Sunday, November 21, 2010

Eyes to Behold



I have gone and done it again. This time I was so desperate that I didn't even bother with a standard Play asia coupon code. Speaking of codes, it's funny how those things are so readily available when you don't need them and when you do need one, you just can't seem to get hold of one. Story of my life I suppose.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Dragon's Quest

There's a dragon on a mission right now and that mission is to earn as many missing trophies as possible in Yakuza 3. Free from the constraints of the story mode, I'm able to focus my attention to areas which reward you with trophies for your hard work and so far, the trophy hunt has been the ultimate thrill. Some are getting exceedingly difficult to achieve like finding the remaining locker keys but having Kiryu adequately level up does help and certainly make you feel up beating the hell out of anyone who gets in your way.

I actually dislike trophies that require you to go out on a limb beyond the context of the actual game and the trophy that best describes this is the 'careless dragon' trophy. I'm just glad to have gotten that out of the way but there's still a ways to go as I'm only about 50% done with the game. Hopefully I should be able to get most of these done and also put some time into the japanese import before the localised Yakuza 4 ships early next year.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

An Analog Hero in a Digital Age

I'm a bit torn when it comes to the mini-games on No More Heroes 2 where you have work the odd side-jobs to earn income as entry fee to the assassin federation. While I love the "bite-size" nature of what these mini-games can offer, I have yet to fully master the controls of a 8-bit Travis touchdown with the analog stick. The game offers classic controller support as suggested in the opening moments of the game but I have yet to break out that controller in frustration. The D-pad on the Wii-mote is also perfectly function-able in these mini-games but its positioning makes it difficult for me to fully wrap myself between firing the A&B buttons and moving Travis with the D-pad.

Guess it just goes to show that some things never go out of style so long as these 8-bit 2D games are still around, there will always be a use for the D-pad to go along with it as the analog stick simply doesn't capture the simplicity of the controls. I'm not sure how many more times I can endure another failure because I couldn't push the analog stick to the right angle at a crucial moment.