• 15Dec 09

  'Tis the Season

  

  Yes, you're seeing correctly. I've come back from a long hiatus with a brand new blog. The reason I blog (and tweet) so rarely is that every time I think of something to write about, by the time I get to a keyboard, I made up my mind that it wasn't very interesting to begin with. So instead you get these huge summary blogs that I write mostly out of guilt for abandoning you guys for so long. Keen eyes could still find me on GameSpot of course, offering snarky remarks on the PS3 board or giving my two cents to some of your blogs, but as 2009 comes to a close, I figured it was as good an opportunity as ever.

  So what have I been up to? Had I secretly been mastering BlazBlue's Rachel Alucard after my last blog? Pursued my plans for world domination? Taken a shower? Sadly no. Not yet. And yes. I guess the downside of these once-every-couple-of-months blogs is that I can't really remember what was going on – hell I can barely remember what happened last week. Aside from the usual dread of work, it had once again been time for the annual four weeks of Swiss army. This year was somewhat special because it was gonna be the last one with our platoon, as the entire batalion is going to be disbanded. As such, it was more fun than in years past as eager anticipation mixed with a certain melancholy. Other than that it wasn't all that different from before, but let me tell you: sitting on a windy hill during November nights is not all that pleasant. Of course eating a nice cheese fondue out on the field makes for a fun if slightly bizarre memory. Also, one night I got so hammered that I can only partially remember how I got back to base.

  

  But enough of that, this is a video game website after all and despite this recession, there were some gaming related things happening. Most importantly, I finally decided to replace my ancient PC from 2004 (I think back then, technology was still based on steam engines), with a more modern machine. I bought all the parts separately online because it's way cheaper this way, although there was some concern that I wasn't gonna be able to assemble it all on my own or accidentally buy incompatible hardware (before, I always had some help). Alas, it wasn't all that diffiult after all, even setting the jumpers was plausible enough, but there was a short period where only half the RAM was recognized by the BIOS and it didn't run at the right clock speed. After some testing, it turned out I was just an idiot and didn't push the DIMMs in far enough.

  So now I have an Intel Core i7 860 running at 2.80 GHz, 4 GB of RAM at 1333 MHz with a Radeon HD 4890 providing all them pretty shaders and polygons and 1 TerraByte to store plenty of K-ON! episodes in HD. I didn't want to go for the ultra high-tech, because prices rise exponentially as soon as you go for that "future-proof rig" that will be outdated six months later anyway. The question is what to do with all that processing power. I bought it mostly because I was sick of system crashes due to my old, unreliable hardware and while there are tons of great PC games to play (The Witcher, Mass Effect are on my list and I started playing the free League of Legends as well as the Warhammer Online demo), I'm already overwhelmed with the load of PS3 titles I want to get back to. Not to forget the first quarter of 2010 is jam-packed with gaming goodness. Speaking of gaming goodness (or maybe not), I found and bought a copy of Agarest: Generations of War on ebay last weekend, so maybe I'll eventually post an update for some of you who are eagerly awaiting the digital US release.

  

  On to what may actually justify this blog, though. With the Spike VGAs just wrapping up last weekend and gaming websites like GameSpot, IGN and GiantBomb preparing their awards features behind the scenes, I decided to offer my opinion on the gaming year 2009 in form of a personal top 10. Keep in mind though that I will only talk about games that I actually played, so don't expect Forza 3, New Super Mario Bros. Wii or Assassin's Creed 2 anywhere on that list. Also, this represents a moment in time, don't come back to me in a couple of months and tell me how I said I liked this game better than that, but now I just said the opposite. It's a list, it's numbers, it's ultimately games that should not be compared and are all fantastic on their own merits. I would have embedded every game into a spoiler tag for more convenient viewing pleasure, but GameSpot's text editor has been giving me garbage html-tag errors for hours now. So if you wanna keep the suspense going, make sure you stop scrolling before the three dots.

