I never thought I would live this moment! Pardon my enthusiasm, but this is my best record as a player. From the late 80's until now. 10 stars rank in Silent Hill 2. A personal triumph of hard work and determination that I achieved after a very big effort. By playing the game repeatedly for the last 15 days, it grew inside me little by little the idea of going for the 10 stars, and the last three days I started testing my performance, to see if I had any chances. I soon realized that the only way to succeed in that was to learn  the game by heart: every building, every turn in the street, every locked door, the starting positions of the enemies, their attack pattern, the exact locations of items...memorize everything. I already remembered all these more or less, but now I had to picture the whole game in my mind like a photograph, make very few mistakes and in a fast tempo. So basically it was a test of memory and concentration.  But today I realized the true difficulty of the challenge: it required to have nerves of steel. You had to get used to the idea of being good at it, to have been greatly improved and at the end get a slap in the face as a reward. Fail countless of times and start all over again. Essentially a mind game. And with external factors of difficulty too: Glitches that could terminate the game at any time, the cat stepping on the eject disk button of the console, and worst of all: phone sellers that they have discovered my cover, they know that I'm at home and insist calling every hour until I break and I answer the call.

For some people the 10 stars in SH2 and all these nerdy situations probably sound funny, without any real value and surely a waste of time and energy. But for me it has big importance, because I did something that I thought it was impossible. It was for the others, the skilled ones and surely not for me, the average player. At the end of the day that's why I love video games: besides being incredibly fun, they teach you that you need to overcome yourself if you want to win. And when you have done that, you have to start all over, because getting better and better just isn't good enough.

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Recently I finished my ambitious project to post a complete video playthrough of Silent Hill 2 on YouTube. My goal was to achieve good performance (always for my standards), and I saw it both as a challenge for my skills and as my personal tribute to the makers of this classic game. My motivation is perhaps suspicious, maybe I acted out of vanity. I'm okay with that. I wanted to do it anyway.

After I finished my own work, I started searching inside the site's domain to watch other people's similar playthroughs/walkthoughs of Silent Hill 2 and see how I did compared to them. The results of this query were shocking: As a general rule most of Silent Hill 2 walkthoughs are either works of amateurs at best (usually those were left incomplete), or even worse, walkthoughs made by incompetent players that performed badly without the slightest effort to learn the game's ways, almost on purpose one could say, just to ridicule the game's outdated controls and mechanics.

I will show to you three examples of how the big majority of YouTube users understands the meaning of a Silent Hill 2 walkthrough video, and their overall level of appreciation of Konami's game.

Example 1. A guy from Sweden with the user name: Pie Die Pew. His videos have his face in a small corner of the screen, so you can actually see the game-play and at the same time the face whose playing it. It's interesting to watch it for scientific purposes, to observe the face of this very man, to know what you are dealing with. What we all are dealing with, because this guy has over than 7 millions of subscribers. Besides his insulting level of performance in the game, what made the biggest impression on me about this dude is that he doesn't seem to really want to do this video; it's more like a routine job to him, and a pretty boring one. He is a little grumpy, sleepy perhaps, but who doesn't have his bad days in the office?

Example 2. Okay, this is a good one. A rare gem. A guy with the nickname Rad Brad, who obviously doesn't have the slightest idea about Silent Hill, yet he has the nerve to call his video "walkthough". He is so helpless in this game that his videos seem to last for ever, while he aimlessly wanders in the game's mazes. Hours and hours of wasted bandwidth. When I first played the game in 2003 two years after its release, it took me half of the time to finish Silent Hill 2 than it took him for a walkthrough that is supposed to be a guide for new players or those who have difficulties in the game. Now after having watched this embarrassing sample of his work, what I'm going to reveal to you now, will probably make you want to hit your head against the wall, but better not do it because i's dangerous. This unbelievable guy, believe it or not, is considered by the FMV magazine as the "King of walkthroughs"! But if the King of walkthroughs is so incompetent in what he is doing, then I suppose it would be quite appropriate to say that "the King is naked!"

Example 3. Next is MostDangerousGaming. This fellow starts off quite promisingly. In his introduction he repeatedly says that he knows the game, he has played it before, he assures us that it's not a blind playthrough, that he has supposedly watched other videos of how to play properly the game, and so we are prepared to watch at least a decent video. I won't spoil it to you, just watch his level of proficiency in the game at the point when he first takes in his hands the control of James. It's a good thing he came prepared to play this.

And those three guys, and the other dozens that I have watched these last two days, are nothing more than a drop in the ocean of incompetence, ignorance and stupidity. And I will go even further. How many of those parasites exist in YouTube? Let's say that there is 1 million of those YouTube users that their only purpose is how to ridicule themselves, yell, laugh, make the clown to gain views and subs. Note that these "funny people" all have partnerships with web companies that their role is to grant for them copyright licences from the respective video game companies their footage comes from, so that they can put ads in those videos and make a profit from this business. The game companies earn money from those contracts, and free advertisement of their products. The web companies, known as "partners" where they play the role of the middleman in this story, they earn ridiculous amounts of money too. The clowns you saw in the videos, they earn their little something too and the recognition they so much seek. A win-win-win situation. There is only one loser: the viewers that watch this circus. And we are talking about millions and millions of viewers that happilly watch this garbage. If you have any doubts, go and check the comments sections under any of this type of videos. You won't see anyone protesting for their insulting quality. If you read their comments, they all sound very pleased with what they watch.

If for Ronald Reagan Soviet Union was the "evil empire", for me this title belongs to YouTube. Emptiness and stupidity are the biggest evil. YouTube is pretty much the ideal virtual place for empty and stupid people to blossom. Don't forget that Justin Bieber became what he is today from YouTube. Though Justin Bieber is not stupid. And I don't know many stupid billionaires in this world. Stupid are those who support him. And I have the suspicion those who hate him also. Anyway it isn't so important who is what, the fact is that this place oozes stupidity and the longer you reside the bigger risk you have to reach the full status of an idiot yourself, if you are not already born one.

