Apparently, This is REVENGEANCE'S NA Box Art

That is what Joystiq has told me today and that's...that's pretty cool.  Box art has been kind of a thing lately, what with the Bioshock Infinite situation and such, so I guess it makes sense to make something of a deal about it for a little while until things sort of taper off and we all go back to not really caring one way or another.  More so than just about any other game I can think of, however, REVENGEANCE'S cover will probably be the one that'll cause the last few ripples if only because it is the cover art for the game that I figure will still end up being even more polarizing than your normal Metal Gear game for the simple fact that REVENGEANCE is not your normal Metal Gear game.  I will never get tired of people who complain about things never changing, everything's a sequel, blah blah, and when something different happens, the same people whine because someone is 'ruining' a franchise by doing something different.  It is the height of silliness, to be sure.

That's pretty much where we're at with REVENGEANCE (no, I am not going to not cap it because it is that awesome) and I don't see that changing....well, ever.  That's kind of a good thing, though, I guess?  If nothing else, it'll keep people talking about it since, if there's something the game will need, it'll be exposure and word of mouth.  Metal Gear Rising won't have the full audience that a Metal Gear Solid title can expect because some of that audience is part of the group all in a huff because it's so different and is ruining the sanctity of the entire franchise and blah blah blah.  To top that, the group that will latch on to this game simply because it's from Platinum Games probably won't be enough to bring it back up to how popular it could be -expected- to be.  So really, the box art here is a lot more important than one might assume from just not really paying a lot of attention to box art.  I know I certainly don't unless I just see something that -really- pops and that's not really a concern lately.

I'm trying to be objective about the cover and I just can't tell if I am succeeding or not, because I just think it's really damn cool looking and I am also fighting off a little sinus trouble or a cold that has my mind all muddled.  It conveys the message that had been broadcast loud and clear since the name "REVENGEANCE" got put at the end - this is an action game about cutting shit.  Like, a lot of it.  In awesome ways.  Like a goddamn Ninja.  Which, coincidentally, Raiden -is-.  I mean, I know that I am biased, which is why I can't say for sure that it's a -good- cover, but I know that I like it and despite being the target audience anyway, I would probably pick this up off a shelf if I saw it and knew nothing of the game.  Hopefully that happens, because I want this game to succeed.  It's one of the handful of games I'm already hyped for next year and that's only going to grow and grow as it draws nearer and nearer.  And as I wonder if I'll still be able to switch my pre-order to the Limited Edition with the lamp.  Because goddamnit, I am making money and I am allowed to be a whore.  So whoring it is!

Wait, shit, that didn't come out right.

Okay, I Really Like Persona 4: The Golden

There's no real qualifiers here, nothing I feel I need to clear up lest I say something wholly positive, and nothing that I feel is muddled in that statement.  I just really like this game.  I can't quite place the why per se, but there is something that is undeniable about Persona 4 that has drawn, kept and cultivated my enthusiasm for the game in a way that Persona 3 just didn't manage to.  I had expected it would, but certainly not to the degree that it has, considering the version of Persona 3 that I played, (Persona 3 Portable) incorporated a lot of improvements from 4 into it.  I had thought that, on a functional level, it would be roughly the same or a similar game at least, and that it would really be up to the story and the characters to sell it to me, but there's entire oceans of depths between the two games in some respects.  That alone is fairly impressive, but it's really just the game itself that has taken me aback.

There's so many damn little touches here and there that improve the overall experience that I can't actually imagine the game, any game like this, without them.  Especially the features in The Golden, as I find myself using Voice and SOS a lot.  For the former, it's good to kind of know a general idea of what might be a good thing to do if I'm not really too up on doing the same thing again and again, or I don't want to 'waste' an afternoon by idly hanging out with someone so that I may hang out with them -again- to actually get a boost.  Whenever possible, I like to make use of the times when I can't gain a rank, but can get some points regardless because there is something in me that desires to maximize my time with the game, even though there is a very real possibility that I will play it again in NG+ the full way through instead of like with P3P where I start one and ragequit because goddamnit Elizabeth, fuck your stupid time-sensitive quests.

