KyotoJack's Blog

Sleeping on the beach

2010-05-29T06:09:00.000-07:00

Hello comrades !

Its been a long time since I posted something on this blog so I thought I would take some time to write a short story on how I slept on a beach and this wasn't just any beach, It was a Scottish beach. Now anyone who lives in Scotland will tell you that although it can be warm during the Summer it can also be very cold during the evening.

Most would just say "Why not get a tent" well good thinking but I decided to try another method. Instead I used a bivvy bag. Its basically a huge thick sleeping bag which you can stick a normal sleeping bag into and it will keep you nice and cosy. I actually really quite enjoyed sleeping on the beach to tell the truth, Looking up at the stars and the slight breeze was actually quite refreshing, That was until morning of course..

Well since it was such a nice night I decided to not completely zip up my bivvy bag which of course came to great demise in the morning. It was 5AM and it was actually quite bright already which surprised me. But before I even realised that I was woken up by this huge raindrop to my eye, It was actually kind of scary but funny at the same time as I said to myself in my head "What the fuck am I doing out here".

But the worst of it is that during the morning in Scottish Summers they're tends to be a lot of midges lurking around for breakfast. The worst part was I had to get changed and repack my bivvy bag IN THE RAIN which really sucked as I was freezing afterwards. The funny thing was though another nice man Blair had still been sleeping about an hour after we had woken up. It was quite funny yo see him look around as he was left by himself.

But anyway guys before I ramble on just thought I would share this story with you when its still fresh.

GAME UK DS Section - An absolute disgrace

2010-03-14T13:42:00.000-07:00

Now yesterday I was in GAME, The UK's top leading video game retailer. In many ways GAME is a decent store but there is just a few things that bug me a lot. One of these is the Nintendo DS section of the store, Its pretty huge compared to some of the other shelfs of games but when you walk over it sucks. You would expect to find a wide selection of games from different genres. Instead though I walked over looking for some RPG's to play only to find the section CLUTTERED with cheap ass budget kids games such as "My little pony" and "The SUN Crosswords". Now I don't have to much a problem with cheap budget games but come on the section litteraly buried all of the good games the DS has to offer. I did however find Zelda: Spirit Tracks which was probably the only good game there.

Honestly if you are looking for a good place to shop for DS games then I suggest Amazon or Ebay, because retailers are on swift downfall to doom at this point.

Picture courtesy of Kotaku.com

Mass Effect 2 (Xbox 360) - Review

2010-02-23T15:28:00.000-08:00

Well chaps no less that five minutes ago I just finished my first playthrough of Mass Effect 2. All I can say is WOW I never expected Bioware to make such a great sequel and to be honest I would even go as far as to say I prefered Mass Effect 2 to the original which is crazy since I adored the first game.

Bioware changed so much in Mass Effect 2; For instance the combat which going in five minutes already felt totally different to the first game, But in a good way. Bioware took what was bad about the jerky original combat system and mixed it up it something tottaly enjoyable, It plays alot like other counterparts such as Gears Of War and Uncharted in some ways but Mass Effect 2 brings new and original ideas to the table as well. In a sentence Mass Effect 2's combat is probably some of the most enjoyable I have ever played on the 360.

Bioware also did well to fix some problems in the first game, The one that sticks out in my mind the most is the texture popping which was very noticeable from the get go, Bioware have done well to improve this in Mass Effect 2 since now I think I seen the problem happen once for about a second then it was gone. Speaking of graphics Bioware has done a pretty decent job of making Mass Effect 2 feel like a new looking game, Rather than it just running on the original graphics engine. Alot of work has been done to the attention of detail on the characters, with a great use of textures and shaders they look alot more pretty than they did in the last game. However some characters at times can still look very bland. In whole though Mass Effect 2 has some great visuals to offer which will offer some really pretty eye candy moments.

However I would say the limelight of the game is infact the story arc. If you happened to finish the first game you had the ablity to adapt over your key decisions and character which implements into the story of Mass Effect 2, for instance something I did in the last game made a major difference to the story in the second game. Among that Mass Effect 2 in my view has to have one of the most enjoyable Science fiction stories I have experinced in a long time, I won't go into much to spoil the game but in a few words it has one of the deepest and most enjoyable stories on the Xbox 360 console.

That's not to say that the game is perfect, it is close but there is still a few gimmicks in Mass Effect 2 which I thought didn't work to well. I thought the mining was really dumb to be honest, it was slow and got tedious very quiclky and the only motivation to do it is to realise that in the long run it will make your team even more elite.

