ExtraMana

What's Norn9? looking forward too Muv Luv Alternative in the Vita, probably 2017.

Video Game History - Deus Ex Deus Ex Cover art By the mid 1990’s Warren Spector had already made a big name for himself from his involvement on the first person role playing games ‘Ultima Underworld’ and ‘System Shock’. Ultima Underworld released in early 1992. It was a technological revolution as it was one of the earliest games to display texture mapping in first person. Spector had gotten his first taste of working on a science fiction game with 1994’s smash hit: ‘System Shock’ and now wanted to take the simulation experience. For Spector this would become the start of the long and torturous struggle that would be Deus Ex’s development. Spector’s first attempt at Deus Ex was a project called ‘TroubleShooter’. In the game the player would take on the role of a Dirty Harry inspired-ex-cop-turned security specialist. The project fell through so Spector tried again with a new concept called ‘Shooter’. In ‘Shooter’ the player would take on the role of Adam a bio-mechanically enhanced government agent tasked with defending the World against terrorist threats in a dystopian future. This project also fell through. But third time round was a charm for Spector. In the late 1990’s he started pitched a new game titled ‘Majestic Revelations’. Inspired by ‘The X-files’ this new game was set to take the player into a World of conspiracies, government cover-ups and a shadowy group named ‘Majestic 12’. Years had passed since Spector’s first attempt to make a science fiction game. When System Shock launched in 1994 consumer grade computers simply weren’t powerful enough to render graphics in 3D. But this now no longer the case. Spector leased the powerful ‘Unreal Engine’ and expanded his team from 6 to 20 people. With this expanded team came internal power struggles that pulled the project into different directions. Individual members of the team all had opposing ideas about what the game should be. Some thought the game should be a violent fast-paced first person, others wanted an in-depth simulated role playing experience and some even wanted a strategy game. To make matters worse Spector the game to have massive outdoor levels based on real World locations. But the Unreal Engine simply didn’t have the raw power to deliver his vision. Worse still when the started early play-testing began they found that a realistic looking World was simply too boring. ‘Deus Ex’ needed to be more fantastical. The player had to become immersed in this World of conspiracies and dark cyber punk not bored by realism. The levels where changed to accommodate the limitations of the unreal engine. Also more robots and alien looking creatures including the ‘greazel' where added to make the game more fantastical. Spector’s struggles where beginning to pay off as Deus Ex neared closer to the finish line but there were still some glaring issues. For one the source code for artificial intelligence in the game was built on top of that used for Unreal Tournament. Deus Ex was supposed to allow the player to approach combat in any way they desired. The game needed to accommodate multiple play-styles from stealth, to all out carnage. But Unreal Tournament was designed to fast-paced shooter. Fixing the AI became a nightmare for the single player campaign. But for multiplayer it didn’t turn out to be much of a problem. As the multiplayer ended up with giving players an experience that echoed Unreal Tournament’s. In June 2000, 5 years after Spector’s journey began, Deus Ex released. Those years of struggle had been worth it as critics lavished the game with praise and awards, securing Deus Ex a place in video-game history. As time passed it became a classic in the eyes of Pc gamer and in late 2015 two teams of dedicated modders put out their final attempts to breathe new life into the game. Caustic Creative’s ‘Deus Ex Revision’ sought to expand the levels, mechanics and even include a new soundtrack. Whilst Totalitarian’s ‘GMDX’ mod expanded animations, interfaces, and more without changing the core experience. With these mods Deus Ex now became more accessible to an entire new generation of gamers. Making sure it’s place in history remains secure for years to come. YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/comicconreviews/

Thanks. These are my old videos. Stay tuned in a couple of days I'll uploading a brand new video covering the history of Deus Ex to celebrate the launch of the latest game.

Video Game History - Duke Nukem 3D Duke Nukem 3D box art In the mid 1990's id software was the most prominent company when it came to first person shooters. However a man named Ken Silverman had been producing a new game engine called the 'build engine' that would allow for more advanced graphics than id's games. Ken's build engine would be more powerful than id's tech, as it would allow for destructible environments, sectors that could overlap each other and more. In 1993 just a month before Ken was due to attend his first semester at college he had signed a contract with Apogee software to create a new 3D engine. Soon his programming would overtake his college classes and he would work on the engine full time. It would took Ken 3 years to finish the 'Build Engine' that was to be used for 'Duke Nukem 3d'. Ken Silverman For the game apogee decided to give the Duke his own personality. When the first 'Duke Nukem' was released in 1991, Duke's character had been inspired by comic book heroes and 1980's action movie stars but due to technical limitations they couldn't flesh out the character fully. Thanks to the power of Ken Silverman's build engine however Duke would now be able to speak and never before in a first person shooter did you have a character who could speak and react to the world around him during the actual game play. To breathe life into the character Jon St. John was hired to do voice acting for Duke. Jon St. John was instructed to think of Clint Eastwood's performance in Dirty Harry but with a lower pitch to reflect Duke's larger physique. It was one of Jon St John's earliest roles in the video game industry and by far his most iconic. Like Id Software's games, Duke Nukem 3d stuck to the typical first person shooter formula of collecting key cards to progress throughout the levels. However Duke Nukem 3d would feature real life locations to make it stand out. Throughout the game Duke would visit many real life locations such as cinema theatres, bookstores, and strip clubs. You could also interact with certain objects in the game. Using a urinal will give you ten points of health for instance. You could also use items in your inventory such as night vision googles, med-kits,a jet pack, and scuba gear. Throughout the game Duke would quote one-liners from numerous movies most notably the evil dead series. And the cover of the game bears a heavy resemblance to the cover of the film 'Evil Dead army of Darkness'. The game would create some controversy by including sexual content meaning the game would be given an M rating. Because of the sexual content Germany and Brazil banned the game, and the game received plenty of criticism for it's objectification of women. However the game still sold over 3.5 million copies. Duke Nukem 3d did eventually receive a sequel named 'Duke Nukem Forever' which is better known for having one of the longest production times in video game history, than for it's actual gameplay, which was poor. But in any case Duke Nukem 3d will be forever known as one of the most important games in video game history because it helped to popularize the first person shooter genre alongside id software's games. YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/comicconreviews/

