Mega Derived

More old men in suits pretended to give a crap about things like ‘gaming’ and ‘entertainment’ today in order to ensure they get the fattest pay rise next fiscal year, it has emerged.

Microsoft pretended they weren’t worried about receiving yet another ‘thrashing’ in the next-gen/this-gen ‘console war’ by saying that Sony were making an ‘interesting’ (read: hilariously bad) decision concerning the inclusion of a Blu-ray player in their expensive little console. Apparently, Microsoft think having Blu-ray drives inside a console is a bad idea. That’s why they’re releasing an external drive addon that does HD-DVD - the other new-fangled DVD device that you don’t need. “It won’t look a bit crappy at all!” lied a Microsoft executive.

In a desperate bid to kill Sony with PR, Microsoft also said that they weren’t going to lower the price of their console. Chris Lewis, Microsoft Europe boss, said “We’re confident that we are at the right price at the right time” whilst thinking “money money money, money money, money money, money” and counting up just how many new cars he was going to buy this year by pretending he thought Halo 3 was an innovative title.

Lewis also said that the PS3 was “an interesting price point that in my view forces the consumer down a choice path in a way that I’m surprised to see.” You see, he’s inferring that consumers are choosing the Xbox 360 over the PS3, even though the PS3 hasn’t actually been released yet and the only indication of the buying choice of consumers is polls taken off the TeamXbox forums. He’s also just as surprised about it as you are.  

When asked about anything to do with games on their games machine, Microsoft respectfully neglected to comment, a sentiment they conveyed by setting surplus HD-DVD units on fire and chucking them out of the window at passing cars.  

Source: Eurogamer

I’m clearly a massive glutton for Square-based punishment. Straight after conquering FFX I’m rummaging through the bargain bit, yet again, and sampling the colourful delights of Kingdom Hearts.

In the past, I’ve been quick to slam Kingdom Hearts for being a bit too gimmicky. I figured, at best, it would just be a bit of a crap Zelda knockoff. And that’s exactly what it is. It is a bit crappy compared to both Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker. The camera isn’t up to much and fighting isn’t nearly as slick with Sora as it is when I’m with my green-hooded friend Link. That, and the first few levels in the game are completed by basically running around the area in a circle enough times to trigger off the story events and fight the boss monster. But Square and Disney’s gimmick is their strongest selling point. There’s some great atmosphere here, and you can’t put a price on that. Hell, Dreamfall is basically all story and atmosphere and Dreamfall rocks. I’d say that Square sure do know how to fashion a story, even if it is from a pre-approved template. With Kingdom Hearts you’ve got the plucky young lad chosen by destiny to save the universe and his friend/rival who becomes evil.

So, Square, I’ll bite. I’ll play your little Technicolor adventure. I want to see what this ‘Heartless’ lot are up to. I’ll probably even play the sequel too, because you’ve got a nice vibe going with this one. But when it comes to the actual gameplay, I know you guys can do better.

I just killed Penance – the hardest boss of any Final Fantasy game ever created. Which makes me pretty cool, I think.

I’m going to go in a completely opposite direction to most gaming blogs at the moment and actually write about the act of playing some games, instead of just aimlessly speculating on what the state of the hardware situation will be six months from now. It happens after every E3, when all the amateur writers feel like pretending to be industry analysts so every bloody post is about hardware and stuff, instead of games. Games, people. Bloody games.

Firstly, I finished Hitman: Blood Money this week. I think it’s a sensational little package, provided you play it like the developers want (as a hitman) and not how Eidos want (shooters are really popular, let’s make them make it a shooter!). I think it’s the natural evolution of the adventure game rather than a stealth title, which is what it always gets billed at. You really have a surprising amount of freedom in the levels to achieve your end goal, so replayability is quite high. The levels themselves are like fifteen minute bites once you’ve been playing them for a while, which is another stroke of brilliance because it makes you feel like you’ve grown in skill as you progress. I doubt anyone will be able to do the hours in less than an hour each on the first playthrough, which makes this roughly a ten hour game.

