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So I had a chance to play the demo for Mini Ninjas tonight for the PlayStation 3. My first impression of this game was “wow, this game is colorful!”, not to the point where its photo realistic but high definition cartoon art style. Not only that, the music and the environment combine really give that “zen” and oriental feel.

Personally I don’t think this game is for me, I feel that this game is aimed towards the younger crowd. Mini Ninjas puts you in a team of ninjas, you will be able to switch among 3 initially. And as you progress through the game, you will unlock (rescue?) the others with each ninja has his/her advantages.

Although I mostly won’t buy this game, Mini Ninjas certain has a lot of interesting features like having you to hold down “X” and shake your controller to collect fruits and honey from trees and bushes. You will also be opening doors with this action which makes the game more engaging because you are not just mashing buttons. You will have a few scrolls at your disposal as well, one of them being the Spirit Form where you can take on the form of an animal. You can attack your enemies if you take on the boar or a bear by running into them.

You can also fish in the ever virbrant river for sushi, which obviously is for bring your health back up. You have the option to swim (very slow) through your way or you can sit in your huge round hat and paddle across. Both have a timer so you can only be swimming for a limited time, although most likely you won’t run out of time, at least based on the demo. Too bad you can’t experience what I call it snow-hatting, where you will be sliding snowy slopes in your hat which I saw at the end of the demo.

If you are looking for some “zen” and/or casual third person action game with mini (chibi) characters. Mini Ninjas should not disappoint you. Although this game isn’t really for me, I highly recommend this for the younger crowd, as in younger than 20 (yes I’m old!).

Mini Ninjas will be released on September 8th 2009.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine reminds me of Heavenly Sword, a lot, particularly the sound of Wolverine’s clawns make when you slash your enemies into pieces. The demo was actually enjoyable, but still not worth my money to be honest. Maybe its because I’m not a hardcore fan of Wolverine, but one thing for sure is this game has not been polished enough, again in my opinion.

As I mentioned the style is similar to Heavenly Sword, or any other hack and slash games out there. You can chain your normal attacks with your heavy attacks. The fights are fast and bloody, a plus for me. There are also features that I haven’t seen in other games before, or I just don’t play enough games anymore these days. One is the Lunge attack, which you get early on in the demo and which you get to lock on to a target (make sure there is no object in between you and the unfortunate, and then jump onto the target and kill him. I never got bored of using Lunge when I played the demo but I found it a bit too powerful. The second feature that I like is the way the environment can give you different ways of finishing off your enemies. Like you can throw someone into a large stake that you will find on the walls or floors. These features really give the game more varieties, in terms of killing.

You can also upgrade Wolverine by collecting orbs and gaining experience by killing your enemies. I’m a big fan of level grinding so experience is another +1 for the game.

Now you will probably want to ask “Then why won’t you buy this game since you sound like you enjoyed this game?”. Well for one thing this type of game does not really offer me too much replay value, once I finish the game, it will be collecting dust, but this can be easily solved by selling it back to game stores. But I’m too cheap for that even so I might go rent it for a weekend. Second thing I don’t like is related to the “has not been polished” that I have mentioned before. The graphics look nice until you notice your character, Wolverine, is sometimes “floating” above the floor instead of walking on the floor. Floating is noticable when you are going uphill. That alone just turned me off, it might minor for you but for some reason its a big deal for me and its not acceptable.

So overall I think this game is worth it if you can ignore little issues here and there, I’m sure there are more issues like “floating” in the full game. The fact that you can interact with the environment and make use of it for killing your enemies is really a big bonus, making the game much more fun. So that’s my take for this game, get the demo if you have an xbox and/or a PS3 and see for yourself!

Its almost holiday season and I’m sure everyone’s looking for great games to play during that time. I have composed a list of top 10 games that I think its worth buying. Hope you guys will find the list helpful. They are not in any particular order.

Dead Space – This has to be one of the best single player horror X sci-fi game I’ve ever played in years if not in my life. With innovative holographic menu system that is “real time” which means enemies can still attack you because the game is not paused, you don’t see any HP or ammo being displayed on the screen, instead you will see them on your character’s armor and the weapons. With this menu system, you can basically This makes the game more enjoyable because there is now nothing distracting you from the monster limb chopping you will surely enjoy. Audio is also nicely composed which really further makes the atmosphere even scarier.

