Persona 3, only smaller...but actually bigger.

Ever heard of Persona? Apparently it's quite popular among JRPG fans. Well one of the latter entries in the series is making it's way to the PSP with a new remix. Notice I said "latter" entry, not the latest one, since the game we're dealing with here is the 2+ year old (released August 2007) Persona 3, not the 1+ year old (released December 2008) Persona 4.
I'm not sure whether you should be scratching your head that they didn't go with the latest title, or smiling because this means Atlus will probably port P4 to the PSP sometime next year, giving you two portable Personas instead of one. Questions of age aside, let's get into the details of what make this new edition a worthwhile port.
The new portable version (dubbed...wait for it: Persona 3 Portable) keeps everything from the original intact, the day/night cycle of dungeon crawling combat and high-school sim aspects like homework and dating (Japanese RPG, remember) but also adds a whole new way to play through the reportedly 100+ hour game, as a girl (seen in the boxart above, next to the "standard" male protagonist). Apparently this new aspect of the game opens up new events and relationship possibilities, obviously, in addition to making it a potentially 200+ hour game. The Playstation Blog also claims this will add a "fresh new perspective," which to me says everyone refers to you as "her" and "she" instead of "he" and "him" but I guess I should give Atlus some credit towards making some genuinely worthwhile changes.
The move to portable has also brought some changes to the controls and gameplay like one-button shortcuts in the menus, faster load times and "streamlined" equipment changes for your team. The difficulty options have also increased in number form 2 to 5. Although how much this actually affects the difficulty -- i.e. is it actually harder/easier or are there just more degrees added to the current difficulty -- remains to be seen. Most significant of all, however, is that you can now control each member of your team directly in the faux suicide-centric combat rather than leaving it up to the game's AI. This last aspect seems like the largest reason to purchase Persona 3 again, (first-timers don't really have an excuse not to) even more so than the aforementioned ability to play as a girl.
And for all you PSPGo owner's, yes it will be available as a download from the Playstation Store when the game releases July 6th of this year.

Scarf down some Fat Princess Updates.

Apparently there's still a lot of people playing Fat Princess. Since it always seems to take me awhile to find a game with more than 5 people in it, I'm not sure I entirely believe this claim. But then, the Playstation Blog would never exaggerate the popularity of one of their platform's exclusive titles, would they?
Of course, however many people are actually playing Fat Princess, they obviously love this game...maybe a little too much.

You can find the rest of the pics from this little escapade at the oddly-titled Asian School Boy. But on to the important stuff. There's a new patch coming for Fat Princess today, January 21st. The patch, 1.04 correct the All-Time and Monthly leaderboard display for Invasion and Team Deathmatch modes. The patch doesn't address the warrior shield bug, (which allows the warrior to keep his shield up and increase movement speed while carrying the princess) but Titan promises they are aware of it (thanks to comment-happy players) and will have it fixed for the next patch. Most importantly, it comes with a new map! A city similar in scope and look to the previously released New Pork, the new map is called Brownie Town. So gather up your little cartoon friends and beat each other into bloody stains on the ground of this new arena. I'll see you there.

Survive the Horror of Exaggeration in Demon's Souls

If you've heard of PS3 sleeper hit Demon's Souls, you've heard how hard it is. Well in the opinion of Bitmob writer Tony Capri, this is a problem. In the article, which can be found at the link above, Capri writes about how the emphasis on the game's difficulty is driving potential customers away.

According to Capri, while the game is challenging, it should be viewed as more of a survival-horror title with RPG elements rather than a straightforward RPG, putting player expectation of difficulty in a more accurate place. Considering the title, and overall look of the game's enemies and even world, this doesn't seem like a particularly large leap to make.

