tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4415094861403863252024-03-13T22:21:45.566-04:00QuarterStackKingDD83http://www.blogger.com/profile/04947309811371638405noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-441509486140386325.post-37041779385115302202012-05-29T09:26:00.003-04:002012-05-29T09:37:52.810-04:00ONE - Alternate EndingVideo game cutscene director <a href="http://www.robertstoneman.com/" target="_blank">Robert Stoneman</a> has made an incredible short film shot in Battlefield 3 titled <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVjIcSSTyrI" target="_blank">ONE</a>.<br />
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I got permission and made an <a href="http://youtu.be/mztxDLzhFyc" target="_blank">alternate ending</a> to the film. Embedded video after the jump.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/mztxDLzhFyc" width="560"></iframe></div>KingDD83http://www.blogger.com/profile/04947309811371638405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-441509486140386325.post-35514045844347368732012-03-12T21:54:00.004-04:002012-03-13T02:02:54.225-04:00How To: Restore a corrupted PS3 hard drive: Part 2Last time I detailed my experiences dealing with a corrupted hard drive on my PS3. Now I'll run through, step by step, the process on how to do it yourself.<br />
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Now for the 1, 2, 3s.<br />
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What you will need:<br />
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<ol>
<li>Bad PS3 hard drive</li>
<li>New hard drive of equal or larger size</li>
<li>SATA to USB cable or a spare USB enclosure</li>
<li>Copy of 'dd' for the OS of your choice </li>
<ul>
<li>(Linux and OS X users should have it by default, Windows users can get it <a href="http://www.chrysocome.net/dd" target="_blank">here</a>)</li>
</ul>
<li>Time, patience, and a desire to recover your data</li>
</ol>
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The process:<br />
<ol>
<li>Remove bad drive from the PS3 </li>
<li>Connect bad drive to a computer that has enough free space as the size of your drive</li>
<li>Make a backup image using 'dd'</li>
<ul>
<li><b>WARNING!</b> You should be able to do this without having administrator/root/superuser rights. However, if for some reason you have to do this with admin/root/su rights, PLEASE, quadruple check what you type and make sure you have the correct paths. <b>It is entirely possible to completely ruin a system install if you overwrite your computer's main hard drive and 'dd' will do this without blinking an eye if you tell it to.</b></li>
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<li>The command I used was </li>
<ul>
<li>dd bs=10M if=*path_to_your_ps3_hdd* of=*path_to_ps3_save*ps3_save.dd</li>
</ul>
<li>Where *path_to_your_ps3_hdd* is the full path to the bad drive and *path_to_ps3_save* is the full path to where you want the backup image to be stored.</li>
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<li>For example, I would've used</li>
<ul>
<li>dd bs=10M if=/dev/sdb of=~/OMGPLZWORK/ps3_save.dd</li>
</ul>
<li>As a Linux user "/dev/sdb" was the path to the bad drive when connected via the USB adapter and "~/OMGPLZWORK/" was the path to where I wanted to save the image.</li>
<li>Note that you DO NOT want to specify a partition number (/dev/sdb1) as you want to image the whole drive. There probably won't be a partition number, but just in case.</li>
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<li>If you are a Windows user the command would look something like this</li>
<ul>
<li>dd bs=10M if=\\.\e: of=c:\OMGPLZWORK\ps3_save.dd</li>
</ul>
<li>Note that dd for windows requires "\\.\" before the drive letter.</li>
<li>Please read the "dd for windows" website if you are at all confused.</li>
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<li>And for OS X users it would be something like this</li>
<ul>
<li>dd bs=10M if=/dev/disk2 of=~/OMGPLZWORK/ps3_save.dd</li>
</ul>
<li>As with Linux, you DO NOT want to specify a partition number (/dev/disk2s1) if there is one.</li>
<li>Note: '~' is a shortcut to your home directory.</li>
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<li>Linux and OS X users (and I suppose Windows users too, if you wanted to install gzip, but I won't cover that) can use a variant of that command that will compress the image as it's created</li>
<ul>
<li>dd bs=10M if=*path_to_your_ps3_hdd* | gzip -9 > *path_to_ps3_save*ps3_save.gz</li>
</ul>
<li>This will not compress the image much, as it will only compress free space on the drive, but it took my 320 gigabyte drive to around 260 gigabytes.</li>
</ul>
<li>Connect new drive to the same computer</li>
<li>Restore image using 'dd'</li>
<ul>
<li>The command to use is</li>
<ul>
<li>dd bs=10M of=*path_to_your_ps3_hdd* if=*path_to_ps3_save*ps3_save.dd</li>
</ul>
<li>or if you chose to compress the image</li>
<ul>
<li>gunzip -c *path_to_ps3_save*ps3_save.gz | dd bs=10M of=*path_to_your_ps3_hdd*</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<li>Install new drive into the PS3</li>
<li>Boot up the PS3 and let it attempt to restore</li>
</ol>
Note: If you have the available hardware, there's no reason you couldn't just 'dd' the data from the bad drive directly to the new drive.If you wanted to do that the command would be<br />
<ul>
<li>dd bs=10M if=*path_to_your_bad_ps3_hdd* of=*path_to_your_good_ps3_hdd*</li>
</ul>
For example<br />
<ul>
<li>dd bs=10M if=/dev/sdb of=/dev/sdc</li>
</ul>
If you choose to do this, you run the risk of writing the new drive over your bad drive if you have a typo (even if you're not running with admin/root/su rights!), so quadruple check the command and paths before executing.<br />
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If all goes well your PS3 should be back up and running with little data loss. However there is NO guarantee that this will work for you. If you're like me, though, it's worth a shot and you never know, it just might work.KingDD83http://www.blogger.com/profile/04947309811371638405noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-441509486140386325.post-29796969555102575332012-03-12T21:54:00.002-04:002012-03-13T22:19:40.584-04:00How To: Restore a corrupted PS3 hard drive: Part 1If you're in a hurry, go directly to <a href="http://quarterstack.blogspot.com/2012/03/how-to-restore-corrupted-ps3-hard-drive_12.html" target="_blank">Part 2</a> for the bullet pointed guide.<br />
