My left thumb is worn out today. I spent last evening playing King Of Fighters XI on PS2 (PAL version) with my brother. There are loads of characters to choose from, and I've only managed to unlock one extra character so far.
If I turn the difficulty to minimum and damage to maximum, I can sometimes get lucky and beat the game! ^_^;; Yeah, last bosses in these games are so dispropotionately difficult compared with all the other fights leading up to the end.
There seem to be slowdown issues, especially on the final boss. It's quite annoying. And, the text in story sequences flows off the side of the screen, so you can't read what's going on. Especially bad when the only story you get about the characters is their ending sequence! Buggy, buggy, buggy.
Sunday 24 May 2009
Saturday 23 May 2009
I bought a PS3.
I have a PS3 now; I bought myself a 2nd hand one - a USA 60GB import model because that's the most fully featured and because my American PS2 makes worrying disc-eating noises and there are more US PS2 games I want to play than PS3 games.
So far, I've had some fun with it playing "LittleBigPlanet", "Noby Noby Boy", "Rag Doll Kung Fu", "Riff: Everyday Shooter", "Pixel Junk Eden" and "The Last Guy".
I've also bought "Disgaea 3" and "Valkyria Chronicles", as well as "Flower" and "Pixel Junk Monsters". I haven't tried them yet.
I might also get "Hakuna Matata" (Afrika), which is a game about filming wildlife in Africa.
There aren't too many games in shops for PS3 that I want to buy - its range is so limited it's almost as bad as the Xbox in the last generation of consoles.
The range of downloadable games is more appealing to me. Not so much the selection of PS1 games as I own all of the games I'm interested in already, but the new titles. Apparently there are a lot more games on the USA and Japan versions of the PSN store than what I see in the European store, so I might have to set up foreign accounts and buy prepaid cards to use. There are no prepaid cards available for the European PSN shop; you have to use a credit card which is a bit annoying, so I am still a bit reluctant. I wish there were more game demos available too, even if it is a few £s to buy downloadable games, it seems like too much of a risk to buy a game based on its name and a very short paragraph of text to describe it. I have been looking up reviews of the games, but you don't really get a feel for a game like you do with a demo.
I have enjoyed the games I've played, though.
LittleBigPlanet is an extremely customisable platform game which has some great levels built in, plus you can create and play levels and play other player's levels too. All the objects in the game look and feel like they are made out of small bits and bobs; painted cardboard, various kinds of cloth, cotton reels for wheels, burning coals, etc. Some player levels I've seen have been really inventive; I've seen a roller coaster, a piano, a side-scrolling shoot-em-up... I'm really impressed.
Noby Noby Boy is a little downloadable game that costs £3.19 and is the latest thing that the guy who created Katamari Damacy has been working on. You're this little caterpillar-like thing who eats stuff. He's called BOY. You can stretch him, and by eating more, you can make him very long. When you're done, you report the length to GIRL, which is a global total among all players in the (real) world. So far she's stretched long enough to reach the moon (which opened up a new stage). The first time I played it was just before there was a huge update to the game which is bigger than the original size of the game! It added a lot of music and sound effects and multiplayer support, and somehow seems a lot more professional now. The take-up of this game has been a lot lower than expected, so I think in response to that, there have been multipliers to reported lengths all this week. It was up to 765 times yesterday, and is down to 523 times today. I think we will get GIRL to stretch to Mars soon! I'm looking forward to it!
Rag Doll Kung Fu: Fists Of Plastic... I only have because they are giving this game away for free on US PSN at the moment so I got someone with a US account to log in and download it. It still costs £7.99 in Europe, even though it's made my Sony Europe! :/ It's a pretty fun and amusing little fighting game, again with little objects as the main characters (reminding me of LittleBigPlanet), though some of the controls use motion sensing in the controller, and I found those controls too imprecise and hard to use. :(
Riff: Everyday Shooter is a two-stick shoot-em-up. Robotron / Smash TV / Geometry Wars style controls. Each stage has its own way of playing, and best tactics to score the highest points, so you aren't just shooting wildly - you are waiting to destroy the targets which will benefit you the most, and chain the destruction. It feels like Every Extend in that respect. Each level is the length of a song, rather than until you have destroyed X boss or whatever, and the music is realy tied in with what you are shooting. Some people describe it as "an album you play" because of this. I think it just makes a terrible racket, though. One of the most annoying soundtracks I've heard. Think: autogenerated amateur American grunge.
