NebachadnezzaR's place of awesomeness!

Hi, yall!

2010-04-03T11:03:00.000-07:00

So, this is kinda pointless since by now every single one of you already noticed that I don't quite update this place anymore. Still, I decided to make it official. I don't exactly plan on killing this blog yet, but chances are I won't go back to blogging so soon. There are a couple of reasons to this, like college life which sucks (that is, if you actually study and worry about your grades instead of partying madly every night) and the slow "fading away" (sorry, couldn't come up with a better expression) of our little blogging community. The evil Greek army finally give us our dear gnome back, but Father K's been absent for a long time (don't worry, folks, talked to him recently and he's doing fine), haven't seen funnyman in ages, deitrix still comes by from time to time but has other things to keep him busy, and...you know, it's just not the same anymore. Was fucking great while it lasted, thanks for the good times, guys ;)

Still, the problem ultimately lies with me, and my lack of will to blog. I just don't feel like it anymore, or not for now at least. Who knows, maybe I'll get back to it some time in the future, or maybe I won't, in any case this place won't go away, if for no other reason than for the memories it holds. So, while this is not a definitive goodbuy, at least not for now, it's a good occasion to get sentimental and say that I love you, guys. In a strictly manly, heteroxual kind of way. They call it bromance, or so I hear...

I rock!

2010-02-01T15:08:00.000-08:00

What a better way to bring this place back to life than showing off?

That's Mushihimesama Futari for the 360, the first japanese shmup ever to be region free. Of course I had to play it.

Neba's Christmas message

2009-12-25T13:46:00.000-08:00

Colin McRae Dirt 2 - gameplay, by me

2009-12-10T14:03:00.001-08:00

Come on, be honest, do I play nice or what? :D

Game's over!

2009-11-18T10:56:00.000-08:00

Modern Warfare 2 and Kingdom Hearts, that is. The later was a pain to the very end, but I finally put it behind my back. As I said before to my dear friend and KH lover Junlee, I just never got into it. But now I can get it out of my head and put the game to rest peacefully on the shelf. Guess what I started playing next?

Kingdom Hearts~: Chain of Memories! xD Nope, not joking, I'm playing the next games too, hoping that they improved with each new release. And so far this game doesn't look as long as the first one, so maybe it'll be over fast :D Like I said to a friend the other day, casual gamers play what they like, true hardcore gamers play everything, whether they like it or not!

Video Games | Modern Warfare 2 | Flag Runner Multiplayer Gameplay Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

A far more enjoyable experience, and far shorter, was Modern Warfare 2. It gets better as you progress, and for me it only got really interesting by the end of the 2nd act. The 3rd and final act is just awesome from start to finish. Overall though, although it's better than the first, the impact is just not the same after 2 years with the same basic gameplay and graphics engine. It's a pretty good game, but unless you're serious about the online component, at the current price it's just a rip-off.

MW2, W7 and KH

2009-11-13T11:03:00.000-08:00

Now that's a cryptic title... But allow me to explain:

MW2 - Modern Warfare 2 - Been playing and so far I've mixed feelings about it. It's still CoD, but after so many games that formula just isn't that impressive or appealing anymore. I'm almost at the end and so far I can count the truly memorable moments on one hand, and there were far more "meh" levels. The graphics engine is still the same, only with a couple of tweaks, and the pc version (the one I'm playing) is a rip-off for a couple of reasons. +10€ than a standard pc game, which makes it as expensive as the console versions, and no dedicated servers. On a fucking pc game!!! The online's ruined...

Still a good game, but don't get taken by the hype, it's not that good. Also, the story, specially the beginning, is even more American propaganda than the first game... Seriously, I could live without knowing that "what happens here matters over there" (great excuse to invade every country in the world) and that "you can't give others freedom but the tools to get it themselves" (because god forbid if we don't all live in a merry democracy). To all my American friends, you know I love ya, but sometimes your country can get on my nerves...

W7 - Windows 7 - Finally installed it, after some months of getting accustomed to vista. Thought the transition would be smoother, since everything's in a different partition (both OS's and my data), but it turned out I had to reinstall every piece of software I had. Also I'm still trying to find out how can I relocate my profile to another partition, but despite all that trouble I'm liking it.

KH - Kingdom Hearts - I'm so close to finally beating it!!! Overall I've spent more than 20 fucking hours with this game and all I want right now is to beat it and forget it, but I'm currently stuck in the many battles against Ansem... -.-'

Left 4 Dead 2 demo is out

2009-11-04T13:37:00.000-08:00

Indeed it is. Wanna play it sometime? It's free, so all you need is a decent pc and, of course, an internet connection. Personally I was one of many gamers who felt "betrayed" with the announcement of this game, so early in the lifespan of the first title. It was like the EA approach to games, which I absolutely and utterly despise. Even after playing it I still think this would be well suited for just an expansion pack, not an entirely new game, because it doesn't bring anything entirely new. Just new maps, characters, enemies and weapons. It may sound much, but that's what an expansion pack used to be for, some new stuff but nothing truly extraordinary.

The only redeeming factor about this game is the new melee combat feature + the machete = pure win. Seriously, it's so much fun to go around chooping zombies with this thing, it's crazy! I personally like to run towards a single infected who's also running towards me and slice the fucker. The gore also reached new heights. I first noticed it when I sliced an infected's back open, and noticed I could see an actual cut, not just a flat texture, with the bones shining in the sun through the cut meat. Gross.

McRoll

2009-10-25T04:42:00.000-07:00

What's that? I laugh, I lose? Challenge...accepted...

Ghetto literature

2009-10-22T14:37:00.000-07:00

For such a busy guy, today I actually had some spare time before lunch, so I gladly took the opportunity to go to the nearest mall to eat and relax a little. Next to the MacD (that's what I started calling McDonald's after watching too many Ali G Show's) is a Bertrand store, one of our biggest book sellers, and ever since I started my course on Editorial Studies I kinda got the habit of going there a lot, even if almost never buy a book (we have a very small market, so they're expensive as fuck).

So, anyway, there I was, being tempted by a 20% discount on Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion (that book has been on my list ever since it came out), which would still make it 16€ (fuck, do they think I'm rich or something? I got university fees to pay), few moments away from finding a recent translation of Sun Tzu's The Art of War (which I actually bought, for 6€ it was a steal), and being annoyed to death by 16 year old's yelling and laughing like they were still 10, when I spotted this guy:

Fuck, I didn't see that coming. Not just the guy alone, but the contrast. On one side you have a bunch of school kids, good looking, well dressed, who look like they can afford all the books they want, and still are just there goofing around, I don't have the slightest clue as to why they entered a book store in the first place, since that was obviously not their place. On the other side you have this guy, probably the closest thing to a real gangsta I've ever seen, dressed like he just came straight outta da hood, and yet there he was, calmly sitting down with a book on his hands, completely focused on what he was reading.

Man, that was a real eye-opener. You definitely can't judge a book by its cover, nor a person by its appearance. Peace out, G's!

What's up?

2009-10-21T10:03:00.001-07:00

Work. That's what's up. I'm quite literally drowning in papers, and presentations, and written reports, basically all the shit you can imagine, and sometimes just catching up with the stuff we're learning is hard enough. That's university for you.

But before all that started I was having some fun with a certain game. Can you guess it, Junlee? Yup, Kingdom Hearts! :P I'm not shitting you, I actually managed to pick up that hallowed game for the 4th time and this time take it serious (which basically involves lots of patience, walkthroughs and cheat codes). I went all the way to the little mermaid world before putting it on (hopefully) temporary hold.

Other than that I've just been messing around with my recently acquired Nintendo DS, mainly playing this:

An absolute must for every retrogamer worth its salt.

Other than that there's nothing special going on, really, and right now I should be making a draft of my report on a publisher so you'll have to excuse me. Here, have a song to make reading this post worthwhile:

You know you have friends...

2009-10-20T10:39:00.000-07:00

...when you get this in the mail! :D What could have been a better post to inject some life into this little, almost dead, place of mediocrity? But as I was saying, yesterday, when I came back from a fucking tiring day at uni, I had a little package waiting for me. What could it be? :D At first I thought it was a couple of books I ordered last week (in case you're curious, it's Blood of Elves, by Andrzej Sapkowski, and The Blade Itself, by Joe Abercrombie - see here), but oh boy, was I in for a surprise! I knew it was something special from the moment I read Nuno "Nebacha" Almeida in the address of the package :D

What it was is another present from our dear Father Krishna. Not only did that hallowed presence of the internest bestow upon me that most unique of games that goes by the name of Seaman, but now he also felt the need to hook me up with the most essential of accessories to play said title: the Dreamcast microphone (and not even a life-threatening heart surgery could prevent him).

Just plug that beauty onto your controller, bring your mouth close and enjoy the sheer pleasure...of looking like a jackass talking to a microphone while being verbally abused by a virtual fish with a man's face. Lol.

But that was not all, for there was also a hand-written card. Really, nice touch! And indeed it made me smile :D

But, really, there were still other things in there, namely the somewhat rare Bleemcast cd for Metal Gear Solid (I thought I'd never have one of those!) and Area 51 for the Saturn! Yeay! :D

So, yeah, by now you have given me more presents than Santa Claus in recent years. Thank you so much, man. I really appreciate it :)

It Took The Night To Believe

2009-09-08T10:30:00.001-07:00

Here's something to brighten up your day:

(yeah, just a lame excuse for an update)

Status: Returned

2009-08-31T03:56:00.000-07:00

You may recall me talking about a book I wrote. That was hard work, but unfortunately, in the current editorial market, the actual writing is the easy part, for apparently it is much hard to get the fucking thing published, even when it's undeniably better than 90% of the shit we see nowadays at bookstores.

Yeah, by now you can tell I'm pissed. Guess why? I just got my first reply from a publisher:

"Fuck you, take your shit elsewhere, we don't want it"

It was something along those lines, only in a more articulate speech, but that was essentially the message. Shit...

Gotta try again, have another publisher in mind, the guys behind other authors more in the style of my book (unlike the previous publisher which is really into standard, run-of-the-mill, epic fucking boring fantasy). I don't know, maybe they'll be more receptive to the unique flavour of my story.

If that don't work, hell, maybe I'll sell my soul, cut out all the good and unique things about it, the swearing, the sex, the crude violence, the ambiguous morality, turn it into yet another Tolkien rip-off and maybe then I'll fucking get published!

Xbox me

2009-08-12T00:38:00.000-07:00

Woke up at 4:30 am (after going to bed at sometime around 2 am, which gave me some good 2 hours of sleep) with my dog barking furiously at the woodpile. Turns out there was a fucking snake hidden in there, which I found out after going in armed with a flashlight, only to be greeted by a warming hiiiiissssss. Ripped the fucker's head out. Literally. It was fucking big, by the way, the biggest snake I've killed so far. Check it out -> pretty picture

But that's not why I'm writing. I've said this before on the Saturn Junkyard, but in case you don't follow that most esteemed of blogs, I got myself a new rig. A pc, that is. so, with the harddrive of my old one laying there, unused, I decided to give it another fate. Something I've been dying to try out for a while. Ever since I bought and modded my Xbox, actually.

Replacing the hard disc drive.

Nowadays changing a console's harddrive is easy. With the 360 it's basically idiot-proof, and the PS3 is just a little bit trickier. But this? This, my friends, is a man's job. What Microsoft did with the original Xbox to prevent access to the disc was a lock system, whereby the disc only gets accessible when the system's on. That way you can't just take it apart, connect it to the pc and do whatever you want with it (if you recall, that's why I had to connect the xbox to my pc to mod it. While they both were running. And then switch a cable on the fly. Living dangerously, baby!).

But for every door there's a key, and the key to this door just became available the moment I modded the system. It's the eeprom, a digital key unique to each console, that let's you lock and unlock the disc as you wish, and that's the only thing that's absolutely essential when building a new Xbox compatible HDD. You also need C and E partitions, which you can either download from the web with stock values or just backup your own, with softmod already included.

And there I had a problem, which I only found out when everything was already done (which threw me back to the very beginning). You see, the softmod that I use cleverly only lets you access a "virtual" C partition, not the real thing, just in case you fuck it all up. Unfortunately this time I really needed access to the real shit, so I had to download a little extra software for my softmod (had to download through xbins, which in itself is a rather hardcore process, you have to mirc to ftp), go nuts while figuring out exactly what the fuck did I have to do to have access to the c drive and finally ftp it to my pc.

Once that was done the fun part was about to begin. Gather all that shit, build a boot disc, burn it and get ready to actually mod the disc. Connected to my old pc (you shouldn't have any more drives connected when doing this, and I didn't feel like messing with my new pc, something I did enough already installing two dvd drives), I formatted the bitch, rebuilt it, copied all the contents from my old one from the dvd and finally locked it with my eeprom. In the end, there it was, a fully functional 80gb hdd ready to go to my Xbox. Taking it apart was a breeze and actually replacing the discs was easy. Now, after all that shit, I can say I'm a proud owner of an Xbox 1, with approximately 70gb free, ready to be filled to the brim with games, emulators and movies. Yeay! :D

Are you alive???

2009-07-11T08:02:00.000-07:00

Optimus Alive! 09, FUCK YEAH!!!

For those of you completely oblivious to what the fuck I'm talking about, I went to the fucking best festival of the year and for the first time in my life I saw Mastodon, Machine Head, Slipknot and Metallica live! And it was fucking awesome!!! Oh my fucking god, I can't believe it, it was fucking incredible!

The Mastodon concert was awesome, although really short. They only played for 40 minutes or so, and since most songs from the new album are pretty big they took a lot of stage time from the older themes. Still, they played Blood and Thunder, which was fucking awesome!

Next came Machine Head. Ok, actually it was Lamb of God, but I didn't see it, it was 8 pm already and I was hungry, so I chose to eat something instead. But, anyway, Machine Head, once again a pretty short concert. I missed Now I Lay Thee Down and some other favourites of mine, but, whatever, it was great. Way better than I expected, actually. They have such a stage presence that, even though I didn't know most of the songs, I was headganging the whole show!

(best footage I could find...)

Next came Slipknot, and it was amazing as usual. They played most of their stuff, what they usually play live, and did it well. The crowd reaction was way better than I expected, because this band is kind of the scapegoat for "true metalheads", who consider them as being posers and a parody of what "real metal" should be. But fuck that shit! Everyone was singing along, and jumping, and screaming, and they were totally into it. Oh, and then there was the Zero Bullshit...

(watch 5-5:30m)

Finally it was Metallica time. A lot of people there went just to see them, and you could feel the excitement in the air. It was fantastic! They played a lot of songs from the newest album, which was good for me because those are some of the songs I know best, and overall it was just an amazing concert. The interaction with the fans was awesome, the pyrotechnics rocked (there were fucking fireworks! And the fire was so hot I could feel the flames on my face!) and...well, what more can I say? Really, I'm running out of adjectives here...

Finally it ended, at 1 am, but the adventure was only starting. I wandered through the precinct, had a beer with a friend and finally left at 2 am because I still had to get back to the Oriente train station to catch a train back to Aveiro. The problem was, there was supposed to be a fucking bus to take us directly to the station, but that didn't happen. So, after god knows how much time of being completely lost, I finally caught a bus to Cais do Sodré, and from there another to the station. When I finally arrived it was already 5 am and I a still had a couple of hours to spend before my train arrived at 7:30.

Waiting for the train...

Sunrise in Lisbon

Then followed a 2:30 hour trip back to Aveiro, only to be left at the station without a ride, so I had to catch another train to my little village of Oliveira do Bairro, and walk home. My feet were hurting so bad... But it was fucking awesome!!! :D

Home, finally!!! *happy face*

Da Weasel in the house

2009-06-14T06:07:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow's my first end of semester exam, am I'm going crazy studying all day long. I really needed to chill out, and what better way to do that than going to a Da Weasel concert? That's right, after interrupting my ritual of going to one of their shows at least once a year for the first time in 2008, I started doing it again. It was my 4th show, the 2nd with songs from the last album (which I absolutely despise), and honestly it was better than I thought it would be.

Maybe they realized that, once the dust settles and the novelty effect wears off, their true fans are the older ones, those who followed their career, not these kids that only listen to them because "it's cool", and the old guys like me like the old songs better. So, they cut a bit on the crap from the last cd, returned with a few old favourites, and overall just gave a good show. Like two years ago they had a big-ass screen on the background (3 screens, actually, a main one in the middle and two smaller parallel screens), unlike in previous years when there was just a painted wall, and this time they made better use of it, with some really cool effects that really added to the music.

(video by me, which explains the quality)

The public, on the other hand, was a bit off. There wasn't a lot of people and most were just standing still, like fucking statues or something. Only the front rows were really into it, jumping, and waving hands, and screaming, and shit, and since the place wasn't that crowded I managed to sneak in until I was just 5 meters or so away from the stage. In fact I was so close I almost caught a water bottle thrown by Jay! But, of course, the fucking prick right in front of me had to catch it... Still, it was the closest I ever was to the band, so it was cool. Also, in the end there was the inevitable mosh pit when they played "Tás na boa", which was fucking great to relieve the stress.

(end of the show, again photo taken with my cellphone)

Overall, a great show. And it only cost me one euro! The booth lady was so nice that, instead of charging me and my two friends three euros each (the ticket price), she charged only three euros for the three of us! Fucking win! :D

PS3's rocking again

2009-06-11T02:52:00.000-07:00

As many of you probably know, I bought a PS3 on impulse last summer just to play Metal Gear Solid 4. The good thing is, it was the first thing I did on impulse that I didn't regret later. Heck, it was one of the best summers of my life! I'm not a beach lover and the sun burns my skin, so there's nothing better than spending a whole month shut inside, in a cold living room, playing one of the best games of all time.

The bad thing is, the bloody thing was so fucking expensive it left my wallet with a hole so big it took me this whole time to repair, so in the meantime I sure as hell couldn't afford any more games. For a long time I wanted to pick up some cheap early games, like Motorstorm or Lair (I know, I know, but I'm a big dragon fan). The only problem was, I couldn't find them cheap. Then I really wanted to experience that amazing piece of software named Valkyria Chronicles. Except that, at the time, I was piss poor (for a change...). Then it was Killzone 2, but once again my wallet was against me.

All this changed yesterday, in a fortuitous visit to the nearest GAME store. I usually go there just for a kick, to kill some time looking at games, and always leave empty-handed. Not this time, mate! For they had this wonderful title, in used but excellent condition, for the mere price of 15€

It's Uncharted, dawg!!!

So, there you have it, the first game I bought for my PS3. Too bad I still have 2 exams to go before ending the semester, so I can't play it for now. Only played a little bit yesterday to be sure it worked, and OMG, it's all in Portuguese! Voice work and all!!! Sony, you fucking rule!!! :D

Alive and kicking!

2009-06-10T10:10:00.000-07:00

Ok, it's about time I bring this god-forsaken place back to life! Gather around, my dear friends, for I'm about to do what I do best: review stuff and tell you about stuff you never thought existed! This time I bring you the tale of an Xbox game. An original Xbox game, not 360. Now, now, what could come out of that little, somewhat ill-fated, predictable little box? We all know the first Xbox was only good for sports games and shooters (HALO!!!111oneoneone). Well, allow me to prove you wrong. You see, although the console performed terribly in Japan, it did manage to have its share of exclusives we, westerners, never saw. Incredible, I know, but it's true! One of such games goes by the name of Metal Wolf Chaos.

