Space Siege [Complete]

Woohoo!  I finally beat a game for once.  I guess I did beat Prinny a month ago or something.  I kinda felt like blogging about it a little.  Space Siege is a Action RPG from a top-down perspective.  By the creators of Dungeon Siege, Space Siege takes out the equipment entirely so that the player can concentrate on building the power of the weapons and individual aspects such as health, defense or element resistance.  The game is played with mouse and keyboard, and I really don't like the layout of the controls.  Thankfully, I have a speed pad.  What am I doing, I should be saying all this stuff in my review!!!

[Space Siege - PC]

So I had this game installed onto my laptop for a year and a half now and I just beat it.  It had a cheesy ending that was rather cliché and predictable, but I didn't mind too much.  I wanna be brief because I was actually game hopping/jumping (a term I coined which is just the act of going from one game to another in a short amount of time).

Story: The story wasn't very revolutionary, but at least it was consistent.  Humans explore space, they discover an alien race that wants to take over the humans, humans fight back.  That is the whole story.  Granted, there's a twist which I pretty much saw coming fairly early in the game.  What made the story interesting to me was the journey the main character (Seth Walker, such a cool name~) went through and how his personality is brought out by the interactions with the characters throughout the game.  The voice acting was very good which made the narrative more engaging and doesn't distract me when there's dialogue when I'm getting attacked (because you would have to read it while you fight which a lot of ARPGs do).  Story was probably its strong point in the game.  8/10

Graphics: It's top-down perspective, so you don't really get to see the details of the characters too often unless you have the time to zoom in and see the things around you.  The visuals for the game doesn't change all too much as its taking place within a space craft.  What is great is the animations throughout the game as there are many destructible environments, enemies with special abilities, and tiny little details with the physics that make it enjoyable to blow everything up.  It can be difficult to manage the camera angle when a wall is blocking the way.  7/10

Sound: I'm putting down sound instead of music since the tracks weren't very memorable.  If I listened to them, I'd probably recognized them being from Space Siege, but I wouldn't be able to remember what I sounds like without listening to it at the same time.  I wouldn't really put it on my music list to listen to.  Not to say it was bad or anything, it did match the theme and atmosphere of the game, so it did its job.  The sound effects; however, are great.  Explosions, voice acting recording, weapons, and lots of detail to small things like a box getting moved around or a can getting knocked across the floor.  So not counting music, sound was a strong point.  8/10

Gameplay: You're going to be pressing the number keys and "F1-F9" keys a lot, and so it makes it frustrating to try to play the game on a regular keyboard.  And like many RPGs, the shortcuts to a lot of menus like "Character Stats," "Map," or "Skills" are assigned to different keys around the keyboard.  Because of this, your left hand will be all over the place.  I really didn't like that when I was getting attacked by 12 enemies at the same times and couldn't find which key was to bring up my shield to protect my character.  Thankfully, I have a speed pad which made the gameplay immensely better.  There's a lot of action and need of focus, concentration, and quick strategical maneuvers in order to play this game, which was really entertaining when I was shooting and throwing 30 grenades in one battle.  The game is definitely difficult if you go down the path of a pure human.  I would explain this, but it might impede on the twist of the story which some people rather not know if they plan on the playing the game and haven't yet.  What's better than the single player campaign is the multiplayer mode where you play various missions with up to 4 people over the internet or LAN.  What's even better is you get to start out with every weapon in the game right off the bat, how to level them up is up to you. 7/10

Overall: Even though I had fun, the game was rather difficult going down the good ending path (if there is a bad ending, I don't know).  It also got repetitive since I'm chucking 30 grenades down the hall just to fend off 20+ enemies from killing me in 3 seconds.  I actually used cheats halfway through the game because it wasn't fun getting killed so quickly, and I just used the money cheat that gave me enough money to upgrade my abilities and weapons, and it was still hard (I still died on some parts).  Sure enough, the game was interesting enough after the cheat codes to keep me playing until the end.  I'm not sure if I would go back to play it again unless it's for multiplayer which I don't know anyone who's willing to play it.  Worth a try definitely. 7/10

[Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero? - PSP]

I can't remember if I blogged about this or not, but I don't feel like doing a full review, so here's the short version:

This game is for hardcore gamers, SERIOUSLY!!!!!  You start the game with 1000 lives, that's how little faith they have in you finishing it.  The game is, no doubt, fun.  It's challenging, has charming characters and soundtrack, and humorous script writing that really contrasts to its sadistic gameplay.  If you ask me to play it again, I'd probably would after a bit of hesitation because it's capable of making players break down and cry.  I lost around 300 lives out of 1000 which is really good I guess, and I died exactly 60 times to finish the last area and boss.  The last boss is really stupidly hard/easy.  If you can memorize the pattern he goes through, you can beat it without ever getting hit (which I how I eventually beat him).

Looks like it's getting late, maybe I should just go to sleep.

Summer Vacation

I guess I missed making a post during June.  The last month of school took a real toll on me and I was feeling sick, weak, tired, but still had to take care of so many things before leaving school.  I was emotionless on the last week of school and tried to focus on getting things done.  Especially with studying for my last final "History of Contemporary Art," I was dealing with 3-5 other things outside of class that I don't even want to even talk about anymore.  I ended up getting a C in the class and was very upset (I do not deserve a C after all the time I sacrificed just for that class).  Inno, I hated school again because of all the things that happened in the Spring Quarter.  I did enjoy being around friends and being able to participate in so many club activities, but it was incredibly difficult to balance with all the work I put myself into.

Anyways, when I got back home, I main cleaned up my room a bit and tried to recover from not resting and eating well.  I've been getting quite a bit of sleep every night and eat tons of food everyday since I got back home, but it worries me since I have trouble falling asleep at night and not exercising enough.  I've been trying to find a balance in my Summer break to work as well as enjoying my freedom.  I end up each day doing minimal work and then doing misc. activities at night before going to sleep.  One of them being "reading!"  Yes, READING!  ME, READING!  It's really amazing that I find myself enjoying a book before going to sleep since I've never really done it before (I've read gaming magazines before going to sleep if that counts).  Other than that, I've been playing videogames here and there considering that I bought 30 games from Christmas time up until now.  I even said "I have enough games that I don't want to buy anymore until Phantasy Star Zero comes out."  My friend Danny was total shock that I even said such words, and it's not because it affected him but rather a real eye-opener.  So I corrected myself and said "...for now, I have enough, I'll want more later..."  Seriously, videogames are like books to me, they take a year or five before a finish it, haha.  I got to hang out with Danny, Vanna and Ken the past few weekends which made me very happy.  I've really missed seeing familiar faces ever since I got back.  I realized how grown up and busy everyone has gotten, even those that are younger than me.

Some of the work I said I wanted to balance out during the break relates to school (for once).  This summer, I had planned to work a lot with music, art and videogames mainly.  I asked to do independent studies under my Game Studies and Game Design Professor by creating a mod or original game out of a game editor he had built with a grad student from UC Irvine.  I'm also continuing on working for my Videogame Development Club by Mixing and arranging more music for the RPG we started a year ago.  Other than that, I've planned out some music arrangements, videos, artworks, and videogames I would work on and hopefully finish by the end of this summer as part of building my portfolio (which is pretty empty and sad right now, I've met some very talented artist throughout the year).

In the future, I'll share some of my work and also write some reviews/recommendations of games I've been playing since I get the chance to play (FINALLY!  Soooo happy~).  I've been playing mainly my DS, PSP, PS3, and PS2.  I've been meaning to play some more Wii and PC, but I've been doing so many things each day that I don't get to play them.  I've finally started exercising again and practicing Kendo.  I've been practicing piano and guitar as well, though I should find the time to practice violin too since I know I won't be able to when I go back to school.

