Welcome readers to the Play Delayed blog episode 2 - 3, I am posting this one on time I think... I have a good few games to cover and 2 O.S.S. reports to get through as well. So, before this blog becomes late like the others - here we go...
Old School Sunday : 4 / 09 / 2011
Myself and Player 2 did it again and had some new retro games to try out as well. I started the night off with some Rollcage - Stage 2. I only recently got the a copy of the first Rollcage only 2 - 3 weeks before... So, like the first game, this one really shows its age on the graphics side of things, looking pretty bad compared to the latest HD graphics of today, but luckily the game play still holds up and is still fun. We were trying to set up a race with computer opponents to make up the numbers but we were unable to get this set up. Instead we raced (or battled) each other. The track we played reminded me of a Mario Kart style track, like a half pipe set up. The weapons that feature in the game are pretty cool, there was (in particular) a teleport weapon that brings you to the front of the race and Player 2 activated this by mistake right at the end to beat me over the finish line. There is as well the usual homing missile, shields and some other power ups as well, but we did not play for too long...
That night we wasted a lot of time setting up music and on top of that my internet was not great that night. Eventually we got it fixed but by then it was time for pizza. The pizza was nice and all but I just felt that they put too much sauce on the base, making it a little messy, but it hit the spot all the same! The designated pizza video was WWF Summerslam 98, we went through a few matches off the vhs, mainly the ladder match between The Rock and HHH for the IC Title and the Undertaker vs Stone Cold for the WWF belt - both of which are fantastic wrestling matches!
After the pizza break I thought it would be cool to try out some of my new xbox classic games and Dead or Alive 3 was on top of the pile... The Dead or Alive series is a fighting game that I am not too familiar with, I have (I think its the... ) 4th game in the series on Xbox 360 and dabbled in it a little bit but never really returned to it. So, even with this limited experience, going in to Dead or Alive 3, everything was brand new to us... Its a beat em up game first and foremost, its in a 3D space and you can jump and side step to dodge or set up attacks, but you are fighting in a confined space and you can use the walls on the outside of the environment to your advantage, for example, one of the stages we played in was like a make shift MMA cage but the fence its self was electrified and when a character hits it, it explodes on impact causing more damage. When I initially started playing I thought it was going to play a bit like Tekken, but it is similar to Tekken only in character movement, the move sets of some of the characters are a little strange (or at least I thought). I want to revisit this game soon but because I am more of a fan of the Tekken series, I think it will take me a while to get used to.
After playing a game that I was expecting to be like Tekken (but was not), I felt the need to play some Tekken instead to get the bad taste out of my mouth (think drinking apple juice but you want it to be orange juice and you taste buds are expecting orange but then you get that nasty shock...). Tekken 6 was a nice return to the familiar, we just did the usual - some 8 on 8 team battles! That night we also played some LittleBigPlanet : Pirates of the Caribbean DLC through LittleBigPlanet 2. I found that to be quite enjoyable navigating through the levels and actually finishing a few of them off for a change. The special thing about this DLC is the inclusion of water to the LBP toolset, materials float on it, it negates any fire and sackboy can swim in it and much like the Sonic the Hedgehog "Labyrinth Zones" of days past - there are air bubbles and a timer for the under water action! I had played these levels before (whilst drunk) with another friend and we were having difficulties navigating the levels with the addition of water - it can be a little difficult to go from the foreground to the background when underwater in the game and this caused use to just give up trying for a few weeks... But with Player 2 we got through the part I was stuck on and one or two levels after this! I have also been quite impressed with how the user created levels have used the water tool in the created levels as well! And that was about all we played that night, we called it a night at about 00:20am as I had to be up for work a few hours later...
What have I been playing:
As I mentioned in the OSS report, we played Littlebigplanet. In the week leading up to that Sunday, I had been chipping away at the story mode of littlebigplanet 2. I had finished it before on my other ps3 but could only get the LBP1 items across when transferring the saved games... Playing it all again was a bit of a pain but I enjoy LBP so it wasn't too bad! So I got passed the Negativitron once again but still have a long way to go before I have all of the prize bubbles and levels aced!
I think the thing that impressed me the most about LBP 2 was the side scrolling and isometric shooter levels, It was a neat little trick the way you are fooled in to thinking that you are playing from an isometric view point! Back to the beat em ups now and I was recently over at a friend's apartment and there were a few of us there playing Super Street Fighter 4 Turbo, which for the most part I was getting my ass handed to me. I only know a few characters and their moves and combos but there is still a lot that I have to learn. I would like to be able to play as characters like Guile and Ibuki and some of the more obscure guys as well, I definitely need my practice in that game and the beat downs I got really that night hammered this home to me. Back home on my own consoles I have been taking a different avenue as regards to my gaming. With LBP2 cleared again I decided to stay on the ps3 for the most part. I downloaded Street Fighter 3 Online:Third Strike off the PSN, I don't know why but I got a little bit excited about this in the build up to this and downloaded it on release day, but I'm still not sure where this excitement came from... I never played Street Fighter 3 before and as a result of this there were a lot of new characters on the line up, a good percentage of this from Brazil too - they even have a capoeirista there (Elena)... I have only jumped in and out of this game but it looks cool and very retro - I will be returning to this one soon.