Pixel Junk Eden is a fun little 2D game where you jump around a large landscape trying to hit floating circles that release pollen to make other plants, to jump around.... and you can swing on some silk for a while to help... um, I don't know if that's a very good description. It took a while to work out the best way to play the game, even with tutorial messages, because the game is hard to describe. It's fun once you've worked it out, though. Fun to play local multi-player as well. :)
The Last Guy is... well, if you ever played the "Demonstration Roundup" minigame in WTF (Work Time Fun / Baito Hell 2000) for the PSP, it's basically an updated version of that. I think I even heard some sound effects from the PSP game reused, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was made by the same team. In this game, you have to run around a city (these are accurate real world aerial shots, like what you see in google maps), and when you pass by buildings, the people inside come out and join a line behind you. You need to take the people to the safety zones in the city to be rescued, without them being chased away by zombies or giant monsters. It's quite fun.
So far, I've had some fun with it playing "LittleBigPlanet", "Noby Noby Boy", "Rag Doll Kung Fu", "Riff: Everyday Shooter", "Pixel Junk Eden" and "The Last Guy".
I've also bought "Disgaea 3" and "Valkyria Chronicles", as well as "Flower" and "Pixel Junk Monsters". I haven't tried them yet.
I might also get "Hakuna Matata" (Afrika), which is a game about filming wildlife in Africa.
There aren't too many games in shops for PS3 that I want to buy - its range is so limited it's almost as bad as the Xbox in the last generation of consoles.
The range of downloadable games is more appealing to me. Not so much the selection of PS1 games as I own all of the games I'm interested in already, but the new titles. Apparently there are a lot more games on the USA and Japan versions of the PSN store than what I see in the European store, so I might have to set up foreign accounts and buy prepaid cards to use. There are no prepaid cards available for the European PSN shop; you have to use a credit card which is a bit annoying, so I am still a bit reluctant. I wish there were more game demos available too, even if it is a few £s to buy downloadable games, it seems like too much of a risk to buy a game based on its name and a very short paragraph of text to describe it. I have been looking up reviews of the games, but you don't really get a feel for a game like you do with a demo.
I have enjoyed the games I've played, though.
LittleBigPlanet is an extremely customisable platform game which has some great levels built in, plus you can create and play levels and play other player's levels too. All the objects in the game look and feel like they are made out of small bits and bobs; painted cardboard, various kinds of cloth, cotton reels for wheels, burning coals, etc. Some player levels I've seen have been really inventive; I've seen a roller coaster, a piano, a side-scrolling shoot-em-up... I'm really impressed.
Noby Noby Boy is a little downloadable game that costs £3.19 and is the latest thing that the guy who created Katamari Damacy has been working on. You're this little caterpillar-like thing who eats stuff. He's called BOY. You can stretch him, and by eating more, you can make him very long. When you're done, you report the length to GIRL, which is a global total among all players in the (real) world. So far she's stretched long enough to reach the moon (which opened up a new stage). The first time I played it was just before there was a huge update to the game which is bigger than the original size of the game! It added a lot of music and sound effects and multiplayer support, and somehow seems a lot more professional now. The take-up of this game has been a lot lower than expected, so I think in response to that, there have been multipliers to reported lengths all this week. It was up to 765 times yesterday, and is down to 523 times today. I think we will get GIRL to stretch to Mars soon! I'm looking forward to it!
Rag Doll Kung Fu: Fists Of Plastic... I only have because they are giving this game away for free on US PSN at the moment so I got someone with a US account to log in and download it. It still costs £7.99 in Europe, even though it's made my Sony Europe! :/ It's a pretty fun and amusing little fighting game, again with little objects as the main characters (reminding me of LittleBigPlanet), though some of the controls use motion sensing in the controller, and I found those controls too imprecise and hard to use. :(
Riff: Everyday Shooter is a two-stick shoot-em-up. Robotron / Smash TV / Geometry Wars style controls. Each stage has its own way of playing, and best tactics to score the highest points, so you aren't just shooting wildly - you are waiting to destroy the targets which will benefit you the most, and chain the destruction. It feels like Every Extend in that respect. Each level is the length of a song, rather than until you have destroyed X boss or whatever, and the music is realy tied in with what you are shooting. Some people describe it as "an album you play" because of this. I think it just makes a terrible racket, though. One of the most annoying soundtracks I've heard. Think: autogenerated amateur American grunge.
