Temporary Hiatus: EFR returns on 02-15-2010

Hi everybody!

To the regular readers of this little blog (5 thousand unique hits and counting! Thank you all very much, BTW) I haven't closed shop yet, but I'm busy completing my grad school thesis and I can't really devote as much time as I'd like to updating EFR. I'm therefore putting it on hiatus for a bit so I can focus on getting this goddarn final paper done (and play some games of course!).

I'll have a whole bunch of new stuff to read by mid-February 2010 (maybe a review of Darksiders and Dante's Inferno, if I have it by then), but for now chillax muna ko dito.

John out! :-)

Ten for 2010: First Quarter Storm

Yayaman na naman tong mga to sakin. Bwiset.

The first quarter of 2010 keeps looking worse and worse for my wallet. :-( Putang ina talaga, daming gastos, buti nalang quarterly bonus na sa March. I mean, just look at that forecast, man. Just think, when I walk into Datablitz at various points during the first quarter, these (presumably) fantastic titles will be right there on the shelf, staring me in the face, just begging me to buy them. How the heck am I going to resist? Instead of being broke for just one quarter a year, it looks like we're all going to be broke for two this time around.

Who decided to move all this shit into Q1, anyway? Fucking publishers, y'all pussies! Cowering in fear of Modern Warfare 2, this is all your fault.

Here's what I've got lined up. It's not pretty, people. Witness the instruments of my impending financial ruin!


SCALDING HOT!
Will buy the very moment they become available.
No, seriously, I'll be camped outside the fucking door.

Yakuza 3

Pictured: Si Brando Braganza, hari ng romansa.

In English? FOR REAL?!?! Two words buddy, FUCK YEAH!

After a sustained (and quite painful) absence, everybody's favorite gold-hearted gangster Kazuma Kiryu has come back to us - gulpihan na! This is easily my most anticipated PS3 exclusive of Q1, and one of my favorite Sega series of all time. For those of you who havent played a Yakuza series game yet, feel free to get an education by playing either of the two PS2 installments - it's basically the evolution of Yu Suzuki's Shenmue series, but with 200% more brutality and criminal cool. What other game series allows you do to quirky stuff like participate in home run derbies and mack on GRO's, while still allowing you to cave some poor thug's face in with a bicycle? Simply priceless.

Dante's Inferno

In Visceral Games we trust.

That incredible demo a couple of weeks back sold me on this. The fact that the PS3 version has a lot of extra freebies packed in on the disc is just added incentive - Blu-Ray FTW! It's amazing how they managed to find a control scheme that allows you to smoothly combine a lot of abilities into a single string (I find that the L1 toggle for special moves is a lot more natural-feeling than the GoW digital pad switch). I trust Visceral Games will come up with a title that meets our lofty expectations.

Then those hard working bastards can get around to finishing Dead Space 2! :-D

Right?

Oh please please please finish that within 2010.

Final Fantasy XIII

Jesus, who cares if the gameplay isn't all that special? I dare you to tell me that this image isn't 100% made of awesome.

Yes, I know, FFXIII has been savaged by the Japanese fans who bought it (as opposed to the Japanese press, which apparently loved it - malaki ata budget ng Square Enix sa usapang bayaran), and most tellingly, the game's sales have dropped like a rock after a stellar first week. Not good signs at all. It's possible however that the reason that so many fans gave negative feedback is the very distinct possibility that they bought a PS3 just to play this game - when it didn't live up to their lofty expectations, they found that they just burned $360 (instead of just $60) just to play what turned out to be a merely mediocre/decent game. Thus, the explicable fanboy rage.

But hey, like I give a fuck, right? Even if it ends up sucking, so what? Bahala na, when you've been waiting for something this long, quality concerns give way to morbid curiosity, and the Squeenix sheep like myself will pick it up regardless. Besides, I absolutely can't resist writing a review of a game this controversial, and I don't want to be the only one among my gaming friends who doesn't know how the story turned out. And then we'll all have the authority to complain in unison - nagbayad tayo eh. ;-)

Bioshock 2

Ah, back in Rapture at last. Love is always sweeter the second time around.

