I bought Demon's Souls and Midnight Club: LA, finally. Couldn't wait till November, so I decided to do it now. Always preferred the street racing kind of game, so I bought MCLA over GT5. I hope I did a good thing here. Been watching the gameplay videos and it looks really fun.

If not, feel free to tell me I'm an idiot and make me regret it. Cuz I love to regret things :D

EDIT:

And I also got Tekken 6. Why not? Have played Tekken for ages.

I should, honestly. Recently, I've decided to vary up on the genres that I play. I swore I was going to buy at least one game, preferrably the very best, on every genre, after spending 3 years playing just shooters on the PS3. And I've almost decided each genre:

Racing: Gran Turismo 5

Fighting: Street Fighter X Tekken OR an MMA game, haven't decided yet

Sports: Pro Evolution Soccer 2011

Action/Adventure: The new DMC

RPG: UGH! Can't decide on a game to get here! (Will talk on a later blog post)

But THEN... There are the shooters I want to buy. To clear things up, the games currently in my collection are GTA Episodes from Liberty City, Red Dead Redemption, Uncharted 2 and LittleBigPlanet. Recently traded a lot of games in. So as you can tell, mostly shooters (don't give me that Uncharted 2 is action/adventure crap, U2 is a third person shooter, so is EFLC).

And the shooters I want to buy are:

Brink

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Resistance 2

Resistance 3...

4 GAMES.

Now the shooter thing has something to do with the varying up on the genre thing. See, the way I see it, shooters are divided into 2 genres: Tactical shooters and Shoot-From-The-Hip shooters. The first ones would be games like CoD, Killzone, Rainbow Six Vegas, ones that you have to involve strategy and the battles are almost always fought while in cover. And the latter are self explanatory: Games like BioShock, Halo, Unreal Tournament, and Resistance 1. Resistance 2, I felt, took a more tactical approach, at least in Single Player.

So I decided to buy R3, which, according to GameInformer, will have a kind of gameplay 'strayed from the modern shooter type, and will go back to its roots', which obviously means it's going back to the R1 genre. Which is fine by me, since I'm already looking into buying Brink and Black Ops for the tactical genre (which is what I prefer, but I also want some over-the-top, silly action fun in R3. Silliness doesn't hurt once in a while, does it?)

Anyway... Give me your thoughts on this. I also need to talk about how the games I've decided to buy, in other genres, are so far off to be released. I'm thinking of getting Demon's Souls instead of waiting for Project Dark, and Tekken 6 instead of waiting for SFxT (btw, I've always been a fan of the Tekken franchise). But I'll talk about those stuff in more depth later.

Call of Duty: Black Ops

This one is the same old great CoD, with a number of additions to the multiplayer, a fantastic-looking new single player campaign that will have something to do with the story in WAW (which was great), and Zombies. I never got a chance to try this mode out, but I'm a fan of shooting zombies and horde-type games, especially when they're that deep. So I'm pumped for an updated version of this game mode which seemed to be the highest selling point of WAW.

Gran Turismo 5

This one is sold because of 1000+ cars, a smooth driving mechanic, and incredibly deep Career Mode, great community features, and the fact that it belongs to the Gran Turismo series. You know... The same series in which GT3 is in? One of the best PS2 games ever made?

PES 2011

You people have NO idea how much soccer games are played here in Brazil, and it's always been so awkward when I have to ask my friend to bring his PS2 over, with PES 2007, to play such a game with other friends. Well awkwardness' time is up, for I've finally decided on which soccer game I'll buy. Still not as great as the old PES, but no as s***ty as the recent ones (2009, 2008). Seems like a totally different game, with fantastic presentation and production values, and a much more noob-friendly and "arcade" feel to it than FIFA. FIFA 11 is so damn BAD.

Shadow of the Colossus HD

3rd best PS2 game ever, in HD. I say only SotC because ICO is so boring, so I'll probably just get the asian version which is sold separately, instead of coming in a disc divided in 2 games.

Castle Crashers

Love Final Fight, love Fantasy, love RPGs. Love Castle Crashers.