Remember the time before YouTube? I'm sure you all have played Metal Gear Solid 3, and chances are that at some point you consulted a walkthough guide to find out the hidden locations of those damn frogs in order to gain a good emblem at the end of the game, or perhaps you couldn't figure how to catch a Tsuchinoko alive. I don't know about you, but personally I don't remember having read a walkthrough guide from the era of Final Fantasy VII to Dead Rising, that was anything less than perfect and in case helpful. Did anyone of you happen to read any Game FAQs guide where the writer didn't know what the game was about? Did you see anyone writing: "Pardon me, but I'm really confused I don't know where to go next. Sorry, these things happen. And I also don't know what is the best strategy to fight Revolver Ocelot. Just shoot at him and heal often. I don't know what else to say. Here, I will all tell you a joke instead, or I will imitate the sounds of two cats fighting on the rooftop..." Does this sound ridiculous? Absurd? It shouldn't. Because that's what a standard walkthough video offers to the viewer today. Pointless talking and cheap comedy.

So is YouTube the one to blame for this situation? Yes. YouTube is the company that hosts all these strange practices, the company that allows this monkey business to happen in the first place. Besides all other third party companies that offer partnership contracts, YouTube itself offers partnerships too! I think I don't need to add anything else as an argument.

And in the midst of all this confusion and mental decline of players, Konami releases last year the infamous Silent Hill HD Collection. After a little research I had done, I found out that Konami had lost (!) the original completed game archives of Silent Hill 2 and 3, and instead gave to the development team of the HD Collection the beta versions of those games. What we were served as remastered versions of SH2 and SH3, were actually the remastered beta versions! Hence all the unsolvable problems and bugs. With all the situation we discussed above, with Pie Die Pew controlling James with his left elbow on the analog stick and with the other hand holding his milkshake cup, scratching himself, and making funny noises, while his audience watches him with affection, expressing their approval for his show, why should Konami care to make a decent release of Silent Hill 2? What's the point? Who gives a shit anyway about Silent Hill 2, besides me, ten of my friends and some other old timers here and there? Do you honestly believe that all those millions of brainwashed gamers, do they really care if the fog in the game is dense enough and if Heather's new voice is better, or worse than the original? What those people can appreciate about masterpieces as Silent Hill 2? What do they know about games? I wanted to write about how Haneke's "Amour", the winner of this year's Palme d'Or award reminded me of the dramatic qualities and story of Silent Hill 2, and why I think this game deserves big respect- it surely deserved a better HD conversion...but honestly why don't we all go and watch some Pie Die Pew videos and forget all about it.

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Firstly, I'm shocked with how colourless and low-resolution everything looks like. And it's not my TV tuning, or any other problem. This is my first Mass Effect game on the PS3 and I'm 100% sure that Mass Effect 2 on the Xbox looked clearly better. How this can be? Is it the difference between Xbox and PS3 so striking after all? Is ME 3 a cheaper game? But that doesn't make sense, even if it is a lower budget game they could simply copy paste some elements from the previous games so it can be at least of the same graphical quality. Ashley's face is unrecognizable, you can not see any expression, or any special detail on her face, it's like an alpha version of what we finally saw in ME 2. And Liara! LOL, she is ugly like a gargoyle, her skin is not blue anymore, it's grey. Am I too tired and my eyes fooled me? I don't get it..

Secondly: the whole third person view handling of the game looks awfully dated. Mass Effect is supposed to be an action-rpg, but the control, the camera view and  the animations are a joke. The female Shepard walks and moves in the space just like a male Shepard with bust. No, not even that, instead of a bust, we see two tennis balls covered by some high-tech-my foot, equipment. I wonder, how many hours, or minutes did the production team spend in the creation of female Shepard?

ME 3 there is no way it can pass for an action game. Not even close. Action was never the strongest element of the series, but for a 2012 release of a big AAA game it's unforgivable. There is zero improvement in the department of the third person view action/shooter aspect of the game. Even Elder Scrolls games have better third person view movement of the character, and this is something that I never expected to say, because I found the third person camera and movement of the character in Oblivion to be at least embarrassing. Okay that was a bit mean, I take it back. ME3 has a better third person view control than Oblivion, but only slightly.

Lastly, it is unbelievable and inexplicable how uninspired the beginning of the game is! Do you remember the first scene of ME 2 with Ashley talking to the Elusive Man? Well I still remember it even though it has been years since I last played it. But I can't even remember how ME3 started, and I played it just two hours ago. It was that boring indifferent to me. Or there is something wrong with me, in my brain in which case I think I should worry.

Anyway, since unpacking and plugging again the old X360 to the TV just to play again ME2 is out of the question, I think I must pick something else entirely to play...

Wow, that was a surprise for me. Really.

On a second thought, something wrong must be with my TV after all. I can't give any other reasonable explanation. Yeah obviously. Forget what I said.

Good night.

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My impression of the game: Firt of all, FF13 is not the Antichrist. Secondly, all characters in the game need a haircut. As a Square Soft fan and a Square Enix bitter ex-fan, sworn enemy of progress, and fanatic retro games player, I think that Final Fantasy XIII was a good game, enjoyable and addictive at times, boring and annoying at others, but overall a solid game nevertheless. Would I be even more positive if it didn't bear the name of Final Fantasy? If it was called "The adventures of Lightning" would I love it more? No. Probably I wouldn't have played it at all if it wasn't a Final Fantasy title. Nice game, but not a game that I would normally choose to buy/play. Or I wouldn't have the patience with this game if it wasn't Final Fantasy.

In terms of graphics, to put it simply this game is probably one of the best I have seen in my life, next to the Uncharted and Crysis. The cut-scenes are a joy to watch and the overall image quality of the game is excellent. Also there is not a single bug, or glitch to find. Those people in the production must have spent many months, thoroughly testing the game, I wish all did that... (If you are curious to have a taste of a ridiculously buggy PS3 game, go and play Tomb Raider Underworld. And if you want some more, play the even more absurd, PS2 version of the game. If you dare..)

The music was surely the biggest disappointment for me. I have lost the count how many times I have thought during playing that this game would have been so much better if it had at least something that could remind of let's say FFX music, some theme to get you into the mood. I didn't expect to listen to Nobuo Uematsu, sadly this era is gone for ever, but I needed at least one memorable theme. Nothing. Perhaps the battle themes music were okay, but still nothing that can be compared to the standards of Final Fantasy music.