click to gain a +15 to size

Since character stamina is used to perform any action in combat, attacking, rolling, or even blocking, and has a finite supply, use should be treated with the same reservation as ammunition in more traditional survivor-horror titles like Resident Evil or Silent Hill. Along these same lines are the fact that the player cannot become an omnipotent warrior capable of decimating lower level enemies by leveling up. Instead, every enemy poses a considerable threat at all times throughout the game. This is, again, more akin to a survival horror title, where a standard zombie in Resident Evil is just as potentially dangerous in the last hour of play as it was in the first. Even the limiting inventory systems common to most survival horror titles can be likened to the weight limits placed on character equipment. In fact, the system in Demon's Souls is actually more forgiving. Carrying too much weight will cut down the speed of your character's actions, and in extreme cases, the ability to perform them at all, but it will never leave you completely defenseless like running out of ammunition in a traditional survival horror title can.
So gamers everywhere should stop thinking of Demon's Souls s an RPG that caters exclusively to the "hardcore" and instead compare it to the "realistic" challenge of a surviving an onslaught of zombies or other nightmarish creatures. After all, the game, like many others, deals with a horde of monsters that blights the land and threatens the very human race. A horde that has devoured every hero that has challenged it before you. The operative difference between Demon's Souls and other games that take this narrative is that your hero is not an invincible superhuman cracking one-liners as they clear out the monsterous plague that was completely unstoppable up until said hero's arrival, and with a seemingly miniscule level of effort. Rather, your character is just like every other would-be hero in the world, taking up the challenge and hoping to survive the ordeal through the same attributes the player must display: quick thinking and superior tactics.
But is this supposedly undeserved label of difficulty the gaming media has placed upon Demon's Souls truly having an adverse affect on its sales? In my experience, yes. Recently taking my girlfriend's advice to "stop spending all [my] time worrying about bills and get something for [myself]" I decided to pick up a new game. While in the store I considered Demon's Souls briefly before moving on to Batman: Arkham Asylum; choosing to eschew the extreme frustration every review of Demon's Souls told me to expect (in fact, IGN's review gives incite into little else) for the landmark of a comic book game that doesn't suck. Was I disappointed by Batman? Like pretty much everyone else: absolutely not. However that doesn't change the fact that I potentially missed out on a game I could have enjoyed even more, and at the very least missed out on another fantastic game...for now at least. So player's unsure of whether or not they want to take on the highly publicized difficulty of Demon's Souls, or simply not into RPG's, may try thinking of it as something other than your average adventure RPG and more like a survival horror title cooked in a delicious RPG glaze.

All Beyond Good & Evil fans: join me in saying "Hip-hip-huh?"

So apparently Beyond Good & Evil 2 is still in development, according to IGN and Ubisoft. This is stark contrast to comments made by Ubisoft president, Laurent Detoc, last July which gave the feeling BG&E2 had been put on indefinite hold or scrapped altogether.

At the time, Detoc said: "Whether or not it comes out remains to be seen anyway, but we didn't want to abandon that IP because it has a cache and authenticity about it," Detoc said at the time. "There's something very pure about that game and it's too bad that we were not able to build it as an IP at the time."

Wait...you're telling me that you're company is continuing to spend time and money on developing a game that you're not even sure will be released. Yeah, sure, that makes sense...to a crazy person. Although it's better than the alternative of the game being scrapped altogether.

So I'm not sure who these sources at Ubisoft are, but I wish they'd been a little more detailed. Anyways, enjoy the original teaser video (confirmed as being in-game by Ubisoft) as well as leaked footage that is, for some reason, still debated as to whether or not it's in-game, actually BG&E2, or even real at all. Courtesy of those crazy bastards at IGN.

For those of you that don't care because you didn't play the first game (which was the majority of you or the sequel wouldn't be on such shaky ground): the biggest, fattest "Shame on you" I can muster. Because you missed out on an absolutely FANTASTIC game. And since it came out on Gamecube, Playstation 2, Xbox AND PC I recommend you go pick it up right now and play it. Chances are you have one of those systems around, or a backwards compatible successor, if you're even at this site in the first place. Go. No, don't waste time watching these videos, GO! NOW!

Teaser

Beyond Good & Evil 2 at IGN.com

Leaked Footage

Beyond Good & Evil 2 at IGN.com

I agree with the choice but...

Although I've recently been stating that IGN's articles -- and writing in general -- seem to be getting progressively more immature, this video for game of the year (after the jump) completely reverses that opinion. And if you have to ask, yes, that was sarcasm.

More Videos at IGN.com

Dark Void, Murky Combat.

