So E3 is over. Lets recap

Microsoft announces their WiiCamera.
Sony shoots itself in the foot (yet again) with PSP Go priced at 250 bucks.
Nintendo announces new Marios and Zeldas.

But it was still really good. Many games announced and showcased and I was actually pleasantly surprised by Nintendo. Maybe it was because they had nothing at all the last couple years that a year with a couple Zelda and Mario games really made them shine.

From a game enthusiast’s perspective, the 360 probably had the most to offer.

More to add later.

I wasn’t late to the party this time. I just wanted to wait for all the DLC to come out first.

Bethesda, developers of “The Elder Scrolls” free roam fantasy RPG series including the award winning Oblivion, has taken the fairly old but still beloved title by older gamers out of the wastelands that is Interplay and injected new life into the franchise. And what wonderfully bleak life it was!

Bethesda kept true to the Fallout story formula of post apocalyptic destruction. Humor, setting, and story were very strong selling points of the original Fallouts from Interplay and Bethesda did them justice.

That’s all for game play, now I’m going to talk about why Bethesda is the worst gaming company to come up with good game ideas ever. If you finished a game without game breaking bugs, consider yourself lucky. If you could play for a couple hours without a crash, I’ll bring you to my next Las Vegas trip. If you could finish the whole game on just auto saves without any crashes, I’ll say you’re a god damn liar and kick you in the balls.

The game is buggy, really, really fucking buggy. I would say it has become even worse than “TES2: Daggerfall”, the 2nd Elder Scroll game, which was practically held together with duct tape. Not only was the original vanilla game buggy, but even subsequent patches broke more than they fixed. I’m sure PC users took the worst of it simply because PC games are more prone to crashing and bugging out than console counterparts. But PC gamers can take solace in the community mod scene that fixes many of the problems of the game as well as add everything from new weapons to new quests. Some browsing of forums also seem to strongly imply that the console versions of Fallout 3 were not entirely bug free either and their closed systems make fixing issues much less simple.

None of this horror seemed to bug Bethesda as they continually release a steaming pile of shitty code after another. I’m guessing it’s just because their games are fundamentally amazing. Ridiculously expansive worlds and things to do everywhere. It’s no wonder their games are almost universally loved.

But I just can’t ignore the bugs and combined with my bad luck, I would always seem to encounter them. So word of warning for people who have still not played, make new saves and save often. Don’t rely on auto-save because it just saves over existing files. The DLC that Bethesda release also only made crashes and bugs worse so that’s something to consider as well.

Finishing note.
I’m still glad someone brought back a true classic in good form even if was bug ridden nearly to a level of unplayable, now if only someone would make a competent Freespace 3.

So apparently they’re remaking the original Persona (originally made in 1997 I believe and never localized to English). I can’t say that I’m not excited, despite being a fairly new fan to the SMT series.

And I’m holding off on doing my review of P3:FES because I feel that I should finish the ridiculously difficult “FES” section of the game before writing anything. Although if anything, the score can only go up from there because it is afterall, an additional “directors cut” of the game. It won’t really impact your overall enjoyment of the standard game even if you start getting shakes over it later.

So I picked up Demigod not expecting much, and indeed, there was not much. I was excited back when Supreme Commander made by the same developers was hyped up and it was one of the biggest disappointments of 2007 for me. So this time, I’m was not going to fall for “Gas Powered Games” internet hype again.

There’s not really much to say for this game. There’s no real singleplayer like most Stardock published games. It’s also missing a tutorial but I didn’t really have any problem with that as the concept is fairly straight forward. You play as a character who can level up and get skills in a RTS-like environment. There’s always hoards of non-controllable minions running around and the entire purpose is really to just complete the objectives whether that is kill the enemy demigods more, capture more flags, or just to kill destroy their home base. For those who played Defense of the Ancients, DOTA, that Warcraft III mod, etc etc should know exactly how this game is going to play.

While the game play is solid DOTA style action, there are some shortcomings of it. For one, there are very few demigods you can actually play which was one of the highlights of DOTA. I guess their compensation for this was more skills and items to buy but the possibility of stacked bonuses from these items and skills tend to create some quite overpowered units. A best example of why stacked bonuses are so hard to balance is EVE Online where they play by adding small percentages to their skills. But in the end, a 10% increase stacked over 15 skills and items makes a character over 300% stronger than before. Another issue I have with it is the seeming lack of depth especially considering its past form, DOTA, had so much depth in comparison. In many games, the end result is just 3-5 players using their strongest attack on a single player of the other team and there is more or less no way to counter them.  But then again, who knows, good games might take a long time before people learn how to play them balanced and Demigod is still in its infancy. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look as though there is much process in that respect just yet.

