Is it really my birthday?!

It really is. Today was a fine day.

Totally excellent presents this year!

From J: BLAZBLUE OH GOD YES. It's the Hong Kong version so the back of the cover and the manual basically shouts in Moonspeak, but the actual game itself comes with English audio/subs. And a handy, single-sheet guide as to the basic controls. I kind of wish I could understand everything in the manual, but it's nothing a little bit of googling can't help. It's a good deal of fun so far. All the characters seem to be well balanced and it sure looks pretty.

From parents: Ryu ga Gotoku 3. I bought my copy off Ebay, so it came with the preorder bonus the Japs got - a guidebook detailing the various locations and activities in the areas of the game. Also it has pictures of awful-looking women who were real-life models for the hostesses in the game. Seriously, their hairstyles are like three meters high.

From Chip: A debit card with which I originally planned to buy the original PS2 version of Flower, Sun and Rain with off Ebay, but after seeing that the graphics were really not that much of an improvement from the DS version, I skipped it. So I just downloaded Marvel vs Capcom 2. Oh boy!

Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday. It sure was nice of you guys!

SON I AM DISAPPOINT: Arcade Mode

Today, I went to the Gold Coast so that mum could visit a relative. Apparently they were going to spend a good portion of the afternoon cooking at her place or something, so we requested to be left around the Surfers Paradise area. I was totally pumped for this because there is a massive Timezone around there. Huge arcade equals loads of games equals 2D fighters, right?

I lost track of how many times I said to Chip: "SON I AM DISAPPOINT".

Seriously, the Timezone in Surfers is the biggest arcade I've ever been in, complete with dodgem ring, bigass mechanical pony ride (it has a ladder leading up to it) and bowling alley. Lots of arcade shooters - we saw two Silent Hill: The Arcade cabs and about four Blazing Storm cabs. Those one were huge.

BUT NO 2D FIGHTERS OR SHMUPS! The only fighting game we found was Tekken 6, tucked into a corner beside Primeval Hunt and behind a whole row of basketball ticket games.

After leaving and swearing a bit, we walked around some more and found this pathetic, dingy place that was a game room for a backpacker's hostel. It turned out to be the best arcade on the whole damn Coast, based on past experiences with other arcades around the area.

Metal Slug 4! Marvel vs. Capcom! Street Fighter 3: Third Strike! X-Men vs. Street Fighter!

So I played Marvel vs. Capcom and felt slightly better, but still disappointed.

The search for a Guilty Gear cab continues...

I can't believe it's not Kaz Kiryuu!

This here is the debut trailer for Ryu ga Gotoku 4. Still awaiting more details from TGS.

Your local nice guy ex-member of the Yakuza

Yakuza 3 is totally getting localised!

Now I feel a little silly for having ordered the Japanese edition a couple of weeks ago. I guess at least I still get the snazzy preorder bonus magazine (complete with Japanese women with ridiculous hair and sparkles).

NOW WHERE IS KENZAN?

Here we go again on the hype train

Finally found out about the new No More Heroes 2 videos. Gave them a watch. So, impressions abound!

Demo video #1 involved Travis running around in a mansion killing henchmen, much like the Townsend mansion in NMH. Battles seem a lot faster now, and enemies are much less predictable. There are enemies of varying sizes, as seen when a huge black guy with an axe started lumbering towards Travis and swinging wildly. Some of the smaller enemies also had firearms (!), weapons only seen in certain levels of NMH. Firearms were always annoying in NMH so maybe they'll add substantial challenge to some of the starting ranks.

Certain objects on the level are now destructible as well, as Travis was seen cutting through various potplants. Which brings me to the really cool bit: DUAL BEAM KATANAS! It was exciting to see them in action. (In a separate video, Suda says that you control the other beam katana with the Nunchuck, like in Oneechanbara. The animation is very fluid, except for when your katanas... fall into your enemies - they kind of just teleport, which looks very silly.

The UI has also changed slightly. The battery meter is now less of a meter and and is a tiny icon below a sad looking worm thing. Enemies also have different health meters, this time represented by several dots forming a circle. The dots start out green but turn red with health loss.

The voice acting also sounds top-notch, such as Travis panting and groaning loudly in a lecherous. Let's just say it's much more audible than it was in NMH.

Demo video #2 began at the beginning of the Rank #51 boss battle, complete with cutscene. Travis slices up the two women that Nathan Copeland (the boss) throws at him. Blood goes everywhere, heads are kicked, it's all very graphic. Travis's hair is also much spikier, much more badass.