In the past 3 weeks, I bought Sonic Rider: Zero Gravity for the Wii, Street Fighter IV for PS3 as a Birthday present from my parents, and Resistance: Fall of Man for PS3 which I beat in less than 3-4 days with my sister and my friend.  I also beat Kage Densetsu 2 (yes, The Japanese version of The Legend of Kage 2), Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword, Rhythm Tengoku Gold (The ruined the english version by translating the songs into english, ugh...), and several other games on the DS I can't remember at the moment as well as Irregular Hunter X (Japanese version of Megaman Maverick Hunter X, now I'm playing the American version) on the PSP.  It sounds like a lot, but I've been playing some of those DS games for more than half a year to a year now.  Although I don't plan on buying anymore games for a while, I took interest in BlazBlue for the PS3, the guys who developed Guilty Gear which I really got into in the past year.  Well, I've ranted on long enough.  Hopefully I'll have some art, music or videos to show you guys on the next post.  Either that, I'll give you some updates on some videogames.  Peace out~

Note: I didn't realize before, but I have a friend who posts videos of games that are very new or in beta stages of their development that I thought I should share with everyone.  His YT Channel is Sasuke13 and I added it to the right-side panel for you guys to check out.  It's a good way to check out gameplay videos for mostly online games, and I know there are a lot of who read my stuff that are looking for an online game to keep them busy throughout summer break.  Enjoy~

Videos relating to post:

Game Previews

Just dropping by - school takes up a lot of time - classes are boring - timing is (sorta) tight.  But nonetheless, I find the time to work on independent projects and play some videogames.  I beat Call of Duty: World at War with Danny 2 nights ago.  Very intense battles with us dying a lot, lol.  It's a new year, and so a lot of videogame release announcements have been made.  OH, before I get to the previews and stuff, please take a look at some stuff I made for Digital Multimedia:

-YTMND: Counting Penguin

-YTMND: Origins of our Alphabet System

-YTMND: Phoenix Knows Reppuken

-YTMND: What Scared Kefka?

-YTMND: Ryouhou for you

(Spread these to your friends, I need 500 views for at least one of them for a grade! 0.0)

View Larger Map

This was a google map project.  I just sent it to my professor a few minutes ago.

And now for the Videogame previews.

[PC] Tom Clancy's HAWX - Action Flight

WOOT!  It's co-op action flight simulator game, and the teaser starts out with a glimpse of Tom Clancy's previous release GRAW (Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter).  This gives me a chance to whip out my Joystick and have some flight simulation fun!

[XBOX 360] X-Blades - Fantasy Shooter (really?  Looks like 3rd person Action Adventure)

Why am I previewing a XBOX 360 game?  Because this game is coming out on PC as well!  Why does it seem interesting?  There's swords, guns, and magic.   Hmmm, sounds like things I'm usually into right?  But yeah, I'll be looking out for this one.

[Playstation 3] Street Fighter IV - Fighting

C'mon~~~How can you not be excited about this game?  Street Fighter is what made me love fighting games in the first place.  And with the return of Sakura Kasugano (gah, I love her! XD), this game is going to rock like none other.  I apologize to those Street Fighter: Third Strike fans, but I really missed the classic characters of the original Street Fighter II series.  HADOUKEN!

[Playstation 2] Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 - Role-Playing

Are you guys surprised they're still releasing PS2 games?  Truthfully, there are still tons of good PS2 games that still aren't released in the US and still in Japan (Shining Wind!!!) and so they continue to import them over and sell them at full price or become rare games (like a lot of Atlus' published games....).  But yeah, I'm a sucker for RPGs and I've always wanted to play the Persona series.  It sounds like it gets better each time they release a new one.

[PSP] Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce - Beat 'em up/Hack 'n Slash

Oh man, everytime I think Koei has reached a climax point in the Dynasty Warriors series, they just keep making it cooler.  In this version of Dynasty Warriors, it's less realistic and more "fantastic" in an over-the-top action battle system where you can fight in mid-air (like in Dragon Ball Z!) and battle against monsterous bosses that fill up the whole screen!  Only problem for me at the moment is that I don't have a PSP.....*sniff*

[Wii] The Conduit - Sci-Fi First-Person Shooter

This game looks very interesting.  Half-Life-like monsters with Halo themed weapontry and the like.  I'm also hoping the aiming system in this game won't be so wacky on the wii like Red Steel was (though I did like the 1 player story mode on that game).  I have high hopes for this game and for the Wii this year.

