Sega announce Yakuza 3 western release!

Yes!!! I'm absolutely made up about this, i thought Yakuza 1&2 were both quality games and i've been drooling over the Japanese Yakuza 3 screenshots and videos ever since it was released, had nearly given up any hope of it getting a western release however due to the poor sales of the previous two games.

Scheduled for March this gives me another reason to pick up a PS3 again in the next couple of months along with Demon Souls, Valkyria Chronicles, God Of War Collection and Uncharted 2.

First quarter of the new year is shaping up rather nicely for a change.

A pleasant suprise.....

Out this week in the US, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories has been getting some pretty good reviews over the net so far. I've watched a couple of video reviews myself and was pretty impressed if i'm honest. Didn't have very expectations for this but i'm certainly hoping to pick it up now when it gets a UK release in February.

Judging by the reviews the only thing i don't like about it is the use of ice to indicate the Silent Hill Otherworld as opposed to the trademark blood red rust style visuals.
It certainly does appear to be a pretty brave game in general and a world away from the pitiful cash-in i had assumed it would be.

Here's hoping that when i actually get to play it that it lives up to these new expectations!

Outrun 2 (Multi)

For years we waited for a (proper) sequel to the classic Sega coin-op Outrun but it never came, then when it finally did in 2003 arcades were practically dead in the west and the Burnout series had taken over the home console market by designing a suitably Sega styled arcade racer (Burnout 2).













There was still place however for a great update to a classic series and this is certainly what Sega provided with Outrun 2. Gorgeous graphics, a great remixed soundtrack and silky smooth fast gameplay meant that this was every arcade racer fans dream.













Sumo Digital handled the home conversions and boy did they do a good job, the Xbox version came first and literally blew me away, i didn't think it was possible to make such an accurate conversion of the arcade game at that time but i was proved wrong!

Then they went one better and converted the Outrun 2 SP arcade revision to the Xbox again along with the PS2 and the PSP!! All versions were bloody superb, even the obviously scaled down PSP version.













Outrun 2 continues to live on Xbox Live and PSN as a downloadable title, so if you've never experienced drifting round corners at high speed listening to Magical Sound Shower whilst admiring the bright blue sky then you need to check it out as it's something every gamer should experience at least once.

Aero Fighters (Arcade)

Known as Sonic Wings in Japan 1992 's arcade shoot em' up Aero Fighters basically laid the foundations for the majority of the games that came out of cult development house Psikyo during the period of 1992 - 2003. This includes such classics as the Strikers series, Gunbird 1&2 and the hard as balls Dragon Blaze.

The similarities are mainly due to most of the Video System development team who worked on Aero Fighters going on to work for Psikyo.





















Aero Fighters bears all the hallmarks of the later Psikyo classics, short fast levels, multiple power ups and transforming mech bosses. It was also one of the first shoot em' ups to offer multiple characters to choose from i believe, all with unique ship types with different attributes.





















It was followed by two sequels, both for the Neo Geo MVS arcade system. They were also good games but failed to live up to the awesomeness of the original, mainly in my opinion to the change in screen orientation from a standard vertical to a vertical scroller but on a horizontal screen (as in Radiant Silvergun, Gigawing etc).

Aero Fighters was ported to both the Japanese Playstation and Saturn consoles as Sonic Wings Special but i can't comment on the quality of either as i have only played the PCB (which incidentally only costs about the same amount).

Resident Evil 5 (360/PS3)

Here it is, my long promised slating of Capcom's "franchise rape"

Let me just start by saying that on its own it's not that bad a game, it's certainly better than most 3rd person action games out there, it's just taken as part of a classic series and as sequel to one of the best console games of all time it's a disappointment, and this is entirely down to Capcom's stupid design decisions.

These decisions appear to have been taken to appeal to the Gears Of War crowd and to gain some of that fanbase, this includes.........

Making Chris ridiculously bulky a la' the Gears meaning he just looks stupid compared to how he looked in both REmake and Code Veronica.













