Gamer--freakz

Gamespot score:n/a

my score:7.5

(+)Pros:-Continuum shift on the PSP plus all 3 DLC characters,-inclusive of arcade mode playthroughs for all DLC characters,-includes new story arcs,-abyss mode adds even more gameplay value for casuals,- newly tweaked score attack that catters more towards weaker playes,-plenty of unlockables.

(-)Cons:-Still has below average character count,-visuals arent as impressive on the PSP,-not that much improvements over continuum shift.

Gameplay time:30-40 hours

I promised more game reviews, but honestly, Im running out of stuff to review (good stuff that is, games that I think at least deserve a 7). Time to redig up my PSP and play some games. Blazblue is currently aksys's biggest thing going on right now, and I can even go as far as to say its the new street fighter -.-. They are releasing new iterations of the game all so oftenly, like about 1-2 games a year! Thats going abit too far aksys, don't become like capcom! Anyway, blazblue continuum shift 2, has 2 release types, a retail release for the PSP, and a downloadable content for continuum shift owners on consoles. Its a wise move, at least they arent making it a retail release for consoles as well. Well, today's review will obviously be for the PSP version, so lets get started right away.



The story for continuum shift 2 is pretty much the very same thing for continuum shift. There are no progressions from the story, and its basically what you have seen before if you have played continuum shift. At least aksys threw in some new story arcs like the one with sector seven and the one with the 3 girlfriends makoto, noel and tsubaki. The storytelling may be a tad bit boring, but great writing and voice acting make it a good experience overall. If you never played continuum shift, its a good idea to invest some time to discover the great story of blazblue. If you've played it before, you might want to just invest some time into the new story arcs, the rest you can ignore, because you have seen it before. I still find it annoying that they didnt even add story arcs for makoto, mu-12, valkenhyne and platinum (they are doing it for continuum shift 2 EXTEND, which is wtf).




Mu-12 and lambda-11 duking it out..who doesn't like to see a cat fight between 2 robot chicks?

There's not much going on for continuum shift II if you bought all 3 DLC characters, but if you haven't, you are in for a treat. All the better if you've never played calamity trigger or continuum shift before, because theres lots of variety going on here. In this iteration of the game, there are 17 playable characters, all with varied play styles and some superb character designs. The fighting is over the top and trying all characters is really something. For the new additions to continuum shift II, they are basically all the DLC characters from continuum shift. We have makoto, valkenhyne and platinum.

Makoto is one of the 3 best friends girl trio, and is a beastkin. She fights with a pair of tonfos ( I think thats what they are called...) and moves around the field quickly with her beastkin abilities, including tons of trickery options by creating clones that run along with her in 3 different directions. Valkenhyne is rachel's butler, and is a lupin. He is able to hit hard, but lacks mobility. He can transform into a wolf to zip around the field and do different types of attacks, but he will revert to to human form after awhile. Platinum is your typical mahou shoujo, but shes really one of the 6 heroes. She fights in a weird way, summoning stuff like bubbles, missles, flowers and hitting people with frying pans and hammers. All in all, all 3 are fun to play, and the old characters all have been buffed/nerfed so make the experience a more balanced one.

This is what happends when you try to approach a little girl with that huge sword ragna.

Blazblue was pretty damn known for its good amount of modes...continuum shift II is no different. It carries over all of continuum shift's modes and throws in a brand new abyss mode. Abyss mode is typically like a level by level battle progression where you fight waves and waves of enemies until you clear a certain amount of stages, then you reach a shop where you get to buy stuff to strenghten your character. Its a good distraction, and adds more replay value for casuals. There are also the older modes like legion, survival, and the infamous score attack. Speaking of the score attack, aksys decided to actually be more merciful and made it easier.

While it still presents some sort of huge challenge, its much easier to clear the entire series of score attack opponents this time round (unlike in continuum shift where you had to fight unlimited ragna, hazama, hakumen and rachel). Still, I cant help but think they should at least include an unlimited character as the final score attack boss. Whats more thats new is that the new DLC characters can actually be played on arcade mode this time round. In continuum shift when you bought those characters, you could only use them in score attack and versus mode (online too of course). Now with them being in arcade mode its easier to get better with them. PLUS, like calamity trigger portable did, continuum shift II has tons of unlockable stuff in the gallery for all you enthusiasts to unlock, to promote more play time.

