Where Nothing Amazing Happens

My gaming has been pretty inactive lately ever since finishing RE5 so naturally you can expect less updates as well. Playoff basketball and and comic reading are among the other things occupying my time thereby influencing me to play a little bit of NBA 07 on the PS3 and the PSOne Spider-man which are not exactly great blog material.

Fear not, things should get a little bit more interesting this week as my copies of Madworld and Yakuza 2 are likely to be making its way back from New York courtesy of stringfellow.

Second Opinion on NMH

I went back to playing No More Heroes in an effort to finish up my remaining batteries as soon as possible. It's been probably over a year since i last touched it, i was surprised to learn that i only spent a little over 18 hours in my first go especially since i clocked more than 40 hours on a much shorter game like Umbrella Chronicles. I still think the graphics looked great, cel-shading can do a lot to mask the technical limitations of a console and none is more apparent than here. I remember reading somewhere that NMH had ps2 standard graphics but i sincerely don't feel like that's the case.

I do agree that the game controls aren't very precise, some say you can play the game with your back to the screen, just wave the motes aimlessly and still can get by. I do believe that is possible, even more now that i'm playing on hard mode and still barely struggling despite the long lay-off. There are a lot of room for improvement so hopefully we get to see how far the sequel is coming along in the upcoming E3.

Does What A Spider Can

There was an article recently that suggested that superheroes are just too powerful to be portrayed accurately in video games. I on the other hand don't seem to think so, in fact just about the only sandbox-styled games that i would play other than SEGA's yakuza series happened to be comic superheroes games.

Back before free-roaming games became possible on console, there was one noteworthy superhuman game on the PSOne simply called spider-man. While it isn't sandbox-styled, it was one of the first that actually lets you do what a spider can. It was a game was made for fans of the comic book, from the rogue gallery of villians included to the hidden comic covers and bonus costumes spidey have wore over the years. It also takes its cues from the animated series with spidey voice-over done by the same lead actor and narration from stan 'the man' lee. You don't have to be a comic book collector to enjoy this game but you will definitely appreciate the little touches thrown in for long-time fans. It also benefit from the timing because the sam raimi's spider-man movies have yet to be released so the developers have the free reign to create an original storyline and pull the characters from the beloved comic book series. The problem i find with most superhero games these days are the developers aren't sure whether to follow the movie franchise or the comic storyline, most of the time meshing the movie plot with some familiar characters from the comic creating one fine mess. With the comic book industry in a state of flux, the movie franchise often take precedence these days so it's nice to pull one a retro game from a time when things are in the right perspective.

32-bit Onimusha

Nowadays i'm pretty sure of my preference in games that i don't normally buy games based on reviews anymore. Sure i will read some reviews but usually it's after buying the game to see if i agree with the reviewer's argument or whether i missed anything in the course of playing it. i wasn't so wise back in the 32-bit era, infact i bought a konami game solely because the back of the box says "from the makers of metal gear solid and silent hill". During that time, you will be hard-pressed to shop for games and not come across a game from a famous developer or publisher that says from the makers of this or that. You don't see this very often anymore but i gotta admit i got a kick of this even if i already know who was developing the game.

Anyways this game was called Ronin Blade and was infact developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Sapporo not KCET so it actually had nothing to do with Metal Gear or Silent Hill. It also plays nothing like those games instead it feels like a game trying to ape capcom game rather than a konami game. Thankfully the game does not suck even ten years upon release but it's not always you suckered into buying something based on brand alone and actually end up with a quality product.

Girl Trouble

Leon S Kennedy has always been established as a ladies man right from his first appearance in RE2, that's the one thing that seems to separate him from the series first male protagonist, Chris. I was happy that learned that the director of the upcoming Darkside Chronicles pointed this out because for the longest time, it seems like i was the only one among my friends who noticed this. Either we are been playing different games or someone is just not paying attention but let's not get side-tracked now shall we?

Anyways the director revealed in his blog that he and game scenario writer Suga-san are dreaming up new plot points and events for the series' favourite ladies man with the ladies of RE2, namely Claire, Ada and Sherry. Yup that right, Sherry who only had a brief brush with Leon at the end of the game will share several levels with Leon which i suppose you would have to assume the role to protect her from the horrors of raccoon city. This is certainly an interesting twist as with the prospect of Claire and Ada meeting for the first time in the series.

Leon will have all the ladies he can handle in DC

State of Panic

You can probably tell by now that i use my Wii to play Gamecube games more often than Wii games these days. A pair of AA batteries can last me for a great deal of months, even more so now that i sort of drifted off playing Oneechanbara on a consistent basis. Yup i replaced my AA batteries so rarely that the thought of getting re-chargables AA has never occur to me, i had a terrible experience using them with my first Gameboy and would really like to avoid them as long as i can.

So imagine my surprise when i was about to replace my AA batteries last night after a long period of use and reached out to my supply of spare AA batteries only to discover that two have leaked! I have built up a healthy supply of AA batteries over time but it seems i'm not using them up fast enough for them to outlive their usefulness. This sends me to a state of panic because now i have to use the remaining ones as fast as possible so they don't leak like the last two. It doesn't help that i hardly any Wii games i'm eager to play right now, be it new or the ones i have completed. Guess it may be time to look for some new Wii games after all, there is only so much Oneechan one can take.

