Metal Gear Rising Revengeance

I already mentioned this once as the game that basically restored my love for gaming after 2012 ended up being so incredibly shitty, well now I'm going to gush about it!

So to start, I did a google search on the world revengeance, because I was convinced that was just made up to sound cool, but it is actually a thing, so straight off the bat I'm learning new things by playing this game.

Anyway, silly words aside, it's really quite hard to find a single word to describe Metal Gear Rising.  The best thing I can come up with is "Radical", but even then this games level of rad are so high that it doesn't really do it justice.

So I don't really know where to start with this "review", so lets start at the plot.  The game starts out with some group trying to destabilise stuff in order to cause war because war generates money for Private Military Corps and they like that.  Then it turns into a plot around child organ harvesting and shit gets really crazy from there.  But for the first time ever I didn't really give a flying fuck about the story in a Metal Gear game.  It's not bad by any stretch, but when there is all this high octane hacking and slashing going on, I just want to concentrate on that.

Which brings me to the game play, oh lord is it good.  The core game play revolves around hacking and slashing enemies until they die and if you have played anything like Bayonetta or Devil May Cry, you can expect a combat system that's just as fun and rewarding.  The thing that everyone knows about though is the games "Blade Mode", where you are basically free to cut anything in any way and this is used to harvest spinal cords for healing yourself or killing big enemies.  This is also a really fun mechanic and doesn't interrupt the flow of game play.

Now for the blocking, because I've seen a lot of people complain about the blocking.  There is no dedicated block in Metal Gear Rising and instead we are given a parry which is performed by pressing forward towards an enemy and doing a light attack.  The parry comes in two flavors which is a standard parry which prevents damage, and a perfect parry which prevents damage and counters.  I saw a lot of people saying things like "it's not well explained" or "it's too hard to perform".  Please ignore these people because they are just bad at the game since the window for just pulling off basic blocks is huge and the game explains the controls behind a parry right away in a VR mission AND gives you plenty of time to practice.

Anyway, for all my griping about people slagging off the parry system, I'm not saying this game is perfect.  The final few chapters feel a little bit rushed and have very little length and it's a bit of a shame the second half of the game wasn't a little more fleshed out.  Also there are some quick time events and while they aren't too bad I'd still prefer it if they weren't there.  Also the stealth segments of the game are fucking crap and while they aren't mandatory it feels that they were shoehorned in there just because it's a Metal Gear game. They are incredibly out of place when just slicing up dudes is just as, if not more effective than sneaking.

Finally the length, I'll admit it is a little on the short side with my total playtime being six and a half hours on hard mode, but that's not counting cut scene time and I'm pretty sure failed attempts aren't included in the total time either.  That said the game is full of replay value, because my six and a half hours of playtime were filled with pretty crap grades, so I want to go back and improve my skills.  On top of that, beating the game unlocks another difficulty and doing it again unlocks an even harder one.  On top of THAT there are 20 VR Missions which task you with killing dudes as fast as you can for a big gold star.  Finally on top of THAT there are 20 collectable thingies to get throughout the game which only give stupid shit like concept art but are hard to find and for a completionist like myself, add some more replay value to the game.

So the TL;DR version of this entire post is, game is awesome go play it!  If you're a fan of action games like this who were left wanting after DmC, this will perk you right up.  If you aren't a fan, go play it anyway and you will be soon enough.

Friday Night Ao Oni!

Not really a lot to say really, other than my new headset is really comfy.  Think I might have to start picking up the pace with recording though.  Anyway, enjoy!

Trophies and Achievements Need to Stop

I still remember my first experience with achievements on the Xbox 360 back when I first played Dead Rising.  I remember that for one of those things, you had to escort 7 or so people at the same time back to safety.  That shit was fucking HARD, and you felt good when the little message popped up.

This was originally a cool idea because all the extra stuff that you would challenge yourself to, you were now being given something for.  Secret bosses in RPGs, for example, and just generally hard things to do were no longer just stories you told your friends, you could display that shit and anyone who gave your profile a glance over could see what you had achieved.

But then something changed.