I have also been playing Red Faction:Armageddon again. I have hit 50% completion on the story at this stage and have been involved in some frantic fire fights. With every game there are a set amount of enemy types and this is usually not a huge number, RF:Armagedon is no different but I felt that it was very good in introducing the newer enemies in thus keeping a nice running pace to the game. I felt a few times that after I had taken down hoards of smaller enemies and then the general foot soldier enemy, after these battles I would kinda feel like hot shit until all of a sudden, some huge creature would come rushing at me or a cut scene would play and I would get a new enemy with some strange mechanic that I would have to figure out... It's good for the most part of what I have played at throwing these curve balls at you! The latest monster to appear to cause me trouble was the "tentacle", this monster can pick up bits of debris and fling it at you, meaning you have to dodge out of the way or get in to cover, some of the bulkier enemies prior to this one appearing did not cause me too much trouble, perhaps if they appeared in a different game they would have made more of an impact and caused me more hassle..?
On the retro front, I am still chipping away at Final Fantasy VIII, having just gone into the garden war between Galbadia and Balamb, all the pressure has been put on Squall to lead everyone onwards. There was also the part where the characters realized that they all grew up together and are thinking that their use of the Guardian Forces in battle could be responsible for their memory loss... Speaking of which, I picked up another one since last writing to this blog - Pandemonia, a wind element GF. Although I have progressed a bit through the story, most of my time spent with the game was on building up my characters, in particular my Selfie character who I let fall behind a bit but now she is almost up there with the rest, also I am trying to collect more magic to junction. I am now at the stage where I am drawing level 3 elemental magic having also recently now had the chance to draw support spells like haste, regen and bio - which I think are cool for mixing things up a bit!
hmm... I was thinking when I was writing up this next part that I buckled under pressure, but I guess it was only a matter of time - I splashed out on a brand new psp (with working UMD drive - I can now get back in to my 40+ psp titles on disc!) and then 3 days later I picked up a 3DS and am now happy to report that I have re-entered the world of portable gaming once again! I was sick with mild food poisoning for a few days and as a result I did not go out socializing at the weekend for almost 2 weekends in a row, leaving me with some money to play with (that I probably should have saved...!). So I picked up the 2 handhelds, both black in colour. With the 3DS I got Ghost Recon:Shadow Wars as part of the deal, set up a profile and completed a few levels. I have to say, from what I have played, I really like it! Its a turn based action game played on a grid, set in the Ghost Recon Universe (if such a universe exists?!). At the start of each mission you have to "gear up" for your team for battle, At this time, I have only played as a sniper, a heavy assault character and a medic. The more you play, the more experience points you unlock with grants you access to new weapons and other "perks" to use on the battle grids. This game reminds me of games like Metal Gear Acid (minus the cards) on PSP and Onimusha Tactics on GBA, games which I look back on with great fondness... I will continue to chip away at this in time and keep you posted on my progress...
As for the 3DS itself, It looks great and has a nice set of screens, 2 cameras on the back :and one on the front) and it's not too bulky. I never owned a DS or any of the follow up offerings, instead I opted to sit that generation of handheld out, but still picking up the odd game to come back to at a later date. It also has something with it called "AR games" (Augmented Reality?) which I have yet to try out land a function for the Nintendo "Mii" characters. My only complaint with it was that I thought that it was going to be bigger, I think I mixed it up with the DSi XL, but I was not disappointed - this was only a small complaint. One thing that really impressed me was that it came with a 2gb SD card inside it straight out of the box - which I thought was very generous - I had to buy a separate memory card when I got my psps... I like this ready to play, straight out of the box style selling, I think back to being a kid and getting something similar for Christmas but something important would be forgotten (my parents were always savvy to this and we always had batteries on Christmas day for my gameboys or even my gamecom) but you would always hear these stories of kids who were not so lucky... So for the out of the box package I am impressed.
On top of Ghost Recon on 3DS I also picked up a copy of Super Street Fighter 4 Turbo 3D and Ridge Racer 3D as well...
