3 is The Magic Number

During this 3 day weekend i have decided to go back to playing Silent Hill 3 on my Playstation 3 in anticipation for the upcoming Silent Hill Homecoming. Surprisingly the graphics in Silent Hill 3 still holds up remarkably well though i believe it has more to do with the series strong art direction rather than the graphical power of the PS2.

Silent Hill 3 is probably my least favourite SH installment of all, the storyline has too much connections to the first Silent Hill and the inclusion of a playable female lead is the worst thing the Team Silent could ever do to the series. The game does however has the best-looking cover of all in the series though i'm referring specifically to the Japanese version. The image of a teenager girl gripping a handgun in fear is a pretty powerful image but it's also the stuff the anti-video game activists would love to get their hands on so it's probably a good idea Konami decided to change it for the overseas release.

Better Than a Dozen Die Hards

While the cinematic style of Stranglehold disappoints, i'm happy to report that the Hard Boiled movie included on the disc is the best i have seen of the film for some time. This includes multiple versions of the film on DVDs and also a cinema screening in an old cinema in Birmingham during my university years. The version here includes the original film credits where names are featured in both english and chinese, and Chow and Tony Leung shares the top billing.

The film mark the high point of John Woo career when the man in the top of his game and ready to move to the greener pastures of Hollywood. It also significant for me as it bridges the gap between my early infatuation with Woo and later admiration of the works of tony leung and wong kar-wai. I begin to admire the subtle acting method of tony as opposed to the often over-acting and dramatic style of chow.

This disc best demonstrate the true power of blu-ray, both the game and possibly best presentation of the movie on a single blu-ray disc! Seeing how good Hard Boiled look makes me glad that i lucked out on the earlier standard edition and got this instead. Afte rall, the movie is definitely the highlight of the disc despite being 16 years older than the game. However i find the cover of the standard edition more enticing than this collector edition, perhaps because Chow looks more like tony leung on that cover.

Are you Blu or Are you Blind?

Here's a good example why i loathe region 3 product, this is the back cover of MGS4 special edition cardboard case. Official konami product mind you, if you are a Sony enthusiast you will easily notice something is amiss. If you can't well there is nothing to worry about after all, ignorance is bliss right? But seriously once you do take notice of it, it does sticks out like a sore thumb doesn't it? Oh how i wish i had the US special edition with the yoji shinkawa boxart instead, sigh...

Stranglehold Scores

Stranglehold as a game alone is such a hard-sell seeing that the whole campaign last for roughly less than ten hours. Sure Midway could have made it a bit longer but there is really no point to it as the whole game is rather repetitive and any longer would not have serve the game any good. In the end, the whole John Woo experience feels unfulfilled because while the game does play like a John Woo film, it lacks that cinema flair of it's silver screen predecessor. The cutscenes in Stranglehold are just plain bad and i found myself wishing that there were less cutscenes in the game, it was that bad.

Thankfully the Hard Boiled movie which inspired the game is also included on the Collector Edition, making the purchase worthwhile at its current price which is about the price of a blu-ray movie alone. Hard Boiled isn't just any movie, if you have not seen it i strongly urge you to watch it if you have any love for action films.

Enemies defeated - 1264
Highest style combo - 32
Style point earned - 2857
Paper cranes found - 110
Damage to world - $ 146,048,617

Overall ranking - C -

The Dead Will Rise

Seeing that most of us are pretty slow on our feet come Monday mornings, here are some of the more interesting abstract from Dead Rising Delusion Replay just as i promised. The last piece of artwork featuring the girls of Dead Rising in skimpy swimsuits and provocative poses is pretty risque if you asked me, just take a look for yourself. I apologise for most of the captures looking mostly the same, i realised i should have taken a more diverse range of pictures. Well, maybe next time.

