Endure and Survive.

- Such is life in The Last of Us. You survive from moment to moment, encounter to encounter. I am playing on Hard at @katzenbalger 's suggestion and I think it's a good idea. Trying to figure out how to get through a flooded basement filled with infected and carrying only 7 shotgun shells and a brick is surely a challenge, especially when you need to start a loud-ass gas generator to get out of the area! But make no mistake: at least the infected don't shoot at you.

- What's left of humanity is, by far, more dangerous than the various degrees of the infected. The latter are predictable: Runners run, Stalkers wait, Clickers, well, click but are also relatively easy to sneak by. Hunters, on the other hand, patrol, investigate and, if you're spotted, flank your position. I was in one situation where I thought the floor below me was clear so when a Hunter seized me from behind while I engaged a bottleneck of enemies I nearly pooped my pants. Needless to say this action led to my hasty demise. And demise is certainly at hand in nearly every situation you encounter. Just remember: Feeling like Batman will get your silly ass killed in The Last of Us.

- The Last of Us already holds a distinction for me. There have been several games that have been tear-jerkers at the end but this game gets you right at the beginning. Despite a review to the contrary, I identified with Joel quickly and it's easy to see how he descended to what he became. I can see a parallel between this game and Red Dead Redemption; Ellie is clearly Joel's ticket to redemption. As for the girl herself she is spunky, clever, and instantly likeable. Thus far the supporting cast of characters have all been pretty likable (or despicable as the situation calls for) and I am especially pleased with Joel's Texas drawl; it gives him an air of realism in a genre dominated by a handful of recurring lead voice actors... least that's what I thought! I didn't recognize Troy Baker as the same voice of Red Faction's Alec Mason or Persona 4's Kanji Tatsumi. (That last one just makes me like him more!) The accent is subtle but real; probably because Baker is from Texas. At any rate Joel comes off as a geniune character, a man who has had some bad sh*t happen to him and whose dreams of the future end with tomorrow morning.

- A LOT of praise has been heaped on Ashley Johnson's portrayal of 14 year old Ellie, and for good reason. Despite the fact that she has never voiced a 'serious' video game character before the 29 year old actress nailed Ellie; breathing life into the character such as to make her strong yet vulnerable, likeable yet fiery... she's a realistic blend of an all-to-mature teenage girl trying to be both brave and, at the same time, just be a girl who is full of wonder and curiosity at the world she never knew; almost like an orphan yearning to know about the parents who died before she had a chance to know them. I found it particularly touching how Joel tries to shield her from the corruption around her yet, before long, must accede to the fact that she has to learn how to protect herself... and him as well.

- A lot has also been said about the brutal level of violence in this game. Is it visceral? Yes. It's it vulgar? Not really. Is it necessary? Absolutely. We live in a post-Mortal Kombat age; accustomed to violence-as-comedy. Is this level of violence funny? Not at all, but it actually shies away from what I was expecting. (Although there was a scene with a morbidly facinating arterial spray.) It is definately the most violent sounding game I think I've played. Sound design is excellent and every brick you smash into an enemy's face just sounds like hurt, but I guess I was expecting a horror-of-war type of experience with guts blown out with every shotgun blast. You'll be spared that, but otherwise The Last of Us pulls no punches. Most of all no regenerating health here. Every drop of alcohol, every scrap of bandage is all very precious... like Gollum precious, because you need it for creating health kits. You need it MORE for health kits than for infected-destroying molotovs, despite how effective those really are.

