Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Resident Evil 5 Demo Hits XBOX LIVE MARKETPLACE!
This hit the XBLM at around 4:30 AM this morning and I was hitting the download as soon as it did. I let my box cook all night and pick up this little demo while I slept.
I was finally able to get time to play the demo this afternoon. The graphics in the demo were incredible. I was really impressed virtually from the moment it brought up the first screens of the beginning part of the game. I love the mostly left in tack RE4 combat system. Not so impressed with the in ability to run backwards or turn easily and run away from one of the context sensitive triggers. I can't wait to see the final game to see if there is an upgraded control system or at least the ability to save the game and continue from there rather than having to start the WHOLE scene over again.
Also Sheva is a great addition to the game and certainly makes the feeling of being so isolated and alone less claustrophobic. But please Sheva, get out of the way. There were at least 4 times during my five play throughs of the demo where Sheva gets herself in some big trouble because she won't back track out of danger. Now, I'm sure someone out there is like; I don't care about that I'll be playing co-op through the whole game. And my response is, "Good for you." I won't... Most of my friends aren't around when I am and it was hard enough getting someone to play Gears of War with me let alone this game.
Also weapon switching could use some tweaking. Maybe allowing us to do it automatically with one button if we want to, because the game keeps going when you bring up the inventory screen so, it's pretty impossible to switch weapons during combat. Or even between enemies, it just takes too long.
The graphics and audio in this game is incredible. The game runs like a movie and the sound is extremely realistic. Also the voice talent that they were able to showoff in the demo was definitely great. I really have to suggest to ANYONE who even mildly liked Resident Evil 4 to download this demo.
Finally, I will give you a look at one of the trailers for the game so in case you've been living under a rock in Antarctica for the past couple years this will allow you to catch up.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
It's Been too Long... Now is the Time!
There have been so many events that have occurred in just the time that has elapsed since last I wrote a real post on this blog. So I won't even try to sort it all out. There would be no point and many of you would get bored and go down my blogroll to some place more exciting. So I will make this short and to the point. I currently write three blogs this one included. One for World of Warcraft, one for Warhammer Online and this one. However, with the recent closing of Electronic Gaming Monthly and all that made it unique and the not so recent closing of Games for Windows Magazine and all that made that magazine unique. I felt it was time to return to writing mainly about console video games as well as writing about MMOs and PC games. So, I have undertaken a Herculean task and perhaps I won't be able to measure up. Please have patience there is only so much one person can do.
Anyway, I will bring up a few games that I have experienced recently, and give you my humble opinion of them. So here we go...
Mirror's Edge: Wonderful game where you are a 'runner" in the future where you have to save your sister and expose a dark conspiracy surrounding her abduction. This game has a killer art style and even some of the voice talent wasn't too bad in a Saturday morning cartoons kind of way. But the controls in this game were crazy. Once you got the hang of them and you basically figured out how to traverse terrain many times I found myself missing a jump or and grab just because my controller didn't respond quickly enough or too quickly. I guess I'm saying that it was a little buggy. And given the overall, quality of the game this was quite a shame. 7/10, please fix these problems and it will be a 9/10.
Left 4 Dead: What if you could play a movie like 28 Days Later or Dawn of the Dead? Well, Left 4 Dead answers this question but also adds the idea of playing the game with a few friends. Now that's cool. But the things I loved about Left 4 Dead aren't really either of the above.
I will say that the main thing I loved about Left 4 Dead was the weapons. Yes, the typical guns that everyone complains about. Why did I love them? Because even though they are incredibly traditional they ARE incredibly well done. But even more than that, the balance of each piece of the campaign and the incredible director A.I. that controls the flow of the game does an incredible job of dealing out an interesting and exciting experience. There is no story but the game really doesn't need one. The gritty reality of the situation doesn't really allow for much of a story explanation and would only slow down the game. I loved it, I was just hoping for more maps and maybe even more "boss" type enemies to really give your group a good challenge. I often found myself, totally destroying one boss only to have to wait an enormous amount of time for another. But hey, they are going to be adding stuff soon I hear. So 9/10.
