Check out my first (and probably last, for a while) paid review for GameRevolution.com - Tatsunoko vs. Capcom! http://tiny.cc/fvhn6

I say it's probably my last paid review, 'cause this one was a fluke, thanks to the Capcom PR troubles of late, I was able to pick up the game before GR's main office even had one, so I caught the review!

Also, I have a downloadable PSP Mini game review for Age of Zombies - http://tiny.cc/gu3on

If only I had a renegade interrupt in real life like my pal Elliott Shepard. He's an annoying reporter's worst enemy. KA-POW!

Back to what I was doing...

Heya, I haven't really been in the mood to write about myself lately, but I noticed my last post was almost two months ago, so here's a quick update.

Managed to get some new games a couple of weeks ago, and have already finished Assassin's Creed 2 and its two DLCs for review. I really enjoyed the game, and only got annoyed at a couple of things, mainly the dumb glyph puzzles for subject 16's video and the Leonardo flying machine segment. The flying machine was just plain annoying, it felt so random how I'd run out of air and not, in two separate runs, when I was following EXACTLY the same path and using the same button presses. It literally took me twenty tries to finish that. Anyway, I finished the last memory block yesterday, and even though it got kinda of overly sci-fi for my tastes, I'm anxious to see where they'll take Assassin's Creed 3. The two DLCs will have reviews going for them in the coming weeks, both are already written and sent. Won't comment much about them!

Among other 360 games I got, was Mass Effect 2. I broke that open yesterday night a few minutes before going to bed. I decided to import my second Mass Effect character, Elliott, who I played as an engineer and as a mix between paragon and renegade. He's a tad more of a renegade (I did shoot the scientist back in Vermire, but saved the rachni), and I plan to play accordingly in the second game. I made him yet again an engineer, even though I was torn between that and sentinel. Sentinel sounds awesome and it'll probably be the other archetype I pick. I only got to play the starting section of the game, and boy, it was pretty good, I stopped right before getting to talk to the Elusive Man or whatever his name is. I can, however, already gripe about how small the text is in the game, and how it'll be a pain reading through the codex like that. I can't imagine why developers insist on making small fonts in games. I played games in HD before and the text is still small on them, it stinks, text should be readable, people took time writing stuff that deserves to be read. Please stop being so much like annoying designers who only value the picture and not the text smudge! Gotta mention I played through the original a few times over last month in order to close that one up and see all the story alternatives. Sadly, not once did I choose Udina over Anderson, I can't imagine anyone doing so, the guy is such a pain.

For the Wii, I got Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, and luckily for me, it'll be my actual first payed review. Game's pretty fun, it's totally fit to playing with the ****c controller, the wiimote option is awful. Unlocking characters is kind of a pain since the end boss (the final boss from Okami) is so cheap. Ah well, Capcom is following tradition with their platformer-like end bosses. Online's been great so far, losing as always, but it's totally a fault on my skills. I should have the review ready for next week, hopefully, since I already knocked three reviews out of the desk this week, two for the Assassin's Creed 2 DLC and another for P.B Winterbottom.

I terms of actual work, I finished a quick entry to CGHUB's contest on making busts. I only got a late word on it so I had a couple of days to work on it, even though I liked what I ended up with. Of course, I'll keep working on it for personal reasons. Had a lot of fun, and will probably stop shying away from these things, and put my work out there for industry types to see. I hope to follow through with what I'm saying here, and go beyond words!

That's what I got so far...

Oh yeah, I got a PS3 too, almost forgot to say. That thing is slow online. Haven't played much at all, but so far I really dislike the interface and the internet features. Patching takes forever, and logging into PSN is a coin toss for me, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Anyway, I hope to get a chance to play around with it more, and maybe buy MGS4, it's actually affordable at a store near my place, might go there eventually after finishing these new games.

Yep. Today is my birthday, heck, right on time, exactly one year since last time. Who would've thunk it?

