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.

BattleFantasia - Impressions

Take the speed and mechanics of Street Fighter 3, mix in a good helping of Miyazaki art style and RPG themes, and sprinkle some Guilty Gear over the top. If your brain isn't hurting from the madness by now, you would have created something very similar to BattleFantasia - the new fighting game from Arc System Works that was released earlier today in Japan.

Using my Japanese PSN account, I was able to download a demo of BattleFantasia to get some hands-on time before the game launched. Thankfully, the full version arrived today so I'm able to give you guys an idea of just how this game stacks up - online mode and all.

For those unfamiliar with BattleFantasia, it is a fairly unique take on 2D fighting. The graphics are actually in full 3D - both characters and backgrounds...but the fighting is strictly 2D (similar to how SF4 will be handled). The characters are well built and animate fluidly. The only issue I have is with the backgrounds, which are very plain when compared against the highly detailed character models.

The gameplay is actually based around the concept of "tachimawari" or "moving around", as opposed to the fast, combo-laden style of Guilty Gear. In the US, this translates to a game based mostly around the concept of "poking". In other words: dash in, do damage, and get the &*#@ out. Massive combos can be unleashed in the game as well, but are generally limited to a special character "hyper" mode that can be unleashed known as "Heat Up". The effects for this mode differ for each character, but in general this allows for larger combos and larger damage for many moves. Each character has a HP amount representing his/her lifebar, and HP amounts vary between characters (a large armored knight, for example, has more HP than the scantily clothed princess). In general, the characters with more HP tend to be larger and easier to hit than the smaller, faster characters with less HP. Surprisingly, this variance in life amounts does not appear to damage the balance of the game, although there does seem to be a slight descrepancy in the amount of characters in the "middle tier" as opposed to the top or bottom tiers which are fairly well defined.

The "Gachi" button handles parries and recoveries, and is the main gameplay mechanic for reversals and getting out of pressure situations. Street Fighter 3's parries are very similar to Gachi, although Gachi has a few traits specific to itself, not the least of which is the "Gachi Drive" which enables a player caught in a defensive guard to immediately reverse into an offensive position. This is a difficult technique to master due to the timing it requires and it appears I may have to spend a good deal of time playing the game before I'm able to master it.

There are only 12 selectable characters, but each one plays very differently. The personalities are varied and memorable, ranging from the typical "hero", to the "knight wannabe kid", to the "brooding angstmonger" to the "catgirl" (yes there is one), to the "furry" (yep, there's one of those too), to the "princess". I haven't had a chance to play through the story mode and find out the deal behind the majority of these characters yet, but I'm very much looking forward to it.

The game has the "old standbys" as far as modes are concerned: Arcade mode, Story mode (where you fight a range of battles following the story of each character - separated by cutscenes which are fully voiced), Survival mode, Practice mode, Gallery, and Network (among others).

What I want to focus on is the Network play, since that's what I'm sure most of you are concerned about... will an imported Japanese game even be playable online? Will they blockUS IPs? Is the lag even bearable?

From what I've managed to play, the answer to the first question is yes, the answer to the second question is no, and the answer to the third question is a "cautiously optimistic" yes.

Another PSN user going by the handle PiGnUTtZ and I fought about 20 matches tonight, and despite a couple of disconnects, the gameplay was VERY fluid. I'm not sure where the servers for the game are located or whether it's more of an issue of how far away each player is from one another, but PiGnUTtZ spoke perfect English and judging from his messages seemed to be either a US or UK player. I won't know how bad the lag is with Japanese players until I get a chance to test the Network mode more thoroughly over the next few days. The thing that shocked me more is apparently only 19 people have the game so far judging from the rankings list. I anticipate this won't be a very big seller, despite its quality...

Overall, color me impressed. Those expecting a new Guilty Gear may walk away a bit dissapointed with the modified gameplay mechanics, but those people weaned on games like Street Fighter 3 or Street Fighter Alpha will find a lot to like about this game. Plus, as the first in a line of "real" next-gen fighters (not including XBL/PSN fare) to hit the consoles this year, it gives the others a lot to live up to...even if nobody ends up playing it.