Well, I'll get all these games when I make it to the States late November of this year (I'll leave SotC to eBay). Tell me if you agree with what I think of them, if you don''t think they're the best in their genres, whatever.

Also, I'm sold on DMC. My brain hasn't quite processed the fact that my favorite action/adventure franchise is now being developed by my favorite action/adventure developer. Couldn't be better. Just hope Chris Crocker doesn't stay for long.

Oh Capcom... What have thy done...

If you don't know what this is about, it's me, laughably sobbing at Dante's (from the best brawler franchise ever, Devil May Cry) new Chris Crockery look. I'm sorry, but he was too cool to be brought down like this.

Used to, but no longer, really. When I say "used to" is the time when I wasn't a hardcore gamer until I found Unreal Tournament 99. Now I've strayed so far from that genre, I can no longer imagine myself even playing Halo.

I just like a tad bit of realism. Which is odd, considering I'm still a fan of medieval/western fantasy. But my favorite kind of fantasy is still Final Fantasy. Absolutely no pun intended. The worlds are so well crafted, and the overall universes are always different and have mixtures of modern elements, science fiction and fantasy, but mostly fantasy. Seriously, I'd give anything to live in a ship that flies over the world and serves like a hub, like Balamb Garden. Man, that'd be so cool.

Shooters belong in a game category that requires so much of the game for it to be worth the 60 dollars. It has to have multiplayer, obviously, good graphics and animations are also welcome, and so is a thrill ride in the single player.

But then there's the personal requirements that everyone has. Preferences. Me, for instance, I'm one that really appreciate games that stimulate individuality, especially when it comes to shooters, in which the online community is so much more active than in any other genre. So it's natural that if you like individuality, you'll like it in the multiplayer component, right?

Yes. And it's an element that's rare to be supported by this genre, which luckily enough, is my favorite genre. Few games really embrace the individuality of a player and give it as much focus as the rest of the game. Imagine, for example, if Uncharted 2 (I know it's not a shooter, but it's the best game I could think of) had something like character customization, or maybe even weapon customization, or perhaps a little emblem or title selection. Not much to ask, is it? Apparently, yes, because another great game is the same: Red Dead Redemption. Yeah, you can choose titles and yeah, you can select who you play as. But again, you can't pick your loadouts, you can't customize your character and you can't even write your own title, which inevitably will lead to other people having the same title. And that is opposed to the whole concept of 'individuality'.

Obviously, that's not the only feature that's important in a shooter, but it's certainly extremely important, for me at least. That's why I'm keeping an eye out for a little game called Brink.

I've never seen a game support so much the uniqueness of each player. Not only in the incredible depth of the character creation and weapon customization, but also in the gameplay. There's the classes you can choose, and a number of abilities to enhance those classes, which work exactly like a skill tree in RPGs (role-playing games. You know? Those in which you play a particular role?). So you WILL play in your own unique way, and you'll have your own unique character, AND your own unique weapon. You can even customize the controls to the extent of altering the acceleration of the crosshair's movement. So you can have an aiming system similar to that of Killzone 2, which a lot of people seemed to like. Add in a great dose of Call of Duty-like gunplay (lots of reloading and aiming down sights) and Mirror's Edge's freedom of movement, and you have an incredibly appealing title on your hands. Also, it's good that it's not Sci-Fi. I hate Sci-Fi.

I actually bought RDR, Uncharted 2 and Modern Warfare 2, but only for their gameplay. Actually I bought RDR because that game is so unbelievably fascinating it could freeze the testicles of a polar bear, just out of amazing awesomeness. So now that Activision (actually I don't know if this is the developers' or publisher's decision) is starting to support this beloved feature of mine into its games, Call of Duty Black Ops will probably also be a great game, one I'll almost certainly buy. They added an expansive customization system, a theater mode, and ZOMBIE MODE. And CoD's gunplay has yet to be beaten by any shooter, in my experience. So yeah, I'll trade Modern Warfare 2 in for Black Ops.

