Ben-DutkaVery pleasant weather. Took advantage of it to shoot Episode #5 of the PSXE Show today. 🙂
Square Enix should let US gamers test FFXIII-2 early
You know, it would go a long way to allaying lingering fears. When I saw that Square Enix would give 40 lucky gamers a chance to play Final Fantasy XIII-2 , I knew immediately we should have that same opportunity in other regions. You may notice that they're calling it a "fan meeting." Well, isn't that what this company has desperately needed over the past decade? I mean, I think Japanese gamers are just gonna love FF no matter what, but it seems to me as if old-school Western fans have had a bone to pick with S-E. And if you gave these fans a chance to play FFXIII-2 early, it'd be fantastic. Why?
Because if they did it early enough, they could seriously consider fan feedback and implement any changes and fixes before the game arrives. Can you imagine if they had done this for FFXIII? We're not talking about a demo; we're talking about letting gamers in on the development process. I doubt they'll take criticism from Japanese fans during that FFXIII-2 preview but what if they did ? And what if they did it here ?
More people should be pumped for the new Joe Danger
Come on. I know we don't have all the details just yet, but nowhere near enough people are psyched for the new Joe Danger . I still say the original is arguably the greatest downloadable game of the generation, despite the fact that digital competition gets stiffer by the day. It was pretty, endlessly fun, lengthy, and besides, the concept of an Excitebike for a new generation…? It's just so perfect. And I was wondering if Hello Games would do a sequel, or if they'd choose a different concept entirely. I wouldn't have minded a new IP from such a talented developer but in truth, I wanted another Joe Danger .
If you haven't tried it yet, I would strongly suggest downloading it ASAP. You really won't find a better digital experience. And I hope more people get excited for this sequel in the future.
Personal gaming update
I haven't been playing much besides Catherine and Limbo but the summer drought is already ending. We've got Deus Ex: Human Revolution in a few weeks, and Resistance 3 and Dead Island a few weeks after that. Speaking of the latter, I should be involved in a Q&A with the developers later this month. Also, speaking of interviews, I'll be chatting with PlayStation Home boss Jack Buser later this week; evidently, he has something significant to discuss. Might not be able to reveal it immediately, though.
Oh, and now that Episode #4 of our PSXE Show is in the books, we're looking forward to the fifth. Topics include the unfortunate fate of L.A. Noire developer Team Bondi, the great Resistance series, and the intended consumer base for HD collections. Also, expect to see Episode #3 up on our YouTube Channel soon, just in case you don't go into Home.
I'd like to try out a FFXIII-2 demo also. Not that I'm not contemplating playing the full game, but it'd be nice to have a chance at it early. And better still, I think the demo would be wise for those who had soured tastes after having played FFXIII. I'm not one of them, but I know there are many who fall into that category. Perhaps they'll need a good demo to bring them back in, if the game is all it's supposed to be.
I like Joe Danger, too. I still have a lot to do in the original game. I'm glad there's a sequel coming, either way. I think my fav download games have been Tekken 5 and WipEout HD. I've played those two the most anyway.
PGU: I haven't been playing too many games. I've been trying to get some solid art time in before school hits hard here soon. But, even then, I've managed to get some great 'pick-up and play' Tekken 6 and Street Fighter 4 matches in. I've been trying to bring my Nina skills up to Heihachi's snuff. I really like Nina's versatility. She's something of a 'jack of all trades' in technique and requires some pretty intensive practice to become proficient with. But all that effort pays off when you start kicking the crap. Heihachi and Nina will probably be my lead duo for TTT2. I like SF4. I can't say I'm real good at it, but I can usually put up a good fight with 'gief.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 8/13/2011 9:58:31 PM
Your idea for XIII-2 is sound Ben :), I just wish I'd hear more about what's going on with Versus XIII….my assumption is that if we hear scarce or no information at all about it next year, it's safe to say Versus XIII will release for the next generation of consoles. It wouldn't be far-fetched to say under a different name too, like with Final Fantasy Agito XIII (or should I say Type-O?).
I'd still like it to be exclusive though, but that's my bias speaking =P and it doesn't have to necessarily be 2012 or 2013 either, I want this generation of consoles to last!
i got a feeling vs is being ported over to 360 as we speak. that's what's taking so long.
S-E needs a focus group of fans of the series, not a demo. That, of course, is what you're asking for. I don't understand how they don't get that people want control over the entire party, not just the lead character, or that the style shouldn't overrule the substance. I think that XIII-2 will suffer much the same fate as XIII did, but XV whenever it comes should begin them on the way to rectification… Or completely screw up the franchise, whichever works. Now give me Versus.