October Rain

October has always been a big month for me when it comes to games where i usually reward myself with a big purchase and by the definition of big, i don't just mean a new game. It's a trend i started about three years ago with the japanese version of Dante May Cry 3 which i bought at a local game store. Seeing that it was a local game store, you can probably guess it wasn't by any means cheap but i really wanted that cool handphone strap that came with it. Since Play-asia never discounted the japanese version anyways before it was eventually replaced with the special edition, i don't think it was that bad of a purchase.

Next was the PAL version of Metal Gear Solid 3 Subsistence, the standard edition for the PAL market comes with all three discs included while the US version only had two disc as the standard edition. While i won't mind the standard two-disc US version at that time, it too became scarce when i was about to purchase it so i have to settle for the PAL three-disc version. Most recently was the konamistyle edition of Castlevania Dracula X Chronicles, probably my biggest purchase so far. i thought about it for some time and even hesitated a while primarily because it wasn't cheap but since it happens to be close to October, i thought what the hell.


This year, the only release in the month of October which i'm interested in is Suda51's Flower, sun and rain but sadly, no US release date has been announced yet. The only other option is the PAL version scheduled for release this October, however shipping it from HMV is not going to be cheap, what with the postage rates they charge.

Home is Where The Heart is

While having a conversation with some friends on upcoming games this Fall, i failed to come up with a game when asked which game will i most probably get this Fall. Shock, horrors, the guy with the most systems (among my friends at least) has got no game in mind for this upcoming Fall!

I suppose it has something to do with my distinct taste for gaming, as you can tell from this blog i don't usually play a wide-variety of games, in fact my friend would go so far as to pigeon-holed it as "anything horror or gothic with guns & bullets in it". While i don't deny the appeal, i would suppose it's one of the reason why i got so many system to cater to my distinct taste. One game coming out this Fall quickly slipping out of my radar is Silent Hill: Homecoming which received even less attention during this recent Leipzig. Is the game coming out this Fall and has everyone forgotten about it? One thing's for sure, i won't be getting it on release day as i decided to wait it out until the price drops. The reason?

There's no collector edition announced.

Coyote Chow

Remember the Wile E. Coyote and the Road runner show from Looney Tunes where the bird is constantly on the run from the hungry coyote? Somehow the coyote will always lay the most obvious of trap, like a boulder hanging right above a bait just to lure the unsuspecting coyote so he can eat him.

The enemies in Stranglehold are often strategically placed under such circumstances and unfortunately they lack the AI or the good fortune of our roadrunner to escape their impending doom. So it's all up to our Inspector Tequila to play the big bad coyote and put them out of their misery. I wish Stranglehold would have better level design so you have to somehow lure these guys under the traps before setting it off. This is the sort of level design you can excuse from maybe a generation ago but now in this generation where every piece of the environment is destructible (such is the selling point of Stranglehold) and the enemy AI is expected to provide some kind of challenge, this is really not acceptable. Welcome to the world of Stranglehold, where all your guilty pleasure fantasies come to life like the ultimate John Woo movie.

Into the Blu

Apart from the bonus blu-ray i received from the bundle and the MGS4 bonus disc, i don't actually have any blu-ray movies. This Stranglehold Collector's Edition which contain the full-length feature film of Hard Boiled will be my first though essentially it's not exactly a blu-ray movie disc.

I always made the excuse that i can barely keep up collecting games so that's why i don't collect blu-ray movies. Judging from my pattern of owning multiple copies of the same game, it's a probably good idea to keep away from the temptation of blu-rays. The truth is i used to be an avid collector of DVD during the DVD boom and it pains me to have to start all over again. Sure i'm sure many faced the same dilemma and i have seen some new blu-ray collector letting go of their old DVD collection to fund their new interest. I for one do not intend to do the same though it's not to say that i would completely ignore the format, the blu-ray version of newer films are still the most viable way to go. As for older movies, those that i already owned i intend to keep and won't necessarily upgrade to blu-ray unless the new version happens to have some new features.

