Thursday, 10 June 2010

Jak 3

gamespot score:8.6(great)

my score:8.8

(+)pros:-huge improvement from the 2nd game- insanely fun platforming,- action is top notch solid,- even more weapons and dark mode moves to add to the arsenal,- light jak is insanely fun to play,-great boss fights,- story follows up well from the previous game

(-)cons:-free roaming is less exciting outside of haven,- some missions are still insanely hard.


gameplay time: 30-40 hours( above average)






I was never a fan of 3D free roaming platfroming kind of games. GTA and stuff like that, never liked them. Then I played jak 2, I was utterly impressed by the story, gameplay, and many other factors. I was only 11 or 12 back then. After having my fair share of jak 2, it wasnt enough, and I realised that jak 3 was already out. So this is how Im got to know this game. A continuation of jak 2, and probably one of the only free roaming games I have ever played, and this is definetely one of the best there is.



Story is great and well told. Taking place after the events of the 2nd game, jak 2, the opening scene sees jak being thrown out to the desert wasteland to live, without food, water, or any defense mechanism. All he has is a trackng device given by a friend,his trusty buddy daxter, and a parrot whose name I cant remember (give it a rest, it was 5 years ago). Obviously even jak cant stand up to the cruel, unrelenting desert heat, so he faints into oblivion, but is eventually picked up by a traveling desert group, who caught hold of the device that jak was holding on to. His new journey then starts unfolding slowly, as he meets allies, both new and old, and braves through an adventure even harder than his previous one( Im not kidding).


Jak 3 is a vast improvement from the 2nd game, I dont know why gamespot gave it lower than jak 2. Being a platformer, it has almost anything one could ever dream of. Gameplay mechanics are solid, with plenty of moves available at your arsenal, the variety is there, and it stays. Thorugh the game you unlock more and more stuff that improves your options in combat. In other words, the game just keeps giving. Its an awesome feature that gives players more and more, and the best of all is, you just cant get enough of it.




Just like jak 2, jak 3's game takes players to ridiculous places. From a desert city to underground caves, mining bases, abandoned ruins.... the game is still as crazy as ever. Each of these stages has thier own sets of enemies. The game still has its own crazy variety of enemies, guards, spiders, birds, and most of all the awesome and badass metal heads. There are repeats of enemies from the 2nd game and new ones as well. To take them all down you are given more weaps. For the red shotgun, you have a grenade launcher alrenative and a somewhat shockwave shooter alternative. The yellow gun gets insane bouncing bullets and an awesome ufo mass bullet firer. The blue one gives you electrivity. The purple one....is just pure badass, I wont say it. All I can say is that it gives lot of boom. You also get more moves as dark jak, like the explosion kame hame ha blast. You also get the insanely fun light jak, which fucking slows time, lets you fly, and generate barriers. How cool is that?




Free roaming however isnt as sweet as the 2nd game. Whenever you punch a someone, the imperial guard doesnt give chase and go hunting for you anymore, since you're not in haven for the majority of the game. Its just sad. And in the desert city, punching random people can get you killed too, since they all fight back. It aint so fun. And the game this time is much harder, altough you do receive health boosts throughout the game, it almost makes no difference, since enemies can hit 4 or 6 health bars in a single attack, no kidding. Also, those insanely fun minigames can eat up alot of your time. Not because you will keep replaying them, cause you will keep dieing. They are great good fun, but it couldnt hurt to make it a smite easier, coudlnt it?
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Jak 3 is pure awesomeness. For such an old game, I cant believe Im still saying that. Its a huge improvement from the 2nd game, with tons and tons of new content. Also, seeing old faces from the 2nd game appear in this one always givs you a good feeling, to see them again that is. A great game this is, if I do say so myself.



Happy gaming.

Wednesday, 9 June 2010

drill!!!( ladies vs butlers review)

