PS3

Victor’s Final Fantasy XIII-2 LiveBloggery, Part One (END)

Due to how my computer, monitors, and PlayStation 3 are set up, I can actually type this while looking at the television screen showing the PS3 interface. I’ve decided to try liveblogging the first few hours of FFXIII-2 to see if I like playing the game in this manner, and to gauge my personal interest in dividing my attention in this particular fashion in an attempt to try something new and blog more.

How it’ll work: most liveblogs use some kind of software that I have no idea where to get in order to liveblog quickly and efficiently. While I won’t be using that software, I can use their format of updating in tweet-like fashion, with the entries going chronologically upwards from the beginning (the bottom-most entry) to the most recent entry (directly below this paragraph) using military time to denote hours in the GMT+8 timezone.

I’ll begin in approximately 30 minutes from this post, at 19:30, after I grab dinner.

See you folks in a bit. :)

————– LIVEBLOG BELOW ————–

22:15 Standing in front of the First Time Gate. Will continue some other time.

22:13 It seems there’s also a map percentage aspect to the game. Can’t seem to trigger 100% on the first map though. Strange.

21:57 There appear to be sidequests for Artefacts and other items. Hmm… not sure what to think about fetch quests.

21:38 Got an artefact… Why not spell it Artifact? Is there a big difference?

21:27 So Snow actually left Serah to find Lightning for his fiance. That’s nice.

21:18 So the moogle is some kind of a treasure hunting device and a weapon. How multifunctional!

21:04 Oh man. I can save anywhere and it saves to the same file I made at the start of the game. That’s cool. 😀

20:57 Crystarium has been altered somewhat. Not sure how to explain it, but basically, each crystal allows you to choose your path of development.

20:48 Staring at a meteorite. Amazed it crashed without making a bigger crater.

20:43 LOL. First non-tutorial boss is called Gogmagog. 😀

20:35 The game uses random encounters that require you to encounter the enemy in a time limit. That’s a nice implementation of two existing battle type tropes.

20:26 Hmm… early enemies dropping Accessories. 😀

20:19 So… they give a brief overview of the ending of FFXIII through dialogue in the first hour. Not bad. :)

20:17 And the kupos of the moogle are weird. Some kind of dialogue weirdness.

20:07 LOL. Jumping mechanics included in the game now. 😀

20:05 Live Trigger… Branching Dialog options, it seems.

20:01 Magical Changing Clothes. Go Squeenix go!

19:59 Noel Kreiss…. jumps into a time gate.

19:54 First Tutorial battle of the game completed, Multi-stage, very forgiving, extremely epic.

19:50 I guess they use gameplay footage to allow for cinematic actions. I got to choose how to engage my enemy in the cinema.

19:44 Apparently, the enemy is a fricking Bahamut of Chaos.

19:42 Cutscenes become actual gameplay footage now. Tutorial stage played as Lightning Riding Odin.

19:40 Caius and Lightning fight. Beasties galore in battle. 😀

19:38 Opening Cinematic of the game. Lightning looks over the sea.

19:36 Game gives a bonus reward if you have FFXIII save data, and asks you to create a data file upon starting game. Autosave and manual save is available.

19:34 Game loaded, Opening Sequence playing. Pretty Cool. 😀

19:30 Turning on PS3. 😀

Tales of Graces F Heading to North America

Namco Bandai has announced that a localization of the PS3 RPG Tales of Graces F is coming to North America.

The news was made known a few hours ago through the unveiling of a Tales of Graces F American website, as well as an official announcement on Facebook.

More information can be found on the Wikipedia Page for the game. In the meantime, I’m saving some money and hoping it gets released in my country as well.

 

Source: Destructoid

PS3 Version of Portal 2 Comes With a PC or Mac Version Too!

Breaking news folks.

Destructoid has just reported that the PS3 version of Valve’s upcoming game Portal 2 will allow players to not only play with PC and Mac gamers via Steam functionality (a first!), but also to play on the PC or Mac as well.

According to Valve, anyone who purchases Portal 2 for the PS3 will also get a free Steam play copy of Portal 2, which will work on the PC or Mac.

Feel free to check Destructoid for more details, and save up some cash for the PS3 version, why dontcha?