The battle system was an interesting mix. It's a little hard to explain, if you haven't played it. Essentially turn based but in real time; pre-defined battle roles but still the player had to watch all the time the course of the battle and make the necessary shifts between different battle sets in order to have an advantage over the enemy. What I described as an interesting mix, would have been actually a great mix, if it wasn't for the real time factor. Real time, essentially means button mashing and rely on the auto-battle aid instead of wisely choosing your moves. I don't understand why there wasn't at least an option to fight the battles at your own tempo. Probably 8 Kb of program memory into the code of the game and it would have been one of the best FF battle systems. A wasted opportunity really, or another wasted opportunity.

About the story: I didn't understand much of the story, except that that there was an evil force that threatened the physical substance of the characters. After some point I quit trying to understand what's going on and I simply enjoyed what the game had to offer in terms of graphics and game-play. I admit that my English is far from perfect, but on the other hand, fal Cie, L' Cie, Pulse-L' Cie are not English either. However if it had been about "El Cid" with Sophia Loren and Charlton Heston, well that would really be something, because I love this film. But L'Cie: sorry, this means nothing to me. Fortunately the instruction booklet proved to be very helpful for a lot of questions I had about this game. (I'm not a fan of reading data-logs) By the way, kudos to Square Enix that keeps printing thick juicy instruction booklets for their games.

Surprisingly, in a story that I couldn't get into, the characters were all very nice and well modelled, literally and metaphorically. If I take out "Hope" a bit boring child character, all the others had something special to keep me interested. My favourite one was Fang:

She didn't appear from the beginning of the game, and when at some point later she made a short appearance, I thought that it would be fantastic if Fang was actually a playable character in the game.. And after a while I realized that she was indeed! One of the most "cool" characters of the game and one of the most efficient warriors to choose in battles too.

The leveling up process of the characters is similar to the grid sphere system of FF 10; you spend your XP acquiring Magic, Strength, HP and spells, but I don't think your choices have any real impact in their battle behaviour, because at the bottom line the characters always level up in a the way that the game decides to. It's more of an illusion of customization, than the actual thing. A spell-caster in the game remains a spell caster with high MP and low HP, and a tank character will always be a tank character with high HP and big strength, no matter what choices you make, no matter what attributes you buy for them. In its core roughly I would say leveling up in FF13 resembles more to the FF IX concrete battle roles.

As I said at the beginning I thought that FF13 was a good game. 7.0 and above in terms of Gamespot scores. If I judge it by the Final Fantasy titles criteria, it's one of the weakest FF games I have played, only superior to FF 12. But seriously what game can stand next to Final Fantasy VII and those old masterpieces anyway? FF13 is a very good PS3/Xbox360 game and I think that's what it matters to most gamers of today.

If someone asked me if I would recommend FF13, I'd say if you are mostly a casual player, or if you happen to be in a casual gamer mood, no by all means. If you are a typical gamer, I'd say it's worth a try, chances are that you are going to find something that will please you, though I'm not so sure if you will ever finish it, since the game very often tends to lose its pacing. Fans of "cinematic" games should not miss it also. And of course if you are an old FF player, I'm sure you have already played it and have your own opinion about it.

I don't know if I will ever play the next Final Fantasy game, or FF13 will prove to be my last one in the series. In any case this time I will not just rush in and buy it because it's "Final Fantasy". Okay at the end I might rush in and buy it, I don't make any promises.

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Feb. 2000

In a presentation earlier in the day, Diefendorff called upcoming consoles such as the PlayStation 2 a Trojan horse. PC makers don't fear them right now, but they should, because he says companies such as Sony "have something in mind other than just games."

May 2002

Official PS2 Magazine: Have you been surprised at all by any particular criticism of the game? (Metal Gear Solid 2)
Koijima: [Laughs] Not really, no. I guess I didnt expect people to hate Raiden this much.

Dec. 2005

Sterling: In order for me to give a game five stars, it would have to fire a deified figure from a bodily orifice. Resident Evil 4, indeed, does just that.

 Jul. 2006

Unfortunately it's not as easy to remove real casualties that result from those games - from suicides of addicted players to parents who neglect their children to the point they starve while they are playing World of Warcraft.

Jul. 2006

Now look at the PS3 and the controversy already surrounding it. First take the price tag - $600. That has failure written all over it. [...] Next, take a look at what may be the ultimate nail in the coffin. This is only a rumor and has been officially denied by Sony, but rumor has it that all PS3 games will only be playable on the first PS3 system on which they are used.

Aug. 2007

[Resident Evil 5 stirs concerns of racism] "It's not just that these zombies are black, but that the uninfected black villagers are zombie-like too," Bonnie Ruberg wrote. "See all those spooky shots of the villagers before they get infected? It's as if race itself were a disease. The white protagonist has to fight back or be infected." She also notes that according to the zombie mythos, the barest contamination, a bite or a single drop of blood in an open wound, spells doom for a person. That could be a parallel to Africa's ongoing HIV and AIDS crisis.

Jun. 2008

The gaming news and review Web site GameSpy said GTA IV "is on par with the finest films by directors like Martin Scorcese [sic] or Francis Ford Coppola" and also compared the game to novelist E.L. Doctorow's "Ragtime." Game Informer's Andrew Reiner wrote "I now know how film critics felt after screening 'The Godfather.' " And an artist declared on New York magazine's Web site that the GTA series was "the most important artwork of our time."

Aug. 2008

Last but not the least, the DRM technology has bring up several advantages for the consumers.

Jun. 2009

New PS3 firmware will include backwards compatibility for all SKU's. Now, I'm not saying that this is COMPLETELY true, but I'm NOT saying it's a rumor either. I go to Gamestop a lot, and the employees know me real well. They also know someone who actually works for Sony. I've met him just once, he was in a hurry. Anyway, he told us that Sony is planning a new firmware update allowing all systems to have backwards compatibility, including the new slim.

Sep. 2009

Click the buy button to add The Last Guardian PS3 to your pre-order basket.

Jun 2011

Eurogamer: So you don't care what EA does with The Sims?

Will Wright: It would be kinda nice if they didn't totally screw it up.

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It didn't take me more than 20 seconds: Maria Whittaker. The front cover of the game "Barbarian". The back cover is even better. But I wouldn't want to test further the mods' tolerance, so you can easily see it for yourselves in google images if you type the key words: Barbarian C64, video game, etc. 

