Mini reviews of previews

Right, I haven't been writing anything at all for the past month or so, due to some new responsibilities elsewhere and poor Mr Syaf is handling all the writing stuff all by himself.

So anyway, here are some of the stuff we've been playing and will be playing in the near future.

God of War: Chains of Olympus (PSP) is out already, and yes, it's as awesome as the demo in all respects.

Patapon (PSP) has yet to surface in this country, but from the demo that I played (and finished), I could safely say its one of the main list of things I need to get once my paychecks comes in.

For those who don't know what Patapon is, its a rhythm based game mixed some tactical RPG element in it. Sounds weird but interesting? In-depth reviews of the full game can be found here.

On the Nintendo DS side, the predecessor for Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, a sequel from the stellar adventure/text heavy Phoenix Wright trilogy is a welcome change from all the brainteasing insanity that is Professor Layton and The Curious Village, which is another game that is worth getting if you're the puzzle/adventure type.

So, just to remind all of you, that Grand Theft Auto 4 (Xbox360/PS3) will be out on April 29, but give it a week or two before it arrives in Brunei. (read: BOOK NOW)

Also, keep a look out for Final FantasyVII: Crisis Core (PSP), the prequel before Cloud went nuts, which received good reviews from April's edition of Electronic Gaming Monthly.

On an unrelated note, yes, the Xbox360 does make loud noises when it access its disc and Its NORMAL, part of its flawed design unfortunately.

Fret not as there's solutions for every problem, but not in the way you imagined it. Check out the articles from here and here for more information on how to shut up your Xbox360.

Until the next reviews of previews!

The First Xbox360 Meet in Brunei

It’s amazing to see support from the community from time to time. This is especially true during the recent 1^st Xbox360 Gamers Meet held at the Mall in West Street Café today.

It was Guitar Hero III's mini-tournament that took center stage, despite only using the HDTV’s speakers; it still gathered onlookers and supporters to join in on the fun with the competitors. The intense battles between eight players were electrifying and the intensity increased when the finals took place.

In another turn of events, as the last of the Guitar Heroes receives their prizes, the organizers showcased another glimpse of the future by unveiling Rock Band for the first time in public. Songs that were played were Weezer’s Buddy Holly and The Knack’s My Sharona. The audiences were ecstatic, even as far as humming to the tune.

This event was the first of its kind outside the usual Winning Eleven Tournaments which has been going around for awhile now. Overall, the event was well received and quite commendable for a first time.

The purpose for such meeting was to create awareness of an Xbox360 community in Brunei, promoting the system as well as its online/LAN capabilities and encouraged gamers at purchasing original games.

Amongst the schedule events for the day included demos of Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare which showcases what the Xbox360 does best, playing together in multiplayer.

With more encouragement from the gaming community, events such as this will only get better and hopefully have enough variety to pull off something on a grander scale. Let this be the start to something great!

For more info about the event here.

Brugamers Review: Mass Effect

It’s an action RPG in same vein as BioWare’s past effort, but more streamlined than I care to remember from the last game. Exploration, traversing worlds is fun, choosing the things to say in conversations trees opens up the option whether to be a bad ass or a boy scout – this game encourages you to make your own decisions.

The story might not be original, but to an extent it is quite entertaining in a lot ways, it’s along the lines of Battlestar Galactica episodes added with some other sci-fi fodder. It won’t win any awards, but it will make up for some really interesting story and makes you want to go on further just to delve into the mysteries of Mass Effect’s universe.

Some lags in the framerate during heated skirmishes but it won’t hamper the overall experience of the game. My only complaint is the flipping controls while driving Mako (the vehicle you use while traveling to other planet) add to the non-existent explanations on how to control the vehicle, this thing is definitely no Warthog. Fortunately, you only really have use the Mako on a few of the main missions, so it can be tolerated.

30 hours plus of gameplay. A set of interesting characters to interact with, beautiful worlds to traverse as well as equally sweet graphics and with the game setting itself up for a sequel, I think we can expect a lot from this game in the future.

Brugamers Review: Brave Story.

Review: in less than 100 words!

With the lack of great RPGs for the PSP out there this game breathes a refresher, and its just as good. Everything about this game screams typical RPG fare, but when you're on the go, this game will hold your candle. Battles are fast and addictive and with no load times during the fights. The story is nothing to write home about in the beginning, but as you traverse further on, you'll begin to love the beautiful world of Vision and the characters in it. The graphics are up to PS2-like quality, its smooth and almost no hint of slowdown. Despite the ugly cover, any RPG fan should at least have a go with this game, 25+ hours of good gameplay can't be all that bad right?

p/s I doubt that was 100 words.

Demo Review: Welcome To Paradise

Welcome to Paradise, a place like no other. Downloaded the Burnout Paradise demo yet? I did but never got to install it until lastnight. And boy, was I in for a treat.

I forgot how fun the Burnout series have been and how much addicted I was to them. I would replay and replay the games and tracks over and over again for months. The only problem I had then was with the load times. Now imagine this, an open city, free roaming and a huge ass world for your burnout pleasure. You feel me? Yeah!

Although you are limited to a section of Paradise City in the demo, it's still fun looking for ramps, off track areas, hidden passages, etc. You get tons of traffic and best part, the demo includes online play. And this is where the fun part of Burnout Paradise really starts.

Multiplayer in Burnout is always fun. Ramming into your opponents, wrecking their cars and sending them into oblivion is pure joy. Back during the PSP years, wireless multiplayer was introduced and to smack your other people's cars just to see the looks on their faces is one of the things that make you go on. In Burnout Paradise, you get to record that look via a usb camera. But let's rewind back a bit to online play.

