Tag Archives: Sandwich

Review in Progress #12 : Infamous 2

Status : Good story route cleared (hard).

One of my most anticipated sequels of the year, Infamous 2 released with some pretty big shoes to fill. The original is one of my favorite PS3 games and with some pretty big changes such as the city you play in and the protagonist, Cole Mcgrath’s voice actor being replaced with some other guy. Another cause for concern was the addition of many online features such as the ability to create missions and share them for all other players via the internet. Did Sucker Punch develop a good single player experience, or did the online overhaul take priority and ruin the fun of the original?

It's strange that the boxart draws my attention to Cole's blue hand than anything else

To get it out of the way, Cole’s new voice actor is terrible. Ever watch a tv show or cartoon where the token nerd has a weird speech impediment that makes every “S” come out like a “Sh”? Imagine that guy trying to sound like a badass. I think I heard “YESH” enough times to make M. Bison jealous.

You stole my meme, New-Cole!

Maybe it’s just me, but Cole seems to magnetize to a nearby surface while jumping much more frequently. I died a couple of times just because I’m trying to jump over something and wind up grabbing an unrelated ledge on the way and hanging like a jackass while dying. Also, if you’re as much a fan of the slo-mo death scenes in the first game as I was, you’ll be happy to know that they make a return, funny noises and all!

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Review in Progress #11 : Legacy of Kain : Soul Reaver 2 (PS2)

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Status : Finished

After my rave review of Legacy of Kain : Soul Reaver, the one thing that was left open, a proper ending, It was only a matter of time until I would play the sequel. Thankfully, there’s a big wait for Infamous 2 and Duke Nukem Forever which leaves a lot of time to tackle stuff on my backlog.

Don't let this image fool you, you cannot attack or make this threatening pose while climbing a wall ingame.

My expectations for the first two games were low actually. Blood Omen originally put me off with its terrible load times, and Soul Reaver was such a drastic change, from a top view adventure to a platformer that I worried the game would never capture the atmosphere of Nosgoth as well as the first. Unfortunately, I came into this one with incredibly high expectations.

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Video Game Music w/ the James Episode 7 : Ys Seven Soundtrack (Part 2)

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You can check part 1 out over here, where some of the game’s first great tracks were covered.

Settling down from one of the most badass desert themes in existence, we reach the second dungeon of the game. It feels like a nice, slow rock ballad, particularly toward the end of the loop after the piano section where the guitar sound comes in. Appealing to my more sensitive side as a gamer, it’s refreshing to hear softer tracks from a series better known for more hardcore sounding tracks. Also, there’s a lot of instrumental variety going on, a big plus in my book.

Probably the most festive song in the game. The first thing I think of doing every time I hear this track is getting up and dancing. Beginning fast and furious, the mood gradually settles to a quiet section which doesn’t last very long. There’s a little section that serves buildup purposes, and from there the party begins. A blissful smooth jazz sounding melody takes over and carries the track to a stopping point that just feels too soon. That’s what the repeat button’s for I guess.

The rhythm section has some cool stuff going on, there’s a touch of harp and some other stuff, it’s a blast from beginning to end!

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Review in Progress Top Ten : Episode 1 (Reviews 1 – 10)

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Finally my Review in Progress series has reached double digits. About 2 – 3 games a month starting from February is not bad considering the amount of school work that went with it. A number of genres and platforms were covered, some familiar series’ and some entirely fresh games.

Of course, the impact of each game has yet to be quantified, so without further ado, I’m going to list the games I played in order from my least favorite to favorite, as a nice way to condense what games I recommend and in what order. Depending how well this goes, expect one summary/top 10 like this for every 10 Reviews in Progress.

The sandwich, a classic and easy to prepare meal and an almighty placeholder when no other image applies to the topic.

This one’s a quickie and more of a catalog of articles that might have been missed to newcomers of The Wired Fish, so more detailed information, pictures and video clips can be found in the respective articles.

#10 – Okamiden (Review in Progress #4)

No, I never went back to playing Okamiden from where I was at the time of review. As a fan of the original, some of the changes were actually cool, such as the inclusion of partners that you could use to solve various puzzles. Unfortunately, most of the time you walk them around by drawing a path, it’s a slow hike to an out of reach treasure chest, and another line to return. Going for all the treasure in the dungeons was more tedious than it should have been as a result.

In short, the additions are poorly executed and elements carried over from the original were nowhere close to keeping my interest.

A second opinion was given by Steven offering different, and a more positive look on the game, check it out!

