Rusty Gear

Here's a good way to tell if you really like a game, try re-playing it. Recently i talked about how much i enjoyed re-playing DMC4 but unfortunately i can't really say the same about MGS4 which i'm trying to finish again on big boss hard mode. It's not the greater difficulty, the cinemas still look great in my eyes and nothing shows off a good graphic engine better than putting on bonus costume/skins. Tackling snake final mission again just feel cumbersome, i wasn't really any good in sneaking in the first five games and now it's even harder with the improved AI and greater difficulty level. Plus without any new surprises from the story to keep things interesting, i'm beginning to wonder what can i do to keep things interesting in this second play-through.

And i haven't even got to the boring bits like tracking naomi's footprints in Act 2...

Hear My Voice

The gaming world has played host to a number of silent heroes, most notably Link from the Legend of Zelda and more recently his spiritual successor Amaterasu from Okami. These characters despite being set off on the adventure of a lifetime has the distinction of letting their action define their character rather than their words. Vannesa Z Schneider from PN03 was set to join the list of heroes or so i thought, two-third into the game where she has yet to utter a word. It was certainly fitting for her character and the scenario as she is on a lone mission on a distant planet to destroy every moving mecha under the control of CAMS (Computer Arms Management System). She appears so cool and calm disposing each mecha with her slick moves and she is wonderfully animated down to every last intricate move. Receiving text orders from a faceless contact, it's easy to see why she's the most charming individual in the game despite being silent.

Then about two-thirds into the game, something happened. Faced with what looks like a clone of herself, she begins to wonder aloud what the heck is going on. I have yet to finish the game but i always figured her to be a clone, a terminator of some kind. Now she just sounds European and her thick accent makes her more foreign than any of the fancy aegis suit that she wears. You know, i bet Franka Potente (Run Lola Run) would be perfect to play her character if they ever do a movie adaption.

The Man with the Glowing Beard

I just finished playing Silent Hill 3 last weekend, making it the first ps2 game i finished on my backward compatible ps3. Silent Hill 3 was the obvious first choice it had great replay value, still is one of the best looking game of its era and on top of that, i get to drum up some excitement for the lacklustre sequel that was recently released on the ps3. Despite all that i still end up taking more than two months to finish the game, clocking in a game time of less than ten hours.

You know what they say about the little deflects that show up whenever you play ps2 games on a ps3 unit that doesn't have hardware-enabled backward compatibility? While i didn't run into any major problem with Silent Hill 3, i did notice one slightly amusing deflect from the game running on my ps3. Remember how Douglas reminded everyone of Donald Sutherland when you first saw him? His beard is certainly a work of art, augmented on the ps3 by the fact that it actually glows in the dark !No kidding during the cutscene where Douglas and Heather are both driving Silent Hill, you can still clearly see his beard behind the misty wet windscreen. Apart from that i'm happy to report that there were no other major deflect, i'm eager to see just how the other games would look like.

24-7

We have all been there before, of course i'm talking games left unfinished.I often tend to leave a game behind when i'm enticed by newer fancier games only to find that i never ever go back to it after a lapse of time. Sometimes the fear to not being able to comprehend the on-going plot prevents me from going back to it, other time the game simply has too long of a learning curve until i can't be bother to learn up the controls again.

It often happened to me for games that i do not pay for and most recently it happened me again with crisis core so i'm determined not to let that thing happen again with FF VII. i have devise a plan to play the game every day without fail, be it for half an hour or two hours i must play the game at least once a day. Sure a plan like that might eventually make a simple thing like playing games a chore but knowing myself, the tendency of leaving a game as epic as FF VII unfinished is always there. After finishing FF VII, i intend to re-run Advent Children, take another stab at finishing both Dirge of Cerebrus and Crisis Core in order to get the full picture. That is, if i'm not already sick of FF VII by then...

Straight Story

Shinji Mikami is a bit of an enigma among his game developer peers. Sure he is most famously known as the forefather of Capcom's Resident Evil series but in between each high-profile RE game that he worked on, comes a rough diamond like Godhand and PN03 which i happened to be playing right now on my Wii. For a developer of his calibre, it's certainly surprising to see the level of polish in these games in fact, mikami himself often lamented about how he should have spent more time polishing up and promoting these titles.

I remember when i was looking for Godhand with my friend in Singapore and he kept asking me if it was a good game. Worse when i eventually found a copy of it in one of the stores, even the shop assistant who was attending to me, leaned over to ask if this game was any good. Understandably, i ended up not buying the game from that store. Godhand a fighting game that may or may not have been made from the re-used asset and engine of mikami other hit, resident evil 4 caught gamers attention for the wrong reasons when it scored a lowly 3.0 from IGN. I happened to like it because of it's intuitive dodging system and memorable soundtrack composed by the legendary maestros at Grasshopper manufacture.

PN03 was the first of Capcom Five out of the gates and unsurprisingly the only one that was not eventually ported to the ps2 due to its poor critical reception and lukewarm sales. It has the same diamond in the rough feeling as Godhand where presentation are kept to a bare minimum and it's all about the gameplay. The game doesn't take you by the hand and simply thrust you straight into the heat of the action. I was a little caught off-guard by this but have a feeling i'm going to like this as much as Godhand...

Back for One

A few weeks ago i got myself a copy of FFVII in hopes of reviving my ole PSOne and with my portable 5" LCD screen arriving earlier this week, the revival is now complete. I spent a lot less than i expected, i remember first seeing the screen in the local game stores here and the only thing that has always kept me back from getting it was the price. Considering i wasn't planning on playing it that much, the amount of time i foresee myself spending on it just doesn't justify the asking price though it actually wasn't very expensive.

Now that i have the portable screen i can just keep my PSOne handy by my side on the desk instead of having to dig it up whenever i get the urge. Gamers prefer to wait for these PSOne classic to appear on the PSN but if you already own the game initially why bother paying for it again? While i don't actually have an extensive collection of PSOne games i do have everything i could ever want to play on the platform including a few gems i never got around to playing before abandoning the system. Vagrant Story and Syphon Filter 2 were the unfortunate lot as the former get condemned to hell by some of my friends and i lost interest in the latter when the series became a laughing stock with the release of a few poor sequels on the PS2.