Two Completley Opposite Handheld Updates

So, thanks to Famitsu, we now have a better idea of a few of the games we might see come TGS for the Vita, but my suggestions aren't among them, which isn't much of a surprise, as I would have had a hard time suggesting any of these games.  I highly doubt all nine of the games in the Famitsu article will be shown at TGS, mainly because a few of them are previously announced, but like I said, it's hard telling what the unannounced games would/will be, so we might see a few repeats in it.  Especially now, since a few of these new games have been so informally announced.

First up in the line-up, and possibly the one most harped on, is the upcoming Ragnarok Odyssey, which seems to be a game designed to take on the mantle of "Monster Hunter when you don't have a Monster Hunter game to play" as Squeenix and a few others have tried on the PSP already.  (And done fairly well at, apparently.  God Eater and Lord of Arcana sound like they did well for PSP games.)  Whether Ragnarok Odyssey will crib directly from the formula of "Receive order, destroy monster" of Monster Hunter, or expand on it some remains to be seen, but either way if they do it well, they'll surely carve out a nice niche....so long as Monster Hunter for Vita doesn't get announced to launch relatively close to it.

Also announced in the article were:

• Sumioni – from Acquire, it’s a 2D ink action game. 
• Shinobido 2 – from Acquire and Spike, read our developer interview here.   
• Dream Club Zero Portable – from D3Publisher, port of the Xbox 360 game 
• Moe Moe Taisen Gendaiban ++ – from SystemSoft Alpha, slated for a spring 2012 release.  
• Michael Jackson: The Experience HD – from Ubisoft. 
• Dark Quest – from Ubisoft. 
• Lumines: Electronic Symphony – from Ubisoft, Q Entertainment is the developer. 
• Rayman Origins – from Ubisoft.

 Of those, we already know Shinobido 2 quite well, as it was more or less announced alongside the Vita, and while Vita ports weren't in the clear cards, Michael Jackson:  The Experience and Rayman Origins ports from Ubisoft seem relatively easy to digest....even if I wonder how in the world you're supposed to play a dance game on a portable.  And of course, we already knew about Lumines from a relatively recent announcement.  The rest, however, especially Sumioni, were unexpected, mostly new, and more than welcome.  (seriously, look at the article for Sumioni, it looks really neat.  Someone in the comments mentioned it reminded them of a combination of Muramasa and Okami, which I'm sure will interest some people.)

So that's all pretty neat, really.  A little insight into possibles for TGS, and, if nothing else very clearly cool new games for the Vita which really needs to establish a lot of new IPs to interest people who might harp on the Vita by stating the only thing it has going for it is watered down console ports.

Now, for something completely different.  (though appropriate, considering I brought up Monster Hunter already)

The above picture is apparently the peripheral attachment anyone looking forward to playing Monster Hunter Tri G or whatever wacky name it has can look forward to using to play the game on.  Aside from the added bulk and the second stick, the attachment apparently adds three shoulder buttons (I imagine the left shoulder button is still accessible) and...well, a lot of uncomfortable feelings.  Now, while this still could be an incredibly well done fraud, it's all-but been confirmed through various outlets.  Though, like a multitude of Handheld attachments, this thing could never see the light of day in America or anywhere that isn't the land of glorious Nippon.

Now while not implicitly a sign of something terrible, this has just been another in a long line of signs from Nintendo saying that maybe the 3DS wasn't all that well-thought out and was, perhaps, a little rushed.  Now while I'm still of the opinion that Nintendo hardly has to worry about people not buying a goddamn 3DS, since everyone will, eventually, I will continue to hope that this, on top of everyone else, will just turn more people towards the Vita and Sony gets to see a full Handheld success this time around, rather than just a great Japan showing.

Sick Post. Also Devil May Cry Re-Releases

While fairly tempted to just type, "I'm sick.  That is all." and move on, you all know that's not how I operate, and that I need to actually sit here and type something, anything to feel alright with what I've done today, so that's what I'm going to endeavor to do.  But the problem, as there always is a problem, is that there's not really anything to talk about at length tonight.  Well, that's what I thought until, mid-way through typing that sentence, I re-checked Joystiq and something had popped up.