PU:
Started and finished Lady Susan… was different, but I enjoyed it. I'm now reading a compilation of some of Lovecraft's work.
I went to start back on FFIV last night, but discovered that I'd turned the system off rather than putting it into standby, so I've taken that as a cue to take a break from it, and instead I've played a bit of The 3rd Birthday. Aside from Aya being a bit docile, it's good so far.
And I finished R&C:ACiT about two hours ago, which means that R:FoM hits the PS3 for the first time in four years either tomorrow or later tonight if I can get everything that I want written in time.
Peace.
At The Mountains of Madness is not to be missed, Lovecraft is what got me writing horror. Guillermo Del Toro was set to try to bring it to film with hopes of actually making a movie based on Lovecraft that was scary instead of goofy but I think the project has been canned 🙁
That's not in this set, but it has got The Call of Cthulhu and The Shadow Over Innsmouth. I'll have to look for another set for that one. And yeah, the studio didn't want to give him the $150M budget when he refused to tone it down from an R-rating, so it got killed… sad.
Very sad. Innsmouth is probably my second favorite.
The only good film adaptation I've seen is for Call of Cthulhu and is a silent film made in 2005. I think Netflix has it if you haven't seen it.
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth will always be my fave Xbox1 game 🙂
Shadow over Innsmouth has to be one of my favorite books. I would also suggest getting Shadows over Innsmouth. It is the original book plus a lot of additional works by other authors around the subject. A couple of them are really good.
Last edited by sirbob6 on 8/14/2011 1:16:45 AM
So this time SE gonna take into account the feedback of the testers, like they didn't did with their failed FF XIV game?
Hope they rush XIII-2 asap I want Versus not the sequel of the multi-platform game.
Meh a sequel of XIII wasn't even necessary and their characters weren't enough iconic in order to make all the FF fandom want to know more about them, stupid game not gonna have my money.
I prefer to buy the new CoD game 10 times before this.
Last edited by Oxvial on 8/13/2011 10:26:21 PM
A sequel to XIII was only necessary to try to recoup costs since it didn't sell very well for an FF. Gee I wonder why.
I can't stand the first one so I wish there was no sequel. It's sitting on my shelf and I don't know if I will finish it.
Yes SE being desperate for money must be the reason, I don't have hopes in this cut content game because it sure was all they couldn't put on the dvd's, just adding some fanservice on the gameplay isn't going to convince me.
I'm still playing Wild Arms and am about 27ish hrs in. I'll probably finish it within next week or so. I also started Castelvania SotN a few days ago. Really enjoying both. This might be kind of a stretch, and it's not like I haven't played a game like Castlevania before, but SotN sort of reminds me of a 2D side scrolling Demon's Souls. Maybe it because I just played DS again not too long ago. Also, I thought I was done with my PS1 RPG collecting. Apparently not. So now I'm looking forward to hopefully playing Tales of Destiny 2 and Suikoden 2 soon. Yay!! =D
Last edited by Claire C on 8/13/2011 10:39:53 PM
PGU: I finally finished AC:B this week after buying it on release day. Also, I have finally got into LA Noire and can't stop playing it. When I'm done with that I plan to either pick up Portal 2 or Catherine. Don't know which one to buy first, I'm open to suggestion. My backlog is down to GT5 now (just in time to start filling it out again) which who knows when I will feel finished with it. Also, I'm almost done with Limbo but have kind of stalled on finishing it because my gf likes it so we play it together and its hard to schedule gaming time together.
I had never seen Mad Men before I played L.A. Noire, and now it's weird because I'm watching them all and keep seeing people in the show from Noire. It's especially strange because the guy who plays Phelps has a completely different stringbean body type and the real guy looks like a caricature of the game character to me now.
Well SE can show their game to some gamers all they want, at most it might help them decide where the cuts land this time. Release is too close to make the changes people want (I won't list them because we all know them by now) but at least some of the proper changes have already been implemented. XIII-2 is actually kind of doomed from the start because everyone expects it to rectify the evils done to the series and because it will fall short of that mark you can bet everyone will be hard on it. I know I'll be hard on it, but I'll still play it. Might even get it day 1 because it's releasing in a window where I won't be too busy.
I suggest we all just forget about Versus, SE can't stop themselves from retasking everyone to other projects and I hope it grates Nomura enough to get him to start his own studio. SE is finished as a developer if they keep this up.
