playgames video games

I can recall the moment I decided to buy a PlayStation 3 pretty clearly: it was immediately after watching the first trailer for Level 5’s White Knight Chronicles. Everything about the gameplay depicted – that visceral combo system, the cliched but vibrant character designs, the apparent presence of such exciting new features as enemy morale, or WWF-style team moves – set my thumbs a-twitching.

All this, of course, was back in what now increasingly seems the Japanese role-playing game’s prosperous mature period, with diamond after diamond hitting the PlayStation 2: the divisive but incredibly ambitious Final Fantasy XII, Persona 3 and 4, Valkyrie Profile Silmeria, Vanillaware’s compromised but beautiful Odin Sphere and Level 5’s own, gleefully nostalgic Dragon Quest VIII: Journey for the Cursed King.

BioWare and Bethesda were still PC developers, for the most part, with the Knights of the Old Republic and Elder Scrolls games merely hinting at the success the two North American developers would eventually find on high definition boxes, and the console-based role-playing market was accordingly the province of Square Enix and its imitators.

To my lately out-of-university, card-carrying anorak self, White Knight Chronicles was the herald of a still-greater epoch – a golden phase in the evolution of explicitly statistical combat, soaring storylines and richly inlaid worlds.

How time and target footage makes fools of us all. The industry has shifted and expanded over the past decade, the DS, Wii and lately the iPhone bringing about the dominance of a new, detached, impatient, more feminine, more extroverted and less jargon-tolerant breed of consumer. Development costs have gone up, and margins have shrunk under the weight of a global recession.

Major JRPG releases – The Last Remnant, Infinite Undiscovery, Blue Dragon – have floundered. Competition from North American and European role-playing houses has skyrocketed. And White Knight Chronicles, finally shipped to Europe after almost half a decade in the incubator, isn’t the game I bought a PS3 for.

A man would need a heart of stone to look on that face without wishing to slap it.

Its flaws are those of a lot of JRPGs, but all the worse for the lateness of the hour. Trite, adolescent characterisations. A stagnant save-the-princess plot. Battles which run heavy on attrition and FX but light on actual challenge and tactical thought. Repetitive, redundant town-quest-dungeon progression.

I could go on. I will. There’s the same old tiresome high fantasy aesthetic. Decrepit A-to-B mission structure. An excess of uninteresting “stuff” – weapons with marginally higher attack values, a gazillion different kinds of potion – coupled with shockingly regressive fixed character inventories.

1. Will FFXIII bring the JRPG back in the West? Final Fantasy is back in the headlines, but is it the last and best of a dying breed?…
2. Interview: Assassin’s Creed 2 Game Director Benoit Lambert on Batman comparisons, Ubisoft recruitment drives and the Ponte di Rialto….
3. Just Cause 2 Preview A well-deserved second outing for the vertigo-inducing tropical terror? We check out an early Xbox 360 build….

A bit of humor...


Powered By WPJoke

Here’s another nugget from our chat with Capcom UK’s PR manager Leo Tan, who was unfortunate enough to stray within recording distance at the Monster Hunter Tri event in London on Monday. It seems Mass Effect 2 producer Adrien Cho isn’t alone in his belief that today’s games – and gamers – are complete and utter pushovers.

“Yeah, definitely,” Leo reflected when asked whether he agreed with Cho. “But it depends. It depends on what the game is, and what the purpose of the game is. I think there’s a place for hardcore skill, and there’s a place for progression and story.”

Monster Hunter and its many, many expan-sequels are firmly in the former camp, while Uncharted 2: Among Thieves perhaps ranks among the latter. Naughty Dog hasn’t got things entirely right, though, in Leo’s estimation.

“Uncharted 2, towards the end it got a bit difficult,” he said, “and it kind of broke the illusion – because all the way through you’re basically playing a movie, and kind of right at the end it becomes a game again, and that’s a bit annoying. I wish they’d made it easier there.

“But I don’t want people dumbing down Street Fighter or a fighting game system, or something like Monster Hunter – if you make it too easy, you lose some of that sensation of living for the hunt.

“It’s more about things in the right place. You wouldn’t make something difficult just for the sake of it. That would be insanity.”

The chap behind this game must be mad as a hatter, then. Watch out for the full interview with Leo on Monday.

1. Monster Hunter is a “platform”, not a game – Capcom UK PSP’s success is “more about Monster Hunter players than it is PSP players”. …
2. Last week’s hottest headlines – 6th November Don’t mention the (Modern) War(fare 2)….
3. The secret to Mass Effect 2’s textures? Beer Game producer to get lead cinematic animator wasted if technical issues are overcome….

A bit of humor...