And now I guess I have to find the reasons to justify this selection. I have to dress up with some words, try to explain with my basic English, the deeper meaning of this picture. I can discuss how the old cover boxes of the 80's looked like, how much different they are from today's cover boxes. I can talk for long about the game Barbarian and the origins of violent games, the animations of the beheadings, how much I was impressed- and a little bit shocked as a kid with this game, many years before god sent us the PEGI system to save the world from the future serial killers. Also I can admit the real reason and say that I simply like Maria Whittaker, the girl that posed as a model for Princess Mariana. I like her as a woman and I still enjoy looking at her a quarter of a century later. Honest enough I think.

Besides my adolescent enthusiasm for photos of Maria Whittaker in bikini, or Samantha Fox, there are a couple more things that I'm interested in about this picture. If you notice in the front cover, Mariana sits on the ground and embraces with her hand and body the leg of the Barbarian. This detail has puzzled me from the first moment that I saw this cover. That posture might not mean that much really, maybe it was just an interesting idea for the needs of the shooting. What matters is that this picture does have a symbolism for me, as a viewer. There is a message that tells a short story about the role of Mariana in the game and her relationship with the Barbarian. The woman seems depended on him, submitted to his superiority, yet it so clear to me that she fully owns him. She is wrapped around his leg, like an earthy creature half-Snake, half-Eve, and in control of the Barbarian's body, literally and metaphorically. Eventhough it's the Barbarian who actually freed Mariana from the captivity and after all it's he who chose her to become his mate, this story isn't reflected so clearly in the picture. It's more as if Mariana has all that she wants, regardless the initiative of the Barbarian. The Barbarian seems preoccupied with his duties as warrior. If I had to put a title under this picture, I would choose: "A healthy relationship between two good-looking barbarians", and as subtitle: "Mariana likes the Barbarian". The only lead to understand how this man sees Mariana is the assumption that the Barbarian allows Mariana to own him, (he could crush her head any time he wanted, if he didnt like being touched) and from that I can presume that he is interested in her, at least with his own way, his heroic way.

The picture leaves no doubt who is the dominant figure between those two. The Barbarian is superior. He has the strength to kill his enemies, and then choose to free Mariana and have her as his woman. Mariana on the other hand has fewer options: she is the trophy herself for the Barbarian, and she can either be happy about it, or not particularly happy- it depends on who her saviour will be, and basically on her own taste in saviours. Fortunately for her, this warrior seems to be exactly her type.

Fortunately for her, and fortunately for the player of the game; because if you haven't figured it out yet, the Barbarian is you, and everything that we said about Mariana is actually your affair. And here comes another interesting detail about this photo: Mariana is holding the leg of the Barbarian, but she is looking at you in the eyes. It's like saying: Don't let the fact that I hold him by his leg to discourage you, because you and he are one and the same.

In this game you are lucky to know, even before you start playing the game, (even before you buy it) how your "prize" will look like if you manage to beat it -she will look exactly like Maria Whittaker and dressed as she, and the best news is that she wants you! (too) But even if you are not skilled enough to beat the game, Mariana is still there on the front cover, the back cover and in a free poster that comes within the game. In other words, and in modern terms: a "win-win situation". And the game has even more to give: In your late 30s, when writing about Barbarian will feel incomparably more fun than playing it, Princess Mariana will still be there as the subject of your analysis. Name me one other 26 years old game that can do all these.

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However for this simple favour that she asked from me, there are several difficulties. Firstly, as kids in the mid 80s we were playing games mainly on home computers like ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, or Amiga 500. I'm not even sure if Nintendo existed back then. But I think what she really meant by that was "video games". In my country when a person not very familiar with newer technologies talks about "Nintendo", they mean video games in general. From my childhood I still have my Commodore 64 home computer, which has huge sentimental value for me, so there is no question to give it away, let alone that it can't have any other use today except that of a museum exhibit.

During the 90s until 1999 I wasn't gaming at all, so the next gaming system I own is the Playstation. I consider myself as a Playstation fanatic and collector. Besides the games that I played at that time I have spent a small fortune in eBay buying rare games and stuff. So no Playstation 1 for the kid. PS1 is sacred. :-)

What I can give is one of my two Playstation 2 consoles that I own. I have a fat and a slim one, I will give her the latter, which means very little to me, I bought it as a replacement for the fat, and since the fat was repaired I don't need the slim one anymore. In any case I can still easily find a slim PS2 console if I want it in the future, so there is no problem with that.

Then I thought that it would be a good gesture to give a couple of games too, and not just the console. So from my vast PS2 games collection, I must pick a few ones that I don't need them. My first thought was a game that I really don't want. It's a platformer, with a long title that I'm not even bothered to memorize, with Phantom Duck (the super hero version of Donald Duck) as the playable character. It's a very poor game. Bad graphics, bad camera, dull environments, I really don't need it, I bought it in the first place because I love Donald Duck and I mistakenly thought it was the "Donald Duck Quack Attack" title, which is actually a decent game. I don't like the idea of giving this crap to the child and probably make her hate Donald and Disney, but anyway it wasn't mine idea to release Disney titles of insulting quality.

The second game is FIFA Street 2. Mediocre, yet playable. I think she will have some fun with it especially if she likes Christiano Ronaldo. And I'm sure for myself that I will not play it again for the rest of my gaming life, so this goes too, and without regrets.

The third game will be Kingdom Hearts II. Now I know I'm giving away a good game. I just couldn't get into it, because I don't really like this kind of games, and maybe I'm a little old for it, I only got it because I saw Donald on the front cover. Who knows, this game might even make her a Square Enix fan. Maybe she will want to thank me for that when she turns 20, and reward me with a sweet kiss... "Do you remember me? it's me! I want to thank you for these magic moments that I lived as a child! All thanks to you!" The other scenario is to be bored to death with Kingdom Hearts, let alone that she might not understand at all what's going on in the game, as she is only 7, and combined with the crappy Phantom Duck and the below average FIFA Street games to abandon gaming altogether. Obviously there is no kiss in this scenario.

I had also some thoughts about Dynasty Warriors 2. Maybe it was a good game in its time, but I know I'm not ever going to play it. However when I saw on the back of the cover that it was released in 2000 and I noticed that the plastic case was black, I realized that this is a somewhat rare piece, so I decided that it stays. I also made thoughts about Tomb Raider Underworld, an awful port of an equally awful PS3/X360 original...but it's Tomb Raider. I can't give away a Tomb Raider game. I'm still playing video games because of Tomb Raider.

