Devil-Bringer Back to Where It Came

Next to go on my ps3 hard disk was actually the very first game I install when I got the system, Devil May Cry 4. Sentiments aside there is really no reason to keep this game data on my ps3 as there are no patch or dlc for the game so re-installing the game in the future should be fairly quick.

I initially plan on just viewing the cutscene through the story theater and be done with it but being the sap that I am, there is no way I will be able to do that without feeling guilty. So I thought I should have a quick playthrough the game without worrying about ranking and just clear another one of the six difficulty modes in the game. A friend of mine absolutely loathe this game when he first played it for reasons I couldn't see why but I begin to have similar feeling after rushing through the game. Maybe my heart just wasn't in it this time as I was expecting enemies to be shuffled around and other surprises in the son of sparda hard mode. From what I can remember everything feels the same as before and after Bayonetta, playing as Nero just feels woefully one-dimension. In the end I just couldn't wait to devil bringer this game back to where it came - my collection where it will remain for a long time to come.

The Importance of Being Old School

I take pride on being a bit of an old-school gamer, having grown up from the 8-bit era of video games. These days when story and graphics matter more than gameplay it's scary to think how video game have envolved. A close friend often lament to me how he will never play a game without any story and it's exactly these guys why games like Heavy Rain came about. I will probably never buy Heavy Rain because the game is lacking the one most defining aspect of a game; the gameplay and I refused to campaign such a game.

As I await for my copy of Vanquish I begin to wonder how much punishment is in-store. It's going to be one of the those games which I hopelessly can't master but yet can't resist coming back for more. Somehow it's always the most frustrating game which you will eventually find the greatest satisfaction in, wouldn't you agree?

Biggest Red Packet of This Season

During my Chinese New Year break I had the good fortune of receiving my copy of Metroid:Other M japan import just in time before the break. I had envision spending the next six of days of break completely devoted to the game in between the snacking and visiting relatives of course. That didn't really happened as I never imagined bypassing the region-lock on my Nintendo Wii would be so difficult. The english patch of Fatal Frame IV was so easy to use I naturally thought I won't have any problems getting this import to run as well. Nothing would work as Gecko and Neogamma refuse to load the disc though I had a little better luck getting them to run my Biohazard 0 GC Japan import. All long I had no intentions of getting the Metroid Other M US version not only because of the horrible box art but also I have learnt that it required a firmware update to 4.3U in order to run. I was still happily playing the Fatal Frame IV using the english patch on my 4.2U system so a system update was out of the question.

In the end the Metroid Other M japan import felt like a big red ang pow which I couldn't even open. On a more positive note I finally made good of my promise to add Vanquish to my collection even though it did come a little later than I expected. The beauty of it was I didn't have to choose between Vanquish and Dead Rising 2 after all as I managed to benefit from a bit of a price drop on both.

Feeling Retro: Dino Crisis 2

I had the Dino Crisis 2 disc sitting in my PSOne disc tray for a very long time before finally feeling nostalgic about playing it. To my surprise once I started I couldn't stop as I was simply having too much fun with it. I remember when the game was first released I was reluctant to embraced it because it deviated so far from the formula and element of fear Mikami had established in the first game. The game was Capcom's swansong to the PSOne and sure enough had pretty graphics to boot but it really didn't matter as the Playstation2 had just launched.

The Dino Crisis series really went off the rails with the Xbox exclusive Dino Crisis 3 but part of the problem with the series had already begun in Dino Crisis 2. Don't get me wrong Dino Crisis 2 is certainly a worthy sequel but I always had a sneaky suspicion that Capcom felt a compelling need to introduce new and bizarre dinosaurs with each new sequel of the game. Dino Crisis 2 felt great up until the part when the Giganotosaurus was introduced into the game. I'm not sure what kind of dinosaurs were introduced in Dino Crisis 3 but from what I could remember they sure don't look like dinosaurs to me. It's almost like it's encoded into the design philosophy of Capcom for making Dino Crisis sequels at that time, to come up with new, more off-beat dinosaurs with every sequel. That's why I think the series has remained dormant for so long and will likely stay so for the time to come. We don't need new dinosaurs in every sequel Capcom we just need new ways of killing them.