Quick blog - GAME administration + Ninja Gaiden 3 thoughts

So this is only a quick blog update for you all.

So you all probably know that the GAME Group have announced that they have gone into Administration. As much as i hate to see the loss of 2104 jobs in the UK because of it so far, i can't help but feel they put themselves into that situation themselves. They should have looked to be a bit fairer in their dealings with companies a bit more, at least from what i hear. But asides from that, the main thing that people want to know is, how badly has the administration been so far. They've closed down 277 stores at present, not just GAME, but gamestation as well. For a full list of what has been closed, i recommend you check out MCVs full list so far, which you can find over here. They've been constantly updating that article as new stores have closed and new updates have appeared, so keep an eye on their site for more details as they arise. It's worth noting, there is a pattern to what they are closing. Looking at the shops closed around us, we have the GAME in Stirling in the thistle centre closed down, and Edinburghs Princes Street store close. The Ocean Terminal one in Edinburgh(Leith) has been hit too, but that isn't as close by for me as the other two(i pass through stirling when i go from home to my flat). Why is this interesting? Well, these just so happen to be the biggest stores in each city. What has been left is the small Gamestation in stirling(which i prefer, far better selection) and the St James Centre GAME(far smaller, and worse selection). They are removing the bigger stores in favour of leaving the smaller ones, my guess is because the Rent will be far less, or the rent will be up for the other stores. So if you want to predict what will close, try going with the bigger ones. Means more jobs as well, which i again hate. We need jobs in this time, not less of them.



Onto my other topic of the day, one a little closer to my heart. Ninja Gaiden 3. Now, i loved Ninja Gaiden Black and the 360 Ninja Gaiden 2. Loved them. So when i heard Ninja Gaiden 3 was due to hit PS360 this year, i was hyped more than i expected. I was looking forward to this rich action-adventure/Hack-n-Slash game much like the two previews. Hard as nails, tonnes to do, lots of wee things to find and a good variety of weapons to work with. But....i never got that.

When i started the game, i got thrown into deciding which difficulty i wanted, Hero(easy) normal, or hard. I went for normal. I got thrown straight into a QTE. First thing you do. Hit X. Then, i get put into this scene where i can't walk left, or right, only forward. I have to jump off the ledge and, hit LB + right to avoid an attack, then hit y to do another attack. This wasn't a good start, Team Ninja, by any means. I thought, ok, this is the start, i'll let them off. Next thing i know, the game starts, and i'm pushed into another one, for jumping off a ledge this time into an enemy. Then combat starts. FANTASTIC. Let's see limbs....fly? Wait a second, why no dismemberment? Why no decapitations? What are these canned animations after every enemy kill? QTE prompts when killing too? What? I immediately questioned what was going on. This was not the Ninja Gaiden i remember, this was far from it. Combat had suddenly turned into this push for seeing canned animations for kills, or getting a QTE prompt. Enemies weren't even that smart either, they where easy to kill off, and i found myself finishing the first level without losing a life, nor losing even half of my health at any point. I was disappointed.

Ok ok, so that's the combat. What about the rest of it you ask? Okay. Everything is in an extremely straight line, so much so that you may as well remove the scenery, put in a straight corridor, and you'll do the same thing as you do in this game. There is NO Collectables. None, i'm not even joking. There is no items, no orbs or anything from felled enemies. You restore health by either using your Ki for a Fire Ninpo(which is a canned animation hitting everything nearby, i might add) or it will restore whatever ki you have left after you finish combat. You can't upgrade weapons, or sorry. Weapon. You don't even upgrade Ki levels or health, it's all fixed. What the hell? Why the hell would you take out everything that makes a game playable? YOU EVEN FORCE ME TO WALK AND DO ONE THING WHEN I WANT THE ABILITY TO DO WHAT I WANT. Scripted campaigns/story modes are things i expect from badly made/last minute campaigns for First person games ala Call of Duty, but this? this is beyond horrible. I should not be forced to do things like that, ever. Especially in a hack n slash game like this. You've made it Bare Bones, uneventful and..i think lackluster maybe being nice.

To this point, i should note i've restarted on Hard, and finished 2 chapters, and moved into the third. I've been at the game for less than 2 hours, i'm 2/7ths of the way through the game, and the only reason i had a problem was because, instead of giving us smart AI enemies, they give us tonnes of dumb AI enemies, and all at once instead of in waves. They try to make the game hard, but in the wrong way.