Now, pay attention, as what I'm about to write may very well be too much for you to absorb all at once. In this game you take control of the president of the United States of America. Now, go back and read that sentence again. You don't work for him, you don't have to protect him, he's not just a shadowy figure you never see or a just a poser for the cut-scenes. You, the player, take direct control over the most powerful man on earth! (or so they say) (and no, it's not Obama, soz... *sad face*). But wait, there's more! Obviously you're not on foot, otherwise it'd be boring. Oh no, the president obviously deserves a more fitting ride, so you're riding a big-ass power armor, aka=mech, name Metal Wolf!!! Holy fucking Jesus!

But wait, it gets better. Unlike most mechs, the weapons are not directly and permanently attached to its arms, instead it has them stored in those huge containers over the shoulders so you can pick them up as you please. Oh, and yes, they're fucking gigantic versions of real-life weapons.

WIN!!!

Gameplay-wise, the game can seem a bit complicated at first, specially since the default controls have inverted aim (you point the analog stick down and the camera goes up) and a lot of the menus are in Japanese. Still, after some experimentation I managed to configure the controls to my liking, and once you get the hang of it, the game actually plays quite well. The main objectives of each mission usually involve destroying key targets, most of the time enemy towers, with the ocasional boss fight against a huge (HUGE!) mechanized enemy. The levels, usually with a urban setting, give you some liberty as to which way to go and wich targets to get first, which is always nice, and along the way you'll encounter a lot of enemy soldiers or tanks that you can either take out of ignore.

Taking them out is usually the best option, unless time is a priority, since it gives you points that you can use to unlock new weapons. Speaking about weapons, they come in every shape and size (well, not size, since they're all huge), from handguns (can you picture that, a robot shooting a handgun?) to machineguns, rocket-launchers or some exotic pieces, like rifles that shoot lighting. Overall the gameplay is fast and fun, although it takes sometime to get used to the weird weapon-changing system (you can carry up to 8 weapons at a time, 4 for each hand, although the bigger weapons need both hands), and this is in part due to the awesome graphics.

The key word is destruction. Almost everything, beside key structural elements like buildings that are part of the level, can be destroyed. Somethings, like trees, containers or cars explode just by ranning it over, and the rest can easily be dispatched with a couple of well-placed rockets. This goes for enemy towers and other buildings, huge neon signs, building facades, etc, etc... and, you know, the bigger they are, the more impressive the resulting explosion is!

Overall this was a good surprise. At first I tried it just out of curiosity, thinking that there was nothing more than an ingenious gimmick and a ridiculous plot, but actually there was. The gameplay is solid and fun, the graphics are amazing, even the soung is good, and I'm talking about the soundtrack, not the cheesy dialogues (although, if you're into that, they're also great...I guess... "I got to do it, Kate!", "But why, Mr. President?" "Why? Because I'm the president...of the United States...of America!!!"). Too bad it's somewhat rare import, and probably fucking expensive nowadays too, so you're better off getting it through...*coughcough*...other means...

Bye, y'all!

2 more weeks...

2009-05-27T07:05:00.000-07:00

Just two more fucking weeks till the end of the semester... Hopefully I'll be back to blogging by then, since, well, this place's fucking dead... I'm just so tired...

Been listening to Eminem's new album, Relapse, convinced by both Junlee's and Father K's rather positive opinions, and I got to admit, so far none of the songs really got to me. Which is rather strange, since for the most part the album is pretty dark and somber in tone, and those kind of themes are my favorite from Eminem. Meh, go figure...

So far my favourite is probably Insane, check it out before youtube takes it down:

LOL

2009-05-11T08:25:00.000-07:00

In case you didn't get it, watch this:

And then this:

All work and no play makes me a dull boy...

2009-04-22T05:01:00.000-07:00

There, something pretty to listen to while you read my ramblings...

This shit's killing me. Work, that is. UA is serious business. Really. And then there's my book, which I'm finally about to finish. And I got to do it fast, cause I want to participate in a literary contest, and the registrations end this month. Fuck...

In the meantime, and to keep me entertained while I drive to and from the university, I've been listening to Metallica's latest album, the much hyped Death Magnetic. Guess what, it's bloody brilliant. You all probably know the first single, The Day That Never Comes, already, so here's something different:

Just listen to that riff. Fucking amazing...

Mastodon - Crack the Skye

2009-03-29T06:53:00.000-07:00

It's out! And I got mine! :D
It's fucking awesome. I need more time to fully enjoy it and the complex nature of the tracks, but so far I can say that it's not really an evolution from their previous works but more of a departure in a new direction. It's more soft and emotional, with less screaming and more melody. I would even go as far as to say it's a more spiritual album. It certainly has a pretty unique vibe to it. Overall it's a pretty good album, even if it kind of disappointed me a little for being so different from Blood Mountain. But, as Fernando Pessoa once said: "primeiro estranha-se, depois entranha-se".

By the way, hopefully I'm gonna see them live in the summer at the Optimus Alive festival, along with Lamb of God, Slipknot, Machine Head and Metallica :D

Back from the dead

2009-03-21T08:51:00.000-07:00

After about 3 months in the limbo (oh, wait, the church decided to get rid of that) I finally decided to try and bring my beloved 360 back to life. It wasn't an easy task. Fortunately I got the number of a guy who knows how to repair 360's, so I sent mine to him, paid less than what a new game costs nowadays, and got it back good as new. Or so it was supposed. I usually don't have many reasons to complain about the postal service here in Portugal. Except for that one time when a package got lost and only arrived a month later and all beaten up, they're usually reliable. But not this time.

They managed to fuck up the box with my 360 inside so much that they basically put it back in it's original state. Fortunately the guy was kind enough to guide me through the process of re-repairing it, but I was still a pain in the ass. His first guess was that the rubber pads he put on the memory chips were loose, so I had tear the whole console apart until I had only the motherboard in my hands. Guess what, the pads were in place, so that wasn't it. Then he told me to let it on for 20 minutes or so, hoping that the heat would fix something. It did. Or so I thought at first, when the console finally turned on. Guess what, after 15 mins of Sonic Unleashed it froze. Fucking piece of shit...

Not my actual board, I didn't take pictures this time, was too fucking pissed to think of that...

Then, when I was starting to lose any hope of repairing the thing, he told me as a last resort to put some pieces of folded paper on the rubbers to increase the pressure. It would be my last chance, if that didn't work than the fucking console would be completely fubar. But wait, by now you're probably wondering what the hell is this about memory chips and rubbers. You see, Microsoft, in a fucking brilliant design choice, put the four memory chips of the 360 on the downside of the motherboard. Guess what's on the opposite side? The fucking cpu, with all the heat it generates. There you have it, memory chips with gravity pulling them down and heat melting the solder that glues them to the board. I don't think you have to be a genius to realize that sooner or later, with the solder melting, the chips will start to loose contact with the board. And, you know, they're like, necessary for the 360 to work. Dumbasses...

That's why you have to put something under them to prevent them from falling apart. And that's what I did, after fucking tearing the whole console apart. Again. Shit... Anyway, for now it's looking good. With this piece of shit you never know, but after more than a couple of hours playing I'm starting to feel confident. So, I guess I'm oficially back to the scene. Right now I'm trying to finally finish GTA IV (already stuck again, with no missions to take. damn...) and Sonic Unleashed, and I just got the brand new Eat Lead. Looking good so far.

Oh, and of course, RE5 is next ;)

Bill Roper Down on Diablo III Art

2009-03-20T07:36:00.000-07:00

Shamelessly snatched from Gamespy:

"When Diablo III was announced at the Paris World Wide Invitational event, one of the first reactions from Diablo fans was surprising -- dismay at the new art direction. Fans objected to what they saw as the "World of Warcraft-ization of the franchise via the addition of brighter colors to what had been a dark and gothic landscape. these objectors have a surprising new ally in Bill Roper, one of the original Diablo developers, who is now at Cryptic Studios working on Champions Online.

Speaking to Videogamer.com, Roper hedges his words carefully but does say "...they basically took the Diablo universe and then approached it from the Blizzard Irvine stance for the visuals." He also details what he sees as the differences in art style between the Irvine branch of the company and Blizzard North, where Diablo was developed.

As for his own personal opinion, Roper apparently feels that "I didn't look at it and go, oh my God that's horrible. But I looked at it and went, it's not really... to me as a player it just didn't really ring with Diablo."

To which Allen, from Gamespy, comments:

"Nostalgia is the most dangerous drug. As the Diablo III developers have pointed out, a lot of what players remember as "dark and gothic" was just Blizzard North making the best of the limited tools of the time. I've played Diablo III several times now in both Paris and BlizzCon and this all strikes me as a lot of "make it the same but also totally different." With all due respect to Bill Roper, I think this "controversy" is way overblown and will be forgotten on release day."

What it looks like/what it should look like

My comment:

I'm relieved that someone who truly knows and understands the Diablo franchise (after all we're talking about one of the original developers) agrees that, so far, D3 is looking quite different from what we expected. That thought is kind of reassuring, in a way that maybe we're not wrong for thinking that, after all.

About Allen's comment, it immediately made me think if Silent Hill. The fog, a feature so dear to the franchise, started as a way to make the best out of the PS1's limited hardware. That didn't prevent it to become a staple of the series, a key feature in the games' atmosphere and something prevalent throughout the series ever since. I honestly don't see why it should be any different with Diablo's "dark and gothic" look.

Note: I know this is the second time I talk about this matter, which may seem rather irrelevant and/or uninteresting to most of you. I just want to point out that I'm not obsessed with it, this article just caught my curiosity and, since I haven't updated this blog that much lately, thought it would be something relevant to write about.

New Mastodon video - Divinations

2009-03-11T06:52:00.000-07:00

Mastodon - New Music - More Music Videos

I know no one will care, but anyway, I just found out that Mastodon have released a new video from their upcoming album Crack the Skye. As always this song's fucking amazing. We're talking about the guys that, back in 2005, were labelled "the future of metal", and they sure deserve the title, because they make music like no other band. The video is, of course, completely WTF, but the song is great. So far this album is looking like a good evolution from Blood Mountain, which in turn was already an overall better album than Leviathan (although it lacked something as epic as Hearts Alive).

Can't wait for March, 24th!

A gift from the heavens

2009-03-02T06:53:00.000-08:00

There I was, coming back home after a hard day at college (ok, I only had a two hour class, English, but it was still a pain to get up early and drive all the way to Aveiro and back...), when I notice something in front of my door. Nothing less than a big-ass package with my address written all over it (literally, it was written with a marker in giant letters). This could only be one thing: a package from our own dear Simon Early, known in teh interwebs as Father Krishna! Oh boy, was I excited about opening it up! :D

I didn't really know what to expect, although I always thought it would be only one thing. Was I in for a surprise... there was not just one thing inside, nor two, but four!!! Four gifts for me!!! :O

There was a black Dreamcast VMU, which may be something ordinary for most Dreamcast fans, but for me it's a life saver, since I (laugh all you want) only had one! Imagine my pain everytime I had to delete a saved game to make space for another... Now that wont happen again so soon!

Also for the Dreamcast there was a game, but not just any game. We're talking about the revolutionary Seaman! Oddly enough there was no actual game in there, don't know it that was the point or not, but anyway, the game I can easily download and burn. The case and manual on the other hand are more difficult to come up with.

Now, for the Saturn, there were two Japanese treats in there. One was that little hidden gem called Burning Rangers, which I've never played before, despite J saying such good things about it. There final, and most awesome of gifts, was...

*suspense*

*no suspense, since the video above already spoiled it...*

A sealed Japanese copy of Christmas NiGHTS!!! OMFG!!! O_O That's, like, the dream of every Saturn fan to have something like that! OMG! I don't know what to say, Father, thank you so much for everything! You're the man! :D

I beat Resident Evil!

2009-02-26T11:17:00.001-08:00

Yup, that's right. That was a game that just kept haunting me, begging for me to play it, to finally understand what other retrogamers say when talking about it, and now I do :) Of course, by now I pretty much had the whole story spoiled, with everyone talking about it and whatnot, but anywa, it was en enjoyable experience. At least with a walkthrough by my side. Yeah, I know, that's kind of cheating, but neither had the time, nor the patience to play it like it was meant to. Even with the guide I got lost at times, with all the rooms, and corridors, and stairs, and shit... Oh, and the fucking inventory was a royal pain in the ass (I played with Chris, which just has 6 slots while Jill, for some reason has 8. WTF? Where does she keep the extra 2 items? Between her boobs or her legs?...).

Anyway, an enjoyable, and pretty atmospheric, experience. Sorry for not writing more, I'm fucking tired right now...

This is madness!

2009-02-21T07:13:00.000-08:00

Madness?

This!

Is!

DoDonPachi Daioujou!!!

Ok, by now you're probably wondering what the fuck I'm talking about, so let's put this in context. When my PS2 came back to life a week ago, I kind of went on an import streak, first getting the Soul Eater game and then Dodonpachi Daioujou. As many of you know, donpachi is one of my favourite shmup series, and I'm a huge fan of the first 2 games. Unfortunately I've never played Dodonpachi II, but this one, Daioujou (whichc translates as "peaceful death", a joke at the amount of times we'll die), is considered the true sequel to that game, so I guess I'm not missing anything important.

Released only for arcades and the PS2, this game is considered the hardest game of the series, in fact much harder than the previous games, which I think makes it one of the hardest shmups of all time. Still, it's fun as hell, sine the gameplay remains roughly the same. Sure, now we only have 2 ships instead of 3, and there's a new "hyper" system that lets you get all powered up instead of using a bomb, but any fan of the series should have no problems getting right into the action. Except for the difficulty, of course...

This game is hard, seriously hard, insanely hard at times, with bullets flying literally everywhere, cornering our little ship and making a vulgar player like me use all his bombs to avoid getting pwned. Still, it's a lot of fun, so I alwasy ended up getting back to it. Last night I made my first serious attempt to beat it, and... I did it! Fuck yeah!!! Now I'm a true gamer!!! :D

Seriously, the last stage, and the last boss, are out of this world, but with quick reflexes, scrutinous use of bombs and motivation to not give up just because I was blown 5 times in a row and lost 1 credit in a matter of seconds...I did it!

It felt good :)

Import Review - Soul Eater: Battle Resonance

2009-02-15T06:11:00.000-08:00

Don't know if I've said this here, but I'm a big fan of Soul Eater. It's a pretty crazy anime with Meisters and their Weapons (which can take a human form) fighting demons and witches and whatever... No, really, it's actually pretty cool, with a great set of characters and a unique ambience. So much that its popularity is rising and a PS2 game just came out. In Japan, of course. You know how this works, Naruto Shippuden: Narutimate Accel for example came out in Japan in 2007 and is only going to be released in the US next month... (no Euro release date that I know of...)

Maka/Soul vs Death the Kid/Patti/Liz

So, given the current state of the PS2, this one will probably never see the light of day over here, so why not just play the damn Japanese version? That's exactly what I'm doing right now. And I'm enjoying it very much! Unfortunately this is far from being the best anime-based game ever, but it's not a total mess either. What we have here is a traditional beat em up, with 3D graphics and 2D gameplay. You take control of the show's main characters, divided into the Meister/Weapons (Maka/Soul, Black Star/Tsubaki, etc...) and non-Meister (Stein, Blair, Mifune...) categories, but they all pretty much play like the same. There's the weak, medium and strong attacks, the ability to defend and counter and then there's the Soul Gauge.

Stein vs Sid/Nygus

This is basically the usual "special attack bar" seen in most fighters, letting you waste some of its power to do a special attack or waste it all for the über-ultra-pwnzor attack that usually means instant win! This attacks are, of course, taken straight from the anime, and they're really well done. It's always a pleasure to see Soul transform into the uber-schyte :)

BTW, this is just for fans of the series. You might have noticed that I put Stein in the non-meister category up there. That's because he doesn't fight with Spirit, although for some strange reason he uses him for his Soul Resonance attack... :/

Maka/Soul vs Black Star/Tsubaki (taken from the PSP version)

The bad part of the game is that, for purists and the most hardcore, the fighting dystem is not that deep, and then there's also some lack fo main modes. Besides the usual arcade, free battle and versus, there's the main mode, adventure, which plays somewhat like the main mode in Soul Calibur. You basically recreate all the battles from the anime and there's also some special missions with certain conditions (like fighting Sid with only 1/3 of your life bar...fucking impossible!). Of course all the dialog is in Japanese, and it's hard to guess the victory conditions of some battles, but there's already a guide on gamefaqs that as it all covered, so no big problems there.

Overall this is a pretty import-friendly game, and great fan for fans of the anime. If you're one, get it! :D

Escape From City 17 - Part One

2009-02-14T15:44:00.000-08:00

Look at what a couple of directors, big fans of Half-Life (obviously!), managed to accomplish on a tight budget.

500 bucks + lots of talent and creativity = Epic Win!!!

Blizzard fun

2009-02-05T13:06:00.000-08:00

Those guys over at Blizzard sure have a great sense of humour, for yet again they mock the fans with pictures like this:

If you have no idea of what I'm talking about, it goes something like this. After many, many years of anxious waiting, Blizzard finally announced Diablo 3, the long awaited sequel to the AWESOMENESS that is Diablo 2 (only my favourite game EVAH! Yup, MGS4 and Oblivion come after). This happened last summer (curiously around the time I got my MGS4), and it was supposed to be good news, amirite? Nope. The gameplay looked awesome, no complaints about that. The problem was the graphics. Not only they showed some lack of detail, but the atmosphere was totally off, at least according to some. You see, some bitches complained about the game not being dark enough, for being too colorful for a dark-fantasy setting. OMG, it even had rainbows on it! And guess what?

And I'm one of those bitches.

I don't want no fucking rainbows in my Diablo 3! I want darkness! I want blood! And I want more darkness! By now you're probably wondering if I'm being sarcastic, but I can assure you I'm dead serious. I still think it's going to be a great game, I'll definitely buy it on day one and be hooked to it for months to come, but one thing is certain, so far that doesn't look like the Diablo I was expecting. The developers may say what they want, like "in the lord of the rings there were also green hills along the mountains of mordor", but I don't give a fucking damn about that. I've played Diablo 2 to death, the world of Sanctuary is my second home, and I'm dead sure that there shouldn't be fucking rainbows in it! "WoW gayness" is what this style has been called, and I couldn't agree more. It's like Blizzard totally messed up the settings, merging Warcraft with Diablo, making cartoony characters, pretty scenarios and even throwing some jokes in the middle. Deckard Cain! Making jokes! In my Diablo!!! Can you fucking believe it? What is this world coming to...

[end rant]

My nerdiness is getting worse...

2009-01-24T02:59:00.000-08:00

Two more trips to the manga store. The first was to get one volume of the most awesome Berserk manga (for the outrageous price of 14 euros). Sadly they just stopped making the anime precisely when the story was picking up, so now I have to continue following it in manga form...

The second trip was for me and my friend Fredy to enter in the ever misteryous world of Magic: The Gathering. Yeah, joke like a kid in the store:

- What? You're going to start now? Lol...
- Yeah, how long have you been playing?
- Since...August...

Yeah, you sure are a pro compared to us...

Anyway, after years of marvelling at the ever intriguing nature of those cards, we finally decided to make the jump, mainly because now, not only can we play with each other, but we can go to said store and play with other folks who go there precisely to play Magic (they have Friday Night Magic tournaments there). Besides, it's always damn fun to socialize with others from our kind. Yeah, contrary to popular belief, gamers and animetards ARE sociable.

About Magic, we only started playing now, so we still kind of suck at it, but for beginners I actually think we're learning pretty fast. Just yesterday me and Fredy played 3 games for the first time and they were actually pretty fun. Ok, except for the second game, I couldn't, for the love of god, manage to get a fucking land in my hand. At least with my deck I could conjure spells with just one land...

What in the holy name of fucking jesus?!

