Saturday 27 February 2010

Dead space RE

Gamespot score:9.0(editor's choice)

my score:8.3

(+)pros:-great atmosphere comparible to that of silent hill,-solid scares,-extremely detailed enemies,- quite a variety of weapons and armor,- dismembering is fun.- some innovative ideas,- extremely bloody and full of gore

(-)cons:- no replay value,- many pointless and stupid minigames


gameplay time:10-20 hours(below average)




Here we are, the re-do review of dead space which I did last year. I was looking at my review of dead space last year, lol I was so unorganized back then. Oh well lets go through this again eh? Dead space is a 2nd person horror shooter game. I am not a fan of horror games...not cause Im practically afraid, its just they are mostly quite short. And plus Im not a shooter kind of guy, so this kind of game shouldnt appeal to me, but it did. Dead space's horror and shooter mechanics do well to elevate it above others.
b
b
Dead space has a pretty normal story. Issac clark is sent together with a team of repairmen to do some repair jobs on the space center "ishimura", after not receiving contact from it for a long time. Upon landing the team is astonished to find aliens which kill most of thier team. Issac is seperated from the survivors from his team and is forced to travel alone on the deserted ship to desperetely find a way to escape the nightmare, as well as search for his missing girlfriend who works on the ship, by the name of nicole.
b
b
b
b
Dead space does well, both as a shooter and a horror game. Though it does not have a dark and scary and mysterious story like that of silent hill, it defininetely tops the it in terms of gameplay, and at times, scaring. Lets first talk about its horror elements. Dead space has atmosphere comaprible to that of silent hill, which is great. While silent hill had the creepy static sounds when approaching a monster(which scares the player shitless at times), dead space has silent treatment, which works suprisingly well! All you hear most of the times are Issac's footsteps, until an echo is heard down the hallway, this mostly puts players on alert already, pointing thier gun straight down the hallway, walking down it at the same time. All they find however, is an alien carcass, but lowering their guns is the players' downfall at this time. When the player walks over the body, the alien springs out and delivers a killing blow! This is enough the fuck the shit out of players , and moments like these are priceless!
b
b
Now to comment on dead space as a shooter. Dead space is a good shooter, despite the great horror elements. The weapons look futuristic and creative. They twisted mordern day weapons to make them look futuristic, and they suceeded! Flame thrower in this game is much nicer than a mordern day flame thrower, and machine gun as one can guess takes the form of the awesome pulse rifle. Many other transformations, such as the pistol taking form of the plasma cutter, and the chainsaw taking form of the ripper, are extremly welcoming as well. Not only weapons, but issac's armor changes along the course of his frigthening journey as well. With so many weapons at your disposal, taking out the drooling, creepy...and disgustingly detailed aliens are fun as heck.
b

b
Dead space seems like it has many good points, but it suffers from no replay value. This is the same for stuff like the old resident evil games and parasite eve games. Once you have played the game once, you know the locations where monsters are gonna pop up at you or where the scary shits happen. It just aint scary anymore, this takes out more than 50% of the game. Also, this game only has one ending, which makes replaying the game even more worthless. Also, this game has so many lame minigames. Like the chapter where there are so many training like equipment around, or the chapter where you have to shoot down meteors. Minigames, though there arent alot of them, take alot out of this game. They are difficult, time consuming, and stupid.
b
b
Despite the factors concerning minigames and replay value, dead space excels as both a horror and shooter game. Since the main course of combat is dismemberment, this can be fun for gore fanatics. For those looking for a good horror game for the current gen, this game is a must get, since the current gen has little good horror games.
b
b

b
Happy gaming.

Thursday 25 February 2010

pokemon diamond,pearl,platinum

Gamespot score:8.5(great)

my score:8.0

(+)pros:-even MORE pokemon added to the database,-same good oldschool pokemon journey,-pokemon sprites look nicer and improved,- battle commands using the touch screen is more convinient,-plenty of content after clear game

(-)cons:-too many pokemon to keep track of,-story is too typical and too alike from all previous pokemon games

gameplay time:100 hours +(very long lasting)





Behold the long running addictive nintendo series that is pokemon! I have been delaying this for quite some time now, since I played the game oh so long ago. In fact it was the 2nd NDS game which I have ever played. A few starting comments, I really dont like pokemon alot. I mean if they had just stuck to their original 152, or maybe just the gold/silver additions, the series would have ended good. But GODAMMIT nintendo, now pokemon has over 500 in terms of pokedex amount. Sigh, no use over brooding, here comes.



