Breaking Benjamins

Sorry for being so late with the new posts, people. I've been seriously seriously busy dealing with work, school and life in general, as well as a lack of material to write about due to the lack of new releases. Happily, the gaming industry is just now revving up for the Q1 blitz, so at least now I've got a whole crapload of material to write about. :-) Eight new posts today, I've been saving 'em up!

Moving on, I've built up a much more stable PS3 financial plan for this Q1 2010 to prevent the horredous financial ruin Q4 2009 brought on me. This is what wanting too many games and having too little money to buy them all has driven me to do.

Now observe my masterful cash-saving skillz!

Bayonetta is absolutely delicious!
And her game's great, too!

* I'm just borrowing Bayonetta and White Knight Chronicles from friends (rox_ira and eiziah, respectively) in order to cut down on my cash outlay. (I got gun-shy from actually BUYING WKC when the metric ton of mediocre-to-bad reviews rolled in, but I still want to play it pretty badly.)

OK, so graphically, it looks like ass.
I still want to play it.
Play it for FREE, that is.

Cost: Zero.

He's not a God of War.
HE IS WAR!

* I got Darksiders for free in a trade with another pal (it arrived this week). DARKSIDAHS, at last! (Impressions to follow, I'm in like the first non-tutorial area and it's been very solid so far.)

Cost: Zero. Woohoo!

That demo was absolutely fantastic!
I'm on the hype train for this one, fortunately I can just BORROW it.
Money saved!

* I'm also working out a "hiraman" arrangement with another friend for Heavy Rain (that demo was SO KILLER) in which I buy Star Ocean TLH International and lend it to him, and he lends me HR after the fact. It doesn't really matter to me if I don't get to play SO4 immediately, as Platinuming that game takes longer than reading The Bible and War and Peace combined, so I don't mind lending it out for the meantime.

"I'ma hit this guy with a huge nova, 'kay?"

Update: I'm also playing through Star Ocean concurrently along with Darksiders. Impressions to follow as well, game started off a little iffy but quickly grew on me. Adik! Consider though: I have played that game for 12 hours and I have two trophies.

TWO. FREAKING. TROPHIES. What the FUUUUUUCK, ang haba.

Cost: I paid 2,700.00 for a copy of Star Ocean: The Last Hope International (R1).










* Yet another friend is getting Bioshock 2 as a Valentine's Day gift (HI, RAFFY!) so that's another game crossed off the list. Back to Rapture, baby!

It's been way too long.

Cost: Zero.


* Lastly, I have no choice but to spend on brand new copies of Yakuza 3 and Final Fantasy XIII in March (especially Yakuza 3, as supplies of that game will likely be very limited) but I also have a side deal in place to lend out Yakuza 3 for God of War III when I'm done with it.

Damn, ang lapit na! Check out this video right here (link) if you need some help getting hyped.


Cost: Approximately 5.5K for copies of FFXIII and Yakuza 3. Huhuhuhu. :-(










So all in all, for a total of Php 8,000.00 I get to Trophy my way through Star Ocean 4 plus all but two of the games on my DO WANT list (link) , with the notable exceptions being Gran Turismo 5 (which got delayed to Q2) and Dante's Inferno. Hmmm, anyone want to make a hiraman arrangement for Dante's Inferno: Dead Edition?

Isaac Clarke returns!

I want me some Dead Edition!

CMON! Help a (semi)broke brotha out! :-D

Retrospective: Assassin's Creed 2

It's no secret around these parts that I loved Assassin's Creed 2 (I even included it on my personal best games of 2009 list). Although I first played through it dali-dali style on the Xbox 360 (budgetary constraints prevented me from buying the PS3 version back in November) I followed through on my promise to play through it at a leisurely pace on my PS3 (for the Trophies and to get the "full experience"). And my opinion remains unchanged - AC2 is an absolutely fantastic game, well worth the second-hand price you'd likely pay for it today.

But how did this occur? How did a game that is so similar in spirit to it's predecessor (which was a TERRIBLE game, and one I consider to be the 2nd crappiest title in my entire library, just behind Viking: Battle for Asgard) become so beloved in my eyes? I'll try to explain.


1. Infinitely better level design, and a much more interesting environment to play around in.


Assassin's Creed 1 was handicapped by its stringent focus on recreating the architecture of ancient Jerusalem - the buildings felt very astringent and the design left little room for you to play around in. The "mood" of the city was also very somber, and the monochrome colors chosen for the world in general made it feel very dead. AC2's version of Italy is full of color and life - the beautiful water in Venice that makes you want to take a dip yourself, the variety of people just walking around on the street, the expansive outdoor environments that impress without the horrible frame rate drops. Italy's architecture also lends itself to better platforming: the little chimneys, ropes and steel trellisses dotting the rooftops allow for a much better flow to Ezio's movements as he's running around the city killing fools.