A better look at abyss mode.

The shortcomings for continuum shift II are quite obvious ones. The character count is STILL low, no matter how you look at it. Im waiting for a roster count of at LEAST 20-24 before I call it even, 17 just doesnt cut it (tekken 6 had 40 characters). Same for calamity trigger portable, the visuals took quite a big hit here, and they havent improved since then. Finally is that for those who played the crap out of continuum shift, this expansion is going leave you feeling quite shallow, cause theres not much thats improved, other than free DLC characters and 1 new mode.

Continuum shift II is still great, over the top blazblue fun. Blazblue fans will immediately feel at home, but those who owned continuum shift and totally squeezed every inch of content out of that game...continuum shift II is something you can ignore. Its basically what you have done plus 3 free DLC characters, new tweaks, improved old modes and a brand new mode. Get the DLC for the consoles if you own continuum shift, don't bother for the PSP version. Those who stupidly missed out on continuum shift or don't own a 4th gen console though....this is a good place to start.



Happy gaming.

Once again, I will get right to the point. Been awhile since the last top 5 badass villians post, but meh, I simply just forgot :P. For today, we will be covering 5 villians from the game's side, so, expect spoilers as usual, if you think you might be spoiling yourself, go ahead and skip this post entirely.


Im serious.




He's as badass as he looks.

5.Nightmare
From:Soul calibur series


First up on 5th place is not a very villianous, crafty or desipicable villian, but a very iconic one. Meet nightmare, the abomination created by the soul edge in the soul calibur series.


Nightmare is awesome looking, probably one of the best looking villians out there, and if you have played soul calibur 3 on the PS2 and fought night terror....you should know how awesome he looks there too. Nightmare's looks constantly change during the many different iterations of the games, and for each and every one of them he is good looking.


Nightmare was formed when siegfried found and wielded the soul edge, and for a period of time siegfried even became nightmare, causing destruction to many parts around the world. When siegfried finall managed to become free of nightmare and started to seek the soul calibur, nightmare already had a body of its own. And even now in the soul calibur series, the game has two standing side, with siegfried standing on the side of soul calibur, nightmare still stands strongly as its sole representative for the soul edge.




Looks like odin took some sterioids.

4.Odin
From:Odin sphere


Next up on 4th place we have a character from odin sphere, and thats odin himself. While odin isnt really bad when you meet him in the story, you will soon learn to realise that he has done an epitome of pretty bad stuff that make him one bad daddy.


Odin, for one, isnt really a villian in the story. I'll say it, he's a coward. Odin, being the big mighty lord up above he is, is too cowardly to ever do anything on his own, and to top if off, he has a ton of bad secrets that he doesnt want people finding out, and when they are exposed, you will suddenly feel a huge hatred for this foolery of a god.


While odin himself is the father of gwyndolin, he is quite the asshole towards her. When wagner arised, odin was immediately reminded that wagner was the only dragon that he could not slay. To preserve his "dignity", he hired oswald the shadow knight to kill wagner in his stead, instead of going himself. When oswald refused over and over, odin kept offering him rewards the keep oswald on his side of the bargain, and oswald finally agreed then odin offered gwyndolin herself, to be given to oswald, without her freaking consent. Oswald did gwyndolin good and took care of her, but odin had to make a deal with the lord of fire, making a pact by offering gwyndolin, once again. What the hell?




Find this face familiar? You should....

3.Sephiroth
From:Final fantasy 7


Now many of you may call me a wimp for this, but on 3rd place today we have the super iconic and super memoriable sepiroth, from final fantasy 7.


Now now, I dont understand many gamers' hates towards final fantasy 7, but allow me to explain the story of sephiroth. Sephiroth was just like and normal soldier, but one day he was at the archives of nibelheim, and the research there drove him mad, making him want to meet with his mother jenova and learn about his exsistence.