I'm sorry if i'm being considerably harsh with this game, but Gaiden black and 2(360) are two of my favourite games. Coming into Ninja gaiden 3, i had huge huge HUGE hopes, and so far i've been nothing but disappointed. I so wanted for this game to be a mish-mash between Bayonetta and Gaiden 2, but instead i've been introduced to this backwards title which does little more than annoy me as a fan of a series which has always been hard as nails, adrenaline pumping and gory bloody fun. It's none of those things now. It's just frustrating. I don't want to say this, because i adore Team Ninja and TecmoKoei, i really do, but do not buy this game in it's present state. Maybe a new version will appear if people see sense and it'll have everything added in, since it feels like it's incomplete and forcing to change itself, when it really doesn't need it. I'll maybe change my feelings on it when i finish the game, but we will have to wait and see. I'm just very very saddened by what i've seen so far.

Progress update: Skyward Sword + Mighty Switch force complete

I haven't really got much gaming done in recent weeks, playing a bit here, and a bit more there, so what i have got done, is get more of my Skyward Sword playthrough done, and i picked up, and completed Mighty Switch Force in the past week.

So, Skyward Sword. Where i left off before i started this "challenge", was 4 dungeons down and i was just preparing to enter dungeon 5(Ancient Ship i think it was called). loved the design for that dungeon, as well as the one before it, the Ancient Cistern, which had such a great feel to it. Heck did people know the design of the Ancient Cistern is possibly inspired by a short story known as The Spiders Thread? Check some of the details out, like the bit in which you climb a thread out of the dark depths of the area, it's quite fantastic.

At present, i've been working on getting a few of the side quest stuff done as well as searching for those heart container pieces, but i'm now just about ready to finish the game off. I have all the weapons, sword is complete, etc, etc. So i can't be too far away. Mind you, i said this after finishing the last couple of dungeons, and i'm still saying it now. Obviously it's longer than it looks.

Now, Mighty Switch Force, this was very much an impulse buy after i picked up the Soundtrack to the game through the fantastic Game Music Bundle - much like the Humble Indie Bundle, proceeds go to the composers of all the soundtracks available, as well as charities like childs play. This came with the second bundle alongside ones like Sword and Sworcery, Aquaria and many others. So giving the game a try, i had no idea what i was walking into, and neither did i realise it was actually a 3DS eshop game, for some reason i was led to believe it was DSiware. The games controls are extremely simplistic, B jumps, X shoots and you can use either A or the shoulder buttons to "switch". by switch, you'll find blocks which either appear phased in or out, to switch them from either form, you hit this and they'll be possible to jump on. My first gripe actually, and possibly my only one, is that there is no explanation on the controls or how they work. It throws you straight into the game head first and you need to work it out yourself. A small brief description of controls would have been nice.

In terms of the game itself, the storyline is basically; a group of criminals have just escaped imprisonment and have released some monsters in your way. You have to catch all 5 in each level to move onto the next level. That's it. What gives this an edge, is that you have a par time to hit with each level, and they are fast. Some levels have you finishing within a minute to beat it, so those with a love for time trials, this is your game.

Only 16 levels fill this game, so it will probably only take you an hour or two to complete the game, but chances are you'll be going back to get that star beside each level saying you beat the Par time. I did, and i am proud to say i've finished it 100%, and still go back from time to time to attempt to beat my times where ever possible. It's a worthy purchase for quick blasts of entertainment when you are stuck between work and more work, or travelling, and is only £5.40 on the Nintendo eshop as well, so not too hefty a purchase. I'd say, get it, enjoy it, and tell me what your best times are so i can beat them and laugh at you. Er...yeah.

GAME/Gamestation mark down all pre-owned titles + more

So after my brother had called me telling me "hey, go to GAME, they have games there going for 50p" i had to wonder, eh? really? then he sent me a screen of some of the titles people had picked up and instead of thinking about it, dashed round to GAME to see what deals they had. So what did they have on offer you ask? Well, here's a few things i spotted.

1. I picked up Space Marine for the £360 for less than 8 quid, i got it for £2 thanks to my GAME reward card.
2. All PS2 titles that where available where on Buy-One-Get-One-Free, all of them, and i don't think i saw any of them going for more than £3.
3. Games like killzone 2, Alone in the Dark, Super Street Fighter 4, Halo 3, Uncharted 2, where all less than £7-8 each
4. Epic Mickey was unfortunately £10, I WANTED IT SO BAD, but alas, i never picked it up
5. Consoles where only just starting to come down in price. We noticed that the PS3 was down to £99(40/60/80GB models) and the Wii was down to £39 quid.
6. Titles for the 3DS weren't as cheap, SSFIV 3D was down to about £12, and that was the cheapest game on offer for it. Starfox was £17 unfortunately.