Pokemon games always had the same typical story from thier very first predussecor. 1st, you start in your hometown, then for some whatever reason you will suddenly have to choose between 3 pokemon, and thier elements are ALWAYS, grass, fire or water. After picking your 1st pokemon you go off to fight your 1st battle with your rival, then you get your 1st 5 pokeballs...... Then you start going to become DA BEST TRAINER EVA. You go around the region beating 8 gym leaders, then somehow in between you will stumble upon a legendary pokemon, in which you get to kill or capture as your own. Then as the final step in the story you go through some cave known as victory road and go kill the elite 4. Then TA-DAH, BEST TRAINER EVA, and you get entered in the hall of fame. The story is typical as hell, it has been repeated over and over!




Ta dah! Pokemon is about 2 things. One, catch pokemon. Two, fight with the pokemon you caught. Simple right? Thats how all pokemon games function in this world. This game is no different. You get as usual 6 pokemon which you can choose and select to use in battle. In battle you get to wack the opposing pokemon, be it a trained pokemon or a wild one. If it is a wild one you catch is via pokeball! Of course you have to weaken it first. Well about battling, its like every pokemon game before this. You get to use only 1 of the 6 pokemon you have in possesion with you, and duke it out with your opponent in a 1 on 1 turn by turn battle, with 4 of your skills.
And if you already have 6 pokemon and you capture a pokemon is battle, it gets stored in the poke center, where allll your spare pokemon are stored. You get to deposit and withdraw them at your command of course.



And of course in poke centers that brings me to my favourite point of this game. Wifi battles. Training your pokemon among AI programmed trainers and wild pokemon can be tiring and tedious. Thats right if you get all your pokemon to level 100, then what? Its quite stupid. Thats right you need to pit yourself against a human player, with their own levl 100s. This can be fun and exciting. You can even fight 2v2 tag battles, which are my favourite kinds of battle in this game! Not that you cant fight 2v2s outisde of wi-fi mode, but its always more fun and competive against a human player, or some one you know.
b
b
Of course pokemon's perilous(or in some cases, not so perilous) journey pays off. The gym fights are failry challenging, and some of team galactic's trainer battles can be hard. Not to mention too, your rival will always be popping out here and there to really stick it to you with his/her powerful as heck pokemon. The final stage of the game is the best, where you are pitted against the elite 4. These are fun and fast fights, as either you or your opponent will be wiped out in a matter of time. And when all is said and done, the game has plenty of post game activities planned for you. With tons of legendary pokemon to go after, you will really stick to this game, no matter how childish and lame it looks.
b
b
As I had ranted at the beginning of the review, nintendo has really put too many pokemon into thier database. I personally dont like this, theres too many pokemon to keep track of. Plus the story, it really never changes! Altough the story has tweaks to make it a bit different from the previous games, the backbone of the plot really remains totally the same. Nintendo should change this a little. But then again, if there didnt exist such things as gyms or the elite four, it wouldnt be called pokemon anymore wont it. Thats sad, really. Overall pokemons fans should not miss this, and newcomers to pokemon can also give this a spin for traditional pokemon feel.
b
b



Happy gaming.

Monday 22 February 2010

stage-infinite(code geass review)