The dungeon crawling, which was my most hated part of Persona 3, is much the same in 4, but it manages to not be that bad yet.  I'm not quite sure if it's because the actual dungeons aren't that big themselves, or simply because the design of the levels are a little more interesting uniformly and aren't things that you'll see for forty goddamn floors at the start.  Probably with the later dungeons, but with the first two being 8 and 12 floors respectively, that's certainly quite a short bit of crawling.  Beyond that, the Card Shuffle bit sometimes offers Cup Cards which restore HP/SP and if you're using SOS like I am, you stand to keep your vitals up to an acceptable level without doing too much actual work to do that.  Not that it's easy, of course, as there are still enemies who will wreck your shit if you're unprepared (Goddamn Dice with their Last Resort attack) and the amounts of HP/SP you gain through the mentions methods are drops in a bucket, in all reality.  They help - they don't scratch the itch completely.  Eventually you're going to have to suck it up and down an item or just head off for the night.  But, well, it feels like to me that I get a little bit more accomplished per dungeon trip than you would think, and it never feels really overlong, so I suppose they did something right here.

Beyond that, the characters are actually really enjoyable.  I'm not sure if I prefer anyone on this cast to Junpei and Yukari from 3 (both of whom I have discovered I hold a lot of enthusiasm over only after thinking about 3 because of 4) just yet, but there's nobody I actively dislike aside from the obvious character who I don't even have to name because you know who he is and he is meant to be hated.  Also King Moron.  (You see the joke is that I was obviously referencing him and then suggested it wasn't actually him.  It's bear-ly a jo-goddamnit Teddie)  The scenes so far have all been entertaining in their own right and I haven't really had a "hurrrrgh, just shut up" moment or anything like that.  Really, I'm just kind of waiting on when I'm going to find something in the game that I just hate.  I feel like there -has- to be something, but so far, I'm honestly just turning up nothing.  That's.....that's uncommon to say the least.  But Persona 4:  The Golden is an uncommon game.  Uncommonly good game.

So, I Caved and Subscribed to Music Unlimited

For the last few weeks, a fairly tantalizing offer has been sitting in the windows of the Playstation Store - a rather steep discount for Sony's Music Unlimited service.  When I say steep, I mean steep, in that a year usually costs $60, yet under the sale, a year is going for $12.  Twelve dollars.  Without sounding like a shill, that is a dollar a month for music that I would otherwise likely be too lazy to look up and listen to by other means, as well as being music that I can theoretically 'keep' on my Vita for the next year thanks to the Offline Mode, but I'll get to that in a moment.  As you know, I am a sort of person who often talks himself into spending money on 'value' specifically because lookit dat value and it has backfired in the past, but I don't exactly see that happening here.  At least, not from the very limited exposure I've received today since buying it before the store updated.  (Dunno if it's still available, actually, but I was indeed worried about missing out on it from hm-hawing about.)

I am a man who enjoys his music, I think I have well established that.  What's more is that I believe I have established myself as a man who likes what he likes in music, but certainly isn't averse to looking into things that others may find....questionable at best.  In a sense, just having a whole bunch of music that I haven't particularly listened to in any way at my finger tips seems like the perfect thing for me, or at least, that's what I've thought.  I've just been too lazy, really, to look into anything of the sort, but this was the urging that I needed for that it seems as, even now, I'm listening to the album from The Lonely Island that I haven't gotten around to buying yet simply because I came across an Akon song in one of the Top Lists.  While that's not -exactly- the progression they expect to happen, it did and helped prove the worth of the selection for the month, I suppose, since I am certainly getting more than $1 of enjoyment.

Still, the thing you have to wonder about with a Music streaming service is precisely what music is there to be streamed, since, as is the case with all these sorts of things, there will inevitably be something that you want that is unavailable.  As with Netflix all of one search in, I already hit a blank expanse of disappointment, but this is at least a -little- understandable.  I get that the service probably isn't going to jump on offering K-Pop* music and I don't like it, but I understand.  In all actuality, there is a -little- bit, though, as there's an album of Girls' Generation, as well as an album of like eight versions of "The Boys" which is a little much I think, and I saw a few other names, but the selection for them is barely there, so my intentions of using this as a K-Pop machine have gone up in smoke.  Sure, there's feasibly an entire year for them to partner with some studios and bring some music, but I'm just really doubting that's going to be a thing that happens.  It's a shame, but again, I at least understand this.