Of course there is always the option to not give anything to the kid and forget all about it. But that wouldn't be right. Not even Scrooge would have been so stingy.  And as Christ had said: The one who has two chitons in his possession must give the one. I have around 500 chitons in my collection, I'm giving three. Fair I think, and christian too.

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• The PS4 uses the popular intel x86 PC architecture, which makes significantly easier the lives of all game developers. At the same time this new architecture is incompatible with the Cell micro-processor that PS3 uses. That means that there will be no PS3 backwards compatibility. In fact there will be no backwards compatibility for any of the previous Playstation formats. Even the current-gen PSN titles will not be compatible, though they promised that they will do something about it..
• The lack of backwards compatibility will be replaced by the GAIKAI service, a Cloud technology driven feature that will give us the option (some time in the distant future) to digitally download titles of previous generation systems to our PS4 hard drive. That means download hundreds of gigabytes of games that we already own, and possibly pay for them again. That last part was not specified, but I'm willing to bet my head on, that this will be the case.
• Via the Cloud technology and a built Remote Play feature in the PS4, Sony promises to make every PS4 game playable on the PS Vita too.
• The PS4 controller, Dualshock 4 seems to me more, or less the same Playstation controller that we all know, except that it has a big surface in the middle to include a touch-screen panel.
• From what I understand, the dual system of games distribution via retail stores and digital distribution will continue as it is. Also there will be an effort to make every retail game available on the Playstation Store too. So us, game collectors and lovers of physical media can rest easy, and those who prefer to store games in a hard disc they have reasons to be happy too.
• Sony makes a shift towards a "social media-centric" model of gaming, and goes to a partnership with Facebook for that reason. There is even a dedicated Share button on the new controller, in order to instantly post game-play videos on Facebook. Fb and PSN friends can watch live your play, and can even take control of your game to help you out in difficult portions of the game. The paranoid vision of 24/7 online play, and live your life online in general, is starting to feel closer than ever.
• PS4 users can use the same gamer Id that they had on the PS3, and also the Trophies feature will carry on to the new system as well.

• Sony officials cleared that there will be no blocking towards pre-owned games. Obviously Sony wouldn't want to infuriate gamers and mega electronics stores. But still I find it a little hard to believe that they will allow used games trading as it is today. I predict that they will find some "indirect" ways to partially block in-game content to a single user account. They will find ways to gain "a little something" out of this trade as well.  Don't be surprised.
• Price. According to Kotaku there will be two versions available: the basic package that will cost 429$ and the premium one at 529$. Some others say 419 and 519 respectively. So roughly the new console will cost something more than 400$ and the deluxe version something more than 500$.
• The media storage that the PS4 will use: They didn't mention anything about Blu-ray discs. I wonder why.

Overall, personally I'm quite skeptical about the new console; Firstly, what is the meaning of the slogan: "everything everywhere!"? For the time being it's everything, except current-gen PSN titles, PS3 blu ray disks, PS One and PS2 games. Secondly, I feel that somehow I have no place to this social media "party"- I have no interest in becoming a Facebook gamer "celebrity", and I don't intend to play video-games everywhere I go and be all the time hooked on the PSN; I only want to play good games on my TV set and from times to times to discuss about them here. But at the same time, I have the hope that the PS4 will give to old-timers like me, some air to breathe, at least letting us play the games offline, far away from the the city lights of the online experience.

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On May 30 I bought a little game called Virtual City from this company for my Android phone. It costs 1,97 Euros but it requires from you to be a member of their online service, a member of their site. The membership is free for the first month, but unless you cancel your membership they charge you each month with 6.58 Euros.

Last May, the time that I made this purchase I was in a bad psychological state, and all I wanted at that time was to play some silly game on my mobile phone for an hour to take my mind away. It's not an excuse, but the last thing I had in my mind back then was to check my e-mail, read terms of use and confirm PAY PAL transactions. I thought it was an ordinary one time payment of the game, I had no idea about that monthly subsciption fee, because I didn't read carefully what was clearly noted in my e-mail message confirming the purchase of the game. This is outrageous. Monthly subscription for what?

For every month that was passing, from June 2012 to January 2013, an email from PAY PAL notified me that I paid 6.85 Euros for my membership in BIG FISH GAMES. Because I'm an idiot and poorly organized person I don't regularly check my e-mail and I have hundreds of unread messages- most of them are notifications from GameSpot that someone liked my comment, or someone answered to my comment. So I missed all those messages notifying me that there is a leech on my pre-paid card sucking money at the end of each month, without my knowledge. I accidentally discovered it  just now. I was 100% positive that I didn't buy anything during the last month, yet 6 Euros were missing from my card account, so I started searching what was going on until I finally read those e-mails buried under hundreds of spam and other pointless messages.

So basically keep in mind two things:

1. Be very careful with mobile phone applications. It is something relatively new for all of us, and we must be extra cautious when paying for an application. We don't have to deal with organized big companies, but with thousands of free lancers. Some of them mean well, some of them don't.

2. Always, and I mean ALWAYS check your e-mail, or your credit card receipts. We maybe are children at heart for playing games, but we are not children at age. Be responsible. (like me) lol

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Firstly, we should ask ourselves why we want a remake of a game? Or what do we hope to find in this remake? What I think is that we need the remake because perhaps we can't enjoy now the old game as we used to, 15 years ago, we can't accept the game as it is anymore. We want a remake of a game that we love, but in a way don't love anymore.

What we dream of is a game of the same quality, same story, same dialogues, same music, but with better graphics. What we some times fail to understand is that graphics is not some kind of wall decoration that we can easily change and make the room look better. Graphics is not  just the looks of a game, it's the game itself. The game has no other covered substance than the one that we see on screen. It is surface and matter at the same time. The game-play and the whole structure of a game in general is built on its graphics. The restrictions of graphics define the framework within which the game can move each time. Any change in the game's engine could bring results incompatible with the game's motif.

Let's take Metal Gear Solid for instance. How Snake of MGS 1 would look like in a modern version of the game? Like the Snake of MGS 2? Will he be able to climb obstacles, hide inside closets, hang from ledges, roll forward, grab enemy soldiers as hostages, drag and dispose of dead bodies etc? If we say yes, then we will have a different game, if we say no, then we will have a very realistic model of a man that can only run and crawl, which would rather look hilarious in any 2013 game.

