Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex for PSP - NOT Completed Sorry for the week hiatus, between moving into my house and the trip to Maryland I didn’t have allot of time to blog.

On that note I want to start of and say I did not give this game a very good chance. After playing maybe an hour of the game it found its way back into the case and has not left it since. GITS is one of my favorite anime movies. I enjoyed the PS1 version of the game and the PS2 version. But this game just did not feel very well put together. The graphics are very low grade and I personally think easily comparable to a PS1 launch title. It is an FPS which does not seem to be a genre that is doing well on the PSP. It appears no one can get the formula right to make an FPS easily playable with the nub control scheme.

All in all I give it 4 out of 10. Good cut scenes and seemed to have a storyline that follows the series. However very poor graphics content and game play made this game a dust collector.

Metroid Prime Hunters - NOT Completed

After playing the demo for this when getting my DS Phat on the American launch day, I could do nothing but look forward to it. Though I have not had allot of success with metroid games in my life. Either due to lack of attention span or the back tracking required in almost all of the Metroid series giving me a headache. One thing I cannot handle in games is a lack of direction, it physically takes a toll on me and gives me anxiety. Just to set the tone of where I am coming from.

Picked the game up brought it home and started to work my way through the first world. I found that I could play less then ten minutes with the stylus aiming system before my hand would cramp or start to hurt. Which has been a common occurrence with stylus heavy games on my DS. So I switched to the option where I point with the D-pad. Though this was much kinder to my hands it felt very awkward when trying to aim and kill enemies. Almost made me feel handicapped for the level of play I had selected. My conclusion is that I wont every be able to play first person shooters on a console. This definitely detracted from the game for me.

Another thing I noticed where how pixilated the environments were. This was a let down after seeing such smooth and fluid graphics in other DS games. I really felt that it could have looked better.

The story appears to collaborate well with the other metroids and what I know of them. It’s nice to see the introduction of other memorable characters into the series.

The multiplayer was fun. I did a few local games with Moose and Kath one night while I was doing laundry at there house. I won most of the rounds, but it was the first time with the game so it was expected.

I give the game 6 out of 10. In the end I was pretty disappointed with the game. The input and graphics really killed it for me.

Lost Magic - NOT Completed

This game offered me very little. I am not in any way shape or form an RTS gamer. My mind wants to press a single button and have an action be made. This game requires the user to make symbols when ever a spell is being cast. This not only proved to be difficult, it was also fairly painful on my man sized hands while using the touch screen. So all in all the game got a little over an hour of my time before it was placed on eBay and promptly sold.

I will admit I liked the graphics and the art in the cut scenes. They were well done and looked very good. Also the story had normal rpg'ish elements and seemed like it would have been fun to follow through with.

Now this is where my knowledge of the game ends and I use second hand information from ZaBlanc. He has finished the game and said he enjoyed the experience. However 3/4 of the way through the game he had to completely start over from scratch because the section of the game required a certain monster and his only save point did not allow him to go and find said monster type. In my mind this is completely un-acceptable in any game.

The game receives 4 out of 10. Remember I played barely an hour before I got fed up and sent it packing and you may have a better experience then me.

Final Fantasy VII: Dirge if Cerberus - Completed

This game came with allot of hype for me, even though I have never played more then two hours of Final Fantasy VII, I did watch parts of advent children and know mostly who the characters are. The first thing anyone should keep in mind is that this is NOT AN RPG, it is an action shooter. You play Vince Valentine, a man with Chaos instilled into his body. He is also the character Matt Toth forgot to find his first time through FF7 (good job Matt).

First of the CGI is pure awesome the same quality as Advent children. Which is almost bad for the game when you switch back the playable graphics which are good, but completely sub par to the CGI. This game also has FFX syndrome, where in parts it’s almost like watching a movie rather then playing a game. But for the over all experience of the game to me the movie likeness was an asset.

The story was great, feeding you small pieces of information here and there and leading you to believe certain things and there’s a small twist that throws your perception off. It kept me entertained through the hours of play the game provides. I don’t know how linear the story is with FF7 or the other final fantasy’s for a true fan it may not be as fulfilling.

The game play was in honesty the weakest part of this game. I started out with aiming on semi-auto. You get the cursor near them and it will turn red, you fire and it hits them. Being fairly deficient at analog stick aiming this proved to be very frustrating. Matt suggested I try auto aim which essentially points towards the enemy and begs you to fire since it is locked on your target. You may think well that’s a cheap way to play the game and yes it is the easier way to play. But think about it for a moment I am simulating a person who has super human reflexes and skills with a gun. I am going play auto mode because it simulates the true abilities of the character. Once on auto mode the game was much more fun and flowed at a normal pace. The boss battles were fairly easy with lock on and fire then dodge, lock on fire and dodge. To me there could have been more to this, many games use the concept of bosses that have phases. Blow a piece of armor off here and then there and so fourth. Which to me gives a better sense of the battle and the power of the boss. More so then running in circles and not taking your finger off the trigger.

One of the concepts with in the game I liked was the weapon system. You have your base weapon and modify it many different ways to your liking the custom screen. This is a new concept to me and I enjoyed the tinkering aspect of it. Making a change firing a few shots and seeing if the damage increases or if the rate of fire made that much more of a difference. This defiantly was a bonus to the game play.

I give this game 8 out of 10. I am sure others will disagree with me. However CGI graphics and story cannot make up for bland game play. The game play level of difficulty should not be based on the players ability to aim. Also I think that $50 is a bit much to spend. I think $30 range I would have been more fulfilled with my purchase. Hey I am cheap what can I say.