2009-01-20T05:33:00.000-08:00

My good friend Fredy just brought this to my attention. See the picture above? And the one below? Apparently they were found in some guy's Hi5 (fred, who was it, by the way?). They may look ordinary at first glance, but the funny thing is, see that (badly done) skull graffited on the wall? That's my work! In fact, the first graffiti I've done, a kind of experimental work for the big one that came after. The world is indeed a strange place, I would've never have thought that a lot of years after it would be on the web...

Elvenking!

2009-01-11T11:10:00.000-08:00

Because Elvenking is such a fucking awesome band I felt the need to post more of these guys. Since for some reason I need to listen to some music while I type my book (50 pages done, BTW, only 250 more to go!) I went ahead, grabbed their whole discography, and I got to tell you, it's pretty damn good. My favourite album is still Two Tragedy Poets and my least favourite is also still The Scythe (not that it's bad, just not as good as the rest), but the others are pretty good in their own way, too. What you're (hopefully) listening is The Regality Dance, from their first album, Heathenreel, and below you'll find Another Haven, from the second album, Wyrd. Enjoy!

I'm oficially an animetard...

2009-01-09T06:10:00.000-08:00

Some time ago I heard about a comics and manga shop here in Aveiro called Secção 9, but, busy as I was with my studies, I never got around to search for it (and when I finally did I couldn't for the love of god find the damn thing). Yesterday all that changed. In the company of a friend who happened to know it, we searched the city's darkest alleys looking for that hallowed place, and guess what, we actually did it! Man, that place rocks. Hard! For some time I thought I was in fucking heaven!

That place has everything, from manga, to american comics, to graphic novels and more indie stuff, to action figures and board games! Thankfully I was prepared, with 20 euros in my wallet to spend as I pleased, and I almost spent it all. The first thing I bought was the surprise of the day. You see, once when I was a kid I stumbled upon a graphic novel that was awesome as hell, but as the stupid kid I was, I never memorised the title. Needless to say, I spent the last years searching for the damn thing, but with only a vague description of the content I never went too far.

But yesterday all that changed. Not only the guy there was able to recognize it from my vague descriptions, but he also had it for sale! Fuck yeah! Turns out it was called The Mercenary, and it's as awesome as I remembered it. I bought all the 6 volumes he had.

But I needed something else, something Japanese. I was getting short on money, and didn't have enough for the Berserk manga. A Naruto volume was more affordable, but they didn't have the first volume. Just try to guess what I got...

A fucking Shonen Jump! That's right! This beauty is the american version of the weekly shonen jump, the biggest manga anthology magazine published in Japan, and they had last month's issue! Fuck yeah! Now I'm officially an otaku! And it feels so good... :D

AVGN - Moonwalker

2009-01-08T13:39:00.000-08:00

'Nuff said...

Top 5 albums of the year

2008-12-31T05:08:00.000-08:00

Because everyone loves lists ant top tens (or top fives in this case), I thought of going back and seeing what bands made the best music this year. Here it goes, in no particular order:

Eluveitie - Slania

I can't recommend this album enough. A fantastic blend of folk music, heavy guitars and growling vocals more common in the heavier sub-genres of metal, this cd just blew me away. In fact, I think that, despite it being released earlier in the year, I still listen to Bloodstained Ground and Elembivos pretty much everyday. Truly spectacular songs.

Mudvayne - The New Game

A late entry in the year, this album is the successor to a personal favourite of mine, the amazing Lost & Found released back in 2005 (and which sadly brings back some bad memories along with the awesome music). Overall I didn't like this one as much, despite the overall sound being the same (still a departure from the first Mudvayne albums), but it still has some good songs. I personally love Scarlet Letters, which ironically is somewhat beautiful and tragic at the same time.

Slipknot - All hope is gone

Looks like this year marked the comeback of many old-time favourites. I have to confess that at first I really didn't like Slipknot's latest effort, but with time the album kind of grew on me. It's heavier than Vol. 3 - The Subliminal Verses (which is a good thing for many but not really for me, I liked that cd), but still not as heavy or as raw as the first album (still my favourite to this day). It really is kind of like a cross between Iowa and Vol .3, really. Anyway, what really sold me on this was the song with the name of the album. This is really Slipknot at its best, powerful and angry and heavy and...fuck, it's awesome!

In Flames - A Sense of Purpose

I talked about this one already so I'm basically going to repeat myself. At first I didn't like this album at all, but after repeated plays I started to appreciate all that it had to offer and now I end up listening more to it than the predecessor, the awesome Come Clarity. The Chosen Pessimist is as epic as in Flames have ever done, Drenched in Fear sends chills down my spine and if there's anything I have to criticize this album for is not having the songs from the EP in the regular edition. Eraser, Tilt and Abnegation are some of the best songs of the special edition and truly deserved to be in the regular edition as well. Now you know, if you have the album but never listened to these songs, do it, now!

Elvenking - Two Tragedy Poets

The surprise of the year. The last album by Elvenking, The Schyte, didn't really impress me, but this return to the roots (or so say the fans), with impressive duets between the two vocalists and more acustic instruments than electric ones was already a favourite even after just one play (and you know how rarely I like an album after just listening to it once). The first track reminded me of Eluveitie, which is saying a lot, and the rest just... I don't know, it's so different from what I usually listen to, but so awesome at the same time. A truly fantastic work (and probably the only one my esteemed readers will care for...).

It's Christmas, it's Christmas, la la la la la...

2008-12-18T10:58:00.001-08:00

The title makes more sense in Portuguese... (it's a Christmas song) Anyway, update time! The exams are finally over (finally!), although I still have a project to do for Book and Publishing History (that sounds weird in English, doesn't it? Maybe I translated it wrong...) and I'm fucking sick! Fucking tonsillitis, it's the same shit every year... And the doctor didn't even gave me an antibiotic... (not to mention I waited two hours to be checked in 10 minutes...)

Other than that life is good at the moment. Sort of... I'm definitely in a bad luck streak when it comes to hardware. My PC is starting to break (poor bastard, it's been 4 years of intensive (ab)use), my PS2's laser finally wore off and now the bitch doesn't read anything and, to top it off, my Xbox 360 got the RRoD. AGAIN! I can't fucking believe this shit! The first time I was like "ok, nothing to worry about M$ will take care of it". The fuck they did! Only one year has passed and this shit happened again. On the same console! (I know it's the same because of the serial number). Shit...

On the other hand, yesterday I occasional passed by a GAME store (they just recently started popping up over here, before we had no major retailers, only independent shops) and OMG what did I see? A used Xbox for 50€! That's as cheap as they get here! I couldn't resist so I passed by today to pick it up and it really seems to be in good condition, looks like the previous owner barely touched it (it has practically no scratches and only a handful of gamesaves on the hard-drive). It came with two controllers too, although I had to pay an additional 10 euros for those (still pretty cheap).

Right now I'm preparing to mod it because, you know, given the awesome potential of the system, having an unmodded Xbox is practically a sin. Wish me luck (I so hope my bad luck streak as finally passed, otherwise I'll probably brick it when trying to mod it...).

Edit: Great success! I managed to mod the sucker! :D Here, take a look at the process:

PS2 Hidden Gems

2008-12-01T15:02:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of updates recently, but I've been really busy with college stuff, with tests and presentations and all that stuff, not to mention, of course, my book (459 pages as I write this!), so it's hard to update this blog.

Anyway, check out this article over at Racketboy if you haven't already. It's probably the biggest article in the Hidden Gems series so far and I was really surprised to see so many games I've never even heard of before. I have no problem admitting that my ego, as a...hu-hum..."videogame expert", suffered a little with this. But still, what surprised me the most was the fact that the almighty Racketboy asked this humble servant to contribute with a couple of descriptions to the article! Fuck yeah! I hope you like the descriptions of Drakan and The Mark of Kri, those were the ones I wrote :)

See ya!

Oldboy remake

2008-11-23T07:44:00.001-08:00

Please God, no...

Apparently Spielberg is interested in making a remake of the 2003 Korean film Oldboy (one of my favourite asian movies, next to the Japanese epic Battle Royale). Now, the question is, why? Why the fuck would they do that? For me the only remakes worth doing are those of old movies who relied heavily on special effects that were still very "primitive" (sorry, couldn't think of a better word) at the time, thus enhancing the original experience. King Kong is the first example that comes to mind. But this? What's the point? It's a recent film and a story-driven one, it's still as fresh nowadays as it was when it was released. So, what are they trying to do? "Americanize" it? Ruining it would be a better expression...

At least Steven is thinking of a good actor for the main role, Will Smith, who is nowadays one of my favourite actors due to his awesome acting in I Am Legend and Hancock, but still, it's going to feel strange watching him playing the role of this guy:

Tropa de Elite

2008-11-22T03:53:00.000-08:00

Because not all good movies come from Hollywood, yesterday I decided to give a try to the Brazilian film Tropa de Elite (the English title is Elite Squad, although the literal translation would be Elite Troop). After the spectacular flic that was Cidade de Deus (City of God) I began to held Brazilian cinema in high regard, and this one didn't disapoint. It was quite the opposite, really, since it was even better than I had imagined.

Elite Squad is an intense and astonishing look at Rio de Janeiro’s notorious favelas, the volatile slums on the edge of the city, presenting an intimate look at the city’s vast and intricate web of corruption. The elite BOPE force (State Police Special Operations Battalion) combats drug trafficking, keeping order has its price though and their actions make it difficult to distinguish right from wrong and justice from revenge. BOPE Captain Nascimento is facing a crisis: in addition to the pressures of fighting within war zones, the Captain must find and train his own replacement so he can escape the day to day violence and be close to his wife who is about to give birth to their first child. Two of the force’s newest recruits, are childhood friends: one is quick on the trigger to maintain order and the other refuses to compromise his ideals. Together they are the perfect replacement, but alone they may not have what it takes to survive.

(fan made trailer, but it turned out pretty good, way better than any of the english trailers, although it spoils the movie a bit...)

As a film it does everything right. The characters are just great, the pace is perfect, the story is engaging and the special effects are worthy of Hollywood. The subject is a bit controversial, of course, and none of the main characters are your typical "good cop", but if you like hard, gritty, realistic movies about an equally hard reality, give this one a try.

Woot!

2008-11-14T09:24:00.000-08:00

My car is back! Just take a look:

Fuck yeah!

Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe: Fatalities

2008-11-14T09:19:00.000-08:00

You got to be fucking joking...

Gears of Awesome!

2008-11-07T06:13:00.000-08:00

For me Gears of War, the first game, was special. It was the second "great game", so to speak, I bought for my 360 (after Oblivion) and to this day stays as one of my favourites. No so much because of the multiplayer which is what kept everyone hooked to the game after beating the somewhat short singleplayer campaign. Yes, the multiplayer was really fun (I'll never forget the time when I single-handedly chainsawed 3 guys of the other team, only to be shotgun-blasted to bits by the only survivor), but what I really liked was the story and the setting of the game. There was something about that world, so close and yet so different of our own, that really connected to me, and to this day I get the shivers everytime I listen to the main menu's theme.

So, I think it's not necessary to say I was completely psyched about Gears of War 2. Would it be as good as the first? Even better? Or just a lame way to rip off the fans hard-earned cash? Today I'm proud to say it's better. There are two games that came to my mind as I was playing this one, Metal Gear Solid 4 and God of War 2. The similarities may not seem obvious at first, but they're there. With MGS4 it shares it's overall greatness. This is a polished product, made with care and everything seems just so right. This is a hard feeling to convey through words, but I hope you'll see what I'm talking about. It also reminded me of GoW 2 not only because they both can be spelled "GoW 2" but because they're sequels who managed to surpass the already great original titles by offering a bigger experience. A longer singleplayer mode, larger maps, a greater sense of scale, huge enemies... I think you get my point. Both games are more epic than their predecessors, which was no easy task.

But what exactly makes the singleplayer campaign of GoW 2 so much better than the one in the first game? We can sum it all down to 3 main aspects in my opinion: it's longer, more story-driven and more varied. While the first game was criticized for having a short campaing, GoW 2 will entertain you longer and, even more important, without getting dull or boring. In fact after finishing it I was sad, because I wanted to play even more. That's how good it is. Then comes the story. The first game had an awesome setting, the world and the mythology created for it was really interesting and engaging. Unfortunately the story was too superficial for what that awesome setting had to offer, but that's also fixed here. You'll learn more about Marcus' father, Dom's wife (there's a pretty powerful scene regarding this, but of course I won't spoil it for you) and the Locust themselves. Your image of them can actually change, as you discover that there's more to them than just a mindless horde, and the ending...wow, what a cliffhanger, can't wait for GoW3!

And then comes the variety. One moment you're covering terrain on foot, the other you're confined to a moving vehicle you have to defend. Then you'll enter a tunnel and have to advance in full darkness, or you enter a cave and have to use indigenous life as moving cover. You can shoot mounted machineguns or pick up a mortar and release death from above. But the most awesome parts are saved for the end and they're so epic you wont believe your eyes. Remember in MGS4 (HUGE SPOILER!!!111oneoneone) when you take control of REX? (end of HUGE SPOILER). Well, it's that awesome!

Then there's also the mupltiplayer but I haven't tried that yet. Only played a little bit of a new mode called Horde where you fight, alone or with buddies, against wave after wave of Locust. Looks interesting for those times when you just want to chainsaw a grub in half.

So, to end this sort of review, this game is awesome. Really. I would buy a 360 to play it if I didn't have one already. Of course, if for some reason you didn't like the first one, you probably wont' like this one too, but for fans of the original this just couldn't have been a better sequel (although I wanted a certain someone to survive till the end...). One of the best 360 games. Ever. Thank you, Epic, thank you for this game.

speed + rain = crash

2008-10-28T06:21:00.001-07:00

I had a car accident yesterday. Fuck... There I was, peacefully stopping for a red light, when this mothafucker ran into my car, pushing me against the car in front of me, so my ride got fucked at both ends. Fuck! I love my car so much, I'm always careful with it, didn't even had a fucking scratch on it, and this fucking piece of shit does this to me! Fuck dammit! At least I'm alright. Well, sort of, my neck is killing me... I hope it's nothing, it's probably just sored because of the impact... Well, anyway, that's it, nothing else to talk about now. Gonna have a Portuguese exam tomorrow, whish me luck (I suck at grammar)

Gears of WOW!

2008-10-25T02:30:00.000-07:00

So, I decided to delete the previous post because this game is just too awesome and I think it deservers better. When it comes out in little more than a week expect a full-fledged review worthy of this game. Till then ;)

There's only one way out of hell...

2008-10-11T07:59:00.000-07:00

...and that's throught it! Or so they said in some Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway trailers. Now, I'm a huge BiA fan, because not only the franchise brought something new to the done to death WWII shooter genre, it was also one of the most realistic shooters I've ever seen, probably only surpassed by the so-real-it-hurts Operation Flashpoint (epic game!).

It also had quite a great story to it, specially the second game, so I couldn't wait to lay my hands on the next-gen sequel. Also, the first trailers were nothing short of awesome, which contributed a lot to make my enthusiasm grow even higher. So, now that I've finished it, was it that awesome? Hmm...it was a great game, no doubt about that, but I'm afraid to say they didn't exactly deliver everything they promised.

About the changes, there are a couple of new things in this game. The story, for example, is much more present than in the previous games. This game has so many cut-scenes that sometimes it seems like a MGS game or something, but they're pretty well done, so no complaints there. Also, our character suffered a pretty interesting change, from the tough, always right and secure of himself, tough guy from the first game to a pretty damaged soldier. Legget's death, in particularly, affected him way more than we thought in the previous games, and it goes to the point of him allucinating and speaking to Legget's "ghost". Interesting stuff, no doubt about that.

Gameplaywise, now we have an additional team, besides our assault and "covering fire" teams. It's the bazooka guys, and they rock! Those guys can kill an entire platoon of german soldiers with just one well placed shot, not to mention that they can blow up solid cover like sandbags (don't expect them to blow up buildings, tough). They're an invaluable asset, too bad they sometimes get too confused to navigate the map properly and end up killed...

About the cover, now more fragile things like wooden fences, barrels, etc can be destroyed by your shoots, which is always nice, but unfortunately the same amount of interaction didn't go to all the other things that should react to bullets, like the objects inside the houses for example. The last big change to the gameplay is the cover system. Now you can hide behind cover Gears of War style, and the camera changes to the third person, switching your iron sights to a pretty damn accurate white cross. Now, it's not like I'm complaining or something, but this makes the game almost too easy, and makes veteran players feel cheated since we had to endure the whole previous games with just the fucking iron sights, with which you would empty a whole fucking magazine just to kill a guy. And that was in case you got lucky...

Anyway, the tanks are back, but instead of giving it orders, now you directly control it, Call of Duty-style. Too bad the controls suck and these stages feel somewhat unfinished, but they're a pretty cool addition nonetheless and provide for a nice change of pace.

I know I've been mainly saying good things about the game, and indeed it is a good game, but the early trailers showed more. For example, in a trailer you would see a dutch citizen warning you through a window to the nazi guy hidden behing some drying blankets, after which your character shoots the guy and he falls over. That looked AWESOME! In the final game there's nothing like it. Another example, in another trailer you could explore your base, watching your soldiers relax and doing something to pass the time. According to the producers this would allow you to interact with them and feel more connected to them by seeing their "human" side, when not killing germans. In the final game there's only gameplay, action levels and cut-scenes, and nothing like that. Fuck, I kind of feel ripped off...

Still, I would recommend this game for anyone not yet bored with WWII shooters who's looking for a different take on the genre. It gets the NebachadnezzaR's seal of approval. Now, Gearbox, do better next time, will ya? (I got a feeling from the final cut-scene that there's going to be another sequel somewhere in the snow, my guess is that it will be about the battle of the bulge)

epic sounds

2008-10-10T12:20:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of updates. Yeah, I know I said this a lot in the past already, but lately I've been really busy with college and it's tough to keep this place updated, although I love my blog more than ever now that I passed the first year mark. Thank you guys for all the kind words in the previous post, I love you all :)

Now, I thought of getting back into action with something a little different. Yes, it's another music post, but this time it's not exactly my usual stuff. Lately, as a sort of source of inspiration for my book (380 pages already, btw), I've been delving in the realms of Power Metal. I was already a fan of the genre, with Blind Guardian, Sonata Arctica and a couple of other bands as my top references, but I decided to explore more of this type of music and lately I've been completely addicted to two bands in particular, Rhapsody and Stratovarius.

Starting with Rhapsody, they're actually now called Rhapsody of Fire because some legal bullshit with their last name, but for me they're just Rhapsody and that's it. This is truly epic stuff that would fit right in with a LotR movie for example. Full of classical instruments, powerful vocals with epic choirs, and lyrics full of awesome stories, it's really something like I've never seen before. Speaking of the lyrics, they're not just isolated stories. They actually tell epic stories worthy of a novel throughout their various albums, which is nothing short of amazing. Here's another example:

Now, Stratovarius, they're pretty different. Although in the same genre, their lirical themes have nothing to do with the usual fantasy stuff. The music is also pretty different from Rhapsody, which might out of place if you've just finished listening to the songs above, but still they make some pretty damn good songs. The voice of the vocalist, particularly, is pretty unique and gives a special feeling to their music. Here's what I think is the best song by them that I've listened so far:

Hope you liked it :)

Happy birthday!

2008-09-27T13:32:00.000-07:00

I have to begin this post with a shameful fact: I forgot about this blog's birthday. OMFG, what a terrible blogger I am! It's like forgetting the birthday of your children, or something! Well, on the other hand, maybe I just had such a good time here that I never thought, even for a second, that one full year might have already passed, so it came as quite a shock when I saw that my first post was written on the 30th of August, 2007.