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It's what every PS3 owner dreads. The system freezes and when you reboot you get this horrific message "The hard disk's file system is corrupted and will be restored." "All is not lost," you may think, sometimes all it really takes is to just restore the file system. However, this time it's a hard drive failure. This is when you try to remember the last time you did a system backup, try to remember the passwords for your accounts, wish you were a PS+ member so you could use cloud saves, wonder when you last sync'ed trophies, and think about the hours of lost gameplay. Even now, all may not truly be lost though. In this article I will attempt to guide you through this valley of the shadow of death. There's no guarantee that it will work, but if you're worried about your data, it might be worth a try.<br />
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I recently experienced a hard drive failure on my PS3. There I was, getting ready to play some Battlefield 3 but the system froze. I did a reboot and was greeted with the above message. My heart literally skipped a beat, but I thought, "Maybe it'll restore." Several hours later I was faced with the fact that it wasn't going to happen. It would appear to be restoring, but it would get stuck around 40%, then, after an hour or two, would reboot and say the same thing. To some, this wouldn't be that big of a deal, but to me, a self described "Trophy Whore" and White Knight Chronicles player who was just about to move onto WKC 2, this was a travesty. Sure, I had my trophies sync'ed, but my last back up was nearly a year old and even my secondary WKC save backup was months old. I would've lost over a hundred hours of gameplay in WKC alone, probably double that in games that I was attempting to platinum but haven't completed yet.<br />
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Of course, I wasn't satisfied all was lost. I scoured the internet attempting to find some solution that could save my data but all I found were shattered hopes. Though I did stumble across something that got my mind reeling. I found a four year old forum post (Link withheld due to the site discussing homebrew on PS3s, which is something I will not endorse, regardless of my personal feelings about it.) talking about using 'dd' to create bit-by-bit backups of PS3 hard drives. So, I thought, assuming it was just a bad sector or two on the hard drive, the rest of the data should still be viable, however the PS3 views the whole disk as corrupted and will always fail when trying to restore the bad sectors. What would happen if I created a 'dd' backup of my drive, then restore that to a brand new drive?<br />
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First thing I did was attempt to create a backup of the drive using 'dd'. I had fears that the hard drive would be physically damaged, such as a head crash, where there would be no cheap way to read any data off the drive. Luckily, this wasn't the case. The backup completed successfully and my suspicions that it was just a bad sector or two seemed likely. The next step was getting a new hard drive.<br />
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This may or may not cause an issue. Common sense would dictate that you would want to get the same size drive as you started with, however, this may not be the case. I swear I've read of people trying to restore a 320 gigabyte drive image to another 320 gigabyte drive and having the operation fail because it would run out of space. I've tried searching for this a few times since then and have found nothing so maybe I'm just crazy, but I decided to go one size up, just in case. For me, this had the effect of causing my PS3 to see the full size of the drive, but it's only reporting the same amount of free space as before. This should be easily rectifiable by using the system's built in Backup/Restore utility to... well, backup and restore the drive. I haven't tried this though, as the extra space isn't something I'm too worried about at this time.<br />
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Once I picked out a new drive, restoring from the image went off without a hitch. Then came the moment of truth. My hands were shaking as I slid the drive back into the PS3 and turned on the power. It seemed like forever, but, as expected, the system complained that the drive was corrupted. As it started the restoring process I tried not to get my hopes up as it would seem to work fine with the old disk, up until 40%. Then, sadness. It seemed as though it was stalling out around 40%, just like before. But then, joy. Where before it would stall out for hours, this time less than a minute later it was continuing the restore. A few minutes later the system was rebooting into the XMB and "all" of my data was there.<br />
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I say "all" because, naturally, due to the corrupted sectors that caused the issue in the first place, some data will be corrupted. What it is will depend on what was stored in those sectors. I lucked out and, to the best of my knowledge, only had a few corrupted themes. I haven't tried everything, but it appears that anything that contains corrupted data will show "Corrupted Data" in the XMB, as that's what showed in the themes. Maybe one of my installs or save files is corrupted and I won't know it unless I actually try them, but I doubt it.<br />
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When this happened to me I didn't have the extra cash to get a new hard drive right away but didn't want to go without my PS3. So, after I created the backup image, I restored my PS3 to default settings and reformatted the bad drive. This allowed me to use my PS3 somewhat but because I restored default settings, which wasn't really needed, it deleted all my saved account settings. If you don't do this all the system settings like account user names, passwords, and network settings will be retained, as they are stored in the system itself, not the hard drive.<br />
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Click for <a href="http://quarterstack.blogspot.com/2012/03/how-to-restore-corrupted-ps3-hard-drive_12.html" target="_blank">Part 2</a> where I list the steps I used to restore my drive.KingDD83http://www.blogger.com/profile/04947309811371638405noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-441509486140386325.post-10194067283005629042011-04-13T18:52:00.003-04:002011-04-13T20:23:47.634-04:00'ModNation Racers' - ReviewWhen people think of kart racing games they almost instantly think of 'Mario Kart' and rightly so as it basically created the sub-genre. What is Kart Racing? It's basically a type of racing game where you drive tiny vehicles around wacky environments while picking up power-ups and weapons. Many games have copied it, some not bringing anything to the table, others, like 'ModNation Racers', brought a whole lot.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>'ModNation Racers' was developed by United Front and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. What makes this game so different than other "Mario Kart clones?" The developers decided to take a page from Media Molecule's book and allow players to fully edit the tracks, karts, and racers. In fact, when I first heard about the game I thought Media Molecule was the studio behind it. Does 'ModNation Racers' add anything else to the genre? Let's find out.<br />