I have jumped in and out of Ridge Racer 3D quite a bit, I may be wrong but it looked like it has tracks from Ridge Racer 7 on PS3, which I like as I am still getting to know the tracks. I think I have gotten quite good at these games and when I player 2 and some other friends over I have enjoyed (and often won) many split screen races. On the 3Ds I am still enjoying the game (note: on all my 3DS games I always play with the 3D slider down - 3D off). It is a cool game, but I felt that it makes too much of a big deal out of itself, or in the press, in some magazines they went nuts as some 3DS titles around launch were not so hot. But if I had to pick a Ridge Racer portable I would have to go for my PSP Ridge Racer. It still looks great and I have played it a lot more as well. The 3DS game is still cool but I much prefer the PSP version... Street Fighter 4 Turbo 3DS wraps up my 3DS purchases. What I will say first of all is that the overall look is great, a very good port of a great game (is it a port?), the only thing I have against it is the easy combo system. What the fuck!? I have not played this version online yet but I think that after taking the time to learn some of the characters and their moves (and combos) that someone on the other end just poking the touch screen with ease to get combos and special going while I imput commands with the button combinations like a fool... I will probably never play this version online and perhaps I have taken the combo system up wrong? But the user accessibility from the get go did not sit well with me. I will give a better and more accurate report when I play it some more...
OSS Report - 18 September 2011:
This was going to be a special Old School Sunday, I knew this because I had no work the next day. We had as a result, pre planned to watch WWE : Night Of Champions live later on in the night. I had not seen a live wrestling event on ppv for a long time so naturally I was quite excited about this! (My only worry was that there was a chance that the event could end up being shit... But I will get to this later.)
Before Player 2 got here I had downloaded a few demos off the PSN Store. Bloodrayne Betrayal, Galaga DX and Warhammer 40,000 : Kill Team and thought it would be cool to try them out to kick off the night... We started by each taking turns with Galaga DX, I thought the strobe graphics epilepsy warning at the start was cool - when I see this I know I am in for a good time. And well, it is very colourful... And very strobey as well. There are lots of enemies on screen at once, it gets quite frantic and on top of all that there’s a fast dance music track playing in the back round which doesn't help matters! There’s usually a string of enemies with a larger enemy at the head leading the smaller ones in an almost "worm like" formation, but take out the leader and every one of them blow up. One thing later on in the demo that I liked was that after I took out a lot of Galaga, some of them joined my side and acted like a weapon power up, boosting my attack power. I liked this game, I liked it so much that I upgraded from the trial to the full version a few days later, the music in game is also worth mentioning, very dancey, it suits the game a lot. I will be returning to this one very soon. After we both had shots at that (and were both left impressed) we wet in to some Warhammer 40K : Kill Team. I did not check the preview (not even sure if there was one...?) nor did I watch any videos online but I am a long time Warhammer fan and thought that this would be cool to play. So with that said we fired it up and the first thing that went through my head was that this game is a lot like Dead Nation, a PSN game that myself and Player 2 have a fair bit of experience with, only with a not so cool Warhammer skin thrown on... Now it is not exactly like Dead Nation, like weapon power ups and character perks, there are also character classes and you can beef up that classes arsenal the more you play on it would seem from our quick look with it. After about 10 minutes of playing this, I decided that this one wasn't for me, it played ok but I was getting bored of it quickly, plus, there were a few design things that annoyed me at the start that stuck with me through out the play, it was the vats of acid in the Ork factory, they liquid is green, but it looks very cheap, it just annoyed me and ended up ruining my experience with the game. The game itself is still pretty playable however and if you are a fan of the Warhammer universe then you will probably get a few hours of pleasure from this one. For fans of the miniature war game I would definitely recommend that you at least try the trial out, I think Player 2 liked the game and thought that I should pick it up, but we are not finished Dead Nation yet and I am not a big fan of this game, not enough to buy it... Actually, I would like to finish Dead Nation co op soon, just to wrap it all up.
This brought us up to Pizza time and you know what that means... That’s Right! Wrestling tapes!!!
Actually, we watched a dvd this time around, the main event from WWE: Backlash 2006, which was a triple threat match for the WWE Championship between Triple H, John Cena and Edge - One of the better matches of that year... HHH got very badly busted open during the match, which added to the dramatics of the whole affair and ultimately at the same time affected his performance - best example being when he gave Lita the "Anderson Spine Buster" and nearly impaled her on the leg of the chair - she was very lucky..! A brilliant match and one I have gone back to on many occasions, with fantastic back and forth action a 'blink or you'll miss it' end with Cena getting the quick pin. Then even after all that, HHH goes nuts with the sledge hammer on everyone then doing the 'DX - Suck It' taunt, possibly to signal what was coming (back) later on that year...
