Now Playing: Batman Arkham Origins - Blackgate

 A bit of a mess isn't it?

 So I've been doing steady progress in Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, and am now busy farming the Lagiacrus for the full set, and fearing that I may get tired of it, I decided I'm gonna take another game with me on vacations, but since I'm fairly impatient... I started it now, you know, took it for a test drive.

 And... It's alrightish but buggy and very very flawed. Countering doesn't seem as responsive as it is on the big consoles, nothing that mashing the X button doesn't fix, and Batman's range is fairly inconsistent, he may fly towards an enemy with a kick or... just punch the air. And then there's the glitches, the Batclaw sometimes will fail to work properly, so you have to either exit-and reenter the area, or in some cases, like Penguin's getaway or the area where you find the Batclaw itself, reload the entire checkpoint.

 What I liked:
- The same combat from the console games.
- 2-5D Metroivania, baby!
- Tons of stuff to find.

What I didn't like:
- Some of the collectibles are a bit of a pain in the butt, you have to use detective mode and scavenge the area with the left analog stick. Basically, every time the camera angle changes, I force myself to do it, since OCD and all that fun stuff.
- Countering attacks feels unresponsive, Batman's attack range is inconsistent.
- Annoying bugs.
- Low quality cinematics. Alright, you are gonna use 2D art, fine, I can roll with it. But the art is fairly inconsistent, sometimes it looks good, others... not so much. But the real kicker is how badly compressed this cinematics are! They are very pixelated and blurry, feels like I'm watching Ps1 cinematics, goddamn!
- What the hell are Waynetech stashes doing in Blackgate Prison? And why the hell do they contain the precise gadgets that Batman needs? Like, seriously.

The Worst Youtuber: DarksydePhil

 So I was itching to write something, anything, so... why not write about DSP, a youtuber that I dislike the more I hear about him. So, where to start?

 Bullshit thrown his way

 Before I get into what makes him such an awful, awful person and Youtuber, I might as well start with some of the crap people give him, unjustly(unbelievably) so. So, a lot of people rag on him for being bad at games, or even blaming them for his own mistakes. So what? How does sucking at games, or getting angry at them make him a terrible person? They don't. It's not rare to find comments like 'You ruined 'X game', kill yourself' and the such. It's funny, because a ton of people give him crap for saying stuff like that to his critics, yet they say the same shit back to him. Hypocrites much? There're plenty of  people arguing with some of the 'critics', and they get downright insulted for thinking differently. Case in point:

 If you are gonna call out Phil for not being able to take criticism or what have you, ya better not do it as well. If you are gonna call out Phil for being an asshole, you'd better not be one yourself.

 Then there are the people that assume that just because Phil laughs at people, in a videogame, dying, he is an asshole. It's just a videogame. If you play GTA and start killing grannies(Them GTA III old ladies!) and laughing about it, does that make you a psycho? A potential murderer? Phil's humor is terrible, true enough, but implying that because he makes light of a situation, in a videogame, means he'd be the same in real life is just flimsy.

 And that's about the only things one can defend Phil about. But what makes him so terrible? Well...

 He's a self-centered lying hypocrite. Where to start... How about his infamous 'Five Nights at Freddy's' playthrough, which he ended saying 'This game is terrible, don't be sheep, listen to me and don't be sheep', which I paraphrased a bit, but I assure you that was his message. Basically, if you like a popular game, for whatever reason, you're wrong, you are a sheep that fell for the hype. So you should listen to Phil, he knows better! There're more instances of this self-centered righteousness of his', like the whole Earthbound/Minecraft debacle. 'People just can't appreciate good games anymore', because they'd rather watch Minecraft than watch Earthbound. Maybe people would rather play Earthbound themselves? And remember when Nintendo started taking a cut from playthroughs? Suddenly he was the voice of the people, something that only affected Let's Players, and not 'the common gamer', as he likes to call himself, but you should listen to Phil and avoid Nintendo!

 As for the hypocrisy, no better example than his whole rant against advance copies. But the second he learns that he can get in on it, he starts putting excuses like 'this is not and ideal world so I can campaign for what's right' and 'I did it to save the business'. What? Please, DSP, you were salty that you thought you couldn't get advance copies and get early views. But one of his most disgusting displays of hypocrisy came with Injustice: Gods Among Us(Great game, by the by), when he came upon a player with over 1000 matches and started calling him a no-life loser. DSP, please remind everyone what your 'job' is. When he was later questioned about it, instead of saying that he was sorry, he tried to explain why it was OK for him to be an ass.