Bosses (well, Nathan anyway) seem to be a lot easier to stun and throw.

And what excellent music! If the composer is, indeed, Masafumi Takada, it just shows how far and versatile he has become.

The only thing that I have to nitpick at in the second video is that I don't really like the way the health circle works in terms of boss battles. It certainly looks prettier and more minimalistic, but it's not as precise as a health bar, especially if some of the bosses have as much health as, say, Bad Girl in the original game.

Other things: Helter Skelter could be back, if this art does indeed, depict him. This will be a treat! Also returning is Destroyman in cyborg form! (I just want to say now that I totally called a character from the first game being turned into an android/robot happening in NMH2.) And another thing, the job missions are back, but this time, a lot of them are in 2D! Seen in one of the promotional trailers included a sidescrolling version of the coconut mission and a burger flipping mission.

And here's the new website.

Also, here's 1UP's cover story, to be updated daily until the 23rd!

I totally can't wait.

THEY CAME FROM THE SEWERS!! A Battlestar Sarcastica Joint

This is what my group (Ruben, Robbie and Harley) and I are currently working on in INB280.

Cover Page

I was so impressed with Harley's art and Robbie's mockup that I just had to share it.

As for what it's about: Sewer Mutants meet Furries with Guns. Nope, I'm definitely not a furry. And to the best of my knowledge, none of my group members are either. We spend too much time paying them out, I think.

Let me know if you'd like to play it, and I might be able to arrange a time for you!

Yeah, we get that Michael Jackson's dead

Found these while reading New National Kid by Suehiro Maruo.

Yeah, I don't quite know either.

Demonophobia is such a bullshit game

I suddenly remembered that I have a game called Demonophobia sitting on my hard drive and decided to give it a spin again.

For those who have not heard of it, Demonophobia is a Japanese survival horror game.I do not know much moonspeak so a quick google indicates that the story is about a girl named Sakuri who tries to summon demons for revenge and ends up being transported to hell/the demonic realm. The game is heavily focused on showing you various and graphic ways of killing your character.

So if you do not like messed-up shit, you probably shouldn't click on any of the image links.

Still here? Cool.

See, I probably wouldn't think that this game was incredibly bullshit if it was actually impossible to complete it and if you had to run around hell forever and get killed a lot. Instead, it's like, "Hey, I'm not doing too badly, maybe I'll actually get to fight the boss!" and then you'll get decapitated by an enemy.

I wonder what happens

As another example, there was one room that I went into, grabbed an emblem or something off the pedestal and tried to exit the room, only for a giant red man teleport in front of me and start punching me in the stomach, then the face, then the face again.

I get it, I'm dead

Due to the controls being clunky, it is hard to maneuver and run away from enemies. Not to mention bosses, who are impossible faggots to beat. Maybe my keyboard is just awful or something, but my character would sometimes stop running for no reason at all despite my insistent hammering of the X key. "RUN, DAMMIT! I'm dead again, thanks a lot!"

I could not run fast enough

Also, when I pressed keys that do things in-game, except I pressed them when I was typing messages on MSN/renaming files/whatever, stuff still happened in game. Resuming when I wanted the game paused. Annoying stuff like that. Not really a big deal, but still requires you to have no friends talking to you while you play it. Or you ignoring your friends.

Most notable on the fucked-up scale is one stage where you seem to be back in your house. Everything looks fine and dandy and you can hear your mother's voice. When you enter the room, it's um...

Goddammit mom

It gets even creepier when suddenly, her moonrunes turn into letters of the alphabet.

I swear this is not my PC acting up

Then you go outside and JESUS CHRIST MY HOUSE

Although is sure is MS Paint around here

Then for some reason somewhere in the middle, I felt like listening to Sexual Healing on loop, probably because the game doesn't have any audio.

GET UP GET UP GET UP GET UP

Seriously, very little health, no audio, shitty controls, shit like walking near a wall killing you AKFDS FUCK, this is a pretty DUDE THIS GAME IS BULLSHIT game.

Whoever made this is probably sitting back in his chair with his best smug internet troll face.

EDIT: I am a retard and cannot screencap for shit, so have a better version of JESUS CHRIST MY HOUSE. The green things actually have two legs now.

Super Impressive Man Antics

YAKUZA/RYU GA GOTOKU 2 SPOILERS.

