Classics vs Rebirth

     There are several games that came out over the past couple years and coming up in the new year that took an oldie and remade the series. Some were great some lost the meaning along the way and others took a game to a new approach, a new genre and a new look. Here's a listing of what I've experienced.

• Castlevania - Started out a 2d whip wielding adventure against dracula and other monsters. It grew up and into multiple directions the last being a rebirth where it became a prequel and a God of War-ish action adventure in 3 dimensions. The story of which actually puts a new spin on the Belmont vs Dracula fued that the fans have come to know.
• Metal Gear - Yeah folks this was actually given a rebirth with Metal Gear Solid. The game originally came out for nintendo and you had to be sneaky on the 2d map where you were put in some rather interesting situations. Then Solid hit and well the rest is history.
• Zelda - has actually been rebirthed a few times. Each time you are link, but since it all held the classic approach to the story you never truly felt lost.
• Metroid - was a 2d shooter that went to FPS adventure I stopped playing them then.
• Splatterhouse - The classics were a beat em up which were violet for their time. You never really got a taste for the story, but when it was reborn to a three dimensional action game you wanted to go back to the classics to have a taste of how the game grew. Thankfully the developers gave you the classics as an unlockable in the game.

Now believe it or not there are more coming such as DMC the Devil May Cry rebirth and Twisted Metal which hasn't changed too much thankfully. I'll keep you posted as they arise.

A beginners guide to game lingo

Some parents, kids and early gamers can get lost in the gamer world. Like ebonics or online chat speak there is a bit of coding and slang terms which are good to know when playing online, at home or with friends. Here's a listing to help some of you out.

• n00b - pronounced Newb it's to describe a newbie or someone who has not played before.
• 733T - aka Leet a counter term where someone has claimed they are the elite and usually are able to back it up as the game they are playing is usually the only game they play for long periods of time.
• RTS - Real Time Strategy the game works on a path where the enemy does not require you to play to function they move strategically after a period of time to either defend or attack
• FPS - First Person Shooter it's as simple as it sounds you see a gun in front of you and you see from the eyes of the character.
• RPG - Role Playing Game these go back a ways to games like dungeons and dragons and final fantasy
• No Scope - an FPS term meaning they shot with only the smaller crosshairs with a gun that uses a scope. Obvious but argued as only the player playing can tell if that's how the kill was made
• Tea Bagged - Kind of offensive , it's when a player crouches over another player it's a mix of a taunt and an insult. Basically they are claiming after they kill your body they rubbed their nuts in your face.
• Ninja'ed - Refers to a silent melee kill.

Now there are dozens of others both offensive and kind but these tend to be the main you come across.

Review: Grim Grimmoire - PS2 for PS3 via PSN

     With Sony now posting PS2 games on the network I'll admit I was sceptical. The PS1 games used the classic memory card file so I was wondering since as of last update it was no longer listed PS1 PS2 memory card I was worried. I am pleased to say though these play perfectly and have me awaiting so many other classic PS2 games to the playstation network. So on to the game review....

     Having never played the game back on PS2 I was intrigued when it had released but my PS3 was the new big thing and blueray games appealed more than classic PS2 happiness. So on a whim I downloaded this from the playstation network.

Gameplay -

• Real Time Strategy -

This is a rather nice game in this category your a young witch whom battles with familliars and spells to survive her magic school experience. Think somewhat a japanese Harry Potter which met a warped world with a groundhogs day redux
Graphics

• 2d sprite based

This is actually what made this game good. You have a room where enemies are hidden in darkness. you summon faries, elves and the such to find crystals and build up a sizeable defence to protect yourself. It's a winner take all approach. Kill off all enemy spawners to win.
Story -

     You know when a story starts and you feel kind of lost. This game starts out like that you get a feeling of familliar faces and story, but it's deep but redundant at parts. You are a young witch joining magic school you learn about mana spirits and basics then a horrible evil is released which should lead to your death but then it goes "groundhog day" and your back at day one with all you learned just living those days again. Now I've not completed the story yet so it may change after a few chapters, but you kind of get a gist that the story is going to wrap in a vortex for a while till you learn everything.

