Thursday, 27 January 2011

Trauma center:Under the knife

Gamespot score:7.8(good)

my score:7.5


(+)Pros:-Great concept and gameplay mechanics,-many different kinds of operations,-lots of tools all of which are useful and have distinct functions,-good story,-great cast of characters.

(-)Cons:-Pretty short,-very very very VERY hard,- too much talking too little operating

Gameplay time:Below 10 hours(Short)






Alright time for a review!!!Before that, some of my usal ranting. School is once again, being a bitch, and I do not have much time to do my own stuff. Anyway, purchased dead space 2, though I havent touched the main game and have only played extraction, great game so far. Ahem....back to this. Trauma center, much like the ace attorney series, is something never tried before, and works well. While I very much prefered AA, trauma center itself is a good series, though it is very VERY difficult. Luckily, the second one is much better, anyway, on with it.



Under the knife stars our main character as doctor stiles, derek stiles. Derek is pretty young for a doctor, and he just started picking up surgery, so he just does his job. But theres one thing, derek is damn carefree, he just doesnt really give a damn about many things. He likes to get things done and thats it, not care about it any more. One day, he almost loses a patient and gets yelled at by his partner nurse angie. Feeling all bad and stuff, he decides to quit. One day, a major accident takes place, and the hospital is out of docs, the only guy available is none other than derek. There, he rushes for time as he tries to save a near death patient, there he discoveres he has a power called the healing touch, where he is able to see things at super slow speed when doing surgeries. There, derek's career as a surgeon is restarted anew, and he starts a new life as a "reborned" doctor.




Trauma center is a very text driven game, like the ace attorney games. The game is split into chapters, each with thier own segments. These segments are mostly operations, but some include just dialouge between characters. So...yeap, thats alot of text and very little operating.
Still, AA is MUCH wordier, so if you can handle AA, trauma center should be just fine to you. The dialouge isnt bad anyway, its quite interesting actually, the characters are cool and funky in thier own way, hearing them converse is quite something.



Operating in trauma center, is obviously the fun part. You are always cutting people up, either to remove tumours or just to heal internal cuts. During operationgs, you are constantly being pressed for time, as your patient's pulse is constatntly dropping. Thats means you have to be as quick as that timer, or even quicker. Thats most of the time hard, since the timers going down pretty fast, and everytime you make a mistake, that pulse will drop even more. Thats alot to live up to. Anyway, during your many different operations, you will be using a very vast set of tools. You have the cutter, to slice things up, such as tumours. You have the syringe, to insert certain fluids into certain areas. You have the anti-biotic gel, to disinfect stuff. Theres alot to go on, but the gist is that during most of the operationgs, the tools are mostly all used, so theres equality, you wont be using one tool more than the other.


Now under the knife is a great game and all, but it seriously is plagued by difficulty. This is probably one of the hardest games I have played on the DS. You are constantly pressed for time, and the slightest mistakes you make cause the pulse to drop FAST. Plus, if you screw up your touchscreen or stylus, it makes this game almost impossible to play. This game caused my touch screen plastic piece to actually come off :X. The other issues are pretty much mentioned, theres too much talking and too little operating. Kinda beats the whole surgeon thing. Also, the game is short, it doesnt last more than 10 hours, and I doubt anyone would go for a 2nd playthrough since its mostly all the same. Challenge is even harder than normal, and even if you manage to clear them( I dont know how someone can physically do them), thats about it.


The 1st trauma center is good, but has alot of room for improvement. Luckily the second one solves most of its problems, and is a much better game overall. Still, if you are looking for a unique game like ace attorney, trauma center can probably satisfy you, just make sure to adapt to the extreme difficulty.





Happy gaming.

Tuesday, 25 January 2011

NOT A MAI HIME SEQUEL,but still great (Mai otome review)

