With Jake the dog and Finn the human :D

Supergood news! The creator of the adorable animated series  Adventure Time  (one of those clearly aimed to adults although shown on a children channel) has announced today that a game based on the series is being developed for Nintendo DS. THANK GOODNES I have a lovely sister and a brother-in-law that own a DS. Well, if I didn't I wouldn't care because I wouldn't know the series then.... And that would be terrible. I have a feeling that this series will be able to make me happy when I am very, very sad. This doesn't happen very often but I'll try next time :)

Jake and Lady love each other

After being like "I would loooove a videogame", Pendleton Ward has finally announced what it MEANT to be. He even published some cute drawings he and a writer had come up during a brainstorm. Those are hyping enough to know that the game is going to be great :_D The downside is that it is going to be launch on Nintendo DS that, as friendly as it is, it is not my tv and not my xbox ¬¬

Patapon 3: Love-hate relationship. Especially hate.

I’m getting nervous just by thinking about this. I’me completely obsessed.

Background: I’m a super fan of Patapon. I loved the first one and drove me mad. I played more than 40 hours and got in love with each every minigame and little creatures that danced to my buttoning.

I marked in my calendar the 17th April as a magic date, although I waited a bit to make sure the European version was available to be download. In fact I waited a bit more because the moment was too important and I was too busy, with Easter and blah blah.

Well, the moment comes, I install it (the game can’t find my gamesave from Patapon 2… OK, fine), and at the beginning everything was right. After an hour, I started to realize that everything in my mental fantasy was falling down. I thought it would get better after a while pero it didn’t. IT HAS GONE WORSE. And I’m VERY ANGRY. Angry at Sony and everyone who has written a review online because EVERYONE LOVES IT

Well, I’m writing A BAD REVIEW. I will stand for those disappointed gamers that haven’t dared to open their mouths because they’re too scared. I will be the voice of the people. Sorry about the caps but if this would be spoken you would hear me SHOUT.

First and foremost, WHERE ARE THE MINIGAMES?! Please don’t tell me you have listened to those casual tough guys who just want to clear levels and DON’T UNDERSTAND the patapon universe and don’t know what it is to forge your own weapon with your own materiales and make your stews with a chef that cuts carrots… *cry*

I’ve read online that now the minigames “have changed” and now they are races, battles, etc. THOSE ARE NOT MINIGAMES, they’re just different maps that, although welcome, THEY ARE JUST THE SAME GAME of that in the career and, besides, THEY ARE SUPER HARD TO CLEAR. That leads me to another point.

WHY DO I DIE CONSTANTLY? Now it seems that instead of an army you just have four heroes, one for each class and yourself. OK, that is not so funny as changing all the little helmets and shields, but is OK. Well, when the shield class dies, Hatapon or the flag-man becomes vulnerable and dies at once, and when he dies the level is over. WRONG.

Since there aren’t minigames, all the materiales (except meat, you can’t hunt anymore because that would be too boring for tough guys) are just exchangable items like coins, bye bye to the wonderful feeling of getting a good rock from the mountain or a blue-eyed log from the tree that sings bon bonn bonnn ¬¬

And since there are no minigames, the only way to improve your army and level up is completing the same maps again and again until you are bored to death. I guess they suppose people are suddenly SUPER GOOD players and they won’t have to repeat maps or anything because they will master the game. Look, I’m good, but when you have to play for 20 minutes or more WITHOUT MAKING A MISTAKE or losing fever you feel like throwing the psp out of the windows and start playing with the DS. (About videogames difficulty I will talk in another post, I don’t feel strong enough to go on writing in caps.)

The worst part is that I can’t stop playing because… even if it’s only the tenth part of what it used to be… it was something so big… the patapon… I have to keep on playing… I’ll play 100 times the same stage until I am level 40 and I could kill bosses with just an arrow… But I'll keep on playing… :(

[E3] EA and Ubisoft

More about E3. Now it is time for two big ones: EA and Ubisoft.

- EA:

It couldn't be any other way: FIFA 12 leads the way. The new engine actually looks very good. It doesn't mean I'll play (I get too anxious with football games. Not as much as I do when I actually play football, but too much to have fun). BUT, it is cool seeing how they are getting more and more realistic. Of course, people might not like that realism, having their players injured a million different ways.

