MotorStorm RC Impressions

So, as we know, MotorStorm RC was free this week in the Playstation Store update and, as anyone would, I jumped right on that because it was a free game and while I didn't know it at the time I've learned it has a Platinum Trophy which only sweetens the deal.  I doubt I will ever -get- that Platinum trophy for all sorts of reasons, but at least the idea is there, ever-present.  A carrot to lead me into insanity, I'm sure, but at the same time I've come to terms with the fact that I don't have to go for all of the Platinums, so I might be well and truly fine with leaving my experiences with MotorStorm RC 'unfinished' as it were.  Possibly in dramatic fashion, as in not getting much more than the pithy 2% I'm at currently.  Especially since I'm concerned it just might not be 'my kind' of game as I suspected it might not be.

I guess I should start with the positive first, because there is quite a lot on that front.  The graphics are pretty nice for what it is and the presentation itself is rather smooth.  The interface is simple and offers basically only the information you need while racing or, if you're in the Playground, it constantly feeds you information on your friends as shown off in the above picture of Kaseius beating one of my scores that I believe had beat one of his scores.  Maybe.  I remember beating at least one of his (and the scores of a few other people as well, and on my first attempts, some of them!) because the interface with that is fairly unforgettable and intuitive. 

Basically in the 'Hot Lap' types of races, it gives you three times for the three medals and completing a lap in the desired amount of time will net you the medal.  If you get the shortest time, you get all three, the second shortest, you get two, etc.  These are then represented on the track by arrows with avatars above them highlighting the course taken by the driver to get that time, proving that these times -are- possible regardless of what you might think in frustration.  It's a nicer take on just having 'ghost' cars on the track, I think, and the top-down camera angle makes the best use of it as it could.

It's really really nice, honestly and while I don't like racing games and certainly still don't after my experience with the game, I enjoyed it.  Mostly.  I wondered for the entire time that I played earlier today, 'Why is the right stick the thing to use for Acceleration?  That's dumb!' and while the answer is sensible enough (no pressure-sensitive buttons on the Vita) it doesn't make it any more usable than it was when I just thought it was dumb.  I was eventually instructed that you can remap the controls almost completely which is certainly welcome and I took advantage of, but all my experience has more or less been based on using the Right Stick for reasons I could not fathom.  I think one of the main reasons I don't like Racing games is because of the sheer precision they require, and the OCD-like levels they can drive you to trying to get just .021 of a second shaved off of your lap time or things of that sort.

This is certainly not helped by the inclusion of an ice area which, as you might expect, makes navigation much harder than it needs to be.  I hadn't done all the races in the first section and just sort of happened upon it which might also attribute to the difficulty curve I faced, but after winning the first actual race I was in (against other cars, rather than the ghost time arrows) so handily I passed the sixth place car (out of eight) before finishing, I was not prepared for the next actual race I was in to get so trounced.  The serpentine half of the track literally requiring you to make seven precision turns in a row on ice just sucks so tremendously and required at least 20 minutes of my time.  I don't even remember if I ended up actually finishing it in first or if I gave up in frustration.  I just remember that another track in the same area that involved a lot of crossing the same sections (and consequently not letting you take shortcuts) caused similar amounts of frustration because I kept missing the top medal by less than a second.

As I've said, racing games just aren't my thing which should be pretty obvious to anyone at this point.  Still, I'll plug away at it a little more before finally starting Uncharted:  Golden Abyss because I think I've put all the time I'm going to tolerate into Dynasty Warriors Next.  After potentially discovering that you -can- swear a Sibling Oath with a woman and a Spouse Oath with a man by playing as a Female Ruler, I threw my hands up in frustration at the amount of time this bullshit (and that's exactly what it is) is going to take.  Maybe if the core mechanics of Next were a little better, I'd be more apt to give it a shot, but they're not, so I just can't be bothered whatsoever.  Like I can't be bothered with trying to figure out the best way to race ice tracks.

Datura Officially Announced, Exactly What You Remember

Remember all the way back in September when a game, affectionately known as the "Floating Hand Game", was first teased with a video and then two others?  No?  Because it was about six months ago?  Well, no worries, because I have ever-so-conveniently linked both the posts I made about the game so you can catch up on it again.  If you saw them or anything about this at all in the first place, of course.  If not, everything's cool because I'm going to reiterate with a little quick refresher about the game so we're all up to speed on it.  Mostly because I completely forgot about the game myself until I saw the Playstation Blog post while I was not-so-patiently waiting for the Store Update post.  Which took forever to go up, but it's up and I'm downloading my free MotorStorm RC, so all is well.