Remember back when everyone thought there was going to be a Devil May Cry collection?  Well, Joystiq has a slightly different idea, thanks to a recent finding on the ESRB's website.  Apparently, Devil May Cry 1, 2, and 3, all include "Playstation 3" and "Xbox 360" in their listed platforms and, indeed, if you look for yourself, you can see the same image as the image in the article staring at you in the face.  And it's a potentially unwanted image if I'm correct in thinking the way that I am thinking.

Now, Capcom, as we've established, loves them some ports, but with that image of the ESRB ratings and, well, the way the linked post has turned out so far (for those who don't click, it's a link to the announcement of RE4:HD, and C:V:HD) in that both titles are full, downloadable games only, rather an actual collection disk, I'm fairly filled with a little dread at the thinking that Capcom is just going to go full digital with the DMC releases as well.  And, well, that shit just ain't gonna fly in my airspace.  Indeed, if that's the route they go, rather than giving me a disk, I'll just be 'voting with my wallet' as the cool kids say, and saving my money.

Granted, with the Devil May Cry series, a lot of fans were balking at the thought of buying a disk with Devil May Cry 2 on it, and might actually prefer this method instead, but not I.  I barely remember a thing about DMC2 and would have been willing to give it a shot on a Collection disk.  But I think I've beat the "Do Not Want" point into the ground well enough at this point.  Basically, my point is that rating each game individually like that speaks to the intent, which is previously established, of going completely against the grain with this whole up-porting business, and further cements the point that Capcom just doesn't get it.

Labor Day is a Very Laborious Day

So, every year on Labor Day weekend, there's a...semi-local event that my family and I go to.  It is, essentially a large flea market held out in some field, where vendors from wherever you want to imagine come to peddle their wares.  From guns and other sorts of weapons to the plastic toys you get in Happy Meals to paperback books to knock-off purses, if you go to this event, you'll likely find something you want, even if you go in not wanting anything.  Well, in most cases; I'm pretty shackled into at least buying a couple things every year almost completely out of habit, but not totally, as I do enjoy them, but...I'll get to that in a moment.

To give you an idea of the sheer size of this event, we got to the location before 9 AM and didn't leave until Noon.  In that whole time, we only took one break, around the 11:30 mark to eat lunch and then we looked at a few more rows of vendors before we decided to leave since, well, we had finally traversed the course completely.  My Poke'walker, which I solely use as a pedometer nowadays, read 10,811 steps when I checked it on the car ride home.  I am a bit speculative on that number, but still, that's some number right there.  Not mentioning that it was also very, very muddy all throughout, being in a field and all directly after it rained for a whole day.  It didn't rain while we were there, nor did it at all today, which was welcome and the cooldown yesterday's rains provided was most enjoyable.

Regardless, it was a good time, and my 'unplanned' purchase was, simply, three Rule Books for Vampire:  The Masquerade, more or less solely because of Helloween's LP of VtM: Bloodlines (Posted the link to the first video since there's no playlist for it yet.), since it really got me interested into the mechanics of the game the video game was based off of.  I got the Core rulebook (pictured above), Kindred of the East (which I assume covers Kuei-Jin and, more or less all things Oriental/Asian in the Vampire universe), and The Dark Ages, which....well, I'll be honest and say I don't know what the hell it entails.  Vampire:  The Masquerade more or less is foreign to me yet, despite watching the entire Bloodlines playthrough.

As far as what I usually get year in and year out and, in fact, continued to do so, I picked up some T-shirts with some fairly neat designs on them, and some Venison sticks.  Nothing all that interesting, I'm sure, but I wanted to mention them anyways because, well, I really enjoy venison.  Especially in stick form.  Especially especially when it's spicy as well, which half of what I purchased are.  While other vendors had movies and games that I looked through, there wasn't really anything that I wanted nor needed, so it was sort of a bust on that front, but at the very least, I got some new reading material.  That is, of course, if I ever read the books, which is...well, it's possible that it won't happen.  I'm fickle with my books like that.