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Review in Progress #8 : Final Fantasy IV : The Complete Collection

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Status : Main game and Interlude cleared.

The title Review in Progress is a bit misleading. I prefer my first impressions in separate articles, and typically start the Reviewing at around the 80 – 100% mark of a game’s story. My very first RiP was for Final Fantasy II, a game that the format worked perfectly on because it had two different story modes. I finished one campaign, wrote what I thought about it, and saved the second part for a future update. I loved it although most of my later Reviews would just be “in Progress” by name, cause there’s only one campaign. Somebody clearly understood my pain as Final Fantasy IV : The Complete Collection contains not two, but three different stories for me to play through.

Actually, it really only has one new story for me. I beat FFIV in that collection with Chrono Trigger for PSX and I religiously played Final Fantasy IV : The After Years when it came out episodically on the Wii (I dread eventually having to replay Edward’s chapter). I also tried the DS remake and fucking hated it. For completion’s sake, I started with the original, so let’s get on with the review!

Square Enix sure loves using interesting color schemes for the boxes of their remakes... this time it's a nice white and grey.

Part 1 : Final Fantasy IV

Clear time : 24:49 (at least 2 of those hours were leaving the PSP idle though)

Stats : Cecil Lv55, Rosa Lv54, Kain Lv56, Rydia Lv51, Edge Lv55 Continue reading →

Review in Progress #10 : L.A. Noire – PS3(playing)/Xbox360

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Progress : 21/21 Story Cases Complete, 80.6% overall progress, 22h 41m 17s – logged game time.

Part 1 : Early Impressions

My relationship with Rockstar Games is a strange one. I am not a GTA fan at all, but that’s not to say I don’t enjoy my sandbox game every now and then (Impatiently waiting for Infamous 2). Red Dead Redemption, turned out to be one of my favorite games of last year surprisingly enough. Not knowing what to expect, L.A. Noire for the past few months has been not much more than a growing curiosity. Would it be like GTA? Would it be like RDR? The anticipation lasted until the copy landed on my doorstep three days ago.

Nothing screams catchy logo like classic yellow neon lights. Nothing.

The tutorial investigation was admittedly a pain in the ass. It took me a while to get the controls down in RDR and it took me probably longer this time around. Roaming around the alleyway, figuring out the run button from the search button, looking around for something to climb while my partner refuses to shut the fuck up… it was a nightmare. The control gets more comfortable over time with a single exception : the climbing. You have to be spot-on if you want to climb a pipe or ladder, otherwise you’ll be running into wall for a few seconds while trying to realign yourself. Usually this happens when in pursuit of a fleeing suspect making things harder than they should be. Because there is no jump or climb button, any action that involves leverage happens automatically by running into the proper obstacle. By doing this, you climb the ladder, hop the fence, jump across the rooftop, etc…

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Review in Progress #9 : Mortal Kombat : Xbox360, PS3 (Played)

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Status : One playthrough of Arcade mode, one 2 player team ladder playthrough, story mode finished and challenge tower complete.

“I’m not interested in Mortal Kombat, I’ll wait for a price drop and get Portal 2 in the meantime”.

That was my input on one of the biggest release days of this year. Half of my planned Portal 2 review is still in progress or might even be co-reviewed, half of my Portal 2 review is waiting until Sony and these hackers stop their shit and get service running smooth again. Mortal Kombat also had a pretty quick price drop which was when I decided to snag the game.

360 players need not feel bad about the fancy exclusive label on the box. Kratos is garbage and has no challenges in the tower or place in story mode.

For me, Mortal Kombat was a fad I jumped into along with many other kids my age, just like pogs and Yu-Gi-Oh. Never had serious interest in them, but it was what all the cool kids played, so of course I tagged along. I bought most of the early series, played so I could look at the fatalities, feel really trendy by playing a game that dares to go against spelling “Combat” with a K and then move on to a fighting game that wasn’t so stiff. It was more about the spectacle than kompetition… see what I did there?

Having played Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe last month with ol’ Prota, I can honestly say I was hardly expecting a fighter worth my time, but gave it a chance anyway. So, how does this game measure up with other recent fighters?

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Video Game Music w/ the James Episode 6 : Ys Seven (Part 1)

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Well well, looks like I have a couple of minutes to start writing some stuff. My Review in Progress for Final Fantasy 4 is almost wrapped up (the first publish will be up to the end of -interlude-) and as an added surprise, I’ll also be discussing Mortal Kombat, which was actually not on my to-do list, but, it was addicting enough for me to play through the entire story mode.