In terms of the rest of the music, I haven't sought deep below the surface, but there is at least an alarming amount of perceived content here, so I'm sure I'll find it rather difficult to truly be disappointed by the lack of something integral to me.  In fact, in the last ten minutes I have switched to the Rock & Metal Top 100 and have heard Black Sabbath, Journey and quite a few other bands that make me happy inside.  The few things that are 'obscure' that I know of, I checked and found albums for them as well, so I'm really not sure what to think in terms of holes.  I guess it's a sort of situation where you don't know until you start looking and wreck the whole house of cards, but I haven't done that quite yet and don't really intend to.  I'm much more enticed to simply enjoy what's offered as I further try to figure out the finer touches of the system.  It has only been a day, after all.

I wouldn't say that I'm wrestling with understanding how the whole thing works, but I will say that I'm not quite used to these things, so I am a little confused as to how I can do some things.  Like, you would think as a music thing that only streams music, it should be wholly possible to just back out of it to the LiveArea for it to continue playing music as the Music app does.  But that only works if you're in Offline Mode, I think - there were little hints and tips coming up and I kind of glossed over a lot of them which is proving to be not my finest move.  Still, that -is- a rather lovely thing that Music Unlimited offers - any song you listen to can be added to a Playlist that you can set to be "Offline" which basically means you can listen to the songs in that Playlist anytime.  Riding on a bus?  You can listen to it.  Stuck in some place with no wi-fi signal?  You can listen to it.  Your internet shit the bed because you have a goddamn awful ISP that you hate with a passion that burns in such a way that the heavens themselves shrink in abject terror?  You can listen to these songs.  More importantly, you're just doing other shit on your Vita?  Yeah.  Those songs.  You can listen to them.

I imagine there is also a way that you can listen to music that is actively being streamed maybe, but it's not so much a concern as you can just pre-load a playlist with things that you want to listen to and then...well, listen to those songs while you do whatever it is that would otherwise keep you from being inside the actual Music Unlimited app.  Something to note is that, despite saying "Music", there are other things that are offered on audio CDs, such as Comedy routines (Stand-up acts, I mean, live ones generally) from a few well-known folks such as the late George Carlin, Brian Regan, Chris Rock, (the also late) Mitch Hedberg and etc. etc.  That was a pleasant surprise to say the least and will likely continue to justify the cost of entry for quite a while.  Which, for what it's worth, I believe I've found my $12 worth here, so if you're interested in a music streaming service and want to attempt something like this, I'd certainly recommend it.  Hopefully I am not jinxing myself on it, but it's not really given me problems so far and has, in fact, given me enjoyment instead!

*yes, the first thing I looked for was something K-Pop.

shut up, Haplo

Well, This is Unfortunate

Apparently this has been a -thing- that the net has known about for a little bit, but I personally didn't really start hearing about it until yesterday, or rather this morning when I was laying in bed, unable to sleep despite it being three goddamn thirty in the morning when I needed to be up in mere hours.  I didn't think too much of it because surely, it had to be a silly, incorrect thing, right?  Something that is way beyond oversight as this to the point of being intentionally dumb can't actually be a thing, yes?  Well, it -is- a thing, but skimming under the surface shows that it's not completely 'intentionally dumb' as it is Nintendo being super-duper ultra-over-cautious as only Nintendo can be.  Or....just unfortunate as Nintendo usually is not.  I'm not quite sure about what's actually the case here.

'What's the issue already?', I know you're saying.  Well, the issue is that European Wii U owners can only download M-Rated Games in the middle of the night.  The whole of Europe.  The window is between 11 PM and 3 AM, and those are the -only- hours in a day that you can spend towards downloading an M-Rated (18+ Rated over there) game onto your shiny new Wii U console.  Given that said games are...rather large and that's generally not a feasible amount of time, it's a major, major problem for people who are looking to eschew disks in favor of over-large external hard drives that have to be externally powered or something like that - I don't remember but it's kind of dumb.  So, at face value, what that means is that in the entirety of Europe, you're only allowed to download 18+ games, such as ZombiU and Assassin's Creed 3 at those few wee hours in the dark of night which basically means unless you have patience and a super-duper internet connection, you're pretty much -not- going to get to buy and download those games.