That's all we really saw, which is fairly huge in itself. We never actually saw everything reduced, since when i asked about some of the games, they had said a lot of them where still getting reduced and hardware was coming down as well.

Also please note, this is only GAME i've been able to check out so far, Edinburgh doesn't have a Gamestation at the moment, so i'll check the local Gamestation in Stirling on my way home and then fire up what the deals are on that side as well, though i expect they will be the same, just with more titles. So as soon as i see them, i'll fire them here.

Street Fighter x Tekken - CAPCOM! My rage, have all of it.

So Street Fighter x Tekken is finally just a few days away(2 days if you are in the states) from being released, so a few will have it by now. This is cool, i've got mine pre-ordered, was feeling pretty damn good with myself, ready to get back into the fighting game community, then suddenly it happened. The fantastic guys over at Destructoid published an article on the game, specifically for the 360 version, showing that not only was the alternate costumes already on the disk, the 12 DLC characters set to be released as part of the full Vita title are there too, and by that i mean the character models, prologues and endings. This drove me mad.

Now to clarify, the characters are Sakura, Blanka, Elena, Guy, Cody & Dudley(capcom side) and Lei, Christie, Jack, Brian, Lars & Alisia on the Tekken side, plus, the biggest kick in the teeth, Megaman and Pacman are on the disk too. Now, being a 360 owner, i always knew i was getting the worst deal for it, but to know that somewhere down the line, capcom where going to release megaman and pacman to us as well just made me want to rage. Sure, ok, they have yet to tell us if the characters will be paid DLC or not, but that's not the point. The fact of the matter is that the game has these characters, to whatever extent ALREADY ON THE DISK. If they are on the disk, i don't give a toss what kind of deal and money sony have given you, give us megaman and pacman for free, with the game at launch. The other 12? Well yeah, that's also an issue. The Vita will get them normally. Really? I mean, giving a handheld version of this game, which i might add, will never be used for competitive play, all these characters before the home console editions? and no less, for free? That is a sign that tells me capcom are just out to steal our money, and i'm not having that. They are going to have to offer these to me cheap or for free to get me convinced this will work. But chances are, everyone who is picking this game up and wants to get into it fully, will buy these characters. Heck, i want Sakura so i can get my dream combo of Sakura and Asuka into the frey, but i'm not more inclined to head to gamestation and cancel my order, and telling them why at the same time.

Mind you, this shouldn't even come as a surprise to us. Bioware/EA just did something as stupid as this with Mass Effect 3. If you buy the Collectors edition, you get the "From Ashes" DLC free with it. DLC which, i might add, had dialogue and data in the original data-mined beta xbox had leaked back in october-ish last year. This "Day 1" DLC has apparently been made after the game went gold, so why is this data on the disk already? And why can't you offer it to us for free much like you did to all new copies of Dragon Age for Shale, or Mass Effect 2 and Zaeed/Cerberus Network? I want to shout EA as loud as i can, but i may wake someone up, but you get the idea. We're constantly getting screwed around with thanks to this DLC system now in place. What happened to the days where we could get a full package, at the launch of a game, and be extremely happy with it, no problems whatsoever?

I can only think of two games worthy of being called "full packages" at the moment, and they are The Witcher 2 & Twisted Metal(PS3). The guys who made the new incarnation of Twisted Metal decided they wanted the game to be complete on launch, with no consideration for DLC. This is FANTASTIC. I'd buy the game to support them just for that mindset. A mindset i miss dearly. CDprojekt decided to release all DLC for The Witcher 2 as free updates, and heck, even the stuff being added to the 360 version is being included for free for the PC as just as regular update. THESE are the people we need in the gaming market at the moment, not money grubbing whores like Capcom and EA, who are out to use their franchise names to make a pretty penny over things we should get for free.

If you want to use the DLC market for stuff that is properly new and not even considered at Day 1, awesome, that's fine. You want to have costume packs or purely cosmetic extras as DLC? that's fine too, as they change nothing. But, especially with a fighting game, 12 characters which aren't included at launch, and have a decent amount of data on the game disk straight off is unacceptable, and i for one, am at wits end with it.

For those interested. Here is the Destructoid post which shows you the stuff that was leaked.

Persona 4: Update 2 + Metal Gear Solid 3D demo

So, it's only a quick update for Persona 4 this time round. I have just over half of the social links done now and i've been pushing my way through the extra bosses in each of the dungeons whilst completing requests along the way. Only got up to the 19th of November with it, but that leaves me open to starting the next story section in the next playthrough later today.

Asides from that, i almost had missed the fact that the Metal Gear Solid 3D demo was available on the eshop, so i took this chance to give it a try and see what i thought.