I was late in coming to Ken Levine's monster's ball the first time around - I ignored Bioshock when it first came out on X360, because at the time I was totally OD'd on FPS games. I eventually played it when it came out on PS3, and nagsisi ako - few games did a better job of creating atmosphere and immersing you in its world, and if not for the game forcing you to play through twice or more to get the Platinum, I would have gladly done so. I know that the first game's story was perfectly self contained, and that creating a sequel that unneccesarily extends the fiction sounds to some people like a Very Bad Idea(tm). I don't really mind, though, I'm sure they'll come up with something that's at least decent to good, plot holes be damned. Plus, in an ingenious twist, the multiplayer seems to be based on the the civil war that took place before the events of the first game (during the collapse of Andrew Ryan's Rapture).

A multiplayer suite that expands on the story of the single player game? Fuckin' A, this is going to kick so much ass!

Just Plain Ol' Hot
Will buy as soon as I can, when I come into some extra cash.

God of War III

Even when you only show his eyes, that wacky Kratos guy always looks way too uptight. Valiums, buddy, Valiums.

This would normally be on the first list, and I absolutely loved the demo, but after ODing on the Kratos-filled-violence-fest that was God of War Collection (God of War II FTW!) I'm all God-Of-Warred out for the time being. Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely still buying this, no questions asked. Just not on launch day.

Well, that was a short writeup, wasn't it? Perhaps that's the way the Ghost of Sparta would have wanted it - direct and to the point.

White Knight Chronicles: International Edition

Yes, I realize that this game's graphics look like shit. I don't care, it's by Level 5, baby!

Another game that would normally be on the top list, I want to see how White Knight Chronicles does critically before I make the purchase (although kung tinopak ako I may still just buy it outright). The graphics look pretty crap, yes, but that's mostly because this game is actually really old (it took its sweet time coming over from Japan). What I'm worried about is actually the gameplay - Level-5 almost always makes fantastic games (Dark Cloud, Professor Layton, Rogue Galaxy, Dragon Quest VIII, nuff said) but I've never been a big fan of games like Monster Hunter or Phantasy Star Online... I love collecting loot as much as the next nerd but something about their online implementation just turns me off.

Ah well, I have faith that they'll come through. They're Level-5, buddy - I hear Jesus works there. :-)

Bayonetta

Will an abysmal port ruin this sexytary's chance at success?

Loading issues (if they're not fixed in time) push this firmly into the second tier, despite the rock solid gameplay. Plus I've finished like a quarter of it on Xbox, so I have validation that the game itself is really great, but if the Sony technical team assigned to iron out the various issues fails, this has to be assigned a lower buying priority. Especially the framerate issues! Dammit, if there's one technical issue I really detest, it's a bad fps count, dahil nakakahilo laruin ng matagal yung mga larong ganyan. Now, this wouldn't be so bad if this was a consistent issue across all versions of the game, but the 360 version really is far superior, at least from my experience playing the import versions.

It says a lot about Bayonetta's overall quality, though, that I'm still willing to buy this despite the possibility that Sony fails to fix the port.


Comfortably Warm
Might buy, depending on reviews and user feedback.

Gran Turismo 5

You know your graphics are amazing when even a boring picture of sand looks this good.

There should be an asterisk next to this selection - we're of course assuming that GT5 actually comes out in English within Q1 2010. If it does though, you may be asking: Why the hell did I put it in the third list? I mean, it's only GRAN TURISMO MOTHERFUCKING 5!

I don't know if it's just me, but I've enjoyed GT less and less with each successive installment. I almost broke up with my then-girlfriend way back in high school because I played Gran Turismo 2 so much. Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec I also played the crap out of, but the limited car selection hurt it a bit in terms of play length. Gran Turismo 4 I didn't enjoy very much - yes, the car selection was outstanding , but it was a wee bit too unforgiving for me - I'm not a hardcore driving game fan (aside from this, I basically just play arcadey stuff like Ridge Racer, Midnight Club and Burnout) and sometimes it felt more like work than play.

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue was fun, yes, but the recent demo (the time trial with the Nissan test car) gave me pause. The loading was absolutely terrible (especially considering all of the game data was already on my hard drive), and the handling was as unforgivingly realistic as I remember. To Kaz Yamauchi - please make sure this kicks ass... bring me back to the GT fold!

Heavy Rain

Yeah, the story looks really interesting, and this is still on the do want list, but I can also get a good story by buying a book. And that doesn't cost motherfucking 2 1/2 kyaw.

I liked Indigo Prophecy, yes, but if this turns out to be too short I'll probably pass on buying and just borrow. I'm beginning to get pissed off at this game's producer - David Cage seems to be of the idea that his game has transcended being just that - a game - and is supposed to be a artsy-fartsy "cinematic experience". This is all well and good when it comes to Metal Gear (and *ahem* FFXIII, I guess) because there's still some gameplay left under the hood. If Cage errs too far on the side of cinematic and makes like a five hour game full of quick time events, I have a feeling that most people will choose to loan a copy from richer pals.

