Hey everyone, light's back this time with something more of an update blog. Have got a lot of things to tell so let's get started without any more chatter before.
Of Collection Goals -- PS2 Edition
When I bought a PS2 I knew only one thing -- this console has got a massive library of games and even that comes across as an understatement in many ways. I knew if I had any hope of making my way through the massive PS2 library as quickly as possible I had to make smart purchases. I had to avoid making purchases atleast initially of the games which didn't interest me. And to satisfy my long-awaited urge to try some PS2 games I would need to hunt down the games I want the MOST first.
I divided a large part of my PS2 wishlist into categories and tried my best to sort them according to priority on the basis of how excited I was for them. I would hunt down those games first that I was eager to play the most. Here's the collection goals in categories :
(Games already purchased are in bold)
Final Fantasy -- Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy XII
Shin Megami Tensei -- Persona 3 FES, Persona 4, Nocturne, Digital Devil Saga 1, Digital Devil Saga 2, Devil Summoner 2 : Raidou Kuzonoha vs King Abaddon
Fighters -- King of Fighters XI, Tekken Tag Tournament, King of Fighters 2002UM, Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus, Arcana Heart,Soul Calibur II
Beat-em-ups -- God Hand,The Warriors,Viewtiful Joe 1, Viewtiful Joe 2, Yakuza 1, Yakuza 2
Shooters -- Killer7, Gungrave
Platformers --Klonoa 2 Lunatea's Veil,Ratchet & Clank, Sly 3, Jak & Daxter : The Precursor Legacy, Jak III
Racing -- Burnout 3 Takedown, Gran Turismo 4
Action -- God of War 1, God of War 2, Odin Sphere, DMC1
Adventure --ICO,Shadows of the Colossus,Okami
Metal Gear Solid --Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater or/Subsistence
Shoot-em-ups -- Gradius V, Mushihime-sama,Rez, Espgaluda, DoDonPanchi
Other RPGs --Dragon Quest VIII : Journey of the Cursed King, Tales of Symphonia,Shadow Hearts,Shadow Hearts 2 Covenant, Suikoden III, Rogue Galaxy, Disgaea Hour of Darkness
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I missed out on a LOT of worthy titles I know but I feel that these are the ones I need to track down first. If you don't see a DMC or KH in there it might have something to do with the fact that I played them in entirety over the years on my cousin's PS2.
I have already tracked down quite a many and have even finished a couple of them. Let's see how many collection goals I can finish in the next two-three months.
As you can see, I finished one collection goal.Shin Megami Tensei. ALL games of it available on PS2 bought.....except one which is Devil Summoner 1 but I'm not interested in it. I had a gut feeling that I would go crazy about this series the moment I would play a game of it. I loved Persona 2 EP and had a fair idea that this would be the series that would come to my rescue when my opinion about JRPG was really low.
That was just the beginning of things. Shin Megami Tensei series has surprised,shocked and made me wet in different ways.Well I did enjoy Persona 3 FES (as you can tell from my review) but even though it might seem rude to P3 fans I must HONESTLY say that P3 felt like a mere appetizer for the main course.....
Which brings me to this....
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Occult, Philosophy, Fallen Angel and.....
Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne.
What can I say about this game. I can copy paste about 50 odd tweets I have posted over weeks I played this game but I'd rather not.
I'll simply say that I am glad I played this game. I am REALLY glad I bought a PS2 and played this game. I haven't come across games like Nocturne too many times in my gaming life so far. And when I have.....I have had a special feeling about such games.
The moment I finished this game I had that similar special feeling. The feeling of being bummed out. Yes as odd as that may sound that "special feeling" is the feeling of being bummed out after finishing the game. The feeling of "that's it" and "this game is over". Hard to describe but few games give me that kind of feeling where I'll really miss playing and being part of the game,its world and its characters.
I'll post a review of this someday. Not now. Not the next week. Maybe not even the next month. All I can do is I can promise you guys that you WILL see a SMT Nocturne review from me some day. It can be really soon or it can be when all of us are old gasbags. :P
(Wonder what that "and..." in the heading of this section leads to? Hmm...how about you guys fill in the blanks,hm? :P )
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MOAR UPDATES
King of Fighters XI :I was never a massive fan of the fighters. I liked them but somehow I didn't have the determination or the interest in putting so much dedication that is required to really "get" into a fighter. Dead or Alive 4 reignited my interest in the genre after all those years but it was Arc's BlazBlue Calamity Trigger which truly made me into a convert. It not only showed me the true depth and versatility the fighting games can possess but how it can be easily accessible yet incredibly deep if you're willing to put the proper amounts of dedication and effort into it. BlazBlue CT went onto become my GotY 2009 (edging out Dragon Age Origins ) and is possibly one of my favourite games this gen.
However when I bought PS2 I said to myself : "This is my big chance to really become a proper fighting gamer". I immediately cracked down on KoFXI and Arcana Heart although I couldn't find Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus even though I tried. KoFXI is a fantastic fighter in nearly every way. It is accessible yet deep and has a pretty varied and balanced roster. I came across the infamous SNK boss syndrome too with some incredibly cheap and annoying bosses but got through them.
I haven't played too much of Arcana Heart yet but from what I have I can tell it sounds fun.
As for KoFXI my main trio is like this : Kula, Mai and Gato
Love Kula for her wide range of s-tyles and moves and pretty easy-to-perform LDMs and DMs. I even ended up mastering the art of DC and SC and I am pretty quickly acing KoFXI. Even though I am not the best fighter player I learn quickly. :D
I would also like to thank three people : usagi704,HartKnight and TheDuskwalker. usagi for all the tips and support he's given me including that awesome fighter's glossary, Hart for his clever inputs, and Dusk of course for the ever-amazing advices and in-depth analysis of tiers and character plays-tyles. Without these three guys I'd find it a lot difficult managing through a genre which I'm still not as good at as I want to be. :)
But hey I can always get better and this game is giving me plenty of reason to.