(unrelated, just something that made me lol)

One year, it's quite a long time on the internets, isn't it? In a world where new sites and blogs appear everyday just to disappear the next day, I feel kind of proud to have created a placed that endured almost 13 months now and shows no sign of stopping. And I won't stop, as long as I have things to say and people to read them.

Which leads me to the awesome readers I have here. I know this may sound lame, but without you this place wouldn't exist, and I'm serious, because I had another blog, a few years ago, that I stopped working on because I barely had any readers. Fortunately that is not the case with NebachadnezzaR's Place of Awesomeness, thanks to my "blog buddies" Father Krishna, Gnome, Deitrix, Junlee, Funnyman and Blondjon; my friends from PTGamers who ocasionally come by, TGenial, Blackhole69, German and Simbyotic; my heavy metal mate dxvolt and the only visitor who's also a friend in real life, my main man Fredy.

Thanks, guys :)

Now, let's fucking party! The beer's on the house, and so are the cigars and the champagne, so feel free to consume whatever makes you happy :P

Unleash the force

2008-09-22T11:09:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of activity on this blog. Like Father K, gnome and other "blogging friends" of mine, and of ours since we have this sort of blogging community going on here, I've been in a sort of blogging hiatus as of late. It was mostly due to lack of time, now with me entering college and all that, but I have to admit I've been a bit lazy as well. Well, anyway, just some days ago I played and beat Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and I fucking loved it.

Now, I have to admit, I'm not a huge Star Wars fan. In fact I hardly have any interest in it, and although I've played a lot of SW games it was always for the gameplay alone, because I couldn't care less for the story. Not that there's anything wrong with it, sci-fi just isn't my style, and all that moral bullshit between dark and light sides surely didn't help me like it more. But I digress.

Despite not being a SW geek, pardon me, SW fan, I still had a blast with this game, because it fucking rocks! The story, surprinsingly, is appealing to pretty much everyone since it narrates a sort of self-contained chapter in the SW canon. Of course it has connections to previous and future events in the movies (it's set between episodes III and IV), but it's pretty damn enjoyable just by itself. This is due to a damn great main character. Starkiller is just a fucking cool protagonist and really felt like I could relate to him. The other supporting characters are also interesting, specially Starkiller's droid, Proxy, who's programmed to routinely try to kill him.

Gameplay wise, the game is called force unleashed for a reason. You've never had so much control over that misterious energy. Force lighting is...shocking (lol), force push lets you push enemy soldiers out of your way (into oblivion, if you happen to be on a bridge) and force grip is just...wow. You can pick up almost everything that's on the levels (Tie Fighters included) and trow it into the air or, of course, at enemy soldiers. You can also pick those up and just play around with them, which is pretty entertaining in a sadistic kind of way.

Talking about force grip, I have to mention the technical "holy trinity" of this game: Havok for the physics, Euphoria for the character's animations and finally Digital Molecular Matter for the physical properties of the objects. When you combine the three of them, the result is something to be seen. The soldiers you pick up try to grab on to something (and they get much harder to handle if they succeed), the objects you throw react to the enviromnent and everything you break, breaks in a realistic way, calculated in real-time. Just see some videos to get the full picture, because I could never translate it into words.

Unfortunately I have two major gripes with the techincal aspect of the game. The first is the fact that the debris of the things you destroy disappear after just a few seconds, right in front of your eyes. WTF... Yeah, I know it would demand a hell of a lot of processing power if they stayed there forever, but couldn't they wait til you leave the room to vanish? The second is the bugs. This game feels so unfinished... Why couldn't they push back the release date for one or two months? As it is, sometimes objects react in an erratic way, there's clipping issues and worse, sometimes even your character gets stuck. Once I actually had to restart the game because Starkiller got completely stuck while trying to jump down a hole. Oh, and there's also the loading screens. Ca you believe there is loading screens even when you're just navigating through the menus? How fucked up is that...

Still, in the end this game was just fucking awesome. Essential to every SW fan and definitely recommend for action fans, whether they like George Lucas' work or not. The gameplay is fun and addictive, the story is superb, the music is good (and the voice acting is ace! better than a lot of movies I've seen, actually) and overall it's just a pretty entertaining, if short, game.

Contra Retrospective

2008-08-28T13:27:00.000-07:00

So, less than a week ago I decided to play every Contra game released to date (not every port of every game, although I did play more than 1 version of some games) and today I can proudly say that I successfully accomplished this. Yeay! So, if you're curious about this series but don't have the time/patience/interest to do the same yourself, here's a summary of what I think about every game for your information (note that after each title I only indicate the version(s) I played, not every single version made):

Contra (NES)

The original game, this is what most people remember when they think of Contra. I bet it was a great game back in the day, but unfortunately I never played it back then and nowadays I can honestly say it sucks! Yes, I said it! Hit me, Contra fanboys! Ok, seriously now, that's indeed my opinion about it. The graphics suck, the gameplay is competent but not that great, the "3D" areas suck, the game is hard as hell and after you lose there's not many reasons to come back.

Super C (NES)

The follow up to the original game, it's even more difficult and although there's a couple innovations, for the most time it feels just like Contra all over again but, for some reason, slightly worse.

Contra Force (NES)

Well, if the previous games sucked, this one sucks 100x more! Why? Because it wasn't even supposed to be a fucking Contra game! Like Silent Hill 4 or Pirates of the Caribbean, CF was going to be an original game, but instead they decided to give it the name of a famous license. The result? A game that barely has anything to do with the other games in the series. It's slow, the gameplay is not that much fun and overall it just plain sucks.

(note that the slowdown is not from the video or the emulator, the game is really that slow)

Operation C (Gameboy)

Now, this is a good game for a change! The graphics are what you can expect from a gameboy, with that unique design in black and white. Unlike the previous games, the controls seem fluid and natural, and for a portable game, this one kicked ass.

Contra III: The Alien Wars (SNES, Gameboy Advance)

Some people consider this the best Contra game ever. I wouldn't got that far, but it's definitely in my top 4 (what? I couldn't just pick 3 games...). The graphics are amazing, the gameplay is refined and addictive, the weapons are awesome and overall it's just an awesome game. One thing I didn't like though, and that was the over-head stages, where you have to manually rotate the camera around the character, because not only are those sections slow-paced and boring, that camera thing makes me dizzy.

The GBA port is pretty much the same with 2 big diferences: the graphics were toned down (although still pretty good for a GBA) and the over-head stages were replaced with levels from Contra: Hard Corps, which is good in my opinion, but many people didn't like that.

Contra: Hard Corps (Mega Drive)

For me this one is even better than C3. The graphics pushed the limits of the system and the gameplay was pretty evolved compared to the previous games. For the first time you had 4 characters to choose from, each with their own set of weapons, you could carry 4 weapons at the same time and there were multiple paths you could take, leading to different levels and diferent endings. There were 6 endings, and the game was so addicitve that I ended up watching them all, and they were worth it.

The only bad thing about this game is the difficulty, or so I hear. It's regarded as the hardest Contra ever, but I can't really say. Why? Because I'm a fucking cheater, that's why! Yeah, I know this isn't something pretty to say, but even the easiest C games are too damn hard for me, so, in order to prevent me from going insane, I played every game using life or invincibility cheats. Shamefull, I know, but it was the only way for me to have fun with the games, and that's what matters for me.

Contra: Legacy of War (Saturn, PSX)

If you're really interested you can read my full review over at the Saturn Junkyard. On the other hand , if you're just looking for a quick summary, here it is. This game sucks! Hard! By attempting to bring the game to 3D they decided to make everything in a overhead view and they sucked at it. This game is just not fun.

C: The Contra Adventure (PSX)

The title is right because, after the flop fo the previous game, they decided to take a new approach. A return to the origins? No, although it seems like it at first, with the first level being a side-scrolling one just like in the old games. Unfortunately eventually the "adventure" levels come, in a 3rd person Tomb Raider-like style. Yeah, I know, back in the days everyone was looking for that kind of games to show off the PSX's capabilities, but as expected, in the end the game sucked. Not so much as the previous one, but still.

Contra: Shattered Soldier (PS2)

Now this is a 3D Contra game! Probably my favourite (and the one who gave me more problems to get it running, like every old PS2 mine doesn't like CD's that much so any CD-based game gives me a headache), it's basically what one can expect from it. A side-scrolling Contra game with fast paced action, great graphics and huge (and fucking ugly) bosses. Probably the hardest game after Hard Corps, it was still beatable after some serious level memorization. Anyway, it was a blast to play.

Neo Contra (PS2)

Why? After getting it right with Shattered Soldier, why did they have to fuck things up again? Although not as bad as the 32 bit games, Neo Contra is still a bit on the sucky side of things. With an overhead instead of sidecrolling perspective, this could've worked, if only it had a control system like Geometry Wars, to give a recent example, where you control the character with one stick and shoot with the other. As it is, it's just too damn hard to hit enemies, and that takes some of the fun of the game. At least it's somewhat easy when compared to the other games.

Contra 4 (Nintendo DS)

Actually the last game of the series was the first one I played to the end, sometime ago when it was first released. Great game, in a 2D style similar to the first ones, and making use of the 2 screens to bring back the experience of the first game's Arcade version, which featured a vertical screen. There's also a lot to this game other than the main adventure. There's a series of challenges that seriously challenge you and if you're skilled enough you can unlock full versions of Contra and Super C for the NES, among other neat extras. Definitely a mandatory purchase for fans of the series.

So, in the end, what were my favourites? Definitely Shattered Soldier, Hard Corps, C3 and 4, and if you're thinking about getting into Contra I recommend you play those ones first. The worse were the original NES ones, which, nostalgia aside, didn't stood up to the test of time, and the 32 bits games, which were already bad when they first came out, but in the end I have to admit there's a "clone" of this series than I enjoy even more than any Contra game

Metal Slug! Now that's a good series with hardly any bad game (although MS X, 4 and 5 did suck a little), that elevated the gameplay first introduced by Contra to whole new levels. Contra may be the original but for me Metal Slug is the pinnacle of the run 'n gun style of action games, so I recommend everyone, and I mean everyone, to check those games out.

Maximum the Hormone

2008-08-26T13:59:00.000-07:00

Do you know Random J's corner of JPop? Well, this is Nebacha's corner of JMetal! Ok, not quite, but I thought that sentence sounded cool (actually the "J" in the title of J's blog is referring to himself, it's J's blog of Pop, not of JPop). Anyway, the fact is, although I'm quite a fan of Japanese culture (not a Japanophile, though. I'm interested in their culture, not obsessed with it, or better, with the romanticized version of it portrayed by most games and anime series), I have to admit, their metal sucks! Although they're pretty big fans of the genre, they usually suck at it, having few and somewhat mediocre bands. Still, thanks to Death Note I've just found a fucking awesome JMetal (if we can call it that) band: Maximum the Hormone!

Here, watch this:

Freaking awesome, isn't it? Ok, maybe not at first time, but after a while it starts to grow on you, and the images fit right in with the sound (love the way they put images of Misa in provocative costumes right when the song gets heavier). But this one is even better, in my opinion:

Those are just short verions used in the anime, you can check out the full songs on youtube if you're interested. Preety cool, uh? It definitely caught me by surprise, with an interesting mix between clear elements of heavier sounds, like Death/Black Metal or Grindcore, and softer sections, like the beginning of the second song. The full album, Buiikikaesu, reflects this even more, it's not as heavy as one might think just from listening to this. It's actually more rock than metal for the most part, but, regardless of what it is, what matter is that it's awesome, and reminds us that there's more to Japanese music than just J-Pop.

If only I could freeze time...

2008-08-14T13:17:00.000-07:00

Damn, I haven't blogged in ages... Although I have the whole days to do what the fuck I want, I always come up with shit to fill that free time up to the very bottom. Most of the time is spent between my book, which is finally on tracks (for you to get the picture, it took me 2 years to write the first 80 pages, but after a month and a half of intensive writing I'm already at 180, and I want to reach 250 till September 15th), and playing games that have been on my list for what seems like ages. I'm specially concentrated on RPGs since they're the most time-consuming, and after beating Lunar 1 and 2 I'm currently busy with Final Fantasy VII (yup, I'm just playing it now...).

In between I've been enjoying some movies and anime series. I took a trip to the past by watching some old Disney movies again and I just discovered the HUGE impact Tarzan had on me. I loved all the Disney movies I saw when I was a kid, but Tarzan is the only one I have in both VHS and DVD, have the PC and PSX version of the game and the movie's soundtrack, which is freaking awesome! Believe it or not, I always get the shivers when I listen to this:

Original English verion here.

On anime, just started watching Death Note after hearing the best things about it and, wow, what can I say, it's just as good as everyone says! Unlike most anime, the story is always developing, there's no filler, every minute something awesome happens and when you know it 20 minutes have passed and the episode already ended, but you still need to see more of it, and so you end up like me watching 10 whole episodes in a single day! Story-wise it's about a kid who finds a notebook called a Death Note where you can write the name of someone and that person will die. It's obviously more complicated than that, so I'll leave it for you to find the rest, but trust me, everyone should check this out, anime fan or not. Give it a shot:

Now, on to other things, I feel a little guilty for not having posted this sooner, but, as we say in Portugal, better late than never (don't know if you have that saying or a similar one in English-speaking countries). In case you haven't noticed, DETRIX, the man-god who's responsible for both Gnome's and Father Krishna's artistic depictions, just made this! Oh. My. Effing. Gawd! I would recommend everyone to check out his most awesome of blogs, but since I think that everyone does that already, meh, I'll say it anyway. Go here. Now!

About game related things, last week I received a Dreamcast VGA box from Racketboy and let me tell you, that shit be tight! I have half a post already written about it for the Dreamcast Junkyard, so I'll tell you more about it later.

About music, which is, I think, the last thing I talk about on my blog, I've been listening to In Flame's last cd, A Sense of Purpose, and it's pretty good, although at first it didn't have the same impact as the previous album, Come Clarity, which started right off with the amazing song Take This Life (no, it's not emo). That one is in Guitar Hero 3, by the way. Anyway, A Sense of Purpose, although not having much of an initial impact, only shows its true worth when we reach track number 8 and find In Flame's longest track to date, an 8-minute epic that goes by the name of The Chosen Pessimist. Do yourself a favour and check this out (it's not too heavy, I promise):

Summer update

2008-07-23T04:00:00.000-07:00

Yup, it's just like the Xbox Live Spring and Fall updates xD Now, seriously, I've been sort of neglecting this blog for some time now, with only sporadic posts, but now I'm back with, hopefully, good stuff to talk about. It actually feels good to be here, I really need a place to write now that I've sort of given up on another site. Anyway, I realized that I've kept you in the dark for a long time regarding the last games I played, so here's what kept me entertained in the last few weeks (no i'm not going to talk about MGS4 because you all already know how awesome it is):

Halo 3

The only reason why this hype-beyond-all-reason game was not a total disappointment was because I already knew what to expect, and yes, my opinion stays the same, it's just an average FPS. The graphics, although not bad by any means, are just average when compared to other FPS of its time and gameplay-wise its just the same thing all over again. Not that I was expecting a revolution, or something, but, damn, why do I have to feel like I'm playing Halo 1 and 2 again instead of the sequel they promised me? Another thing is the repetition of events. You shoot aliens, you shoot flood, from time to time you arrive in an open space where you fight with vehicles, it' been the same for years now! Oh, and scenarios? Guess what. You have forests, alien bases and snow like in Halo 1 and desert like in Halo 2. OMFG, it's original beyond measure! Couldn't they throw at least a new theme for a change? The jungle theme doesn't count, it ends too quickly... And guess how the game ends? With a fucking Warthog getaway, just like in Halo 1. Yeah, I'm also thinking what the fuck was Bungie doing all this time to just recycle the previous games instead of making a true sequel. At least it's not boring (for the most time)...

Assassin's Creed

Another pretty hyped game, specially because of producer Jade Raymond (don't look, funnyman, or you might need a cold shower), but this one actually delivered, although both the press and gamers, who apparently were expecting a perfect game, were turned off by just a couple of flaws. Ok, maybe I just like it because I'm interested in the theme of the Middle Ages and its detailed, living an breathing cities are a perfect research source for a book I'm writing, but still, one can't deny the pretty original gameplay and the just superb graphics. Everything is both huge and detailed, and it's stunning to see the game in motion. Recommended for anyone who likes the theme.

The Orange Box

Or better, Hal-Life 2, Episode 1 and Episode 2, since those are the ones I'm actually playing. Portal, as great as it is, once you beat it there's not much left, and I already beat it on my PC, and Team Fortress 2 lacks bots for off-line play, for all of us poor bastards without Xbox Live Gold. I actually just got this game because of Episode 2, but I decided to play the original game and Episode 1 again to better follow the story, and what can I tell? HL 2, despite being more than 3 years old now, is still great and even graphic-wise is not the worst looking game, or FPS, I've seen on the 360 (that title goes to Far Cry, great game with a suck ass presentation). When it comes to gameplay this game is the exact opposite of Halo 3, you never spend more than 5 minutes doing the same thing and just when you start to get tired of a certain section, some twist comes in and you find yourself doing something completely different. Of course it always involves shooting and a little puzzle-solving here and there, but this game really pushes the limits of how many different things and situations you can have in a single game, and the Episodes, that are sort of expansions, do this even better. Also, the interaction between our character and our allies is like nothing I've seen before (only surpassed by the All ghillied up mission in CoD 4), and story-wise, the end of Episode 2 is the most emotional virtual moment I experienced since MGS4. Yes, it's that good. Recommended for anyone looking for a good FPS that's more than just running and gunning.

Up The Fucking Irons!!! \m/

2008-07-10T13:36:00.000-07:00

Oh. My. Fucking. God... 09/07/2008, I was there...

..to see the best fucking band on the planet! It was so fucking awesome that I needed almost a week to put myself together, process everything that happened, and write this post about it. Here's what happened...

Before the show my day wasn't going too well. I had just missed the train and the next one would only arrive 2 hours later. Damn... That meant that I would miss the previous shows. Not much of a problem since I'm not a fan of Avenged Sevenfold and my favourite Slayer song wasn't included on the set-list (it's Eyes of the Insane, btw), but any further delays could prevent me from arriving on time. After embarking on the train shit continued to happen. The train ahead of us had a mechanical problem and we were stuck for half an hour before it was solved. Fuck dammit...

When I finally arrived in Lisbon I quickly took a cab and arrived at the place one hour before the start of the show. That was a close call... After grabbing a beer I enjoyed the rest of Slayer's performance (pretty cool) and when it was over I finally tried to locate the only two people I knew who where there (I later discovered that Profeth was also there, but he forgot his fucking phone, so I had no way to contact him...). Ok, I only knew them from chatting with them on the web, it was the first time I met with them personally, but you can't go wrong with fans of both metal and games.

Mochito and dxvolt, you guys are the best. Too bad we were together for such a short time (damn trains!), but, anyway, such a show is always best enjoyed in good company, so thank you both for providing that. Eventually we started to hear "doctor doctor", the UFO song (they're cited as being a big influence of Steve Harris), so we knew the show was about to start. We were already getting somewhat impatient (although the band arrived only 10 minutes late, nothing compared to other bands who make us wait one hour. Yeah, it happened to me once...), but then we begin to hear Churchill's speech (yeah, the WWII one), and then comes Aces High. OMFG...

What followed was just so fucking incredible... The musicians' performances were just superb, the pyrotecnics were on par with what Rammstein use on their gigs (which is saying alot!), the stage was perfectly decorated, with nice details like sarcophagi with bright red eyes glowing in the dark and great backgrounds (I think the background of Rime of the Ancient Mariner had actual pieces of cloth acting as sails instead of just a picture) and Bruce's costumes were as good as ever. Oh, and Eddie also made an appearance, twice! First as a big ass mummy and then as an android. Really, we couldn't have asked better. I've seen a lot of Iron Maiden concerts on DVD and this was without doubt one of their best, not just because it was the first I attended, but because they really gave it all to make it a memorable night.