Pixel Junk Eden is a fun little 2D game where you jump around a large landscape trying to hit floating circles that release pollen to make other plants, to jump around.... and you can swing on some silk for a while to help... um, I don't know if that's a very good description. It took a while to work out the best way to play the game, even with tutorial messages, because the game is hard to describe. It's fun once you've worked it out, though. Fun to play local multi-player as well. :)
The Last Guy is... well, if you ever played the "Demonstration Roundup" minigame in WTF (Work Time Fun / Baito Hell 2000) for the PSP, it's basically an updated version of that. I think I even heard some sound effects from the PSP game reused, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was made by the same team. In this game, you have to run around a city (these are accurate real world aerial shots, like what you see in google maps), and when you pass by buildings, the people inside come out and join a line behind you. You need to take the people to the safety zones in the city to be rescued, without them being chased away by zombies or giant monsters. It's quite fun.
Sunday 17 May 2009
Megami Tensei / SMT / Persona / DDS / Demikids info
Someone posted a link to this on a forum I was reading. It contains a lot of information about the Megami Tensei series that I didn't know.
http://hg101.classicgaming.gamespy.com/megaten/megaten.htm
I didn't even know that the Megami Tensei anime OAV that I saw was based on the novel which the Megaten games are based on. I thought it must have been based on the first game just because I don't know anything about it. ^_^;;
See how little I knew?
See also:
Digital Devil Story novels by Nishitani Aya, translated into English
Shin Megami Tensei game translation patch
Shin Megami Tensei II game translation patch
Wikipedia page
http://hg101.classicgaming.gamespy.com/megaten/megaten.htm
I didn't even know that the Megami Tensei anime OAV that I saw was based on the novel which the Megaten games are based on. I thought it must have been based on the first game just because I don't know anything about it. ^_^;;
See how little I knew?
See also:
Digital Devil Story novels by Nishitani Aya, translated into English
Shin Megami Tensei game translation patch
Shin Megami Tensei II game translation patch
Wikipedia page
Clover - Xbox 360 Community Game
During the week, I played the trial of, bought, and completed the game Clover on Xbox 360. It's a community game, so a small independant company made the game, and, well, it does show. The graphics are nicely coloured (watercolours) but the character designs look to me like they were doodled by a teenager on a lunchbreak, or during a particularly boring maths class. The music... well normally I really like piano music, but this was particularly bad.
I was torn between whether to buy the game or not, when I played the trial. I could see that there were some good points to the game, but wasn't sure whether they were strong enough to warrant a purchase. Also, I kept unlocking bonus artwork and sketches and frankly that put me off! In the end I gave in because it is only 400 Microsoft points (which is a little over £3, I think), along with a mixture of curiosity and nostalgia.
It's a game with a style of gameplay that I haven't seen in a commercial release for many years. It's a 2D platform adventure, like the old Dizzy games I used to play on C64. You have a little character, he goes round picking up items, and jumps around on platforms trying not to get killed, talking to people, and trading or using items in the correct context to progress. This was the most major factor in why I bought the game; simply because I had been starved of this genre, and to see what they had done with it.
The gameplay isn't as hard or demanding as the old Dizzy games; in general it is not easy to die, and if you do, you just get placed outside the jail with all your items.
The save function in the game... well, there is only auto-save. It automatically saves when you solve a puzzle. I asked the developer on the project and he said he built it that way deliberately because when he had a manual save implemented, people were trying to use objects, failing, and reloading, which he said broke up gameplay. However my observation is that it also means that if the player has spent a while running and jumping to get an item from a platform, then want to stop playing, they have to actually solve the puzzle before quitting if they want to keep that item.
The story in the game... is heavily inspired by events leading up the the war in Iraq in 2003, and it is pretty obvious... at the beginning I didn't mind at all, just demonstrating the power of spin in the media to work up a frenzy, but towards the end I felt that the veil was too thin. The metaphor too clean. The tale too simplified.
I was not satisfied with the end of the game. It was abrupt and felt like I got the "Bad Ending" where there is no multiple ending. All you get as a reward for finishing the game is a two page quote about manipulating the public, which you learn on the second page was spoken by a person unrelated to Iraq but known as one of history's "bad guys". It isn't anything shocking at this point as the sentiment has been repeated several times leading up to the end - it just felt preachy rather than thought provoking. And it's not like this game could not be accused of bias, or conveniently telling the story just to influence the player in a certain way. You don't even get a new piece of music and scrolling credits. (the credits can be read as optional overlays in the artwork)
Overall, I don't object to having played through this game and it was refreshing to see that this old genre of videogame can still survive. However, I feel a little bit cheated, like I intended to buy a game but ended up paying for a propaganda pamphlet from the UK Respect political party.