When I got home, since the temperature has dropped significantly, I turned to my PS3 for entertainment and, by that, I mean I played Yakuza 4 for a number of hours.  And by "I played Yakuza 4 for a number of hours", I mean, "I took Akiyama to the bar, got him drunk, got into fights, and repeated that for hours".  It is fairly hilarious how Yakuza 4 encourages you to have your character sloshed 24/7 as there's really no downside to it, and in fact, there's a good upside to it:  When drunk, your Heat gauge fills faster.  Not to mention, you can buy Akiyama an innate ability that raises his overall attack power while he's drunk.  So by this combination, I became the Bane of Kamurocho Street Punks and Yakuza in no time flat, laying waste to any and all who stood in my way.

It was....quite fulfilling.

So, that was my Labor Day.  The trek and a few other things I did here and there made it sort of a rough day, but Yakuza 4 more than smoothed it over to make it a pretty great day overall.  Here's hoping your day was equally as good!

Late Post with Music

So, you will notice that I posted late today.  Well....I didn't post yesterday, so in fact I missed a day.  That is because it was storming!  And I know you're like, "But Mogs, the Twitter Sidebar didn't say so!" and to that I say, "I know."  Because, you see, I post on twitter from my PSP when I'm going to be late, and my PSP was otherwise occupied by a game of Phantasy Star Portable 2 with Kaseius in which we I got so many rares.  I didn't even notice the time (not that there was much I could do since it was still storming) til the tail end of the session when I realized "Oh, I.....I didn't post, did I?"  And no, no I did not.  But I'm rectifying that!

Because I like music, I'm doing a music post for today (will likely do another post tonight) and in theme with what I just said, why don't we just go ahead and start this off with the main theme for Phantasy Star Portable 2, since I really really enjoy it.



You don't actually hear the whole of that in the main game which made it all the better when I listened to it prior to getting the embed code for here.  One of the comments suggests it's actually the Japanese version of the song, and, y'know what, whatever, it's close enough.  And pretty righteous.  I can't really pinpoint what it is about the song that I like, but it's one of those songs that I just can't stop listening to.  It's precisely why I haven't set it as the theme for my MC's (or any of my other characters for that matter) Room, because I would never leave if I did so.

Moving on fairly starkly, this is actually the first song that popped into my head when I decided to do a music post tonight.  Buying a game and having it include the soundtrack was, by all means, a completely foreign concept to me when I first picked this game up and at first, I was like "Well...that's cool, I guess."  I hadn't really paid attention to a lot of video game music besides the songs from Chrono Trigger, because I was fairly convinced that game music just didn't get any better than that and that no other game was worthy of a try or something.  Basically, I just tuned a lot of it out, is my point.  Now, while Chrono Trigger still has a fantastic soundtrack, I do open myself up to other games, and this was one of the first that made me do so, and mostly because of this song.

Grandia 2, when I got it on the Dreamcast, was pretty wonderful.  I believe I was just getting back into RPGs (the last one before that being either Skies of Arcadia, as I don't remember when that came out, or Ogre Battle 64) and it provided a nice pace that I found easy to move into.  I don't remember much of the story now, but at the time it was enjoyable enough, and the characters were fairly developed enough for me to really enjoy.  From what I remember, this played a lot when a certain character, Millenia, was around, whom I thought was pretty awesome as well, so it really worked out.  So without further ado, this is "Dangerous Zone" from Grandia 2.



No mistaking why I like this song, that's for sure.  The guitar is awesome, there's friggin' righteous keyboard parts, and it's just so high energy that it makes me want to punch things.  Manly like.  (Like that's hard to do with me, right?  Yakuza up ins.)

Speaking of Yakuza, I must say that I've become infatuated with the main theme for Yakuza 4, titled "For Faith".  It's....actually kind of a pretty song.  I'm using pretty loosely here since I can't think of a better way to describe it.  It's just nice sounding and powerful, if you're at all attached to the source material, as we know I am.