A Nearly Comprehensive List of Things to Look Forward to in 2011 and Beyond

One of my Google searches for upcoming games in 2011 had me stumbling back into the NSFW recesses of Sankaku Complex, where one article they had was a huge 1.2 MB picture of a list of multiplatform and exclusive games to the PC, PS3, Wii and Xbox 360. While Sankaku Complex said it asserted the dominance of the PS3 over the two other consoles, it seems fairly evident that the PC would be the place to go if you really want a lot of games.

I can’t seem to find the original author of the picture but I’m guessing that this listing is perhaps incomplete to a certain extent as well, seeing as it’s a day or two old and something new must have happened between the posting and now that would require a minor update.

Added to the picture above is a link to a blog by Adrian Werner, who also has another extensive list of PC-specific games to look forward to for 2011 and beyond.

Anyway, the point of this post is that there are a ton of great games to look forward to, and it’s an exciting year for me, for a lot of reasons. I’m hoping 2011 will be much better than the year before it, and I pray that good things happen to all of us, regardless of our gaming preferences.

As Stargrace of MMOQuests would say, “Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!”

Moral Quandaries and Dead Rising 2

I’m not finished with Dead Rising 2 yet, but I think I’ve played enough (possibly halfway through the story) to write about Dead Rising 2. I purchased it for the PS3 with the intent of killing some time and some brain cells mindlessly beating the stuffing out of zombies. Instead, I ended up thinking deeply about certain aspects of the game that struck me personally.

If you’re wondering what the story is in Dead Rising 2, it’s like this: Chuck Greene and his daughter Katey came to Fortune City, Nevada as part of a zombie-slaying reality game show called Terror is Reality. During their stay in Fortune City, someone released the zombies out into the wild, infecting the general populace and making a mess out of just about everything save for the Safe House that Chuck, Katey and a host of other survivors managed to find. Sadly, Chuck’s been falsely accused of releasing the zombies, so he has to clear his name in three days before a pickup arrives and arrests him.

There’s a second wrinkle to this story though: Katey was bitten by her mother during a previous outbreak of zombification. The reason they’re in Fortune City is because Terror is Reality pays Chuck enough to purchase Zombrex, an zombification inhibitor drug, for his daughter. With the city gone to hell and his name tarnished, Chuck Greene has to scour Fortune City, not only for clues to who framed him, but also for Zombrex to keep his daughter from turning undead.

The gameplay itself doesn’t feel terribly deep (mash the B button with an equipped weapon to kill zombies or punch them, rescue survivors, create custom weapons to do more damage to zombies, level up, and repeat process with a new weapon.), but there are certain aspects to the gameplay that, when coupled with the story, make it very difficult to put down.

First, there is the time management aspect of the game. Every moment not spent on pause is time ticking away on the main quests and storyline of the game. To add a wrinkle in the process, one of the main characters sends you information on things happening in the city, and you can choose to aid people or not when this information is given up till a certain time. If it’s your initial set of playthroughs, you probably won’t have the strength to do everything or the firepower to cut through swathes of enemies, sadly. In other words, you cannot save everyone.

In my case, I went to an area knowing that there was a non-storyline boss character there, and I didn’t have the strength to defeat it. So upon reloading a save, I had to choose between using my time more wisely and saving other people or focusing on beating that one enemy to get to the person trapped by the bad guy. Reluctantly, and with much regret, I chose to let someone die.

Related to this is general scarcity of Zombrex. To find Zombrex, you must acquire it in the city through exploration, buy it from looters who’ve set up shop, or earn it from rescued survivors or slain enemies. Now, finding enough Zombrex for Katey is hard enough, but some survivor quests actually pose to you a survivor who’s been bitten by a zombie. The question is: do you give the Zombrex you’ve saved for that single survivor, or do you leave him be?

During my playthrough I encountered this once, and chose to give the only piece of Zombrex I had to the survivor. After escorting him to the Safe House, I basically had to worry about where I could get another one for my daughter. Luckily, one of the looter shops was selling Zombrex for the ridiculous price of $25,000 (with the next dose of Zombrex from him requiring $50,000, bloody pushers). With an only a small fraction of time left before Katey needed her Zombrex injection, I bought the meds, ran as fast as I could back to Katey, and got her the Zombrex shot in time.