Darksiders

Damn, that's a really big fucking sword!
Take that, you evil door lock!

Preview feedback on this has been quite positive from a lot of sources - it still hasn't gotten a full review from a trustworthy source yet though, so dropping money on this sight unseen isn't a sure thing yet by any means. The only existing purely positive review is from Play Magazine's Dave Halverson - although I love Play as a gaming publication, and I respect Halverson as being an authentic hardcore gamer, I often find that you have to take Dave's reviews with a grain of salt. After all, this is the guy who absolutely loved Golden Axe: Beast Rider, RTX Red Rock, Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness & Devil May Cry 2 (and came out with early reviews of all four). I'm not sure if he's on the take from the publishers or just has incredibly weird taste in games, but I'll need a positive review from a more stable source like GameSpot or 1UP to convince me to pick this up brand new.

Edit: Gamespot said it was great! I'm picking this up. :-D Cha-ching!

Deep Misgivings

While Lightning stares into the distance, being super emo and pondering the fate of her besieged game, Sazh stares at her chest.

You can't help but feel some deep seated doubt in your mind when you see headlines like these (click through to follow the links):

"Fans Disgusted with Final Fantasy XIII"
"FFXIII as linear as a piece of string"
"Why Final Fantasy XIII is a bad game"

Yeah, I'm still buying the English version, but Jesus Christ, am I glad I decided to hold off on buying the import. After the article I wrote (link) about Final Fantasy XIII being the last great hope of the JRPG genre, this dire news of its apparent mediocrity is disturbing. Still, all the user complaints give us, the gaming community, a lot of stuff to talk about - not a bad way to kill time before release, eh? I haven't played it, most of you haven't either, so obviously we're not qualified to pass actual judgement, but a lot of the issues cropping up are interesting talking points. Let's discuss!

From what I understand, the complaints about FFXIII seem to center on certain pet peeves, namely:

Behold! The first 6 hours of FFXIII, also known as walking forward.
(Sorry for the low quality picture, the full size Sankaku link
keeps getting kicked by SC, and this is Blogspot's largest picture size. Eugh!
Anyway, I think you can still see the point.)

1. It's linear. Too linear.

Although the maps posted of the first six hours of the game showed a disturbingly ridiculous straight line path (what is this supposed to be? a game about pressing Up?), this really isn't a big issue for me. Final Fantasy X was also very linear (although apparently not to this extent), and only really opened up when you got to the endgame. I'm not sure I like the lack of an overworld, but I guess I'll live. How coincidental is it though that every so often random crap falls from the sky in just the right place, preventing you from returning the way you came? Talk about deus ex machina.

Snow, shaking his fist at the lack of goddamn towns.

2. No TOWNS?!?!?! WTF motherfuckers?

I repeat: No towns, and since that also means no shopkeepers, buying items can only be done through save points. Now THIS is a fairly big concern in my book. Part of the sacred, unspoken, and supposedly unbreakable pattern of JRPG's (or RPG's in general, come to think of it) is the explore-town-dungeon-explore-town-dungeon rhythm that we're all very used to seeing. You know the drill: you go into town, talk to people, buy/find items, maybe see a key plot point by way of a cinematic, then troop off to the dungeon to kick some ass and build your stats. When you've killed the dungeon's Big Foozle, you explore until you find the next town. Rinse, repeat until the game ends. Without towns to break up the action, it stops being an RPG in my eyes, and starts becoming Metal Gear Solid: Turn-Based Edition.

Since I couldn't find a JPEG of the FFXIII status screen, I decided to just post a picture of the proposed X360 version of the game. That's always funny, right?

3. Two stats on the status screen. TWO fucking stats.

Overly simplified stat management is an EVEN bigger deal. You've already taken away the exploration, Squeenix, but how on earth could you take away the STATS? The precious numbers we hold so dear? Don't you know RPG nerds like us get off on micromanaging/min-maxing stuff like like this?

I need a rum coke.

We can't understand the words, but he's probably saying something gay.

4. Characters are Hanoi-ying.

A lot of the bile in the previews and comments I've read seem to be centered on Snow and Hope. Too emo, too enthusiastic, too incredibly, amazingly John-Lloyd-Cruz-level cheesy. Thankfully I have a very high tolerance level for cheesiness and characters full of witless optimism (just remember, I loved Valkyria Chronicles) so I should be just fine in this respect, I think.