I was torn between whether to buy the game or not, when I played the trial. I could see that there were some good points to the game, but wasn't sure whether they were strong enough to warrant a purchase. Also, I kept unlocking bonus artwork and sketches and frankly that put me off! In the end I gave in because it is only 400 Microsoft points (which is a little over £3, I think), along with a mixture of curiosity and nostalgia.
It's a game with a style of gameplay that I haven't seen in a commercial release for many years. It's a 2D platform adventure, like the old Dizzy games I used to play on C64. You have a little character, he goes round picking up items, and jumps around on platforms trying not to get killed, talking to people, and trading or using items in the correct context to progress. This was the most major factor in why I bought the game; simply because I had been starved of this genre, and to see what they had done with it.
The gameplay isn't as hard or demanding as the old Dizzy games; in general it is not easy to die, and if you do, you just get placed outside the jail with all your items.
The save function in the game... well, there is only auto-save. It automatically saves when you solve a puzzle. I asked the developer on the project and he said he built it that way deliberately because when he had a manual save implemented, people were trying to use objects, failing, and reloading, which he said broke up gameplay. However my observation is that it also means that if the player has spent a while running and jumping to get an item from a platform, then want to stop playing, they have to actually solve the puzzle before quitting if they want to keep that item.
The story in the game... is heavily inspired by events leading up the the war in Iraq in 2003, and it is pretty obvious... at the beginning I didn't mind at all, just demonstrating the power of spin in the media to work up a frenzy, but towards the end I felt that the veil was too thin. The metaphor too clean. The tale too simplified.
I was not satisfied with the end of the game. It was abrupt and felt like I got the "Bad Ending" where there is no multiple ending. All you get as a reward for finishing the game is a two page quote about manipulating the public, which you learn on the second page was spoken by a person unrelated to Iraq but known as one of history's "bad guys". It isn't anything shocking at this point as the sentiment has been repeated several times leading up to the end - it just felt preachy rather than thought provoking. And it's not like this game could not be accused of bias, or conveniently telling the story just to influence the player in a certain way. You don't even get a new piece of music and scrolling credits. (the credits can be read as optional overlays in the artwork)
Overall, I don't object to having played through this game and it was refreshing to see that this old genre of videogame can still survive. However, I feel a little bit cheated, like I intended to buy a game but ended up paying for a propaganda pamphlet from the UK Respect political party.
Tuesday 12 May 2009
Plants vs Zombies
Ohhhhh I got so addicted to this game!
See, first of all I saw the music video, oh so cute, oh so catchy... and it has a dancing sunflower and zombies!
So I went to the official website and downloaded the MP3, both the English version and the Japanese version (since the singer recorded two versions).
"Haha!", I thought. "Popcap Games made a mistake. They let me download this catchy catchy song as an MP3 rather than bundling it with the game!"
...and I listened to it, and listened to it, and listened to it...
and on Saturday, after seeing a lot of top reviews for the game, I decided to download the demo and install it on my PC. It was an hour long trial.
"Oh ho ho", I thought. "This game seems so simple, I am sure I will be bored of it after an hour!"
...an hour later, I was looking for the cheapest place to buy the game. I signed up to Steam and bought it for £5.99... and I started playing....
...
...
...
...then I looked up. "It's 1am??? Where did Saturday go?"
Wow, this game is a huge time drain.
"I'll just have one more little go..."
...
...
...
A chat window signed up, a friend of mine on Steam.
"OMG! It's 4am! I think I should go to bed..."
I tried to limit myself a bit on Sunday, bought myself another game on Steam called "The Wonderful End Of The World", which is a Katamari Damacy clone game for PC. I played it for a little bit and then got really terribly violently sick (simulator sickness). I stopped and took a break and when I'd recovered, did my recycling.......... then came back to Plants VS Zombies. ^_^;;
I'm nearly finished with this game, yeah. I've completed Adventure mode (you get the music video as a reward! <3) and unlocked all puzzle modes and nearly unlocked all mini games...
Desktop flower defense, oh why is this game so addictive???
See, first of all I saw the music video, oh so cute, oh so catchy... and it has a dancing sunflower and zombies!
So I went to the official website and downloaded the MP3, both the English version and the Japanese version (since the singer recorded two versions).
"Haha!", I thought. "Popcap Games made a mistake. They let me download this catchy catchy song as an MP3 rather than bundling it with the game!"
