My Pick for the Best Video Game of 2006

My pick is simple. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Dark Crusade. Nothing else released this year has attracted the same amount of attention from me as that. The single player campaign is awesome. The multiplayer is awesome. The two new races are awesome. If you don't have the original 2 games, you still get to play the two new races (in multiplayer, you still get all in single player, I think), which is plenty.

I really don't have much to say besides that it's an awesome real-time strategy game, regardless of whether or not it's based on a real-life tabletop game. The unit quotes are excellent - entertaining at worst. The campaign is simple, yet quite fun. All you have to do is conquer a limited set of regions. All of them give you some kind of bonus - be it when you begin a mission, or which missions you get to pick from. After eliminating the other six races also on Kronus - you win.

The skirmish mode is excellent with the AI able to give you some sort of challenge. The only gripe people might have is the relatively low cap on squads and vehicles which really limits the amount of crazy things you can do. The game compensates by having each race have one relic unit (which is a really powerful unit or vehicle) to help with the game. :D

"I command the dark powers." - Chaos Sorceror, Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War

(I have updated to another version of Wordpress, 2.1, so watch out for the bugs, and report any if you find them, if not for me, For the Dark Gods. :D )

PS1 Games on the PSP

If you've been keeping up with the PSP homebrew scene, you'll know that Dark_AleX has managed to get the PSX emulator working with any given ISO of a PSX game. That being said, I've been ripping PSX games to my HDD and converting them slowly. (OK, the tool is fast. I'm the one who's slow. :P) Off I am to play FF9 again! No more trying to jig my PSone to work! :D

Photo Review: XBox 360!

Not too long ago, Shockrave acquired an XBox 360. I only had about a day or two with it, but I can say I was quite thoroughly satisfied with the XBox 360. :D (Surprisingly, although I have nothing against the XBox 360, I can't exactly say the same of the lack of games for it at this point in time - and without it running Linux to tide me over, I have no interest whatsoever in acquiring one myself. I'll stick with my XBox. :D) Most people who read this blog I believe, already know what the hell an XBox 360 looks like, so I ain't gonna go put tons of photos of the XBox 360 itself.

The big cable is the AV cable. I'm quite sure you might be able to find a thinner one, but I find the idea of having a composite and component AV cable in one a rather wise decision on Microsoft's part. The ring of light is obviously working, and since I only had one controller, only that quadrant lighted up. The disc drive photo, which regretfully didn't turn out, would show you, one of my gripes with the drive. Somehow, putting the disc in when it is upright doesn't feel quite as secure as with the PS2. Too many times I have held that disc there out of fear of it falling out. I don't think it actually is a problem, but it didn't feel safe to leave my disc in that position for too long.

We move on to the... controller!

I loved the XBox controller. It was just so damn right for FPS control. I have no idea why. Having it wireless? Excellent. That is, until I loaded up my copy of Halo 2, and found the XBox 360 controller didn't quite cut it. It's what I would call a step backwards. The analong sticks didn't have the right feel to it. They felt quite terribly inferior to my XBox controller. It felt like the loss of a limb trying to play Halo 2 with the controller. It didn't feel so smooth. I'd say it felt a little stickier than I would like in my analog sticks. Then I have a gripe I had already noticed the moment they unveiled the wireless controller. I have a PS2 controller that had a little something sticking out the back before. Guess where that ended up?

I particularly hate things being put where I usually put my fingers. Having it jut out at the back like that it absolutely painful. (both literally and philosophically) Being me, I'd probably go take up a wired controller thank you very much. Or hey - if only I could use my XBox one.

Everybody knows what the XBox 360 HDD looks like.

It's easy to install and remove (by my standards). Only has one connector - and it seems of an OK strength, although having it poke out during transport might not be one of it's strong points. My only complaint? 20GBs doesn't hold much. It holds like... err... maybe 20 XBox 360 game demos. Maybe. All I know is that I managed to use most of it in a day. Don't ask me how. I most certainly want a larger HDD - and I think so do most gamers. I'm assuming at some point Microsoft will release these in different sizes, but we kinda need them like.. err... NOW. (I know you can probably change the thing in the case yourself or something. Maybe. Not sure - didn't bother checking like the ignorant consumer I am pretending to be.)