Of course, after learning that he is but an experiment, he goes completely bonkers and starts wanting to go about "destroying the world". He went to the power plant to meet with jenova amd thats where the infamous zack/cloud/sephiroth scene took place, with him stabbing zack and all. In final fantasy 7, he is the main antagonist and two scenes made him look pretty badass, like it or not. One is the one where he stands in nibelheim looking at cloud, with the entire town up in flames. The other is the one where he flies downward and stabs aerith, killing one of gaming's very first memoriable heroines. Yes, hes that bad.




Hmm? Cake? I see no cake!

 2.GlaDos
From:Portal series

Up for 2nd place is none other than glaDos, from the portal series (which I may add, is probably one of the best franchises in gaming). This cake lieing wanabe just wants to burn you to hell, and heres what going down in her scheming robotic mind.

GlaDos's time with us gamers during portal 1 was brief, but boy did it give us some good laughs. GlaDos served as the main navigator and tester for the original portal, and during each and every test chamber she cranked up quirky jokes and made attempts at making it sound like she was going to kill you, such as "you will be baked..then there will be cake".

During the end of portal 1, you found out that after the entire testing you were meant to be burnt and incinerated, after seeing your floor panel move towards a burning inferno of doom. This was all planned by glaDos of course. After you avoided your burning death, she even tried to trick you to thinking that was part of the test, and when you finally made it to the end to confront glaDos, she still tries kill you in an overly funny fashion with lame jokes, and also exposing your painful past about being a criminal (or a bad person, as she says). In portal 2 she still hasnt changed from her old testing ways, and even during the end after finding out her deep dark secret, she deleted carolyn from her to prevent emotions from getting in the way. O.o.




This image can traumatize gamers for a long long time .....if you go along with the terrifying text that accompanies it.

 1.Clover
From:Nine hours, nine persons, nine doors

.....Lastly up for grabs in first place for top 5 badass villians of gaming today....is clover from 999 (nine hours, nine persons, nine doors). Just for that ONE ENDING ALONE.

I may be overexaggerating, and I dont frigging care, but clover from 999 for the axe ending is MOTHER FKING SCARY. Those who played 999 should know, the setting and story background makes it look like one hell of a sick game, but combined with the fact that there are so many bad and scary endings, it makes for some really creepy shit. The axe ending, without a doubt, is my hatest and most feared ending, I did ALL I COULD to really avoid getting it again.

Now clover herself in the main story isnt that evil or villianous at all, but if you go for the axe ending, you will see a terrifying transformation take place in her soul, and make her into one hell of a scary pshycopath. During the events of the axe ending, clover makes everyone go explore the last unexplored door (I think it was 8, 6 or 2, couldnt remember exaclty). After going in with the people of her choice, she leaves junpei out, kills everyone in it (akane included) and comes out with thier bracelets. This part already freaked me out, then....she did that pose in the picture. I shat my pants. She then extends her hand to junpei and tells him to join her in her escape, while she uses the other bracelets to open door number 9. Then...it happened. She sliced off junpei's arm and goes like bye............*shiver*

Peace for now I guess.






 

Opening songs
OP 1-Amaenaide yō!!(Amae-taii!!)

Ending songs
ED 1-Lonesome Traveler(Mai Nakahara)

Genres:Comedy, romance, slice of life, supernatural
Episodes:13

So tired and so lazy nowadays.....Anyway, heres another anime review to keep things along (my anime watching speed is exceeding my reviewing speed once again). Amaendaiyo katsu is the sequel to amaendaiyo, an anime released back in 2005. Katsu was released in 2006, so yeah, both are pretty old shows. So about amaendaiyo katsu...its alot like ladies vs butlers and that didnt really appeal to me at all, so this is pretty much a no-go. It has tons of ecchi stuff like panty shots, boobs exposure, boobs grabbing...and many more stuff about boobs. Katsu takes it to another level, and while its not queen's blade standard, I cant say I enjoyed it alot.