2. AC2 has a far superior storyline.

AC1 had an interesting concept, but that's all it was -- A CONCEPT. Yes, there were two worlds in which you "existed" as a player, but Desmond's real world adventures were so devoid of gameplay or even interesting dialogue that you just sort of forced yourself to slog through it. In Acre, meanwhile, Altair just crossed these randomly assigned guys off his "People to Kill" checklist without it really meaning anything -- you don't know these people, and you have no other motivation to see them go, so in the end you didn't care.


In AC2, the people Ezio knocks off are part of an overarching storyline in which you are emotionally invested - this makes it feel a lot less robotic and forced than the first game. The adventures in the real world were also a lot more interestingly written, with much more complex characterization than the first game. I found myself wanting to find out what happened in both worlds, which is a substantial achievement seeing as I've played so many action-adventure games that I can smell a hack plot from a mile away.

Lastly, another facet of AC2 that I think greatly improves the experience is the far superior lightness of tone. AC1 was overly serious and one-note, and the crappiness of the writing only reinforced this. AC2 strikes a much better balance between suspense/intrigue (Abstergo conflict in the real world, political maneuverings in the Italian, Animus world) and comedy (Ezio is a much more lighthearted and likeable character than Altair, and the way he plays off everybody else puts the occasional grin on your face).

And... hey, it's-a me, Mario! :-)

3. Much greater variety of things to do.

Assassin's Creed 2 is an obsessive-compulsive gamer's dream. There's simply so much more stuff to find and accomplish - feathers to grab, Subject 16 puzzles/videos to watch/solve, Monteriggioni buildings to upgrade, weapon and armor sets to collect, tombs to explore, treasure chests to find -- the list goes on and on. It also cannot be understated how much the simple addition of currency added to the game - not only did it allow you to pay for other methods to achieve your goals (walking through town using courtesans for cover/protection, or paying a group of bandits to cause a perfectly-timed distraction) it also gave you a reward for everything you do: accomplishing sidequests no longer felt arbitrary because you were always rewarded for your efforts with a little spending money to waste on whatever you wanted.


In addition, quests of the same type now felt much more unique and less repetitive - Assassination and Delivery missions in particular gave you a very wide swath of objectives and methods in which to accomplish them. Story missions also offered plenty of variety - instead of always sneaking around looking for your shot at the glowing yellow target, Ubisoft gives you frontal assaults, carriage-driving missions, city raids, the whole nine yards. When you DO get down to actually killing people, AC2 continues to pile on the improvements - there are a million ways to off a guy in this game.

Guns hidden in your sleeve?
Aerial stabs in the face?
Throwing knives?
Pushing the poor sap off a roof?
Hired mercenaries?
Frontal assaults?
Poison?
Dragging dudes into a stack of hay then ventilating 'em?
Using the good old Nathan Drake "There's a guy above you!" method?

"THERE'S A GUY ABOVE YOU, THERE'S A GUY ABOVE YOU!"

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

The list goes on.

It also helped a lot that the sidequests were now completely optional. The first game handled sidequests in a very ham-handed manner: not only were they boring, offering little difference from instance to instance, the game forced you to play them in order to advance the story missions. AC2 shares no such conceit - you could totally ignore the side missions if you chose, at the expense of having a lot less money to work with.

While Assassin's Creed 2 didn't fix ALL of the first game's problems (the control is still a little finicky at times, and minor FPS problems continue to rear their ugly head) it's still absolutely remarkable how Ubisoft Montreal managed to fix so many of the original game's issues in so short a time. Absolutely outstanding work!

I never thought I'd ever say this about an Assassin's Creed game, but... sequel please!

Desmond taking on Japan would have been a much better idea for AC3.
Don't you think?

(Update: It turns out AC3 is already in development. Unfortunately it seems that they decided to continue Ezio's adventure for some strange reason - it makes sense from a story perspective, but not from a gameplay one (Italy was getting a bit long in the tooth by the end of the game)... ah, well, in Ubisoft we trust.

Case File: The Mystique of the PS3 Exclusive

I find that I read the following dialogue (or a paraphrasing of the same) way too often on the PinoyPS boards:

Noob: Hi, you l33t haxxor motherfuckers! I'm new to this PS3 thing, what games should I get?

