Achievement whores unite! From here on out, I will highlight an interesting or challenging xbox live achievement that I thought was cool or fun to acquire. Feel free to give it a shot and leave us a comment as a way of expressing your victory.
I have been getting addicted to Geometry Wars 2 in the past few days so I figured I would go ahead and use that game as our first ever achievement of the month.
Description: If you are familiar with Geometry Wars 2 then you know their are 6 different game modes to choose from and each one provides its own unique challenge. One mode, entitled Wave, pits you against waves of enemies that move across the screen in either horizontal or vertical movements only. This becomes increasingly difficult to survive as the waves get faster, longer, and more unpredictable. If you feel like you need more of a challenge, give this acheivement a shot. Successfully dodge up to 8 of these waves without firing a single shot. This means that you must take your finger off the right thumbstick and focus only on dodging. Essentially their will be 8 rows of enemies traveling across the screen at once and you must survive until all 8 have made a single pass across the screen. It may sound easy but trust me, it is a fairly decent challenge. It took me atleast 30 tries to get it but it was definitely a lot of fun. That is the August 2008 Achievement of the Month. I'll post a new achievement in the first week of October.
I posted last week about some of the news that came out of Square Enix's private party, DKΣ3713 (pronounced D K Sigma 3 7 13) but I have not gotten a chance until now to discuss my feelings regarding each individual title. While trailers were not open to the public and 4 Player Podcast was unable to attend, the team at Gamespot Japan managed to get some hands on time with a few of the titles and provide more details. I will of course discuss my own personal thoughts and opinions regarding the games at the show but you can also stop by Gamespot Japan for the full details. So I'll start with the obvious one first. Final Fantasy XIII is the next true installment in the Final Fantasy series. The game has been in development for a very long time now and we have still seen little more than a pretty CG trailer with what appears to be brief clips of a battle sequence. While the game certainly looks beautiful, it would be nice to see some actual gameplay. So what exactly did Square reveal about FFXIII at this party? Well not much. It looks like we won't be getting our hands on a playable version of the game until march of 2009 when a demo will be bundled with the Blu-Ray release of Final Fantasy VII Advent Children. Keep in mind this has only been confirmed for Japan and no actual date has been set for the United States. Not cool. Brad made a good point on our last podcast when he said that by the time this game is actually released, the game will not look nearly as good as we expect it too because their will already be better looking games by then. But then again, it really is the gameplay that matters in the long run and I have no doubt that this game will look brilliant even if other games look better. I like to think of Gears of War because despite the games age, it still looks amazing even by today's standards. It worries me however that Square-Enix can't even show a little bit of gameplay footage because I can remember seeing footage of FFX more than 2 years prior to its release when the main character (Tidus) didn't have a name and still had black hair! Overall, I am happy to know that I will be posting gameplay impressions in March but it still sucks to know that this game is such a long way out. I hope that it the next couple months, we will start to see some gameplay details including battle system specifics, story details, and maybe a look at some of the environments in the game. Final Fantasy XIII Agito is another part of Final Fantasy XIII series: Fabula Nova Crystallis which is also made up FFXIII and FFXIII Versus. The game was originally planned as a "mobile" title but fortunately for us, Square realized how bad this decision was and decided to bring the game over to the PSP instead. Now this begs the question of whether or not this game will be a port of what was originally intended for phones (which would suck) or if they will harness to power of the PSP to bring gamers a quality extension of the FFXIII universe. What's stranger is that no one seems to comment on what type of the game it is other than the fact the game will serve as a prequel to FFXIII. Is it a turn based RPG, action RPG, RTS, Shooter, or platformer perhaps? No one knows. The new trailer did suggest the existence of two warring nations and showed a cloaked woman planting a flag in the ground suggesting victory so i'm thinking the game might be a strategy RPG in the same vein as Final Fantasy Tactics. Whatever it is, I am excited to find out because find Final Fantasy XIII series: Fabula Nova Crystallis seems to be one of Squares most ambitious projects to date.