Opening songs-OP 1:colors,OP 2:kaidou funou,OP 3:hitomi no tsubasa
b
genre:action,sci-fi,piloted robots
b
episodes:25
b
Yea yea I am slow. Code geass is quite old now, released in 2006, and I dont have to say this...but this is an awesome show. Ask everyone who has watched this, this show is one of the only few shows with such a wacked out main character. Awesome settings, interesting characters, a well designed background story..... this show is really one of the best out there.
b
For a show with only 25 episodes, how can there be 3 openings? Well the final opening is used as a final episode exclusive. 1st opening is colors by flow, an awesome song, since its by flow.... 2nd song is kaidou funou by jinn. Not really nice, but after many hearings it actually is quite....relaxing to hear. 1st opening is better. The final opening is wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot! Its the best japanese song I have ever heard in my friggin life. Hitomi no tsubasa by access is the 3rd opening song, and it is great as hell.
b
Plot:9.0/10
b
If i gave the plot any lesser than this, I would be a faggot. Code geass is solid, but action and plot wise. In my opinion, this beats gundam anyday, since the show has piloted robots just like gundam. But the knightmares(the names of the robots) are no colossal fighters that need to take thier battles to space to only have the opportuniy to fight with no space restrain. The robot sizes are more realistic and far far smaller. The robots can be fit into war trucks or APCs, making this show very large scale battle based.
b
Code geass is all about war and planning. The main character, the leader of the biggest rebellion group in the country, is waging war with the britinians, and the britians, who have been known for winning countless battles against other rebellions, have been losing drastically to this group, known as the order of the black knights( an epicly cool name for a rebellion if you ask me). The main character, thier leader, is known as zero, and always has plans for overthrowing his opponents, even if he is outnumbered more than 10 to 1. This show is all about the zero's cruel tactics to overthrow his mortal enemy, the emperor of britinia. Oh yeah, this show has an epic ending too.
b
All in all an impressive show, the main character has 2 sides and everytime he switches it is so wacked out and cool. He is the evilest main character out there, no doubt, he would easily win this award. I know of many who watch this, guys and girls alike, if you havent watched this, go knock yourself and watch it now.
b
Peace.

Saturday 20 February 2010

My favourite artists(japanese)

Well today Im gonna talk about my taste in music. For awhile now I have been watching animes and you know, I eventually fell in love with openings and endings. So today Im stating my favourite japanese artists in terms of rank.

1. Mami kawada

Mami kawada is awesome! My favourite japanese artist and singer of many good songs for good anime such as shakugan no shana and to aru majutsu no index. Shes the singer that has the most number of songs with her name on my playlist.

favourite songs

Masterpiece(To aru majutsu no index)
Joint(Shakugan no shana 2)
Jellyfish(To aru majutsu no index)

2.Access

Access is pure cool. Thier song hitomi no tsubasa, is my favourite japanese song of all time. Its just too bad that they only made 2 songs( of which I know). Perhaps they have an album or 2 already? I will go search one day.

favourite songs

Hitomi no tsubasa(Code geass)
Doubt and trust(D.gray man)

3.Fripside

Fripside is a new band, cause I dont think they sang any longs very long ago. But the moment I heard flower of bravery from the anime koihime musou I knew I would like the band. They also sang the 2 openings for the recent To aru kagaku no railgun anime.

favourite songs

Only my railgun( To aru kagaku no railgun)
Level 5 ~judgelight~( To aru kagaku no railgun)
flower of bravery( Koihime musou)

4.Kotoko

Another great singer. Kotoko has such a great voice compared to many japanese female singers. Her voice is just so.... alive. She has a great array of songs too, including the opening song for blazblue:calamity trigger!

favourite songs

Ao-iconoclast(Blazblue:calamity trigger)
sociometry(Shakugan no shana 2)
Face of fact~resolution version( Baldr force EXE resolution)

5.Flow

Ah Flow, extremely popular for thier great songs. They sang songs for quite a lot of shows. I personally think they are a good band, along with many others of course. My favourite among thier songs is world end from code geass R2.

favourite songs

World end( Code geass R2)
Go!!( Naruto)
Word of the voice( Persona trinity soul)

6. Stereopony

From what I am guessing this is one of the new bands as well. They have quite a few songs, but I only like 2, which is good enough since those 2 songs are absolute masterpieces.

favourite songs

Tsukiakari no michishirube( Darker than black 2)
Namida no mukou ( Gundam 00 2nd season)

7. Uverworld

Yeap you saw this coming. I mean who can not like Uverworld. They make great songs, but they have haters I heard, I dont know why... Well its not like theres any band in the world with absolutely no haters! Well here are fav songs from them.

favourite songs

D-technolife( Bleach)
Hakanaku mo towa no kanashi( Gundam 00 2nd season)
Colours of the heart(Blood +)

8. Yui

Many will know Yui. Why? She sang for 2 killer shows, bleach and full metal alchemist brotherhood. Her songs are pretty nice, especially her recent hit again from full metal alchemist brotherhood.