 As for the lying, there's a very funny 'episode'... DSP called out his ex-friends John Rambo and Howard, how if you have a problem with somebody you should be a man about it and tell it to their faces... Well, this exploded on his face. Rambo and Howard, out of respect, cut all ties with DSP since he was, honestly, a lying douchebag and an all-around crappy friend, but spoke no ill of him... until DSP had to make that video calling them out. And they answered. Over an hour long podcast calling out DSP on his greedy, lying douchebaggery. And you could argue that it's word against word, but everything that John and Howard said is on point with what we know about Phil. How he'll often say things and then say that he didn't mean it, how it was 'in the heat of the moment', like that time he said an interviewer said something he did not, and when it was discovered, Phil excused himself. Pf.

 Other Youtubers/Streamers. Easily one of the things that bother me about Phil the most, he's often said how he 'doesn't watch other Youtubers/Streamers'. Yet every. Single. Chance. He. Gets. He'll compare himself to 'Other Youtubers/Streamers'. And always in a possible light. 'I don't want to be like other Youtubers that constantly beg for donations and subscriptions'. Which is funny, because, and I'll admit that I'm not huge on watching stream or Let's Plays, DSP is the ONLY Streamer/Youtuber I know that speaks so much about views. How X playthrough didn't get enough views, how the views on a playthrough dropped, etc, etc. DSP is the only Youtuber/Streamer I know that can't help himself but speak about 'Views'. And the cherry on top? Recently he made himself a Patreon, so he is constantly, constantly suggesting his viewers to donate, 'as little as a dollar per month', 'if all my fans gave me just a dollar', 'even a dollar helps'. Most Youtubers I follow, IF they mention Patreon outside the video description, will either make a single video talking about their Patreon or mention it AFTER the video ended. Not DSP, every pre-stream(Which translates into many Youtube videos) he has to remind everyone about his patreon. And how he could really use 'a dallah'. He constantly reminds everyone how it's the other Youtubers/Streamers that beg for subs and donations, but DSP is the only one I know that does it. Disgusting. And don't even let me get into his numerous guilt trips. I'm willing to entertain the idea that he doesn't realize that he does it, but there's at least a couple of instances where he mentioned how 'before fans would talk about my playthroughs and tell other people about them', y'know, when 'views were higher'.

 And speaking of how he compares himself with 'Other Youtubers/Streamers', he loves to mention how they are all entertainers, while DSP wants to be the 'common gamer' and 'maximum truth'. That's fine, but then why the hell does he play a character, as he claims, on his playthroughs? Supposedly all his rage and anger are just to entertain. Well, then you are giving the wrong impression about a game, what, the controls don't work since 'there was nothing I could do!', 'I DIDN'T PRESS ANYTHING', etc? You can't have it both ways, you silly ass. Playing a character is part of 'being an entertainer', as he likes to call the 'other Youtubers/Streamers'.

 His Humor. All right, so this is pretty subjective, but seeing the amount of hate that he gets, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who finds him completely unfunny. His humor consists on burping in front of the microphone, classy. Or making crude remarks about every single female character that appears on screen 'look at them titties' or stuff of the same ilk. It's not funny. He is a grown man using teenage-like humor and failing at it.

 Basically, DSP is not a nice guy and he deserves almost all the hate that he gets. Some of the 'haters' go a bit too far, like trolling him on his streams and what have you, but make no mistake, DSP is not a guy you want to root for.

Now Playing: Earth Defense Force 2025

EDF! EDF! EDF!

 So, Earth Defense Force USA was my introduction to the series, and it turns out fans consider it a 'bad EDF game'. Well, I just started this game on co-op, and what can I say, I think I liked the other one a teeny bit more.

 So, I'm playing the Fencer, I would've gone with the flying class, like I did in the other game, but I think the class looks ridiculous in this one, so I opted for the badass guy in a suit, plus, I knew it had melee weapons... and well, it's slow as molasses. My sister is co-oping as the Ranger, and I need to equip the hammer with the dash in order to keep up! Now that I think about it, characters definitely seem 'deeper' than in EDF USA.

