Fez is really really great

Fez is a really really great game. I bought it last Friday on Xbox Live Arcade for 800 Microsoft points.

It's a 2D platformer set in a cube shaped universe.

So you run and jump in a 2D landscape, rotate the landscape through 90 degrees left or right to change the perspective, and see new platforms to jump on, doors to go through and explore, etc.

It's a completely peaceful world, well, almost, apart from the distortion and the universe ripping apart.

There's no killing to do, no monsters after you, no penalty for falling off the bottom of the world and dying.

Just exploring, discovering, sometimes encountering strange monuments and levers for you to work out.

It's all about the feeling. It's a game that captures you by luring you in with sheer curiosity at every point. It rewards you by giving you a world far richer than you thought you'd see, and more curious things to explore.

It's all presented in a retro-style; 16-bit-esque to go with the 2D world.

There are a few different areas of landscape, each with their own style. You witness dawn and dusk every few minutes, and it's all very pretty. There's an atmospheric chiptune soundtrack as well, which I quite like despite being by "Disasterpiece" who made a few albums I got with bundles of games - and none of those I particularly enjoyed.

As you adventure, it populates a map so you know what you've found so far, and what's left to find. It's an enormous map, and it kind of reminds me of the huge and horrendously complicated maps that would take up pages and pages in old magazines back in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Earlier today, I saw some patterns on a stone and a larger stone lit up in tetrominoes depending on which buttons I pressed on the joypad. And I thought to myself "I need to replicate that pattern in these movements, don't I?" followed by "I wonder if I have any graph paper".

Which, oddly enough, was a good feeling. So I came here and wrote this blog post instead. :)

EDIT: I think I should mention... sometimes this game is downright creepy!

Android VNDS Interpreter is really good

Remember the VNDS Visual Novel Reader for Nintendo DS? It was super. It still is, and now there's an Android version too.

It seems a bit no-strings at first, not much in the way of instructions from within the app itself, but it turns out when you get it going, it works really well!

Useful Links:

• The VNDS site, this is the main site for the DS version - it has some free novels there.
• Discussion boards, to see what's being developed at the moment.
• Weeaboo.nl is the main site for the person who developed the Android VNDS Interpreter app. There are loads of resources here, special Android high-res packs for tablets, and convertors for games you already own. I guess they can't just give away retail games, so there we are - convertors.

At the moment I'm running the convertor for Ever 17. It's taking a while so I'm blogging in the meantime. :)

The process is... install the retail game on PC (which I happen to have right here, all 4 discs...), run the convertor application - which is really friendly and detailed and lets you select whatever screen size and colour depth you think is best for your device, and it not only includes a separate tool to convert the voice data into .wav files but it pops up a dialog box to tell you how to use that tool as well!

There are over 14000 of these little wav files btw, so it's taking ages. I think it's actually converting the .wav files into .ogg files. Ho hum, I think I'll come back when it's done.

One Piece Unlimited Cruise 3DS - watch out!

One Piece Unlimited Cruise first came out on Wii here in Europe a few years ago. A two-part action RPG game, based on the manga / anime series One Piece.

It is the only Wii game I have seen to have its price skyrocket to double its original price like that - copies trading for up to around £80 per part. When the first part came out, it was around £30 and climbed, then the price of the 2nd one was reasonable in preorder... but quickly grew to the same high price levels as the first part. Then the first part got a bit of a reprint, but it only lowered the price for a short while. I managed to snag both parts at a reasonable price, actually buying the 2nd part first!

And then, a few years passed and the 3DS came out. Soon after, I heard of a remake of One Piece Unlimited Cruise for 3DS. When it came out in Japan, it contained parts 1 and 2 redone in 3D and a bonus Marineford mode. Then it was announced that it would be coming to Europe!

Then a limited edition was announced, coming with a funny little Portagas D. Ace figure. For around that same £30 - £35 price mark that most new full-size games are.

So lots of people preordered.

And when it came out.... oh, I noticed a lot of disappointed and angry people reviewing the game on Amazon!

You see, the 3DS European version is completely missing part 2. And it doesn't mention this omission anywhere on the box or anything. People found out by playing it and it finishing all of a sudden, advertising a part 2 which isn't present in the game.

So if anyone is reading this, wondering about buying One Piece Unlimited Cruise on 3DS, well, know what you're getting - it might only be half the game you were expecting!

My recent purchases

'Tis the season to think about buying things for other people, but...

Here are some things I've bought for myself recently. :)

* Plants vs Zombies soundtrack

I really like this soundtrack, I'm glad it's available to buy and download (with no DRM, hooray!). I've played through the whole game on PC and on Xbox 360, it's one of the few "defense" games I like, and I really like it. The music is really cute and easy to listen to on a loop forever without getting boring!

* Shatter soundtrack

I really like this soundtrack too. But, um...... I started this game on PS3 then played it on PC (because the PC version was going really cheap). It's breakout / Arkanoid with different shaped levels and a "suck" and "blow" function. Never finished it on either platform, but I like the soundtrack a lot. :)

Over the last weekend in November - which is a time for big sales in America, the weather was awful so I stayed in and bought myself lots of games in the sales.

