A fairly brief update this week and the rubbish postal services in this country have failed to get Force Unleashed to me yet. First off I've typed up a review of Rogue Galaxy, I wasn't too far from the end but eventually the repetition of the combat got a bit much for me, I will finish it up eventually but for now it's on the "complete later" pile while I turn my attention elsewhere. So anyway here is the review..

Whatever I do the link isnt working at the moment so please find the review at the bottom of my main profile page if you want to read it. Glitchspot strikes again.

HERE

Other time gaming wise has been spent rearing the lovely fluffy cuddly sweet filled Pinata's and protecting them from the evil sour ones, and encouraging them to have unprotected sex in Viva Pinata: Trouble In Paradise. The game is essentially 100% the same as the first except with even more cuteness, the chance to go to more continents and a bigger focus on doing tasks instead of just messing around in the garden. You can add toys to your garden and teach your little bundles of sugary joy to do tricks too, awww. It's a lot of fun but really dosent differentiate itself enough from the original to be amazing. Still if you never played the first then I can highly recommend getting this one over it simply for the additional features and wildlife.

Otherwise I've been pondering what to play in the wait till Fable II and Fallout III. Too Human isnt cheap enough to consider buying yet so PS2 game seems likely. Ive been contemplating forcing myself to play Kingdom Hearts in case I was mistaken it was total crap, also thinking about Digital Devil Saga II or Devil Summoner but the SMT frustration may be too much to bare. I did try Wild Arms III recently but it seems bat sh** insane and I really had no clue what I was doing (never played a Wild Arms game before) . So any other suggestions speak now! And make sure it had a European release before suggestion oh "Tales Of" fans. ;)

Some of you will have already seen this over on the RPG Temple but below you'll find my review of Infinite Undiscovery. As always I appreciate any feedback/comments and thumbs up ratings ;)

CLICK HERE

Next on my gaming agenda is probably finishing up Rogue Galaxy and some Force Unleashed.

I've been meaning to do this post for a while and kept putting it off as I couldn't decide on a concrete top 10, so it's going to be a top 5 instead. Here we have my top 5 favourite female characters in video games, whys it a shallow top 5, because admittedly I think they're all pretty hot too!

5) Paine - FF-X2

I had to include Paine somewhere in my top 5, as a character shes pretty shallow, pretty simple and really just tacked into FF-X2 to give Yuna and Rikku someone to play "tank" and apparently according to the fairly disturbing number of yuri images my search for a picture turned up have steamy lesbian encounters with them too. I'll say it here and now one of the reasons I loved FF-X2 (other than not having to play some blonde haired t**t for the umpteenth time) was the fact it was pure fanservice fluff without much messing about and Paine helped make the experience even more enjoyable with her fantastic gothicy clothing and general badassness. I demand "FF-X2 II" or something!

4) Viconia - Baldurs Gate II

I liked Viconia in BG1 too but I felt as a character she was far more interesting in BGII so she makes an appearence here. For those unaware with the D&D mythos, Viconia is a drow a universally hated species of dark-skinned elves who live in a matriarchel society under the earth. When you first meet Viconia in BGII shes about to be summirily burned at the stake for her general evilness and the fact she is a drow in the first place and if you opt to save her and have her accompany you on your quest your hardly going to be Mr or Ms popular (your reputation takes an automatic dip for recruiting her). What makes Viconia a great character imho is her dialogue (her voice actings good too) constantly bickering with your other party members and delighting in as much death and destruction as possible. She has some great exhanges with the cast whoever is travelling with you and to cap it all off shes the best healer in the game too!

3) Seth - Lost Odyssey

I'm sure those of you who were reading my blog at the time of my LO obsession will have no surprise that my favourite sword wielding immortal pirate of awesomeness is in this list (I so love both pirates and ninjas). Seth is not only pretty damn hot she also imho had a fantastic story and in a title like LO which had so many amazing bits of narrative (I cried with sadness and happiness countless times) the fact that her stories stood out is a testemant to her overall quality as a character. I don't want to go into spoilers but to suffice to say I thought her involvement in the ending of the game was some of the best direction and scripting ive seen in RPG cutscenes ever. (try and avoid spoilers in the comments please too guys!)