The songs in this show I couldnt really care for. The opening song is Amaenaide yō!! by Amae-taii!! and the ending song is Lonesome Traveler by Mai Nakahara. Both arent really that nice in my opinion and I skipped them alot, so not much comment here.

Rating:6.0/10

No homo, but I think animes like these arent really entertaining and I certainly dont see the appeal in most of them. The anime is 12 episodes long and most of the time episodes have tons of ecchi exposure in bad taste. The visual style is pretty old and the characters look pretty quirky, I cant say the show has managed to turn me on that much at all. Sure the plot is FAR more than than ecchi all the way, even so, its pretty subpar, and the comedy is mediocre. There is fun to be had here in amaendaiyo katsu, but I have yet to find a certain part of me to genuinely like this. I guess this isnt for everyone?

Feel them to compare them, I guess?

So, amaendaiyo katsu takes place after amaendaiyo, and the star of the show is still Ikkou, the pervertic monk living his life in training with 6 other young female monks. As usual they go through everyday life in the shrine and in school, this time progressing through each of the different girls and thier powers. Each of the shrine monks has a special spirit inembed in them, just like sumi has connections with the realm of beasts and hinata has connections to the realms of demons. Ikkou himself still has the power he had from the 1st season, and whenever he is turned on he will awaken with crazy excorcising powers and start one shotting ghosts. Of course, after that he becomes the ultimate pervert monk and requires to be knocked back to his senses. This time round, other than the 6 monks, another one joins thier ranks and that is kazuki, a freshman in thier school. What could she be after and why is she so clingy to ikkou? Just what is her motive?

Katsu seems like it has a deep plot to it. Don't be fooled, it isnt that deep and impressive at all. Katsu isnt that appealing in my opinion, and I found myself not really enjoying the show. There are far better shows to waste your time on (well watching anime is for burning time after all XD), and katsu shouldnt be on the top of your list if you want to look for a decent ecchi anime. Trust me, there are many better ecchi/harem shows that are much better and actually do a decent job in turning you on or making you laugh.

Peace.

Gamespot score:9.0(Editor's choice)

my score:8.0

(+)Pros:-Solid shooting mechanics,-provides a good variety of innovative looking and well designed weapons,-great visuals,-suit mechanics are amazing and adds a great sense of speed to the game,- slow motions when nearing death increase the tension,-little but incredibly fun boss fights.

(-)Cons:-Short,- too little replay value.

Gameplay time:Less than 10 hours

Like shooters? Then you are in luck today. Like innovative and creative shooters? Then you are in for a treat. If you people are tired of old genric run of the mill shooters like socom or call of duty, try something like vanquish. Vanquish is different from most modern day shooters, and while it may not be the most realistic one, it makes up for it with insane speed antics, an amazing world, and fantastic gameplay. Vanquish is perfect for those looking for a unique and innovative shooter. Its even better if you just like shooters as a whole, since vanquish, by itself, is already a generally fun and great shooter. Vanquish goes out of the box, and lets you do stuff that many other normal shooters don't usually let you do.




Vanquish's backstory is something pretty original, but it might seem a little too familiar at certain parts of the game. Basically, one day, the united states get bombarded by a satellite laser, destroying the city and melting people up. America sends a team of its best soldiers into space to stop this big ass laser shooting satellite, also known as a colony. Amongst its soldiers is sam gideon, an agent of nevac, a specialized group with some pretty impressive technology. Sam gideon is armed with a state of the art combat suit, which makes him far superior than all the other US soldiers. Sam is stationed into a squad led by burns, a big burly squad leader that obviously doesnt click well together with sam himself. Together with burns and his squad, sam heads into the colony, to stop whoever is responsible for attacking the united states, and also to find a professor of nevac who happens to be on the colony himself.





The visuals are downright fantastic.