Video Game History - Rise of the Triad (2013) Rise of the Triad promotional art In 1994 Rise of the Triad Dark was released. The game was originally intended to be a sequel to Wolfenstein 3D that id Software had asked Apogee Software to make for them whilst they focused solely on Doom. But when id Software changed their mind about the sequel, Apogee had to re-tool the game into something new. That something new featured a heavily modified version of the Wolf 3D engine, members of Apogee where digitized into the game. A new physics mechanic was introduced for the jump pads. The gore was turned up to 11 with the introduction of ‘ludicrous gibs’. ROTT:DW also featured some brilliant power-ups such as god mode and dog-mode. It also featured some hair-pulling frustating power-downs such as shrooms-mode. where-in an unlucky player would be handicapped by a psyhadelic trip complete with extreme head bobbing, echoes, and brightly coloured enemies. Rise of the Triad 2013 - 'ludicrous gibs' In 2010 a company called Interceptor Entertainment was busy working on a game called ‘Duke Nukem 3D Reloaded’. It was a straight up remake of the original Duke Nukem 3D from 1996. To avoid legal issues the game was being developed under a non-commercial license, meaning it would distributed for free upon release. Production of the reboot continued into 2011, when the project finally hit a snag. Gearbox had acquired the IP for the long anticipated ‘Duke Nukem Forever’ and they didn’t want a fan project to damage their future sales. Several executives Gearbox made the decision to demand that under no circumstances could work on the fan project be shown to the public and that development had to cease. Sometime after the cancellation of DN3D:R, Terry Nagy the CEO of Apogee Software, contacted Interceptor Entertainment with an offer to ROTT’s license. At Quake-con 2012 Interceptor announced that the ROTT reboot. Quakecon 2012 (Dallas) ROTT was developed virtually, meaning team members for the project would not meet but would work from home and development would be managed through a private phpBB forum. Andrew Hulshult who had worked on Duke Nukem 3D reloaded took on the role of musician for ROTT. It would be his job to recreate the iconic soundtrack of the original game, for Hulshult it would be a trial by fire as it was his first job on a professional project. His first task to make a cover of the classic ‘Going down the first way’. This would be no small order since the original had been composed by the now legendary videogame composer Lee Jackson, who had worked on the original ROTT, Duke Nukem 3D, and Shadow Warrior. Lee would return to aid Hulshult in Interceptor’s bid to recapture the magic of the original game. Interceptor Entertainment also wanted the level design to remain faithful to the maze-like style from first person shooters of old. However upon release ROTT suffered from a variety of bugs and glitches, including serious performance and frame-rate issues even on high-spec machines. Mouse acceleration also made the game unplayable for some and required a tweak of the .ini file to fix. Additionally the added login for multiplayer was particularly unfavorable amongst many, seeing as steam players already had a usable account. It seems that in the modern era of pc gaming it is becoming more and more acceptable to release a game with multiple serious issues. But Initial teething problems asides ROTT is very faithful to its source material. You still have to find keys to open doors to progress through the levels, jump-pad platforming remains a big component in gameplay and the original cast of playable characters are back. This time around their catchphrases have been updated to modern pop-culture references, whilst the juvenile humor remains in-tact. Just how I like it. One of the playable characters even quips ‘suck it down’ an obvious reference to John Romero’s now infamous advertising campaign for ‘Daikatana’. If you’re willing to overlook the glaring release bugs then ROTT serves as a fine throwback to the golden-era of first person shooters. Dodd, R. (2013). ComicConReviews: Video Game History - Rise of the Triad (2013). [online] Comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk. Available at: http://comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/video-game-history-rise-of-triad-2013.html [Accessed 11 Aug. 2016].

Video Game History - Space Invaders space invaders flyer In 1977 the videogame market was flooded with clones of the game ‘Pong’. Pong which released in 1972 had been such a huge hit that many other game companies had tried to produce their own version of the game. This led to a glut of pong consoles hitting the market meaning videogame companies had to sell their systems at a loss and consequently go out of business. Intersoll Electronics pong clone In 1977 the videogame market had its first crash. Even Atari and Magnavox the two biggest videogame companies at the time suffered heavy losses. Fortunately in 1978 ‘Space Invaders’ was released in the arcade and the game was so successful it managed to rejuvenate the video game industry. In 1977 Tomohiro Nishikado starts to work on ideas for an arcade game that involves a wartime setting. The Taito Corporation who he was working for at the time, isn’t happy with the idea of a realistic violent game. Thus Nishikado changes the setting to space, and he took inspiration from the 1976 arcade game ‘breakout’. In breakout players had to destroy all the rows of bricks on the screen by ricocheting a ball against the walls using a paddle. To do this the player could move horizontally across the bottom of the screen. Nishikado had an idea, he had the setting and he set forth not only on designing what would become ‘Space Invaders’ he also developed the microcomputer that would be used by the game itself. He also did all the art and sound work himself. When space invaders released in Japanese arcades in 1978 it was not an instant success. But after a slow few months it starts to catch on. Over time the game would become so successful in Japan that it caused a national coin shortage of the one hundred yen piece. The number of space invaders cabinets produced in Japan at this time isn’t clear because the game had so much demand that many counterfeit versions of the arcade cabinet where developed. Space Invaders finally hit the shores of North America in October of 1978. Over there it became an instant hit. The arcade game itself was monochrome meaning it only had black and white colors. Strips of orange and green cellophane where overlaid onto the screen, therefore creating the illusion that the game itself was in color. The aim of the game was simple, you had to stop an incoming wave of aliens with your canon whilst avoiding being shot. The enemy waves would never end but you could get extra points by shooting down a flying saucer that would appear at the top of the screen once every 25 seconds. Since it was impossible to beat the game, players would compete to see who could get the highest score. space invaders gameplay screenshot Space invaders had helped to save the arcade but it would help the home console market as well. In 1980 the Atari 2600 was facing stiff competition from the Mattel Intellivision and Magnavox Odyssey 2. So Atari created a cartridge of space invaders for their Atari 2600 console. This game cartridge became so successful due to the frenzy of that surrounded the arcade version that sales of the console quadrupled. People would buy an Atari 2600 just for space invaders. Space invaders helped popularize the high-score in videogames and is considered by many historians to be the first true blockbuster videogame in history. Dodd, R. (2013). ComicConReviews: Video Game History - Space Invaders. [online] Comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk. Available at: http://comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/space-invaders-flyer-in-1977-videogame.html [Accessed 11 Aug. 2016].