Battle Fantasia GET!

Not bad, PlayAsia.

BattleFantasia for PS3 is currently waiting on my doorstep. Impressions and a possible review will be up tonight (depending on whether or not the online mode is working, since the game technically isn't available in Japanese retailers until tomorrow).

Xbox 360 region locking... なぜ？！

During my trip to Japan, I couldn't help but notice the sad, pathetic state of affairs concerning the Microsoft XBOX 360. There are loads of Western games, as expected, available on the console. But surprisingly, there are also a fair amount of Japanese exclusives. A few PS2 RPG ports, shooters such as Raiden Collection, action games like Guilty Gear 2 Overture and Oneechanbara X, and upcoming titles such as Battle Fantasia and Otomedius G.

The sad thing? Not a single one of these titles will play on an NTSC/UC 360. This is due to an optional (I repeat, OPTIONAL) region lock Microsoft put in place - and left it up to developers whether or not they wished to utilize it to keep their games playable only on their home turf. This region lock is two hex digits burned to a specific data area on each DVD9, telling the XBOX 360 which region the disc belongs to, and whether or not it should be allowed to play.

Now, I can understand Western developers wanting to region-lock their titles due to a possible impact in sales in home territory if a game is released overseas first. But given the XBOX 360's limited installed base in Japan (500,000 as of April 2008), it doesn't make sense for Japanese developers to lock American and European gamers out. Even more interesting is that this trend is REVERSED. Looking at sites like Play Asia, it's plain as day just how many games coming from the US do not contain region locking (spoiler: almost all games are region free) - yet all games coming out of Japan have region locks in place. W T F. Logically, it would make more sense for the Japanese games to be region free, since it would be sales for the developer and publisher from markets where the games may not be released for financial reasons. By locking out US and EU gamers, these publishers and developers are limiting their possible sales to the 500,000 units in Japan, rather than the 20 million worldwide. It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me - most of the time.

Don't get me wrong - in certain cases, region locking makes sense for the publisher. For example: Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey both experienced slight delays in the US due to marketing issues. The Asian version of these games shipped a few months prior to the US release with an English translation on the discs. Due to the expense Microsoft incurred to develop these titles as exclusives, it would make sense that they wouldn't want to have sales numbers skewed in the US by overzealous importers. In cases like this, region locking makes sense. I'm not saying I LIKE it - in fact, I would have much rather had my Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey a few months early - but since sales of imports don't count domestically, it can be a serious issue for business negotiations between console manufacturers and developers. This is especially the case for "niche" titles (like the fighting and RPG genres), where big sales numbers in a region with a large install base could in theory be used to secure more exclusives from developers in a region where the install base isn't quite as high (Japan, in this case). Add to this the fact that RPG fans are fairly import-savvy to begin with, and Microsoft could have had a serious problem on their hands without region locking. There are also issues with games containing licensed content, such as Rock Band (one of the few American 360 titles known to have a region lock) - just because a song is licensed in one region doesn't mean a different set of rights applies overseas.

I'm still holding out a small fragment of hope that a third party will crack the code and come up with some sort of XBOX 360 freeloader, allowing imports to be played on US consoles freely... however, that would introduce a whole NEW set of issues. When you sign up for XBOX Live, you have to agree to an EULA which basically says M$ can delete your account or ban you from the service for whatever reason it sees fit (this very same clause was invoked when a HALO 3 'closed beta' was found on a console not signed up for participating - those poor guys got their XBOXes permanently banned from Live). So would M$ decide to ban all US/EU accounts shown to have played Japanese games/unlocked Japanese achievements? Sadly, I wouldn't put it past them. This is probably the very same reason that a freeloader has yet to be developed. Getting hit with a class action lawsuit for mass bannings from Live is probably not something Datel would want to deal with...

This whole issue is a real shame. I'd love to take my Battle Fantasia with achievement points, and I'd love to be playing Otomedius G later this year on my US console (as I thoroughly enjoyed the arcade version while in Japan), but Japanese publishers seem intent on not letting this happen. As such, I'll be ordering a PS3 version of Battle Fantasia and hope for a port of Otomedius G sometime in the future.