When we returned we switched on OSS favorite Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix and after a couple of rounds I educated Player 2 in the hazards of playing as Dan... Dan, playing as Dan will get you fucked up! His special move involves many red blocks falling down on your opponents screen. If you opponent has a crystal and only half the screen filled up, you will lose when they get a red destruction orb. I lost a few rounds teaching this lesson, but I actually managed to win a few with Dan as well (much to my surprise... ) After this we were at a bit of a loss over what to play next and it was then that I saw something on my pile of games that we had never played before and I think unlike Player 2 had ever played ever - Sengoku Basara:Samurai Heroes on PS3!
I had played this once or twice by myself, its one of those button bashing, kill hundreds of enemy soldiers in one go, Dynasty Warriors or Chaos Legion-esque games that lack variety but is great for killing time in small doses. And this game, like many others in it's genre is very repetitive, you feel this almost right away, the level layout is nothing special but at least in some give you multiple paths to go to get to the end goal and is not without it's flaws... but I actually like this game, although the character voice work is pretty shite, the character design is pretty cool, something which I always look at when I am playing a video game. We finished the first stage split screen but had problems with the second battle. There is a sub boss through out the level that you have to take out - he is armed with dual chainsaws and comes out of nowhere and the only way to do massive damage is to lead him through gate traps in the levels, there are 3 of them on the way to the final boss of the stage but then you meet him with his last bit of energy and he can only be really damaged with your super moves, but you have the boss firing rockets at you at the same time and the usual amount of cannon fodder enemies coming at you as well! Difficult stuff as I still do not know how the game really works yet but I want to learn and I want to see the other characters in it as well! It was most definitely something different and when you look back over the games we played (and see a lot coming up as well), change is good! After our time with this, we switched the system off and headed over to Player 2's place to watch WWE Night of Champions 2011 live...
As I said earlier, I was really worried that this was going to be a shit Pay Per View, every WWE PPV has the potential to suck but I am happy to report that this one was actually enjoyable, even the Diva tag match was cool. I have to say that I am a fan of Natalya and Beth Phoneix. What was so cool that about this match was that they were in Beth Phoneix's hometown and as a result, Kelly Kelly got massively booed when she made her way to the ring - the crowd firmly behind their hometown hero! I don't think I have ever seen Kelly Kelly get booed before and I'm not sure if she was able for it, the look on her face suggested this... I think she learnt a new lesson in her pro wrestling book. Other highlights worth mentioning were the John Cena vs Alberto Del Rio WWE Championship, this match because at the time it came on, myself and Player 2 were a bit drunk and we started to do Ricardo Rodriguez impersonations all through out the match and announcing everyone's name in that fashion and putting 'Del Rio' after their name (for example - John Cena Del RIO), it was also a really cool match! Mark Henry and Randy Orton had a good match, but I did not like the way they portrayed him out to be as powerful and unstoppable, to the point that Randy Orton could not break his vertical base and land the RKO on him. Does anyone remember the Survivor Series match a few year ago when Randy Orton eliminating Mark Henry first in the match with an RKO... But I have to say that it was refreshing to see Mark Henry win the strap, good for him! And then there was the last match, HHH vs C.M. Punk closing out the event. This was a great match with what I can only call some crazy outside interference towards the end. Kevin Nash playing his part as expected and the Miz and R-Truth also showing their faces. I really enjoyed this match and was expecting Punk to win this one as it seemed like someone was going out of their way to get HHH out of his new role but oddly enough (for me anyway) he managed to pin Punk and hold on to his position... The PPV as a whole was very enjoyable and myself and Player 2 are still doing Ricardo Rodriguez impersonations when we meet up and I forgot to mention, I was singing HHH's entrance song all night and then a couple of days later I had to get the song, jut to have it on my mp3 player! So that about does it for the Old School Sunday reports for September, I'm going to wrap this (out of control) blog with my portable gaming update...
So, I did a little bit more Final Fantasy 8, I have reached the stage where Squall and his crew infiltrate the floating Galbadia garden, I am currently running around the maze that is this "garden" and have just reached the second student who gives me a key card to unlock the doors. Squall is running around looking for Seifer to challenge him once again and the entire crew have all remembered their childhood, but running around looking for those 3 students is annoying me a bit, I remember that it pissed me off 10 years ago and now it is doing it again... I have to say though that it is nice to make progress in this game and I think I will be going to the guide book to look up some of the cool hidden things and weapon upgrades, just to get the most out of the game as I don’t think I will be going back to this game when I clear it, I have way to many other handheld RPG games to get through, I am also half thinking about putting it down for a while and getting back in to Breath of Fire 3 to chip away at that a little bit, I'm not sure...
Just to completely wrap up, I am back watching Mad Men and the last 2 episodes I watched were really cool. Don had to sign a contract and the British accounts guy getting his foot destroyed in a drunken lawnmower accident! And news just in - I just finished Gears of War 3's main campaign mode but I will save the report for the next blog! Thanks for reading - looking for the next one real soon...