Deciding to use a stupidly poor on the fly inventory system rather than the separate screen as in Resident Evil 4. Combine this with a small amount of inventory slots available and you've got a recipe for frustration right there. This also makes the Mercenaries mode much more fiddly than it should be which is a shame as this is the one part of Resident Evil 5 that is bordering on the fantastic.













The biggest problem however, and one that practically breaks the game in places is that Capcom decided in their new "wisdom" to make the entire game a fucking co-op experience.
This removes the majority of any tension as suddenly you're no longer on your own. It does provide perhaps the only scary thing about the game - the shoddy AI, many of the boss battles are stupidly designed around two players working together, which just doesn't work if the second player is controlled by the AI as they will just run straight at the boss and shoot - no strategy whatsoever.
This actually breaks the final boss battle as I found it nigh on impossible to get an "S" rank for the mission as the AI partner just kept running right at the boss and dying ("S" Rank stipulates no deaths in the chapter)

At least if you're going to provide a shoddy AI character then don't penalise me or make it game over when they die Capcom!

I'm not overly bothered about 360 Achievements but this is one game where I wanted to get them all and I also wanted to unlock everything (this is my favourite franchise after all), but they went and practically spoiled this for me too as to unlock stuff you need to collect all the BSAA emblems but yes you guessed it there's one you can only get by playing with another human player!

What an absolute joke, why should anyone be penalised and unable to unlock all the content just because they don't play on Xbox live?













(back to the game)

The setting doesn't really work either, it's too bright for a Resident Evil game and the only moments that felt right were the interior moments later on and the short sewer section near the start.

The bosses are a bit uninspired too, there's nothing there that comes anywhere near Krauser or "It" in Resident Evil 4. I will say though that there is a pretty mental boss battle in Resident Evil 5 that I pretty much loved it's just a shame the rest of them were a bit boring.

The bosses (and the game in general actually) reminded me of Lost Planet which makes sense as both shared the same director (Jun Takeuchi). Lost Planet was alright game but had a lot of flaws, how on earth Capcom decided he was the man to take over their most beloved franchise I’ll never know but I read in this month’s Edge magazine that he wants to make the the next installment in this series even more mainstream as he thinks that Resident Evil 4 only appealed to "maniac players" (Japanese term for hardcore gamers).

No wonder Shinji Mikami left Capcom.....I dread to think what the next installment will be like

Bioshock (360)

Coming from members of the development team responsible for the seminal System Shock 2, 2007's Bioshock certainly has the pedigree and the development talent in all the right places although it doesn't quite manage to meet the excessive level of industry hype at the time of release.
















Bioshock is still a quality game though, it just was unjustly touted in many quarters as the second coming, the game to finally knock Half Life 2 off it's lofty FPS perch. That's not to say it doesn't weave a great story, complete with stunning graphics and sound, there are just a couple of little nitpicks keeping it from being "teh best game ever" material.

The main little nitpick i have with the game is that it is far too easy, which alleviates much of the tension that was present in it's spiritual predecessor.
This is due to the Vita-Chambers scattered around the game - which are basically respawn points if you die, not such a bad idea on it's own but when you combine this with the fact that when you respawn all enemies are in the same state they were when you died - meaning you can keep plugging away at the health of a Big Daddy for example whilst repeatedly dying.
This cuts down what could have been a wonderful sense of fear and panic every time you come across these enemies which is a bit of a shame.













Also the Deus Ex style Plasmid upgrading is a bit dumbed down for my liking, although other people perhaps think the opposite, i just would've preferred it to go even further down the Deus Ex/System Shock 2 route rather than the Half Life one.

I'm most certainly knitpicking however, at the end of the day it's a quality game and testament to that fact is how much i want to play through it again after writing this!

Now Playing:

Ico (PS2)

Bayonetta Demo out in the West!

So i finally got to play the Bayonetta Xbox 360 demo tonight, but only for about half an hour as i had a prior engagement. The short amount of game that i played was absolutely stunning, instantly evoking memories of Devil May Cry and Viewtiful Joe but with everything ramped up to eleven!