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Opening songs:OP 1-Dream wing,OP 2-Crystal energy
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Genres:Action,comedy,drama,romance,slice of life
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Episodes:26
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Another great show! Original mai hime was awweeeessssooooomeeee to the max, and when I first saw mai otome, I seriously expected a sequel. But noooooo.....its a spin off, and it looked a little lame to boot. Luckily, the show is entertaining, as altough it is different, it still follows that "school life" thing they have going like they did in mai hime, and it really works out well. Also, about 5/8 through the show it steps up to an epic turn of events, and the show starts becoming awesome, until it reaches its conclusion, which I thought was pretty okay. Even if its not a sequel, mai otome is worth a watch.
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As for the songs used in openings, dream wing and crsytal energy were used. Dream wing was kinda a slow and meh-ish song, but it grew on me after abit, never really got into loving it though. Crystal energy was much better, and a much more suitable song for the 2nd opening, following the events of the show at that point of the series. It certaintly had a more epic feel to it.
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Rating:8.5/10
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If you loved mai hime, the chances are you will love mai otome as well. The school life thing is really cool and is entertaining to watch for the 1st half of the show or so, and later when it becomes a more action or thriller like anime, its just great. Unlike in mai hime though, where only a few chosen "himes" can fight, almost everyone can fight in this show, which makes it a little more "involving" , since all the characters get thier own screen time.
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Mai otome stars a new character by the name of Arika (kinda beats the point to naming the show MAI otome, when the main character isnt mai). Arika is a pretty beat up teenage girl, and one day she is just found and brought into a city. After abit of running around with her new found friend nina (who is an otome), she gets to experience a whole new world of possibilities when she sees the power of the otome itself. She gets enrolled into coral academy, with the sponsor of a cetain "Oji-san", where she is given her own gem, and her life there begins. But soon, she learns of her true nature and becoming, where her whole life position starts to change. Also, war starts to break out later in the anime, and there, things get even more screwed up.
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Mai otome receives 2 thumbs up, its engaging and action packed at the same time. It also shows alot in terms of tests of friendships and some pretty damn cool scenes. The twists in the show also provide much anticipation into what might happen next. Mai otome is definetely a show worth picking up, and further more, if you are a fan of mai hime, the cameos will definetely stir you up and give you great moments of nostalgia.
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Peace.

Friday, 21 January 2011

Demons's souls boss profile: Flamelurker

Boss health

Flamelurker
HP:3720
Skills:Swipe*, Pounce, Explosion*, Rage

Difficulty:4/5
Times died on 1st playthrough:10+

Ughhh the dreadful flamelurker. Hes simply one tough cookie, trying to beat him straight out like most of the game's other bosses jsut doesn't quite work here. 2-2 wasnt even terribly difficult, and suddenly they throw you such a powerful asshole. Flamelurker is the boss of 2-2, armor spider archstone.




The flamelurker is HARSH. You fight him in a rather small arena, and he likes to get up close to murder you, which he can do very easily if you decide to melee him. He is probably the only legit boss that I will recommend you to fight him with magic, since killing him the manly way might just net you more and more free deaths ( just like it happened to me).



Swipe*- The flamelurker does a simple swipe. It does pretty below average damage at first, but it stacks. Each other successful hit from the flamelurker increases the damage of the swipe, so take extreme caution.

Pounce- Pathetic. You should be glad to see this. The flamelurker growls and holds his both hands together, then he jumps up and tries to knock you. Does shit damage, and gives you alot of free time to hit him if you dodge it.

Explosion*- Gah fck this. Explosion is his most frequently used and most deadly attack. He just does a straight palm foward and causes a big explosion, dealing above average damage and heavy damage in rage mode. In rage mode this also has a larger radius.

Rage- The flamelurker gets angry! All of his moves become powered, increasing in speed and damage, as well as increasing explosion's blast radius. His swipes and pounces also gain fire effects.

Flamelurker has induced rage in many players, and has taken the lives of many. If you find this too fcked up, take my advice and summon a blue to help you, this makes the fight MUUUUCCCH more managable.

As I said, this boss you HAVE to do with magic. If you are a wanderer or something and have to melee or bow him...best of luck to you. Melee is actually doable, but I have yet to accomplish this with a bow, my apologies.

For this fight as I said earlier, I recommend the use of magic, more specifically something from the soul arrow or soul light family. Stay AWAY from the flamelurker and shoot him once, wait for him to come at you, dodge carefully, run far away, shoot again, rinse and repeat. Make sure hes actually at a desirable distance away from you, since the boss loves to sprint, being too close might actually get you hurt before you even fire a shot. As for melee, you might want to come in with lots of sticky white stuff, since plain old normal melee does crap damage to him.

Now for his attacks, swipe is pretty short range but as mentioned, it stacks. Later in the battle his swipe might actually do more damage than his explosion. IT HAS HAPPENED TOO MANY TIMES TO ME SO I SHALL SAY IT. Its okay to get hit by swipe early on, but after you reach the halfway mark of the battle, do your best to avoid it, since it most likely spells doom. If you are meleeing him, avoiding this can net you a couple of strikes before running away.