In conclusion Mass Effect 2 is defenitely one of the best games this year despite it being a January release title. With one of the deepest and enjoyable stories out there along with a fairly fun and unique combat system Mass Effect 2 is a must buy for any user on the Xbox 360.

Final Score: 10/10

Dynamite Cop (Sega Dreamcast) Review

2009-11-26T02:54:00.000-08:00

Dynamite Cop is a perfect example of how arcade games should be ported over to the home console.

Dynamite Cop is a beat em up developed by Sega AM1 originally for the Sega Model 2. However in 1999 the game was ported over to the Sega Dreamcast. The game isn't so deep with the story, however pirates have seized a cruise ship holding the presidents daughter hostage. You play as one of the three of a special forces team sent to raid and retake the ship.

Gameplay in Dynamite Cop really feels a lot like an average streets of rage only with 3d polygons and smoother animation, However there are many factors which make this game stand out on its own. During the game you will make your way through the cruise ship and stop to fight off any bad guys you encounter, As I said it feels a lot like streets of rage but fighting in the game is pretty slick on its own, the player can use a variety of combos to take down pirates as well as using many weapons from the environment such as, tables,chairs,poles,umbrellas,swords,guns and many more.While running between areas of the ship the player will be prompted to perform a QTE such as pressing a button, Success of the QTE result in moving on without hesitation however failing will result in consequences.

The game is actually quite fun to play, the fighting mechanics, the ridiculous weaponry and the cheesy dialogue are enough to make this a fun experience, but not for very long.

There are three difficulty's in Dynamite Cop, Mission 1 being the easiest with unlimited credits and Mission 2 being the hardest with a limited number of credits. The difficulty overall though is nothing short of a cake walk, expect to finish the game in under 20 minutes even on a first playthrough., or even shorter when playing with a friend. There is not a lot of replay value in Dynamite Cop as all three missions will only last you an average 1 hour of game time. However it is a great laugh to come back and play with friends as you fight over the presidents daughter.

The game controls are really what you would expect, the player controls the character with the analogue stick and uses three of the buttons to perform a kick, punch or to jump in the air. Also the triggers can be used to pull of counter attacks from the enemy's. The controls feel responsive to the most part however my only complaint is trying to pull off a flying kick which with the analouge control can become a nuisance.

Graphically the game looks a lot better on the Sega Dreamcast than it was in the arcades, The player is forced to fight in many different areas in the ship such as cabins, loading docks to the women's bathroom, all are graphically well implemented as well as the character models who all had their unique design. Animations in the game flow very smoothly and at the time were quite realistic. However the game has its fair share of bland textures such as the water effects which just looked a mess. The game also included FMV's which really bog the game down as the characters faces just look scary and bland.

Sound design in the game is actually very well done, all weapons have their distinct sound effects as well as the normal grunts when you hit or an enemy. The score does good to build up your mood of feeling like your in an action movie, however none of the score is entirely memorable but it does good to provide an atmosphere. As for voice acting, its horrible and lacks in providing any of the characters human.

Dynamite is one of those games which is awesome to play for the first 20 minutes, however its distinct lack of replayability leaves the game only worth a look if you have never played the original in the arcades.

Playstation 2 Launches in Brazil.... Wait what ?

2009-11-22T13:04:00.000-08:00

On November 18th Sony released the Playstation 2 in Brazil, South America for the first time. Priced at R$799 (Around £279) for a nine year old console is set to be Christmas's number one present this year in South America.

What's funny is that Sony Actually sell's Playstation 3 games in South America at £69 a pop which is pretty damn expensive for a video game even today. Well let's just hope the launch lineup of games isn't from the year 2000.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers in Febuary 2010

2009-11-22T12:56:00.000-08:00

RPG fanatics Square Enix came out with the release date of the latest upcoming release in the Crystal Chronicles series, Crystal Bearer's.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles was released in 2004 on the Nintendo Gamecube, It was a very unique and also a very fun game which did well to break away from the outline of many of the other Final Fantasy's although it still kept its true spirit at heart.

Long awaited fans will be able to get their hands on the addition to the Wii sometime on Febuary 2010. Well thats defos going in the shopping basket.

Square Enix Europe

2009-11-16T06:05:00.000-08:00

Square Enix officaly announced today that the Eidos reorganisation is complete and that the company has now been reborn as Square Enix Europe.

Square Enix Europe is tasked with overseeing projects from developers such as Crystal Dynamic and IO Interactive. However the Eidos brand still exists but the company has vanished. So what does this mean now that there will be a battle system in future Tomb Raider titles, or maybe even making Lara 80% more exposed, I shant hold my breath.

Persona 3 Video Review

2009-11-07T18:19:00.000-08:00

My video review of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 on Playsation 2. For more check out the text review on this blog.