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Gameplay is fairly identical to any other kart racer. Players race around outrageous tracks, drift to build up boost energy, then use the energy to boost or activate shields that can block opponents attacks. Weapons are collectible and upgradable to three levels. They vary from missiles, lightning, turbo, and sonic, all of which have an alt-fire mode which allows them to be dropped as mines. While useful, this caused me quite a few headaches as I would accidentally hold down the fire button a split second too long, triggering the alt-fire mode. Unfortunately, there's no way I know of to cancel it once activated.<br />
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Each race has a few challenges consisting of things like taking out opponents on a certain part of the track to having over a certain amount of drift points in a race to not hitting a wall. There's also a few "boss races" where you have to attempt to beat a named racer in either a one on one race, one on one trick race, or a one on one with henchmen race. In the trick race the goal is to finish as fast as possible while racking up as many points as possible, the other two are fairly self explanitory. The enemy AI varies between idiotic to controller throwing annoying when they seem to all team up against you near the end of a round, which would make sense in the one on one with henchmen race type, but I always found the henchmen would be more helpful than harmful.<br />
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MNR attempts to add a story to the single player mode, and while it succeeds, the story is abysmal at best. It focuses around the horribly annoying Tag who, like his name implies, likes to do graffiti and, for some reason, has fangs. The word "emo" always pops in my head when I see him as originally designed. Of course he is infinitely customizable so his initial design isn't really that big of a drawback. Throughout the game he is attempting to work his way up the ladder of the Modnation Racing Championship. Along the way there's a few "plot twists" but really nothing worth mentioning.<br />
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The editor feature is where this game really shines. Some of the creations that people have made are amazing and I can't even begin to imagine how they were put together. While the game has tutorials on how to use the editing tools I still felt like the learning curve was higher than I'd like. I am all thumbs when it comes to creating things though, so it's most likely user error. I did attempt to create some tracks/karts/racers and one thing I think that would've made the editor easier to use for even a bumbling idiot like myself is keyboard and mouse support. Attempting to fine tune sticker placement on a kart with a controller makes me feel like I'm trying to thread a needle blindfolded.<br />
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The biggest issues with the game, according to the masses, were loading time, enemy AI, and XP reward amounts. All of which were addressed with patches. By the time I played the game there was an easier difficulty level, greatly reduced loading times and greatly increased XP rewards for the various events that gain you XP. That said, loading times were still a bit longer than one would think they'd need to be, enemy AI could still rubberband into first place, and the amount time needed to acquire the XP related trophies is still immense. However, none of these issues had an effect on my rating.<br />
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The majority of trophies in this game are fairly easy and simply come from completing the single player campaign, completing all the challenges, and doing things so many times, like driving over boost pads, drifting, taking down opponents, etc. Some trophies are poorly thought out, specifically the "Earn 100,000 drift points in one drift" because the only way to do it is on a track that is designed just for that trophy, as you cannot chain drifts together and your drift points reset after crossing the finish line, so you couldn't even do it on a track shorter than the max length. The online trophies are... not entirely outrageous. Sure, they are time consuming and can be somewhat hard, but I sorta expect it. They range from completing a race, achieving rank 30, and getting within the 10% in the Hot Lap of the day. The most difficult ones are winning a race series and rank 30, as they are the only two really holding me up from a platinum in this game.<br />
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Overall this is a solid kart racer with amazing customization options. If I were a big racing game fan and/or were able to do anything impressive with the editors it would be an easy 9/10. However, seeing as I'm not a huge fan of racing games, kart racing especially, and my inability to create anything worthwhile in the game forces me to give it a 7/10.<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">This review is based off a 100% completion run of the single player campaign on the "Easy" difficulty. As of last check, 87% of the trophies were collected.</span>KingDD83http://www.blogger.com/profile/04947309811371638405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-441509486140386325.post-80600881669339324362010-10-02T23:18:00.002-04:002010-10-03T21:24:54.084-04:00'Metroid: Other M' - Review'Metroid' has always been one of my favorite game series. I've played just about every 'Metroid' game ever created, the one exception being 'Fusion', and for the most part, I enjoyed every one. Some more than others, of course, but, even with the slight variations, they've all essentially felt like a 'Metroid' game, with the possible exception of 'Hunters'... and 'Pinball'. To me, 'Metroid' has always been about running, jumping, and exploring. Story has always taken a back seat, not because I wouldn't be interested in exposition in a 'Metroid' game, just because it's never been a focus of any of the games. Now, with 'Other M', there's a 'Metroid' game that gives plot a front row seat, but does it really deserve it?<br />