Shockrave also acquired a XBox Live Gold 12-month pack, so I had an XBox live headset here to try too. Pity it doesn't work as headphones too, but it serves its purpose. handy, connects to the wireless controller. How can you complain about that?

I'm quite sure you've heard this somewhere before - the AC adapter is huge, it's heavy - bla bla bla.... (and hot) Whatever it is, I found the XBox 360's exhaust air more likely to ignite stuff than the AC adapter so I find it justified that they decided this piece shouldn't go in the XBox. If it were inside, we'd be hearing houses burning down because of the XBox 360 a lot earlier than the Wii's controller's flying antics. How is it Nintendo could've missed that I wonder? Wouldn't they have tested it with children? Apparently there must be quite a number of adult idiots who have less common sense than children.

Anyway, back to the topic - the XBox 360 itself runs pretty hot - the AC adapter runs hot too, but the exhaust from the XBox 360 is hotter - I even moved a box of two because I was afraid it was going to start a fire from my cardboard boxes. Heat isn't a problem since you'll be far far away from the console - and I suppose it running hot is itself a cost due to the relatively low operating noise. Design is nice, I think if I had a little more time and had it been my own console, you would've seen the insides of the console too. Chances are those photos are already around the net since I took forever to get hold of a XBox 360 unit to photograph, but I don't care. This is Random Ideas after all, not IGN.

I couldn't get any photos of the dashboard, but it is good, easy to navigate. Functionally speaking I would call it exactly the same as the Sony's XMB (Cross Media Bar), so that's most certainly easy to use. I didn't have any problems connecting it to the Internet, although I think maybe a better wizard style interface is called for.

The XBox Live Marketplace is full of demos. XBox Live Arcade is full of demos. The marketing potential is grand - although I did run into trouble trying to log in with my GamerTag for some odd reason. I think the server was down or something - oh well. I got to play Kameo and COD2 on it, but I'd have to say I liked the demos a lot more. Demos of Full Auto, N3, NFS Carbon, DOA4 were more than enough to keep me entertained for hours. I, of course, didn't have any MS Points to spend, but the free games Hexic and Bankshot Billiards were good. If I had any MS Points, I'd probably be happily spending them in the Arcade on Geometry Wars and probably lots of other stuff.

Overall, I find the XBox 360 pretty cool. Probably would've have been cooler if I had a Media Center PC to use this remote with.

The console itself and the XBox Live Marketplace are excellent and have been executed well. I'm quite sure backward compatibility is being worked on, and the graphics upscaling are also excellent. If only it had games I actually wanted to play and would actually justify the AUD500 investment. Oh well.

DS vs PSP: My Thoughts

I'm quite sure that I've blogged about it before. The two portable consoles. My stand then was simple: they were obviously not catered to the same markets. It just so happens that quite a number of gamers are actually in both markets. Now, as we draw to a close to 2006, and I've had both consoles in my ownership for a while, I think I can make a pretty good guess as to which is the better console. I don't a DS Lite. But I'm not here to go compare specs toe-to-toe. We know who loses in the end, and that doesn't help me trying to be objective.

For one, let's talk controls in general. The DS has a great touchscreen. However, it has really lousy feeling buttons. In my opinion, the DS buttons are worse than the original Game Boy's buttons. Yes - you heard me - WORSE than the ORIGINAL GAME BOY's buttons. We're talking about a really really old console. One I owned and cherished for a long long time. One I didn't give up playing, even when my Game Boy Color came along. I don't know about the DS Lite, but if memory serves me correctly, it didn't feel any better when I tried it. The buttons are soft, lacking tactile feedback. Sometimes, I can't tell if I pressed it or not. For one, buttons are still important even if the touchscreen is there. I know the shoulder buttons are like those from the original GBA. I didn't like those. Imagine who suffers while playing stuff like Yoshi's Island, Super Mario which don't work with the touchscreen?

Of course, the PSP buttons are one hell of a pampering. They absolutely rock for puzzle gaming. While I feel constricted in Tetris DS, I don't feel such thing in Koloomn (Ultimate Block Party) or Lumines (be it 1 or 2). The fairest comparison would be Puyo Pop Fever. I'm quite sure that if you pit two average players of the same skill, the one with the PSP will win. Why? Because he can control better. That's all.

