• 17Jun 08

  Return of the Blog (New and Improved)!

  
  Welcome to barkera's new and very improved Blog! It's been quite some time since I last updated my blog, and even longer since I actually did a decent entry! I had been wanting to improve my whole profile for a while, but procrastination got the better of me and it's taken me a while to get this far. As you can see, I've kept my current blog header and banner, but I do plan to improve the banner very soon (Edit: Banner has now been changed to a Persona 3 Theme. It still needs a little work, but I quite like it.). That'll probably be my next job. However I have also added on a blog banner with my top 10 favourite games (so I don't have to update that in a blog post!) and my X-Fire banner. In terms of the blog itself, you can see i've added some simplistic, but stylish section heading banners that will hopefully make everything a bit easier to read. I plan to introduce review, preview, spotlight sections as well as a few other and see how it goes!
  
  Obviously blogs will be a fair bit more work for me now, but I will be trying to update it about every week, but certainly not longer than a fortnight. We'll see whether or not i'll actually keep to that!
  
  
  Always a good idea to start with news. This article came up on GameSpot a few days and I thought it was pretty cool. I mean, getting Wii Fit hacked to work with WoW is pretty awesome. Even if the people who did it must have a lot of free time and of course you couldn't play a serious game with it. Nevertheless, it is pretty darn cool.
  
  Under rumour control is also seems Xbox Live might be getting player avatars. Now, as a 360 owner, I would certainly be happy to have my own little avatar, yet at the same time I can't help but feel this is a straight rip off of Nintendo. Not to say people haven't done it before the Wii, but ito would have been nice to see Microsoft come up with something a little more original. Well, nothing is official yet anyway.
  
  
  

  The World Ends With You
  

  For my first Spotlight section, I thought i'd go with a game I just recently finished and has pushed its way onto my top 10 list. It's a brand new Square Enix RPG for the DS titled "The World Ends With You". Or, if you're Japanese you'll find it's titled "It's a Wonderful World". Personally, I prefer the former.
  
  
  For more screens check out "The World Ends With You" GameSpot page.
  
  Now this is one fantastic game. It is centered around a real area of Japan called 'Shibuya' and the story focuses on a 15 year old boy named Neku. I don't want to give too much away of the story, but it turns out that Neku is in fact dead. He has no memory of how it happened though and before he can try and puzzle things out, he is attacked by strange creatures called 'Noise'. Luckily, a young girl by the name of Shiki comes to his rescue and helps him fight off the noise. It turns out these two are part of "The Reapers' Game". A game where a person who has died can fight for the right to be given a second chance at life. However all players must pay an entry fee to enter the game and will not have it returned even if they come back to life. As expected, things don't go as planned and Neku finds himself in a rather extended version of the game and the plot takes a bit of a sinister turn. You'll meet up with a few different partners and meet lots of great characters as you traverse around Shibuya completing the missions of the game. Will you will be able to beat the Reapers' at their own game?
  
  The game is controlled almost entirely by touch screen and it works perfectly. Everything is very easy to use and work and it's nice to see a DS game using the screen more than just as a tech demo. On the bottom screen you walk around using the stylus when out of battle as well as interact with characters and on the top screen you see scenery and the environment around you. In battle you fight on the bottom screen using 'pins' of which there are over 300 and they all have different powers activated by touch screen controls! On the top screen during a battle your partner fights their own individual battle. You can set your partner to Automatic, which is good seen that fighting on two screens can be quite difficult to get used to.
  
  The game will take around 30 hours to complete if you do a bit of exploring, but on top of that there's a lot of side stuff to do. This includes getting your item, pin and noise collection up to 100% as well as an extra chapter that becomes available after the game is completed and a mini-game called 'Tin Pin Slammer'. It will take at least another 10-15 hours to collect all of that (depending how much you got on your first play through), so you won't be running out of stuff to do anytime soon!
  
  Basically this is one of the most original games I have played in quite some time and it was non-stop fun and addiction from beginning to end. If you own a DS, I don't care whether you normally like RPGs or not, go out and buy this game! I guarantee you'll love it! Just check out the player reviews and you'll see i'm not alone!
  
  Check out my review for "The World Ends With You"!
  
  
  This section will cover any recent reviews I have written providing small excerpts and a link to them on GameSpot and/or GameFAQs. It will also include any recent ratings I have given.
  
  "The World Ends With You" Review (DS - RPG)
  "Ever 17" Review (PC - Visual Novel) [Coming Soon!]
  
  [ 10.0 : Perfect ] The World Ends With You (DS - RPG)
  [ 8.0 : Great ] Wind: a Breath of Heart (PC - Visual Novel)
  [ 7.5 : Good ] Figures of Happiness (PC - Visual Novel)
  
  
  

  ~ Beyond Good and Evil 2 ~
  Release Date: TBA 2008
  

  Beyond Good and Evil 2 was not the original game I was going to preview today, but with the new trailer out I thought I would do it anyway! If you've played the original Beyond Good and Evil then i'm sure you're already as excited about this as I am. If you haven't played it, do yourself a favour and go chck out the GameSpot page which can be found here.
  
  If you've played the original, the first thing you'll notice is the graphics. The difference is massive! I mean, I expected better graphics but the new ones look so, so fantastic! Here's a quick graphic comparison of Pey'j (the hero's, Jade's, "Uncle").
  