That is, of course, really really bad.  The first instinct is to wonder just what the -hell- Nintendo is thinking with that one, and, well, they're thinking in terms of the law, which I guess is pretty smart.  You see, across the whole of Europe, there's all sorts of various restrictions on entertainment content, be it video games or movies or etc. and king of them all in terms of restrictions is Germany.  For years now, it's been kind of hard, if not impossible, to provide Germany with a lot of things directly, in terms of the digital space, and this is no different.  Still, those restrictions tend to just focus on Germany, since it's Germany's law, so what's the deal?  Well, the deal is that Nintendo of Europe operates out of, you guessed it, Germany.  The unfortunate matter of these types of things is that Law is generally sovereign based on where you operate from, if I'm not mistaken, which is precisely why the whole of Europe is affected.  Since Nintendo of Europe operates from Germany, it, as a whole, has to abide by Germany's laws, insanely restrictive as they might be.

In a sense, this isn't really Nintendo's fault, but at the same time, this is going to do only negative things for them overall.  The bare fact of the matter is that, basically, you cannot buy 18+ games digitally on a Wii U, which, given that this is Nintendo's attempt at appealing to the demographics that felt left out with the Wii, poses a real issue.  The big mainstream titles they're looking to pipe through like the mentioned Assassin's Creed 3 and other things like the various Call of Duty games are thus inaccessible to a percentage of the market which is something you don't want to happen.  Especially on the digital side of things since Nintendo and the various companies involved stand to make a little more off of those copies rather than the physical ones out there.  At the same time as this is just Nintendo adhering to the laws that they have to follow, these aren't new laws by any means, and you would think that at some point during development of the Wii U with its big, bad internet focus, they would...sort of think about this sort of thing at any point.

Overall, I think this is just telling of Nintendo's whole state with the entirety of the Wii U's launch.  You really get the feeling that they just weren't ready for this, and I worry that they actually rushed it out of the gate to ensure they got a head start on Sony and Microsoft.  The move will pay off a little simply for the fact that it's Nintendo, but it certainly is proving with each passing day that it might not have been the wisest move and will likely cost them a bit more than it could've gained them in the long run.  It's just been a rocky launch for the Wii U and it's all-but eaten away at Nintendo's perceived console durability since the Wii U is certainly not made of 'Nintendium' as it were.  There are more than a few flaws with the device, and more than a few instances of failures, both small and on the large scale (hardlocks/freezes to absolutely bricking in noticeably large quantities) and one can only hope that if they'd perhaps waited a little longer, it would've been a better machine overall for the short term and long term both.  I guess we'll never really know, and I just hope that Nintendo will be able to fix the issues that exist before it's too little, too late.

The Last Of Us Has Confirmed Multi-Player

When you're announcing something, there's generally three ways it comes out:  1.)  You just say "Hey, this is happening" with some sort of aplomb or spectacle, 2.)  You -try- to say "Hey, this is happening" with some sort of aplomb or spectacle but some sort of promo material or leak steals your thunder or 3.)  You just sort of mention it casually, presumably with a little grin on your lips as you do so.  The third method is not often employed, and when it is, it's actually really kind of effective at disseminating a bit of information more than actually making a spectacle of it would be, since, with an off-hand mention, you're ensuring people are going to pick up on it more intently as if they've discovered a really obscure little fact or something.  I say all this because this is what happened with The Last of Us - multi-player was announced in the Playstation Blog Post that offers a new trailer, a re-affirmation of the release date which is May 6th, 2013 and the reveal of both pre-order bonuses.