2) Nel - Star Ocean: Till The End Of Time

Nel is obviously a favourite of mine as she adorns my current banner, everytime Ive played through SO3 I've taken up Nel as my party leader and I think both her character design and her role in the plot are fantastic. I'm sure most of you know the score, Nel is an agent in a team of magic users who utilize tattoos on their body to cast power spells, and in the game shes playable from pretty early on. As the story develops Nel does take somewhat of a back seat I feel as shes mainly an observer to the unfolding events.. but id take her over Maria as a party member any day.

1) Silk Fox - Jade Empire

I'm not going to do my usual lesbian ninja tirade (ill save it for Jade Empire II, if it ever comes out, oh Bioware why must you announce such crap as a KOTOR MMORPG when we could have more ninjas....) but for a moment let me leave ninjas behind and take you to Mass Effect. In Mass Effect Liara was RIDICULOUSLY easy to romance, she practically falls into bed with you, all my female Shep had to do was smile at her and say things like "Liara I feel a bond with you" or similar dross and the rest was easy. Back in the world of Jade Empire, Silk Fox was FAR more difficult. I felt the portrayal of your characters relationship with her accompanied by her own kick-ass plotline was probably the most realistic portayal of a same-sex relationship in a video game and you really had to put the effort in to win her over and become joint queen of the land (it took me THREE goes to get anywhere). One of the most deep characters ive seen in a game and I hope Bioware return to this territory for their next title.. (well not Sonic Chronicles... you know what I mean.. maybe Dragon Age..) .

Hi everyone, it's time for my weekly gaming update and seeing as it is pretty much all I have played this week and that it seems to be a title a lot of people on the message boards I use are unsure about trying/purchasing my focus is entirely on Tri-Ace's new JRPG Infinite Undiscovery. It's received pretty medicore reviews and below you'll find somepretty in-depth first impressions but not plot spoilers or the like.

Infinite Undiscovery as far as I am concerned is a beta test on the part of Tri-Ace (and in turn presumably Square Enix in regards to them publishing the title) to try out things for RPG's to bring them into the next-generation. IU tries out a lot of new ideas for the genre, not all of them good and not all of them complete but presumably to fill the gap before their big releases hit the shelves IU has arrived to give a partially finished glimmer of just how amazing truly next-gen RPG titles could be. Yes it's a buggy game, yes there are frame rate issues and yes it's not as refind as it should be, yet at the same time Infinite Undiscovery defies convention and has moments that verge on pure genius and with a bit of polish the next game incorporating similar features (*looks squarely at The Last Remnant*) should be awesome.

IU begins with you taking the reins of wimpy wussy all round coward Capell who because he looks exactly like the rebel leader Sigmund has wound up in jail. Its not a promising start, the lead is irritating and the first hour and 30mins of the title sees you and a growing cast of helpers running away. Yes you fight enemies a little, but this is no action packed start, the game will have you running to save your arse, from killer orges, hordes of guards, and finally a dragon until your butt is safe in the first village. I won't lie this part of the game is awfully executed, however grit your teeth and get through it because once your home free there is a LOT more fun to be had. In truth the opening hour is actually pretty innovative, it's just executed in a relatively poor way that may have worked wonder had it recieved some fine tuning. Most players and dare I say it possibly reviwers to won't have made it past this first hour but PLEASE stick at it. Things improve fast.