The demo itself is about 20 minutes long-ish at most, those who have played MGS titles before probably could get it down within 10 minutes maybe. Most of it was focused on stealth than anything else, but you will get a bit of a fire-fight at the end if you aren't careful. Control where..ok. I was given the impression at the start that all the controls where going to be on the main 3DS only, however once i got into the options, they do let you change to the CPP, which i found to be far more comfortable for the game in general. Having your camera mapped to your second circle pad rather than the ABXY buttons works a lot better, since it gives the rest of the buttons room to spread out on the controls, changing stance is now on B as well as up on the d-pad, for example. I actually can see this turning into something of a trend with 3DS games to some extent. Maybe not so much with Nintendos own titles, but with third party ones coming from capcom, or like kojima productions as seen, people will move to have the CPP as an available control scheme, or maybe even push to require it in the future.

In terms of gameplay. I had, to this point, never played Metal Gear Solid. What madness is this you say? Well, i just never found it took my fancy until the last year, when i saw MGS2 available for £3 whilst browsing through town. Anyways, i had no real idea as to what to expect in regards to the gameplay. Having most of the demo be stealth felt like it wasn't giving me much chance to see everything, but watching how camouflage worked and the level of detail put into the game to enhance that is very much respectable. When i got to the end of the demo, i found myself struggling to actually keep in stealth, and ended up engaged in combat. Firing at every enemy only to then realise, i've got tranqs which weren't knocking them out! I got a little fire up about this and just basically started to whack them in melee instead, finally taking them all out, and getting to the objective which ends the demo. How long do tranqs take to actually work anyways? Would be nice to know, since i was confused, thinking i need to hit them to get them to work.

The only other thing to really bring to mention was the 3D. at times, it was ok, but a lot of the 3D in the game was a little too strong. It got uncomfortable a bit too much and i found myself turning it off more often than i really wanted to. I didn't see an option to adjust it in the options menu, but i may have missed it. hopefully there will be so that i can enjoy it, much like i did with revelations' well balanced 3D.

Overall, hits and misses abound, it was somewhat enjoyable. I'll certainly consider picking it up, but i may end up waiting until it gets put on deal before i do, specially with so many other titles left to complete.

Quest for completion - Persona 4: Update 1

After a rather delayed start-back for Persona 4, i made a small, albeit decent amount of progress from what i got time to do yesterday. I was able to complete the Heaven dungeon(i won't say who's involved, purely because if someone reads this and has yet to play the game(or when you read this, watch the anime), it will spoil things) which had a rather...so-so boss. At times he did give me those feelings of "OH HELL" but thankfully, my team where able to hold it together and take him out. Was a long one though. All i can say is, Black Frost & Yatofusa with Mind charge + Agidyne = god tier. Yukiko is one hell of a healer with the right equipment too, every time my party took nearly 300 damage, it was restored in one cast. Only person of my team that felt a little useless was Chie. Her magic is meh, and her accuracy for melee was a little sub-par. Could have done with boosting her hit/evasion more probably, but it worked out in the end anyways.

After that, i spent a few of the following days after that(i finished the dungeon 2 days after it opened up), i got the devil arcana up a rank as well as fortune up 2. Annoyingly, for Naotos arcana, i didn't realise you need max understanding for one of the conversation options. Raged since UNDERSTANDING NEVER LIKES TO INCREASE, bar that, only 4 ranks away from max for Naoto now.

Plan is for tonight and tomorrow morning, to get to the end of november, and into december, hopefully with 2-3 more social links maxed.

Resident Evil Revelations and the Circle Pad Pro

Having finished Resident Evil Revelations about a couple of weeks ago, blitzing the raid mode and so on with both the Circle Pad Pro(the latest addition to the 3DS), i thought it a good time to give my thoughts on how the game plays, which control scheme i prefer, and of course, how well the Circle Pad Pro(CPP from here on) works. So let's start with Revelations.

Resident Evil Revelations is yet another addition to the ever growing Resident Evil franchise, which Capcom themselves has said, would bring back horror to the series. This was a huge statement for them to make, specially considering how both 4 and 5 had put less emphasis on it, 5 more so than 4 obviously. So it wouldn't be too surprising to say i was a little sceptical about it all. not only that, but how would the game work control wise? Thankfully, both of these where answered well.