Datura was first shown off in a fairly artsy trailer that showed a disembodied hand stroking things in a forest while being controlled by a Playstation Move wand.  No really, that's pretty much the first taste of the game that anyone ever got, and only after did it start to make a little more sense.  The whole basis of the game is confusion, really, as it might in fact start you off in a forest that you have no idea how you got into, and then, in classic adventure game style, have you look around, solving puzzles so you can try and figure out just what's going on.  Touch and such things play a key element here and by running your imaginary hand along things you'll find clues and key items (perhaps even keys) that you'll use to further yourself along.  At least, I think that's the idea.

It's definitely something interesting as a concept, and as I've mentioned before, if the game has areas that you can actually move around in (with the use of the Navigation Wand/Dualshock 3) and explore, it'll catch my attention all the more.  We're really beginning to lack games that encourage and/or reward exploration like that, and it's really a shame since something that simple can be infinitely rewarding if you use it right.  Of course, there's a case to be made with the previous generations (specifically 16-bit to early CD Sprites) that they took that theory a little too literally and loosely, rendering you unable to do anything without pixel hunting or going to somewhere to arbitrarily set off an event flag.  Still, we're in the future now; I have faith that we can get back into it and do it right.  Regardless, they're likely going to make a comeback in some fashion thanks to the whole DoubleFine Kickstarter bringing them back into the limelight.

Something I do wonder about, however, is just what all to the game there's going to be aside from moving around, stroking things and being confused.  The two almost the exact same teasers show you driving, but I'm not sure if that's going to be a recurring thing or more just a "This is how you got here" type of thing as it seems, whether you hit the pig or not, you spin-out anyways.  I hope that matters in another way down the road since, while the possibility of things being different is cool, it's much cooler if it actually means something, which is something that Alpha Protocol taught us all in spades.  I think it's going to be hard to play other choice-based games in the future because I'll be micro-analyzing just how much impact they really had, and I'm not sure anyone else is going to take it to the level they tried, at least not for a little while.  Which is really a shame because it really really works.

So really, the only thing we've learned about Datura that we haven't known for a while is that it is actually called Datura and will release sometime this year.  It's going to be a PSN game, not a retail one, and will make extensive use of the Move wand.  With any luck, it'll almost require the Nav Wand or a Dualshock 3 for exploration rather than just being on-rails or gesture-based or something.  But seeing as 'mystery' is something of the core of the game itself, I doubt we'll find out a whole lot more until the game gets closer to release.  Honestly, that's fine by me since there is just entirely too much game around and about and until we hit a dry spot and I have time to catch up, I'm not sure I want to hear about any more -new- games.  ...aside from the ones being announced at the Vita Game Heaven event.  Mostly because now I'm really hoping for a new Phantasy Star game.

Celebrating My Birthday with News

There's a plethora of things that have been tossed out today - partly because of GDC I imagine and partly because it's Monday, and companies just like throwing things out on Mondays, I've found.  Regardless, the first bit here is that Assassin's Creed 3 has more information than a mere setting confirmation and box art release.  The first official trailer, the reveal trailer, for Assassin's Creed 3 is above and you've likely already watched it by the time you get to here, but if you haven't, you might as well get to it.  A little additional information to go along with that is the fact that our Native American protagonist has a name that I'm sure tongues of this generation just are not meant to pronounce, ("Ratohnhaké:ton" apparently) and will be known as "Connor" for about 90% of the game.  Just because, I guess.

The trailer also doesn't so much as confirm something I had suspected, but at least hints towards it with the extensive showing of nature scenes rather than large, sprawling buildings.  Especially the parkour in the trees section (the trailer is apparently all in-engine, or at least that's what I've heard) leads me to think that there's not really going to be the safety of the city around you and that this might just be a very, very different game than AC2.  Perhaps it'll go back to the roots of the original game, with all the wilderness areas that existed in it.  Granted, it's looking like that might be the majority of the area to cover (I could see some American and/or British camps being navigational, perhaps even some settlements) but if there's anything the Assassin's Creed team is good at doing, it's making interesting vistas to traverse, as that's the majority of what I spent my time doing during Brotherhood.  With any luck, they'll still be as interesting, especially if the majority of the game takes place during the winter as it looks like it might.