When it ended the only way we could express our sheer joy was through a group hug between me, dxvolt, mochito and...fabio, I think? Sorry, didn't catch your name :/ What a great show, what an awesome experience, it was one of those things that only happen once in a life-time...and I was there! Fuck yeah! :D

PS - Dxvolt, thanks for everything, man, really. For the food, the drink and the ride home. I really appreciated it, remember me to buy you a beer when we meet again ;)

MGA: Metal Gear Awesome!

2008-07-03T02:13:00.000-07:00

Words are simply insufficient to describe the colossal sense of WIN which this game engenders in fans of the MGS saga, therefore the only useful response is a visual representation of said fans' reactions:

FUCKING WIN!!! This shit is awesome! It is made of WIN and GOD! (and yes, that's me in the photo)

Yeah, I know I've used the sentence above more than a couple of times already, but really, it couldn't describe MGS4 more properly. This game is the shit! This is next-gen! The current generation is filled with great games, that's undeniable (unlike what some people say...), but lets be honest, despite prettier graphics most of them don't really feel like their the next generation of games, bur rather the same old games with just new make-up. This game, on the contrary, is next-gen in everything it does, and it would be simple impossible to do without the modern hardware.

Yes, this is so far the pinnacle of HD gaming, and is more than enough reason to buy a PS3 just for it. No, I'm not insane, I just fucking love the game! The graphics are just "OMG awesome". The animations? Even better. Gameplay? Just fantastic, still fresh even after 4 games and polished up to near perfection. Sound? Unbelievably good. And story? The story is the best damn part! We get to see practically every character from the series again (except the dead ones, obviously) and finally we have answers for the questions that tormented us for so much time! What happened to Olga's daughter? Why the fuck is Vamp apparently immortal? And why the hell does Snake look older than my granpa? Patience, young padawan, for all this will be answered in this most excellent of sequels.

So, what the hell are you doing here reading this? Go play the damn game. Now!

Just for the record, I'm not finished yet, I just reached Act 3, so be careful with spoilers when commenting, ok? :)

Great Frollicking Llamas!

2008-06-30T07:40:00.000-07:00

My dear friends, I've finally entered the HD era with this:

Excuse me for the horrible quality of the picture, but if you look beyond that you'll see a magnificent Samsung 37" 1080p HDTV, connected to a pair of nice Logitech speakers (the subwoofer is hidden under the table). Fucking awesome, isn't it? And it gets even better! If you look closely enough you'll see that the game in display is none other than MGS4! Fuck yeah! That's right, I also got this beauty:

(yes, that's a Dreamcast in the upper right corner, I'm planning on getting a VGA adaptor for it)

I'm playing Metal Gear Awesome 4 right now and so far it's being the damn best next-gen experience I had since, probably, Oblivion. So, pardon me for not writing more, but hey, I have a HDTV and a PS3 with MGS4 waiting, so I think you'll understand why I'm not really feeling like staying here staring at the monitor. Bye all!

And fredy, what did you tell me about not getting MGS4 anytime soon? Booya, in your face! Haha!
Joking man, you got to pass by my place sometime soon to check this out ;)

Go berserk!

2008-06-16T04:34:00.000-07:00

One of my favourite hidden gems for the Dreamcast is Sword of the Berserk, an hack 'n' slash action game (probably one of my favourite genres) based on the manga Berserk. Unfortunately my copy of the game was in bad condition and it would always freeze near the end and I sort of just forgot about the game. Until recently, that is, when Father K enthusiastically wrote about it over at the DCJY, giving me just what I needed to track down a working copy and finally finish the game. Unfortunately the game is aimed primarily at fans of the manga, and while it's still enjoyable just by itself, you're missing a whole lot if you don't know the setting and the characters.

The creators of the game were kindly enough to give you a sort of in-game encyclopaedia about the background of the series, but it's still not enough. You know nothing about Guts' past, how he lost his left arm and his right eye, why he travels around with Caska and what the fuck happened to that girl to make her loose her mind. That's why I just recently started watching the anime, although I will eventually have to read the manga too since the anime doesn't cover the whole story. Anyway, for all the fans of the game (or just anime in general) this is a must see. It's action-packed, full of violence and it tells Guts' story in great detail, and it's indeed a story worth telling. Also, this might come as a shock to all those who've only played the Dreamcast game, but Caska originally was a fierce warrior just a little weaker than Guts himself and she hated him so much... What the fuck happened to her since that and how the two got together I still don't know, but that's enough to make me want to watch the anime to the end and read the manga after that.

Here's the first episode for your viewing pleasure. Shitty quality, but enough to get an idea.

So, fans of Sword of the Berserk, watch the anime (just entitled Berserk), because the game is only half as fun when you don't know the story behind it. Also, there's a rather obscure PS2 Berserk game that supposedly is even better than the Dreamcast one. Got to check that one out in the future...

You know you're influential when...

2008-06-07T15:23:00.000-07:00

I was just browsing the wonderful Racketboy forum when suddenly I saw this. Yup, that's exactly what it looks like, that guy is using a quote from one of my posts as his signature. OMFG! First I was given the rank of moderator over at the PTGamers forum and now this. I'm getting quite popular on the internets, ain't I? :D

Edit: guess I have a new fan :)

Blasted Mechanism - I Believe

2008-06-01T07:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was browsing through some old backup cd's I burned whenever I formatted my pc's hard drive when I found some examples of the music I was listening to back then. It was somewhat of a shock to find much "lighter" music than what I listen to nowadays, but as a statement to my musical taste, every single one of those songs are still as good today as they were back then and I still like them the same. This one if from another Portuguese act, Blasted Mechanism. I don't really know how famous they are in the rest of the world, so in case you've never heard of them, they have a really unique style that it's rather hard to define, something like alternative rock with a very tribal theme. The song in question is from the 2003 album Namaste and features a pretty cool video with lots of gaming references. Hope you like it, and if you do, there should be plenty more videos on youtube.

"I believe in the power of people,
I believe in destiny,
I believe in evolution,
I believe in what I see"

Clash of the Titans - Round 2

2008-05-30T05:25:00.000-07:00

Remember this? After that most awesome of matches (despite the horrible lag), a rematch was bound to happen sooner or later, and yesterday was the day. After a previous a agreement on the day and time (you know, because we're busy people, we're not online 24/7), there I was, logging into Xbox Live at about 2:00 in the afternoon. Father K was online, but when I saw that he was playing Halo 3 I figured that it should be one of the gingers. No problem, it gave me some time to train my moves. Father would come shortly after, and when he did we started playing right away. Guess what, the first round was mine! Hehe, guess that training really did the difference. We were still pretty balanced, though, and overall Father probably won a couple more matches than I did. He was a bit cheap at times, though... (sorry Father, but I had to say this, those successions of punches should be prohibited xD).

Anyway, this was not a matter of winning or losing, but a moment of leisure between two friends separated by lots of land and even ocean. There was absolutely no lag this time, so not only we could play without that handicap, but we were also able to have a proper conversation! It was like talking on the phone, really, but while playing at the same time, and it was great. Now that I think of it, we really talked a lot (it was my strategy to distract Father and kick his ass xD), from games, to the origins of our respective nicknames and pretty much everything we could think of while still throwing virtual kicks and punches.

Also, it was not just a thing between us, for we eventually dragged our families into it. My mum passed by to say "hello" and the littlest ginger, Ted, even played with me, although he was at a disadvantage for not being used to play as Kage. By the way, funny how we pronounce that name differently, Father says Kage as in "cage" while I pronounce it "Kágê", like the Japanese do (by the way, "kage" means "shadow", appropriate name for a ninja). It's just a curiosity, since we were able to understand each other just fine for most of the time, although I would sometimes get too excited and speak so fast that even I wouldn't understand what the fuck I just said, lol.

By the way, this time we saved a lot of replays to show you guys, but unfortunately my cell phone's camera couldn't keep up with the game's speed and this was the best I could get. Maybe Father will have more luck with his high-tech phone.

Also, when you think about it, technology really is amazing. 10 years ago we were playing VF1 and 2 alone in our homes, without having the slightest hint that the other one existed and that we would someday meet on the web and play VF5 together. Fucking amazing, isn't it?

The winter has a heart

2008-05-30T04:59:00.000-07:00

Yup, I finished the Heart of Winter expansion for IWD. Wow...that was quick... Indeed this expansion is rather short, specially when compared to the main game, but at least this one left me wanting to play more. Despite the length it was really cool, as gnome pointed out here. The story is engaging, the new areas and enemies give it a refreshing new look, even if they're still made of snow or caves, and overall it was just a good way to extend the original game. About the story, I have a complaint, though. Without wanting to spoil the plot, it basically tells the story of an evil entity wanting to wage war between the barbarian tribes of the north and the Ten Towns (a group of 10 settlements of "civilized" people from the south).

As expected, it's our mission to destroy that evil entity, thus bringing peace to the land (ok, it was still at peace since the war was yet to start, but you know what I mean), but the problem is...I actually wanted to join my nemesis and drive the southern scum out of the tundra. Just think about it, the barbarian tribes lived in piece in the cold north until the fucking "civilized men" came from the south to exploit their lands and take them away from them. Why wouldn't I want to join them in their quest for revenge? I would gladly burn the Ten Towns to the ground and kick their sorry asses over the Spine of the World. ...Does that make me a bad person?... o_O

Anyway, even Black Isle realized that the expansion was just to short, so they eventually released a mini-expansion for it called Trials of the Luremaster. I'm off to play that one, so I can finally see everything IceWind Dale has to offer.

The icy winds blow in the dale...

2008-05-29T13:28:00.000-07:00

It's party time again, for I've finished IceWind Dale! Fuck yeah! "Oh, you beat a game, big deal...", you might be thinking, but you have to put it in context. I'm talking about a western RPG (or CRPG, as gnome likes to call them, for me it's all the same because I've never played a "real" RPG), one of those that involve a lot of talking, semi-turn based fighting and overall are just fucking huge and take ages to finish! That's why I'm so happy, because among my 5 Infinity Engine-powered RPG's, Icewind Dale is the first one that I finish, with all the others being forgotten after just an afternoon or two of intensive gaming. This one was not an easy task, and near the end it became boring, specially because the plot turned out to be less engaging that I'd expected and the last areas are a complex system of caves, and I bought the game to see snow, not underground tunnels, but still, my will was strong and I endured those trials.

But I'm not finished with this one yet! Just started playing the expansion, Heart of Winter, and after that I still have the mini-expansion Trials of the Luremaster, so I'll be busy with this game for some time. Also, on a side note, it's amzing how the expansion gave the gave an entirely new look just by increasing the resolution from 640x480 to 800x600. I know, that might seem irrelevant, but in fact it makes a huge difference in this game. Now the game's areas really look like paintings instead of a poorly digitized image.

Naruto Shippuden and Ultimate Ninja 3 first impressions

2008-05-28T06:48:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know I've been talking a lot about Naruto lately, but don't worry, this will probably be my last post for a while. I'll try to keep the following lines as much spoiler-free as possible, but if you're following the series and don't want to know anything about Shippuden you'll probably want to skip to my thoughts on the game (after the picture of its cover). So, I've only seen the first 3 episodes yet, but so far it's being nothing short of AWESOME! With so much filler shit I've almost forgotten how great the story arcs are. It all starts with Naruto's return to the village, and so far I've only seen him, Sakura, Shikamaru, Temari and Gaara(from, the "kids, that is, because the other characters stay basically the same). I already knew they had different outfits, which is good for Naruto because the full-orange one was ridiculous, and although some are almost the same (Shikamaru) or retain the basic aspects of the first ones (Naruto, Sakura, Gaara), Temari has a completely different outfit, much better than the old one, in my opinion.

They've all grown up (just look at the picture above) and Shikamaru also changed earrings, but unfortunately some things stay the same, and Sakura's boobs remain strangely undeveloped. Seriously, I'm worried about the girl, she's cute as hell but she really needs bigger breasts. Anyway, one thing that's worthy of mention is that, since Naruto was away from the village, he wasn't able to participate in the chuunin exam, so from the old group he's the only one who's still a genin (lower ninja). Everyone else is either a chuunin (middle ninja) or a jonin (higher ninja). This is rather ironic, that the most powerful shinobi from the "kids" has the lowest rank, but as of the first episodes the chuunin exam is about to begin, so hopefully he will finally advance in ranking. Also, funny how Shikamaru, the first one to advance to chuunin, earlier in part 1 of the anime, is not one of the select few who are already jonin in Shippuden. Overall i'm really liking this new part of the series and I can't wait to see the remaining characters and the future plot developments.

Now to the game. I have to admit that I had low expectations for Ultimate Ninja 3, for two reasons. First, the previous game was really similar to the first one, and this one seemed like it would be no different, and I hate sequels who look more like expansions than a new game. Second, the first two games were hard as hell! Really, not only the AI was merciless, but some battles also had stupidly difficult winning conditions, like winning with a certain special move or with a certain amount of energy or chakra left. If just winning was already hard, than winning with this conditions was almost impossible at times, and it was really frustrating to defeat the opponent but still lose the battle because the special conditions weren't met. I actually reviewed Ultimate Ninja 2 for PTGamers back in the day, you can read it here. Of course, my international friends won't understand shit, but they can at least see the score and look at the pretty pictures.

Fortunately, UN3 is completely different in this aspect. The game is so much easier, and thus enjoyable, than the last one that this one really seems like a real sequel. Of course that the difficulty level wasn't the only change, and the gameplay itself is a little different. In the previous games, in order to use a special attack, you had to press triangle in order to activate your chakra and then attack, with the resulting special attack being different according to how many times you pressed triangle before, from 1 to 3. In UN3 this is no more. For the ultimate attack you just have to press triangle once, and for the other 2 special attacks you just have to do a simple combo (up+up+circle for one attack and down+down+circle for the other). It might look like a minor change, but it really makes the gameplay more enjoyable, because now you don't waste time pressing triangle 3 times before unleashing your best attack.

About game modes, there are two that stand above all the others, and so far I've only properly played the one that lets you recreate the famous battles from the anime, sort of like a story mode. Unlike the previous games, however, here we don't fight every single battle, but just the major ones. In the first Ultimate Ninja we played from the beggining of the series to the chuunin exam and the second game started there and went to...I don't know, I never finished the damn thing! Anyway, UN3 just covers the main events, divided into 4 story arcs, namely the genin training arc, the Konoha attack arc, the Tsunade search arc and the Sasuke retrieval arc. Each one contains 4 battles, except the last one which has more than that, so it's not a particularly long mode, but it's great to play nonetheless.

In the other main mode, which I'm yet to properly explore, we just run around the village, doing quests and completing missions, I guess. Really, I'm not going to talk about it much because I've barely played it yet, but what I can say already is that, although we can travel around Konoha like in Rise of a Ninja, the PS2 is no 360, and it shows. The village is much more ugly and lifeless than in RoaN, and it only makes that game look even greater. Still, we have to take into account that this game was originally released in Japan back in 2005, so back in the day it probably looked better.

Speaking of Rise of a Ninja, logged into Xbox Live today for the first time with that game and I discovered that if you have a Ubisoft account you can download Shikamaru as an exclusive character. Fuck yeah!

I'll now return to the game because I'm really hooked to it right now. I just hope that they don't take long to release Naruto: Narutimate Accel here (or in America, because UN3 wasn't released in Europe yet, I wonder what the fuck are they thinking!), the next sequel to the series but now based on Shippuden. If not I might have to play the Japanese version, which shouldn't be so bad considering that they're fighting games and I already know the plot, but still it's always better to play in English.

Bye all!

Party time!

2008-05-27T09:07:00.000-07:00

Let's celebrate, my friends, for I've just finished watching every single Naruto episode from part 1. Every 220 of them! Fuck yeah!!! I don't know how I manage to make it, specially since the fillers were fucking boring, but I did, and know I can proudly say that unlike many I didn't skip directly to part 2 when the fillers started, but managed to watch it all through. Now all that is left is to start watching part 2, or Shippuden for fans. I'm very excited but anxious at the same time, I got so fond of the characters like they are that I don't know how I'll react when I see them after the 2-and-a-half years time-skip. I hope that they maintain their personalities, but if Naruto got a little less stupid it would be a good change, he's suck a dick-head sometimes... I also hope that the girls took this time to *ahem* grow their "attributes"... (gosh, I sound like funnyman talking...is that a good of a bad thing?).

Anyway, in the meantime I guess I'll play some Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 3. See ya!

Okami soundtrack - Kushinada's Determination

2008-05-27T01:32:00.000-07:00

Now, for something totally different from my last post. You all probably know (and if you don't, you should!) that Okami has an splendid soundtrack, but when you think of it you probably only remember those folkloric songs made with classic Japanese music instruments. Not that there's anything wrong with that, those tracks are great, but for me there's one that stands above all else. Just listen to this:

OMFG! Isn't it just fucking beautiful beyond anything else you've ever listened to? It gives me the shivers everytime I listen to it. It's just so...sad...in a beautiful way... (wow, I'm getting a little poetic). The only other songs that put me in this mood are Rammstein's Wo Bist Du (fond memories of wasting Nazi's in CoD2 while listening to it) and Paradise Lost's Prelude to Descent. Yeah, I've said it, these 3 songs make me cry like a little girl...

Moonspell megapost

2008-05-26T08:31:00.000-07:00

Because the greatest Portuguese metal band can't be praised enough...

Following Father K's and dxvolt's (you got to come by here more often....) enthusiastic response to my last post, I decided to make a whole post dedicated to the band's previous cd, Memorial, because there are just more than enough songs for a dedicated post (I'm going to post some from Wolfheart in the future). Here they are, 5 tracks for your listening pleasure, enjoy:

Finisterra

The first single, fucking awesome, isn't it? :) Nice riff, cool lyrics, it basically represents what this album is all about. If you like it, you'll probably like the rest.

Blood Tells

With this song begins what I call "the blood trilogy". You'll see why in the next two songs.

Upon the Blood of Men

That choir is a beautiful way to start a song, ain't it? Very nice, melodic track with a great guitar solo near the end.

Sanguine

The term "sanguine" actually has nothing to do with blood, but it always reminds me of it because in Portuguese blood is "sangue". Can you spot the similarity? Also, they speak of blood in the chorus, so it probably has something to do with the song after all.

Luna

Beautiful, sad but beautiful. This was the second single and one of my favourite tracks, just listen to it and you'll see why. "Thinking about you..."

Okami redux

2008-05-19T13:37:00.000-07:00

So, I've finally beat Okami! It was about damn time! The first time around I got somewhat bored, not the game's fault but my own, since I have a rather short attention span when it comes to games. My PS2's condition certainly didn't help either. But now, with my console revitalized, I decided to finally try to finish it, and just a while ago I was successful in this task. Let me tell you, this game was a blast to the very end, full of unexpected plot twists and with an ending that was truly epic. Even the credits were fucking awesome!

(got to do this to my dog one day) (fuck, he's brown, I'll have to paint him white first...)

Finally I can truly appreciate this masterpiece of a game, for now I can see the whole picture, and to be honest I'm rather speechless... Trying to convey what this game represents through words is a daunting task, you have to play it yourself, experience it yourself, to understand why this title is so special. This is no mere game, this is art, this is excellence, this is awesomeness! And everyone should play it, every gamer worth is salt must play it, for otherwise he'll be missing out one of the best things this industry, nowadays filled with shitware (eheh, I think I've just created a new word), ever produced.