For now though, it’s music time. It’s funny how Ys Seven came to mind for this post. Far from my favorite Ys game, the story was great and the music is arguably some of the best in the series. I tend to have vivid dreams this time of year, and a couple of nights ago, actually started dreaming some of my favorite music from this game and putting it on TWF, so I said why not go through with fulfilling my dream. Brace yourselves, cause this is going to be a large list of tracks, even if I eliminate some. As a matter of fact, I’ll break this one into two episodes, one for each disc of the soundtrack.

Why not just put up the whole intro for the opening track, right? Right. It’s actually pretty standard rpg opening music, nice pulse, the melody in the strings is pretty cool. Not my favorite opening in the series, but that doesn’t make it bad, just alright. I still get pumped listening to it every now and then.

My first though encountering this track in the game : “This dick does not deserve such a badass theme song”. It’s one of those slow paced electric guitar themes more suited to a character more mysterious and …silent — he doesn’t know when to stfu! The guy earns his cool points late in the game, but until then, it doesn’t fit the personality at all. It’s a perfect listen if you want something slow to jam to though. Continue reading →

Holy Shit! An Intellectual PSN Debate!

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From what I’ve read of the big PSN crisis, it usually comes from two angles. There’s the legal/economic side where people are looking to sue Sony, hunt down whoever hacked their PSN service, ensure their financial security. It’s either “Fuck you hackers!” or “Fuck you Sony” and people just going crazy pointing fingers. Then there’s the other side where people are taking advantage of the situation to remind us that competitive services are still alive and well.

I'm tired of looking at this damn ball logo all over the headlines.... why not join the fun?

I can’t deny that I’m a little worried myself, and others on TWF have expressed similar concern. Continue reading →

Miyamoto Hints at New Hardware, Pikmin Game and Zelda’s 25th Anniversary

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It was only a matter of time with all the rumors of a new console that we would hear an official statement from the folks over at Nintendo. Fan favorite, Shigeru Miyamoto confirmed that there is indeed a new console on the way, though not all the rumors may be true. Not much more was given in details, but that’s what E3 is for, right?

In the meantime, he was sure to bring up the 25th anniversary of the Zelda series, which hopefully leads into another awesome party over at Nintendo World that I can actually make it to.

Thankfully, Miyamoto has made a few more confirmations : a new Zelda, Mario, Mario Kart and Pikmin along with new AR games for the 3DS. I love the AR games we got, and Face Raiders so hopefully they start making games that use that system and have a lot of substance too.

I haven't yet played the second Pikmin and already can't wait for the third!

Might have to play/review Pikmin 2 soon if the third one is coming out, stay tuned!

Via Destructoid

Video Game Music w/ the James Episode 5 : Jazz Jackrabbit

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When I think oldschool Epic Games, the first thing that comes to mind naturally is Unreal Tournament. Originally I was going to tie the the composer, Alexander Brandon to Jazz Jackrabbit’s music, but I would have been mistaken. From what I researched, Jazz Jackrabbit 2 is credited to Brandon, but the first is to a guy named Robert A. Allan. Regardless, the soundtracks to both games kick ass, but I’m here to talk about Jazz Jackrabbit.

I miss the days when they were still called Epic Megagames…

For those of you who don’t know, Jazz Jackrabbit is a PC platformer developed in 1994. Many elements are borrowed from Sonic the Hedgehog, with the inclusion of a gun and various types of ammo to the mix (long before Shadow would infamously bring guns to the Sonic universe might I add).

The first sign of really good music occurs quite early actually, when you get to the second area, Tubelectric.

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Review in Progress #7 – Legacy of Kain : Soul Reaver (PS1)

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Status : Game complete, not 100% explored, but well above 90.

My first experience with the Legacy of Kain series took place about a year ago. I already had Blood Omen and both Soul Reaver 1 and 2, but never had the time to give the series a chance until a fateful replaying of Eternal Darkness : Sanity’s Requiem. In the mood to play something else developed by Silicon Knights, I gave Blood Omen a shot despite being put off by the horrendous load times. Somewhere down the line I fell in love as I realized that Blood Omen was essentially a western take on the Zelda formula, with a boatload of secrets, places to explore and overhead camera (Soul Reaver switches to the standard 3D view). Sure the combat was choppy at times, but there was a certain morbid charm to the whole experience. I felt let down when I discovered that only the first Blood Omen was developed by Silicon Knights and never felt the urge to continue the series.

If theres one thing I remember from oldschool Eidos, its pushing boxes around all day. Glad to say Soul Reaver keeps the tradition going!