Opening songs-OP 1: love x heaven

genre:romance,ecchi,comedy

episodes:12

Sup. I can kiss my school days goodbye as term break starts from today on! Getting bioshock 2 soon, woot. Anyway back to topic today Im reviewing the anime ladies vs butlers. This show isnt very good, most of it is fanservice. But still, its passable and isnt as bad as many shows out there.
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Opening song is okay. Gets kinda good to listen to at 1st but gets pretty boring to hear later on. It has some fast beats and a cool tune, the singer's voice was pretty okay....thats pretty much it. Not very addicting I must say, I usually skip this in my playlist, but still, its not a bad song.
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Plot:6.5/10
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This show is a lot of fanservice, but not as much as queen's blade, which I am watching now. Loads and loads of nudity.-.- . Well the show talks about this school, which trains both upper ed students and servant ed students, something like that. Basically upper ed students are the high class students, while servant ed students are the maids and butlers. Upper eds take exams and stuff while lower eds train to become professional maids or butlers. Our main man, akiharu, is a transfer student to the school, and on the 1st day, he makes a bad impression.
b
Akiharu has this really bad habit, not a bad habit actually, its just really rotten luck. He practically molests every girl he runs or walks past in the school, as he desperately tries to escape from a berserk drill wich he unfortunately bumped into while walking to the school. The story rotates around akiharu, and his school life in the school. There he meets his former classmate, saikyo, whom everyone is afraid of because of her scary way of doing things. The berserk drill that tried to kill him on his 1st day also ends up being a casual friend, by the name of selnia. Eventually in the last few episodes selnia and saikyo develop feelings for akiharu, and causes a rivalry. This happens really late into the show and is pretty good. The early 75% of the show however focuses on introducing characters which play almost no part in the story, and has lots of fanservice. This is quite pointless, making some episodes almost have no value.
b
Ladies vs butlers is a passable show. Theres too much episodes focused mainly on fanservice and intro-ing too much "no need to know" characters. If you dislike needless banter and fanservice, skip the appropriate episodes. But if you want to stick to every little detail of the story and characters, watch the whole thing, but it probably isnt beneficial. Overall in this show, theres too much on the "no need to know basis" , other wise, this could have been good.
b
Peace.

Sunday, 6 June 2010

killzone:liberation

Gamespot score:8.3(great)

my score:7.9

(+)pros:- on field combat is intense and great,- good variety of usable weapons,- offline co-op and PVP is a blast,- quite a number of unlockable usable characters for oco-op and PVP,- well made environments.

(-)cons:-unvariable viewpoints,- campaign is short,- story has little content and value


gameplay time:10-20 hours(below average)





Okay people today Im doing killzone:liberation for the PSP. This is a decently old game now, but I only played it back in 2008. To be honest I thought it was lame at the 1st look, after giving it a chance.....it aint so bad. I'm not a fan of shooters and all but this is a good game. Been awhile since I played it so I may make some stupid remarks of forgotten of some stuff, but heck, I think I can sum this one up. Get ready to shoot up some helghast!




Story wise I dont remember too much. Roughly it starts out with our leading man, templar, on a battle field, with some helghast running about. Of course this is only the beginning, story picks up after the PS2 game. Helghast invaded vekta in the PS2 game, and after events of the PS2 game , now the humans are striking back at the helghast. For story content there isnt much, you will be saving people, killing people, and meeting this one cool guy named metrac, the helghast general. All you do is complete given missions, story really never progresses much.




Killzone has some good shooting mechanics. The game is played at a top view for the most of it, but view angles change most unfavourably at times. Gets pretty damn annoying. Anyway gameplay is very simple, you move around the map, killing helghast along the way, and get to whatever point you need to go to in the map and finish up your mission. The progress gets repititive, but combat is good. You have to hide behind boxes, sneak up on your opponents, snipe them, anything. You cant act like a bonehead and charge in guns blazing all the time. Killzone is a game that needs timing, skill,patience and strategy, and this adds plenty of gameplay depth to deal with different kinds of enemies and situations, which is great.




Graphic wise there really isnt anything much to complain about in killzone:liberation. Character sprites are pretty okay looking, no complaints here. But the environments are aboslutely well made, I mean for a PSP game. Its almost like the sprites dont fit into the environment. There are quite alot of areas in the game, including swamps, forests, ports, warfields...and so on. There really is alot to do within these maps, besides being in the campaign, which is ever so short. These maps are also accesable in the incredibly fun, offline pvp mode. Offline PVP is great, you can get up to quite a big amount of players, get together and set up a field where everyone starts to walk around and shoot each other up. There are plenty of modes available to enjoy yourselves, and players can easily get lost in killing each other.



Killzone's biggest flaw comes from its incredibly short campaign. Though the variety of maps and enemies arent lacking, you wont spend alot of time in the campaign. For christ sake I cleared it in one day. The campaign lasts around 5 hours or so, even lesser when your are playing offline co-op, which is awesome. And its no mystery since story progression is weak, 5 hours cant do much. Metrac just came and go so quickly, damn. He was a cool guy too!
b
In terms of story and campaign killzone liberation falls short. It would be longer if one goes to download the increase chapters, maybe then it will fill up plotholes and increase story progression? But other than that, the initial killzone:liberation only takes you so far. But without friends to share this game with, you will be losing out. Having this when you have others that play it with you really benefits. Warning: playing alone may not be as fun.