While driving around Burnout Paradise in single player mode, it's easy to get online. You don't have to exit your gameplay or go through different kinds of menus again just to get to the online lobby. All you have to do is press right on the d-pad and an online option will pop up. Then all you have to do is select the online option you prefer and next thing you know, you see cars from others playing online! That's how easy it is to get online. You do the same thing as well if you would like to invite your friends into your Paradise City. Via the right d-pad button, you can invite your friends to join your game and play with them. Getting online is as fast as playing Burnout itself! And if you have a USB camera connected, when an opponent hits and wrecks your car, the game will automatically capture a "Mugshot" photo of you at the moment of the crash and sends it over to your opponent! Imagine looking at their crushed face - ooohh~

Now less talk and go get that demo. If you are on PSN, invite me and I'll show you around Paradise City, the Burnout way *evil laughter*

*Narrator's Voice* Get Burnout Paradise, January 2008.

Warhawk, A Story of A Respawning Soldier

You find yourself on one side of a battlefield. You look around and you see more people, teammates, joining in on the fight. Everything is silent as everyone runs towards their tactical positions. Picking up ammunitions, weapons, gears. Boarding 4x4s and tanks. Commanding turrets, machine guns. Piloting a Warhawk. The silence only lasted for a few seconds when the first explosion is heard.

You run, looking for something. Anything to survive. Picking up weapons and gears, you see an empty Warhawk at a distance. You get on and the Warhawk starts to hover. You switch into flight mode and a few seconds later you are zooming in the skies of Eucadia. All of a sudden, red lights start to flicker everywhere. Even before you realise what the warning sign meant, your Warhawk obliterates into a million pieces.

You respawn. This time, thinking you are better off driving a ground vehicle. You see a tank parked. You board and you start driving. You look at the digital map and find your enemy's base. You plan to capture their zone so your teammates have more place to respawn. But your thoughts didn't last long. You see a Nemesis flying through the sky, shooting at you. You see your enemies throwing grenades at your tank. And before long, before you can see what's coming at you, your tank explodes, bringing you down.

You respawn. You see a 4x4 and start to drive it. It's fast. It's light. And you think that you can easily outrun all the other vehicles, including soldiers on foot. You see an enemy in front and you ram into him. You see a Nemesis flying towards you, you outrun it between the trees. And finally, you reach an enemy base. And you drive towards their flag. But at the corner of your eyes, you see the shadow of a tank. Next thing you know, you've respawned.

You tell yourself, this is not the end. You respawn yourself next to a turret. You board the turret and start to aim at everything in the sky and the ground. Warhawks, Nemesises, tanks, 4x4s. They fall down to your missiles. You laugh and feel that you have finally conquered it all. But before success was reached, a foot soldier plants a rocket launcher at you.

You respawn. This is war.

The end.

Like my little story? That's the experience you get in Warhawk. Everything is fast. You don't get time to think much. You have to think in advance. Go plan fast. Know where you are going. Know what you are aiming at. Because if you don't, you die. And you will keep dying. And you will keep standing up. And you will try to find that last son of a bitch who just made you cry out fowl in your room.

Get Warhawk. I absolutely love it.

PS: Thought I'd include an old and new Warhawk videos. Look at how long you can survive in the old one compared to the latest Warhawk.

Heavenly Release

Heavenly Sword is finally here followed by a lot of great reviews! Play Magazine – 10/10, Game Pro Magazine – 4.5/5, Game Informer Magazine – 8.75/10, Electronic Gaming Monthly Magazine – 8.33/10, GameZone.com – 8.8/10, and 1Up.com - 8/10.

One thing I like, and something that I realise and like about Heavenly Sword graphics, is what 1up had to say about it - "Heavenly Sword’s visuals are arguably the best the system has seen to date. I can’t talk up the graphics enough — not only are the characters and environments incredibly well detailed, but there’s very little of that typical (and easily abused) “next-gen gloss” applied to them, so you get a much cleaner-looking game than fare like Gears of War or Virtua Fighter 5.”

I saw how great the graphics were from GoW and VF5 but they were too shiney. I was waiting for a game that had good graphics but less glossier. Came the Heavenly Sword demo and I saw what I've been wanting from a game graphics.

Anyway, looks like I'll have to look for extra money this month. Anyone wanna buy my copy of Gundam and some old PSP games?

Let's Boogie!

I was writing my Heavenly Sword order for the PS3 the other night while my wife went browsing around the Wii game section. Awhile later she came with a game called Boogie. I've never heard of it, but then again, I wouldn't read a game of such title anywhere. Had a look at it and my wife wanted to get it, so I bought it for her.

See, Boogie is a game about singing and dancing. It isn't normally my kind of game but when I saw my wife playing it, as ridiculous as it looked picturing me moving my right hand, and only my right hand, to the beat, I kinda liked it a bit when I tried it. But like most Wii games, I quickly got bored of it. But y'know what I love about the game? The songs list.

The game opened with You're The One That I Want, a classic I love so much from a movie I love even more. Grease. That caught my attention. That was the one that made me go and try out Boogie. And looking at the songs list, although not all was interesting (Britney Spears is in it?), I enjoyed the songs.

Also, the game includes an in-game video editor so you can create a video out of the dance moves you made with your character. Oh yes, you can customise your characters - not that much - but good enough.

Now, anyone knows where I can get a USB mic?

LAIR: Just Graphics

I've been reading reviews on Lair everywhere and so far, they haven't been really nice - apart from graphics and sound. Seems like Lair isn't that much of a game but for the sake of collection, I'd get my hands on it just for the graphics. I probably won't have the time to play it what with the time I'm spending on Oblivion and work. Heck, I haven't even touched Ninja Gaiden Sigma since I bought it over a month ago.

In anycase, just to warn you guys that if you are looking forward to spend that money on a good game, don't get Lair. Spend it on Warhawk retail instead. I'm getting Lair for two different reasons.