Games played and Game ideas by BrioCyrain

Hey You Down There: Requels

2012-02-21T19:21:00.000-08:00

Prequels, Sequels, Reboots, and other crud happens in the gaming industry...but what happens when a game goes off the radar only to become a new game mid-development? Lights..Camera...REQUEL!

It happens to the best of games, these requels. One such example is Dark Sector, a game teased as early as 2000, and it wasn't until late 2004 to early 2005 that the game surfaced again, just to disappear and reappear as altered again.

This game has gone through so much requeling that sites like IGN who have tracked the game since the original tease can only note the fact that the developer had no clue at any point in development of what to make the game about.

The original Dark Sector was gonna be...for lack of more proper explanation; an Unreal style game on an MMOFPS scale...needless to say that concept of the game never solidified. The second concept was a space-faring duo who explored the "Dark Sector", the main character having a kick-butt stealth suit and the pilot being some ritualistic girl. The final concept still features a stealth approach but the suit less stealth (though still bearing the "horn-like" helmet), and no real indication of a second main character of a female pilot. That and the addition of a boomerang-shaped blade that is used to make gore-like melee throws.

The reviews from such as IGN note the fact that, while the final concept is acceptable...That some of the original concepts, even the mid-developing concepts would pose more potential than said final concept. Then again the project was first announced when Digital Extremes(the developers behind Dark Sector) were just merely peeling off being a co-developer of the Unreal series, thus there initial intentions to develop something similar to what they helped co-create. At this point Dark Sector seems to be the ONLY original title developed by this company...and by far with the mixed success of Dark Sector's almost decade-long developed...will they even attempt to make amends while still being a developer who develops for other properties such as Bioshock, The Darkness, and now even a game based on the Star Trek reboot movie series.

I can probably give more examples, but to my knowledge Dark Sector is one of the biggest requel-doing games that was popular enough to track the process.

Needless to say, It would be best for developers to take lessons on such a obscured fate as Dark Sector and keep away from Requeling.

That's about it for now, thanks for reading!

Shooters and Cliches: The Chronicles of Stealth-it

2012-02-20T12:31:00.000-08:00

Well, It's been awhile since I made an entry into my long running editorial series called "Shooters and Cliches" since there hasn't been much to comment on with my beloved game genre. Contrary to recent notification, I'm amazed how many overlooked shooters there are in this industry, simply overshadowed by the over-hyped and brand-bashing that bigger titles get. Obviously, one such shooter has made it's way into my gaming collection and has unique qualities that make it a diamond in the rough even though it's not the greatest in other areas.

This game happens to be The Chronicles of Riddick, the second installation being Assault on Dark Athena. Unlike games that take on a third-person approach, this game is one of very few Stealth games that tackle the challenge from a first-person perspective. The stealth is greatly engineered using sensory details, if you hide in the shadows your vision becomes this pale purple and if you are detectable the vision is normal. That and if you are in a unlit area with no light sources you can toggle on Riddick's famous "night-vision" to make stuff see-able. Besides this like any other stealth game, Health generation is limited(but not scarce) and the emphasis on only landing headshots is obvious since headshots are quick instant kills while aiming for the body results in several hits being taking down a target.

This out of the ordinary game wouldn't take chances visually as the game tacks on almost movie-quality graphics using the studio's proprietary engine. This tech is also being used in the studio's latest cover-shooter; Syndicate which looks and plays amazing also.

There is also multiplayer, but do to the game's overlooked potential and being stricken in a few years...the match-making is all but alive. Though it does sport a LAN function for if you have friends or family willing to spar it out.

The story so far, while riddled in drivel-like dialogue (most of it from Riddick), is actually surprisingly well done if you are able to take the drivel as just pieces to an overall branching plot. That and it seems this studio couldn't help the fact to take on some Gravelly voice casting.

If you want to see the game in action I have uploaded a couple of vids of the Athena game, as well as the previous demo based on the first game called Butcher Bay.

That is pretty much it for now, thanks for reading!

-BrioCyrain

DAWN: A game idea by Brian McCain

2012-02-08T18:50:00.001-08:00

Dawn is a Sci-fi action/adventure game based on the rather original forms of the genre, heralding back to the usage dating back to the late 60s to early 80s. Instead of science fiction nowadays where it’s all about action, pre-defined spatial warfare, and everything is pretty much known about the universe, Dawn is going back into what made Science Fiction more philosophical in the days of the original Star Trek and Star Wars emphasis on both mystery and mysticism. Instead of everything being “explored”, the player must “explore” almost everything the game has to offer, nothing is known before hand, the player is going where no one has gone before.
Due to this emphasis in both game-play and storylines, the art style should also emphasize this by having an art style that is inspired by late-60s to early 80s science fiction art direction. Combat should be of a more tactical nature, and Exploration should reward massive benefits to player in this unknown universe. The player should feel like a space captain should, have no way to predict what will happen if and when a possible threat occurs. Seeing how the game will obviously have a deep gritty look, the game should bare very little on-screen information that is only displayed when the player accesses said systems.
It is pretty much pre-determined in nowadays games that any game with non-linear game-play should have a consequence system based on their decisions, just like how Sci-fi used to be in the first place. Kirk made some really good decisions, and he made some really bad ones, and all of that got reflected in Star Trek.
I may have stated a game idea similar to this, but this is the most concrete form I have of this kind of idea yet, and I think if done right it would be extremely popular and a good demand on those who find newer Sci-fi material just sacrilegious to what “true” science fiction is to them.
That is pretty much it for now, thanks for reading.
-Brian (BrioCyrain) McCain

The Year in Review: My favorite 2011 Games as well as my anticipated games for 2012

2012-01-03T19:22:00.000-08:00

It's been awhile since I posted, and with that another year bites the dust. This is that time where we have to say, "2011, how many games did I even buy?" and "Am I even gonna find anything to buy this year since it's 2012?". Well, like any year...it's hard to find the cream of the crop based on your personal taste, but last year I have to say I bought some games that were worth noting, as well as maybe a few that I wish I never even touched.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution: An Action/Tactical/FPS/RPG hybrid that is for people who like shooting people, but also want an engrossing storyline filled with RPG-style inventories, upgrades, and the like. The story is one of the best I ever seen, and hope to find the time to beat the game. My last post about this game IIRC was me giving the preview build a master score...10/10

Killzone 3: Need I say more? After absolutely loving the beta, and finally coming out the closest and buying the game...there's no other game quite like it that you can enjoy being the "bad guys", stabbing, snapping, smacking, and just any kind of means of killing somebody that you can find...It's not Killzone just because of the title...It pretty much the most enjoyable game that breaking people's faces is such a glorious view to see.

Battlefield 3: The latest and probably almost-greatest battlefield title, a true sequel that brings back some of the largest battle-maps known on PC, as well as distractingly-realistic graphics and quite satisfying gameplay, PC gaming has been taken to the next level.

Portal 2: Co-op puzzle-solving, it was not only glorious but mind-provoking, hilarious, and just all bouts of fun. I have yet to get around to beating the story mode, but the co-op was AWESOME.

LBP2: I haven't touched in awhile, but if you like LBP(1) then this is what the doctor ordered since in a sense you can "program" your own games with a more robust level/stage making system.

Skyward Sword: Any Legend of Zelda game I have played I have also enjoyed, and Skyward Sword is no different.

Brink: Probably my only regret of 2011, this game was ridiculously broken as far as CPU-AI being able to kick your butt and how unbalanced the maps were...probably 2/3 to 3/4 of online battles were one-sided at the first objective...meh!

Now onto 2012!

Soul Calibur V: The Fan-demanded return to the most graphically-robust Fighting series has arrived; with new characters, a new and updated art style, and hopefully a more complex series of game modes and lengthy story-lines which made the fourth installment kind of shallow in the gameplay department..hopefully for some the modes are more in comparison to the size of the third version as well as keeping the amazingly detailed visuals of the fourth.

Final Fantasy XIII-2: Returning back to a more open-world and more robust fighting system and world...Those who were highly disappointed by how linear the original game was will hopefully find more enjoyment in the second installment..if the story is less confusing as the craziest trailers are showing.

Binary Domain: Deadly Robots that look like people taking over the world and being made to look like people, and they THINK they ARE people...There's something wrong with that. Enter the Binary Domain...A world where both Humans and Robots co-exist, and probably not for the best. Hollow Children, robots given Human thought and form have begun invading all levels of society, not knowing in secrecy that they are indeed just robots. You take command as a UN sanctioned Spec Ops squad called the Rust Crew, and come Feb 12 you will be able to engross yourself in maybe the best story-based Third Person Shooters outside of the western-made market. The Graphics are gorgeous, the gameplay looks sick, and there's nothing like bashing tin-heads in glorious fashion!

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier: The somewhat odd-5 or so six year return of one of the greatest squad-tactical shooters is back...from the future! Whether it be cloak suits, mark and execute mechanics, streamlined and robust teamplay, and advances in graphics thanks to the hard work at Ubisoft...This game looks amazing and probably well best the fabled and frenetic predecessor that was GRAW.

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City: Welcome back to probably the most viewed part of history in the Resident Evil series...The outbreak of Umbrella's virus unleashed on the citizens of Raccoon City. Spanning the famed timeline of all of RE2, RE3, and the outbreak files series..you get the chance not not only play as the kick-butt force of the U.S.S., but have the chance to change canon buy eliminated fan-favorite icons such as Leon and Claire. Nothing but conspiracy awaits as you choose your preferred U.S.S. Agent, and fight off the waves of zombies and other filth that roam the streets and buildings. The game brings a new grasp of depth with fully-functional shooter controls and squad-based "tactical horror". Let's hope Vector and his comrades bring an unforgettable and awesome spin-off to one of the most famous game series known worldwide.

Resident Evil: Revelations: The most graphically-robust game as of now on the 3DS, as Capcom is working their PS3/360/PSV/Current Gen PC Engine magic on this handheld...it is pretty much a game that makes the Wii cry as far as visuals go. The story rumoured to take place between RE3 and RE5, where both Jill and Chris have been seperated for several years. The gameplay is similar but more advanced version of RE5/RE4...with some features just made for the 3DS such as zombies and such popping out the screen. The gameplay creepy, the graphics amazing for its system, and just downright how cool the story may seem...the 3DS might have a system-seller on its hands.

Ninja Gaiden III: As of right now coming out the same day as RE:ORC...you play as the famous and lofty ninja/assassin known as Ryu Hayabase. As almost as a semi-reboot of the series where action and story-telling has replaced the known and almost distastefully famous amounts of violence and gore...it is no longer the savage ninja-equivalent of Mortal Kombat. Ryu shows newcomers how awesome and kick-butt ninja's are with his platforming, sword-fighting, and just plain awesome super-moves...that and cute anime-style chicks are still making a comeback, so no worries there.

All other games past these in 2012 are still up in the air, as this year is still new and just getting started...

Hope you enjoyed this Year in Review and keep your eyes glued on this blog...cheers!

KILLZONE 2 REVIEW

2011-12-09T14:45:00.000-08:00

Before I go on to the real review here, I want to explain the history behind this extraordinary purchase of mine...

Long ago there was a thing called "E3 2005", where few and far between any of the tech demos shown during Sony's rendition of the conference ever made it into real time in-game form. One of those games that ended up actually happening both in game and graphics form was KILLZONE 2. Known to some as the most infamous trailer of the 2005 show, about 4 years later the game came out and somehow matched or surpassed the quality of the prerendered trailer.

While this was all happening I was still under the guise of my family's taste of not touching M-rated games, and after two years and quite enjoying the KILLZONE 3 beta...I decided to take the plunge and buy KILLZONE 2 after realizing how good this series really is. Now let's start this review...

FIRST: This game is by no means a run-and-gun game, and to which you constantly have to be in cover. This game in this sense of progressing slowly through an area hails back to the fact that this game is pretty much "World War II in space" given the fact that Helghan looks like a degenerated Germany and the Helghast are just "Nazis and Darth Vader-esque suits". The game is pretty much a sci-fi medal of honor, so expect plenty of armored enemies, cover-filled areas, and weapons that are nothing but WWII weapons given a sci-fi facelift.

SECOND: This game is by no means easy due to this, and while the game is pretty fun..expect some of the "boss battles" to moderately irritating, especially the final boss. Besides that the game feels and looks like something out of an insane military simulation, as if Guerrilla's intention was to make a Medal of Honor game that's on overdosed steroids.

THIRD: The story while not amazing isn't trash either, as the characters while somewhat tactful are still believable in the setting they are in. Characters die, live, and have revenge just like any other similar war game on the market, and that's not neccessarily a bad thing in my book.

GRAPHICS: This game pretty much is the pinnacle of FPS graphics, while people might disagree and start screaming Crysis at this point...This game is oozing with detail, visual effects, and animations that pretty much comes to life, as far as how gritty looks go. You won't be disappointed definitely when you set the game to 1080(i/p).

MUSIC: Joris De Man pretty much makes this game the game equivalent of "prequel Star Wars", and sometimes he does a better job of booming themes and creepy sub-tunes than John Williams himself. You almost can feel what's going on in the cut-scenes thanks to this pretty much perfect score for such an underrated FPS franchise, and I don't say that lightly.

CLOSING: I highly recommend this game for someone looking for a "out-of-the-ordinary" military shooter, is good at cover systems, and willing to admit that some of the boss battles might want you to pull your hair out. The graphics are probably superior than anything else on the market, besides maybe games that are native DX11, which don't count really since this is a console-only game. That and while the multiplayer is mostly dead thanks to the third iteration, is quite fun in and of itself even if you're just sparring with a few enemies.

IN MY OPINION?

GRAPHICS: 10/10
STORY: 8.5/10
GAMEPLAY: 8.0/10
MUSIC: 9.5/10

OVERALL: 9/10

"Epic when Fun"

SPLINTER CELL: CONVICTION REVIEW

2011-12-08T20:24:00.000-08:00

Well, there's only a few games recently that catch my whole-minded attention in terms of pure awesomeness and kicking butt gameplay...such in a way that after finishing the game I am left mind-blown and asking for more even after a moderately lengthy campaign. One of those games happen to be the latest iteration of the Splinter Cell series, perfectly named CONVICTION.

Though I have played only demos of the previous games, I knew why some people enjoyed the originals even though they were slow paced and jarringly difficult. Conviction is no major departure besides the fact that being detected doesn't mean instant game over. Personally this is currently the best Splinter Cell yet, with an amazing story and presentation like something straight from a blockbuster movie. Even though the game stresses patience and perfectly lined shots known in stealth games, the amount of enemies and action-packed cut-scenes never makes the game for a second feel dull. Sam Fisher is the ultimate agent, and the game shows you why.

Probably one of the coolest features of the game is the use of keeping you in the shadows and using silenced weapons to avoid detection, that and using CQC to acquire "Mark and Execute" points to be used to instantly kill multiple targets without much hassle. While the game isn't perfect in this regard, it still feels ALMOST perfect.

Nonetheless, due to the extreme espionage take, even Rookie mode is quite challenging if you don't know the right tactics or strategies of clearing an area.

Aiming, shooting, and movement have almost no issues in this game, to the point where if you know how to play a shooter you'll be dropping enemies with ease and be able to hide or get to cover with minimal frustration. Due to this I didn't find the game all that frustrating since dying was few and far between with the checkpoint system barely making you restart much of the level.

DENIABLE OPS: Deniable Ops is pretty much the co-op modes played with a single player save the Story mode, you can either play as the Third Echelon agent "ARCHER" or the Voron agent "KESTREL". Your job depends on the modes "HUNTER", "LAST STAND", or "INFILTRATION". Hunter is go through a whole map while taking out baddies, being spotted isn't game over but you do have to fight more people per zone. Last Stand is your typical "Horde" mode of keeping the supposed EMP generator safe while trying to fight waves of enemies. Infiltration seems to be the same as hunter but you can't be detected at all or game over.

This game mode is quite fun but you do not have the option of a partner, thus in my opinion making these modes only half as interesting as they are meant to be. It's still fun to take-down targets while trying to remain stealthy though.

CO-OP: While packing the same modes as Deniable Ops, there is one thing that really shines, the "Co-op Story". This is not your ordinary tacked-on mode with a few cut-scenes slapped on; the story present in this kicking-butt with a partner-fest actually sets as a prequel to the scenes geared in the Single Player/Story Mode. As mentioned before you AND a teammate are put into the boots of both Archer and Kestrel, given the job of taking out baddies stealthily with both scenes where you can or cannot be detected.

I found this mode in some ways more enjoyable than the story due to having pretty much "twice the fun" doing spy work. The only issue, while not a major flaw in the game is connectivity issues was present during my playthrough, though they are said to not be persistent and maybe just bad timing of when me and my partner bought the game.

That said I quite highly recommend at least trying the Co-op Story mode if you and your friend are capable of remaining stealthy in required areas.

GRAPHICS: Even though this game is "supposedly" running on UE3, obviously Ubisoft has had a field-day with re-engineering the game with almost perfectly moody visuals as well as mostly decent animations. While this is no "Blood Stone", it's not too far behind based on pretty much nailing the art direction they needed for Conviction.

MUSIC: Personally I cannot think of a Soundtrack more fitting for this game, but maybe that's just me. The tunes, themes, and such set the mood pretty much perfectly when and while they play during the game.

CLOSING: I highly recommend this game to anyone who savvies themselves a "spy/stealth gamer" willing to try a game that's not only out-of-the-ordinary, but just plain goodness-to-heck FUN. Death is minute and almost no where as frustrating as other games, and that's always a plus in my book. Just make sure you have a capable rig and recommended to have a fellow friend or steam-mate to help you Nash into some Co-op. I doubt you will be disappointed.

IN MY OPINION?

GRAPHICS:9.2/10
STORY: 9.0/10
GAMEPLAY:9.5/10
MUSIC: 10/10

OVERALL: 9.4/10

"Just plain Epic"

"The World's Future According to the TPS Genre"

2011-11-26T19:56:00.000-08:00

Call me sadistic, but if the world was really like timeline seen in video game genres like Third Person Shooters, we would be totally screwed based on some of these horrifying plot-lines seen in this frenetic genre.

2011-2020:

First option: Mexican rebels try to nuke America because of government agreement, high tech special forces neutralize threat.

Second option: Russia blows up San Francisco with a large weapon, special forces take out the Russians (?).

2020-?: America sends special forces with cloaking and high-tech weaponry to settle overseas situations to maintain peace.

2000-2020:

First Option: A few cities are infected with a zombie virus, STARS and BSAA troops take out the infestations.

Second Option: PMCs take over the world, a single dude takes them all out.

Third Option: The american government goes sour and starts trying to kill former spies that used to work for it, single dude takes them all out.

2080: Androids with human-like souls attack a western company, special forces sent into Tokyo to stop their production, attacked by an Army of robots, the force isn't too high-tech.

2080-?: Giant mechs or mecha produced for war, single person or group of people takes out the bad guys.

?-A.T. 12: Colonization of planets like E.D.N. 3, Native aliens are new source of energy, Akrid retaliate and the force of NEVEC tries to steal all the energy and leave with the planet frozen solid. Single person or group of people take them all out.

2183-?: Humans find an advanced technology on Mars as uses it to travel the galaxy, only to find out that a dude awakens an old robot race called The Reapers who want to wipe out the universe.

Fourteen years after Emergence Day: We awake some bug/alien like monsters from the core of a planet called Sera...yay for waking up some deadly things!

LOST PLANET 2 SOUNDTRACK REVIEW

2011-11-16T17:10:00.000-08:00

After having played both Lost Planet games as well as listening to the original game's soundtrack, I knew the music was going to be good but my expectations were also beaten by how every track is a masterpiece in its own right. Not many games tend to care to make ALL the music epic, but when Capcom hired Jamie back onto the series as well as some music-flexing in-house composers it wasn't hard that everyone wanted what could be one of the best TPS OSTs around.

Going down the line, from the Title Screen, Menus, and all the boss and stage music are well-orchestrated, beautifully-done, and just makes you want to go out and kill some Akrid and NEVEC. The WHOLE soundtrack is epic, and not one of them seems overly-generic and "meh" at the slightest. The only way to get tired of this OST....is you can't.

Probably my personal favorites of the OST is:
Title Screen
Main Menu
Welcome to the Jungle Boys!
Gordiant
Central City 1
Red Eye 1
Team Battle
The Polar Sea 1
Vagabundo
The Overland Battleship
Sub Theme
Over G Akrid 2
Main Theme

And that's about half the OST I just mentioned, and the others are still REALLY GOOD.

With this kind of OST, I am not sure how the game itself can ever get boring when you got booming brass, bashing drums, emotion-ripping strings, and the like.

IN MY OPINION?

9.5/10

TOM CLANCY'S: GHOST RECON ADVANCED WARFIGHTER 2 REVIEW

2011-11-12T17:00:00.000-08:00

Expectations: After having played the first GRAW and enjoying it's sense of realism while maintaining the "futuristic flexing muscle" of Tom Clancy...I had kept my expectations to at least the level of the original GRAW. That said I was expecting to get killed plenty of times since you're not a bullet-sponge, but like other Tom Clancy games it's either kick butt or get butt kicked.

Initial Impressions: First things first, GRAW 1 was technically an Xbox 360 game (though there was a PC and PS2 version, they were not the "real" GRAW 1), and so the difference in controlling made a difference, even though you could use the Sixaxis to slide, barrel roll, or jump into cover...this seemed more of a gimmick since you could do the same by just pressing the right button combination.

GRAW 1 on Xbox 360 had more vibrant colors, allies had brownish uniforms, the cross-com system seemed like a light blue, environments were mostly clearly lit and stunningly detailed, and enemies were easier to make out with their red and green get-ups. GRAW 2 has changed this whole entire matter into making almost the entire environment shades of brown and gray, and you're clothing pretty much "blends into the bland" reverse-detailing. If you were to compare both games to Future Soldier (the next major title in the series), GRAW 1's coloring were closer to Nigeria where GRAW 2 is as dis-colored as the Soviet map. With all this said, the underlying resolution detail of GRAW 2 is improved (though having only about two different colors...doesn't do you much good).

The Game: With all this said, the game starts off with a bang and starts off where GRAW 1 ends. The point is simple in both games; try to take out the mexican rebels and neutralize their nuke arsenal before they can launch them into the US, and at this point it IS as hard as it sounds. The game has more solo missions than the first game, but also more "support" missions than the first also, which means pretty much in the same amount of time to finish the campaign the game seems multiplied on all fronts mission-wise. Solo missions are of course some of the more frustrating missions, but after awhile (with the right equipment) seem easier if you keep yourself out of enemy fire's way. "Suppport" Missions, as in having not only a squad, but also Strykers, Tanks, and even Choppers at your disposal to kick major butt...You can't help but say "HECK YEAH, THIS ROCKS" when you're little "army" is killing thugs and blowing up almost everything. Probably as previously in the first GRAW, the "Chopper Gunner" parts seem cool at first, but they get boring after awhile. Shooting people with a poorly accurate Fixed Gun on a Black Hawk just seems more like "lets get your blood going" than actual fun, and these tend to be shallow of checkpoints almost intentionally, since if you forget to take out a few tanks, whatever your protecting is doomed and Mission Failed.

Story: The story is nothing special, but how it's coordinated and presented keeps you motivated on your "Call of Duty". Dialog is engaging, you feel connected to the characters, and the relationships built by the previous GRAW into this one gives you a sense of loyalty and immersion within the confines on how epic (and dangerous) the plot is. That and you can't turn down a lead soldier with a whispering, somewhat gravely voice in these kind of games.

Music: Tom Clancy games have some of the best shooter music this side of the pond, and Tom Salta at the front makes this definitely so. From epic orchestrated booming themes, to even other epic "danger" pieces, you won't be disappointed with the music as it helps pushing you on mentally and emotionally. Anyone who has a good taste in music should search up the GRAW(1 and 2) OST.

Graphics: As I said before, the game is a bit of a back and forward step in the right direction from what was previously done in GRAW 1. Lack of vibrant or decent assortment of colors kind of takes away any sense of coloring detail, but the fact that the textures are more detailed with what they got keep the game in a more darker state, which probably plot-wise what Ubisoft was going for.

Fun-Factor: The game is fun if you don't get in a situation where you're undermanned and outgunned (some of this is due to long "hold your position missions" or the fact you let most of your squad get killed, and it's a pain to fight solo in a mission where you're meant to have back-up), but besides that the game is pretty awesome, and the controls feel tight and "right" most of the time...as long as you can shoot the enemies most of the time, you'll progress at a decent rate.

What could have been better: Less "On Chopper Rails Gunner" sessions and the somewhat too-prolonged ending for the story, and in some ways the story doesn't end on the most positive note.

IN MY OPINION?

Graphics: 8.8/10
Gameplay: 8.5/10
Music: 9.5/10
Story: 8.7/10

Overall: 9.2/10

"Epic When Fun"

Binaries and Controversies: Why are Japanese Shooters discriminated?

2011-11-08T18:54:00.000-08:00

I have some beef against the western society who tend to call themselves "shooter gamers" as they seem a bit prideful and ignorant about how the gaming industry works. I find it kind of misplaced and crude that while western rpgs are allowed to flourish in our industry, J-Shooters are seen with a discriminate eye.

It first started with games like Lost Planet where they brought Triple-A quality japanese storytelling to the shooter market, but then for some excuse or another our western culture had to find some way of belittling the recent slew of eastern takes on the genre. Even people like IGN criticize this new space as "it's not COD, so it's not a real shooter" or "it's too japanese-ified to be taken seriously", yet on our end we allow awkward games like Skyrim to open arms.

It's just funny that people who call them Pro-J or Pro-East gamers somehow condone the use of "japanese-ness" in RPGs such as final fantasy and such, were such of the anime influence can be downright mind-jarring, but when they find their shooting stuff instead of smacking it with a sword...it is scene as an abomination.

THE LITTLE THINGS:

Due to the fact that one I don't really get, is the fact that some people won't play some non-US shooters just because the fact that they are THIRD-PERSON. What is wrong with being able to see the character for once? You admit that "OH NO, THEY DESTROYED ANY SENSE OF REALISM!", but the fact that the game isn't real in the first place...give me a break people. I don't see what's more attractive to just staring at the "butt" of a rifle or other gun than it is seeing a fully-detailed character AND a gun.

Also the fact that one of the best and maybe only successful TPS to come out of Japan is Metal Gear, and nobody seems to be complaining about staring and Snake's body for forever.

That and the fact that people sometimes play shooters because they DON'T WANT a good story, just seems they just play games just to shoot people....yay shooting?

THE BARRIER:

Seeing how the Japanese are experts in telling stories (albeit convoluted and half-baked at times), at least their characters are developed enough to make dialogue, cinematics, and some of the dramatization seem engaging and interesting. Sure, games like MW2 have "holywood" quality storylines, but by the end of the game you're like..."Who were those people again?". You never become attached to the characters, and in some ways western titles do that intentionally since they want to kill off as many non-mains as possible for the next release.

