Sooo, in the past 1-2 weeks or so, I bought:
-Plain Sight (PC - Steam): Suicide Ninja Robots
Got this during the $2 sale on Steam and was sad to see barely 15 people total online playing it. It might be because it was at night, but I feel cheated whenever I get an online intensive game and find that no one is on to play it (just like when I bought Lead & Gold: Gangs of the Wild West). Like Lead & Gold, it's a good game with interesting concepts. You're a suicide ninja robot, one-shotting other players with your awesome charge katana strike while absorbing energy which makes you larger and change color. If you happen to suicide after getting a few kills, you earn points while getting bonus points for getting anyone during the suicide explosion. It's not very violent and it's very fast-paced. It's enjoyable and an entertaining distraction.
-Mount & Blade: Warband (PC - Steam): Medieval, open-ended RPG goodness
I bought the original Mount & Blade off Steam for $5 and really enjoyed the open ended gameplay and the feeling of immersion despite the quality of the graphic and sound. When I heard about Warband, I wasn't sure if I wanted it other than for its multiplayer. Well, Steam had a $10.20 deal for it and I couldn't resist and got it. I haven't played multiplayer yet, but about 5 minutes into the campaign and I was glad it wasn't exactly like the original. The game follows a different story path and has improved its controls and animation. It's a quirky game with odd moments, but the large army fights is quite exhilarating when you get to slice bodies and stab faces with an assortment of weapons!
-Demon's Souls (PS3): Relentless Action RPG with unforgiving difficulty
Came out last year (2009) in October and have been waiting for a chance to buy it. It's been expensive for $60 and I've been at school in Irvine. Well, just this past Friday on a random chance to going to Gamestop I found it for $30. I really wanted a nice RPG to play that I would enjoy going back to with progression and challenge. My friends in Irvine all warned me how ridiculous the difficulty was and I was excited for it. Started it up, went through tutorial and got owned at the end (apparently, I wasn't really supposed to win against the boss in the tutorial). The game is unforgiving with easy deaths, losing all souls (in-game currency) upon death, getting killed by other players invading your game through the online function, and humongous bosses 100x larger than you. It can be very frustrating, but after getting used to the controls and game mechanics, it became very involving and interesting for me. It was like a medieval version of Phantasy Star Online (one of my most favorite games). Lots of weapons, methods of playing, and replay value.
-Metroid: Other M (Wii): A Metroid game done by Team Ninja of Ninja Gaiden Renown
Bought it today at Costco for about 5 dollars less~ I've been keeping up with this game for a while since I'm a big Metroid fan (though I haven't played Prime 2) and have been very surprised with its development. Team Ninja collaborated with Nintendo to create a new experience for the Metroid experience, which was my first surprised. It made me really excited thinking about using Team Ninja's ideas of fluid gameplay mechanics they've learned through making Ninja Gaiden with Nintendo's long history of successful Metroid games along with the rich background the series had already followed. The 2nd surprise was that it was going to be 3rd person pseudo 2-D with first-person 3D hybrid gameplay. It took a short while to get used to, but it can get very exciting once adjusted to. I think the biggest surprise that didn't hit me until I bought it today was that you only use the Wiimote to play. That's right, the WIIMOTE! No nunchuck, no attachments, no gamecube controllers, just the wiimote. What's surprising about it? IT WORKS! Team Ninja utilized the capabilities of the wiimote very well with the balance between horizontal, retro controls with the first-person perspective aiming of the sensor. The game stays very focused to the simple mechanics while utilizing well planned puzzles and gameplay throughout the game that keeps it compelling but still fresh. The game is easy to understand, but the fights can get a bit challenging. The difficulty is just right considering it's from Team Ninja. I knew it'd be difficult, but they make each battle balanced and fair. Though, I'm not sure what the casual player or non-fan would think about the game, but fans and hardcore gamers would get a kick out of this latest installment. The game has more cinematic scenes and story based dialogue that fans of the series would be familiar to which links events and people from Metroid 2, Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion together. The story is like a hit of nostalgia with a bit of film noire, similar to what Tecmo of the original Ninja Gaiden used to do. I had loved the character Samus before, but this game gives her more character and feeling than any of the other ones have. I can say now after just 2.5 hours of playing that I love it already.
Other than that, I beat Heavely Sword (PS3) last Thursday:
[Heavenly Sword - PS3]
One of the launch titles for the Playstation 3, Heavenly Sword presents itself as an impressively developed game with realistic graphics, intelligent AI, fluid animations, and involving story. It's an Action Hack 'n Slash that requires a lot of timing, prediction, and above all: patience. The game boasts itself as being high quality with a team of high experience developers, actors, and all to create the most realistic facial expressions, the best scripting, etc. I beat it within 4 days of light playing each night and beat the final boss in its 2nd and 3rd form on the 2nd try of each. The first form took me forever for some reason. The game isn't very difficult, but it can be rather annoying trying to fight enemies who always block and have priority hits on you. To be honest, Heavenly Sword is a one play through game for me. I found the game to be very frustrating with little motivation for me to go back to playing it again. The story developed very well, but it was simplistic, predictable, but at the very least satisfying. I liked the game, but not enough to play it again. I did unlock a "Hell Mode" after beating the game, maybe I'll go back to it in the further future.
Graphics: 10/10 - Gotta give them credit for all the work they did. Impressive for a launch title.
Sound: 10/10 - Same. Had a lot of work into it and paid off. Voice acting is top notch, though it can get rather strange in some scenes.
Gameplay: 8/10 - Lots of combinations and excellent use of color to indicate light/heavy and ranged attacks which allows for a more strategic game rather than just button mashing; however, I find myself using the same combo in order to break enemy blocks which defeats the purpose of doing different combo attacks. They block too much and have too many priority hits.
Replay value: 5/10 - I didn't feel like playing it anymore after beating it. Boss battles were tedious rather than epic, and minions were all turtles with stupid priority strikes that stun you. If you have no other games to play, it'd probably be worth playing through "Hell Mode", but I'm done with the game.
Overall: 8/10 - Truly a game of its time, though I can't help but feel as if it was created just to show the capabilities of the Playstation 3's hardware. I'm pretty sure that's not the case, but the dynamics of the game doesn't change too drastically as you progress. If you haven't played it yet, rent it or borrow it from a friend. It takes about 5-10 hours to beat depending how familiar you are to those types of games. It's worth one playthrough.
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