Little Big Planet: Probably the BEST game to EVER be created for your PS3. I know some people would argue Metal Gear Soild 4 or Resistance 2. But This game can get ANYONE playing and there is an ENDLESS amount of replay time. The only platformer I like is Ratchet and Clank and this game is a platformer but this is the BEST platformer I've EVER played! If you haven't all ready picked up Little Big Planet I suggest you bookmark blog and then go to your local store and pick one up! Little Big Planet is FINALLY the REASON TO BUY A PS3! You will only need this ONE game to easily hold you over until ANYTHING ELSE you want to play comes out. So go get it 10/10!
So that's basically it.... Oh sorry forgot one thing....
I remember I promised you folks a Too Human review. So here it is. The game has wonderful controls, beautiful graphics, and an exciting original story. What it needs is some diversity in it's enemy types. Also the dropping of the 4 player co-op in favor of two player. Has kind of taken the bite out of the game. Finally, as good as this game was as a part one of a trilogy. I honestly hope that part 2 has a lot more enemies and some improvements in weapon types. Because at this point even after around 25 hours this game just gets kind of boring. 8/10....
So I know what your thinking.... These are old games... What are you going to review Dead Space next? Actually yes... So enjoy the blog and pardon some of the back catalog. I all ready told you I've been busy.
-Devilsalias
Friday, January 23, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Thursday, September 4, 2008
"When the Dark Lord of the Sith offers you five, you take it!" Ken Levine.
In recent weeks I've been noticing the steady decline of ye olde Gamespot. I've noticed with their revamp, it's made their site harder to load and made some their features a little harder to navigate. I cancelled my subscription when they fired Jeff Gerstmann so I'm not exactly complaining, just observing. But I will say one thing, they know what to video and what not to. This Ken Levine Keynote at PAX was the highlight of the show.
If your not a member of the site at all, you might have to join or at the very least sit through some advertising to see the keynote but it is worth it. Also I didn't want to embed it here; because while I love the content, I don't much care for the content provider. So follow the blue linky and enjoy.
As far as Gamespot; well if they completely ever fall apart it will be both a sad time and a just end to all they have wrought. It will just be too bad for all the people who still like Gamespot or feel loyalty to them. So that's my post. But don't worry a review of Too Human should be coming soon. So keep an eye out.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Star Wars Force Unleashed Demo: Wow I allmost don't miss multiplayer.
When this game was originally announced there was going to be online multiplayer lightsaber and force dueling. This game was going to be just like the Wii version except with online rather than just offline.
The game has taken a LONG TIME to get here and still needs all most one more month. For what I don't know, considering when doing an Interview with X-PLAY the lead guy on the project said that the game is done.
But this is all a digression because this demo blew me away. You are allowed to use Force Lightning, Force push, Force grip, and probably some other stuff I didn't get to play with. This is going to be the BEST STAR WARS game EVER! I think it has handily blown away KOTOR and KOTOR 2 as the undisputed king of the franchise.
The demo allows the player to run through most of the first level of the game after you actually become the Apprentice. The controls are great and with the exception of a few instances where you run out of Force Juice(which you have to wait a second or two to recharge), you feel like a god. The only thing I couldn't do that I wanted to was snatching a TIE FIGHTER out of the sky and crashing it.
I can't wait to play the final version on September 16th. I only wish the game was coming sooner. I'm just hoping there is some replayability here.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Here's YOUR FREAKING DEMO, now shut UP! TOO Human's demo and related stuff.
I didn't go to E3 this year. Which I am not alone in, neither did lots of big companies. But I did stay home and work and download stuff from XBOX LIVE MARKETPLACE. Including to my absolute delight the TOO HUMAN demo. Now if you have not done this yet; stop reading this and go start downloading. It's a 1.09 GB download so unless you have a 3 MB connection or better like I do, then it's going to take you a while. So just go do that now....