Buy Dead Space on ebay

Fallout 3 – Similar to Oblivion released years back, this time taking place in post-apolcalyptic Washington D.C. in the year 2277. You will fight your way through raiders, mutants and ghouls. Killing anyone on your path including innocent people and become an evil or gain as much positive karma as you can to become a saviour or in between good and evil. Your karma will have direct affect between you and anyone you interact with. Aside from being able to switch between first and third person, Fallout 3 also introduces Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System or VATS which helps you “auto aim” at certain body parts or the same part (with the chance of hitting displayed) in bullet time style. Using VATS will drain your AP or Action Points which can be regained in time or by using items.

Finally, the world you are in is huge, and provide you many areas both up on the hills all the way to the underground into abandoned subway stations and caves to explore .

Buy Fallout 3

Rock Band 2 / Guitar Hero World Tour – Two of the best musical / party / rock band game, play with up to three of your friends with mic, guitar and/or the drum. Some people prefer Rock Band while others say Guitar Hero World Tour is better. Well….guess it all depends on the person. I only have Guitar Hero and I’ve played Rock Band before at my friend’s house. I prefer the songs from Guitar Hero to be honest.

Buy Rock Band 2 on ebay
Buy Guitar Hero World Tour on ebay

 

Left 4 Dead – I would say this is yet one of the best games of this year. You can play with up to 3 other players, bots or human and fight your way through zombie infested maps. The best feature of this game is that zombies can randomly pop out at you when you are least expected and the level of difficult is auto adjusted based on your performance. You can also have the option to play on the “dead” side as well. This game is very fast paced and really gives you the “rush/desperate” feel. Unfortunately this game is only for XBox 360 and PC owners.

Buy Left 4 Dead on ebay

 

 

Call of Duty: World at War – If you are into first person shooter, you should have played Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare by now. If not then something is obviously wrong with you in my opinion. COD: WAW takes place back in World War 2, I personally prefer modern time so I didn’t get this game. But COD: WAW offers 4 player co-op game play, a deadly flame thrower and you can unlock an extremely fun and increasingly difficult zombie stage after beating the game. This is a must for first person and/or World War fans, getting COD 4 is another safe buy as well. I’ve been playing COD 4 for over a year and I’m still not bored of it, this should tell you how good the COD series really is.

Buy Call of Duty World at War on ebay

World of Warcraft: Lich King – One of the best MMORPG to date. I haven’t played WOW before and not planning to because I worry that I will get too addicted to it. I used to play and was hooked on Final Fantasy 11 for slightly less than 2 years in which it used up a lot of my time and so I had to call it a quit and said goodbye to my level 65 TaruTaru Dark knight…sigh. If you are a Warcraft fan, existing WOW player AND you have the time, I don’t see any reason why you should skip this expansion.

Buy World of Warcraft: Lich King on ebay

 

 

 

Gears of War 2 – One of the best sci-fi third person shooter, unfortunately only available for the Xbox 360. Wish it would be ported over to the PlayStation 3 but I highly doubt it. I think this game is just as good as Call of Duty.

Buy Gears of War 2 on ebay

 

 

 

 

 

Chrono Trigger – One of the best RPG classic orginally released for the Super Nintendo. This turn based RPG created by SquareEnix has a rich story plot as well as amazing graphics (at the time of original release) and audio. RPG fans cannot miss this one!

Buy Chrono Trigger on ebay

 

 

 

The Last Remnant – Many people will probably disagree on this one. Even after seeing the all the graphical issues like texture popping and laggy frame rate during battles. I still think this is a great game, again by Square Enix, and its a perfect Japanese RPG game to play until Final Fantasy 13 comes out. I particularly like the new battle system where you are not just fighting with your group but also have the ablity to give simple commands to your ally groups. As a result battles are much bigger and longer. Too bad its only for XBox 360, PlayStation 3 owners will have to wait and hopefully those graphical issues will be resolved by then.

Buy The Last Remnant on ebay

 

I’m sure there are many other games that you think are worth buying, feel free to add to my list in the comments.