Noteable abilities effects-

     I like the way this plays out with almost a rock paper scissors effect you have Glamour which beats Necromancy which beats Sorcery which beats Alchemy which beats Glamour. Now I may have parts of that turned around, but you get the idea. So as you learn each craft you learn it's strenths and weakness which in the testplay arena (where all books are unlocked) you can try things out I personally have noticed that Dragon seems to trump just about all. except when you have a large enough army to throw at it. The artwork alone kept me playing the character animations to the story are simplistic but they gave them a breathing effect which makes some of the rather endowed females boobs heave noticeably.  There's alot of really cool effects to your creatures as well such as Dragons crawl along the stage on top of everything. Some of the little creatures like imps and spooks have cartoonish/comic book like animations.

Overall-

    If you like games like swords and soldiers this will play nicely for you but at a better pace. It's not so much a heavy impending doom it's a bit more expanded. It's really worth the money either playstation network or if you spent the money for the disc way back when.

Most Wanted Games 2012

As we come closer to the new year I've devised a list of games I'm not only waiting for, but games I feel are going to be hits of 2012. Some are sequels, some rebirths of a series but all seem to have grabbed my attention one way or another over the past year and are on my list for games I need to play.

• Twisted Metal PS3
• Darksiders 2
• Soul Calibur V
• Borderlands 2
• Final Fantasy XIII 2

Now this list may be short, but they are games hinted at and promised (Dave Jaffe I'm looking at you) to be polished, bigger, better, faster and more appetising than a twelve course meal of your favorite foods. I'm sure this list will grow as they new year comes and a more definitive list of what is to come is presented to us the gamers but so far these are the games I'm waiting to see.

The VGA's

     So I took a break Saturday from gaming to watch the VGA's on Spike. Now besides my elation at the Joker winning the Best Character category I was not as impressed as I was in previous years till I saw the trailer for Metal Gear Rising. Which appears to be finally a Metal Gear I can do a bit of damage before my siblings whomp me at.... why you may ask "Sword Play". This one seems to be my type of game so hopefully it stays that way.

     Spikes VGA's were ok, decent humor, a few rants and tea bagging but I think they went a bit mainstream towards the Rpg and Fps hype. Not that I won't play some of the games, but it seemed like they were pushing instead of celebrating some of these games. So it's almost like a salespitch  than award show but seeing the "Black Baron" bitch out a Spike exec was more than humorous.

     Now another point I'd like to state is it's great that they started a hall of fame and their first induction to the Hall of Fame was The Legend of Zelda, but either one of two things are going to be caused because of this.
1.) Rebirths of a series that started out back in the days of Nintendo
2.) An unnecessary sequel or further instalment of a game just trying to get the original into the hall of fame.
Personally speaking I can think of a few games that should have been inducted as well as Zelda. Here's my list of who made my cut.

• Castlevania - not nearly as old as Zelda but people still mention it in their list of reasons they bought their nintendo
• Contra - yead it died out a bit due to some rather unusual sequels but it's another classic that you can't deny
• Mario - yeah Nintendo's flagship child made my cut but only because either you were a Sega Kid or Nintendo kid back in the day I was a Nintendo kid.
• Final Fantasy - not for being one of the only Rpg's that made it this far but because I still see people fighting over copies of the classics.
• Twisted Metal - yeah not as old but in a class by it's self
• Doom and or Wolfenstein but's that's more of a PC not console Hall of Famer
• Tetris - do you know anyone who will not play tetris?

I can't say that these are all instant classics but they are games that were elemental to my gaming history and the history of many gamers I know today.

Review: Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny

     This was brought to my attention because as an Rpg it takes forever for me to beat and I always get lost into a good story. This is not what you call a typical Rpg as I'm used to, but being theres a further series to this game I'm intrigued to see where it goes. Think Animal Crossing meets the Sims meets a good game. Not that I'm bashing Animal Crossing or the Sims but I find them boring. The tasks are similar though.

    The story is weird so far... get this you and your best friend who's female are walking down the road you see a flash. You wake up she's gone but you can hear her.... I turns out her soul is trapped inside your body. So as weird as this has gotten so far I'm intrigued because the battle sequence is easy so there must be a bigger trick to it. Some of the quests are irritating because you don't always understand what they are looking for exactly.

