Mass Effect for (fairly) cheap

GAME's current offer of the week is pretty nice. Well not really, but at least a couple of good games are available for discount. Included is the porn-filled (according to a lying conservative blogger) Mass Effect for £30, BioShock (360) for £25 and Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters for fifteen quid. All are well received by critics and gamers alike so make sure you pick 'em up if you haven't already. I will have to pass Mass Effect until the inevitable PC port but Size Matters is currently on my to-play list.

House cleaning dood!

After much internal debating I finally halved my games and DVD film collection. As many collectors would attest, it is nice having a huge collection but sometimes these can get out of hand. I just thought that there ought to be a boundary somewhere on whether one should keep their collection for the sake of keeping. Kudos to people with huge dens where they have thousands of games and films but unfortunately I do not have the space, nor the money and patience to keep up. So I learn to let go.

It is nice having the extra space for other shits. You know, like more games and DVDs... ;)

Been replaying Disgaea much lately thanks to the Etna mode on the PSP version. Wonderful port BTW with Japanese voice acting FTW. Expect a glowing review in the near future. Speaking of Disgaea, check out the intro from Disgaea 3:



Sweet Laharl, Etna and Flonne making cameos here. I feel so justified clearing out the games that I hardly ever touched anyway, making way for a future copy of Disgaea 3. Come on SCEE, with the dollar getting hammered do you still think it is okay we pay near double the Americans do???

God of War: Chains of Olympus: Battle of Attica review

I finally got the chance to play the demo version of Ready at Dawn's God of War: Chains of Olympus. The demo is a little outdated now (having been released in October last year) and the developer has since continued pushing ahead with improvements towards gameplay as well as visuals. For example, aliasing and frame rates were visible (but not too distracting) problems in the demo but appears to have been fixed according to reviewers who played the latest built.


Anyway a couple of things first. First, I found that the controls to work surprisingly well with the analog pad used exclusively to control Kratos movement. I had issues with using the PSP's analog pad due to its location but being forced to use it here actually helped me get use to the placement that I may consider using the pad in racing games. Some might have expressed concern over the lack of right analog pad nub that was used in the PS2 games for dodging moves. Because the PSP lacks the necessary hardware to emulate the PS2's right analog stick, in order to dodge the player has to hold down both shoulder triggers and flick the left analog pad in the direction where the player wants Kratos to dodge. It takes some getting used to, but it isn't a huge loss as I never thought that moving my right thumb from the face buttons to the right analog stick was an intuitive enough. With the PSP, the right thumb can always stay close to all four face buttons. On the whole the controls works very well and I had no problem executing combo moves.


The demo consists of the 'Battle of Attica' level where Kratos battles invading Persian soldiers. There is a tutorial level where the player is taught with certain aspects of the controls. The first 'boss' of the game, a Basilisk who rudely interrupted a Cyclops by eating him, wasn't as easy as I thought. This was because I was still trying to get a hang on the controls (specifically the aforementioned dodge controls). But after I mastered the controls I managed to bring down the giant creature and continued with the adventure, button mashing Kratos's way through enemies and dodging incoming cannonballs and arrows to meet the Persian King boss. While technically more difficult than the first boss, having now got the controls right I defeated him with ease. This boss fight however is a compelling reason why QTE (Quick Time Events) should be destroyed from video gaming history, as it was the only feature I found annoying in both previous God of War games.


Anyway, the demo ended abruptly soon after which was a bummer, but at least they loaded it with a video commentary by the director. While the demo is short, it does offer an incredible insight on what Ready at Dawn are capable of, especially with the ridiculously good PS2-level visuals. Come March we will see just how much improvements they make. But seriously, they could just ship the game now and it would still be justifiable.

You can preorder God of War: Chains of Olympus here.

Amazon MP3 gets big four

I really do applaud Amazon's effort to shake up the music industry and get all four major music labels to sell DRM-free music tracks on their website. But what does it mean to us outside the US? Absolutely nothing. The service has yet to launch outside of North America so it means our Ipod-toting yuppie mates will still be buying their tunes from major DRM offenders Apple, or torrenting them. The sensible ones like us who will still be buying lossless CDs with nice art covers, as music downloads with no-DRM is still nothing if it is encoded in archaic lossy MP3 format.

First one to drop MP3 and offer sensibly priced DRM-free lossless legal downloads will get me to ditch CDs.

Darth Vader in Soul Calibur IV

Well there you have it, Soul Calibur IV like Soul Calibur II will contain console exclusive bonus characters. If I had a PS3, I would definitely get the PS3 version. But alas I will probably have to settle for C3PO with a broom stick when the inevitable Wii port hits. :(

PS3: Darth Vader
360: Yoda
Wii: C3PO?