Overall, Demigod is a mediocre game. Worth borrowing from a friend for a try but not really worth the 40 bucks in my eyes.

Sadly, I still seem to anticipate all of the games that Gas Powered put out including the reported Supreme Commander 2 published by Square Enix. Hopefully, they’ll renovate the entire RTS aspect of their system so it becomes more engaging. I’m sure a few robotic maids and flying witches will spark up interest as well.

Very few games ever go into the media aside from Hot Coffee or Bisexual Alien Sex but one game has made its footprint in a very large manner. If you have not realized from the title, the screenshot, or any other references, I’m talking about Starcraft. The game that kept South Korea’s economy from collapsing is now gaining steam again in America thanks to GomTV. The company decided to bring a couple of charismatic English speaking (one of them is still Korean) announcers to do the play-by-play for the Korean high level tournaments.

While I can’t consider myself in league with any of the currently Starcraft players, I still did play it when it was just released way back in the ancient pre-2K times. In fact, I could even hold my own back then on B-net. But the game has evolved and is barely the game I played a decade ago. I do not know of these advanced strategisms, APM, or any of that other high level randomry. Regardless, after playing for a couple months with some mates last year, the mechanics of the game holds up amazingly well and is balanced to boot, especially for a game with three almost diametrically different races (at least within the RTS scope).

I feel I’m not going anywhere and all the wonderful ideas that I had on writing this post has osmosis-ized out my head. So to end it, I just want people to watch GomTV. They’re currently doing commentary on the 3rd Intel Avertec Season.
Go watch it live at http://www.gomtv.net/classics3/live/ every Sunday at 09:00 GMT (double check me on that, it doesn’t matter because there’s a timer on the site I guess)

I’m also very interested in Starcraft 2 if only because its release means there will be new meat to play an old school rts and even the pros will have to adjust to the new units and slightly altered mechanics. Relic has done a good job breaking ground for RTS and I do enjoy Warhammer and Company of Heroes, but my true RTS love still lies with the old school mechanics of attacking, defending, microing, macroing, and basebuilding. I think when those mechanics are done well, like in most Blizzard games, the overall effect is much more compelling than any of the new fangled bullshit. Same sentiments to Valve and their old school style FPS.

Oh yeah, I play terran for anyone who gives a damn. (Fuck protoss, no really, fuck them.)

I have not updated in a while. Not to sugar coat it, I’ve just been extremely lazy; and have immersed myself in playing Persona 3 FES and replaying Persona 4.

Over at GiantBomb, they’ve actually been playing Persona 4 and recording it in a one to one time frame. Meaning they’re just recording while they play and make comments on all the sexual innuendos in the game. Funny, but a group of gamers  together will find so many more possibly inappropriate scenes or even nuances in the language than a lonely guy playing by himself, shut in a dorm room. The Endurance Run, as they call it, is 20-40 minutes long recorded live and posted a couple days after wards. Fortunately to keep the pace up, they have been playing it regularly for close to a month and a half now. It’s a good show with plenty of laughs and potty humor and possibly unsettling sexual depictions of high school or younger girls.

Alongside GiantBomb’s endurance run, RebelFM also has its own interesting take on an overlooked game of last year, Bully by Rockstar. Their program takes the form of a weekly podcast and have a much more analyzing view of the game. Unlike GiantBomb merely commenting on which underage girl to bang, the RebelFM crew will contest the validity of the banging of such girl as an expression of video game art form.

Regardless, both are quite humorous and definitely well worth the listen/watch if you have long public transit times or just lots of free time.

Links below for the hyperlink hyper-handicapped.

GiantBomb P4 Endurance run:
http://www.giantbomb.com/endurance-run-persona-4-part-01/17-219/

RebelFM
http://www.eat-sleep-game.com/news/

Oh Atlus, how I love all your games. If only they were a couple dozen hours shorter.

But I can’t blame them because that’s just the format of Japanese games and Persona 4 is no exception. Besides this problem, the game is a very solid title for anyone’s jRPG collection.