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  #10 Brütal Legend

  Far and away the toughest spot to fill with a lot of games on the hot seat. Resident Evil 5 was close due to the fun co-op sessions with hazelnutman and another friend of mine, but blew it with a moronically stupid story that desperately tries to take itself seriously, a plot twist that practically telegraphed itself through a trailer and controls that feel clunky and ancient at this point. Even a few PSP gems like LittleBigPlanet, Monster Hunter or Dissidia had a shot at it. But in the end it was the brilliant writing, excellent voice acting and imaginative world of Brütal Legend that secured the game its place on this list. It certainly has issues with repetitive mission design and its open world is a lot smaller than you'd think with the plot rushing you through the game in the back half. I for one though thought that its unique take on real-time strategy on consoles was well-executed and I'm baffled when people say that it got too complex over time because I thought it was way too simple and limited at the beginning.

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  #9 Dragon Age: Origins

  Dragon Age: Origins is a fantastic RPG. BioWare lovingly crafted an amazing world with a rich mythology and populated it with interesting characters that really grow on you. It floods you with stuff to do and places to explore and while it did feel a bit like an upgraded version of Neverwinter Nights mixed with Baldur's Gate, that's by no means a bad combination. The sole reason it isn't higher on the list is because it's very much a PC game first and while the controls were intelligently adapted for consoles, there's certainly something lost in the transition. It's also disappointing that it simply doesn't run all that great, especially on the PS3 all the while not exactly wowing you with its visuals.

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  #8 BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger

  I know hazel will hate me from now on, especially when he sees the next game on the list... One of the finest examples of 2D fighting, BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger is a dream game for anime fans and fighting enthusiasts alike. Despite only having 12 combatants, the game offers incredible depth, lots of interesting systems to keep track of and a great selection of modes both off- and online. It helps that it also sports some of the sharpest sprite graphics to date, imaginative character designs and one hell of a soundtrack. With Continuum Shift in the works and its promise of a more lagfree environment for Europeans, the final rebel has not yet been fought.

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  #7 Street Fighter IV

  I don't remember why, but when Capcom first announced Street Fighter IV, I instantly dismissed it. It was surprising to me in retrospect, because I feel like I'm good at judging a game's quality very early on (which was also why I was astounded by people's reactions after Haze's release while my expectations were appropriately measured. Also, don't take that to mean I build my opinion before I actually play a game, maybe I would find Haze to be awesome if I actually played it). Anyway, the more I saw from the game, the more impressed I was with its visual design, animations and gameplay. I had never played much Street Fighter in my days and only dabbled in the genre in general, but it was probably the first fighter that I could really sit down for hours and have fun with it, win or lose. Better yet and this is kind of what puts it ahead of BlazBlue, is that it offers a better way of learning a character with its (extremely hard) trials. I have not played the game in a while, but I can't wait for Super Street Fighter IV next year. I should use this opportunity to get a fightstick though.

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  #6 Demon's Souls

  Ah, Demon's Souls. I love you, but it's tough love when you repeatedly kick me when I'm down. This game lives from its incredible atmosphere, its sense of danger that waits behind every dark corner and its somewhat clunky but ultimately gratifying combat. People say it's hard and it certainly is with enemies slashing huge chunks of health out of you. But more than anything else the game is punishing. If you take your chance at a quick slash while your enemy prepares an attack and misjudge the situation, the game will have no mercy. Arrogantly take on multiple grunts and you will still struggle to survive. And then it's back to the beginning with all progress lost. Still, the game has issues. Mainly, everything about it works best the first time you experience it. The thrill of not knowing where the enemy awaits, walking through a poisonous swamp without any antidots and figuring out how to defeat a boss while barely managing to survive. After your first play-through however, you'll be familiar with how the game works and curse it every time you pick up the same crappy armor or soul gems again and again. Still, with well over 100 hours spent, I can only congratulate From Software for its fine effort.