Another example: The sound. The Final Fantasy VII remake, will it also be a non speaking game like the original game? Imagine the sight of the realistic face of Barret fighting with Cloud about Mako energy and the future of the planet, while both having their lips sealed for no obvious reason. Or if it was going to have voice over, how could we listen properly to the masterful music score of Nobuo Uematsu? That specific music score was conceived, written and composed for the needs of a non speaking game. It's the "game's voice", and that's exactly why Uematsu used such an expressive music style during the whole game. Just think how differenty Uematsu handled the music score of Final Fantasy X, which was a speaking game. We can't have at the same time characters speaking during a scene, and Uematsu in the background with his highly expressional style of FFVII replacing the voices of the actors. Essentially they would have to call back Uematsu and ask him to re-write the score.

To avoid unnecessary disappointments and feelings of "betrayal", instead of waiting for remakes, I propose to go back and play again the games that we like playing; these games will not go anywhere, they still exist, and for the most part have a high replay value. Try to explore them further, get to know them better, or know them from the beginning with a new eye, and note if and why they are still appealing to you. In any case what we felt when we first played them, and at the time they were intended to be played, is not ever going to be repeated. Even if with some magic trick all those paradoxes and contradictions were solved, still it wouldn't be the same, because we ourselves are not the same as we were, nothing is the same. Perhaps what we really dream of is not a remake of the game, but a remake of us and a remake of time.

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Capcom offering Dante's original outfit as DmC DLC

Three DmC skins, including one based on Dante's old look, will be sold for $4.00/ 3.19/3.99.

and somehow suddenly all became clear to me...

So here is a little quiz: what other professionals besides video-games patrons, have exactly the same mentality about the inviolable relationship between service and payment? People in this profession usually charge you with an agreed amount of money for offering you their standard services; but if you want something extra they will charge you for that.

You see, it's not about just making more money and becoming richer, it's about being low.

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The problem is that this virtual world is so full of people that in real life, I would generally avoid as much as possible- I imagine that from your own experience, you all have made the same thought. People immature as personalities, illiterate, uneducated, without manners, irresponsible, idiotic, opportunist, with low moral values, and generally unwanted to be part of this virtual, parallel reality. I'm not a saint either, I realize that quite a few people feel that I'm equally unwanted in their world too, but for different reasons I hope.

Internet is a reflection of societies, so my protest is without a basis. There are unwanted people in real life, so what would be more natural if the same stands for the internet world too. Otherwise it wouldn't be called virtual, it wouldn't be called reality, it would be a fantasy.

The good thing about internet is that at the bottom line you can always delete, block, un-follow, un-friend, un-track, un-love etc anyone that you feel that has no place in the idea that you have created for your virtual neighbourhood. In real life it isn't that easy. In real life you have to be involved in some kind of conflict with the undesired persons. On the internet, you merely push buttons. But I'm afraid the same way goes for the offenders too. They too push buttons, and they have all the freedom to ruin your day, hiding behind their anonymity.

I'm not searching for solutions. I have settled with the idea that if one is a "loser", or likes to be the victim, or a bully, and practically any role that one can adopt in real life, they would most possibly carry the same mentality on the internet. It's just that everything seems exaggerated and grotesque because of the massive participation, and the absence of real consequences in whatever you do, or say, that exactly characterizes the medium. "Be the same, or a little worse than you are in reality." I think that this principle is very close to what really happens on the internet.

Anyway, that's what I think; I would gladly read your comments about the subject.

Gamespot, because of the common interest and passion that we share about games, seems to me friendlier than other places. Of course we can always make a nice virtual quarrel about the ending of Mass Effect 3, but please count me out of this. I have other games that I enjoy fighting for. :-)

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Please someone tell me what is the reason behind putting in a "duel" Assassin's Creed 3 vs Fez? Call of Duty vs Pro Evolution Soccer? Don't bother to answer, there isn't any logic. Even if you have played both games, how can you decide which is better? Can you decide between a volcano and an eyebrow? Between a lipstick and a Subaru?

I can give only one possible explanation: the people that conceived this idea wanted to point out how meaningless is to vote for the game of the year, if you have played only one at best of the nominees in each category. Let's be honest, very few of us have all that money to spend to play a big number of new releases each year. So practically there is no "objective" way to decide which game is the best. Readers' choice awards represented only how many copies a game sold during a year; how well the marketing campaign worked for a franchise. And now with this brilliant "duel" system, the absurdness of the whole thing comes to the surface. It was about time.

Who knows, maybe it's the same person who wisely picks every week the "awesome user blogs". But no, obviously it's not the matter of one person's mentality, it's a central decision, taken long time ago. It's disappointing for me to see the site I once appreciated so much to be transformed into something as empty as the very word "awesome".

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The first and most interesting part of the documentary talked about the 1996 original TR game, how the idea of the Lara Croft character was conceived, the way the game was designed, how initially Sony rejected the game for its poor quality (!), and the impact Lara Croft had in the video games universe. Also it followed a chronology of what other TR games/films/comic books were realeased, until 2007 the year when Anniversary edition was out.

Of all this information, I'm keeping the following:

In 1997, one year only after the release of the original game, the creator of Tomb Raider, Toby Gard, left Core Design for the reason that he objected with the way Lara was going to be promoted as a sex symbol. For Toby, Lara Croft was an adventurer and not the type of girl that poses nude for the Maxim magazine front cover. Toby Gard left and things followed the course that we all know.

In 1999, the development team of Tomb Raider decided to "kill" Lara in TR: The Last Revelation (TR 4), because they thought that they couldn't handle any more the pressure of having to do another TR game in the future. When they finished doing the ending cut-scene where Lara gets trapped inside a tomb, and was supposedly buried alive, the whole team were celebrating! (That reminds me of the title of a Boris Vian novel: "I Spit On Your Graves", 1946) Despite those feelings people in Core Design consider The Last Revelation as their best work by far.

In 2003 TR: The Angel of Darkness (TR 6) was released for the Playstation 2. The game received very poor critics and it is considered by most gamers and journalists as the worst game of the series. The head of Core Design- I don't recall his name- lost his job for that reason and Eidos took away the production of the franchise from Core and assigned it to the American development team, Crystal Dynamics. Despite all these, The Angel of Darkness sold three million copies!

......

What I think about all these:

Firstly, we are not used to moves like the one Toby Gard did, abandon a job for a matter of principles. It's an extremely rare example and I salute it.