Lovable PPS member: Oh, that's easy, pal. Just get all the PS3 exclusives, except for (insert exceptionally bad title here, usually Lair/Haze or something else to that effect)

HAZE! Being used to scare small children into behaving since 2008.
"Sige ka, kung ayaw mong tumahimik... ibibili kita ng HAZE!!!!"
"Wag po, wag po!"

I have nothing against this view - some of the people who dispense this advice are my friends/trading partners, after all, and are people whose opinions I highly respect - but is this really a 100% solid buying recommendation to make? Simply snap up the PS3 exclusives (EXCEPT LAIR AND HAZE!) and you're good to go?

Let's take a look at six of the usual suspects (taking into consideration how much you can get them for nowadays), and some non-exclusive alternatives you can get for the same price or less.

(Please note that a lot of these games are actually quite GOOD -- some of them I even included in my 2009 top ten. What I'm trying to show here is that there may be superior alternatives for the same amount of money.)

Killzone 2

At what price, graphics? Killzone 2 is an absolute visual monster, eating most PS3 games alive (with a few notable exceptions, like the pushing-dangerously-close-to-photographic Uncharted 2: Among Thieves), but gameplay-wise I can't honestly say that this is better that either of the Infinity Ward-developed Call of Duty games. True, it's still a GREAT game, and this might be a good choice for a new PS3 owner who wants to show off some current-gen power (especially if they have an HDTV) but in terms of how it plays it's no contest - the aiming mechanic is less user-friendly and the multiplayer isn't anywhere near as good. It doesn't help that the best part of Modern Warfare is easily the multiplayer component (which is something you can't get on a modded Xbox 360 due to the XBL permabans for modding) - if you haven't played either, you have to keep things like these in mind when making a decision.

Heavenly Sword

This hasn't aged well, at all.

Ninja Theory's somewhat controversial exclusive PS3 actioner has long had the PS3 audience pretty much divided. Some people love it because of its delightful art direction and intense, Lord of the Rings-level epicness. Some people hate it because of its incredibly brief length and God of War-cloned hack-and-slash gameplay. I'm personally on the side of the people who hate it, but I can understand where the people who love it are coming from. Here's the beef, though: mostly due to the fact that not too many people actually BOUGHT it (partly because of its notorious shortness, and partly because the PS3 install base was so small back then) there arent too many copies in circulation... which of course means that HS' resale value has held up remarkably well over time. The question is, are you buying the game for collection purposes or for pure enjoyment? If you fall into the latter category, you could arguably just add a couple hundred bucks and get a brand new copy of Dante's Inferno.

InFamous

I wish this was as exciting as it looks.

HEY! Don't give me that raised eyebrow!

Yeah, I know that I've been hard on inFamous in the past. I still have a great deal of respect for Sucker Punch, and I'm (pretty) confident that they'll fix things up in inFamous 2 (which has reportedly been in development for quite some time). Going back to the first game, though, I know I wasn't alone in my indictment of the title - while the story was pretty entertaining and the wide-open, no-loading city remains a remarkable technical achievement, more than a few people took issue with the constant repetition of the side missions you had to do in between major jobs. For a "new" PS3 gamer who's just beginning to build their library, it could be argued that fellow open-world genre titles Red Faction: Guerilla or Saints Row 2 probably give more variety and gameplay bang for the buck, with the added benefit of costing even less than a 2H copy of inFamous.

Motorstorm: Pacific Rift

There's no question that Pacific Rift is a great, great game - fun in multiplayer AND single player, with more replay value than you can shake a stick at. However, it's misleading to say that this is a game you can recommend to just anybody, as the title by its very nature is a niche product - the overwhelming majority of people who play racing games prefer track/road racers like Forza and Need For Speed, and the market for "extreme" racing, with the high jumps and environmental hazards is comparatively small. Unless you're already a fan of said subgenre, a much better "general" recommendation for a first time PS3 user is EA's exemplary Burnout Paradise: Ultimate Box. A ridiculous amount of stuff to do, plenty of variety, and the best sense of speed ever demonstrated in a racing game, all at a bargain price (you can get a non-Ultimate Box version of Burnout Paradise for almost nothing, as it's positively ancient).

Folklore

Looks trippy? It is, and pleasingly so.
It's also a terrible, terrible game.