Spending the day relaxing a bit while my computer renders a few frames from an animation I had to setup during the holidays. Took that time to finish up Batman Arkham Asylum's story mode - I swear I did all I could to extend it to the max, but I found all of the Riddler's challenges (without any guides, boy, who needs those with the maps you find in the game, anyway?) so I just decided to go through and finish the story. I have barely scratched the challenge rooms, so I'm pretty sure that will occupy a lot of my game time from now on. I have to say I absolutely adored the story and the pacing of the game. It only took a bit of a dive near the end, where I knew someone would do something in order to remind us this is a game, but other than that, stellar. Cannot wait for the sequel, and from what I could gather from the trailer, it's going to be pretty much like this one, only bigger. I just hope they improve the fighting, it was, personally, a pain in the rear for me. The stealth though, awesome. I love stealth games, and this is one of my favorites so far, right up there with the Thief games...

Anyway, this was supposed to be a quick blog stop!

Back to rendering, COMPUTER!

Now I can finally put an end to the burning question of {insert dumb Bale voice here} "WHERE IS THE JOKER?!"

´nuff said, I'm off to play this after some work...

Holy. Crap. Jaw dropped to floor, sadly, not literally... or not sadly? I'm kinda glad, actually. The only thing that beats this is Sheep Man. Yep. He does.

Yo, everyone, how's it hanging?

It's still gonna take a few for a review on Prince of Persia, but hold on to your pillows, it'll be a doozy once it's finally up. I played through the Epilogue DLC, and even though it isn't as bad as the main game, it's not great, either.

I've been playing a bit of WoW lately as well, and after the series of Thanksgiving inspired quests, I am now the proud owner of every single piece of freaking seasonal achievements, titles and rewards. The seasonal content in WoW is very fun to do in my opinion, and the new Pilgrim's Bounty, Day of the Dead and Pirate Day content were incredibly fun to run through.

Reviews, wow, reviews... lots of published stuff. I was honored to see my first personal review in ages, for Panzer General: Allied Assault, get a mention over at Bitmob.com last week in their recap, so big thanks to everyone there. If you haven't read it, it's up on various sites, including GameSpot.

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/strategy/panzergeneralalliedassault/player_review.html?id=692883&tag=all-about;review1

As for GameRevolution, I have quite a few new ones, including:

Axel & Pixel (X360) -
http://www.gamerevolution.com/review/xbox360/axel-and-pixel

Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony -
http://www.gamerevolution.com/review/xbox360/grand-theft-auto-iv-ballad-of-gay-tony

Gran Turismo (PSP) -
http://www.gamerevolution.com/review/psp/gran-turismo

LostWinds 2: Winter of the Melodias (Wii) -
http://www.gamerevolution.com/review/wii/lostwinds-winter-of-the-melodias

NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits (Wii) -
http://www.gamerevolution.com/review/wii/nyxquest-kindred-spirits

Out of those, I have to say TBoGT was the funnest to play through. Great DLC, get it if you haven't already. I can mention a few of the reviews I got on the pipeline and the queue, like Tales of Monkey Island Chapter Three and Four, LittleBigPlanet PSP, Lucidity, Bit.Trup.VOID, Jak and Daxter Lost Frontier and TorchLight. The last is such a big game, it's taking a while to chip through. It will break soon enough, though, I only have to try out the other archetypes, as I've only been playing as the alchemist. Blame FullMetal on that...

In terms of work, I am putting the finishing touches on quite a few personal projects, even going back to the ol' Ecto-1 for a makeover in a real work location. Playing a big part in a friend's company as a modeler, and I might just be this close to landing a job actually teaching this stuff, who would've thought? Things have been moving along quite nicely, and I've been working like a mule, a mule with a tablet that is. So much tabletting has been taking its toll, though, my hands are starting to ache, so seriously, I might take a bit of a holiday this weekend and just finish reading Pratchett's Hogfather, just in time for Christmas - totally NOT planned at all. Coincidence. Pretty close to my 25th birthday as well, counting a month to go starting tomorrow. I do feel the years as I type this, remembering back to 1997 when I first got online on a crappy PC and now... going online on a crappy computer. The world sure turns!

