For the Love of the Game

As you probably can tell, i love survival horror games. So much so that i'm drawn to any and every survival horror games out there even the ones outside of Capcom and Konami. Having made a bid to try and finish as many playstation2 games that i always longed to play before eventually getting my playstation3, Extermination was one of the few titles high on that list. Remember Extermination? It was survival horror game released early in the system first few years and quickly vanished into obscurity.

Developed by ex-Capcom legend Tokuro Fujiwara who also conceived the brilliant Ghost n' Goblins series, you can understand my longing and anticipation for this game, after all anything that's got to done with Capcom has gotten be golden right? Having finished the game yesterday, I don't think my love and dedication to the genre have ever been tested or stretched this far. The game centres around a group of marines sent to investigate an outbreak in a research facility out in the antarctica. The threat at hand here seems to be an alien species which is able to mutate and breed through water. Having to survive by running or gunning (sometimes both means) have always be part of the appeal of the genre but Extermination combat is so cumbersome, you start to realised why the game allows you to top up your standard ammo with no limit at all. Having to fight tiny bacterial virus about the size of your palm surrounding you at every corner spewing out green venom is no fun at all. Neither is having to target the core (weak point) of fast moving enemies whilst dodging those very same green venom.

The game graphics have stood the test of time pretty well though, boosted by some impressive voice-acting and motion captured cutscenes. Despite high production values, the game is ultimately forgettable especially since it's all over so soon, clocking a game time of roughly 5 hours. Having finished this game, I can't wait to get back to finishing Eternal Darkness.... even Ultimate Ghost n Goblins seems more appealing right now.

Circle of Life

Ever checked out Gamespot's highest rated games of all time? If you scroll to the all-time list for Gameboy Advance you will notice the highest score they ever awarded to a game on the GBA is actually a third-party game, in fact it's a launch game! It's none other than Konami's Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, the first of three Castlevania games to be eventually released on the GBA. Now either Jeff Gerstmann has been deprived too long of his vampire-staking fix or was feeling generous on launch day, i never really found out as Circle of the Moon was the only Castlevania title from the GBA that i have yet to play. In fact, once i got my Nintendo DS, it was one of the first title i sought to hunt down but during that time, most of the Castlevania GBA titles were already long out-of-print. I ended playing both Harmony of Dissonance and Aria of Sorrow first when Konami re-printed both games as a Castlevania Double Pack. Yesterday when i happened to stumble onto Circle of the Moon lying in the bargain bins of a video game store. Though it was the Japanese edition, it was too good of an opportunity for me to pass up, especially after coming off the rather import-friendly Dracula X Chronicles.

Coming at a not-so bargain bin price, the cart and box looks to be in pretty decent condition save perhaps for a slight tear on the cover from the old original price tag.Though i was like to point out that i'm very impressed with the cover art for the Japanese edition, it's easily the best non-Ayame Kojima Castlevania cover art I have seen in a long time. Can't wait to get cracking on this game, as soon as i achieved 100% completion on Rondo of Blood....

Zero to 2

That's it, they have finally gone and done it. For months the media have been speculating if Silent Hill Origins, originally developed exclusively for the PSP will eventually be ported to the PS2. Even after Amazon released the cover box art and started taking pre-orders, Konami and Climax still remained hush-hush on the matter. Not anymore, a Konami exec has officially announced that Silent Hill Origins will be making it's way to the PS2 early this year.

I thought I take this moment to post up my completion time and score for the game, when i originally complete the game on my PSP a while back...

Total enemies killed using melee weapons : 60
Total enemies killed using firearms: 26
Total enemies killed using fists: 57
Total items collected : 337
Number of map views : 613
Number of times saved: 33
Distance walked : 29.81 km
Total game time : 7:18:53
Total flashlight use time: 5:13:10
Number of game completions: 1
% of enemies killed with melee weapons : 42
% of enemies killed with firearms : 18
% of enemies killed with fists : 40
Saviour accolade achieved!
Collector accolade achieved!
Explorer accolade achieved!

Faulty Experience

It's hard to imagine Eternal Darkness before the birth of survival horror. Though not created in the mold as Resident Evil or Fatal Frame, it's clear that Eternal Darkness was made with the vision of addressing many of the genre's trappings and pitfalls. Sick of controlling characters which moves like tank? The heroes and heroines of Eternal Darkness moves and attacks fluidly thanks to a clever use of the control stick and shoulder button to either run or walk.Tired of fixed camera angle and getting blind hits as a result of that? Eternal Darkness has none of those as the game uses a smart camera that tracks and pans around locations to give the game a cinematic feel ala the God of War series. The bad voice acting that the genre is infamous for is also not present here as the game has a dark and serious tone unlike the B-movie horror atmosphere of Resident Evil. Playing this game made me realise just how these flaws that critics often take aim against the survival horror genre have made the genre unique in a way and by taking it away like what the creators did with Eternal Darkness the game loses some of its charm. It's not to say that the game is bad, far from it, it's almost feels like a love letter to anyone who ever love (or hated for that matter) survival horror games.

5 hours into the game and i'm huge impressed with it.. almost enough to make me forget it's a rotten rental copy.

Born From A Wish

If you happened to play Konami's Silent Hill Zero on your PSP you will notice a slightly amusing disclaimer right before the start menu, one that suggest that this game is designed to be played in the dark with your headphones on. For all intents and purposes, the game does manage to be a lot scarier when it is played that way but it also begs the question, when did handheld cease being portable? Well it all started with Sony making a brave foray into the handheld market with their Sony PSP. The approach was very clear right from the start, a handheld that is able to provide a console experience on the go. Well, Sony certainly packed a lot of horsepower under that PSP hood because the PSP still continues to amaze me with what it can do even three years after it's launch.

