WoW

It's been some time since I last updated my blog. There's been a good amount of stuff for me to comment on since then and I've been wondering what subject I'll talk about next. But I realized, why think so much about a blog post? It's about damn time to just talk about me having fun playing games.

I've been working on getting MGS3: Snake Eater finished before MGS3: Subsistence comes out next month. Those plans have been mostly delayed thanks to the Winter Olympics and World of WarCraft. Now that the Olympics are over, I should be playing more MGS3 (since my TV is now once again free of sports programming).

The World of WarCraft server I play on just recently had its Gates of Ahn'Qiraj opened. As you can see from the screenshot above, Silithus was jam packed with players wanting to join in on the opening events. At 9:00:00PM the gates were opened. At 9:00:01PM, the server crashed. Three times, to be exact. The madness didn't stop there. For the next two hours after the opening, that I played, I experienced the most amount of lag that I've ever seen since the times when I played WoW via dial-up. Ugh. Let's not forget to mention the extreme queue times my server is now experiencing. Anyway, despite the lag and the crashes, the event was a total blast. Sometimes it's just fun to get in a guild raid and kill things mindlessly without having to worry about strategies. We even tried to take out a huge ass bug, which naturally kicked the crap out of us in 5 minutes. Rage mode FTW.

This Saturday (Feb 25, 2006) I finally was able to join the guild raid kill of Ragnaros and thus have killed every boss in Molten Core. Naturally, I had to take a screenshot. Sure everyone else has taken a similar screenshot, but what the hell, I was proud of having completed Molten Core. Who's that silly druid in the background ruining my picture? I'm still waiting for the priests with more DKP to get their Eye of Divinity so I can finally get my stupid Benediction staff. Freaking Major Domo should drop an EoD everytime he's killed!

Against my money-saving-inner-voice, I went ahead and imported Street Fighter Zero 3 for the PSP. It came with this attachment that is supposed to improve the PSP's dpad. I can't really say whether it'd work or not because I'd rather not glue a permanent and ugly attachment over my PSP's dpad. Other than the PSP's stupid controls, SFZ3 for the PSP is awesome. Arcade perfection in portable form. Makes me kinda want to find SFA3 for the GBA and compare them. I still wouldn't recommend buying a PSP though. It's over a year old now and still without any games that make it stand out. Oh well, I'm stuck with my stupid purchase. At least I didn't buy an expensive space heater. coughxbox360cough.

I also bought Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X for the PSP despite recently buying the Mega Man X Collection for the GCN. I just wanted to see what they changed. For the most part, the game is exactly the same. All Capcom did was change the layout of a couple stages to incorporate the changed locations of the armor upgrades. A nice touch was adding a new difficulty and a new game where you can play as Vile. Pretty cool stuff. Playing as Vile is a nice new challenge that I'm enjoying. I wonder if they'll update the other Mega Man X games too.

Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X also included a demo of the upcoming update to Mega Man 1. I can't stand this game. Mega Man is rendered in the super deformed style. I can't correctly time my jumps at all thanks to the huge ass head that Mega Man has now. It may sound stupid... but it really is the truth. My jumping and timing is all thrown off by the art style. I'll stick to my Mega Man Anniversary Collection.

I'd love to go to E3 this year so I can play some Revolution games. I can't wait!

Stop ruining the fun for everyone else

I was at the Sunnyvale Golfland Arcade today with some of my friends for its special $6-infinite-play evening. It was very nice. Not too many people. Nearly all arcade games set to Free Play. Bliss... or so I would think.

There is one aspect of the arcade scene that I do not like at all. You know those people that are better at you at acrade games like Street Fighter II? Did you know that the majority of them are total jerks? You see them standing around watching other people's games and seemingly not interested in using a free machine on their own. Well, that is until you sit down to play the game yourself. They wait until you put your money in and play a couple of games before they decide to join in and just ruin all your fun. This doesn't matter as much for an infinite play evening, but the idea is still the same.

Why do these asses have to ruin all your fun? Yes, I know I'm not that good of a gamer as you are. I don't fucking care if you can play Street Fighter II with one hand tied behind your back (yes, that happened tonight to a friend of mine). It's a nice and impressive skill I'm sure, but it's both impractical in real play and makes you look like a jerk all at the same time.