Video Game History - Half Life Half Life cover art Gabe Newell started his career at Microsoft. He worked as a programmer on the Windows 1, 2, and 2.1 operating systems. In December of 1993 id software released Doom. Doom is a mega-hit and in late 1995 it is thought that more people have played the game then own the Windows 95’ operating system. This forced Bill Gates to recognize the potential of video games and he decided to endorse Windows 95’ as a gaming platform. Newell heads the team tasked with porting Doom to Win95. Michael Abrash an old colleague of Newell’s decided to leave Microsoft and work id software on their next game ‘Quake’. Newell and another ex-Microsoft employee decide that it’s their turn to enter the burgeoning market of Pc games and form their own company ‘Valve. In the summer of 1996, Mike Harrington and Newell visit the already legendary John Carmack at the id software offices. It there that they discuss ideas for Valve’s first game. After the meeting Carmack is convinced to give them the source code of Quake’s engine so they can get to work. Bill Gates promoting Doom on Windows 95 - Gaming Promotion screenshot Inspired by Quake, Newell wanted to create a fast-paced first person shooter which is called ‘Quiver’. Quiver would feature aliens and a military base, but later in its development it would be renamed to ‘Half Life’. Many of the employees taken on at Valve had experience modding Doom, Duke Nukem 3D and Quake. Valve’s release date for Half Life was initially set for November 1997, but as the team got closer to that date they released the game had serious problems. There was an array of technical issues, levels where only loosely connected and the biggest problem of all it was just wasn’t fun to play. Rather than releasing the game in an in-perfect state, valve decided to do a complete rework. During the development of Half Life Valve would end up rewriting the majority of the Quake engine source code Carmack had given them. Valve would make its own ‘GoldSource’ engine that would feature advanced physics. Valve’s music and sound designer Kelly Bailey lent his likeness to Half Life’s silent protagonist Gordon Freeman. Throughout the game the player would be able to interact with the Non-playable characters, namely scientists and the security guard Barney. These NPC’s would reveal aspects of the game’s story as the player went through the levels. In the late 90’s this was ground-breaking for a first person shooter. Quiver creature concept art A near complete version of the first fifth of Half Life referred to as ‘Half Life Day One’ leaked onto the internet before the game was complete. This incomplete slice of the game drew the attention of John Romero who was busy working on Daikatana at the time, and Tim Sweeney who had worked on the Unreal engine. When Half Life finally released in November of 1998 it was a mega-hit. Gaining over 50 game of the year of awards and eventually selling over 9 million copies Worldwide. It was even cited as ‘the best game of all time’. But that isn’t the end of Half Life’s story. There is also the active modding community that has spawned countless hundreds of mods. Since it would be impossible to talk about all these mods I’ll just talk about the most successful: ‘Counter Strike’. Whilst Minh Le and Jesse Cliff where still in school they were modding games. Le’s first mod was called ‘Navy Seals’ it was developed for the Quake. When Valve released the source development kit for Half Life, Cliff and Le worked together to create ‘Counter Strike’ using these new tools. Minh Le (left) Jess Cliffe (right) It took the pair around 4 months to develop the first iteration of Counter Strike. After which they expanded the project by taking on the aid of other keen modders to help them develop more maps and improve the overall quality. Valve recognized the success of Counter Strike and bought the rights to it to release the mod commercially. This once humble mod worked on by the crack team Minh and Le would go on to become the most popular multiplayer game in North America and to this day there are still thousands of people Worldwide who still play it. Counter Strike itself had a simple but hooking premise. Players could choose from one of two teams, the terrorists or the counter terrorists. The goal of the game was to either eliminate the other team or complete an objective such as setting up a bomb. The many mods made for Half Life boosted sales of the game and gave people even more reason to buy it. Even today there are still keen modders making their own total conversion using the SDK. A prime example being the recently released ‘Cry of Fear’, a survival horror mod. Half Life itself was a revolutionary shooter upon release, it added more immersion and depth to the genre than any first person shooter had managed before and it remains one of the most influential games in history. Dodd, R. (2013). ComicConReviews: Video Game History - Half Life. [online] Comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk. Available at: http://comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/video-game-history-half-life.html [Accessed 11 Aug. 2016].

