I finally managed to grab it

Uncharted - Platinum'ed... that makes the 3rd for me.

Hey guys, its been a while I have come to gamespot and posted a blog or commented on your blog posts. The main reason I used to think I was aloof was because I was roaming here and there between cities, but for now I am finally settled at a place. Even though I was unsettled I was still in touch with gaming, still for some reason I just completely lost the excitement of checking out what new games are coming or what my friends are talking about the latest games.

And I finally found out what was wrong. I played Crysis 2 and Black Ops on PS3 and then I played God of War - Ghost of Sparta on my PSP. You know what is wrong? I think we are seeing a really big crisis in our gaming hobbie. It is not hard to see that the games we are playing these days are doing aboslutely nothing new, it is the same first person shooter, hack and slash, racing and platformer.. seriously the same sh*t over and over again.

This doesn't end here. Gaming few years back had an excitement atleast at the graphics and visuals level, people used to be so excited about seeing the graphics of a new game that came to the market and drool over its screenshots. Do we have that now, thanks to the consoles? We are seeing the same stuck graphics of 2006 quality. Its the same quality of images over and over again with little improvement (Uncharted2, God of War, Bad Company 2).

I think this is enough. I think these consoles are holding back the gaming industry like anything. Nothing is new. Gaming has all become about if the game comes on Wii or the xbox or the ps3. You know f*** these consoles, gone are the days when I used to see amazing games from different developers with improving graphics every single time they release something new. No one would even ask if it is some god forsaken console's exclusive or not.

Black Ops, a good game by all means, is more or less the same thing I played in MW, and MW2, or Bad Company 2. Crysis 2 on my PS3 looks like any other first person shooter I have played since last 5 years. 5 years and almost no improvement. I bet Crysis 2 looks bad ass on PC, but then PC has been buried down by the fanboyism of these consoles so much that I don't think anyone cares how Crysis 2 looks on the PC.

You know I am not a big fan of PC anyway, have always been a console gamer since childhood. But looking back, I believe I had the most fun in my gaming years when I played for 5 long years only on the PC. Agreed there always was the worry of upgrading the PC, but those 5 years were quite a ride. Every month a new game's announcement meant amazing new improvements in the visuals of the game. Atleast if the gameplay was stuck, something was changing and kept me going. But now, seriously, I think I have had enough. Even the new incredibly ugly looking Wii-U has a much older GPU chip, I am sure even PS4 and xbox720 will have a cheap ass slow GPU in it. They feed sh*t to us and we eat that right up.

Atleast Kinect, Move and Wii motion controls brought something to the table. Mostly Wii tennis thing is fun. Guitar Hero also is lots of fun. They faded away quickly though, because motion control is just very difficult to emboid into core gameplay, and they remained as a new thing everyone tried and forgot. 3D is getting us somewhere may be, I dont know.

I am continuing gaming but very sparingly. Unless games like Portal, Uncharted 2, Gears of War 2, God of War come to the market, I am going to be very passive on this. The only game I enjoyed recently a lot was Portal 2, that's it. The next game I am getting I guess is that ICO and SOTC collection, because games from the past are my only hope.

Hey guys, its been a while I posted a blog here, I am sorry I could not visit ur blogs because I have been more or less travelling this whole year. I finally have finished my degree. I am a graduate from IIIT Hyderabad with Master of Science

I am back at Bangalore and now I work in Technicolor for Dreamworks Animations

Thats all the update I have for now

adios till next time

Check out what my friends / office colleagues gave me as a farewell gift from my last working place . They are so nice, I am going to miss them.

From a casual point of view, I liked Microsoft's E3 presentation, especially the part from speaking to your xbox to video chatting on live messenger. Kinect's games looked fun but I guess they will mostly be like crappy flash games. It will sell nonetheless, the main reason being that people would want to see this new technology. I mean, hell, even I was seriously thinking of buying it during the presentation. I am hearing things about a killer lag that destroys the whole experience, so I guess I will stay clear from Kinect games.

I definitely liked Halo Reach and Gears of War 3, quite excited about those. But then that was all there was for me as a gamer. The new xbox was a treat! I might get it in the far future but coming to think of it, it doesn't have anything. The xbox still remains that old DVD player for me. Built it wifi? Systems have been doing that from ages, and really, xbox not supporting it earlier was not even a problem since I guess everyone was fine getting a lan cable for a mere few bucks for the xbox.