So why bother showing off? Do you get a boost to your ego for beating up on a n00b or average gamer? No one benefits from these actions. It only ruins the fun for the average arcade gamers. If you had any honor, you'd try your fancy one-handed street fighting against a fellow expert street fighter. Do that to show off your skill. And I must stress this point again, beating up on n00bs or average gamers just makes you look like an asshole.

Of course, there are also those people that insist on insulting you while you're playing. "Oh my god you suck." "Holy crap, don't you know what you're doing?" "Get off the machine, you're wasting people's time." You know what? It's people like these that ruin the arcade experience. Arcades are not just for the expert gamers. They're for everyone to enjoy. Arcades are a place for both serious competition and friendly carefree gaming.

You want to know the real reason why arcades are fading away? It's because of the jerks that think they own the place just because they can pwn n00bs. To those jerks, all I have to say is: Get a fucking life and let the average arcade gamer have their fun.

Microsoft knows not of shame

Microsoft has announced that Halo 2 will be released for the PC. If this a normal Halo product announcement, I'd be saying "who gives a fuck" right about now. But this isn't a normal Halo product announcement. Microsoft, in all of its glory and wisdom, has announced that Halo 2 will be only for PCs with the Windows Vista operating system. Now, PCs aren't video game consoles. But hell, I think this is just a low brow attempt on Microsoft's part to make people upgrade to their new resource hog of an OS. So not only do the PC gamers that want to play Halo 2 on their PC (all 3 of them) have to buy the new OS, but they have to buy hardware that is compatible and powerful enough to run it. That's a huge kick in the already drained wallet of a gamer.

What next I wonder? Every 5 years will Microsoft release a new version of Microsoft Office that only runs on the latest OS? Are we going to be forced to buy booster packs for Vista just to get the latest security upgrades? I'm sure there will be tons of upgrades and hotfixes. Shits and giggles abound.

If there's one thing I hate Microsoft for, it's for allowing developers to patch their Xbox games after their released. I expect that for the PC just because there is so much variation it's almost impossible to get everything working 100% on every system configuration. Patching doesn't belong in consoles. It makes developers lazy. Instead of making the game the best it can be when it launches, developers will just "half-ass it and fix it later if anyone notices" as seen in many of Team Ninja's games.

I'm sure there are benefits to being able to add content to a console game. New maps are always nice I guess. How many people actually use the downloaded maps for those game though? I'd say only the fanatics do. I'd like to see more effort on developers' parts on getting the game right the first time. Isn't that more important than having your game look like a hack job?

Spartan: Total Warrior

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been playing Spartan: Total Warrior since the beginning of the New Year. I know that in that post I said I would have a review for the game ready in a couple of days, but I never foresaw the difficulties I would have in the story mode, and thus I did not review the game until now.

Visually, Spartan is impressive. The environments for each of the missions are nicely detailed and full of life. Even more impressive is that while playing, the player will be surrounded (literally) by at least several dozen NPCs and/or enemy soldiers. Sure, the NPCs and soldiers have a low polygon count, but this is understandable given that so many enemies are on screen at one time. You’ll never notice this while fighting anyway.

At the heart of Spartan is a classic arcade style beat-em up that successfully recreates the gameplay that is expected from the genre. The controls, for the most part, are very simple with the face buttons consisting of vertical and horizontal attacks, jumping, and a context sensitive action button. The controls become slightly more complicated when dealing with button combinations to block, deflect enemies, roll, or shoot arrows. Rolling to avoid enemy attacks is somewhat useless, as you are not given direct control over which direction you roll in. Instead a roll will circle about the nearest enemy.

My biggest complaint about the control style is how the game handles shooting arrows. Rather than giving the player an easy means of aiming their shot, the aiming system will automatically lock on the nearest enemy and force the player to slowly shift through the queue of targets one by one before selecting that barrel that they want to blow up. Keep in mind that the player is still vulnerable to attack while selecting their target. It’s not the best aiming system for such a high paced game. It only leads to frustration and could have been easily avoided by implementing an aiming system like the one found in Resident Evil 4.