I also wanted to buy Ghost Recon Future Soldier, but I'll have to wait a bit longer to see if it's worth it. I don't like shooters that require too much tactical, complicated stuff. Don't get me wrong, I like strategy, just don't overcomplicate it with satellites and airstrikes and we'll be fine.

Isn't it?

It's good to know the gaming market is evolving, and bringing so many solid options to the table... But when ALL those options are solid enough that they'll warrant you 60 dollars each, it gets a little on my nerves. For example:

I was looking forward to Dragon Age 2, as it was my way out of not having Mass Effect 2 on the PS3. And then ME2 gets announced... And I got so into the concept of DA2, that now, I'm still considering buying it. And obviously, Mass Effect 2 as well. So that's 120 dollars of which I could have spent 60 only in ME2, a year later than when I'm going to. And I'd probably not pay enough attention to DA2, which would make not want it.

Then there's Resistance 3. I kind got over the Resistance franchise after R2; I've grown to not like Science Fiction anymore, and after such a long time without a hint at another Resistance game, I had already given up hope. And invested my expectations on another online shooter, Killzone 3. But then... R3 gets announced. And it's the first game franchise I committed to story-wise, and really wanted to know what happens in the next game. So it's hard to pass its announcement by, especially when it's getting so much positive attention from critics. What I mean is, again, had R3 been announced earlier, I'd also not buy KZ3 and would have saved money. Maybe.

Right now, games I'll certainly buy are:

Street Fighter X Tekken

Killzone 3

Resistance 3

Either Mass Effect 2 or Dragon Age 2

LittleBigPlanet 2

And it's worth noting, my current game collection is comprised of 6 games:

LittleBigPlanet

GTA Episodes from Liberty City

Red Dead Redemption

Modern Warfare 2

Killzone 2

Uncharted 2

So I'll almost double (or double, depending on whether I buy only ME2 or both it and DA2) my collection by the end of next year. And I've had my PS3 for nearly 3 years now!

And about my latest blog entry, Kingdoms of Amalur? I figured BioWare's games are a safer bet, and they already incorporated most of my favorite RPG elements. Let's just hope they don't screw up the combat in DA2 like they did in DA:O.

I don't even know why I have to pick a category. Should be pretty obvious, given the website's name.

Anyway, if you haven't heard of it, Kingdoms of Amalur is the next RPG set in a medieval fantasy world from Ken Rolston, the lead game designer for The Elder Scrolls 3 and 4, also known as Morrowind and Oblivion. Those were mainly first person action games that completely incorporated RPG elements into them. While I didn't get the chance to play Morrowing, I did see some gameplay videos and reviews, and it looks just as masterful as Oblivion. Yeah, Oblivion used a god-awful engine and yeah, WAY TOO MANY things don't make sense in the game (you can watch Video Game Flaws: Oblivion on Machinima.com to know what I'm talkng about), but the game's structure, combined with the deep exploration, intuitive interface, innovative leveling, skill and spell system and exciting first person action (while still buggy) made the game a must-play.

It's art design is directed by Todd McFarlane - Yeah, you know him. The guy that created Spawn? One of the most artistically creative comic worlds ever imagined? You can imagine what an artist like that can add to the game through directing the art, right? So can I, and I can't stand just imagining it. I want to see it.

Then we got R.A. Salvatore, a best-selling New York Times author. While that may not tell you much since The New York Times are a bunch of partial d***heads, he's a guy that has imagined 15 different worlds and has written countless fantasy books. And he's only 51, I don't know where he got the time. Anyway, he's writing the story, and to be a bestseller and renowned author, acclaimed by critics, I can assume he knows what he's doing, and we can trust him.

Well, that's about all I know that can excite the masses. The next couple of details are particularly exciting to me:

• Intense, action packed, fast paced third-person combat
• Huge open world
• Engaging storytelling
• Expansive character customization

I love open-world games, and I've strayed too far from my sword'n'shield affiction I used to have when I was younger. Now, it's all realistic, explosive shooters like Killzone 2. While I've grown to appretiate that genre more, I have to say Kingdoms of Amalur, for all we know, will be the next masterpiece in the RPG genre, since Dragon Age. And that game had the worst combat system I've ever seen.