I am sure, Nintendo's presentation must have been super thrilling for core fans. Me not being a Nintendo fan, their presentation was the most uninteresting for me. The only thing which caught my attention was Nintendo 3DS. But when I came to know about its technology, I started feeling sorry for Nintendo fans who will have no choice but to buy it to play the games.

Nintendo 3DS uses an age old Lenticular 3D technology which gives really bad and dark quality display and a 3D vision at a strict viewing distance and angle. Text is not going to be visible and the aliasing is going to be even worse. A strict viewing distance and angle works out fine for a big display since its sitting in one place but for a handheld, it is gonna cause wrist and neck pain. Taking 3D pics (even though just 640x480) looks fun however.

I dont mind 3DS doing good in the future, I am not even a Nintendo fan that I am feeling forced to buy it. But people should know that the way Nintendo was trash talking "3D with glasses" which gives the best experience of 3D yet (I know as I have worked on stereoscopic technology), was laughable from a technology point of view, and it seemed unfair the way Nintendo used people's ignorance about this technology to make a joke.

Lastly Sony's presentation was best for me since their presentation was all about the games. They spent quite a time on 3rd party titles which was ok but I would have liked demos about Motorstorm apocalypse, Last guardian, Ghost of Sparta, Resistance 3 etc. Twisted Metal's new game was a killer surprise and I look forward to it. I was so much expecting a SOTC & ICO HD pack like that of GOW Collection, disappointed on that front. PS Move seems good and it looks like its precision is gonna invite serious developers to make games for serious gamers.

All in all, in my view Sony's presentation was the best! Followed by Microsoft's and then Nintendo. From a fan point of view, I guess Nintendo and Sony have made their fans crazy with awe during their presentations and Microsoft has disappointed them the most.

Ohkay, I now gotta save money for a 3D TV

... is incredibly annoying. Inability to move and shoot feels so irritating that I feel like throwing the controller down. Everything else is so awesome in this game, killer graphics, story seems to be going well, nice cutscenes, inventory management... but this one thing had to be made bad to spoil the whole experience. I read an article on joystiq which defends the control scheme by talking about creating tension and horror by forcing you to stand in one place while aiming at the enemies reaching near you. Also about resource management and aiming properly to not waste bullets. All this sounds very convincing and thoughful in the begining but if you really think yourself about it, its PURE GARBAGE.

As heard from Resident Evil 4 fans, despite of having odd control scheme, the game got good reviews because it took major steps in gaming at that time, and I am going to believe them, because sincerely I have not played that game to judge it. And even if I play it now, I won't be able to play it with that mindset since I have seen so much more. If Resident Evil 5 was also taking major steps in this era of Gears of War 2 or Uncharted 2, then I would not have complained. However RE5 looks like a yet another third person shooter with an annoyance added which is being called a feature.

Heres why I think "dont move while shoot" is a narrow minded thinking:

1. It emphasized on resource management and that stand and shoot will make me aim better to not waste bullets. Ironically, moving while panning the camera actually helps in quick aiming. Since moving gives me horizontal shift, I can move around to adjust my aiming quickly if I aimed a little wrong. This saves a lot of time! So by incorporating moving while shooting, you still hold your norm of resource management.

2. Since you want to create tension by making me stand while I am aiming at them, you can still achieve that by making my movement very slow while I am aiming. I still will have to leave my ground if enemies come closer. With the current control scheme, I have to look out for enemies, then turn around, run a few meters, again turn around like an idiot and then aim at those enemies. If you allow moving while shooting, I still might have to run backwards, but in that case I will blame myself for not able to finish all those enemies off and thats why I have to go back. This is something Dead Space did perfectly, I never blamed the control scheme, everytime I had to run backwards I thought "I am bad at this game" and not "this game is bad".

3. Because of the stupid control scheme, enemies have been made slower, so that the physically challenged player can aim at them. I have no problem with slow enemies, it just looks so retarded when the cutscene shows dangerous enemies starting to scream and charge at me, and when the control is given to the player, they instantly slow down and start walking like morons. If I were a zombie, I will run to death to kill that human who is aiming at me with a f*cking gun. Again because of move while shoot, dead space was able to provide variety of enemies and not the ones who run fast in cutscenes and then move slow during gameplay.