If you, the reader, could do me a favor, I have a standing argument with a friend who argues that the song is depressing to listen to.  While I accept there's a tinge of sadness in it (rather, that's what I attribute to the 'power' of it), I don't think it's depressing whatsoever and just think that it's a wonderful sounding song.  So if you could weigh in on that, that'd be just lovely.  I don't ask for a lot, y'know?  Just do this one thing for me.  (You don't have to.)

So, with that, I head off to bed as I have a rather long day ahead of me that starts in.....six hours.  Heh.  Happy Listening!

PR Slap-Fights Are Silly.

Even if it wasn't Exclusive, Microsoft doesn't even want PJ Shooter 2.

So, there was a little thing a little while ago from Microsoft's Chris Lewis, head of Europe's Gaming Division (I guess.  There's only so much I can pull from "European XBox Chris Lewis".  Come on, Eurogamer.) where he was defending a few key points of Microsoft's Content Submission and Release Policy.  You may or may not be familiar with it, but it basically, as it states in the name, determines what can and cannot be published on XBox Live by enforcing a few guidelines that have been performed so plentifully and effortlessly that you pretty much don't notice them.  Ever think about how a lot of DD games get put on XBL before PSN?  That's (in most cases) a good part of the reason.  There's other things like "Exclusivity for Continued Promotion" deals and the like, but a lot of these publishers want their games on both systems and going on Live is generally the way to secure that.

That's because the Content Submission and Release Policy specifically disallows games that A) appear on other platforms first and B) have more content on other platforms.  If you don't believe me..

"Titles for Xbox 360 must ship at least simultaneously with other video game platform, and must have at least feature and content parity on-disc with the other video game platform versions in all regions where the title is available. If these conditions are not met, Microsoft reserves the right to not allow the content to be released on Xbox 360."

Well, alright, it doesn't say "It won't be on" it says they have the "right" to deny it, but legalese nonsense aside, you know what it means.  This is, of course, a pretty....well, strict policy and an unwelcoming one as well.  It's a lot more stringent than PSN's which, I believe, states the only restriction on titles that have been on previous consoles is that they -should- have some Playstation-exclusive content.  That's why Castle Crashers got new modes, why Castlevania:  Harmony of Despair is going to have....something, I forget what (I think DLC characters from the XBL version?  And Couch Co-op.) and so on and so on.  Of course, I don't think everyone follows this.  (I don't remember what was Exlusive in Braid.  Was there anything?)

It's this sort of policy that allows PSN to seem, well, more welcoming since that's literally what it does.  It welcomes all comers, regardless of where they come from, so long as you bring them something new for their party.  It's the reason why Valve eventually started taking a shine to what Gabe Newell once called "an expensive paperweight".  And it's the reason why there's a lot of Indie Devs out there really wanting to develop for PS3, PSP and the Vita.  So, when faced with the knowledge that someone high-up at Microsoft basically said "If we don't get it first, we don't want it" (as Chris Lewis went on to say, "I'd be surprised if we saw that as something we'd encourage," regarding titles that launch elsewhere before knocking at XBLA's door), you would think that's like a slow-pitch for Sony's PR guy, right?  Right?

Wrong.

Rob Dyer, Senior Vice President of Public Relations took that beautiful opportunity and figuratively smashed someone's cat with it.  "Publishers are getting the living crap kicked out of them by Microsoft," he says.  That...that is not how you open with this man.  He then goes on to say,

"I think what Chris and the other representatives at Microsoft are doing is protecting an inferior technology," Dyer said. "I think they want to dumb it down and keep it as pedestrian as possible so that if you want to do anything for Blu-ray or you have extra content above 9 gigs or you want to do anything of that nature, you'd better sure as heck remember that Microsoft can't handle that."

Sigh.

I'm not even sure where he's going with this.  Now, you all know me, you know I tend to swing towards the Sony-side of things, and while I even went on to say I like Sony's Policy better, this was dumb to say.  Mostly because it doesn't make sense.  Not only are most PSN-exclusive games fairly small as well (well under 9 Gigs), but Rob, you specifically have games titles as "Minis" on your service.  Actual games that must be under 100 MB, which then go on to get ESRB rated which drives their price up $1-3 bucks a pop.  This is a thing on the PSN.  Do not bring size constraints to argue something like this!  It's that simple!  Play up the things I said earlier!  Trumpet off the successes of this open-ness!  Do anythin but what you did.