Final Verdict : Solid fighter filled with incredible flexibility and good content with enough depth to keep you engaged for long
Score : 8.5/10
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Soofla! Attu Goopla Boomsot Kukla! -- The Sims 3
Don't try to Google Translate that or your browser will go BOOM. That's no known human language but the gibberish talk of The Sims.
Yep that's right. I bought Sims 3...or let me correct that I borrowed it from my girlfriend's little brother (in exchange for Arkham Asylum..meh). I have always liked The Sims games for what they are -- pure casual fun. The kind of games you can put in at any time and be entertained.
Sims 3 refines the model to perfectly suit that kind of mindset. It restructures into a more role-playing game with goals both short-term and long-term that you can either try to fulfill whether you're playing for 10 mins or for couple of hours. The game has also opened up to the entire town addressing one of my major problems I had with Sims 2. Its actually an excellent sequel in nearly every way. Less technical issues, more flexbility, newer elements add a lot of charm and customization, realistic behaviour of the Sims, less manual handling required and they work just fine on Auto-Pilot.
Yet I found a problem that the game severely lacked content. It only had one town. That's it. Plus EA removed ALL the features they introduced in Sims 2's expansions.....only to re-introduce them in Sims 3's expansions. Stupid monopolistic EA. Nobody with proper sense would buy any of those expansions.
Final Verdict : Improved sequel but the main game faces a severe lack of content
Score : 7.5/10
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back to Aperture Science -- Portal 2
I loved Portal. Yes the game didn't feel like a "game" but more of a concept demo and the test chamber design and short length did accentuate the feeling. If Portal was a rough edit then Portal 2 is the full-feature movie. Bigger,better and smarter were the words that best described Portal 2.
Puzzle design has improved and that involves massive outdoor scenarios instead of indoor test chambers. The game is also very much a narrative driven experience however unlike Half Life since Portal's world is sparsely populated by any sort of NPCs you don't have to stand around and wait for the "NPC talk" to finish.
Valve's writing headed by Wolpaw and Faliszek has definitely improved. They experiment with different kinds of humour in the game with the different NPCs. There are a couple of large laugh-out moments in the game and its really good to see Valve getting better at this. Story's a lot heavier in content and notable than the first as well and its packed with one or two surprising and unexpected twists.
Puzzles use some newer elements (yet again taken from the intern projects) like gels and light bridges and tunnels. I have to give thumbs up for gels in particular as they make some of the dull sections of the game(story-wise) a lot more interesting due to some cool platforming scenarios they generate.
In the end Portal 2 was a solid sequel. It did lack the "shock and surprise" factor the first one had since we all knew what to expect more or less from Portal 2 but it still ended up impressing us by adapting HL's narrative s-tyle pretty well.
The only major complaint I have with it is that the puzzle and story sections felt disparate other than in two sequences. Puzzles felt like they were merely THERE to solve instead of combining a proper narrative push to it. The game felt maddeningly intense when puzzle and narration both fused into a single entity and it became one of the more memorable gaming experience of recent times but alas they were few and far between. If Valve can improve on this somehow in Portal 3 then maybe we'll see this series finally live upto its amazing potential.
Final Verdict :Bigger,better and smarter than the original and a few significant flaws aside easily one of the best games of 2011
Score : 8.5/10
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now Playing : LA Noire
I began playing LA Noire yesterday. It was lying wrapped unsealed since 3 weeks along with Portal 2 and Witcher 2,the latter which I still have to crack open. Why I didn't play these 3 games which I was genuinely excited about? Blame SMT Nocturne. :P
So yes a few hours in and I've reached the Homicide Desk. It's still a bit early but I'll give my full impressions in the next update blog but for now all I'll say is that it is pretty much standing upto what I expected from it : great but flawed concept and sub-par execution.
I have to applaud its shooting though. Its so "realistic" that shooting someone in the leg kills them while shooting them in leg merely injures them. Yeah right. :P
-------------------------------------------------------------------
I also bought Super Street Fighter IV yesterday. In case you didn't know Capcom and Activision's games are AWFULLY over-priced here. The likes of MW2,SSFIV are priced at about 85-90 bucks. And since console games prices are never reduced or cut down here for sales(only PC games get that treatment) I never even consider buying them. But yesterday while celebrating the completion of my first year at uni (A BIG YAY FOR THAT!! WOOO!! :D ) I came across SSFIV.....at HALF the price. :shock:
Naturally I had to get it. I could have waited for the upcoming Arcade Edition but that'd be overpriced as well. A half-priced SSFIV would do for me over an over-priced SSFIV AE anyday.
So let's see whether the "most definitive" version of the most popular fighting game this gen is actually worth all that hype or not. I go a BIT skeptical but hopefully the game'll impress me.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I'll be leaving for a holiday trip to Darjeeling tomorrow and as it is always whenever I go on a holiday trip I choose to AVOID taking any sort of internet with me. I love that precious occasional feeling of being cut-off from the rest of the world. :D
So I'll be taking lots of novels --Haruki Murakami's "Wild Sheep Chase" (one of my all-time favourite novelists) and Chuck Palahniuk's "Survivor"....(ugh! not a fan) and a lot of music packed into my ipod. No games of course since I also avoid gaming. I mean holiday trips are for a change of pace right. Why do stuff which I'd do anyway the rest of the year? ;)
So I'll see you in 2 weeks time. Until then stay safe and take care of yourself....don't take TOO much care of yourself though...I heard you can put on a lot of weight if you do that. :P
C ya
Lightwarrior179