That is until playing Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light with a friend having the Kain and Raziel character models turned on. I was pretty pissed off that I was stuck with Raziel, since he’s the character that corresponds to Lara who I happened to be controlling. Looking back, I’m still pissed I was stuck with Raziel… Here, my story comes full circle as that the puzzles in Guardian of Light were quite fun, and the game itself was developed by Crystal Dynamics, the same company who carried the Legacy of Kain torch post Silicon Knights. I just had to give the game a shot while waiting for my big April releases to start shipping. Continue reading →

Video Game Music w/ the James Episode 4 : Blood Omen : Legacy of Kain

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When I travel outside of New York City (games typically sell at terrible rates over here), I often have a big event where me and whoever I’m out of state with raid video game stores that sell old games for cheap prices (NES carts for like 2 bucks for example). No joke, I usually come out with like 15 – 20 games and a bill of 100 bucks or less — not bad at all.

It was during one of these raids that I picked up Blood Omen : Legacy of Kain, first in a series that I’ve heard much about, but never had time to play. I decided to play through the entire game one day, a feat for those accustomed to the relatively short loading screens of today. You had to load for everything : screen changes, access to menus, loading the memory card window so you can save, fuck I hated it at first, but then I settled into the atmosphere and great music provided by the game.

Essentially a Zelda type adventure in a darker universe, Kain can learn attack spells, transformation abilities and even use a decent arsenal of weapons. There is a lot of blood flying around the screen because drinking blood functions as healing for Kain. Some of the themes and environments encountered are just plain creepy, and I always feel bad drinking the blood of those poor guys and girls chained up on the walls just so I might make survive a couple more rooms. But enough reminiscing about the game, I’m here to talk music.

I gotta admit, Kain can be an asshole, but not without reason. I would probably be a dick to everyone too if I got jumped and brutally murdered within minutes of starting my adventure too. This track playing in the wilderness outside Kain’s crypt uses a more exotic instrumentation for a medieval style forest. A staple in the fantasy game genre, here the forest seems a lot more distant and unwelcoming. It’s also pretty relaxing too, so this track works out on multiple levels. Continue reading →

Review in Progress #6 : Pilotwings Resort (3DS)

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Well, this one took a week longer than anticipated… Pilotwings Resort is one of those games that you can clear in 10 hours total playtime, but the kind you can only play in 20 minute to half hour bursts. Not because it’s a bad game, but it gets really taxing on the eyes, especially if you’re like me and play the whole time with 3D turned on.

The logo remains classy as ever!

In fact, let’s start by talking about the 3D effects since being the 3Ds and all, it’s the first feature that comes to mind. The extra visual depth makes Wuhu Island a marvel to look at the first time, and makes the various landmarks and locations you visit feel all the more tangible. The ruins, volcano, and caves here and there add personality to the island. Toward the end of my goal to get a 3 star ranking on each mission and unlock the Diamond Class, I had to turn off the 3D effects because it was getting distracting when it came down to just a few more points for the 3 star.

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Weekly Gaming Reflections 1 : Moondiver, Genesis Classics, Tactics Ogre, Vindictus

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When it comes to gaming, the scope of possible discussions are limitless. Periodically, I discuss music, review some contemporary games and write articles based on more current releases. Of course, I have a periodic classic gaming project to accompany Video Game Music w/ the James in the works, but what about everything else?

Weekly Reflections is meant for those games that I don’t have room to cover entirely, but feel like talking about, because as much as I love writing about my 3DS and my Pokemans, that’s not everything I play in the course of an average week, and some of those other games deserve at least a shout-out.

This week on PSN a game by the name Moon Diver came out. A Strider-like action game by the guy responsible for the original Strider, additions to the old formula include a RPG like leveling up system, spells scattered throughout the levels, multiple characters to play as and coop abilities. I’m in the process of a 4 player run with some friends, and it seems that while it’s a really cool game, and the music is great, the multiplayer in particular was poorly done. Trophies and progress made in multiplayer sessions apply only to the first player, the camera doesn’t expand to accommodate when one or two players move outside the boundaries, and if you happen to fall off screen, you respawn somewhere a little bit in the center of the screen, and if there’s nothing below when you respawn, you just keep falling down bottomless pit. Thankfully you don’t take much if any damage, but it’s annoying. On the other hand, single player is a blast with a camera that actually follows the player making exploration (needed to find some of the spells) a little more possible. Also, the game tries to artificially jack up the difficulty part of the way through by spamming laser turrets that kill a character in one or two shots.