Seeing red

This is what five months of maintenance neglect will bring on your harddrive as demonstrated on one of my harddrive's partition. Something tells me that I ought to allocate some time to defrag my harddrive, soon.

Video Games to look forward to

The year 2008 will be another great one for video gaming, especially with plenty of games finally arriving on the PS3 platform after years of hard development. Here are some that I will be watching out for this year, on hardwares I own. Sorry, no Dragon Quest IX here as I believe the title to be stuck in development hell after Level-5 were forced to revert the originally intended action RPG gameplay to turn-based. Expect it to be a 2009 title for English speaking nations.

Bangai-O Spirits (Treasure, DS)
Little is known about this title except that it is a multi-directional shooter made by portable king developer Treasure, and is a sequel to a N64/Dreamcast game. With four player multiplayer and level editor, the game will feature some puzzle based level designs. Make sure to check out these fantastic screenshots here.

echochrome (Sony Japan Studios, PSP)
echochrome is a puzzle game that I have been looking forward to since Sony unveiled it during last year's E3 press briefing. The PlayStation Network game is based on a rotating world taking cues from Oscar Reutersvard's impossible construction and involves the player creating the path of a mannequin by manipulating the camera's perspective. Confused? Watch the trailer here. echochrome is also set to debut on the PS3 as a PSN game.

Final Fantasy IV (Matrix Software/Square-Enix, DS)
After a positive impression with the Japanese version, I really couldn't wait for the localised version to hit Western shores. One of the best Japanese role playing games is about to get better, I can promise you that.

God of War: Chains of Olympus (Ready at Dawn, PSP)
If having a portable God of War isn't exciting enough, how about it being developed a studio founded by former developers of Naughty Dog (Uncharted) and Blizzard Entertainment (Warcraft)? That alone should be enough to pluck down for a PSP alone. Chains of Olympus is a prequel to the series and will chart everyone's favourite Spartan killer in visuals that are said to be on par with its PS2 cousins.

Nanostray 2 (Shin'en, DS)
The first Nanostray game was a masterpiece of old school gameplay design. Hampered only by the forced use of touchscreen to select weapons, Nanostray was a must for vertical shooter fans. Nanostray 2 looks set to arrive with improved visuals, as well as introducing horizontal side scrolling gameplay and shunning the dreadful touchscreen implementations. Fans of Gradius and Treasure's Ikaruga will do well in ordering this in advance, considering the long delays we may have to suffer due to Majesco's policy of limited print runs.

No More Heroes (Grasshopper Manufacture, Wii)
"Censored" or otherwise, no one should be put off from playing No More Heroes. The heavily stylised visuals combined with a sandbox style gameplay and open world is a huge departure from Suda 51's amazing but physically constrained killer7.

Odin Sphere (Vanillaware, PS2)
Like GrimGrimoire, Odin Sphere features beautifully hand drawn sprites and art work. Reviewers in other countries has praised its storyline as well as its action RPG combat system. Let us hope that we will also be getting bilingual Japanese/English voice acting as our North American cousins do.

Patapon (Sony Japan Studios, PSP)
Developed by the people behind LocoRoco, Patapon features a two-dimensional gameplay that requires the player to press the button to create a rhythm in order to control an army of minituare cutesy and adorable creature. The concept is similar to war drums used by past historical military.

Secret Agent Clank (High Impact Games, PSP)
Yay, another Ratchet & Clank platformer - this time by the former Insomniacs employers who also brought us Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters. As the title indicates, this is a spin-off title featuring Ratchet's sidekick Clank as an espionage agent (with tuxedo suit to and all) and will feature classic R&C style platforming and gun blazing, as well as Metal Gear Solid inspired sneaking gameplay.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 (Atlus, PS2)
This Megaten game has received much critical acclaim in Japan and North America, where it even caught the attention of mainstream media. While at heart still a typical Megaten RPG, the game also involves the player to involve themselves in day to day school activities such as dating and video gaming(!). One surely not to be missed. Hopefully us PAL chums will also get the FES version.

Naturally PS3 and 360 owners will have plenty more to look forward to compared to cheap gamers like meself. The lucky bastards. Anyway not all I will get to play due to the fact that there is still a huge back catalogue from 2007 I've yet to touch (particularly on the PSP platform).

So what are you looking forward to playing this year? Metal Gear Solid 4? GTA IV? Little Big Planet? Super Smash Bros. Brawl? Do tell.

Confuse London tourists with this...

...alternative tube poster by Haberly Mead, who decided to spend a day whipping up this anagrammed version to the classic Tube map. Print some and distribute them to unsuspecting tourists. Download it before the irrational lawyers of Transport of London flex their muscle.

Sorry, slow news day.