Recently downloaded a trailer of the Sony PlayStation Home, it has been delayed over and over. The latest release date is last quarter of this year and hopefully that will be the last delay. Can it compete with a popular virtual world Second Life? On the surface, it looks similar to Second Life with 3D avatars, interactive places and chating with your friends. But users create their own content and sell them like in SL?
In the mean time here are some images I took while watching the trailer.
I should have mentioned this from the beginning about this game. The characters in it are full of facial and physical expressions. For example, if you idle your character and/or your companion will start to moan (not in the sexual way!), cough or cry, in the case of Bella Monroe. A lot of times, assuming the companion is in range of the shibito, they will react, but sometimes he/she just stands there and get hit which is a minor annoyance. And after you have killed the shibito, Miyako, for example, will ask “Is it over now?”. Things like these make the game much more interactive and enjoyable in my opinion.
Chapter 8 lets you play yet another player, his name is Sol, the camera man. You can actually use him and his trusty video camera! I found it funny killing shibitos with it. But in the end, I picked up a gun instead along the way. This chapter is rather straight forward.
Chapter 9 is short but is also one of the most intense chapters, yet another spoiler! You get to actually fight the giant baby crying shibito I mentioned in previous review using Melissa Gale (Sam’s ex wife for those who forgot). The second part you are using Seigo, the guy with the rifle again, and the mission is to protect Bella Monroe to escape. It was annoying when I played it because I wasn’t quick enough protecting her from places to places. Basically if you are not fast enough, she will die, period.
And you get a very special surprise while you are doing one of the last set of sub goals for this chapter. 
And finally, chapter 10 is just running around for the whole chapter, just with different characters and purposes. Nothing too special except the scenery for the second half is actually quite a sight.
Stay tune for the final review for chapter 11 and 12! I can’t wait to see the end!
I downloaded the demo tonight to try it out, I had doubts before as I’ve seen many negative ratings on most, if not all of Facebreaker’s trailers. But I belive you really have to play it yourself before you can criticize.
The demo offers you 3 of 12 playable boxers as well as your own. You can fight either by using those 3 boxers or 2 custom made ones plus one that you can make. The custom boxer is actually a good idea. You are given the 3 options:
The fun part is the last option, you will literally take 30 minutes to even an hour going through each customization such as the pattern and color of the boxer gloves, hair color, eye color, body color, body size etc. Customization to me has always been a huge bonus when I just how flexible and user friendly the game is.
Onto the game play and graphics. As mentioned before, a lot of people are not too positive about this game. After playing a few rounds of the rather short demo, I think its not that bad after all. In terms of game play, its fast pace, really fast I should say. You are basically smashing all the buttons and hope you will land some punches to your opponent. I do have to agree with people posted on gametrailers.com on the fact that, even on easy difficulty it is still quite hard to beat your opponent. And the fact that your opponent punches so fast its hard to use dodge or parry.
Graphics wise, running on 1080p, its bright and clear. Even though its not top notch graphics, I wouldn’t say its bad either, just not the best!
My final verdict for this game is if you like fast pace games or fighting games in general (by the way this game is no match with Soul Calibur 4 and let’s not go there) and if you like to put your friends’ faces as the boxes, which I would find it fun if I had a USB camera. This game might be for you, or at least a rental game. Definitely not as bad as some of the people commented.
Finally got a chance to play chapter 6, it isn’t a long chapter so I combined with chapter 7 as well. From the previous chapter review, I mentioned the level of difficulty raises as you progress through each chapter. But, I didn’t feel that way this time, though I still died a few times throughout these two chapters, maybe it’s either I got better at this game (lol) or some levels are just more difficult than others. I think all the playable characters are introduced, and most places are revealed (?).
There is really nothing much to say except the graphics haven’t stopped to amaze me. Chapter 7 consists of many old rusty shacks, and each one is just as detailed. I still find it too dark though and always forget to adjust the brightness to get rid of this problem. I know its part of the “atmosphere” but sometimes I have trouble finding the way.
A bit of a spoiler.
This chapter introduced some sort of boss shibito, a lot bigger and is really messed up. It cries / screams like a baby but is taller than the shibitos roaming throughout the game. I apologize i should have taken a picture of it but I was too “involved” in the game I forgot about it. Or I should say I was too intimidated by the size of the shibito and I tried to kill it by shooting him non stop and wasn’t able to. I assume its scripted to not die, at least in this chapter.