Clover Software, thanks for producing this most awesome of games. I salute you!

(you know someone is a big Okami fan when you see this on his leg)

Naruto vs Sasuke

2008-05-16T10:35:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Junlee's latest post about Avatar I decided to post a video about what probably is my favourite anime series ever (yup, better than Dragon Ball), Naruto. This is a nice compilation of scenes from Naruto's last fight against Sasuke (in part 1, that is, for I'm pretty sure they'll fight again in part 2), and let me tell you, no 5 minute AMV can do it justice, for that fight was fucking epic! It lasted 3 episodes if I'm not mistaken and it's just full of greatness. They used every move they got and even some that were first shown in this fight, like Sasuke's final transformation (pretty lame in my opinion, don't like the "wings" or what the hell that is) or Naruto's Kyuubi-powered rasengan (if one rasengan does a lot of damage, a rasengan with the power of the Ninetails does a lot more). It was also really emotional, after all it was a fight to death between two friends whose paths brutally collided. In one word: EPIC!

Moonspell - Night Eternal

2008-05-14T09:34:00.000-07:00

What a disappointment... Don't get me wrong, this is not a bad album by any means, but after the great, brilliant, outstanding Memorial, from 2006, I was expecting better from Moonspell's latest work. There are a couple of good songs, like Night Eternal or Shadow Sun, but most are just...I don't know, I just don't "feel" anything while listening to them, they don't mean anything to me (like these music posts don't mean anything to most of my readers). I miss fucking great songs like Finisterra, Upon the Blood of Men or Luna, and I could go on and on with songs from Memorial, I just don't want to flood this post with them. Anyway, gonna listen to it a couple more times, who knows, maybe it'll star to grow on me, after all both At Tragic Heights and Dreamless (Lucifer and Lilith) are somewhat enjoyable and the last track, First Light, actually reminds me of Within Temptation at times.

Night Eternal

Shadow Sun

My PS2 works!!!

2008-05-12T10:04:00.000-07:00

Ok, let me put this in context so you can understand what the fuck is going on... Ever since I got my PS2 mod-chipped, which was just a few months after buying it (around 2004 or something), Sony probably put a curse on me, because the damn thing never worked properly again (that, or the guy who did the job seriously fucked up). At first it stopped booting the games right away, usually needing 3 or 4 tries, if not a lot more, before finally properly reading the fucking disc. Eventually it lost the capability to play PS1 games (which, at the time, I thought it was just the PS1 processor inside the PS2 that died), and it started to occasionally freeze. Not in the middle of a game, but right on start-up, the fucking piece of shit would freeze on the console's main menu.

Still, the major problem was not reading the games. This started to escalate to the point of me having to spend 5 to 10 minutes for the console from hell to boot a fucking game (can you picture it? craving to play a game and having to sit next to that pile of shit, putting the dvd in and out, hoping that it would finally play the next time you turn it on? for fuck's sake...), which was the reason why, some months ago, I completely forgot about the system, decided to ignore it until I was able to afford a new, functional, console.

The reason why I never attempted to fix it was because I have limited knowledge of electronics, and according to pretty much everyone on the web, my problem was a dying laser, which could only be solved with a new, expensive, one. Yesterday, however, I decided to give it a go. After opening it up (which was more difficult than opening up a Dreamcast or a Saturn, but still way easier then opening an Xbox 360...), I was impressed by the sheer amount of dust accumulated throughout roughly 4 years of intensive use. Even more scary, there were spider-webs on the mainboard and, even worse, a fucking living spider! Gasp! (I'm arachnophobic, you know...)

After dealing with the arachnid from hell, I proceeded to examine the dvd drive, more exactly the laser, which seemed to be the cause of all my troubles. Just cleaning it didn't solve anything, so I thought about calibrating it (it worked with my Dreamcast). The problem was, I had no idea how to do that! In the older models there this big-ass white cog that you just had to turn in order to adjust the laser, but in my PS2 there was no such thing! After countless hours on the web I finally discovered than in my model there was not one, but two little cogs, hidden below a shit-load of plastic, barely visible and hard to reach. Fuck!

(that's the fucking cog that, if present, would've made my job a lot easier...)

Still, my patience was running strong that day, so I then proceeded to initiate a routine where I would do just a minor adjust, try it out, turn it off and repeat ad nauseam, until I find the sweet spot where it loads the games just fine. Was I successful? Well, if not, I wouldn't have the patience to write this post, would I? It still occasionally freezes and it doesn't boot PS1 backups, but it boots PS1 originals, PS2 games in CD and PS2 games in DVD. Fuck yeah! Looks like spending a whole after-noon around the damn thing paid off! :D

Old-school FPS for the win!

2008-05-08T05:02:00.000-07:00

Ah, a game-related post, finally! Sorry for the overload of music-related content lately, but you know how I work, I just post what I feel like, when I feel like. Anyway, with GTA IV on my hands one would think that I wouldn't play anything other than that hallowed game, wouldn't it? Well, you're wrong...

Wait, what game could possibly distract me from Rocktar Games' masterpiece? First it was that brilliant RPG IceWind Dale (yeah, I like to write IceWind with a capital W, satan knows why...) that kept me busy for the weekend, but more recently it was a retro blast from the past. Most people first experienced FPS games with classics like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, Half-Life or, moving to more recent times, Call of Duty. Well, although I eventually have played all those games, my first contact with the genre was through the demo of a pretty obscure title, the perfect example of an "hidden gem" that few have played, called Gunman Chronicles.

This game was originally planned as a total conversion for Quake, then Quake II and finally Half-Life, but eventually Sierra (Valve's publisher at the time) noticed it and decided to give the amateur programmers all the support they needed to release a full retail product.

That may be one of the reasons why it wasn't so well received by the fans, who were expecting a free mod for HL, but trust me, this game really deserves to be bought (nowadays it's rather irrelevant since Rewolf, as the producers called themselves, is long extinct), for it is made of greatness, and 7 years after playing the demo I finally have the full retail version!!!

What we have here is a game that plays a lot like HL. That's the same as saying that it's story-driven (at least more than the usual Doom-like), full of (awesome) scripted sequences and overall it's just a memorable, if short, experience. But don't think it's just a clone, for it has a lot of unique and original ideas!

Not only it features some really original locations and enemies (cowboys in space?), but it has some of the best weapons ever seen in a game! They're brilliantly designed (the machine-gun is just awesome) and, even better, they all feature a shit-load of different firing modes! Just the basic pistol, for example, can shoot slow, accurate, shots; a fully charged shot that looks like a ball of energy or rapid fire that makes it look like a sub-machine-gun, and you can even upgrade it with a sniper mod that, guess what, let's you snipe enemies from afar!

And then there's the MULE, a rocket launcher with 11 different customizations! You can select the missiles to fly straight or guided, to explode on impact or in proximity, to shoot freely or just when locked onto a target, etc, etc... In the end there may be only a handful of weapons, but when properly configured, you have exactly what you need for any and every situation you'll encounter.

Overall, the gameplay is so enjoyable that after finishing it I immediately started a new game. Yeah, it's that awesome! It ends rather quickly, though, but that can be a good thing if you have a tight schedule, meaning that everyone can (and definitely should!) play this game. Also, it's based on the HL engine, so nowadays even the crappiest computer can run it, therefore there's just no excuse for a FPS fan not to try this one out.

He lieks little girls

2008-05-06T04:54:00.000-07:00

No, this is not an endorsement to pedophilia, just a humorous video to take a break from the last posts ^^

Hate Eternal - Bringer of Storms

2008-05-05T13:03:00.000-07:00

Remember when I said that there's only two maing genres of heavy music that I don't like, namely Brutal Death Metal and Grindcore? Well, I somehow have to take that back, for I think I've just found a brutal death metal song that I like. I say "I think" because I don't really like it, as I usually like a song. Instead I find it interesting and strangely appealing, to the point of having listened to it for about 10 times now. I think I'm going to look for the whole cd, just to see what the other songs are like.

By the way, props for the drummer, Jade Simonetto. He's pretty young, specially when compared to the other band members, but he bangs the drums like a pro.

Music DVD weekend!

2008-05-03T10:36:00.000-07:00

Ok, not really, since I won't be spending the entire weekend watching my newest acquisitions, but it was the best title I came up with... Anywho, my music DVD collection has just grown larger, thanks to not one, but two new discs! The first was the final piece in my (now) complete Dark Funeral discography.

Yup, that's right, I'm speaking of Attera Orbis Terrarum Part 1!!! (part 2 is coming out this year) This is a rather special release because black metal bands are not exactly known for their dvd's, in fact they rarely release one, so to be able to have an official live record of one of my favourite bands is truly great!

Unfortunately, as I was already expecting, my two favourite tracks, "In the Sign of the Horns " and "Thy Legions Come", are not on the tracklist, but they're the only ones missing, for all the other great tracks are there.

Secrets of the Black Arts

Ravenna Strigoi Mortii

The second is Mastodon's The Workhorse Chronicles, a truly great release featuring tons of content, from the usual concert footage to detailed interviews with the band and that sort of extras. About the live performance, in this gig they played practically every song that matters from their first EP (Lifesblood), compilation album (Call of the Mastodon) and both first and second full-lenght cd's (Remission and Leviathan).

Blood and Thunder

(not from the dvd, couldn't find it on youtube)

Expect fucking brilliant songs then, like Blood and Thunder, shown above, or Hearts Alive, shown below. This one, like the last Iron Maiden song I've posted, is also rated FE (for Fucking Epic)! Really, I'm not kidding, you owe to yourself to watch this, so be sure to play the youtube video that follows:

Hearts Alive

Have you finished watching it? Good, otherwise you've just missed one of the best songs EVAH!!!

Now I can't wait for another Mastodon DVD, because their last album (released after this dvd) is just utterly brilliant, great, AMAZING!!! It lacks something as epic as Hearts Alive, but other than that it's better than all their previous releases put together. Yup, it's that good! In fact it's so good that I think I'm going to make a post just about it! Expect it soon...

Black Sabbath - Iron Man

2008-04-29T10:15:00.000-07:00

Unlike probably most of you, I already knew this song before listening to it in every Iron Man movie commercial. Still, I have to admit I have been listening to it more lately, probably because of said commercials. Anyway, here you have it in all its glory, a great song with what is probably the most recognizable guitar riff in rock/metal history. By the way, since you're already here, listen to some more Sabbath. Pay special attention to master Tony Iommi's riffs and solos, that guy's a fucking genius (and the true mind behind the band, fuck Ozzy with all his bullshit...).

Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

Black Sabbath - N.I.B.

Jet Set Radioooo!!!

2008-04-21T04:02:00.000-07:00

Jet Set Radio, my very first game for the Dreamcast, and even after playing literally hundreds of them, I think it's still my favourite game for the system. It was just so awesome and unique for its time... Hell, it's still awesome and unique today! It represented Sega at its peak of quality and creativity, and like many other great Sega franchises it only had one sequel. You know, because unlike other companies (*cough*Nintendo*cough*), and with the exception of a certain blue hedgehog, Sega is not known for mercilessly milking its franchises to death... (how many different sports did Mario practised already?).

Unfortunately that sequel has been out of my reach for years, since, like many sequels original programmed for the Dreamcast, it ended up being released for the Xbox after Sega officially killed its little white box of awesome. But hey, that's why god invented retro compatibility! Today, thanks to my beloved Xbox 360, I'm finally able to play that hallowed title and man, isn't it fucking great!

The core of the game stays the same. You're still a kid in rollerblades trying to cover a city in graffiti, while avoiding corrupt police officers and clashing with other gangs. What changed is the way you do all this. In the original game you had missions. You enter a zone, have to cover it in graffiti within the given time limit, and you only leave after successfully completing your objective. Now that's all gone. Your garage is no longer just a menu, it's a fully 3D "mini-level" which serves as a hub to reach the city areas, and you can freely go in an out of those areas without any time limit or other constraints. You are free to enter an area, calmly explore it, paint a few tags, even save your game in special spots, and go out without any penalty. Some might argue that this takes away that thrill of being against the clock in the original, but for me this is just great because now you can play at your own rythm, with no stress.

The way the police acts is also different. In the original they would come after you painted a certain number of graffiti, chasing you mercilessly (which in later levels forces us to carefully select which graffiti to paint first, because it's really hard to paint larger ones with tanks behind your tail). Now they only appear at certain spots and when they do, you just have to knock them down and paint their backs for them to run away. Once again, for some people this means no chase=no fun. For me this means no fucking police trying to kill me while I'm busy painting walls, and that's good.

There is one change I don't like, though. In the original, in order to paint the medium and large graffiti you had to move the analog stick according to the directions shown on-screen, kind of simulating the movement of our character, waving its arms in the air while painting the walls. Now you just need to hold down the trigger and move along the area you want to paint, which honestly feels like an unnecessary change and it takes away some of the fun of doing the graffiti.

Graphics wise, the cell-shading of the original game was so freaking awesome that it would be impossible to do much better with the sequel. This is true, but still there are some nice improvements, like gorgeous lighting effects or way bigger areas. Sometimes it looks like they overdid it, though, with areas so full of NPC's the game actually slows down. About this I don't know if it's the game's fault, or it's just the 360 emulator (just because a Xbox game is playable on the 360 it doesn't mean that it'll run flawlessly), but still it's a little annoying. On the plus side of things, as the name implies this game is set after the events of the first one, so be prepared to meet redrawn models of your favourite characters and even some updated versions of well-known areas from the first game. Professor K looks a little too futuristic, though...

But JSR is not only known for great graphics and gameplay, it also had a freaking awesome soundtrack that, to this day, it's still my favourite licensed game soundtrack (the 2nd place belongs to Need for Speed: Underground, great soundtrack that one had...). Featuring a psychedelic mix of rock, hip-hop and techno, it fitted the game perfectly and was even enjoyable by itself. Well, I'm proud to say that JSRF's soundtrack is equally impressive! Once again it's a great mix of various genres, it fits the game perfectly and you'll get so hooked to it you'll immediately consider buying the cd to listen to it while away from the game.

(this review sucks, but at least you can watch more gameplay footage)

Overall, as expected this game is not as ground breaking as the first one, and it's not the perfect sequel either, but it's a really great game and it's well worth the title Jet Set Radio. Fans of the original game owe to themselves to try this one out, for even if this game represents the start of Sega's demise as a respected software-house, it still has some of that magic from the Dreamcast era, something hard to find these days, unfortunately. Also, knowing that so many Sega games are left without follow-ups, we have to be thankful for the mere fact that this one exists.

Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!

2008-04-19T09:05:00.000-07:00

This might come as a shock to you all, dear readers of this blog, but I love Naruto! I'm not your typical otaku who is completely obsessed by everything anime/manga related, but I do enjoy a few select series, like Evangelion, Trigun or Hellsing. As you can see I favour short series with just 10/20/30 episodes, so it took me a while to get interested in such a long anime as Naruto, but I eventually decided to give it a go and immediately got hooked to it. The setting and the story are so original and compelling that one can't help but love it. As any videogame fan, I immediately started looking for games to fuel up my passion, but what I've found left me somewhat disappointed. The portable games are just mediocre and barely entertaining and the PS2 ones are not that much better. Ultimate Ninja is pretty good as a fighter, but lacks in the story and adventure department (the anime is not just about fighting scenes), and Uzumaki Chronicles is just average.

But don't worry, for I've just discovered a great Naruto game, and the story surrounding it is rather interesting! I'm talking of Naruto: Rise of a Ninja, a game developed exclusively for the Xbox 360 (!) by an European software house (!!), and that despite the odds is easily the best Naruto game so far (!!!). Un-fucking-believable, isn't it? I mean, the best game based on an anime (and there are really a lot based on Naruto, just check the wikipedia entry) is neither developed by a Japanese company nor it is released in Japan, and is available only for a console despised by the Japanese. Irony at its best, isn't it?

About the game, unlike the other games that try to follow the series as a whole, Rise of a Ninja, like the name implies, is about Naruto Uzumaki and only him. In story mode he's the only controllable character and the parts of the story where he has little to no involvement were largely left out. This means that, although the game shows the story from the beginning and there are a lot of cut-scenes taken directly from the anime, the game alone won't show you the real picture, and you'll miss out the parts of the plot involving characters other than Naruto if you're not following either the manga or the anime. Still, this is a good way to get started, so this game is not exclusively aimed at Naruto fans.

The gameplay is divided into two main genres: exploration and fighting. The fighting part is pretty obvious, but, considering that it's not the main component of the game, it's surprisingly deep and enjoyable. You take part in one-on-one battles where everything goes, including a variety of hand-to-hand combos, throwing weapons and, of course, jutsus (for those not familiar with the Naruto universe, a jutsu is basically a special attack). The way you activate the jutsus is very interesting. Instead of just doing some sort of combo, you have to press the left trigger and input a series of commands with both analog sticks, convincingly emulating the hand signs the characters use in the series.

But throughout the game you'll probably spend more time exploring than fighting, and this is due to the absolutely amazing depiction of Konoha village. Forget levels or stages, here you have a fully 3D rendered version of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, waiting for you to explore it GTA-style! For fans of the series it's just an incredible feeling to be able to freely explore the mythical Konoha Village, home of our heroes, by running through its streets or jumping unto its roofs. The best part, there are no loadings while in the village, which is yet another amazing feat regarding programming for the 360.

The game has its problems too, of course. After a while some missions get a little repetitive, the "wild" areas outside the village are filled with annoying random encounters and, for me the worst part about the game, it ends (or so I hear, haven't finished it yet) with the final rounds of the Chuunin Exam, which corresponds to somewhere around episode 60 (80 if we count the attack on Konoha). For those unfamiliar with the series, part 1 of the anime has 220 episodes (it's currently on part 2, episode 30 or so), so you can guess that there are lots of things left out from the game, specially abilities that Naruto only learns later in the series, like the Rasengan (Naruto's ultimate jutsu).

Still, what we have here is the best Naruto game currently available for any platform (this might change with the upcoming Ultimate Ninja Storm for the PS3) and it's absolutely a must-have for Naruto fans, not to mention one of the best anime-licensed games ever, proving that apparently European game developers know more about what anime fans want in their games more than the Japanese themselves. If only there was an Evangelion game with this quality...

Ernie and Bert go BRUTAL

2008-04-18T02:51:00.000-07:00

Ah...Sesame Street... I loved that show when I was a kid... I don't remember this episode, though...
Ernie and Bert go brutal, playing some grindcore. Yup, DEITRIX, this is what grindcore is.

This one is for DEITRIX... - Black Fucking Metal part 2

2008-04-16T05:41:00.000-07:00

As promised here's more black metal for ya'll, but specially for DEITRIX since so far he's the only one interested in this shit. This is a Dark Funeral special, to celebrate my almost complete Dark Funeral discography (the discography itself is already completed, I'm just missing the DVD now). Unfortunately, as with most extreme metal, youtube is not a great source of videos. Most are bootlegs shot from the audience with crappy audio, which might make some sense for those who already know the songs, but someone who's listening to them for the first time will get a distorted vision of these songs, know what I mean?

Anyway, above is Open the Gates, from their very first EP, which has really awesome songs for a first effort. Unfortunately my favourite, In the Sign of the Horns, is not on youtube (fuck!), but the other 3 songs are. Besides the two mentioned songs, their first album also has the following:

Shadows Over Transylvania

My Dark Desires

Moving on, probably my all-time favourite Dark Funeral song is Thy Legions Come, from their 2nd full-lenght album Vobiscum Satanas, but once again the only video on youtube is crappy footage from a concert at Wacken Open Air. Still, that song fucking rocks, so here's the vid anyways:

Oh, and here's the trailer for the DVD, Attera Orbis Terrarum:

About black metal, this is a very unique sub-genre of metal music and it's above all an acquired taste. Don't expect to like it right away, because at first it's just going to sound like noise, distorted guitars and a guy screaming. Of course that for most people it will always sound like that, but try to listen to it a couple of times. Who knows, maybe after a while it'll suddenly start to sound more familiar and when you realize it you're already banging to some of the most extreme shit the metal industry has to offer.