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  #5 Batman: Arkham Asylum

  The first time I saw a screenshot of Batman: Arkham Asylum, I was cynically surprised to see that it didn't look terrible for a licensed game. From that point onward, the game was set to be a quality action adventure in my book. What was not evident from images and trailers of the game though was a layer of ambition from developer rocksteady. Not content with simply making a solid game, they strived for more and for the most part, managed to pull it off magnificently. The story is excellently paced (albeit with an unremarkable final boss), the game finds a great balance between its friendly stealth mechanics and satisfying combat, it makes great use of its comic mythology and everything is enhanced by moments of gameplay brilliance. The sequel will struggle to even come close to the expectations the team set with the first game, but even just hearing Mark Hamill's Joker laugh during the first teaser lets me hunger for more.

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  #4 Killzone 2

  People say graphics are not everything and they are absolutely right. However, graphics can impact a lot more than just what you see and Killzone 2 does just that. Even nine months after the game's release there are still moments of awe when observing the graphical prowess of Guerilla's technical marvel. More important though is the atmosphere that is created by its bleak but beautiful art design thick clouds of dust and smoke, powerful explosions and the general sense of chaos on the field of battle, that the game skillfully manages to capture. Add to that an impressive multiplayer mode that is equal parts Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Team Fortress 2 and you have one of the finest games of the year.

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  #3 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

  You know, I was not the biggest fan of CoD4, at least compared to all the hype around it. The story offered a couple of great moments, but a lot of it fell flat on me because I didn't really feel like I could care – I couldn't even distinguish between the guys on my squad except for Price due to his fine, mighty beard. Likewise, I was never the biggest multiplayer fan (except co-op), so by the time I had reached level 30 or so, I had seen enough. With the months leading up to its release I felt the same. It didn't look bad of course, it just looked like more Call of Duty and after a while I got a real sense of smugness from IW who felt more inclined to support the hype with dumb marketing than actually letting the game speak for itself. Because it actually does. Let's be clear: The story line lacks much in the way of common sense, character motivation and actions are hardly comprehensible and the team took the grim quasi-realism of the first Modern Warfare and turned it into an over the top action flick. However, it's just a whole lot of fun. Of course I can't talk about which moments contribute to this, but in one level it's raining friggin' helicopters. From the sky. Helicopters. It also features probably the most disturbing scenes of the year and I'm not talking about the airport bit but a little rope action towards the end. The multiplayer has been enhanced as well with some intelligent additions and spec ops offers great co-op value, but just like the first game, it was the campaign that impressed me the most.

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  #2 Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4

  Confused about seeing a PS2 game from 2008 on this list? Persona 4 graced European stores early 2009 and for the longest time it would stand as my favorite game of the year. Persona 3 was already a great game a year earlier, but 4 takes everything that made its predecessor awesome, polishes it up a notch and streamlines the whole game. The Japanese highschool setting provides a great pace for events to unfold as you enjoy summer vacation, go on school trips or study for exams. Beneath it all though lies a gripping murder mystery that manages to captivate with its supernatural elements and heart-breaking plot twists. At the center of everything is a fantastic cast of loveable friends with interesting and unique personalities. I spent a good 140 hours playing through the game twice, collecting every possible persona and defeating every optional boss. That alone could tell you how impressed I was with it and only the fact that other games had required my attention stopped me from playing it a third time. Even crazier however is the realization that I had spent over a hundred hours WATCHING Jeff and Vinny from GiantBomb.com play the game. Simply watching two people play a game!!! What is wrong with me...?