About the enthusiasm that Lara's death brought to her creators, maybe we need to forget for a minute how why anxiously wait each time for the sequels of our beloved games/films, and think that the people that are actually assigned to do this job are under big pressure and often they don't want to do this project in th first place. Even Hideo Kojima, a much more powerful and influential person in the business tried multiple times to get rid of Snake and do something else in his career. We have to realize that often the sequels that we get in our hands are the product of people under pressure and who are unhappy with the decision that was taken by the company they belong to. Big deal one would say, all workers are often under pressure, and don't always work in the projects that they would prefer doing. Yes, but we can't always expect from developers to deliver an excellent game and get the maximum of their creativity when they don't believe in what they are doing.

Failure has a cost in this bussiness, as in every business. The head of Core Design after the Angel Of Darkness fiasco lost his job, and a couple of years later Core Design itself was closed. (A Delicate Balance, 1973)

But was it really only the fault of Core Design for this failure? And we are not talking about financial failure here, because this game sold like crazy. But it harmed the prestige of Eidos. Especially those shotgun bullets that were carefully scattered throughout the levels of the game, but they forgot to include the shotgun itself. lol In my opinion any game, or movie that reaches its sixth installment is already an exhausted franchise, done by exhausted people. A dead franchise if you ask me. (El Cid, 1961) As dead as "Friday the 13th Part 8: Jason takes over Manhattan", Silent Hill 8, Resident Evil 6, or Final Fantasy 48. It's just insane to do the same thing over and over again, to add a few new tricks and expect always to be a success. How many excuses can developers find to justify why a normal person is mysteriously related to Silent Hill? How many times Leon has to clean up Raccoon City from zombies?

If I was Leon I would resign from the RCPD, change my identity completely to escape from Capcom and flee to some place safe. (Midnight Express, 1978)

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Firstly, the character creation at last has some meaning: what you create as an image is what you actually see in the game. And there is a big variety of models that you can choose from.

Secondly, your party is not consisted of generic NPCs that come to join you in the way, but of real characters that other players have created, and you can choose some of them to help you; the "pawn system" as it is called in the game. This gives a whole new meaning and interest in the game. Because when you are at the process of building your characters now at the back of your mind you have to also think how will they look, and how will they perform in another player's realm. Plus you avoid all the inconvenience and the trouble of having to play a co-op game. This is not exactly co-op, you play cooperatively with what other players have created as characters, you play with an AI version of their characters, but not with them directly. I find it most positive, because personally I always avoid online co-op, or player versus player modes. That's me, and miraculously this game has taken care of that problem!

Also the game is not hack n' slash, but every battle is challenging, perhaps a bit too much I would say. The game's world is infested with powerful mini bosses that can easily wipe out your entire party in a matter of seconds. In my playthrough I have come to a point that I can't go further without dying all the time, so perhaps I need to change a few things in my strategy, or learn better the game's mechanics.

The game's world is huge; I played for about ten hours and all I have managed is to reveal a tiny little spot in the map. :-) The music is excellent and the graphics impressive.

Now to some negative points:

The characters of your party tend to speak a lot, in fact they never stop speaking, which can be annoying after playing for too long. Also they are standing a bit too close to your main character, obscuring at times your view.

The battles with the bosses are overwhelming in the sense that a bunch of characters are moving in the screen, either minions of the boss, or friendly characters attacking the beast, so that often in the heat of the battle you lose visual contact with your main character. And when all these take place in the middle of the night, you can't see a thing.

Besides these flaws the game is enjoyable, and I can't wait to go back and play some more. I play as a mage, keeping my personal "tradition" since the time of World of Warcraft where in all action-rpgs I play as a mage. I can tell you it always pays off to play as a mage in these games.

That's it for now,

see you later.

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One thing that doesn't seem to work so well is the invasions system, and ironically that's a good thing because I hate being invaded...In the PS3 version I remember I got invaded by black phantoms very often, to a degree that this feauture ruined my play, so if I wanted to be prepared for a boss I had to switch it to offline mode, and in Dark Souls, you always have to prepare yourself for the worst, you definately don't need a boss to die, a group of seemingly harmless undead can make the job just fine. In this version no one invaded my world so far. Either I'm playing very carefully by not breaking covenants, or the PVP system is a bit messed up. I don't know the reasons, but I'm happy without invasions. :-)

Also the notorious framerate problem in Blighttown is now entirely fixed. Generally I don't see any major problem with this version and I highly recommend it to people that love Dark Souls. I have yet to reach the four new areas of the game and I really can't wait! Blame Ornstein and Smough bosses for that, for delaying me. After the 1.05 patch, all the best weapons and sorceries were significantly weakened so the bosses are now even harder to beat.

Besides Dark Souls, I played the PS3 demo of Resident Evil 6. As expected, Operation Raccoon City did serve as an experimental RE title and some of its arcade nature features were incorporated in RE 6, which is something I'm not particularly happy about. But then again Resident Evil, since RE 4 and Outbreak it gradually stopped being a typical survival horror game and had turned to a horror themed co-op action shooter. I'm afraid we have to live with that.

As for the game itself, seen from this perspective, generally it plays nice. Leon moves faster and smoother than Leon of RE 4 and Chris of RE 5. Also he abandoned his baby face look that we all loved (okay I don't know for all), and he is now a "grown up" guy. The inventory screen has a refreshed new look. Also zombies are faster, smarter and more in numbers. Resident Evil is now one step closer to being Left 4 Dead from a third person view.

Speaking for Left 4 Dead and first person view, recently out of nostalgia I attempted a second playthrough of Dead Island with a different character than the Chinese girl I had chosen the first time. After ten hours, I couldn't make any serious progress in it of course, because I had forgotten how huge the island is and how many crazy side missions distract your attention from the main story. But surely I did enjoy all the way playing this game, until I had enough of it, which is always the case with Dead Island. It's a lot of fun, but it tires you. When it comes to melee combat I can't think of a more enjoyable horror game than Dead Island. It isn't the perfect game, far from it, but it's good. I die for zombie games, so I can't wait for the sequel from this Polish-German collaboration team.

That's it for now,

cheers!

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I'm quite thrilled after having picked up recently the PC version of Dark Souls, "Dark Souls. Prepare To Die" and I thought to share with you my first impressions.

