Hungry for Snake?

These are the two shirts that I picked out from the Metal Gear 25th Anniversary collection at my local Uniqlo store today. It's been a long wait for sure, I was beginning to wonder if they will make it here at all or how many of the designs are actually going to be available. Thankfully most of all the designs are there but some looked better up close than others so it made my decision much easier.

As video games have yet to achieve mainstream recognition within pop culture outside of Japan especially without a big movie franchise attached to its name, it's certainly nice to see these shirts in your regular retail outlet. Even if it means you sometimes rub shoulders with aunties who probably have no clue who solid snake is, picking the shirts next to you.

Fangs for the Memories

I have been spending a lot of time and money on Castlevania of late, picking up the Limited Edition Lords of Shadow and then the Santa Lilio artbook shortly after. The sheer volume of Ayami Kojima artwork in the compilation is simply overwhelming I'm not sure if all her Castlevania works are there as I have yet to finished going through.

Could this sudden surge of interest in Castlevania stems from the 25th anniversary of the series looming this year? It felt like only a while back when the 20th anniversary package was given with pre-orders of Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin but I guess the years have a way of creeping up on you. I remember gleefully going through the package as every game in the series is nicely chronicled in an art collection booklet and a series timeline foldout pinup. Aside from Mercury Steam's DLC expansion episodes to Lords of Shadow, very little is known of what Konami has in store for fans this year. Hopefully this 25th anniversary of the series will not go by unnoticed.

The Foreigner

I have a very unique history with the Castlevania series considering I was more familiar with the handheld games than its console brethens. My first Castlevania game was Belmont's Revenge on the original Gameboy a game far too easy back then to seriously considered a classic.
Then on, I have pretty much possessed or played every Castlevania handheld game before and after Belmont's Revenge save perhaps the legendary Castlevania Legends. I even have the Tiger handheld game system of Simon's Quest to indicate how far my roots with Castlevania portable goes.

The Castlevania fan in me had little interest in any new Castlevania without team IGA participation like the recent reboot, Lord of Shadows. That was until I decided to try the demo on PSN network and discovered how polished the game was. Castlevania most prominent features like the art design and music remained as striking as ever despite the absence of series mainstays Michiru Yamane and Ayami Kojima. Ultimately when the Red Dead Redemption GOTY edition announcement turns out to be a little premature, I decided to get Lord of Shadows instead. The Limited Edition was still readily available on local game forums and being priced at a standard game was just too good an offer for me to resist. I have learnt to be more open-minded about foreign developers working on big Japanese game franchise after taking the chance and being pleasantly surprised with Dead Rising 2. At the very least Lords of Shadow looks like a really good horror-themed action game, whether it can do justice to the franchise would be icing on the cake for a long time fan like myself.

Rainy Days & Mondays

No matter what era of music you grew up on the classic Carpenters never go out of style. From being prominently featured in the movie Tommy Boy to Nicolas Cage making part of his Johnny Blaze character, the Carpenters are distinctly hip for such soft melody music. Well maybe we should leave Nicolas Cage's Ghost Rider out because badass biker with a spirit of vengeance and the Carpenters just don't mix plus Cage isn't exactly hip anymore these days.

Sing is not the first song that come to my mind when I think of the Carpenters in fact i don't even remember the song was featured in Sesame Street despite coming to know of the Carpenters from my dad's records as a kid. Now thanks to Hideo Kojima I can't think the recent Peace Walker without thinking of the Carpenters' song, Sing. It was the only source of comfort during the horrific torture sequence and also strangely became the boss' theme music in Peace Walker. Somehow it fits with the theme of Peace Walker and the game's message of peace. This is probably the second time I remember a pop culture song being featured in a Metal Gear and both instances happened to be part of the Big Boss saga. The last time was during the ending credits of Snake Eater and a popular britpop band's song was used. I can't exactly remember the band or the name of the song but I did remember thinking to myself that Kojima-san got great taste in music.