Sure, people die in J-games, but they also let you get attached to them and you feel more motivated and confident than the characters are actually "real" to you. Games like Metal Gear, Ace Combat, and others are usually good at making you WANT to keep on going.

GRAPHICS and GARBAGE:

Due to the fact that one of the biggest selling points for shooters is quality and immersive graphics...sometimes some of the biggest franchises like COD are behind the times. I just find it strange that some people like IGN show magnificent screens for J-Shooters that are oozing with detail, with PC versions compliant to DX10 and DX11, but after they show the screens their like.."Meh, they could be better". It's one of those times that either think these people are blind, or they are self-rejecting the fact that J-shooters generally look better than normal shooters...Binary, Lost Planet, and the like are almost ahead of their time and it seems these people are just finding some self-justification to shoot down the rivals on the other side of the pond.

I know for a fact that people who are playing shooters for graphics, aren't gonna find it in games like COD, but if they want graphics they're better off with games like Binary, Lost Planet, and of course MGS.

PIECE OF THE PIE/GIVE UP JAPAN:

I'm going a bit back and forth with this one, and this is why some people are J-lovers hate J-shooters. They think the only reason why Japanese are making shooters is they want a piece of the COD-pie, and that's a pie they will never have. They think japan is in over their heads, even though its quite clear on how generic COD is...they already took the pie, just nobody realizes it. People are brainwashed into thinking games like COD are the only shooters, while games like Binary, Lost Planet, and others are clearly higher values in story and immersion. COD is just like "Shoot shoot..do this..shoot shoot do this", technically that's a shooter, but do you really think that's what they only have to offer?

Going along with this...are the people who are like "Give up japan, every time you release a J-shooter, you're just making something that could have been a good RPG...and if it was an RPG...since I like J-RPGS...I would have bought it BECAUSE I only want Japan to make RPGS and Anime". Yeah, you love your sister country so much, but when it comes to the gritty you won't buy a japanese game since its NOT an RPG, good job idiot.

PROMISES and UNDER-MARKETING:

With all this said and done, the people like IGN and gamers are not the only ones to blame. Yes, even the companies making the games are sometimes at fault.

Lost Planet, Binary Domain, and MGS have recently been having good videos and impressive articles......every other century or two. That's it though isn't it? Seeing how okay games like COD get a commercial almost every week to hype or grab people into the franchise...while it's like..."Hey..this lost planet game...its...COMING OUT....SOMETIME"...yeah...

While marketing cost money, nobody is gonna even know the game EXISTS if you don't push it. I know that PC players for LP2 were almost non-existent seeing how the PC version just disappeared for almost a year and about 2 months before release they re-announced it...but it was too late because of that.

Binary Domain suffers some problems of only being shown at conventions, at SEGA has only been sending info "after" people want it...their Multiplayer looks awesome, but the fact people wanted to know that info ahead of time...people might not be searching for that info anymore....boom...failure.

GENERIC INNOVATION:

You heard me, a lot of people hate J-shooters because while the games are awesome...people look at them through a "W-shooter" eye. They think "the japanese are making me shoot bad guys, lame" and kind of not even look at the fact that "This game has an awesome new AI system, and the characters have a consequence system"..."This game is awesomely innovative"......"Oh, I didn't notice that...its J-Mass Effect"....

Yeah, it's always the rippings and generic things to look at a game, its not like games are NEVER generic in some capacity..I might as well start throwing away the games in my apartment now...idiots.

If I had a dime for every game I played that was generic, I wouldn't need to use my parent's allowance to be buying them.

Closing Comments:

Call me opinionated, but it's comments like the ones above that make people seem ignorant and stuck-up about not giving hugely potential titles a chance, and it disgusts me. It's becoming to where people are more "haters" than "gamers", and just the simplest details make a J-shooter "lame". These misplaced assumptions and remarks are why we ourselves are the cause, and it's not because what seems to be the brightest and most creative country in world is wanting their grubby hands on our already half-baked industry.

Thanks for reading, stay tuned for more articles.

My idea for a Batman video game collaboration between Team Ninja and Rocksteady/WB.

2011-10-22T14:53:00.000-07:00

First off, I think this game would pretty much rock as it would explore more of Bruce Wayne's past as he fights to become Batman. As I have decided based on recent animated movies of Batman...he's not looking for closure or healing from his parents' death, he's looking for revenge and ways to take out thugs whose mission is to terrorize Gotham.

I think Team Ninja could do this quite well since they did a pretty good job about making Samus look vulnerable in Other M, sure she was still the cold-hunter shell gameplay-wise and still taking out the enemies, but maybe some players want to see not only what batman is saying, but what he is thinking. Batman's a genius and I think team ninja and WB could collaborate into showing players why batman is so smart, maybe even through mental/physical puzzle elements into the game just to showcase how batman thinks.

Also this game should show in a Ninja Gaiden-esque way that Batman is a trained-killer, not actually killing people but show that he has more to him than just beating up people randomly.

That and I think unlike the somewhat mundane and ugly bink cinematics that kind of plagued Arkham Asylum, have the CG branch of Team Ninja due their thing and make movie quality cinematics and cutscenes like they did for Other M. Batman should have entertainment goodness, and low resolution bink crud doesn't cut it.

That and I think with this entertainment value in mind, this batman game should have enough east/west elements that it is still entertaining for not only people playing it, but for people watching it also.

Like I said in the last post, Batman's origin is not that he is healing through taking out criminals...the pain in his parent's death is still fresh and he is just as angry as ever...and while he doesn't really show it, the use of showing batman's thoughts maybe should show that he is less or more angry than he appears. Also through this campaign maybe the developers should showcase where batman gets his day to day motivations, and in these motivations show that he is restless and eager to kick butt.

Also, knowing the highly detailed perks of the Ninja Gaiden III engine, I think it's safe to say that Team Ninja's engine should be used to showcase the more gritty look this Batman game should use. It's not meant to be like the Arkham games, so why does it have to look it? That and maybe the NG3 nature of having thug regulars one away from batman after getting their butt kicked would be a nice effect.

With that said, it would be nice if the music was more akin to modern/electo-orchestra similar that of The Animated Series, which pretty much had the best music of pre-Warner Premiere titles. That and Batman's art style should showcase his pain and freshness.

I think this is it for now, thanks for reading.

Frowned Upon or Who-dun it?: Why don't game developers collaborate more (with each other)?

2011-10-22T10:03:00.000-07:00

With a wealth of old and new ideas in the gaming industry, one of the most rare occasions is for studios to actually STOP competing for a sec and actually shake hands on a project and collaborate to bring a new or old franchise more originality.

From bringing Link into SCII, to Team Ninja redefining the classic style of Metroid games pre-Prime, these games while being large departures at least keep franchises new and fresh even if the departures are almost alienating to fans of the previous vision.

Metroid: Other M is not exactly a "bad game", but its hard to re-adapt to TN's arcade like controls where the FPS mechanic is few and far between, that and actually giving Samus a more vulnerable personality gave some fans like me the impression that the game tried to make Samus too human from her almost cold-hunter shell in Prime.

That said, without Collaboration in a broader sense we wouldn't have some of the most blockbusting titles that are pretty much better than companies native titles, such as Marvel VS Capcom being easily a better franchise than the notoriously famous yet bland Street Fighter Series due to almost an additional plethora of characters, features, and the like.

Due to this, there are some collaborations just begging to happen, such as one I thought of earlier today, that WB/Rocksteady (Batman Arkham) should at some point collaborate with Team Ninja to make a Japanese-style Batman game (maybe explore Batman's ninja/samurai training background). Also it would be interesting to see Batman partake in a more Ninja Gaiden atmosphere that helms to more of the recent anime/premiere adaptions of Batman.

But my issue with this is, why don't people do it more often. Yes competition is the most known way of stimulating new and fresh ideas, but recently that hasn't been the case. Series like Battlefield and Call of Duty don't win in competition for new ideas, they win competitions by sticking to OLD ideas and keeping people in their markets by just having them play pretty much the same gameplay through each new title.

As if though it is almost frowned upon or blame-stricken for studios to collaborate since new ideas are almost hypocrisy and blasphemous. Kind of like how Other M was almost completely destroyed by critics because of giving Samus Aran a real personality, even IGN's article title being over-the-top with "Killing Samus".

I might not have liked the new Samus, but I don't think they actually BUTCHERED the character as IGN's persecution specifies. The only reason she DIDN'T have a personality in Prime is it was a bare-bones FPS made by an american branch of Nintendo, and usually the usual blunt perspective of FPS games is that the character has no real personality. Japan loves and is famous for creating exasperating character backgrounds and personalities, and while we don't openly admit it, they are pretty much the kings of taking a bland franchise and giving it life with an amazing story. You go from Prime where everyone's two-dimensional from Other M where everyone seems like an actual person.

I'm pretty sure Team Ninja could do the same with Batman. While he is a mean bad-butt take-all-names beat-em-up, the only reason he became batman is to take out his anger and parents' death on criminals. Maybe Team Ninja can explore his inner pain while he is actually doing his vigilante work. Batman's a jerk to his enemies, and maybe some people want to know why in game-play form.

This pretty much ends my rant for now, hope you enjoyed this thought-provoking post.

Thanks for reading,

Cyrain.

Spilling the beans: How do you REALLY tell the difference between pure story info and spoilers?

2011-10-03T17:10:00.000-07:00

It has come to my abundant recent knowledge that due to the more increasing nature of sites like IGN, Gametrailers, and Gamespot...that some of the info they give out about entertainment seems to lie in a vast gray area of story or plot details. Though we think that while a mere synopsis or detailed report of details seems unharmful, how do we objectively decipher that someone may or may not wanted to know that bit of info, and in their opinion it was really a spoiler in disguise?

This also transcends specific genres as there is a divide in the fanbase. A lot more RPG enthusiasts find story details to be more spoiler-written than say an FPS game. Take for instance a wiki article on games like Final Fantasy, compared to the almost total plot-telling of RAGE that id gave out. Then again, how these games are presented, the biggest part of an RPG is figuring out the story yourself, while with an FPS knowing more of the story ahead could change if you're motivated to buy or complete game.

Going along, there are some games that show spoilers but you don't know they are 'til you play the game, one of the biggest examples of this is Ace Combat where some of the more definitive scenes are shown in big-budget trailers to grab your interest, later to find out that some of those sequences aren't til the final missions or cutscenes.

There are also issues about some RPGs and Adventure games that show "a little too much", not in the sense of spoiling major parts of the game, but showing scenes out of context in the accidental nature of confusing more of the audience than they may have intended. This is also of course another form of marketing, as to trying to say to their market "buy it to figure out the scene and not be confused anymore". Of course the consequences are much higher about this form of details since people like me don't want to be confused about details if they want to make a solid purchase, if not that a later trailer dissolves some of the confusion from the earlier footage.

With all this said, this all entails to the final notion that most marketers or info sites overlook, just how smart some of their audiences are. People like me who have played certain genres for almost decades aren't that hard to be fooled into thinking how more or less of the game they have actually showed. I could say for a fact that while some of the FF-XIII-2 footage has left me confused, that I also know that there is plenty of room in the game to those scenes to become completely understandable(as far as FF plot-telling is able to achieve). Thus why do FPS games seem to give out more info than RPGs because after id told most of the story of RAGE, I know that they have pretty much told me the whole basic plot of the full game.

Subplots aside, I think while these kind of motives have more good than bad intentions...Companies should re-evaluate their nature of what they deem story info and all-out spoilers.

M rated games: What defines a TRUE Mature game?

2011-09-15T15:51:00.000-07:00

I've been getting a bit pounded on by people close to me that I've gone to the "Dark Side" and that many people of my faith think of M rated games as "stupid".

While this is the case for most of them IMO, my personal collection don't really into the word "stupid", they are in fact in reality "Mature" in my opinion.

Bad Company 2 with the Vietnam extension might be the most genious game, it makes some good points and is quite entertaining.

Deus Ex is by no in the far reaches of the galaxy stupid, as the game takes brains as well as guts to complete quests and tasks.

Rage, it might not be the most unique game in it's genre, holds some novel ideas on how the weapons, characters, and mechanics function to bring a rarely-seen fluid combat game, it's pure 60 FPS beauty.

Battlefield 3...need I say more? The game is pretty much the pinnacle of war shooters and brings a sense of realism and immersion that would be hard to do in a game lower than M...it's M for a reason.

Binary Domain...again, need I say more? The game while hinges on generic media plots brings an update to what squad shooters have been known for inconsistent graphics and group dynamics. This game brings voice commands, CG-style visuals, and a creepiness to the robots that is almost impossible to pass up.

Resident Evil: Racoon City...This game is not trying to break the mold of co-op shooter games, but rather refine it. Ghost Recon/SOCOM style squad-play with an assortment of zombie-slaying classes and interesting visual and CG dynamics that while still clunky, brings a sense of uniqueness and fun-looking gameplay that games like L4D scratched on the surface.

Killzone 3: Dear goodness...the Darth Nazis are plenty explaining...that and the visuals and gameplay just rocks on what might be the most epic PS3 FPS to date!

Ninja Gaiden III: Love the new realistic take the series has embedded, not as "cartoony" as the last two, the graphics are more vibrant and the replacement of gore from just enemies crying/bleeding to death makes it sound more horrific for me. That and the first-person-like combat of actually feeling like your a ninja cutting people down. That and the assassin's creed looking villain just takes the cake.

Well, I think that's about it for me...don't be a hater.

Thanks for reading!

Defining a medium: J FPS/RPG?

2011-09-13T18:09:00.000-07:00

Now recently I have been contemplating the most cliche-d and abundant FPS/RPG genre...post-apocolyptic settings that are based on player choices, heavy-duty enemies, and a bombardment of what is said to be 100s of hours of main and side quests.

Now, many of my friends who are JRPG-ethic gamers find these games quite "meh" as the Japanese and American terminology and usage of the term RPG has blurred into an even deeper divide. That is why I have come to somewhat of a challenge....

How do you make a JRPG/FPS, or what would be defined as a "Final Fantasy Fallout?"

I have had some ideas, which might work to narrow the gap...having japanese style designs to everything instead of stereotypically-bland designs, which some people wouldn't find mutually exclusive. A world more resembling a japanese-style "post-something" world, instead of the "this nuke..bla bla bla" kind of mentallity. That and weapons could be more robustally or creatively defined unlike the "BFG #51" you picked up today.

Of course, the main and side quests would be more definitive as in being more than just "A to B to C to Endgame" and that the character development be more akin to actual tangible characters than some of the characters you find in western ones that are as flat as the side of your wall.

Of course transportation would have to be a prominent factor, but why stick with your "waste-buggy" when you could have a "waste-air-ship"? That and some more prominent options and more robust leveling system than just "BFG #51 has now reached level #51". Not to say you shouldn't be able to level up specific weapons, but the system should be more streamlined at less gun-stressed into thinking you'll have to be with BFG #51 at Level #51 for the next few hours.

Now, I have written stories before, but I find why games like Fallout or others are so hit and miss because of how the stories conflict with the design. The most recent example is that New Vegas had a more potential story but the overall design was boring as all get out compared to the more polished Fallout 3....with RAGE being a more typical game that just focuses totally on design and gun-ethic.

That said, I think the best way to go about it is design the first batch of designs as...I don't know..."Steampunk Valkyria Chronicles" and go on from there, I don't know why...but that's how I picture a basic J-Fallout.

To add onto that, in this economy we could use more defining and engaging games that are meant to both mindblow and simplify the gaming-needs of players who are looking to get a good deal on both story and design.

Also, I feel like the music of such a game should not only be epic, but be a "steady-epic" that defines the lows and highs of the game, not quality-wise...mood-wise lol.

Of course, the "boss battles" most be quite articulate and well-defined in the sense that I don't want to see that wannabe R2-D2 thing having some wierd cutscene just to explode cheesily in a wannabe camera-shot. That should be only for boss fights, and still specific to how you take-down stuff.

The game must still feel like you're using both sides of your brain, unlike some games that only include the technical or creative side of the brain.

bla bla bla....I think I've said everything that makes sense to people at this point, hope to make more posts soon.

That's it for now...thanks for reading!

Apollo: Dead Space + Apollo 13 + Aliens + Metro + Moon

2011-09-06T17:06:00.000-07:00

Apollo (hopefully not the real name of the game) is a few concepts I was brainstorming about kind of meshed together into one engaging game.

Apollo starts off when small chunks of the moon break off and end up crashing with Earth, causing havoc in several large cities. Even though the space program was formally post-poned, an "Apollo" spacecraft with numerous new technologies and equipment is sent to the moon to investigate the mystery behind these moon particles. The spacecraft successfully makes it near enough to the Moon before being bombarding by more total-damaging bits that cause the spacecraft to fail and crash on the moon. Your character is the only survivor.

Little does your character know that gargoyle like aliens have been causing the havoc by making nests of their young. The gargoyle aren't too happy when you stumble upon one of their breeding pits and wish to kill you onsight. With only a zappper rifle and a day's full of oxygen in your high-tech new spacesuit, your character is pretty much determined to rid the moon of this infestation before midnight.

Luckily your spacecraft had stored a space-assault-buggy to hose down some of the aliens, that and a motion tracker for when you have to go deeper into the moon to fight some pesky digger-pits.

The game ends with you taking care of the alien infestation, and another spacecraft comes to rescue you, little did you know that the moon particles that hit earth were "portable breeding pits" in disguise. Earth is gonna have a fun time...

Shooters and Cliches: Are Mech(a) Games Shooters?

2011-08-18T23:00:00.000-07:00

After watching the trailer for the new Steel Battalion, I couldn't help but notice the strange use of pseudo-WWII clothing for the tankers in control of the mechs. This strange mix prompted me to write this article that people have already predetermined their opinion on, are Mech games shooters?

Or come to think of it, are Mech games even considered real games to most sites? It's people like Gametrailers and IGN that almost every single japanese or western made mech game, that in their reviews are tossed aside as either trashy or just not fun. Me and some of my friends beg to differ that mech games (even the cheesy generic gundam ones) can be plenty fun if you like blowing stuff up with cool-looking vehicles. Is it just me or do people at IGN and Gametrailers just don't understand the general authestic that mech games bring?

How does making mech games cool any different from people wanting to play Darth Vader in a Star Wars game? I also think I went on a side-rant here....

Getting back to the topic at hand, I can see why people don't tend to call mech games straight out shooters, even though most of the games are about shooting and blowing up enemies. I know that you could kind of call Mech games a "popular niche" due to their widespread yet generic treatment. Gundam, Macross, Evangelion, and other Japanese titles show that people love a good mech story, and while most of these plots are psycho-pilot driven with horrendously driven counter-and-co cliches, getting into a mech and feeling like God is nowhere close to being overrated to the people who enjoy a good nuke-down.

And that's probably why determining the real genre for Mech games, besides just calling them mech games is somewhat of a draw. Mech games are technically a type of shooter called shoot-em-ups, due to the fact that unlike shooters that you only kill dozens of people, Mech games are all-out slay-fests that by the end of the game...you've probably depopulated a good chunk of the world (lol). That's the thing though, even though you're "the good guy", you're pretty much have created all-out and gun-ho genocide against the waves of almost endless enemies. That and while the stories set you up as being "a tactical asset", there's nothing really tactical of desolating a whole vicinity of cities or otherwise.

Probably the only real difference between mech games is how fast your mechs go, and how god-like your weapons are. Take it from me that games that feature Wing Zero from Gundam Wing, that using a special weapon from that thing could end a good string of bad guys (or in the show a whole freaking space colony). While the games talk about morals, there's nothing really moral about using a super-vehicle to blow up entire regions of the world. You can't really feel sorry for the good guys or bad guys if the only thing you both do is kill everything and anything you see lol. That and mostly all the characters are crazy or psychopathic. If the term for it is PTSD, then these guys have it "over 9000"!

I mean, the only real games known to be "typical shooters" and a bit over-the-top are Call of Duty, Id games, and Bioshock...but are they really comparable to the insanity and downright surreality of Mech games....No. And that's probably another reason why people might find appealing, is the insanity of the characters, dialogue, and situations that are a type of cheese you can't get anywhere else. Probably why IGN and GT hate the games, it's not their favorite kind of cheese.

Well, I think that's about it to be done, unless you want endless drivel.

Thanks for reading, stay tuned!

Shooters and Cliches: An Update

2011-08-17T13:19:00.000-07:00

Now, It's been awhile since I've done a passionate post on my favorite gaming genre (or has it?), and I think it's time for a good update since quite a bit has changed in the realm of the shooter.

Now, I have played two of the Halo games, but I find it just kind of jarring that after Bungie left Microsoft to make something that isn't Halo...That the supposedly only planned "trilogy" has somehow warranted 3 more games, and a lame remake of the original.

Is Microsoft so bored and so greedy that they have to milk their own best-selling franchise? I hope these two reboots sell horribly.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3...even my clanmates who loved the original MW aren't planning on getting this since the last 3 games were nowhere close to being fun as MW1. That and with stuff like Battlefield 3, why would you want this piece of milking?

Activision in my eyes has shown me that they're more greedy than Microsoft, and from what I played of any of the the Call of Duty games...I'm amazed that even one copy was sold.

Gears of War 3; why did it take this long for Epic Games to make the game actually look good? The other two games looked like a garbage can, and had the textures overall of a garbage can...It shouldn't take the third and maybe FINAL game to actually stop being lazy with the modeling and textures!

That, and we need more anime shooters! I love realistic graphics but, After seeing gameplay of the PS2/PSP versions of Ghost in the Shell...A cel-shaded, vibrant-oozing, third or first person shooter would rock! This and while Valkyria isn't a straight-TPS, it shows that there is a market for more colorful and interesting characters in the shooter-space.

It's time we evolved and expanded the shooter genre...not going back to old trends and make my most favorite genre go sour.

That's about it for me, thanks for reading.

Theatres at War: Asian Conflicts

2011-08-15T15:31:00.000-07:00

I was brainstorming last night about World War 3 and Vietnam/1943 Battlefields, and came to the conclusion this afternoon that these three entities could mesh well given proper development. World War 3 has always been the idea behind my flagship series if or when I become the head of my own game studio. World War 3's scale and prowless would be best defined on my "Real-G" engine ideals of promoting realistic graphics that key-movie-like.

Given this thought, most of the best gaming engines have always been pre-development using prototypes, or best yet...Premiere Titles. The frostbite engine used in Battlefield is a beast, but the "shock and awe" known as BC2 and BF3 weren't awesome looking 'til EA-DICE churned out the bugs and optimizations in the previous titles of BC1 and 1943.

This, and knowing full well that with MW3 and BF3, that the pre-modern warfare ideologies have resurfaced, now would be a good time to re-open a can of worms on building the "alpha test" of Real-G on a premire title that spans all the Asian Theatres of War; properly titled after WW3:MC-Theatres at War: Asian Conflicts.

This game is not to be as "big" as WW3, but have enough content based on the historics that the game would feel like "a real game". Numerous maps based on Japan, Korea, and Vietnam...with the idea to make the game play and look realistic enough to be a successful step in Real-G technology.

If AMD is correct that the Xbox 720 will support "Avatar-like graphics", there's nothing more useful than using such tech to bring the wonders of Asia and its environment to life. It's clear that with games like 1943 and BC2 Vietnam, that Asia is a visually-stunning place.

Now, given that this game would try to avoid stiff competition seeing how it's meant to "beta the technology", that I would prefer this premiere title not be on systems/consoles that have already been given the courtesy of having both 1943 and BC2 Vietnam.

This would include Vita, 3DS, Wii U, PC(if 1943 never comes to PC), and the successor to the PS3.

Real-G would "build" all the versions on a single scaler, but after the basic development is done each system will be optimized to use Real-G Alpha to its current potential individually.

If anything, when it comes time to develop WW3:MC, that at least TaW:AC should be a successful title technology-wise.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more ideas/articles!

Why Gameplay Matters (In Video Games Part 2)

2011-08-14T16:56:00.000-07:00

Now, after making a post about why graphics matter, it would be foolery not to make a "part 2" post about why gameplay matters. Now, as I said before in the last rendition, I don't tend to see myself as a graphics whore, but I do love a game with awesome, fluid, and downright addicting gameplay.

Now, the only issue with having good gameplay, is that it's an opinionated term. While most people can agree more commonly what makes a game have beautiful and/or realistic graphics...Gameplay is a much more thorny area.

That is why we have an almost inexhaustable amount of "genres", similar to books, movies, and other forms of entertainment. Some people love RPGs, some people love FPSs, some people like Action/Adventure, but some people don't like all three, if not liking only one of these examples.

My brother and one of my best friends understand why I like shooters and why I find enjoyment in them, but they're not really "big" into them. Kind of like why I understand why they look RPGs, even though I don't play them much since I stink at them.

Also the fact we kind all agree on one thing, RTS games can be kind of boring since one "match" can take several hours, if not days even (it's happened to me I assure you). That and these battles of "brain and chilvary" can exhaust your mind, to the point that those countless moments can end in a very gruesome and aggravating defeat.

Now, while RTS games are the "Niche of the Niche" when it comes to video games, Fighting games are usually seen as "The popular of the popular". It's almost an elementary knowledge that most gamers (if not all) have played and/or enjoyed a good slug-fest on the countless franchises of Fighting games.

Somehow, unlike shooters and RPGs...and especially RTS games that can exhaust you after numerous battles and/or matches, somehow getting "K'Oed" just makes you more motivated to where you have to either win once, or even the amount of winnings so you still feel satisfied.

Well, that's about it for this topic. Thanks for reading.

Why Graphics Matter (In Video Games)

2011-08-14T15:08:00.000-07:00

Now, some people might take me as to being a graphics whore, but I don't really see it that way. Usually I never try to "promote awesome graphics" in bad taste, and I usually know that some games try to rely too much on graphics and have poor gameplay.

That said, this editorial(rant) is gonna be using examples of why I think graphics do matter in a more general sense, and why sometimes when people focus too much on graphics...I rather just have good gameplay.

So why do graphics matter? Well, why not? Since the dawn of video games, some of the best video games had both good gameplay AND graphics. It's hard not to feel addicted,immersed, and downright wired to something that has the best of both worlds.

Some of these franchises include Final Fantasy, Deus Ex, Battlefield, Star Wars, Uncharted, Killzone, and other titles that have a good mesh of both important gaming aspects. That said, there are some games that look pretty, but don't play pretty. I must admit that Call of Duty, The medal of honors pre-airborne, and titles like Halo just rub me the wrong way. Even though people find delight in them (somehow), their sporatic and downright clunky moments kill most of the fun in their respective moments.

That, and even if Final Fantasy XIII is a good game all around, I can't help but feel that the battle system was one of the last things added to the overall design.

