Simple as that, just got Dragon Age Origins, and is every bit as good as everyone says it is. The story is superb, one of the most inmersive experience of this gen, and finally a good WRPG(aside from Oblivion) to play on my PS3, thx to Symon and Tess who more or less convinced me to get it, it's truly an amazing title.

I had the fortune of attending this year TGS and while it wasn't as good as previous years, at least in regard of JPN developed software, it was still an impressive event. Here are some of the pics I took:

TGS 09 Album

After more than a 100 hours and a lot of powerleveling I finally beat FF III, I had make myself a promise that I wouldn't buy another FF title for the DS until I beat II, and now after more than a year I've finally finished the game, the last part had a faster pace and was much more enjoyable though hard in the old school JRPG fashion. Now I will put my effort into a more enjoyable and modern FF title, XII which is along with IX so far one of my favorite titles of the franchise.

Currently changing internet provider so I will be without internet during the "transition" that should at least take 1 to 2 weeks, just when Square releases a new teaser site, bad timing I guess:

number 6 site

Behave children.

From the Latest Famitsu, damn I really like the design, not entirely sure but looks it could be the same artist from the original FF Tactics. Click for full size

Finally got to lvl 30, wicked sick(yeah that's me in an nutshell). Also started playing the latest DS Castlevania game, Order of Ecclesia, is awesome and while I'm not sure about the other Castlevania DS games, compared to the GBA Castlevania titles the bosses in this one are actually hard.

I have some recent concers regarding the Silent Hill remake, Shattered Memories, mostly due to the "hands-on" article that GS posted during this E3:

Silent Hill SM Hands-On

While I'm not against the concept of a reboot of the original game, not entirely at least, I am somewhat worried about this particular statement present in the article:

"Walls of ice shoot out of the ground! You can't climb over them (they're cold!) so you must find a way around. Easy enough, right? It's not so easy when a horde of undead creatures is chasing you. There isn't any combat in Shattered Memories, so you have to run like heck whenever you see an evil being. This set off an elaborate chase sequence in which we crashed through doors, quickly scaled walls, and knocked down bookcases to slow our pursuers, all in the scant hope that we would survive."

Sure we(and by we I mean horror genre fans as myself) have all whine and trash about how the horror survival genre is a dying breed, partly due to the lack of "horror" in recent RE titles(don't get me wrong I love the last 2 main titles I really do) and the overall focus on combat in both RE and and the latest SH games(Origins and Homecoming), but a game that solely relies on hiding, seeking and what sounds like platforming(wtf) would be an overkill imho, combat has never been the focus of the SH franchise(aside from the games mentioned above) but it dos play a part in what makes the game compelling, I'm not entirely sure if this is the right direction for the franchise, but I really hope I'll be eventually proved wrong.

It's been a long wait(not that long really) for Nathan Drake, but he is finally back to discover more treasure and fight more ancient curses, and by the look of the just released teaser it will be a frosty ride.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves will be coming out sometime next year but you can watch world exclusive debut of the game during the 2008 Video Game Awards show, airing on December 14, 2009, at 9:00 PM on Spike, for now just check out the teaser:

Uncharted 2 Teaser Trailer

Source: Playstation Blog

... play a Final Fantasy game, what you were expecting something more dramatic? then you should stop watching so many Mexican Soap Operas, anyway I'll make it short and painless(and with visual aid), just the way any blog reader wants it . I got this week off, but is hell outside(temperature-wise, for real almost 100 F), plus I'm poor as well(and I'll be for a while longer) so I'm mainly staying home enjoying the comforts of technology(air conditioner your best friend during the long hot summer days) which brings me back to the issue at hand, what do you do when you want to chat on the computer but don't wish to stop playing a really good game, well in my case you just risk breaking your TV screen by moving it of place to a more unstable base. Yes my lazyness may one day cost me, hopefully I will be rich by the time that day comes, hopefully Square Enix will have released FF XIII by that time as well. Click for full size:

Okay, long story short, some time ago a friend of mine from Sapporo decided to buy an american PS3, so he didn't had any more need of his US Slim PS2 and decided to sell it, luckily I found about this and bought it right away, because it was brand new and he was selling some of his games as well, among which there was FF XII. I know the game is not new, but you don't know how hard can it be to find a cheap copy if you don't own a credit card. Anyway I couldn't been happier I think that from the people I know I'm probably the only one that hasn't played it and I wanted it so bad. So that's about all, he also gave me a copy of DQ VIII as bonus because the av cable the ps2 came with is not compatible with my tv so I had to buy a new one. To sum it all up the whole deal costed me around 125$ which is quite cheap considering both the slim ps2 and FF XII are almost brand new and the shipping wasn't free either. Well I just started the game and it's awesome, I had played a bit of the International version they released here in Japan but I left it after a while because all the text was in japanese and I wanted the full experience of one the best FF games(I still have it as part of my collection ).

Now that you can understand what I am excited about, I wanted to let you know, my friends here the people in the unions where I post daily, that I am gonna take a break, I'll still post as much as I can but I'll be too busy with XII and my job to do much else. Cheers.