Powered By WPJoke

I’d love to have been in the boardroom on that sweaty, dead-end day in 2007 when one of Visceral’s moneymen threw his arms up petulantly, crossed his legs, uncrossed them, took a deep breath and said: “Look, why don’t we just make God of War III. With a different name, obviously. Yeah, Bob, I know Sony have green-lighted God of War III already. So we’ll just launch our version a few months before theirs. Bam. Back of the net.”

Perhaps he leaned back with a satisfied air at this point, digging a handful of pistachios from the bowl in the middle of the table. Perhaps Visceral’s lead designers – bright-eyed true believers in Iron Maiden T-shirts – looked at each other in dismay.

Crucifix to the face. The netherworldly equivalent of stabbing somebody with a broken bottle.

“But what about all these cool original game concepts we’ve been working on?” One chap may have protested. “I’ve got this idea for a point and click adventure game based on Dante’s Inferno.”

Crunch crunch. “Dante’s the guy from Devil May Cry, right?”

“Well yeah, but the original Dante was a 14th century poet – ”

“That’s good. Devil May Cry’s good. Tell you what, we’ll put Dante in there.”

Visceral’s reputation for imitation isn’t entirely unenviable. The Godfather titles might have failed to win out over the crowd of Johnny-come-latelies vying for the status of Official Passable Alternative to Grand Theft Auto, but some critics consider offworld key-and-corridor odyssey Dead Space the game Resident Evil 5 should have been, loosening up Capcom’s plodding move-aim system a little and unleashing it on a gristly interior-scape straight out of Event Horizon.

Dante’s Inferno tries the same trick, clawing a feature set from Sony Santa Monica and parachuting it into Dante Alighieri’s Nine Circles of Hell, but the results, though commendable, aren’t quite so stellar.

It’s hard to overstate how much this game owes to God of War, but I’ll do my best. Almost every point of note, from the ethereal firewalls which pen you in with your enemies through the three-way balancing act between combat, puzzles and platforming to the spinning button prompts which herald sinew-snapping finishers, has its forefather in the exploits of a certain Spartan slaphead.

The Circle of Lust is predictably buxom.

It’s not a question of broad similarities merely, but of the very tiniest details. Take the enemy hierarchy for instance. There are mobs of regular vanilla Damned (cf. “undead”), who keep your blade well-lubricated with blood in its passage from one worthier foe to the next; ubiquitous bat-winged critters (cf. “harpies”) whose job is to interrupt your combos with low-damage but hugely irritating fireballs; tough goat-legged mid-bosses (cf. “cyclops”) who yield a mouthful or two of health replenishment once QTE’d; slavering succubi (cf. “medusas”) who zip in and out of your hit zone with all but uncounterable haste.

1. Darksiders: Wrath of War Review Stuart takes a walk on the Darkside with an Xbox 360 copy of Vigil’s post-Apocalyptic horseman….
2. Need for Speed: SHIFT Review After a lengthy stay in the pits, the multi-million selling Need for Speed franchise is once again gunning for a podium spot. But is it a match for the latest models?…
3. Mini Ninjas Review The creators of Hitman try their hands at pint-sized Oriental cuddliness. VGD tosses a shuriken at the Xbox 360 version….

A bit of humor...


Powered By WPJoke

The original Mass Effect saw BioWare ambitiously attempting to fuse their exemplary story telling abilities with the visceral combat of the cover shooter – a genre still in its infancy back in 2007. Freed from the shackles of the Star Wars licence, BioWare produced an exceptionally rich galaxy filled with danger, discovery and intrigue, setting new standards for story telling and digital acting.

Intended from the outset as a trilogy, it would have been an understandably predictable move to simply go through the motions of adding to the original game as the story arcs towards its ultimate goal – instead they have taken the bold step of gutting the game, addressing each and every criticism levelled at the original, resulting in a finished product is without doubt the most incredible gaming experience BioWare have ever created.

Even the most hardened Mass Effect zealot has to acknowledge the many flaws of the original – the terrible texture pop-in, the infamous lift loading sequences, the repetitive planet exploration, the extremely fiddly inventory system, the questionable combat controls – despite the game’s undeniable quality, it was a flawed work of brilliance. Rather than simply attempt to repair inherently broken mechanics, BioWare have been clinically ruthless in discarding unpopular elements.

Addressing technical issues first, the texture pop-in has been completely eradicated; a feat all the more impressive when taking into account how breathtakingly beautiful the game looks. The original game’s lustrous futurist design and vibrant colour scheme returns, but on a grander scale with a far greater assortment of environments, each with their own individual characteristics. Conservatively uniform structures make way for varied architecture, with wide open vistas offering spectacular views bustling cities crammed full of detail.