Overall, what all these factors seem to indicate is that Square has taken JRPG's to their most cinematic extreme - after FFXII's heavily loot-hunting-oriented focus (at the expense of telling a story I couldn't give a shit about - fuck man, I can't even remember what happened in that game), they decided to smash us in the face with the cinematography and highly accelerated pacing.

But at what cost? Like most PPSXers, I'm a hardcore gamer, and when I pay upwards of 2 kyaw para sa bala ng PS3, I expect good gameplay. Despite all the negative press, I'm willing to give Squeenix the benefit of the doubt and still buy their game sight unseen (heck, I've been waiting this long to play FFXIII, I'm going to buy it whatever happens if only to satisfy my emotional investment in it), but if this turns out to have all the gameplay depth of a rain puddle I'm going to be quite angry.


And so will quite a few of the American fans, I'd wager. Squeenix has to realize that it's not the Japanese fans they needed to win over - those dependable Japs are still drinking that JRPG kool-aid, considering how much they still support paint-by-numbers, overly moe nonsense like Tales of Vesperia. After a console generation that has seen U.S. RPG tastes gravitate very heavily towards Bethesda's (Fallout 3, Oblivion) and Bioware's (Dragon Age, Mass Effect) more complex brand of Western RPG, they needed to convince the AMERICANS, most of all, that JRPG's were still a viable genre. Oh, I'm sure that initial U.S. sales will be fantastic due to all the pent-up excitement among the fanbase, but if the word-of-mouth isn't good, I'm kind of worried that FFXIII will convince a whole new generation of gamers that this JRPG shit isn't their type of game, and that would be a decidedly bitter legacy for Lightning and co. to leave us with.

So, um.... Final Fantasy Versus XIII, anyone?

Play this demo (on your PC!): Miles Edgeworth, Ace Attorney

I don't know how I managed to overlook this, but the demo for the first chapter of the upcoming Miles Edgeworth NDS game is up in Flash form (and has been up for quite some time now, apparently) so I'll put the link up here for your enjoyment. You don't even need a DS, just click through and play. Granted, it's a little hard to work through the demo with a mouse (as opposed to the touchscreen/stylus combo) but it's still damn enjoyable. (After all these years, Detective Gumshoe's still getting his pay docked! Poor sap.)

The new "Logic" system takes a little getting used to - it's a little different that what we're used to from the Phoenix Wright series, but okay din naman pala siya. Give it a shot doodz, it's fun and free.

(deep breath) OBJECTION! Fuck yeah, it feels good to be back in the courtroom once again!

Sleeper Hit Alert: Might & Magic - Clash of Heroes

EFR LIVES!

Sorry for not being able to update the blog as much as I'd like - the Christmas season has been pretty hectic and with all the parties and obligations EFR has gone sadly neglected. I'll try to post more often in the next couple of weeks.

Back to the subject of this post - I'd like to call your attention to what was, by far, the sleeper hit of the year for me. No, it's not a PS3 game, although there have been plenty of unheralded classics there as well...

I'm here to tell you about Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes (NDS).

I first heard about this game from Tycho's blog over at Penny Arcade. I often agree with their opinions regarding incoming titles, but at the time I really wasn't in the mood for a strategy game so I glossed over it and gave my PS3 some much needed attention. However, a couple of weeks later, when I was looking for something casual to play I decided to give it a
shot, and...

I CAN'T STOP PLAYING this motherfucking game!

Developed by Capybara (the guys behind Critter Crunch on PSN), CoH can best be described as a puzzle/strategy game with light RPG elements, an unholy combination of Puzzle Quest and Magic: The Gathering. For those of you who understand what either/both of those games are about, that's a dangerously addictive tag team. The art style they chose was unfortunately "American-drawn anime", which usually doesn't lend itself to pleasant visuals, but in this case they did a bang-up job - think "Teen Titans" and you'll have a good idea of what the game looks like.

The game is very inventive with the different mission objectives they give you to do to mix things up, and there are plenty of side quests and the like to keep the obsessive-compulsive SRPG gamer playing for a long time. And when I say a long time, I MEAN a long time, as the average clear time for the campaign mode rests at around 40 hours with all the side quests
completed. All things considered, if you have a DS, giving CoH a shot is almost a goddamn requirement.