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<a name='more'></a>'Metroid: Other M' was developed by Project M, a group consisting of developers from three companies, the bulk being from Team Ninja, and published by Nintendo. 'Other M' is a serious change to the 'Metroid' franchise. Every previous game has just had a token plot. In 'Other M', not only is there a huge focus on story, Samus also has a voice and talks... a lot. The game is also presented in a pseudo 3D/2.5D format with a first person view when you aim. This is an attempt to give people the "best of both worlds," the pure awesomeness of a 2D 'Metroid' with a sprinkling of the perspective from the 'Prime' series. Finally, in the list of major changes, are some gameplay alterations. Gone are the health and missile pickups that used to drop from enemies, instead you can "concentrate" to regain missiles at any time and health whenever you are almost dead. Also missing are suit upgrade pickups, instead, you must wait until it is absolutely necessary to unlock upgraded armor, beams, and missiles.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>The game takes place immediately after the events of 'Super Metroid' and begins with a flashback to the final battle with Mother Brain. For me, a huge fan of 'Super Metroid', this cutscene alone makes the game worth playing. At least for me, seeing the ending of 'Super Metroid' in fully rendered 3D was quite magical. After the recap of the ending, you're shown recovering from the battle in a Galactic Federation hospital. You then have to go through a mini tutorial level and deliver your debriefing of the events of 'Metroid II' and 'Super Metroid' before you're able to leave the station. The game cuts to an undetermined time in the future when you intercept a "Baby's Cry" type distress signal. You decide to investigate and discover a derelict Bottle Ship and, upon landing, discover that a Galactic Federation ship has apparently beat you there.<br />
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Shortly after entering the ship you discover a rather small platoon of Galactic Federation soldiers that just happens to be led by Adam Malkovich, Samus's former commanding officer and surrogate father. You decide to join the team and as such, decide to follow Adam's orders to the letter. From this point on, he is essentially "Other M's" Chozo Statues, as it's up to him to decide when Samus can use various suit upgrades. Many people complain about this and I kinda agree, but for a different reason. It downplays the exploration element and removes that sense of discovery you would get when you'd find a new powerup. Instead it's now "Use of Ice Beam is now authorized," which provides nowhere near the amount of satisfaction that hearing the upgrade music instills. However, there are two instances where you acquire upgrades from defeating bosses, but when compared to the rest of the game, these feel awkward and makes no sense.<br />
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Speaking of music, and I usually don't, since I don't often notice it in games, I felt severely disappointed by the lack of 'Metroid' music in 'Other M'. Rarely, if ever, was I reminded of 'Metroid' music during my playthrough, though I would occasionally notice what seemed to be a traditional 'Metroid' melody, but maybe it was just my imagination. That's not to say the music is bad, it just doesn't feel right for a 'Metroid' game.<br />
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Another thing that feels wrong is the lack of health and missile pickups. Without these, I killing enemies is a waste of time unless needed to advance. The "concentration" feature kinda works for missiles, though I rarely needed it as I almost never used missiles unless it was absolutely needed, as the first person interface is a chore to use, especially during battle, but it's an absolute mess when you try to use it for health. It works, but if you need to use it for health, chances are you're not in a position to use it. You're likely being overwhelmed by enemies in a locked room and, while the game seems to take some pity on you if you're trying to use it, most of the time you'll get hit before you're done recharging. These two features, I hate to use the word, "casualize" the game, basically adding in regenerating health and ammo.<br />
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Initially the controls felt iffy, but once you learn to let go and let auto aim, it really starts to work... for the most part. I would occasionally yell at the TV for choosing to shoot at the enemy far in the distance instead of the one that was 3 feet away and rapidly closing. The lack of a lock on made some of the more acrobatic battles a little more difficult than they needed. I would often get frustrated when I'd dodge an attack then fire a shot away from the enemy. I briefly touched the first person controls but they deserve revisiting. More often than not I would go into first person mode and either be facing the wrong way or would quickly move in and out of first person mode because I didn't have the Wiimote aimed properly. It's also extremely clunky to have to turn the controller on it's side, especially during some of the battles where you need to use a missile to damage or defeat an enemy. The game tries to help by giving you a second or two of slow mo when you first enter first person mode, but it's never enough. By the time I would flip the controller around and get the aim just right, I'd see a projectile coming at me which would hit me, knock me out of first person mode, and screw up my aiming. The platforming, however, is pretty spot on and works surprisingly well considering you're using a D-Pad to control in a 3D environment. Outside of one time, when I didn't notice there was another platform I could shoot down to shorten the gap between jumps, I had no more instances of the game not jumping where I wanted to than in any other game.<br />
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The game keeps the tradition of picking up missile and energy tanks to increase Samus's missile and health reserves and it adds E-Recover Tanks, which increases the amount of energy Samus regenerates when she concentrates and increases the health level she must be at to concentrate, Energy Parts, which are basically heart parts from Zelda games, and Accel Charges, which increases the speed at which Samus's weapons can charge. Compared to other games, the world feels smaller, so exploring in an attempt to find 100% of the items is less of a chore. The game also adds markers on your map once the main game is completed... I don't recall if any previous game did this, but it's a nice touch regardless. Unfortunately there is no real bonus to getting 100% besides unlocking hard mode and a few additional pieces of concept art.<br />