   Artwork wise it's beautiful although done in anime style to the super cute end of the spectrum it's not too overdone. There's no lack of amazing sights except in the creation process where it's a simple line crossing a bar minigame. There is a wide assortment of images and visuals to keep the player intrigued as to what may be coming next.

   Sillyness Factor - I don't really like to rely on using something like this determination for a game but this one has some points that you really need to understand before playing

Things you get better at skill wise

• Walking
• sleeping
• bathing
• eating
• jumping

Sad thing here these are all facts to this game. You gain skills in walking now how this actually helps you is that when you walk you skill up and this refills some of your RP which you need to do tasks. But trust me you feel silly walking across the street and seeing "skill up" above your head. I understand it for working on items or crops or building or fighting but walking, sleeping, eating? Yeah this is where things have been odd.

Although I definately recommend it if your looking for a game that will eat some time and keep you guessing.

Videogame History Facts and unusualities

• The Original Sony Playstation was supposed to be a cd drive for nintendo's Super Nintendo entertainment system but the deal fell through
• The Konami Code Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A B A Start works on almost every Konami game (some variations apply) but has different results.
• Super Mario was based on Nintendo Ceo Matsimoto's college landlord
• The Sega Dreamcast was never advertised until after it was released for 2 months
• Kratos from god of war's original design was to be a centurian with a sword and sheild
• Capcom is known for it's cross overs but several other game companies do it as well just in different style of games other than fighting.
• The Konami code is also the most well known videogame code in the world, it has appeared in cartoons, movies and comic books.
• Recent Street Fighter Character Sheng Long is a case of mistaken history. In Street Fighter 2 Ryu is quoted for saying "You must get past Sheng Long to defeat me". People took this as Sheng Long being Ken and Ryu's Sensei but the original translation was to mean "you must get past my Dragon Punch to defeat me".
• Most game series are actually alot further along than we are aware of because not all sequels of a game come over to the United States from Japan.

An apology and Playstation Plus

First off I'd like to apologize for some of my last posts as they are kind of lazy and quick written. I'll most likely rereview some of the games to give a better perception of gameplay.

Now on to the current topic:
Playstation Plus

     This service of the playstation network is often questioned and alot of people like to ask me about the pro's and con's of the service especially the $50 a year charge. I figure I shall break it down and show you the pro's and con's of this rather unique service by playstation. As the holidays are here and if you're looking to get someone you love a gift card for the year or even the 3 month pack this will hopefully help you out.

PROS

• Access to beta versions of games - let me clarify this a bit it's not a new beta every week or even every month game developers offer it to playstation whom offer it to plus members first.
• Free games - This part I can vouch for each month garunteed you get a free game of Sony's choice from the playstation network it's usually an older or game that did rather well for a while on their charts. Sometimes good sometimes so so but if your gamer is a trophy hound it's worth it just for a free gameplay. Now with this also comes free mini's and PS1 titles which sometimes come sparatically where each week is a free classic game.
• Add ons Free - this varies depending on the developer you can definately get some awesome free game add ons or if not free there is always a Plus member sale
• Discounts - this is where things are both smart and sometimes annoying. There is always a Plus Member discount section so sometimes your add on's are five dollars instead of ten. But this changes every so often so it's good to check every tuesday when the store is updated.
• Themes and Avatars - some are free some are discounted  I can't really say that either is bad cause a percent off of under a dollar is still practically free.

Cons? -

• $50 a year bugging you? I don't know why because the content you get tends to be worth almost triple that so really this isn't a con. (sorry)
• Network outage - Anyone remember the network outage back in April god how it sucked and you think outage = money lost on a subscription ..... Sony made up for it by adding the time down to the end of their plus members subscription so my original 12 months went up by about 2. Damn not a con again,.......

Most people tell me that the biggest con is the price but look at stuff like mmo prices or even Xbox Live subscriptions they pay monthly appx $15 a month that's roughly $180 a year and they only get access to the xbox live arcade and online play. Sony offers their online play for free and their store as well for free this is just a bonus of free things every month. So weigh it out.