The first pre-order bonus pack, the Sights and Sounds Pack as it's called, is going to be available everywhere, it seems, and simply includes the Official Soundtrack (presumably as a download), a dynamic theme and two avatars, one each of our main characters Joel and Ellie.  The other pack, the Survival Pack you see above, is set to be a GameStop exclusive as a bonus to the Sights and Sounds Pack (so pre-ordering at GameStop nets you both) and focuses primarily on the not-yet-mentioned Multiplayer modes that...continue to be not mentioned.  From the items in the pre-order flyer, we can assume it's likely going to be something like the Uncharted MP, but possibly with less Deathmatch (or maybe the same amount of Deathmatch because squads of survivors are out there as trailers have shown) and because if it isn't broke, you don't fix it.  Uncharted's MP is certainly not broke and, if I had more time, I would likely spend quite a bit of time with it, but I just do not as I've lamented here several times.  But if you don't believe me about the MP just being mentioned off-handedly and don't care to click the link, then hey, here's a quote for you:

Multiplayer, wha? We’re not quite ready to talk about it yet, but stay tuned as we’ll be revealing more details on multiplayer before The Last of Us is released on May 7th, 2013.

That, of course, suggests that there just might be a little more to the whole MP onion than we know of, which is a really intriguing thing.  I could sit here and ponder of all the different things that could really be possible, but I'm not...not really going to do that.  Since there will either be cooperative MP against Platforming/Puzzles, Cooperative MP against waves of AI, or various modes of Deathmatch or some combination thereof.  We've really more or less exhausted the well of just -how- you keep people who are playing a video game on the internet interested in continuing to play a game on the internet, and those three options are pretty much the stand-outs.  Mostly because they are in every single game that has multiplayer in its own way, from Assassin's Creed which sort of re-invented the wheel to fit its own mold to Call of Duty which has turned it into a refined, near-game all its own, to Mass Effect which was sort of the last series you would expect to get MP within its casing.  What with being a Shooter-RPG with a single-player focus and everything.

If anything, it's just what 'twist' on the existing formulas the game offers that makes it something stand-out.  As stated, Assassin's Creed took it and ran with it in its own direction - giving you the single-player focused character feel and turning it on its head as everyone had that as well, in game modes that actively tried to get you to not act as you do when you play Single-Player.  You're still killing mans for points at the end of the day, but the line between Point A and Point B bends and swerves in all the different places than most others attempt, and that's what made it stand out.  Call of Duty's twist is that there really -is- no twist - it's simply meant to be a very polished, very refined experience and generally lives up to that with the odd exception here or there.  The line for it from Point A to Point B is very straight, but lined with all the best, so to speak, which makes it its own beast.  So, much as most things in life, it more or less boils down to what is essentially semantics - not what you say, but how you say it.

My own personal hope is that the game sort of takes a page from another popular game that I won't really mention because I am being cryptic or something, and focuses more on survival in its MP.  Not survival from enemies, be they AI or Player primarily, but simply survival from the environment I suppose.  The game has already shown off a crafting system to create a few things like molotov cocktails and the like made from random supplies and I imagine that could be extended to other things.  Things like torches and fires to keep warm, meals to eat and the like.  A multiplayer mode in which you simply try to out-live another individual with or without direct contact with them seems intriguing enough, really, and it would likely involve the trappings of enemies whether they're just scavengers or those strange mutants from the first trailer.  Regardless, I doubt I'll be disappointed by the MP because I'm not looking forward to it as much as I am the single player campaign.  That's what we know of and that's what's exciting and, for all intents and purposes, that's all I really care about.  May simply cannot come fast enough.

Technical Difficulties

If only this said Technical Difficulties instead of Art Director.  Would be perfect.  Is that bad?

So, I have been playing Persona 4:  The Golden lately.  I have been enjoying it a lot.  I tried to convey that in words tonight and it didn't work out at all.  In fact, I've tried to convey a lot of things in words here lately and just haven't been able to manage it.  I have no less than three blog posts in my head that refuse to siphon themselves through my fingertips and it's the height of frustration.  I'm trying to work through it, but it's not working perfectly just yet.  So with that, I'll just have to ask that you bear with me while I try to work through this latest funk in the series of funks this year has provided.  I'll figure out something here eventually and then everything will be hunky-doory.  In the meantime, friggin' buy Persona 4:  The Golden if you haven't already.  Seriously.  Believe the hype in this one, because it does not disappoint.