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I guess I need to talk about the story... it's not great. Not because of the "changes" to what was "known" about Samus, as most of the preconceived notions about her that were crushed by this game were merely speculation and conjecture by fans. Instead, it's not great simply because of the quality of the writing. If feels like a high grade B movie and has a decided Japanese quality to it. I don't mean that in a bad way, it's just the writing has a distinct Japanese cadence to the way the dialog and thoughts flow and I'm not a huge fan of that style. I was ecstatic to finally learn more about one of my favorite video game characters of all time and I didn't have much of an issue with the things the people complain about most often... if you forget what you thought you knew about Samus and just go by what the game tells you and accept that Samus is a human being, not some emotionless android, everything fits. There's also one plot point that I've heard some people say was abandoned and never resolved, and it's just not exactly true. They never spell it out for you, no, but they do resolve it.<br />
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Ultimately, 'Other M' feels like a mixed bag. The story doesn't feel "A" quality and some of the gameplay changes rub me the wrong way, but it still feels like a Metroid game and controls wonderfully once you learn to stop trying to micro-manage it. At one point when playing I thought "This is the 'Metroid' game I've been waiting for since I bought a Nintendo 64." I didn't mean it in a negative way, just that this is what I thought was the logical advancement to 'Metroid' was when I had a N64, that this is what a 3D 'Super Metroid' should feel like. Call it fanboyism if you must, but if this game had no connection to the 'Metroid' name I would probably rate it a 5 or 6/10 but just because it is 'Metroid' I'm going to give it an 8/10.<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">This review is based off a single playthrough of the game on the normal difficulty level with a completion rating of 100%.</span>KingDD83http://www.blogger.com/profile/04947309811371638405noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-441509486140386325.post-84717981740499701922010-09-26T12:23:00.001-04:002012-03-12T20:26:01.718-04:00'Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light' - ReviewI'm a 'Tomb Raider' fan and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I absolutely loved the first game when I played it on my Playstaion fourteen years ago. The combination of 3D platforming, puzzles, and acrobatic gun fights were, at least to me, totally unique at the time. Despite my love of the first game, I never played another until 'Tomb Raider: Legend' on the 360. This absence from the series was due entirely to a RPG/FPS/PC gaming phase I went through. I inexplicably completely abandoned console gaming for years. When I heard about a coop 'Tomb Raider' game I was really excited, but then the excitement faded when I heard it had an isometric, fixed camera angle. I wasn't entirely sure it would have the same charm I loved about the previous installments.<br />
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'Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light' was developed by Crystal Dynamics and published/distributed by Eidos Interactive/Square Enix. In a change for the series, 'Guardian of Light' no longer features the 'Tomb Raider' name. Whether they did so because of the change of format or just to avoid wearing the name out, I'm not sure. In any case, the main feature of 'GoL' is the heavy focus on cooperative gameplay. Unfortunately, at the time of the writing of this review, online coop mode is not yet available and I have no one to play with locally, so I can't comment on it. What I can comment on is the single player mode, which features different gameplay and story than the coop mode, the depth of the differences are unknown to me.<br />
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In the single player mode you control Lara who must stop an evil spirit called Xolotl. There are a few cutscenes and some semblance of a story, but really, the story and plot in this game are as weak as they come. It all boils down to this. Xolotl, an Aztec god with connections to lightning and death, twin to Quetzalcoatl, is released from a mirror of smoke which awakens a stone guardian, Totec, the Guardian of Light, who's purpose is to stop Xolotl from destroying the world. Totec gives Lara his magical spear, which she can throw into walls to jump on to navigate cliffs and solve puzzles. After every few levels there is a short cutscene which simply involves Totec and Lara meeting up again, saying the must hurry to stop Xolotl, then splitting up again. Xolotl will occasionally taunt you in some stages, but it's nothing worth noting.<br />
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Combat is reminiscent of 'Robotron', where the left stick moves the character and the right aims. This has the effect of making combat feel less like 'Tomb Raider' combat, as Lara moves slower and cannot do any flips and continue firing like previous 'Tomb Raider' titles. Unlike 'Robotron' and all the various games that have the same control scheme, you must use the R2 button to actually fire your weapon. Unfortunately, you cannot swap the shoulder buttons so that R1 fires. It's a small thing, but something most other games include. Your main weapon, double pistols, are pretty weak, but you have unlimited ammo. All secondary weapons, besides Totec's spear, require ammo to use. Ammo is displayed in the form of a bar under your health bar and every weapon uses ammo at a different rate. Perhaps it's just me, but I really didn't feel the need to use anything but my standard double pistols for the majority of the game. I saved my ammo to use on larger enemies and bosses.<br />
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A big part of the game is exploration. There are numerous health/ammo power ups, weapons, artifacts, and relics to find. The power ups and artifacts are ways to better your character by extending your life/ammo bars and powering up your weapon, defense, bomb, and speed stats. Initially, artifacts boost one stat while lowering another but later on you'll find some that have no negative side effect at all. Relics give you an immense bonus when your relic meter is full, ranging from power shot/bomb to faster speed, health/ammo regen, and scatter shot. You charge the meter by killing enemies and collecting gems without taking damage. You can take some hits before it's completely filled, but once it's full, one hit will drop it to zero. In addition to the bonus effects of the relic you have equipped, the relic meter also give you a score bonus when you kill enemies, which you will almost certainly need if you're trying to complete the score challenges.<br />