I don't know when exactly it happened by now achievements and trophies are a fucking joke.  We're now being given trophies and points for doing things like watching cut scenes or killing main story bosses.  These aren't achievements, you're just being given a nice message to make you feel good for doing something you were supposed to do anyway.

Take the Dark Souls achievements for example, pretty much all of them boil down to "Kill X boss", "Upgrade X Weapon" or "Join a covenant".  The worst offenders are things like "light a bonfire" because that's something you HAVE to do in order to progress.  A real achievement in that game would be something like "Kill X boss without taking any damage" or "beat the game with no weapons", you know, something that requires effort and skill on part of the player, not just something you were going to do as part of the main fucking game.

What was once originally a cool idea has been ruined by developers pandering to people with ADD and people who just flat out aren't good at games and want to get some sense of satisfaction for turning on the machine.  I wish they would just fuck off but unfortunately they are here to stay.

My Faith is Being Restored!

I'm not going to lie to you here, 2012 was a shitty year for gaming, a REALLY shitty year.

There were a few good releases but generally speaking it was full to bursting of disappointment, shit games and stuff being ruined by idiots.  It got to the point where I was moaning and griping about so much stuff that a good portion of my friends started saying stuff like "maybe you just hate video games now" and other such crap.

Deep down I was sort of worried that was true as well, all I was ever really doing was complaining, but then a couple of days ago it happened....

...I started playing Metal Gear Rising.

Holy shit I've not had this much fun with a video game for a long LONG fucking time.  I shall "review" it properly at a later date but the long and short of it is that so far, I've been having so much fun with it that any problems I do have with it I am able to completely ignore.  At least for now.

Also if you look back through the recent posts there have been quite a few "holy shit check this upcoming game out!" posts, so all in all I think the video games are about ready to stop sucking and making me upset and start delivering on the fun again.

It's a shame that there are still so many companies treating people like dicks though....but one step at a time.

Please Stop Moaning About Difficulty

There needs to be a rule when it comes to video game reviews, where reviewers should not be allowed to talk about a games difficulty at all.  This seems like and incredibly stupid and unreasonable thing to say, but what choice do we have when almost every reviewer is wrong about difficulty in games.

Let's talk about Castlevania for a second here.

A good majority of people think Castlevania is a hard game, and they would be right.  The level design and enemy placement is fiendish, the bosses are tough as nails and with no save or password system it can turn into a bit of an endurance test if you die a lot.  On top of that, you sort of have to know whats coming so that you can make educated choices about your sub-weapon.  This isn't bullshit because the games fairly kind with checkpoints, but overall, castlevania is a hard game.

Now what about Demons Souls, or even Dark Souls, are these hard games?  No, no they are not.  Everything in Demons and Dark Souls is designed to kill you and make your life a living hell if you are not willing to play by the games rules.  It's a game where you have to learn the mechanics well, take in your surroundings and above all be careful and observant.  If you do all these things then chances for survival in Demons and Dark souls is actually rather high, and while it's still a rather challenging game, the levels between these games and basically everything in the 8/16 bit generations is massive.

Let's take another example, Etrian Odyssey 4

Etrian Odyssey is a series of dungeon crawlers designed as a throwback to games like Wizardry and it falls in a genre known for it's difficulty.  A few weeks ago I was made aware of a review on IGN basically panning Etrian Odyssey 3 for being too difficult and unfair.  This is of course bullshit and really it was a case of the reviewer not being arsed enough to learn how the game works and getting frustrated when things didn't go his way.  Etrian Odyssey 4 on the other hand got a great review, because the person in question played it on easy mode and didn't have to learn the ins and outs to get by, and this is sort of sad in a way.

He's right, its a great game but not because there is an easy mode that makes it accessible to newcomers.  That is a great feature but that isn't the reason the game deserves the score it got.   Dark Souls is a challenging game but all the hyperbole being thrown around regarding its difficulty caused people to turn away.