Each mission in the game is basically the Spartan vs. the entire enemy army. There’s hardly a moment when the Spartan isn’t surrounded by at least 20 or so enemy soldiers. Each mission has its own set of objectives ranging from setting buildings on fire, destroying key enemy resources, or the dreaded “protect the NPC(s)”. Protecting NPCs in this game isn’t as bad as in others, but only if you run ahead of the NPCs and kill the soldiers before the NPC gets there. If you don’t do that, the NPCs literally commit suicide by running up to attack the soldiers. Unarmed citizens versus battle hardened Romans – you get the picture.

The missions as a whole don’t provide much variety. Most of the challenge comes from being surrounded at all times by the enemy – naturally, you can only block in one direction at a time. However, the biggest problem with the game comes from the way the missions themselves are divided. Each mission has at least three submissions where upon completing a submission, the game will autosave your progress. This is kind of a mixed blessing as while I appreciate not having to restart a mission from the beginning, I usually found myself too low on health to face the onslaught of the remaining Roman army. The low number of health recharge stations and the fact that enemies won’t drop health unless you’re nearly dead doesn’t help this issue. (If you’re curious to know, this alone was the reason for my long time it took me to write this review).

I’d also like to point out that this game would have greatly benefited with multiplayer capabilities. Killing soldiers by yourself is fun, but if your friend(s) can join in would make it all the more fun.

There is also an Arena mode that lets you use the unlocked items from mission play in a gladiator style battle. It is a novel concept but I found it to be less fun than the missions because of the total lack of mission objectives. In the arena, your only mission is to survive the waves and wave of soldiers and get a high score – fun for a while, but gets old pretty quickly.

Needless to say, even with all of these complaints Spartan: Total Warrior is still a very enjoyable game. It may be a frustrating experience at times, but if it didn’t have these challenges it would have been a very generic beat-em up. I especially like that you are able to replay any of your favorite missions at any time after you’ve completed it.

If you enjoy beat-em ups like Final Fight or Dynasty Warriors, you should check out Spartan: Total Warrior. Let’s all hope that there will be multiplayer modes in the sequel.

Dumbass Quote of the Century

"Nintendo games aren't going to hold up."

That's what Xbox Live Arcade manager Greg Canessa has to say about Nintendo's Virtual Console technology in the upcoming Revolution. Is he really suggesting that games like Bejeweled, Joust, and Breakout have more and longer lasting appeal than Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda? Or is he just being hypocritical? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Xbox Live Arcade just a fancy GUI based emulator as well?

A friend of mine, Shay from Rattox.com, says: "If a game is good, it's good forever." That statement is mostly correct (with a few exceptions). If a game was fun 20 years ago, it doesn't mean that it's still not fun today? If Canessa's feelings were true, then why is there such demand for retro games?

In the end, Microsoft should be pleased. For once, Nintendo is actually taking another company's idea. It's just that when Nintendo does it, it'll be better thanks to the much richer game library and history.

It's okay to be jealous, Mr. Canessa.

Shadow of the Colossus Art Book

Amazon.co.jp has a listing for a Shadow of the Colossus Art Book that includes pictures of unused colossi. Pretty neat stuff, as shown by this forum post on Games Are Fun. Again, I wish more merchandise like this would reach our shores (without having to import).

Nintendo DS lite

What the heck just happened? Didn't Nintendo just say that there's no redesign in the works for the Nintendo DS? And yet, here we are with a new announcement that the Nintendo DS lite will be released on March 2nd.

Now, I don't mind the redesign all that much. Sure I'm annoyed that Nintendo keeps releasing better designed handheld systems after I buy them, but it's something that I should be used to and expect from Nintendo by now. I was never really happy with the NDS design anyway. To me, it's too bulky and heavy to be a portable system. The NDS lite's design is not all that dissimilar to the design that I drew in a previous post. The main point of my drawing was to show that the new design would be slimmer. My guess was correct (I even guessed correctly about a brighter screen!).

Based on the image that Nintendo provided, it seems as though the directional pad and face buttons will be made of the same plastic that is used for the GameBoy Micro's buttons. Good choice. Something that I don't like is how the bottom LCD screen seems to be elevated (or at least have a ridge around the screen). This ridge/elevation is on the original NDS design as well, but it seems more pronounced in the NDS lite.

Sony could learn a thing or two from this design (another of Nintendo's seemingly Apple inspired designs). Note that the Nintendo DS can no longer be powered off by accident (power button is now in a similar position as it is on the GBm - or seems to be at least). I've never had that problem with the NDS myself, but others complain about it now and then. And while Select and Start have been moved, they seem to be very easily accessible still.