Art Attack!

2008-04-15T04:19:00.000-07:00

I am truly a Jack of all trades, master of none, and that includes drawing. Since I had enough strength to hold a pencil I remember liking to draw stuff. Eventually, as I grew up, my art evolved with me, although it never reaching an outstanding level, and somewhere around my teen years I gradually stopped doing it. Don't know exactly why, all I know is that during the last years I can only remember doing a handful of drawings, most left unfinished. Don't know if it's lack of time, skill of inspiration. Anyway, from time to time I still pick up a pencil, a piece of paper, and just draw something, usually pretty wicked.

Above is my latest work, inspired by the cover of a music album I've seen. The original drawing is a little different, since my scanner sucks and I had to do edit it a little to be anywhere near the original work. Still, despite the right side being a little darker than the left one, and other minor issues, this is pretty close to what the original looks like. Pretty neat, eh? Let's see what Deitrix, the other artist on the block, has to say about it :)

BTW, don't ask me what the hell that is. There's no story behind it, it's just "something" that looks cool (in a distorted way...).

Black Fucking Metal!

2008-04-10T14:05:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know, these are not exactly the most popular posts on my blog, as one can guess by the total lack of comments in an Iron Maiden post... (that's a fucking crime!) But fuck it, today I'm in the mood for some hardcore black metal and I thought about sharing it with the world. Do yourself a favour and listen to some of the most wicked shit you've ever seen:

Dark Funeral - The Secrets of the Black Arts

Dark Funeral - Ravenna Strigoi Mortii

Marduk - Baptism by Fire

Marduk - Bleached Bones

Marduk - Castrum Doloris

That's all for now, folks! Hope you enjoyed this little trip through the darkest paths of heavy music as much as I did! ;D

The battle for Asgard is over...

2008-04-07T04:47:00.000-07:00

...for I've just beaten Viking, and this game fucking rocks!!!

It looks like a lot of critics disagree with me, and funnyman too, but overall it looks like the gaming community liked the game, which either means that we're all wrong or that sometimes critics, in all their wisdom, forget exactly what makes a game fun. But on with this review - sort of...

I've already covered the GTA-style of free roaming, the graphics and the combat system in my previous post, but there are still things to talk about, like the assaults on fortresses that put your entire army against the legion of undead! These scenes are FUCKING EPIC and so far they're as close as you can get to experience a LOTR-style full scale war in a fantasy setting. There are literally hundreds of units on the screen at the same time, fighting and killing each other, advancing and retreating on the battlefield, while flaming arrows pierce the sky and dragons roam freely, incinerating foes at your command. It is AWESOME and, along with the free roaming gameplay, it makes this game stand out as a really unique title, different from every other action game out there.

Unfortunately your soldiers don't just appear on your base camp, you have to search the wilderness for their villages, save them from the legion's grasp, and often perform additional tasks before they join you (ungrateful bastards, we just saved them from horrible deaths and they still demand additional favours...). You also have to summon dragons, upgrade your weapons and often sneak in enemy fortresses to retrieve certain items, enough tasks to make you crave for the next big battle. Unfortunately, as you progress, the game starts to get a little repetitive, but trust me, you'll want to do everything to fight in the last huge battle, for it is worth it.

So, overall Viking is a very unique and intense experience, and it deserves its place in the gaming history as the first game to put you in a battlefield surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of allies and enemies, all in a glorious 3rd person perspective and with a truly next-gen graphics engine. There is nothing like it out there, and I definitely hope to see more of it in the future. If you like the viking theme and huge battles, don't miss this game.

After finishing it, I was left with nothing to play so I decided to try and finally beat Dark Messiah of Might & Magic: Elements, but man, that game is so fucked up...

It was a disappointment, because I had really high expectations about it, specially because it's rare to play a 1st person fantasy game that's not an RPG, but unfortunately this game is broken, plain and simple. Despite being released more than a year after the original pc version, it's still full of bugs, some of them annoying, some that actually can make you loose all your progress, and at times it's just fucking boring. I still want to finish it, but I'll need huge amounts of patience...

Iron Maiden - Somewhere in Time

2008-04-05T05:54:00.000-07:00

As in some sort of preparation for the upcoming Iron Maiden concert in Portugal (July/9) I'm revisiting their previous works and right now I'm completely hooked to the 1986 album Somewhere in Time. Join me in this journey through the glorious past of Heavy Metal and relive the early efforts of what came to be the biggest metal band of all time (that's not my opinion, that's a fact!)

WARNING: the following song is rated FE (FUCKING EPIC!!!)

This one is for gnome...

2008-03-27T10:54:00.000-07:00

This, dear gnome, is King Diamond, here in a tribute video that features footage from the rather great movie Clerks II. Appropriate, since this very song was featured in said movies soundtrack and two of the central characters, Jay and Silent Bob, love the guy. Whether you like his music or not (I have a feeling that you won't...), you got to admire his awesome voice and efficient use of falsetto.

It's battle time, biatch!!!

2008-03-26T10:25:00.000-07:00

As a fan of everything Viking related, I can't help but get excited whenever a new game that features those brave Nordic fighters is announced, which sadly doesn't happen often. In fact, now that I think of it, probably the last game I've played about vikings was Rune for the pc (awesome, game by the way)...

Anyway, on to Viking, the new game by Creative Assembly, the same team that brought us the rather excellent Total War series for the pc and the...hum..."interesting" Spartan: Total Warrior for the consoles. Don't get me wrong, that game is a great hack 'n' slash, but after the amazing historical accuracy that those guys revealed with the Total War series, all the mythological elements of Spartan were a huge let-down for me, who was looking for a more realistic, authentic experience.

Because of this I wasn't too excited about Viking. I was curious, sure, but I still prepared for the worst. Well, it turns out that the game indeed features a lot of mythological aspects, with the enemies being beasts from the underworld, weapons that can be powered up with magical runes, giant stones that act as teleporters and all that mystical crap. Still, there's a lot of authenticity when it comes to the weapons themselves, the design of the villages, the overall behaviour of the npc's, all little things that really help bringing a little feeling of authenticity to the game. Everything that involves Nordic mythology is also relatively accurate, so instead of being a real "viking simulator", this game is more of a portrayal of the world the Norsemen themselves pictured with all their gods and beasts.

On to the gameplay. Instead of being a linear and straight-forward action game, this is actually a free-roaming adventure! Think of it like a medieval GTA or an hack 'n' slash Oblivion. You don't have the whole world at your feet though, there is not a single continuous land but 3 big islands. Still, these pieces of land are simply huge (according to CA, the first one is over 1 km square and the 2nd one is more than twice the size of that), and there are no visible loading times when exploring each one, so that is a pretty solid graphics engine they got there.

So far the gameplay is very simple. You have your tipical quick attack, charged attack, you can jump, you can defend and you can also evade your opponents attacks. When you press the attack button your character automatically charges toward the closest foe, so there's no slicing the air when the fuckers are more distant than you fought. Also, your character automatically runs is a lower stance whenever there are enemies nearby, which not only alerts you to their presence, but also prevents you from alerting them to yours.

As I've said before, the graphics are really good. Everything, from the enemies to your allies or even the surroundings, is heavy in detail and it's really impressive how they managed to pull this off without having constant loading times interrupting the action. There's one thing I hate, though. As you all probably know by know, if there's something I hate in most game of today is over-the-top lighting effects. Reflections that leave you blind, multi-coloured light-sources that paint the world around you and make you feel like your tripping or even just that visual effect that looks like there's a silk curtain between you and your tv (hard to explain, hope you get my point).

This game has it all, and the most annoying thing is a medallion that we get right from the beginning that illuminates everything around us like a giant blue lamp. It's no surprise that everything wants to kill us, since prolonged exposure to our character surely must leave anyone blind!

Ok, jokes aside, I've just started this game, so this is not a review yet. There are other things I want to talk about in the future, like the runes or the allied soldiers, but give me time to explore those features. For now all I have to say is that so far this looks like one of the best games of the year, specially if you're into the viking theme, so all action fans out there should keep an eye out for this game.

Army of Two

2008-03-25T04:45:00.000-07:00

Or Army of Three, to be more precise, those guys would be nothing without me controlling them. Ok, jokes aside, me and this game have a curious story. As I've said a lot of times before, this was one of those cases where, in theory, the game sounded great! Two guys who can stand for a whole army, doing missions together, looking out for each other and wearing freaking cool masks! How can an action game get any better?

Then the first gameplay videos came out and, for some reason, it all looked much less impressive. The middle-eastern scenarios were all but refreshing or appealing, there seemed to be little feedback from shooting the guns, and the overall gameplay seemed dull and unattractive, with too much emphasis on an aggro system were your characters literally became transparent or start to glow red.

Still, for some odd reason, I decided to give the game a shot. Hey, how bad could it be? Certainly not any more disappointing than Sega Rally Revo, right? Well, let me tell you, as soon as I started playing Army of Two, I suddenly couldn't stop without finishing the damn game. Yeah, it was that addictive! I remember that the digipak edition of Cathedral's latest album, The Garden of Unheartly Delights, came with an apple scented disc that let off a fragrance from the warmth of the cd player. Well, I'm pretty sure that EA did the same with Army of Two, but with amphetamines or some shit to keep us playing!

Ok, let's analyse this objectively, what exactly makes this such a great game? For a start the story is pretty compelling, not at the same level of, let's say, Kane & Lynch, but it's definitely interesting to see (or better, play) the daily lives of these two mercenaries. In fact, I actually have one complaint about the story and that's because there's too much of it, I would prefer to see more of Rios and Salem's lives before it all going down the "conspiracy theory" path.

On to the gameplay, anyway. I have to admit, as dull as the shooting may seem on videos, when you actually play the game it gets pretty enjoyable. I still hate the way it's hard to shoot someone up close (but no so close that you can do a melee attack), and the enemies who can only be shoot from behind look like a pathetic excuse to create some mid-level mini-bosses, make the game slightly harder and force you to use the aggro system. Still, it's pretty fun when you shoot a guy in the back and he flies off in an exaggerated manner or when you nail that headshot, and the cover system works pretty well, so overall the gameplay is really good.

Story, check. Gameplay, check. What's left? Oh, graphics, of course. This game uses Unreal Engine 3, 'nuff said. Ok, not quite, but trust me, this game makes a really good use of that engines capabilities. Like I've said already, at first the middle-eastern levels let me down, because not only they're uninteresting (houses and sand, duh...) but also they're used in every action game nowadays and I'm starting to get sick of them. Fortunately they're not the only ones, and when you're suddenly parachuting over a giant aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean, things start to look really good! But wait, there's more, for when you reach the last levels you'll see some pretty original and interesting scenarios (I won't spoil it for you, of course...).

So, to sum it up, if my experience taught me something it was to not always judge a game without playing it myself. If you, like me, also crossed it off your "to buy" list because you weren't impressed by the videos, do yourself a favour and play it. Who knows, maybe you'll have a pleasant surprise...

Kane & Lynch: Dead Men

2008-03-22T12:13:00.000-07:00

This is a game that I've followed with a lot of interest from the moment it was announced, not only because the first informations left the idea of a great game on the making, but also because it was made from the same guys behind the Hitman franchise and the hidden gem called Freedom Fighters. When it was finally released, most reviews were pretty harsh with it, not to mention all the Jeff Gerstmann scandal, but I just ignored all that and kept my interest in it, willing to try it out and see for myself whether if it's a misunderstood game or if it deserves all the critics.

I finally decided to do it after finishing Army of Two (more on that later), since I was already in the mood for 3rd-person, cooperative shooters, and I'm really glad I did it, for despite all its flaws, this is still a great game. The bad parts are not that bad, actually. For once many complained about the graphics, but honestly, not only I didn't find them offensive to my eyes, I actually liked the sober look and the lack of shiny special effects. In an era of advanced lighting systems that leave you blind at times, with reflections everyone, to the point were the quality of the textures are irrelevant since you just can't see them behind the curtain of light that stands before them, it was really refreshing to play a game were you can always see what's surrounding you without any shiny shit distracting your vision. Not only that, but there's also a lot of interactivity with the scenarios, not at the same level of Stranglehold but definitely a lot better than with almost every other game out there.

Also, the level design and art direction really make up for the lack of a photo-realistic graphics engine, so in the end the presentation is definitely one thing the game does right, at least in my book. For me the real flaws are the bugs, the limited IA of our buddies and the excessive difficulty of some parts. Other than that, what the game does it usually does good, and the sound of the guns is way better than in Army of Two, for example. Here you really feel like you're shooting guns instead of pea-shooters.

Talking about Ao2, both games are similar in the way that they're both 3rd-person games based on a duo of characters. The main difference is that here you some times have other allies that you can command besides your "fixed" partner (Lynch) and that the main characters are not exactly as friendly as Salem and Rios from Army of Two. It's quite the opposite, since they're forced to work together and they hate that. This takes me to the plot of the game, and let me tell you, the story was probably what kept me most motivated to finish the game, because it's one of those cases were you simply have to know what will happen next.

It's quite a solid story for an action-game, and it's pretty dramatic. From the start you know that in the end your character (Kane) is not supposed to survive, and although your actions later on will determine the ending of the game, from two possible situations, this involves choosing between which lives to save, and you simply can't save everyone... Also, the canon ending is, in my opinion, the sadder, which from the start sets the tone for the future sequel. Despite the dark tone, this is definitely a story that deserves to be told, and I can't wait for the sequel to see how it ends.

So, in the end, despite all the critics and negativism that surrounded Kane & Lynch, this is definitely a game worth playing. It may not be a Triple-A title at the same level of some Hitman games (Contracts sucked...) or the masterpiece called Freedom Fighters, but look at it as a rough diamond. It may look flawed, but in it's core this is a very solid game, with a really engaging plot, that deserves to be played by every action fan.

Eluveitie - Inis Mona

2008-03-17T09:07:00.000-07:00

Just a quickie here. The video you can see above represents my latest musical find, Eluveitie. Suggested by a friend, they quickly catch my attention with this most awesome song called Inis Mona. I immediately got hold of their last album, Slania, and let me tell you that it'ss full of AWESOME! If you like their unique blend of folk metal and melodic death metal, that is.

Here, listen to some more:

Senser - The Key

2008-03-13T10:15:00.001-07:00

Don't think that I forgot about Senser, Father :) In fact I liked them so much that right now I'm listening to their first cd, Stacked Up. It's good to take a break from other things I've been listening recently like Dimmu Borgir, Sepultura or Soulfly (I really recommend everybody to check out these links). Also, recently I've been listening to Ill Ninõ, specifically the album One Nation Underground. You should check them out, Father. They're a nu metal band, but with a pretty unique sound to them, with some tribal influences and interesting lyrics who mix English and Spanish, sometimes even in the same chorus. My favourite music from that cd:

Zero Gunner 2

2008-03-13T09:41:00.000-07:00

After the blast I had while playing Zero Gunner, I couldn't wait to try out its sequel, now on a real console instead of an emulator, so I popped the game in, turned on the Dreamcast, and...well, I liked some things but there's also some stuff that I really hate, so in the end I guess I have mixed feelings about this one.

To start with the good things, this game is beautiful. Really. Sometimes I end up forgetting just how powerful the Dreamcast is, and when I see it in action it blows me away. The textures are very detailed, the models have a great design to them, in that arcade fashion that only the Dreamcast seems to show, and the stages are really unique and impressive.

The gameplay is also very enjoyable for the most part, but the rotation system just fucks it all up. Unlike in the original ZG, where you would first lock onto an enemy and then rotate around him, here there's no lock-on system and you freely rotate your choopper. So far, so good. The problem is in the way this is done. To rotate you have to hold a button (thus stop firing) and then use the d-pad to rotate your ship. Now imagine doing this when all hell is broking loose around you! It's confusing, unintuitive and worse, it will most certainly make you loose lives, because you'll get so disoriented you'll loose any sense of direction and invariably run into enemy fire.

Unfortunately this is necessary, since enemies (and sometimes bosses) come from all directions, and sometimes the screen moves sideways or down instead of up. Shit... To make things worse, although this game offers many difficulty options, even the easiest setting is hard as hell. After two unsuccessful tries where I would always end up running out of credits in the last level, I thought "fuck it" and resorted to my life-saver, the Code Breaker cheat disc. With unlimited lives I eventually was able to beat the fucking game, but I immediately put it back in the shelter, since there's no extra modes to keep you busy, only a replay mode where you watch a previously saved game.

I may seem angry at this game for being so hard, but that's not the case. Hey, Under Defeat it fucking hard, I was never able to beat it, and I still love it. My problem with Zero Gunner 2 is that it's not only hard due to unforgiving enemies, but also due to a fucking control scheme that makes no sense! You don't loose because you suck, you loose because the control scheme to rotate the damn chopper is insanely unintuitive and impractical, and that's basically my major complaint about this game. Of course you can eventually get the hang of it you practice enough, but I doubt it's worth it when the Dreamcast as such an awesome library of shooters.

I would still recommend it to shmup fans, but be prepared for a challenge.

Arcade goodness

2008-03-12T08:46:00.000-07:00

After sometime of almost exclusive dedication to my beloved 360, I thought it was time to go back, to simpler, more direct experiences. Yup, old-school arcade action was what I needed. And what are the best places to get it? That's right, Dreamcast and arcade emulators. Starting with the little white box of wonders, I decided to wipe out the dust that was already covering it's exterior and give the machine a little run. The game? Cannon Spike.

Featuring several well-know characters from various Capcom titles (only one character was created exclusively for this game), this is pure arcade goodness that plays somewhat like the cult hit Smash TV. Using an overhead camera, you're put in levels that basically consists of just a small area filled with bad guys. After you wipe them out, the "semi-boss" comes and after him the real boss of the stage shows up. You beat the fucker and move on, simple as that. The downside is that the game is painfully short, ending in (depending on your skills and difficulty level) 20 minutes/half an hour, if not less.

Once you beat it for the first time, an artwork gallery shows up, but that's about it. There's no secret characters (actually there is, but they don't need to be unlocked, you just have to figure out how to play with them, and it's worth since we're talking about Megaman and Bulleta from the Darkstalkers series), secret stages or additional play modes. There's a 2-player mode and nothing else, all you have left to do is beat records or play with all the characters (they play somewhat different, specially when it comes to the special attacks).

But despite that this is a great game. The gameplay is solid and as fun as an arcade game gets. It would be better with a dual analog controller, but still the Dreamcast pad gets the job done. Also the graphics are really great, I wonder how this game looks when hooked up to an HDTV through a VGA cable... Overall this is a great game that I recommend to all you arcade action fans out there.

After beating this game (several times), I thought it was time for a more traditional shmup experience, and the first game that came to my mind (don't know exactly why) was Zero Gunner 2, also on the Dreamcast. But wait, that's 2, what about ZG1? The bad thing is, 1 was an arcade game only, there's no console port. The good thing is, it runs almost perfectly using the Model 2 emulator I talked about sometime ago in the Saturn Junkyard!

It actually runs even better, since you can play it in full screen mode at a maximum resolution of 1280x1024. That's as much as my monitor can handle! Talking about gameplay, it plays mostly like any other vertical smhup, the bullet hell variety, except for the fact that you can lock-on to enemies and then move freely around them, even to the point of turning your chooper 180º and shooting down instead of up!