There's also the matter that having more graphics support and graphics options can lengthen the replayability of a game (at least PC-side). It's hard to really go back to an old PC game that doesn't support widescreen or any resolution that is 720p or above. Not that the gameplay stinks after a few years, but a game that can't take advantage of post-launch hardware is hard to play if it doesn't look fresh anymore (or able to take up your monitor fully).

Also, it seems technology is behind the actual resolution of video games. If anyone knows of my recent rediscovery, is that while consumer TVs have yet to hit the 4k or super-hi vision mark. That it's almost common knowledge that a single character itself in a game has a 4k texture, and here we are stuck at 1080p (while still amazing), and sadly in some areas just 720p.

720p and 1080p are still awesome to look at, but for all you know by the time we reach 4k products, that games will have been using 8k textures per model.

Now there's not really a problem with this if you think backwards, as it's always better in my opinion for games to be downscaled by tvs instead of upscaled by them. It seems a common demographic that unless your tv has a good scaler of recent (2010+) tv model, that 720p games on a 1080p model look pixelated and just...not smooth. It was not only 'til recently that my family bought a newer plasma 1080p that had a scaler that made 720p (and even 480p) look pretty awesome, and that well...made the 1080p content look realistic.

If you have seen my Deus Ex and Vietnam 1080p footage and looked at what I posted before then, there's a considerable difference, definitely when I upscaled both games to 4k (aka Original-Original in good taste).

Now, at the start of this gaming generation, people overused and abused the term "uncanny valley". A term that basically means; the closer we get to more realistic graphics, the uglier they will seem before we "get there".

Now, even my non-graphics whores will agree that, given the right techniques (like actually making better graphics), that in some ways game nowadays almost look better than reality itself. Games oozing with texture-detail and polygon counts that given at TV 720p or above...reality just looks dull.

Sure, there are games this generation that look downright ugly, but that's usually because while the graphics processing has so much potential, that the shortcuts the developers use look like everyone's face is a mugshot.

One example I would use is GTA series, while the cars and buildings are pretty nice, everyone looks like they got their face rear-ended one time or another.

Now, with all this said and done. Graphics are not the end all and be all of games, which people use this phrase to hound me about. Which I actually agree with most people. That said, graphics do help (a lot) and helps with keeping you immersed. Gameplay is more important that is true, but I'd rather play a game that has good gameplay and the people look real, than a game that has good gameplay but characters that look under-modeled.

That's it for me for now, hope you enjoyed this little rant/editorial of mine.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Preview Build) Review

2011-08-08T12:51:00.000-07:00

So as stated before, I decided to go on a limb here and download/play the Deus Ex Preview Build. If you looked at my previous article you could get some info on a little bit of what I thought of it. Now after beating the Preview Build I would feel ultimately guilty not to review the preview build.

First off, this game is purely awesome, and it has every right to be so. The storytelling is pretty much perfect with subtle similarities to other RPGs. Pretty much this section is gonna be me comparing it to other RPGs, so don't say I didn't warned you if this part might sound like I am bashing other RPGs.

This game is almost the nemesis to it's Squenix counterpart Final Fantasy XIII. Both have amazing graphics, and awesomely rendered cutscenes, but in my opinion Deus Ex is more of a real RPG than FFXIII. Deus Ex has a better storytelling set-up, where most of the meaningful storytelling is done in-game and not in cutscenes. While this is typical for a normal RPG, I felt that Squenix for XIII packed most of the "cool scenes" of that game into cutscenes, so that you were pretty much motivated to get to the next one. In this sense Deus Ex is more comparable to all the Final Fantasies pre-XII, giving it in my opinion the justified use of Action/RPG. Kingdom Hearts didn't use turn-based, and neither did XIII, and I think it's fair that while Deus Ex uses a shooter system for combat, that the rest of the game is what you would find in other typical RPGs.

Deus Ex runs on a "moral/player" based system similar to KOTOR/Mass Effect, but is much more robust and fleshed out that you have to talk you way out of situations instead of just have the "good/bad choice" going on. I was impressed that my social skills were immensely effective, to where I was able to resolve situations without going to more illegal means.

People who fancies themselves of stealth games will find some enjoyment (albeit stressful) gameplay in Deus Ex. Like MGS, the game uses an "alarm rate" system to where there's a timer for when the baddies aren't looking for you anymore. That and the enemies have quirky was of figuring out or not figuring out if you're in the vicinity. That and you get more points for using non-lethal means such as just using CQC to takedown enemies.

That and people who finds themselves nerdy enough to consider themselves cyberpunk fans, will find similarities to the likes of Ghost in the Shell, Appleseed, and maybe even the Matrix. Who honestly as a geek wouldn't be attracted to a savvy-hacking, robo-augmented, sunglasses-toting protagonist? This game while in the bowels of a niche, has plenty of appeal to people who might fancies themselves of franchises like Tron. That and the music is quite appealing for those who love "techno-orchestra" in a sense.

That and, there are always ways to complete your objectives, and in a sense this game is almost a "Stealth game on wheels". Sure, encountering the enemy might still be almost-instant death, but at least unlike MGS and some areas of Splinter Cell...you have plenty of room to work with usually to find a safe haven from enemies that have spotted you.

I have to say, the voice acting is excellent for the most part, unlike what people said about the previous two games. Adam Jensen's VA fits perfectly with the character in my opinion and brings the character almost perfectly to life.

Now, this game is completely about plot-twists, shady-characters, and conspiracy theories that are only rivaled by other cyberpunk or stealth-based games. This game takes itself pretty seriously, and unlike the more anime-renditions that get pretty cheesy, this game is able to set itself up with a pretty "Mature" tone. None of the characters really over-emphasis themselves, and you most of the time feel like you're talking to real people. This game has pretty much perfected the immersion factor in my opinion.

Also, not sure if this was doing of either Squenix or Eidos, but I find it a bit funny that the black ops character that has a "machine gun arm" is named Barrett, similar to that of Barret in FF7.

That being said, you don't really get the sense that any of the characters are "dumb". In one way or another, all the characters have some sort of intellect, which in some cases make the game just that much more interesting. Everyone is involved with something, which makes even your closest friends feel like suspects. It's hard not to feel that even your boss might be the "final bad guy", in which way the conspiracy set up of this game is pretty much successful in that respect.

Now on to some recommendations while playing this game:

SAVE OFTEN, while the autosave is pretty good...I suggest saving if you feel like the next area will be your death. SAVE DURING BATTLES AND BOSS FIGHTS...just so you don't have to repeat if you feel like you're inching closer to winning. FOCUS YOU'RE LEVELING ON HACKING, ENERGY BARS, AND STRENGTH AUGMENTATIONS...as these will affect how far you can get in the basic gameplay. DO ALL THE SIDEQUESTS...as these will give you tremendous XP which will always come in handy when getting your "augment points". If there are better ways to use you're leveling, take these recommendatoins as a grain of salt then.

Content:

This game is pretty much the essence of a purely fun game, that has plenty of motivations to keep going. It's epic-storytelling and movie-quality production values give the feeling that you're "a movie character". The Preview Build had about 6-9 hours of gameplay, and that was only the first area of the game. This game has open areas for which you can move around in, but the whole world isn't available, thus I would probably use the term "open-map" and not open world. That and the game supports DX11 on the PC-side of things, and the graphics never grow dull...in fact I think the graphics get better as the game progresses. That and I can't help but feel that Jensen's "augmented look" is what you would get if you crossed Snake with a Metal Gear.

Closing comments: This game is pretty much video game perfection, and I can see why people loved the original two games. Video Games of this austhetic don't get much better than this, if at all. It's pretty relieving that even Preview Builds of games can be uber-awesome, showcasing that developers are getting closer to making the perfect games.

In my Opinion?

Perfect 10 out of 10.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution First Impressions

2011-08-05T13:15:00.000-07:00

I have been following this game almost since it was announced last year, and now the release month is finally upon us, I wanted to know if there was ever going to be a demo. After learning that somebody had leaked the preview build used at conventions such as E3, I decided to take on the task of the painful process of downloading about 9 parts and figuring out how to use "the crack".

I've never done something like this before, but it was one exciting ride to get my hands on the game. Now to get to the actual game...

First off, this game is definitely gruesome when Adam Jensen is forced to be augmented, as the robo-mercs who storm into Sarif HQ leave his body mutilated, even though there's no Gore...there's definitely a big hefty deposit of blood where he laid.

The game then does an also somewhat gruesome movie-quality cinematic of him being rebuilt. Even though his body was mostly intact after the lethal beating, the cinematic pretty much stated that his body was useless unless they replace his limbs with cybernetic parts.

After the cinematic, you're given your first chances at the branching dialogs. I pretty much kept my conversations to the point without trying to tick off anyone, and after a few minutes I was sent to one of Sarif's plants to attempt to save hostages from purists.

I decided to go in non-lethal, but by the end of the level I had ran out of tranquilizers, and ended up having to use lethal means besides using K.O.s.

I was able to talk the leader of the terrorists out of killing the main hostage, pretty much stating that he been duped and he should rather relocate his anger to the man who set up him up. This came after one of his "anti-cyber" members was actually very cybernetic, trying to steal info on an augmentation known as "Typhoon".

I came back with the CEO of Sarif being pretty grumpy about letting the guy go, but my branch was pretty much "The guy is no threat and probably will pay off later". Before I was sent to study the corpse of the "not so purist" hacker, I found out that one of my "doctor buddies" had been smuggling some sort of chemical out of Sarif's Labs, and thus I took it upon myself to find security tapes that could help him be "relieved" of having to stay a part of the smuggling, and so I opened up my first side quest.

I didn't get much farther than that, but the story was very intriguing and definitely makes me want to play more of the leaked build.

Now onto combat:

If anyone fancies themselves of Splinter Cell or Metal Gear, the stealth mechanics are pretty much the same. Taking down targets without being noticed is the best way to go, and enemies will alert surrounding squads if you are noticed. Also like those games, if you've been spotted it's not endorsed but it's best just to get rid of the enemies ASAP, non-lethal means first then lethal afterwards.

Also, augmentation points don't come easily, as I am still trying to figure out what kind of system the Augmentation levels use. I just know that with the preview build augmentation leveling is very spaced out and it seems trying to "max out" your character will take several hours, maybe.

That is of course expected in an RPG-style game, but I am still trying to figure it out so I can get a better idea what I'm supposed to be doing.

The graphics:

The graphics are just as good, if not better than what the trailers show, probably the funniest thing I find is some of the cutscenes are better quality than the in-game graphics, and some of them are worse than the in-game graphics due to the low-quality of some of them, but that's expected with software like Bink.

Feeling:

The game is quite immersive and quite intuitive for what it is presenting, you almost feel like you're in a movie and the overall feel of the graphics and gameplay make the experience quite addicting. That and I can't but feel a bit of fun when each takedown is shown in a "mini-cutscene".

Closing: I can definitely see why this game might be a 10/10 for some sites, as there is just not really many games like it. Unless you've come from the projects of KOTOR, Mass Effect, or some other player-based RPG, this game will seem like a needle in a haystack when it comes to finding originality among other titles.

(YAKUZA) Ryu ga Gotoku The Best Original Sound Track

2011-08-02T15:10:00.000-07:00

After scowering the Sonixgvn site and looking through potential good OSTs, I decided to to try this one seeing how the cover and amount of composers interested me. I knew the franchise must be big if it had around 10+ composers, but I didn't know HOW big.

Let's just say my mind was already blown on the first three tracks, and continued to be blown when a composer I wasn't familiar with called Hidenori Shoji took center stage on the OST. This man's composing and multi-genre prowless could rival that of the great Keiki. I say this because he uses little to none of the "Keiki effect", he uses his own effects with masterful power.

Though some of the songs are weaker yet still good, his tracks gave me the impression that even SEGA knows how to pick some really magnificent composers and keep them "internal".

I have to say beyond those names of Nobuo, Joris, Junichi, Hitoshi, and Masashi...Shoji definitely has the skill and genius to become another instant "God of Gaming".

His tracks are powerful, easy to listen to, and just awesome stuff to rock out to. Also, seeing how the rest of the songs are usually almost as good if not still pretty good, I recommend this soundtrack to anyone who consider themselves a "rocker".

In my opinion?

9.5 out of 10.

Resistance 3 Beta: Impressions

2011-08-01T23:58:00.000-07:00

Now I've been pretty harsh on the Resistance franchise, but I've been given ample kindness to be allowed in the Resistance 3 beta. Since I haven't turned down a beta yet, I decided to download and install said beta.

At first glance, the graphics have been vastly improved over the original demo I've played. The pallete is more vibrant (unlike IGN's statements), and the modeling is more robust and the pixelation is almost a thing of the past. If it weren't for the chimera, you wouldn't even think it was the same franchise.

That said, some of the issues still remain, and someways worse and someways better.

First off, the Half-life oozing is still there, and even more so in the beta map. If I were to be harsh on this series again, the whole beta map is filled with rocky textures, lush plants, and a whole setting that just speaks of Half-life 2 scenery. It was just as if the devs just copy and pasted and added some nice rendering effects.

On the note of rendering effects, it's hard NOT to notice the motion-blur, as running and shooting is almost nauseating if you're not too careful, I know Capcom is a fan of motion blur, but these devs take it to more extremes.

Also, just like Killzone, these devs like to toy with the players minds of being able to make heads or tails of WHO you are ACTUALLY shooting. I could have sworn that some of my deaths were teamkills, until the killcam stated otherwise. The chimera are almost purposely human-colored, with brown torsos, gloves, and a "blue jeans" that make me rage a bit. This doesnt help when you play as Chimera, since having the humans shoot at you feel very wrong since at your first person angle your model doesn't even give any indication that your the aliens.

That said, Killzone was also quite notorious with making the Helghast somewhat Identical to the ISA, to where in that beta I felt like everybody was shooting me.

It's almost as if With Sony shooters, including Uncharted 3, that the devs want to make the enemies not too similar, but similar enough to play head games with your eyes to where you throw a fit in rage.

Going on with the impressions, I have to say the weapons and controls feel much more enjoyable and too clunky. I have to actually say I actually felt like I was using a gun instead of the original Resistance where the guns felt like pop-cap replicas when it came to actually killing bad guys.

That and the graphics look pretty good, without really noticing any aliasing at 720p.

That's about if for me, stay tuned for more impressions.

BrioCyrain's DOUBLE TIME REVIEWS: From Dust (Demo) and Warhammer 40k: Kill Team (Demo)

2011-07-30T14:49:00.000-07:00

After playing two demos off the Xbox 360's Marketplace since both games will be available also either PSN or PC. I would feel guilty after enjoying both demos and finding them both somewhat addicting, not to post reviews of both trials/demos.

Warhammer 40k: Kill Team:
After seeing a trailer for this on the playstation blog, the game kind of exceeded my expectations of what I usually found in Warhammer games. The game not being an RTS this time around and instead a straight up top-down shoot-em-up, the game seemed quite tempting. After hearing that the game would come out August and curious to see if I would want to buy it down the road, I decided to hook up my Xbox 360 and download the trial.

Frankly enough, while the graphics style is reminiscent of both warhammer and warcraft(seeing how warcraft is pretty much a direct rip/competitor of warhammer), the modeling and graphics are very good in my opinion and definitely sets a good tone for the game. The control system is extremely intuitive and it didn't take me long to start mowing down orcs and bashing them with my melee gun. Not only that but each soldier class has a special move/weapon, which mine was just kicking the gun into hyper mode. This hyper mode pretty much turned my gun into the ultimate weapon where waves of Orcs only took like miliseconds to get wasted.

Pretty much as long as you were able to dodge bullets, melee the orcs when they got too close, and used the weapon with prowless and prejudice, with picking up any boosters and healing items, the game was pretty much pure orc carnage. The demo ended with "the unlock" trailer, and I have to say (pun intended) that I was more blown away than the orcs who felt my wrath.

In my opinion?

8+ out of 10.

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From Dust:
After hearing that this was not your normal Ubisoft game, and that IGN gave the game a clear 8+ out of 10. I decided to download this demo along side War 40k. Now this game was pretty much competiting with the likes of Spore, a mixture of Strategy and God Simulation that only certain "god game" people would find intrigueing.

The graphics are quite impressive for only being a downloadable, as the detail in even the "mortals" is quite good. The objective of the game was to help the mortals "populate and replenish the earth" while you helped them form land-masses, villages, and even help them fight back tsunamis with god-like powers.

The game unlike other RTS games where you're stuck to one map or village, allows you to either stay at one point and finish challenges, or if you're done populating a map continue to the next one. I found myself going through about 3 maps with the last one being the one with tsunamis, which the pacing never really made the game feel "slow".

The demo ended with another "unlock trailer" and left me with a good impression why IGN found this game fun.

In my Opinion?

8+ out of 10.

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Thanks for reading this double-review and I hope it helps my readers make better buying choices seeing how I enjoyed both demos.

Shooters and cliches: Why PC is the best market for Shooters

2011-07-28T21:40:00.000-07:00

While people on consoles have construed a big divide between FPS and TPS markets, it's because the aiming, graphics techinques, and storylines are quite different between these two genres on consoles.

Now you're probably thinking "PC ELITISTSZZZ!", but there are sometimes reasons why PC gamers think they are elitists. Because unlike FPS or TPS games on consoles having to be mapped or programmed quite different, PC versions of both genres are usually only different by the camera system, aka the only difference is the camera between FP and TP.

All the pc shooters I own, whether they be FPS and TPS, pretty much function exactly the same. WASD to move your character, and using the mouse to aim with extreme-precision not usually found on consoles.

My friend was watching one of my Lost Planet 2 videos, which the PC version was highly underrated due to severe programming or coding problems on the console-side. He pretty much realized with a PC, no matter if I was playing FPS or TPS, that I was able to "snipe" with a rocket launcher and hit targets on the other side of an area, and usually that's just not possible or as easy to do using a controller with that type of camera system.

Pretty much what I am trying to get to, is that usually the gaming PCs of our era can pretty much reduce any "clunkyness" and severe graphics ugliness because of added accuracy and scalable graphics options. Lost Planet 2 on PC was a masterpiece but on console it was rushed and barely tolerable for many gamers.

Usually the only shooters that make it out alive on console are big budget ones like Battlefield and COD, or hyper-exclusive titles like Halo, Uncharted, and Killzone that are optimized to no bounds (well, maybe not exactly Halo).

That's pretty much it for now, keep up with my blog for more editorials and posts.

Shooters and cliches: Tactical Horror

2011-07-28T09:12:00.000-07:00

Now, I enjoy me-self some Fatal Frame and Ghost Recon, but I never thought of the two concepts of merging into one bloody and almost glorified hilarious venture. When I first heard that Capcom was going to be one of the "firsts" to delve into such wizardry with co-development made by former SOCOM devs Slant Six, I was skeptical that these two overrated genres could provide a big huge mess gameplay-wise.

That's the thing though, this new title dubbed Operation Raccoon City IS a big huge mess, but seems to be a masterful mess at that. Third person squad-based combat mixed with reveling zombie bloodshed creates a niche that people like me would love to bathe in. That and the "knife" usage is out of this world, being able to fling and slash zombies and stab them through like vegetables.

With that and the Future Soldier style camouflage and Tactical style cover system, this game could be one of the greatest spin-offs seen in a wavering franchise, and bring in new fans including myself to help boost morale needed to fund a RE-6.

That and this being a true co-op and multiplayer shooter with roots in Lost Planet 2, it's been said you can bring 3 of your buddies along to help thwart the raccoon city situation and also delve in USS VS Spec Ops action online, hopefully with zombies still mixing up the servers.

Capcom is taking a big risk with fusing both genres into a niche you could call "Tactical Horror", but maybe it's a risk that might help save Capcom from their previous bad decisions.

That's about it for now, stay tuned for more S & C editorials.

Animation purity: 2D VERSUS 3D, and how do you define 2.5D?

2011-07-24T17:55:00.000-07:00

Now, I know this has been a thorny subject for many animation fans for years, but having research it myself I would like to point some facts, even though they could be opinionated facts.

Animation at it's core is pretty much defined as any form of entertainment that has little to no live action bits. Though you could say there's plenty of live action that uses Animation(but preferably/professionally known as CG/CGI), but let's not focus on that really.

2D has always been my prefered style of animation, simply because due to various technologies and the art of anime, this about 100-year phenominon has grown into a overly-massed market that the whole world has enjoyed without much criticism.

That said, 2D has taken a harsh trail for many people when the dawn of FLASH arrived, which made it almost entirely possible for "non-true animators" to slap something together and call it animation. While there are about of handful of decent flash productions done nowadays, some of the stuff on a site known as newgrounds could almost be considered blasphemy when it comes to the form of art.

Flash wouldn't be so popular if it wasn't for the almost anti-beginner status of 3D Animation.

3D Animation didn't get it's real start until the projects known as "Reboot" and "Toy Story", two of the first fully 3D productions that started a new dawn of computer generated animation. While these shows had very few flaws, the trend they started has created some of the most notorious "shovelfilms" that give almost any decent 3D movie a bad name.

Thus, this is why 3D has given many an animation buff the likeness of being overrated, not because the technology is bad, but some of the movies that use it are just plain horrible, and it weren't for the flash industry, 2D would have almost cleared it's name of aweful usage

That said, the japanese have been known to almost excel at both these arts. With the form of both 2D and 3D "Anime", the japanese industry has been almost a godsend to people who have lost faith and/or interest in western interpretations. Movies like the new "Tekken: Blood Vengeance 3D" and productions such as "Ghost in the Shell" showcase that the japanese take their productions far more seriously, and who can forget the almost perfect line of Studio Ghibli titles?

Also since the early 2000s, companies like Disney have incorporated both forms into a single production, which people have debated to use the term "2.5D". Now people have debated what exactly defines 2.5D, but it's obvious that many titles since then to possibly cut down work and time have implemented either 3D backgrounds or 3D models that would be more painstaking to do hand-drawn.

One example would be Robotech, where the original seasons' fighter-scenes probably required hundreds if not thousands of frames to depict the different angles and attack patterns of several attack-craft. While the latest movie version opt-in to just create the ships and fighters as 3D models so they need to only use a computer replica.

The only usual downfall of this method is that the 3D and 2D almost never blend well and the two styles almost give the movie a wierd "ugly" look due to the simplicity of the 3D models. Even Macross Frontier used this method and tried to counteract this effect by using forms of cel-shading to give the 3D models a "2D look", which made the models only slightly more tolerable.

As you can see, the Animation industry has become nothing more than a big huge mess of different styles, and the demand for greater techniques has grown, but the production of said large demand has thinned greatly. It is if almost technology or the people who use it have gone backwards to what people in the mainstream demand.

I'm just glad there is still at least a handful of animation experts who got their heads on correctly.
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RETRO=Modern Relevance?

2011-07-21T13:43:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this is my third blog post today, but that's because I am on a utter role this time around. This topic here is about, Retro gaming!

After learned about the Aliens DS port from WayForward, and having played the Scott Pilgrim PSN game, that even today's 3D titles just can't beat most of the well-placed nostalgia of a good side-scroller.

Touche? Some of these more modern takes on side-scrollers who try to combine 3D and 2D on the same plane sometimes end up in utter failures, unless you're talking about masters of both dimensions like Metroid.

There are still many platforms that have, do, and SHOULD support retro-gaming and revel in it. Seeing how there are platforms that while have 3D support are more destined to be ultra-2D (Cough NDS COUGH), and the fact that many titles now have the capability of supporting hand-drawn images, 2D has never shined better until this modern age where there will always be a demand, contrary to the 3D-purists who negate our industry.

Touche? That and some of the best 3D games out there are merely transitions of what made their 2D counterparts great. Games like Mario, Metroid, Zelda, Castlevania, Metal Gear, and the like are almost just three-dimensional copies of their retro counterparts, and the 3D has only made them stronger in appeal and content.

I would almost be disappointed if the industry STARTED OUT in 3D, as to say the N64 and PS1 3D capabilities were almost untolerable, which is why the systems were heavily used as ultra 2D machines, using the 3D-based hardware to make high-resolution 2D assets.

That and with the age of the PS3 and Xbox 360 where you can have a clean 1080p 2D game that is oozing with phenominal detail, as is as clear as a windexed window, 2D will always have advantages over the 3D-styled titles that have to push real hard to get a decent amount of detail and still look "nice".

That's pretty much it for now, stay tuned for new posts.

Horror=Giggles?

2011-07-21T13:20:00.000-07:00

After making a previous thought-provoking post about entertainment or specifically gaming. What actually makes Horror movies and games...Fun?

I have ponders this for many days, and why do many of us humans insist otherwise that unlike other beings who would rue the day if they got even the tiniest-bit scared, that we rivel in freaking ourselves out and make it almost a social-entity of having to get scared to "death"?

Having experienced it in such games a Fatal Frame, it's almost a double-edged sword when it comes to horror-media, one edge being that you're totally or slightly freaked out, but your body and emotions also entail a sense of humor and almost laughing inside when you're panicked.

This double-set of emotions is probably why people support this medium, since the reactions can be quite hysterical to the fearful and outright humored consumers.

Having watched videos of people spectating players of such games, while the player is totally fearing for his gaming life, the people who look on are either scared, or bathing in utter humorous abundance.

This is also one of the genres where people like to use terms that inflict the thought of depositing bodily waste into one's lower garments, to which kind of happens during moments of fear and laughter to someone with no physical self-control.

Also, is it to pursue outside emotions that would relevantly never happen in the time-span of their real life, where they enduce themselves with awkward emotional bathing to ensure that they can consider themselves true humans?

Something to think about I think.

What is Gaming?

2011-07-21T12:59:00.000-07:00

After spending the better part of my life playing video games constantly, if not addictively since my childhood, I have comes to grips with something that sometimes is my darkest fear....what is gaming?

Now before you start badgering about your definitions, its not really to figure out the pure identity of gaming, but why are we so infatuated with things that aren't real that are hooked up to a controller?

Why do we suggest or praise a form of entertainment that is merely a mix of pixels, computer generated images, and quite clearly, is so interesting to stare at a 2D-screen for hours on end?

It's the same way with computers, while we can be out walking, working, doing charity work, signing papers for a higher cause...we just sit on our butts and stare at a screen with stuff moving around it?

Is it true that most of us don't see it that way and our brains suggest that we are watching or playing is actually a form of an internal two-dimensional psuedo-reality, similar to that of the film industry where our eyes and ears are suspended in disbelief even though logically there's nothing really there?

The people who binge-online games like Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Uncharted seek excitement and reward in a world that has no ties to reality, but somehow our brains process these set of images, movements, dialog, and such as a theoritical "hobby"?

Why is it so easy to become enthralled in a game like Pokemon when it's just a bunch of pixel characters or backgrounds moving from one side to the other, colliding with each other, doing battle movements on a flat screen that somehow tricks our mind into thinking something's actually there?