I'm a little surprised, honestly, that it's not really that great of a trailer.  I get that they wanted to do in-engine (again, that's what I heard it is) rather than FMV which basically means a little bit of quality loss (Unless you're Naughty Dog) since you can't tweak every single thing like in FMV, but I expected a little more than that.  Overall it looks pretty decent aside from a few poor spots here and there (my main issue is when he's pulling the hatchet out of the soldier and tugs it out near weightlessly by the middle of the haft of it; that's not how you do that at all) but it lacks the real -punch- that previous trailers have had.  For the reveal of a brand new game theory, a brand new character, and the 'final' chapter of the game, it deserved a little more time and effort, I think, and it's just a shame that it didn't get it.  Still, we'll see how it starts shaping up real soon; as said last time, we'll start to get some real details in April when GameInformer features it as their cover story.

The above is the video that accompanies the second piece of news which is more or less only tangentially related to it, but it's worth a look anyway, since it gives us a good look at MotorStorm RC for the Vita.  Now, why would you want to get a good look at MotorStorm RC, you might ask?  Aside from likely being quite a good game, since it's from a really established franchise, it's going to be free on the Vita for North America.  At least, it will be free on March 6th; I can't attest for any time thereafter.  "North America" is often a more exclusive term than it would imply, oftentimes meaning just "USA", but the Director of Network Advertising for SCEA, David Winding, assure us that this offer includes Canada, so with any luck that holds and you'll get a shot at it too, Chance.  The quote, specifically is the below:

"Is the “deal” available in Canada as well?? Please say yes…"

David Winding on March 5th, 2012 at 8:27 am said: OK… Yes it is.

I wouldn't be surprised if people aren't going to hold their breath for it, but I'm rather hopeful, despite it being quite easy for me to be as much.  For the wonderful price of Free, of course I'm going to give it a shot as I gave Rag Doll Kung-Fu a shot years ago when there was a similar promotion.  Sprint sponsored the game, making it free of charge for a limited time, and I was one of the countless that grabbed it by virtue of being a free game.  Unfortunately...I don't think it was quite worth it, as it wasn't really a good game, shoe-horning in some of the worst usages of Sixaxis controls to date, but the music was nice and it had a little bit of charm at least.  Still, as I said, I don't think that will be an issue with MotorStorm RC since it has a pedigree behind it and looks pretty interesting on its own.

I've said time and time again and will likely continue to do so, but I'm not really a racing guy, nor am I a fan of overhead cameras like that (I'm not against them, but they certainly take a lot of getting used to, like in Grand Theft Auto:  Chinatown Wars).  That's not to say I haven't had a cursory interest in the games ever since I got a copy of MotorStorm bundled in with my PS3 (that I admittedly never opened), but I've certainly not put forth the effort in grabbing one up and playing it yet until now.  I figure it's the best shot in on it that I'm gonna get, and I'm going to capitalize on that proper.  If nothing else, it'll keep the PSP games company that I'm going to grab in a couple days with the PSN funbux I'm going to get in a day or so.  All of the games!

Capcom has been catching quite a bit of flak for some DLC concerns lately and while that is nonsense, I find that I'm not as fussed by it as I am by the other DLC issue that's reared its ugly, mutated head.  I am really, really tired of 'exclusive' DLC being used as a means to try and buy your way to a certain platform.  Sure, I guess I don't mind it when it's on the PS3's foot which is a bit hypocritical of me, but let's face it:  How often does that happen?  Even when it's a game that I have absolutely zero interest in, I find that knowing, should I find myself wanting to buy it, I just plain won't get to buy the same amount of content as someone else just because there's a lot of money being exchanged elsewhere.  It is, in fact, directly counter to what any good developer should want to do, since it alienates potential buyers for reasons that don't really matter in the long run.

