Diorama to Die For

Ask me if i have anything in mind to buy and i will usually have a endless list of games, artbooks and figures that i may never finish buying them all. It's less so with games these days as i have run out of space in my game collection but anything else which i can keep randomly somewhere in my room, i will not hesitate to pick them up. High on my list of stuff to get are the recent Biohazard Play-arts, a collection of diorama centering around key moments of the first game. I have been looking for these for quite some time now, probably because pictures of this collection were released very early on and my favourite online store didn't stock it until quite recently. In fact i have given up on the idea of Play-asia even bringing this in as they are usually quite fast going about these things. Then months after Resident Evil 5 came out, Play-asia finally starting to stock these at their store, by then the hype surrounding Resident Evil had sort of cool off and this collection slip off my radar so much that i even forgot to put a tag on it should it ever get discounted.

My last order at Play-asia was the regretfully unnecessary Resident Evil Prima Game Guide, seeing that Capcom released an official artbook recently and all i wanted in the Game Guide were those precious few pages of concept arts. Upset about my last few purchase, i sought to stay off from ordering at Play-asia for as long as i could only to get suckered back in when i found out today that the Biohazard Playarts Collection has already been discounted. All was going well until i realised that purchasing the entire set will not entitled me to the usual free delivery as these figures are shipped in rather bulky boxes so i could only order three and had to decided quickly which to get and which to drop momentarily. Right now my only concern is whether or not i should make a separate order for the remaining three figures of the set and how long they will still be around at discounted price before i decide to place my next order. I suppose the smart thing to do is the wait for the first three to arrive and see if they are really worth collecting the entire set.

This is Your Chance

A few days ago i was pretty chuffed having save USD30 by getting my buddy to buy Madworld and Yakuza 2 from Gamestop. Today i learnt that the Collector's Edition of Resident Evil 5 has dropped to USD79.90 at Play-asia, that's like a USD30 discount not with counting any additional discount vouchers. Sure i'm mad about it especially since the Xbox 360 CE has long since been out of stock, it just goes to show how many more 360 users there are and how well the game is selling on that platform. Nothing much i can do about it, i won't have trade the experience of playing it back on 13rd of March for anything else and certainly won't settle on a standard edition that time while waiting out for the price of this to fall. For those who were waiting out for this big discount now is your chance, it may not be worth it back when it was full-price price but at this price you are certainly getting your money's worth for everything included.

Mad For Sega

Here are the two games my fellow friend string brought all the way back from New York for me, both happened to be games published by Sega and coincidentally have similar black & white covers. I could go on all day about the similarities but i rather brag about the savings i get from having to purchase the games directly from a Gamestop outlet. Yakuza 2 ended up being a bit difficult to find with the only copy available in J&R selling for USD10 more than expected, thus both copies came up to USD29.90 each. Despite all that, the savings compared with ordering from Play-asia was enough for me to purchase another game of similar value. The savings instead went to the Biohazard 5 Official Artworks you can see in the background which i didn't really planned on getting so soon but seeing it's sold-out in Play-asia i didn't really want to take a chance with this. With all these stuff in my possession it looks like i won't be ordering anytime soon from Play-asia...well at least until their annual summer sale.

Could It Be Magic?

This here is the early cover art for NBA 9K which is scheduled to be release soon, a highly-regarded bastketball game series that has surpassed the likes of NBA and NBA Live. Basically if you are a gamer and a hoops fan you need to be playing this and not the latter, those much like THQ's Smackdown series have been coming out almost every year without any significant improvements.

I have yet to really sink my teeth into this series, i have played NBA 8K for a bit on my ps2 but playing it on an outdated console just doesn't do the series justice. I came close to owning NBA 7K for my ps3 but end up with Sony's NBA 07 instead because of the promised full HD support. The real reason i posted the cover art is because i have a real gripe with it, NBA K series have traditionally used the last season NBA champions as their cover art star and this season's NBA finals is just about to start today, isn't it a slight disrespectful much like those Nike commercial featuring lebron and kobe puppets? While i do think the Magic doesn't really stand much of a chance against kobe and the lakers, i'm rooting for dwight howard because i have always been a big fan of NBA big men and i liked howard's nice guy persona despite his lack of offensive moves. Maybe the NBA games are fixed like some have suspected all along?

Resident Evil No Go

The reality of yesterday's great announcements are finally starting to sink in today, Resident Evil designed specifically for the new Sony PSPGo? Does that mean it won't come in UMD since the new PSPGo doesn't have a UMD drive? This is not going to bode very well with my treasured collection seeing i won't be able to secure a hard copy and on top of that, i have never been very fond of digital download.

As for the game itself, i'm not too fond of the title Resident Evil Portable, it gives a vibe that you will get a severally compromised game compared with its console brethens. It has been something that has always plagued game franchises making the jump to handheld and made me approach these games with great scepticism. It's uncertain at this stage just what kind of a game Resident Evil Portable will be but seeing that Capcom stop making RE games that aren't considered canon or have at least some familiar characters, it would probably be something worth checking out.

The lazy presentation of the game announcement also bothered me, of what is clearly a mock-up of what the title screen would look like. Capcom twitter says the game is designed specifically for the PSPGo, why couldn't they use the PSPGo for the mock-up? I don't really know who's to blame for this one between Capcom and Sony, i assume the PSPGo has been in the works for sometime now before the official announcement couldn't Sony at the very least provide mock-up of what the system would look like for Capcom to use?

3 Cheers for Capcom

With the E3 promising to be bigger and better this year, plenty of surprises were in-store for gamers of all platforms to ensure that the media and everyone else were paying attention.

Capcom finally unveiled their other secret E3 game, Resident Evil Portable for the Sony PSP satisfying the long cry for Capcom to bring one of their famous franchise to Sony portable machine. While it isn't groundbreaking news, it's certainly a good move aimed at pleasing the fans as with their other E3 game, Tatsunoko Vs Capcom coming stateside against all odds after no one believe it would even have a chance of leaving its native home. Among the other big Capcom news revealed at E3 is for PS3 users as Capcom confirmed that Lost Planet 2 will indeed be made available on the platform.

Predictable? A little i guess but in a way it's all good because all the games announced happened to be coming to platform near me. Selfish yes but isn't that's what being a fanboy is all about?

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.