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Every level contains challenges that are briefly displayed before the start and can be viewed at any time via the select menu. There are three score challenges, the final of which rewards you with a weapon, and for most levels, four to five other challenges. Invariably, one is a time challenge, which requires you to figuratively, you'll really be rolling, run past everything in order to meet, most levels also have a challenge involving finding 10 red skulls. Some of the other types of challenges include; cross a river without getting wet, complete a gauntlet on the first try, and various tests involving maneuvering giant balls that are used in the games various puzzles. Most of the challenges can be done on the first playthough, but unless you can manipulate timespace, the time trials will have to wait until a second run. Luckily there is a chapter select feature... unfortunately, I can't see a way to view the challenges from the chapter select menu. They list the various power ups, weapon pickups, and relics you found verses the total each level contains though, so it's possible to deduce which levels still have challenges to complete.<br />
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The puzzles are fairly easy. Most are just variations on switch puzzles. Outside of the hardest puzzles, I don't think I took more than a few minutes to figure out most of the puzzles and towards the end of the game I was in the grove and solved some almost instantly. They are fun, but aside from one, were all insultingly easy, but that's pretty standard for a Tomb Raider game. I hope there are new puzzles that require two people in the coop mode, otherwise it'll be even more insulting, as a few would've been even easier with two people.<br />
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Unfortunately I have some issues with this game. Jumping, while 90% of the time is perfect, sometimes just doesn't make sense. Occasionally there are walls that are shorter than Lara, but she can't mount them. Then there'll be gaps in the floor that look shorter than other jumps you've made with no problems, but you can't make them. I also felt there were some hit detection issues... I would roll to avoid an enemy dash but, despite it not looking like anything hit me, I would take damage. Then some enemies have projectile attacks, which are fairly easy to dodge, but then the projectile will explode after a certain distance and it's damage box is suddenly enlarged, so even though you dodged several projectiles, you'll still take a hit because it decided to explode immediately after passing you. The fixed camera sometimes caused me to get hit by obscuring the enemy/projectile behind a wall until I was on top of it. Finally I experienced a few graphical/lighting glitches, one caused some textures to flash when I fired my gun when standing in a certain spot, another caused Totec's spear and some other weapons to show on my character even though I didn't have them selected.<br />
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The majority of the trophies in this game are easy. Four require playing in coop mode, four are related to the level challenges, including the hardest trophy, "Collect all relics, artifacts, and weapons." Even though it's the most time consuming, it's still fairly manageable as I managed to unlock most challenges and find most power ups during my first playthrough by thoroughly exploring everywhere. Two are story related and should be unmissable, however, when writing this I discovered that I don't have one of them unlocked... I don't know if it was a glitch or if it requires doing something other than just beating a boss. It unlocked fine when I tried a second time though, so I'm not sure what that was about. The final two involve solving quite possibly the hardest puzzle in the game and killing three enemies with one bomb.<br />
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Ultimately the game has very little replay value. Once you complete the single player and coop modes once, there is little reason to play again outside of trying to complete the challenges. There could've been more replay value had they incorporated an RPG style leveling up system instead of having power ups. Even with the limited replay value and gameplay flaws, it is still an amazingly fun 'Tomb Raider' game. It is fairly short though, I clocked just under six hours on the in-game timer during my first playthrough, which causes me to have some trouble recommending it at the current price of $15. Had it been $10 I would've definitely recommended any fan of the series or fan of coop gameplay to pick it up, but at $15 I would say wait for a sale unless you are extremely hard up for either 'Tomb Raider' action or coop gameplay, and if online coop is your main interest, don't purchase until the coop patch is out. <br />
<strike>With the current lack of online coop, I can't give the game any more than a 7/10, however, once the patch is released I'll happily bump it to an 8/10.</strike><br />
Now that the coop patch has been released, I can give this game an 8/10.<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">This review is based off a single playthrough of the PS3 version of the game on the normal combat difficulty level.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">38% of the trophies were initially collected.</span>KingDD83http://www.blogger.com/profile/04947309811371638405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-441509486140386325.post-8855764033913610592010-09-24T20:59:00.008-04:002010-09-26T12:35:03.119-04:00'Saw' - ReviewWhy yes... I would like to play a game. 'Saw' began life as a short film by Australian director James Wan and screenwriter Leigh Whannell as a pitch for a full length feature film. Since 2004 a movie bearing the 'Saw' name has graced theaters every October. In the movies the Jigsaw Killer attempts to make people appreciate life by trapping them in various devices. The devices are meant to offer the victims a choice; a horribly gruesome death or, should they be willing to make a sacrifice, life. Naturally, the dark atmosphere and shock horror nature of the movies would translate perfectly into a video game, right?<br />
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<a name='more'></a>'Saw' the video game was developed by Zombie Studios and published by Konami. The game is meant to take place between the first two films. You control Detective David Tapp, who was (spoiler alert) shot at the end of the first film and left for dead. The Jigsaw Killer has treated Detective Tapp's wounds and trapped him within an abandoned insane asylum filled with other victims. Tapp's first test is to escape the franchise's most famous device, the reverse bear trap. You then have to escape what is essentially a tutorial room by figuring out a combination to a lock. Shortly after escaping, you encounter a man who lures you into an ambush. It is then revealed that there are multitudes of victims, all of whom are attempting to kill Tapp in order to retrieve a key that has been implanted in his chest that can secure their freedom.<br />