If you’ve ever wanted to immolate a housewife with a garden BBQ because she’s carrying an important microfilm in a necklace she’s wearing, then this is the game for you. Or, mow down a field of bodyguards as a crazed, M16-toting Santa Claus. Or, deliver a poisoned birthday cake. Or, use a nailgun in a way that it wasn’t originally intended. The point I’m trying to illustrate is the incredible amount of variety this game has. Also, that you should buy it.

Dodonpachi Daioujou is still my current shmup of choice. The gameplay is incredibly frantic, as the combo system dictates that you must kill one enemy roughly every half second. You don’t get a breather in this game at all.

I’m still playing FFX, and am now at the one hundred and seven hour mark. That’s working out at 0.0467 pence per hour of play seeing as I bought it for a meagre five pounds. I’m not really having any fun with it anymore, but it’s got a price-per-hour value that can’t be beat. It also contains some of the most powerful and frustrating bosses I’ve ever seen in a Japanese RPG. The dark aeons are intense, requiring you to not only have a maxed-out set of abilities but a perfect set of items and armours. Even if you’ve got 30,000HP and can deal 99,999 damage with each blow, Dark Yojimbo will still destroy you if your armour does not contain the Auto-Haste ability, for instance. It’s good news for completionsts. Oh, but I’m not having any fun with it. So it’s not good news for completionists. I don’t know. But that price per hour is incredible. I would hope that I can finish it off before the time clock reaches 120 hours, but we’ll see.

Outrun 2006 gets loaded up virtually every other day. Because it’s amazing. More people should play it, but they won’t. I’d like to think that some kind of higher being will punish them for their ignorance at some point in their lives.

I stopped playing Guitar Hero and went back to Stepmania this week, too. I think DDR is perhaps the finest rhythm game ever invented, but only from a biological perspective. The harder difficulties demand quite a lot of physical activity, which naturally leads to the release of serotonin and its natural mood-boosting effects. If you’ve got a penchant for slightly crappy eurodance music, that’s a bonus. The official European releases of DDR are garbage – take note, Konami – which makes the use of Stepmania a necessity. Plus, it works wonders on my legs.

I’m hoping to start playing Dragon Quest or Kingdom Hearts as soon as I’ve finished FFX, and I’m intending on complimenting that with Rogue Trooper.

Right, now that I’ve got that out of the way, I can go back to doing what I do best; slagging off World of Warcraft and other websites.

I think this picture says it all:

Silent Assassin, indeed.

I’ve professed my undying love and eternal gratitude to Konami for Gradius V before, so I won’t go into that again today. What I will say is that the game really is absolutely fantastic – I will always find myself returning to it every couple of months – even though I’m absolutely terrible at it. It emanates warmth, a sense of satisfaction, a feeling of such beauty that is so rare in games you’d have more luck finding a disc carved out of diamond.

Whilst we’re talking about being terrible at games, Cave’s magnificent shooting gallery is the natural progression. They’re a different breed to Gradius V. They might look a bit crummy and, because you have to import them, they’re god damn expensive but these games are just magical. These are games structured around the sheer addictive nature of their insane levels of difficulty; the harder the game gets, the more I need to sink my time into them. It’s completely unforgiving, so as you weave your way in and out of a continuous screen of bullets, any of which would just love to make your little ship pop, you’ve got to shoot down what can only be classified as an armada of enemy fighters.

Here’s a video of the first level of Dodonpachi Daioujou that I’ve nicked off some guy off Youtube. Look how it’s like a normal game, but with 99% extra free of action.

I’ve written about them before, and I’ll write about them again. Shmups are one of the finest genres out there for people who play games way too much. Surely being able to complete one of these games on one credit means you get inducted into some kind of gamers’ illuminati.

And if you’re scared about the investment and importing, pick up your nearest copy of MAME and acquire some roms for Dodonpachi and Esprade. Play about with them for a few days and try and tell me these aren’t quality games.

CHAPTER TWELVE HUNDRED AND SIXTY THREE.

Langdon approached the doorway. He had no idea of the massive event that awaited him behind the door, an event so fantastic, so incredible; it would change the very course of his future. A massive sense of foreboding hit him, and he knew everything was about to be revealed….