The real question to me is: Will it continue to use the old GBA SP/NDS charger or use the GBm charger? Hopefully it'll be either one. Yet another charger would suck. I also think Nintendo has learned its lesson about not having a standard headphone audio jack in their systems, so there should be no problem about that. I'd also like to know if Nintendo is going to replace the crappy volume slider in the NDS. I hate the volume slider on the NDS. It sucks - I can never adjust the volume to a level that I like.

Looks like I'm replacing my bulky NDS afterall.

Six days...

I haven't posted lately about Shadow of the Colossus. I haven't lost interest in the game yet - I've just been busy with other games. I only write about SotC today to inform everyone that in less than six days, SotC will be finally released in Europe. Those poor gamers had to wait a long time for this game. Believe me Europe, it's worth the wait. Sony has officially updated the Shadow of the Colossus website for those new languages.

The one thing that bothers me though is that the European version of the website has a much more artistic design that fits the SotC universe. It is far better than the Japanese and American versions. This leads me back to my previous complaints about box art for American games. Why does America get these cold and unartistic designs? Is it just a matter of getting the game logo in as big a print as possible? Or is it that publishers (or marketers) think that artistic designs won't sell the product?

At least give us something relevant to the game's universe and subject matter, okay guys? Let there be no more fiascos like that of ICO. Thanks.

My week in review

My week has been pretty eventful. The majority of it was spent playing Spartan: Total Warrior - a game I recently received in the mail. I'll be reviewing it in a day or so.


If you didn't already notice, I achieved my first Onyxia kill on Friday. It's something I'm very proud of. The battle seemed very basic overall due to Onyxia's limited AI. Don't get me wrong, the battle was still challenging - she hits very hard. You try playing as a priest and keeping your group healed along with the main tank. =D

The battle did remind me of fighting the dragon boss from Phantasy Star Online. In either case, it was damn cool. I can't wait to go to Onyxia's Lair again.

While I was out shopping earlier this week, I got the chance to try out the Black demo from EA. Hmm... I suppose I should choose my words carefully from here on. Let's put it this way. Based on what I played, Black seems like an average FPS. The only differences I saw were an AI system that is seemingly loosely based on AI found in Halo and that hiding behind objects is now out of the question as bullets now destroy windows, walls, cars, barrels, etc. Of course, while I did find it neat that games like Black now have more realistic bullets and physics, I should point out that Black seemingly does not do anything else to push the envelope of the FPS gameplay style to make them interesting again. We'll have to wait to see if Black offers anything more than just faster paced gameplay. I personally wouldn't hold my breath - but then again I'm not a big fan of FPS games.

I'd also like to point out to everyone that it was proven that shooting cars won't cause them to explode (as proven by the Mythbusters). I'm sure this is true for barrels as well.

Back to Black for a moment, I'd like to point out that while playing I found myself struggling with the PS2's controls to keep up with where I wanted to move and aim. It could be that the movement speed just needs adjusting or the controls are not yet tuned to perfection yet. Of course, those are developer's reasons (if they were to respond to my comments). The real reason is that the controller just doesn't feel right for the FPS genre. I'm sure there are some that will disagree with me, but those people are Halo fans and thus their stupid opinions don't count. Console FPS games should give the user the option to use a mouse and keyboard - the only way to play a FPS (unless the Nintendo Revolution can do better).

I also found it awkward to have the crouch button placed on the L2 button. In my opinion it should be placed on one of the face buttons where it can be accessed easier. Customizable controls will fix that problem.

Also, at the same store where I played the Black demo a customer was chatting with the salesclerk about the Xbox 360. Naturally, I listened in on their conversation for a while. Basically, the customer was non stop praising the Xbox 360. He even boasted that once the Xbox 360s are more available, he'll buy a new one and sell his old one so that he'll have a system that doesn't have any hardware problems. He never really mentioned how great the games for the Xbox 360 are - he only mentioned the graphics. Beautiful graphics. Is that all the system has to offer? He didn't mention any game titles. The closest he came to mentioning a game was when he said "that football game." In any case, this type of "gamer" pisses me off the most. Games shouldn't be played for their visual appeal. To me, gameplay rules above all.