You can say something similar about books, how does several lines of text somhow switch on a button in your brain to where the story becomes alive through your supposed imagination?

Logically it's almost unexplainable but somehow our brains are almost toys, puppets to whatever visual concosion man has devised to sell or market as something sensual as "entertainment".

What do you think is the reason our bodies can find "reality" in a "world" for of "fakeness"?

REAL-G: Real-Time Graphics of the Future

2011-07-19T07:52:00.000-07:00

REAL-G:

Real-Time Graphics of the Future

The Real-G pipeline is a future initiative to bring unparalleled real-time or gaming graphics to the quality of movies like Avatar. After AMD spoke out about the next Xbox having Avatar-quality graphics, people couldn’t help but laugh at the claim.

Even though it sounds like a funny bold statement, I was thinking…Such a future could be achievable with the current goals, and Real-G is based on those goals.

First, we need to stop treating consoles as gaming machines, and instead of just up-scaling graphics as our main priority, we need to think parallel on the CGI front. That is, come to a median where we should also take on experts of movie-geared CGI so we are also taking into account “down-scaling” on the other front. We need to think of graphics on a double plane. Real-G would take into account people like Digital Frontier who are experts in CGI, but also take in people like Nvidia and AMD/ATI so that we reach a double plane that can push real-time or gaming graphics further. Add graphics features applicable on both fronts, and created the most advanced graphics engine/pipeline known to the industry.

Second, since this is a joint venture between both fronts, Real-G must have technologies that negate the need for upgrades. One of these technologies would be Infi-Res, similar to the tech used in Gearbox games where the Resolution of the graphics/game will up-scale and update itself to all demands. Another technology would be a more standard function of scaling the quality of the models/textures themselves, to where based on the task at hand you can either up-scale or down-scale particular assets.

The engine would support Stereo-3D, seeing how this is meant as a double front graphics engine that would use CGI-quality features.

Real-G would be an on-going project, to where each “tech demo” would be treated as a mini-movie, each one maxing out a certain goal to the best of the consoles/PCs capabilities, the engine would have to be extremely optimized, but not to the point of sacrificing key CGI-based features. If the console can’t run the rudimentary features, the console/PC would be disqualified.

Real-G’s features as a graphics-pipeline would not take into account game-play, this is to make sure the graphics engine is running primarily on the GPU where it belongs, and being as CPU-less as possible so the CPU can focus more on game-play.

Real-G’s meaning is pretty self-explanatory, a double meaning of “Real-time” and “Real-Graphics”

I think any company or graphics technician who is serious about advancing Real-time graphics on a double front should consider proposals like Real-G.

BrioCyrain and the Musical Buff that is.

2011-07-16T20:03:00.000-07:00

For all those who know me, if I ever mentioned Ace Combat to you...there was probably 99.9% chance that I would comment on it's epic music. And why not? I consider myself a huge musical buff when it comes to music, even though there are some record labels that I wouldn't listen to if you paid me.

Pre-2000s Disney, Hans Zimmer, Koji Kondo, Keiki Kobayashi, Junichi (Keiki's friend), Masashi, Yoko, Utada, Hitoshi, John Williams, Joris De Man, etc land a mark on how you properly do "epic emotional music". Now you might be wondering if I ever tried composing for myself? Numerous, and more numerous times! I might not be an expert composer but every now and then I pull up the good ol' FL Studio and do some tune-bashing if my ears are right and hitting what I think are the right notes.

Well some of you are thinking, "FL Studio", but I have actually taken music courses, albeit I never finished them due to important reasons. I remember actually taking a singing lesson in kindergarten, which I never quite remember what was the result. I also took band in 4th/5th grade doing the trombone, before having to quit the class after having problems with hyperventilation. I also had a recorder that I would play Epona's song on, and sometimes goof around on my brother's keyboard where every now and then I would hit some nice notes.

Now I'm not saying I qualify as self-taught, but every time I listen to a song I try to figure out the motive and signature usage into my songs...and using these kind of inspirations I can actually get something decent going.

I know I will never be a Keiki or Hitoshi, but I won't find myself giving up and never try to make a good piece that will satisfy my current inspirations. That's why I find myself wanting to talk to composers more than other kinds of people, because they should have the consideration to know that their music is special and nobody should deprive them of that.

Good day to you.

ACE COMBAT X: SKIES OF DECEPTION OST REVIEW

2011-07-16T09:17:00.000-07:00

After having listened to the "supposed" sequel to this soundtrack, it's obvious Namco knew better what it was doing with Skies of Deception compared to Joint Assault.

Tetsukazu Nakanishi was the supervisor of the OST, and his techno synths give the soundtrack a pretty good old-school arcade feel. It might not be the techno/orchestra you're familiar with in AC4 and parts of AC5, but it's good flight music nonetheless.

Unlike Joint Assault that I think the music team had a feeling the game would fail, Tetsu-san had hope in this game that scored higher on gaming sites and I'm glad at least one of the AC gods was a part of it and not just "pasted" into it.

If you want techno flight sim goodness with not much of an orchestra, don't look further than Skies of Deception.

In my Opinion?

8.6 out of 10

ACE COMBAT X2: JOINT ASSAULT OST REVIEW

2011-07-16T08:13:00.000-07:00

Joint Assault was probably one of the weakest, if not the weakest Ace Combat port to hit any platform. Scoring only a 6.5 on IGN, this game had no hope of making it off the runway, and it seemed like most of the compositions in this OST reflect that.

Now Joint Assault his some good music, keyword some, but they seem mostly out of place for what Ace Combat is meant to be composed for. Most of the good pieces are ground centric, ranging from RPG to Racing music. None of the songs really fit a flight arcade/sim setting, and that's what I'm puzzled about, 'til I saw the credits list for the composers.

The composers are comprised of Persian, Racing, RPG, and an AC oldie who clearly weren't supervised what makes the newer AC games so special in the music department. As if the "good team" was either on a hiatus or busy revving up for Assault Horizon.

That said there are some exceptional tracks, but it seems these ones were just "copy and pasted" over from the more epic OSTs, to which they shouldn't really count as newly original tracks.

I mostly put blame on the Namco management team, for hiring composers from other teams (and Inon Zur) who have no real consistency when it comes to making Flight sim music. That said some of the tracks are pretty decent.

In my Opinion?

7.8 out of 10

ACE COMBAT ZERO: THE BELKAN WAR OST REVIEW

2011-07-15T17:39:00.000-07:00

I pride myself as a "War Song" buff, especially the kind of war music that gives epicness to games like Ace Combat. Ace Combat Zero is no exception, but it is at the same time...in a good way.

Ace Combat Zero is not practically the perfect mix of previous ace combat games, IT IS the perfect mix. Ranging from Techno, Industrial, Orchestra, Synth, Latin Choirs, Hispanic Guitars...this entire soundtrack creates a long mix and is mixed perfectly. Keiki Kobayashi with his company of rag-tag epic game composer gods has given his Project Aces and players something to play with, play for, and this soundtrack never gets old. The compositions could rival with the best of movie soundtracks, and in a fair fight, beat them to a pulp.

If you can't picture yourself in the skies as a master ace pilot to this music, there's nothing wrong with music, there's something wrong with YOU.

In my Opinion?

Perfect 10 out of 10.

Shooters and cliches: Repeatance-Fall of Gaming

2011-07-14T10:38:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I did another rant on my favorite genre, but it's hard to not indulge myself in such chilvary after playing the Resistance: Fall of Man demo.

For those who have read my Fallout, Battle LA, and other anti-FPS rants and know my current opinions on gaming, Resistance is another hole in the gutter that while loved by a certain niche, it poses one of the problems in the de-evolution of the shooter genre.

For those who read my demo review, I have a bit of angst that this series is nothing more than outside ideas meshed into one franchise. While some of my friends know that the shooter genre is rather generic with it's premises and settings, Resistance is one of those franchises that takes the cake and doesnt seem to admit that it is more of a step backwards than a step forwards.

Insomniac has proven they are able to bring quality gameplay and settings such as their shoot-em-up platformer Rachet and Clank, but seeing how Resistance is their first real FPS franchise, I hope it is their last seeing how all three titles have little in common with each other since they have no clue how to perfect their setting or gameplay with Resistance.

That and the alien invasion and terraforming premise reminds me of Robotech Invasion, a great game that was underrated by many and was based on the related 80s anime that had a compelling story for it's time, though there was some Halo cloning to be had. I just want to know why a company is big as Sony delve into copying a third-party PS2/Xbox title that had little to no marketing, and risk tainting their name with the likes of a under-sold game title?

Resistance poses a problem for shooters that while I don't really listen to people that believe shooters are destroying gaming, that Resistance is one of those franchises that developers are willing to sacrifice originality and smooth gameplay just to make cash on the genre, and in this sense it's almost as guilty as Fallout when it comes to rather sticking to de-evolution tactics rather than evolve the genre ala Valve or Battlefield.

I hate to say it but, I am more looking forward to RAGE than Resistance 3.

Meh...

Resistance: Fall of Man Demo REVIEW

2011-07-02T02:42:00.000-07:00

I came into this demo knowing that the Resistance franchise was weaker than most of the other Sony titles and that this franchise from the start had a illness of Identity Crisis. Though the demo proved this situation to far worse than it seemed on the outside.

The demo starts with a group of WW2 era-ed soldiers fighting the relentless yet totally confusing Chimera. Not knowing where I was I tried to orient myself with the area, but that took some time since I died plenty of times during this map since I had troubles figuring out where the Chimera were at and where they were shooting from, and that was pretty much everywhere. Before I could make any headway the several deaths caused me to be quite frustrated since I wasn't used to the weapons, controls, and the range on the weapons were surprisingly limited. I found myself having to get closer than safe distances with the event of even more deaths, and this frustrated me even more.

Trying to keep my cool and figuring out the "arena" was just one giant circular flanking machine--I was able to make more headway and score a checkpoint. After the checkpoint happened the Chimera dropshipped into our rear taking me fully by surprised, and not knowing the good cover areas of this arena resulted in more deaths, which I was pretty steamed in my head. I found out that the only way to get to them again is to use the flanking circle and attack their sides which they weren't really progammed to use(thank goodness for stupid AI in this game). Having cleared the second wave of Chimera and scoring another Checkpoint, I found myself fighting a mech that was pretty much programmed only to shoot at me, yay(insert sarcasm here). After dying several more times, it just took some "hit and cover" tactics, several reheals, and a large amount of grenade spam to take down this Pain in the Butt. The level ended and I was about to go my way, 'til another map loaded..yay again.

The second map pretty much started with me waiting to die several more times as me and my rag-tag team of co-patriots(which I couldn't tell if they were american WWIIs or german WWIIs) had to fight several more waves of these pesky bugs. Having found that I had a sniper rifle(which was probably the only real useful gun in this map), I just decided to snipe through the cover(which is pretty nifty) and take down the regular Chimera and even a gigantic exploding one(which was a pain but not as much as the mech). Having analyzed the art style at this point, this game wreaked of Medal of Honor Airborne map-wise but the Chimera were somehow uncannily like the Helghast. The only issue with this is this Resistance demo looked worse then either game, and I felt that I was playing an upscaled PS2 game. That and I couldn't help but feel the developers ripped off the concept of an anime-game close to my heart, Robotech: Invasion.

And that was confused me, this Identity Crisis of Airborne X Killzone X Robotech: Invasion gave the impression that like stated in many articles, the developers didn't know really where to go with this game. It seems this series is more an experiment they started developing on the PS2 and just ported to the PS3 in the aims that this convoluted mix-match of ragtag game ideas would hold up to some solid conclusion. While I can see the merits of this idea, the demo showed that it wasn't implemented that well. It didn't help that the game seems to be just a bundle of a McDonald's happy meal, but instead of getting the almost decent burger, you were given the stale over-salted fries.

ANYWAY, (end rant). Having made my way around the map supposing that my current mission was to just snipe Chimera to death, I found I wasn't making any headway and I wasn't scoring any checkpoints. Seeing how the Chimera came out of an "elevator" I decided to see what was the deal with that and finally got my checkpoint, yay(for reals). Going up the shaft I found myself in the face of a few Chimera that I was able to easily shoot down, and finding out where I was supposed to go I took this time to snipe more Chimera(seeing how my job was to go on these little "elevated perches" and wipe out the MGs and snipers). I went on to flush out the perches with only a few deaths(one of them was me throwing a grenade instead of pushing a button, insta-suicide). Having successfully push the button the second time, I went down the second shaft and found myself toe-to-toe with another giant Chimera.

Thank goodness I could just walk around him and pump him full of bullets since his gun was lame and he wasnt very fast(or bright). He ended up exploding with his remains on the ground(eeew) and me leaving the area ended the demo(finally!).

CLOSING COMMENTS:
This demo really gave me an idea that the devs weren't really concerned about the Identity Crisis and just decided to just take chunks from other games in the hopes of making it all fit. While many games do this, most of them do it better than Resistance. That said I found that figuring out the controls by the end gave the demo some enjoyment(the controls were a wierd hash of the Killzone controls, go figure), but I can see why Resistance 2 and Resistance 3 aren't the hottest topics of PS3 gaming.

In my Opinion?

7.2 out of 10

KILLZONE 2 Demo REVIEW

2011-07-01T16:59:00.000-07:00

After having played the Killzone 3 demo and witnessing(well playing) the awesomeness which it was, I decided to also try the Killzone 2 demo.

Like the Killzone 3 demo, you're pretty much already put into a combat situation, and the Helghast are already trying to kill you. Cover is even more key in this demo as the Helghast are coming from 180 degrees so you need to keep your head down at all times.

The story of this demo is that you're pretty much "sieging" the Helghast capital of Pyrrhus. The moment you make your way into the capital you're almost instantly shot down and have to gain ground away from the landingcraft. After taking out a bridge filled with Helghast mounted MGS you make you're way to a floodgate. The floodgate opens to show two Helghast APCs coming out, but the doors closing behind them. I died plenty of times since the rocket launcher you're given doesn't really harm the APCs that much, and usually I could only take out one of them.

The color pallete of Killzone 2 is much more limited to the point I had plenty of trouble distingushing ISA from Helghast. This ended up getting me dominated since the Helghast could get close and start shooting me in the face.

After a few tries and wiping out the APC Helghast me and an NPC made our way to the nearby warehouse that had the controls to the floodgate. Obviously this place was crawling with Helghast, and after flushing out the first wave with grenade spam and blowing up explosive barrels(which seem always apparent in shooters), I had to give the NPC cover so he could hack the gate controls.

Let me tell you something, when the NPC says "Cover me...", that means you're usually always going to have to fight a big wave of baddies by yourself, and that is what exactly happened. This wave of Helghast was a pain since it was hard getting around their cover without exposing myself to their fire. While I survived most of it, it was irrating that the Helghast were blind-firing(the military way of shooting gangsta in cover" and were still able to get some good hits on me.

The controls hacked we left the warehouse, and the demo ended there. While the demo ending wasn't a bad thing, this demo seemed nowhere as long as the KZ3 demo.

CLOSING COMMENTS:

This demo was pretty frustrating compared to the KZ3 demo, and while the graphics were pretty nice, the limited pallete posed a problem for me distinguishing Friendly for Foe.

In my Opinion?

8.5 Out of 10

KILLZONE 3: Single Player Demo Review

2011-06-30T12:54:00.000-07:00

After constantly remembering how awesome the KZ3 beta was despite a small setback(the ravage moaning), I decided to break down and finally play the KZ3 Single Player Demo.

Just like the beta, the game starts up with a calm yet awesome opening scene, and once you get to the menu itself, you can't help but think "This game is gonna be awesome!".

The demo comes with a Campaign and Co-op Campaign, but since I had nobody to play with(since my bro would kill me if he found out I played the demo), I was forced to play just the Campaign.

Now, this demo doesnt start off with you just sitting in a calm place with being able to take in your surroundings, no. They instantly at the beginning have you on a landing craft swirling around the icy bases of the Helghast, and you're pretty much already given the situation of "kill or be killed".

Even though this initially caught me off-guard, it only took me a few seconds to calibrate my senses and start mowing down death upon the Helghast, and quite interestingly attack the weakspots of their mini-bases that ended up in the collapse of them into the icy water. Now, while all this is happening I couldn't help but notice the graphics were so good that I was like "This is a game?". I wouldn't be far from the truth that while the game runs in 720p, that the graphics themselves speak of 1080p...or above!

Since one of my friends asked about what the story was behind Killzone, the mission at hand was to rescue one of your ISA comrades who has become a POW of the Helghast, and that the Helghast were shipping in POWs to this icy part of Helghan. After you're done sending Helghast to their icy-like watery graves. You're landing craft is shot down and for a few minutes your character and buddy have to take on the Helghast on foot. I was a little disoriented at that point but after a few minutes found myself figuring out which way to go and where the Helghast were coming from. After killing a few of them I still couldn't help but see the visuals and think "Not even real-life looks this good".

After making our way into a shipwreck I found myself fighting jetpacked Helghast, that while were a pain to fight (one of them tried to pull a Kamikaze by slamming him and his jetpack for a final blast at me), We were "rescued" but my character opted in to use one of the Helghan jetpacks for himself. This part of the story was pretty much that the AA guns of the Helghast were mowing down landingcraft, so it was my job by jetpack to fly in low and demo-charge the gun.

While making my way onto the platform that had the AA gun, it took quite awhile to get used to the jetpack controls, and you're pretty much cannon fodder if the Helghast fire at you while airborne. This pretty much forced me to hit and run with the jetpack before all of them were dead and I could safely plant the charge, which was confusing since the icon wasn't all that apparent and you had to tilt the PS3 controller in an interactive "arming the charge" mini-game. The charge set I was able quickly set it off and I was like "that was cool". But the demo didn't stop there...

Thinking the demo charging of the AA Gun was the end of the demo, I was surprised to see that it took me to another cinematic where we landed on a much larger macro-base spewing with Helghast. Cover was key as me and my character buddy flanked to the left into a building that was crawling with Helghast, after flushing them out with grenade spam and kills I made my way to the top of the complex, our goal to use one of their stationery homing rocket launchers. Before doing this though I found a mini-sniper rifle (mini-sniper because it was semi-automatic and the scope showed enemies that were only so far, but it came in real handy since I could still attack enemies that were in my face.

Having made our way to the rocket launchers, it should of been obvious that a tank would appear to show off its awesome boom-bashing power. That and also having destroyed several targets my character buddy wanted to bring the gun with us, while confused about this I found out the stationery rocket launcher can also be put in portable mode. So I took it with me and started blowing up several targets that it homed in on, the only issue is I kept having to go back to the ammo box to resupply. After several minutes and destroying yet another Helghast tank we made our way to the other side of the base to flush them out.

After doing this I made my way into the base with another cinematic, the cinematic had my character speaking to the Helghast commander through the Helghast gas mask, and lying that the ISA were destroyed. The scene ended there with a trailer signifying the actual end of the demo.

CLOSING COMMENTS:
This demo was pretty much shooter heaven in how it looked and played with only a couple of issues I found with the jetpack disadvantage and having to constantly resupply the mobile mode of the rocket launcher. Besides that the demo is pretty much perfect.

In my Opinion?

9.2 Out of 10

Killzone Liberation: Soundtrack Review

2011-06-26T22:46:00.000-07:00

The end of binge listening to the gody, gifted, and masterful soundtracks of the hit gaming series Killzone, I am pretty much "well-fed" in epicness and emotional masterpieces. Killzone Liberation IS AS good as it gets on PSP, when compared to other hit titles like MGS: Peace Walker. Continuing the composers live-quality movie-like symphony of pure evil, evil never sounded so good. I wouldn't be far from the truth that the Helghan March-isms in this OST would make even Darth Vader cry for his mommy. Who needs him when well....you have a whole army of badbutt Neo Nazis that pretty much have "The Thing" in evil clothing fashion...shoo Vader...shoo!

Enough with the ranting, people will find PLENTY of Keiki effecting, Valkyria blaring, MGS beat bashing glory in this soundtrack that dishes out the epic and takes no names. While the tracks are short, the Helghan theme makes up for this IMO with nothing but the feeling of Nazism to the max. The quality of this OST matches that of KZ2 in my book since this composer has clearly maxed out the PSP to contend to its stronger, more advanced brother--the PS3. Like I said before, anyone who calls them a sci-fi buff who fancies themself a video game music fan, get this soundtrack...NOW!

In my Opinion?

9.6 out of 10

Killzone(1): Original Soundtrack REVIEW

2011-06-26T18:02:00.000-07:00

Moving along on the binge listening and yet continuing on to another Killzone soundtrack, I can't help but realize that I should of known of these soundtracks sooner. Killzone(1) While being an older game shows that even the aging PS2 can compete in live-quality movie-like masterpieces, and well...The Helghan March sounds pretty much as awesome as the KZ2 rendition. That said, this soundtrack was more self-aware of how awesome the march tune was compared to KZ2, but like the latter lacked the variety of it's successor. This soundtrack is pretty much one of the pinnacles of PS2 music-awesome, right along up there with the likes of Soul Calibur, Ace Combat, and MGS. The only regret is the tracks are quite short compared to its successors.

People will find John Williams-isms in this track, but more so on the WWII/Indiana Jones front than on the Star Wars/Sci-fi front. This is completely understandable as the original was just a future rendition of World War II, as anyone knows at this point that the Helghast are pretty much Nazis, as you can hear in my other reviews. Anyone wanting to listen to a masterful yet somewhat to be desired piece of soundtrack, look no further than the original Killzone's original soundtrack.

In my Opinion?

9.3 out of 10.

Killzone 2: Original Soundtrack from the Video Game REVIEW

2011-06-26T10:43:00.000-07:00

I decided to a little binge listening and head straight to the previous Killzone soundtrack--Killzone 2. This soundtrack is filled with masterpieces like Killzone 3, though it lacks the same amount of variety of Killzone 3. While this isn't a bad thing I enjoyed the Killzone 3 OST more because of this, as Killzone 2 seemed more hesitant in copying big names like John Williams.

The OST is still practically perfect if you like Lost Planet/MGS/Ace Combat mixes with beautiful epic pieces, and the theme is played throughout. Though not as repeated as with Killzone 3, as if the composer like others wanted you to finish the game to hear the good stuff. While this is completely understandable, I tend to enjoy games more that give you the epic themes throughout the entire game. That said, this is another OST that Sci-fi epic buffs must hear during their lifetime. Also the "The Second Helghan March" and the following songs that use its melodies are pretty powerful in putting you in the grips of Nazism. That and I love how the composer used the theme piece from the E3 2005 CG Demo as if to give closure to people who loved that epic yet fake piece of cinema. Also the End Credits would make John Williams cry with envy.

In my Opinion?

9.6 OUT OF 10

Killzone 3: The Official Soundtrack REVIEW

2011-06-25T19:24:00.000-07:00

A little birdie told me once that the best shooters have well...the best music to lighten the load of their grim storylines and sometimes only acceptable voice acting. Killzone 3 goes above and beyond that call with a mixture of inspirational music-ideals with solid heart-straining orchestra pieces and rock-out beat-bashing tunes. This symphony of different yet harmoniously entangled styles makes up the Killzone 3 OST, and the soundtrack is practically filled with only masterpieces.

While I can't really name the individual tracks in this review, I have to say that each style, piece, and beat is practically perfect to what it's emphasizing, the scene which the soundtrack states, and the soundtrack practically makes you visualize Killzone 3 through your brain, albeit to an epic score of practical movie-like perfection. Most people who are familiar with "Sci-fi epic" type media will find most of the soundtrack oozing with Star Wars and other epic pre-Killzone styles to bring you into the heart of battle. From slicing emotional strings to big booming trumpets, and to the big industry ear-popping drumming of the map tracks, I found myself playing the whole OST without pause and without break. A soundtrack not only satisfying to listen to, but to also surf and chat on the internet to.

I highly recommend this game OST (though it sounds straight from an actual movie) and to everyone who considers themselve a Sci-fi buff who yearns for epicness.

In my opinion?

9.8 OUT OF 10

GhostZone: Technical Readouts

2011-06-21T21:56:00.000-07:00

This is probably a first that I had to make a second blog post about the same game during the same day, but Ghostzone might become my second baby compared to WW3:MC.

I have a simple layout of the maps that will be in Ghostzone, which if the game is released there will be a total launch window of 10 maps.

MAP ONE: Ashes

info: A totally volcanic map set in a town next to one erupting, the map focuses on CQC tactics and small vehicle combat.

MAP TWO: Lavaland

info: a map that takes place in a city farther from the volcanoes, the map focuses on long-range tactics and tank warfare.

MAP THREE: Snowbent

info: even though the volcanoes nearby are erupting, this snowy abyss features a frozen dam and two cities parallel to each other, the map focuses on strategic combat and small vehicle combat on the dam, tank warfare within the two cities.

MAP FOUR: Camp

info: This lava-burnt forest leaves much to be desired as far as geurilla warfare, map focuses on mid-range combat and intricite vehicle tactics.

MAP FIVE: Twister

info: A nighttime map that most of the visibility comes from the surrounding lava and hazey smoke, map focuses on long-range warfare and hovercraft tactics.

MAP SIX: Berlin

info: A burnt down futuristic take on Germany's capitol, map focuses on all levels of combat.

MAP SEVEN: D-Day

info: The french sea has seen better days, the surrounding water is polluted with steaming lava pits and cover is few and far between. map focuses in gut tactics and all-range warfare.

MAP EIGHT: Mother Russia

info: blood runs cold when a russian city is attacked from the outside, map focuses on one side in the city while the other side attacks from its surroundings. The outter team has tank warfare while the inner team has jeeps.

MAP NINE: Black Haze

info: England is under siege when the invading force uses hovercraft in an attempt to take the shore, the other side has hovercraft and jeeps. Focus is mid-ranged warfare.

MAP TEN: Final Reality

info: The HQ of the Neo Nazis burrowed in an old german city, map focuses on all-out strategic combat and all levels of vehicle warfare.

GAMEPLAY TYPES:

Due to this being a Battlefield-esque game, the game will launch with the following modes.

Team Deathmatch: Point-based rounds with vehicle kills/deaths scoring more points than infantry kills/deaths.

Conquest: Battlefield-based Base-capturing which is based on tickets that are influenced by not only how many kills but how much of the map a team controls.

Objective: the round has a scripted path which the attacking team must complete objectives within a certain time limit, similar to the Killzone 3 beta matches and Brink/Quake Wars.

Training: Scared of going into Multiplayer right at the start? Training is all the maps but with AI for you to get your feet wet without the stress of real players. You don't get any progression though.

CLASSES:

It's pretty much a given in nowaday shooters to have a rudementary class system that keeps you in the game while minimizing complexity. GhostZone will have a such system and here are the current classes.

Assault: Uses standard rifles as well as multiple types of grenades and a grenade launcher.

Scout: Uses sniper rifles as well as a pistol for CQC-defense.