Capcom "deleted" something to "add" something else to the table. Where everyone is trying to append ideas on top of other, Capcom takes a step backward. Whole experience spoiled. So many expections, all gone to mud. I hate Resident Evil Franchise because I have faith that Capcom will continue to keep the control scheme sh*tty in their next sequels.

1. I think this is pretty much the best game ever made

2. Few months ago, I don't know why, it sometimes would come to my mind, that may be GOW3 won't live upto my expections. Now I will slap myself around 10 times for that

3. I laugh at myself thinking that at a point of time I questioned myself if, by any chance Dante's Inferno will be the game challenging GOW3. What a petulant child I was, how could I be so insolent?

4. Like that Xplay review, I also think that one of the puzzles was totally uncalled for and kinda looked cheap and inappropriate

5. I believe gamespot reviwers are supreme morons to give this game just a 9.0, which is really really bad for this game . This game easily deserves a 9.5/10 without considering the money from publishers

6. Would be interesting to see what those games=art guys have to say about this

7. The end was quite emotional

8. I will take a break from gaming for some time now

I played God of War III and ...

Dear Sony,

My name is Shiben, and I game on a PlayStation 3, which IMO is a great console and your exclusives are amazing. I am playing since the old school era of sega genesis and all, so I am not limited to your console and have played a lot on Microsoft's Xbox 360 as well.

Microsoft had this game called Halo3 which they released in 2007. Have you seen how crazy people are about it? And after seeing its fame, you must have seen what the game really is right? Have you noticed how non-intense the guns are? And that the dialogs stutter and sometimes not audible? Graphics are below average than generation's? Soundtrack and story are awesome though!... What I am trying to ask you is, have you understood why Halo 3 is super famous?

Now have you seen Gears of War II? That game is so awesome! It has awesome graphics, killer presentation, awesome gameplay, guns feel heavy and **** looks badass, plays badass! IMHO its much better than HALO3, however its not played as much as halo3. Why?

You know, you should be stirring up the whole world and exploding heads when God of War III is nearing release... and I see... nothing! No viral, no ads, nothing. Its like you don't even care about your game. Its like, you will give birth to this baby and will let it roam around in wilderness.

I think you get where I am getting at. Your advertising and marketing has some severe problems and honestly... pardon me... IT SUCKS! God of War III is about to release and I see no buzz. Its going to be one of the greatest game of this generation, but unfortunately you seem to be keeping faith in nothing but its awesomeness. WHICH IS WRONG! You have to tell people that it is awesome. I won't get a dream one night telling me that God of War is a nice franchise. Thankfully I played GOW1 and 2 through friend's recommendations, otherwise god knows if you even care.

Your ads, which pop up once in a blue moon in some corners and alleys of unknown places, in a way say that you guys do things differently and there's a taste of weirdness. I really like them ads. However not everyone does. When you are making ads, you have to appeal to people, not blatantly show them your-way-of-making-ads.

Sony seems like a really awesome place to work. Because you do what you want to do, you feel satisfied and get your sense of accomplishment and then don't give a damn about what will happen to it. Unfortunately I am your customer and not an employee. I instead like what Microsoft does, they eat my brain telling me again and again what everyone is playing and thus I should play it to. And honestly, that works.

I live in India, I have seen your ad on TV which was super meh. You were showing Heavenly sword, ratchet and clank and before I know it looks like some... whooops, ad is over, what did it say? play-something... I dont know. Now comes Microsoft's ad, two most happening Indian icons of 2007, Akshay Kumar (Actor) and Yuvraj Singh (Cricketer) come and do something and tell me, in Hindi (my language), how awesome Xbox-360 is. Please tell me, if I were to choose to buy a console solely based on these ads, which one will I choose?

Are you interested in only your old customers base of PS2 users? Don't you wanna spread? Make new customers? Oh you do? how delightful to hear! New customers will go for Sony by seeing your ad and word of mouth. We will faithfully take care of the later, but you have to do your chore... ADVERTISE AND MARKET YOUR SH*T!