Elexis sinclair (hyper-sexualized villainess of the SiN franchise) SiN Episodes: Emergence has all the elements that could have made a great game. Bombastic characters, comical gratuity both in gore and in partial nudity and a much laid back if not heavily generic storyline. If you take the final product for what it is, one 9th of a much larger game with multiple plot strands, a sprawling Universe and an internal lore, emergence comes off as rather disappointing. There are clearly sections where you could see the developers had planned to make a cohesive Universe with this rather sloppy first chapter just acting as an introduction. So when you play emergence it’s kind of difficult to take any of it to heart. Technically emergence is a sort of sequel or at least expansion of the 1998 SiN series. SE:E may as well be a reboot taking a few things from the original Sin with it, such as the iconic handgun, and the teasing villain Alexis, who probably wouldn’t even be allowed if the game was made today, due to outrage merchants with nothing better to do then ban fun. But that’s a thread not worth pulling on at this point. The game is about 3 hours long your first play through, and that includes time to deal with a few very Half Life 2-esque physics puzzles and intractable segments that are pretty much either about pushing button, or blowing something up. The gunplay is solid but since emergence is a slice of what was to be a designed to be a much bigger pizza. In SE:E You only get 4 weapons. Blade’s trusty handgun that is perfect for head shots early on, a magazine fed shotgun, and a scoped assault rifle and incendiary grenades. The weapons handle similarly to Half Life 2’s just with a different damage scaling. The gore in SE:E however is considerably ramped up when compared to HL2. Head shots are now much more satisfying. The flying solider and the big guys will explode when killed and generally speaking weapon feedback is more responsive. The enemies AI is pretty bad regardless of difficulty, as they will walk toward you and fire without bothering with any flanking, regrouping or cover tactics The only way difficulty gets increased is by adding more enemies. SE:E is very old school in its gameplay but I honestly didn’t mind that. The game’s narrative is perhaps unsurprisingly rather perhaps. It focuses on a single pro-longed chase sequence as the player is tasked with following the villains through no more than 3 locations. Firstly a shipping port, then an underground lab, and lastly a high rise building. No points for story originality can be given here. SE:E’s campaign serves as a very weak first episode to what was clearly intended to be a much more expanded universe. You can see some pretty big corners where cut during development. Underwater sections are missing tones of detail, some areas have basically no proper lighting, and wherever they could the developers either repeated textures or just didn’t bother to add much detail. There is also a few glitches where you’ll see a villain who is meant to appear in a cut scene later on just sort of appears in partially textured form and disappears. Design wise the game is pretty sloppy. And yet I still feel compelled to defend it. SE:E was a throwback to 90’s shooters, and although the end result feels like a bit of mess that leaves the player with more questions than it answers the game is still fun to play. The various quips from our heroes add a much needed sense of humor to it all and act to distract you from the games glaring flaws. Nowadays SE:E serves as a relic to a different era in Pc games and one that is likely to be only enjoyable to fans of old school first person shooters due to the game’s throwback nature. Comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk. (2016). ComicConReviews: Retro Review - SiN Episodes: Emergence (Pc). [online] Available at: http://comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/retro-review-sin-episodes-emergence-pc.html [Accessed 16 Aug. 2016].

Retro Review - Clive Barker's Undying (Pc) Clive Barker's Undying box art Clive Barker’s Undying is a survival horror game that has a deeply gothic look and feel to it. While I’m not all that familiar with Barker’s work apart from his most iconic book ‘The Hellbound Heart’ and the film adaption ‘Hellraiser’, I am very familiar with the works of H.P Lovecraft. Lovecraft is my favorite horror writer and someone who greatly inspired Barker’s writing. Starting Undying you’ll find yourself in this huge gothic mansion, which of course has a lot of locked doors that require hunting for the key through copious amounts of backtracking. This first impression of the game might make you believe it’s going for the classic puzzle route for survival horror in ode to classics like ‘Resident Evil’. But this first impression would be wrong as there a number of things that set Barker’s Undying apart. First off you dual wield weapons in this game. A trusty firearm like the pistol in your left hand and magic in your right. Magical abilities get gifted to you throughout the campaign and can be quickly toggled through depending on the situation. At points you can use your magic to uncover the truth behind certain objects throughout the mansion, and you’ll even be able to resurrect dead foes to fight for you. You can check up on the specifics of your magical abilities in your journal which also logs objectives and holds all the cryptic clues you’ve picked up. Journal entries are written in a typical Lovecraftian style, all in first person detailing every horror as it happens in real time from the perspective of the note writer. Clive Barker's Undying gameplay screenshot Unlike classic survival horror games, the puzzles and level layouts in Undying are usually pretty straight forward and won’t require a razor sharp mind to decipher. Personally I found this a refreshing change, but then again I always found games like Silent Hill and Resident Evil to burden you with frustratingly abstract puzzles that I had no luck solving without peeking at a strategy guide. After you brave the mansion starting area, you’re then free to explore the lands using a boat. You’ll also use your magic to cross barriers to other realms. These other realms feature the richest atmosphere in the game. The sound and art design there is absolutely top-notch. Although these realms are often a cliché’ version of a gothic hell they still remain very enticing. Deep rumbles of thunder, red hellish skies and warped broken architecture all floating in some strange inter-dimensional plain make for some truly unique levels that are a lot of fun to wade through. Platforming in first person games of this time tends to be a pretty teeth grinding affair but in Undying, It really isn’t all that bad. Outside of these other realms your eyes will always be picking out some creeping noise in the background, be it the whistling of the wind, the distant shrieks of a demon, and your own footsteps echoing throughout the twisted gothic buildings. Human enemies can break this creepy atmosphere though, there just isn’t anything all that terrifying about a monk yelling at you. Otherwise the bestiary is pretty great, with all kinds of gothic monsters and demons that look like something from the front cover of a H.P Lovecraft novel. Clive barker's Undying - platforming The combat is probably the weakest part of Undying. Combat can get very repetitive very quickly as the game seems keen to throw something at you around every other corner. But you can sometimes break up the monotony getting creative, combining defensive weapons is offensive magic. For instance resurrecting a dead enemy to pit against your remaining foes as you retreat firing a gothic Chinese ice canon at any stragglers left in your path. It’s a shame that you all too rarely get a break from the combat, because the scrolls you pick up in the game make for a fine read and give clues as to the lore of this game World. Picking up this game you’ll need to account for the fact it’s a bit dated graphically. But if you think about it in context of its release date in 2001, it holds up fairly well. The Unreal 1 engine whilst now very creaky looking, provided some of the best lighting and shadowing at the time, which gives off just the right atmosphere when you’re indoors. The real age of Undying starts to show in some of the outdoor sections however. Whilst I wouldn’t say they look terrible for the time, they are in stark contrast to the more lively interiors. Clive Barker’s Undying is a compelling game, not least for the fact that Barker not only had a hand in writing it but also got to make some of the design decisions during production along with voicing one of the characters. My biggest complaint would be how repetitive the game becomes as you get closer to the end but if you’re willing to endure a little tedium than this game is definitely worth going back too. Dodd, R. (2013). ComicConReviews: Retro Review - Clive Barker's Undying (Pc). [online] Comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk. Available at: http://comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/retro-review-clive-barkers-undying-pc.html [Accessed 11 Aug. 2016].