Grindhouse

While having a casual discussion with some gamers on Jeanne D'arc this morning, i happened to pick up a new RPG jargon. Grinding which a casual RPG gamer like myself often call "leveling up" is a common practise when it comes to RPG and also is one of the very reason why i don't indulge in RPG games very much, save perhaps this one. You see i'm sort of gamer who prefer to be told what to do, so when it comes to free-roaming and RPG games i often end up wandering around aimlessly. How much is enough when it comes to leveling up? That is something which i have yet to master, having reach the end of FFX only to have to cheat my way through Sin at the end.

Yes i know, it's not something that i'm proud of and hopefully it won't happen again with Jeanne D'arc.

Dead Out of Stock

Well surprise suprise the Dead Rising Delusion Replay that i ordered a while back is already out of stock on Play-asia, i wonder how many others ordered the book thinking that the language barrier would be only a small matter? Perhaps i should have saved them the trouble by posting a review of it on Play? Oh well it's too late for that now, however there is one particular tasty piece of artwork inside that is absolutely universal which i'm sure every male gamer can appreciate. Just be a little patient and i'm try to upload it for you guys to see.

Number Crunchers

A lot of issue has been made about the technical difficulties of porting Dead Rising to a lesser platform like the Wii, chiefly like how many zombies will appear on the screen at once? After all, the original Xbox360 was an average game made great by the mere number of zombies Capcom were able to generate on-screen at once and also the number of creative ways you could disperse the zombies. I have always been a firm supporter of playing games on their original platform and would really just contradict myself if i were to proclaim that the Wii version would be superior to the original Xbox360 version. I'm however, a lot more optimistic about how the Wii version would turn out than most, simply because i believed in the potential of the platform. I was an avid player of the Mercenaries Mode in Resident Evil 4 and was really amazed by the number of zombies on-screen at once on the Gamecube version having gotten used to the PS2 version. It made me believe that the Gamecube and PS2 version of Resident Evil 4 were indeed worlds apart and the Gamecube was a much more capable hardware than the PS2. And now the Wii is capable of so much more too, sure it will never match the PS3 and Xbox360 in the technical department but we have yet to witness just what the little white box is capable of.

I'm glad it's coming to the Wii and with the development team at Capcom Japan re-designing the game from the ground up using the RE4 engine, the end result should be promising. Of all the games coming to the PS3 and Wii, this is the one i'm most looking forward to and no, i'm not kidding.

Lost in Amazon

As much as i enjoy ordering stuff online, i have never order from Amazon before up until the Okami Official Works was translated and released by Udon books. Amazon was the only online store that i know of which was carrying it as Play-asia only had the original Japanese version. I had no idea what the shipping rates and delivery time would be like, having grown so accustomed to HK online stores. In some ways, ordering and getting this book was like an adventure itself much like the game.

As you probably know Amazon does not provide free shipping overseas and shipping for books aren't cheap so i actually talked my friend Andy into ordering one for himself in order to save on postage! One problem solved then came the day when it would finally arrived, about 10 days after it was shipped from US. All that came was a little pink slip asking the recipient to pick it up from the post office collection centre in downtown. Being a bit of an otaku, i had no idea where is this collection centre so getting there was going to be a bit of a problem. So in the end, i got my dad to drive me down on a Saturday while i navigate our way with a roadmap. When i finally got there and went inside their storeroom, it looked like the warehouse where they stored the ark in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Apparently the parcel could not be shipped to my home address as it was encased in a M-bag (which looks more like a fishnet to me) and the post office had no authority to open it.

So i got home and open the parcel only to discover that the book shipped all the way from US was actually printed in HK! Oh the irony of that, Play-asia could have stocked it so i wouldn't have to go through all that trouble just to get it.