Panning a game for difficulty, especially when you are wrong about it, is not good.  It gives the developers this false idea that people don't like challenging or even hard games.  If you as a reviewer find a game kicked your ass into next year, then say so, but don't pan the whole game because you assume that everyone else is like you and isn't willing to put in time to improve at it.  Until reviewers can talk about difficulty in a mature way, and not just throw a low score at a title because it beat them, discussion of difficulty should be disallowed from reviews.

I swear to god if Dark Souls 2 is ruined because of shit like this I'm going to be rather upset.

Tau Plays Ao Oni!

Well, here we are finally with a new playthrough!

I've had this part one sitting on my desktop for a long time but due to a broken headset I've only just uploaded it.  Ao Oni is a Japanese indie "horror" game made in RPG Maker and it's actually pretty good! So check it out!

Hype Train Going So Fast it Might Derail

God damn if I get any more hyped for shit coming out this year I think my eyes are going to burst.

So yesterday I made a post about how much I'm looking forward to Shin Megami Tensei 4, so today we're going for round two with Transistor!

Transistor is a game I know very little about.  All I know is that it's made by the same guys who did Bastion, looks sort of the same gameplay wise as Bastion and I've been told it has the same narrator guy, but I'm not too sure if that one is true.  Anyway the point is, it sort of seems like we're getting another Bastion-esqe game from the same company, and that's awesome!

Bastion blew my god damn mind when I played it a while back, and what this seems to be is that, but in a different setting and with a different story.  You couldn't really ask for anything better, could you?  Supergiant Games made it quite evident with Bastion that they don't fuck about when it comes to writing and setting and the gameplay seems to be a case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"

But you don't need me telling you to get hype for this thing, just go watch the trailer and hype yourself up instead!

The Hype Train is Getting Faster

Well here is where I just jump up and down in a silly fashion and gush for a while, because holy shit this looks good!

Shin Megami Tensei is a name you probably know, or have at least heard of due to the series being absolutely fucking huge.  For those that might not know SMT, you've probably heard of Persona, and that is part of the same series.

So Persona 4 is the game that most people have experience with, and that game is really good, I like it a lot but I don't regard it to be as good as a lot of people do.  You see, Shin Megami Tensei wasn't always about school kids solving scooby doo mysteries.  The best way to describe old school Shin Megami Tensei is like Pokemon and the Legend of Grimrock having a baby together.  Even that description doesn't quite fit the bill exactly but it's a good way to describe it to people who don't have a clue.

Anyway Shin Megami Tensei 4 is coming to the 3DS and from what I can tell it's about dudes with Yu-Gi-Oh duel gloves protecting a big city from demons.  This means lots of dungeon crawling, and monster "catching" and all that good stuff.  Right now, I'm pre emptively putting this down as my 2013 game of the year.  They'll have to fuck this up pretty hard, or someone will have to develop something twice as awesome to budge it from that spot.

Video Games As Art

This is a question I see a lot, so I'm going to have a small talk about it!

When I was with my buddy a few days ago, we were discussing what games could be considered "art" and why.  It was an interesting discussion but we were finding it extremely difficult to come up with things outside of the obvious titles. 

This isn't because there aren't any others, there are plenty of others, but it's because it's hard to pin down the rules behind why or why not you can regard a game a piece of art.  What makes this even harder is that the rules that govern my opinion on why a game is art will almost certainly be different on why you, the person reading this right now, would consider a game to be art or not.

What adds another layer of difficulty to the whole problem is that, in my opinion, games can be considered art in more than one way.  The music, the visuals, the story, the voice acting, writing, execution of game play elements, all of these things on their own could be considered art.  So just because a game has shit game play doesn't mean that there isn't some degree of artistry in the visuals or music, or even the story telling, but do these factors stop the whole game from being considered art or not? That's really only for you to decide.

Just to give a little example which I hope to expand on in the future, Nier is a game I'd consider to be rather artistic in the sense that the music and story were fucking fantastic.  That said, Nier is a game with repetitive game play and pretty crappy graphics.  Despite that I felt genuinely invested in the characters, plot and lore of that world, and was almost sad to see it end.  It yanked an emotional response from the lump of coal in my chest I call a heart, and that, to me, makes it something you could consider art.

