When Being Sneaky Isn't Enough

There was one particular moment in The Last of Us when Joel and Ellie are still trapped in the city ruled by the hunters that I encounter a bug. I sneak past two hunters positioned at the upper floor of a building then took down one hunter in the way of the escape route but when I got to the ladder - the button prompt to lower the ladder didn't appear ! 

I could tell from the Ellie's body language that the two were still in sneaking mode as the remaining enemies were nearby. I had no choice but the proceed back to the nearby building and take care of those hunters on the upper floor before the button prompt would appear. This being a survival game where resources are limited, sneaking is a big part of the game. Unfortunately the one moment when you decide to kill only when necessary, the bug in the game forces you to go out of your way to kill the remaining and waste more precious resources. 

I Need More Platinum Trophies

As you may have noticed, I have earned two Platinum trophy in my PSN account - a figure I'm not contend with and fully intend on adding to but a third Platinum trophy probably won't happen until next year. Until then I'm going to list out what my third Platinum trophy would likely be but I haven't actually made up my mind which one I'm intending to pursue. 

1. Resident Evil 6 

This is an obvious one, Resident Evil trophy requirements are the most un-imaginative of them all, just keep beating the game on higher difficulty modes and eventually you will achieve the Platinum. The only problem is the game isn't very good, it would be hard to stomach finishing such a long game over so many times. The percentage of trophy completion is a bit misleading here, I'm actually only short of around 8 more trophies from the Platinum. 

2. Vanquish 

This is a tough one to crack, probably even harder than say Yakuza 3 Platinum trophy. It would be de-moralizing to come so near but unable to achieve that one missing trophy in order to unlock the Platinum. Then again, I remember thinking the same thing of Yakuza 3 before eventually beating that one.

There are six trophies for finishing the Hard mode (the easy part I reckon) and one for completing the challenge mode (the one you will throw your controller in frustration). Tempting to try but then I remember I haven't finish Bayonetta since I started that game again. 

3. Shadow of the Damned

This is an easy one, a bit similar to RE6 trophy requirements but a much shorter game and definitely more enjoyable than RE6. One problem with this one is the trophies are not "stackable" so I have to finish the game on Easy mode to achieve Platinum. Now having finished the game once on Normal mode, do I go from Easy to Hard mode or Hard to Easy mode?

There are several notable games exempt from this list due to the fact I lost the save files when my first PS3 broke down. I'm not against chasing those Platinums down but I would rather not waste time replaying what I already unlock before.

Last of the Generation

Just the other day I was having a conversation with a friend about the games left on our buying list for the PS3 - be it games that are already out or yet to be released. He only named one game (GTAV - GOTY edition) and while I did the same, I can't quite remember which game it was. 

I do remember I left The Last of Us out from my list which I quickly added that it would be nice to own the game when it's all said and done, especially since Naughty Dogs denied rumours of an enhanced PS4 port. Well I have finally added the game to my shopping cart when Play-Asia announced their weekly deals line-up for this week. Now it's just a matter of waiting for the game to ship once the next stock arrives and pretty soon, I will be able to see what the fuss was all about. 

Grasshopper Needs to Learn New Tricks

Killer is Dead is probably the last first-day purchase I will get for the PS3, in fact I actually had the game on pre-order months before it shipped as I was worried Play-Asia might revised their pre-order price.

The US edition came pre-packed with a bunch of goodies that are supposed to be limited so you never how fast these things tend to run out if you are waiting for a price drop. The bonus items turned out to be a little lackluster, the soundtrack disc is missing the ending theme song and the artbook is more of a pin-up book to be honest.

At least the game turned out to be pretty fun but in the end, Suda games are starting to show a trend of being unpolished and lacking enough good ideas to make it a truly great game.