Integral Podcast

The last time I finished MGS4 at the beginning of 2009, Kojima Productions was just beginning with their integral podcast for the game. By then the game is already one and a half year old with myself finishing it twice, there was little desire to go back and play it again - podcast or not. Now that I'm playing Peace Walker, it seems like the perfect time to play MGS4 again. I'm sure that would raise more than a few eyebrows when my friends log into PSN then again I was never really the most up to date gamer anyway. When accessing the online portion of MGS4 I was overwhelmed with the sheer amount of content Konami added to the game since I last checked in 2009. Aside from the podcast, there are also remixes of classic Metal Gear tunes and new camouflage to enhance your Metal Gear experience.

The integral podcast is a lot of fun, it's like having a live walkthrough guiding you through the course of the game. Of course that's not the real purpose of the podcast but having to pay attention to the guys talking, it's nice that you don't have concentrate on slipping by the guards too much. I'm about two acts into the game and intend to keep my kills and alert record clean while at the same time, listening to these guys reflect on the making of the game via the podcast.

When Love and Hate Collide

I'm still undecided whether I like Silent Hill Homecoming or not, it's frustrating at times while being bearable for most of the time. One thing's for sure, it's not good enough of a game for me to upgrade my korean version to the region 1 version when I passed up Play-asia recent re-stock of the title.

The flashlight for the game is so bad that I sometimes have to switch it on and off using the shortcut button just to make sure it's turned on. Then again maybe the developer were trying to achieve a more realistic lighting and darkness effect like what the early Resident Evil 5 trailer promised. Maybe this is what a real cheap flashlight will look like I'm not sure. The high definition graphics is nice but by making most of the background object interactive via Havok physic, everything just end up looking crude and far bigger than they should. The meticulous art direction of Team Silent past games is never honoured, though I find Homecoming vision of the Otherworld a bit more to my disliking than the real world of Shepherd's Glen.

As for the region 1 version, I never really have that great of a Silent Hill collection to begin with anyway though I would like to add it's still better than some pathetic 'collection' put together just with copies of konami palace reprints. I guess I can live up with this korean version, I would rather put my money and effort into looking for the Silent Hill 4 The Room still missing from my collection right now.

Evil Now Has a Home

Fresh from the recent E3 announcement of a new Silent Hill, I have finally added Silent Hill: Homecoming to my collection. It was a long and initially hopeless process from the fruitless search in the US trip to Play-asia running out of stock, it didn't seem likely I would get to play the series entry to the HD generation. There was a rare sighting of the game here and there but mostly the timing and the price was just not right to commit to the purchase.

This time I happened to find the korean version of the game which I recall Play-asia was selling for as low as USD24.90 at one time but i passed it up waiting for a further price drop of the US version. Now that the US version is longer available locally, I had no choice but to settle for the Korean region 3 version and hope that the earlier reported problems with the inverted controls doesn't surface. I will admit this it's going to take some work to get this copy of the game to fit in with the rest of collection both from the aesthetic and space point of view.

He's a Woman, She's a Man

If there ever was a most accidental prone award in video games then it would have to be Eike from Shadow of Destiny, an obscure playstation2 game by konami that was recently revived on the Sony PSP. I remember playing the game on my playstation2 a long time ago, it was one of the very first game i played and if it wasn't for the horrible ending i got i would have probably played it a few more times again.

The game looks pretty good on the Sony PSP with bold but simple character models despite the bland environment in fact if you never played the original you probably couldn't tell it was a ps2 port. The death scenes which Eike must avoid looks laughable now but i will give the game the benefit of the doubt in order to see it through to the big picture at the end. Hopefully this time i will get an explanation as to why Eike is so prone to accidents but i'm willing to wager that the most memorable thing about this game is still the sexually-ambiguous time traveling sorcerer who aides Eike. Not even Koji Igarashi name listed as producer can top that as i feel like an Austin Powers moment coming up trying to figure out his/her gender.

is that a man or a woman?

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.

