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So I finally gave in, purchased and downloaded Fat Princess off PSN because I’ve been eyeing on this game since it was released. I was excited now that I finally got the game but was it worth it? I have mixed reactions about this game. Definitely not as good as I expected though!

So immediately after downloading and installing Fat Princess, which is basically an action strategy game where there are two sides (red and blue). You can customize your character with different looks and more are unlocked as you progress in the game. The objectives are capturing the princess (capture the flag), death match. There is also a soccer x death match for online as well, this mode is pretty straight forward based on the name. You have 5 classes to choose from – warrior, ranger, healer, dark magician who can drain enemy health and the worker. The workers are necessary, in order to gather wood and minerals to upgrade the different classes’ buildings in order to unlock their upgraded classes. They also responsible for building castle doors and catapults which can launch a group of people to the enemy castle.

I wanted to get a hang of the game first being playing online so I jumped into the single player game and played its rather short storyline which consists of 7 chapters. It was enjoyable most of the time, specially the death matches. There was one chapter that I thought was frustrating, at least playing with the AIs, the ones which you have to rescue your princess.

I guess for now AIs are still dumb and cannot act/play like humans. Most of the time I was alone inside enemy castle trying to rescue the princess even though you are allowed to have up to 3 AIs to help you on your side. And most of the time I got killed right on the spot because either the enemy AIs just swamped me or they cake-fed the princess so much I was basically not moving at all, and then swamped by the enemies!

In terms of graphics, its not Killzone 2 graphics obviously, it is pleasing to the eyes, cartoonish with vibrant colors. I think the blood and gory part is one of the major plus for this game. Whenever there is a battle you know there will be blood and body parts every where which is insanely fun to watch as you chop your way to your enemies!

Without going into every single detail of the game, I’m sure this game is worth the $16 (+tax) I paid. I think its a pretty good casual game where you want to jump in when you have 30 minutes to spare. Its not perfectly for sure and hopefully we will see some expansions/add-ons in the near future, free download would be nice!

Check out Gametrailers.com’s review:

I still haven’t bought Fat Princess because I’ve been way too busy to buy new games. Well the real reason is probably because its not a first-day-buy for me. I know its fun, hella fun, but it just isn’t enough to convince me to get it right away. Anyway enough of that. Fairytale Fights might just be good enough to convince me to get this.

Fairytale Fights, you can partially guess, its about fairytale. There ARE fairytale characters in there, but with a twist. Fairytale Fights, not only does it involve violent action, but we are talking about ULTRA violent and bloody action where your fairytale character are literally chop the enemies into pieces. End result? Blood everywhere on the ground, what makes this even funnier is you can “skate” on the blood! Now that is funny!

This also feels like a party game, like the Wii kind. Which is a bonus because PS3 and Xbox are both missing some good party games. I’m also putting my bets on this being a downloadable instead of a full $60 game.

Fairytale Fights will be released on October 27, 2009.

Video Games | Fairytale Fights | Preview

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Took me a while to get my hands on the demo for Batman: Arkham Asylum on PSN as I kept on getting error when trying to download it. So I finally managed to get it and I was excited, because this game might actually be a comic-movie-cartoon video game that will not disappoint, unlike the rest of the movie games (ahem….G.I. Joe anyone?). So is Batman: Arkham Asylum worth buying?

I have mix reactions actually because the demo is rather short, you can easily finish it within 15-20 minutes, if not shorter. Then again it is not a race and you are suppose to appreciate the game by walking around, flying around with your trusty grapple hook. And due to the length of the demo, I’m not sure if I will get bored of some of the features of this game or not. For one the combat system is….ok, animations are smooth but nothing amazing, in my opinion. You basically throw punches, counter your enemies and try to knock them down for good. While hanging upside down or using the glide kick to take out your enemies is fun, I have a feeling its just one of those “its fun while it lasts” kind of thing. On the rather positive side, I do like the fact that you have different choices to choose from for taking out your enemies.