We like everything that has a 3 on it: Mass Effect, Battlefield... As you know, I am a COD fan and, with all the images shown so far on the E3, I am still. But I am expecting to see what Battlefield multiplayer can offer. If it gets the COD's epic and frenetic pace, I'll be there almost certainly.

Regarding the rest of stuff, Reckoning and Overstrike look good. The first one because it may be the new Fable, now that the genuine is for 5-year-olds. The second one because... the trailer is cool, and that's it.

- Ubisoft:


In 1986, two major events took place: my birth, and Ubisoft foundation, so they're celebrating their 25th anniversary. Maybe that is why the conference has been so festive, although the videos figuring how video games would had been if they were from the eighties were more and more implausible. They move on from a bunch of cubes that meant to be cars, to a super-edgy comic-like animation for Assassin's Creed ¬¬


But the conference has been very good, full of titles: Rayman, Driver, Brothers in Arms, Ghost Recon, Rabbids...


My first highlight is Far Cry 3 (another "three"). The trailer is superb, very farcryesque. I just wish it didn't last like a billion hours like Far Cry 2.


Then, Tintin! ¿Maybe a disappointment because it is not a Lego Tintin? Just kidding. Most of all, disappointment because, after a lot of beautiful artwork and Spielberg words, it is only a typical movie-promoting game with poor graphics and a mediocre game play. Well, at least that is what it looked like.

Rocksmith :_) Rumours were true, at last a guitar game where you actually PLAY GUITARS. They say it is funny and that you really learn to play. I don't know if both things are compatible, but I must admit that I can't understand how the game is played after seeing the in-game images. I'll find it out, because I'm sure I'll buy it.

He has a sexy mature beard, but he is still Ezio

And finally... Hey! My friend, the Assassins Creed. Besides a cool video, we have seen an in-game trailer and most of all, it invites you to play. The novelties are a much more powerful smoke bomb, a cool karate lock, and a grabbing hook. It is also even more spectacular. But there isn't anything new beyond this. I get a bit tired of this century and, worse, going back to the orient-muslim world of Altair. It makes me be more interested on the story and the Animus thing than on the game itself -something strange in me.

If only it was the third part...

[E3] Kinect

It should be [E3] Microsoft but yet another year the conference has been entirely about Kinect.

 

Summary of the conference

 

The coolest things (aka, the news on ADULT games) is that we will be able to do things such as reading our own lines in Mass Effect 3 or actually shooting in Ghost Recon.

Then, some cool things for kids like a Disneyland game (more or less like the Adventures but with another artwork), and a Sesame Street game ^^. Obviously they choose their franchises very wisely :_)

Talking about franchises, there will be also a Star Wars for Kinect, whose presentation has been pathetic. The images of the game were pre-recorded and the movement of the person that pretended to be playing live were totally different to those of their character.

To top it all, they announce a CryTek game set in ROME, it looks very cool, nice graphics... A lot of theories pass through my mind: a RTS? an adventure? a RPG? ...not at all. Kinect again. An on-rails adventure to slash with your laser sword when you're told to.

The icing of the cake was the new Fable trailer, featuring... Lostzilla. The black smoke. Utterly shameless. Disgusting.

In short: a blast if you are 5 years old. Quite interesting if you are 15 AND live in the US. For the rest of us... NEXT!

L.A. NOIRE

L.A. Noire. The game we were waiting for, the three-disc game, the great white hope.

It has not disappointed me at all, it is exactly what I expected for. A game set in the forties where you try to solve cases by finding clues and getting information out of suspects. YAY!!

For this purpose, it is very important to know if the questioned person is lying or telling the truth, and that’s why a face recognition technology has been developed. This is the biggest highlight of the game: they REAL. Besides, many characters are based on real actors, some of them famous, so you will recognize them for the series they have been on or because they are usual supporting actors. And this is precisely why characterization is very commendable, as you can immediately identify them.

We all recognize him. Isn't him TOO REAL?