I could probably write a fucking book on video games as an art form, but instead I'm going to butt heads with my friend and potentially make a video series about what games we consider to be art and why.   Keep an eye out for it but it'll probably take a long time to get that sort of project off the ground, but hopefully we'll make something enjoyable to watch.

Castlevania Legends

Well I've had a rather busy few days, so posts have been a bit thin on the ground.  Luckily, all the stuff happening didn't prevent me from playing video games and I managed to blast through Casltevania Legends last night.

Castlevania Legends was the third original game boy Castlevania and is probably the best one, but that isn't really saying much when you think about how much ass the other two games suck.  The game is standard gameboy castlevania stuff with lots of whipping and jumping and all the crap you've come to expect from classic castlevania.

There is a major difference in this game though, there are no sub weapons.  Well, there are but you don't find them in candles and stuff like you did in basically every other game, you have to earn them Megaman style from the bosses.  This sounds pretty cool but the only spell worth a shit in the whole game is the time stop, and you get that in the first fucking level.

The game also has this "burning mode" feature, where you get a massive movement speed buff and become invincible for a limited amount of time.  You can only do it once per life/level but if you know your going to have trouble with a section you can just kill yourself and then burning mode through it since the game is nice enough to give you unlimited continues.

Castlevania Legends is not a bad game by any stretch, it's just a bit boring.  It doesn't do anything truly offensive or bullshit in anyway and it doesn't stand out either.  Probably the most forgettable game in the series, but worth a try at least once.

God of War Ascension Trophy

This story is so pathetic and petty.

So here's the deal, there is (was) a trophy in the new God of War game that was titled "Bros before hoes" which was given to players after they beat up one of the female boss characters. Apparently, this trophy was seen as misogynistic and was promptly changed by the developer.  Holy fucking goddamn is that some bullshit

So lets start with why it's bullshit.  The phrase "bros before hoes" is a phrase that has been around for fucking donkeys years.  Basically for as long as I can remember this phrase has existed, and been used for years, but literally millions of people.  No one complained about it being used then, but as soon as you put it in a video game everyone decides to use it as ammunition to take a shot because there are some people who see the games industry as an easy target for this shit.

That aside though, it made sense in the context of the game.  You beat the boss called Fury, who is this woman, and I haven't seen the whole scene but some shit happens and you get caught up in this black goo and this woman is about to do something nasty to you.  So this dude just pops out of nowhere, decides to betray the nasty lady (I think) and teleports Kratos to safety.  If he's betraying this chick to rescue Kratos I'm pretty sure that's a good reason to use the phrase "bros before hoes"

The article I read on Joystiq had a quote that said "The text was offensive to some members of the community and impacted their enjoyment of the game"

FUCKING. BULLSHIT!

People are just complaining for the sake of it at this point.  I mean it's fucking a trophy, it doesn't even have any impact on the game, it's just a stupid little message that pops up for killing a boss so that people feel like they actually achieved something.  Also, when did people become such spineless idiots to the point where they are offended by shit like this?  No one was offended by this message, people are just taking pots shots at developers because they see the game industry as an easy fucking target.

You weren't offended when Kratos fucked 3 women for experience orbs, but you were offended by a trophy message?  Get fucked, "feminists" who complain about shit in video games aren't out for equality, they are just out to demonise men.  The most sexist people in this whole situation are the people complaining.  Piss off and let me enjoy video games without having to hear stories about your constant, pathetic whining all the fucking time.

Project Diva F: Freely Tomorrow Perfect Play!

Well, I have started a new play through but my headset went and broke again.  In the mean time, I've been trying to record full combo videos from Project Diva F on the Vita, but it's a little bit awkward and full comboing a song becomes twice as hard.

Anyway, today I got one, so check it out! The song is Freely Tomorrow

The Vita

So a while ago I was given a Playstation Vita and I think it's about time to give my thoughts on the system.

So I'll start with how the thing looks, and I think it looks pretty damn good.  It's that same sleek black that we had with the PSP, but that shit works, it looks nice.  I'll admit that the analogue sticks look and feel a little bit cheap, at least to me, but they do the job so I'm not moaning all that much.  It sits well in your hands and everything just feels right.

