3 is The Magic Number

During this 3 day weekend i have decided to go back to playing Silent Hill 3 on my Playstation 3 in anticipation for the upcoming Silent Hill Homecoming. Surprisingly the graphics in Silent Hill 3 still holds up remarkably well though i believe it has more to do with the series strong art direction rather than the graphical power of the PS2.

Silent Hill 3 is probably my least favourite SH installment of all, the storyline has too much connections to the first Silent Hill and the inclusion of a playable female lead is the worst thing the Team Silent could ever do to the series. The game does however has the best-looking cover of all in the series though i'm referring specifically to the Japanese version. The image of a teenager girl gripping a handgun in fear is a pretty powerful image but it's also the stuff the anti-video game activists would love to get their hands on so it's probably a good idea Konami decided to change it for the overseas release.

Better Than a Dozen Die Hards

While the cinematic style of Stranglehold disappoints, i'm happy to report that the Hard Boiled movie included on the disc is the best i have seen of the film for some time. This includes multiple versions of the film on DVDs and also a cinema screening in an old cinema in Birmingham during my university years. The version here includes the original film credits where names are featured in both english and chinese, and Chow and Tony Leung shares the top billing.

The film mark the high point of John Woo career when the man in the top of his game and ready to move to the greener pastures of Hollywood. It also significant for me as it bridges the gap between my early infatuation with Woo and later admiration of the works of tony leung and wong kar-wai. I begin to admire the subtle acting method of tony as opposed to the often over-acting and dramatic style of chow.

This disc best demonstrate the true power of blu-ray, both the game and possibly best presentation of the movie on a single blu-ray disc! Seeing how good Hard Boiled look makes me glad that i lucked out on the earlier standard edition and got this instead. Afte rall, the movie is definitely the highlight of the disc despite being 16 years older than the game. However i find the cover of the standard edition more enticing than this collector edition, perhaps because Chow looks more like tony leung on that cover.

Are you Blu or Are you Blind?

Here's a good example why i loathe region 3 product, this is the back cover of MGS4 special edition cardboard case. Official konami product mind you, if you are a Sony enthusiast you will easily notice something is amiss. If you can't well there is nothing to worry about after all, ignorance is bliss right? But seriously once you do take notice of it, it does sticks out like a sore thumb doesn't it? Oh how i wish i had the US special edition with the yoji shinkawa boxart instead, sigh...

Stranglehold Scores

Stranglehold as a game alone is such a hard-sell seeing that the whole campaign last for roughly less than ten hours. Sure Midway could have made it a bit longer but there is really no point to it as the whole game is rather repetitive and any longer would not have serve the game any good. In the end, the whole John Woo experience feels unfulfilled because while the game does play like a John Woo film, it lacks that cinema flair of it's silver screen predecessor. The cutscenes in Stranglehold are just plain bad and i found myself wishing that there were less cutscenes in the game, it was that bad.

Thankfully the Hard Boiled movie which inspired the game is also included on the Collector Edition, making the purchase worthwhile at its current price which is about the price of a blu-ray movie alone. Hard Boiled isn't just any movie, if you have not seen it i strongly urge you to watch it if you have any love for action films.

Enemies defeated - 1264
Highest style combo - 32
Style point earned - 2857
Paper cranes found - 110
Damage to world - $ 146,048,617

Overall ranking - C -

The Dead Will Rise

Seeing that most of us are pretty slow on our feet come Monday mornings, here are some of the more interesting abstract from Dead Rising Delusion Replay just as i promised. The last piece of artwork featuring the girls of Dead Rising in skimpy swimsuits and provocative poses is pretty risque if you asked me, just take a look for yourself. I apologise for most of the captures looking mostly the same, i realised i should have taken a more diverse range of pictures. Well, maybe next time.

October Rain

October has always been a big month for me when it comes to games where i usually reward myself with a big purchase and by the definition of big, i don't just mean a new game. It's a trend i started about three years ago with the japanese version of Dante May Cry 3 which i bought at a local game store. Seeing that it was a local game store, you can probably guess it wasn't by any means cheap but i really wanted that cool handphone strap that came with it. Since Play-asia never discounted the japanese version anyways before it was eventually replaced with the special edition, i don't think it was that bad of a purchase.

Next was the PAL version of Metal Gear Solid 3 Subsistence, the standard edition for the PAL market comes with all three discs included while the US version only had two disc as the standard edition. While i won't mind the standard two-disc US version at that time, it too became scarce when i was about to purchase it so i have to settle for the PAL three-disc version. Most recently was the konamistyle edition of Castlevania Dracula X Chronicles, probably my biggest purchase so far. i thought about it for some time and even hesitated a while primarily because it wasn't cheap but since it happens to be close to October, i thought what the hell.


This year, the only release in the month of October which i'm interested in is Suda51's Flower, sun and rain but sadly, no US release date has been announced yet. The only other option is the PAL version scheduled for release this October, however shipping it from HMV is not going to be cheap, what with the postage rates they charge.

Home is Where The Heart is

While having a conversation with some friends on upcoming games this Fall, i failed to come up with a game when asked which game will i most probably get this Fall. Shock, horrors, the guy with the most systems (among my friends at least) has got no game in mind for this upcoming Fall!

I suppose it has something to do with my distinct taste for gaming, as you can tell from this blog i don't usually play a wide-variety of games, in fact my friend would go so far as to pigeon-holed it as "anything horror or gothic with guns & bullets in it". While i don't deny the appeal, i would suppose it's one of the reason why i got so many system to cater to my distinct taste. One game coming out this Fall quickly slipping out of my radar is Silent Hill: Homecoming which received even less attention during this recent Leipzig. Is the game coming out this Fall and has everyone forgotten about it? One thing's for sure, i won't be getting it on release day as i decided to wait it out until the price drops. The reason?

There's no collector edition announced.