Vanquish is a sci-fi third person shooter, and if you couldn't tell already, its a pretty damn good looking one. Since the setting itself is more or less futuristic sci-fi, everything looks incredibly mechanical and detailed, making it one hell of a beautiful game. If you robots, moving gears, tires and constantly transforming robotic parts, vanquish is like a gem in a treasure chest. Yes, its that beautiful, everything, ranging from enemies, characters, environments to the weapons...it all looks gorgeous. Speaking of weapons, this game is pretty creative when it comes to them. In this game, there is only 1 weapon, and that is the BLADE, a highly technoligal transforming gun that is held only by sam. Through the game, he collects modules and blueprints, allowing his gun to transform into what he just collected.

You get to pick great weapons, ranging from machine guns, heavy machine guns, shotguns, disc launchers, electric guns, rocket launchers and more. You get to equip 3 modules at once, along with a grenade. You will find boxes or weapon stations throughout the game, allowing to switch weapons if you want to, or need to. The shooting feels great, every shot you take makes you feel satisfied as you see your mechanical foes blow up into bits, and combined with the fact that there are so many guns to test out, you got yourself one hell of an awesome shooter. Oh and lets not forget the great boss fights. Though little, these bad boys look awesome and have awesome attacks to compliment with thier awesomeness.




Detailed mechanical foes with terrifying abilities and attacks stand in your path.

 Of course, vanquish is far more than that, what makes vanquish so special....are its suit mechanics. As said earlier, sam gideon is armed with a state of the art combat suit, which makes him far superior to his squad mates. The suit that sam wears allows him to speed across the battlefield at unbelievable speeds, and this is fun as hell. Many a time you are forced to you your high powered suit to speed to a certain location for meeting the game's objectives, but when you use it on your own accord in battle, you will find out how fun is it to zoom around. Your suit grants you 3 features, one is to zoom around the field at insane speeds, one is to allow melee attacks (which may I add, are mostly one hit KO), and another is to slow down time when you are near death. All 3 of these features, though are useful in thier own ways, drain your suit energy.

When you are out of suit energy, you cannot use any suit functions until your energy is restored. Your suit energy auto regenerates, so no problem there. The melee attack is self explainatory, it gives your enemy a few good smacks. You can also dash up to an enemy and give them a nice uppercut kick. The dash is awesome, it speeds you across the battlefield so fast that enemies cant hit you most of the time, and this is a good escaping tool. It helps you get behind cover, or to close the distance between you and an enemy. The slow motion feature kicks in when you are near death, and it slows all enemy movement around you, allowing you to quickly find cover and protect yourself. If you survived the slow motion sequence, it means you are out of danger. These suit mechanics are so sweet that they themselves make this one hell of a crazy shooter.




Boss fights are of course, pretty damn awesome in this game.

No game is without flaws and vanquish is no different. Being a shooter, it suffers from one thing, and that is game lenght. The campaign itself is generally short, less than 10 hours, if I may add. I cleared the game on normal difficulty in 6 hours plus, and about 4 and a half hours for my 2nd run on hard. Its not a long game at all. And other than a few challenge missions (which are ridiculously hard), there isnt any replay value at all. My 2nd run with this game didnt give me as much satisfaction as my 1st run, and a 3rd run would definetely bore me already. Theres also no online gameplay, all we have are a bunch of leaderboards to compare scores. Kind of a letdown, really.

Vanquish is a great, innovative and "out of the box" shooter. It plays well, it looks great, and it definetely hits the mark for an above average shooter. To me, this easily tops games like call of duty, medal of honour and socom, in terms of standard. As mentioned at the beginning of the post, vanquish is highly HIGHLY recommended for those looking for something different in the shooter category. But if you can, rent this (cant do it here in singapore), cause after you finish it a few times, you are just gonna put this aside.




Happy gaming.

Gamespot score:9.0(Editor's choice)

my score:9.0

(+)Pros:-Amazing campaign with humourous writing and incredibly well designed puzzles,- challenging and mind wrecking,- new features added to puzzles which add much more variety,- cooperative gameplay is smart and provides a new alternative take on puzzles,-overall campaign is much longer.