[NDS] Phantasy Star 0 - Action Role-Playing

An American release has been announced and I'm very excited.  4-player co-op over wi-fi!  Phantasy Star for handheld! (Been wishing that forever) Lots of custom character creation and as always, lots of weapons!!!  The Nintendo DS is littered with a whole line of amazing games this quarter: Ys, Valkyrie Profile, Blue Dragon +, World Destruction, Shining Force Feather, Fire Emblem, Dragon Quest V, Moon, Steal Princess, Big Bang Mini, Suikoden, Tales of Heart, Kingdom hearts, on and on.

So many good games to play, not enough time (and money) to play them all.

Excite, happy, nervous, buh?

I got new laptop, ipod touch, yamaha headphones, keyboard sustain pedal, a new phone (same number, don't worry), external hard drive, a wireless mouse, and a really cool mouse pad to start my new life in college....which doesn't really start until next week.

It was very tiring trying to find out how to get applications on my new ipod (which appearently I can't because of my firmware) and getting my laptop to dual boot was a nightware as I spent 2 entire days working on it. I say it was worth it because I learned a lot more about computers through my struggle. School is approaching and I'm kinda nervous about the difference in enviornment is going to be. Doing my own laundry is one of my concerns, and so will living with a room mate. I'm just hoping for the best and maybe become good friends with my room mates. I am a bit excited about the new classes I'm going to be taking as well as dreading the ones I'm gonna hate (Art History, ewwwhwhehwwww, but not this quarter).

But enough of school stuff, I learned some new things in the gaming world that excites me!

Phantasy Star Universe wasn't a big hit to the fans of Phantasy Star Online, but it was sure interesting to me.  I haven't gotten that far on PSU, but I've been hoping for a handheld version of the series for a while.  So to hear that there's one coming out on PSP (a system I do not have....) I got really excite yet sad since I don't have a PSP.  But then I heard there was one coming out for the DS:

It's going to be 4 player co-op, Action RPG, with Wi-Fi online capabilties of playing with other players.  You would use the touch screen to give directions or ask for orders to communicate with other players.

It's....It's so beautiful~~~~~~Unfortunately for me, it doesn't come out till December.....In JAPAN!!!  Which means I might have to wait till next summer or longer before it comes to America.  It should be brought over considering the success of PSO and eventually PSU because of the expansion pack.

I don't have to be too sad, since Castlevania Order of Ecclesia is coming out (supposedly) October 28 or so.  Castlevania being one of my favorite francises in the gaming world, I am definately buying that game when it comes out.

mmm, hot girl that kills tons of demons and vampires...okay, she's not incredibly hot, but I like how they have a female lead character (I guess Charlotte counts from the last installment).  This character looks very serious and dire compared to Charlotte though.  And from what I understand, you don't pick up weapons in the game, but glyphs.  Glyphs have abilities of summons, magic, and effect by conjuring it and using a bit of mp (magic power).  So a sword could emerge out of thin air by using a sword glyph.  This is only a guess, so I'm not sure if that's how it really looks.

Another Castlevania game coming out takes a bold turn and becomes a fighting game:

Castlevania Judgement gave me a real shock when I first heard about it on Nintendo Power magazine (while I was down in Irvine during July too if anyone remembers that post).  But I like fighting games, and I love Castlevania, so I'm hoping this game will be at least decent.  A lot of fans didn't like the 3D castlevania, so it's no surprise to see a whole bunch of whiners complaining about this game (btw, I liked the 3D castlevania games and am trying to beat Curse of Darkness).

Well, I'm going to be leaving soon and going to Irvine, and I'm going to really miss everyone here and the ones going to different colleges.  I wish all of you the best of luck this school year and will continue to blog in the future~