I was playing Chapter 12 of Yak2 last night and the whole thing was pure manliness from beginning to end. It ran like this:

Kazuma got stabbed with a poisoned knife by a mysterious man. He pulls the dagger out and runs off to his hideout, Aoi. Two groups of three thugs ended up confronting him and he beat them up while slowly bleeding to death.

An hour or so after passing out at Aoi, he has more or less fully recovered from the poison and the wound (when you leave the building, you have a full health bar!) and heads off to find Haruka.

Blah, blah, blah, detective work, find out where she's been taken...

OSAKA CASTLE IS A GIANT GOLDEN PALACE IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE

He enters the building and is immediately attacked by some guy who summons endless waves of samurai and ninjas. After fighting a bunch of them, making their leader run away like a little girl and dodging spike traps, Kazuma gets to a room with a gatling gun, with which he mows everyone down. Make the leader run away again despite being shot in the face at least four dozen times.

MORE NINJAS, MORE SAMURAI, MORE RETARDED LEADER GUY, THIS TIME WITH A SPEAR. Defeat them all and then...

Kazuma gets to fight two TIGERS. As in, the animals. There's also a sequence where the tiger jumps on him and he kicks it off him (if you do the action sequence correctly).

After beating the shit out of them he rescues Haruka. Only then does his wound reopen.

Yeah, I think he wins some kind of prize.

PROFESSOR, I'VE SOLVED IT 2 - A Review

Title: Professor Layton and The Diabolical Box
Developer: Level-5
Publisher: Level-5 (JP), Nintendo (NA/PAL)
Year: 2007 (JP), 2009 (NA/PAL)

Two years year ago, Professor Layton and The Curious Village was released in Japan to the delight of puzzle-lovers everywhere. A year later it was released in English, allowing a good number more of the gaming population to try their hand at it. Of course, the game's 'TO BE CONTINUED' screen at the end left many eagerly awaiting the sequel, so fast forward a year and a half later...

My excitement for Professor Layton and The Diabolical Box was only heightened by the fact that it feels like we're in the middle of a game drought, combined with the fact that I had been looking forward to playing more games about charming English gentlemen.

And I couldn't wait for more mind-breaking puzzles, of course.

You see, the Professor Layton series is based off the Metal Gymnastics series of puzzle books by Akira Tago, which are reportedly very popular in Japan. Many of the puzzles from the books have been directly transposed into a more interactive form for the DS and as a result, the game is chock-full of logic and lateral thinking puzzles, designed to really make you think.

A puzzle's difficulty is measured in 'picarats', which acts as the player's score throughout the game. The more difficult a puzzle is, the more picarats it is worth. If a puzzle is too difficult, the player has the opportunity to unlock a hint using a hint coin, which are limited in number and found scattered throughout the game world.

Additionally, some of these puzzles are directly related to the plot and require you to solve them in order to progress through the storyline, but a large portion of them are optional. Solving some of these optional puzzles give you items such as camera pieces, a hamster toy, a diary key or a tea ingredient, which are used for the mini-games. Completing these minigames means that the player can unlock bonus puzzles.

I suppose puzzles like the ones presented in The Diabolical Box are either a love-hate affair, but in my case, I thoroughly enjoyed having to think each puzzle through carefully. It's a refreshing change from games in which shooting everything that moves is key. The hints make perfect sense, and the game has the decency to explain the solution to you in greater detail when a puzzle is completed. This is especially useful if you've managed to solve a puzzle by luck.

I only have a slight problem with The Diabolical Box, and that is the slight imbalance in puzzle difficulty. There are quite a few puzzles that seem easier than the number of picarats they are worth and conversely, some supposedly easy puzzles that are challenging. But that could just be me.

As in The Curious Village, Layton is back in The Diabolical Box to solve another mystery, this time concerning a strange artifact called the Elysian Box. After receiving a letter from Layton's mentor telling him he has acquired the Box, Layton and Luke set out to meet him, only to find him dead and the Box missing. The two of them decide to find the Elysian Box as well as solve the mysteries surrounding it.

As you would expect from any good adventure games, there are several plot twists, many of which I didn't see coming at all. The characters are charming and are each distinctive in their own right with their own catchphrases and mannerisms. Professor Layton himself is especially notable, managing to be no less than a total badass who just happens to be polite and likes drinking tea.

Professor Layton and The Diabolical Box is a very special game, one that is sure to appeal to a large audience. With its numerous puzzles, loveable cast and exciting storyline, anyone who is enthusiastic about games that require a bit more brainpower is sure to love it.