"Nemesis Mode" for Resident Evil:  Operation Raccoon City sounds pretty poor in all honesty.  In so much as I don't quite know what the hell is being said in its description.  "Nemesis Mode has the USS verses the Spec Ops in an eight-man battle with someone able to control a Nemesis. While one team tracks down a control unit, the other can "give the Nemesis orders to destroy the opposition.""  I guess...four versus four, but one team has a friggin' Nemesis that's controlled by a player?  Where's the balance in that?  The hell is a 'control unit' and why is it the mission goal?  I guess it is a little silly to expect something cohesive out of day one, console-exclusive, charged DLC, but oh well.  I'm sure it'll make a few people happy; people who will likely enjoy the game for reasons beyond shooting Leon Kennedy in the face at some point in the storyline.

That's quite a good bit of news and while the majority of it is good, it can't all be good news.  But, to ensure that I end this on a high note, I'll go ahead and just pass along the fact that came up whilst I was typing this up.  Lollipop Chainsaw hits June 12th.  I can't wait to slice up some undead douchebags then and, with any luck, I'll be able to pick it up with minimal hassle.  Until then, I guess I'll just have to ceaselessly watch all the trailers out for it.

....Again.

In Which I Whine About Dynasty Warriors Next

So, while my initial impressions of Dynasty Warriors Next, I've thrown a lot more time into it and I've gone long past the point where I start to see wrinkles with the game and see outright flaws with it now.  It's unfortunate, really, and while I should preface this with the fact that I do think it's a good game regardless, I also think it's a definite step back Dynasty Warriors 7.  Aside from my constant whining about 7, I do believe it's one of the better games in the entire series - while I doubt any game could knock Dynasty Warriors 3 off its throne since it has the crown of nostalgia, 7 comes really close.  So I'm not too happy that a game that pulls directly from 7 as Next does, does it rather poorly, leaving a lot of the good on the cutting room floor to make room for some decent or poor additions.

The above pictured is a screenshot taken from the Conquest Mode of the game which plays like a stripped down version of the Empires off-shoots which are stripped down versions of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series of games from the same company.  Of course, it could very well be a picture of Campaign Mode just that easily since they use the exact same method of play (minus Territory Level which I'll cover in a bit) which I'm not too happy about.  There is literally no other way to play the game other than jumping into a map like this and playing it out til you win or lose which is mostly random.  You'll notice that every Territory has a number attributed to it as its Territory Level (Xuchang, for instance, is 1 by pure luck of the draw) which basically limits how you can attack.  A territory can only invade another Territory if its level is at least one higher than it.  As such, a Level 1 Territory cannot invade anywhere, whereas you can invade a level 5 with a 6 or higher.  Fairly simple stuff.

So how do you make a Territory's Level increase?  Uhh...by having it border enemy territory which is more or less completely beyond your control.  Theoretically, you could say that you can invade how you want and thus control what could possibly gain, but every round starts up by giving a single number to one of your territories so long as it borders enemy lines.  If all four of your territories are against the enemy, then any single one of those could go up and if you have a 1, and your enemy has all 3s and above, you could very well be left to stagnate for a turn if that RNG decides to make your 1 a 2 and none of your other numbers are high enough to invade.  This happens far more than I'm comfortable with for the simple fact that there's absolutely no control over it.  Something like that will likely wreck your game and cause you to lose when it's completely not in your hands.  This is not good as a baseline, and in practice it's at least frustrating if not outright infuriating.

There are a few issues that compound this initial problem as well, further limiting just how much control you actually have.  The rule of thumb in play is that if you conquer the territory the Ruler is in, you take their entire kingdom which is as handy as it is not.  It's handy because it means you can take them out rather fast, meaning you get closer to the "50 Conquest Mode Completions" trophy and with your kingdom having no such Ruler Territory, you won't just lose in a single turn despite having three or so territories.  However, the presence of two other trophies, specifically the "Become Sworn Sibling with all officers" and "Form a Marriage Pact with all officers" (which should read, male and female respectively since you can't be Lian Shi's Sworn Sibling, nor can you form a Marriage Pact with Zhang Liao) makes it counter-intuitive, since those trophies require that you try and purposefully elongate games that you have very little control over.  It takes, at minimum, roughly four to six turns of using the strategy of the person you want to get with (in one of the above ways) and including them in battles for them to form that pact.  Under the best circumstances, you'll be able to do that, but not having money for strategies, being forced to attack the Ruler territory (by virtue of it having the lowest level which happens sometimes), or not being able to attack anywhere always have the chance to rear their heads, threatening to kill your progress one way or another.

