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.

Eye Opening Revelation

If you haven't notice by now, I have been playing a lot of SEGA's Yakuza lately. Upon starting slowly but surely on Kenzan, I went back to finish my second run of Yakuza 3. Playing Kenzan in Japanese made me realised I haven't got around to viewing the cut content from the english localization of Yakuza 3 which should be a breeze now that I'm taking the hard way with Kenzan. If only Yakuza 3 was a better game I would have felt more compelled to play the import but as it's, part 3 is pretty inferior when compared with the rest of the series.

Kenzan is a fun diversion even if only because of the novelty factor, like ThePatrick said it best "It's almost as if the cast of Ryu Ga Gotoku were suddenly hired to be actors in a play about Musashi". It makes you appreciate the characters even more, there's a scene in Kenzan where Majima Gorohachi loses his eye and although they aren't the same character, you can't help but glee in fanboy delight. Then there is Yakuza 4 I just started last week but haven't play enough to really get into it here, I did notice there were scenes of Majima before the eye patch in the opening video. Not sure if it’s revealed how he lost his eye in this timeline or if it’s as dramatic as Kenzan but I’m sure it will be a nice revelation for fans.