Targets Destroyed: 1233
Accuracy Rate: 43%
Damage Sustained: 115347
Critical Hits: 464
Kill chains: 815
Iteams Used: 167
Magic Casted: 111
Mako Collected: 75%
Times KO'd: 3
Time Expired: 9 hours 15 minutes 23 seconds

Death Jr - NOT Completed

This game to me had a great concept that followed through with a good story and nice graphics. The game play is solid and actually quite fun. For me it went down hill when I felt like Death had not improved enough to take on the enemies for the stage I choose to fight. Which seems a bit childish of me to give up so easily. However when I did start putting time into the game, the next day tales of Eternia arrived and my PSP did not see another game for almost three weeks.

This is a good game, and for PSP not having allot of titles this is one you can pick up cheap and just enjoy.

I think 8 out of 10 is in order. Maybe someday I will revisit it with renewed vigor. But at this time it was traded in towards my FF7 DC.

X-men Legends II - NOT Completed

This game caters to the comic book nerds, which I am admit to being. Playing as your favorite characters to trash evil doers and save fellow heroes and villains. The graphics are good the game play is fluid and not very complicated.

Through the first hour I played it felt like all the environments were the same and didn’t give me good direction as to where I should be headed. I got lost in a very linear game which is sad and retarded on my part I know, but it happens.

The game for me is 7 out of 10. I did like it and had no real issues with it. But it just wasn’t enough to keep me going.

Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max - NOT Completed

Out side of playing SF2 on a SNES with Shane at lunch during jr high I missed the entire street fighter fiasco. I got decent at the some of the three odd movies each character could do.

So with that history I loaded up SFA3M and gave it a go. Noticing very quickly by the plethora of characters and options, that I was going to be a bit lost. After losing and watching my opponents do spectacular moves and attempting to train with no real direction the game got old really quick. Thinking back I never did check the manual so see if all the moves and definitions of each option were listed. Since I and most of my friends rarely feel the need to read the manual (check my rant on VP: L) I think it is dumb when publishers do this. Most other fighting genres allow you to pause and look at a move menu.

If you are a street fighter connoisseur I would suggest this game. The graphics are beautiful and game play is version solid.

Give it 8 out of 10, solid game play with a great look feel and sound. Learning curve is atrocious.

Infected - NOT Completed

I have decided that since I would like to update this more often I should cover some of the games I have not completed but played. This will be the first.

When in Maryland last June I stopped in an EB games and picked up marvel legends 2 for PSP. The clerk sucked me in to there buy two get one free deal and so I grabbed two games that looked decent for the same price "Death Jr" and "infected".

I lust for zombie shooter games. So this seemed like the perfect suit for my plane ride home and hopefully and enjoyable gaming experience. However it didn’t turn out as well as I had expected.

Playing the first level the objectives seemed easy enough, kill all the zombies in this amount of time. So I did and found that circle strafing was the key and I wiped them out very easily. Second level seemed easy enough save some non infected people from the infected ones. This consists of a flat run to the non infected and just massacring the waves of infected coming in. After this it was just rinse and repeat, upgrade your weapon than go at it again. You can also use your winning points to unlock costumes and stats (speed health etc). But the game all in all just didn’t have a lasting appeal. The graphics are ok, I feel that only a few games push the graphical capability of the PSP, and this just isn’t one of them.

I give it a 6 out of 10, doing the same thing over and over is great for some games (countless hours of the HL mod brain bread) but for this game it was a downer. It does have content and some great inner city landscapes. If you can pick it up for $10-$15 I would say its not a horrible purchase.

Robcam 1.0

So one night sitting around bored I decided to take apart my Robotic Operating Buddy and see what makes it tick. After pulling it completely apart and not being impressed with its innards I got this whacky idea. I have had this miniature camera laying around for some time that I was going to mount on something RC and once I played with it I realized that the range of the wireless signal wasn’t nearly long enough to be on a remote control car.

I dug out the cam to see if it would fit in the optical part of the ROB's eye. Low and behold it did. I did have to gut some of his original circuitry, but it didn’t work anyway so why not. Then I laced the power cord threw the neck and down the base out the cord hole.

For any console collector this little sucker does not look out of place on your TV staring out into space making the perfect nanny cam. Since us Nintendo generation are getting to that point where kids have started to incubate (cough Blanco cough) we have to find ways to protect our precious collections! Here are some pictures, it was very simple to do. Don’t ask what kind of camera it is because I have long forgotten.

Mobat







Using the video input in my PC for the receiver you can see the live feed as I take the picture.



ROB really fits in if you ask me!

I doubt I am the first one to think of this, but I am happy with it none the less.

Valkyrie Profile Lenneth - Completed

Alright this is the first Sqeenix game I have ever completed and I wasnt pleased. The game play is extremely repetitive. Though I enjoyed the story and some beautiful CGI sequences the only thing that kept me going was just completing the game. Towards the end I got to a point where I would enter and exit a dungeon just too waste "periods" in order for the chapter to be over.

On a lighter note the characters were great. Everything from a Guts look alike to a samurai. Giving a very worldly depth to the game. The fighting system was also fun, however it did not appear to require any skill.

I give the game 7 out of 10. Looks great sounds great awesome story and game play was enjoyable. The content however just repeated its self over and over and over and over.

Time: 45 hours 01 minutes 38 seconds

Level: 44

Rank: Normal