favourite songs

Again( Full metal alchemist:brotherhood)
Rolling star( Bleach)
Life( Bleach)

9.Nami takami

The famous gundam girl!!! She sang a lot for the gundam shows from before. She also sang for D.gray man, making her quite a popular one. Nothing else to say but Nami takami FTW.

favourite songs

Sanctuary (Kiba)
Brightdown( D.gray man)
Realize ( Gundam seed)

10. Orange range

My 10th favourite japanese singers and last of today's list! Orange range is a band with more than one singer, I guess thats quite normal but thier songs are very messy with more than 2 or 3 voices popping out in between one another, but, thats what makes their songs nice!

favourite songs

O2( Code geass R2)
Asterisk( Bleach)
Viva rock( Naruto)


Well thats my top 10 favourite artists. In my book I had to think alot since I liked Ali project and L.M.C alot as well but they couldnt squeese into top 10 for me. Well since I am watching lots of korean MVs now I may do one like this for korean singers some other day.

Liking big bang and 2 ne 1 alot. SNSD is not bad too.

Peace.

Friday 19 February 2010

suikoden tactics

Gamespot score:7.6(good)
b
my score:8.1
b
(+)pros:-tons of unlockable and usable characters,-skill system is in depth,- dramatic story early on,-battle is fun and rewarding,- elemental affinity system is creative and adds strategy to every battle
b
(-) cons:-clunky graphics(even for a Ps2 game),-story gets less dramatic later on
b
b
gameplay time:50 hours +(above average)
b
b
b
b

Today I will be covering yet another one of the older PS2 generation games. Suikoden tactics is a suikoden 4 spinoff, and unlike normal suikoden games, which are strictly more turn based, this game takes the turn by turn strategy formula. I am not a suikoden person and havent played any suikodens before and after this game, but I must say this is one of the best turn by turn strategy RPG I have ever played. With a roughly long and dramatic story, addictive and rewarding gameplay, this is definetely not a game to be missed.

b
b
Kyril is a boy traveling with his father, who is a rune cannon researcher. Following them are 2 friends andarc and seneca. Like any other day they are travelling for search of rune cannons, but however one fatal day they found a rune cannon, but on the ship of a ruthlesss well known pirate among the seas. Steele, the pirate's name was. While helping another pirate group to raid steele's ship for the rune cannon, walter, kyril's father, is hit by the rune cannon, and is transformed into a grostique fish man. The terror struck kyril has no choice but to kill his father to defend himself.
Years later, the story goes as the now grown kyril, travels with andarc and senaca, as they continue walter's research about rune cannons, but little do they know what perils await them in thier travels.....
b
b
b
b
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Suikoden tactics's may sound pretty normal up front in words, but in the game, the story is told very well, and the scenes will really speak to you, making up a greatly dramatic piece. Now before I get on to the gameplay, I must state one warning, but I dont think its just this game. All suikodens on PS2 have suckish graphics, this game included. In up close scenes the characters look like they are blocky figures , much like the old FF7 days. But pay this no heed, as altough graphics may suck, you wont be getting a LOT of up close scenes, and in battle you really wont find anything bad about the battle sprites.

b
b


b
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Okay on to the battle system. The battle system isnt very in depth, its just like any other strategic turn by turn RPG. You deploy up to a certain number of units on the field, then depending on speed, they get thier turn, they move to the range where they are close enough to attack thier opponents, they wack, do some damage, get exp, level up, etc..... Its very basic. You get your other basics. Weapons, armor, itmes etc. But in this game, weapons cannot be obtained, you only stick to your original weapon which is first obtained by default. Weapons must be honed at the blacksmith to become stronger, that is the only way to increase attack power. Also in battle, besides armor and weapons, the game's so called accesory is available too. The items known as runes.
b

b


b
In suikoen tactics, every character has thier own elemental affinity. With runes, one can infect a certain area with elemental energy. Example, when someone with fire affinity stands on an area infected with fire element, thier attack,defense and most other stats increase, and when someone with wind element stands on the fire infected area, their performance decreases, this is beacause every element has a weakness. It is a complex and interesting system used in battle. Spamming rune energy to make one area totally affected with one's suited elemental energy is always a good way to turn tides of battle. And of course, one must carefully strategize in a battle, since even enemies can use this to counter your strategy, by applying their own elements to the field, and if your character is weak to that element, you are screwed.