 What I liked:
- The different classes, different weapons, how you can have different load-outs
- The idea behind the game.
- Couch co-op.
- Gameplay is fun, very arcadey, which I enjoy a lot.

What I didn't like:
- Performance issues galore. The framerate dips. Constantly. I wonder if its better in Single player?
- Loading times are long.

Review #275: Castlevania Chronicles

 Because sometimes, just sometimes, games hate your guts.

 Castlevania Chronicles is the remake of a remake. Sort of. Y'see, Castlevania for the X86000 was sort of a remake of Castlevania NES. Sort of. Castlevania Chronicles is a compilation of both the original X86000 game and its remake.

 You see, Castlevania X86000 was brutal. It IS brutal, and it is available in all of its original glory as 'Original Mode'. But the game is incredibly hard, due to enemy placement, stiff movement and the amount of damage you take. 'Arrange Mode' is the remake, which not only offers a new sprite for both Simon and Dracula, but it allows you to customize the difficulty setting: Easy, so that you can cruise through the game, Normal, which is about as hard as Rondo of Blood and Hard which is almost as hard as the original game on the X86000. But you can further customize the challenge by disabling the timer or upping your life stock to 5. If you ask me, 'Arrange Mode' is the best way to experience the game, Original is way too hard and the pay off isn't worth it. And that's about all the differences between both versions, from now on, everything refers to both games.

 Chronicles is what I like to call a Classicvania, a 2-D sidescrolling platform game. Simon, the hero, can jump, attack with his whip or use sub-weapons on his way to Dracula's abode. It sounds simple and it is simple, X jumps, Square attacks. Unlike most Classicvanias, you can actually adjust your jump trajectory mid-air, as well as whip downwards from the air. But that's as agile as Simon gets, y'see, the game is ridden with ladders, which you climb up or down by holding, well, up or down on the D-Pad. While on stairs you can't jump off them, so you are basically a very slow, huge target for mobile enemies. Even better, holding up and pressing square uses your sub-weapons, so its entirely possible to mess up and consume your sub weapon energy by accident. And like a ton of vintage platform games, there's quite a few pixel-perfect jumps standing between and Dracula, so good luck.

 To add insult to injury, level design isn't the best. Sometimes. particularly on vertically scrolling levels, enemies will pop up from the sides without even giving you a chance to dodge them, and there's a few obstacles that will catch you off guard the first time. The funny thing, all of these will either drive you away or, if you are an oldschool gamer, entice you to try it out. Yes, the game is Nintendo-hard, and if that's your jam, this is your game.

 When it comes down to it, Castlevania Chronicles is a good, but dated game. It's definitely not a game for everyone, and not worth the high price it commands now a days. But hey, you can buy it off PSN if you are feeling for a hardcore, oldschool platform game. And if you are just curious, there's always easy mode.
 7.0 out of 10

Review #274: Dragon Ball Z Extreme Butoden

 'nother year, 'nother Dragon Ball game.

 Every console, but the Vita it seems, must have a Dragon Ball game sometime during its lifetime, and now it's the 3DS' turn, at least outside Japan. It's ArkSys', of Blazblue and Guilty Gear fame, turn with the franchise, after their SuperSonic Warriors release, to develop the latest entry in the 'Butoden' fighting games.

 The game offers a purely offline experience, although Japan got an update with a Training and Online Modes, but seeing how it's been a couple of months since its release... It's safe to say we ain't getting it any time soon. As for the modes, there's Z Story, a 8-part story mode made up of 10 fights each, seven of the eight chapters follows a different 'What if' scenario, the 8th being a loose, and bland, retelling of the major story arcs of the series. Then there's 'Adventure Mode', which is an all-new what-if story... which is pretty boring. Fights in Adventure Mode have different goals to complete in order to unlock assist characters. Lastly there's 'Extreme World Tournament' which... isn't a Tournament mode at all, but rather another 'story'-type mode, fights are always the same! Lastly there's VS CPU or local Players. It's pretty barebones, but for a portable fighter I guess it's alright, although the absence of a Training Mode is unforgivable.