Thanks to my friend Al, I was able to get Prince of Persia for the 360, and this weekend, I've managed to finish it.

It is quite simply, one of the most frustrating and infuriating games I have ever played. One hell of a disappointment. And to top it off, I bought the DLC when it was on sale a few weeks back, before actually getting the game... *sigh* so I have even more disappoints to suffer through with this heap, at least for a couple of hours from what I've read on that content. I'll have to write something about it eventually, but I can safely say it's my least favorite Prince of Persia game, even lower than Warrior Within. And yeah, I liked the Dreamcast one better than this, so... take that as you may. If I was the controller tossing type, can hell, I came close to doing so, I'd be out of controllers for just about every console I own.

Oh, if art alone made a game good. Not in this case.

Hi all, I've been pretty busy lately, so sorry for the lack of posts. Also, kinda beat today so I'll skip the formalities and get to the nitty gritty.

In terms of gaming, I've managed to finish a few games these past months. On the 360, I darted through both Condemned games - I enjoyed them quite a lot. Not nearly as scary as they were hyped during their respective releases, but enjoyable nonetheless. Got almost all the achievements in Condemned 2: Bloodshot, even on multiplayer. Never aimed for that much of a completion percentage on that, but a few people needed help with online matches and I ended up getting the achievements myself in the process. Bloodshot's multiplayer is fun at first, but gets old fast, kinda shoe-horned into an otherwise great single player game. The forensic gimmick is really underplayed and downright arbitrary at points, on both of the games. Anyway, all in all, I had fun with both.

Still waiting on my copy of Red Faction Guerilla to arrive. Thanks to snail mail, it's taking more than a month to arrive. In the meantime, I picked up a copy of Halo Wars a couple of weeks back on the cheap, but haven't really played it much. Jumped back to Street Fighter IV for a whim during the weekend. I gotta be honest, hearing about Super Street Fighter IV had picked my interest in the series again, but sadly I'll only play that game late after release due to monetary and geographical limitations. On the other hand, Gamespot buddy celdweller is generously lending me his copy of Arkham Asylum for me to play through - hopefully that'll get here soonish. I was going to pre order Forza 3, but the nationally released copy of the game is getting shafted here in terms of the DLC, so I'll be skipping on it 'til I get a chance to play an U.S copy whenever that happens. Tried to get Dead Space on Games on Demand today but yep, got the numb end of the regional lock bat to the face. Argh, I hate that.

On the WoW front, yes, I still play that from time to time, I got a pretty cool ride to brag about - the violet proto drake. The special thing about this dragon is how it is acquired... through yearly events, like Halloween's cousin Hallow's Eve event or even Christmas. It all started late last year for me, when I finished all the Winter Veil achievement awards and hell, it ended on the first day of Hallow's Eve this year. It's a pretty sweet and fast mount, and it's funnily enough, the easiest of the proto drakes to earn, the others being two random loot drops, raid rewards and a rare spawn enemy that needs killing.


Yep, I was turned into a ninja for this picture - darn those trick or treaters!
(alternative link - http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o37/edubuccaneer/WoWScrnShot_101809_120051.jpg)


Not sure how long I'll keep playing World of WarCraft, since I haven't been into a raid in quite a while, and my subscription is about to end. Maybe I'll hold off 'til Cataclysm, the new expansion?

Reviews! Been writing a bunch of them. The latest that got published are:

Contra Rebirth (Wii)
Left4Dead Crash Course DLC (PC/360)
Red Alert 3 Commander's Challenge (360)
Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 2: The Siege of Spinner Cay (Wii)
Zombie Apocalypse (PS3/360)

Soon to come - NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits (wii), LostWinds 2: Winter of Melodia (Wii), Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 3 (PC/Wii) and Axel & Pixel (360).

At the same event I bought Halo Wars, I had the chance to buy a whole lot of comics on sale, and will finally be reading up on Preacher. Already gone through Alex Moore's Swamp Thing - pretty good stuff. Got three volumes on Preacher, two on 100 Bullets and a few Slam Dunk mangas too!

Talk to you guys again soon!