b
b
Though the game might make it seem you are moslty battling imperial soilers, bandits, mecernaries and pirates,which are mostly human foes. The later stages allow you to battle insanely mutated people, becoming fishmen. Also there is an insane mechanic looking fish boss among them. You can also choose to enter the optional 5 floored dungeon, to fight zombie,skeletons and on later floors, golems and dragons. This game, as most can see, has plenty of gameplay value in it, and in new game plus, the optional dungeon gets thougher, making dragon slaying a hell lot of fun. This is one game not to be missed.
b
b


b

Happy gaming.

Wednesday 17 February 2010

Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner

Gamespot score:6.3(fair)
b
my score:7.0
b
(+)pros:-monsters are higly customizable,- higher level monsters look very nice,- pretty cool main character,- different party options means different story outcomes,- certain nice environments
b
(-)cons:-draggy and uninteresting story,- battle isn't nice to look at and is pretty slow, - early monsters look lame as shit
b
gameplay time:30-40 hours(above average)
b

b

Cant complain about this game, but I wont rate games that arent at least a 7 in terms of score to me. This game isnt as nice as i thought it would have been and so are many good looking JRPGs. Sigh... things arent just the same anymore, where almost all JRPGs are good to play. Anyway Im back from my break of chinese new year with a total of $316 obtained from new year money, not too bad if I say so myself, anyway forget about that and time to get to reviewing this wananbe pokemon game.
b

b
b
Vice is a wandering summoner with a powerful jewel, belonging to a world where monsters work for humans in terms of jewels. If a human has a jewel he/she can summon the monster contained in it. Vice is a wandering summoner in search of an abomination, wild and free powerful monsters that roam the land. The one he is in search of killed his mother, and as one might know it he seeks it for revenge. But due to a string of weird events he is somehow made to enroll in a summoning school, where he must make new comrades to further travel in search of his mother's killer. The story is abit mixed up at first, but it all falls into place. The story itself is very boring, not very, just quite, it just doenst quite make any sense later on.
b



b
b
Okay besides the lame story , jewel summmoner actually has pretty interesting characters. Vice, our main character is pretty cool, with his ignorant attitude and all its quite nice. There are also other characters, elly, a stuck up girl who always thinks shes better than other cadets, lynn a quiet serious young woman and even the own school headmaster with a commanding personality. The many offered characters with interesting personalities do help spice up gameplay a little bit, with slighty funny conversations they will help lighten the mood. With a fairly interesting play crew the game is at least more entertaining, right?

b
b



b
b
Now on to the battle system. The battle system is turn by turn, now I have absolutely no grudge against that, I pretty much love turn by turn RPGs. But this game's turn by turn is quite disappointing. With slow combat and uninteresting battle moves, even many of the higher level monsters dont look well in combat as they do as thier designs. Besides that, the game's earlier stages with thier weak and pathertic looking monsters make battle more of a drag than fun. But the system like pokemon which allows one to use more than one monster in a fight is pretty good, and with the access of the wanabe pokeball gem system, you can "catch" a monster to make it yours, kinda a clone. And just like the original pokemon games having a lower HP monster means easier catch. Deja vu anyone? Well at least leveling up your monsters is pretty nice as you can see them grow and get more power,
b
b
Besides all that there are other points worth pointing out in this game. Such as the nice environments. Though many places are revisted and that there are quite little new maps to explore, the majority of the environments are pretty nice. Temples and towers and dungeon like areas especially, they look pretty detailed and impressive, creative too. Also, the monster creation system allows many different possiblities, thus monster customization is pretty in depth. Amidst all these, storyline dialouge is also different, as you can choose your party members at the game's start, so this game does have a bit in terms of replay value.
b
b
Overall this wanabe pokemon game is pretty innovative. In terms of monsters pokemon does have a larger variety, and in this game there are some repeated designs, so pokemon obviously wins. Other than that this game is your very standard RPG along with some pokemon made adjustments, not all may like this game.

b
b

Happy gaming.