Review - Fairy Fencer F (PS3, Pc) Fairy Fencer F box art The story in this game is in one word ‘fairies’. You see, you have a fencer who controls the fairy when wielding them in battles. Naturally you have some evil villains who want to control all the fairies for World domination or some such thing. But all you really need to know is that this game is trying to be kind of edgy, which doesn’t work out at all, because it’s about fairies. Anyway the characters are pretty 2 dimensional as you might expect and although the art style is nicely detailed, the actual character design is kind of anodyne, and the main protagonist in the game called ‘Fang’ is a bit on the tiresome side. As for the rest of the characters, they do have some vaguely witty dialogue in cut scenes sometimes but the rest of the time they spend reminding you of what cardboard cutout their personality is supposed represent. When you stack up the visuals of Fairy Fencer F to say Hyperdimension Neptunia MK2 you can see they look pretty similar. This is because Compile Heart is still using the same game engine in 2014. Considering that this game looks like a PlayStation 3 launch title, this is not good at all. Fairy Fencer F(left) compared to Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk2(right) Now mediocre visuals don’t really bother me but tin his case it reminds of when Fallout 3 came out on the old Oblivion engine and everyone bitched about it, and then when New Vegas came out on the same tired old engine people where even more pissed off. The difference is that Compile Heart have released 4 games on their now archaic engine, to add insult to injury, even if you decide to do the optional 3.5gb install for the game it still chugs. That’s right a game that looks like in 2014 cannot manage a consistent 30 frame per second. In the positives for the visuals department, the special attacks in this game are glorious, you will feel like your power level is over 9000 guaranteed. The biggest strength of the Hyperdimension Neptunia series was in my opinion the sound. However the soundtrack in this rather less successful in this game. While the battle music is usually quite upbeat and fitting, for some insane reason compile heart decided that using songs with lyrics was a good idea, and this really takes away from the experience. The voice work is passable to fairly good, the female voice actors tend to do a slightly job than their male counterparts although this seems to be almost always the case in video games for some reason. Early on cut scenes will be interesting, the ones that are voiced anyhow but because the plot is dull and edgy you’ll probably ending up skipping a lot of the cut scenes later on. Fairy Fencer F cutscene As for the gameplay itself, well the battle system in this game is basically a polished version of that seen in the Hyperdimension Neptunia series. Only now you don’t have to worry about using buffs and de-buffs all the time in order to defeat the enemies. This game uses an active turn based battle system so whilst there is clearly a turn order you can move around during your turns in order to line up Area of effect special attacks and the like, you’ll also be able to pull off lightening combos where you get to attack with all of your party though this feels mostly random. The biggest aspect of battles is to build up your combo meter, the little purple bar at the top. This will allow you to ‘Fairize’ which gives you hyper powerful attacks and better combos. You can also use spells to deal extra damage to enemies who are weak to certain elemental based attacks, although the enemies with the exceptions of bosses are generally pretty easy so you’ll end up mashing buttons far too much of the time. It only takes a couple of hours before what, I would like to call ‘battle fatigue’, sets in. This is where you pretty much aren’t paying any attention to stats, and are reliant on audio cues to tell you when it’s time to use a potion to heal or whatever the case may be, this because you’ll be so damn bored from having played out 100 similar battles in a row. Fairy Fencer F gameplay screenshot Outside of battles you can explore the map using world transform which is basically where you stake fairies you’ve gained through the campaign. It’s very basic, and you can even pay for the information on where to get fairies. It’s really pointless since all you’ll end up doing is beating dungeons in an order that is pretty much pre-set. The game does allow you to customize your characters stats to by using WP points, so you’ll be able to increase your attack, defines and learn stronger spells through the menu as you progress, there is also an option to synthesize potions and other items in the main towns shop but it’s not exactly a big part of the game. Lastly you have side missions, and sure they do add more game time, but they always consist of either killing X number of this monster, or fetching this random item from dungeon Y. Half of the quests are even labelled ‘fetch’. Ultimately I found Fairy Fencer F to be incredibly shallow, and whilst the battle system was improved over Compile Heart’s Hyperdimension Neptunia series, the gameplay is still so similar it feels more like an update patch then its own thing. Dodd, R. (2014). ComicConReviews: Review - Fairy Fencer F (PS3, Pc). [online] Comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk. Available at: http://comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/review-fairy-fencer-f-ps3-pc.html [Accessed 11 Aug. 2016].