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  #1 Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

  What else did you expect? Uncharted 2: Among Thieves really is a complete package. The first game already won me over mostly due to its great cast of characters and fantastic visuals that still rank among the best. Uncharted 2 makes all those efforts look like a joke. The story may draw a few cues from Indiana Jones or National Treasure and I still stand by my opinion that Drake could have destroyed that dagger and ended it all. Once you play the game, see the fantastic performances by the actors, marvel at the brilliant pacing and flip-flop on whose side Cloe is actually on, you can't help but be sucked into a blockbuster that easily outdoes everything else. Then there are the visuals. It's a tough call between Killzone 2's glorious effects and Uncharted 2's level of detail, but the fact that I honestly shocked to hear that those cutscenes were all in-engine is telling how much work went into every aspect of the game. And then there is multiplayer. People were highly sceptical of this singleplayer experienced being tarnished by tacked-on multiplayer, but those worries were unfounded (at least in this case, BioShock 2 we'll see). Sure, it can't quite compete with something like Modern Warfare 2 in terms of sheer complexity and pacing, but it offers outstanding online action, interesting vertical level design, amazing replay tools and still looks better than most singleplayer games. Bravo, Naughty Dog for making one of the most impressive games of the generation.

  
  So, as a certain deceased pop legend would say: This is it. If you want, let me know why all my choices were terrible, that I should blog more often or stop completely or that you want to bear my child (Disclaimer: Elegibile for the last option are female readers with smoking-hot looks, endearing cuteness and/or pleasant personality). Either way, I wanna thank you all for another great year on GameSpot, wish everyone Happy Holidays and I'll see you again, maybe in blog-form, in 2010.

  • Posted Dec 15, 2009 8:44 pm PT
  • Category: Games
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• 15Jul 09

  Calamity Triggered - Loli Vampires are Go!

  My import of BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger arrived in the mail today. Rarely have I anticipated a game as much as this one in recent memory, much less a fighting game, a genre in which I only dabble in casually. Maybe it was the diverse cast, the fast and flashy action or the beautiful anime sprite work, but this game had the certain something to make me spend waaaay too much money on it.

  I even got the Limited Edition, which worked out great because the bonus Blu-Ray turned out to be region-free as well. Gotta say though, I feel some weird business ethics conflict with IGN reviewing a product they helped producing / make money off. Either way, it was worth it for (legally owning) the game's kick ass soundtrack.

  

  As the title suggests, I will try to get Rachel down (with Taokaka as a possible sub), which turns out, is quite a challenge as she appears to be a more advanced character and her Silpheed drive is quite unorthodox. I never shied away from a challenge though, no matter how much I'll suck. I simply couldn't resist her loli charms and her complete indifference and cruelty towards her servants is simply dashing.

  The biggest problem with the game so far (as I stuck to the training mode for now) is that the game doesn't seem to do a good job of teaching you useful combos, or I haven't found them yet. Street Fighter IV's challenge modes were pretty boring and useless, but I thought the character trials making you perform certain moves in combo chains was a really useful tool for actual competition and so far, I'm missing this in BlazBlue. Of course the bonus BD has a bunch of strategies and combos, but unless I write them down or go on YouTube (which defeats the purpose of the BD), there's no good way to learn them.

  Also trying to figure out whether to use the SFIV fightpad or go for the regular controller (it does have that handy right stick option, but I didn't run into too much trouble performing specials yet.) Either way, I'll first try to get up to speed on singleplayer before I throw myself into the online (hoping it works lagfree), but once I feel more confident, I'll take on all comers and probably lose horribly in the process.

  That's of course a lot of unexciting words for just one game I barely played so far, but I felt obligated to write a new blog after three months of silence. Sorry, nothing completely crazy in this blog, but no one except hazel is going to read this anyway.

  BADEN-BADEN LILY

  Song of the Now: Queen of Rose - Daisuke Ishiwatari

  • Posted Jul 15, 2009 10:11 am PT
  • Category: Games
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• 31Mar 09

  What Does This 'Blog' Button Do? Tagged Edition

  Yes, that's right, yours truly is not only back in the blogosphere but also forcibly so, because I got tagged. And I know some might say "Hey, but I tagged that dude a year ago", at least you might be saying that if you're hazelnutman, but thanks to GameSpot's RSS feed only updating my tracked blogs whenever it feels like it, I discovered your blog months after the fact and decided that the ship had sailed.