First things first, I love the game because it’s like an anime. If it was just seasonal anime, I would have loved it just as much, possibly even a bit more. What I mean by this is that the game play does not offer much for my type of gamer. It’s your average menu scrolling, boss debuffing, turn based dungeon crawler. Now I’m not saying the game play is bad because it is fairly solid. You have your standard plethora of spells varying from god-like explosions to team mate revivals but those expecting something different like the combat of “The World Ends With You” will be disappointed. Unfortunately, such things are never my cup of tea which is one of the reasons I rarely ever completely complete jRPGs. After a few dungeons of crawling, they start becoming a chore and felt like work before getting to a good storyline event.

Okay, enough of the bashing because my personal score is still decent and I have to explain that. The setting takes place in a standard little town and you play as a student of the local high school. A series of events puts you and your friends in a serious investigation for the murderer of a couple townsfolk. The story is fairly deep with lessons about humanity and desire although it does become somewhat overwhelming in the end. And while the overarching story is interesting enough to continue, the intermediate events of anime humor and events kept the pace up. Another particularly strong aspect of Persona 4 were the character designs and interactions between characters and yourself. To become stronger, the main character must interact in an emotional level with all his teammates of battle as well as various town folk. Each of the character stories are well thought out and some even very emotional to an extent. The excellent soundtrack definitely contributed to everything as well.

I feel as a gamer, I’ve always played games for game play and the overall story is just a small tack on for the game mechanics to make sense. So for me to finish a game solely for the story means that it must have been something quite amazing, and it was. Game time was closing onto 50 hours yet I don’t regret any of it except possibly the 5 or so hours of extra dungeon crawling that I could have done without.

Closing statement: Unfortunately, the game is very niche and I cannot really recommend it for anyone who only like certain genres of games because the faults of it as a generic jRPG is a fairly debilitating issue.  On the other hand, those who enjoy anime humor such as myself would possibly enjoy it and those who play many jRPGs in general would probably love it.

So the PSP is getting games again. 2008 was a pretty dry year for the system. I was tying myself down on the not-so-little black rectangle with the one quality game last year that I actually enjoyed. Patapon.

There are also strong rumors going around about a PSP2 coming around with either a touch screen or dual screen. Unfortunately, with the original PSP still costing 199.99, a DUAL SCREEN TOUCH CAPABLE psp is going to be an obscene investment especially for a handheld. There is also talk about it being download-only with no more UMD support which won’t be too bad as long as they let you somehow get your old games into the flash card of the PSP2.

As far as I’m concerned, no UMD is an amazing blessing because a custom firmware flashed PSP playing “backed up” games has better battery life and loading speed than a legit PSP playing games. Not to mention backed up PSX games and every console in the SNES generation and before have a good psp emulator.

Another PSP game is also in the works which is more exciting for me than the 4 big ones that Sony announced. That one being a Disgaea 2 port. Disgaea 2 on the PS2 was fun but it was a very grindy game and grindy games for me mean I have to play it on a handheld. Slow paced games work well on handhelds (just look at Pokemon). When I’m on the computer or on a big screen TV, I need something that gets my heart pumping and head spinning.
And yet another PSP game that I’m extremely interested in is Patapon 2 but that’s for another time since I need to go back to studying chemistry.

Patapon
Patapon 2
Rockband Unplugged
Burnout Legends
Disgaea
Disgaea 2
With these six games, I won’t any more buyer’s remorse for my PSP.

I’ll first say, I did not play 75 hours within the 3 days of this game coming out. For those who care to do some math, they will realize it has not even been 75 hours since the game came out. So with some deduction, anyone with half a brain will realize I’m counting the multiplayer I played during the beta into game play time.

Relic has always created very unique (but also good) RTS that always mix up the old set in stone formula and Dawn of War 2 is no exception. This game, while not changing from the Company of Heroes style multiplayer too much, has an extremely innovative single player campaign system which, after playing I can only conclude, should be the way all campaigns of future RTS strive to become.