The menus when you turn it on are easy to navigate too.  If you've used any kind of smart phone ever you'll be able to find your way around this thing, it's pretty user friendly.  It also has this cool paper peeling effect when you want to close an application, and I know it sounds like a stupid thing to enjoy but goddamn I really like it.

Now the big thing, the games.  Right now I own 3 games, and one of them is a HD remake of 2 PS2 games (Metal Gear).  The library right now is a little lack luster with nothing REALLY standing out except for something like Gravity Daze which I've heard is really good.  Then again the console is still young and I'd bet a good amount of money that once the console gets a little older there will be some proper belters available.

The tl;dr version of this whole post is pretty good, looking forward to the future.

Crazy Japanese Cafe

Today I was planning on coming home and making a usual post on something gaming related but then I went to this crazy cafe for dinner and this shit is too weird to not post about.

The place was called Mountain and on the outside it looks pretty standard for a cafe out here, even on the inside shit seems normal....but then you get the menu.  What you are looking at in the above picture is part of the past menu, and some of the stand out dishes in that picture are the melon pasta, banana pasta and the strawberry pasta (only available in winter)

If you think that sounds disgusting, it's because it is, check this shit out.

That is the melon pasta, and it is quite possibly one of the worst tasting pasta dishes I have ever had.  With the fresh cream on top it looks like something that should be cold, but that's a hot pasta dish.  Also you can't see it too well in the photo but there are chunks of melon hiding in the pasta and hot chunks of fruit with pasta is NOT a good combo.

Luckily there are normal things on the menu so you can go there and enjoy a meal.  The normal stuff is also pretty well priced considering the size of the portion, so all in all it's quite a good place with an extremely strange gimmick.

If you ever find yourself in Nagoya, look up Mountain on google maps, you'll more than likely come out with some crazy culinary story of your own.

More Japan Purchases (Vlog)

I don't need to write anything since everything I want to say is in the video!

Not Old Enough for War

So recently I've been playing a bit of Valkyria Chronicles.   For those that don't know, Valkyria Chronicles is a turn based strategy game set in what is essentially an anime version of World War 2.

As good as the game is I found the above in the person in the personnel files and I couldn't help but to frown at yet another token underage character in a Japanese game.  Just talking about her, she's fucking 12 years old, and for some reason it's OK for her to fight in a war where at any moment she could have her head blown off.  I really wish there was some kind of cut scene to show the justification for allowing her into the army.

But it's not just Valkyria Chronicles, basically every Japanese game I've ever played has some kind of token little kid and they are usually super annoying.  In the war game it's just the concept that blows my mind, but basically every child character in every Japanese game is famous for being annoying.

Just go look up the "Dinner dinner" scene from Infinite Undiscovery to get just a glimpse of what I'm talking about.  Seriously Japan, stop this shit.

Cry of Fear playthrough cancelled due to bullshit

When I first downloaded Cry of Fear it worked no problem, but since then Valve has changed something and now there are bugs everywhere, or at least that's how I understand it.

The game is playable but it doesn't make for good viewing when I'm having to enter the menu every 30 seconds just to make the game allow me to look around.  I'm looking for fixes but so far it looks like I just have to wait.

So until then I'll do a play through of something else!  Don't know what just yet but keep an eye out for it!

Always On DRM is Arse

The new Sim City game came out recently and before I even start this post I want to have a little rage about the name.  This is what?  Sim City 5? so why the FUCK is it called Sim City?!  I hate when games do this and it's been a thing for far too long.  Even recently we've had Tomb Raider and Devil May Cry despite not being the first one.  Stop doing this shit, it's needlessly confusing.

Anyway, I felt bad for people who bought Diablo 3 at launch.  Not because I think the game isn't all that great, that's just my opinion but because that people weren't able to fucking play the damn thing because the servers were being overrun with people trying to log in.

So we have a case of history repeating itself, and now there are shit tons of people who can't play their new copy of Sim City because there are too many people trying to log in at the same time, and they are shoved into never ending queues.

What makes the whole thing really bad about both Diablo 3 and Sim City is that these are single player games, and people who paid top price for these games are being fucked over because EA are worried about a few pirates.