Old School Sunday : 4 / 09 / 2011
Myself and Player 2 did it again and had some new retro games to try out as well. I started the night off with some Rollcage - Stage 2. I only recently got the a copy of the first Rollcage only 2 - 3 weeks before... So, like the first game, this one really shows its age on the graphics side of things, looking pretty bad compared to the latest HD graphics of today, but luckily the game play still holds up and is still fun. We were trying to set up a race with computer opponents to make up the numbers but we were unable to get this set up. Instead we raced (or battled) each other. The track we played reminded me of a Mario Kart style track, like a half pipe set up. The weapons that feature in the game are pretty cool, there was (in particular) a teleport weapon that brings you to the front of the race and Player 2 activated this by mistake right at the end to beat me over the finish line. There is as well the usual homing missile, shields and some other power ups as well, but we did not play for too long...
That night we wasted a lot of time setting up music and on top of that my internet was not great that night. Eventually we got it fixed but by then it was time for pizza. The pizza was nice and all but I just felt that they put too much sauce on the base, making it a little messy, but it hit the spot all the same! The designated pizza video was WWF Summerslam 98, we went through a few matches off the vhs, mainly the ladder match between The Rock and HHH for the IC Title and the Undertaker vs Stone Cold for the WWF belt - both of which are fantastic wrestling matches!
After the pizza break I thought it would be cool to try out some of my new xbox classic games and Dead or Alive 3 was on top of the pile... The Dead or Alive series is a fighting game that I am not too familiar with, I have (I think its the... ) 4th game in the series on Xbox 360 and dabbled in it a little bit but never really returned to it. So, even with this limited experience, going in to Dead or Alive 3, everything was brand new to us... Its a beat em up game first and foremost, its in a 3D space and you can jump and side step to dodge or set up attacks, but you are fighting in a confined space and you can use the walls on the outside of the environment to your advantage, for example, one of the stages we played in was like a make shift MMA cage but the fence its self was electrified and when a character hits it, it explodes on impact causing more damage. When I initially started playing I thought it was going to play a bit like Tekken, but it is similar to Tekken only in character movement, the move sets of some of the characters are a little strange (or at least I thought). I want to revisit this game soon but because I am more of a fan of the Tekken series, I think it will take me a while to get used to.
After playing a game that I was expecting to be like Tekken (but was not), I felt the need to play some Tekken instead to get the bad taste out of my mouth (think drinking apple juice but you want it to be orange juice and you taste buds are expecting orange but then you get that nasty shock...). Tekken 6 was a nice return to the familiar, we just did the usual - some 8 on 8 team battles! That night we also played some LittleBigPlanet : Pirates of the Caribbean DLC through LittleBigPlanet 2. I found that to be quite enjoyable navigating through the levels and actually finishing a few of them off for a change. The special thing about this DLC is the inclusion of water to the LBP toolset, materials float on it, it negates any fire and sackboy can swim in it and much like the Sonic the Hedgehog "Labyrinth Zones" of days past - there are air bubbles and a timer for the under water action! I had played these levels before (whilst drunk) with another friend and we were having difficulties navigating the levels with the addition of water - it can be a little difficult to go from the foreground to the background when underwater in the game and this caused use to just give up trying for a few weeks... But with Player 2 we got through the part I was stuck on and one or two levels after this! I have also been quite impressed with how the user created levels have used the water tool in the created levels as well! And that was about all we played that night, we called it a night at about 00:20am as I had to be up for work a few hours later...
What have I been playing:
As I mentioned in the OSS report, we played Littlebigplanet. In the week leading up to that Sunday, I had been chipping away at the story mode of littlebigplanet 2. I had finished it before on my other ps3 but could only get the LBP1 items across when transferring the saved games... Playing it all again was a bit of a pain but I enjoy LBP so it wasn't too bad! So I got passed the Negativitron once again but still have a long way to go before I have all of the prize bubbles and levels aced!
I think the thing that impressed me the most about LBP 2 was the side scrolling and isometric shooter levels, It was a neat little trick the way you are fooled in to thinking that you are playing from an isometric view point! Back to the beat em ups now and I was recently over at a friend's apartment and there were a few of us there playing Super Street Fighter 4 Turbo, which for the most part I was getting my ass handed to me. I only know a few characters and their moves and combos but there is still a lot that I have to learn. I would like to be able to play as characters like Guile and Ibuki and some of the more obscure guys as well, I definitely need my practice in that game and the beat downs I got really that night hammered this home to me. Back home on my own consoles I have been taking a different avenue as regards to my gaming. With LBP2 cleared again I decided to stay on the ps3 for the most part. I downloaded Street Fighter 3 Online:Third Strike off the PSN, I don't know why but I got a little bit excited about this in the build up to this and downloaded it on release day, but I'm still not sure where this excitement came from... I never played Street Fighter 3 before and as a result of this there were a lot of new characters on the line up, a good percentage of this from Brazil too - they even have a capoeirista there (Elena)... I have only jumped in and out of this game but it looks cool and very retro - I will be returning to this one soon.