...and I listened to it, and listened to it, and listened to it...
and on Saturday, after seeing a lot of top reviews for the game, I decided to download the demo and install it on my PC. It was an hour long trial.
"Oh ho ho", I thought. "This game seems so simple, I am sure I will be bored of it after an hour!"
...an hour later, I was looking for the cheapest place to buy the game. I signed up to Steam and bought it for £5.99... and I started playing....
...
...
...
...then I looked up. "It's 1am??? Where did Saturday go?"
Wow, this game is a huge time drain.
"I'll just have one more little go..."
...
...
...
A chat window signed up, a friend of mine on Steam.
"OMG! It's 4am! I think I should go to bed..."
I tried to limit myself a bit on Sunday, bought myself another game on Steam called "The Wonderful End Of The World", which is a Katamari Damacy clone game for PC. I played it for a little bit and then got really terribly violently sick (simulator sickness). I stopped and took a break and when I'd recovered, did my recycling.......... then came back to Plants VS Zombies. ^_^;;
I'm nearly finished with this game, yeah. I've completed Adventure mode (you get the music video as a reward! <3) and unlocked all puzzle modes and nearly unlocked all mini games...
Desktop flower defense, oh why is this game so addictive???
Friday 8 May 2009
Disgaea 2 PSP and Sakura Wars 5 - heading to America
Two bits of happy news today: NIS America have announced that they will be releasing "Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days" (Disgaea 2 Portable for PSP), and "Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love" (Sakura Taisen 5 on PS2 and ported to wii) in America.
This is good news!
Well, apart from that NIS America have released some pretty bad localisations recently; adding bugs that weren't there (in the case of Ar Tonelico 2 it is game-breaking). But, we have to be optimistic!
Sakura Taisen news source
Disgaea 2 Portable news source
I've wanted to play a localised Sakura Taisen game for quite a few years now. I've tried playing games 1-3 raw, and with the helpful translation guides on gameFAQs, but I found it very difficult to find the bit I'm up to and read quickly enough on the website to catch up with the LIPS system... but I didn't want to read ahead because that carries too much risk of spoilers (or at least stopping the impact of comedy options)... so it was a bit halting, that way.
My favourite thing about the series has been the songs and stage shows; I've got the huge box set of CDs that contains (just about) all the songs for the first few games, some game OSTs, some drama CDs, some of the live performance DVDs... though nothing for the 5th game; only really for the first three / four.
Tanaka Kouhei is a great composer, and most of the seiyuu are pretty good singers, or at least very entertaining performers. :D
And Disgaea 2 Portable? Well, I thought the portable version of Disgaea was a lot better than the PS2 version, mainly because of the "sleep" function the game has (handy in item worlds!), but also because of the various enhancements and Etna mode.
Disgaea 2 has gameplay enhancements from Disgaea 3 (which I have stopped myself from beginning until I own a PS3 for my self), and Akutare mode. Well, it's Axel mode now because it's NIS America, but... got to look on the bright side! It's being released in English, hooray!
This is good news!
Well, apart from that NIS America have released some pretty bad localisations recently; adding bugs that weren't there (in the case of Ar Tonelico 2 it is game-breaking). But, we have to be optimistic!
Sakura Taisen news source
Disgaea 2 Portable news source
I've wanted to play a localised Sakura Taisen game for quite a few years now. I've tried playing games 1-3 raw, and with the helpful translation guides on gameFAQs, but I found it very difficult to find the bit I'm up to and read quickly enough on the website to catch up with the LIPS system... but I didn't want to read ahead because that carries too much risk of spoilers (or at least stopping the impact of comedy options)... so it was a bit halting, that way.
My favourite thing about the series has been the songs and stage shows; I've got the huge box set of CDs that contains (just about) all the songs for the first few games, some game OSTs, some drama CDs, some of the live performance DVDs... though nothing for the 5th game; only really for the first three / four.
Tanaka Kouhei is a great composer, and most of the seiyuu are pretty good singers, or at least very entertaining performers. :D
And Disgaea 2 Portable? Well, I thought the portable version of Disgaea was a lot better than the PS2 version, mainly because of the "sleep" function the game has (handy in item worlds!), but also because of the various enhancements and Etna mode.
Disgaea 2 has gameplay enhancements from Disgaea 3 (which I have stopped myself from beginning until I own a PS3 for my self), and Akutare mode. Well, it's Axel mode now because it's NIS America, but... got to look on the bright side! It's being released in English, hooray!
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