 

Here is a list of games that I think everyone should watch out for in order of release date (bold are the more important ones). These games should be MORE than enough to last you til next year without buying any games in December. Even half of this list will last you for a long time.

Here’s the list:

Dead Space
Midnight Club: Los Angeles
Spider-Man: Web of Shadows
Barbie Horse Adventures: Riding Camp (just kidding)
LittleBigPlanet
Star Ocean: First Departure
Fable 2
Far Cry 2
Bioshock – for those who didn’t get the PC/XBox360 version
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
Fallout 3
MotorStorm: Pacific Rift
Tom Clancy’s End War
James Bond 007: Quantum of Solace
Resistance 2
Gears of War 2
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe
Call of Duty: World at War
Mirror’s Edge
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Expansion Pack
World of Warcraft Gaming Mouse – and for those that can afford or justify buying a $100 dollar mouse
Need for Speed Undercover
Left 4 Dead – I wish this would be out on the PlayStation 3
Hello Kitty: Big City Dreams (another joke)
Tomb Raider Underworld
Alone In The Dark: INFERNO – for those with PlayStation 3, this version fixes some issues that were reported from the earlier release and includes an exclusive new sequence in Ep 6

Let me know if I missed anything great!

I’ve never played any of the previous Bond games, Quantum of Salace will very likely be my first. Using the Call of Duty 4 engine, the graphics are just impressive, if not better than Call of Duty 4. And judging from this trailer, while the game play certainly looks interesting and fast pace overall, though the AIs are quite stupid, they just stand there in the open and not taking cover. Speaking of taking cover, Quantum of Solace has also incorporated the cover system which Call Of Duty 4 lacks. You can also perform random blind shots “sprays” when taking cover. Similar to Far Cry 2, you can interact with the environment like killing enemies by blowing up inflammable objects. These features are nothing new but certainly great to have them all in one single game.
Will this beat the Golden Eye from years ago? We will have to wait and see. Again a demo would be nice!

Quantum of Solace will be out on November 4th on basically all platforms except PSP, which is strange seeing it will be released even for DS.

I was reading an article on cnet and I have to agree completely with what David Carnoy have mentioned about the present and future of the Sony PlayStation. The current PlayStation 3 has just started to take off with the lowered production cost (chip shrunk from 90nm down to 45nm) and with slightly more games worth purchasing. Sony should get back or at least break even from the investment and money lost from selling each console under cost when it first came out. That won’t be possible however, if Sony started researching on a completely new processor chip from the ground up as it would need to inject a huge chunk of money for research and development all over again, well before Sony could profit from the current console. Therefore it makes much sense for Sony to stick to the current chip design and modify it.

As a PlayStation 3 (60GB with Spiderman 3 Blu-ray DVD) owner since November 2007, I would prefer to hold on to this console for at least a few more years as oppose to buying a new console every 2 years because I’m just not ready to make another expensive purchase, just like most of us normal consumers who would like to make purchases at the cheapest possible price unlike the hardcore gaming fans who will rush to get new consoles/games on their very first release days. I too agree Sony should improve the current console, not just on the technical side but the look and feel of the console as well. The PlayStation 3 console is huge, though its surprisingly quiet. It would be great if its size could be reduced to the same side as the slim PlayStation 2. I think the slim version of the PS2 is one of the sleekest console of all time, if not THE sleekest. And I assume by the time it can be shrunk to that size, the price will drop as well?

Sony should ignore and forget about Microsoft from releasing an XBox 720 or XBox1080 (I personally like the name XBox1080 as it would match with the current Full HD format). Why? What happened to the earlier versions of the XBox360? Remember the infamous Red Ring of Death? How many times did someone you know had to send back the console for a repair or a new one? Don’t get me wrong, I am not a PS3 fanboy and certainly not here to bash XBox360, at least not in this article and I don’t see a point in bashing it anyway as I heard from people the newer versions are much more stable than the older ones. I just want to point out that history would repeat itself if Microsoft rushed into releasing a new console. And even if a new XBox is released with better graphic capabilities, its not all about the graphics. First if a game has great graphics but no actual playing value, the game would still not be worth purchasing, well most of the time. Take the Nintendo Wii for example, it doesn’t have the graphics compare to the XBox360 and PlayStation 3 but its the best selling console these days. The reason is because it is innovative and it suits a broader range of audience from non gamers, casual gamers and to the hardcore gamers. To me its basically a tweaked GameCube!