PC games on Steam:

- Alien Zombie Megadeath
- Ion Assault
- Runespell: Overture
- Astro Tripper
- Tobe's Vertical Adventure
- Star Ruler
- The Witcher: Enhanced Edition + Director's Cut DLC
- Gundemonium Recollection
- Hitogata Happa
- GundeadliGne
- Demolition, Inc.
- Dungeons of Dredmor

Another PC independantly:

* a 2D platform "Metroidvania" style game called Celestial Mechanica which was going especially cheap (1 US dollar).

A preorder for a bundle of games:

Indie Royale Really Big Bundle

(which ended up containing some games I already owned but it was cheap enough - about £3 - and ended up containing a lot of free soundtracks for the games, so I didn't mind)

And downloadable games on Xbox 360 Live Arcade:

* Stacking (it was half price at 600 points, it's a game by Doublefine so I expect it to be charming and/or funny)

and

* Beyond Good and Evil HD (it was down to 240 points)

...I've hardly made a dent in playing these games!

The only one I regret out of all these is "The Witcher", and that is not down to the game, but because Steam is an annoying system that won't let me install my games wherever I want - and there isn't enough room on my SSD to install all 15GB of it, so I can't play it unless I reinstall Steam somewhere else or buy a bigger hard drive or something. :/

My Gundam RX-78-2!

Look what I assembled!

It's a Gundam RX-78-2 and it's a High-Grade Model Kit. Nicely articulated! ^_^

My camera is not doing too well, so these are the only photos I could squeeze out tonight. One picture, stick the batteries in the recharger, another picture... it drains the battery so fast!

2012 anime calendar time!

It's mid-September, so it's time to think about the new year. Time flies you know.

As always, I'm shopping at CD Japan. There's a special offer there at the moment: spend 5000 yen (paying by PayPal) and get 1000yen's worth of loyalty points back, which works out as kind of 20% off, so that's good. There is a catch that the points are only valid for 90 days though, so it's not as good an offer as it could have been. Still, it's fairly good. It's valid until the 8th of October 8 2011 (Japan Standard Time GMT+9).

Anime calendars my brother is interested in:

ONE PIECE Release date: 2011/09/17, Price: 1500yen
SUITE PRECURE Release date: 2011/09/17, Price: 1500yen
Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu 2 Release date: 2011/10/01, Price: 1600yen
Shinryaku! Ika Musume Release date: 2011/10/22, Price: 1600yen

Some fun (and some funny) series ^_^

I want either the "Yotsuba to" one, or the "Chi's Sweet Home" one, but... I can't tell whether the Yotsuba one is another one that's full artwork or photos with Yotsuba being cute in them like it was the other year, and I can't tell what the Chi's Sweet Home one is like either, aside form being a wall calendar and slightly more expensive than the other calendars.
Yotsuba to (aka Yotsuba&) Release date: 2011/11 (sometime), Price: 1500yen
Chi's Sweet Home Wall Calendar 2012 from Kodansha Release date: 2011/11 (sometime), Price: 2200yen

I normally get myself an "All That's Ultraman" calendar as well, but I am not sure about that this year. I think I just want a super cute calendar. Decisions decisions!

One thing I have decided is that I want a copy of MIO (MIQ) The Perfect Best with the rebate points I get. :)

Kingdom Of Loathing

I've been playing Kingdom Of Loathing a lot over recent months. I'm nearly done with my second ascension (i.e. I finished the game and died, and got reborn, and have nearly finished it again).

It's... a web-based RPG that's free-to-play (though there is premium content), where all the graphics are stick people, just about all interaction is done via clicking links and things in menus, and it's all implemented in php, javascript and html forms. It's also several years old, but I only really discovered it about 2 months ago.

It's very tongue-in-cheek and funny; most of the time it's word-play and absurdity, a lot of the jokes are referential, some are just plain crude. I spent a lot of time just having fun reading battle text and descriptions of items.

And it's kind of an MMO but really not very at all. You don't really directly interect with any other players for the main core play of the game, you only really talk directly to others in chat (which is ever present but optional). There are clans and PvP but it's all optional. You can buy a shop in the mall or sell items through the marketplace to other players, so it does have an economy too.

All the same, it seems to have a friendly and active community, and it receives regular updates. It was even advertising a KoL convention and comic book coming out, recently.

Related links:
wiki,
fan site,
forum,
calendar,
foodstuff chart,
buffbot

"Russian Unicorn" video is funny :)

This music video is great.

Russian Unicorn - a bad lip reading of Michael Bublé

Some people took the music video to Michael Bublé's song "Haven't Met You Yet" and placed a complately different song over it, perfectly timed and lip-synched to match the original.

I really like the Russian Unicorn song. I had heard the original song a lot on the radio, and... I really don't like Michael Bublé's style of singing; it's more like talking in a smug way, in different tones. I had never seen the music video until today.