Then, we come to my main gripe. The DS has a touchscreen. Wow - that's cool and all. BUT - we come to how many games use it. You don't need to touchscreen to play Gyakuten Saiban 1 and 2 bar the fifth case of game 1. That's fine, they were ported from GBA after all. Then, we have Yoshi's Island - I have no clue why they had to make it for the DS. I haven't played much, but it doesn't look like I'll be using the touchscreen any time soon. Then, we have stuff like Yoshi Touch 'n Go. It WAS a tech demo. It IS a tech demo. I don't know how wrong that feels to you, but I sure ain't forking out the cash for that, or any tech demo like game (Warioware and Feel the Magic XY/XX immediately come to mind).

Then we have the issue of having two screens. I don't know about most people, but I for the most part haven't found many games which use both screens well. A lot of games could've gone 1 screen and that would have been fine. (Yes, Yoshi's Island DS I'm looking at you.) I honestly don't mind having that second screen, but often I feel like I need that fucking screen off so I can stretch my battery life longer. I don't call the second screen a significant advantage over the PSP - I call it a disadvantage. More often than not, I'm finding that the second screen is not only often not needed, sometimes an effort to put it to use is more distracting than it is useful.

That being said, why are those my gripes? It's because I believe they are hindering people from developing great games for the DS. Why do we buy consoles? Games. I believe this second screen with touchscreen capability is beginning to seriously hinder creativity and what nots from DS games. We have Elite Beat Agents - which I admit is pretty cool. We have Kirby Canvas Curse - also pretty fun use of the stylus. However, as time passes, we find ourselves going further and further towards the obvious. You have a touchscreen. There isn't much you can use it for. Often times when you do need to use it, it's really really just annoying. I can't think of a particular example right now not because I don't have any, it's just that they get so annoying that I delete them and wipe them off my memory. I remember this particular RPG that needed you to use the stylus to move. I just can't remember the name of that RPG.

Games that are mediocre on the DS are just purely mediocre. You don't remember them, you don't care much about them, and you try to ebay them off ASAP. I just think that sometimes it feels like they could have done so much better had they not had care about the touchscreen (or there being a second screen).

That being said - the DS is a good console with plenty of great games. Now, we come to another problem I have with the DS: battery life. Often, I find myself running out of battery. Is it because the battery sucks? Is it because I played it longer than the PSP? Well, I'll give you this. If it says the battery life is 6 hours, it is 6 hours. Regardless what damn game you play. This is usually a good thing - except that I love puzzle games. I won't survive having the recharge every damn time I decide that 6 hours of Meteos or Puyo Pop is needed. In this respect, I disagree that the DS has better battery life than the PSP. True, maybe I can't play 6 hours of Wipeout Pure or Killzone Liberation straight, but I sure can push a long time out of my Koloomn and Lumines. And so far, I find the DS sleep mode less than useful. In fact, I wouldn't rely on it. Somehow, it doesn't feel as battery-saving as the PSP's sleep mode. Don't ask me how - it just feels that way.

And then we come to the ultimatum: which do I play more at the end of, let's say, a month? The PSP. Why? I have no damn clue. I suppose part of it is that the PSP has better puzzle games than the DS. Yes, I like the big powerhouse for PUZZLE games. OK that's fine - I should ignore those. Those are like 100 hours of nonstop same thing kind of games. Not really fair. Then, I look at games like Ace Combat X, Killzone Liberation, GTA: Vice City Stories and Dynasty Warriors Vol. 2. And then I compare them to Gyakuten Saiban 2, Yoshi's Island DS, Elite Beat Agents, Cooking Mama, Mario Kart DS, New Super Mario Bros. Out of some fairness, I'll put in Children of Mana and Magical Starsign. Two probably reasonable RPGs. Arguably, that's not the most favourable lineup for the DS, but a lot of what I named are new stuff. It doesn't take a genius to guess which console got more attention from me the last month or two. It's the PSP.