Medic: uses SMGs as well as a shock paddle and medpacks.

Engineer: Uses shotguns as well as tank mines, and repairs vehicles.

Support: Uses standard MGs, Anti-Armor Launchers, and ammo packs.

MP: Uses Tasers, Riot Shields, batons(melee), and non-lethal takedowns.

MID-RANGED MELEE SYSTEM:

While most shooters only allow Melee attacks to be in-your-face tactics, in real life you think this wouldn't be the case for people who are less worried about their knife. GhostZone gives you the ability to actually throw the knife using the aiming mechanism used for the guns. If you were a little fool-hardy into thinking your knife was close enough, just give it a whirl to still get the kill you wanted. That and if you get even closer your character will actually grab your opponent for a quick neck slice, instead of having to worry about being in the dude's face.

GRAPHICS:
GhostZone's graphics palette will be a happy medium of the art styles of Killzone 3 and Crysis 2.A fully realized battlefield for vehicles to do their thing and immersive infantry visuals. The game will be dark with the emphasis of showcasing "the horrors of war". War is bleak, and it should stay that way.

Ghostzone: Killzone meets Battlefield(Sorta)

2011-06-21T18:56:00.000-07:00

It is getting to the point where in shooters such as Killzone 3 and Battlefield 3, good gameplay isnt enough to define a blockbuster shooter. You need clean-cut and sharp as nails graphics to keep gamers immersed on the battlefield so they never have the chance to get bored with their surroundings.

Ghostzone mimics this idea with a new twist for its scalable environments using a dynamic weather system based on its premise.

Ghostzone takes place in 20XX when global warming and other man-made "planet-killers" have caused weather and natural disasters to spin out of control(pun intended). Hurricanes, Volcanoes, and Tsunamis have wreaked havoc from the equator to near the North Pole, leaving millions homeless, starving, and near-death. Rations are scarce and the people of this devastation have learned to live just for a day, only hoping they live past tomorrow.

Things get worse when a group of Neo Nazis use this time to spread anarchy across Europe and Russia, causing a unity of former high-class individuals to use this new organization to loot rations and supplies that would otherwise not be in their hands. This movement has caused quite a resistance among proper europeans and north americans, and after driving some of the Neo Nazis away they have created a stalemate across northern europe. With volcanoes from iceland and the surrounding recently active and erupting almost weekly, this area both sides have trenched in has been dubbed the Ghostzone due to how many countless soldiers from both sides have died from volcanic radiation and spewing lava aside from the battles. The Neo Nazis are now armed with proper gas masks making them seem unhuman while the resistance has but only pieces of cloth to cover their nose and mouth. It's do or die in the "Ghostzone".

GAMEPLAY: The gameplay of Ghostzone is a mix and match of ideas from other games to keep the gameplay from slowing down. Like Killzone there are perks, by-round rewards and gruesome looking art styles. Battlefield-type gameplay comes from the fact that you can take command of armed/armored vehicles across the map such as jeeps, tanks, and hovercraft. Also like the recent Medal of Honor, given enough kills for a player they can call in a missile strike where they can control the missile's course. No air vehicles are allowed in the Ghostzone due to the bad weather and concern from being wiped out from spewing lava.

Also like Battlefield there will be a rewarding Leveling system such as Ranks, points for using the guns several times, and in-game achievements/trophies.

Players will also find the dynamic weather system taking affect as rounds can be influenced by flowing lava, acid rain, large hail, fog-like smoke, and volcanic radiation that can affect the round as well as the players' status.

That's pretty much it for now, thanks for reading.

Guncraft: Far Cry meets Minecraft

2011-06-18T16:17:00.000-07:00

I have been looking for new game ideas for the past few days and after pondering the in and outs of Minecraft and Far Cry 3, came up with the idea for a game called "Guncraft".

While the premise of the game is pretty generic, the dynamic gameplay is meant to be invested in due to many rewards and co-op gameplay that can push your understanding of the world to the test.

Premise: The game takes place on a moderately sized island that you (and your buddies if you choose 2-4 player co-op) have crash landed on during a dangerous storm in the lush pacific. Like Far Cry any former, current, or future "fellow inhabitants" are fighting for the resources of the island, and many of them are armed to the teeth with firepower.

Gameplay: The Fusion between the MineCraft and Far Cry elements are taken in a way to maximize the uniquness of the game. The enemies usually only come during the dark of the night, with torches and flashlights in the hopes of tearing down your "home",killing you, and taking your supplies. Also to expand your armory you must either keep them at bay and loot their weapons and ammo, or find blueprints across the map that can help you find the resources to make bootleg weapons.

The Far Cry element is pretty much within the shooting, vehicle driving, and all your enemies are pyschopathic humans who are either survivors, actual locals who don't trust you, or drug lords seeking to control the island from the outside. You can win this part in two ways, making allies with the locals for additional firepower, or just killing everyone that gets in your way and taking the island for yourself.

Since the game has this much death there will of course be three difficulty settings that are not normal to most shooters.

LIFER: Infinite lifes and you keep your weapons after dying.

SHOOTER: Limited Lifes during each wave and you lose your current weapon and on-hand supplies(the weapons and supplies at your base is still available upon spawning)

REAL: One Life with the goal to keep that one life for a whole week.

Adaptive Difficulty: In all these three modes the game will adapt the skill of the AI based on how well you're doing, since there are many shooters that are fun but have plenty of "crunch" points that make the game less motivating and just down right frustrating.

Adaptive Environment: There is a weather cycle that affects the season, precipitation, and day/night variation of the game. These factors affect when and what the AI are planning to do during the game as each group or "wave" of enemies have different motives and fears.

pseudo-MMO: Would anyone be interested in a competitive island which each wave is a group of online players finding for control of the island without AI?

That's it for now, hope you like the idea!

The Winnings and Losings of E3 2011

2011-06-12T19:29:00.000-07:00

Ever since E3 2005, I've been always interesting in what the big 3 have to offer(now the big 5 if you count EA and Ubisoft). Ever since the cool gadgets and new consoles were shown at E3 2005, I've been waiting for an E3 that could match that level of cool new stuff and enthusiam. The following 5 years were cumbersome IMO and I've been waiting for the IMO "awesome return" of an uber-E3. Let's see how the big 3(or 5) stack up to E3 2005 and itself.

MICROSOFT CONFERENCE:
While I never really pay attention to the MS conference (and I wasn't even there for most of the live feed), I have to say I found the "hardcore" use of Kinect interesting, even though everything it did was probably more comfortable on a controller IMO, that and the shovelware to follow was another given reason not to take Kinect seriously, and that the hardcore elements were just gimmicks. MW3 also didn't present anything new, since the gameplay seemed the same from the last two MWs, just a new setting that was still...MW.

Grade: C-

SONY CONFERENCE:
I have to say Sony came out full-force, comparable to what they did at E3 2006 with big titles that were from their own studios, and then some. Resistance 3 while not an original title showed people that the PS sharpshooter can prove more useful than the PS Move's original design, even though the Sharpshooter looks like the Duck Hunt guns from NES. The Uncharted 3 stealth level was uncannily bridging on Splinter Cell, and was impressed they were able to pull off more graphics techniques even though Uncharted 2 was already maxing out the PS3 to most of its extents. That and the NGP(Now PS Vita) was able to price match the 3DS and showed that the sensor controls were actually interesting, pretty much the Vita will kick some 3DS butt once it releases IMO.

Grade: A+

NINTENDO CONFERENCE:
Nintendo...meh. I only had 30 minutes to watch the conference, and to my demise the first 30 minutes was spent on an orchestra playing zelda music...a waste of time IMO. The slow presentation killed my chance to see anything interesting during the live feed, I just wanted to see the new console darn it! After coming home from school I found that the Wii U was...yeah. The controller looks like a freaking Ipad, and the only thing I got out of it was the graphics were comparable to PS3 and 360, only better on the 1080p and texture front IMO. That and the 3DS games shown were already announced from last E3 onward to this E3, so it seems the 3DS is pretty much dead before it even was alive, that and being the same price of the new Vita and 3D-caused medical problems showed that Nintendo has no clue what it was doing.

Grade: D

Now onto EA and Ubisoft conferences:

EA CONFERENCE:
While the conference started off pretty slow, the mostly-impressive demonstration of Mass Effect 3 was cunning and well-executed. The game looked balanced, fun, and showed that some people can actually use the original UE3 to its limits(rendering a large city spanning miles, whew). Battlefield 3 pretty much won the show though after its unprecedented realistic graphics, impressive Tank mechanics, and utterly amazing gameplay shown also in the Metro map...I was a happy Battlefield fan.

Grade: A+

UBISOFT CONFERENCE:
I have to say, I wasn't impressed with Mr. Caffeine, the dude's obnoxiousness and slur words seemed almost scripted(probably they were) and probably was the reason why the audience became deadbeat. The Rayman game while interesting was almost like a throwback to the original third-party platformers of the SNES, almost in some ways too nostalgic. Future Soldier pretty much floored me with the impressive step in detail and the awesome execution of co-op gameplay, that and AC: Revelations showed some impressive graphics and in some ways even physics during the boat explosions.

Grade: B

Well that's pretty much it for me, the overall score of E3 2011?

Grade: A

APPLESEED: EX MACHINA REVIEW

2011-05-17T18:42:00.000-07:00

Now for most of the people who know me, I'm a shooter gamer buff. I like my guns, mecha, and just blowing stuff up and taking names. That said sometimes there WILL be a non-gaming media hit that catches my eye, probably because it's pretty much shooter gamer buff stuff in anime form. This recent sometime would be Appleseed: Ex Machina, where there are guns mecha, just blowing stuff up, and taking names, in anime form.

The movie starts off with "who are these people?" for the first ten minutes, that and the art style takes about that much time getting used to. The cel-shaded, oozing anime-style is obvious as some people mentioned before, the graphics seem like an up-scaled japanese game. After the opening scene ends and you're eyes adapt to the style, there is nothing but action really here on out. The characters don't take long to get used to and like, and if you're an Action/Romance buff like me who is a sucker for stuff like Robotech, there is plenty of low-key mushy stuff to mellow you out between the action-packed sequences.

The character design is a masterpiece, and like most anime buffs like me, you'll get your healthy dose of buff dudes, hot chicks, and cheesy but also relatable dialogue. That said, I was somewhat amazed that they were able to sneak in an F-bomb in this PG-13 title, but the scene with it is quite short. Also with that said the story is almost edging on Star Trek themes, to which I'm not going to spoil that point for you. Obviously they gave the movie universal Sci-fi appeal for the cautious westerners who may be put off with the anime design.

With that said, I found the movie a blast with my perfect mix of Action/Romance, Anime, and Cool/Attractive characters that I think was money beyond well spent. I see me definitely watching this movie multiple times and add to my personal Robotech collection.

In my opinion?

9.5/10

Future Interviews: Star Trek-Arena

2011-05-15T16:59:00.000-07:00

Q: What is the premise of Star Trek: Arena?

A: The game pretty much tells the story of illegal live-or-die arena matches not known to organizations like the federation. The main story acts center around a starfleet squad that is captured and has to practically live through each match before they can escape or etc.

Q: How will combat be handled?

A: Besides the story arc there is challenges or "arcade" matches where if you were to play a klingon, you will use melee weapons such as bat'leths to take on the arcade matches in a similar style to that of Batman: Arkham Asylum. The story arc will handle like a third-person squad shooter where you'll have to use your brain and shooter skills to take down much larger groups and targets.

Q: How long is the game?

A: I would like the story arc to last at least 5 hours, pretty much the length of a long star trek movie.

Q: Is there co-op and/or multiplayer?

A: There is both. Co-op can be handled either by doing the story arc and/or the arcade challenges. The multiplayer includes both death match, team deathmatch(with numerous factions), Last Team Standing(with only a limited amount of respawns), and of course Capture The Flag with a Star Trek twist.

Q: What kind of weapons will be in the game?

A: Bat'leths, phasers, phaser rifles, anything you can think of that's pretty much canon like Elite Force, except third-person-ified.

Q: Anything you will like to tell the fans?

A: Keep an open-mind, the game is gonna rock!

Q: Thanks for your time

A. Thank you

Future Interviews: Star Trek-The Epic Ending

2011-05-14T14:11:00.000-07:00

Q: I take it that this is your first Star Trek production, but that you had the concept down for almost a decade now?

A: Yes, I have had the script done in my had for several years now, and I hope to use this movie to show the little Star Trek fan in myself.

Q: Your teaser site showcases no live action use, why is that?

A: Because the movie is all CGI, no live action actors. That and the CGI is modeled after Japanese anime, to give this Star Trek flick a new direction that is fresh and gives us new techniques that seem very refreshing.

Q: Anime?

A: I wanted to give the characters unique looks that can appeal to people like me, who have kind of disregarded Star Trek because the technology never changes in the productions, and quite frankly there are more freedoms of using CGI for stuff like Science Fiction.

Q. So what will be the main ship in this movie?

A: The U.S.S. Icarus, a Defiant-class ship that pretty much has to save the universe.

Q: What will be the main marketing line you will use to "sell" the movie.

A: To be honest, "The Federation has now faced its worst enemy, itself"

Q: Guessing this means there will be a civil war in the Federation?

A: That's for me to know and you to find out.

Q: How will you be handling the music and voice overs?

A: I will like to use the guys over at Soundelux, seeing their work with numerous games. Also it would be awesome to see what Jamie Christopherson can bring to Star Trek.

Q: I see, and how is the CGI being handled?

A: The guys who were behind parts of Appleseed, Resident Evil: Degeneration, and Tekken: Blood Vengeance.

Q: Not sure I am familiar with those franchises.

A: Because the studio is over in Japan.

Q:Anything else you wish to tell the fans?

A: Keep an open mind, this movie is gonna rock!

Q: Thanks for your time.

A: You're welcome.

The girl who was Samus(random MSN chat)

2011-05-10T20:47:00.000-07:00

THIS IS JUST A JOKE AND SHOULD NOT BE TAKING SERIOUSLY:

I DO wonder how much Nintendo paid that girl
"Do you want to be the main character of a video game? Here's 10 bucks now, I'll give you 10 bucks later"
Toki kun says
lol!!
Brian McCain says
"Thanks for your time"
This just in at IGN...KILLING SAMUS
The most horrid version of the most famous girl heroine ever made
her voice is horrible
Toki kun says
ha ha ha ha
Brian McCain says
Just because she looks like a robot, doesnt mean she has to SOUND like one

Girl : "Hey Nintendo, how well is the game doing, do the fans like my voice?"
Nintendo: "Um, yeah...people really...LOOOOVE your version of samus"..(cut off the line now!)..eeeeeeerp
Girl: Hello? Mr. Iwata?...Hello?
Toki kun says

Brian McCain says
Nintendo fan: Hey, isnt that the stupid girl who screwed up Samus!
(a big mob forms): Burn with the metroids, burn with the metroids, burn with the metroids!
Girl: O_o
Toki kun says
Oh dear....
Brian McCain says
Police: Sir, we got reports of an angry move of video game nerds rioting in the streets at the entrance of a girl's house
Weeeer...WEeeeer.WEEEEER
Police: This is the police, disperse now or we will use our tazers!
Angry Video Game Nerd: FOR THE GLORY OF SAMUS!
Toki kun says

Brian McCain says
(The kid runs into her house and the police chase him)
Police: Use the Tazers, use them on the little wretches
Ddddaaaaaaauuuuuhh!!
Angry Video Game Nerd: Take me Samus, I'm ready for the afterlife(faints)
Toki kun says
lol!!!!
Brian McCain says
Police: Pesky brats, I haven't seen anything like this since those druggees moved in
Police: Come along ma'am, you'll be safe at the chief's station.
Girl: That's nice of you, but can you also get someone to check my phone line? My last call got cut off for some reason
Police: Will do ma'am, Will do
The End....or is it?
DA DA DA DA.....The girl who was Samus...In theatres....Now!

Shooters and cliches: Battle: LA review

2011-05-10T18:48:00.000-07:00

So I bought this game for like 10 bucks called Battle: LA-the game. I know it was a movie game and all that, but the graphics were tempting and so I bought it a few months ago.

Let me tell you something....THE GAME IS A PIECE OF GARBAGE.

Seriously...

The game starts out with no real introduction, just that aliens have invaded earth. Your just a bunch of marines doing their duty, dishing out and cursing the aliens, and the game has no breaks since it takes your stats if you dont beat the game during the first playthrough.

The game practically forces you into an adrenaline rut, which is NOT fun while sitting down.

And you're going like..about an hour into it...the game ends...no ending...no cool cinematic..it just ends...

WHAT THE FREAKING HEAT WAS KONAMI THINKING???!!!!

Yeah, because I really want to see some dude standing at the end with the words "Thanks for playing!"

Yeah...uh huh.

Moving Onward:

This is just one of the latest and maybe WORST examples that people try to cash in on the shooter market because they want some of CoDs money, well...you failed Konami...you just need to stick to original stuff like MGS and LEAVE...and I mean LEAVE it at that.

For goodness sake people....

This is another reason and/or excuse people can use to say "Meh" to shooters, because everyone want some of the action...well...you failed...FAILED I tell ya. I ended up uninstalling the freaking game it was so bad. Yes...THAT BAD.

Go back into your hole Battle: LA stuff...you have desecrated my genre for the first and FINAL time.

Good Riddance.

Future Interviews: World War 3: Modern Conflict

2011-04-30T17:30:00.000-07:00

Question: So when did you originally get the idea for World War 3: Modern Conflict?

After owning Joint Operations for awhile and after seeing the announcement for Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. Basically at first the idea was a mixture of the two, but as a played games like Ace Combat it wasn't then til I was truely inspired to have the idea of a "one year war" where there are final missions at the end of each year, and the game "reboots" back to the original premise after that.

Question: How many weapons, vehicles, and other equipment will be used in-game?

Answer: Just like GRAW, anything that seems feasible for 2015, except more practical for more "all-out" purposes, that and I plan to have more indepth class system called "MOS" which is more reflective of real militaries.

Question: How will transportation work?

Answer: For smaller areas I plan to use just standard vehicles, for larger areas I plan to have airlifting vehicles that can transport you map to map, and then there is of course the "zoning" thing where you are in a big C-130 which is pretty much equivalent to the Galaxy in PlanetSide.

Question: Can you tell us how the war ends?

Answer: Would ruin the whole part of the war, no spoilers.

Question: You said you will be an important character in the game?

Answer: Yes, I will be playing as Brio Cyrain, the C&C of the UNAF.

Question: Anything you would like to tell us before we go?

Answer: That I think every shooter fan will have something like in WW3.

Question: Thanks for your time

Answer: No problem

Nagase: Suvival/Puzzle Game

2011-04-29T20:04:00.000-07:00

I decided to go on a twist with this one. My latest idea came to me while I was brain dead and the thought of a quirky dating game emerged. Of course I was just goofing around but some of the ideas still stuck with me. Keep it so you can still interact with an attractive japanese girl throughout the game.

The game starts off as you being an american man using the elevator to get to your next business meeting, which you JUST HAPPEN to be in the same elevator as an attractive japanese girl. A minor earthquake hits though and both of you are left traumatised and stuck in the burnout elevator, just thankful that the elevator didnt fall to its depths and killing you both. The gameplay begins and as such the game progress as a Survival/Puzzle game where of course your first objective is to figure out how to get off the elevator and into the nearest room. The puzzles and interactions can be compared to Heavy Rain or the Telltale games where you have to do certain button commands to get to the next scene. The game is always real-time rendered with everything pretty detailed.

The difficulty in this game comes from goof ups when you and the japanese girl, who tells you her name "Nagase" when you're first trap, cause the elevator to plummet or other consequences that can be lethal to you, her, or both causing a game over screen with retry options. Going forward you will be able to make interactions with Nagase (nothing Adult or Mature though) which can either make her more or less trusting of you. These scenes can be hard to predict as both of your characters have become desperate, but it would be in your best interest to find the "positive actions" that get her to like you as the game progresses. The puzzles can range from escaping rooms to finding supplies, searching and figuring out how to open, find, and solve puzzles while surviving the elements of the building.

The end-game is obtained when the both of you have reached the roof and both of you are rescued, but there is also the factor of her needing to like you by that time to really "win" the game.

Future Interviews: If I was producer of a Robotech game.

2011-04-24T16:55:00.000-07:00

Question: So what is basically the premise of your new Robotech game?

Answer: The game is set in all three generations of the Robotech Saga, since that what many of the true Robotech fans demanded. With all three generations we can implement different genres of gaming to suit each era. Think of it as Spore meets Sci-fi Anime.

Question: What kind of engine will you guys be using?

Answer: Given the nature of the Id Tech franchise, they have some good graphics tech suitable for sci-fi settings. I think that would be the best option.

Question: Will you guys be using cel-shading since that's what fans want?

Answer: No, and that's because Robotech came at a time before anime was styled in a way where cel-shading fits the characters. Cel-shading is simple and many of the new characters only have a few shades of coloring nowadays, but Robotech was from a time where the depth of the color was more dominant so cel-shading would negate that older style of having more color detail and realistic shading. If we want the game to really look like Robotech, some other technique will be more beneficial than at least standard cel-shading scene in games like Tales series.

Battlecry had this issue of making the models like newer, in the sense that alot of the original style was lost or negated. Robotech Invasion kind of overstepped this though and made the characters look too realistic for what you could get out of PS2. The invid and characters looked pretty good but then you met with a mad scientist who freaking looked like the main character of Half Life 2. So a happen medium would be nice.

Question: Which system will you be using?

Answer: PC/PS3/360 since we dont want to deprive any Robotech fans of being able to play the game. Like Invasion there will be online and LAN multiplayer, and this time around have co-op since in all the eras you have a group of good guys going at it.

Question: How about the cast for the game?

Answer: We will be using mostly our own characters unless Harmony Gold themselves provide for THE original voice talent behind the original animation products.

Thank you for your time

It's a pleasure.

Gaming crushes and say what?

2011-04-23T20:42:00.000-07:00

So yeah, I'm guilty of having crushes on Gaming girls, so what? I bet every gamer whose played a game with a girl has had a similar experience at some point. I guess it's time to get my hands dirty and tell you the gaming girls I find attractive.

Kei Nagase(Ace Combat 5): Smoking!

Tifa Lockhart(Final Fantasy VIII): Cute and Sweet

Yuna(Final Fantasy X): Got the looks!

Chun-Li(Street Fighter): Yeah I know

Kairi(Kingdom Hearts): Kind of cute

Aya Brea(The Third Birthday): Has some charm

Lightning(Final Fantasy XIII): Hot..and legs!

Okay that's my list for now.

Shooters and cliches: What is exactly plagueing FPSes and why people say "meh".

2011-04-23T16:54:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows that shooters are my favorite gaming genre, and that I can dish out some real pain on them. That said I can also understand why some of my friends call them "yawn", "boring", or downright "trash". It's true in some ways, if not in most ways. Shooters is probably in the the top 2 league of having the most repetive, generic, and downright cheesey titles and utter shovelware. Whether it be PS3, 360, Wii, past consoles ,and especially PC, not only does shovelware come to mind but in the most crude sense of term, there is "cloneware" and "crossoverware" to be had.

Call of Duty has been the same game for many generations, to the point of creating an almost endless divide between it's base. There are people who are willing to buy any version possible even though they get pwned at it, and the people who scorn, hate, and downright say "Add vehicles already!".

Battlefield being my former favorite series, has plagued itself with bad PR, interesting but gimmicky physics, non-consistent gameplay, and a fanbase growing slowly but surely tired of its development tactics. That and the utter and almost yawning motivation to dethrone COD.

Fallout is mostly the bane of my existence, even more than COD. Bethesda has practically turned my favorite genre into a genre filled with casual noobs who need some "training wheels" just to get a few missions done. Not only that but it has ran the post-apocalytpic setting into the ground thanks to its nuclear fallout settings, you can't really get more redundant than Fallout, unless you REALLY tried.

Quake/Doom/RAGE: Id Software is known as the creator and/or pioneer of FPSing, and with that said they have a timid but massive following, that like COD, most of their fanbase are willing to buy any or all their products. Quake 3's engine is also known for being the standard coding for many shooters outside of Id Software, and to this day supposedly some of that engine's coding holds to newer titles such as COD. Doom is nothing but Quake in semi-horror form, but besides that I don't see any other appeal. RAGE is pretty much Id's Quake version of Fallout, but without the wheels and all hardcore. That said if Id is going cliche, does this mean the end of the FPS genre as we know it?

Star Trek/Wars: These two licenses have had their fair share of hit and misses in the shooting genre. While Elite Force proved be a good contender(supposedly running on Quake 3 code), I think LucasArts did pretty well with the Republic Commando and Battlefront franchise. The only thing urking me is they have not had the brains to make RC2 or BF3...and I hope to say "yet".

Warhammer: Another bane of my existence, inbetween Fallout and COD, is Warhammer 40k. The developers have taken a run-of-the-mill RTS series and slapped on an FPS camera and gun....desecration to the genre with no mercy. It's tasteless sub-fantasy and semi-Sci-fi appeal has garnered many praises, but it looks like nothing more than WoW on steroids with FPS controlling. Get out Warhammer...now!

Resident Evil: While this is a quite respected series, it is another crossoverware that many shooter fans find downright corny. While the originals were known to be totally appealing to the suvival/horror genre. The series has turned into "Horror for shooter fans", and with that Horror on training wheels, a similar demeanor like Fallout. That said it comes no where to as bad as fallout, but does get a bit cheesey.

Halo: goodness do I hate this series, it has committed so many shooter sins that I have lost count. This series has caused more noobs to enter the shooter genre while it's sleeping than COD can do when it's awake. Most non-shooter fans claim this series as the main reason why they dont play or buy shooters, its cheesey story and dialogue, ultimately-casual and repetitive gameplay, and it's foul-mouthed underagelings can be more annoying than Fallout itself. Die Halo...die.

Well that pretty much wraps it up for me...if you have more additions to this list..do tell.

My views on Game engines and their strengths, weaknesses, and utter failings.

2011-04-20T20:52:00.000-07:00

Now people might think me as an avid gamer on the outside, but only a few would suspect that ever since E3 2005, that have trained myself as a Game Engine Buff as well. Delving into the technical side such as graphics, gameplay, and other nerdy things.

This blog is my views and/or opinions on the plethora of game engines that have graced(or plagued) the gaming market, especially for shooters.

UDK/UE3: While this engine made some huge promises during E3 2005, and the initial showed promise for the engine....that promise slowly but surely died around the year 2010. Tim Sweeney is a great speaker and CEO, but the rest of his company slows his massive campaigns down as most of Epic Games own software is either controlled be EA or Microsoft, leading to biased publishing when it comes to platforms. That and while the engine bestows a good "graphics vs launch" approach, you can never shake the fact that all UE3/UDK games look the same, no matter what product.