I'll post the next portion of my impressions soon which will include my thoughts on Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep, Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, and Kingdom Hearts: Coded.
That's right, more time with the ladies of Soul Calibur 4. Juan can't be here every night, so we are inviting over a new sparing partner. Come watch me get my ass kicked.
My taste in games is well known through out our 4Player Podcast community. I am the guy who likes F***ed up S***. Some of my favorite games of all time include Silent Hill, Resident Evil, and other survival horror titles that share similar levels of the macabre. About a year ago, I got my first glimpse of a remake of Sony's first party survival horror game, Siren, and I was instantly intrigued. The story surrounded a cursed Japanese village that was inhabited by the terrifying Shibito, zombie like creatures that practiced human sacrifice. The game introduced an interesting game mechanic known as sight jacking which gave the player the ability to see the world through the eyes of different enemies. By holding a button and moving the joystick in different directions, the player could determine the location and movement patterns of enemies by seeing through their eyes. This completely re-imagined version of Siren shares the same concept and the same unique game play mechanic but is clearly a much more detailed, polished game. Check out this video of our first night of playing the game to get a good idea of the overall feel of the game.
The first thing you will notice is that the game is incredibly dark. When your flashlight is turned off, it is next to impossible to see anything. This can be both a good thing and a bad thing because it really helps create a tense atmosphere but also makes navigating the levels more complicated that it should be. The game is separated into 13 chapters and has the player switching between several different characters with different abilities and game play styles. Some characters are more fun to play as than others due to their ability to fight and pull off stealth kills. However, other characters such as Bella, the little girl, are all about being sneaky and getting by on stealth alone. This keeps game play from getting too repetitive and makes it harder to predict what is going to happen next. Allow me to also quickly say that the graphics in the game are very impressive. The game has a fantastic lighting system and excellent character and environmental animations that could make this game one of the best looking games on the system.Combat is also surprisingly fun despite its lack of depth. You basically can opt for a normal strength attack by pressing square or a stronger but slower attack using R1. It may sound very shallow but fights are satisfying none the less thanks good animation and ridiculous levels of blood spatter. By pressing the O button, characters can crouch and sneak behind unsuspecting enemies. If timed just right, you can perform a stealth of environmental kill depending on where the enemy is located or what weapon you have in your hand at the time. I also have to commend the game for its weapon variety, their are over 50 weapons scattered throughout the environments that all have their own speed, strength, and stealth kills which adds a few layers of depth to the combat. Last but not least, the sight jacking mechanic has been improved on as well. In the original title, sight jacking took up the entire screen and then forced you to stop sight jacking before you could move. In this new Siren, sight jacking splits the screen in half and allows you to view the enemies vision on the right while still allowing you to control your character on the left side. This makes it easier to coordinate your moves while still having an eye on where the enemy actually is. Overall, the game is an incredible improvement over the original game in just about every department and is proving to be one of the best survival horror games I have played in the past few years.
Every week we have quite a few people highlight clips from the live feed. We realize it's hard to go back a wade through all the clips and the live stuff. We've started doing highlights on the blog to kinda "show" you what you missed during the week.
Here's a clip from Brad playing Soul Calibur with the new Raiden Character from MGS.
So here's kind of an add on to Nick's Post. Hopefully you've seen the Bunny commercial. GameStop has some creative people working behind their commercials. I'm not saying they're bad, it just feels they have this Corporate Coat of paint put on them that some consumers, especially those not familiar with game buying, will fall for. Look at it this way. It's like insurance on something. Companies don't sell insurance because they care about you or that they really want to be part of your life. They sell insurance because they can make money off it. They're playing off the odds that more people will buy insurance than the people who will actually need it. And I'm not pointing the finger specifically at GameStop, all companies do it, but honestly (and this is your opinion as a consumer) do you feel empowered when you go in and hear "Power to the Players" or do you feel something else?
Here are some more commercials from GameStop, I kinda want your honest opinion on them.
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