Hmm...look familiar?

So, another PS3 update 2.40 leak, and....

well, is anyone really surprised?


Great. Now I have an actual CHOICE about which e-penis needs padding when deciding between 360 and PS3 for multiplatform games. Although achievements, and soon "trophies" work to artificially pad gameplay time (and thus add to frustration and odd player behavior in multiplayer games as they try to rack up points for the gamerscore), their inclusion in the PS3's interface was only a matter of time.


Besides, "Trophies" makes way more sense than "Entitlements".


Still - this was a blatant ripoff and I think someone at M$ missed a patent opportunity here. Big time.


Expect a pro-con rant on achievements as a whole in the near future.

Afterthoughts: Ninja Gaiden II

Who doesn't love Ninjas?

Those slicing, dicing, pirate-slaughtering stealth assassins at the peak of all things cool are featured in full force for Itagaki's follow up to the original Xbox title, and taken to a whole new level. Now, there's ninja-on-ninja action (that's FIGHTING - you dirty minded fools :-P ).

After all the hype and anticipation for what was promising to be one of the most difficult games of the year, how did it all turn out?

Wonderfully.

This game has a special quality that is difficult to describe, something that I don't see very often in modern games.. "character". Each enemy, level, and ally is absolutely dripping with personality.

Although most people would argue that the storyline has more holes than swiss cheese, the villains are memorable and the levels themselves are unforgettable. If these characters were fleshed out just a bit more (even just to answer these two simple questions: how Elizabet is running around waking up other Greater Fiends when all four were supposedly asleep for centuries, and why the Black Spider Clan agreed to help her in the first place), it would have added a great deal of significance to some already very memorable personalities. Devil May Cry 4 had similar story issues, but its characters were nowhere near as memorable (with the possible exception of Nero, who made an excellent counter to Dante). Though the principal characters in NGII don't say much, the combination of their look, movement, voice, and (in the case of bosses) attack patterns is exceptionally polished and it shows. The story isn't nearly as bad as people make it out to be, although it does play out more like an "epic" summer blockbuster movie than anything else.

The combat itself is solid, and the feature updates (such as the fatalit...err... obliteration techniques and enemy limb removal) allow for additional strategy in what used to be a block-block-dodge-attack-block-block-dodge-attack combo system. In fact, these changes tend to make the game feel more action-oriented than defense oriented. The "run of the mill" enemies can still kill you - that's a Ninja Gaiden trademark - but rather than taking on fewer, more powerful enemies, you'll oftentimes end up facing swarms of weaker enemies. And make no mistake - swarms can kick your ass.

The music, usually taking a backseat to action in games such as this, manages to draw the player further in, and combines gothic voices and rock for a haunting yet familiar sound that accents the gameplay and visuals of the title (of special mention are Chapter 3 and 5's music - absolutely amazing, so much so I'd probably get the soundtrack). This is also one of the few games where I can say with confidence that I prefer the English voice acting over Japanese. Visually speaking - it's superior to NG: Sigma and is about average for a 360 title. Still very good, as should be expected for a Team Ninja game - everything's very colorful and sharp. One slight issue is an occasional framerate hiccup, but nothing major.

I managed to complete the game on "Easy" - a.k.a. Path of the Acolyte - but just barely, and intend to play on Normal soon. Overall I was very impressed with the way this game turned out. Sadly with the Itagaki and Team Ninja lawsuits coming into the spotlight over at Tecmo, this may be the last Ninja Gaiden game we get for some time...

Nintendo: First 'geeks and otakus', now Freeloader FAIL...

In a move that surprised some people more than others, Nintendo has decided to wage war on its loyal fanbase this week. First up for the "Ninten-douche" award is Laurent Fischer, PR executive of Nintendo of Europe, who had the following response when asked about the growing problem with Wii storage running out for some users: "Only geeks and otaku want this issue addressed."