This is further wound salting when while the engine is advertised to be multi-genre, the process is painstaking and to which even RPGs fall short of looking unique after massive and heartbreaking reverse-engineering. Key examples would be Too Human, Star Ocean 4, and Lost Odyssey. That said while 6 years behind the grill, Epic Games has finally taken the iniative to massively upgrade their bubonic workings to DX11 with version 3.971, goodness only knows if it will be another curse or the redeeming of the gaming market.

Id Tech(3+): While this engine has been around for years with the behemoth-of-a-programmer John Carmack, he does built them to last for generations. Even now it is said that franchises like COD(bleh) are still using libraries or source code from the Quake/Id Tech 3 engine. That and Id Tech 4 has survived two gens with Doom 3 back in the early 2000s up to Brink that comes out next month. Also while this is all going on, the graphical god-like nature of Id Tech 5 bestowed upon RAGE and Prey 2, you can probably name at least 10 other shooter or action games that can significantly benefit from such an open-like FPS engine. That and with RAGE, you can Preeetty much say that Id Tech 5 is the "CryEngine 3 of non-realism FPSing"

I wouldn't mind winding up at Id Software for my pending gaming career. That and John Carmack is planning on releasing Id Tech 4 open-source when RAGE hits(for those who dont know what open-source is, that's when you get the engine completely free and any respectful programmer can recode and make the engine their own)

CE2/CE3: One of the most realistic graphical benchmarks(engines) around, and a early-partron of the amazing power of DX10, this engine duo still impresses me with it's detail-splattering appearal and now newly-obtained cross-platform ability, that and the announced companionship of a "UDK-like" alternative, who couldn't be more happier?(Besides UDK/UE3 licensees?)

MT Framework: Capcom's proprietory(in other words in-house only) engine has served as a benchmark, not really for graphics but how streamlined and cross-platform-crazy the engine is. While the engine shines it's best on PC(with fabulous DX10 and DX11 support, I mean you RE5 and LP2), the engine is so versatile that Capcom was able to get the engine up and running on the 3DS and NGP in a matter of weeks, and the graphics are practically identical save for textures.

Not only that but it's in my opinion the ONLY TRUE Multi-genre engine with Shooters like RE/LP, Fighters like MVSC, and Action/RPGs like Monster Hunter. If Capcom allowed licensing of MT Framework they would probably have at least third the licensee market sitting on their door in about 5 minutes.

Frosbite(1+) This engine is one of my favorites since it was born and breed in my favorite shooter franchise, Battlefield. As such it's an FPS-only and non-licensable engine, but it's graphics-flexing and gameplay-benching techniques practically make the key-essential Military combat-shooter software on the market. The graphics, physics, and gameplay is nothing short of fluid, with it's only plague being networking with low pings and sometimes eye-tearing lag.

That said Battlefield 1943 many people believe(and I think so too) is my most played PS3 game. That and with the new graphical king BF3 on the horizon, nothing short of awesomeness comes from the new-born Frostbite 2.

Crystal Tools: I have a love/hate relationship with this engine as it is the engine used for Squenix's RPGs. The engine first announced with the jaw-dropping, 1080p-blessing Final Fantasy XIII, and even more daunting with Versus XIII, has definitely shown is expansive-less flaws with Final Fantasy XIV. An engine made to do RPGs and MMOs, it just goes to show when a gaming company can be WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too ambitious. Final Fantasy XIVs buggy, laggy, broken-yet beautiful graphics and gameplay has plagued and belittled those fans of FF11, who were either expecting more optimization, or failed to comprehend the necessisity of being "a new rig".

That said with my disappointments with XIII gameplay and XIV, I still look to give XIII-2 and Versus XIII a first(for me second) chance. That and hearing they're working on Crystal Tools 2.0(or whatever) just shows how some engineers at Squenix are doubtful of even their own created frankenstein.

Source engine: This engine is a given, you can pretty much say this engine is somewhat a crossover of how MT Framework and Id Tech 3+ functions. While having somewhat more genre-versatility than UE3/UDK, and the generation-proof acknowledgement of Id Tech 3+, this engine's graphics capability have given gamers good graphics on underpowered hardware unlike other engines(CryEngine 3 cough). That and this is due to Valve's explicit knowledge of upgrading the graphics were it counts, little knooks and crannies here and there. If you know my friends we have practically dubbed the Source engine the "Cheat-code" engine due to how multi-rig friendly the engine is. And that's saying alot.

That pretty much wraps it up for me. If you have any opinions or missed "facts" on this subject, do tell.

Battlefield 194Wii: How a Wii version of BF 1943 would work

2011-04-13T14:35:00.000-07:00

Seeing how the Battlefield franchise hasn't (and probably will never) grace itself a version on the Wii, I decided to take my spare time to "design" how a version of the 1943 spin-off would play on the wii. Since there aren't many vehicle-based shooters on the wii this may be troublesome to some developers or designers, but I think I got (the basics at least) figured out.

Infantry:

Like other shooters the wiimote would be to "move" the gun around, the Z button to "aim", the analog stick to "move" the character, and B to shoot. The left and right d-buttons would cycle weapons, grenades would be thrown with B, and "charges" would be planted using Z and "set off" using B. Reload option would be A.

Ground Vehicles:

With normal vehicles the Analog would be used for movement with the Z button used for reverse and the C button used for acceleration. With the tank it would be the same except for the wiimote would be used to "aim" the tank barrel and same for the "gunner" but without any driving options. The left and right control your "seat" in the vehicle, while the up and down d pad control camera angle

PLANES:

Planes will be tricky, but it's not too difficult to map the controls. The Wiimote can be used for steering the plane(pulling back a little will make the plane turn, etc), and the Analog stick can be used to make more extensive moves(barrel rolls, etc). B would be firing and Z would be bombing. Same with the air strike bombers but you would use the d buttons to switch camera angle.

That's pretty much all there is to it.

BLOOD STONE 007 REVIEW

2011-04-05T15:45:00.000-07:00

After just finishing the game I decided to write this review with the game still fresh in my mind. I decided to buy this game after constant temptings that came from the utter confusion of IGN's and other reviews that didn't seem to add up, which I will comment on later in the review.

First off, like many people said on Amazon...If you a 007 fan you'll love this game more than others, and Daniel Craig's presentation through the game will please fans of both the newer takes as well as those who were fond of Brosnan. There is no doubt about it that the game retains a more "classy" feel than maybe what you remember in some of the post-1990 movies, and this holds true since the game uses several rendering effects that bare tribute to the "film-quality" of pre-1990 takes.

Second, the game is almost perfectly fluid with the new CQC, vaulting(also featured in the new Goldeneye), and the Focus Aims that are practically "one-hit-kills" you earn from CQC takedowns. The game emphasizes stealth but not requires it unlike games like MGS where being spotted is almost insta-death. There is also a variety of weapons that range from silenced pistols to boom-bang grenade launchers, with the only frustration being the not-so-obvious-and-tedious "boss battles". That and you'll need a good gaming rig if you are aiming for the PC version(lag is scarce but its definitely there).

Third: The graphics are AMAZING, the art team did well in what seems to be "Mo-scanned" versions of the likes of Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, and others that the game has a very movie-like feel to it even in-game. I think it's a great competitor to the likes of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, FFXIII, and Soul Caliber IV in terms of how much detail is being produced. As theatre buffs would call it, as long as you're not "doing bad" the game does seem(at least to me) to produce a "Suspension of Disbelief" at times and you just think it's your typical James Bond flick, but in video game form.

Fourth: While the game does end in a cliffhanger and the MP is not as "powerful" as Goldeneye...I'd say it's better if not as good when it comes to this due to it's amazing Single Player that Goldeneye seemed to lack at times.

In My Opinion?

9.0 out of 10

Blood Stone 007 and what it means for gaming.

2011-04-03T22:09:00.000-07:00

Having played almost hours of this game, it sickens me how low the reviews for this game are. Blood Stone 007 is not a 5.0 game, it's not even your typical game, and in some ways I think Blood Stone is an unique pinnacle when it comes to "game storytelling".

Though I have not finished the game, this game sets some bars for several movie-games. That said the game isnt based on the movie, but the cast, directors, and writers were all pull from the 007 movie legacy of such hits as Goldeneye. This game is the key-essential bridged-divide from what seperates games from movies. Many games suffer from non-movie approaches to storytelling even though some of their brands could benefit from such approaches. Also what some people think is a good movie idea could do well in an action-game environment, and this is why I think Blood Stone was born...A bonding of both movie and gaming monikers mixed into a nice offspring known as Blood Stone.

Simply imagining what a Star Trek, Star Wars, or other movie brand could do if it had a game with the same hybriding as Blood Stone, say being able to in the shoes on Captain Kirk or Picard in an Action packed game that's movie-like in presentation and storytelling but like Blood Stone is not restricted to a "movie length" production which the cast and "crew" of this "movie-game" can make another key-essential hybrid of what could be the most successful of capturing the movie elements and still making the game a massive enjoyment to fans.

Just switch the action scenes of Bond to the intellectual scenes of Picard, and repeat with the driving scenes of Bond and the Ship-to-ship combat of Picard with the same style of "inter-storytelling" of Blood Stone and the potentials are almost endless.

Well that's about it for me, stay tuned for more articles.

BrioCyrain

BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM REVIEW

2011-03-23T14:40:00.000-07:00

I bought this game on a moment's notice due to becoming excited for it's sequel, Arkham City. Like IGN said if you're a fan of Batman and have been disappointed in the past, don't look further than Arkham Asylum. A true-to-life video game adaption to (one of) the best superheroes around.

First off just like Transformers: War for Cybertron, the method to making this a true video game adaption was of course building the story around the gameplay and not vise versa, Arkham is not based on the movies, cartoons, or comics but implements it's own premise to give gamers a more compelling sense of gameplay. Now to the basics.

The voice acting is top-notch with the help of the cast of The Animated Series, which I found quite good since people like me agree that Joker isn't really joker without Mark Hamill.

The graphics are pretty good for being an older game and using UE3, but it seems Eidos and pals found a way to give the game the facelifting it needed, and unlike Squenix found better ways around the "FPS" pre-programming that has plagued UE3 games.

Combat is smooth, and there are plenty of "fun toys" to take out goons and bosses, but it does get frustrating at times. That said the game is still pretty fun if you have your brains about ya.

The game emphasizes stealth with you using silent takedowns, explosives where enemies might not see, grappling to higher ground so the enemies are left confused, and you have to be quick in areas where the enemies are armed with guns(since guns are pretty much insta-death if you don't get out the situation soon).

A few iconic villians make their way into the game, and it seems the sequel will feature even more of them. Though Joker is the main villian you might be surprised who you will find in the midst of Akham(though I won't tell because it might spoiler all the fun to you).

All in all Batman: Akham is good fun and you have a knack for stealth games with a bit of Batman-flavored action I do suggest this game for those who don't have issues with frustrating boss battles.

In My Opinion?

9 out of 10

Hey You Down There: Auteurs

2011-03-21T19:39:00.000-07:00

So basically since the beginning of my aspiring video game career I have always wanted to be the "producer/director/writer" that would be in charge of the designing of my game ideas turned into real games. I just learn there is a "somewhat" official term for the combination of these three designations..."Auteur".

I wouldn't have known this until a company who has a designer who has the same multi-designation who respects people who want to be in my kind of position.

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/115/1156413p1.html

When prodded about the growing size of development teams, Cage seemed to stress focus and maturity of the product delivered over the ever-growing size of studios. "If this industry wants to mature and evolve then we need to talk about emotions and work on stories that appeal to all people, not just hardcore gamers between the ages of 15 and 17." He went on to discuss that auteurs are what's needed most in the industry. "We need auteurs, and the biggest problem in this industry is that we don't trust them -- we trust programmers instead."

Thank you mister!

Final Fantasy XIII and beyond; the halt of a series.

2011-03-21T19:13:00.000-07:00

Now some people may think of me as a bit harsh about FFXIII(which I have still yet to complete, bleh), but given the bigger picture I am about to say my opinion on I hope you guys will at least agree of some of my topic's aspects.

First, the love-hate of Final Fantasy XIII.

I remember watching the original trailer of FFXIII was quite thrilled by the graphics and potential gameplay, but that original trailer seemed eons before the game finall released which killed alot of the hype behind it for me and practically thousands of people. FFXIII looks amazing graphics wise still, but the only thing I found degrading is while they were adding the final make-up to the graphics, the story seemed more of an afterthought in the process. The gameplay at times is pretty solid I have to admit, with a unique real-time-esque system that's quite enjoyable...for the first several hours...but that's the thing...the game's linearity just seems to cripple the potential of this game, and the massive unoriginallity of the story.

Some people my scorn me for this, but whoever was in charge of the XIII project seemed to have the impression by the major "sellout" of the original trailer's fantastic graphical presentation that the story shouldn't have been first priority, a loophole that seemed also evident in FFXII which looked solid on PS2, but the story just kind of....died. It just kind of horrific that FFXIII took too many years too long for what the story presented, as if those 5 years were more spent on graphics buffing than story phases that ended up in the plot's sometimes inconsitent taglines which ended up in a horrifyingly linear game. Grinding has always been about of RPGs, but the shear scale of FFXIII linearity and difficulty just made it seemed like "if you fight 100 baddies and level up enough...here's another snippet of the plot".

Second, Versus XII and XIV

Though FFXIII is over and done with(though there are plans for a sequel, somewhat surprisingly), the same engine and story neglect also has affected it's sister products, Versus XIII and XIV. Versus XIII is still in design phase with Nomura just making little touches to the graphics(can you believe one of his blog posts was just about admiring the cloud physics simulation in the game?!) and the story progress while ramping up has been slow as well, with most of the trailers practically mirroring each other in content. It just seems that due to Versus XIII using the same engine tech that of course it is experiencing the same design and management flaws. Of course none of them are as bad as FFXIV, an atrocity to the sake RPGs and MMORPGs alike.

XIV uses the FF (VS) XIII engine but in MMO form, leaving many of it's players to horrendous high specs and crippling bugs not suited for any kind of launch...with the backlash of one of their investors going on a stock-selling spree and having to refund players for several months. That and it seems that's only the tip of the iceberg.

It was about last year that Squenix announced their next-gen engine(for PS4 and Xbox 720) and are hiring "pro engineers" for it's making. This news is nothing less of a facepalm seeing how Square-Enix's CURRENT engine is still with design flaws and in major need of debugging(cough XIV cough).

At this point Square-Enix has nothing but bring their biggest-selling franchise to a stammering halt in efficiency, and they need to fix their problems soon.

THE LAST STORY FULL OST REVIEW

2011-03-19T14:15:00.001-07:00

Okay since there are so many songs on the full OST, here's my opinions on it.

Awesome music, Great variety, and like I said last time...Welcome back Uematsu.

In my opinion?

10 out of 10

BrioCyrain's Top 10 Songs of War

2011-03-09T18:33:00.000-08:00

A while ago I decided to compile on youtube a list of war-game tracks that I thought in my opinion the best in the war-game industry. I have finally decided to review each song and tell you why I think are the top 10 and why they are ranked accordingly.

#10 GRAW 2 Theme:

Immediately at the beginning you can feel the tension build and a sense of desperation as you can picture the dire scenes of war in the game. The game slowly builds to more epic proportions though keeps a steady pace throughout, you know that something big is going down through the remainder of the song. At the end also the song just "explodes" causing an epic finish to help suck you into the action.

#9 MGS 2 Theme:

This song starts off with a techno-esque feeling as it picks up to the famed beat and theme. The theme although simplistic gives you a detailed image of just how "dark" the theme of the game is, the deceitfully pleasant tune then darkens just to pick up even more. The "calm" middle is also quite good, as it then explodes back into action where you can picture Raiden and Snake going through an action-packed scene. Of course at the end is the famous epic ending known to make gamers have the urge to "salute" which it's been said that is what Snake does in one of the games.

#8 GR2 Theme:

This song is nothing but an epic assortment of orchestra and rock-techno beats, pretty much the embodiment of the original concept of Ghost Recon, military bad-butt dudes with tech to take out a whole country by themselves. Also the asian bits to help indicate that the game takes place in Asia(to be exact North Korea). Sometimes I would boot my copy just to listen to this song, it's good stuff.

#7 Rising Eagles (HAWX 2):

An epic build up that instantly let's you picture yourself within your jet and squadron through massive environments ready to dish out some major jet-fighter hurt. The beat is perfect as well as a great mix of orchestrated pieces.

#6 Turn and Burn(HAWX 2):

Though Turn and Burn shares the same melody it is quite a step up with it's awesome beat and use of electro-rock pieces and an even more epic orchestra bit. A perfect track for a Jet-fighter game with more oomph.

#5 MGS 3 Theme:

The desperate beginning is a great catch as you think something has gone totally wrong at the start of the song. Soon after though the song kicks into a rock-orchestra tune as an epic piece gives you a still picture of the even darker theme of MGS3. The song only gets better as it seems to get more desperate feelings throughout. As accustomed to MGS is the somewhat "deceitfully" darkly-pleasant techno middle-piece. The song then goes to back to a "very bad feeling" piece of desperation. The song then kicks into a very up-beat drum session, to be followed into a crazed techno-babble piece, and thus the theme returns back in an epicly-paced motion. The song practically "halts" in an attempt to stop the utter madness that happened immediately before, with a very calm techno-piano-esque piece. Thus the famous guitar rearrangement from the original, with a dire sense of anguish. The song then kicks back into the epic ending as if "Everything is alright with the famous Snake around, who has saved the world numerous times". (Salutes).

#4 MGS: Peace Walker Theme:

The beginning is pretty typical with it's "anguish-and-desperate" feeling of the what seems that everything in the world has gone wrong. Techno returns to followed by a chaotic piece emphasizing the desperate situation the game retains, with war and malice about the world. The song then picks up...ALOT to the point of just bursting into epic tune in a heroic sense of having to save the world at the end. Just...epic, and nothing else.

#3 The Last Stand (HAWX 2)

A symphony of light through strings carries us to an epic violin piece that showcases anguish and desperation...The Last Stand, not only for the people of it's war, but for the whole world to mourn of it. A violin to pluck at your heart as the song prepares everyone for The Last Stand...nothing short of emotional vibes to suck a player of any genre into the utter final collapse that the game will engulf them in. The cry of the choir and following orchestra...A final battle to end all final battles can be heard in this tune to become...The Last Stand. Onward soldiers...ONWARD GAMERS! THE TIME HAS COME..THE LAST STAND IS UPON US!

#2 The Unsung War (Ace Combat 5)

Wars that are Unsung, Wars that are caused by the evil hearts of warmongers. A tale of heroism and courage that even with a single air squadron the world was saved even from the devastation of a falling satelite, nothing is impossible with the right music...The right music for an Unsung War. This song is nothing short of orchestral perfection, for a song that can motivate even the slightest non-flight-sim gamer into the clutches of a final battle for what seems to be the final battle for a great nation attacked by the evil hearts of warmongers.

#1 Rex Tremendae/Agnus Dei (Ace Combat 4)

The most epic assortment of war music ever bestowed upon man, as the music suggests the final crusade and war at Armegaddon, for thus the title itself means "Lamb of God". The player is amazingly lucky to surge at the final menace which is Megalith, an evil-embodiment of all destruction caused by those who wish it on the world. Greed, power, and everything is focused on as the player becomes the savior of the world, and with such lyrics must bring back peace to the living and rest to the fallen. A salute you Keiki Kobayashi.

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter: REVIEW

2011-03-04T18:34:00.000-08:00

Now I knew this game way back when it launched in 2006, remembered how amazing the graphics looked, the awesome music, but the only thing that really held me back was the IGN review of "Dieing Alot" and that I didn't have an Xbox 360.

Just last year though I got the game for dirt cheap with the hopes of if IGN's review still stood, and it pretty much did.

The game is still in my opinion a graphical masterpiece, and the music is still awesome...BUT to the point of the biggest issue that kept me from the last time...DIEING ALOT. The game's realistic nature of a few hits and the enemy is dead...You're just in the same death field as them buddy. As advertised, tactics is everything...one bad move and you're whole squad is pretty much dead, leaving you with sometimes the agony of several retries before figuring out the right(and sometimes quirky) tactic or staying alive from "Dumb AI Luck" where you're AI actually pull off something fancy. The game is not without it's blood-pumping "chaotic" moments where your in a chopper just mowing down the enemy from below...sort of "Fly-and-gun" moments.

You'll also come across areas with heavily-Nightvision-demanding sections...and you might be forced to use Nightvision even in the daytime if your stuck at sunset or daybreak with still no real sun.

Going on to the fun parts, well...Any funfactor in this game is bittersweet due to the fact of either you winning because of figuring out the enemy positions after dieing 20 times, or you're actually on a really good roll of pwning the opposition. That and the few and far between section of being able to command a Tank, Bradly, or Apache when the game finally notices you're in a pickle.

All in all the game is fun is short...very short spirts as trying to play too many missions at a time can result in humiliation and insulting your AI squad.

What do I think?

8.0

Space Battles: Sci-fi Action Defined

2011-02-13T20:41:00.000-08:00

Now I'm not gonna rant on to ya about how this post's title came to be but given the silly nature of the name, is the brand hit "Star Wars" much different? Given the nature how "Mass Effect" is pretty much the "embodiment" of all Sci-fi movie and video game material in an RPG form, Space Battles is pretty much that same embodiment but in an "Action/Adventure" form. Space Battles is pretty much a call for a cinematically-presented game in the spirit of such titles as Lost Planet, but the story "salutes" the original concepts of brand hits like Star Wars, Star Trek, and the like. Gameplay would a mix and mash of Lost Planet, Battlefront 2, and Metal Gear Solid, with a soundtrack prizing of techno-orchestrated pieces ala Lost Planet and MGS.

Now of course given the broad source of given inspiration of course it might boil down to a simple plot of "good guys vs bad guys", but we all know the source material and the game itself have and will push the boundaries of the "gray areas" of both moral and mindful connections. Also the game due to the source material would present a "unified" branch of different Action/Adventure styles of gameplay as the character's skills and settings will be varied or "mixed" play styles.

With such presentation standards the graphics will have to be top-notch, but given the technology breakthroughs of recent months the game could be a graphics-fest of both cinematic and gameplay proportions. Nothing short of a "movie-game" can be done to make this game a great sci-fi brand hit even with a very generic name.

That's pretty much it for now, see you guys soon.

The Last Story: The Premium Soundtrack REVIEW

2011-02-10T19:21:00.000-08:00

This is my first music review so bare with me if my emphasis on the tracks sound strange. Also my first music review might be one of courage and controversy as this soundtrack is pretty much Uematsu-san's latest attempted return to RPG mastery, but did he succeed? Everyone knows of his famous and infamous wonder of the song world "One Winged Angel", but does The Last Story's music re-thrones him as king or should this be Uematsu's "The Last Soundtrack" made by him? On to the tracks I say!

TRACK ONE: Theme of THE LAST STORY

The song starts off like a movie-opening sequence to draw you in slowly, and to a great yet stricken effect due to the midi-esque nature. Not only does this "start" sequence only moderately does it job, but the start lasts about 90 seconds...about 30 seconds too long in my opinion. The following sequence though picks up the pace in a RPG-battle like way and at this point the MIDI-esque nature is somewhat lifted in the pure action-like nature of the current tune. At this point you can somewhat visualize through the music the overall nature of the game...a dark action-rpg with plenty of action. The sequence then goes into an even darker tone with eletronic beats to help the listener visualize even further an even darker scenario. Soon the switch to the next sequence is short but graceful as the tune turns into pure epic rpg themes practically sealing the vizualization of how much scope this dark action-rpg has. Followed by the "epic-scope" tone though the song takes a dip from epic to a very simple dark turn and then quickly to more epic themes as if a means to change up the pace to keep people "guessing", though this epic theme ride sounds much lighter than all the previous sequences. The epic sequence then slows down considerably to re-enter the darker tones in a slow-paced version of the previous epic theme sequence tuned down. What I find absolutely strange that the next sequence seems to be something pulled from MGS as it's ambient and "war-like" nature, though not a bad influence to choose from, it seems out of place at the end given the RPG nature of the song. Thus afterwards the "epic themes" return in an "MGS theme ending" like way as to have you picture the characters saluted a graveyard similar to Snake, and the ending is pretty much a stab at "finale" bits from something like John William's famous pieces.

SCORE: Pretty Nice

TRACK TWO: Order and Chaos

The song obviously starts off with a pretty groovy techno piece and the following strings help solidiy the epic-ness tune. The melody of this first sequence has epic yet curious nature as to pull at your musical organs as something not really describable in spoken language, it's just epic. Though I do like the phenominal integration of both "natural" and "articifial" pieces that make this song if nothing but unique. Though halfway through the song you can definitely hear "Chaos" as the song becomes nothing but confusing and somewhat irritating, and somewhat after returning to a more enjoyable matter. The more enjoyable tone then switches to an almost FFXII like nature with nothing but natural elements that feels quite nice to the ears. Following this bit is a somewhat strange "vocal-like" bit followed by the "return to techno".

Score: Great where it's good

TRACK THREE: Joyful voices can be heard

Now at first I was NOT expecting a marching band like tune at the beginning of this due to the title of the song. The orchestral part following it seems something ripped straight from RPG Maker, and it's simplistic nature. The happy tune doesn't really tell much but as to guess it's either a "town celebration" or a quirky stab at the "battle victory", which isn't likely due to it's long nature. The song then switches to a calmer mood as to which signify the "ending of the action bit", and to which it returns to a "medium-pace" to finish off the "Happy Day!" occurence which is most likely a cutscene at this point.

Score: SOkay

TRACK FOUR: Timbre of the City

The beginning theme conducts itself as a "Menu song" as it's slow and yet non-emotional nature as to keep the player calm before enganging in the main gameplay. The feel of the bit is quite smoothing and relaxing as in my vizualization of keeping up with it's given job. Though the slow entrance of strings seem to pull at your musical organs as to say "Hurry up already and kill some mobs!" in an almost "slow yet urgent" matter. Of course following the "pull of the string" bit is another relaxing piece with a calm-like flute. Eventually this calm-flute starts screeching at ya with long passes in the melody going back to "Hurry it up already". Also what's this?....Nice beat with the epic theme of Track one...nice. Not too far behind this is another return to calm-ness as to which the game practically has figured out you WANT to be in the main menu. Thus ending in a nice bit at the end.

Score: Makes you nice and sleepy

TRACK FIVE: Bonds

Okay, the use of instruments are SO reminiscent of Ocarina of Time, but the Violin's piece is very smooth and nice. Also love the guitar...this is what I call "calm epic" at this part. At this point the song is playing "tug o war" with your musical organs as there is no real human spoking language to really describe this "epic violin". Also makes you kind of sleepy as well...as to which it mostly repeats itself throughout the track. Almost makes you want to drink some Hot Chocolate or something Reeaalll cozy and a great guitar ending.