I'll post more impressions after i've given it a proper playtest tommorow evening but it's looking like something very special indeed.

The End?

As reported on kotaku Akira Yamaoka is leaving Konami :(

That truly is the end for the Silent Hill series now in my eyes...

Dear Santa....

This year will you please bring me a Japanese Wii so that i can play Sin & Punishment 2 and Zero: Tsukihami no Kamen












Pretty pretty please!

Top 10: My favourite games of the decade

I realised recently that another decade is over in a month or so and began thinking about the best games released in the period. I decided it was too hard for me to decide on the best and instead took the easy option and chose my personal favourite games of the last ten years
















10. Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic (Xbox)

Bioware's fantastic RPG was the kick up the arse that Star Wars games had desperately needed since the first Jedi Knight game and also presented me with a wonderful feeling of immersion and choice that i hadn't felt since the mighty Deus Ex.



















9. Resident Evil (Gamecube)

Gorgeous, atmospheric and genuinely scary in some places Shinji Mikami's re-imaging of the very first Resident Evil is an absolute modern classic which criminally didn't reach as wide an audience as the Playstation original did.














8. Fallout 3 (360)

Along with the five available DLC's Fallout 3 represents an absolutely staggering amount of quality content, much like Oblivion before it this is a game where (if you want to) you can spend hours and hours immersed in a rich environment exploring and completing sidequests. If you want to just play through the main game then that too is possible so please don't think "i haven't got the time to invest" etc as basically Fallout 3 can be as long or as you short as you want it to be.


















7. Silent Hill 3 (PS2)

As mentioned in the previous blog post i enjoyed this a fraction more than Silent Hill 2 (both are brilliant though!)
















6. Super Monkey Ball 2 (Gamecube)

Super Monkey Ball was everything a great video game should be with it's simple mechanics and extreme playability leading to a fiendishly addictive experience. Super Monkey Ball 2 built on this and just gave you more, more levels more mini games and generally a slightly more refined title.

















5. Ikaruga (Dreamcast)

Treasure’s critically lauded shoot em’ up managed to transcend boundaries and bring the genre to a wider audience for the first time in years. Punishingly hard in places if you don’t play by Treasure’s rules but yet wide open for score exploitation if you do, Ikaruga never fails to be exhilarating. (Max chain..Max chain..Energy max....that voice plays in my head at night)

















4. Shenmue (Dreamcast)

Sega’s infamously ambitious title tends to attract love and hate from the gaming community in equal amounts. I am firmly in the first camp, it’s just a shame we will never see and end to the story started with this beautiful game. (Japanese version was actually released 29/12/99 but wasn't translated until almost a year later)













3. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots (PS3)

Pure fan service and excessive with it’s cutscenes (shock horror!) in places but my god if I didn’t love the rollercoaster ride of a story and the wonderfully constructed combat situations.

















2. Resident Evil 4 (Gamecube)

The game that changed a franchise and also changed me as a gamer. At the time of the US release I was feeling very jaded with gaming and had only finished one game in over a year. Resident Evil 4 changed that and gripped me from start to finish like no console game had before. Wonderful.


















1. Deus Ex (PC)

I view Warren Spector’s 2000 masterpiece as the greatest game ever so this was always going to be number one on this list, no other game has imparted choice onto the player in such an open ended and brilliant way. I also think the sequel Deus Ex Invisible War was also a great game too, albeit dumbed down in comparison.



Honurable Mentions
Devil May Cry
Half Life 2
Mass Effect
Condemned
Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker
Dead Space
Ninja Gaiden Black
Modern Warfare 2
Super Monkey Ball
Super Mario Galaxy
Shadow Of The Colossus
Resident Evil: Code Veronica
Gradius V
No More Heroes
Burnout 2 & 3
Bioshock
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2
Aria Of Sorrow
Outrun 2
Silent Hill 2
Winning Eleven 7

Silent Hill 3 (PS2)

Whilst most gamers and critics would no doubt chose the 2nd game as the best in the series i am in the minority that in fact prefers Silent Hill 3 instead (albeit by a very small margin).