The detective mode looks interesting as well, you get to check what weapon each person (friends and enemies) is carrying, their status, be it calm or nervous, check where you can fly up using the grapple hook or weak walls where you can blow it up using explosives. Again the demo is rather short so that’s all I got to see and experiment.

The graphics look amazingly detailed, from the textures of the asylum to the characters that you play and/or interact with, specially the main characters like Batman, Joker and Harley Quinn (her outfit is pretty detailed!) for example.

Honestly after playing the demo, although I’ve always been a Batman fan, I am really not sure if I should get this right at the release date. And there isn’t a multiplayer mode, which is understandable, this game is at best, a rental for me. Unless you are a fanatic and/or you absolutely loved the demo, I don’t think you should buy it right away, wait for a price drop in about 6 months time or look for a second hand on ebay. I wish the demo was longer, then I would have a better idea. Right now it feels like I’m one of those crooks and left hanging upside down by Batman.

After months of waiting, they finally released another in-game trailer for Sarah-Palin-look-alike Bayonetta. This one shows a few more battles with large scale bosses as well as some crazy combo moves and how she can turn into a sexy beast err I mean panther. I am in love with the character designs, not just Bayonetta herself of course! Another thing I like about this game over Devil May Cry is the way the game is presented, with elegant style and music. I don’t mind even calling this game beautiful.

This game will be out on September 1st, seems like a long wait but I’m sure its worth the wait!

I have been a Batman fan for as long as I can remember. There hasn’t been a single Batman related game released ever since PlayStation 3 and xBox 360 came out, as far as I can remember. But the wait is almost over because based on EBGames, Batman: Arkham Asylum will be released on June 9th, less than 3 months from now.

To me, after Metal Gear Solid, Batman: Arkham Asylum should be another action + stealth game worth buying. If you have spare change in your wallet, you should also consider getting the collector’s edition because it comes with so much goodies such as: (taken from EBGames)

- Waynetech Batarang Storage Box
- 12” In-Game Design Batarang (stand attached)
- Dr Young’s Journal (50 page full color character encyclopedia)
- 2 Sleeve DIGI-Pack Including:
     - Game
     - Behind the scenes 5 chapter series DVD, including:
     - Interviews with Mark Hammil and Kevin Conroy
- Exclusive Collector’s Edition Challenge Map DLC
- Manual

As you can see you get a lot more than what you would normally get from other collector’s edition games, for a price of $99.99. For once I am really tempted to get a collector’s edition game, I mean you get a Batarang! Notice it also comes with an exclusive DLC map? I can only guess there will be more DLC maps available in the future.

Less not forget the game also has some impressive graphics, got to love the highly detailed Batman cape, body armor and the awesome looking Batmobile. Anyway, enjoy this Challenge Room trailer from Gametrailers.

So finally I got LittleBigPlanet yesterday, it was probably in the mailbox on Monday but I was too busy to check. I wanted to play a bit more before writing this review and the game was just too damn fun to let go of the controller last night. And I’m still trying to figure out how on earth to get my Nariko costume since my game didn’t come with the a card with the promotion code. I’ve sent an email to Futureshop and haven’t received a reply yet.

[update]:Turns out the promo was between Oct 3rd and Oct 9th, I pre-ordered mine on 11th, sigh. There goes my Nariko costume.

  

Story and controls
There isn’t really a solid story for LittleBigPlanet, you will be exploring and venturing out in different places and planets. The controls are straight forward and easy to get used to. Basically you can jump (hold down to jump higher and further) and pull or push objects. There are also these new and interesting actions such as smile, frown, angry and scared, each with 3 levels, so you can smile lightly, bigger smile and a crazy smile all executed using the directional buttons. You can also make your sackboy or sackgirl’s head move based on your SIXAXIS controller as well as making their hands move using L2, R2, L3 and R3. Such innovative features really help bring emotion and expression to the sack people. And one more thing, you can drag your L3 or R3 real fast from left to right or right to left to perform slaps (at people obviously!), which I haven’t got bored of doing yet. Then again, when you are actually going through a level you most likely will be too occupied to even bother playing with the expressions.