Score: I could use some hot chocolate right now...and a cottage...and a nice big dog...Nice song!

TRACK SIX: Evil Beasts

Typical Uematsu Boss Theme methinks? Nope, it's got a RADICAL beat, yo! Groove it on down Uematsu! Love the fusion of both natural and artifical elements, definitely tells you that the player is fighting SOMETHING boss-like, and to which some of the melody pieces share pieces of that of previous Final Fantasy games?...Interesting. Also...some 007 in there?...You got at confusing people Uematsu. Also the main theme has made it's way into this song...NICE!.

Score: BURN BOSSES...BURN!(Epic btw)

TRACK SEVEN: The Flying One

A masterpiece of a beginning, and to which in my opinion the "true main theme" follows that has been on The Last Story's site for so long. I remember when Sakaguchi compared the original concept to this game as his "game daughter"....and this song perfectly reflects a "game child" Sakaguchi would spawn. It makes me want to meet Sakaguchi's "game daughter" due to the massive emotional pieces this song has...purely a beautiful piece, as should Sakaguchi's "game child" should be like. I could listen to this song for ages, and to which technically I believe this song to be the "ending credits"...which would be great if that's the occassion for the song. Almost wants me to picture Sakaguchi's "game developed daughter" in the background the of the credits :).

Score: I WANT TO SEE YOUR GAME DAUGHTER SAKAGUCHI!

Now...Getting back to if Uematsu's back to being king....I think he's made a welcome return to the "the kings" at least...glad to have you back Uematsu!

OVERALL SCORE: WELCOME BACK UEMATSU-SAN

YOU ARE THE HUNTER, YOU ARE THE KING: THE ART OF THE SHOOTER

2011-02-09T17:57:00.000-08:00

"Give me Victory, or give me death" pretty much sums up the goal of any shooter...ANY shooter. Whether it goes from sniping heads from miles away or stabbing that punk-y lizard foe in the face....Victory is your goal, and Death is either right behind or right in front.

People call shooters senseless violence that trigger MOST of the teenage/college shootings because they think just because the dude has a copy of Halo or something...they just blame the freakin game...well for one thing...Shooters are not senseless...but SENSEFUL. Sure shooters take brains and a keen mind to flourish at...but your best friends are your eyes, ears, and by goodness your quick-reflex hands. You'd be amazed how many times I won a "one-on-one" because I knew the exact moment that I needed to slice that "dude". Given also the immense self-ego-boosting nature after you gotten your hefty killstreaks or your foe is scripted to run away due to his squad is totally slaughtered by your l337 sk3llz.

Not to say these games aren't better with tactics...having friends and "clannies" to play with makes the game quite fun, if not a "pwn-fest". That said many people (cough like my bro cough) see clan groups as nothing but cheap groups of people whose only motive is to have everyone rage quit...to be honest though...they are quite correct. As the "thing person" in Republic Commando would say it "We hunt in pods to take down much larger prey"...Darn right sista! Pwnage in groups is well...PWNAGE 2 TEH MAXX!

Now getting back to our skill assessment, if you don't got brains or a quick knee-jerk reflex that triggers in your brain to get that "I Killedz him?" one-on-one kill....know your weapons...YOUR WEAPONS DARN IT! Everyone who has played shooters even occasionily should know the rock-paper-shooters of their arsenal...Snipers can kill from far away...machine guns are great at multiple targets, and shotguns are good at blasting ....well...PRETTY MUCH everything within 5 feet of ya(and boy do I love that booming sound).

Of course, people who don't get the Rock-paper-scissors are mostly "whiners"....like dude...If you keep just running at the sniper at a mile away...OF COURSE he has the freaking advantage ya nitwit! If you see some dude with a shotgun...or you think he has a shotgun...BAAAACK OOOOFF DUUUUDE because he's gonna blow ya to kingdom come and back.

Now you might be thinking..."What is this guy getting at???"...Well..my friends...I have just explained...THE ART OF THE SHOOTER..

Bye for now :P

Fallout: New Shovelware

2011-02-07T11:42:00.000-08:00

Okay, I call myself a true FPS gamer, and a follower of RPG games, but recently the current games who attempt to mix these two genres are as I quote my friend "Read: The Boring as all get-out genre".

Seriously, games like Borderlands and RAGE seem to have their redeemable qualities by emphasizing co-op and other tried and true methods...but once the title "Fallout" appears the only thing I can do is cry...or laugh...or both(?)

Seriously, the series is nothing but as I quote my friend again "A FPS on training wheels(training wheels as in the RPG-luster method of overused and abused quest-system)". The abhorent amount of glitches and bugs serves to make the game as "Shovelware cloacked as a AAA title" to the point of gamebreaking and frustration. It's amazing how Bethesda gets ANY profit or enormous sales but to the irony of the games' major selling point being a plethora of game mods(plenty of them being copyrighted material such as STAR FOX). That said the game in it's nature is nothing but a bore-fest as watching videos of players gaming it(see what I did there?) either Live or recorded....the game seems boring as if there was no tomorrow.

That said the quest system is more derivative of MMOs, and thus quoting a term coined by Will Wright, the famous creator of Spore by saying "Massively Single-player Online" with a huge world....but only yourself to play with. That said who would of thunk that by TAKING AWAY the emphasis of such of quest system out of the hands of friends who might want to share those quests together, and giving them to a single person and almost ridding them of all potential "fun value" is almost a sin within itself. Thus it seems the urgent need to "reboot" this shovelware content with such as stated "game mods" that only help to refresh gameplay and the glitchy RPG-like system that only seems to "newbify" the potential gameplay.

If anything I hope games like RAGE are a wake up call to titles like Fallout that there are and will be better interpretations of such an "FPSRPG" genre.

MULAN: Chinese Tactical Strategy Game

2011-02-02T13:33:00.000-08:00

After many months of pondering how to turn the famous Mulan legend into a fitting video game formot, and recently picked up interest in the Shogun 2: Total War game...I think I can finally put down some basic ideas on how the Mulan game would function.

Now first and foremost, the game doesn't HAVE to be a full-blown RTS game, but seeing how in the legend she was known to become a "general-like" figure during the war with the Huns/Mongols it would be fitting to have some kind of "super-tactical form" that was like a "tactical view" but "strategy-like control", which probably the closest game I have played to this was Bladestorm (but not as clunky/rigid). That said the size of her "unit" it's difficult to say since all modern interpretations of her legend seem to vary how many allies she had(The Disney version was basically a "large-squad-size" unit). That said how I envision it she would have at most 100 soldiers per battle to keep that "super-tactical-form" while still feeling like you have a personal feel for the battle.

That said since she "becomes" a general figure, like most strategy and tactical games it would make sense to only allow her modest amounts of troops at first, while allowing more and more as you progress and make your way up to the "100" soldier limit. Now we all know that in the stories of Mulan that she had a group of friends along the way, so it would be in my best interest to try to mimic the "Valkyria" way of fighting that you can control her friends but once they are wounded or inured they become unavailable but still participate in the story. Also like Valkryia they can serve as you will "Hero" units that provide more power to your "unit" during the expanse of the campaign.

Going back to earning more and more larger units, of course the battles will get more and more difficult since you will also be facing more and more larger ENEMY units and eventually face Shan Yu's(for lack of an original name) henchmen and himself. Now with this in mind there will be no source gathering since well...China's citizens can take care of themselves for all I care, and the legends always just "focus" on the battles similar to Shogun 2. That said there will have to be some sort of story/campaign reward/penalty system for how well you performed in battle, but not to the point of being "forced out" of being motivated to continue on. Also it would be nice to have a sort of KOTOR/Mass Effect system for the story/campaign that can "influence" your bonds with your friends and as well as ties to the Chinese/Mongol people(Basically in the way of influencing your friendships or "close up" diplomacy options).

That's pretty much what I have for now, but thanks for reading.

Brian

What is it like to be Brian McCain?

2011-01-28T23:31:00.000-08:00

For those who don't know me completely(I doubt even my family does) I hope I can clarify my feelings and thoughts on how I see the world. You might have seen my making long random jokes or discussing my theories, reviews, or excitement about gaming, but I feel like at this time I should pour out my whole soul to those who can bare with me.

First off, everyone who has known me at this point knows me as some sort of gamer. You may also know that I am quite picky on how high a quality I like my games...it's gotten to the point where 7 out of the 10 is the lowest I will usually ever go(exceptions being Lost Planet series). You may also know my ears are only for those composers who you can feel the instruments, emotion, and "game" through the music. People such as Hitoshi Sakimoto, Keiki Kobayashi, and few others have gotten my total respect as true composers.

For those who think I am biased and that I only enjoy FPS or Action games. I stink at RPGs, even with dedicated runthroughs I haven't even been able to finish all of my favorite RPGs. I would gladly enjoy them even more, but usually I am quite content when I am able to watch them being played. That said if I didn't find my safe haven of being able to actually acquire skill in action or FPS games I wouldn't be much of a gamer, but thanks to my first entries such as Joint Operations and BF2(still the best shooter IMO) I not only found my most "friendly" genre, but living in a military family I can flex some of my real world knowledge and interest through them.

Onward to about 2006 my addictive gaming qualities had pretty much diminished to where there are few and far between games that hold or gain my interest, and I am never one to (usually) buy into overrated or overhyped products (I am talking to you Call of Dullness). That was also the year where after watching the independent Robotech sequel film that I gained some interest in joining the animation industry, and the beautiful artwork that anime presented has made me negatively biased against 3D animations, though Toy Story is pheniminal in my opinion still.

Either or I would like a career in the entertainment industry, though I still prefer to become my dream producer job and create my old but still unused idea called WW3: MC, and others. People might be surprised(at least a little) how much feeling and thought goes through my heart and mind almost endlessly, and even though I might disagree with people on things I hope I will continue to find agreeable subjects so I can keep my friends and gain new ones.

Now and Forever....

CRYSIS 2 MULTIPLAYER DEMO REVIEW

2011-01-25T16:53:00.000-08:00

After a few hours of going at the demo, I will go through with my promise of people who requested a review of the demo.

First off, 1080p or 720p...the game is gorgeous! Rendering is sharp and the only model issues present seem to be the stiff death animations(lack of Ragdoll?).

Also unlike some people who found the controls unresponsive most of the time the controls were just as fluid as they needed to be, there was only a few times where I was a bit confused why I couldn't airstomp or slide when other times the commands were functional. Though I wouldn't say this is any worse than the remaining unpatched BF 1943 game. Like any skill game USUALLY being the quickest gun in the west will give you the kill, but due to classes or if you have power mode on you could be eating some lead from a MG and somebody who's "Buffed" themselves. Though I'm not too disappointed as these features were advertised before the demo, so any frustration should not be blamed on the functional mechanics.

That said the game seems like a sped-up UE3 game where the greatest fun comes from the kill streaks, which I had the honor of Smashing and popping a group of enemy players before I was dethroned in almost an instant, which is very common in nowaday games such as Goldeneye for the Wii. This is definitely a shooter where being "in the zone" is the ultimate redeeming quality.

I would like to close that though disappointed that the demo did not reach PC or PS3 services, the extremely large download size of 1.8 GB might have to do with it since Xbox Live is one of the few gaming services that can provide a steady rate of download...I was overwhelmed at first but impressed that the 1.8 GBs only took about 10-15 minutes before I was launch-worthy.

All in all I'm still curious on the single-player content of the game and just how much "beef" this game has.

In My Opinion?

9 OUT OF 10

MEDAL OF HONOR: AIRBORNE REVIEW

2011-01-22T19:53:00.000-08:00

After purchasing this game for 12 bucks I decided to buy this game because of the advertised feature of 4-player co-op and the impressive game demo that I was able to download that was pretty fun. Though not was all it seemed.

First off, the game lacked LAN or Co-op once I put it in(also had the strange issue of getting a UK version, though luckily the game was region free) which ticked me off alot since I was really hoping to play with my family and kill some Naxis with each other. That said the next day I delved into the single-player campaign and was able to clear through the first mission(since I was kind of practicing in the demo). The next two missions were a bit more challenging, but I didn't feel too frustrating til I met with the Panzershrecks who were quite difficult to take down. Also by the time I hit the "D-Day" mission the end of it as well as the missions after that my GPU took some heavy lag due to some DX10 effects.

Things didn't go really downhill 'til I was inserted in a tank factory that even the green "Safe zones" were vulnerable from being sniped from the sky, practically forcing me to heal once I hit the ground. Also the tank factory was practically void of healing packs so dying was as easy as pie, and by the time I ran into the Nazi Stormtroopers I was practically forced to take a breather since these bad guys were a heck of a pain(I was so angry that a headache was appearin). After the breather I found the best strategy was to avoid the storm troopers and just bolt around the cannon train and ended up in victory...though I was diminished to a measly 2 out of 5 stars when the game only awards you a ribbon with 4 stars on each mission.

The last mission seemed easier until when I had to escape this super tower and curve around the sewers, little did I know the entrance to the sewer was jam-packed with stormtroopers which ended up in a deathfest...I was able to finally complete the final mission but with almost the same amount of anger and the same amount of stars.

All in all the story is phenominal as well as the graphics, but the AI and troop balancing took a big shot on the final two missions and made the the ending of the game less redeemable. That and there being practically no online players anymore the game is more of a short-term graphics fest than a long-term gameplay fest. That said I would recommend a DX11 card if you don't want your game taking a dip when it's most crucial, I was getting plenty of lag during the cannon train that made dodging Nazis stormtroopers almost impossible.

My opinion?

7.5 OUT OF 10

Procedural Combat: The ultimate FPS game?

2011-01-17T22:50:00.000-08:00

I have been pondering on tessellation ever since DX11 came out. The thought of making models more smooth and curved than the original model seemed interesting, but ever since I wanted to see a technology that goes beyond that.

A procedural-based rendering system that if done correctly can make the game that uses it run on practically any PC build. Spore is what introduced me to procedual rendering on making varied worlds and ecosystems that never usually got replicated after that. I was thinking more of the lines of having a basic mesh/model that sets the "standard" of what that character, building, or environment looks like at a simple level. The engine would then analyze the full performance capability of the system such as polygon, texture, compute, and other performance factors such as RAM to create the ideal "game build" your PC individually can muster using "Procedural Tessellation". That and wouldn't be nice to also have a "Procedural Server" system? I know there are some games that have a "recommendation server" system, but it would be nice that using tool such as speed or ping test sites to come up with the ideal amount of players your system or server can support.

That said, I think the first test of this technology would work best in an FPS, given how there are plenty of references to base the basic mesh/model standard on. I think it could be quite a cool tech if done correctly.

Top 10 Game Engines(IMO)

2011-01-13T14:42:00.000-08:00

1 CryEngine 3

2 MT Framework

3 Frostbite 2

4 Id Tech 5

5 UDK/UE3

6 Vicious Engine 2

7 Offset

8 Refractor

9 Source

10 C4

The Best through Brotherhood, The Victory through Camaraderie; The Comrade Militia

2010-12-29T23:19:00.000-08:00

Death comes through weapons, Defeat comes through stronger enemies, but victory comes through Camaraderie..Victory is The Comrade Militia.

The Comrade Militia is a military-style First Person shooter/Third person melee video game based upon an alternate earth and an alternate world war II. The game is told through the story of the Allies' greatest squad and Brothers in Arms...The Comrade Militia.

Featuring an anime-based style akin to the likes of Valkyria Chronicles...The uniform, weapon, and vehicle design will most likely copy that of real-world World War II looks.

The game's story is heavily focused on the members of the so-called Comrade Militia as they will encounter all sorts of experiences that will change their lives forever.

Combat is a mostly traditional experience with the ability to do Third-person melees or takedowns such as using bayonets, knifes, or knocking enemies out by hitting them with rifles. Players will also be able to man turrets, but the main emphasis is on infantry-based combat.

The soundtrack will reflect this by having action music that will keep the player within the experience, and also sound design that will bring the environment, soldiers, and weapons to life while keeping with the art style.

The game will also offer Co-op as you will be able to create your own squad member of The Comrade Militia and also competitive multiplayer where players can also play as the Axis enemies.

That's all I have for now.

L.O.S.T. Competitive Multiplayer: Pumping and Chucking Ice

2010-12-15T18:34:00.000-08:00

So getting into the issue of the competitive multiplayer of L.O.S.T., the game isn't gonna be too flashy with it...but the main emphasis on what will make L.O.S.T. different is of course the destructible nature of the Ice and buildings...Due to the Artic Aliens having no real weapons besides chucking ice and smashing people by breaking down buildings, this is meant as a strategic motive and not just crushing the human team. Due to the more "melee" nature of the Artic Aliens it would be best to use a third-person perspective, given the larger build and bodies the Aliens have.

The humans will of course play almost identical to the campaign variants, the individual classes with specific weapons, the availability of futuristic vehicles, but the consequence being more fragile beings. At this point the whole premise of the multiplayer is of course the "tradeoff". Having bulky ogre-like aliens that can smash and crush people with tons of fun...or have the technological advantage and feel the thrill of taking down larger prey.

The hunt begins in L.O.S.T. competitive multiplayer...

L.O.S.T.: Bringing the Frostbite

2010-12-14T00:22:00.000-08:00

Breaking idea...I know I've mentioned Destructible environments before and the ability for the enemy to use chunks of ice as hurdling weapons to crush the good guys, but wouldn't be cool to have an awesome technical feature while of this is going on...kind of like how EA overemphasizes the power of their Frostbite engine?

Getting back to some of the earlier comments on L.O.S.T.

Ice: The ice the enemy will throw at you will have some nifty features, such as based on the placement and angle the enemy grabs it...it will be shaped accordingly and so well the "hole" creating from "taking" that chunk of ice.

Adaptive A.I. and the Ice: Though this game is meant as a co-op and multiplayer focused game, like Lost Planet there are gonna be times where A.I. is better due to either nobody online or etc. Like the enemy being able to adapt it's battle plan based on your weapon and placement/movement...Ice is a pretty fragile material, and so it would be an awesome technical feat when your A.I. allies had a CQC shotgun tried or accomplished to pump that ice to pieces, but of course it would be better if they targeted the Artic Aliens themselves if they didnt have ice, but after that chunk of ice is in the picture detroying that block of ice is the priority. I am just thinking "out-loud" at this point.

Something to think about.

L.O.S.T. Opening Storyboards

2010-12-08T16:38:00.000-08:00

Mobile Ops: The One Year War (PART 2)

2010-12-07T18:30:00.000-08:00

I warned you, here comes part 2 of the Mobile Ops Initiative.

Now getting back to the story of Mobile Ops, it would be interesting if the plot took some points from MGS4 and other recent titles, and that is the nature of PMC warfare. It would be a fresh start if the hero and his crew of friends/allies had to fight more than just a direct enemy, and that would be side skirmishes with PMCs hired by the enemy. That being said it would also be a fresh change if the enemy wasn't obvious like in most Gundam stories, and the notion of more westernized political intrigue took over, giving you the sense of a "Gundam Black Ops" pilot. Gundam Wing had a similar flair since most of the pilots in that series were to quick too be widely noticed, and adding a sense of Stealth to gundam for once would counteract the familiar feeling of always having the enemy coming at you while in the open. Like I said before the addition of fighter or tank-only missions would keep the player at a more tactical level instead of an all-out warmachine.

The canon mechs are there since the original gundam did supply models for fighters, tanks, and sniper mecha. It all depends if the mecha could be upgraded to be more limber and agile than just giant clunkers. That and being rid of the need for space warfare would ease the design since space has never been a friendly battlefield in most combat games unless in a RTS setting.

Now with all this tactical and stealth motive the game has, it would be obvious to implement having the main players camouflage-aware. Too many sci-fi stories ignore this all together and have their characters noticable in plain sight, and kudos to Metal Gear Solid for being smart enough to take that out of the norm. Camouflaged Mecha and Individuals are a must to give the game the needed realistic oomph this kind of reboot needs.

Well that's it for part 2...expect more in the future.

L.O.S.T. Ambient Script W.I.P.

2010-12-07T14:25:00.000-08:00

Ambient 1: When the player(s) find the ATVs and/or Jetpacks.

Player character(Male/Female): Command, this is ground...We found the ATVs and Jetpacks.

Intel(Female): Affirmative, now make your way to the mining facility. Command out!

Ambient 2: When the player(s) encounter(s) the first alien that pops out from the snow.

Player character(Male/Female): What the heck is that?!

Intel(Female): What's going on down there?! We are getting some seismic activity!

Player character(Male/Female): Some large human-like beast is attacking us!

Intel(Female): Get rid of it, we need to get to the mining facility ASAP! Command out!

Player character(Male/Female): Roger, command!

Ambient 3: When the player(s) defeat the first alien.

Player character(Male/Female): Phew, I hope I don't see another one of those as long as I live.

Mobile Ops: The One Year War

2010-12-06T23:20:00.000-08:00

So I had this recent craving for a Gundam-esque shooter game. I know that a few years ago Bandai attempted such a thing and called it "Mobile Suit Gundam: Operation Troy" and the state-side name "Mobile Ops: The One Year War"....excluding the fact that the game never made it state-side as well as most gundam games after that. I remember the time when games based on franchises like Gundam were common-place, even in the states, but it seems the american hate for animes at places like IGN have made people like Bandai stay isolated in japan. Leaving quirky games like Front Mission Evolved direct access to the western market, even though Front Mission is no gundam.

The reason for this article is to bring a gundam-esque setting back to the states, on the premise that the story and plot get a significant western overhaul while still maintaining the "anime giant robot" integrity. Given the nature of the original gundam, this ideal will stick to the title "Mobile Ops: The One Year War" for now.

Now if I were to put the vision of this concept in a nutshell, the game's tentative title would be "Tom Clancy's Gundam". Absurd yes but there IS a bridge between the gap, and that is our shared interest in political intrigue and espionage, even though we "stretch" it quite differently. The only issue is finding the perfect median on which these two similar ideals cross paths.

That being said, most if not all J-robot franchises always star a single hero's rise to power. Amuro, Rick Hunter(Robotech), etc. With this kind of cultural backdrop it's hard to picture a mech game that is squad-based, even though people like Rick Hunter who obtain subordinates throughout their anime's story, and the fact that most Mech games have the nature of wanting the player to feel like "a king" of the battlefield. It wasn't til long after playing "Ace Combat 4" that you get the feeling that "YOU ARE ACE COMBAT".

Which goes into the big issue that most western military games are nowadays always team-based. Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, Republic Commando, Bad Company...all of which you're just a piece of the puzzle..not THE puzzle. I think the only Japanese-based game I have played that required team-based thinking was "Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War", and even then your wingmen are mostly just there for story purposes and don't really do any killing themselves. The fact of the matter being, will the game have to alienate itself from other mech games and counteract the "Battlefield king" psychological-game mechanic?

Continuing on, is the issue of graphics direction. Most japanese mecha games always result to some japanese-style animation, especially gundam. I think the best median for japanese military graphics were the cutscenes in "Ace Combat 5" Not too cartoony, not too realistic...perfect. This kind of art direction would be perfect for this cross setting and would still give the impression of the japanese nature of the game's roots. That and the mecha themselves looking highly-detailed unlike the washed-out models japanese-mecha are accustomed to would be a perfect companion to this kind of art direction.

Forming into something like

= Perfect

Now getting back to the whole "One Year War" thing. I find it quite impressive how the japanese have set up most of their combat stories, not too drawn out and not too short to where you just seem like a nobody in a bigger or smaller picture. I think a "one year war" is a great way of setting up the gameplay for this Gundam 2.0 game. Now that being said, everyone needs to start small, and that's going back to the original anime roots of Mecha. How about that Amuro kid just happening to find a Gundam in the middle of a firefight between the Federation and Zeon? Great character development potential right off...kudos to you Bandai/Sunrise. Now the fact of the matter being, having the character getting "Anime PTSD" by the ending...a little over the top for what the game should aim for in such un-treaded territory.

Now, Front Mission Evolved tried to mix Mecha and "just a person" gameplay, and quite failed at it...if any developer were to want a better example...there's always Lost Planet...they had the person-to-mech switching dead-on IMO. Now given the nature of games like Ghost Recon, you're not going to have all "the cool toys" all the time, and it would be nice to check out more vehicles than just Mecha. Suped up fighters and tanks found in Gundam-esque settings would be nice refreshers for more close-quarters missions.

Well, I think that's about it for now, but don't think there won't be a part 2 to this concept...prepare for more bits and nobs later.

L.O.S.T. Opening Script

2010-12-06T20:00:00.000-08:00

CAMERA: The player character's view comes into focus as he/she is sitting in a large air transport with the hatches open. The player can shift the view to look around the air vehicle. The air transport is making its way to a nearby valley and while on the way the player can make out surrounding snow-covered mountains, valleys, and also blizzards and wind blowing snow across the tops of the mountains. After a brief moment the pilot and intel officer of the air transport speaks about the players' mission.

Intel(Female): Okay, listen up! A few days ago we lost contact with a group of miners who have been drilling for emergency resources for their respective countries. Seeing that due to the international bigwigs getting "cold feet" over an impending ice age, it's critical that we find out what happened to those miners. Your mission is to make your way to the mining facility and confirm if the miners are indeed still alive or dead. We know that at the landing site there are ATVs and Jetpacks left over from the miners that might make your job of traveling easier, so use them to your advantage. Our pilot here will update you on the rest.

Pilot(Male): Yes, ma'am! The only thing I can tell you is that don't expect these mountains to be cake walk. Expect heavy snow on the ground and plenty of falling snow with harsh winds. I can only hope those thick uniforms you have on can help you rough it.

Player character(Male/Female): Roger that. Got an ETA?

Pilot(Male): Well...we're here!

Player character(Male/Female): Figures

CAMERA: The air transport holding the players and NPCs soon lands as the wind starts to pick up with the sight of falling snow following close behind. The pilot then leaves his seat and turns to the rest of the crew.

Pilot(Male): Okay guys, you'll have to hump it the rest of the way, I would find those Jetpacks and ATVs if I were you!

Intel(Female): Okay, everyone out! I will be giving you intel as you make your way to the mining facility once we're airborne again. Good luck!

Player character(Male/Female): Affirmative

CAMERA: The players' characters soon leaves the aircraft with it flying off once all the other players are on the ground.

(end real-time opening)

Forever and Never: Light Preveals

2010-12-05T00:53:00.000-08:00

Recent breaking idea I had at about midnight while "envisioning" more game ideas.

Graphics: semi-realistic anime style similar to FF7:AC and Final Fantasy 13

Premise: Two characters are trapped in a dark, evil version of their world filled with demon knights and horridly twisted characters. The areas around them are pale, dim, and faded with what seems to be no hope of returning to their "light" world. They must trust each other to survive.

Characters:

The boy: A teenage boy who was taken to the dark world only a few hours before "the girl". His only means of defense are a knife and pistol taken from one of the corpses laying on the ground. Dark short hair, black-ish clothing, brown-shoes, and the dark world has given his skin a whiteish-pale tone.