O RLY? >,<

Well... who's been putting food on your table for the last...oh, I don't know... 10 years or so? Certainly not the fickle casual market, who will buy a console one day and forget they have it the next. Sure, Nintendo may be riding high now, but the worst thing one can do is insult your most loyal fanbase. A lot of those "geeks and otaku" are the ones buying lots of WiiWare and Virtual Console games. You think the casuals give a rats arse about stuff like Sin and Punishment? I sure don't.

Fischer later apologized for his comment, but as far as I'm concerned the damage is already done. Yes, geeks and otaku like the Wii...I happen to be both. However, I guess I'm a bit more insulted at the trivializing of people like me. People who have money and want to spend it on lots and lots of video games --- versus the casual market who picks up a Wii, gets WiiFit, and then lets it collect dust for months. Sick. Just sick. Expect a rant on how junk Wii software may (or may not, depending on how Nintendo handles the next couple of years and their casual fanbase) set off the next video game "crash"...

The second "Ninten-douche" award goes to the Wii firmware update team, who decided to not only plug the Twilight Hack exploit allowing homebrew applications to be played (makes sense, for piracy reasons), but they also unnecessarily cut off support for Datel's Freeloader, thus re-implementing the impassable region locking present in the console at launch. Though it screws people like me who own a Freeloader to play Japanese games, I believe the real motive on plugging this exploit was to block European and Australian users from importing US games at reduced prices... Super Smash Bros. Brawl STILL hasn't launched in Europe, and many a UK and AU gamer picked up a Freeloader for that very reason. Nintendo's localization departments are slow. This is strictly regional sales protection (especially given the strong Euro), nothing more.

As such, expect no more updates from me until Datel finds another way for me to get my JP game fix. And since Nintendo requires the latest firmware to go on the Wii Shop Channel, they get no more WiiWare or Virtual Console money from me. And I hope others follow my lead in avoiding the dreaded 3.3 update.

If you have any desire whatsoever to play foreign games, even a passing interest, DO NOT UPDATE YOUR WII. YOU WILL RUIN YOUR CHANCE.

And for those with a Freeloader already, the disc does contain a mode to bypass "required updates" which Nintendo will no doubt be printing on all its future first party games. So now I will have to use the Freeloader to load any first-party game I get - to make sure the update doesn't bork my Wii and render my 4 Japanese games unplayable. Nintendo, you fail this week. Big time. T_T

MGS4: Now that it's all over...time for the NEGAREVIEW!

**Before getting into the analysis, a warning. There may be some very slight spoilers herein, but since my analysis is mostly based on the quality of the various game elements (what worked, what didn't work) instead of discussing the storyline, I will try to keep these to a minimum. Any spoilers will be gameplay - not story - related.**

What a ride.

Finally, now that the most important game on Sony's new console has been out in the world for 5 days officially (upwards of a week unofficially due to retailers ignoring the street date), I'd say with a fair amount of confidence that a lot of people had sufficient time to play through Kojima's magnum opus.

Basically, the game did everything it had to do - and is an instant classic. All the loose ends of the storyline were tied up, the boss fights were more than memorable, and the new gameplay innovations introduced made the game feel entirely new while at the same time, never stopped feeling like a Metal Gear Solid title. That being said, switching to a playing style that matches the environment - that is, dealing with the war going on around your character (rather than simple infiltration missions) was difficult at first, and changes to the controls took some getting used to as well. The minigames and variety in the missions complitmented the frantic pacing, and Kojima's trademark sense of humor is still more than intact. I loved the game.

However, MGS4 does NOT deserve the lavish praise being thrown on it. It isn't perfect - it is good - possibly the best game of the year (certainly better than GTA)... but perfection?

No. Not by a long shot.

In fact, due to the tremendous amount of hype and inflated review scores surrounding the game, I thought I'd take a cue from Joystiq and write a NEGAREVIEW... that is, pointing out the flaws in a game that, while amazing, doesn't quite live up to its abundance of perfect scores.

I would have done one for GTA, but most of the people I know who read this blog wouldn't take me seriously, since they believe I skew any game not-Japanese on the side of a negative review. However, that aside, GTA was simply not my cup of tea...so it would be more fun for me to write a NEGAREVIEW on a game I actually really enjoyed start to finish. And with that...