Happy gaming.




Gamespot score:7.7(good)

my score:8.5

(+)pros:- contains 4 great cases,- music is still great( altough slightly tweaked),- great to see both new and returning characters,- cases still provide a sense of twist and suprise,especially the final case,-cases are still lenghty and provide good story value and comical relief.

(-)cons:-not as much manual problem solving like in the 1st game,- pysche-locks arent a very good trade for the awesome touch screen scientific items in the 1st game.

gameplay time:20-30 hours(average)





PHOENIX WRIGHT IS BAAACCCK! Thats right, our top notch ace attorney ,phoenix wright is back in the 2nd game. I shouldnt be saying that though since this game is old now... anyway.... Cleared this not too long after I cleared the 1st game, and found this great too. Not sure why the score took such a huge dip for gamespot, total 1.1 point deduction. Oh well, lets get this going.



TAKE THAT!

Like the 1st game, the story revolves around the cases that the game provides. The cases may or may not be connected all together, but they form up somehow. And like all AA games the cases are based on once again murder. Things take a turn for the worse this time, since phoenix has to save his clients from more impossible cases, where things all look like the client did it. But phoenix and his well witted mind always comes up with contradictions and manage to pull the client out a not guilty slip.





Awesome. As with the 1st game the entire game is hevily text driven, and takes place in a courtroom, and other placves for investigations purposes. The game is once again split into 2 phases. 1, you go out to crime scenes and such to find and look for existing evidence to use in court and help your client. Phase 2 takes place after 1, where you go to the courtroom and fight for your client's innocence, with the evidence you gathered in phase 1 to help you out. Phase 1 is fun but sometimes tedious, since you may not know where to go, who to talk to, or what to find. And with the new pysche-lock feature, you get to see through others' lies and have to present evidence to break the locks to make them tell the truth, since AA characters tend to to love to lie. Its like finding contradictions outside of the courtroom, only not as satisfying.



After you get your evidence and whatever info you need, you jump to phase 2. Courtroom procedures are incredibly awesome. They remain mostly unchanged from the 1st game, which is why is rocks as much. In the game's 4 cases you will be facing off against 3 prosecutors, 2 are from the 1st game though, nothing new. The new prosecutor, however, sparks a new fire in the courtroom. FVK, aka franziska von karma, is a smexy smexy prosecutor. She has a whip! A friggin whip!!!! This new prosecutor will pose many more problems to phoenix. Core gameplay remains unchanged as well. You mostly hear witness testimonies and try pointing out contradictions by presenting evidence or pressing them for more info. Music is once again great at these parts, and totally sucks you into the game. The various prosecutors and phoenix's yellings of "objection!" are great to hear.



Justice for all has its downs. There are some things they removed from the game. The cool touch screen features from the 1st game, the luminol agent, finger print dusting etc., they are gone. Hmm maybe its cuz ema is gone. Also, problem solving difficulty has been toned down, things are more obivous and easily done this time. Not very welcoming for players. Also, pysche-lock really isnt anything special, I am willing to bet many others will prefer to have the old features back in exchange of the pysche lock. Well, nevertheless the psyche-lock feature isnt bad, and can be quite fun to use, so I shall not complain.
b
For a sequel justice for all has deproved, but is still an awesome game that almost anyone can enjoy. The final case kicks ass, my favourite of all 23 AA cases. I shan't spoil its contents but I must say that it really makes people go wow! Evil hair flip of DOOOOOM! Once again, justice for all is a brilliant game that is worthy of the franchise and shouldnt be missed by anyone following the AA series,



Happy gaming!



Tuesday, 1 June 2010

To start off june

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Okay! Lets kick off this month with a piece of great news. As you can see, Djmax portable 3!!! OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG.
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Alright!!! The announce of djmax portable 3 was on 25 may, not too long ago. But silly me only took notice on sunday. I am so hyped for this, being a djmax fan and all.
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Release date was not confirmed, but it will be released somewhere in 2010, thats some great news, time to PWN SOME ASS.
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Other than that june has 2 weeks of term break, in which my mlysian cousin is visiting again. Gonna battle him some yugioh 2010 baby. And seeing all the stress I couped up this 2 months, I am more than glad to blow some of it away with these 2 weeks of break.
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June is going to KICK ASS, expect review of phoenix wright 2 soon.
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Peace.