Lastly, one aspect of the game that really hits the sadness lever on my heart are the psychopaths. Psychopaths are a blanket term gamers have used for the minibosses that appear in the Dead Rising series. There are many heart-wrenching stories of people who’ve been pushed over the edge by the zombie outbreak, from the chef turned cannibal cook to the roller-skating guy in a mascot costume who lost his mascot’s significant other. Their stories are all caused by the outbreak and while they may have been unhinged prior to the release of the zombies, the outbreak becomes the final straw that breaks their minds.

The one some of them blame? Chuck Greene, sadly.

I want to keep playing this game just so I can find out the reason behind why Fortune City became a hellhole, as well as keep Chuck’s daughter from turning into a zombie. While I do not know if Chuck can keep getting Zombrex for his daughter after the course of the game’s events, seeing him fight to keep her alive makes this game quite worth it.

Is There a Classics HD Line for the PS3?

Here’s something interesting for the PS3 users out there. The European box art for the upcoming The Sly Collection sports the words, “Classics HD” right above the title. For those who don’t know what The Sly Collection is all about, it’s essentially a Sly Cooper videogame compilation that’s been PS3-ized for the gaming public.

Of course, we aren’t interested in that. Instead, what we want to know is simple: Will there be a Classics HD line for the PlayStation 3 in the future? If so, what games will come out as part of the line?

Obviously, this kind of goes against the whole backwards compatibility thing they were going for in the early ages of the PS3’s life cycle, but if some really good RPGs make their way onto the PS3 in an HD format with extras, then I may just pick a couple of them up if only for the chance at actually finishing the said RPGs.

Information gathered from Siliconera

Hyper Video Cast Off: The Kevin Butler Speech from E3

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGZbJlpsohc]

“Because every gamer is a true gamer: motion gamers, sitting gamers, everyone. And though we may pledge fanboy allegiances to different flags, deep down inside we all serve one master, one king, and his name is gaming. Forever may he reign!”

— Excerpt from the Kevin Butler speech at Sony’s E3 presscon.

The Fall or the Fantasy?

I’ve still got two days to go on my trial, so I won’t post my impressions yet, but I will give you a status update at the least.

I still have 10 hours of newbie protection, so I’ve been using it to explore the nearby starter surroundings.

I’m now in a guild called the Dark Hand of Valor. They apparently have two holdings in the Northeastern Region of the Darkfall Map, and my starter area is on Slightly North of the Central Western Region of the Map. That’s a long freaking run, but I’m excited to make a break for it once newbie protection wears off.

Anyway, here’s the main conundrum for today, and my future purchases may be swayed by your arguments below.

Basically, I have enough saved up money for either a three-month sub to Darkfall or Final Fantasy XIII. Both cost approximately 60$. However, they are vastly different games that appeal to different parts of my personality.

Darkfall currently appeals to a streak of bloodlust and competitiveness I never knew I had, along with a social aspect, which is being in a clan. Final Fantasy XIII appeals to my tried and true personality, which likes storytelling and semi-linear game mechanics to tell that story.

Note that my ideas towards both are mostly favorable, and I’m keeping an open mind towards either game. Place your choice in the comments along with which game you’d side with, and let me see if your persuasive powers will sway me! 😀

Darkfall, Savior of PlayStations

I’ve been remiss in posting because I decided to try out Darkfall for seven days. This post isn’t about that, however, but rather about one of the good things I have to say about Darkfall.

You see, for some reason, sandbox games scare the crap out of me, due to my mild obsessive-compulsive tendencies. I was tempted to turn on my PlayStation 3 earlier to play MAG instead of Darkfall, but I decided to muster all my courage to use up more of my newbie protection in Agon.

Before going on any game, I usually check the internet for news and whatnot, and basically, I found out about the Ps3 fiasco I’m calling the Leap Year Bug.

So now, I am thankful to Darkfall for curbing my interest in the PlayStation 3 and saving me from having a busted PS3 Phat. It’s a small thing to be thankful for, but I’m thankful for it nevertheless.

More impressions on Darkfall once the trial period ends.