Once your safe an sound the game opens up, lots of dungeon crawling, combat, a growing cast of characters and some great moments. I wont go through this in huge detail but lets just say that IU throws a lot of different challenges at you in rapid succesion and offers some adrenaline pumping battles. Once the games underway you often have 12 or more of your characters battling hordes of enemies in pitched battles, sieges of towns, and general epic fights all of which while suffering a bit of slowdown manage to keep going at a relatively playable frame rate an issue that I hope future titles incorporating similar things (*cough last Remnant *cough*) manage to do better.The point I am at involves three groups of you climbing a tower in unison and working as a team to pass keys to certain other parts o the tower through grates and helping your freinds out through gaps in the wall or from balconies overlooking rooms. It recreates storming a tower perfectly and has really blown my mind in terms of the scale this gen can manage.

The game has a few more nice little twists including hilarious dialogue including one cast member having borderline tourettes syndrome and constantly blurting out offensive things as well as some great humerous interactions between leads. Theres a fair bit of serious content too with most of the cast being young adults, and to further aim at the more mature market theres a bit of blood here and there too. The item creation system allows you with collecting of items from enemies to build essentially everything you can buy in the shops without costing you anything, which is handy as the size of the cast is pretty overwhelming in terms of upgrading them every time you get to a town.

Anyway:- In short buy Infinate Undiscovery if you can deal with a few bugs and a bad first hour. Its well worth sticking at and delivers an experience clearly designed to test out next generation st1yle features for RPGs and if you want to see just how much potential the genre holds give it a shot. Just dont expect a perfect finished game hopefully last Remnant, Star Ocean and FF13 can deliver that incorparating some of these features. More follow up next week....

Recent things have hit me about this "next gen" of console games. Largely that compared to the PS2 era quite frankly most of them are rubbish. Aside from a few exceptions this generation of console games have sucked, a lot, the focus seems to be on graphics as opposed to making things standard that by now should be standard in their respective genres and then taking things to a new level.

It's amazing even now how games can even get the basics wrong or not include features good games thought of back in the PS2 and Xbox era which seem to have promptly fallen off the face of the earth soon after.

Lets talk camera and perspectives. A recent discussion over on SavoyPrime's blog about how Mirrors Edge has just a first person perspective and not a third and a first got me thinking about how even things like basic views in games don't always get done right. By now in these days of high budget beautiful looking games all action adventure games and even all shooters should have both a first and third person perspective imho. Why not? We have the technology, we have the ability to easily incorporate it into our games, why isn't it standard? Moving on to camera angles how can games fail to get these incorrect in this day and age? How can a game have such a poorly designed camera that it detracts from the gameplay when good camera should be complete and total standard in ALL professional gaming titles now? What the hell is wrong with developers when they release games with a bad camera? Did they not even playtest it at all?

It's not just the basics that should be standard in games now either. Lets look at my beloved RPG genre which currently seems to be evolving at the speed of a slug with severe arthritis in all of its body. As you guys know, recently I've been playing Rogue Galaxy, an RPG that has *gasp* different outfits for your characters to wear, so when they change clothes and weapons they don't actually look the same! It sounds simple yet almost every title in the genre unless it's a MMORPG fails epically at providing any variety and clothing and when it does it's pretty poor. Simple features like this should now be standard in this gen, why aren't they?

Infinite Undiscovery is another glaring example here. If your not going to bother dubbing all the cut scenes and throw in random moments of complete silence shortly after a lengthy sequence of spoken dialogue with bother releasing it on the 360 at all Tri-Ace? On a next-gen console spoken dialogue should again be a standard. Put it on the PS2! It would be far more cost effective and make FAR more sense. Most games this gen as a whole aside from their looks could have been done on last-gen's consoles and while as I said at the start of this rant there are a few exceptions these are few and far between enough to make this a sorry state of affairs.

End of rant.

Infinite Undiscovery still isn't here! It should be on Monday however so in the meantime I have been racing through Rogue Galaxy on the PS2. So that's been my main game of the week...

Rogue Galaxy

Sooo, Rogue Galaxy my relationship with Level 5 as a whole seems to be I either want to end my life swiftly from boredom at there games or I have a lot of fun playing them. Fortunately Rogue Galaxy falls into the fun category by being a charming, accesible and innovative RPG that really should be played by everyone. It's not perfect by any means and people who like a more technical approach to combat may be turned off by it's hack and slash gameplay but so far I'm loving it.