This directly connects to your E3 presentations and all. I dont even want to say anything, just see the way Microsoft presents their stuff and the way you do. And what the hell is up with all the news leaking? You know you would have made people running on streets naked if all those ps3-slim, psp-go, last guardian and MGS peace walker news were announced at the show floor instead of at my feed reader.

Uncharted 2 was brilliant! It has raised bars of presentation! And many more people might have played it, but you just don't want to advertise, its like you have an allergy or something, or as if you are a shy guy who likes to live at home and make superb origami paper planes but only for hanging in your room.

I know you are no indie developer to give the excuse of money, you are SONY dammit, you have the cash, blow some **** brains out!

You know in the end I can just say 'Whatever' and be with it. Problem is, I can't, that's the weight a fan bears in his head.

Your sincere fan,

Shiben

Happy to see my new emblem. Its been a while I got an emblem, so enjoying the moment

The moment I finished InFamous as Good, I knew I gotta play that again as Evil. And then I started it as hard, finished a lota things, and then finally collected all dead drops and shards, did all stunts. I hereby present you, The InFamous Platinum Trophy

I gotta tell you, it was so painful! Playing the game, finishing it, in hard mode, evil or good, and doing all the side missions... all this was nothing compared to the last 2 things that you wanna do. One is completing all the stunts, problem is not that they are difficult, problem is, u gotta find proper locations to do them. And second is the son of the bhs blast shards, these are some collectibles, 350!! of them, and there is no stats page with this game which makes the process frustrating, I hav easily given 2 hrs to collect my left out shards with the help of a map available on the internet. And turns out I am missing one. WTF! then I spent around 4 hours looking for the last one.

All in all, I was superbly relieved when I got my platinum of infamous. It was such a glorious moment

First things first, this is so exciting and awesome. I got my first Platinum Trophy, Tomb Raider Underworld. When I first played it, I got 72% trophies and I thought, some day I will do it 100%. That is today

Master of Tomb Raider: Underworld

Earn all the Trophies in Tomb Raider: Underworld

I recently finshed Modern Warfare 2 too on PC. Man the game is amazing, and its has a way too enjoying campaign. Over the top action. It did NOT feel very serious like Modern Warfare 1, but it became more of a james bond kinda movie. Fun game over all! Good to see plot twists and old characters. The campaign could have easily had splitscreen co-op, I did not find any elements which could ruin the story, would have been so much more fun in that case.

Uncharted 2 ROCKS MAN! what a game! I mean, the whole game is like a adventure movie. the Train mission was super awesome, I was being skeptical before that its yet another copy from Gears of War, but drake is so much more agile that he can do much more on that train, making it epic entertaining. And I fell in love with the game when a pure Indian rickshaw came in lol.

I started this game called Call of Duty 5 on PS2, and I was like, what the hell, I will just play this game on my ps2 and finished it. Besides, the game's missions were exclusive to PS2, so I was a little interested as well. Then I played this game and then... THIS GAME SUX HARDCORE. Dont play it! Its graphics are pathetic, you might puke, the animation is crappy, cutscenes are useless, and gameplay... let me talk about gameplay: The allies are utter useless, they dont do anything. And all enemies fire is focused at you. You won't believe that one enemy who instead of shooting my ally who was in line of fire, bent over, and started shooting me. But this is fine rite? NO ITS NOT! It is not, when the game is so buggy that when charging enemies start randomly changing their positions or spawning or whatever and you cannot shoot them. The enemies are given skill by the game's buggy code. They do random stuff, it sux. I got so frustrated that I threw my controller (which thankfully did not break) and then I broke the game's dvd. So long **** game.

I played Mirror's Edge. It is a good game, I wonder why people did not like it. It has a very bad training mission I agree which creates a very bad impression. And sadly even the demo carries it. But the missions are very good. Gives a feeling of adrenaline rush. It can get frustrating at times, when you cannot make jumps and have to retry from mostly far placed checkpoints. But I found the overall experience to be refreshing. And as usual there was a train mission in this too, and guess what, I liked that too, it was fun.

Hey check this out, there was a tshirt painting event in my office, chk out my tshirt. I give you Lady ORB. I wanted to make it weird and have an alternate styyle between the generic themes of tshirts. I do get some stares when I wear it

And I finally did 4000 KMS on my Yamaha . Its been a bit dirty lately, have to clean it one day, not getting any time at all to clean my baby.