Zelda on the Wii might not be seen on 2010

2009-11-07T14:57:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since Twilight Princess and gamers are wondering where the next zelda is. Well president of Nintendo of America Reggie-Files-Amie has quoted that Nintendo has not commited Zelda for 2010.

Sounds interesting dosen't it, its already been three long years since I played Twilight Princess and I loved it personally. I'am curious to see what will come out of Nintendo next year. We will just have to wait and see.

Direct2Drive refuse to stock Modern Warfare 2

2009-11-07T13:18:00.000-08:00

As you all know Call of duty: Modern Warfare 2 is coming out in 3 days time, yeah that's pretty soon. Well it seem's that the popular rival to Steam: Direct2Drive is refusing to stock Modern Warfare 2 on release.

Direct2Drive toled Gamaustra "We don't believe games should force the user to install a Trojan Horse." The PC version of Modern Warfare 2 will use Valve's Steamworks to manage such processes as installation, DRM, patching and save games, but this also means that Steam itself needs to be on players' system."

It looks like retial holders are very upfront about having to have Steam installed along with the game, myself personally don't like the idea either as god knows what Steam could be putting onto your hard drive. Looks like if you want to play Modern Warfare 2 on the PC you will need to buy it off of Steam, which isn't so bad but I will agree it will suck for some.

Modern Warfare 2 Specs Released

2009-10-24T14:55:00.000-07:00

A few days ago we finnaly found out what the average user will require to run Modern Warfare 2 on their gaming PC's.

The minimum specs are

OS: Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 - Windows 95/98/ME/2000 are unsupported

Processor: Intel Pentium 4 3.2 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 3200+ processor or better supported

Memory: 1 GB RAM

Graphics: ATI Radeon 1600XT or better or 256 MB NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT or better

DirectX: Microsoft DirectX(R) 9.0c

Hard Drive: 12GB of free hard drive space

Sound: 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
Internet: Broadband connection required for Multiplayer Connectivity. Internet Connection required for activation

Uncharted Future

2009-10-24T14:47:00.000-07:00

In a recent interview with Evan Wells of Naughty Dog it was confirmed that they will be working on another Uncharted game sometime in the near future. No further details were given. In the mean time go and buy Uncharted 2 I hear its okay :D

Ridge Racer Type 4

2009-10-17T09:42:00.000-07:00

So I was on youtube the other day and I came across the Ridge Racer Type 4 Intro which always sticks out in my mind for three reasons. One: the CG was absoulutley fantastic and is even better than some Playstation 2 games so to speak.
Two: Reiko Nagase who is pretty much the face of Ridge Racer, the intro was based around her walking around the track and funnily enough she seems to be walking in huge heels which okay Reiko its sexy but come on are you serious.
And three the music made the intro trully classic and always sticks out in my head whenever I think of Reiko Nagase.

Anyway here is the intro, enjoy

If your looking for sexy, then look no further.

There's nothing better than Prince Charles.... BREAKDANCING

2009-10-16T09:07:00.000-07:00

Dig that crazy rhythm

Load/Save Podcast now on iTunes

2009-10-16T08:43:00.000-07:00

Hey folks, good news our podcast has been approved by Apple so now you can go listen or download the podcast to your mp3 device.

The podcast will be indexed to the store in a few hours so the search might not work at the momment as we just got approved at 3pm today.

As always we will be back in a fortnight for the next podcast.

These girls tottaly line up for our podcast

Podcast has been submitted to iTunes

2009-10-15T17:03:00.000-07:00

Hey guys

As you know me any my friend Conor Brown have started our own gaming podcast called Load/Save Podcast. Well some good news last night I submitted the podcast to the iTunes music store and we are waiting for a reply back from Apple to see if we past their QA proccess.

So look out for our next podcast in the next few weeks and be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes (If we get in of course).

Thank You

P.S And since I always do this, Here is the one and sexy Reiko Nagase xD

New Podcast Artwork

2009-10-14T17:26:00.000-07:00

New Podcast

2009-10-13T13:48:00.000-07:00

Well folks if you enjoy reading this blog (which that must be what 4 people) well your in for a big treat.

Starting tommorow me and my friend Conor Brown are starting a gaming podcast called Load/Save which we will cover the world of Video games and all other crazy stuff.

Hopefully if we get some followers we will move onto posting on iTunes and get a fanbase, but for now check out our Youtube channel.

http://www.youtube.com/LoadSavePodcast

Far Cry Instincts First Impressions

2009-10-13T07:16:00.000-07:00

So I picked up a copy of Far Cry Instincts on the original Xbox very cheap the other day in my local Gamestation. I've played about an hour or so of the game and I thought I would write what I think about the game so far.

