E3 Impressions

Right, the conferences at E3 ended yesterday.  I’mgoing to round-up my impressions of the stuff that caught my particulr impression, be it good or bad.

Let’s start with Microsoft, shall we.

First off, boring.  Not much appealed to me and the presentation was somewhat meh to me.  Only one thing really grabbed my attention.

Project Natal.  Oh dear, I see a big frenzy of damage related suing when Natal gets released.  Someone IS going o punch their TV screen trying to beat an enemy.  I’m waiting until someone accidentally kicks their dog o_O

Next up, Nintendo!

Oh boy, we got good AND bad here.  Quite a few dissapointments as well.  One MAJOR highlight though, for me.

Let’s start with the Vitality Sensor.  Oh… Dear… What are Nintendo trying to pull here?  Answer me, why is this necessary?  It doesn’t appear to have a purpose… Yet.  Someone suggected it would be good for horror games.  Well, it takes up the nunchuck port, how are we supposed to control our character without it?  Lame.

Super Mario Galaxy 2.  They didn’t even give it an original name…  I had a fairly lackluster time with the original Galaxy, I didn’t find it as good as Super Mario 64.  So, of course ‘m not that excited about the sequel.  However, it IS looking like a copy/paste effort.  Apart from new stages and Yoshi, it follows the exact same format as Galaxy did.  Nothing new has really been shown as of yet.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii.  Well this is a average looking affair.  A exclusively multiplayer game with no online?  I won’t be getting this…

The big un, the announcement that made my day.  Metroid: Other M

IT’S A NEW METROID GOD DAMNIT!  Came COMPLETELY out of the blue!  I don’t think ANYONE expected to see this.  It looks badass, it’s being developed by Team Ninja and appears to have a quiet astonishing story.   Definately made up for the casual/same old conference.

Time for Sony methinks.

Final Fantasy XIII.  Ok, it’s not new.  However, we got more footage and we finally hear an English cast.  It’s pretty good.  Lightning, however, doesn’t appear to be putting a great deal of effort into her role.

Final Fantasy XIV.  Ok, who’s wise idea was it to announce this before XIII has even been released?  Seems like a stupid idea  do so.  Oh, and it’s another mumorpuger…

The Lost Guardian.  Whooo, ICO game!  Not much else to say XD

That about wraps things up.  Metroid and Final Fantasy are my highlights, everything else is either a nice addition or a complete waste of time.

This is a title

And this is a post.  Funny how that works, eh?

Anyway, a while back (when I actually bothered posting last…) I had plans on getting a 360.  Well, that idea has been dropped.  It’s now a PS3.  I have more friends with PS3s and there are more exclusive games I’m interested in.  It’s also a Blu-Ray player, considering that Toshiba dropped the HD-DVD format a while ago.

So I’ve come up with a list of games I want to get (exclusives and multi-platform) at some point.  Here goes!

Final Fantasy XIII – Always been interested in this one, it looks to be absolutely stunning so far!
Final Fantasy Versus XIII – I wasn’t that interested at first, but things seem to change with time.  I quite like the atmosphere Squenix are taking with this.
LittleBig Planet – I blatant “duh” moment if you ask me.
Castlevania – Still untitled, but I hope that IGA doesn’t screw this one up like other 3D Castlevanias…
Street Fighter IV – HADOUKEN!
Tales of Vesperia – Recently announced to be coming to the PS3, I hope it makes it the Europe though…
Cross Edge – Mwee, crossover RPG!
Bayonetta – Looks absolutely bonkers, and has a witch with guns o her FEET!  Oh, and she has a British accent, SCORE!
Soulcalibur IV – Took a while to decide whether I wanted this or not, decided o give it a go.
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix – I’ve been trying to play Super Turbo for a while now, it’s been nagging me for ages!

So there, my list.  I also want to get Castlevania Symphony of the Night as well, but thats not really a “new” game per se.

Judging Judgement – Artwork

Castlevania has gone through quite a bit of complaints, hasn’t it?  I personally do not see what all the fuss is about.  So what if it’s a fighter?  Many other franchises have taken this path too with positive results.  People also bitched about the artwork, saying that it was too much like Death Note.  I’m sorry, only 2 of the 14 characters look remotely like a Death Note character and I believe that Takeshi Obata has done a stunning job on the character design.  Here’s my viewpoint on the artwork of Judgement…

First off, Aeon.  The original character of the game.  Since there’s nothing to base him off as it’s his first (and probably last) appearance in the Castlevania franchise.  Basicly, he can travel through time and transports numerous heroes (and villains) to 10,000 AD to stop the Time Reaper.  Now, onto the artwork!