Recently I read this post written by dark_messenger about Machinarium, a simple point and click adventure with a very simple and cute story. I gave the game a try as you can just go to http://machinarium.net/demo/ and start the demo in the browser itself. I got hooked to the game instantly, and got the full version. It is strictly a 2D game with pure hand drawn artwork. It is brilliant!

The puzzles are awesome, there are small mini games and the best part is there are no dialogs at all! I mean, I like listening to characters in the story, but here the characters are telling their problems in simple gestures or pictorial thoughts. The game is not very long, hints are nice, the game includes a walkthrough as well for which to open, you have to play a boring mini game... intelligently put. One more thing which I liked about the game was its story, its not epic, its a simple story of a robot who is searching for his lost girlfriend. If you have free time, do give this game a try!

I also finished InFamous, and my reaction is: Mind Blowing! I started infamous some time back, and I had way too many games at that time for whom I abandoned infamous in the middle, however my room mate insisted that I continue the game as it gets better, so I continued... and MAN, the game does get better and better. The powers are awesome! the story is brilliant, and the thing which is best in the game is ... its variety in the type of missions.

Honestly speaking, even GTA4, though an awesome game, any time enjoyable, does have missions which are repetitive. InFamous has an arsenal of different powers and I dont know, how many types of missions. Infamous city is ok, and the people are a little lifeless, also the animations are crappy. But these things simply dont come in the way of the gameplay, which is why, this game ROCKS! must play for all PS3 owners.

Man these two games are so awesome! I recently finished both of them yesterday, and man, I liked every single moment of these games! Brutal Legend characters and the world is so brilliant! Jack Black as usual did his part well, also was good to see other rock stars doing voice overs. The mix of genres of gameplay was a welcome change and every mission felt refreshing. Collectibles are nice. Only problem with the game was that it's verrrrry short!

You are still left in the world to continue doing stuff in the open world, which is always fun, but still, it should have been 2 or 3 times longer easily. When I came to know it has RTS elements, I was sorta scared, cause I am not a big RTS fan. But this game does it so nicely! You can take part in the fight, and moving yourself as the hero in middle of the battle and controlling troops is well implemented. You cannot do much, for e.g. you cannot select a set of infantry... simply not possible. But then the game is not designed in a way that you will need that.

Now comes Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, I am stoked! I am ecstatic! This was f*king awesome! It is a perfect game in my eyes. No complaints what so ever. When I played Ninja Gaiden Sigma before, I did not appreciate its hard difficulty and sadistically put save points. Not to mention the graphics were VERY ugly. But Sigma 2 corrects all that, not very hard, comfortably put save points, and the graphics are so nice!!!!!

Check the images above out, they are in the underworld, during the last levels. The last image shows an area where puddles of blood are there, man it looked so engrossing and intriguing! The last level's art stuff is mind blowing. The whole game's graphics are amazing! I really liked this game! In my all time favourites list.

I also finished R6V2 in splitscreen co-op with my friend. I know, old game but co-op is always fun . So what games did you play recently?

1. Valve: Where is Episode 3? seriously man, u said that u will release half life in episodic fashion, and I cannot believe, we ate that bullsh*t rite up. I have lost respect for you and the trust is gone, you cheated me.

2. FunCom: Can I play Dreamfall chapters before I die?

3. Sony: Do you know, how awefully hard or fkin expensive it is to buy a PSN game in India? Do you even give a sh*t about us?

4. Sony: I love your weird ads, but lets learn from Microsoft how to promote a product, shall we? It will be fun, I promise!

5. Microsoft: Why are your accessories costly? and dont follow standards? it just makes you look like even more evil! Money hungry beaurocrat.

6. Microsoft: Your hardware is full of garbage which breaks down before I start sweating. Study this thing called 'Quality Testing', and then release it next time, k?

7. Nintendo: Sick of mario games now. please make new characters.

8. Pre-order shipping merchants: You guys make pre-order a joke in India. By the time we recieve it, its already in big stores. You think we gamers are full o' sh*t, don't you?

9. Game Developers: Enough of interactive cutscenes and button mashing crap! No one likes them... SERIOUSLY NO 1 LIKES THEM! STOP IT! ITS SO FKING ANNOYING! ruins everything, its so incredibly annoying!