  
  Beyond Good and Evil (Pey'j and Jade)
  
  Beyond Good and Evil 2 (Pey'j)
  
  Unfortunately we haven't had a good look at the newly updated Jade yet, but i'm sure that will come soon enough. There haven't been many other details on the game yet, but i'll keep you updated as more come in. At the moment it is still TBA for this year, and my guess ito won't be out until closer to Christmas. Hopefully the gameplay will be improved upon from the first one and if that works well, we should have a fantastic new game on our hands!
  
  Remember to head over to the Beyond Good and Evil 2 page and hit that "Add to my Games" button to track it and keep updated!
  
  
  This section will notify you of what games i'm currently playing and will also give you an idea of what future blogs will hold. Just so you know, the "Now Playing" part of my profile keeps track of games I own, but haven't finished yet and so need to rate. This part of the blog will only keep record of the game I am actually actively playing.
  
  ~ Nintendo DS
  The World Ends With You
  ~ Nintendo Wii
  Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures
  ~ Playstation 2
  Disgaea: Hour of Darkness
  ~ PC
  Mass Effect
  
  
  Well that brings me to the end of my first new blog entry. That took me a heck of a long time to write and get the formatting and images right, but I reckon it was worth it. If you've read this in part or whole any sort of feedback would be greatly appreciated! Next time I also plan to add in a "Ranting" session where I can rant on about things in the industry that annoy the heck out of me. I'll see how I go though!
  
  Thanks for reading!
  
  ~ Crimson Wolf / Barkera ( Wednesday, 18th June 2008 )
  • Posted Jun 17, 2008 7:10 pm PT
  • Category: Games
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• 13Jan 08

  New Banner and Blog Header!

  Thought it was about time for a change. My old one's were pretty bad (though really, I guess my new two aren't much better) seen I have no graphical talent whatsoever. My Blog Header is based on Okami and if you look carefully you can see Issun there as well. My profile banner is based on Dreamfall: The Longest Journey; showing April Ryan and Zoe Castillo. It's a bit plain at the moment, but I plan to improve on it in the future!
  
  Games Bought 2008
  Oblivion: Knights of the Nine
  Rogue Galaxy
  Ever 17
  Kameo: Elements of Power
  The Darkness
  Assassin's Creed
  Eternal Sonata
  Gears of War
  Dead or Alive 4
  The Orange Box
  Mass Effect
  Conker Live and Reloaded
  Blue Dragon
  Dawn of War: Dark Crusade
  NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams
  Devil May Cry 3
  Tales of Phantasia
  Fate/Stay Night
  Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings
  Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
  Pokemon Emerald
  Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure
  Advance Wars: Days of Ruin
  Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3
  Nursery Rhyme
  Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2
  No More Heroes
  Tsukihime
  Hotel Dusk: Room 215
  Wind -A Breath of Heart-
  Harvest Moon: Magical Melody
  Disgaea: Hour of Darkness
  Mario Kart Wii
  Figures of Happiness
  Kana -Little Sister-
  Grim Fandango
  The World Ends With You
  Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories
  Utawarerumono
  Planetarian ~the reverie of a little planet~
  Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures
  Kanon
  Kimi ga Nozomu Eien
  Clannad
  Super Smash Bros. Brawl
  Final Fantasy Tactics A2
  ONE: To the Radiant Season
  Love Death 2 ~Realtime Lovers~
  Jade Empire
  Animal Crossing: Wild World
  Fable: The Lost Chapters
  Final Fantasy VII
  Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3
  Hourglass of Summer
  Phantom of Inferno
  Shuffle!
  Chrono Cross
  Sam and Max: Season One
  Final Fantasy IV
  Perfect World International
  • Posted Jan 13, 2008 9:17 pm PT
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• 30Dec 07

  End of 2007

  *High-Five to Gamespot* Good job picking Super Mario Galaxy as game of the year guys!! Thankyou for not sucumming to pressure to give it to Call of Duty 4 or Crysis. Although I would have still given it to Bioshock myself It has been a heck of a big year for gaming this year and will undoubtedly be even bigger in 2008. I've been lazy about updating my blog here, but i'm still around! Works keeping me busy, as is school, but i'll always have time for gaming!
  
  Moving along, each year I also do my own game of the year, not based on games that have come out this year, but on ones I have bought this year. I don't buy enough new games to base it on that. I do a seperate award category thing too, but there just isn't enough room to post it all here. So, my own nominees for game of the year are:
  
  Super Mario Galaxy
  Bioshock
  Okami
  Riviera: The Promised Land
  Resident Evil 4
  Final Fantasy X
  The Longest Journey
  
  It took me a while to decide and I had to take a lot of stuff into consideration. But my game of the year for 2007 is:

  Okami

  
  It was such an awesome game; fun to play all the way through, beautiful graphics, an unusual sense of humour, great innovation, lovely sound and even some fairly good replay value! You can read my review on it if you like, I gave it 9.9. Back in the good ole days when you could rate stuff anything you wanted... Finally, as I have been doing all year, I will be keeping a list of the games I have bought this year to run for next years game of the year. This also includes games that I bought this year but haven't yet played. Cya next time!
  
  Games Bought 2008
  Oblivion: Knights of the Nine
  Rogue Galaxy
  Ever 17
  Kameo: Elements of Power
  The Darkness
  Assassin's Creed
  Eternal Sonata
  Gears of War
  Dead or Alive 4
  The Orange Box
  Mass Effect
  Conker Live and Reloaded
  • Posted Dec 30, 2007 2:32 pm PT
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