Pounce is nothing special, since i find its damage crappy, even when raged. Its easy to dodge, and after that, you are free to shoot a spell at him or net him a couple of hits. Now his explosion, thats a very troubling attack. He usually sprints towards you when he does this, and when you see him coming, you should expect it to come out. Explosion SUCKS, it has huge radius, and this will hinder most melee fighters. This is main reason why magic is a much prefered method in this fight, just run for your pitiful life when you see him pause and prepare to thrust his palm fowards, since you know an explosion is coming, and after its over, pelt a shot at him.

For melee users this becomes a pain, since if you block explosion you will take a huge stamina blow and his next attack will without a doubt hit you. Prepare a purple flame shield and ring of flame resistance, this should prep you up abit, if you cant bring both even one is better than nothing. When you see him coming, hold up your shield, move back steadily and when the explosion is done, you will only be hit by the edge of it, and you will receive minimal damage on block both to your HP and stamina. After that, try to go in for a quick hit or 2, then move away before he does it again.

Do note that he will rage when his HP drops below half or so, when this happens do not panic and continue the fight like you were during the previous half of the fight. His explosions become more frequent, but if you are patient, you can find openings to attack him, soon, he will fall.

The flamelurker is a total jerk. Feel free to celebrate all you want after you have defeated him, you get a hefty amount of souls to spend, along with a red hot demon soul to give to ed, in which he can craft you some exclusive weapons. Awesome. If you can beat flamelurker, you can safely tell yourself that you can take on most of the other game's bosses.

Peace.

Demons's souls boss profile: Dirty colossus

Boss health

Dirty colossus
HP:3367
Skills:Fly swarm*, Swat, Smash, Triple swat, Fly burst, Fly Disperser

Difficulty:1/5
Times died on 1st playthrough:0

Im doing 2 posts today so grab a chair. Anyway the 2nd of the part 2 bosses of the respective worlds I faced was the dirty colossus. I absolutely LOATHE the valley of difilement, especially 5-2, that was one of the worse and most annoying levels in all of video gaming history. Honestly the only reason why I killed this guy 2nd was because I wanted to finish the valley of difilement ASAP. Anyway, the dirty colossus is the boss of 4-2, leechmonger archstone.

Thats quite a number of attacks to go through, though I find it rather pointless since dirty colossus is simply another simple as hell boss. I wouldn't go as far as to say he is actuallly easier than old hero, but they are kinda tied in terms of difficulty, both easy pieces of shit. Still the only way you can die here is if you decide to range him, which is a stupid idea.


Fly swarm*- The dirty colossus shoots some swarms of flies in your direction if you are far away from him. Each swarm does moderate damage, but if are hit by 1 you will be hit by the rest, and that totals up to some pretty painful shenanigans. To top it off, the flies will stick to you, eating off your HP from time to time.

Swat- The boss just tries to swat you as if you were a fly. Does moderate damage.

Smash- The dirty colossus winds up his melee arm, and lets loose with a death defying blow, smashing through any forms of guarding and doing massive damage.

Triple swat- Just a simple 3 hit swat combo, nothing much to see here. Each hit does moderate damage, but 1 hit will knock you down so nothing much to worry about.

Fly burst- The dirty colossus does an explosion from within his body, bursting out flies in a sphere shaped explosion. Does moderate damage, with the same flies stickign effect as the fly swarm applying here.

Fly disperser-The dirty colossus hits the ground with his fly arm, and sends waves of flies underneath, causing towers of flies to sprout out randomly around him.

Thats alot of attacks, too bad most of them just waste your time are not worthy of mention. The key to killing the dirty colossus is only one thing. Melee. Yep, thats right, and of you who want to range him will find out that hes pretty nasty in attacking form afar, hitting him up close is 10 times easier. If you did a bow or magic build, so what? Dont be a wuss, just pick up a random melee weapon and fight him, even if your damage sucks, just apply turpentine, black turpentine, or sitcky white stuff, he is weak to magic and fire.