The Big White Elephant

With the next-gen consoles just days from release, I thought it would be nice to address some issues which only the biggest of geeks would be interested in -backward compatibility. Yes I know this topic has be discussed and dissected apart to the point where the conclusion is always remains the same; everyone wants backward compatibility but nobody ever really makes use of it.

The trend I am noticing these days is how backward compatibility also affects the second hand game market especially in the early days of the console launch. Try looking up second hand prices of Wii games and you will notice that most are fetching high prices. Not so much for PS3 games, in fact from what little I gathered most gamers are actually letting go of their PS3 games because they know the PS4 will not be able to play them anyway. So this creates an abundant supply of unwanted PS3 games on the second hand market as opposed to the Wii.

Now the Nintendo Wii U has not be generating brisk sales as its predecessor but the "hardcore" gamers that refused to support a non-HD console during last generation are among the early adopters. Naturally they would have missed out on the Wii software and thus, are now generating high demand for exclusive games such as Xenoblade, Metroid Prime Trilogy and even The Last Story. In fact I would say demand for Wii games are even higher than when the console was still active because of the rampart piracy of Wii games so Wii users weren't buying the software either during that time. Now getting the legitimate disc might be the only option to play them  upscaled on the new Nintendo Wii U console, assuming that the Wii U console have not been cracked open for piracy (I'm not too up to date on this matter). Therefore the demand for old Wii games are pretty high these days compared with the PS3 or even XBOX 360 games.

How about you, are you buying or selling old games these days?

Yakuza Dead Souls Completion

Another Yakuza game completed, kinda wish I took a snapshot of my Kenzan completion too now but I remember there wasn't much of a statistic data compilation displayed at the end.

Yakuza 4 Hard Mode

Ok it doesn't look like I will be able to revive my old system long enough to retrieve the save data onto the  new system. At the very least, I managed to get the disc struck inside back - Yakuza 4 which I have yet to complete at that time. I have been grinding the game to about 80 hours plus when my old system failed leaving the story unresolved just before the conclusion.

Once I realised I have to start all over again from scratch, I decided to jump straight to Hard mode and skip the side mission, focus on finishing the story. This is sort of uncharted territory for myself because when I finish the Hard mode for part 3, I had the luxury of using the leveled up characters from my Normal mode save.  I guess I wanted the extra challenge when playing the game again since I already played the entire game up till the last boss encounter.

So one weekend of nothing about Yakuza 4 later, I have finish the story mode on Hard mode in a new save file. I remember having a harder time on part 3 even with a leveled up Kiryu perhaps part 4 has a lower difficulty curve as Sega was incorporating three new characters into the fray.

Blink Blink it's Foxdie

Here's the photograph of my playstation 3 system when I first brought it home from the dealer's shop. It was a great day, sometime four years+ ago despite paying a bit more for the Metal Gear 4 bundle but you do get your money's worth with the game and dualshock3 thrown in the package. Not to mention a coupon for free download of the PSN game PAIN which I never bother to claim.

Recently it just wouldn't start up anymore without any warning signs, it stop responding in the middle of my yakuza 4 grinding session. It's the sort of things you often hear about but never expect it to happen to you. Now the game disc is still stuck inside along with all of my precious save files which I forgot to transfer to thumbdrive.

I have since move on and got myself a Playstation 3 slim but there's this nagging feeling that I might jump into things a little too soon. Should I have gotten a Wii U instead?

Will the Playstation 4 announcement later this month cause the PS3 current price to drop?

Fatal Frame 4 Hard Mode Completion

There was a time when I would painstakingly write my game completion stats with a pen and notebook down to every last detail. It comes from my days of a NBA geek, always being fascinated with NBA statistics and scores.

Some things never change I suppose.

I recently finish the hard mode of Fatal Frame 4, something I started more than half a year ago but never quite got around to finishing it. This time, I decided to do the final few chapters all in one day over the span of roughly 3 to 4 hours with breaks in between, of course. Still a top Wii game in my opinion and one of Suda51's more mature and polished title.