Friday 12 February 2010

Chinese new year break

Title says it all. Tommorow start will begin the long awaited chinese new year. Some fked up shit is gonna be good, money money money thats all that matters!

So yeah since chinese new year is a BIG thing thats means no slacking off and such I need to help with decorations and I will be going out alot. You are smart to see where is this heading right?

Until chinese new year is over I wont do no posting. A break if you will. But after the festivities and money, mostly the money, I'll make it up by posting more. So until then, peace to all.

Oh yes and happy new year too.

Wednesday 10 February 2010

best game character:10 february 10



Oh yea. I have had written about so many best game characters. There was FF7 's poster boy cloud, the world ends with you's crazy math genius minamoto, persona 4's detective female ace naoto, mana khemia' emo kid vayne, devil survivor's evil mastermind naoya and the latest( which was 3 months ago) king of iron fist jin kazama. Today on our list is the so far weirdest of them all! Here's hero from half minute hero.(kinda ironic)




In the game half minute hero, hero is one of the 4 playable characters, and is obviously the main character. His story mode is the 1st hundred years of the 500 year goddess era timeline. His gameplay mode is the longest and you're supposed to use him to help stop EVIL from casting the 30 second end -the-world spell. Sounds lame but hero is actually kinda cool. Though the game is always in 8 bit graphics he may look ruined but actually the 8 bit graphics is kinda what makes the game stand out. His actual portrait is pretty cool.






See? Told ya. Hero was a wanderer which went to a king's palace one day and was asked to defeat an evil lord which wanted to cast a spell which could end the world in 30 seconds. He obviously failed, and was saved by the goddess of time, which ultimately gave hero the power to reset time, at a cost. Thus the weird looking clock he is holding... I guess. Hero goes around saving the world, trying to stop the one who is going around teaching other evil lords about the world ending 30 second spell. Well after supposedly close to 100 years, he still couldnt find that person, and thus he asked the time goddess to.... spolers ahead....... I warned ya.


To freeze him in time.


Yes he would rather be frozen in time so that one day when the world was in mortal danger he would be awakened to save the world again. Now this... is a heroic and very honourable act. Also when he returns 400 years later to save the world from endless doom, his reappearence,though quite funny, is epic as hell.

Spoilers end.


Yea since you can customize him he fights with any weapon you equip him with, but defualt he uses a sword, as in the drawing above. Nothing special, he has no special techniques what so ever, but he is still cool.


Hero is indeed, a hero. His couragoeus and honourable acts deserves him the title of best game character. Though pixelated into 8 bit presentation in game, he is still one epic guy.






Peace.

Sunday 7 February 2010

.hack//infection part 1

Gamespot score:7.0(good)

my score:7.9

(+)pros:-online game "feel" feels pretty real,-characters really speak for themselves and are interesting,- plenty of areas to explore,- exploring an area is pretty fun and exciting,-area hacking looks cool,-interesting plot

(-)cons:-noobs usually randomly land themselves in exteremely difficult maps.- no "real" boss fights,-training can get tedious at later levels

gameplay time:30-40 hours(above average)






Havent been doing PS2 reviews for awhile, since you know its pretty much a dead system....but not to me! There are so many PS2 games left undiscovered to me, Ima play them all!! Anyway heres .hack//infection part 1, a game part of the .hack series. I only have part 1 :(, so thats sad, but I liked the game a lot, though I didnt clear it. But rest assured Im getting .hack LINK on the PSP. Without further ado heres the review.




A new game known as "the world" has been released and everyone's playing it! So our main character, who is named kite in the game, decides to give it a try after his friend (dubbed orca in the game) introduced it to him. On his 1st day in the game orca guides kite thorugh a noob map and dungeon to give him a feel of the game itself, however things didnt go as planned. Whilst exploring the dungeon orca and kite come across a white haired girl(supposedly not a player) being chased by a powerful monster. They later get attacked by the monster(which should not even be on the noob map), and orca(supposedly a pro) tries to fend it off, only to get killed(in game of course). After the events kite suddenly gains the ability to data drain, supposedly a gift from the white haired girl. Many consider this a hack, and his friend who played as orca, suddenly gets comatised in the real world. Kite decides to investigate this.