Right now I'm Six Chapters in about to take on the boss of the chapter "Gale", so far I haven't found anything too difficult but this is largely due to the ease of being able to resurrect your characters instantly with others (with full health) rather from lack of them dying. Story wise things are pretty enjoyable and it has a good colourful cast of genuinally likeable characters such as Steve the robot and the rather hot kick ass tribeswoman Lilika. I'm fairly sure IU will distract me from this when it arrives but I shall try and maintain play hours on this at the same time as it's really quite good. Recommended so far.

Other Stuff

Other than Rogue Galaxy I haven't really played much this week other than dabbling a bit more in Fable: The Lost Chapters as my excitement for Fable II reaches fever pitch.

Over the next few weeks I'm hoping Viva Piniata II shall be entering my playtime (as Anne got it for her birthday) as well as of course Infinate Undiscovery next week. Force Unleashed should also be putting in an appearence at the end of the month (despite the bad reviews for it so far) and then Fable II and Fallout III shall be just around the corner /cry.

Once again plagerising SemiMaster (sorry again Casey!) here come 5 games I consider overated. Guarenteed to cause a nice healthy dose of controversy.

Oh and for the sake of fairness I've only included games I've actually played.

5) Disgaea

I'm sure some of you saw this coming like a huge train with headlights on and horn blaring out of a tunnel, it's well documented how much I hate this game which has a huge cult following. Disgaea was the first SRPG I played and while I mistakenly gave others a chance I can only reach the same conclusion that the genre is rubbish. I don't care if I can level up and customize a huge amount, I don't want to spend hundreds of hours levelling up myself, weapons, optional hordes of team-mates and staring at jailbait characters like Etna. Yes the story is quirky, it's even funny at times but that dosen't compensate for the fact the game plays like your running through a vat of cement while sinking at the same time.

Oh and Prinnys are only good if theyve had a trip to a taxidermist.

4) Gran Turismo III

Ah what a fool I was, back in the days of the PS2 I was still in the phase where I thought other peoples opinions on games other than my own actually mattered. Sure reviews are usually still good even now to get a general consensus but as a rule my opinion on a title and how it looks pre-release is what reigns supreme. But I digress.. back in these days I hung on reviewers words so after hearing about the awesome realism and greatness of GT3 I rushed out to purchase it. Shortly after I reached one conclusion. Realism in games and me isn't a match made in heaven, I can't recall even winning one race on this piece of dross and it was sold soon after purchase, and I secretly hoped the disc in question would sit alone, unpurchased for years to teach it a lesson.

3) Super Smash Bros Melee

Ah Super Smash Bros, how I hated thee on the N64 and how I hated you even more on the Gamecube (seriously I'm not sure there was any game I ever wanted on the Gamecube, ever) but I was lured over to a freinds house to play this and take part in "Nintendo's Best in 4 Player Action" (which is kind of like saying Squaresoft's best in first person shooters.. but you get my drift). I could never "get" why the original Smash Brothers was liked and even more so with this one it seemed to be a case of "Oh wow it's Mario, Pikachu, Bowser... and that smaller pokemon who looks like a yellow turd.. and erm some guy from a game that I dont actually know.." etc rather than a focus on the games quality from people. I found it dull, totally not fun and I can never get why its hallowed as a great beat em up series other than the shiney Nintendo stamp on the front cover.

2) Halo

Personally I think one of the main tasks "Mythbusters" should take up should be "why do people consider Halo to be a good a game" because I think it may actually be one of the greatest issues to ever face humanity. I have spent hours and hours meditating on this in secluded isolation and can only reach the conclusion that everybody who played it and liked it hadnt actually ever played Half-Life, Or Goldeneye or Quake III or Quake II or Doom or Wolfenstein 3D or Pong... well you get the point. Halo was unoriginal, bland and dull with rubbish driving sections thrown in like vast turds floating in the sea of its toiletness. I still to this day can't understand why the series is popular and I never will. Hopefully God shall enlighten me when I die.