Face Off

Playing RE5 and the first Silent Hill back to back, i realised there are some things better left without motion-capture such as the facial expression. As you may have known Capcom applied facial motion-capture for all the cinematics in RE5, a trend they also did with the CGI production, RE: Degeneration. This gives the characters a certain degree of realism with their expression but sadly i find it distracting and not as impressive as what konami was able to achieve earlier with Silent Hill 2. Not to discredit the motion actors but expressions are something very difficult to capture as actor will have the tendency to exaggerate their expression knowing they are being captured with cameras and rubber dots on their face. The results are character expressions looking a little unnatural and over-exaggerated, even more so for the simplest gesture though i find it a little more distracting in Degeneration than i did in RE5.

Comparing with what CGI director Takayoshi Sato did in Silent Hill and 2, characters had much more subtle expression but with enough realism to make it look eerie and convincing. This was all achieved by Sato studying his own and other actors expression over the mirror and applying it to the characters as seen in the making of silent hill 2. Sadly Sato left after silent hill 2 and the series was never quite the same without key members like Sato and Toyama. RE5 had what i thought was a bit too much emphasis on cinematics, they are certainly fun to watch but i kind of expected more, considering how much time and effort were invested if you watch the making of re5.

Unwelcomed Appearance

Silent Hill made its way onto PSN for Europe a while back before mysteriously disappearing without any reason given. It's the sort of thing you have come to expect from the series, something that probably made more sense if it happened in game than in real life. Since most users who downloaded it during the short two week window reported no bugs, it probably had nothing to do with the compatibility of the game with ps3 and psp system.

It probably had more to do with the Konami announcement of the re-make of the original currently on its way to the Wii in the form of shattered memories by Climax studios. By removing the game, konami avoids saturating the market with the original since they also revealed that the original hard copy is no longer in production (duh!). It made some sense but not entirely since the game is also scheduled to be appearing on ps2 and psp system, and current ps3 do not support ps2 games anymore. I suppose the series needs all the help it can get and spreading it across three systems seems to be the way to go right now. Any factor that might deter the potential sale like the appearance of its original is certainly unwelcomed at this stage.

Shattered Dreams

Call me unhappy upon reading Konami's official announcement of the Silent Hill: Shattered Memories title. Yep in less than 24 hours since my last entry, all that excitement and anticipation for this title has turned into ranting as i'm dismay with konami's lack of faith in the franchise and Wii console to whore this potentially great remake out to a last-gen console and more insultingly, a handheld system. I'm not much of an eagle-eyed gamer when it comes to graphics but i suspected that game was running on Origins engine when i first saw the captures for the Nintendo Power spread yesterday.

It turns out my suspicions were true as konami announced that this game was also heading to the PSP and PS2 this fall though i remained puzzled how they plan to achieve this with the psp having only one analog stick to control both the character and flashlight? It made sense to launch this title on a platform completely new to the Silent Hill series such as the Wii but Sony fans and system has played host to particularly all of the past Silent Hill, is it really wise make this multi-platform? Regretfully the Wii will have to settle for sub par graphics as the PSP and PS2 are less powerful beast compared to the Wii and considerations will likely to be made to accommodate all three systems. The only consolation i got out of this announcement was konami confirming the first silent hill to be out-of-print (duh!) thereby somehow justifying their decision to bring this to the Sony system i believe. Looks like i'll holding on firmly to the original and probably play this remake on one of the two Sony system which means neither Nintendo nor Konami will likely be getting my money this time... nor will Sony i might add.

Wet Dream Come True

I wasn't too thrilled when i first heard rumours of a Silent Hill remake heading to the Wii, if only because it was also rumoured to be appearing on the PSP and the fact that Climax Studios will be developing this only further strengthen my belief. Now the i have previewed the Nintendo Power cover story on Shattered Memories (the new subtitle for the remake) i'm much more optimistic about this remake and actually looking forward to it. Not many Wii games can prompt me to make a day one purchase but NP and Climax studio managed to do just that with still images and interviews alone! Ok maybe that's my fanboyism love for the series talking but to Climax studio credit, Origins was a worthy entry into the series so i have high expectations that this will more REmake than konami's own Twin Snakes for last generation.