While all of Relic’s RTS have compelling campaign play, Dawn of War 2 take it to the next level.  Not only is base building completely removed, but unit building is removed as well. You have a set number of squads (four to be exact) and will have to guide them through each mission. Before anyone scoffs this as being “casualized”, these squads can level up and have multiple abilities both passive and active as well as are able to don armor and weapons and other utilities which can completely change how a squad is used. Mission structure is also odd since enemies do not have any bases either. You move your units around and fight groups of enemies and capture reinforcement points to reinforce the units within squads that you have lost. Each mission culminates into a final boss fight that is often surprisingly difficult if only because at higher difficulties, a single mistake could cost an entire squad or more. After finishing a mission, the overview world pops open where you could customize squads with the armors and weapons found on the battle field as well as add attribute points if any squads has leveled up. Instead of fighting a linear campaign, battles are fought within specific territories and many options are always available. More so, some missions are defensive missions and have countdown timers meaning that you cannot fight all battles especially if you cannot do well and receive extra battles within the time span of the mission.

So here comes the real opinion. I think the single player is a bit easy but even more importantly a bit repetitive. Even playing on hardest difficulty, battles are always the same strategy over and over and after understanding the dozen or so boss encounters, bosses are also somewhat of a similar bore. But despite these complaints, Dawn of War 2 campaign is still the most compelling RTS campaign I have played in a while, if not ever played. The mission structure was very reminiscent of Emperor: Dune 3000 from Westwood which I loved. The mission game play is almost like a different game compared to the multiplayer and will do much to counter the belief that single player RTS is just practice ground for multiplayer.  The loot and leveling system is addictive while it lasts (max level is fairly low) and the boss battle system is something truly innovative while not in complete originality since boss battles are fairly archaic but within the RTS game space is amazing and new.

Multiplayer can be summed up as “Company of Heroes in a sand box”. Maps are small and enemies are never more than a few seconds away. Games are also fast and furious but noticeably similar. The lack of base building and low number of creatable units makes battle strategies more or less the same every time. Scouting is also a non-issue so there is not much “metagame” as the hardcore players would put it. There are also only 7 maps which would not be so bad if the balance was not so shoddy on almost every one of them. I’ll classify the 4 races into two groups. The Ork/Tyranid mob style and the SM/Eldar slow push style. Mobbing favors wide open spaces while SM/Eldar favor closed spaces with lots of cover to funnel in mobbing units. Unfortunately, instead of a good mix of cover and space, each map is either “shitton of cover and no room to move” or “wide fucking open field”. What makes it even more frustrating is that ranked matches are random map and assuming all players are of more or less equal skill level thanks to the ingeniously well designed (read: shitty net coded) Games for Windows Live system, people would either get boned or elevated to automatic success depending almost entirely on what map is being set out.

Again, I’m being critically harsh only because I like the game. I would not be able to talk about all these problems if I did not become infatuated with the game.  I still believe it could have been so much more but if their release system is like the original, then we could expect many expansion sets to come in the near future. Fortunately, I can see very clearly how they plan on expanding the single player which is definitely the better half so I will be on the lookout for new content.

While listening to my usual round of podcasts, I heard about something very intriguing which is difficult to translate into words, the “Keyboard for Blondes”. The parody is quite apparent and anyone who should be offended by this, and I predict many probably will since it is on the internet, automatically gets the dumb blond label in my book.

Here, the picture speaks a thousand words but for those who do not care to click on the nice pink keyboard image, I’ll give a run down.

Their website is https://www.keyboardforblondes.com/

Besides the general letters, all other keys are translated from compooper language to generic girl talk. Some examples of these would be changing some of the function keys to be called “useless key”. Changing the backspace to “Oops!” and capslock to “XXL letters” although I think capslock should be changed to “HIT TO SOUND DUM”. I do enjoy the shift key changing to “Smart Blonde Button”
What makes it possibly worth the 50 bucks you’ll plop down if you care to own one are its special quick messaging functions that will automatically spout out OMG or LOL. Lots of it is very tongue in cheek like dice dots instead of numbers on the numpad, but I think it’s overall cute despite some being a bit tasteless.

In the end, it’s a very novelty keyboard and at 50 dollars apiece, it’s definitely priced as such especially when there are no extra function/media buttons. Unfortunately, I have not gotten my hands on one of these so I cannot say if the keyboard itself is good or not. Although I have heard that the keys are quite tactile and responsive.

But regardless, I think it’ll make a good gift for anyone who enjoys technology and appreciates internet humor. I certainly wouldn’t mind owning one *wink wink, hint hint*.