While Dragon Age had the upper hand in the character development side, since you had a party with whom you could interact, talk, share, and even boink (yeah, you can just pick the hottest girl you can find that might follow you and bang her), that feature was kind of a double-edged sword, because to me at least, I like being a lone wanderer that fights alone and really feel like I'm on a journey, and adventure, much like in Red Dead Redemption where you could set up camps and pick up flowers and whatnot, and also like the upcoming Fallout New Vegas, which has a Hardcore mode in which you need to eat, sleep and medicate yourself, which just adds another layer of immersion and the feel that you're actually in a quest in a dangerous, believable world with too much to explore.

I've owned Oblivion since launch and I am positive I haven't seen absolutely every dungeon, quest and type of enemy the game has. Dragon Age had that too (once again, didn't buy it because of the horrible combat), and hopefully this game will. The sound of what the combat will be like gets me excited the most.

And my final thing to say: Going back to the point about the game world needing to be immersive and believable; Dragon Age and Oblivion both accomplished that through an absolutely astounding number of characters, spells, weapons, factions, cool backstories, good visuals, GIGANTIC game worlds and billions of dungeons, caves, sewers and buildings. The character creation in Dragon Age was also the best I've ever seen... Just throwing it out there. And if this game has both of those things (amazing character creation and an incredibly believable game world, through all the things I think it should have), it will be a perfect action-adventure RPG.

Let's hope they don't mess this up.

I just had a dream that told me that. Usually, and I mean VERY often, my dreams don't make the least sense. But this one did. There were 4 characters: Me (who was being played by John Marston), Monica from Friends and a guy from a comedy act that's really famous here in Brazil. The other was a horse we had just captured in Ojo del Diablo (yes, this was set in Red Dead's game world). I know those characters are crazy, but the whole situation we were in was rather filmic and made quite a lot of sense.

Here's the situation: There was some sort of Tsunami hitting the place we were at, which was like one of those canyons you find in Red Dead. We were in the bottom, facing the other way, and there was a bit of a slope at the cliff we were at's bottom, so we got up that slope to get into a higher position. Kinda hard to explain. So then the waves started striking. And the horse was the one we were trying to save, he was really hurt.

The sense of despair, and how those characters were connected to me shocked me. Eventually, the waves got high enough and we all died. I actually woke up crying, just now. I cared about the characters. I also must note that, in the dream, I was fully aware that all that was happening was a videogame, so I was keeping my emotional distance. So that argument "You only felt that way cuz you thought it was really happening" is off.

What I mean to say is, I never felt invested in a video game's world that much. The closest I felt to living the life of my character was Monster Hunter, but that game didn't have any characters in it, basically, and there was no story. It was multiplayer only, so I only felt that way because its replayability was huge I didn't get immersed in the world.

Now, I'm playing GTA 4 and it's the only game I've attached to the characters as much as I did. I don't quite feel like I live in Liberty City, because everything is so streamlined; the friends you meet are commanded by the story, so are the girlfriends, and everyone you meet. See my point? There's also not very much liberty in customization. You can't buy houses, cars, put tattoos and stuff. So you ultimately feel like it's a game scenario. Not that that's bad... It's just not immersive. I'm at the part in GTA 4 where

SPOILER ALERT. Don't read past this point if you don't know what happens!

Roman dies. And I felt sad, I felt kinda powerless, feeling like there really was nothing I could have done. THAT is probably the closest to reality I got in a game. But then I know, when the game ends, what am I gonna do? Wander around pointlessly in Liberty City? And that brings me back to Monster Hunter: Monster Hunter LASTED.

So essentially, just so anyone doesn't say what I'm saying has no objective, I've brought the needs of an immersive game down to 3 simple points:

1. Replayablity for as long as you want

2. Huge, open, very realistic world

3. Engaging story and characters

No game this gen has captured those 3 elements perfectly. And that just goes to show how not immersive games are. Maybe i'm just ranting senselessly and the dream really had no point, or maybe what I'm thinking only makes sense in my head and I can't put it into words very well. But... Well, I tried.