Well a couple of days ago I finished the 2nd episode of Half-Life2 thus completing the current half-life saga(current because there is still episode 3 to look forward to), and now like every other HL fan I have to wait for the 3rd last Episode and after that, Half-Life3 which I hope will come out sometime before 2010. Luckily for me and other fans of the series, Valve is releasing Left4Dead at the begining of November this year, this game makes use of the Source engine(HL2, Counter Strike:Source) and sports similar graphics and gameplay plus 4 online/lan co-op multiplayer and the possibility to play as the enemies(the infected,another fancy name for Zombies).

All this inspired me to change banners , I used a drawing made by Makani(I asked her and she agreed to let me use it), one of the most original artist I have seen so far in DeviantArt, her art is amazing, very cheerful and almost always with a touch of humor as you can see. Here is the orginal deviation, it explains why Gordon doesn't talk, you know I always suspected something like that mmm...

So this E3 was pretty fun, I didn't watch last years so I did everything I could not to miss this one, I won't go into details(mainly cause I'm too lazy to) so here is a list of the things that impressed me the most:

FF XIII goes 360: It wasn't that big of a surprise, I mean I know SE quite well by now.

God of War3: While I was hoping for something for substantial than a FMV trailer, it was still nice, let's just hope the game is "chaotic" enough.

The Force Unleashed: I liked the walkthrough gameplay that was shown, I had my doubts whether to get this for PS3 or PSP but now I'm definetely getting it for my PS3.

Resistance 2 gameplay: I had seen the screenshots before, but seeing the actual battle against that freakingly big boss was something else, I can't wait for the game.

Resistance: Retribution(PSP): I'm really glad that this Franchise has spawned a portable game, the graphics and gameplay look really good, plus the plot will apparently serve as a bridge between Resistance:FoM and Resistance2.

GTA Chinatown Wars(DS): Even though nothing more than the logo was shown during the Nintendo Conference, it was still enough to get any fan of the GTA series curious about it, will it use a top-down perspective like the original games in the series? how will the touch screen be used? and what about the graphics? too many questions and for now not many answers.

Dragon Age Origins: It looks impressive, and the gameplay seems solid enough to make keep an eye on it.

Prince of Persia: I like the cel-shaded ****they are using on this game and the gameplay seems similar enough to previous games in the series and yet the new storyline will probably lure new players to the franchise, to try this one once it comes out.

Resident Evil 5: Nothing much to say here, this is probably the best looking game of the whole E3.

Cooking Mama(Wii): WiiTF?

Bayonetta: DMC much anyone? seriously though it looks like an interesting game but I'll need more to make me wish I can have it once it's released.

DC Universe: As a comic fan and PS3 player I can't forget about this one)I'm trying to forget about the push-ups Jim Lee tried to do though), it looks pretty good, with a large array of DC icons.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2: Another game I'm looking forward to, I didn't play the first one but I think I'll be getting this one.

And that's all, there are many more but I'm too lazy to point them all out. To finish a new concept art image of the upcoming Half-Life2:Episode 3, it seems like the advisors are cheaper by the dozen:

So I'll put it simple, after dying 5 times(yes I counted them) on the last part of HL2 Episode 1 I finally beat the strider and finished the game, I already started Ep2 on Hard difficulty. And also on the same note, comes as a pleasant surprise that I found this new concept art and info regarding the upcoming episode 3 of the Half-Life2 trilogy of episodes, on Kotaku of course. It looks like Gordon facing a familiar alien doesn't it?. Click for full view:

Source: Kotaku

No, I'm not talking about pokemons, I was referring to the different ship parts avaliable in Zelda Phantom Hourglass. Months after buying the game, thx to Darth_MoM I finally got the gem anchor thus completing the ship parts collection. Also I advanced some more in Ocarina of Time, that's all, I promise a better blog entry next time, see ya all.

The title says it all, but just I'll elaborate anyway, months after finishing LoZ Phantom Hourglass(my first zelda game) I've been looking like crazy for a free loader so I could play an english copy of WindWaker in my Japanese Gamecube, unfortunately I haven't been able to find one, so I kinda gave up on playing a new zelda title until they release another for the DS. Yesterday I came across a really cheap english copy of N64 Ocarina of Time and I didn't miss the chance to buy it. I'm kinda sad that I can't play WindWaker yet, but Ocarina of Time it's suppose to be the best of all the Zelda games and I gotta admit it's pretty good, I have only like an hour into the game, just defeated my first boss, Queen Something(which reminded of a DMC3 monster), all in all a good deal.

... come join the Jedi Council Union, where you can speak your mind about all StarWars Related stuff, and other things too. If you don't mind the lack of strict rules or the crazy members(yeah even the officers, I think they are on Death Sticks or something) come join already.

The Jedi Council Union

This is the first official look at the oncoming 2.4 FW with in-game access to the cross media bar(XMB), the link will take you to the HD first part of the walk-through. I can't wait for this update and if you own a PS3 probably neither can you , read you later.

Links:

High Def

Small Def

Diablo3 was finally announced. Honestly after so many years(and Hellgate:London) I kinda lost hope, but now is not a dream anymore, a sequel to Diablo2(one of the best RPGs of all times) is finally a reality. cheers!

For more info check the GS article.