For starters this is probably one of the best, if not the best looking game on the xbox, the graphics look really crisp and the attention to detial on this tropical island is amazing. My favourite aspect of the graphics though were the glossy water effects which blew me away even today.
But sadly the graphics are the only aspect I like so far, the voice acting seems kinda flat and I have the feeling that the S word is going to become overused by the central character Jack Carver.

After playing about one hour of this game: man this game is really quite brutal in terms of difficulty, your encouraged to use stealth to your advantage but to be honest using it is a waste of time since the enemy can detect you even in the thickest of jungle. The gun fights get old really quickly aswell, most of the weapons you get at the start are a littile underpowered, but still it's the beginning of the game. One minor problem that pissed me off though about the weapons was the MP5, which in real life is a kick ass gun but for close quarters combat not at range which Far cry encourages you to do. Anyway enough about MP5's the game does look promising at least for now and the graphics make me want to play even more. Hopefully this will be a blast.

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis First 20 Minutes

2009-10-12T16:05:00.001-07:00

I recorded this a while back as a compression test for youtube but I forgot it was 20 minutes long so I uploaded it to Viddler.com and gave it some use. Now you guys can enjoy it here on the blog.

Well Enjoy

Crytek UK working on new IP

2009-10-12T15:26:00.000-07:00

It has been confirmed that Crytek's UK branch are currently working on an "original IP". Crytek UK are formely known to be Free Radical who developed the groundbreaking Timesplitters series, untill November 2008 when the company went into administration along with Timesplitters 4.

Crytek UK's new IP is focused on a multiplayer and single player expereince. They
hope it will evolve into a series just like Timesplitters did.

So does that mean no more Timesplitters 4, well we will have to wait and see.

Facebook and Twitter Xbox 360 Release Date

2009-10-12T15:13:00.000-07:00

After being shown at E3 2009 the time is drawing closer to the holiday season and in this case the launch of both Facebook and Twitter on Microsoft's Xbox Live service.

November 17th is what Microsoft are saying and a public beta has been confirmed for the around "the middile to the end of october".

Reviews Coming Soon

2009-10-12T13:45:00.000-07:00

Hey guys

Just to let you know that more text reviews will be coming to the blog very soon. Some games I want to review are the following:

Resident Evil 2
Resident Evil 3
Primal
Headhunter
Persona 4
Deus Ex: The Invisible War
Haunting Ground
Far Cry Instincts

The best collection video ever

2009-10-11T18:34:00.000-07:00

Here we have a Asian man(Looks Japanese but I'am not sure)showing off his Neo Geo games by dancing to a sick beat. I don't know about you but this is an awesome way to present a collection: If you can dance that is..

Persona 3 Review

2009-10-11T15:21:00.000-07:00

Over the years I have played many console role playing games and it’s gotten to a point where these games are just becoming too similar for me. Persona 3 however was a game I jumped into having no prior knowledge of the Shin Megami Tensei series at all; I just expected it to be another clichéd console RPG. I was very wrong

It’s hard to talk about the story of Persona 3 without spoiling the plot itself however the basic plotline is that you are in the shoes of an average young teenager who recently transferred to Gekkoukan high school. But it seems that not everything is clear in this average Japanese town. Your character comes to awaken to his power known as ‘Persona’ which only a certain number of individuals can wield by pointing a gun like object at their head and pulling the trigger to call their Persona to aid.

Monsters that are referred to as shadows are threatening the world with a strange disease known as Apathy Syndrome: these shadows appear at a time known only to some as the dark hour: an hour which occurs between midnight and one o’clock. Most of the public are absent from the dark hour and transmogrified in coffins, however certain individuals in the game that the player can interact with have set up a organisation known as SEES or the Specialised Extracurricular Execution Squad and are determined to free the Earth of all shadows and the dark hour.

However saving the world is only one slice of Persona 3, when you are not fighting you are at school attending class, boosting social links or playing sports. You have the chance to make friends at school and develop a relationship with them; all friends have their own story in which you will be involved with whatever problem he or she has. The way you spend your time at school also has an impact on how well you perform during the dark hour.

That’s not to say that the player is restricted to the school though, Players have the advantage of exploring the town of Iwatodai whether it be going to mall, shrine, weapons store or even going for a bite to eat with your friends. Persona 3 definitely has alot of options for exploration and doing so is very enjoyable.