This is for numerous reasons, none of which are the obvious one that you will be thinking of (the increased emphasis on combat) as in this respect i prefer the attitude of the second game.

In fact my main reasons behind my love for this game all revolve around the way the story ties into the first Silent Hill game and the fantastically melancholy way that this is handled.
















My favourite aspect of this series has always been the melancholy moments which are present amongst the Jacobs Ladder-esque otherworldly horror which otherwise populates the games, Silent Hill 3 just manages to outperform Silent Hill 2 in this aspect (in my opinion) which leads me on to the other reason why i love it so much........the music
















The soundtrack for this game is just utterly fantastic and completely reinforces the melancholy aspect i mentioned earlier. Much of this is due to the increased introduction of female vocals on many of Akira Yamaoka's masterfully created tracks. Pieces such as "Please Love Me....Once More" and "I Want Love" are to me the pinnacle of anything he's ever done and only serve to increase the effect of some of the already fantastic cutscenes found within the game.

Silent Hill 3 was unfairly given quite average scores by the specialist press over here on release, mainly for the increase in action and the (supposedly) stifled play mechanics. If only they had known the direction the series was going to go in in this generation then maybe they wouldn't have been so harsh.

Rescue On Fractalus! (Atari 800XL)

Here it is, i present to you the very first game i ever played 25 years ago in 1984.

It also (as i have just learned through the wonders of the internet) was apparently "the first computer game ever to truly scare people".....yeah cheers Dad i was only 5! No wonder i used to quite literally shit myself every time an unexpected alien used to jump up at the screen!
















A classic Lucasfilm Games production, Rescue on Fractalus was also the only good game we had for our beloved (or decrepit depending on your opinion) Atari 800xl 8-bit home computer.

Yes It did used to scare me shitless at the tender age of 5, but to be honest or much greater source of fear was whether the bloody thing would load or not. Good old 8-bit tape decks eh?

Top 5 Games i really should pull my finger out and play..

As you can probably tell i'm a fan of doing these little (gay) lists so here's one that's a bit different,

The Top 5 Games i inexplicably haven't played yet, but promise to in the future, or at least try to, or at least buy them and look at the back of the case blah blah blah what a twat













5. Little Big Planet(PS3)

a 10/10 in Edge means i should at least be curious about this title, but i'm afraid that every time i look at it all i see is a second rate attempt at a 2.5d platformer.
















4. Suikoden 1&2 (PSX)

Despite being a massive RPG fan around the time of the original Playstation i somehow never got round to playing these two even though i'd heard nothing but good things about them. Something i intend to rectify in the new year.















3. God Of War series (PS2)

Initially i was put off as they seemed like a western developed Devil May Cry rip-off but the boss battles do look fabulous so i really have no excuse.















2. Earthbound (Snes)

This boils down to one thing - price. Earthbound now costs £50.00 alone for a bare cartridge and upwards of £150.00 for a complete copy. Will stump up for a cart only at some point i think, i've waited too long as it is to play what's regarded as a unique and witty offbeat RPG.













1. Valkyria Chronicles (PS3)

After loving the demo for Overworks/Sega's gorgeous Strategy RPG the last time i owned a PS3 i never managed to snag a copy at a decent price. Something i now seriously regret since selling the system.

Hidden & Dangerous 2 (PC)

Before games set in World War II became cliched and monotonous, and before squad based tactical shooters were ten a penny there was the Hidden & Dangerous series of games.

The first game released in 1999 was unfortunately a bit of a buggy mess but at the same time it was very tense, revolutionary and inspired. It wasn't until the 2nd (and final to date) game in the series released in 2003 however that developer Illusion Softworks got pretty much everything right and built on the first game to create an immersive, thrilling and realistic (for the time anyway) title that blew me away.
