PLAYER CHOICE. DO YOU?

1. ENTER THE DOOR
2. Stop playing the Da Vinci Code game as it’s an absolute shit point-and-click travesty, perhaps even quite possibly the worst game ever made, and play something better - like Dreamfall - instead.

(HINT: the correct answer is B, but I imagine the more common answer will be A)

I know I’m about two weeks late in saying this, but E3 was so bloody boring this year I’ve actually just recovered from being sent into a comatose state by it. I have no idea why people are fawning over it so much. Nintendo announced quirky games, Sony announced that they control the world and Microsoft announced the power of even more sequels THAN EVER BEFORE. Isn’t that what they do every bloody year? They’re just playing to their own stereotype, people. Why are people finding this so interesting? I can understand why crapholes like Gamespot and IGN are loving it; because it makes them feel like real journalists for once in their lives instead of the advertising-space-for-hire that they occupy for the other three hundred and sixty something days a year. Wow, they’re going somewhere and reporting on actual events! It’s probably their only chance to get out of the office. I just don’t see why actual gaming enthusiasts find this so interesting. Is it because they get to pretend they work for the gaming media?

Take your local gaming forum. How many dweebs were there who posted news as soon as it was announced? I’m betting a lot. Like you couldn’t go to Eurogamer yourself and read the information. The whole thing was bloody annoying. Then everyone would band together and slag off Sony for being too expensive and not delivering on promises. Gee fuckin’ whiz, a corporation that fails to deliver promises. You could level that comment just as easily at Microsoft or Nintendo but, no, let’s all forget about that this year because Sony are so god-damn evil! Boo!

I love new games as much as the next schmuck who plays games, but the seemingly oblivious moth-like nature of the average gamer makes me bile up all over the keyboard. It’s worse than an especially camp pantomime. In E3 2006, the role of evil soul-destroying corporation villain was played by Sony, stealing the role from Microsoft. Plucky young hero out to make a name for himself was once again played by Nintendo, even though they’re getting slightly too old for that role and Microsoft was the other main character who was kind of boring but, hey, he was consistent.

Take a fine piece of literature. It doesn’t age. You don’t have to buy it the very second it comes out. Infact, waiting a month until Tesco are flogging it for £3.73 instead of £7.99 from Waterstones is actually a bloody good idea. So why so many gamers are clamouring over their new consoles and the future, and what their consumerist little hearts will be able to buy in the future, is beyond me. Slow down a bit, chuckles. Savour the present. I don’t get why people don’t just take a step back and appreciate what’s out right now a little bit more. Play the goddamn games, people. Don’t get dazzled like insects to bright lights at the latest sequel – the same as the last game but with HDR graphics! ONLY ON NEXT-GEN! – when there’s undoubtedly so much you’ve missed out on floating around the bargain bins. If people are so pissed off that Sony make their PS3 cost so fucking much, just don’t bloody buy one.

Also, fuck you Microsoft for announcing Lumines Live! It was going so well until you announced you were taking out the best part of Lumines – the kick ass soundtrack – and replacing it with one supplied by Warner, including shit from Madonna.

Ninja Gaiden is the reason I bought an Xbox. Ninja Gaiden Black is the reason I spent twenty quid buying a new DVD drive for my Xbox because the lousy Philips piece of crap junked out just after I bought the game.

Tecmo fixed a lot of issues in Ninja Gaiden Black. Tell a lie, they fixed a lot of things in the free ‘hurricane pack’ you could download from Xbox live and basically slapped those things onto a DVD, added the “Black” suffix and charged you another ten quid for it. All Ninja Gaiden fans will probably buy it for the sake of completeness. Lord knows I did.

Fun fact: None of the aforementioned fixes that Tecmo added was the correction of the only typo I found in the game, “Dieties” instead of “Deities”, spoken by one of the characters in a cutscene.

The best new feature is that after you complete the game you get handed a nice little mission mode, which is basically the result of the Tecmo people sitting around a big table and coming up with various ultra hard little additions to the game. Complete it and you’ve just proved you’ve got too much free time on your hands – probably because you’re a sad, lonely person with little to live for - as well as being bloody good at the game. I fully intend to complete the mission mode as soon as possible.

