I want to seize this opportunity to get some MORE gaming done.
Of course, I do not want to keep all my dear fans waiting, so I will review these also, probably under the header of "Sidelog" or possibly "Bortlog".
Does that last word sound like some kind of Lord of the Rings-esque monster? Why yes, it does!

Frodo: "Look Gandalf, it is the evil Bortlog, a hideous monster made of darkness and south-eastern Dutch Dialect!"
Gandalf:"I am MAGNETO!"

So that is a warning for the future, now let's get on with the review of Blast Corps.
This was one of Rare's first games for N64 I think, and it's totally not what you'd expect from them. In this game, you are a member of a kind of wrecking crew (not affiliated with Mario) and it is your task to destory basically everything you see.
Story? Oh yes, there's a truck carrying a Nuclear Weapon, that has gone on the rampage and become uncontrollable. It is up to you to destroy every building in its path, so that it doesn't explode and....er.....doesn't destroy everything in its path.....?

At your disposal, you have several vehicles, rangeing from rocket-firing motorbikes, to bulldozers, to giant robots, to the The A-Team Van. Outta ma Way!
These vehicles all have a different feel and control scheme, and some of them are definitely easier to use than others, but you're going to have to make due with the machines you get for each level.
Especially Backlash, which you have to operate into sliding to destroy buildings, is a pain to control, and it becomes a very prominent vehicle later on, so that can cause some frustration.
In all though, the game is not nearly as hard as most Rare games, and frustration was kept at a minimum. The difficulty is pretty low, and it good fun all the way through. I played until the normal ending, and a little bit after, but there's a bunch of new worlds to unlock if you persist, becoming increasingly difficult.

Graphically the game is alright. The vehicles look pretty, buildings look nice from the outside, explosions are bright and colorful, if totally unrealistic and environments are kinda plain.

Every stage has a bunch of RDU's to find, survivors to rescue, and buildings to destroy, find everything to earn a Gold Medal, earn all Gold Medals and face some of the hardest challenges ever devised by man, as only Rare could make them.
There are all optional though, and not necessary for simply completing the game.

All in all, I had a Blast (hohoho) and it's definitely a very original and entertaining title for as long as it lasts, which isn't very long, unfortunately.
It's fun, but nothing special. An 8.5 seems about right.

posted by Ingen! @ 3:51 PM 2 comments

In Between IV

Wow! Just for once, the embassy of Japan is really really FAST!
They must've been impressed with my earth-shattering resumé, cos only 3 days after the test I am informed that I have passed the preliminary examination and am now tentatively (I hate that word) selected for the scholarship.

Now all I have to do is arrange a letter of acceptance from Osaka Foreign Language University, send it to the embassy, wait for Japanese government to see if they hate me and I'm good to go. So. Uh. I still don't know anything really, just that I'm one small step closer to living in the mountains.

Yay me! Boo other people!

posted by Ingen! @ 11:21 AM 3 comments

Love Story

Also known as 0 Story or whatever.
This is one of those Japanese Love simulation games that you might have heard something about, perhaps by some extreme loser who was talking about it as if it was the best thing on the planet. You know, the guy with the ugly mug and the high squeaky voice? Who always watches anime? Who only likes Japanese girls?
That's the one! We all know people like that.

You play as some dude who dies in a freak accident involving oysters, a middle-aged nurse and 5 pieces of string, but when you get to Heaven, two Angels are waiting for you to tell you that you get one last shot at life, IF (and only if) you can find true love with the first girl you meet, within six days. I think the movie the Sixth Day with AAAhhnuld Schvazaneggaaaah was loosely based on this, in that there was also a woman in there somewhere.