I'm finishing up Saint's Row 2 and trying to muddle through Vanquish. I really wish Platinum would commit themselves to something with substance but what can you do? A shmup is a shmup I guess and people do need their high-tech shooting galleries.
Not exactly good weather here in Indiana…as you might have heard about the Indiana State Fair 🙁
Yeah I saw those *crazy* pictures in the media here in Norway, of that falling stage. Hope all is fine with your friends.
The video gave me chills. I had a friend there who went for the Sara Bareilles concert and left afterwards. Some crazy stuff.
I would like to try a ffXIII-2 demo to see if they changed anything but i think they just made a sequel because the first didn't sell good. I would rather here more about versus than a game that doesn't deserve a sequel.
XIII-2 will be at the EB expo in october and is apparently going to be playable!
hmmmmmmmmmm………
hope so, i gotta get my banana cream pies ready!
$E being $E i doubt they would change anything even if they let allot of people test it, and everyone says the same thing.
there in this mindset that they have to westernize the game otherwise its not going to sell well.
not even jesus f*cking christ could convince them out of that mindset!
not only $E, but all asian developers!
tis why $E, sega, crapcom, have gone from the ps2 era being the best publishers out there, to the ps3 era being the worst publishers out there!
amazing how much six years can change!
im playing through deus ex human revolution again this time going in guns blazing to see how that changes the story.
that and trying to finish saints row 2, and gears 2.
up to the giant worm level, forgot how much fun that game is!
i wish more games would be like gears, just in the visceral sense.
just the gore, i mean i love blowing enemies up, or blowing them into 2 with my shotgun, and seeing flesh and blood going flying all over the place!
thats something resistance 3 needs!
the biggest story of the week has to be id's decision to lock out a portion of the sp exerience in rage. i'm pretty outraged by it. i found id's downplaying of it pretty disgusting, too.
Amen to that bro. its pretty disgusting.
They hate consoles and console gamers.
This is not just ID. I guarantee, all the rest will follow unless something happens that make them change their mind.
And that "something" is up to us, the gamers, to make happen.
Every inch toward total digital distribution is one more small piece of my heart breaking. :_(
PGU:
I've beaten Fear 3 and started on two new games: Dead Space 2 and Killzone 3.
Fear 3: Omg what an ending. There was none. The entire game builds up to this one particular event that we chase throughout the entire game… And then it just ends, just like that. The final chapter is the shortest of them all, it's like they said "ok this game is long enough now, let's wrap it up guys!".
That being said… I shall get Fear 4 too. They do *so* much right in these games! It's just that last, small push over the bump to enter awesomeness. A better 3D engine and a *much* better writer, and we are there!
(WorldEndsWith42: Think the F2 ending was bad? That's *epic* compared to this. 😀 )
Dead Space 2: The production quality caught me completely by surprise. I should have expected so from a game with a metascore of ~90, but I didn't. But damn it's scary, and I am such a chicken. I shall continue cause I can't let go of it, but I will not enjoy it… 😀
Killzone 3: Well, we've already discussed the rails in Killzone 3. And with me being allergic to rails, it was pretty much doomed from the start. I can not understand how I could have missed that from the reviews back when it was released.
I'll probably keep playing it, at least some of the visuals are cool. Love that second alien planet. If only… If only I could explore it just a *little* bit. Or give me at least *one* alternative way of solving a map. Just one tiny one. Please… I even have to kill the mobs in a particular order, why do they make games like these anymore!?
Usually I finish off the game sessions with a round of Crysis 2 multiplayer. That game is one solid mp package. And hard. But in a good way.
It's so intense that I can't keep going for long. I look forward to get better and thus able to play longer sessions.
Last edited by Beamboom on 8/14/2011 4:19:51 AM
I recently beat FEAR2 and was also pleased by what was done right and pissed at the lack of an ending. What is with them? It's a better FPS than a lot but they skimp on horror and endings. And I don't think they are incapable of making the games sufficiently scary as there are inklings of good stuff in there.
I can say right away that imo FEAR2 is better on the scary stuff. I think they tried too hard in F3. It's blood *everywhere*, it turned comical. Also, they use much of the same scare techniques as in F2, and that in itself made it less scary cause you kind of knew what to expect.
But boy, there are some great *scenes* in F3. Just like F2, there was some locations that I really enjoyed. It felt like I was exploring a real movie set while the cameras were rolling. And those kind of maps were more frequent and generally better looking than F2.