I don't think I've ever seen a game go from "eagerly anticipated" to "get out of my sight" so fast in my life. As some of you may know, I traded away my first copy of Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction for a copy of this game (I was new to the PPSX trading scene at the time), and the tears of blood I cried after the fact will remain in my memory forever. While there are definitely positive aspects to Folklore (the concept is solid, collecting monsters can be somewhat fun, and the graphic style is nice in a trippy, I'm-so-high-right-now kind of way), the laundry list of negatives is overwhelming: the story is all over the map and very difficult to understand, the translation was obviously rushed, the camera AND the control are clunky, and the role-playing elements are so light/non-existent that it's embarassing to even call it an RPG (despite the classification on the back of the box clearly saying "RPG"). To a new guy looking for some level-up action, I would honestly recommend any other PS3 RPG over this (even the bad/mediocre ones, like Cross Edge and Eternal Sonata) because all of them have substantially greater RPG elements than this substantially flawed PS3 exclusive.

Now THAT'S a PS3 exclusive.

All that said, it IS true that a pretty good amount of PS3 exclusives are truly worth giving unqualified recommendations (Metal Gear Solid 4, both Uncharted games, LittleBigPlanet, and to people who can understand SRPG's, Valkyria Chronicles) so there's still a fair amount of merit to picking up exclusives. I'm just saying that new members of our current-gen Sony community shouldn't just blindly whip out their wallets when the term comes around...

Unless of course, you have a jacked, non-RROD 360 that you can use to play said non-Sony locked titles for cheap. (ahem)

If so, go right ahead and snap up those exclusives! Only on PlayStation, indeed!

Game Archaeologist: Bioware Edition

I've been on a heavy PC kick lately for some inexplicable reason, and after the gaming wonders of this past holiday season there's a Bioware-shaped hole in my heart where Dragon Age Origins used to be. I've therefore decided to go on an expedition into the dark, mysterious caverns of Shoppesville Plus this weekend to try and find copies of the last two Bioware games that for one reason or another, I never got the chance to play - Neverwinter Nights 2 and Jade Empire: Special Edition.


I actually had a copy of NWN2 back in the day, being a huge, HUGE fan of the first game, however my video card at the time wasn't quite up to snuff (I had an inno3D GeForce 6 series, and was getting a slideshow-level framerate of 6) and, defeated, I eventually gave it away to somebody who could make better use of it. When my PC finally got upgraded to something a little more decent, I had moved on to better things (like my at-the-time shiny new PS3!) and poor NWN2 was left to rot in the sad pit of obscurity. In fact, you could say that my frustration at not being able to play NWN2 despite having it in my hands contributed greatly to my stepping away from PC gaming - I was THAT pissed off.



Jade Empire on the other hand I was all set to play on my friend's modded Xbox back in the day. How could I resist? The game's basically a combination of two things I love dearly - Bioware RPG's and motherfucking Kung Fu! Sadly, said friend had to move out into the far-flung reaches of the South (far flung = bandang Batangas na) so I lost my access to his Jade Empire Playing Machi-- er, I mean, his Xbox 1. So once again, I was SOL.

Still though, I wonder where this strange need to play PC games again is coming from? Hindi naman ako nagretoke ng PC recently.

Is my gut telling me that it's time to upgrade my PC again in preparation for Diablo III? *dun dun dunnnn*


Holy shit! Looks like it's time to donate part of my salary to Papa Nvidia. My mouse finger is getting twitchy.

The PS3, hacked at last!

I'd like to shake that man's hand. That couldn't have been easy, at ALL.

Nerding it up for a bit, getting read/write access to the PS3's memory is a huge deal. That's still a pretty long way from actually playing haxxored games on the console, but this paves the way for lots of cool emulation and other fancy crap that can be done on the beloved black monolith, much like the wealth of options the PSP has.

And besides, when you think about it, what would the point of hacking a PS3 for playing pirated games be? It apparently takes a "hardware"solution to implement the crack, so you need to open it up to get it to work (see pic above) instead of just installing sliced firmware ala PSP. In addition you'd likely have to run games off a terabyte-class external hard drive because the file sizes are so fucking big (BD storage space), and the chance of getting permabanned from PSN is most likely going to be 100%.

Sound like too much of a hassle to you, too? If you want to play pirated games so badly, it makes far more sense to just get a fucking modded X360 and be done with it. Yeah, it may implode within a year, but hopefully you'll have gotten your money's worth in hooky games by then.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Or Valentine's day, or both.

I hope all of you have a good one, whatever holiday you're celebrating today.

I'll have the new posts up in an hour or so. Escapes From Reality is back, y'all! :-D