I have also been playing Red Faction:Armageddon again. I have hit 50% completion on the story at this stage and have been involved in some frantic fire fights. With every game there are a set amount of enemy types and this is usually not a huge number, RF:Armagedon is no different but I felt that it was very good in introducing the newer enemies in thus keeping a nice running pace to the game. I felt a few times that after I had taken down hoards of smaller enemies and then the general foot soldier enemy, after these battles I would kinda feel like hot shit until all of a sudden, some huge creature would come rushing at me or a cut scene would play and I would get a new enemy with some strange mechanic that I would have to figure out... It's good for the most part of what I have played at throwing these curve balls at you! The latest monster to appear to cause me trouble was the "tentacle", this monster can pick up bits of debris and fling it at you, meaning you have to dodge out of the way or get in to cover, some of the bulkier enemies prior to this one appearing did not cause me too much trouble, perhaps if they appeared in a different game they would have made more of an impact and caused me more hassle..?
On the retro front, I am still chipping away at Final Fantasy VIII, having just gone into the garden war between Galbadia and Balamb, all the pressure has been put on Squall to lead everyone onwards. There was also the part where the characters realized that they all grew up together and are thinking that their use of the Guardian Forces in battle could be responsible for their memory loss... Speaking of which, I picked up another one since last writing to this blog - Pandemonia, a wind element GF. Although I have progressed a bit through the story, most of my time spent with the game was on building up my characters, in particular my Selfie character who I let fall behind a bit but now she is almost up there with the rest, also I am trying to collect more magic to junction. I am now at the stage where I am drawing level 3 elemental magic having also recently now had the chance to draw support spells like haste, regen and bio - which I think are cool for mixing things up a bit!
hmm... I was thinking when I was writing up this next part that I buckled under pressure, but I guess it was only a matter of time - I splashed out on a brand new psp (with working UMD drive - I can now get back in to my 40+ psp titles on disc!) and then 3 days later I picked up a 3DS and am now happy to report that I have re-entered the world of portable gaming once again! I was sick with mild food poisoning for a few days and as a result I did not go out socializing at the weekend for almost 2 weekends in a row, leaving me with some money to play with (that I probably should have saved...!). So I picked up the 2 handhelds, both black in colour. With the 3DS I got Ghost Recon:Shadow Wars as part of the deal, set up a profile and completed a few levels. I have to say, from what I have played, I really like it! Its a turn based action game played on a grid, set in the Ghost Recon Universe (if such a universe exists?!). At the start of each mission you have to "gear up" for your team for battle, At this time, I have only played as a sniper, a heavy assault character and a medic. The more you play, the more experience points you unlock with grants you access to new weapons and other "perks" to use on the battle grids. This game reminds me of games like Metal Gear Acid (minus the cards) on PSP and Onimusha Tactics on GBA, games which I look back on with great fondness... I will continue to chip away at this in time and keep you posted on my progress...
As for the 3DS itself, It looks great and has a nice set of screens, 2 cameras on the back :and one on the front) and it's not too bulky. I never owned a DS or any of the follow up offerings, instead I opted to sit that generation of handheld out, but still picking up the odd game to come back to at a later date. It also has something with it called "AR games" (Augmented Reality?) which I have yet to try out land a function for the Nintendo "Mii" characters. My only complaint with it was that I thought that it was going to be bigger, I think I mixed it up with the DSi XL, but I was not disappointed - this was only a small complaint. One thing that really impressed me was that it came with a 2gb SD card inside it straight out of the box - which I thought was very generous - I had to buy a separate memory card when I got my psps... I like this ready to play, straight out of the box style selling, I think back to being a kid and getting something similar for Christmas but something important would be forgotten (my parents were always savvy to this and we always had batteries on Christmas day for my gameboys or even my gamecom) but you would always hear these stories of kids who were not so lucky... So for the out of the box package I am impressed.
On top of Ghost Recon on 3DS I also picked up a copy of Super Street Fighter 4 Turbo 3D and Ridge Racer 3D as well...