They really need to find another way to deal with piracy because at the end of the day, the pirates will still find a way to acquire the game for free and the only people that are being affected by this shit are the people who actually paid for the damn thing.

There is more to the Sim City story than just people not being able to log in, but the big point here is that always on DRM needs to fuck right off.  Find away to protect your games without hurting the paying customer or just don't fucking do it.

More Thanks and Praise

Well, I've had quite a busy day and I'm not really in a position to be making long opinion posts on whatever, so instead I'm going to take the time to thank the two people who donated for the completed Rayman run.  Hopefully this will inspire more people to throw a donation or two towards the Society, the link is on the side.

Also, I am willing to take requests for runs if you're willing to put forward a charity donation.  Name your game and I'll be more than happy to give it a crack for your entertainment.  Send an e-mail or yell at me on my stream, whatever you fancy.  If I don't own it or I'm unable to record it, I'll seek it out and get round to it, I'll play anything for the sake of charity!

I'll be working on the next play through soon, so keep an eye out on that YouTube channel

Rayman Finale

It's over! It's finally over! I beat Rayman!

It's been a rough and frustrating journey, but good god do I love this game.  Enough typing from me though, watch the final part of the playthrough!

Rayman Playthrough Finale Coming Soon!

You may have noticed I've not been uploading videos recently.  This has been partly down to the fact that I've been sick but mainly because I had to find all the goddamn cages

Well as you can see above, I now have 100% of the cages, which means all that's left is to beat the final few stages and the boss.

So keep an eye out on the YouTube channel for the Rayman finale, coming soon!

Don't forget to donate to charity if you have been enjoying it and stuff.

Crysis 3 is not a Masterpiece

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I have not played Crysis 3, and my experience with Crysis 2 is rather limited.  That said I really did enjoy Crysis 1, I thought it was pretty good and had fun with it.

So, while digging around the internet for stuff I came across this article on Gamespot

http://au.gamespot.com/news/crytek-crysis-3-is-our-masterpiece-6404708

Cevat Yerli, the founder of Crytek says that Crysis 3 is a masterpiece and that of one the main reasons for reviews being "tepid" is because of "gamer fatigue".

First of all, the reviews for Cysis 3 aren't as bad as this guy makes them out to be.  Most places gave the game either an 8 or a 9 and said generally nice things about it.  On Metacritic the thing has a 77 critic score, which I'd say is pretty fuckin' good.

What really bugs me though is how this guy is blaming the consumers for the lukewarm feedback.  You made a fucking first person shooter, in a time when the market is over saturated with first person shooters.  While graphically Crysis 3 is about as good as it gets, at the end of the day it's just another fucking shooter.  Not only is it just another shooter, it's the third in a series of games that would be classified by anyone over 15 as just another shooter.

Crysis 3 is not a masterpiece, it's just one more first person shooter game to add to the ever growing and overly large pile.  Granted, the game looks extremely pretty and I think Crytek are doing good things by showing what PC hardware is really capable of.  But Crysis 3, outside of the graphics is nothing special, nothing that will blow your mind.  It's not the fault of the consumer that you made another shooter when there are already too many, because if you didn't notice that then you must have your head under a goddamn rock.  Try making something truly original and then we can start talking masterpieces.

NOTE: Me saying Crysis 3 isn't a masterpiece doesn't mean I think it's bad.  I've not played it, I don't know if it's good or bad, but you can tell just by looking at it that it's not exactly breaking the mould.

Portable Price Drops

A while ago there was a lot of people talking about how the Vita is the worst thing ever and scoffing heartily at it since sales were pretty low.  THEN, there was a price cut on the Vita in Japan and sales shot above the goddamn WiiU.

Now I'm not going to jump on any sides here, I own a 3DS and a Vita and I enjoy both of them, but anyone making comments on portable system sales before a price drop seems pretty stupid.  Hell, I got my Vita before the price drop but I got it for about the same price, used, in a place called Book Off.