I've given up being fair to both consoles. It's just not possible. This post completely bashes the DS in front of the PSP. It's obvious I'm not completely in both markets. The PSP owns. It's beginning to kinda dawn on me that if I were to buy games new, chances are, the PSP will give me more per dollar/ringgit I have to fork out compared to a new DS game. Come on - let's face it. You are more likely to spend more hours on GTA: VCS than you are... on let's say... Yoshi's Island DS. OK, that's an unfair comparison. Let's try something else... Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime against... against... hmm... Valkyrie Profile would be unfair... so... (ah ha! snag! not enough good PSP RPGs!). That being said, it's not honestly fair to compare them like that. I don't know - I compare how much I tend to spend playing them. I believe that's a very fair comparison. The PSP may not necessarily have better games than the DS, but tendency is that you will play the PSP more. Why? The games are longer. Why are they longer? UMD is waaaaaay larger than the DS cart. We can go on in circles. I won't even compare puzzle games, since I obviously prefer Lumines and Koloomn over Tetris DS and Meteos. I hate Tetris DS. I love Tetris. I play it all the time. I have it on every platform I own - my phone, my PC, my PowerBook, my XBox, my PSP, my DS, my PS2, (I don't have one for GameCube sadly). It's just that I don't find the Tetris DS to be on par. I know personally I've played more Lumines or Koloomn than Tetris DS and Meteos combined. Is it because I got my PSP earlier? No. I enjoy playing Lumines and Koloomn more than Tetris DS and Meteos. I don't know why, but I blame the bias on controls. Somehow, playing puzzle games on the PSP feels so much more... controllable than on the DS. Oh well. I think this post is long overdue to end.

(So much for my hiatus. Oh well, it's not like it's some law or something, it's more like I probably can't post, not that I can't post completely.)

My Taste in RPGs

I'd have to say that my tastes in RPGs have quite the tendency to deviate from stuff like the new age Final Fantasy series (meaning X and above). While I'd agree that Final Fantasy X was good, it was not as good and will never be as good, in any respect, as the one that came before it: Final Fantasy IX. That being said, I'm not a fan of FF12. I don't see how anyone could possible play something like that and say that it is excellent, give it 10/10 and so on. I don't know. However, what I do think is that the Final Fantasy series is beginning to suffer considerably in terms of storytelling. That being said, I would admit that my opinions will be biased. I haven't gotten much time to play it, and I'm sure that once I do, I might change my mind about the game considerably.

I'm quite sure I'll be a fan of the Gambit system. Needless to say, I will not lighten the load of Final Fantasy XII until I try this Gambit system for myself. However, while the combat system has taken quite an unfamiliar turn, I believe the storytelling has changed for the worse, seeing the first 30 minutes of the game or so. I will play the game and give it a fair review later on - but for now, you'd have to bear with my experience in the first hour.

The thing is - I (and many other people) determine whether or not we will finish a given game within the first hour of gameplay. Let's be blunt. The first hour of Final Fantasy XII is terrible. In fact, if it didn't have this name Final Fantasy on it, I'm not so sure I would have given it too much credit. If let's say I would to name it, The Adventures of Vaan, chances are you would put the game in some hidden corner for about several months before you come across some review that would convince you to come back and play it again. I'll say it like I think it is: honestly speaking - if you were to say that you enjoyed the first hour of Final Fantasy XII - to me, that is undeniable proof that you are a Final Fantasy fanboy beyond even reasonable doubt. I myself am willing to play on after that first hour - but I am realistic - the first hour didn't sell the game to me. I can't afford to play more - exams are coming.

I am a fan of the old Final Fantasy stuff. I was anticipating Final Fantasy III, although I couldn't care less about Final Fantasy XII. I am awaiting for my chance to play the last episode of the Xenosaga series, the first episode of the .hack//G.U. series and Disgaea 2. I will submit that a lot of people consider these three series inferior to the one I've been talking about for so long - but to me - these games take far higher priority than FF12 ever will get. I've been following the Xenosaga storyline for a long time - even if the game did suck, the storyline doesn't and the storytelling is top notch. It's that last book in the series you have to read just to know how it ends.

Then we have Disgaea 2. I play this game completely based on precedent. Disgaea was funny, had a pretty fun story, several endings and the battle system was classic. You can't fight a game like that. Then we have .hack. I would have to agree - a lot of people aren't big fans of the setting. However, you'd have to admit that the depth of the storyline is by far, in my opinion, quite unrivalled. I find difficulty in not liking a game whose storyline is told in so many channels over so many paths. .hack//G.U. is particularly taking great advantage of this and actually making the games more full length. I am a big fan of these kinds of storylines - and the game itself is pretty OK too.

What about other games I like? You'll just have to wait. This post is too long as it is! :P