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This is where many say the game takes a turn for the worse. The combat is fairly reminiscent of 'Condemned: Criminal Origins' by Monolith Productions and Sega. It is almost completely melee with weapons such as pipes, bats, and mop handles. There are a few long range weapons, such as Molotov cocktails and guns, but they are fairly uncommon and a bit hard to control. Later in the game you can learn to make/activate traps, which act as proximity mines, from components you find lying around the asylum. Attacking isn't instantaneous, there is a sizable delay, the length of which is dependent on the weapon you're using, between when you hit the attack button and when Tapp swings his weapon. Because of this it takes some time to adjust your play style to be able to handle combat successfully. Initially I agreed with the crowd, but once I saw what they were attempting to do with the combat, make it more deliberate and realistic, I grew to like it.<br />
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Aside from the general population of the asylum, at the end of each level there is a supporting character which you must help escape their trap. A few are actual characters from the movies, but most are new for the game. All have some connection with Tapp, from the widow of Tapp's former partner, to the man Tapp nearly drove to suicide by constantly questioning him about Jigsaw in the first movie. You're forced to save people who hate and distrust you, blame you for the loss of their loved ones, and don't even want your help. Each person is saved by solving a "boss puzzle." Unfortunately, only half are unique to the "boss", most are simply more involved version of puzzles you encounter throughout the asylum, so they're fairly easy. The unique ones can be a bit tricky and could take a while to learn how things work, but you have some room for error during the trails, so it's entirely possible to get them on the first try.<br />
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While exploring the asylum you'll encounter numerous puzzles, most of which are fairly simple once you learn the trick. The first you're exposed to involves standing in a certain place in a room to get the perspective needed to piece together fragments of numbers written on the wall. A gear puzzle is often used as a way to lock valuables, high powered weapons and trap components. Health vials are typically locked behind very simple timing based puzzles. There are also two 'Pipe Mania/Dream' type puzzles, one involving rotating electrical circuit blocks in order to route power. The other, rotating segments of pipe within concentric circles in order to connect two end segments. Finally there are the "boss puzzles" at the end of each level. I won't spoil them completely, but like I said earlier, only half are actually unique. Also, there are two types of deadly traps that litter doorways and halls, one requiring quick button pressing, the other keen eyes to avoid.<br />
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A key factor to detecting traps in time is lighting. The majority of the game is extremely dark and you must chose between three types of light sources to illuminate the halls. What would seem most obvious, the flashlight, is actually fairly useless. It shines a long distance, but most of the time the beam is facing at an angle instead of directly in front of you. The camera flash is as pointless as it sounds. It makes the whole screen as bright as daylight, but only for a split second and it causes an after image to stay on the screen for a few seconds before fading plus there's a recharge time. You almost have to stand completely still for it to be of any use. You start the game with the lighter and if you're like me, you'll use it almost exclusively. It provides a faint, but constant glow around Tapp so there's no need to worry about it not facing the right direction.<br />
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The atmosphere, story, and music are all very true to the movies. The creators of the series were actually brought in to consult on and help write the game... unfortunately it doesn't show very well. Don't get me wrong, the story isn't bad, I'm just not a fan of the way it was delivered. It felt like the largest portion is in the form of patient files and newspaper clippings. This makes it feel somewhat... disconnected from the game. They also focus too much on the origins of Jigsaw, which doesn't sound like a bad thing, after all I'm a detective trying to capture Jigsaw, but it feels like I'm just being handed the info. I felt no sense of discovery when things were revealed. There's exposition in the standard fashion as well, it just felt a little rushed. The game also has the trademark "twist" at the end if you chose the correct ending, but it doesn't have the same impact as the first movie, although, none of the other movies had the same impact as the first either. The atmosphere is probably my favorite part of the game, it's dark, dirty, and spooky. Play it at night with the lights turned out and you'll almost feel like you're in the worlds greatest spook house. Creeping around the dark hallways with just my lighter, looking for traps and enemies, straining my eyes trying to see if there's any broken glass on the floor, it's almost as good as wandering around in 'Demon's Souls'... almost.<br />
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Just about all the trophies are fairly easy, you can get most of them on one playthrough without even trying. There are the standard "Complete Chapter" trophies, one for each of the two endings, and one for each of most of the weapons. There are collectibles in the game, but you're not required to find all of them for trophies, just one of each kind. The only ones I had issues with were some of the weapon ones and the one for curbstomping 5 enemies. Some weapons are extremely rare, I think some only show up two or three times the entire game, and it's harder than it sounds to curbstomp someone. You have to knock an enemy down before you can curbstomp them, but most of the time they end up dying before they fall down.<br />
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Overall, if you are a fan of the movies, this game is almost a no brainer as it feels exactly how it should feel to play a game based on 'Saw'. Even if you don't like the movies you could have fun with it. The 'Condemned' style melee combat, the 'Demon's Souls' comparable atmosphere, and the sometimes tricky puzzles combine into a surprisingly fun game. The presentation of the story is the main downfall, however, it's based on a series of films that have been labeled "torture porn" by some, so the presentation doesn't matter much. I'd give this a 7/10.<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">This review is based off a complete playthrough of the PS3 version of the game on the normal difficulty level.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">100% of the trophies were collected.</span>KingDD83http://www.blogger.com/profile/04947309811371638405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-441509486140386325.post-75083076099007503512010-09-21T01:30:00.016-04:002010-09-26T12:26:11.677-04:00'Dark Void' - ReviewWhen I was younger I saw a movie that made me love jetpacks, 'The Rocketeer.' I don't really recall much of the movie, as it's been at least seventeen years since I've seen it, but the imagery stuck with me. While there were video games based on the movie, they were mediocre at best. Finally, after 19 years, a game comes out that feels like it would fit being called 'The Rocketeer.'<br />
