The Mystery of Kenzan

I forgot to mention that my copy of Yakuza Kenzan happened to be a brand new copy still in its shrinkwrap when purchased. I didn't really give it much thought as to why a black label version was still available when the budget edition was released quite some time ago. I did see a lot of japanese games in the game store so it could have been old stock waiting to be cleared. Then I got home and realised something was amiss with my copy as you will soon see here with these pictures.

Now if you look at the earlier post you will notice I stacked my copy of Kenzan next to my japanese import of Yakuza 3. If you are aware of the chronology Kenzan was released before Yakuza 3, in fact it's the first Yakuza game on the ps3 platform from team SEGA. Still with me so far? Good now take a look here at the top of the Yakuza 3 case, it has the old playstation 3 logo embossed onto the case like most old games back when the black label used to be on the side of the cover art.

Now since Kenzan came before 3, the case should also be embossed with the old playstation 3 logo on the top right? That's the weird thing, the case for my copy of Yakuza Kenzan happened to be the new type without the playstation 3 logo on the top despite being shrinkwrapped. This is the official Sony shrinkwrap mind you, where you see the playstation logo on the tape as you peel the plastic off. Now before you jump into any conclusions as to why an old game could end up in a new casing, I must say I also notice a similar copy of Kenzan appearing in another game store so I doubt there's anything fishy going on here. My only plausible explanation for all this is that the game are still being published in their original cover art in Taiwan.

Let's Play Kenzan!

In case you see me on PSN and was wondering what I was playing, here's the latest addition to my game collection, Yakuza Kenzan. I have been meaning to play this game for a long time and like most gave up waiting for a western release. Of course I wasn't going to settle for a budget label release at this stage so I kept looking for a black label version of the original release until I found this in Taiwan.

Not a bad find at the price of 750NT plus I love getting games on my trip overseas as it makes great momentos.... well for me at least.

Guns Not Included

Love them or hate them there is no denying that downloadable content (DLC) is here to stay in the gaming scene. What kind of content constituted as being okay to be released as DLC and what content is absolutely necessary to the core experience that should not be released separately as DLC? For a game like Dead Rising 2, i can certainly live without the additional costumes and raised attributes as the game is already filled with enough costumes and apparel in the basic game.

Prologue/epilogue episodes like in Dead Rising 2, LA noire, RE5 or Lords of Shadow? Again nice to have but like an issue 0 to a comic book series not absolutely necessary to experience the core story. A trio of guns from a shooter game ? Now that's a big no-no especially when it's a tough shooter like Vanquish. Three weapons in Vanquish were pulled from the game and released as a Pre-order bonus from selected stores during the game initial release. Playing the game without them is like playing handicap though you can certainly finish the game, removing these guns significantly alters the difficulty of the game. I had no choice but to begrudgedly purchase this from the PSN store recently but it wasn't like Dead Rising 2 where I enjoyed the game so much to the point I didn't mind spending an extra dollar on the game's DLC.

What's your reluctant DLC buy?

Logan in the Old West

Logan, meet John Marston you two have a lot in common

I was in a bit of a wolverine craze of late so I dug up some modern classics to read and among them was the recent Old Man Logan by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven. What makes Old Man Logan so compelling is Logan playing the role of the family man pacifist in this alternate reality future instead of his usual badass mutant berserker self. We don't know why he is that way initially but there he is, attending to his family and herds of cattle in the barn. We have all seen wolverine in action before and being the best at what he does, it's nice to see such restrain with the character until the final payoff when he does pop his claws out again.

What does this has to do with anything? Well, the character John Marston in Red Dead Redemption just reminds me of the Old Man Logan tale. But the problem with Marston is we've never seen him in action as the cold-blooded killer riding with his old gang or even this new family he talks about so fondly, at least this early on in the game where I'm playing. It hardly establish the character quite as well hearing him talk about it rather than seeing it. It's doesn't feel intimidating when Marston warns strangers not to push his buttons or take his words lightly because even I'm not sure what he's capable of, aside of picking up rare flowers and herding the cattle. The mundane task just feels that way, this is not how the cliche story of cold-blooded killers walking away from past life of killing is supposed to be. Is there going to be a huge payoff at the end where Marston goes berserk and just guns down his old gang and anyone standing in his way?

Maybe I should have just watched Clint Eastword in Unforgiven instead, I heard it's really good and has a similar story to Old Man Logan, probably Red Dead Redemption too.

I Love My Big Daddy

While I was in Singapore a couple of months back, buying the only copy of Silent Hill Shattered Memories Wii I could find there seems like a pretty sound decision. After all apart of Silent Hill: The Room, I have every other Silent Hill console game in my collection, a fact I remained pretty proud of.

Even before owning the Wii version of Shattered Memories, I have played the game pretty thoroughly on my PSP and PS2 trying to push the limits of the psychological analysis in the game. All that got me was harry ended up being too timid to the point of being abused by his wife or too flirtatious, hardly the object of poor Cheryl's admiration. This time I decided to play the game without trying to manipulate how the game is perceiving you. Turns out I must be a pretty big playboy after all since I got the ending where Harry is fooling around with the prom queen and nurse again. Sure the in-depth analysis of your character that runs next to the credits is entirely different this time but I didn't really care anymore at that point.

I should have just settle for that creepy birthday song over the phone in Silent Hill 3.

NBA 2K12 Big 3

2K sports just unveiled the cover athlete for the upcoming NBA 2K12 and much to my surprise, they went old school again with a trio covers of MJ, Magic and Bird. Up until now, I had secretly hoped that 2K sports will changed their mind about doing another NBA 2K release this year with the looming uncertainty of NBA season lockout yet to be resolved. My copy of NBA 2K11 is just barely six months old and pretty soon the online servers will be taken offline or abandoned in favour of the new version. Worse the Legend mode will be further expanded to now include Magic and Bird's championship era even though they already made brief appearance in NBA 2K11. I suspect like the Jordan Challenge which featured different era of MJ career, the Legend mode will now feature different renders of Magic and Bird so you don't have to bear with the horribly rendered moustached Bird from the 63 point MJ playoff game anymore.

Lost among the hype of NBA 2K new big 3 cover is the pre-order dlc of classic NBA teams like Webber's Kings and Mullin's Warriors.

(Double) Nickel's Back

When I first started watching NBA games, I realised there were NBA players and there was Michael Jordan. He had already ascend to NBA immortality by winning his first 3-peat of championship rings and was just in the midst of his incredible comeback. After that, he became the roadblock that prevented some of my favourite players from earning their own rings, not exactly how most NBA fans will remember him by but that was sort of how I identified him.

MJ made another comeback to the virtual court when NBA 2K11 featured him on the cover with some of his most memorable moments captured on the Jordan challenge mode. I wasn't exactly jumping to play the challenge mode when I got the game a couple of months ago, the only game that really stood out to me was the double-nickel game. Something about wearing that number 45 jersey and then scoring 55 points on Madison Square Garden just 4 games after making a comeback seems really special to me. It wasn't until after a brief spell of NBA 07 when I felt the urge to relive some of MJ's greatest games. Sure Kobe 81-point game in NBA 07 was fun but it wasn't exactly challenging with the lack of defense and simple AI logic in fact, my best score was enough to make Wilt Chamberlain sweat (97 points). I suspect scoring 50-points in NBA2K11 won't be easy even with MJ as my previous best was only 44-points with Ray Allen, thanks to some lucky 3s.

I suppose that's the beauty of NBA2K11, one week I could be totally absorbed with playing my favourite team on Association mode, another week I'm looking for live challenge online and now I'm totally wrapped in the Jordan challenge mode.