For me what Hidden & Dangerous 2 did that none of the other WWII games have managed to nail is a sense of unique atmosphere. Instead of the gung-ho Saving Private Ryan-esque feel of Call Of Duty etc H&D2's atmosphere is much more Where Eagles Dare.

Classic missions set in the desert or in snowy Nazi bases bring to mind many classic World War II films, and with unique personalities and skills for each member of your squad comes an actual feeling of loss should one of them die.

A fantastic title, and one i should no doubt reinstall on my old PC to play through again.

Preview: Bayonetta (PS3/360)

Following on from my thoughts on MadWorld below and after Bayonetta receiving a hallowed score of 10 in the new issue of Edge i thought I'd do a little preview of Platinum Games upcoming title.

Coming from the director of Resident Evil 2 and the original Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe AND Okami (Hideki Kamiya) this was always going to be a decent game but the word circulating the net' at the minute is that is seriously fucking sick.













Out recently in Japan it's been held back in the West until the start of January, presumably to avoid the Modern Warfare 2 juggernaut. The PS3 version is (of course) region free but apparently has a few technical issues at present making the 360 version the preferred choice













Why did i sell my Japanese 360 i could be playing this now :(

MadWorld (Wii)

Hmm. Well i don't really know what to say about this to be honest, considering the pedigree of the developers involved - mainly Atsushi Inaba (Clover) and Tokuro Fujiwara (absolute Capcom legend) - i was really expecting something very special indeed.

Instead i was more than a little disappointed.












On paper you would've expected this title to be an all together stylish experience - both in gameplay and visual art, instead i found it to be shallow, juvenile and woefully fiddly.

Much of this is down to the childish delivery of the subject matter, it just doesn't work - neither as comedy or as a parody. The terrible second rate Hip Hop soundtrack could be overlooked if it wasn't interspersed with that shockingly bad "commentary" by Greg Proops and yet again fucking Bender from Futurama.

If there's one word to describe MadWorld it's repetitive, the commentary samples are repeated endlessly meaning they outstay their welcome very quickly and i'm afraid the same thing has to be said about the combat.













It's just lacking in depth and needlessly tacks on Wii remote controls which i found to be very fiddly indeed, there wasn't the precision found in Viewtiful Joe or God Hand for example.

This really does turn the combat into a simple button basher where you basically kick the fuck out of enemy after enemy until you've gained enough points to unlock the next boss battle - none of which are particularly inspiring to say the least.

It just all seems half-baked, with more attention poured on the puerile sweary commentary than the actual thing that matters - the gameplay!

I hope this is just a blip, i really do, and that Bayonetta blows us away.

Modern Warfare 2 (360)

A scintillating title from the word go Modern Warfare 2 is simply now the title that every current generation action title should be judged against. It's bold, brassy, full of risks and controversial material most developers would be scared of and above all else successfully manages to transfer the big budget Hollywood action movie into the video game medium better than any other game before it.














Featuring stunning graphics and a score which does wonders for the cinematic feel of the game Modern Warfare 2 really does grab you by the throat, especially if you were a fan of the original Modern Warfare and it's characters. One of the reasons i enjoyed it so much is the fact that the majority of the "good guys" are British, SAS (or ex-SAS) soldiers to be exact, all voiced and scripted brilliantly. It is a world away from the countless fucking space marines we have had to put up with in action games over the years.














It's plot too is suitably over the top and ambitious, most people will be aware of some of the controversy that has followed the game but for me that wasn't even the shockingly brilliant bit. Without spoiling anything let's just say what happens in the US Rangers segment really exposes the fraility of the USA and playing as soldiers from a country which is basically on the back foot opens up a whole new attitude towards them meaning i enjoyed these segments just as much as the British parts, if not more in a couple of places.













I'm probably the least person to buy into the hype of a game, if anything i'm overly cynical. But i certainly will be gushing where it is due and here it bloody well is. It may be short at 7-8 hours but unless you have a strong detest for first person shooters or fast paced action films then you really should play this.

(Not going into the multiplayer as not touched it yet and to be honest online isn't really my forte')