Category Archives: General

Common or garden posts.

Paging the Razzies

Seriously, don’t even bother running the Golden Raspberries next year. Team Xbox have gotten their hands on some photos of the Dead or Alive movie which can be viewed in all their glory (in the loosest possible sense of the word) here. Even if they bring out Swept Away 2 in the next twelve months just give them all to DOA – just take a look at this one and tell me if there’s any way it can possibly come out well.

Loading…Please Wait…

I’ve noticed that quite a few PSP games have some atrocious load times (Winning Eleven 9, I’m looking at you), but this really takes the cake. It’s a video showing someone playing – or rather attempting to play – Smackdown vs Raw 2006 on the PSP from booting it up until getting into the first fight of career mode. It literally takes over six minutes because it even has to load the loading screen! It can’t be helping the already poor battery life, either.

The guy probably deserves it for buying a wrestling game, but still it’s either proof that the game was horribly rushed or that optical media isn’t yet the way to go for handhelds. Take your pick.

Ryu ga Gotoku

It might not have been particularly huge news on all the main gaming sites, but I’m very excited by the news that Sega’s recent Japanese action game Ryu ga Gotoku (translates as “Like a Dragon”) will be released in the West under the more marketable name of Yakuza.

As you may or may not have guessed, the reason why I’m excited is not only that it’s supposed to be an excellent game and a return to form for Sega, but because it’s also been called a spiritual successor to Shenmue, a game that I’d rank as my second favourite of all time and that I’m borderline obsessive about. It’s not as slow and doesn’t have the emphasis on exploration and investigation, but it looks nice and I can’t look at this shot without being reminded of certain areas of Shenmue II by night. This is one I’ll be watching keenly over the next few months.

Let’s just hope that the localisation isn’t ruined by horrible voice acting again.

English Ouendan?

Not exactly confirmation, but Go Nintendo is reporting that someone from Nintendo of Europe has let slip that Ouendan, the sixth best game of 2005 (NTSC-uk thought similarly), will come to the UK. It’s a pretty safe bet that if that happened it would make it to the US as well.

Personally I hope that if it comes out outside Japan they leave the actual song sequences untranslated and only change the menus into English. Knowing what on Earth was going on might actually be detrimental to the quirky appeal of the game, so they should at least leave the option of keeping the crazy Japanese-ness intact.

Gotta Love EA

If you need any more proof that EA gets lower every day, check this out from Kotaku:

Imagine my shock when a message popped up telling me that I had to either pay $2 or give my privacy away to ESPN and whoever they feel like selling my details to, if I wanted to play online.

Basically to play the PSP version of Fight Night Round 3 online you either have to pay them $2 from your credit card for “authentication” purposes, or if you don’t have a card/don’t want to give them any more money/don’t want to give your card details over a public wireless network, you have to give them your email and mailing address and opt into the EA/ESPN mailing list. This is in order to use all of the features of a game you’ve just paid $40 for.

Apparently to play the 360 version online it’ll require the blood of your firstborn.

Colossus Shenanigans

Here’s yet more proof that some people have too much time on their hands, this time playing around with the third best game of 2005. It seems that the R1 button in Shadow of the Colossus is useful for more than just climbing rocks and mythical beasts, and can actually be used to pester the more conventional fauna in the forbidden lands.

The larger bird is the best and most impressive one, so definitely take a look at that one. By the looks of things they’re not new but it’s the first time I’ve seen them, and this one of someone climbing the temple is long but also cool.