But then again, imagine what the PlayStation 4 can do with a completely new chip.

What do you think?

Call of Duty 5 will be released on November 11th for US and November 14th for Europe. From watching the trailers on Gametrailers.com This game might be better in terms of game play and graphics. The game features 4 player co-op game play which is something I really want to have and the graphics have improved and got bloodier. The reason why I said “might” is because as long as I haven’t played it, I don’t see a point to judge a game based solely on trailers.

I’ve been asking myself do I want another COD game that takes place in the past? And most importantly do I have time to play COD 4 AND 5. As far as I can tell, COD 4 is more than enough for my daily online multiplay needs. And honestly I prefer modern to futuristic over games taking place during the World War 1/2 time periods. Something like Halo and Gears of War (Haze was horrible based on the demo I played). I just think we have enough of those and should focus more on the modern time if not in the future.

Again after watching those trailers, COD 5 is certainly a great game, it might or might not be better than COD 4, I guess time will tell and it really differs from person to person. For those that are fans of WW1/2 then I think COD 5 will probably suit them better. Hopefully when Call of Duty 6 comes out the game will take place somewhere in the future and/or in space which is what I ultimately am looking for in the next COD series.

As for COD 5, well, I will keep debating with myself whether its worth buying or not. A demo would be nice!

Images from the Official Call Of Duty Site

I could hardly concentrate at work today because I knew once I got off work, I would be driving to EBGames close to my home for a copy of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Ever since I tried out the demo. I could not get it off my mind. One reason because I have hardly played any Star Wars related games prior to the release of this game. Although I was really close to getting Lego Star Wars but I didn’t in the end. That’s why I love downloadable content so much because you can actually try out the games before you buy. And a lot of the games that I like happen to offer demos.

But did the game live up to my expectation?

 

Graphics & Audio

The graphics are amazing and I have mentioned that in my demo review already. But with the demo you could only see so much since it was only part of a level. The voice over and lip synching is much more life like compare to other games with dialogues. One thing I forgot to mention from my demo review is that, the environments really give you the impression that you are within something massive like when you are inside the hangar or deep inside the ship’s core. And since so many people asked, no this game does NOT support 1080p full HD output unfortunately. It would be nice if it was though obviously.

And as for audio, I’m no expert but I like the sound effects, specially the lasers and when you are killing enemies with your beam sabre. The sound effects are really movie-like. I have not encountered any missing audio yet as reported by Gametrailers.com. It did mention about missing audio in the ending though. That would be such a turn off!

 

Game play & Controls

With the EMM engine controlling what materials to use for creating each object, the Havok controlling the objects’ movements and finally the last engine, the Euphoria engine determining how enemies react to their environments. The combined affect of the three physics engines really created a realistic experience. For example, watch closely when you Force Grip an enemy, if he is close to some crates, he will actually try and hold on to it. I think little details like this really add to over gaming experience. I have not encountered any clipping problems so far reported by Gametrailers and I hope I do not. The game is also somewhat on the short side as well with only 9 missions.

Controls are pretty straight forward, if you have played other action games before it will take you no time to get used to the figure out which button is for what purpose. When fighting bosses, you will finish them off by following a set of buttons much like in Heavenly Sword. If you fail to excute perfectly, you will have to start over again. Overall you will go through each level killing enemies with a few different combo moves, and the hack and slash may bored some players after a while. It quickly turns into a level grinding fest like an RPG game when trying to level (power) up your three forces – Force Lightning, Force Grip and Force Push. The forces do provide hours of excitement but after that, they become just a bunch of weapons. And did I mention there’s no online game play?

 

Final verdict

After all the hype generated over the past few months, I can assume this game will be a must for hardcore Star Wars fans. Those that are into third person action like Devil May cry may also find this game entertaining. But for how long? That really depends on how fast you get bored of repetitive game play with no online component. In my opinion, its another game that didn’t quite live up to the hype generated unfortunately. At least its good for a rental game.

7.5/10

 

Buy Star Wars: The Force Unleashed on eBay now