The worst new feature is that they have un-cheesed the game. Ninja Gaiden is touted as a pretty complex fighting system, but this is all bollocks because all you had to do was get to level 3, upgrade your dragon sword and spend the rest of the game doing the “swooping swallow” – it’s called something along those lines, honest – attack on every little thing until it was dead. Including bosses. Hundreds of moves, but you only needed ONE. Anyway, the enemies – especially the bosses – have wised up to this little trick in Black. To the point where you actually have to develop real tactics to defeat stuff. No fair, Tecmo!

Even with the 360 out and the “era of HD gaming” sitting in the corner of the room, all by itself, like your sad old, recently divorced, uncle at Christmas, Ninja Gaiden still looks bloody good.

Unfortunately, Tecmo have still not developed a sense of good taste and reduced the size of Rachel’s breasts. Seriously, those things are stupid big. Her cans are so ridiculous I find myself completely un-aroused by them.

Does anybody actually want to rub themselves off after looking at that? No, of course not. No more stupid teenage-wankfests please, Tecmo.

Lately, I’ve been encouraged to renew my interest in the trusty, reliable genre of plain ol’ brawling. Seeing as how everything on the PS2 is inexplicably cheap if you shop around, it was easy to pick up a few different titles to get a good library of fighters going; I got Virtua Fighter 4 for two pounds. Clear proof that the dominance of the PS2 is so unbreakable; the market is clearly oversaturated with PS2 games, thus driving the pre-owned price down to hilarious levels. It’s a good time to be a buyer. It’s also a good time to have the internet, because if you can’t get your hands on something at a good price then that’s a fantastic tool to fill in the cracks in one’s collection. Here’s some of the goods I’ve been sampling:

King of Fighters Neowave

I stole this off the internet because it was only 800mb. Oh, and there was the fact that King of Fighters was one of the most dribble-worthy games of my childhood; the nostalgia section of my brain drools at the thought of stuff like KOF 98, a game so beautiful I’m almost crying just remembering it. Which leads me on nicely to my next point: This game is hideous. When they started doing home ports of King of Fighters back in the day of the Saturn, you needed to buy an additional RAM pack to handle its incredibly advanced graphics. King of Fighters used to be advanced, which makes looking at this tired old attempt at a budget priced title even more excruciating. It chugs along, looks old, has “Now Loading” screens every goddamn five seconds and it plays much slower than I remember it. It has absolutely no worth; you’re guaranteed a far more enjoyable experience loading up a copy of Garou: Mark of the Wolves in a Neogeo emulator and whacking a hq2x filter or something on it. Neowave isn’t even worth stealing.

Tekken 5

Tekken 5 is easily the most stylish fighter I’ve played. It has it right from the start, with the booming-voiced “KING OF IRON FIST” announcer, thumping techno accompanying it in the background. The character designs are memorable; it’s one slick package. How does it play? Oh, silly, don’t ask those kinds of questions! It doesn’t have the depth of some of the others, but it is cool.

Virtua Fighter 4

Virtua Fighter 4 is the best 3D fighter on the market. Sometimes you’ll pull off something so cool you’ll have to pause the game and cry tears of undiluted joy into a pillow whilst you regain your composure.

God Damnit People, Why Don’t You Play More Of Guilty Gear XX Slash

Guilty Gear XX Slash is the best 2D fighter on the market. Just watching it feels awesome. It’s incredible fast and incredibly complicated and incredibly difficult, which means once you learn how to get it right it is much more entertaining and rewarding than pretty much anything else on the market. This game should be appreciated by a much wider audience than it currently is.

Dead or Alive 3

I’m not playing 4 because I don’t think a bit of graphical whizzing is worth such a large fiscal investment. I also can’t play Dead or Alive in a public place. If somebody walks in and sees me playing this painfully misogynistic excuse for a wet dream, then we’ll both be embarrassed. I also don’t understand how you play it: if I have one hand on the d-pad, and the other hand on the controls, then how do I masturbate? Because if I’m not having a wank, what point is there to even be playing Dead or Alive in the first place?