Fortunately for YOU (which soon becomes the main character's official name) Japanese girls are easy, especially if you're dead, so he happily accepts the task.
What ensues is an interactive movie of sorts. The game is spanned across two DVD-ROMs filled with FMV. Every once in a while you get to choose Camera angles or decide what you're going to do or say. Your choices influence the course of the story, and there are multiple routes through the game, although the ending is always the same I think. Provided you keep up, because there's a Love Meter at the bottom left of the screen showing you how much Rina, the girl in question, feels for you. The aim is to reach 100% at the end of the sixth day of course, and the percentage is influenced by your actions, how well you perform at...uh...minigames, and by reading her mind.
At the bottom right of the screen are a bow and arrow, and strategically timed shots will show you what Rina is thinking, and in some cases even affect her mood, show you important flashbacks, and make her more insightful.

But I like how everything is worked out. Rina is a real stuck up little snobby singer, but through your actions you can push her into the right directions, show her that she may not always be right (I think any man can tell you how necessary this is) and make more of a person out of her.
The game is filled with very pretty Japanese girls, most of which are rather famous Idols in Japan. I've seen many of these actresses (used in the widest sense of the word) on Japanese TV on a regular basis, so the game must've had a fairly big budget.
This cannot be derived from SFX though, cos they suck. Image quality is decent, but computer effects are horrible, acting is atrocious (they're Japanese girls, selected for their cuteness, what did you EXPECT!?) and the story is kinda convoluted, jumping from one scene to something totally irrelevant.

To be honest, there ARE a couple of really good scenes, that were filmed very well and actually have some significance (somewhere I am sure that at least one of you readers is going: "Ingen. No.")

Also, and this has got to be worth some points, the game is really shamelessly sexist. This is nothing but a parade of lovely cute girls, in skimpy, sexy outfits. Some of the camera angles are expressly aimed at cleavage, and there's even an entire scene that revolves around Rina and her friend Saki trying on new clothes (bathing suits, if you do it right!) and don't even get me started on the Fortune Teller and her exotic outfit. *gurgles*
And you know what? Like any self-respecting heterosexual man, or perhaps gay woman, I FRIGGIN' LOVE IT! It's so shamelessly obvious and so deliciously putting down women as objects, you have got to admire the political incorrectness of it all, be it on purpose or not.

AND, most importantly, towards the end, Rina and Saki will french kiss, making this in effect, the BEST GAME EVER. A 10 is simply not enough!

When you finish the game you will get a Theater mode, showing you the course you made through the story, without you having to interact again, and playing through consecutive times will open up new scenes and new possibilities.
Also, I was laughing practically non-stop. Firstly at the endearing amateurism of course (at least some of this HAS to be deliberate) but also at some of the over-the-top acting, mostly by Rina's agent. Some of the humorous bits are so silly you can't help but laugh, and I think people accustomed to the Japanese sense of humor will enjoy this.
It's of course a bit childish, but it's still bearable. The game does deal with some heavier topics like loneliness, depression and the insignificance of life and there are even some messages in here that do not seem standard in a love story (Ingen. NO!)

All in all, I think that this game has pretty much everything you might expect from the genre, plus sexy women. KISSING.

It should stand to reason that you need to understand Japanese to play this, making too many wrong decisions will cause Game Over, so you have to know what you're saying, but if you know Japanese, it's usually pretty obvious what is correct and what isn't.

So, if you like any of the following: Love Sims, Japanese Girls, Silly Humor, Love Stories, Bad Computer Graphics, Cheesy Soundtracks and Migraines, you will want to play this game. Seriously. NOW!

In all honesty, those who have a healthy affection for Japan and its inhabitants, especially if you are male, will probably like this. I'm pretty sure most people I know would, cos it's just a simple endearing silly game with pretty girls, I mean, shit, that's all I need anyway.
I have not enough experience in the genre to compare this by, so scoring it is kind of difficult. I only ever played Sanpagita on PSX, but this game IS much better, even if the former has better graphics. THIS ONE HAS REAL GIRLS. WITH CLEAVAGE.
Well not very much, but still. Boobs rule.
And the game IS blatantly about sexism in any case, so it succeeds in all the important categories.

I'm going to give this an 8, cos I think genre-fanatics should definitely try this, as well as anyone who likes women and bog-standard Love themes. Oh hell, just give it a 10 and be done with it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to masturbate. With PORN.

posted by Ingen! @ 10:04 AM 0 comments