Your fighting arena is pretty big, but its kinda useless to use to your advantage since all you need to kill him is the very space less than 1 metre's reach within him. From afar, the boss will use fly swarm, and spray countless amounts of flies unto you. These do hurt, and the flies clinging onto you DO NOT help as they drain your HP over time. If you do get hit, you can patiently wait it out ( it will go away on its own) or touch one of the torches around you, to burn the flies away. You take some damage from the fire, but hey, at least you got rid of them flies.

In melee range the boss wont use fly swarm AT ALL, so you automatically win here. His swat and smash are VERY predictable and if you stay behind him, he probably wont hit you at all. Triple swat can be abit more unpredicatable but still nothing you cant avoid by staying behind him. Just hit him with your melee weapon and just take a few steps away when he starts attacking, you probably wont even get harmed.

Other than his physical hits, he has a few other tricks, though they aren't of much use too. Fly burst has pretty pathetic range, but if your stick too close you can get hit. Just move 3 steps away when you see him shivering himself up, since his about to blow. Fly disperser he only uses when his HP dips to a certain level, the towers of flies sprout about randomly, but arent too hard to notice. Just take a careful look around when meleeing him after he does that move. Anyway even if you get hit the damage is pretty lame but flies will stick to you, which is the only bad thing.

Taking all of these to mind dirty colossus is very easy, if you fight this one with caution, you will probably even make it out unscratched. The key here is not be be afraid, and get up close to dish out your hurt, taking this battle from afar just doenst work.

One more coming up!

Thursday, 20 January 2011

The awesomeness that is Dissidia Duodecim

Alright, its time for some fanatics! For awhile now, the demo for dissidia duodecim has been released, and boy, that there is some awesome shit! As a huge dissidia fan, I must say Im hyped for the full game, and cannot wait to see the final roster.

Lets break it down, duodecim takes place before that of the original dissidia, this game being the 12th cycle of battle, while the original is the 13th cycle. There are some changes, such as tidus being on the chaos side and jetch being on the cosmos side. And as far as new characters go, they are just awesome. The new characters are as follows, lightning(XIII), kain(IV), laguna(VIII), Vaan(XII), Tifa(VII) and Yuna(X), followed by the most recent ones revealed via the SE conference trailer, Prishe(XI) and Gilgamesh(V)(FUCCKKK YEAAAH).

As far as these characters go, they all are awesome, the only one I probably dont know about is prishe, but meh, I have faith that SE will make her awesome just like they did to shanttoto. Gilgamesh wasn't really revealed, but damn, the last part of the conference trailer with him saying "SASHIBURIDANA BARTZ!" was just too awesome to ignore, and that probably was more than enough of a clue to prove that hes in. Lightning I love, Im a huge FF 13 fan, so YAY, LIGHTNING FTW. Kain is cool, pretty much love FF 4 too, but I would say I would have been more pleased with rydia. Laguna Im not too sure about, all that I know is that he appears in squall's dreams (never finished 8), but damn his gameplay looks amazing! Best out of the new characters so far. Vaan I absolutely loathe, but if there was a 12 rep, it wud be him, so meh. Still his gameplay is kinda cool. Tifa I only like for her sexiness, her gameplay looks pretty normal to me, we will just have to wait and see. Yuna looks the 2nd best so far, with flooding the screen with aeons, thats just too awesome.


The demo released was fun, but seriously, its not enough! It just leaves me thirsting for more! Though the only 2 new playable characters were lightning and kain, they were a good experience. I spent most of my time as lightning, but I did try out kain as well. Overall Im loving lightning's gameplay more, but kain was far more interesting to use. With his anti air and rushdown moves, he seems to be an interesting character to play. Lightning was more agile and I played through her arcade a few times, but I kept getting my ass whopped when I ran into golbezes or terras. Fuck.



The assist system too was something to note off. Its an interesting new addition, but kinda hard to get used to. Anytime in battle, when your assist gauge is charged, you can call out your parter to dish out some hurt, and if that connects, you can rush in and dish out some hurt of your own too. Your partner hitting someone + you hitting that same person= double hurt. Its cool but if your partner gets hit he/she is temporily locked away, and the assist charge is quite hard to fill up to boot, so its kinda something that you have to use wisely.


Closing up, I would say ducodecim is shaping up to be quite an awesome game. Cant wait to see some gameplay footage of prishe and gilgamesh, and cant wait to see who gets revealed next. DAMN, all these hype is killing me. Since the news for marvel vs capcom 3 is dieing down, this has become my next game of focus.

Peace.

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