Anyway the reason why commenting on system sales pre price drop is dumb is because almost every system gets one at some point.  There are HUGE numbers of people who are like "I want that, but there is no point to buy it now because the price will drop".  So this causes sales to look really bad until the cut hits and BAM, sales go out the arse because people knew this shit was going to happen.

I wasn't even going to buy a 3DS originally, not because I was waiting for a price cut but because I knew that there was obviously going to be a 3DS slim, or XL or some bullshit, so I figured I would just get that.

The new generation looks exciting, so instead of arguing about sales figures and whatnot just fucking enjoy the games, because chances are that when it comes to company finances you don't really know what your talking about anyway (myself included)

Game Centre: Serious Business

So despite having a cold (again) I went down to the game centre today and while I usually play rhythm games and top down shooters, I decided to play something I haven't touched in a long time, Tekken Tag Tournament 2.

I played a lot of Tekken 6 at university, hell, I even played a lot of Tekken 6 back in Japanese arcades in 2010.  Me and my buddies would do both pretty well online and we would even do pretty good at the game centre from time to time.

Back when I first arrived in Japan I had a few goes of Tekken Tag 2, and my local places are usually pretty quiet mid week so I spent most of my time against the computer but occasionally I'd get a game against another person and I'd do OK.  Didn't win them all but I held my own out there.

So I sat down at a packed out bank of Tekken machines today, put my 100 yen in and was instantly paired up with the guy on the other side.  Of course, the huge lack of Tekken in my life led to me getting destroyed so completely that the whole thing felt embarrassing, despite no one really giving a flying fuck.  This guy beat me down so hard that the 2 rounds I did get on him felt like cause enough to celebrate.

But this is true for pretty much every game in the game centres here (by here I mean places like Nagoya, Tokyo etc.).  If you're gonna go there you better bring your A game if you want to have any chance of winning because if not you're going to lose that 100 yen so fast that you may as well just be pouring change down the gutter.

I think with my next pay cheque I'm gonna grab a copy of Tekken Tag on the PS3 and exact some revenge on the Nagoya arcade goers.  This shit is serious!

Deus Ex: Human Defiance?

Deus Ex: Human Revolution was a pretty good game, right? 

If you ask me it wasn't as good as the original but it was a huge improvement over Invisible War and I had a lot of fun with that shit.  The only huge problem I had with Human Revolution was that it was just a bit too easy.  The original game was really quite challenging but HR I managed to breeze through on its hardest mode with basically no problem at all.

Anyway, the other day I caught news of Square Enix trademarking the title "Human Defiance" and after doing some digging I learned that this is not good news.  Human Defiance, as far as I and many other gaming websites know, is not a new game but a fucking movie.

Off the top of my head I can't thing of a single good video game movie and I don't think one exists. Why even bother doing this?  Why even bother to sink a load of time and money into making a movie that is more than likely only going to piss off fans and disappoint movie goers.

I hope this information on Human Defiance is wrong, because if this is true, we're in for some bullshit.

Where is Half Life 3? (Or Episode 3)

I love me some Half Life, but I've got concerns for this series and I'm really hoping Valve proves me wrong on this one.

Half Life 2: Episode 2 was a game released in 2007 to follow up on the events from Episode 1 and Half Life2.  The game was intense as all hell and a shit ton of fun to play and got fans more invested in the Half Life 2 plot and universe with all sorts of crazy shit going on.  But the game ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, and we have barely heard anything about an Episode 3.  It's been so long that people are thinking that Episode 3 won't even be a thing and instead we'll just get a Half Life 3 instead.

Now I've not really been following all the news too closely but after giving a quick skim of the Half Life wiki on news regarding the next game, there has been nothing super concrete and everything seems like a bit of a mystery.

What I'm worried about is that Half Life 3 will go the same way of Daikatana, Duke Nukem Forever or Too Human.  These games had huge development times and large amounts of hype, and then when they released they sucked ASS.  I trust Valve to not make a game that's shitty quality wise, but can they really deliver on the 6 years of hype that's been flying around since Episode 2?  Given the amount of time it's been, I don't think they will be able to do it, but I'm crossing my fingers and really hoping that they prove me very, very wrong.