Lords of Cliché

There is a new Castlevania game coming out and it looks really cool.

However...  A hero with a dead girlfriend and mask that brings people back to life (supposedly).    I can't help but feel like we've seen this before.

Not to menton that Hideo Kojima is a producer (whatever that means).  He was the man that with one hand gave us Metal Gear Solid but then with the other hand inflicted Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.

The game is said to feature Alucard (Dracula spelled backwards, took me forever to realize that.  Just like it took me twenty years to figure out the pun in the Beatles name.) Dracula's son.  The news of this has me giddy as a school girl.  Alucard was in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, the best Castlevania game I've ever played.

And so with great fear and trepidation I anticipate this game.  I am cautiously optimistic.  But they certainly have a long way to fall.

One Stupidest Moments from MGS2

When the "La Li Lu Le Lo" are first mentioned. I was half expecting Maria von Trap to pop out of a corner and continue singing "Ti, a drink with jam and bread." Like rats fleeing a ship this was but one of many signs that MGS2 was heading towards disaster.

(This image brought to you by a google image search.)

Games that I thought were going to be better than they were

The Bouncer.

I remember getting all goose pimply about this game. It was one of the first that was going to be on the PS2. And it was made by Squaresoft. A company which at that time in my life I would have sworn to you that everyone that worked there also walked on water. (I am fortunately no no longer that naive.) But at that time I was of the opinion that Squaresoft could do no wrong. Plus the graphics looked more amazing than anything I had ever seen. And so help me I am a bit of a sucker for cool looking costumes no mater how unrealistic they may be. Not many real bouncers would wear a dog collar with a huge chain and cross on it. It'd be to easy for someone they were supposed to "bounce" to grab hold of it in a scuffle and choke them, or literally lead them around by the neck.

I look back at it now and think it more than just a little bit silly. Of course hind sight is twenty twenty. But I played the game and... well it was a mediocre beat 'em up game at best. Now this is just my opinion. As with all these games I'm going to mention in this post. Just because I was disappointed by them doesn't mean that you can't like them. Every one is different, with different tastes. I won't begrudge you yours if you don't begrudge me mine. Next up.

Metal Gear Solid 2.

This game was a landmark event for me. With it came the great split between myself and eastern culture. Up until this point I had regarded the ability of Japanese story tellers, through the medium of video games, to be superior to anything that the west had to offer. This game put an end to that. Now I don't know what exactly happened. For example I loved, and still do love Final Fantasy VII. The same goes for Metal Gear Solid. But something happened, either with me or with the Japanese culture, and the schism occurred.

Why didn't I like this game. Partly because MSG was such a great game and this sequel comes off as such a pale, poor, pathetic imitation of it's predecessors greatness. One point of contention is the supplantation the wonderful character Solid Snake, by a inferior whiner named Raiden. As I understand it Raiden did quite well in Japan, but not so much in the U.S. I think this is where the cultures begins to clash. Effeminate men seem to be very cool in Japan, where as in American we prefer tough guys as our hero's. I won't speak negatively of the preferences of others but when you market a game it's wise to consider your audience. This character switch (and it's Snake on the cover for crying out loud, and he's hardly in the game) was very unsettling. Every five minutes of game play I kept wondering when Raiden was going to disappear so that I could go back to playing as Snake.

But I think the major issue here was that the first game crafted a great story. The sequel was all puff. It was trying to imitate what it did in the first game. I used to ask how had Hideo Kojima messed up MSG2, but as more and more Metal Gear games came out I came to realize that Metal Gear Solid was the fluke. Kojima had some how managed to make one really good game, maybe it was luck or something, but I have been nothing but disappointed with the rest of the series.

Final Fantasy VIII.

In my ignorance and innocence of youth I thought that this was going to be a actual sequel to FFVII. I kept expect them to announce Cloud as a character. When it finally sunk in that this was not going to happen I still expected aspects of what made FFVII so good to be retuning. 'Surely,' I thought to myself, 'they will be bringing back the Materia system. It was so ingenious, inventive, and intuitive, that they wouldn't get rid of it after just one game... right?...' Well I was wrong. Then I played the demo. It was boring, the draw system was lame, everything seemed clunky. Where FFVII was smooth and slick, it was slow and rough. I can't say enough bad things about this game, and yes I played it all the way to the end. Eighty hours of my life I'm never going to get back. I'm going to have a whole post about how much I detested this game. I mention it here because I was looking forward to it and it disappointed me.

Rise of the Argonauts.

I was super stoked for this game. It looked like the graphics were good. The makers had promised that the story was going to be a main focus and that combat would be smooth. Plus they were going to give me a chance to worship Athena. Like an actually chance (in a small geeky way) to do her will, and to praise her over the other gods. (I have a geek crush on Athena so sue me.) Well the game came out got luke warm reviews so I didn't even bother. If a game doesn't get an eight or better from Gamespot.com it isn't worth my time. There are a few exceptions, but none of those scored less than a seven.

So those are the games that ached my heart on account of their suckyness, what disappointments have you had to endure?

Good games on the PS3

That is all.

I say this having just bought a PS3. And I'm kind of wondering why. Now first off I am not interested into getting into a fanboy debate of x-box vs. playstation. If you like one more than the other fine. I currently prefer the 360. In times past I have favored both the PS1 and PS2.

But right now this is how things stand for me. The 360 came out first so I bought it first. When games came out on both systems I would naturally buy the ones for the 360. Until recently there were not enough PS3 exclusive games to warrant my purchase of a PS3. Yet I could see the need for a PS3 was approaching. GOW III will be on the PS3, and that's a must have for me. Heavenly Sword was a great game. I was lucky enough to play it on my friend's system. So I've ordered it along with my new PS3. But there isn't much else going for it. I hear Infamous is good, so I'll give it a try. And when the Batman game comes out they say that you'll be able to play as the Joker, but only on the PS3 version. So that's a plus.

Outside of that what does PS3 have? For me nothing. Just those four games, two of which aren't even out yet.

Oh and by the by, I played MSG4 and was not impressed. Not at all.