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So the Dark Void demo is finally out and I have to say: I think they could have picked a better section of the game to show off. The flight combat could use some work, so having a demo that focuses almost entirely on that -- forgoing the "vertical cover system" we've heard so much about altogether -- is probably not the best first impression you want to make. On the same subject of odd choices, as talented a voice actor as Nolan North is, applying the same exact voice as Nathan Drake to a main character, William Augustus Grey, that bears a noticeable resemblance to said fortune hunter is a little distracting. But then, 360 gamers don't really have to worry about that. Hm...
Since I've mentioned the air combat already, let's get into that first. The demo tasks you wiht learning the basics of flight, shooting some stationary targets and taking down 3 Watcher flying saucers before moving on to some ground combat...and is quite short. Flying around and shooting at stationary targets works just fine, it's when you've got moving targets that combat gets a bit uncooperative. At all times while flying you have jetpack mounted machine guns and a crosshair to aim them with. You can press L2 to face the nearest enemy, however that only points the camera in that direction, not your character or your crosshairs. What this means is that, if your enemy's behind you, your view will be of the opposite side that your character, and thus your crosshair, is facing and you must maneuver that crosshair into view WITHOUT BEING ABLE TO SEE IT. As you've probably guessed, this can be quite disorienting. If you're not going to have a lock-on system (which I think could speed up the relatively slow pace of aerial combat, personally, but that's beside the point) your character should at least swing around to the direction the camera is facing so that the player can see what he's aiming at.
Questionable control decisions aside, the air combat looks like it could get old quite fast. Getting in close, although still far enough away to make me say "WTF?" allows the player to press Circle and latch on to the enemy flying saucer, triggering a minigame to hijack control of the vehicle. This minigame consists of the following pattern: wait for gun to charge, dodge left/right, hold circle, dodge left/right, and repeat. Occasionally the pilot will put the saucer into a corkscrew to try and shake you off, but if you manage to press Square or Triangle (whichever the onscreen prompt calls for) at least 2 or 3 times, you're not going to fall off. Since flying around and shooting down the enemy flying saucers is nowhere near as fast as hijacking and then abandoning the vehicle, this could get old fast. Which brings up another point, piloting a flying saucer is nowhere near as fun, or effective as sticking to your jetpack. But this is a demo, so I'll save my final judgment for the full game in case there's some other gameplay in store to spice up these sections.
On the ground combat is...serviceable. Those of you familiar with Nathan Drake's adventures will find a control scheme that is identical save for the reversal of the take cover and melee buttons. Speaking of melee, you can only use a melee attack if there's an enemy near enough to use it on. An interesting design choice that is nonetheless effective. I theorize that this is to prevent players from accidentally entering a melee animation that would leave them open to getting shot, but I can't say for sure. That said, I found that, in the demo at least, you could just run up to any enemy and melee them to death. They don't seem to have any type of defense against it and weren't very good at preventing me from getting close enough -- even on the "Hardcore" difficulty setting -- to use it either. As far as weapons, you can carry any two, plus grenades, (although your default weapon in the demo seemed to be the most effective overall) and switch between them by pressing any direction on the D-pad. Lastly, although I've made a few comparisons to the Uncharted games, the ground combat in Dark Void just wasn't as fast, fluid, or fun. But again, this is just a demo and I didn't get to try out the "vertical" variation.
All in all, I wasn't too impressed with the Dark Void demo, but here's to hoping the rest of the game will prove to be worthy of Geek God, Nikola Tesla.

Check out the Super new combatants of Street Fighter IV.

Anxious to see the fighting styles of the three new pugilistic superstars of the forthcoming Super Street Fighter IV? Well GameTrailers.com has you covered.

With the new videos (which can be found for the rest of the cast here.) you can not only see the new characters in action, but get tips on the best strategies for using them...or defeating them.

Now if we could only get a video detailing why Capcom still chooses to release multiple versions of the same Street Fighter in the age of downloadable content (and with progressively longer titles) we would understand everything.

Cody

Adon

Guy

Some bad news for Metal Gear movie fans.

You could always just play the games though. Maybe have some kind of narration while you're playing too. It would just be like a very long movie. I know some of you out there love this kind of stuff.
According to an interview with movie producer Mike De Luca and movie site Collider, the mission's off.
According to an interview with movie producer Mike De Luca and movie site Collider, the mission's off. Keep in mind, however, this is Hollywood we're talking about. The MGS movie could go all Watchmen on us and just lay dormant for a few years.
Apparently the movie guys and the game guys just couldn't see eye to eye, according to De Luca. From the picture De Luca paints, Kojima and his crew were very adamant on staying close to certain aspects of the games and unwilling to budge. For those of us that know Kojima-san and his games, the man basically makes movies already; and you can't have two kings in the castle.
I want to believe this could be good for the fans of the games, myself included, I can't help but wonder how much of the game's story he wants left in tact. Someone really should have the ability to rein back some of the philosophizing...and let us know a little quicker if Ocelot is just crazy or actually became possessed through a limb transplant.

More Optimus, Les Shia.

Whether or not that's a good thing in the movies is up for debate. In a game, however, that victory belongs entirely to Optimus.
Case and point; Transformers: War for Cybertron. Since the timeline of this game predates Cybtertronian (thems the Autobots and Decepticons for all you "newbs") contact with Earth so it's all hot, robot-on-robot action. Now please kindly remove any dirty thoughts about Arcee from your mind, you twisted, old-school perv you. Not a whole lot is known about the game so far, but IGN apparently has some juicy footage coming our way. While you're there you can tide yourself over by watching the current trailer on repeat until the new one comes out. I mean that kiddingly of course, it's not like I've got that running in the background while I'm writing this...