I also found it funny that he's going to buy Burnout Revenge for the Xbox 360 even though he has it already for the Xbox. Not that I think he played it all that much though - he said that there's only one track in Burnout Revenge and commented that Burnout 3 had a lot more tracks. But whatever, I just think that if you're going to praise a game you should at least play more than the basic unlocked levels.


Moving off the subject of video games, I'd like to complain about DVDs. More specifically, DVD releases from anime publishers. I once complained about how many different DVD releases Neon Genesis Evangelion was getting. There was first the standard edition (8 discs), then the compilation package (all 8 in one package), then the director's cut DVDs, then the platinum edition (7 discs), and finally the platinum compilation package. There might be a remastered eidtion in there somewhere... I don't remember though. I thought it couldn't get worse than this. I was wrong. The Robotech series is now the king of re-releases. It first had the standard releases, roughly 4 episodes per disc (85 episodes total, Robotech audio tracks only). Then three compilation packages, one package for each "generation" in the Robotech series. Then came the Macross/Southern Cross/Mospeada editions that have both the Robotech audio track and the original Japanese audio tracks. Then came the Remastered editions, followed by the Protoculture Collection package (Robotech audio tracks only). And now finally, the most recent release with the original Japanese audio track and a new English track.

I don't care much for the new English audio track - it just doesn't sound right since I'm so used to the Robotech audio track. What I'm most pissed off about is why they have to release so many god damn versions of Robotech. I can understand the reason for the Macross releases - Robotech is basically a huge cut and paste of the Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada shows. I don't know about the rest of you, but it pisses me off to buy a series on DVD only to find out that the studios are going to release a (usually) better version of the same series you just bought. Maybe it's just me...

(If you're curious, I own the non compilation Neon Genesis Evangelion Platinum Edition DVDs and the Robotech Protoculture Collection. I'm really interested in seeing the original Macross story though - I hear it's quite different from the Robotech story.)

Crappy American Box Art

Yet again, North America is screwed out of the beautiful box art featured on the Japanese release. Just take a look at the Japanese box art for Street Fighter Zero 3 Double Upper.


And now take a look at the box art for Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max.


Why do game companies change the box art when they release the game over here? Why?! I'm sure some marketing guy would say: "the box art is changed to better catch the eyes of American customers" or some garbage like that. I just hate it when they ruin the artistic value of a game's box art just so they can make the game's logo stand out more. I hate it. It's garbage. It looks awful. Give me my Japanese box art.

Phantasy Star Online Returns

I have found myself drawn back into playing Phantasy Star Online ever since I found this site. I've always wanted to play PSO online with my friends, but was never willing to pay a monthly fee to do so (I didn't have a Dreamcast at the time the first PSO was around and thus could not play on those free servers). It wasn't until PSO Episodes 1 & 2 was released for the GameCube that I really got to sit down and play PSO. And while I had fun, I still didn't get to play multiplayer - on or offline. World of WarCraft ended my PSO playing. Now that I've found a free server to play on, some of my friends and I have found ourselves being drawn back to PSO. We can finally play online now. And I must say that, for it time, PSO did online multiplayer beautifully. Now where can I get my character one of those Spread Needle rifles?

Nintendo also sucks

As usual, once we spend our money on one of their handhelds, Nintendo announces either a new handheld or an update to the current one. In this case, roughly a year and a half ater after its launch, the Nintendo DS will see an update. My guess is that the new design will look very similar to the GBA SP. It won't have a bulky and curved clam shell design that it currently has. I expect the updated Nintendo DS to be slimmer and flatter if not totally flat. It should keep it's current size screen, if not improved (brighter, slightly larger, more pixels). See my crappy concept illustration below.


This would make the Nintendo DS a much easier and lighter handheld to carry around - one of my biggest complaints about the Nintendo DS. It'll still have the GBA slot thanks to using left over parts from the GameBoy Micro design. Watch me sell my old style Nintendo DS and buy the slimmer one like the idiot that I am. Stupid Nintendo. =D

Apple Sucks

I hate Apple. No, not because there's a lack of a gaming scene on their Macintosh platform. It's because they make everything so god damn sexy, people think that they just have to own one or look uncool.