On the other side, the story is very good, including some stuff from 2^nd World War and interesting characters. Maybe not interesting enough, but this is something one has to judge for himself…

Regarding game play, seeing those super-real faces lying is undoubtedly the most interesting feature. It should be pointed out that if you don't collect all evidence you can fail a questioning, despite recognizing someone is line, as you may not have the piece of evidence required to accuse him or her of lying.

The trouble is that the game is a bit limited to just that –finding evidences and questioning. It is true that there are a lot of car chasings and shootings, but at the end it all becomes a bit mechanical. It would be cool to have more pursuit and stealth levels, or even photo making...

Instead, they have decided to include some tiny minigames; some skill stuff that obviously makes it more interest, but they are too small and infrequent. I would also want it to be more puzzling - I didn't have the feeling of "getting stuck". On the contrary, there was always something to do.

But still, these are only details that shouldn‘t be weighty in this review. Because, in return, there are a lot of good things I didn’t even mentioned: the setting, the music, the cars, the shop windows, the clothing… Driving the 40s Hollywood in your Cadillac listening to Peggy Lee is pleasant enough.

How splendid is to think that, after the success of this game that is not a shooter, neither a sport, car or RPG game, companies will figure out that adventure and puzzles might not have stuck in the nineties.

Assassin's Creed FTW

It has "quietly" become one of the best franchises of this decade, and its future is very, very promising.

I am talking about Assassin's Creed, a game that seemed a simple action adventure with a bit of platforms and stealth, and has ended up as a beautiful, smart and effective mix of everything. It is no wonder that this is the future of videogames; at least, so I hope.

I'm writing about this franchise because we have stayed at home during this Easter, and which better way to spend this rainy holidays than renting a good game -in this case, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. Eventually, our holidays turned into a vacation in Renaissance Rome for the price of 10€.
 

Anyway, I won't talk a lot about this game since, as you may know, it is not the AC 3 but a new game based on AC 2, so it doesn't add anything to the former game. Nothing new, I mean. Climbing up the Colosseum, walking on the aqueducts and entering through the Pantheon oculus is priceless; but the game system and structure are similar to AC 2. But that was fantastic, and so this game is.

Assassin's Creed 2 is set in Florence, Venice and San Gimignano, basically. This means you can climb up the famous dome of Santa Maria dei Fiore, by Brunelleschi (see picture), gracefully jump over the venetian channels and hop from tower to tower in the Medieval Manhattan -San Gimignano. Could it be cooler?

Florence Cathdral Dome.
Note: this is a real photo. The videogame dome is JUST LIKE this but in this picture you can see small persons up there, so you can see how big it is. Yes, in the game you can climb it up brick by brick.

I am assuming everyone know how relatively easy and natural it is to climb in AC, how enjoyable it is to kill from above, and how exciting it is to run away at top speed over the streets. (And also how stressful it is to break into a guarded zone without being detected.) I'll just leave that out.

I would like to highlight how I greatly appreciate the historical and cultural effort involved in these games. Developers aren't happy just setting a cool plot in an ancient location. No, the game introduces you to real historical figures (Da Vinci, Lorenzo di Medici, Machiavelo, the Borgias...), and in most cases, it explains real events from History. Besides, each major character, building and group is thoroughly described in more or less amusing texts. And finally, you have a series of challenging puzzles that sometimes require you to research about Renaissance paintings, Greek mithology, etc.

Venice, 1493. Ready to be climbed.

The best of all is, however, that even if you ignore extra puzzles, even if you don't read a single document from the database, even if you don't pay attention to the story! Even if you don't take any interest, you will learn a lot about history. Just wandering in a crowded Renaissance market or participating in the Venice Carnival, you absorb culture and become conscious abut that time, without noticing it. You can see how people dressed, the shape of buildings, the costume of doctors, the uniform of guards, the colours of the cities...

And I didn't mention the undertone of criticism on economic and political powers, which supplies the script with a great significance that puts the best possible icing on the cake.
Finally, we only can think with expectation about AC 3 which, even though I hope it was set in Egypt or Rome, rumors suggest it will be located on a much recent event, possibly in the French Revolution, the Independance War or even in the II World War. We'll have more information in May.