  So, in the spirit of the day (mind the timezone, America), let me tell you 10 (yes, for some reason it's not 5 anymore) amazing, hard-hitting facts not even I knew about myself that will surely make it easy for all the hackers who do it for the lolz to track me down. Nope, sorry, instead I will talk about video games and other dumb stuff that isn't interesting or even better, a complete lie. You brought this upon yourself, fools!

  1. I once played through Super Mario Bros. 7 times in a row because some jerk friend told me you get the "real" ending this way. I also read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy three times, albeit not for the same reason.

  2. My French was pretty decent at one point but most of that knowledge was lost in time.

  3. While I own 52 PS3 retail games, I bought exactly 4 of them: Guitar Hero 3, Burnout Paradise, Uncharted (ebay) and Killzone 2

  4. I own a sizable collection of Magic: The Gathering cards. The most expensive single card I own is a Mox Pearl.

  5. This one isn't a fact about myself, it's a simple fact: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is the best series ever. Period.

  6. At night, I like to dress up in a school girl outfit and rid the streets of its criminal elements.

  7. I listened to every episode of GameSpot presents the HotSpot at least once.

  8. My favourite video game journalist is Greg Kasavin.

  9. I can't dance, I can't talk. Only thing about me is the way I walk. I'm also confident that I'm the only person on the planet who can walk and chew gum at the same time. It's an amazing gift.

  10. I can't think of 10 facts about myself.

  That's it, I know, you're all in disbelieve about the incredible things you learned, but here's the 5 people I tag:

  ***SPOILER***

  

  To not let this perfectly good blog go to waste, here's a few funny quotes from Disgaea 3:

  "Always be on time, if not early. But don't you dare run in the hallways"

  "Oh no! Breaking our curfew will make our parents very happy!" - "Yes, it's our self-imposed curfew that our parents strongly objected to."

  "Fool! I don't even know the meaning of the word "level grinding"!"

  "One of my goals is to make hot sauce the official condiment for eggs."

  "Without a rival, won't you be disqualified from being the main character!?"

  "I shall teach you all something that you'll always find useful! 8 is still 8 when flipped upside down! However, when pushed on its side, it can hide an infinite number of possibilities!"

  "A good and evil heart is a complicated yet exquisite meal, much like pasta with rosa sauce! Boom!"

  "If you're gonna be the villain, you should at least get better lines. You need to review the basics of evil."

  "What did you say!? I can't allow you to leave without health insurance! I don't care whether you have a proper license!"

  "Hold up. When you make an assumption, you make an ass out of u and mption, weddo."

  "I'm Ms. Scarlet. I've come from a different game beyond time and space."

  "You see, we teachers are too tired and lazy to be holding ****s!"

  "Main character, fine, but if a no-namer defeats the Overlord, it's just a disgrace!"

  "Overlord's son, you will jump 10000 feet into the air, wait a turn, and do a dive attack! I'll take a critical hit!"

  "Why are you always cheating? Every game requires a diligent and gradual level up process." - "But they also have cheat codes. Like max out our levels instantly... What was it? Up, up, down, down..."

  "Oh? Your subconscious seems to have dropped something."

  "...Um, not that I care, but you're a little on fire."

  "Damn these people just popping out of nowhere! When will we get to fight?" - "Don't you wanna see the introductions first?" - "Do you want to be fixed up? I'll make you fire missiles from your boobs!"

  "You know... even though it's the last episode and all, it's not like you can just come out whenever you feel like it."

  "Isn't it standard for the last boss in a game like this to transform into his final form?" - "Tsk! Damn you for using such a convenient game mechanic! Can't you fight fair!?"

  "... But before that, I'll let you Save. We will settle this in the next area."

  • Posted Mar 31, 2009 4:10 pm PT
  • Category: Other
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