CAUTION PHASE:

There is a reason why reviewers were not allowed to discuss the cutscene lengths when reviewing the game early. In what is probably a shock to no one, the game has more cutscenes than actual gameplay - by far. In general, if you know what you're doing, you can finish the game in 6-8 hours. That is - if you skip the cutscenes. I watched through all the cutscenes and finished in 15 hours. The ending scenes alone (with their Matrix 2 Architect-like explanations of the storyline) end up being 45 minutes long _BY THEMSELVES_. Fortunately, we are given the option of skipping most of these, but from the time you fight the final boss it's still 17 minutes between you and the game completion screen. In general, the pacing is similar to Xenosaga for PS2... some cutscenes are longer than others. But - if you're even halfway into the storyline - and if you're playing this game, you should be - the cutscenes won't bother you. On the contrary...you'll want to keep playing to see what happens next. That said - the length of the cutscenes is still drawn out far longer than it should be in some cases, and in other cases there wasn't enough background for those new to the series. The option to view important character scenes (especially concerning MGS2) would have been VERY nice. The game is certainly not n00b friendly. Also, Naomi is a bitch! Poor Otacon.

Ooops! I said no story spoilers.... Gomen ne. I was really mad about that... It won't happen again, I promise.

Onto the next complaint..the controls. The controls allow you much more freedom this time around, but those used to older MGS games will require time to adapt. In particular, the "hiding behind the wall and popping out to shoot" mechanic is vastly different than older MGS games, and I've been discovered by enemies more than once while fiddling with the buttons. I'd consider myself a "hardcore gamer", so the fact that I had difficulty with the controls means other people probably did too.

ALERT PHASE:

Although the game tends to keep locked at a pretty solid 30+ FPS, I did notice that during cutscenes where the camera is allowed to pan to the sky or not a lot of characters are present onscreen, the engine was running noticeably smoother - 60FPS. While this allowed for flying characters to look amazing, it actually distracted me from the game. This is a nitpick - especially considering the amount of stuff going on in the game's levels - but I think they should have stuck with 30FPS all the way through instead of teasing us with 60FPS for non-populated scenes. All the 60FPS sequences do is call attention to the weaknesses of the "almighty" PS3.

Adding to the list of issues which appear to show chinks in the PS3's armor is the install times - which - again - reviewers were forbidden to talk about. The game requires a 9-minute, 4.5 GB install up-front...which is quickly becoming the norm for "big" games on the system...but added to this install is a series of installs which occur following each chapter of the game's conclusion. Each chapter specific install is 3 minutes long and the data overwrites the previous chapter's install...so you don't have to worry about an entire BD worth of data being installed to your system. These installs are mandatory to cut down on load times, which are happily very short although the "now loading" screen does appear more often than I'd like it to. My question is...why can the Xbox 360 handle all games without the need for an install, whereas most PS3 games require one? With a game like this, I can see streaming being a major issue, and I'm thankful for the shortened load times... that said, there has to be a better way to organize data so that gamers don't have to give up 20 minutes and a bunch of data on their hard drives just to play a new game.

Will this game ever come to the 360? Doubtful, although I wouldn't put it past them. They'd make a lot of money by porting it over, although after seeing the amount of action onscreen it wouldn't surprise me if the 360 port had some quality issues when compared against the original game...

EVASION PHASE:

Finally worth mentioning is the "poor" sales in Japan. For a third-party exclusive game that was supposed to catapult the PS3 from a psuedo-niche market into the next PS2, the game performed...poorly. Not that they didn't sell any copies at all (especially when comparing against the performance of Ninja Gaiden II on the 360 - a measly 25,000 copies in the first week)...but this is a far cry from the 500-person-lines that existed around Akihabara for launches of important Square Enix games. I wouldn't be surprised - at ALL - if the game sells more copies domestically when compared to Japan.

All that said, this is still one of the best games this year, and something that simply must be experienced. As a next-gen gamer, you owe it to yourself. Just don't buy into the hype.