10. Game Developers: Can you stop copying the Gears of War's train level? How about something original for a change.. huh?

11. Game Developers: No more World War II, please! nuf said.

12. Game Developers: Why gigantic breasts for female characters? It does not look good, seriously! This is a guy speaking, it honestly and sincerely does not look good! Learn something from Valve who created Alyx Vance (I continue to disrespect Valve btw).

13. Id Software: Hey! Ever heard of releasing a game? It's fun you know.

14. Publishers: Do you have any idea how much money you will make if one of you buys the rights of Duke Nukem and release Duke Nukem Forever? Or are you guys just sea otors in suits?

15. Gamespot: Your RSS feeds are useless. Some of the important things are never included in your RSS feeds.

16. Game Developers: Your terminology is getting mislead over years. There will be this one stupid multiplayer mode and you will say, 'Oh oh! see see, we got co-op in our game'. Please be clear, we used to understand co-op as the full campaign in cooperative mode. And what is this bullsh*t about that co-op campaign will ruin the single player cinematic experience of a game (CODMW2, UC2)? Absolute bollocks! Just say you were incompetent to do it.

17.chatspeak haters: Care to read this post.

18. Fanboys: Oh, theres a big post coming for you guys too, not just a line of text

Gautam, very nice buddy from college, gave me Crysis Special Edition. Man big a$$ box. If only I had a pc 2 play this... hmmm

And some Gears of War 2 co-op sickness along last weekened

And oh, did you know I visited Gagan's place, check out my post here:

IGG Bash was Sweetness

and check out Reetesh's album here:

IGGBash

That's all for now Happy Diwali you guys!

got the xbox again from the office

the cd bag contains a bunch of PS2 dvds, and the cd stack beside it contains my pc games

Yeah, Wooooo! bring it on, thats my kinda sh*t

Quite a good number of games are coming up and some of them I am just crazy excited about. The one that tops the list is easily God of War III. After playing God of War 1 and 2, much after everyone else have already played them, I was ecstatic! Was that really a game? or was that really among the best I have played? Anyway, simply can't wait!

Dante's Inferno is being called 'EA does God of War' which first sounds too generic, but after knowing all about the game, seeing trailors and dev diaries, I am totally doped on this game. After all you need to see new characters and new plot right? same old sequels can get on the nerves. Come on EA, release it quick!

I am a big rock music fan! A reason enough for me to like Guitar Hero and Rock band games, but what stoked me was an upcoming game which will be in a heavy metal universe, with all background music as rock, with Jack Black himself as the main protagonist, and to top all of this, its being developed by Double Fine (the one who made the awesome psychonauts). This game is coming in October and I cant wait anymore

So let me know what games are you crazy excited about! And then let me see if I am missing out on something

Other than this, I got the following games to play on my ps3 in good bargain

The Orange Box, Tomb Raider Underworld, Dark Sector and Condemned 2

Honestly, for how much time while playing a game, do you really care about its story or other art form elements? Well, most of the time you are 'actually playing' the game. You really care about putting bullets in the head or scaling a wall properly or may be exploring the whole area or getting the longest combo. A gamer will focus on story, voice acting, lip sync animations, soundtrack etc. mostly while the cutscenes. right?

ICO also starts by doing the usual thing - introduces you to the protagonist and creates a plot with some mystery with the help of a cutscene... and then it introduces you to a major story element - a girl. BUT this is where ICO does something amazing, it builds the game around that girl, you have to be with the girl the whole time and not only that, her limitations (inability to scale walls, climb chains etc.) introduces more puzzles as you will have to find ways to take her to next areas. Enemies dont attack you but they attack her. She is bit magical and stuff, so can open special doors. etc. Quite cleverly, the game keeps reminding you of the plot even when you are busy playing the game.

Other than that, the level design is clever, never boring and very interesting. Quite a lot of it's gameplay felt original, it being a 2001 game. The graphics are breath taking (yes its a 2001 game), music is limited but not bad at all. The atmosphere is same as shadow of the colossus, it gives you a feeling of being totally out of touch with the world, somewhere in middle of nowhere, where only wind howls, waves roar.

Damn, quite an experience. Highly recommended if you have a PS2.