- Admittedly the AI of your companions can get a little ridiculous. They are effectively invisible to the enemy, which can be immersion-breaking. They can also act as roadblocks if you decide you're not quite done with the area and turn around to investigate more, but they do try to get out of your way. I haven't noticed any clipping, such as others have mentioned, but I will offer a warning: while you can save at any time I recommend you do it after you clear an area. On several occasions I have been bum-rushed immediately after loading a game if I stopped in mid-combat. True to Naughty Dog's word Ellie will never be a concern in an encounter, but that's also a little disappointing. It kind of takes you out of your role as her protector because you literally never have to worry about her or any of your other companions. The encounter I mentioned at the beginning of this piece; my companions we never in any danger. I could have taken my time and used stealth to kill all three hunters but, for me, that is immersion breaking. I prefer, instead, to still act as though they are in my care. It means waiting for all of my companions to get up a ladder before me while waiting nervously in a zombie-filled room when I could just scoot to safety myself and not give them a second thought. It means me taking huge risks when a Hunter gets too close to Ellie instead of slipping quietly away and conserving ammo. Such moments are less immersion-destroying than if I just worry about Joel. I respect what ND was trying to do but, honestly, I would prefer a little more concern for the 14 year old girl I'm supposed to be protecting.

- Overall believe the hype. The Last of Us is not only a powerful and moving experience, it is clearly Game of the Generation material. While Bioshock Infinite may take local GOTY awards due to its multi-platform nature, The Last of Us deserves to win the crown. Naughty Dog has created a beautiful swan song for the 7th generation and you'd be remiss to let it pass you by. Beg, borrow, steal, or just work your ass off to get a PS3... this is one of those ICO-like games that people will be talking about for many years to come.

The Last of Us - 9.5

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As great as it all is in the grand scheme of things, we've just started out and work at the moment is extremely hectic. I spent the whole past week working tirelessly. I didn't even see daylight until today. There are no breaks, and we don't sleep for more than 2-4 hours. Worst of all, I haven't gamed in 7 DAYS! We're all driven on the promise of an early retirement, so that we'd have all the time in the world to do whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want.

Anyway, my short respite is coming to an end. I can't exactly tell you what I'm working on at the moment, but I can tell you that its a game, and it involves DRAGONS!

Oh, and one more thing, we've already published the first set of our games on Google Play. They aren't anything special, and definitely not representative of the kind of company we want to be, but we really need to cover up our operational expenses as quickly as we can so that we can focus entirely on producing the kind of games we want to make. I'd really appreciate it if you gave them a look

P.S. - They're all guess games

If any of you are interested, you can find those games over at Play Store:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=ICAW+%28I+Can+And+Will%29

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Hi pals, how you doing?

A week ago i bought Legend of Dragoon from the Playstation store, this game is one of my favorite games ever. I love eveything about it, story, music and gameplay. Here some stats:

Currently disk playing: 4

Playtime: 24 hrs

Party: Dart, Rose, Haschel

Stardust: 40 (Getting all of them let's you to fight against Faust, a super hard optional boss)

Also bought Hot Shots Golf 2, Okami Amaterasu Avatars and Naruto Storm 3 DLC.

I'm also interested in Spyro: Year of the Dragon, FF6, Persona 3 FES, Xenogears and Grandia.

Thanks for reading!!

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and that game is none other than Ecco the Dolphin  

http://nintendodude.com/welcome-to-big-blue-the-next-gen-underwater-actionadventure-game-by-the-original-ecco-the-dolphin-team/

Can't wait to play this and make new memories/relive old ones *_*

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As usual with my blogs even if it is this short...

And......

Ti'll next time guys and gals.

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It seems to me after they did the forced format change things went south, anyone else see it that way. All I know is that I spent much time pushing my choice unions and certain items on here, and the more I used it, the more they screwed with it and changed things till it just seems that everyone just faded away, or at least their interest did. I am just as or more guilty than most, but you can only push on the broken car by yourself for so long before you give up and wonder off with the hope that it will survive the traffic, but not having much faith that it will.

Just curious why everyone else has moved on?