I think he looks awesome.  His weapon, especially, deserves kudos.  It’s basicly a pocket watch with a blade on it, quite unique if you ask me.

Alright.  Simon Belmont is one of the characters that looks like someone from Death Note, specifically ight Yagami.  A buff, leather, whip weilding Light…  Ok, so only his face looks remotely like Light, and even then other pieces of art and in-game he looks less like Light.  As design goes, it’s a tad straying from the usual depiction of Simon (obviously going by the Chronicles design).  I still like it though.

Here he is!  The lord of darkness himself!  Mathias Cronqvi- sorry, Vlad Tepes, otherwise known as Dracula.  He looks EVIL, like he’s supposed to!  The cow udder design is a bit “ooh-err” but those bats emerging from his cloak were a nice touch!  His face is incredibly grim and imposing.  It appears Obata took the Symphony of the Night design for Drac, which is by no means a bad thing!

Alucard, Adrian Farenheits Tepes, son of Dracula, despiser of his father, we all know who he is.  I quite like the design, but it took a bit of time to get used to.  You can obviously see the bishounen features that Alucard has always sported.  The cloak is a bit contasting though, is it purple or a faded red?  Either way it doesn’t quiiiiiite fit in with the rest of the clothing…

Maria Renard.  Pinched from time by Aeon in between Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night, in turn she is 15.  QUITE a drastic design change!  But it’s nice to see her in a more suited battle gear (she always wore a dress in RoB and SotN, which is bizarre for a girl wandering around Dracula’s freakin’ castle!).  Oh, and one more thing…

CUUUUUUUUTE!!!  XD

She also looks a teansy bit like Misa Amane…

Alright, who let this nutjob loose?  Carmilla is… An intersting piece of work…  Literally bent upon reviving Dracula repeatedly, she is quite twisted.  Hence, the get-up.  Judging by the look on her face, you wouldn’t want to mess with that ._.  Just what IS she wearing anyway?

Trevor!  The second Belmont featured in Judgement!  He look pretty badass if you ask me.  I don’t really have much else to say actually.  Certainly doesn’t look like anyone from Death Note does he?

Sypha Belnades!  Glad to see her back again in the series!  Just one thing bugs me… For someone who remaned ambiguous throughout Dracula’s Curse, how on EARTH did she hide her gender with a chest like THAT?!  Freakin’ impossible!  Sure, she ain’t hiding it anymore but DAMN she must’ve had a helluva hard time when she did…  I say it was a case of “busty blindness” during designing o_o

DAMN!  Grant Danasty looks impressive!  For a seafaring pirate he looks darn intimidating!  Again, like the majority of the character designs, a bit of a far cry from his original designs… Not a bad one in my eyes though!

I would never have initially guessed this was Shanoa without further inspection… Once I look over things it’s actually quite obvious.  The glyphs on her arms, the pointed shoes, the cross along the front of her torso, etc.  I have no clue where the veil-thing came from… But I haven’t played Order of Ecclesia yet, so I can’t really judge if it shows up anywhere in the game.

I think Takeshi Obata certainly likes the shinigami idea when he drew Death.  It’s a rapid departure from what we’re used to… A tad too far…

Eric Lecarde, yanked 10 years prior to Bloodlines, which explains why he’s so young.  Still has what appears to be Alucard’s Spear though.  I can’t really say much about Eric, as it’s a younger Eric.  Obata dodged a bullet there in terms of the design departure.

Cornell.  Can’t really say much as I haven’t played… Whatever game he shows up in…  What I can say is he looks badass!

Golem eh?  I do believe Konami was struggling to choose characters by this point.  Come on Konami!  You have PLENTY of choice!  There are a lot of Belmonts to choose from!  Why not Soma Cruz?  John Morris?  Jonathan Morris?

Either way, Golem was pretty well designed in my view.

There we have it!  How many of them looked like a Death Note character?  2?  Thought so…  And they aren’t BAD designs either!  So what if they’re different from the norm, wouldn’t it be boring to have the same designs time and time again? (oh dear, unintended pun XD)

leave it there for now.

Saving for a 360

I’m saving up for an Xbox 360 (which I still need to ask if I can do…). So far I have a few games which I’ll buy for it.

They are: -

Call of Duty 4

Final Fantasy XIII (when it gets released)

The Orange Box

Castlevania Symphony of the Night (through Xbox Live Arcade)

Tales of Vesperia (when it gets released)

Soul Calibur IV (when it gets released)

Long time no see

It’s been a while since I’ve done anything here.  That’s partially due to my exams n’ such.

Those who do visit (I can only guess it’s around zero people) I will try and update with something every now and then.  There’s no promise it will be often though, I’m not a blogger.