 First lemme get this out of the way: The game falls on the same pitfall most bad licensed fighters do: It's balanced according to the series, rather than strive for a balanced character roster. This means that, say, Raditz or Kuririn are gonna have a baaaaaaaaad time against characters like Beerus or Super Saiyan God Goku. It tries to make up for it by having the tired 'Dragon Power' system, allowing you to make a team of up to 3 playable characters, or 1-2 playable characters and up to 4 assist characters, as long as the sum of the 'Dragon power' of your team doesn't exceed 35. You could fight battles one-on-one, but the game encourages using Assist characters, as a matter of fact, certain characters have moves than are uncombo-eable, as far as I noticed, unless you use assists, which I think is a terrible design choice for a fighting game.

 Characters play more or less the same when it comes to normals. Y is Weak attack, X Strong attack, A varies depending on the character and B is used for dodging. Holding the L button and pressing Y or X lets you use Ki-consuming special moves, while R is used for dashing/canceling at the cost of some Ki. In a bizarre twist, ultimate moves are actually combos. Y-Y-Y-Y-X-A is how you use them. Lastly, characters share the same 'combos', while they have different properties, they are all executed the same. Which is to say, X-A is a blast attack, Y-Y-Y-Y-Y knocks back, Y-Y-X is a knock up, etc. To be honest, I felt the mechanics where a bit limited, and some movesets where a bit uninspired. I did like the fast speed of the overall game, and it does feel different from all the other ArkSys fighters, which is I complaint I usually have with their games: They all feel the same!

  Then we come to the character roster. Dragon Ball fans are so spoiled that they will usually whine if there's less than 60 characters. Listen, animating 2D sprites is hard, much harder than animating 3D models, so a 2-D fighter having a small character roster is more than understandable. Extreme Butoden features 25 characters, which is more than what most new 2-D fighters offer. That said, there's plenty of clones. Goku, Super Saiyan Goku, Super Saiyan God Goku and Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan Goku are basically the same character, barring the special moves. And Goku shares some moves with Adult Gohan, with whom he shares a body, as well as Bardok, with whom he shares a head. And what's up with having four Gokus? And why have Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan Goku if they wouldn't give us playable  Gold Frieza or Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan Vegeta? Since different forms are basically clones, it makes you wonder. And what's up with Bardock? Why give him a spot over more important characters like, say, Vegeto, Yamcha or Tien? Basically, I don't have a problem with the size, or even the clones, but rather some of their picks.

 The graphics are, easily, the game's biggest selling point, sprites are beautiful, and are better animated than even some of ArkSys own Blazblue sprites. If you've followed the Butoden series since the SNES games, you might even notice some familiar moves, like Piccolo and Teen Gohan's fast speed aerial kicks! And while theres 'only' 25 playable characters, they made animated sprites for over 100 characters, and they all look amazing.

 Alright, so Extreme Butoden is hardly a game to write home about, but, BUT I think it's a more than decent foundation for a second game/update. I believe that the game suffered mostly due to the developer playing it to the 3DS' strengths, which is the reason we got simple, limited combat mechanics. I'd like to see an update for the game, but on home consoles,  with the added benefit of real joysticks, and we could get some more characters. It could've also used real different modes, like a Survival mode or a true Tournament Mode.
 5.5 out of 10

Review #273: Silent Hill 3

 When humans don't behave like humans.

 I've been aching to give Silent Hill 3 a spin, for whatever reason, and now I did and... I'm pleasantly surprised.

 Firstly, you will not play this game for the story. I mean, the set up is alright, you play as Heather, who gets warped into 'the otherside' after a meeting a detective. In this 'Otherside' freaky things are out to get her, and soon she'll be involved in a cultist group's agenda. Y'know, it's alright. But... Humans don't behave like humans. Heather and the other NPCs, all behave very weirdly. Heather and the Detective come across all these creatures and they only trade a few words about it and then go merrily on their way. Or a character confronts another, and when they tell this character ' X was kidnapped and brainwashed!', the other character, instead of answering something sensible like 'Your cult is evil and X is better off now!' answers... 'X was happy!'... so what if X was happy? X WAS KIDNAPPED, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. Yeah... character interaction isn't very realistic, which put me off a lot. And what about this 'Otherside'? Like, every place that Heather goes into is completely devoid of any human life, seems abandoned really, so when does she get into 'the Otherside' really? I dunno, I feel the game could've explained some things better. Silent Hill 4 gets a lot of flak, and I'll admit that some of its characters' interactions were a bit iffy as well, but it was much more believable than this game's. Just saying.