"B"

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Positive

- Deep, strategic combat is a lot of challenge and fun
- Looks considerably better on the PSP rather than on TV
- Interesting setting, story and characters
- Still holds the record for the most insane amount of replay value

Negative

- Camera is still awful, occasionally giving poor view of the battlefield
- Daunting difficulty in the beginning

There is a good chance you might have missed 2003s Disgaea back on the PS2; an incredibly difficult, hilarious, charming and the deepest strategic turn-based strategy you could get your hands on. Now that same game has come to the PSP, with graphics that adapt better to the PSP than before, the same deep gameplay with an unbelievable amount of replay value, all the humor that comes with the series, but its still somewhat absurdly inaccessible to beginners and unreasonably difficult in the initial parts, and youve got to coop with an awfully uncooperative camera that is too lazy to keep up. But that is what makes a Disgaea game, and this port is as awesome as it was back on the PS2.

The Disgaea universe is set in the Netherworld, and the first installment opens with Laharl awakening from a two year slumber by one of his vessels, Etna. In the meantime, his father, King Krichevskoy, passed away causing a battle for the throne or something, and being a spoiled brat, Laharl will fight to reclaim his throne. The story is bizarre, yet quite charming, with interesting personality such as Laharls spoiled brat attitude, the untrustworthy Etna and the angel trainee, love-freak Flonne contrast well. Dialogue cutscenes accompany minor movements on the screen before a battle, giving the story the position of setting the stage or random nonsense. The story is divided into multiple chapters, with each chapter having four stages that must be completed to advance to the next

If youve never played a Disgaea game, Disgaea is a hardcore turn-based strategy that boasts some of the highest replay value in any game. Pretty much like the original Disgaea and Disgaea 2, Hour of Darkness pits you and your party on a map divided by square grid, allowing you to move on these square grids and attack your foe until there are none left. A character can occupy one square grid, and depending on their weapon can attack the grids surrounding them or further. The game gives you standard characters but allows you to create as much characters as you want, only to be restricted by a limited number on the map. Characters can perform melee attacks, special attacks depending on the class, defend, item usage and even lifting characters to throw. Each character present takes a turn and when finished, press the triangle button and choose to attack, and then the End Turn option to move to the opponents turn. Geo symbols affect the map by giving boosts and disadvantages on whoever stands on the colored grid that gives a refreshing turn to battles and a chance for the wise to possibly do a swift job of the enemy.

These concepts are found in all previous Disgaea installments so its nothing new. While all these mechanism are a bit complex to grasp immediately, the game is fiendishly difficult. This is a truly challenging turn-based strategy that someone makes it almost too difficult against the brutal AI to progress any further in the story, forcing you to dig in a gold mine of grinding possibilities, starting from completed levels to the Item World. The Item World offers a ton of dungeons against opponents of any level, making it ultimately the perfect place to gear up and train. All this almost forced grinding brings a ton of repetition to the gameplay formula that is showing its age. The enemy variety is a bit lacking because of all this time playing; the same enemy even appears cloned multiple times, doing the same exact some movement as the next clone which is a bit too much in some stages.

The combat is heavily strategic and absorbing, but there is one major issue that remains; that accursed camera. I guess if a Disgaea game doesnt have a bothersome camera, it aint a Disgaea game. The camera can be turned left and right with the L and R buttons, to allow a better view of the area. There is no zooming this time around. The use of environment objects such as pillars sometimes may hide opponents you are not aware of, and end up forgetting them. Even worse are gaps in maps which are mostly found in the randomly generated maps of the Item World. An enemy in the gap is almost impossible to stop or even attack sometimes. Enemies hidden on isolated plains force you to use ranged weapons or throw an ally there. There are also the chances of enemies hiding behind large objects. The position of the camera sometimes gives the illusion of an opponent being in front of you, but is in fact an another plain. This mirage occurs in the Item World, but rarely. A major problem is that the camera doesnt bother to automatically turn to give you the best view of the attacks happening, sometimes completely blocked by large objects.

Visually, Disgaea was never the looker and fortunately the small screen of the PSP has made a decent-looking game to a good looking game. Excluding the main menu, the character in battles look pretty good and the environments shine. Shame many environments and character designs are repeated so often that youd want to bang your head against a wall. The music repeats a lot but its of good quality, and the English voice acting is pretty good and doesnt fall victim to localization, with some funny moments are played quite well.