Last edited by Beamboom on 8/14/2011 3:54:25 PM
I'm interested to hear your take on the target consumer base for the hd collections ben. This is sort of related to that, i think publishers have somewhat of a hard time with hd collections, on one hand you have potential new comers who may have just started gaming this gen and are likely to say something like "the graphics are outdated" (that's an even bigger problem for the psp remastered series). And on the other hand you have some of the fans who will either say "i still have the original, why should i buy it again?" or "my ps3 is backwards compatible, i can upscale my games to 720p". The "fans" have trouble understanding the concept of native resolution, widescreen, and 60 fps.
Last edited by Fox hounder on 8/14/2011 4:51:24 AM
My PGU:
Finally got my hands on Crysis 2. It's nice. It really is. I don't think the graphics are better than KZ3, but they are pretty slick. The story could use some more depth but that's all compensated by the open world feel to the level design.
Can't wait for Deus Ex!
Talking of the fall game line up… it does look very good indeed… I watched the "now playing" walk through on Gamespot of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I was suitably impressed to be honest.
That mix of stealthy gameplay and first person shooter mechanic. It could work quite well. Just wondering though if Deus Ex: Human Revolution is age restricted?
I was surprised to not see any significant gore when the player got up close to the enemy and pumped it with bullets. Didn't see anything in the way of blood close up… weird or maybe I missed something.
PGU: Playstation is still bust 🙁
Q!
"play.experience.enjoy"
Yo, I said it on the actual artical already but, isit weird that WKC2 is already out here in SA? I saw it two weeks back. Happened before, I remember asking y'all to confirm & some dude here was crying, sayin' that it's not fair and so on.
I'll see if I can get JD when I can get vouchers @ my store once more, but school's getting hectic again so. . .
PGU; Done did everything in Spiderman:SD and now i'm lookin' forward to playing Heavy Rain(finally), Portal 2 and the Sly Collection. Not a lot'a free time though.
Im playing Yakuza 4. I missed out on it due to too many games. After WKC2 taking me by storm, i was sure it'd be my favourite game so far of 2011 until either Deus Ex or Dark Souls.
How wrong was i?
Yakuza 4 is without doubt, one of the best games i have played this whole generation.
MUCH better than the western release of Yakuza 3.
Completely addicted to it and i find it a better joy than WKC2. It's taken me by storm!
Brilliant story, unbelievably detailed gameplay with a seemingly infinite amount of things to do and a brilliant battle system that never gets old.
The atmosphere, the look, the characters…everything! It puts most western games to shame.
Never will i put Yakuza on the back-burner again.
Im hoping Catherine will also offer me an experience beyond the rehash games made here.
Yakuza 4, for me, best game this year so far.
I got ya back Kiru lol.
Can you believe the bozo of ign called Y4 plot awful and the characters unlikeable?
Last edited by Oxvial on 8/14/2011 12:46:23 PM
@Oxvial Lol! What's your avatar by the way??
I'm gonna have to look into this Yakuza series. I dig RPGs and open world games so this looks like a fit. =)
Hey C , Shes X-23 (Marvel comics) she's actually pretty but from time to time she does those kind of lol faces.
Okay I say pass on Yakuza 3 that's the worst, my faves are 2 and 4.. 1 is just okay.
Oxvial,
It's just another reason why mainstream "critics" aren't important this generation.
2 and 4 are by far the best. However, although 3 has flaws, it developed the character of Kazuma in such unpredictable and brilliant ways with the orphanage plot etc. Got major Shenmue feelings during them scenes. It's only when he got back to Kamurocho that it took a turn for the worst with samey gameplay and mundane plot.
Yakuza 4 is just an absolute joy through and through.
I'm 100% behind ff versus and I'm sure to be critical of this sequel.
PGU: Finished Catherine and got the good ending (YAY :D). That was a helluva journey night after night even on normal difficulty. >.> looking foward to Deus Ex.
Ben, very off topic but have you heard any info on the new Naruto Ninja Storm:Generations? I saw a trailer late June but i havnt seen any other info out. You are the inside man so ; ) jussst wondering
Indigo Prophecy in HD to help fund Quantic Dream's new project so it actually releases on PS3: make it happen.
Last edited by WorldEndsWithMe on 8/14/2011 4:59:51 PM
Is Indigo Prophecy good? Would it be worth going back and playing? o.O
Yes and Yes, the story is more supernatural but basically it feels like a Heavy Rain prototype.
I'm looking forward to your reviews of Dead Island and Resistance 3, Ben. I hope you review Bodycount as well.