What Climax is trying to do with the wiimote and storytelling is generally pretty ambitious, and has got me more excited about this than i ever was with Homecoming, the series debut on the current gen consoles. It seems everything you do and where you go will ultimately have an effect on who you meet and how the story will end. Now the first two Silent Hill games had a similar non-linear storyline where you could completely skip certain subplot should you miss going to certain area or put your character on-track to a different ending depending how long you spend with NPC and what file you pick up. The subsequent Silent Hill seem to have abandon this idea in favour of a more linear story and ending so Climax re-imagining of the original and ideas on how to implement the story seems like a welcome return to the roots for the series. I was also very impressed with how they plan to utilise the wiimote to function as the series trademark radio and flashlight, it seems like this could very well be a survival horror game that is only possible on the Wii. If only the texture and character model didn't look like PSP standards but i trust NP judgment enough when they say the game looks better in-motion than in picture. Time for me to dust off the original which i still owned on Platinum release and fire up that bad boy.

wait are those psp textures and character models i see?

Ashes to ashes

I was really looking forward to Metal Gear Solid Digital Graphic Novel 2 especially after Konami reveal that it will come with full-voiceovers accompanying the art. Somewhere along the way, Konami decided to release the game on DVD instead of coming exclusively to PSP and its release was coincided with the worldwide release of Metal Gear Solid 4, probably their last chance to release it since interest in Metal Gear is sure to drop after that.While i was a little disappointed that it's no longer on the PSP, i was quite relieved to learn that the voice bubble accompanying the voiceovers will still be retained in its original english form thereby enabling non-japanese speaking audience to understand the plot. Well it is certainly a rare occasion as never in Metal Gear history has there been such an import-friendly japanese release which retains it's original japanese voices while still being accessible to non-japanese speaking fans.

After getting seduced by Ashley Wood's artwork again on my second run through Portable Ops, i decided to finally purchase it. After all, there probably won't be any big Metal Gear release for a while so this will probably be kojima's last chance at getting my money. If only the DVD is not region locked so i could watch it on my Playstation3....

Sound of the Inevitable

How much is a soundtrack disc worth? Quite a lot in this case, apparently local asian forumers are tearing up a storm over the fact that the region 3 Metal Gear Solid 4 Limited Edition will not include the bonus soundtrack disc like the US Gamestop exclusive. While i myself am sore over it too, it's not like i didn't see it coming. I have never really been a fan of region3/asian release of games, i find them cheap and practically worthless in my eyes nor do i care about supporting the local gaming community like some others. I think it's a mere illusion that purchasing an asian release will help drive up the sales of games in this region and encourage publishers to do more regionally release, after all most of these asian releases are meant for the Hong Kong market anyway. Nor do i have much of a choice in this case, seeing that I don't have access to ordering the exclusive limited edition from Gamestop and i'm not planning to go out of my way to acquire it.

I remember a similar scenario occurring when i pre-ordered the konamistyle edition of Castlevania Dracula X Chornicles only to later discover that the "complete" version should contain the soundtrack disc as well. Major bumper as i have always been a fan of Castlevania music but ultimately i bought the soundtrack separately and ended up with the complete collection anyway. Now that this has happened with the Metal Gear Limited Edition, i have to make some changes and formulate a plan to make the most out of it. I intend to sell the R3 version of the game included in the Limited Edition package as i'm not much of an online gamer anyway and keep the R1 version of the game that comes with the console bundle.

And of course, the bonus blu-ray from the Limited Edition.....hehe

Now i can put the R1 game together with the R3 bonus blu-ray disc and have my ideal collection. I just need to get hold of the soundtrack disc somehow...