  

Gameplay, Graphics and physics
FUN, that’s the word that came to my mind when I played it for the first time. I found it particularly fun because I’ve used to play shoot’em up games for far too long, Call of Duty 4 for example, not that I’m complaining, I will never get bored of that game just that its just nice to play something that’s completely different for a change. Most of the time, this game is relaxing, but, maybe I just suck and/or impatient, I had to play some of the levels a few times before I could pass them in order to unlock the next area(s). I guess I should be glad that the game offers some level of difficulties, I mean after all, it won’t be fun if its too easy right?

  

This game is point based, meaning you get points by obtaining blue orbs. But that’s not very rewarding isn’t it? You can also obtain outfits, decorations, stickers etc. You can place stickers and decorations pretty much anywhere and sometimes they are used to solve puzzles to unlock more items. I believe one of the biggest selling feature of this game is the amount of outfits you can obtain and customize your sackboys or girls. You have the options to edit each part of your sackboys or girls such as head, face, back, neck, eyes, upper outfit, lower outfit etc. You can even choose to have the system randomly generate a look as well and you can imagine the number of combinations there can be as you obtain more outfits! You can save your look for a quick change as well as deleting them.

  

Graphics are top notch as well, I think the word I would use is, surreal. Its dreamlike and cartoonish but at the same time realistic with great lighting effects, vibrant colors and detailed textures of the surroundings. As mentioned before, the facial expression of your sackboys and girls are eye candies. Although it only supports up to 720p which most of us can probably not tell the difference between 1080p and 720p anyway so its not really an issue.

Aside from the normal beat-the-level kind of game, there are also challenges that you can unlock by obtaining keys. One example of challange will be to continuously jump up and down and get as many blue orbs (for points) as you can while avoiding the fire.

As you can see, this game packs TONS of features and I have yet to discover them all. I’ve had a chance to play a bit online last night and the online feature just makes this game easily worth 10 times more than the $59.99. You can play levels online with others (by the way some areas require others’ help to unlock) or you can play on your own. You can also pick the Quick Play option and you will be joining someone random and play whatever they are playing. The number of levels in LittleBigPlanet is pretty much infinite as long as people keep creating levels and sharing them, there will be new levels to play for as long as this game remains popular, which I am confident it will. You can also “hearted” your favorite levels and your friends on PlayStation Network can see them.

Aside from the graphics, the physics, yes this is my first time having a section, or rather one third of a section, dedicated to game physics. There are many obstacles through out the game, sometimes you will have to push or pull blocks in order to proceed to the next area. On the other hand you can, for example, be pulling a string left and right to shake the blue orbs or items down for you to obtain.

  

Sound
So far I have heard many different types of music, some are up beat, some are spooky and some are down right classical. I also like the commentary that is spoken in English with British accent, just love that accent. There aren’t any other types of sound worth mentioning. Let me know if I’ve missed anything.

Final verdict
I’m pretty sure I have not tapped into everything about LittleBigPlanet, but as you can see, the amount of contents this game has is incredible. The amount of customization of your sack characters is one of the greatest feature this game has to offer, I think personalization is what makes a good game….a good game! With personalization you can have a unique presence instead of looking the same as other people. Unlike some of the games that mainly target specific groups of gamers, LittleBigPlanet suits all types of gamers, even non gamers in my opinion. Finally, the fact that you can create your own levels and share them with everyone else online makes this game even better. This is what I would call a Web 2.0 game, correct me if I’m wrong though.

Finally after Resistance, Heavenly Sword and Metal Gear Solid 4, the PlayStation 3 has another worthy exclusive game.