This really contributes to differentiate it from the countless other shmups we see and play everyday and it was probably the idea behind the most excellent Under Defeat, one of the last official Dreamcast releases. Other than that, the progression is also interesting. From the main menu you can choose to play every single level in a row, but you can also select from the Europe, Asia and USA "campaigns", each with their own set of 5 levels to beat. This is great for an arcade game, since you can try the 3 different scenarios at your own will, without having to beat one to have access to the other.

The downside is it's difficulty. Yes, it's an arcade game, and at least using an emulator you won't end up broke, but still it could be a little easier at times. Anyway, as long as you're patient and don't forget to add more credits, this is a pretty good shooter to spend an hour or so with. Not to mention you can get both the game and the emulator on the web for free! What are you waiting for? Go grab it now! As always, if anyone needs links or help configuring the emulator, just ask.

PS: I just found out that both Cannon Spike and Zero Gunner were developed by the same company, Psikyo. Funny, uh?

Movie round-up

2008-03-11T05:17:00.000-07:00

When I talked about a movie, in Father K's blog, that gave me the shivers even though it wasn't an horror movie, I was talking about Grizzly Man. This is basically a documentary about the life of Timothy Treadwell, a bear enthusiast that, after spending 13 summers with the bears of the Katmai National Park (Alaska), eventually got killed and eaten, along with his girlfriend, by one.

The reason it sometimes made me feel somewhat uncomfortable is pretty obvious, the entire film is about a person that we know from the start that gets killed in the end. This is relevant because the majority of the film consists in footage shot by Tim himself, with the remainder being interviews with people who knew him, so eventually we get kind of attached to him.

He is not the kind of person you like easily, though, being the odd-ball he is, and most of you will probably think that he was plain crazy, but I can actually relate to him, due to the fact that apparently we share some points of view. I have a less romantic vision of animals, though.

Don't get me wrong, as I've said in the post about I Am Legend, I fucking love animals, more than I love a lot of people, actually, but I don't fool myself. Tim, on the other hand, actually believed the bears liked him and wouldn't hurt him. Anyway, I don't judge him. He lived, and ultimately died, doing what he loved the most, and that's something that not all of us can say.

Whether you think he was a genius or a madman, I recommend you to see this movie. It's not something to watch light-hearted, and at times it can make you think, but overall, for me at least, it was a good way to spend a couple of hours.

On the other hand, if you prefer a lighter experience, The Simpsons Movie is for you! As a big fan of The Simpsons, I really didn't know what to expect. Would it be a worthy addition to the license or just an easy way to make more cash off this franchise? Well, I'm very happy to say that, simply put, I couldn't imagine a better movie based on The Simpsons. It seems like they picked up the absolute best parts of 20 episodes or so and put them together to make a movie. Forget all the dispensable stuff every episode usually has, this is a fucking laughing riot from start to end!

I really don't know what more to say without spoiling the movie, but believe me, if you're a fan of The Simpsons (who's not?), this is a must see. All the major characters are there, the animation is simply superb and overall this is definitely one of the funniest movies I've ever seen.

Homer salutes you:

(believe it or not, this is actually a scene in the movie)

Catch up - part 2

2008-03-07T13:18:00.000-08:00

Another "part 2" post, how original... Well, lately my imagination's been running low, so bear with these god-awful titles...

Anyway, this time I'm just going to talk about games, since I haven't seen any new movies recently (maybe I'll see the Simpsons Movie this weekend). For some reason I don't feel like writing much lately, so I'm just going to resume my gaming experiences. Don't expect full reviews.

Medal of Honor: Airborne

The MoH series has quite a past. It started as a couple of pretty decent FPS's on the original Playstation, and then made the jump to the PC with the classic MOH: Allied Assault, a game that was an instant hit partly due to the simply amazing Omaha Beach level. It was if the movie Saving Private Ryan had come alive or something, and you could play it! Fucking awesome... Then the development team ran away to make the Call of Duty franchise and probably all of you know the rest. Poor, uninspired games, both for the PC and 128bit consoles flooded the market just to put more money in EA's pockets and put the MoH name to shame...

But wait, for all was not lost! In fact, after playing the demo, I had high expectations about Airborne, the first next-gen MoH game. The possibility of landing anywhere on the battlefield and the upgradeable weapons sounded like awesome additions to a, otherwise, stagnant series. Unfortunately, as usual, it all turned out to be less impressive than it sounded...

Yes, you can land almost anywhere, but that's not so awesome as one might think. The fact that you can see the whole level right from the start somehow takes that sense of discovery away, and after you're on the ground it's pretty much like the CoD levels where you have multiple objectives. It's a good addiction, don't get me wrong, but it's not the next big thing.

And the upgradable weapons... There are awesome, useful, upgrades, like scopes and bigger magazines, but I was fucking disappointed when I killed dozens of Nazi soldiers just to get a fucking bayonet for my shotgun (it's useless to go melee, anyway, since just a hit from those fuckers takes away more energy than a whole clip of bullets) or a grenade launcher for my rifle.

About the structure of the game and the gameplay itself, there are other things I don't like. For instance, unlike in pretty much every CoD, and specially CoD 4 (yeah, I know, different setting, but they're still similar games), where your partners play a big role, here it looks like you're winning the war alone.. We usually have a handful of allies by our side, but they're fucking useless since they are barely able to kill anything and we end up doing all the dirty work by ourselves. Yeah, I know, this is a game, we are the stars, but fuck it, this is not a one-man war, it was the biggest fucking conflict in history!

Also, what the fuck where they thinking when they made the last levels of the game? Putting you against Nazi super-soldiers wearing gas-masks (to scare us? Because there's no smoke or gas grenades or anything), armed with MG 42's. Oh yeah, that's right, the fuckers shoot MG 42's! Not, not mounted ones, they shoot them just like that, like they're holding regular machine-guns. And not only that, they take 20 or more bullets to die, depending on your gun. OMFG! Are they, like, genetically altered or something? Is this Return to Castle Wolfenstein all over again? And what kind of idea was that, making "super soldiers"? Aren't the regular ones good enough? After seeing this I wondered why Hitler himself wasn't the last boss, maybe controlling a giant robot or something...

My final verdict is, buy if if you're a nut about WWII. Otherwise, just go play CoD4, Turok or, maybe, Halo 3.

Conan

Great game. Of course I have more to say, but this is pretty much what I think of this game. An hack 'n' slash that plays a lot like God of War, the best thing I can say about it is that it's very faithful to the whole Conan universe and mythology. The barbarian is brutal, relentless and doesn't miss the chance to save imprisoned (and almost naked, including perfectly visible, and well modelled, breasts) women. Don't expect sex mini-games like in GoW, though. Talking about GoW, I dare say that Conan takes it's gameplay a step forward, with much more tactical combat.

While in Sony's game we can pretty much beat the whole thing using the same combo (or just button mashing), in Conan, somewhere around the middle of the game the enemies start to block and prevent us from grabbing them, requiring some specific and well-timed attacks to be beaten.
We can also grab the weapons of our enemies, allowing for 3 very different styles of fighting: one weapon, 2 weapons or two-handed weapons.

To sum it up, if you like GoW or just this type of action games in general, give Conan a try. It's a solid, entertaining and pretty long game that should satisfy your need for action and violence (almost forgot to mention that, this game is definitely not for kids).

Sega Rally

I wasn't planning on talking about this game, but what the heck, since I'm already at it, here it goes. Like the Nerd says: "It fucking sucks, it sucking fucks and I don't like it!". Ok, now seriously, the game is not exactly bad. In fact it's pretty good...if you can handle its gameplay, that is. The graphics are amazing, with that arcade vibe that only Sega can do; there are plenty of cars and courses to keep you entertained, and then there's the online mode, a first for the series. The only thing that could make it better would be Sega Rally 95 HD for a bonus. That and decent handling for the cars...

I won't make a huge fuss about this because it's apparently not a defect of the game, but mine instead. I say this because our dear Father K (and millions of gamers throughout the world apparently) happens to like it, but I for an instance can't seem to enjoy it. It's just not the game for me, I guess...

Anyway, lately I've been playing the most excellent Colin McRae: DiRT and let me tell ya, that's my shit! That's the kind of rally for me! The almost perfect blend between arcade and simulator, the almost photo-realistic graphics, the superb damage system of the cars, it all comes together to make what is one of the few games that I really enjoyed on my 360. One thing is to like a game, another is to genuinely feel good while playing it. Having actual fun, not just passing time. But more on that later, cause I'm not even half through it yet...

Da Weasel - round 2

2008-03-04T07:24:00.000-08:00

Since my dear Father K apparently liked my post about the Portuguese collective Da Weasel, I decided to post some more of they stuff. Not exactly what I wanted, since youtube's offer is more limited that I expected, but still there's good stuff to be found. Above is God Bless Johnny, a song from their very first EP, their only work in English (at least this one you'll understand).

Outro Nível (another level) is another of their earlier works, while Força (uma página de história) [Strenght (a page of history)] is much more recent, from their 2004 album Re-Definições (re-definitions). About the latter, the final part of the song is actually a different song in the album, but for some reason they decided to put the two together for the video. Hope you like since one of the comments says " Totally lovin this song even tho i deh understand a word of it...catchy tune tho n his voice sounds well gid".

As an extra, here is a (rather nice, considering the source) video of Toda a Gente (everybody) played live at one of the gigs I went. Yup, I'm there in the crowd, somewhere...

Moonspell - Alma Mater (live at Wacken 2007)

2008-02-28T12:30:00.000-08:00

Moonspell, probably my favourite Portuguese band, put on an amazing performance last year at Wacken Open Air, an annual festival that's basically like Meca for metalheads. Both bands and fans from all around the world go to the German town of Wacken for 3 days of pure fucking metal! About the Moonspell gig in particular, it was a pretty short one, with just 9 songs, but it was good one nevertheless. Included were 4 songs from the (then) new album (including the single Finisterra, but unfortunately my favourites Sanguine, Upon the Blood of Men and Luna were left out) and the classic Alma Mater, shown above, from their very first album, Wolfheart.

Fucking awesome song, this one is. Unfortunately that video doesn't make it justice, here's the album version in case anyone's interested, which I doubt, since my post about Dimmu Borgir's show (also at Wacken 2007) doesn't have a single comment...

Nightmares are made of this...

2008-02-28T07:22:00.000-08:00

Soldier of Fortune. For most gamers this means blood, violence and gore, walls painted red and limbs flying off. For me it always meant more. Of course, the graphical violence was always a trademark of the series, and that's a good thing, since there's no alternative when it comes to brutal but always credible dismemberments and chunks of meat flying through the air, but this was just part of the franchise and not it's main selling point. After the first contact what kept gamers playing was the very solid and satisfactory gameplay, and also the attention to detail (try shooting enemies in the hand to see them drop their guns). SoF gameplay was so addictive that in the second game they even added an "instant mission" mode, that randomly generates new simple missions, for players to pass time without having to repeat the campaign levels over and over again. Great.

Well, now that you know this you can imagine my pure joy when a new SoF was announced. I jumped, I screamed, I dreamed of how a SoF game with a next-gen engine would look like. Then came the fear, when they announced that Raven, the software house behind the franchise, wouldn't be making the new game and that it would be a budget title. OMFG! The 3rd game in one of the best FPS series of all time, a fucking budget game!

Still, there was hope. The first screens appeared and the game didn't look that bad. "Just wait and see for yourself", I thought. Well, now I've finally played it, want to hear my opinion about Soldier of Fortune: Payback? The mere fact that they made a joke out of one of my favourite franchises made me want to kill myself, that's what I think about it! How could they fuck it up so bad? What the fuck were they thinking when they made this piece of shit???

Sorry if I look like the Angry Video Game Nerd right now, with this abnormal quantity of swearing, but honestly, I can't help it. Where should I start? The IA is a fucking joke. Most of the time enemies will run right at you or, worse, run by you, completely ignoring your presence until they reach where the hell they wanted to go to then suddenly turn around and start shooting.

The "gore zones" are also a fucking joke. SoF1 had 26, SoF had 36, Payback has 9. 9, for Christ's sake!!! While in the previous games you could accurately turn the bodies of your enemies into big piles of meat, here you just can rip the legs(knee and waist), arms (elbow and shoulder) and heads off. The official site says "Enemies will not only react to the specific area they’ve been hit but also to the power of the weapon they’ve been hit with". That must be why you can pop heads off with your pistol...

I could go on and on about how the graphics are just average, the gameplay is barely entertaining and how they fucked up this game so bad, but honestly I'm already tired of writing right now and the game just doesn't deserve the effort. Just take my advice and stay the fuck away from this game. Want gore? Go play Sof1 or 2 instead and forget this one even exists. In fact I think they didn't name it SoF3 for a reason, for the fans to just keep it out of the picture when they take a look at the whole franchise.

This one is for funnyman...

2008-02-28T01:44:00.001-08:00

Please tell me you see the difference between Max Payne from MP:

and Max Payne from MP2:

Catch up

2008-02-25T10:59:00.000-08:00

A lot happened in terms of entertainment since my last post, so I'll try to sum it all up in a , hopefully, not to long post. Breathe in:

Movies:

Despite funnyman's warning about this movie, I decided to see it anyway, and guess what...I'm glad I did it! The action scenes are nicely done, well choreographed, with an interesting mix of shoot outs and sword fighting (no hand-to-hand combat, thought, so technically this can't be considered a martial arts movie) and the plot, well, for an action film is fucking great! I don't want to spoil it for you, but there's a plot twist here as amazing as classics like "Luke, I am your father!". So, my verdict is, if you like action movies, you should definitely give this one a shot.

This one is for Junlee, don't know if you've already seen There Will be Blood, but in case you haven't, here's what I think of it. It's a pretty good movie. Sorry I'm not as enthusiastic as most critics who called it a "masterpiece" and so on, it's my fault really since I can't seem to enjoy a movie with a really good story as much as a flick with loads of shit blowing up and blood splattering on the walls. Still, I admire the damn good acting and the interesting depiction of such a curious period in the American history, so if you're in for a good (yet tragic) story, I think you'll be pleased.

On a side note, I'm not a movie expert by any means, in fact my knowledge about this form of art is pretty limited, so I had never heard of this Daniel Day Lewis guy who plays the main role in this movie. Still, he looked familiar, and now I know why. He starred in one of my favourite movies, Gangs of New York!

On to games:

Finally I've played Call of Duty 4. It was about damn time! But the wait was worth, because the game exceeded all my expectations, and keep in mind that I've played almost every Call of Duty game out there, so it wasn't exactly easy to surprise me. But this game managed to do it, thanks to some of the most intense interactive cut-scenes I've ever seen and some of the most intense missions I've ever played. I don't want to ruin the experience of those who haven't played it yet, so I'm not going describe specific events here, but trust me, this is a game every FPS fan must absolutely play, and don't even think about just playing online. As great as the multiplayer modes are (CoD 4 owns Halo 3, and the statistics prove it), the single-player campaign is absolutely amazing. In fact I'm currently playing the game again on elite difficulty, but it's proving to be almost impossible at times, since you die with just 2/3 hits... Don't worry, there are difficulty settings to please everyone.

A great interactive action movie, that's all I can say about this one. What else would you expect from the pseudo-sequel to one of John Woo's masterpieces, Hard Boiled? It plays a lot like one of my all-time favourites, Max Payne, meaning you control your character in a 3rd person view and shoot a lot of bad guys while jumping in the air in slow motion. Not only that, but it also allows the player to slide over tables, run up stair rails or role around on carts, all of this while shooting bad guys in the face...or in the crotch (that got to hurt). But what impressed me the most in this game was the technology.

The engine core engine is the very popular Unreal Engine 3, but the developer's heavily modified it order to create the most awesome interactive environments you've ever seen. Everything on the levels react to bullets and more often than not they do that in a spectacular fashion, with big structures like statues that slowly fall apart with each consecutive shot, until they're nothing more than a pile of rubble on the ground. Believe me, I know I say this a lot, but this time I really mean it: it's fucking awesome! You can even shoot flags. Flags! For year's I've been trying to put a hole into a fucking flag, but the games never allowed it, with the still intact pieces of cloth laughing at me after an unsuccessful try to damage them, but in this game I was finally able to do it! Fuck yeah, now that's attention to detail!

Devil May Cry 4 finally!

2008-02-21T03:52:00.000-08:00

So, after a hard journey of trying to play this game with a fucked up thumb and arguing with funnyman over the game's quality, I finally finished DMC4 and I'm here to talk about it. I know that a lot of people out there have been dying for my review (ok, two people, actually...) but I'm not going to do it. Wait... what? Yup, that's right, what's the point of writing a long, descritive, accurate, well written review when that's already been done? Twice? Instead, I'm just going to point out some of the things I liked and disliked about the game and, of course, my final verdict.

Starting with the bad, this is a mix of flaws and nitpicking. Starting with the obvious, this is not Dante's game. Fortunately Nero is a pretty interesting character and he looks and acts a lot like Dante, so it's not Metal Gear Solid 2 all over again (don't know wtf am I talking about? In MGS for the most part instead of Snake, the main character of the series, you control some stupid androgynous punk named Raiden...). Still, there wasn't enough Dante for me, so I hope to see him more in an hypothetical DMC5.

Talking about Dante, we can't forget the infamous backtracking. As I said before, Capcom could've done better, but it's not as bad as one might think since playing with Dante is very different from playing with Nero and the replayed levels are always somewhat different from the 1st time and shorter, so it doesn't get boring.

To end my rambling I was somewhat pissed off by the absence of an explanation regarding Nero's origins. All we get is the information that (SPOILER) "he has the blood of Sparda". Well, that narrows it down a bit, meaning he has to be either Sparda's son or grand-son. Now, this is just my theory, but I'm more inclined to say he's his grand-son, specifically the son of Vergil. Before calling me crazy, think about it. Vergil was more friendly with his demonic side than Dante, which could somewhat explain Nero's arm, not to mention Nero was able to restore and wield Yamato. How the fuck could he do that without being a descendant of the sword's original owner? (SPOILER end)

Now, on to the good part! First, the graphics. This game is EPIC! REally, I can't stress this enough, this game is absolutely gorgeous! Pictures and videos don't make it justice, you really have to play it to see. The characters (and enemies) models, the detailed textures and effects, the artistic design of the levels, everything in this game looks stupendous...except for the fugly shadows, that is... but forget that, it really only shows on the forest level, and even that level is so great that you'll soon forget about it.

Now, about the gameplay, it's amazing how they managed to introduce new things without losing everything that made it great. I'm obviously talking about Nero's demonic arm that lets you grab enemies from a distance and smash them into the ground, which spectacular animations unique to each type of enemy (not to mention when you grab a boss). I have one complaint, though (wait, isn't this supposed to be about the good things of the game? Meh, fuck it...), Blue Rose, Nero's revolver, is fucking useless! Unlike Dante, Nero doesn't get new weapons, so we get stuck with this peashooter that does almost no damage even to the weakest enemies. Damn! Fortunately the devil arm kind of compensates for this, pulling the enemies closer to us so that we can slash them properly.

Well, what's left to say? Overall this is a game I really liked. It's fun, fast-paced, pretty long for an action-game and, above all, it's a worthy sequel to one of my favourite franchises. Oh, I almost forgot, most of you probably don't know how fond I am of the Devil May Cry series. Simply put, DMC was the very first game I played on a PS2 and basically the game that made me buy the system. Funny enough, I later managed to grab that exact copy of the game. I played it at a friend's house and he later sold it to me. After that I've played every DMC game, including the infamous DMC2 and the awesome prequel Dante's Awakening. Now I can proudly say that I've also played the latest entry in the franchise, and every fan of action games should play it too!