 But when it comes to videogames, it can have the stupidest, most nonsensical story out there, but as long as the gameplay is tight, I won't care. And this game passes with flying colors. Firstly, there's two forms of movement: 2D or 3D. 2D gives you tank-like controls, strafing and a backstep. But 3D gives you more natural controls(Left is left, instead of making you rotate), but the freedom of movement comes at a cost: No strafing or backstepping. It's a fair trade off, and it accommodates both players that are fond of tanklike controls or the other type. The game also offers separate difficulty settings for both combat and puzzles, further accommodating for players of different skills. Very nice. I played the game on normal(Both for combat and puzzles) and they were just fine, and read about some of the 'Hard' puzzles and... they can get pretty challenging.

 In order to deal with the many monsters that assault Heather, she can use both close ranged weapons and a few fire-arms. Combat is a bit stiff, like most Survival Horror games, y'know the deal, slow swings, short range and scarce ammo and healing supplies. That said, melee combat is more viable than on most games of the genre, as a matter of fact, Heather can block incoming attacks for reduced damage. There's another type of... danger. Cliffs. For whatever reason, Heather can fall to her death off the edges of, well, any kind of surface with edges. I found it a fairly needless hazard, that will kill you mostly out of being distracted than it being a real danger, which I found to be kinda dumb.

 The camera can be a bit of a pain sometimes. Some areas feature fixed camera angles that messes with your controls(Although I'm guessing it doesn't if you are using the Tank-like settings) if you are moving while the camera transitions. Furthermore, while you can adjust, on areas without fixed camera angles, the camera behind Heather with L2, sometimes the camera will try to snap back to where it was before. It's specially annoying if you spot an enemy, you let go of L2 and the camera snaps in front of you while the enemy approaches you! And sometimes getting Heather to interact with the right item on the environment that you want can be a bit tough, particularly when interactables are close together or on top of each other, but these happens almost exclusively on 'safe spots' when trying to get Heather to interact with the save spot or pick up a certain item, so it's just a minor inconvenience.

 I liked Silent Hill 3, I really did, but I really don't understand how Silent Hill 4 gets so much flak when it's so much better than SH 3. The story is better, character interactions are better, gameplay is better. And in no way am I even trying to imply that Silent Hill 3 is bad, au contraire, it's fantastic, but Silent Hill 4 is every bit as good, and in my opinion even better, than this one, yet it's the one called the black sheep of the series. But I digress, Silent Hill 3 is a great, if a bit short, game. It can be challenging, unsettling, and even creepy but it offers enough customization in its difficulty and controls to appeal to players of varying skills.
 8.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Silent Hill 3

 It's goooooooooooooooooooooood.

 Lemme use my usual preface when writing about games like this... 'I am not a fan of survival horror games but...', but, Silent Hill 3 is badass. I just defeated the first boss and I think I'm in love.

What I liked:
 Heather. Heather is badass, and looks amazing. Who'd think a Japanese developer could resist pandering to the lowest common denominator and fanservicing the hell out of her?
 The setting. It's creepy, really creepy. I like it.
 Controls. Don't like tank-like controls? You can use more traditional controls at the cost of strafing and the backstep. A fair trade-off methinks.

What I didn't like:
 Fixed Camera angles. Alright, so I understand that it kinda comes with the territory, but I can't for the life of me enjoy being attacked by enemies off-camera. Particularly when Heather is looking straight ahead, so she should be able to see the threat, which in turns means I should be able to see it.
 Sloppy selection. This one is hard to explain, but basically, Heather's head turns into items of interest. Fair enough, but sometimes, for example, there might be a Save Spot above, say, an examinable bed. Sometimes it's hard to get Heather to interact with said Saves Spot instead of the bed.
 Enemies wait for nobody. Where you mashing X to get through a description and accidentally toggled it again or something? To bad, you can't move until you are done with it, but the enemies can and can attack you while you are defenseless. Not cool.