Yet another wrinkle comes in when you realize that the officer cards have been doubled up on and that you have to collect them all.  You'll get all the first runs, more or less, through Campaign Mode, but the Alternate Cards (I say that because they're associated with an Alternate Outfit; the above is Lu Bu in his Dynasty Warriors 6 armor) all have to be earned through Conquest Mode.  Sounds easy, right?  Because if you can only get these cards in Conquest, logic dictates that they're the only ones used, right?  Right?  Not via KOEI logic.  I'd even venture a guess to say that there's an uncommon to rare chance of these alternate officers being in place on the board as, you'll notice there are only seven "Other" officers, meaning there's fourteen Other Officer cards.

I'm missing three because I simply haven't seen the other versions of Zhang Jiao, Zhurong, or Meng Huo.  (Actually, I saw two Zhurongs but couldn't attack either place because their level was too high and could only attack the Ruler territory Meng Huo was in.  Frustrating.)  That sounds fairly harmless if you don't consider that I've run at least a dozen if not slightly less than two dozen Conquest Maps going solely against "Other" because it -should- be the easiest to fill out.  From what I can tell, there's no real way to 'force' the alternates on the board, and even if you could, the above issues would suggest as to why it still wouldn't be a cut-and-dry procedure to mop them all up.  I guess the most damning thing I could say here of the entire system is that you could go into a Conquest Mode map with the specific goals of getting a Marriage pact, a sworn sibling pact, and mopping up some alternate cards and not only walk away without doing any of those things, but walk away without doing any of those things because of the RNG screwing you over.

The worst thing of it all, however, is that it eventually just insists on you not playing at all by employing the horrific Dueling System in every single battle.  It's mildly annoying at least and almost insurmountable at its worst simply because of every single facet of its execution.  I've found that it's very reliant on your equipped weapon (but nothing else), so if you happen into a battle with a character whom you don't have a great weapon for, be prepared for an uphill battle when, not if, you run into your Duel opponent.  Being able to only knock off slivers of health, three or four in a burst, when their health bar comprises of a full bar and a half or even two full bars in an exercise in near-futility, especially when you can be taken out in a single grouping of attacks.  Like hitting them (even accidentally, since some guard breaks will register as a slash because fuck you) when they're blocking, causing a deflect which deals damage and then a guard break which will wreck you because you can't do anything about it.  Or even when they attack you while you're in the middle of an attack.  It happens - I don't know how, but it has happened and it's terrible.

Despite all this, I do still like the game.  I don't regret my purchase at all and even though there's still things I could complain about after all this (namely Coalition Mode.  Long story short - Ad-Hoc Only, required for trophies, impossible to do alone.) I'm glad I own it.  I just hoped for something a little better when all was said and done, but it's new tech and they wanted to play around with existing ideas.  I can always respect that, but still take issue with the execution which I obviously do.  With any luck, the next Warriors game to grace the Vita will kick some of the limitations Next put itself under and shine a little brighter than it for it, but we just won't know til it's out.

Some More Demo Impressions

Looks familiar...

Since there are still quite a few demos up on the store, thankfully, I decided to grab a couple more for the games that I've had my eye on.  There's still some that I haven't gotten, and some that just aren't on yet (Like the Gravity Rush one, -come on- I know it's not out til June but I want it now without resorting to exploiting the other region stores and the method for grabbing their content without a full reformat), but with the four demos I have (on top of the two games I own), I have plenty of content already, not to mention when some more of the games I own digitally become fully compatible.  And when I get PSN SEN Funbucks next.  As it's been described on the Penny Arcade forums, it's quite easy to trip over wonderful things in the store and find yourself having bought and played them for hours before realizing just what happened.  Not in a "this is too easy to buy what the hell, I didn't want it" way, but in a "This is too easy to buy stuff, God I want everything give it all to me" way.