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That game is 'Dark Void' and was developed by Airtight Games and published by Capcom. 'Dark Void' has no real connection to 'The Rocketeer' with the exception of the time they take place and, of course, jetpacks. In 'Dark Void' you play a cargo pilot, William Augustus Grey, that gets pulled into another world via the Bermuda Triangle. That other world is full of other trapped humans, who've all adapted a primitive lifestyle, and an oppressive alien race known as the Watchers. Will's first encounter with these two groups is in the form of a sacrificial type offering to the Watchers. Will, being the noble hero, can't allow this to occur and proceeds to attack the Watchers. This leads to Will's acceptance into a group of rebel humans called the Survivors, lead by a famed scientist, they fight back against the Watchers in an attempt to make it out of the Void.<br />
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Immediately after joining the Survivors you're given a jetpack, which initially can only hover, to help you attempt to salvage the parts necessary to repair your plane. Naturally you are unable to repair your plane, but after the first mission the jetpack is upgraded with full flying capabilities and this is where the true game really begins. You're able to seamlessly transition between flying, hovering, and ground movement. The controls may take a short while to get used to, but once you do, it feels great. It probably could have be done better, but it works well enough. Unfortunately, the air combat is fairly dodgy. I played on the hardest difficulty and it felt like there was little to no aim assist and there are no weapons with true "lock on" ability. Also, there are no enemy indicators on the sides of the screen so you're forced to use the radar. Several times I spent over an hour on a flying mission that should've only taken 15 minutes. It gets slightly better at lower difficulty levels, but it still isn't perfect for a game that isn't trying to be a realistic combat flight sim.<br />
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In addition to the jetpack, you can also hijack enemy UFOs and are occasionally forced to start missions in Survivor planes. These sections are fairly mediocre though it's sometimes advantageous to use these over your jetpack as they have somewhat better weapons, at least until you can upgrade the jetpack's weapons. However, I would occasionally die when hijacking enemy crafts. I can only assume that the craft either took enemy fire during the hijacking QTE minigame or it ran into a wall.<br />
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Ground combat is nothing really special. It's purely run-of-the-mill, cover based action. Even the game's other unique feature, vertical cover, isn't really that special. Sure, it's fun to kill an enemy in vertical cover and watch his body fall past you, but aside from that, it's not that different than any other "chest high wall" cover sections in any other game. When in cover there are no crosshairs, however, that's fairly standard, so it's not that big of a deal. <br />
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The game has a few glitches, though nothing really game-breaking. The worst was a patching glitch that would cause the game to crash if you didn't install it before allowing it to patch. The game uses the Unreal 3 engine, so texture pop-in is a minor issue. At a few points in the game I got stuck on a small ledge that I should've been able to easily walk over. The game crashed a few times and, despite having mid-mission/chapter checkpoints, when it crashes you have to start the mission over at the beginning instead of the last checkpoint. Finally, there are some inconsistencies when you die... the game would randomly give you full ammo and, during the ship escort/protect missions, it would randomly fill the ship's health. However, I don't know if these two examples were glitches, or by design.<br />
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Trophies are fairly standard for a single player only game. A lot are just "Complete Chapter" trophies, there's one for completing the game, and one for completing on the hardest difficulty. There's collectibles in the form of journals that net two trophies once you collect them all. Once you complete the game your radar is upgraded and shows the location of tech points and journals, which makes this trophy fairly easy to get. There's two for upgrading weapons. The latter, "Upgrade all weapons", is potentially glitched, it will occasionally not unlock when it should and the cause it unknown. If it glitches, the only solution is to delete your save and replay the game. Even if it doesn't glitch, it is fairly annoying to get, seeing as one would need to complete the game several times to acquire the needed tech points to completely upgrade all weapons. However, it's possible to farm tech points by replaying specific chapters. They could've negated this slightly by giving more tech points based on the difficulty, but the difficulty has no bearing on the amount of tech points you get when killing an enemy. There are a few more trophies that one wouldn't normally acquire during a standard playthrough, but they are fairly easy to farm later on.<br />
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In conclusion, the game has a few issues, but it is a fun ride for the right price. The story is a bit of a let down, as <a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation">Yahtzee</a> puts it, it really seems the developers gave up near the end. Flying is incredibly fun, but is marred by aerial combat. Ground combat, despite the innovative vertical cover, is nothing special. Overall, I would rate this game 7/10.<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br />
This review is based off a complete playthrough of the PS3 version of the game on the hardest difficulty level. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">100% of the main trophies were collected.</span>KingDD83http://www.blogger.com/profile/04947309811371638405noreply@blogger.com0