I have jumped in and out of Ridge Racer 3D quite a bit, I may be wrong but it looked like it has tracks from Ridge Racer 7 on PS3, which I like as I am still getting to know the tracks. I think I have gotten quite good at these games and when I player 2 and some other friends over I have enjoyed (and often won) many split screen races. On the 3Ds I am still enjoying the game (note: on all my 3DS games I always play with the 3D slider down - 3D off). It is a cool game, but I felt that it makes too much of a big deal out of itself, or in the press, in some magazines they went nuts as some 3DS titles around launch were not so hot. But if I had to pick a Ridge Racer portable I would have to go for my PSP Ridge Racer. It still looks great and I have played it a lot more as well. The 3DS game is still cool but I much prefer the PSP version... Street Fighter 4 Turbo 3DS wraps up my 3DS purchases. What I will say first of all is that the overall look is great, a very good port of a great game (is it a port?), the only thing I have against it is the easy combo system. What the fuck!? I have not played this version online yet but I think that after taking the time to learn some of the characters and their moves (and combos) that someone on the other end just poking the touch screen with ease to get combos and special going while I imput commands with the button combinations like a fool... I will probably never play this version online and perhaps I have taken the combo system up wrong? But the user accessibility from the get go did not sit well with me. I will give a better and more accurate report when I play it some more...
OSS Report - 18 September 2011:
This was going to be a special Old School Sunday, I knew this because I had no work the next day. We had as a result, pre planned to watch WWE : Night Of Champions live later on in the night. I had not seen a live wrestling event on ppv for a long time so naturally I was quite excited about this! (My only worry was that there was a chance that the event could end up being shit... But I will get to this later.)
Before Player 2 got here I had downloaded a few demos off the PSN Store. Bloodrayne Betrayal, Galaga DX and Warhammer 40,000 : Kill Team and thought it would be cool to try them out to kick off the night... We started by each taking turns with Galaga DX, I thought the strobe graphics epilepsy warning at the start was cool - when I see this I know I am in for a good time. And well, it is very colourful... And very strobey as well. There are lots of enemies on screen at once, it gets quite frantic and on top of all that there’s a fast dance music track playing in the back round which doesn't help matters! There’s usually a string of enemies with a larger enemy at the head leading the smaller ones in an almost "worm like" formation, but take out the leader and every one of them blow up. One thing later on in the demo that I liked was that after I took out a lot of Galaga, some of them joined my side and acted like a weapon power up, boosting my attack power. I liked this game, I liked it so much that I upgraded from the trial to the full version a few days later, the music in game is also worth mentioning, very dancey, it suits the game a lot. I will be returning to this one very soon. After we both had shots at that (and were both left impressed) we wet in to some Warhammer 40K : Kill Team. I did not check the preview (not even sure if there was one...?) nor did I watch any videos online but I am a long time Warhammer fan and thought that this would be cool to play. So with that said we fired it up and the first thing that went through my head was that this game is a lot like Dead Nation, a PSN game that myself and Player 2 have a fair bit of experience with, only with a not so cool Warhammer skin thrown on... Now it is not exactly like Dead Nation, like weapon power ups and character perks, there are also character classes and you can beef up that classes arsenal the more you play on it would seem from our quick look with it. After about 10 minutes of playing this, I decided that this one wasn't for me, it played ok but I was getting bored of it quickly, plus, there were a few design things that annoyed me at the start that stuck with me through out the play, it was the vats of acid in the Ork factory, they liquid is green, but it looks very cheap, it just annoyed me and ended up ruining my experience with the game. The game itself is still pretty playable however and if you are a fan of the Warhammer universe then you will probably get a few hours of pleasure from this one. For fans of the miniature war game I would definitely recommend that you at least try the trial out, I think Player 2 liked the game and thought that I should pick it up, but we are not finished Dead Nation yet and I am not a big fan of this game, not enough to buy it... Actually, I would like to finish Dead Nation co op soon, just to wrap it all up.
This brought us up to Pizza time and you know what that means... That’s Right! Wrestling tapes!!!
Actually, we watched a dvd this time around, the main event from WWE: Backlash 2006, which was a triple threat match for the WWE Championship between Triple H, John Cena and Edge - One of the better matches of that year... HHH got very badly busted open during the match, which added to the dramatics of the whole affair and ultimately at the same time affected his performance - best example being when he gave Lita the "Anderson Spine Buster" and nearly impaled her on the leg of the chair - she was very lucky..! A brilliant match and one I have gone back to on many occasions, with fantastic back and forth action a 'blink or you'll miss it' end with Cena getting the quick pin. Then even after all that, HHH goes nuts with the sledge hammer on everyone then doing the 'DX - Suck It' taunt, possibly to signal what was coming (back) later on that year...