Review - Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1 (PS Vita, Pc) Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 cover art If you’ve been a fan of Japanese role playing games in the last 5 years chances are you’ve heard of the Hyperdimension Neptunia series. To date there is a trilogy of games on PS3, a manga series, an anime series and another manga series based on the anime. It also has 3 spin off games, 3 remakes the first two of which are already out in the West, and more games currently in development. Needless to say the franchise has become pretty popular. Re;Birth 1 overhauls a lot of problems with the original Hyperdimension Neptunia. For one it uses an enhanced battle system from Hyperdimension Neptunia: Victory. The story sequences in the original game used 3D models whereas in Re;birth they have been completely redone in 2D animation. The story itself focuses around the fantasy land of GameIndustri. A place divided into 4 kingdoms ruled by goddesses who gain there powers from share energy a sort of metaphysical equivalent to the democratic process. The Moe goddess Neptune loses her memory and so the bulk of the plot centers on exposition. Tonally the game is very light, the series is about meta humor, breaking the 4th wall a lot and of course being kawaii, and yes there is plenty of fan service that should go without saying. There are a lot of references to otaku culture in general in this game even which includes discussions of ‘2d-husbandos’. Since I started this review the game has since been ported to PC. However the move to PC doesn’t have any graphical advantages except higher resolutions .Which Given that this game was designed for the limitations of the Vita this shows, whilst the dialogue sections look great no matter what you’re playing on; The low resolution textures of the environments are going to look pretty rough on PC. Hyperdimension Neptunia - 3D models cutscene(left) Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 - 2D animated cutscene (right) Where the visuals shined at least on the Vita was the character models they were nicely detailed and the animations for special attacks are the high point even if they did cause the game to did cause a few dropped frames. First off this game does feature dual audio so you hardcore RPG fans aren’t going to have a problem with the voice acting. I’d wager the English dub is of a high enough quality to warrant using. Even as someone who doesn’t consider himself an elitist I must concede that my jimmies get pretty rustled if I don’t have the option switch to Japanese. The advantage of the original Japanese is that Neptune’s character sounds far more believable as Moe whereas the English voice actress sounds much older. Also the soundtrack is flat out incredible, all the main characters and locations have their own theme. One of the most used tracks called 100 dollars is so damn addictive that I’m not kidding when I say I’ve spent hours listening to it when not even playing the game. The soundtrack manages to encapsulate the high technology meets fantasy vibe of the game, and I’d be hard put to try and find any fault with it. Rebirth 1 has completely overhauled Hyperdimension Neptunia’s battle system making the movement more fluid. The game using an active turn based battle system, it’s actually more or less identical to Fairy Fencer F which I previously reviewed. There is one serious gripe I have with the game and that is one of its core mechanics that is the EXE drive does not become available until you are over 10 or so hours into the story by which point you would have done some serious grinding since the game is mostly focused around this. The EXE drive is a gauge that fills every time you get a hit on an enemy the more hits you combo the faster it fills. Once the gauge is filled you can use some very powerful one hit attacks. The problem is that the EXE gauge is on screen being filled for at least 10 hours before it’s unlocked for use. Now with the EXE drive you may be thinking big deal who cares? Well put it this way battles in this game are very freaking repetitive. You combo your standard moves, you break the enemies guard then maybe you finish them off with more powerful special attack linked to your MP; All very standard fare. If you want to get fancy during harder battles you can use buffs, and de-buffs but it’s impossible to claim there is much variety during the long hours of grinding you’ll need to do in order to beat the end level boss and progress to the next hilarious story cut scene, EXE drive adds that much needed variety. Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth gameplay screenshot Outside battle you can take on fetch quests for more money which you can spend on buying better weapons and buffs for your characters. There is a decent amount of customizability here I was able to more than double some of my party’s HP using the more expensive items bought in shops, and of course give them some kawaii accessories because why not? You can also change your individual characters move sets allowing basic attacks to inflict elemental damage, or vary the total damage done and effect radius of a move-set. It’s a great little system and a lot of fun to use, it helps to give your party some much needed customizability. The last feature worth mentioning is ‘Disk Dev’. Which allows you to change data in dungeons which in turn can modify enemy types, enemy levels, and items found in dungeons. You will probably find yourself earlier on in the game more than later where it begins to feel more like window-dressing. There are plenty more little systems I could talk about in Hyperdimension Neptunia that would bog this review down with some serious technical jargon. So instead I’ll just wrap it up here. Re;Birth brings a much needed update to the battle system and facelift to the tremendously ugly original game and makes for a decent starting point for newcomers to the series. Dodd, R. (2015). ComicConReviews: Review - Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1 (PS Vita, Pc). [online] Comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk. Available at: http://comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/review-hyperdimension-neptunia-rebirth.html [Accessed 11 Aug. 2016].

The metahumour and fourth wall breaking from Noire fit the series, but the move sets and elemental damage system got tedious way too quickly.