Done? Good... Now, I was pleased to also see a couple of wonderful little videos about TOO HUMAN as well. Which took significantly less time to download. So I watched these before the demo was done downloading. So they certainly occupied my time and I was interested in them, even if it felt slightly academic.
Come to find out however, that these videos were actually training films for the demo. The films were about the Champion class and about leveling skills. So when presented with these in the demo, I was well aware of what to do, and what to expect. How fortuitous...
So what was the demo like? Was it a mind blowing experience? Did this change the way I thought about games? Well, sort of....
The cool thing about Too Human is that it is really framed like a movie. With a real story arc and a nice way of telling that story. It felt very much like an action movie. Maybe, Aliens or Starship Troopers.
But more than that. The combat was interesting and fun. I really got the impression that I could bang on those guys all day and night and never get bored of it.
Also there was gear in the demo. Lots of gear. Some I could use right away, some I had to wait to level 6 to play. Level 6 is the built in level cap for the demo.
But all of this really wouldn't have made me psyched about the game. Considering the Champion Class was the only one you could play in the demo, or so I thought. Just want to say that although the Champion Class is fun, it is by no means the best class in the game.
I happened to head over to the Too Human website. There was a little cheat that allowed the player to play ANY of the 5 classes available in the final game. Apparently you just have to unplug your ethernet cable, turn off your XBOX 360, then turn it back on and change to the date to one that is in 2009. Then the rest of the classes will be unlocked until you plug the cable back in again.
Awesome right? Well, it is. Playing as the Defender or the Berserker completely changes the way you play the game and certainly teaches you about combat in ways that the Champion cannot.
I've played through the demo around 6 times now. It is very fun just to play through for the different experiences and the sheer joy of combat.
Too Human will definitely be a must play game this year. I think it may even be the Bioshock for this year.
But why was my title so dreary? Well, it's because Microsoft doesn't seem too interested in Too Human. Not when they have their XBOX LIVE EXPERIENCE AND GEARS OF WAR 2! Well, that's all fine and dandy, I'm sure Gears of War 2 will sell lots of games. In NOVEMBER! And the XBOX LIVE EXPERIENCE doesn't come out til LATE FALL? Whatever that means, is that code of December or November?
Too Human comes out August 19th! Less than a MONTH FROM THIS WEEK! This game should have been the headliner! It looks AWESOME, it has some incredible cut scenes and it plays amazingly.
Where are all the developer interviews, the behind the scenes footage, and the viral ad campaign? I know what your saying.... Wasn't that all about 2 months ago? Exactly, they had all this crazy stuff come out before anyone could even get their hands on it. It is like Microsoft said to the fans:
"Here is your FREAKING DEMO, now SHUT UP!"
As Microsoft, circles deeper and deeper into the incredibly crappy world of casual games it is good to see that there are still some descent hardcore titles coming out. Even if at the core they just want to be fat and happy like Nintendo.
Back to TOO HUMAN though; I suppose I shouldn't be surprised when Microsoft ignores this title, given the four star treatment they gave Bioshock. I think all told Bioshock had two or three trailers and a demo before it launched and everyone gave it GAME OF THE YEAR that year. Perhaps it's just Microsoft's commitment to their own particular product that keeps them from.... Wait, Microsoft it producing Too Human... Oh well... Who knows why they are ignoring it.
This game is an incredible time sink and people will be playing this game when Gears of War 3 comes out. Silicon Knights has all ready promised LOTS of DLC. Which even taken with a grain of salt translates into at least a few more things coming out. An arena style fighting mode where you have to survive wave after wave of steadily harder enemies would be nice. Just a suggestion, no charge...
Finally I have one question for Microsoft, who in BLOODY HELL likes Kung Fu Panda SO FREAKING MUCH? I have never seen so much content come out for a kids game SEQUEL in my life. The Furious Five is so far the best promoted game of E3. What is up with that????
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Sony's Online Rental and Purchase service. Wow was this a MISTAKE!
Upon hearing that Sony had decided to make an online service available allowing people to download movies and television shows for both purchase and rental and then those movies could be shared on your PSP as well. I was thrilled.