1) Metal Gear Solid II

I often marvel at Hideo Kojimas storytelling, time after time I sit back and muse "how can one man throw so much homoeroticsim into one storyline" while at the same making it such nonsensical garbage. My opinions of MGS as a franchise are well documented but I perhaps feel most cheated by MGS2 as once again lured by silver tongue reviewers I actually purchased it. Oh how I laughed as Raiden slipped in bird poo, Oh how I joked when there was naughty pictures inside the lockers, oh how I wanted to imbed my skull in the TV screen every time ANOTHER lengthy cutscene interuppted gameplay and we were subjected to more crotch grabbing hilarity. I actually did finish MGS 2 then promptly went to make a cup of tea as the end cutscene played, it was far more interesting than the actual story.

Yeh I was harsh, but I enjoyed it ;) *insert mad laughter here*

This week on my regular gaming update, FF XII review and the force is with me.

Theres not a huge amount to say on the Final Fantasy front this week other than I have played a huge chunk this week and am now about to conclude the game and take on Vayne. It's been a highly enjoyable ride and today I've put together my review of the title. I'm not a huge FF fan myself, I never played VIII which I know most people sing as one of the best in the series but VII and IX were pretty dull from what I played of them and it wasn't till X and X-2 I started enjoying what I played. So from a non-fan of the series please read my

Final Fantasy XII Review

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Got around to playing the demo of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed this weekend and I must say it's pretty damn fantastic. I always enjoyed the Jedi Knight games and this makes the whole experience a lot more realized than before especially in terms of force powers and atmosphere. This is no KOTOR alike follow up mind and steps squarely in the footsteps of Jedi Knight, Jedi Knight II and Jedi Academy.

So far my favourite parts of the game (other than the jaw dropping visuals) have been blowing doors off their hinges with the sheer power of force push, hurling enemies around the screen with a variety of powers and generally causing destruction on a previously unknown level for a Star Wars game. Everything works extremely well (apart from the rather fiddly combos when fighting the boss at the end of the demo, but I can adjust to that) and it's already looking polished enough to be released now (but I suppose I can wait till the 19th). The plot looks to be one of great depth too and I'm looking forward to see if the title can compel a deep story with it's excellent gameplay too.

Other Stuff..

Just playing about on a few arcade games, Symphony Of The Night etc.. . I also replayed a bit of the original Fable which may take up my next week of playtime while I wait for Infinate Undiscovery to arrive at my door and become my next main gaming project.

A topic that I've seen discussed a fair bit recently on forums and the like has been game length. What is an appropriate length for a game? Should a game offer replayability? Can a game be too long? And questions to a similar effect. With the upcoming relese of Tri-Ace/Squaresoft's new RPG "Infinite Undiscovery" on the horizon I've noticed that quite a few people are unhappy it's 20-30 hours in length which to be fair is short for a Japanese RPG.

This got me thinking, is 20-30 hours really that short? I myself have expressed that personally unless a game is REALLY good thats the ideal length for me. I'm no longer a teenager and have a lot more responsibility I did back then thus far less gaming time and to be fair, I don't want to spend as much time on games as I did back then due to things I enjoy more like my relationship etc.. . Currently I'm playing FF12. It's good, but way too damn long and things are starting to grate as it's been a month now and after 60 hours I'm getting a bit bored. For me I think 50+ hours is where the borderline of fun becomes that of tedium.

Of course I'm talking about single player RPG length here as it's mainly what I play, but what about other genres out there? On the MMORPG front it's not abnormal to have approaching hundreds and hundreds of days playtime, yet to a casual FPS or Sports Game fan even 10 hours may sound like a major timesink. We have to obviously conclude that what's appropriate for one genre in length isn't appropriate for others. A FPS may have a 7 hour main story which I would consider abysmally short yet at the same time people may get 40+ hours from the multiplayer aspect that I wouldn't have interest in. Likewise someone who likes to shoot or drive predominatly in their gaming would have probably leapt into the bath clutching a toaster after a non-interactive 20minuite cutscene in an RPG yet alone 60 hours playtime.