Why Fable III is so bad?

Note the question mark on the title. This entry is not (only) a short review about the many flaws of Fable III, but also a sort of lament.

At this stage, many would say: “What did you expect? It’s Molyneux”, “Fable II was also pretty bad”, “Why don’t you play Oblivion and stop wasting your time?” etc.

I know, I know. But I liked Fable II a lot. It wasn’t perfect, but I put a lot of hours in it and tried to get all the achievements I could. Maybe it wasn’t very challenging, but it was FUN. I spent hours playing pub games, looking for gargoyles, having children and interacting with people.

With this last paraph you should have noted what I miss in Fable III… Fun. If a game is not funny, then I forget about it. In fact, there are a lot of complex and interesting games that people love, but I find it BORING. Maybe because they are too hard for me, but when a game is really fun, you get to be better and better only because you can’t stop playing.

Good-looking man from the cover

Obviously we are not talking about a complex and interesting game, however. We are talking about an easy and forgettable game. Very easy. So easy that a 5-year-old would be bored. Then you can go and talk to prostitutes, kill innocent people and do things that of course are not suitable for 5-year-olds.

Tattoos can't disguise plucked eyebrows.

Why do you (I will try not to appeal Peter, that’s too typical) make an “adult” game in which the only thing you must do is to push the buttons you ask me to? Why the hardest thing I find in my first playing hours is to hold a button? Why all jobs work exactly the same way (an extremely easy way, just for a change)? Why you have you turned the menu in a big hall with a butler, and if you want to do ANYTHING you have to enter into another room? Why changing clothes is absurdly difficult? Why the main character of the cover is a handsome man and the default character you have to play with looks like a transsexual woman (this serves as a metaphor of the rest of the game, never judge a book by its cover)? Why can’t I carry a carrot AND a beer at the same time? Why do you think that hardening the fighting means to increase the number of enemies in an exaggerated way? Why if you die nothing happens, except a slight “XP” loss? Why have you eradicated everything that looked like RPG, like removing the skills improvement and the different types of experience? And I could go on for ages.

This is what I was talking about

Via Anaitgames: A Swedish girl watches a StarCraft II game (in Spanish).

At first, it seems bad news: gamer teens only think about one thing, who matters if she's Swedish, blah, blah. Then you think about it and it turns to be good news: she is surely a gamer girl who loves strategy games, she certainly had fun there. It will even help changing the image of Swedish girls.

By no means. When you see the video, you find out that this girl has played StarCraft "a bit", and she probably went to the tournament just for curiosity, and to have something to tell on her videblog. She could have gone there or to a sumo competition, or some random Korean thing.

So the news is what it looked by the headline: Pretty girl shows interest (without knowing what she is into) for something super geek, isn't she nice!

OK, there are foolish girls even in Sweden but... is that news?

About COD Black Ops

I've just made 100 hours online in Call of Duty Black Ops.

 

Although I've not broken my MW2 record (5 days and 8 hours), I think I'll reach it sooner than later.It's not that I like it better, I've just played more. It's true that contracts are addictive, and it's funny to go "prestige hunting". But what was supposed to be a hit of this COD, personalization, it's not a big deal.

On one side, because of what we suspected: there's no impact in gameplay, and you don't go around looking other players' faces to see their face paint, neither the camo of their weapons. Regarding to the personalization that matters (weapons, equipment, perks), it barely changes from other CODs, and I actually don't change a thing once I get used to a class. But the real problem is that I don't feel like having a "cool" look, because I'm not identified with my character, basically because it's a man... and I'm not.

Anyway, I don't mean all men identify with their characters. You can't change your clothes, your hair, your face... But the fact that when you get to the top position in a match, or when you kill the sniper that was annihilating your team, they can't see that it's been you, a girl that many of them would despise... it's too bad.

It's like Brink, a game which has been announced as the panacea of personalization... it doesn't even include female characters! I'll talk about that game in another post, though.

I'm no feminist, and it doesn't matter wether I'm a girl or a boy, but as a little girl I wasn't allowed to play football or they didn't want me in their games conversations. So now I want them to know who they're fighting with (angry face).

So I'll go on talking about games, of any kind.