Well, I was unfortunately unable to view this service when it was SUPPOSED to be launched last night. Rather I booted it up today to take a look.
Upon my first entrance into the service I was hit with one of the most poorly planned interfaces I've ever seen. I'm sorry XBOX LIVE MARKETPLACE for all the bad things I've EVER said about your organization.
I entered New Releases thinking that since this service hasn't even been active for 24 hours that I would get all the available movies. However this was not the case, it was simply a random grouping of movies based, I guess, on when they were posted to the site.
I then entered the view all movies area. Which simply gave me a bunch of letters and a couple of numbers. I supposed this is better than showing all the movies available but then they should have a heading saying, Movies by Alpha Order or something. Not View ALL MOVIES.
OK, now let's get into the inexcusable part of this service. The rental part is pretty standard except that some movies that are made by Sony and available in BLU-RAY are not available in HD like: Resident Evil 1, 2, or 3; for instance. They are $2.99 for Standard Definition and $5.99 for High Definition. Now this would be fine except that the movies to purchase are $9.99-$14.99 for STANDARD DEFINITION ONLY!
So you can buy a BLU RAY FOR $30 or a DVD for $6-15. But they want you to get a digital version with no box or media for $10-16? Excuse me?
Why? These downloads come with nothing! No director commentary, no deleted scenes, nothing. And I'm sorry but I don't own a PSP so I can't avail myself of the sharing service. Nor would I want to. Watching a movie on that little screen is pointless.
There is absolutely no point to have this service except for the rentals. Which with Netflix having Blu-Ray and if you have PS3 you have a BLU-Ray player; it's pointless to not spend the same amount as 2 movie rentals on the PSN service and get a month of rentals from Netflix.
Sony should have allowed people to download the HD versions of their movies for between $15-$20 and made a fortune. Rather than STILL TRYING TO PUSH BLU-RAY and making no money at all.
Oh and by the way Sony, Microsoft has been showing SD and HD movies on their Rental service for about a year now, so keep trying to upgrade and maybe one day you'll at least reach the same level as Microsoft. Oh but wait, you can watch Netflix instant downloads for free this fall as long as you have a Netflix account. Oh, well I guess Sony has some MORE catching up to do. It must be hard to be Sony. The PS2 era seems SO LONG ago, doesn't it....
Monday, June 16, 2008
The Death of the Hardcore?
According to IGN we are all just kidding ourselves when we call ourselves Hardcore Gamers. I'm not sure exactly what IGN thinks a hardcore gamer is; but apparently they no longer exist.
I know lots of people who have all ready finished both Metal Gear Solid 4 and Ninja Gaiden 2 and they don't work in the press. I think that's pretty hardcore. I know a bunch of folks that have taken their characters in World of Warcraft from 0-70 in about 2 weeks; that's pretty hardcore as well.
I've been playing World of Warcraft, Grid, Ninja Gaiden 2, and just starting Metal Gear Solid 4. So much that I haven't had time to write this blog or my World of Warcraft blog. I think that's pretty hardcore.
The fact that Gametrailers, X-PLAY, Gamepot, IGN, and 1UP seem obsessed with
the Wii and Nintendo DS are not signs that the Hardcore Gamer is dead just that they are no longer being represented by the Gaming Press as a whole.
The fact that people play PC games and make mods for years and years after a game comes out is another sign of the Hardcore being alive and well. But there is only one PC gaming magazine on the market now to represent those people.
Rather it is Gaming Journalism in the mainstream that has decided to pull up their plots and go home. It seems that there can be 25 magazines about which dog, house, car, or kind of clothes to buy but when it comes to gaming magazine there are FAR TOO MANY. Even though gaming as a whole far outsells even the movie industry as far as yearly revenue.
So IGN should look to yourselves for the death of the Hardcore Gamer not the world of gaming. Because there are plenty of Hardcore gamers out there and most the folks playing World of Warcraft that have multiple level 70 characters should be all the evidence anyone needs of that.