Now, I don't own an iPod. This is because I only listen to the music that is being played while I'm playing a game. There are some exceptions of course. I'm just not interested in the iPod. Plus, I don't like how freaking everyone, especially teenagers, walk around with those damn white iPod ear-buds stuck in their ears.

Anyway, the Apple product that I am really interested in is their computers. I like the sexiness of the operating system. It just seems so simple. It just seems to do everything right that Windows has gone wrong. I was actually thinking about buying a Mac Mini, but decided against it because I'm not looking for another desktop system. I have been looking for a notebook though, I for a while I thought that the Power Book was the way to go. Of course, the only thing that really stopped me were the facts that the Apple platform is just too expensive and Apple just announced the new Intel based notebooks - the MacBook Pro. And yes, the new notebook is the king of Apple sexiness.

I really want to start playing around and working with Macs. It seems more and more jobs require knowledge of the Mac platform nowadays. There is the illegal course - VMware plus finding the developer ISO of x86 Mac OX. But I don't want to screw up my main computer - and if I can't play a Blizzard game, I'm not a pleasant person to be around. I guess I'll just have to wait until I have more disposable money.

Arcades dead? Not yet.

I'd like to respond to this article, posted at Slashdot, that states that the arcade scene in the U.S. is dead. He justifies his claim by leading towards the notion that Dance Dance Revolution dumbed down the gamers at arcades.

If you actually think about it, arcades were already declining in attendance by the time that DDR came around. In fact, DDR probably re-energized the arcade scene for a good 5 years. It brought gamers back to the arcades. It gave them an experience that they could not find at home.

And that's just it. Arcades are a place for gamers to play games that they cannot play at home. Arcades have low attendance now because, quite frankly, home consoles can now offer arcade like experiences at home. For a while, DDR did just that.

When will the next re-energizing arcade game come out? Hard to say. Home entertainment systems and video game consoles are so powerful now, there's no technological peripheral that can make arcades stand out. The fact that all next generation consoles are going to have online gaming doesn't help arcades either.

But for now, Mario Kart Arcade GP is good enough to get me back into the arcades.

Blu-ray for the win!

Microsoft, in all its wisdom, has decided that the Xbox 360 will be compatible with HD-DVD. But it's not what you think. Rather than screwing over early adopters of the Xbox 360 and release a new version with a built-in HD-DVD drive, they screw over everyone and have them buy an external HD-DVD drive for at least $300.

Naturally, it'll be an awesome peripheral as it is attached to the console via USB 2.0 and its blazing fast throughput. Yeah, right.

As any gamer should know, external perihperals are supported immensely by 3rd party developers. Granted, not all of the peripherals I linked to were accessories intended to be a major part of that console's gaming, but keep in mind that some were. The HD-DVD peripheral falls into the latter category.

For an extra $300, Microsoft is going to have a hard time influencing people that they need that drive. Especially if they want to further promote the Xbox 360 as the wave of the future. Hmm... I wonder... $400-500 would get me a PS3 that already has the latest optical disc technology while for an additional $300 (on top of a $400 console) you could get the other format for your year old Xbox 360. Yeah, tough choice there.

How much you wanna bet that Microsoft will screw themselves over and release Halo 3 only on the HD-DVD format? I can only hope... I'm dying to see the Halo series die. If not Halo 3, definitely Halo 4. Keep up the awesome work Microsoft! Way to let Sony walk all over you.

A new dawn

2005 is coming to a close. This year we saw World of WarCraft literally beat the life out of every other PC game released this year. We saw the slow trickle of Nintendo DS games being released. We saw both the uneventful launch of the Sony PSP and the embarassing world wide introduction to the next generation of consoles with the Xbox 360. And lastly, we watched as the layer dust on top of our GameCubes increased at an exponential rate.

In a few words, 2005 was kinda boring for gaming. We had a handful of stand out titles, but for the most part we saw a bunch of lame rehashes. It didn't help that the biggest title of the year, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, was pushed back to Spring 2006.

The tip off that 2005 would be boring should have been obvious, judging from this year's pathetic E3 showing. Will 2006's E3 be better? Only if Nintendo shows off playable Revolution games and Sony shows off playable PS3 games. Sorry guys, tech demos won't cut it. If Microsoft wants any chance at beating the Ps3, they had better get the Japanese developer support that the Xbox 360 so desperately needs. And no, having games that will appear, or have appeard, on a Sony console won't help the Xbox 360 one bit.