Metal Substance

The Metal Gear hype machine is nearing in full swing, what with the release of the final installement of Metal Gear Solid only two months away. I picked up a copy of the recent Metal Gear Solid Essential collection (thanks andy!) and PTOM tribute issue to Metal Gear. Having played and owned the first edition of these Metal Gear installements, it's nice to finally own a compilation of the director's cut of the games so i can play it over again in the future. The sad reality is of course, i most probably won't get a chance to play Metal Gear Solid 4 when it's released later this year as i have yet to get my Playstation3. Not that it's much of a disappointment as i never saw myself as such a big metal gear head, surely not big enough to purchase a Playstation3 just to play it.

The truth is i'm not abig fan of convulted storytelling in video games and the Metal Gear series is notorious for that. The only Metal Gear storyline i thoroughly enjoyed was Metal Gear Solid as i love the theme of liquid versus the solid, the light versus the dark. I liked it so much that i went to great lengths to acquire the Gamecube-only remake as soon as i got my Nintendo Wii. While the subsequent sequels had all been great, the first Metal Gear Solid was the one that truly lived up to it's hype, it remains to see if the truth can be said about this new Metal Gear. However, the new Metal Gear sequel has just about the worse box art in the history of Metal Gear games, a 3D image of Old Snake mug ravaged by the horrors of war and nicotine......very nice Konami.

I Spy with My Eye

Forbidden Siren was Sony's answer to Nintendo and Silicon Knights' Eternal Darkness on the Gamecube. Helmed by Kenchiro Toyama who earlier directed Konami's survival horror classic Silent Hill, Siren manages to push the envelope on what can be achieved in the genre even further. Siren shares a lot of similarities to Eternal Darkness but in many ways, it is far better though it failed to achieve the critical success of the former upon release. Like Eternal Darkness, the story of Siren is told through the eyes of ten different survivors over the course of three days though it never feels like a Lucasarts adventure game as the story doesn't transverse across the globe to different characters set centuries apart. The characters looked eerily realistic and the game does a good job of keeping track of the story and events through a simple timeline table.

Siren also relies upon a 'gimmick' of their own in order to set it apart from the rest of the pack but unlike Eternal Darkness, it's so much more than just a gimmick. Sight-jacking allows the players to see the world through the eyes of the predators in the game, where you must learn to plan your move around them to avoid being seen as your characters are usually unarmed. This heightens the sense of danger as you find yourself playing both the stalked and the stalker as well as adding an element of strategy to the game. Later, playing as a 70-year old hunter, Akira you have to use sight-jacking to pick out your targets and play a game of cat-and-mouse using your sniper rifle, i kid you not.

While over the years of playing Resident Evil and Silent Hill has jaded my senses, it's games like Siren that really jolt my senses and get me excited and optimistic about the survival horror genre, Toyama-san you just moved up a couple of notches on my list.

Code-breaker

Even with the two current handhelds, i have rarely played a handheld game devotely for some time now. Not even with the latest God of War PSP game, but Circle of the Moon recently had me playing religously all the way till the end, despite being a japanese import and i had to refer to an english script translation just to keep track of the storyline. It actually wasn't the storyline that kept me engrossed but the tight gameplay and finely-knitted level design that made things interesting enough to keep me hooked. I finished the game after having clocked 9 plus hours into it and the games' storyline and ending seems like a remiscent to one of the very first Castlevanina games i played, Belmont's Revenge on the Gameboy. Seeing that Konami decided to skip the Gameboy Color during that time by not releasing any Castlevania games on that platform, Circle of the Moon is a memorable return and an early sign of the great success that Konami would soon enjoy on the platform with its Castlevania series.

However if only the game didn't run into some slowdown issues whenever the action is too intense, it would have been worthy of the high praise and score that Gamespot bestowed upon it. Some fanboys call it "bad-coding", the fact that Circle of the Moon was one of the early games in the Gameboy Advance library certainly points towards that. Save for perhaps the last boss fight with the transformed Dracula, the game wasn't too overly difficult to the point where it was impossible. In fact, having just come off playing Rondo of Blood must have helped a lot, as i had a greater endurance to withstand and replay again and again some of the more difficult the boss battles. In the end, i manage to unlock the magician by inputting the password FIREBALL as the player's name which i have yet to try out.