The girl: A younger teenage girl who was taken into the dark world at the beginning of the game and is considered the heroine of the game. She somewhat befriends "the boy" due to his better ability of fending off the enemies who have spawned in the dark world. Blue hair, red clothing, and black shoes and also pale-white tone caused by the effects of the dark world.

Enemies: Mixture of demonic knights and twisted monsters who attack or "feast" upon the "light visitors" who enter their world. The only chance of return for the good guys is to wipe them out....all of them.

Combat: The battling system is comprised of real-time combat. The boy who is the starting character in combat can use his knife to potentially block incoming strikes, and can counter or attack to deal damage to enemies. Timing is everything if players want to survive the ever-impending onslaught of enemy groups.

The girl is the healer that can use magic given to her mysteriously in the dark world, she can also flank the enemy and try to distract them so the boy can get a more precise and timely shot at foes. She also wields a staff that can do long-range attacks, and can even "snipe" enemies from far away due to the real-time aspect of combat.

Combo-drives: The boy when able to score enough hits to fill up his Drive meter, can unleash a special attack called a Combo-drive. The drive allows the player to inflict higher and more frequent damage for a moment while the foes are somewhat suspended in time. Use it to your advantage.

L.O.S.T.: Land of Snowy Terrain

2010-12-04T00:02:00.000-08:00

L.O.S.T.

Land of Snowy Terrain

The game is set on a “land of snowy terrain” inspired by the environments in games such as Star Wars: Battlefront II (Hoth) and Lost Planet: Extreme Condition. L.O.S.T. is a multiplayer and co-op focused FPS focused on immersing gamers into the large-scale arctic “maps” where the game-play will commence.

Some basic features of the game are;

Tessellation: for the mountains, characters, and buildings

Weather effects: Falling Snow and Wind

Vehicles: Air transports, Jetpacks, and ATVs.

Mega Textures: High-quality enormous textures for the environment.

Physics: Things such as buildings and ice are destructible and also enemies popping out of the ice or snow.

Adaptive A.I.: Enemies will respond based on the situation and environment.

Dynamic Fur: The clothing of the characters.

First-Person-Shooting: Semi-futuristic Shotguns, Automatic Rifles, and Sniper Rifles.

Due to these basic requirements the underlying engine will be created in native DirectX 11 (maybe even multi-core CPU support). The story of the game starts on the first map where a group of miners have lost contact with the rest of humanity and the players must investigate either if they are still alive or have died in some mining accident. Players are inserted by futuristic air transports and are given hover-based ATVs and Jetpacks to make their ground travel easier. While on their way to the mining facility players will encounter the game’s enemies who are arctic aliens awakened from the mining activity that had landed on Earth eons ago. Enemies have adaptive A.I. based on the players’ weapons, distance, and movement. Enemies will also try to use the environment to their advantage such as crushing you with broken ice, knocking down buildings, and other physics-based attacks. The game ends by wiping out the remaining stranded aliens before they can attempt to contact their home world.

The campaign should only require a total of three or four maps to keep players engage throughout. The multiplayer will use custom variations of the campaign maps based on the specific competitive game modes. Assault: Humans versus the Aliens-whichever team has the highest kill count wins. System Link: Whichever team hacks the most systems win. Extinction: Stop the aliens from contacting their home world before reinforcements come. Home-front: Aliens must stop the humans from contacting air support.

First Map: A narrow valley where players are inserted through mountains and then land at the beginning of the valley. ATVs and Jetpacks will be available at the starting position, the aliens will spawn from the ice and other hiding places. The map ends when players have secured the mining facility.

Second Map: Players must use Jetpacks to hop across large-sized floating pieces of ice while they traverse a huge river in the hopes of investigating the origins of the enemy aliens. The map ends when they reached the “home” of the alien menace.

Third Map: The crash-site of the aliens, players must get rid of the aliens and destroy the computers on the crashed space-ship if they wish to not have the aliens contacted their home-world. The map ends when they are successful.

REFERENCES:

ALIENS:

HUMANS:

ENVIRONMENTS:

CLASSES:

CQC-Shotgun

Assault: Automatic Rifle

Sniper: Sniper Rifle

CHARACTER TYPES:

PLAYABLE:

Male: Voice type; Commanding, Tense, A bit gruff with a thin accent

Female: Voice type: Medium-Medium low, Commanding, Tense, british or neutral american accent.

NON-PLAYABLE:

Pilot(Male): Voice Type; Not-gruff, calm, "following" voice.

Intel(Female): Medium-Medium high, calm/neutral, british or neutral american accent.

Cyrain Studios: Job Descriptions

2010-11-29T20:08:00.000-08:00

Producer: Provides the resources for game creation: Licensing of engines, Distribution methods, and coordinating with publishing rights.

Lead Writer/Designer/Director: Writes the main plot, designs the overall world and essential gameplay mechanics, and Directs the "realities" of that world.

Co-Designers: Assist in maintaining the overall vision and help with designing specific pieces of the world(AKA Maps), design bits and pieces of the gameplay, and keep the direction on-track

Programmers: Knowledge of graphics, gameplay, and script programming to keep the framerates efficient, the gameplay tight, and the cinematic feel on a competitive level.

Artists: Create the Concept Art, Models, Textures, Animation, and Maps of the world, characters, and props.

Composers: Compose music such as themes, Cinematic, and Background tracks that is efficient and epic.

First project: World War 3: Modern Conflict(Action Game)

Playtesters: Ensure the ability of maximum quality of the current project and product. Skillful abilities in Action games required.

Cyrain Studios

2010-11-27T20:38:00.000-08:00

Okay, let's get cranking on what I want to do when I start up my own game studio.

Studio title: Cyrain Studios(of course)

Producer: Brian McCain(BrioCyrain)

Lead Writer/Designer/Director: Brian McCain(BrioCyrain)

Co-Designers: Yumi Ozaki(mistwalker)

Programmers: ???

Artists: ???

Composers: Depends how much people like Uematsu want.

First project: World War 3: Modern Conflict(Action Game)

Playtesters: Brian McCain(BrioCyrain)

Looks good for now..Hmm...

Sandbox Gaming Ignited: Sakaguchi VS Kojima

2010-11-25T18:28:00.000-08:00

Now you're thinking, why a game where Kojima and Sakaguchi are against each other? Well it's the perfect sandbox set up in my opinion. The premise to create a sandbox where the "gods of gaming" can influence and affect the world not through cars or brawls, but with their pure genius game designing powers will give you a sense of unprecedented control.

The game as far as gameplay goes is meant to be a median between pure sandbox games like GTA or etc, and god games similar to Spore, SimCity, or otherwise. Being able to affect the world like a god while being still a vulnerable character is meant to give you a feeling of tactics and intuition. Now you're thinking "Where does the Versus aspect come in?", but it's quite simple actually. Both Sakaguchi and Kojima as competing game developers are out to take full control of the world, using their creative powers to use such powers as spawning game characters to control or scare off NPCs, manipulate the environmental aspects pertaining to marketing(texture control), and first and foremost make the world become "their's".

Now it's quite obvious to me that the environment visually and gameplay wise should be affecting by their actions...Sakaguchi's areas should morph into a more fantasy-esque art direction, while Kojima's areas should look like something out of MGS4 or otherwise...and neutral territory should look like a normal large city similar to Tokyo. The victor is the man who makes the city fully Fantasy or MGS-esque, and making the world "theirs". The suspence of having to maintain or usurp control of the town is where the action begins. Having to fight, persuade, and move your way across town will be the peaks of excitement. Two campaigns and a competitive multiplayer mode is practically essential.

Choose your sides wisely gamers, for there is nothing short of world domination on their minds!

SimEarth: The Ultimate AI Experience

2010-11-24T23:04:00.000-08:00

Now you might be thinking about the original SimEarth, that old game where you basically just watched little icons of lizards and that awful polution and then at the end of the nuclear winter your final race goes in a space ship and ends with having an orbital space station...at least the version I remember.

All in all there wasn't much "medling" to be had unlike Spore which seems to be a recent offspring of what SimEarth could have been in recent years, but while Spore had some ground-breaking ideas....the endgame was pretty horrible IMO.

So getting back to what I believe would be a true successor to SimEarth, it would require the greatest AI engine ever made. Yes you would be the god character but the god character shouldn't need to do everything just so the races stay in check(or dont kill themselves).

Basically my premise for the ultimate SimEarth is AI...AI that is not only about figuring out what to do, but AI that takes a virtual-bioligical form. I am talking about Artificial Life, a subject less studied even from AI. The game would serve a revolution in computational biology by using "virtual-dna" to create the basis for each living race, be it animal or humanoid. Characters would virtually be living creatures, having virtual organs, virtual intelligence, virtual social tendencies, and the like. Now in recent yes the Morpheme and Europhoria engines were all about simulating muscles, but only for physics purposes. SimEarth goes beyond that for more of intellectual purposes so the characters would feel "mortal". Being wounded realisticly, be able to evolve their abilities based on their "biology", and other realistic precedences to create the ultimate simulator.

Of course there are other mechanics that I have yet to see be touched personally. Though it's obvious that the race you're bound to get stuck with is the fittest race and one that gains sentience, but after that they usually don't get much smarter besides making stuff. Now with SimEarth they would have the ability to develop their own languages based on an amazing soundwave generator, their own religions or cults, and of course build their own empires....themselves. Of course now you're thinking, "What is in it for me?". Since you are playing "God" you will of course be able to influence the superior race with things such as effecting weather, giving boosts to the underdog or otherwise in a large war, and even creating or preventing natural disasters. Gaia will of course be the spirit of the Earth, and it's easy to say IMO that she'll be your CNN news and give you tips or suggestions on what is favorable on the basis you want to keep your Earth intact.

Now those are outta the way, what would your Earth look like? Well it would make plenty sense to me that you would be able to influence how many continents, islands, and oceans the planet has, by simply tweaking the Land to Ocean ratio during the beginning stages of when your planet is coming into form.Now that you have a greatly diverse looking planet, you pretty much want to see the mile-to-mile eye candy? Well, I agree! If anything SimEarth not only should generate the planet in full-view, but it should be nice that while you are causing havoc or spying on tribes that you have something similar to CryEngine 3 while you're at it!

Now what about endgame? Well, while I'm not sure what it would be like myself, wouldn't be nice that you had more options besides staring at space station and an ice covered planet? I THINK SO!

Brio Cyrain's FireScore; Stealth Action Streamlined

2010-11-24T17:18:00.000-08:00

So this is one of my ideas...WAAAAY back when I was in germany. A stealth action game which was inspired by stealth action game trailers. Roughly-based on the original trailer for Dark Sector my game was meant to also have a sci-fi spin, but after experiencing games like Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell I decided to also take into account more modern mechanics.

The game would also be the third installment of a large line of titles I was meant to produce with my own theoritical studio, easily named Cyrain Studios.The game would use high-tech gadgets, CQC and stealth weapons, and of course a "spy-suit". At the time I was really into quirky title names and dubbed the game "FireScore" due to the premise of having plenty of action and a solid musical score, and the name just sounded cool IMO.

Unlike Splinter Cell where you are finding terrorists or the original plot for Dark Sector where you're confined to space stations filled with dismal-brained goons, FireScore would take place in high-tech enemy corporations who are out to take over the world through conspiracies, but given the futuristic setting the mercenaries and henchmen would also have a variety of nice toys. You advantage would be your gadgets, CQC, and Nanosuit that practically gives you a superhuman presence.

After that is where the idea practically died, seeing how the overwhelming cliche twists the game has...I believed it wouldn't go too far.

Boredom Joke

2010-11-21T14:56:00.000-08:00

Note to terrorists and enemy agents, "Don't tick off an elite agent like Sam Fisher"

Side effects include "Busted Skulls, Dead people, and human shields"

Call your doctor if you think you have ticked off such a person.

Don't wait, call now

Call toll free at 1-800-YOU-DEAD

That's 1-800-YOU-DEAD

don't wait, call now

(end commercial)

(phone starts ringing)

"Hello, this is the "Don't tick off an elite agent like Sam Fisher" clinic...how may I help you?"

(dude with russian accent): Um, I just killed this dude's daughter a few weeks ago and now I am getting text messages, emails, and letters from the dude who says he will be here in 5 minutes to kill me

"I see...that's alot of symptoms, have you made sure you have plenty of security systems, bodyguards, and shotguns in your cabinets?"

(dude): Yes, yes...I have all of that, but I saw your commercial and it sounded really promising due to my current situation. Is there any way of your company helping me? I have about 2 suitcases of 1 million dollars each

"Ah, well. We might take it as a down-payment loan, but what are you exactly asking for? We got explosives, rifles, elite bodyguards, etc"

"Well yes, but...hold on a second..(gunfire in the background. I will have to call you back..If I survive that is"

"bye bye"

(clinic): Have a nice day...bye.

(hanging up tone)

A night being Kojima

2010-11-18T10:27:00.000-08:00

Kojima was a poor man, who wanted to be rich. He lived in a broken down house, staring into the night sky. He had a wife and two kids, one being a son and the other a daughter. After supper Kojima was still staring into the night sky, and that is when his luck had changed. A small comet was heading toward the Earth and it would be crashing not far from his house. Kojima then ran to his car and started driving toward the potential landing site of the comet. Desperate to be rich he thought, "If I get there in time, I could sell the pieces of the comet and become rich!" and so with this in mind he drove even faster. The comet was getting closer and closer and so he drove faster and faster. He managed to get there right when the comet smashed into the ground, and was able to sell the pieces immediately. His ego now risen above being a lowlife and poor individual, he found out that his daughter had somehow died during his travel.

His soul now shattered, he knew that he had to go back into the past and rescue his daughter. Using a radioactice piece of the comet, he managed to go back far enough to where it was after supper again. He found out that his daughter had stowed away in the back of his truck and must of gotten hit by a piece of the comet. He rushed to save his daughter from himself and was able to manage to stop the truck before it had reached where the comet landed. Though he wasn't rich anymore his daughter was safe, but he now thought if it was possible to be rich AND still have his daughter?

I had woken up after this crazy dream and thought, "that was pretty dissapointing dream". Then I went back to sleep after thinking, "Then again...IT'S KOJIMA".

The End

Jedis and Commandos: What if Sakaguchi and Kojima both worked together on a Star Wars game?

2010-11-14T01:52:00.000-08:00

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away...

...Star Wars games have been hit and miss ever since the creation of LucasArts; the gaming division of LucasFilm and the George Lucas Empire, starting with the old-school SNES or likewise games based on the original three movies, and ending with games like Battlefront, KOTOR, and the horrid Force Unleashed series. It goes without saying that most of the "true movie-based" titles were nothing more than shovel-ware, the old 2D ones seeming to be practically impossible to beat, and likewise with the new renditions of the prequels.

Star Wars gaming shined brightest when the developers weren't limited to individual bits and pieces of the universe: Republic Commando being a side-story, Battlefront encompassing the franchise as a whole in shooter form, and the "KOTOR" series being an even further back prequel with its unique emphasis on player decisions. All three franchises became popular and were quite enjoyed by both star wars and non-star wars fans.

The problem began when the co-developers behind games like Battlefront and KOTOR ended up abandoning Star Wars and LucasArts. Pandemic left to create a Battlefront-esque Lord of the Rings game for EA, but ended up shutting down after the title horribly bombed, and also BioWare left the KOTOR franchises to create Mass Effect and Dragon Age for both EA and in some cases Microsoft.

After this predicament it seems LucasArts made things worse with the shovel-ware hit "The Force Unleashed", claimed to be the best-selling Star Wars game to date, though many of the true star wars fans have done nothing but ignore the series as a whole. The sequel being termed as a short "expansion pack" and the gameplay repetitive, it seems LucasArts have dug them into an almost inescapable pit. Thus it's about time someone or some group came in to save the day.

It will take someone like Sakaguchi and Kojima to save the day with their industry experience and superior genius. That said you might think me as madman for picking these two, but it will all make sense by the end of this article.

A perfect fit don’t you think?

THE PREMISE:
Now I haven't anything truly against the deviant madness that Pandemic and BioWare had bestowed on the Star Wars Universe, but their mechanics were used far before they created Battlefront and KOTOR. Star Wars: Battlefront was nothing more than BATTLEFIELD: STAR WARS, and BioWare's "pick a choice and change the game" was invented way back in games like Tactics Ogre. That being said both game franchises were popular, enjoyable, and finally gave Star Wars gaming something to brag about.

The issue being, there should be more to games than just a "tried-and-true" mechanic that makes the game fun, and games like Battlefront needed to evolve to become a more unique figure that should feature "Star Wars-only" mechanics. There was the chance for a proper "Battlefront 3" that had this sort of growth for the series, but the developer known as "Free Radical" ended up shutting down as well. The series is or was degraded to horrible PSP and/or DS ports, practically killing the franchise for good.

BioWare has done no better as they've returned to the KOTOR franchise, but with an over-budget MMORPG that's costing them over 100+ million dollars to produce. Fans have wanted no more than a proper KOTOR 3 game, but it seems BioWare has done nothing but overkill the situation.

Also the fact that the one-time Republic Commando game that was also extremely popular seems to have no hopes of a sequel. It is a dark day in the world of Star Wars gaming, and we need Sakaguchi and Kojima to create a new ground-breaking Star Wars IP.

REVIVAL:

Sakaguchi and Kojima know MORE than a thing or two about their respective fields; Immersive RPGs and Tactical Stealth Action games. Now that we have that out of the way, would you be surprised that Star Wars had these sorts of features...IN THE MOVIES? Just picture instead of a sword or tranquilizer gun, change it to a lightsaber and laser rifle. Boom, first problem solved!

Now what of the game's overall design and how exactly could Kojima and Sakaguchi benefit it? Well, we all know Sakaguchi is a master of story-telling, and creating great characters. One of Star Wars greatest strengths is its story and awesome characters, also on a note if the game will utilize characters with lightsabers (which it most definitely will): we need someone who knows a thing or two about swordplay and the whole "mystical" stuff. Kojima is a given seeing how the second half of Star Wars is basically espionage and combat. I mean the first movie starts off with spies and stolen battle plans, and guns blasting everything! I mean what else do you need to get for an action-element working in the game? Also the fact that Raiden is a slice and dice maniac, Kojima could have a hand in the lightsaber action also.

There's also the fact that there are things Kojima and Sakaguchi have in common that are essential for an amazing Star Wars IP; both love character development and dialogue. There's plenty of it in the Star Wars movies so having story-junkies such as Kojima and Sakaguchi are a natural fit. As long as they mostly stick to the star wars lingo it should be nothing short of perfect, the only issue now being the backdrop and timeline that the game would take place.

PROPOSAL #1:

Obviously there's always multiple ways of doing things, and the first option would be an alternate side-story. Knowing full well that Republic Commando was an amazing game, it would be the first line of defense for the new IP. A squad of Rebel Commandos fighting skirmishes and completing missions while people like Luke takes all the fame. The Rebel Commandos would sport mechanics like CQC, Snake-like tactics, and electronic-swords that worked similar to lightsabers. Of course with this in mind there should be opportunities for local and online co-op, albeit not "forced" to where a lone player is left frustrated at times. Also the possibility for competitive online matching should definitely to be taken advantage of.

PROPOSAL #2:

One thing’s for sure, and it is that there are enough if not too many prequels to the original movies. Let's go with something that has been only done really in book-form...Sequels! It would be nice to give the game a clean slate with the possible war-ridden scenarios of the future, a time after the destruction of the Empire. From what books I read the Jedi are now back in full abundance and there's deceit to be had in the newly-restored republic. If there is anything that Sakaguchi and Kojima CAN do, it is making suspenseful plot twists and making a game exciting. The premise to begin a Star Wars IP with an emotional potency is what games like Final Fantasy and Metal Gear are about, and something this duo of geniuses is best at accomplishing, the characters being fully capable of welding both Jedi powers and lightsabers with also characters who could use guns and other weapons. The possibilities are endless!

PROPOSAL #3:

Now there is always the safest best for this proposal, and go with the most logical approach. This would mean recreating the original trilogy in video-game form. As I said earlier the original script and scenario had the attributes of an immersive RPG that had "shared" mechanics of a tactical stealth action game. Instead of just a redundant movie-game that had cheap snippets of gameplay, it would be a fully-realized gameplay-universe which gives players an interactive alternate "look" of what was going on. Gamers would have a "main hub" in which they could "witness" immersive tidbits of the original universe. Of course this would require access to George Lucas' original scripts and what-not, but it's definitely something that has to be experimented with!

What Saka/Jima can learn from Pandemic/BioWare:

There were a few things that BioWare and Pandemic got right that Sakaguchi and Kojima can use; and that is making the game accessible to people outside of the Star Wars "fan club". BioWare made their games intriguing with KOTOR's immersive mechanics, Pandemic made Star Wars a fun shooter experience with Battlefront. If anything Sakaguchi and Kojima should look to their Star Wars predecessors while determining which of the three (or so) proposals the best choice is. Star Wars territory is not to be treaded lightly, if anything it is almost like entering the emperor's throne room before the last battle of the final movie.

Good luck to you Sakaguchi and Kojima!

CLOSING COMMENTS:

So I am still a madman and it still doesn't make sense, but hopefully I was able to influence at least some of you with my argument. In my opinion Sakaguchi and Kojima are the most capable in this dire situation...what are you top picks for the revival of Star Wars gaming?

Also...

Until Next Time!

LOST PLANET: EXTREME CONDITION REVIEW

2010-09-13T16:53:00.000-07:00

Well I have been avoiding this game for years now due to absolutely loathing the demo, but after quite enjoying the Co-op and Multiplayer demos of the sequel Lost Planet 2 which I plan to get the PC version I decided to give the demo of the original a chance and to my surprise I was able to finish it. Thus I finally broke down and bought it and to my surprise the full game is much more forgiving than the demo.

For those who play the demo the first couple of missions are just extended versions of the demo so they are quite familiar, and at this point the story is sluggish at best. The game (at least on EASY) seems to have a checkpoint system so if the Boss of a mission kills you usually you just whined up at the beginning of the battle. The bosses can be quite intense given your rig bottlenecks due to the massive DX10 features that might sink your resources. I found myself switching DX10 features on and off to give me an advantage during gameplay.

The missions are a mix of fighting the alien menace known as the "Akrid" that form most of the enemies and bosses. Though you will find a small handful of human "mechs" that will be quite challenging as well and the human enemy assortment of "snow pirates" and "NEVEC". By the end of the game the story picks up rapidly to the point of being (IMO) quite interesting (given you can handle "Anime/Japanese" stories).

As a character you will find yourself switching between the "person" and the Vital Suits (aka "Mechs"), and the game utilizes a "Thermal Energy" or "T-ENG" system of restoring health and such. Though let your T-ENG deplete to zero and the cold environment will suck at your life and eventually kill you. Bosses and enemies will take off life which will auto-restore using your Thermal Energy but given certain bosses the VSes will suck on your T-ENG so it's best to see this as "Motivation" to give your enemies the quickest death possible.

Your weapons come in a very generic assortment. Machine Guns, (Sniper) Rifles, Laser (Sniper) Rifles, Shotguns, Rocket Launchers, and a few types of grenades. VSes also have interchangeable weaponry that as a person you can actually use yourself or detach or attach to the VSes (I actually defeated a boss after he destroyed 3 of my mechs so I ended up stealing the VS Grenade Launcher and killing him as a person).

All in All the game is good fun given you can make out the Bosses weakspots without much help from the NPCs, and the Story has its shining moments by the end.

In My Opinion?

9 out of 10

The game is rather cheap now too.

Kudos to Ubisoft

2010-08-21T22:34:00.001-07:00

Quite honestly I don't recall making a Forum account yet I already had one. I just wanted to say Kudos to Ubisoft for making GRFS.

Quite honestly I'm tired of all the WWII and Modern rehashes that have been done to death now...and seeing Ghost Recon move closer into the future is a fresh step thanks to basing it on realistic prototypes.

Quite honestly after hearing about the Wii version of Ghost Recon and catching my eye with the 2 player co-op I decided to again research the Ghost Recon franchise. The Wii version looks very fun and Future Soldier has blown me and many of my friends away with its presentatiion.

Watching the E3 Demo with a few of my friends we were amazed by the graphics to the point we came away impressed. One of my friends who isn't even really into shooters is now wanting the game due to shear originality this game holds. The mixture of stealth, technology, tactics, visuals, and other aspects IMO is nowhere else on the market.

Quite frankly I'm at a loss for those who think this game has "no tactics"...quite honestly I and my friends agree that the E3 gameplay was nothing but tactical prowless. I have yet to see any "run and gun" and "full-out action" in any of the videos. If you were to pick up a game like MW2 or BC2 with tanks and choppers blowing everything to smitherings then I can agree with the run and gun antics.

Heck this game presents a level of realism few games have...I've heard people compare it to other "command-based" games...but quite frankly due you see a real soldier popping a menu in front of him...no. I've lived in the military my whole live and I tell you for a fact Ghost Recon is more along "the real army" than most other games...CQC is very much in use in the real army and melee takedowns are standard in the army now.

If you were to ask my Dad who has served in the army for years now he would say Ghost Recon is definitely more along the lines of what actually goes on in real combat. Heck if you were ever to watch a video on how SWAT teams do stuff most of their situations are CQC. And to think SWAT stands for "Special Weapons and Tactics".

That all being said I'm not trying to change your guys opinions but I believe Ubisoft has done amazing job of bringing shooters to the next level and presenting an experience that nobody else has attempted to do. I understand that the series has made by some drastic changes but IMO FS is looking bright for many people I know who have been waiting for a game like this.

Good day everyone.

Console Wars: The Balance of Power

2010-08-17T01:57:00.000-07:00

I was prompted to make this blog post on account of someone liking my "console war" system. Thus is as follows:

PS1 and N64:

PS1: RPGs and some measly platforming

N64: prefered platforming and SHOOTERS.

PS2, Gamecube, PC, and Xbox:

PS2: RPGs, Platformers, and lame Shooter ports

Gamecube: Platforming, Adventure, and plenty of lame ports(RPGs and Shooters alike)

Xbox: W-RPGs and SHOOOOTEERS.

PC: MMO(FTW?)

PS3, Wii, Xbox 360, and PC:

PS3: JRPGS, Lame W-Shooter ports, J-Shooters, and plenty of platforming.

Xbox 360: Lame JRPGs(ports also), W-RPGs, SHOOOTEERS, and some odd platforming.

Wii: EVERYTHING

PC: Coughing to death just to get a single game*(even ports for that matter)

PSP and DS:

PSP: RPGS(Yay!), Shooters(need second analog!), Platforming(Sokay).

DS: RPGs(Meh), Shooters(sokay), and Platforming(The only Redeeming factor).

That's it for now.