Its the same exciting Disgaea yet not quite. I found myself digging over 50 hours easily in Disgaea 2 on the PS2 and completed the game with high level characters. It wasnt the same with this game. Mainly the Item World was not as immersive as it was in the second game which is kind of disappointing. Other than that, this demonic and twisted turn-based strategy is back with its uncooperative camera and high level of difficulty, complete with a humorous story and polished combat system youd expect from this series.

OVERALL = 82 / 100
Even on the PSP, this devilish turned-based strategy game is still awesome

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and no i dont randomly hit notes like some of you may think

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Here we Go

Final Fantasy XIII-2 came around and improved EVERYTHING and I mean EVERYTHING terrible about the original. I found myself surprised when I started having tons of fun. Let's start off with improvement number 1: characters. The original XIII had characters like Hope: **** little mommy's boy who you wanted to get shot every time he said anything. Well in XIII-2 Hope is back but heis now 10 years older and is an actual sensible human being. Likewise, the main protagonists, Noel and Serah, are two well developed characters who have good chemistry. No longer must you cringe at cliche characters with no personallity, the characters in XIII-2 are likable and believable.

The story in XIII was a convuluted mess that tossed around mumbo-jumbo words like Fal'Cie and L'Cie. It was about people with missions and something about two planets and..... well who really cares? The story seemed abstract and was crushed by thepoor characters. XIII-2 is focused and has enough developement to make you want to know what happens next. I am hard pressed on figuiring out why some people thought the original XIII had a better story. In XIII-2, I actually got excited for what happened next and the more I played, the better my understanding of the world was. In XIII, the more I played, the more obscure everything seemed to get.

XIII had a huge problem with linearity. The game drove you down an extremely narrow pathway with no room to explore and no way to revisit previous areas. In XIII-2 you are given wider areas with sidequests. In the game, there are artefacts you try to collect for experience so you can continue foward in the story. There are 160 artefacts in the game and most of them are gotten by exploration and side quests. So there is plenty of space to explore and plenty of incentive to explore unlike the original. You are free to revisit areas as you see fit and it is easy to hop between major areas.

In XIII, characters had specific roles such as Ravanger (magic-attacks) and Commando (physical-attacks). The problem was that the game forced a single character to be a certain role for a majority of the game and when the game finally let you chose who had what role, there was no reason to switch. When you have a level 80 Commando, why would you suddenly start developing a Ravanger role for him 20 hours in? In XIII-2, you have complete freedom of which roles Serah and Noel develop from the very begining. You have true control over how your charactersprogress and what they specialize in.

Square Enix listend to the fans and fixed the problems present in XIII. If you hated XIII, give XIII-2 a try, you may be pleasantly surprised.

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Well, here are my previous reviews of how I waste my money: 2010, 2009, 2008

Playstation 3
Gran Turismo 5 - $50
Logitech Driving Force GT - $110
Dark Souls Limited Edition - $60
Catherine - $60
Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne - $30 (PS2)

Anime
Summer Wars Bluray - $20

PC
Starcraft 2 - $50
Battlefield 3 - $40

Headphones
ATH W1000X - $600
Grado SR80i + custom modding materials - $120
Schiit Asgard Amp - $250

Computer
Asus Aspire One Netbook - $200
Corsair Vengeance 16GB RAM - $60
Corsair 500t White Case - $80
+other components I will buy in December ~$1000

2011 Total - $2730
2010 Total - $1663 (including TV)
2009 Total - $450
2008 Total - $485

.... clearly, there is a sad pattern here..... moving on!! xD Lets see how the gaming purchases match with my predictions from 2010:

Didn't really predict much xD 2011 seemed pretty void from the start I suppose. Last Guardian never came out, and I decided to pass on Team Ico Collection. As for 2012, I predict I will buy:

-Persona 4 Ultimate Arena (PS3)
-Ni no Kuni (PS3)
-Blade and Soul (PC)
-Blazblue blah blah blah (PS3) (i forget what the title is)
-Persona 5 (PS3) (if it comes out)

Well then, till next year.

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