Review - Hyperdevotion Noire Goddess Black Heart (PS Vita, Pc) Hyperdevotion Noire cover art In Hyperdevotion Noire many of the previous characters from the Hyperdimension Neptunia series return, with Noire taking the lead instead of Neptune. As with the previous games there are several hours’ worth of visual novel style cutscenes in between missions. The fourth wall breaking and whacky comedy of the previous games returns. Going so far as to put the player directly in the game as a secretary to Noire. Some of cutscenes are just plain badly written relying on dull jokes that take too long to tell and don’t go anywhere. But there are also some hilarious meta-references to games like Metal Gear Solid and Street fighter during the story sections. And the quality overall remains on par with previous instalments of series. The user interfaces, and visual style of the cutscenes is virtually unchanged from the Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth series so there is isn’t much I can say about it that I didn’t already cover in my last review. As for the game’s maps they tend to be a little on the small side which is strange given the power of the Vita. Rather than having huge scope the maps utilize multiple height levels, environmental hazards such as bombs that must be destroyed or pits that your characters can fall into. Hyperdevotion Noire battle gameplay screenshot You’ll also notice they switched from the standard anime style to a more chibi look, I’m not crazy about the transition but I can’t say it really bothers me. Nearly all of the music and plenty of the sound effects are taken from previous games. I only counted four new tracks out of several dozen that play through every part of the game. Admittedly Hyperdevotion Noire’s original score is great but there simply isn’t enough of it. Die-hard fans of the franchise who have played every previous game are probably going to be sick of hearing the same old music they have heard in multiple games already. And frankly I think most of the people playing this game won’t be newcomers since it’s already a very niche’ series. Voice acting is as good as it’s ever been for the series. Since I’ve heard the English voice actors in several of these games already I opted for the original Japanese audio track which I ended up slightly preferring. Regardless, either voice track is nearly flawless in its execution. Each character can move a set number of tiles per turn and like Disgaea grouping your party to adjacent tiles allows for more powerful attacks. The crux of Hyperdimension noire is its Lily Points system. Using a special attack with one to three other party members adjacent will greatly increase the amount of damage you do and raise your Lily points at the same time. Gone is the guard break system of the main series, weakening enemies is now about attacking them from the flank or from behind to deal the maximum damage. Once you have enough Lily points you can access Hard Drive Divinity. HDD form not only allows for a stronger character but also the ability to float over traps. These mechanics reward you playing aggressively but many battles can still go on for a solid 30 minutes or longer. Fortunately you have the option to turn off battle animations or skip individual ones in game. Hyperdevotion Noire lily points system Like the main series your characters can have different affinities such as fire and thunder. They give you a rock paper scissors style advantage over enemies who are weak to a particular affinity and they also allow you open chests that contain rare items. That is if you can remember to equip all of your characters with the relevant affinity before every single mission. Crafting is back so instead of hoarding around a ton of vendor trash you can actually make new weapons, potions and armor. The whole process feels automatic and there isn’t any tedious micromanagement. In other words you don’t need to do tons of extra grinding in side missions in order to get the particular items you need to make a craft a more powerful axe of whatever. Buying items in shops nets you SIM points which you can then use to upgrade Noire’s apartment. This system has absolutely no bearing on anything but you’ll find yourself doing it anyway because it’s oddly rewarding. Hyperdevotion Noire gives you plenty to do in between missions be it crafting or upgrading Noire’s apartment. Even the disc dev from previous games is back allowing you to customize your characters perks at any time. The gameplay strategy however is a little blander than it ought to be, and past the first few hours you’re going to find yourself repeating the same basic tactics again and again. Even as someone who isn’t adept at strategy Japanese Role Playing games I still found Hyperdevotion Noire to be mechanically shallow. Dodd, R. (2015). ComicConReviews: Review - Hyperdevotion Noire Goddess Black Heart (PS Vita, Pc). [online] Comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk. Available at: http://comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/review-hyperdevotion-noire-goddess.html [Accessed 11 Aug. 2016].

Review - Resident Evil: Revelations 2 (Ps3, Ps4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Pc, PS Vita) Resident Evil Revelations 2 cover art The Resident Evil franchise has often relied on tongue-in-cheek horror cliché’. Unsurprisingly RE: R2 continues this trend by placing all our protagonists on a tiny island full of spooky locales, a psychopathic villainess and hordes of flesh eating monsters. This time around however our heroines are just as tough as the heroes, even the little girl Natalia manages to slay a few monsters throughout the game. In a somewhat contrived twist, Moira Burton, daughter of Barry refuses to use any guns throughout the campaign. A political critique of North American gun crime this is not. Rather it’s a bit of a cheap trick by the developers to force the player into some melee combat. This design decision is also mirrored later on when the player later takes control of Natalia. The melee combat is a lot more fluid in this iteration of the franchise. So you’re AI partner never comes close to delivering the same sort of frustration that Ashley did in Resident Evil 4 when you had to coax her through a series of dustbins. Disappointingly RE: R2’s musical score didn’t have any particular tracks that stood out. The score during the more survival orientated sequences is actually rather bland, which takes a lot of the tension out. That isn’t to say the overall soundtrack is terrible but it is far from memorable. RE:R2 was a late cross-platform release for both old and new gen along with Pc. So graphically the game does really show its age in places. Muggy low resolution textures can be found all across the environments. These low-res textures become especially noticeable outdoors. Cliff faces have some seriously ugly and under-detailed designs. Indoors isn’t much better either. The same door, hallway and environmental assets seem to be copy-pasted everywhere. This cookie cutter look is made even worse by the fact you have to revisit the same locations as both Claire and Barry throughout the game. Resident Evil Revelations 2 gameplay screenshot Contrarily the character models are pretty decent. Animations and facial movements including lip-synching whilst not exactly pushing the envelope do stack up just fine for a cross-gen game. What isn’t so good is the frame-rate. Even with a beast of a gaming computer RE:R2 is still poorly optimized. Random framerate dips from 60 into the low 40’s where not at all uncommon throughout my play through. Mechanically it’s more of an action game with a handful of survival elements then it is a straight up survival horror. During my play-through there were only a handful of times when I ended running out of ammunition or healing herbs. So over-burdened did I get with items that I frequently used my AI coop partner as a mule. Even after I upgraded the carrying capacity. As a predominately action-orientated game RE:R2 manages to hold its own so I wouldn’t count any of this as a negative. In Resident Evil 5 solving puzzles cooperatively was a rather cumbersome affair but this has been streamlined for RE:R2. Character switching is pretty dynamic and most of the time your AI partner manages to keep up. Co-op puzzles range from moving boxes, pulling switches, turning levers, and generally just having to hunt for items. New to RE:R2 is the lock picking mechanic which revolves around moving your cursor until you find the right spot. The simplicity of this mechanic does make it a bit tedious after a while. Resident Evil Revelations 2 gameplay screenshot - solving a puzzle (Moira Burton top-left, Claire Redfield bottom-right) Outside of RE:R2’s main campaign is the game's 'raid' mode. This consists of taking on a set number of enemies in a very small cookie cutter location from the main campaign. The aim is to get enough points through these raid to pay for weapon and item upgrades. This hunt for points becomes very bland very quickly, and your points can only be used on one character a time making it even more a grind for completionists. As for the somewhat controversial pre-order DLC bonuses there is one which is a massive fetch quest: ‘the Struggle’ and one which is a sneaking mission ‘Little Miss’. In ‘the Struggle’ the aim is to gain meat by killing animals. In it you play as Moira who in a plot-breaking twist conveniently decides to use a gun. This is despite her adamantly refusing to throughout the entire main campaign. The gameplay consists of running after and shooting various animals. ‘Little Miss’ is a stealth mission that gets automatically failed if the player is spotted by an enemy. It features an AI partner who can scout for you without being noticed. The gameplay for both DLC’s is in a word: garbage. That said the campaign of RE:R2 is definitely worthwhile. It manages to deliver dynamic and entertaining co-op gameplay even though it falls short on acting as a return to form for the series. Dodd, R. (2015). ComicConReviews: Review - Resident Evil: Revelations 2 (Ps3, Ps4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Pc, PS Vita). [online] Comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk. Available at: http://comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/review-resident-evil-revelations-2-ps3.html [Accessed 9 Aug. 2016].