Devil At Work

Castlevania fans are pretty divided when it comes to their opinion on koji igarashi, the man currently at the helm of all things castlevania. Some think he is the best thing to happened to Castlevania, since he was responsible for the most popular Castlevania game Symphony of the the Night while others just think he's the devil at work. For myself, i don't have much of an opinion on igarashi-san since i was a castlevania fan before the Symphony of the Night-era where the baton was officially handed to igarashi and he became responsible for the direction of the series and every Castlevania game to be released. From what i can tell, the guy seems to have a real passion for Castlevania and is trying his level best to keep Castlevania relevant and successful, what with the series having been around for 20 years now. Sometimes it's nice that the people responsible are as much of a fan as everyone else but we all know that passion can't be accounted for talent. His Castlevania are often criticised for having bad level design and poor attempt at storytelling though to his credit, i must say writing a good dracula story is never easy, just look at Van Helsing. Perhaps for those very same reasons Circle of the Moon, one of the few Castlevania games released after Symphony which did not feature iragashi was so highly regarded.

One of the last few Castlevania game to come out of Konami Kobe, the studio responsible for the Castleavania installments on the NES, Circle of the Moon was released as a launch game for the first Gameboy Advance in US, it's initial success was slightly marred by the fact that it was designed to be played with a backlight, something the original Gameboy Advance lacked. It was and still is the highest rated GBA game on Gamespot and has gone down as one of favourite of the series. Well playing for the first time, i must say it is harder than most recent Castlevania with the exception of Rondo of Blood, which was actually a remake of an old Castlevania game. Apart from that, it's quite hard to tell it apart from the other Castlevania games by Igarashi but isn't that the beauty of Castlevania? It never strays too far from it's winning formula and after two attempts to make the transition to 3D, i'm not sure if i would like see a third. However i get the feeling that people have under-estimated igarashi talents and that he will be recognised for his other contribution to Castlevania apart from Symphony. Of course, we are still waiting for this to happen.....

The First Time

Remember what's the very first game you bought for your new console? well i do, in fact most of the time the first game i get for my new consoles will probably raise a couple of eyebrows. it's not that i'm trying to be different by buying something else but most of the time, i end up buying a new console in advance before the game i originally got the console for is out and therefore, i end up buying some other game in the meantime to fill up my time. The first game i got for my Nintendo DS? Viewtiful Joe Double Trouble ! Hardly a memorable DS title now, but back then i was really curious what kinda graphics the Nintendo DS could pull off and Clover Studio portable adaption of their hit franchise does seems to stretch the Nintendo DS graphic capabilities and stylus gameplay. When i got my Sony PSP, the first ever UMD i got was Metal Gear Solid: Digital Novel. I know it's not even a game but this quirky idea of reading a graphic novel on a PSP along with Silent Hill Experience was what initially got me interested in the system.

By the time i got around to getting my Nintendo Wii, i had a lot of catching up to do because my goal right from the beginning was to play as many Gamecube games as possible before the Wii catalogue starts to pick up steam, much like what happened with the Nintendo DS after the first launch year. Some may think it's a bit silly to pay so much for a Wii only to play Gamecube games but if it saves me the trouble of having another console around and offers me the same experience as playing it on it's original platform then i'm in. I was lucky enough to find a non-Player's Choice version of the Resident Evil Gamecube Remake and ended up finding most of the Gamecube titles i originally set out to get, save perhaps the Gamecube version of Viewtiful Joe. Of course i eventually started playing Wii games too though i still only have two miserable Wii titles (not including bundled games) despite getting the system more than five months ago. My first real Wii title was Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles which while was fairly entertaining, is a couple of notches below No More Heroes, my second Wii title. I have a feeling the best is yet to come for the Nintendo Wii and i look forward to see what Capcom and Konami will bring to Nintendo system.

Looking back, i guess the first game for your new console is kinda like your first love it may not be the best you have experienced but it's one that you will surely remember for life. Either that or i'm just a sentimental sap even when it comes to games...