LANCOZA Blog

Although the latest installment of Metal Gear Solid received mixed reviews, this special edition PlayStation 3 may change your mind regardless of which console camp you support.

 It is literally brimming with pure awesome! Check out the gallery, it really has to be seen to be believed.

 

 

When the marketing machine goes mad there really is only one response .

The release deluge is gearing up for the holiday season and though I agree with the sentiment I can't say that I'm a fan of the genre choice .

I have avoided delving too deeply into Dead Space. My first impression is that it may be like Doom 3 which would be a pity. I hope it's more like Event Horizon rather than anything else.

In giant robot news, there is a new Macross game for the PSP. And it's true that most Macross games have been dreadful, I still can't resist hoping that this one is different. The PSP controls do not lend themselves to quick response action games but then again they did a decent job with God of War, so maybe there is hope. The catch of course is that it's only available in Japan.

 

I have never really been a fan of Special Editions of games. They normally add a sticker and a cheap printed T-shirt to the game and then add a premium to the price. There are of course exceptions like Fallout 3 , Mirror's Edge and Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway . Even though I am not a fan of either Fallout 3 or Brothers in Arms, the special edition looks very tempting. This is the purpose of a special edition, it should provide value to fans of the franchise and also attract fresh blood.

I am a HUGE fan of Gears of War and am a bit disappointed by the special edition offering I was hoping for a figurine or some COG tags but alas it was not to be. Can someone please send out a memo to the marketing people and explain to them that a fancy game case/box is really not as cool as they think it is unless of course it's a safety deposit box .

If like me you are a fan of bags, the bad news is that the Mirror's Edge limited edition bag is only available to US residents.

 

As we head to the holiday season, game releases are coming out thick and fast. At the same time the hype machine is winding itself up to a deafening crescendo. New screenshots, videos and even leaked game manuals abound. None of this content adds much to experiencing the actual game. I would argue that it takes much away from the game that it is intended to promote. It's a bit like spoiling parts of a movie. A part of the fun in playing a new game is in discovering things for yourself, the new weapons, enemies and end of level bosses.

Game trailers like movie trailers that tell you too much, can end up spoiling the experience for you. In the over saturated media storm that precedes a game release, less is definitely more.

 

Penny Arcade has a few guest writers weighing in on the Digital Rights Management debate. As with so many debates that rage on the Internet, anonymity combined with a public forum leads to a mild form of psychosis. These writers bring some much needed sanity to the debate.

Bonus points to anyone who remembers which Star Wars game made use of the code wheel .

I played all the Ninja Gaidens that have been released. Starting with the Arcade version. I played it on the Xbox 1 and I have now played the latest installment on the Xbox 360. All the versions have one thing in common, they are damned hard .

The arcade version consumed my pocket money at an alarming rate and I soon learned to steer well clear of it. When I played the Xbox 1 version, I was less concerned about reaching the end of level bosses than I was with surviving the ordinary ninjas. This was no run of the mill hack and slash. If you did not plan your defense and attacks carefully you would soon be in Ninja heaven.

The end of level bosses were more punishment than enjoyment and I did not make it much past the first one, and not from lack of trying. My wife eventually banned me from playing because of the number of times I almost threw my controller at the screen.

Ninja Gaiden Black was released after Ninja Gaiden and was intended to relieve some of the punishment, with an easier difficulty level but I could never really get myself to select the Dog Ninja difficulty.

Being a Ninja fan, I was ever hopeful that Ninja Gaiden 2 would be different, and it is. You can save more frequently and receive a health top up at the same time. The health and weapon upgrades are available earlier in the game and the shuriken are more effective. Your charged weapon attacks are more devastating but one thing has not changed - the end of level bosses are insane.

Ninja Gaiden 2 is incrementally better than the previous versions, it is essentially the game that the earlier versions should have been. The changes are effective and the game play between bosses is great but they should have made the boss battles more sensible. Regardless of how well you play at some point you will have to revert to a wak through or risk breaking your console out of frustration.

Making it 2 player co-op a la the Arcade version would have helped. Ninja Gaiden 2 is better than it's predecessors but does not break any new ground.The end of level bosses are more migraine inducing frustration and this should have been changed.

My love for giant robots started with watching Robotech after school. From that time I wanted to control a giant robot. So it was a natural progression to go from Robotech to MechWarrior . I can recall watching the MechWarrior 2 trailer over and over on my buddy's Pentium 1, my 486 was not up to the task. We marvelled over the action sequence even though the trailer was only about 1 minute long.

When I played MechWarrior 2 it was not at all like Robotech, I was not in control of a high speed Mech, it was more like controlling a tank which was able to do rocket jumps. Since I first started playing the MechWarrior games I have been on the lookout for a Mech game that would fill the gap.

Even the Robotech licensed games were not up to the task because they were generally very poorly executed.

I had a look at Armored Core on the Xbox and was not impressed. Armored Core 4 is out on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and I am keen to take a look at it. Although I don't hold much hope that it can fulfill the massive expectations created in my Mech fantasy world.

I must admit that when I first heard that Mark Wahlberg was playing Max Payne in the movie adaptation I shuddered. Movie adaptations of games like comic book adaptations have had a checkered past to say the least. I liked Max Payne alot, I liked the graphic novel style and I particularly liked the bullet time feature which has been widely adopted by other games.

I had a look at the trailer recently and it looks great. They appear to have incorporated the surreal,fantasy elements of the game and may have pulled it off in a really cool way. Mark Wahlberg has played a hard nosed cop before in The Departed so I definitely think that he has the acting talent to pull it off.

A Blowbo what the hell...

The Penny Arcade news post also chats about Star Wars Force Unleashed. If you are a hardcore Star Wars fan it probably won't change your mind about the game.

The gist of the post is that Tycho seems quite ambivalent about the game. It has a great story but also has bugs and areas of weak game play.

I had a look at a few trailers recently and I was underwhelmed. I am a huge fan of the first Star Wars movie trilogy and was looking forward to this game, but now I am not so sure.

I need to find something to pass the time before Gears 2 lands.