Violent Reaction

While i was at Borders earlier today after meeting up with the gang to pass Andy his Okami book, i noticed the Borders there had a hell lot more gaming magazines than the other branches. One particular magazine caught my attention, vol231 of Nintendo Power featured a cover story on the upcoming Platinum Games' Madworld. What caught my attention wasn't the cover story of Madworld but the fact that Nintendo Power discreetly hid the cover behind a bagged cover featuring Mario and company celebrating the 20th anniversary of the publication. Coincidence? Maybe but i have a strong feeling Nintendo Power didn't want to scare away their audience by featuring a prominent blood red cover focusing on an ultra-violence game. Oh well, Nintendo Power has consistently been one of the better Nintendo-publication around, they have great taste when it comes on cover stories and reviews so i'll just let this one slide.

Now as much as i dig the guys over at Platinum Games, i can't really say i feel the same way about Madworld particularly because i feel that any game shouldn't have to rely on excessive violence as its main selling point. I could be swayed by the fact that Platinum Games happened to have other games in development that are far more exciting and Madworld is helmed by a relatively newcomer. Also with my comic book background the art direction of Madworld just doesn't sit too well with me, it's highly reminiscent of John Romita Jr and Frank Miller and i wasn't never into those guys. On a postive note, given the competition on the Nintendo Wii from third-party developers, Madworld does have a pretty good chance of being a big seller.I just hope its got something else apart from blood & gore to back up those sales figures.

Art of Life

More on Okami, i have been meaning to share about this artbook i ordered from Amazon for some time now but didn't because i haven't really got around to actually looking at it. You see i'm afraid that it might contain spoilers to the ending so i would very much rather wait till i finished the game before dwelling into it. Of course there is also the issue of suspense if i were to bring it up on the forum as i ordered two copies, one for myself and the other for andy so if anyone were to get curious it's always fun to tease.

It didn't work out quite like what i expected, ordering the book did not spurred me to play the game further (though i'm still playing it) and i wouldn't be passing it to andy as he wouldn't be making it to tomorrow's gathering. Oh well, that's life right?

High for Five

Good news, Play-asia has already started taking pre-orders for the upcoming Resident Evil 5 due for release on 13th March 2009 and it looks like they are bringing in the collector's edition too.

Now the past few collector edition has mostly been Gamestop/EBgames exclusive so naturally were very difficult to obtain especially if you don't live in the states. Metal Gear Solid 4 and Ninja Gaiden Sigma were the most notable examples though some were still able to buy it off eBay but not without paying an arm and leg for it. Since i already missed the Collector Edition for MGS4 and DMC4 (and Sigma while we are at it), there is no way i'm not getting this one ! As you know i'm an absolute RE nut and so that's why i think i'll pass on the upcoming konamistyle edition of Castlevania: Order of Eccelsia in order to save for this one.

Paper paper

I was playing Okami on the Wii last night when the rolling demo kick in at the start menu after leaving your controller idle for too long. I'm sure it was footage taken directly from the playstation2 version because it had a completely different look to it, the infamous paper filter effect of the ps2 version.

Now i'm not familiar with japanese art style but paper filter effect to someone with a casual eyes like myself just looks like hazy, grainy, blurry effect. I really wonder if the developers intentionally created such an art look for the original version or they just couldn't get the ps2 to generate such rich vibrant colors? After all, the gamespot reviewer remarked that the Gamecube version of Viewtiful Joe had richer more vibrant colors than the subsequent ps2 port. This is all just pure speculation from my side unless someone is able to provide me with some proof that the paper filter on the original ps2 version was intentional. Anyone?

Prepare to Go Ballistic

Blogging has its own perks too even if you are not a babe with a hundred visitors a day. So there i was dreaming up my post yesterday and finishing it up over the evening by posting the appropriate links to each item on my shopping list. I intentionally put links to each item from Play-asia because i knew they aren't available on Play anymore so it should be obvious why i'm eager to go down to Singapore to look for them. So there i was at Play-asia looking for the links and lo and behold, Stranglehold Collector Edition was back in stock again!

