I finally finished reading Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai! I recieved it as a christmas present 2 years ago from my sister, and I thought it was strange since she knows I don't read too often. Well, I started reading it earlier this year and stopped for the whole summer (I did not read at all this summer). It was kinda hard to get into since it was supposed to be deep, intellectual anecdotes that follows the many philosophies of being a samurai and of how to act as a human being. Some passages were actually inspiring, though it would be difficult to recall a specific one at the moment.
It took me a while to get around beating this game, but I managed to find the time to finish it. It's a mix of rhythm music with fighting genres into one game. An activity or sport known as "Grapping" becomes the biggest thing in the world. The player takes the role as one of 4 characters, and each one has their own ambition and story behind why they want to enter in the competition to become a Major grapper (kinda like going pro in a sport in real life). Each character uses a "G-Con" (summons your weapon) to strike the opponent and create melodies out of the strikes. This is called grapping, and you can customize the melody and the way it sounds so that you'll get the sound you want when you perform a combo. The game can get quite challenging, and I've never played on wi-fi; however, I'm pretty sure there are some crazy pro players out there. The concept is intuitive in that you can change the sound of your combo, combine different bullet sets to use in battle, and combine the attacks together to create some wicked moves.
Graphics are pretty nice. They have duplicate npcs and monsters, but I'm not complaining. The animation is pretty smooth, although the controls need a bit of getting used to. The story mode I finished was Hibito's, the flame glade user. He says a lot of corny fire puns like "Play with fire and you'll get burned" or "I'll heat things up". There isn't actually any voice overs, and the dialogue is kinda weird because of the translations (I should get a job at Atlus as a translator [Atlus resides in Irvine, CA]). The music is okay and distinguishable, though the most memorable tune would be the title theme (which I don't know the name of). Story is very simple and predictable, but it was still fun to play along with it. The boss battles get pretty intense, and I think that's what makes worth playing the game (besides making your own "beat"). Overall, I'd give this game about a 7.5/10 or so on the top of my head. Oh yeah, there's co-op quest mode too, I haven't tried it yet, but that's a plus too!
[Visual Culture Project - Video]
I'm not complete yet, but got most of it done. I just have to compose, mix, arrange the music and edit the film. I've spent most of the past 3 weeks working on this, and since I think I'll like it, I'm probably gonna put it up on Facebook.
I'm sorry to say that I haven't played (or possibly heard of) Fallout or Fallout 2. But when I heard about Fallout 3, I still wasn't interested.....until I heard it was an RPG game. I do love games of all genre, but after the explosion of games that came out when there was once 4 major consoles (now 3, sorry Sega) I started to become very careful on what game I choose to play that won't take up so much time so that I can play other ones. Anyways, I heard nothing but great reviews about Fallout 3 (except that it's full of glitches). The graphics are amazing with its crazy rendering of an entire city and vast land areas to travel to. The quest system keeps the players coming back for more (I heard you could be busy an entire year just by playing the game). And the concept is completely different from the once top down view and action/rpg mix.
Man, pretty violent....
[Left 4 Dead - PC Game (Steam)]
I used to hate zombie games a lot. Especially when Resident Evil first came out, I asked "why do they make games that freak you out?" Well, I learned later that it was the same reason why they make horror films: "For the thrills and chills....I guess?" Anyways, it gets your blood pumping and it got really exciting when they started making those zombie games action genres. Left 4 Dead is a 4-player co-op Action Horror survival FPS game that pits you and 3 of your friends with a city filled with zombies everywhere. It uses the steam system, so we can expect the controls and graphic rendering to be good. It looks pretty crazy from what I've seen so far from this game.
I'm not going to say that it's an original concept with super intuitive gameplay and all (especially since past games on steam such as Counter-Strike, The Specialist, and Half-Life all had some sort of play vs. hordes of zombie mods implemented on the server's list), but I am very excited that there is a (supposedly) decent multiplayer co-op game coming out that my friends agreed on trying out. A demo is available on the steam engine Nov. 11, so you'll know that I'll be trying it out this up coming weekend.
So that's it for now, I should go cook dinner, work on my Videogame development work for tommorrow, and continue my visual culture project by starting on the music! (So tired....)
Anyways, the demo had a 20 min time limit, and during that time I remembered that I always sucked at Starcraft because the computer rushed up and destroyed several of my supply depots. I started picking up the pace after a while and man, such beautiful graphics and much nostalgia while I was playing. They used a lot of the same voice acting as well as the music, though that may change when the final game comes out. The animation for each unit is much more detailed, so it looks like they move faster. There are new units and implementations in the game, and so the bar on raising new strategies just went up. I can't wait to start making maps again, and since I've gotten so much better in design and game concept, I'll be making better maps than I did before.
I gotta say, it's been a while since a good multi-player co-op game has been out for a while. When I arrived at BlizzCon, the opening cermony revealed the "Wizard" class of Diablo III. She kicks butt, seriously! Possessing the skills of fire, ice, and lightning and wrecking havoc upon the legions of enemies that come your way is such a relaxing activity. I played it with Jimmy and his two cousins the second time I got in line on a co-op campaign. It might seem a bit like a button mashing game at some point, but strategy and communication will be required for harder enemies. This is another game I'm considering of buying (if not, I'll just play LAN with my friends).