As with the original, biotic attacks are used to disable enemy shields and barriers, allowing you to inflict maximum damage.

A transparent attempt to disguise loading times, the lift sequences of the original game have been replaced by far more honest loading screens – you still need to exercise some patience, but load times are significantly shorter and screens dispense vital information while you wait. Attempting to simulate an entire galaxy on a DVD obviously requires a certain degree of wool being pulled over eyes, and BioWare’s method in the original game saw the incredibly dull Mako sequences where you would drive for hours across identical planet surfaces, distinguishable from one another only by their colour schemes. The Mako driving sections have been ripped out, leaving each explorable planet as a completely original designed environment, each with their own characters, objectives and resources, making for a far more varied experience.

1. Bayonetta Post-Review Many gamers have fallen head over heels (with guns on them) for Bayonetta, so why do some take umbrage at the new witch in town?…
2. Army of Two: 40th Day Review Does Army of Two: 40th Day make you want to strike up a bromance or is it simply not worth the aggro?…
3. Darksiders: Wrath of War Review Stuart takes a walk on the Darkside with an Xbox 360 copy of Vigil’s post-Apocalyptic horseman….

A bit of humor...


Powered By WPJoke

Chatting with us at a Monster Hunter Tri preview event in London today, Capcom’s UK PR manager Leo Tan has provided one reason you shouldn’t care which platform the new game will appear on. See, Monster Hunter isn’t a game, kids. It’s a platform itself.

“From a business point of view, Wii is the platform and Monster Hunter is the product that works on the platform,” Leo observed when asked why the threequel wouldn’t hit Xbox 360 or PS3.

“But for me,” he added, “Monster Hunter is the platform. Like everything else is plugged into Monster Hunter! And I don’t care what machine it’s on as long as it’s that universe, as long as it’s got what I’m looking for – everyone gets together, you go out on a mission, you kill your monster, you get your stuff, you take it back, you improve.”

That’s all I want. It could be on anything, it could be on a microwave.”

According to Wikipedia, by the way, over 90% of US households own a microwave oven. Contrast that with the mere 30 million or so Wiis Nintendo’s sold in the territory to date. Do the maths, Capcom accountants. We bet the microwave oven has a higher software attach ratio too.

Leo reckons the PSP, a reasonably strong commercial prospect nowadays in Japan, owes its popularity primarily – even entirely – to Monster Hunter Freedom and its sequels.

“If you look at the PSP sales and you put the graph over Monster Hunter’s release, you’ll see a huge spike,” he said. “I think that some analysts have said that Monster Hunter is solely responsible for PSP continuing to be a commercial success.”

I’m sure Sony wouldn’t tell you that, it’s just something that I’ve read, but it’s definitely a correlation there. It’s more about Monster Hunter players than it is PSP players.”

Watch out for the full interview soon. The game hits Europe in April.

1. Difficulty for the sake of it is “insanity” – Capcom UK “It’s more about things in the right place.”…
2. Six games that will define 2010 Which titles will this year be remembered for? Edwin drops a few hints….
3. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers Preview We caught up with two of Square Enix’s Final Fantasy veterans to discuss Chocobos, potions and Zombie FPS games….

A bit of humor...


Powered By WPJoke

Heads up gamers! HK based Play-Asia is kicking of it’s 2010 lunar year sales starting yesterday. Apart from the 30% off selected items – you also stand a chance to win the limited edition Final Fantasy XIII 250GB Playstation 3. I guess this is a perfect time to redeem those discount you’ve been collecting all [...]

A bit of humor...


Powered By WPJoke

There have been tons of Japanese media preview, screen and trailers for from software action adventure game – 3D Dot Game Heroes. However, the English version of the game is just getting its marketing campaign started.

source: joystiq

var t = “”; t += window.location; t = t.replace( /#.*$/g, “” ).replace( /^.*:/*/i, “” ).replace( /./g, “[dot]” [...]

A bit of humor...


Powered By WPJoke

God Eater for the psp might have been called a Monster Hunter clone but you have to admit that the anime sequence is pretty darn good!

A bit of humor...


Powered By WPJoke

As promised, Bethesda Softworks released the first ever trailer for the upcoming Fallout: New Vegas. The trailer doesn’t show any gameplay but it has all the right vibe. Hopefully, Obsidian Entertainment manage to pull it off.

A bit of humor...


Powered By WPJoke

Right on the heel of “King of Eden” comes the last movie for East of Eden ( Higashi no Eden ) – Paradise Lost. The movie is set to hit Japanese theater in March.

A bit of humor...


Powered By WPJoke