Honestly, PR people are generally not the sharpest pencils in the box, but this....this was something else.

This post brought to you by Italics.

And More Atlus News

After September 20th, screens like the above of Pesona 2:  Innocent Sin for PSP will be available in English as the game has been officially announced for North American release.  Which, given it's Atlus, isn't so much a surprise, but it's nice nonetheless.  Shin Megami Tensei:  Persona 2:  Innocent Sin:  Colons for PSP is a remastering of the original game of (mostly) the same name that was previously unreleased in North America because of one of the antagonists because I don't know.  So to have a version of the game finally in America-land will be pleasant for Collectors and people who just enjoy good games alike.

I....can't really say much for this news other than it's pretty cool.  As I've discussed previously, my wadings into the Shin Megami Tensei franchises haven't been very deep, but with the whole of the main Persona series soon to be playable on the Vita (y'know, when it comes out) I may just very well catch up on them if I ever find RPG time.  Since, well, with the Vita line-up, I might be stuck in the same situation I am with my PS3, in that there will be just too much to play and I won't be able to rush through everything to get to the next thing.  Especially since I'm not the type to say "Okay, gotta beat this game in (this timeframe) so I can move on!", since I prefer to, y'know, enjoy my games.

Honestly, I can't say too much about anything tonight.  Not to derail this post into something else, but I had a rather bad issue with anxiety earlier and have been thrown off ever since, as is usually the case, so I've just been trying to relax some since.  And there really hasn't been a lot of news to bring up aside from this and the fact that my interest in One Piece just shot up dramatically in recent days.  Granted, before that, my interest in One Piece was basically non-existent but anything to get more Beat-em-up goodness.

So yeah, that is today.  Anxiety, Persona 2 for PSP in America and punching dozens of nameless pirates(?) with an anime kids extraordinarily long arms.  Just a normal Friday.

Now I Must Wait for TGS with More Anticipation

Since I'm tired of Vita Stock Pictures.

It was just recently said that Sony will be showing off 31 Vita games at TGS, not to mention some PS3 and PSP games as well in what I can only call a brilliant plot to destroy me completely and utterly from the wait.  Okay, not really, but the knowledge that A) there's going to be 31 Vita games shown off as well as B) More than half of them (18 out of 31) are 'Previously unannounced' games.  Now, I want to believe that we're going to see even more new IPs and new games and whatnot announced, but I know a few of them are going to be, and, well they just -have- to be, games that are already sort of 'announced' but not officially announced.  Things like anything with "(Working Title)" in them during previous teaser videos and the like.

Now, to fully predict and/or plot out what I figure these 18 games to be, I have to first post the list of 13 that are -going- to be shown at TGS.

• Blazblue Continuum Shift Extend
• Dynasty Warriors Next
• Asphalt: Injection
• The King, the Demon King, and the Seven Princesses: New Little King's Story
• Mahjong Fight Club
• Shinobido 2
• Virtua Tennis 4
• Uncharted: Golden Abyss
• Gravity Daze
• Hot Shots Golf Next
• True Night of the Kamaitachi
• Disgaea 3 Return
• Ridge Racer

So, nothing we haven't really seen yet except True Night of the Kamaitachi that I...hadn't even heard of before now.  Excuse me a moment...Aha.  It seems to be a...really cool sounding murder-mystery game with multiplayer modes centered on racing to solve the case first.  Iiiiiiiiiinteresting.  Anyways, looking at that list, it's basically stuff we've seen already in the trailers and the like and/or have just been recently announced.  Mahjong Fight Club and Asphalt:  Injection don't ring any bells with me, but I'm not really about to go look them up right now.