Regardless, Touch My Katamari has a demo up as of last Tuesday and I am all sorts of grateful since I just want to play the game, get a feel for it, before I decide if I want it or not.  And...in all honesty, I think I do.  It's got the same lovely charm, the same level of wackiness, that I grew to expect from Nobi Nobi Boy which was spawned from the same mind, as we know.  And while I would rather still have Nobi Nobi Boy for Vita, Touch My Katamari seems like it'll fit the bill quite nicely in the meantime.  I sort of knew what to do with Katamari anyway, but if I hadn't, there was a handy tutorial included as, well, half the entirety of the demo, so I played that, despite knowing the content already.  It did quite a good job of explaining the finer points of things, especially the new mechanics of stretching the katamari itself.  That simple action proves to be quite useful, despite how simple it sounds.

Then the sole -level- of the demo, pictured above, was quite obviously a simple boys bedroom.  The goal was to make a 15 centimeter Katamari within 2 minutes and anything beyond that was just a self-challenge, I suppose.  It is possibly one of the simplest game concepts I've played, but it works and I can't really describe why.  All I know is that there simply isn't enough in this demo, which I guess is the point, because all I want to do is play more, more, more Katamari.  I want to get back in the level, figure out the best ways to get the objective items (playthings, in the room) and just try and get bigger and bigger Katamaris.  I want to see if I can roll up that swanky looking handheld in my Katamari.  I'm quite surprised at the instinctual -hunger- that the game instills because I pretty much just put it down before I started writing and I find my eyes darting towards it again and again, wondering if I can just maybe glean a little more fun out of that single level of the game.

Dat Texture.

Quite contrary to my experience with Katamari, my time with Modnation Racers was too long if anything.  I spent about twenty minutes messing around with the very limited group of items for both Mod and Kart creation and came up with the above, more or less.  (My Mod ended up having shoes.  Big surprise.)  The Kart I ended up with looked like this which is obviously -very- creative, what with the Christmas Lights on the front.  It was not easy to get to this point of completion as every item requires a touchscreen usage and it's just not all that accurate.  I can't tell you how many times I tapped an option only to have nothing happen, requiring several more touches, pushes and flicks before it registered.  I was less than impressed with the whole experience, as I'm sure you realize by now.

Then I got to the actual racing portion of the game and it was pretty much exactly what I'd feared it would be.  A perfect comparison of the game would be the above image.  Sure, it looks pretty good if you're not looking too close, but the second you actually get in it and look, the poor quality of it springs to the forefront.  The racing is simply....passable.  There's nothing that really makes it shine, nothing that makes it feel interesting and nothing that makes you want to come back to it.  There's no real feel of weight, and I can't quite put my finger on how to use the items I snatch from the middle of the road from spheres and definitely not cubic type things with question marks on them.  In fact, if I try to put my finger on the item I get, the one method of usage you might figure on working, it seems to just convert it into boost energy that I didn't know quite how to use for a few minutes.  In the end, it didn't even matter, as I only came in 4th out of 8, since I discovered that you could, in fact, have up to that many racers in a single match, though not without its downsides.

I'd played the demo before and the only matches I'd done had only 3 AI opponents, both of which races I lost pretty dramatically.  Fourth place both times, so I suppose I can just never break that top three when it counts.  I spent about a full lap in this past race in first, but then some pretty wild slowdown, slowdown I'd never experienced prior to this race with 7 AI opponents, happened I was knocked off my game and dropped down to fifth.  I only managed to pass the fourth place guy in the last stretch, to which I then finished to see my Mod slamming his fists against the steering wheel in frustration.  I could clearly sympathize with him. 

So once again, I have two wildly different experiences with mere chunks of games that the Vita has to offer and I've barely scratched the surface.  Whereas my last two demos were both pretty positive, but for far different reasons, I've finally had an experience I'm not going to remember too fondly.  It had to happen eventually and it doesn't really sour anything but my outlook on the whole of the franchise which wasn't too high anyway.  I think I gave it a fair enough shake, however, having played all three incarnations of it in some fashion.  Hopefully LittleBigPlanet Karting, when it comes out, will have learned from Modnation's mistakes and won't suffer the same short-comings.  I suppose it'll all develop on who is making it, however.  Still, there's hope in my mind!