(-)Cons:-No challenges missions unlike in the first portal.

gameplay time:10-20 hours

Lets kick off november with a review of an awesome game. Remeber portal? Something that was only designed for a short game for the lolz became so phenominal that they had to make portal 2. Portal 2 is a standalone game now, and as expected, valve pulled it off once again to make another masterpiece. Portal 2 has improved from the original portal in almost every way, and is sure to bring all players for another round of mind wrecking portal puzzles that are so cleverly made, its almost impossible to hate them. Theres no need to recommend this, just as portal was, portal 2 is an intruiging puzzle journey that can please everyone, and makes almost  any other puzzle games look shallow when put next to them.



Portal 2's story takes place after that of the original portal. You play as the same character (they never said her name, so I dont freaking know), and you wake up in a confinement room, greeted by a droid known as whitley. He intends to bring you out for testing and help you escape. Times have changed however, ever since glados's defeat, aperature has become a rundown place filled with tree roots and other organic stuff. Whitley tries to help you out, but after going through a couple of run down test chambers, the both of you encounter a beaten down glados, and after a screwed up performance by whitley, glados is revived. She obviously recognized you for destroying her, and so she picks you up and brings you for her all so famous "testing"....

Aperature science has changed along the years.

Gameplay in portal 2 is very similar to the original portal. You fire 2 portals, red and blue, at two different places. You enter either portal, and you end up in the other one. Simple right? Those who played the original should find this very familiar. While this remains the same, many new elements enhance the gameplay and provides tons of new puzzle variety. There are now different types of gel that you can spew over un-shootable walls and make them shootable, gels that allow you to move at the speed of light on, and lets not forget gel that lets you leap 5 feet in the air. Plain ridiculous-ness. There are also anti gravity beams that allow you to casually float on to get from one place to another, and also can be used to lift objects. The possibilities are endless.

Also, now you arent just limited to test chambers, there are huge open area sections that let you roam around, and you have to really think how to allow yourself to get around. This gives the game a more "free" setting, since you have much more to get around with other than just linear test chambers. Because of this, the campaign feels much longer, not only because of the big open areas of course, theres much more to portal 2 than that. There are still sections where you move from test chamber to test chamber, these are longer than the 1st game and the puzzles are overall much tougher, you really have to wreck your mind here. Manipulating lasers, avoiding turrets, timing your portal entries...you name it, portal 2 has it all.

Uhhhh...lasers....THINK man THINK!

The puzzles feel much more improved, there are newer elements added to puzzle solving, there are open world sections, and the campaign is much longer! What else can you ask for? Portal 2 also has better  writing than the original. Meaning that the dialouge, story, and characters feel more significant this time round. Unlike in the first portal where its just glados and you (basically its just glados, you only hear her voice throughout the whole game), there are more characters this time round. Theres also more story involvement, as you progress later into the game, it soon becomes more of a journey to discover the story of aperature science than just you trying to escape...and this is of course, good. It makes you feel part of something more significant, and the newly added characters are just funny.

Whitley is my personal favourite, that accent combined with that dimwit personality of his is downright hilarious. Well, another feature to portal 2 is the cooperative multiplater. While I havent played much of these at all, these are pretty fun. Basically you play as a couple of robots, atlas and p body, and are put through test chambers by glados. In the cooperative campaign, you and a friend play as either robots, and solve puzzles usually impossible when attempted alone. You have to manipulate each others portals and try exploring different alternatives to take on these newly developed puzzles, of course, this means that communication is key. This definetely means that the cooperative puzzles will require more brain stretching than the normal, so be prepared to think together with your friend.

Cooperative multiplayer in action.

Its almost hard to fault valve for this one, portal 2 is essentially a severly improved portal. Well the only thing I can say here is that they removed the challenge missions, for some unknown reason. They gave us cooperative multiplayer to compensate but hey...something removed is STILL something. To me this isnt that big of a deal, since the campaign itself already has some really difficult puzzles.

Portal 2 is amazing. It develops upon its original and made it into something EVEN better. Portal, though short, was already amazing in its own right. Portal 2 made its campaign longer, more challenging, and made it feel fresh with newly added puzzle elements and different environments. Portal 2 is something I would recommend to every living, breathing gamer, for the wonderful puzzle solving game that it is.


Happy gaming!