After I installed the game and logged in to my GFWL account to activate the game, I noticed that in the PC version you don't really have the option to play the game offline, unless you use a local account and not a GFWL account. If you want to play the game via your main account that has all your achievements, your profile etc, you can only play it online. Meaning: play the game with a PvP style, getting invaded frequently and also summon allies to help you with battles. I'm a "lone wolf" and never play this way, I always play Dark Souls alone and without help, or invasions. I prefer it that way. So I can only play it with a local account that I created just for this reason. Not particularly happy about it, but not much of a problem either. I will just not score any achievements for this game. I think I can live with that.

Secondly, I tried to play the game with the keyboard and mouse, to see if it's any possible. After some practice I managed to reach the first easy boss of the game, where sadly I couldn't do much. I got used rather quickly to move with the WASD keys, control the camera with the mouse, strike with the LMB, but I simply couldn't simultaneously use the dodge button, which is crucial in this game. Also switching between weapons and spells is crucial for my style of play, which is assigned to other keys, and also consume potions, cycle betwen items etc, which are also important if you want to survive in later much harder boss battles. I guess theoretically it's doable for players that are used to play with the keyboard, but in my case this method is useless. When I switched to the controller I immediately beat the monster. I think this game, as most action games with complex commands, is meant to be played with a controller. If for some reason you don't plan to play it with a controller, be prepared for a hard task, or don't bother at all.

About graphics and resolution. Maybe it's just me, but honestly I didn't see any problem, the game looks fine. I even read somewhere in the web, that "if it wasn't for a mod that fixed the resolution problem the game would look like a PS2 title." I think it's just as good as the PS3/Xbox360 version. Perhaps I will try myself sometime later the mod, but I don't think it's so much needed.

About the frame rate. I guess I need to reach first Blightown to be able to tell, so I don't know. I read in a review that the situation is a little better, but the problem is not entirely fixed.

The game can run decently in a twin core average laptop with 800 X 600 resolution and also 1280 X 720 but with a slight, yet noticeable slowdown in cut-scenes. In a quadraple core desktop computer it can run without problem up to 1980 x1020 resolution. If I remember correctly it says on the back cover of the game that it has been optimized to run in quadraple core processors.

One good thing about this edition is that you have the option to make a full installation to the HDD and not have to use the dvd after that, which I always appreciate as a collector, since I hate the idea of wearing out the cd/dvd of games that I play for very long sessions.

Prepare To Die is a special edition that comes in a big box. It contains an art booklet which doesnt interest me, a poster that doesn't interest me, some postcards with characters from the game that don't interest me (lol), a "Behind the Game" dvd which does interest me, but I found rather poor, and another disk with the soundtrack of the game. That last one is the only extra that I like, since the game has beautiful music. Of course there are extra chapters in the game, extra bosses, new weapons and spells and other stuff that will come as a dlc for consoles in late October.

So in conclusion, if you love the game, I recommend you to pick up this pc version, which is pretty much funtional in general, unless you can wait until October for the consoles version. Personally I think I will do both. :-)

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Recently I happened to be in a place without internet connection, so I thought that it would be a good opportunity to test that offline mode and play Portal 2. Yeah, let's play Portal 2, high quality entertainment for the next couple of hours! But Steam had a different opinion. To be able to play the game, I first needed to download the necessary update... So that's where the catch is, you can play any game offline, as long as we the Valve/Steam, haven't prepared any sweet little update for you. He, he,he. Update is good. It's for your own good. But, but...you said that I can play my games in offline mode! Let me play my 50 Euros/USD game whenever I want damn it! -No, absolutely not! Update first. Update, update, update! you listen? Update, and we will be friends again.

Well in that case, I have prepared myself a little update for Steam:

"You ridiculous little thieves! Stop that fairytale already, that you are supposedly better than the others. You are all the same **** Gaming world would have been a so much better place without you, or the likes of you. You all want to control my play with any possible means. So you will never get a rusted escudo from me again."

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As many bloggers and fans have pointed out, the most revealing part of this article is this phrase from Tomm Hulett (producer of SH: Origins and Shattered Memories) when he answers about the Silent Hill HD Collection's problems. "We got all the source code that Konami had on file -- which it turns out wasn't the final release version of the games! [..] Ten years ago, a lot of game companies assumed the games were 'done' once development finished, and that they wouldn't need to use that data ever again."

So in other words, the Silent Hill HD Collection was based on incomplete beta versions of the games! That explains the big delay of seven months and some inexplicable problems that appeared in those remakes and that totally ruined the experience of playing a Silent Hill game, and from many aspects made them look inferior to the PS2 originals. That explains the patch on Day 1 of the release, and the upcoming patch that Konami promised. And Hulett continues: "During debug we didn't just have to deal with the expected 'porting' bugs, but also had to squash some bugs that the original team obviously removed prior to release, but we'd never seen before. [...] and I think at one point Heather (from SH 3) was..blue!"

What it doesn't explain is why Konami agreed to go ahead with this project. Why did they risk their reputation? And why they didn't cancel it once they realized what they were dealing with, or at least postpone it until the problems were properly dealt with, if those could be fixed that is. And why this serious project of the remake was assigned to...Jinx Games? The answer is: Indifference? Hope for easy money? Hope that things wouldn't turn out to be so bad after all? Hope that lady Luck would somehow protect them? I don't know. But I do know that this isn't Konami anymore, it's a shadow of its former self.

It's the same Konami that assigned the development of Downpour to an unknown team of developers, with the name "Vatra Games" that had only one game prior to Downpour in their record. It's the same Konami that allowed the main theme of Downpour to be performed by a universally unknown metal band named Korn.(while in previous games the music cover was the work of the inspired musician Akira Yamaoka) It's the same Konami that, as Jim Sterling pointed out with this video, they sceduled all their big releases of 2012, Metal Gear Solid HD Collection (for Europe), Silent Hill HD Collection, Silent Hill: Downpour, and the Silent Hill: Book of Memories for the PS Vita to be out at the same time, all in a period of fifteen days in March..

Besides the HD remakes story, I had found some time ago an article in the Playstation Blog about the re-releases of the PS1 Classics on the PSN. It says there some interesting facts about the porting process, the bugs and the legal obstacles with the licences that have expired, which explains at the end why so few of those games found their way in the Playstation Store. Here is the link if anyone is interested.

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