It's hard to believe, but today marks the 10th anniversary of the launch of the Dreamcast. I can't say it feels like yesterday, but man, it's a long time for sure.

I was finally able to nab one of the little plastic white boxes in late 1999, after having a chance to see it on different occasions. The game shown was always some sort of fighting game, but I knew there was much more to it. My new system came with Flag to Flag, the (now deceased) CART Championship Auto Racing Team game, Sonic Adventure and for some odd reason, Monaco Grand Prix. The first two were my choices, and the third, my father's. He thought he'd get into games again, so he got an F1 game for himself. His mistake. What an awful game to get back to - no official license, it pailed in comparison to Flag to Flag in just about every way. On the other hand, Flag to Flag was awesome, even though it was broken to no end in the fact that you could 'bump-win' your way through every race and take out literally the entire competition.

Anyway, before the Playstation 2, the Dreamcast really felt like a "new gen" console, a step above the then current crop of games. Graphics were a huge improvement from past systems, and for a while, it seemed like there wouldn't be a match to Dreamcast games in terms of presentation and feel. Even today, Dreamcast games look very good, specially when hooked up to a VGA monitor using the special adapter, and it's one of the few consoles that emulated almost flawlessly various arcade games.

I won't get into the history and the sad events of the Dreamcast's life, mainly because I'm just lazy to write about it, and since so many people will be doing the same, I'll leave it to all the other write ups about it. I'm here to remember it, hell, be reminded of it, since I still own my original system and it still works perfectly. The Dreamcast is the only video game I consider to collect games and items for. In 2003, after years of procrastination, I started my collection when I bought an original, nationally produced Shenmue game. Shamefully, up to that point, I had owned only a handful of legit games, with a bevy of burned copies I downloaded off the internet. But upon buying that Shenmue copy, something clicked, and since then, I've been building a healthy library of games and accessories. The rarest of the bunch are my Shenmue II European copy, which took lengths and lengths of effort to obtain and Garou: Mark of the Wolves that I bought while visiting New York last year. While both aren't exactly rare on other gaming system options, they are cool games to own on the Dreamcast for sure. Among the paraphernalia of items, I've managed to get one of the awesome arcade sticks from Sega, a Dreamcast keyboard, Seaman and even a mouse. Somehow, to me, the Dreamcast feels like something worth collecting and playing, even if it was killed off too early. I don't consider myself a collector, far from it, since I play every game I ever got for it and hardly keep them in shrines for 'mint condition'. My game collection has spread so far that it practically occupies an entire shelf in my room, among other assorted game crap there.


My shelf - sorry about the flash, it's a rainy day. Sorry for the mess, I'm just a lazy bastard. If you look at the bottom left corner, you can see the box in which my Dreamcast lives nowadays. The left-most column is my extremely slim Sega Saturn library. And yes, that's a James Bond VHS collection in the upper shelf.


It's worth mentioning how well the Dreamcast was supported in Brazil - TecToy, the local distributor, had a great line of games out for it, and to top it off, at reasonable prices. Unlike the current crop of games sold off at ridiculously overcharged prices, Dreamcast games were reasonable purchases, making it a good, current game system to own at the time. Sega had a great history with the Master System and Mega Drive in the past, supporting both way past their life cycle, to this day even, bundling both with built in games still found in stores, but it has been a bit different with the Dreamcast, as it's a rare find in stores, if at all. Either way, I'm thankful for the treatment it's been given, even going as far as owning a few of the nationally released titles like Vigilante 8 and Blue Stinger.

Am I sad about the history of Sega post Dreamcast? To be honest, no, not really. They had an incredible console in their hands, and messed it all up with the consumer. They took their main mascot and trounced it with awful games. But in that wake, they brought out a great little new series of games with Yakuza (Ryu Ga Gotoku), which to me is almost enough to clean their name.

What's important to remember today is not the series of mistakes Sega as a company made over the years, even though it's one hell of a laundry list, but how awesome the Dreamcast was and still, in a way, still really is. You doubt it? Look past its ridiculous name, and pop in a game or two, you won't regret it.