(Fair warning: if you're yo-ho-hoing this game [or even if you just want to try it out, to find out if the boxed copy is really worth the cash] know that you'll have to search certain message board forums for the fixed rom, as the standard release has a metric fuckton of AP checks. It's totally worth the effort though.)

Musings: Tekken 6

Kazama style kung fu works best in leather pumps, apparently.

The sixth iteration of Tekken has been crucified across all corners of the internet. You know the laundry list of complaints by heart - The graphics are crappy. The scenario mode is sloppy and difficult to control. The loading is absolutely terrible, despite having an install size of over 4 gigs; it also stops to load for FUCKING EVERYTHING, with an almost Bayonetta-like dedication to waiting around. The online mode is slow as shit. Hearing all these complaints, this was definitely pretty high on my list of "hot games to skip" this holiday, and that's exactly what I did. However, when the opportunity to just borrow a copy presented itself, I decided na papatusin ko na - after all, even if the game stank, I'd probably at least get a couple cheap trophies for my trouble.

Hey, at least there's a lot of characters, right? Right?

A couple of weeks later, at 70 plus percent trophy completion, I'm still pretty happy with my decision not to buy Tekken 6. As it turns out, all of the complaints raised on message boards and gaming blogs were pretty much right on the money - the loading really does suck monkey balls (Seriously, man. Worst loading in a PS3 game everrrrr), and the graphics aren't that good - the shadowing/lighting effects are pretty awesome, but the character models are kind of simplistic. They're actually slightly inferior to Soul Calibur IV's (the models only, mind you), which is really fucking old. And yes, I actually booted up SC4 to make sure. Check the character select screen if you don't believe me, and watch the closeups.

Alisa Bosconovitch kicks ass, man!

However, what I didn't expect is that I would have quite a bit of fun with T6, despite its numerous flaws - farming for items is still pretty fun, in a dumb, simple minded way, and playing through Arena mode to watch each character's prologue and ending was very entertaining, bringing back memories of myself doing the same back on the PS1. And of course, the fighting offline is still as enjoyable as ever - it won't blow your mind, but for better or for worse, it's still the same ol' Tekken everybody knows and loves. Tekken is the videogame equivalent of comfort food - like ham sandwiches and bibingka during Christmas, it tastes like the same old shit every time, but sometimes the said "same old shit" still hits the spot.

Yay for the same old shit! TAKE THAT YOU BASTARD!

If that's all you wanted though, you may as well just pick up T5DR for much less - the animation might be crappier, but there's no loading, no disc to mess around with, no wear and tear on your PS3's Blu-Ray lens, and markedly better (but still quite poor) online. Not bad for a couple of Sony space bucks.

Musings: Band Hero

/So watch me strike a match on all my wasted time/
/as far as I'm concerned, you're just another picture to burn/

I'm not going to do a full review of Band Hero as I'm sure most everybody's already formed an opinion about it by now. I will post a few thoughts on the game though, as how I felt about the game basically rollercoastered up and down over the 2 weeks I've owned it.

I got my PS3 copy of BH as a Christmas gift, and I was excited to finally play the songs I enjoyed on my friend's 360 in the comfort of my own home. Some of my favorite pop songs were on there - "Picture to Burn" by Taylor Swift, "Just A Girl" by No Doubt, "Black Cat" by Janet Jackson, the list goes on. After the initial rush of jamming my way through these sugar-coated tracks however, I rolled through the rest of the track list and was a bit let down by the other songs on the disc. Apparently Activision was a bit short on licensing cash (or, more likely, simply didn't want to spend that much), so after the big names (current artists) there's a huge dropoff in terms of music age... from the mid 00's, the setlist jumps through a whole lot of songs from the 80's, with the 1990's being sorely underrepresented. Where's the Alanis? Top 40-era Smashing Pumpkins, Oasis, etc? In addition, a lot of the older songs seemed to be the ancient recycled chestnuts that seem to pop up in every other DDR game - YMCA, Kung Fu Fighting? Huh?

However, after I played through the career mode, I found that I had gained a better appreciation for the cheesy stuff - the versions of said oldies they included are pretty well performed (esp. the long playing version of American Pie by Don McLean - that's fire right there!), and the choreography of YMCA is so INCREDIBLY, ULTRA GAY it's worth watching just for laughs. All in all, Band Hero is still pretty decent value for the money.

Midori got a fucking terrible redneck makeover.

And if I ever get sick of the rest of the tunes, I figure I can always just loop "Picture to Burn" until I puke. It's the most upbeat song about bitterness ever, and one of the only country songs I appreciate.