9.5/10

First I got the news from EBGames that the Mirror’s Edge demo will be available on November 6th, I guess its been pushed forward by 1 week and is released today. Its always a good thing! Unlike Little Big Planet, I am still waiting for it to be shipped from Futureshop, it said “Shipped” but I have yet to see it in my mailbox.

Anyway onto the demo.

Oh-My-God, that was literally what I said to myself when I was playing this game, I have never had so much thrill for a long time! Even though the demo lasted 20-25 minutes max (unless you keep dying). The game is similar to The Bourne Conspiracy where you have to act quickly otherwise you will be captured/killed. Compare to Bourne, I think Mirror’s Edge is the better one.

  

Faith, your character tells you the story in comic style during loading which is plus, its always better to be looking at something moving rather than the old boring “loading” text. The first part of the demo starts you off with a few tutorials of how to move around, jump, slide underneath objects, climb up. Aside from the basics, you will learn to disarm from behind or from the front, shoot or throw away the weapon. That’s not all! You will also learn to do crazy acrobatics like running horizontally on a wall then spin around and jump onto the opposite side (sorry I tried my best to describe). Its basically pressing 3 buttons but you need to really time your presses. So you can chain your moves and perform something crazy. One thing I absolutely love about the controls is that most of the actions are performed using just the L1.

  

The second part is the real deal where you have to jump/move/climb around to deliver a package to the other runner Celeste. In between you have to run away from hostiles and/or fight your way through. Let me tell you, the second part was a THRILL to play!

  

  

Graphics are AMAZING and able to run in full HD 1080p. I particularly like the way the lighting is done. The whole city looks very realistic. I couldn’t stop taking pictures while playing the game and graphics are that good. Definitely eye candy.

Can’t really comment much on the music there’s only one track and a good one of course. Kind of feel like the Metal Gear Solid opening music.

If you haven’t downloaded the demo, please do so! You don’t know what you are missing!

  

I really appreciate game companies releasing game demos because they allow us gamers to try out the games before purchasing them, instead of doing all the guessing and then taking the risk of buying something we don’t enjoy playing. Reading reviews and watching trailers from Gamespot and Gametrailers help a bit but you can never be sure until you have played the games YOURSELF.

The game will be released on November 11th.

Stay tuned for yet another hyped up game demo review – Tom Clancy’s End War.

  

I saw the trailer about a month ago and was really impressed, then again, its only a trailer and probably not the PSP version. I took some time to play around with the PSP version of Spider-Man: Web of Shadows and I was not impressed. Another disappointment. Again for the PSP version and does not necessary imply the PS3 and the XBox360 versions are just as bad.

You start off at the top of some building, typical. You will basically be swinging around from left to right or right to left, occasionally you will get inside some buildings, you have your basic punch combos and kick combos by repeatedly pressing square for punch and triangle for kick. You shoot out your web by pressing x, as well as holding a direction and press R to perform web swinging. You can also walk on walls and I had experience a buggy situation where Spidy was literally flying up instead of walking up vertically along the wall.

  

Overall the graphics are…well…pass, I think Lego Batman has better graphics than this game. So far I have only seen 3 to 4 variations of enemies PLUS Venom, which is the boss for first level. Oh yea after defeating Venom, you also get infected by the black matter and you can now turn toggle between original Spidy and black spidy with different abilities / attacks by pressing select. And basically you are just moving vertically and horizontally.

  

After the first level is complete, you can purchase new skills by spending you good Spidy points and bad spidy points, you can’t purchase good Spidy skills using bad Spidy and vice versa. Now how do you get Spidy points? When you interact with people, you get to choose good answer or bad answer, obviously good answer will give you good Spidy points and bad answer will give you bad Spidy points. You will get more by accepting quests from people that you encounter as well to gain more Spidy points.

  

So far that’s all I have discovered after playing Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, it was too linear and down right boring after a while that I’ve decided to turn off my PSP. Oh yea did I mention the voice acting is bad as well? I suggest sticking to the PS3 and/or the XBox360 versions. Or better yet, rent to see if you like it or not.

5/10