The story is pretty good. And the feel is great! So you play as kite, in the game. So the game functions like you are really using the computer and playing the game. You get your own homepage( as shown above) and you get to choose your applications, such as emails accesories etc. Well the game consists mostly of the world anyway, so they will really bring you to the login page, where you can log in and play(duh) or search the board, where you can read posts by others. Its like a forum. It really makes it feel like you are playing an online game. In game you can party, buddy, invite players... theres a shit load of things you can do like in any online game. And as party leader you can give orders to others, which is cool,plus since your friends are all just characters in the game and not real players, they listen to you all the time! Of course your friends wont be online 24/7, so you wont expect them to join your party all the time.





The fighting system isnt really in depth, and sometimes combat can feel rather slow against powerful monsters, but its all good. The battle isnt turn based, and there are quite a few fighting styles, altough you're stuck to being twin blader(damn). Your party can consist of many other player types. Though you are limited to only 3 a party, you can invite mages, blademasters and even other twinbladers such as yourself. Battle rarely feels old since its really like you are playing with real online players, since ur party members always talk or leave comments when fighting or when walking. They even mock or tease you when you give others, or thank you when you give them an item.




Despite being a fun game and all, hack has a few shortcomings. There arent really any true boss fights in the game. All you get to kill as "bosses" are infected monsters which you encounter normally. Infected monsters have infinite HP, and the only way to kill them is to hit them until they are vunerable, then you can use data drain, to hack the monster code and make it back to a normal monster(thus the name .hack is given to the game). It really is nothing, infected monsters dont have new attacks/skills, thier damage stats may be raised a little, but it really isnt all that great.
Also, the gate transportation system for going from place to place can be quite confusing to noobs. If you randomly tinkers with the gate and teleport to an area with monsters 15 levels stronger than him, he is gonna die badly.
b
b
Overall .hack//infection is a new RPG experience overall(though it is an old game), RPG gamers should try this game out. Also, there is an anime for this game, but I aint watching it since i already checked out hack roots. Just a saying though.



Happy gaming.

Friday 5 February 2010

FUZETSU!!(shakugan no shana review)

b

Opening songs-OP 1:hishoku no sora,OP 2:being
b
genre:supernatural,romance,action,slice of life
b
episodes:24
b
Okay, I know Im super behind schedule. This show is from 2005 and is damn old, so is code geass which I am watching now. Shakugan no shana is an overly popular show from otakus and anime watchers all over the net, with the over used theme known as shana fans. Well I just picked up this show roughly 2 weeks ago and finished it just recently, and I must say altough its not the best show I have watched, it certainly is one of the best.
b
Two opening songs, both so great. The 1st opening is a good song sang by my favourite japanese artist :D. So by no doubt I will like it, but this is my least liked among all her other great pieces. 2nd opening named being by kotoko, another great singer, one of the top 5 singers as well.Overall I prefer being, but both are nice songs nonetheless.
b
Plot:8.5/10
b
Shakugan no shana has a nice story. But before that I would like to comment on the animation. Shakugan no shana's animation is my favourite among all animes. I dont know why but the way the characters are made in the show are just gorgeous. Anyway, the story revolves around a complex world, where many different terms are used, tomogara,torch,mistes,balance of the world, flame haze, hougu.... there are many differently used terms in this show, so the story is hard to catch up at the beginning 3-4 episodes. But once the 2 main story characters yuji and shana start to catch up with each other the show starts becoming nice.
b
There is romance in this show, and the way they make it sure is great. Later in the show 2 girls(wont spoil) will fight over yuji. While one is in a totally different world from the other, they still continue to like the same person. The competition between the 2 never changes and slowly they both start to get on the same plane. This part is seriously very nice, great addition to the show. Also when other friends start to know the truth, more people get involved in the struggle to maintain world balance.
b
A nice show, I really wouldnt expect anything less than the show that so many around the world like. Should be checked out nonetheless, theres a 2nd season which I am currently watching and word is that there will be a season 3 when shakugan no shana S airs over.
b
Peace.