Silent Hill Zero does more justice to the series than Portable Ops did for Metal Gear, you don't get the sense of any compromise being made because it's a handheld game, the series' famed meticulous art style is still prevalent throughtout the game and the soundtrack is just awesome, albeit a bit familiar. I finished both this game and Umbrella Chronicles yesterday and came off wishing Umbrella Chronicles could be more like Origins and thoroughly surprised by the level of polish in this handheld title. It just goes to shows you can really revitalize a series by injecting new talents, possibly the reason why Konami decided to go with a different development team in Silent Hill 5. Sure the back-tracking and puzzle elements feel archaic by today's gaming standards but Origins had a good sense of storytelling which just improve and adds to the series mythos of the mysterious town. This is probably the last time you will get to play Silent Hill in its' traditional style as Silent Hill 5 is surely to reboot and reinvent the series in unimaginable ways.... so what are you waiting for?

First Hand Experience

There were a couple of Gamecube games i was really looking forward to play when i got my Wii, one of them being Eternal Darkness. I always wanted to get a Gamecube but when Nintendo revealed what was then known as Revolution and many billed the new console as a 'Gamecube on steroids', I knew this was exactly what i was looking for to tide me over till the eventual leap to HD gaming.

Anyways after searching around for bit both on-line and off-line, i was having problems locating this game and decided to turn to any gamer's last resort....the second hand market. Just before you jump into any conclusion, i have nothing against pre-owned games, i think it's doing a lot of good to the gaming community and some of my most treasured pieces of my collection happened to be pre-owned copies too. But there's no two ways about it, among gamers you either love it or hate it when it comes to pre-owned games. Some love the idea of getting these older gems which you possibly can't find in the stores anymore at a much lower price compared with retail where else others loathe the idea of owning a game that's being used or having to pay with an arm and a leg for a game that deemed '"rare". i also happened to be quite picky when it comes to pre-owned games so i have set a couple of limits as to how far i would go to obtain that coveted game. Firstly, I prefer to buy from people i know or at least, games from their personal collection as i would have a rough idea what to expect. Secondly, the pre-owned copy has to come complete because even though the manual is not vital and would probably only be read once, i would still like to keep it. Unfortunately i broke the second rule of pre-owned shopping when i found a copy of Twin Snakes at a local auction and couldn't resist even though it was missing its' manual.

Yesterday i ventured into another unknown territory of the second hand market when the pre-owned copy of Eternal Darkness i bought (from the same seller btw) turns out to be an ex-rental copy! I was pretty dumbfound when i discover this as i absolutely detested the idea of owning a copy which everyone from your back neighbour to your barber probably have a "go" over the weekend for a small fee. To the seller's credit, apart from the disc spotting a few scratches, the box and manual is in pretty good shape. I guess I have something new to learn about the second hand market of games...

No More Battery Power.....

Apparently the Wii-mote batteries aren't even enough to last through an entire game as it just ran out of juice, 10 hours into Umbrella Chronicles. Ouch, the painful feeling of having to spend on batteries for a home console is unbearable, even handheld comes with built-in lithium-ion battery these days! In the wake of this, i decided to go back to playing Resident Evil 4 Gamecube version in anticipation for the Wii edition i ordered recently. Having Leon in his Resident Evil 2 RPD uniform throughout the game (and cutscenes too, take that PS2!) is a nice nostalgic trip back to RE2, I still remember playing it on my beat-up computer years back, unable to view the FMVs properly as my specs were even up to the minimum requirements. I would later beat the game on the Playstation again and even finish the 4th survivor a few times too.

Some games just never, ever gets old....

The Resident Evil 2 Gamecube port just gets more enticing everyday, perhaps i should just order it along with killer7 Gamecube in time for Suda51's latest opus No More Heroes? Aah Capcom, i'm forever a slave to your scheming ways.....

Liberty Stories

One of the topics fanboys love to discuss about most is which storyline is considered canon among the games in a series. It's often a never-ending debate especially when a latter sequel or remake is released and decided to take a little bit of liberty with the storyline of the previous game. Yes you can probably guess that i'm taking about Umbrella Chronicles and how the game re-tells the events of RE0, 1 and 3.

I think storyline-branching is one of games' biggest strengths in storytelling, when the power to change certain outcome or events of a story lies in the hands of the gamer. Few games manage to achieve this successfully, one of them being the original first Resident Evil, where how you first meet certain supporting characters or events are changed depending on how you progress in the game. It's done in a very subtle, rather ingenius game design where sometimes you don't even realised it happening, as opposed to the dead-obvious style of RE3 where you are given a choice of selecting either option A or B.

I think it's pointless to argue over the events of which game can be considered canon, so long as the outcome of the story doesn't change dramatically, game developers should have the freedom to take certain liberties with the original storyline if they think it will benefit the game from a gameplay point of view. In Umbrella Chronicles, how rebecca and billy first meet is slightly altered, as with how jill and carlos from RE3 first meet too. In fact, most of the event and locales in the RE3 segment looks and feels significantly different from the original RE3. It's not all bad though, the dynamic duo of chris and jill teaming up to explore the original mansion together is like a dream come true for many RE fans, one which you will probably only get to experience in this game. Capcom also decided to make up for some of these by detailing and fleshing out certain events in the Resident Evil mythos, such as how Richard Aiken got injured in the first Resident Evil and also how Wesker got resurrected before appearing again in Code Veronica.

My point is don't get worked up over trying to figure out all the timeline and events of your favourite game series, you will probably end up with a headache anyway. Instead enjoy the game for what it is, and celebrate that the fact you get the experience your favourite game once again from a slightly different point of view.