Sleeping Dogs Gets a Non-Live Trailer

And it works.  Last Month when the Live-Action Trailer for the game came out, I took a metaphorical scalpel to it and analyzed damn near every aspect of it because as a hype agent it was perfect, but as a tool to give anything looking like information about the game itself it was rather poor.  Such is the case with Live-Action trailers after all, which is the point I made and, while this is a story trailer and not necessarily a gameplay one, this will give us at least a -little- more insight than a live-action trailer could ever hope for.  So, in the tradition I've sort of put forth with the first one, let's have a little fun with this one as well, yeah?  Because nothing says true appreciation like taking single moments and elaborating on them for entirely too much time, given that they're mere moments in a game that will likely span in the 30+ hour range.

The very first thing that becomes apparent when you watch the trailer is that extra attention seems to have been paid to the voice work which is always, always welcome.  It seems to take the standard Open-World cutscene approach to showing off the story which is an obvious tried-and-true method at work, so I'm definitely not complaining about that either.  I saw Open-World because the game is obviously going to be an open-world game as, not only were the last True Crime games Open-World (which is how Sleeping Dogs started, you may remember), but it just works for this type of game.  If not immediately apparent from the premise alone, there are quite a few clips that show off walking about and driving and such, which all suggest open-world elements at the very least.

However, one of the things I tried to work out from the live-action trailer was if there would be environmental factors which are always cool if they exist, but a lot of games don't take advantage of them.  However, there might just be a glimpse of such a thing to be found at 0:30 when our main character slams somebody half-into an open furnace.  Brutal, cool, and environmental all in the same - I can dig it if it's true.  If nothing else, the game certainly seems Melee-focused which as we know, I am quite a fan of that, and to back it up, there's several instances of fist-fights going on in ways that seem to be more in-depth than your standard action game "Punch, punch, punch" style.  Limbs breaking, the above mentioned environmental factors (also evidenced at 1:34 where he slams the guy on that barred skylight) as well as weapon usage (the knife directly after the moment above) all seem to be in it as they were in the Live-Action trailer.  This is good.

Of course, gunplay is present as should be expected, and in a perfect world and/or game, having gunplay and melee in a game should mean they're both refined, but neither things exist so we can only hope that the presence of one doesn't downplay the inclusion of the other.  Based on the assault rifle while hanging out of a moving car scene, it likely won't be that complex but it never should be; it's aiming and shooting after all.  The smoothness of the execution is what matters and nothing else.  Speaking of hanging out of a moving car, that would be part of the driving I mentioned though it's possible that he's merely the passenger.  I imagine Hong Kong cars are designed counter to North American standard so he's hanging out the left-side and...just now I see the driver in the right side.  Whatever, I'm leaving that stuff because it's very obvious already that I'm typing this as I watch so it'd be disingenuous to not leave that stuff in.

So let's see.  We already know about the Human Shield element from the screenshots released around the time of the first trailer, this one has hints of an at least semi-deep melee system with environmental elements as well as hints of using weapons in the melee system.  Driving mechanics are almost guaranteed and they do show a variety of vehicles (Motorcycle, Car, Jet ski and/or boat, can't tell what he's jumping out/off of at 1:47) so that's likely in.  Minus a few bits that are still iffy no matter what (Dismemberment mostly, but more environmental stuff as well), this is pretty much the game the Live-Action trailer wanted to show, but in a more spectacular fashion than the game itself could show.  So I suppose in that respect, the live-action trailer certainly did live up to its own hype, or at least it has a real good chance at it.  Definitely worth looking into when it comes out.

Playstation Vita "Game Heaven" Event Is Coming

Pictured:  Some games.  There is actually a point to the picture, as told below.

So, depending on who you ask, one of the 'problems' with the Playstation Vita is the lack of games exclusively for the system, which is kind of just ignoring the wealth of titles the thing already has (for the American launch at least).  Of course, if you focus that a bit and say there's not a whole lot of really 'japanese' games on the system, you're much closer.  Touch My Katamari, the above pictured Dynasty Warriors Next, Shinobido 2, these are pretty much the top titles for Japanese influences, whereas the more popular games, Uncharted:  Golden Abyss, Rayman Origins, and Wipeout 2048, are more Western-focused.  Of course, if you took all the games that are out and separated them, you're likely to get a pretty even divide, but regardless, it's a perceived problem if not a real one which is just as bad as a real one.  Regardless, after March 9th, that issue might be a little bit closer to solved with the Playstation Vita "Game Heaven" Web Presentation, an event that has promised to show off and announce some Playstation Vita titles among other things that are Vita-specific.