7" Wonder

While i was at a local game store last week i spotted a 7" portable LCD screen for the Wii, something similar to the 5" screen i have been using with my PSOne. I do admit i loved my 5" PSOne screen to bits, having the comfort of playing games right on the desk of my room but i just don't see myself doing the same with the Wii just yet. Gamecube game perhaps but playing Wii games where you have to point the wii-mote at the screen sounds like a nightmare with the 7" screen. Frankly i can bear with playing PSOne games on a small screen because of the low resolutions which don't look especially good when blown up to a huge television screen but i still think that Wii and Gamecube game should be appreciated on a bigger screen.

The price is pretty tempting, about half the price of a korean Wii set but i don't know how long these babies will still be on the shelf. Probably not long enough till the day when i decide that Wii and Gamecube games don't look that great anymore and would prefer to play it on a smaller screen.

Silent Hill Origins Second Playthrough

Total enemies killed using melee weapons : 238
Total enemies killed using firearms: 25
Total enemies killed using fists: 39
Total items collected : 341
Number of map views : 204
Number of times saved: 26
Distance walked : 34.81 km
Total game time : 6:57:58
Total flashlight use time: 2:42:27
Number of game completions: 2
% of enemies killed with melee weapons : 79
% of enemies killed with firearms : 13
% of enemies killed with fists : 8

You Enjoy All The Killing, That's Why

In your first playthrough Silent Hill Origins you will end up with the default good ending no matter what you do. Getting the other bad ending in your subsequent playthrough however requires a bit more work. It doesn't really makes sense why the good ending is the default ending especially for a series that have traditionally favours bad ending, perhaps it's because the good ending ties into the canon whereby the ending sort of leads to the events of the first game.

Anyways in order to achieve the bad ending you have to kill more than 200 enemies to re-discover travis's inner demons which have been kept hidden away all these years. It's no small task even more which the game only reveals to you how many you have killed once you have finished the game so there is no way of really telling if you are close to your target when playing the game. Thankfully you unlock the moon gaunlets after finishing the game once which should be more than enough to mow down every monster in sight. Even so i grew weary of running around looking for things to kill, i'm afraid i may have over done again as usual so it would be interesting to see how many i have killed once i finished the game.

Going Downhill

I have been playing a lot of Silent Hill recently, re-discovering my love for the series which sort of went downhill since the fourth installment. I never really talk about i came to the series mainly because it wasn't nearly half as dramatic as my introduction to Resident Evil , i was introduced to the series by a fellow close friend not having own a PSone yet so somehow it was difficult to form your own opinion with someone constantly telling you how good this is.

Anyway over the years i remained supportive of the series even more so than my friend, to the point where i was being criticised of being biased. I suppose i am to some degree but isn't that what being fanboys are all about? I went back to playing Silent Hill Origins over the long weekend after finishing the first Silent Hill, i'm amazed by how good the game looks when you switched the noise filter off though it isn't to the level i would expect from a Wii game. Speaking of which, where is the trailer for Shattered Memories? So far we have only been treated to a bunch of screen captures and developer interviews, surely they must have put together enough for a trailer by now right? Well the May issue of Nintendo Power should probably have arrived at my local newstands by now so i should start looking for it really soon, seeing that there is a coverage on Darkside Chronicles in there too.

The Professional (mode)

Before trying the hard mode on RE5, i decided to play through professional mode on RE4 first since the game doesn't track your stats like RE5 so i don't have to worry about dying too much. I also don't have to worry about babysitting sheva and could certainly use the challenge especially after having played RE4 so much and breezing through amateur mode as sheva in RE5 a few weeks back. It will also give my a good chance to try some of the weapons i hardly ever use in RE4 as i would need so heavily-beefed up weapons to get through professional mode.

To my surprise, the professional mode really is as lazy as some have said, i have expecting super-human ganados which would required more shots to go down but instead they feel no different from the ganados in normal mode. They certainly inflicit much more damage to leon, a quick grab from a ganado will easily push you to the yellow caution zone if you have not upgraded leon's health meter. The number of ganados feel more or less the same as normal mode, i'll know for sure once i finished pro mode by going back to comparing my stats in normal mode.

The Freaks are Rising Up Through The Floor

After i have finished Silent Hill, i immediately went to work on how i can prevent the fungus on the game box from spreading onto the disc. It's a tricky business because obviously i don't want to have to throw anything away and i certainly won't want the fungus to spread to my other games. So basically i ended up bagging the manual, put another plastic sheet behind the front cover and even threw a dessicant inside the box for good measure. A bit too much? You can never be too careful with your games and i have always been one to treasure my games more than my consoles as my logic has been you can always replace your console but you can't always replace your games. Till this day, i still can't fathom why guys would value their consoles more than their games but i guess that's the mentality you end up with coming from a country where piracy is all around.