Welcome

36 dollars on postage, wew lad this is weebsploitation. I shudder to think what a new Revy figure would be.

Slimey tactics.

Did you get to leave the images up? It's definitely under Fair Use Law.

Moe + Science Fiction. Now THAT is comfy. I really need to make some time for VN's, but I started replaying the MGS series recently and my gaming time is probably gone till about 2017.

Its always interesting to see the reaction of a gaming community to translators going legitimate. There is always a backlash routed in an entitlement. Why wouldn't someone seize the oppurtunity to turn years of hard work into a career? They clearly loved doing it and after a point you need to earn a living if you put the hours in.

Was this a YouTube video they DMCA'd?

Please explain. As if I haven't been to /a/ How much is it and is it for waifu? When Black Lagoon gets another anime season (it's coming once the new mangas are finished) then I may have to get a Revy figure. Normies be darned.

Review - Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea (PS3) Atelier Shallie Alchemists of the Dusk Sea cover art The Atelier series unlike other JRPG’s doesn’t focus on combat. Instead the games are about gathering items and synthesizing them using magic. Another unique aspect to the franchise was the clock. If you let it run down before completing all your tasks it was game over. Atelier Shallie removes the time aspect entirely giving you as long as you want to finish objectives, which must off put some hardcore fans of the series. In Atelier Shallie you can play as either Shallotte, or Shalliesta. No seriously there is a playable character named after a type of onion. Shallotte is the obvious choice since Shallistera has about as much character as a plank of wood. So if you picked best girl your story will revolve around learning the basics of alchemy, gathering items, synthesizing them and some typical RPG battling and exploration although I assume it isn’t much different with Shallistera. Shallotte has a lot of scenes where we get to hear her thoughts which is actually adds a little bit of depth to an otherwise fun yet predominately one-note character. Otherwise the narrative won’t surprise you, it’s very much by the numbers for a Japanese role playing game. The soundtrack in Atelier Shallie is terrific. You’ll hear some of the same tracks dozens of times as you explore the hub that connects everything in town or explore the World map. The last atelier game I played was Rorona plus on the Vita and I found the English dub to be pretty poor so far Shallie I just stuck to the original Japanese language for the whole game and found it to be good Shallotte especially so. Like with every other Atelier game on the PlayStation 3 way more attention is payed to the character designs then to the environment. The series didn’t even embrace full 3 dimensional graphics until 2009 so this is hardly a surprise. That said Atelier Shallie has some definite improvements over past games in this series. Whilst the environments are still under-detailed there is some half decent lighting and shadowing. This is put to especially good use in the mid ground and background, giving us a pretty clear delineation of space. Instead of having the playable area just sort of disappear into a fog like it did in some of the earlier games. Battle animations are also better than they have ever been. The animation for lip synching could be a whole lot better, mouths just kind of open and close without a variety of different movements to express particular sounds. I wasn’t expecting anything realistic and I have seen worse but you can’t help but notice this during the cutscenes. Atelier Shallie Alechemists of the Dusk Sea gameplay screenshot The in-game environments are still under-detailed but there is some half decent lighting and shadowing. This is put to especially good use in the mid ground and background, giving us a pretty clear delineation of space. Instead of having the playable area just sort of disappear into a fog like it did in some of the earlier games. Battle animations are also better than they have ever been. The animation for lip synching could be a whole lot better, mouths just kind of open and close without a variety of different movements to express particular sounds. I wasn’t expecting anything realistic and I have seen worse but you can’t help but notice this during the cutscenes. The battle system is paired down in this game compared to other JRPG’s. You can’t customize your parties’ attacks and spells in anyway whatsoever, you just have to rely on what abilities you get given when you level up. To mix things up a little you have a burst meter which builds up for every attack you make. This can give you the edge in longer battles by increasing your damage when the meter is filled. You also have some quick time style events in battles where you can swap the character about to receive a hit from the enemy by using an on screen button prompt. Basically this comes down to allowing one of your party members to tank more damage. The battling is completely turn based, there is no movement so the burst and QTE mechanics are extremely important for strategizing. Atelier Shallie Alchemists of the Dusk Sea - synthesis The meat of the game is synthesizing. For every item you pick up in the game World the item meter fills. Once this meter is full you can choose what special item you receive such as a relic from the past, increase the number of a particular item and so on. It cuts down on the item collecting and adds a bit of a random element to which is much needed since you will collect many hundreds of similar items. Atelier Shallie does a good job of explaining all the nuances of synthesis through its in-game tutorials and you’re never expected to learn too much at once. Even so a lot of synthesis is basically tedious grinding to increase your alchemy level, and there will be times when you’re number-blind from going through the same steps ad-nauseum. Even so by removing the time aspect and including in-depth synthesize tutorials, Atelier Shallie sets itself up as a good entry point to newcomers who may have been intimidated by the difficulty of the previous games in this franchise. Dodd, R. (2015). ComicConReviews: Review - Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea (PS3). [online] Comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk. Available at: http://comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/atelier-shallie-alchemists-of-dusk-sea.html [Accessed 11 Aug. 2016].