Of course, it won't be -just- games, or at least that's what Siliconera says, but include services as well.  I don't comment on services and/or apps a lot, but a little digging found me this bit of information, showing the Nico Nico Douga (sort of like the Japanese answer to youtube) app in motion, while also saying that a future version will allow Video Game Streaming.  I'm sure I've made Points A and B clear here, so I'll just say that I wouldn't be surprised if that comes up in the presentation as a service what is upcoming.  This is a Japanese conference, of course and I should feel the need to point that out first and fore-most, so the majority of the things announced will likely only affect Japan right off, if they affect the other territories at all.  That sort of fell into my lap, however, so I can't really comment on any other sorts of services or the like that I could foresee coming out of this whole thing.  But I'm sure I can make a few ideas for games pop out.  I am generally bad at predictions, but we all know how I just love to try regardless.

Squeenix is likely the first company that anyone's going to think of for this type of thing, and I'd say that it's almost mandatory for them to make an appearance to show something off.  Just as to what they could show off is where the variety kicks in, but there are a few pretty easy suggestions.  The first would be the one that points out just how much Squeenix likes money, as it would be them announcing their intent to remake their PSP Classic titles as Vita games with full consideration for the entire control set available.  This likely won't include Dissidia, Final Fantasy Tactics, or something else that's already on the store, but rather be for things that are notoriously missing (at least in the west, at least).  Crisis Core, Birth By Sleep, Possibly the Star Oceans, I wouldn't be surprised if Type-0 isn't announced for this as well, and that's how we would get the game, of course, rather than as a PSP title.  Sort of the "I can't wait to buy it!  Again!" theory in practice, but damned if it wouldn't work.

Another idea is, obviously, continuing on the Dissidia series on the Vita, since they're content to use the universe for the 3DS as well with Theatrythm.  They did, however, say that future titles in the Dissidia series would probably not use the same format as Dissidia had, so it's not likely to expect a Dissidia 011 or whatever that would be a prequel to the prequel of Duodecim 012 and somehow have more characters like Duodecim had over the original (which was apparently the thirteenth cycle, as Duodecim was the 12th and the less time spent thinking about it the better).  I've thrown around the idea of having an SRPG set in the universe (with far more characters, hopefully) and I honestly think it would be one of the best things that could come from the franchise.  Of course, they could go another route with it entirely ala Theatrythm if they go anywhere with it at all.

If there's any company you'd expect right alongside Squeenix, it's gonna be Capcom, especially because this is a Vita event and Capcom did have a little bit of success with the PSP.  Just a tiny bit, of course.  Facetiousness aside, Nintendo's had their time to shine with the Monster Hunter franchise and Capcom being Capcom will want this thing on as many venues as possible for maximum profit, so an iteration of Monster Hunter, be it an up-ported 3 or just Monster Hunter 4 or -something- is almost guaranteed.  This is honestly not a hard prediction to make, more for the fact that it's more likely to happen than it isn't and if it doesn't happen, I'd suspect Capcom will lose a -lot- of the good-will they've built up, simply because people are just -expecting- a Monster Hunter title for Vita, regardless of whether or not there's going to be one on the 3DS by way of the ridiculous second stick circle pad addition.  All we have for the time in between is Freedom Unite, which while everyone is likely getting a second wind out of it thanks to the Vita's re-mapping feature, it won't last forever.

The last company I'll suggest will be present (though there'll be more than these three, clearly) is gotta be Sega.  They're a little busy working on Yakuza 5 and finishing up Black Panther 2, but I'm sure they can think of something to release on the thing.  It might be a bit too much to hope for a Black Panther collection on the Vita with 2 not even out, but never discount the ways Sega will go out of their way to make you wanna scratch your head in confusion.  Speaking of 'collections', throwing together Valkyria Chronicles 2 and 3 for the Vita is certainly an idea, both games packed with all their post-release stuff as well as being slightly tweaked.  It practically writes itself how profitable a move that could be which, I suppose, would be the exact reason why Sega wouldn't do it, but we can hope at least.  I don't doubt we'll see them there in any event, as they might just show up to show off Samurai & Dragons stuff, but I can always just hope until I can't anymore because, as Yakuza 3 proved, sometimes hope works.

But probably not.