When we returned we switched on OSS favorite Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix and after a couple of rounds I educated Player 2 in the hazards of playing as Dan... Dan, playing as Dan will get you fucked up! His special move involves many red blocks falling down on your opponents screen. If you opponent has a crystal and only half the screen filled up, you will lose when they get a red destruction orb. I lost a few rounds teaching this lesson, but I actually managed to win a few with Dan as well (much to my surprise... ) After this we were at a bit of a loss over what to play next and it was then that I saw something on my pile of games that we had never played before and I think unlike Player 2 had ever played ever - Sengoku Basara:Samurai Heroes on PS3!
I had played this once or twice by myself, its one of those button bashing, kill hundreds of enemy soldiers in one go, Dynasty Warriors or Chaos Legion-esque games that lack variety but is great for killing time in small doses. And this game, like many others in it's genre is very repetitive, you feel this almost right away, the level layout is nothing special but at least in some give you multiple paths to go to get to the end goal and is not without it's flaws... but I actually like this game, although the character voice work is pretty shite, the character design is pretty cool, something which I always look at when I am playing a video game. We finished the first stage split screen but had problems with the second battle. There is a sub boss through out the level that you have to take out - he is armed with dual chainsaws and comes out of nowhere and the only way to do massive damage is to lead him through gate traps in the levels, there are 3 of them on the way to the final boss of the stage but then you meet him with his last bit of energy and he can only be really damaged with your super moves, but you have the boss firing rockets at you at the same time and the usual amount of cannon fodder enemies coming at you as well! Difficult stuff as I still do not know how the game really works yet but I want to learn and I want to see the other characters in it as well! It was most definitely something different and when you look back over the games we played (and see a lot coming up as well), change is good! After our time with this, we switched the system off and headed over to Player 2's place to watch WWE Night of Champions 2011 live...
As I said earlier, I was really worried that this was going to be a shit Pay Per View, every WWE PPV has the potential to suck but I am happy to report that this one was actually enjoyable, even the Diva tag match was cool. I have to say that I am a fan of Natalya and Beth Phoneix. What was so cool that about this match was that they were in Beth Phoneix's hometown and as a result, Kelly Kelly got massively booed when she made her way to the ring - the crowd firmly behind their hometown hero! I don't think I have ever seen Kelly Kelly get booed before and I'm not sure if she was able for it, the look on her face suggested this... I think she learnt a new lesson in her pro wrestling book. Other highlights worth mentioning were the John Cena vs Alberto Del Rio WWE Championship, this match because at the time it came on, myself and Player 2 were a bit drunk and we started to do Ricardo Rodriguez impersonations all through out the match and announcing everyone's name in that fashion and putting 'Del Rio' after their name (for example - John Cena Del RIO), it was also a really cool match! Mark Henry and Randy Orton had a good match, but I did not like the way they portrayed him out to be as powerful and unstoppable, to the point that Randy Orton could not break his vertical base and land the RKO on him. Does anyone remember the Survivor Series match a few year ago when Randy Orton eliminating Mark Henry first in the match with an RKO... But I have to say that it was refreshing to see Mark Henry win the strap, good for him! And then there was the last match, HHH vs C.M. Punk closing out the event. This was a great match with what I can only call some crazy outside interference towards the end. Kevin Nash playing his part as expected and the Miz and R-Truth also showing their faces. I really enjoyed this match and was expecting Punk to win this one as it seemed like someone was going out of their way to get HHH out of his new role but oddly enough (for me anyway) he managed to pin Punk and hold on to his position... The PPV as a whole was very enjoyable and myself and Player 2 are still doing Ricardo Rodriguez impersonations when we meet up and I forgot to mention, I was singing HHH's entrance song all night and then a couple of days later I had to get the song, jut to have it on my mp3 player! So that about does it for the Old School Sunday reports for September, I'm going to wrap this (out of control) blog with my portable gaming update...
So, I did a little bit more Final Fantasy 8, I have reached the stage where Squall and his crew infiltrate the floating Galbadia garden, I am currently running around the maze that is this "garden" and have just reached the second student who gives me a key card to unlock the doors. Squall is running around looking for Seifer to challenge him once again and the entire crew have all remembered their childhood, but running around looking for those 3 students is annoying me a bit, I remember that it pissed me off 10 years ago and now it is doing it again... I have to say though that it is nice to make progress in this game and I think I will be going to the guide book to look up some of the cool hidden things and weapon upgrades, just to get the most out of the game as I don’t think I will be going back to this game when I clear it, I have way to many other handheld RPG games to get through, I am also half thinking about putting it down for a while and getting back in to Breath of Fire 3 to chip away at that a little bit, I'm not sure...
Just to completely wrap up, I am back watching Mad Men and the last 2 episodes I watched were really cool. Don had to sign a contract and the British accounts guy getting his foot destroyed in a drunken lawnmower accident! And news just in - I just finished Gears of War 3's main campaign mode but I will save the report for the next blog! Thanks for reading - looking for the next one real soon...
