The Lair of the Monkey

Find out over at Gadzooki - because I’ve revealed all there!

Blue Dragon’s demo is now out.  Reasons to like it include:

• Interesting turn based mixed with real time combat action
• Great graphics if you like a bit of cel-shaded mixed with cartoons
• Characters to talk to and multiple features revealed

Things not to like with the demo:

• It maybe shows off a bit too much
• You have all the characters in the game and a lot of the weapons
• Surely you don’t want to see that much of the game do you?

In this new section, I’m going to have a crack at using various digital art packages and demonstrate the result here. The following picture was created using Daz Studio:

Yes, I still need one.  One of these:

Of course, it’s the Lite version that I want.  There are some delights that I feel like I’m missing such as:

• Animal Crossing: Wild World
• Hotel Dusk
• Final Fantasy III
• Rub Rabbits
• Children of Mana
• Brain Training
• Cooking Mamma
• Brain Training
• Phoenix Wright

Quite a list there.  I know there’s also a home-brew scene gradually increasing of which Fost is going to be taking part in.  I’m considering buying a DS this weekend but we’ll see.  Frankly all the offers that have come my way recently have been rather turgid.

The final stage of Gears of War is a boss guy. Funny for a game that doesn’t really have bosses as such. Nonetheless, it’s quite an entertaining fight. Play it on ‘insane’ difficulty though and fun quickly makes a transgression (and one that should never happen in games) into annoyance. I’ve played this battle with my mate CJ for about 30 tries now and each time we get massacred. What the hell is going wrong? I can’t understand it. We may have had difficulties other times, but this is just annoying now. Any ideas/thoughts please send em my way!

What have you been impressed with recently?  I’m talking about the gaming taboo of graphics.  I’d never play a game just because of how it looks, but let’s face it these days more advancements are in that area.  Which games do you wow over?  Well here are some games I particularly like the visual style of:

• The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
• Fight Night Round 3
• Lost Planet
• Rome: Total War
• Okami
• Ninja Gaiden
• Ikaruga
• Secret of Mana
• Hotel Dusk
• Blue Dragon
  
• Tekken: Dark Resurrection

You’ll see that by far and away there is no ‘realism dominance’ here.  Far from it.  So let’s take a closer look at my nominations and the reasons for my being impressed by them.  Thw two top-end games are Oblivion and Fight Night 3.  These are probably the two closest to chasing realism.  Fight Night 3 is especially good at showing the facial damage to your boxer.

Oblivion, by its nature, is a bit more stylised.  It has to be really though, what with a vast world and many hundreds of talking characters.  Lost Planet has similarly weird and wonderful characters but looks like there’s a heavy anime influence in there.  Not surprising given that it was made in Japan.

Rome: Total War is so impressive that there has been a UK TV show based on it.  Okami is amazing to look at thanks to perfectly realised cel-shaded animation.  It looks like a Japanese painting in motion.  That makes it frankly a joy to behold.

Ninja Gaiden is in a similar mode to Lost Planet, no great surprise given that both games are in third person and feature action heavily.  Ikaruga meanwhile blends 2D and 3D to great effect giving a graphical tour-de-force that few other shooters offer.  The pencilled artwork is also well worth a look.

Secret of Mana, along with other similar games such as Chrono Trigger, offer a brightly lit 2D world to explore.  Vast bosses such as the formidable Mana Dragon (and cute turtle armour) make me miss the old days of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

Hotel Dusk has been described as an ‘interactive book’.  There’s a story to unravel here in what is a very beautiful game that has art akin to (and better than some) manga.

So, there’s just a few of the games I enjoy the graphical style of.  How about you, what do you particularly enjoy?

Here’s a list from 360 Gamer of the games that are Xbox360 and BBFC 18 rated.  Take note of these because they are going to be used in a feature…

• Alone in the Dark
• Condemned
• Crackdown
• Dead Rising
• Def Jam: Icon
• Doom
• Driver: Parallel Lines
• F.E.A.R.
• Gears of War
• Hitman: Blood Money
• Kane & Lynch: Dead Men
• Killzone 2
• Manhunt 2
• Postal III
• Prey
• Quake 4
• Rainbow Six: Vegas
• Resident Evil 5
• Saints Row
• Scarface: The World is Yours
• Stranglehold
• The Darkness
• The Getaway
• The Godfather

Can you believe this has made it up to number 3?  Well I certainly can.  One of the reasons I dislike Nintendo at the moment is this rather silly ‘we can have a modification for that’.  We have the new weight board but would you actually want to use it?  Do you not feel stupid enough playing Guitar Hero or Singstar?  Maybe that’s just me then.  I love the idea of all these gadgets but have you ever used on really consistently?  No, me either.  This kind of makes me feel like the Wii wand remote is a bit… well… of a gadget.  Maybe that’s why it’s so popular.

I came across the Heavy Rain Virtual Actor demo over at GeeVee.  One of the things really missing from games is emotion - this definitely puts it in.  If the game can convey the range like that actor does then games might just be stepping it up a level.  Then again, if both Sony and Nintendo don’t allow AO products on their systems (which is pretty stupid, like a DVD player refusing to play say Hostel) then we’re already unwilling to accomodate games that are for ADULTS ONLY.  What’s up with that?

Yes, E3 is currently going on.  You’ll also notice a distinct lack of coverage here.  In a semi-protest against the change in E3, I’ve decided to write very little if anything about it.  Maybe I’ll change my mind but at this point I’m annoyed at how things have been changed.