What am I looking forward to in 2006? I'm just dying to play The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Hearing that the game will be playable with the Revolution controller is an unnecessary, but welcome, bonus. Just don't fuck it up. Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence should be cool. I hate the new camera angle, but I'm interested in the online mode and the movie DVD that's included. I'm also looking forward to the upcoming expansion pack for World of WarCraft. And that's about it. I'm sure there's more on my wish list for 2006, they're just not interesting enough titles for me to take the time to mention.

I will say that I'll be buying the Nintendo Revolution at launch - just because I have to. Hopefully there will be an actual Mario game to play this time. Luigi sucks. If we're lucky, we'll also get a Metroid title at launch.

I'm still on the fence about the PS3. My guess is that its launch will be very similar to the Xbox 360. It'll have a title or two that is "unique" to the new platform plus 20 ports from the current generation. Keep in mind that the two "unique" titles will be nothing special either. I'll most likely wait until (a) Sony lowers the price of both the console and the games, (b) Sony gets rid of the systems that are guaranteed to die and DRE after a couple of months, and most importantly (c) the PS3 gets a good amount of quality games.

And since every Dick, Tom, and retard has a top "something" of the year list, here's mine:

Top 5 Games of 2005
1) Shadow of the Colossus (PS2)
2) Civilization IV (PC)
3) Mario Kart DS (Nintendo DS)
4) Lumines (PSP)
5) Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (Nintendo DS)

I should add as a side note that I would have put World of WarCraft as #1 on my list (I did spend roughly 240 hours playing this one game over the past year), but it was released in 2004.

And just for fun, here are the worst games of 2005.
1) Burnout Legends (Nintendo DS)
2) Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects (Nintendo DS)
3) Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects (GCN, PS2, Xbox, PSP) (tie)

Amazingly, I still have my free copy of Marvel Nemesis (PS2) in mint condition, shrinkwrap and all. Yes, that's right, I have not burnt this game yet - that would be a waste of a perfectly good match.

Let's all hope that 2006 will have more memorable games and at the same time show us what the next generation of gaming will really be like. Happy New Year!

Even more Shadow of the Colossus videos

I finally found a site with all 16 colossi speed run videos. These guys are really really insane with the way they kill the colossi. I highly recommend watching this batch. Enjoy!

Also note that these videos come from the Japanese version and that the killing blow to the colossi have a cool bullet-time slowdown effect. I wonder why I this little minute detail was left out of the American version.

New Epic items

I got some cool new epic priest tier 1 gear in Molten Core today: Pants of Prophecy and Vambraces of Prophecy. I still have yet to obtain the Eye of Divinity so I can get Benediction. Hopefully that will drop this Saturday. If you're wondering about the Benediction quest, I found some videos that show what a priest has to do to obtain the kick ass staff. Wish me luck!

Catching up

I haven't talked about recent events in the video game industry lately. So I guess this is as good a time as any.

The Xbox 360 has finally reached all three major markets: USA, Japan, and Europe. While the Xbox 360 isn't doing as well as Microsoft hoped (which was expected as such by me), the system is pretty much dead in the water at this moment in Japan. Despite what ever pompous comment J Allard has to say about the Xbox 360 launch lineup, I feel that it's the lineup that is hurting the Xbox 360 the most. Sure it has awesome graphics and a snazzy new integrated Xbox Live interface but what does all of this fancy crap mean when there's nothing worth playing? It's really sad that Activision's Call of Duty 2, a PC port and the #1 selling Xbox 360 title in the U.S., is the game that shows what the hardware can do. Of course, CoD2 and Kameo were the only two playable titles at every demo station so that could have only helped that game to sell more. In fact, there's not one title in the lineup that hasn't been already seen in some way or form on another platform. And Microsoft wants us to pay $400 for the system plus $60 per game? I don't think so.

Oh, and kick ass job on adding the dated Final Fantasy XI demo with every Xbox 360 system in Japan. There no better way to show off the abilities of a new system with a PS2 port. Kudos!