I immediately ordered it along with a little something else to make up the numbers so by this time week now, my Playstation3 should be busy again. Hopefully i would have finished Okami by then but it's really not necessary anymore as i realise there is little point to rush through a game like that. Stranglehold on the other hand is not, it's the kind of mindless fun that you can quickly rush through and pick it up again every now and again. It should make a nice little distraction before i settle down to play Lost Planet.

We Can Remember It for You Wholesale

Whenever a long weekend is around the corner, everyone starts thinking about a vacation be it a long or a short one. Well i don't really need a vacation but i have been meaning to go down to Singapore to do some major game-hunting for quite some time now.
You see, since i got the new console i haven't really got the chance to go shopping for games especially early generation games which i might have missed, or even some old PS2 gems since i got a BC unit. I'm the sort of guy who likes having a stack (a small one, preferably) of games by my side just waiting for me to play and I have compiled a list of games which i have been meaning to make a trip down to Singapore to look for.

1. Zack & Wiki
Yes, i haven't given up on looking for this title and i'm fairly confident i should be able to find it there. i've seen it selling in several stores and since most asian wii users don't normally buy original games there's a good chance it might still be there.

2. Ace Attorney 3
The final episode in the Phoenix Wright is just golden, it was never released in Europe and and came out shortly before Apollo Justice so i suspected it had a pretty low print run. Of course, there is always the Japanese import version available but since i owned the US version of both the earlier two episodes i would really like to keep it consistent in completing the trilogy.

3. Stranglehold
I have been following this game all the way from development to release and still haven't played it yet! The collector's edition would be perfect as i don't think i want the regular edition anymore after missing out on getting it for less than USD 20. I always make it a point to only get games that i would play more than once and this one fits the bill perfectly. On top of it, i'm a real big fan of John Woo and Chow Yun-fat.

4. God Hand
A bit of a odd one, i made a pact with Andy to pick this up the last time as it was selling cheap and was on offer if you buy more than one. I don't remember the details but i never got around to buying it then, i still want this one for the sake of completion because i also happened to be a big fan of shinji mikami and despite what the reviews said, i liked this game.

More Okami

I have just passed 40 hours of gameplay in Okami over the weekend but yet i have no idea how close i am to finishing the game. I should be close as i have amassed twelve out of the thirteen available celestial brush skills but yet the storyline gives no indication that things are wrapping to an end.

I will still take my time to explore the land of Nippon thoroughly as there are so much that i have missed, i have not cross out any of the monsters on the two monster list i received and i only have about one-third of the stray beads scattered throughout the land. This has indeed turned out to be an epic journey and i'm not sure if i'm ready to do it all over again on my PS2. It kinda of a shame i won't get to view the ending credits at the end of my journey on the Wii version but i guess that would be a driving force for me to do it all over again on my PS2. Stay tuned for more Okami-related post as i have several other things to share regarding the game real soon.

The Dragon's Coming

Having made a decision not to play any new games on my Platstation3 until i finished Okami on the Wii, i have been keeping myself busy re-playing Yakuza in anticipation for the US release of Yakuza 2 next month. I don't get a lot of chances to use my Nintendo Wii these days for reasons i rather not indulge here but since my Playstation2 is always around lying idle, it's a good time to warm it up again. Sega has fallen behind quite a bit in localising Yakuza 2 and in an effort to save some time (and money) decided to keep the original Japanese voice-overs instead of hiring Hollywood talents like they did with this first one. It may come as a surprise but i enjoyed the US voice talent for Yakuza quite a bit, apart the the script having a bit too much swearing, most of the voice talent delivered the goods.

Now the real question is will the future Yakuza games retain their original Japanese voiceovers ?

Fatal Attraction

In these days, you can never be sure how long a game might stay exclusive, what with developers eager to recoup the escalating development cost by getting the game out on as many platform as possible. However you can be sure that the recent Fatal Frame Wii will not be one to appear on another console soon as publisher Nintendo was nice enough to lend some of their characters and license to the game as fan-service bonus for the fans. So if you happened to finish the game already, you will be able to unlock bonus costumes such as Luigi's jumpsuit and Metroid Samus' Zero suit which looks very sexy indeed !