When not fooling around in the town or attending school, the player is encouraged to fight shadows during the dark hour, in which you explore the massive tower known as Tarturus. The tower consists of over 200 floors of shadows and boss fights and progressing higher up Tarturus also increases difficulty level: where shadows around the first floors are pretty easy compared to the ones higher up which in some cases I had to think tactically how not to get myself killed. Although optional the dark hour it strongly encouraged in order to beat the monthly boss battles which occur every on full moon of every month.

Gameplay in Tarturus comes with both its pros and it cons. On the pros side exploration isn’t like your typical turn based RPG where at any moment a random battle could pop from nowhere. Persona 3 however gives the player the ability to give the upper hand in a battle in which you will ambush the enemy by running up to its back and surprising it from behind with your sword. Dungeons are also full of a number of goodies to collect: mainly treasure chests but there are other random things for you to find in their too. A few cons I found in the dungeon exploration though was the fact that in order to keep a steady pace on the tower you had to activate certain portals along the way which was really frustrating when you have to repeat going up 15 floors every night which made fighting progression alot longer.

But that’s not to say that the combat in Persona 3 is frustrating, in fact in some ways it is very good. Combat in Persona 3 uses an Active battle system with some minor changes to the mechanics which really had me liking the combat. You have a basic series of commands with the obvious one in mind being ‘Attack’. However there is one command which you may be using more than often, this command is ‘Skill’.

Using skill is basically like the magic command in many RPG’s however your Persona will be able to perform a hefty number of these skills such as Agi which is your basic fire spell, or Bufu which is ice. You will find yourself using your Persona more than your weapon which in turn is saved for ‘All out attacks’ which take place when the player stuns all the enemies on screen and then continues on to unleash a powerful attack, this is very useful when it comes to boss fights however you first must identify it’s weakness before it can be stunned, some enemies cannot be stunned at all but of course there’s always its weakness which you can use to your advantage.

Fighting can be tough and this is definitely not your button masher RPG, Persona 3 requires you in many cases to strategically think of your next move. Of course there’s your obvious strategies such as fire beats ice and such but at times you may have to think deeper, at one case my opponent had no magical weakness or attacking weakness, the only way to defeat him was to fire air propelled weapons at it like the bow for example. Battles of course can be tough especially towards the end of the game but with enough levelling up it is very rewarding.

One unique aspect of Persona 3 is character development with both major and minor characters. Early on you will come to notice that every character that you can have a social link with all have a reason or story for being with the protagonist. This aspect was very interesting and was probably one of the main points of the game that I loved over other role playing games.

Over time you will become attached to your team and your friends, a classic example was the female classmate social link where in the beginning you hang out with her and over time you start to develop a romantic relationship and eventually sustain an unbreakable bond which will actually benefit you when levelling up your Persona’s.

The graphics in Persona 3 are some of the best I have seen on the Playstation 2. Probably the glossiest of Persona’s graphics are indeed its character artwork which looks absolutely stunning from the menu’s to the character artwork everything is perfect in this area. Character models are also well designed as well as the characters themselves which all have fantastic costumes and the attention to detail is phenomenal, in which I think this is one of the first games where I have had a video game crush: ok I said it but I have never seen such a beautiful redheaded Japanese girl. CG also makes an appearance which also has a admirable artistic style and implements into certain scenes well.

The one con with Persona’s graphics though are the Dungeons which after a very short period of time the repetitive environment just gets old very quickly, what stops this from being a major problem though is that each block in Tarturus has a unique design but as I said it gets old after about 5 floors.

Atlus has been known to create games with breathtaking artistic musical scores which of course in Persona 3 meet all of the expectations needed. Some of the music is more memorable than others but in whole the soundtrack is a joy to listen to and never gets old. If only they played Persona music at school.

The pinnacle of the audio development though is the voice acting which is some of the best I have heard since Final Fantasy X.

Atlus did a great job of getting onboard a team of devoted professionals that all play their characters very well and one classic example of this is when an emotional scene pops up and you actually feel immersed into these characters and their personalities.

On the time scale this is not your average eight to ten hours you would normally get in an action game, instead Persona 3 will take anywhere from up to 60 to 100 hours depending on how you play to finish the game. And to add even more replay value the side story FES will add around another 30 to 40 hours more game time with also increased difficulty for those players looking for some challenge.

If I had to tell you right now my favourite role playing game of all time it would be Persona 3 on many levels due to that the game’s plot is just a joy from start to finish. The character development is just mind blowing and I actually feel like I have a part in these people’s lives. But, most of all Persona 3 compared to other RPG’s is very unpredictable which now every RPG with a dumb story is so damn predictable but oh no Persona 3 is a total contrast and it stands out as being one of a kind. Get out and buy Persona 3 FES now.

Written by Jack Gordon

08/10/2009 00:51:05