The fact that the PSP is tanking in every market is not surprising. It's been out since March 2005 and there still is not even one must have title. Yes, I do enjoy Lumines very much, but it is by no means a must have title. If you think about it, the PSP suffers from the same problem that the Xbox 360 is suffering from. All PSP titles to date are simply direct ports from the PS2 - minus some features but with the same exact price. Huzzah!

And I still think that anyone that buys a UMD movie is a dumbass. DVDs are perfectly fine thank you. DVDs have an added bonus, for a lower price you get better quality and more extras. WOW!

Poor Nintendo. The GameCube platform is fading away from gamers' memories. Oh where art thou Link? Come and bring back the life to our GameCubes. On the other hand, the Nintendo DS is fairing very well thanks to Nintendogs (not my kind of game, but my girlfriend really enjoys it). The games that really valided my purchase of a Nintendo DS are Castlevania and, of course, Mario Kart DS. I do hate the fact that Mario Kart DS is missing an online Battle Mode, but hopefully Nintendo will learn from this and no exclude a major feature of their future online games. I'm even more amazed that the Game Boy Advance is still selling as well as it is. It didn't really have any big titles until the end of the year - that being Final Fantasy IV Advance.

Well if you think about it, the Nintendo DS had a very slow start. Maybe the PSP will have a better go in 2006. Or maybe not... look out for the PS3 and Revolution. 2007 maybe? Hmm... no, Nintendo will probably announce the Game Boy Evolution at that year's E3. The PSP is screwed.

Speaking of the Revolution, some hardware specs have been unveiled. While there's no way of knowing these specs are true, they are very interesting. Personally, I feel Nintendo is doing exactly as they said they would when they announced the GameCube. They said that the GameCube platform will be used for the next 10 years or so (I'd quote it, but I can't find the original comment nor a reference to quote from other than my memory). This statement will hold very true if the Revolution is just an upgraded GameCube. Without snazzy graphics to make the casual gamer sheep follow the revolution, Nintendo will have to have so really kick ass titles at launch and soon after launch. Hopefully, unlike the GameCube, the Revolution will launch with a Mario game. A Metroid title would really help in the U.S.

I do applaud Nintendo for trying to bring new ways of game playing to the industry. However, at the same time, I'm worried that casual gamers won't be as interested in playing something so radically new. It's not as "safe" as playing on the PS3 or Xbox 360 where you're guaranteed to play a sequel or something you've already seen previously. Let's hope my worries aren't warranted.

Leaving the City of Villains

For the past month, I've tried my best to stay interested in City of Villains. I even purposely stopped my WoW subscription in order to give this game a fair chance. Needless to say, I still barely played the game. It's just not that much fun. I found the missions to be repetitive. Every mission is "go here and kills all these mobs" for whatever reason seems dandy at the time. Occasionally you'll get to "collect" items for your mission giver, but even then the mission itself is basically the same kill everything style. From what I'm told, this mission style is the same as City of Heroes. While CoH was a great MMO, one must remember that it came out before World of WarCraft. City of Villains could have taken the successful CoH and improved upon it by adding some WoW-like features (or more of them, depending on how you see it). In order to be successful in this post WoW MMO genre, you can't simply re-release last year's game with a minor graphics update. You have to take what innovations you can from that other game, and try to improve upon it.

That kinda leads me to my next gripe about CoV. You just don't feel evil. You want be become a member of Lord Recluse's army... for some unknown reason. Alternatively, being a hero is easy - all you have to do is stop evil doers from their insane schemes. And since CoV is essentially CoH with a new coat of paint, your supposed villain is acting more like a hero to the bad guys rather than a bad guy to the heroes. In order to be a successful villain, you have to have some schtick, a reason for being bad, some overall grand scheme to take over the world... hell, even simple revenge would work. That being said, CoV's story structure is just too generic to achieve the feel of being evil.

Whenever I did play CoV, I found myself wishing it played more like WoW. I wanted the Stalker class character I created to play like a Rogue from WoW. I wanted the UI to be more friendly and simple, just like it is in WoW. Okay, I'll admit it. I wanted WoW in comic book form. Oh well, time to cancel my CoV subscription and resubscribe to WoW.

Lesson learned: When you release a stand-alone expansion pack, it had better be vastly improved over the previous title. Otherwise it'll feel dated. Oh, it'd also help that a game about being a bad guy makes the user feel like they're being evil.