Horror, or rather, Survival horror was always what the series was best known for, and with this, it certainly brings them back to the genre, even if just a bit. The atmosphere for the majority of the setting, which is an abandoned ship named the Queen Zenobia, is that of what you probably remember of the first game. A, what appears to be, ship in which there is noone left alive and you are left there to investigate and survive your time there. And it feels like it too. You get feeling of hesitance at some points within the game of, what will be round here, and will something jump out of nowhere. There is even a point late into the game in which the lights flicker a lot, and it leaves you thinking, will something just appear suddenly or not. That is what i was after, finally giving me the sense of horror again. That's not to say there was tonnes, there is points in the game in which you play as Chris/Jessica and Keith/Quint in other settings which focus more on action and combat than it does your survivability. In those sections, there is just no sense of fear given to you. The ship sections do though, not always to the same extent, but there is something there, an element in the background maybe, which is a step in the right direction. One can only hope Capcom keep to this with Resident Evil 6.

Jill exploring the many mysteries of the ship

Now for the gameplay. Resident Evil has always been known for standing still when aiming and shooting, but for the first time in the series(not including Mercenaries 3D), you can move and shoot. This may seem like a small detail, but it's pretty big in terms of this series. However, when using the original control scheme, without the CPP, you have to hold both shoulder buttons to be able to move, and you can't alter your aim at the same time. This is a little hit and miss for me, but it makes sense with the controls you are given. Hold R and hit Y to fire, B to reload and x for subweapon(with/without R), you get the idea. This is ok for the most part, but it gets a little more stressful later in the game when you have more enemies flying out at you, specially with Raid mode. Thankfully, there is an alternative you can use in the CPP. It is £15 so it's a bit of an investment for use in just one game at present. However, the extra circle pad, and three extra shoulder buttons is fantastic. You can aim and move as you would in most third person shooters with this setup, the keybindings you get as normal are comfortable and it doesn't take too long to get used to. It also helps those of you who found the 3DS to be too small to handle as well. I'll do a small post on the CPP itself later, but for the purpose of Revelations, it's a big hit. You can also switch between third person and first person perspectives in aiming, third person being the one i'd recommend. The rest of the games system is very much what you've come to expect. Move aim shoot kill zombie-like things. But this time, enemies do not drop ammo and herbs, you need to find some about, or use your scanner which for stories sake, is to identify what these things are and the virus used, to find items in the environment. Scanning enough enemies awards you with a single green herb as well. asides from that, you can control a lot of the reloading and item switching via the touch screen, and that is also the only way you can access your inventroy and map.

Environments look nice both with/without 3D

Story and 3D. Now the story is very much what we've come to expect from Resident Evil now they've moved passed the Raccoon City events. The BSAA have been called in to investigate this abandoned ship which was where Chris/Jessicas last known co-ordinates where set to. This leads into a decently paced, yet perhaps slightly obvious road in which you try to find out who did it, and who is behind everything. It does bring in new characters to the team, so if you are getting tired of seeing Jill sandwiches and that guy Chris, then this helps, as well as a new look into the BSAA and who they are. The characters themselves do enough to carry the story, and does bring into question some things about Chris and Jills relationship and what kind of level it is at, not by their interactions so much as their interactions with their partners in it, but there isn't much else to say for them. What was more interesting was the new look into the BSAA and rival organisations and how, despite being on the same side, they have completely different mind-sets into how to deal with these biohazards and those affected by them. It could maybe have done with a few more twists and turns here and there, but it was certainly solid.

The 3D itself is probably the most comfortable i've seen in a 3DS game to date. I played about 3/4s of the game before i had realised i had never turned off the 3D once. It's a little more uncomfortable when set to strong and obviously more so with Strongest. Do things appear to work better with it? Yes, to an extent. You do get that feeling of things being a bit closer than they are to you and further away, and it doesn't really drop the frame rate either which is a bonus. The only times that hits you really is when you go between certain sections of the game, though they thankfully keep you in small rooms when they do that loading, as to not affect your general gameplay for the rest of the game.

Finally, there is achievements in the game if you are one of those who likes them. They unlock things in the game like the Raid mode, which is a co-op/multiplayer mode or single player, if you prefer that, in which you play through the sequences of the game in a mission mode style of play. Going against different times and killing everything you can while taking as few hits as possible so that you can get the best rank you can. The streetpass works for this by giving you extra missons with unique unlockables for weapons and custom parts which gives it that extra re-playability value. And you level up as well, which helps as the enemies themselves level up with difficulty and progression. You need to finish the first three chapters for this at first and you get Jill/Chris/Parker to play as at first, but you get more as you play both modes.

So overall. I was extremely happy with this game, and still am. I got my moneys worth with this and the CPP. I keep pushing on with the Raid mode and my hard difficulty playthrough, completing every misson i can buying weapons and levelling up as much as i can to get those achievements and unlockables. I'd recommend anyone who is a fan of the series, or in general looking for games on the 3DS to play to get this. Well worth the pick-up.