Video

I’m testing out the video player that wordpress offers, so what a great excuse to show my latest video!

Metroid Recap Part I

A short while ago I posted an incomplete retrospective on Zentendo (see links page if you heven’t vistited before). I got a fair way through it but never finished it. So, after some slight revision, here it is in it’s full glory.

Metroid (1986)

Overview:
With the success of titles such as Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, Gunpei Yokoi came up with the idea of creating a game that combined the side scrolling adventure of SMB and the item collecting of LoZ. The end product was Metroid. The was a surprising revolution for it’s time. It allowed you to scroll to the left, something that was a astonishingly new idea at the time. However, Metroid had lacklustre sales in Japan, regardless of the fact it used the ever popular Famicom Disk System. Nintendo had the decision to release it on the NES in North America, ad they did. The sales, while not groundbreaking, were certainly enough to make the game a minor success. Since then, Metroid has become one of their most successful games to Nintendo fans.

Story:
EMERGENCY ORDER
Defeat the Metroid of Planet Zebeth (Zebes) and destroy the Mother Brain the mechanical life vein.
Galaxy Federal Police (Galactic Federation)
M510

Hardly groundbreaking is it? Not many games were back in the 80’s. Even so, the edgy translation from Japanese to English (or perhaps, Engrish) are apparent, such as the mis-spelled Zebes and the lack of a comma to separate the sentence. I gave it a slight grammar check in order to give it more meaning.

EMERGENCY ORDER
Defeat the Metroid of Planet Zebes and destroy the Mother brain, the mechanical life vein.
Galaxy Federal Police
M510

Music:
Joy of all joys, the music is memorable, catchy and surprisingly eerie at moments. Fans of the series will certainly agree the Hirokazu “Hip” Tanaka is a fantastic composer when it comes to the secluded, isolated tunes that will play in the deep caves of Zebes. Notable tracks include the Brinstar theme (catchy and upbeat), Kraid’s theme (dark and recurring) and the ending theme. However, it isn’t all that great. The Ridley theme was monotonous and annoying, to the point of snapping frustration.

Visuals:
As visuals go, they aren’t very good. In fact, to today’s standards, they are terrible. But consider the time it was released, it was very good for it’s era. Even to this day the charm of Metroid’s graphics remains strong in the fans eyes, failing to not bring a sense of nostalgia when viewed upon.

Gameplay:
Riddled with faults, glitches and barriers, this is your typical NES game in terms of controls. But the glitchs have led to a great number of sequence breaks. On the subject of sequence breaking, the original Metroid is the easiest game to rip apart in order to get items early. In terms of gameplay, Metroid is incredibly nostalgic. Even though modern games have like Resident Evil or Silent Hill have overtaken the Metroid Series in terms of eariness, the item rooms in Metroid continue to remains incredibly chilling and alienating.

Positive:
For it’s time, the ability to go where other plat formers had never been before (left) was a grand revolution, and entirely necessary. The gameplay revolves around backtracking, exploring and discovery. For example, If you collected the Ice Beam before the Wave Beam, you were screwed. The Wave Beam replaced the Ice Beam, and the ability to freeze enemies was needed in order to defeat the infamous life-suckers. However, if you looked hard enough you would find a second Ice Beam to replace the Wave Beam. Huzzah! The password system could easily be manipulated, leading to codes that made you invincible, gave you upgrades that didn’t exist, took you to areas outside the standard map and, most importantly, led to the infamous JUSTIN BAILEY code which allowed you to play the game as the female protagonist in a leotard. If you really wanted to make the game easier, the NARPAS SWORD password (either Narpa’s sword or NAR password, it isn’t confirmed what it means but it’s not a password coded into the game like the Justin Bailey password) allowed your energy to never drop below 30 and missiles would never run dry.

Negative:
Ridley’s theme. That’s it. Alright, I’ll go into more depth than that. The game hasn’t aged well and the physics are seriously out of tune, however it is still capable. Also, the game is a tad retro for some peoples tastes.

Conclusion:
There is no doubt, Metroid had a big impact on the gaming community. It was the first game, I repeat the first, game to feature a female protagonist. Because of Metroid, heroines such as Lara Croft would not exist today. This game is a nostalgic, extraordinary game. If you can live with the 8-bit graphics and dated music then it’s worth a shot. If you happen to have 500 points spare on your Wii you can’t do much worse than download Metroid.

Rating:
7/10

~ Komodo_Zero

My *second* first post

Seeing that I did something on my old site, I buggered myself and couldn’t log in anymore… So here is the new site…

~ Komodo_Zero