Overall, I think the story is kicking into high gear, I say that because things are getting more complicated.
Since its a long weekend in Canada, I had more time to play and enjoy the next chapter, chapter 5. This time you gain control of Sam Monroe’s ex wife, still remember who’s Sam Monroe? She actually has to deal with something harder than her ex. Talk about being fair!
Anyway, I think as we progress in each chapter, it gets slightly more difficult or at least that’s how I felt. Thus chapter 5 took me longer than I anticipated and yes I died a few times trying to experiment and figure things out. One thing that makes the game more difficult is you don’t keep your weapon when you die. So whenever you restart, you will have to play safe and hope that you get a weapon, anything, even a tea pot is better than bare fists.
Chapter 5 is by far one of the hardest chapter I’ve played. And finally, this chapter will throw at you a few puzzles here and there this time, nothing that will make your brain explode but still takes a bit of time.
Yup, its the 4th of the 12 chapter series of Siren: Blood Curse Review. Chapter 4 has introduced a new game play, not completely new but with this new character you can “snipe” or zoom-in/out with the rifle. While its nothing compare to first person shoot like Call of Duty 4. It is “enough” for this game. The crosshair is a simple transparent white circle which is adequate since its not a shooter game but a survival horror game.
This chapter’s characters all have weapons so dealing with shibitos are relatively easy now. The feeling of “survival” is not as strong with weapons, spcially unlimited ammo. The feeling of “survival” was felt strongest when I played Sam Monroe’s daughter Bella, basically you have to be completely stealthy most, if not all the time and she does not have any weapons.
And don’t forget if one of the objectives is to escape to “location a” with “someone” make sure that “someone” is actually following you. Sometimes with some incident, either scripted or by your actions, you will be separated with that “someone”. Make sure you reunite with them before proceeding. The mission objective will add that in so most of the time you should be fine but I thought I would point that out.
Finally finished chapter 3 of the 12 chapter series. First half of this chapter will let you control Bella Monroe, Sam Monroe’s daughter. Again I won’t go into the story but with her you basically have to go 100% stealth. I died twice again but at last figured out how to pass the first half of the game. The second half took place in a swampy forest. The environment is just gorgeous in my opinion with a combination of foggy and graininess similar to Silent Hill.
One thing I dislike is when you use the special sight jacking ability, the screen is split in half, even with a 40inch LCD screen (not showing off please don’t get me wrong), I still found it difficult to navigate while half the screen is occupied with someone else’s view. But sight jacking plays an important role in this game so you are basically forced to live with this or you will die even more frequently since you have absolutely no idea where the shibitos are due to the foggy and grainy environment. If you can actually see them, chances are they can see you too and right away jump at you!
I apologize for the quality of the images, I took them with my digital camera while playing the game.
Stay tuned for chapter 4!
Finally had a chance to play the second chapter (or episode as that’s how they called it in the game). The game started with intro cut scene where chapter 1 left off. Again I won’t go into the details of the story. As mentioned from chapter 1 review, chapter 2 is basically from the demo where you are Sam Monroe(the guy with glasses) PLUS for the first half of this chapter, you are again controlling the highschool kid Howard Wright. It feels like this chapter, as well as the first, are meant to be “tutorials” where you get to learn the basics of the game, a special skill is also introduced called “Sight Jacking”, basically you see the surrounding through another character who is also introduced in this chapter.
Overall, this chapter is still dark and creepy. Unlike Resident Evil or any first/third person shooter, you cannot always go head on with the shibitos, yes I finally found out the name of those “dead” people I’ve been mentioning. This chapter again, makes you sneak up on them and surprise attack them (feels like Metal Gear Solid to me lol).
Later in the game, you are given a gun with unlimited ammo. It is fun but then you lose that sense of “survival” feel but then again there aren’t a swamp of them to take care of. The shibitos are no threat to you when you have a gun, they just run blindly towards you and die before they can even lay one hit on you. On the other hand, if you have a melee weapon, you really have to fight smart like sneaking up on them and perform a heavy attack.
This chapter is a bit longer than the first but definitely a good game play.
I should have chapter 3 review up by tomorrow so stay tuned!