Frankly, it's nice to know that Nintendo has not completely abandoned its core gamers audience and little bonuses like these will go a long way to squash any rumours about the game appearing on other platform due to the lukewarm sales. The partnership between Tecmo and Nintendo looks to extend far beyond than their game appearing on their platform. You gotta love Nintendo if you are a fanboy into exclusive games as they have designed their platform to be so unique that developers aren't able to do multi-platform release on their platform without putting in the extra effort.

Wii love Suda

and Suda51 loves Nintendo. Sure it's probably a business strategy for Grasshopper Manufacture to develop games for Nintendo given its relatively low development cost and large user base but over the years, Nintendo has played host to some of Suda's finest work.

killer7, Suda's US debut was originally meant to be a Gamecube exclusive before Capcom started with their multiplatform strategy but the Gamecube version remained as arguably the definitive version of Suda's debut. No More Heroes, a sort of spiritual sequel to killer7 is Nintendo Wii exclusive and still reigns as one of the finest third party action games on the platform. Fatal Frame VI, another love child of Suda and Nintendo collaboration was recently released in Japan to favourable reviews.

Now, the Nintendo DS is about to play host to another Suda game, Flower, Sun and Rain, a Playstation2 title originally available only in Japan, completely remade from the ground up for Nintendo's popular handheld.I have seen the demo of the game and frankly, the 3D engine for the DS version looks like an early PSOne game it certainly looks like the developers are taking a lot of constraints in shrinking this Playstion2 title to the Nintendo DS. It still looks mighty enticing and being a Nintendo fan, it looks like i'm going to have to get used to being compromised as the Wii developers at Capcom are apparently facing major hurdles too in bringing Dead Rising to Nintendo Wii.

Voice of Thunder

Looks like Metal Gear 4 is not the end of the Metal Gear Solid series on the Playstation afterall, there are more Metal Gears on the way.

In a recent post-MGS4 interview with voice talent Quinton Flynn who happens to voice Raiden, he discusses his experience with the series and portraying Raiden. He also goes on to reveal that he recorded some voice work for the Metal Gear Solid Digital Novel indicating that the fully-voiced iteration of the game is coming to Western shores afterall.Great news indeed, i could do with some more Metal Gear after finishing MGS4 and though it hasn't been announced yet I hope it's coming to the PSP instead of being a DVD release like in Japan.

That way i will be more inclined to pick it up again though i'm not sure if it will all fit onto one UMD with the inclusion of the voice overs.

The Great Amaterasu

You can never keep a good game down, with this case being Okami as Capcom is planning to give the title another leash of life on the Playstation2 as a Greatest Hits re-release. While not publicly acknowledged, the Playstation2 version was becoming pretty scarce probably a result of most retailers refusing to stock the title due to it's poor sales performance.

You see, Greatest Hits are usually conferred to games that have sold a certain number of copies and have been on release for over a year. While Okami certainly meets the latter criteria, I'm doubtful that it sold enough copies to warrant a re-release on the Greatest Hits label. However the sales of Playstation2 hardware continues to thrive on and there is certainly a demand for good games as latecomers to the platform will be looking for games for their system. Now, having played through about two-thirds of the game i begin to understand why the game has sold so poorly as it have basically no mass market appeal in today's bloodthirsty game market. It's a game that constantly test your patience with it's slow-paced story which i believe is deliberate in order to freshen out each and every character in the Okami universe. It's unquestionably a good game but one that will have a hard time capturing the attention of the average casual gamer.

This is certainly good news for me as i have been trying to look for the original Playstation2 version upon learning that the Wii version lacks certain features of the original. Now if only i can get over the fact it's a Greatest Hits version...