b

Opening songs-OP 1:tsukiakari no michishirube
b
genre:action,sci-fi
b
episodes:12
b
Well here concludes the sequel to darker than black. To be honest, abit too short. Its preduccesor had 25 episodes, I expected this to be the same, but to my disappointment it had less than half the episodes. Anyway this show wasnt that great, it may be darker than black's sequel, but the show itself cant compare equally to that of the 1st show. Im not saying the show is bad, but well, it just isnt as addicting as the 1st show.
b
Great opening song for this show. It was one of the best anime songs of 2009. I really liked it, altough Im more of a hardcore rock kind of person, this song really speaks to me. Its great, absolutely great, one of the best.
b
Plot:7.5/10
b
The plot in ryuusei no gemini is short, far too short. They could seriously have went deeper into the storyline of the new protoganist suou. Speaking of which( spoilers here), hei isnt the main character now. Instead we get some crappy girl who cant do many things by herself. Damn. Not that its bad, shes hot and all, and she did do some things worth commenting in the show, but it just isnt the same when hei was the main character.
b
Also, the story revolves more around suou than it revolves around hei, altough he is still there, he lost his contractor powers! I wont spoil this part. But since hei can no longer use his powers that mus mean suou will do most of the fighting right? No. A big NO for this one. Altough suou is a contractor she hardly uses her powers to fight. Hei still does most of the face to face fighting here, but the enjoyment of seeing him fight significantly decreases since he has no powers, but he still does quick work with his enemies though. Its just not the same....
b
Overall an OK show. Should have been longer, that way they could have gone more in depth with the story, which would have been nicer. Of course, its highly recommended that all that want to watch this show give the 1st season a go first, or you cant understand alot of the stuff concerning hei.
b
Peace.

Gamespot score:n/a

my score:9.0

(+)Pros:-new card play field system is great to look at and great to play at the same time,-character customization for once looks good,-huge card data base with well designed synchro system,- 1st yugioh world championship game that allows free control,- plenty of replay value in both world championship and story mode,-great music

(-)cons:- game lags during dueling due to huge card database


gameplay time:100 hours+(very long lasting)





Yeah! I have been looking foward to this review. As usual gamespot wont rate this kind of shit..so screw them. Well yeah lets go straight to the point. Today I will be doing the yugioh 2009 world champsionship review, courtesy of konami, this is personally my favourite yugioh game so far, even better than tag force 4, which was a great game. Well time to go for it, post time.



The story is based on story mode(duh) one of the 2 modes for this game. The game follows the anime based storyline until the fortune cup, with tweaks of course, since you are not yusei. Anyways you are some random guy/girl which is found lying on the ground by rally, for some reason you dont even know your name at the start of the game since you have amnesia. But for reasons unknown, you start regaining your memories piece by piece via dueling. So the game unfolds on and on until you are admitted to the fortune cup, where the story matches that of the anime.





Here we have the 1st yugioh DS game with the finest play field system to far. With the previous world champsionship games having the play field from the top view, now the play field shows the cards slightly tilted, and when you move your cursor over so a card space, it no longer zooooms all the way in at the card, that was annoying. Konami brilliantly removed that and made the game's playfield all so flawless. Monster models were a horrible thing in the past, they are still here, but when monsters battle, no longer will they show thier hideous models slashing/clawing each other.Instead, thier beautifully drawn monster potraits take their place, making battles less animated, but more nice.





Also along with this game comes its new increased card amount. Of course this is a must for every step up yugioh game, but due to new synchro and tuner monsters, the card amount really jumped on this one. And the tuning animations are pretty nice and creative, unlike fusing animations. Also, the cards when playing look more portrait oriented, making gameplay more...picturable. The new card additions as usual provide more strategies to beat opponents, though the new cards and strategies
seem abit overpowered at times, the game isnt biased towards strategies and gameplay fairness is pretty smooth.






Of course I mentioned in the pros section that there was improved character cutomization. That is indeed correct. Character portraits are improved drastically in this version. The characters you can create no longer look stale and well....stiff. The new character models are good looking and the characters really look more detailed. Girls are actually cute or once, and the guys can be made to look really cool if you want to. Also, this game's story mode, no matter how packed with replay value it already is, has a companion. World championship mode is back, though not really significantly improved, it provides more play value to the game.



Altough with the big card library konami made the game pay its price with some noticable lag during duels, this game is definetely the best yugioh game to date, not just on the DS, on any system. Definetely a worthy addition to the series.



Happy gaming.