Problems seem to occour more when genres step outside their safety zone with lengthy FPS being named repetative and "short" RPG's being deemed to not have enough depth. We as gamers as always are usually a bunch fairly set in our ways and don't like change. If Squaresoft are as it seems moving to target a more western market for example then perhaps RPG's will shorten in length causing hardcore fans who demand a possible 100 hour sink to be annoyed. I suppose we shall have to wait and see what the future holds for game length. In the past titles used to be about 1 hour in length yet extremely hard so repetition was demanded to learn patterns and progress, gaming length and the way it is approached by developers will as it always has done continue to change (slowly im sure) and there really is no right or wrong way to go about it.

Yup a boring title for what shall be a regular feature on my blog now. I've been trying to think of ways to make this slightly different from a "what are you now playing" blog post and hopefully it'll be a bit more interesting and in depth than that.

Final Fantasy 12

This week my game of choice has been Final Fantasy 12. It's an extremely compelling title which I never played when it got released and I am now roughly 45 hours through it and about to take on Doctor Cid in the Draklor laboratory.

The game is easily one of the best title's I've played all year with my only complaint being the relatively weak cast for an FF game. Most of the characters don't really stand out as being that deep or interesting at this stage and while I like Fran and Balthier in particular they are both one trick ponies thus far in terms of personality.

Gameplay wise is where things really stand out for me at the moment, the ****is definately very remenisant of my MMORPG days and I actually like it a whole lot more than a turn based system. I may be in the minority when I say this but the game has possibly one of my favourite combat systems of all time. The only way I feel the mechanics could have been improved is just having more differentiation between characters on the license grid. While I use characters in different roles (Team A is Ashe as healer/mage, Basch as Melee/Tank and Fran as DPS/Backup Mage/Healer, and Team B is Penelo, Vaan and Balthier in the same ****roles) they are essentially more and more the same as they reach full license grids. Does anything special happen if I fill up one grid in full?

Fable II Pub Games

If Fable II manages to be as bad as Fable II Pub Games is there is going to be many a broken fans heart out there. Let me save you guys considering buying this 800 MS points. It's utter crap. UTTER crap. Word's cannot describe just how bad this game is, in fact to call it a game would be a stretch of the truth and "random mindless cash in" would be closer to the mark. The games are three crap, gambling games, all down to chance and not down to skill and all very unimaginative and boring. I would rather have my pubic hair electrolysed every day for my entire life than play this unmitigated dross again, I'll start Fable II off skint thanks Mr.Molyneaux.

Too Human

No I haven't got the full game but I did get around to playing the demo this week and thought I'd give my thoughts as well as comment on the controversy surrounding the title. The demo wasn't bad. It wasn't great but it wasn't unmitigated crap and while I won't be purchasing it till it's laying in a bargin bin the game I'm sure will be a reasonable source of fun in the future. A few points to make though:- The analogue stick as means to attack? Full points for originality but theres a reason the analogue stick isn't normally used for combat.. because it dosen't really work. I kept attacking instead of rotating the camera and rotating the camera instead of attacking and ugh, was this play tested purely by the guys who designed it? Secondly, co-op.. online only (something I'm used to by now but still fills me with rage everythime I come across it), yes I have a net connection, yes it's fast enough to play online but theres no way in hell I'm going to pay for live again as it's a waste of money. Why can't it be played two players on screen at once? Hmm? I know why SK as you were too damn lazy to programme it.

Other than these I played around with a few arcade games and the like. Double Dragon on the 360 has awful FPS but as a rule the game was as fun to play through as it was when I was younger. Oh and it has two player co-op offline. Please somebody LEARN this is a good thing even when online still exsists.

Oh and finally another of my reviews is up, so please rate my

Dark Cloud II Review

Thanks!