So, I'm not really sure as to what I'm guessing will be there as an unannounced-but-you-know-about-it-already game and what will be new, but at the top of that list (and not because of my obsession) would be LittleBigPlanet Vita.  So far, it's had some real show-off time and some trailers, but I just can't help but think the final name isn't going to be "LittleBigPlanet Vita", so bringing it to TGS to show it off with a finalized name would be the time to do it.  But...I'm just not sure what that would be.  With only three main installments so similarly named (LittleBigPlanet, LittleBigPlanet 2, and LittleBigPlanet for PSP that is just called LittleBigPlanet) I'm just not sure what they could do to it except confuse it more by, again, just calling it LittleBigPlanet, calling it LittleBigPlanet Portable or by giving it a subtitle that will draw away from the name recognition.  But...after saying that, I guess I -could- see it being named "LittleBigPlanet Vita".

Resistance:  Burning Skies is mysteriously absent from the list, but given that it's already been announced, it can't be one of the 18 games.  (Unless unannounced simply means "We didn't put it in the Press Release")  However, Killzone, which we've seen a trailer for, hasn't been officially announced to my knowledge, so having that would only make sense to reinforce the, aherm, "Hardcore" line-up.  That's not said with any malice or anything of course, as I don't begrudge the games.  Just that my only exposure was a short-lived attempt at playing the first which...didn't go well, and the surprisingly decent, but still unfinished runthrough of Killzone:  Liberation on PSP.  Granted, different type of game entirely, but it was a proper entry into Killzone cannon, so it counts.

Following in the tracks of LittleBigPlanet as it always seems to, I don't believe ModNation Racers for Vita has been properly named either, so having that there with a final name and showing off more extensively with the track-making and the like seems like a good idea to give people the idea of just how easy it is.  I never really got into Modnation Racers since I played the Beta and...well, I just wasn't feeling anything beyond the creation aspect (then again, I don't generally like Racing Games) so I've sort of steered clear of news for it, but it's one of those things that just isn't 'for me' and as such, I'm not prepared to call it poor or anything.  But on the same note, Modnation Racers Vita is likely a miss for me, so I'm not about to get excited at the prospect of it being announced.

While there's other games I could throw out there, like the unannounced version of Mortal Kombat and the Bioshock game Ken Levine informally announced at E3, those are...well, pretty damn western and TGS is a Japan-centric event.  (Expecting the games I mentioned above might even be pushing it, especially with Killzone)  So if that's all I can figure on the what we know already, but aren't 'announced' yet games, what about the other 15 games (if I'm proven right).  The answer is largely, "Well, I don't friggin' know", but I do have some ideas.

Given that it is a Japan-centric event, as I mentioned above, and it's a Playstation anything, the first thing that comes to mind is Hideo Kojima.  Now, I would be willing to bet anything that he will be there to announce something, but the something is fairly up in the air at the moment.  He could just formally announce the Zone of the Enders HD Collection (And/or Metal Gear Solid HD Collection) for Vita, since the Collections will be utilizing 'Transfarring' and that mostly seems to mean "Moving saves from Console to Portable and vice-versa".  Given that we know this, but we don't know, officially, what capacity ZoE/MGS will be playable in on the Vita, some sort of announcement at TGS seems like the most prudent decision.

Still, I can't help but hope for a little more.  Give us something surprising, Kojima!  Announce a remastered Metal Gear Solid 1 for the Vita to complement the rest of the collection.  Bring back Snatcher.  (Note:  This won't happen)  Make Metal Gear Ac!d 3.  Do something that I can hear and then go "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh" for hours and then post frantically about it here!  It will please me.

Given Squeenix's long-standing support of Sony's Platforms and general enjoyment of Handhelds in general, expecting an announcement from them for a Vita game is pretty much a guarantee.  Again, the what is a little difficult to pin down, since the possibilities are endless, but we can make a few broad guesses here.  Given that it's Squeenix, a port is the highest possibility here, perhaps of Final Fantasy Type-O or something older like Crisis Core which wouldn't exactly be unwelcome in either case.  Then again, something 'new' isn't out of the question, and in that case, I would guess something Dissidia related since, well, that's just what they're doing at the moment.

I'm sure there's likely more to be guessed at, but that's about all my brain can muster up at the moment.  Still, it's exciting to just think about what could be.