Ah, I like the way the Russian Unicorn song has such a different style and attitude to it, so you can interpret the pictures to mean such different things. Maybe... maybe the Russian Unicorn song actually fits the video better than the original! :D

Tramlines - Sheffield music festival

Well, I just made it back home after the first night of the Tramlines free music festival.

I went out tonight and...

* Visited the Kid Acne exhibition in the Millenium Gallery (mostly I went into there because it was cold outside and warm inside but it turned out to be a cool exhibition). There's a lot of his street art around town. I really like his drawings, especially his warrior women dotted around the place, but hate the slogans he's painted around town. Especially on Paternoster Row. There used to be some cool art on one wall - which was his own - but he painted over it with "You'll thank me one day". And it's rubbish in comparison! :(

* Went to a pub called Henry's because my colleagues had told me that our friend (another ex-colleague) was playing there later. I bought a drink and sat about 9ft from the stage (a very small and slightly wobbly stage), and I heard:

- a lady called Emily who was really excellent, and seemed really sweet and nice and friendly, and somewhat shocked at how much the audience liked her. Which was A LOT. :) But most of her songs were about being angry at someone, and she was certainly expressive about it!

facebook
myspace

She was much better than on her myspace recordings! She said she's playing Soyo tomorrow, then taking a break from gigging for a while to record an EP with a record label. :D

During one of the songs, one of my friends - Ali - was on the phone and there was a quiet moment in a song and all anyone heard was "I'M IN THE BEER GARDEN - IN HENRY'S". Everyone laughed and eventually she did too. At the end of the song everyone in the place was laughing, and she thanked everyone in the room.... EXCEPT HIM.

XD

And the next time started off with lyrics that were along the lines of "you don't care and you never listen" and everyone was in stitches.

XD

Carried on like a pro after that, pretty super awesome. :)

- the Don Barrel Gents. A two-piece guitar group who are cool and always good to listen to.

http://donbarrellgents.co.uk/

I used to work with Lee, the one of the two who doesn't sing and likes tuning his guitar. Even if I didn't know Lee, I'd still like them. :) The one of the two who sings has a really unusual way of playing his guitar - he uses it as a percussion instrument sometimes, and Lee does twiddly bits. :)

* Then I went out to the area in front of City Hall and saw Heaven 17 perform "Temptation"!

Well, they had a set starting at 9pm but we decided to stay and listen to our friend... well, no-one could remember more than one song, so we figured if we arrived at 9:45 we'd get that song. And our plan worked! :D

It was better than the original, but... well, the original is a good song, I like it a lot, but the vocals were a bit out of tune, and they've got better since. :)

So they played that and everyone jumped around and cheered, and then they performed "Being Boiled" (which is a Human League song)... and that was it. The guy who's lead shouted "Up the Owls!" and there was a lot of booing, but maybe it helped make everyone clear off sharpish. :P

And then I came home. A friend mentioned they plan to meet up a The Shakespeare tomorrow to attend Lee's gig, but I have no specific plans I am dedicated to at the moment. There's tons going on, and I can only be at one place at a time!

I can hear live music coming from outside still, I guess it must be at the Riverside Cafe. I am too tired to venture any further though.

Capcom, oh Capcom...

It's funny... almost seems like a lot of Japanese companies that used to be kings of the video game world about 10 - 15 years ago have kind of imploded in recent years... destroying themselves from within.

In recent times, Capcom have:

* Implemented DRM on certain downloadable PS3 games so you need to be connected to the playstation network in order to play them, even games with no online features. See: source. This is because they don't like people "sharing" games by logging onto more than one PS3 with their account and downloading the game so it can be played on both consoles. Really didn't work out well when PSN was taken offline for several weeks.

* As far as I know, they're not going to publish any more Ace Attorney games in English. :(

* Implemented Evil DRM for the new Resident Evil spin-off game on 3DS, where you can't restart the game over from the start. Source. This is because they make no money on 2nd hand games and don't like that. So you can't ever replay the game you bought from the start. If there's any point where you mess up and want to start over and do it better you can't. If you want to go back and replay the early parts of the game with the knowledge of what you know in later stages to see how it pans out, you can't.

* Took some characters out of Marvel vs Capcom 3 that people were really looking forward to, just so they can sell DLC..... but that's turned into another version that comes out in a few months time. To make loyal fans buy the same thing twice.

* Streetfighter IV DRM

and now.... cancelled Megaman Legends 3, which I was kind of looking forward to; I liked the PS1 Megaman Legends games (and the Tron Bonne game... actually I just like Servbots!)

And they blame the fans for not creating content for the game.

There are various online campaigns running at the moment; fans begging for the game.

I'm thinking if Capcom don't want to continue the project, and the original creator has jumped ship already, it's a bad idea to force them to make it just for the money. They might just take the name of the thing you liked, put a "3" on the end, and release something heartlessly created - derivative but without the magic. And then people will spend money, but they won't like what they've bought and will complain even more.

I can't think of an appropriate equivalent in videogames at the moment. I'm thinking we'd end up with Bat out of Hell 3. But with Servbots.