Early Persona 4: The Golden Impressions

I haven't played a lot of Persona 4:  The Golden, but that's mostly because the start of the game, moreso than Persona 3, I believe, is a lot of talking and cutscenes and making sure you go this way and that way.  The actual 'game' part, where you can go around and do whatever you want to do unrestrained, is something that I've finally gotten to a handful of hours in (admittedly some of it is idle time) and it's fresh and new, but familiar all the same.  Familiar even though I have not once played Persona 4 prior to The Golden, despite having bought Persona 4....like when it came out.  I believe back then I told myself I would only play it after I beat Persona 3 which I was going to play after I played something else, and well, you all know how that kind of thing goes.  It was only with Persona 3 Portable and my Vita that I was able to fell the JRPG beast that is Persona 3, and it's only fitting that I similarly tackle the new behemoth on the very same platform - especially with the enhancements The Golden has to offer.

Of course, having never -played- Persona 4, said enhancements are often fairly hard to spot and it's only with very careful counsel skimmed from the internet that I have a rough idea of what is new.  Aside from what is very blatantly new, of course, such as the SOS system.  It is blatantly new because, well, even though the PS2 had internet capabilities of a sort, I'm sure Persona 4 didn't make use of them.  I find myself wondering about the SOS system as well - it's neat in concept and theory and I'm willing to say execution as well, but there's still something off about it.  Basically what it is, if you haven't already experienced it or read up on it yourself, is whenever you're in a dungeon, you can hit the SOS button in the upper left corner of the screen.  Doing so sends a broadcast over the network that will, in turn, bring up help requests on the screens of other dungeon dwellers.  Those people can choose to tap the "Send aid" button (which is just there, doesn't pause the game or anything like that) and if they do that before you enter your next battle, you will receive a nominal HP/SP refill before it gets underway.  And I mean nominal like 10 HP, 8 SP total for a few people aiding you.  So don't -rely- on it for your HP and SP needs, but hope that it'll be a nice little bonus to help you out.

Similarly, the function that I believe is just referred to as "Voice" is an ability to get a little tip about where others who are playing the game have gone when faced with the same situation as yourself outside of a dungeon.  So, on April 21st, if you want to have an idea of some things you can do in the evening, you hit the voice button (where the SOS button is in a dungeon) and it'll bring up a mess of bubbles stating different actions.  Some people read a book, some people studied, and others just went straight to bed.  This is particularly helpful for someone who hasn't played the game before since, well, at times I've been informed of things I can do already in the limited experience I've put in the game.  "Oh, someone talked to Marie?  Yeah, I suppose I -can- do that, hadn't even thought of it."  "Someone studied?  Hrm....why?" and then I walked to the library, talked to the girl outside of it who informed me that studying on rainy days meant you could receive a higher bonus from increased concentration.  Seeing as I'd already read the "increase Knowledge gain from studying" book, that was a no-brainer (huuuurrrrr) and three Knowledge bonuses later, that little edging in a direction proved to be a good one.

Newness aside, The Golden feels familiar because it takes a lot from Persona 3 and refines it, not drastically changing a lot of it.  As Persona 3, you spend quite a bit of time -outside- of dungeons and what you do there matters almost as much as what you do in dungeons, if not matters equally so.  Social links are the name of the game, and you'll want to do whatever you can to build them up unless you're more interested in bettering yourself so you can, in turn, get -more- Social Links.  There's no wrong answer here - just whatever works for you since you'll inevitably have to do your heavy lifting on a New Game + unless you want to meticulously follow a guide to a T.  That's never much fun, so it's really not recommended of course.  I do see how experience with Persona 3 has affected my experience with 4 already, however as, even though a lot of 4's improvements saw their way into Persona 3 Portable, there's many more that didn't and I can appreciate those for what they are.  Beyond that, I'm familiar with how the game works, so I don't need to stress out over Social Links and such as I did with 3 - I can simply relax and enjoy the game as it comes.

At the moment, I'm simply interested in actually getting into the meat of the game as I'm still entirely too early on in it.  I've started unlocking some Social Links and exploring them and I have a renewed reason to dungeon crawl again after the initial on, but it's still all introductory.  The time where I find myself overwhelmed with choice still hasn't dawned and that's the point where I'm looking forward to it most, since it'll ensure that I don't have to worry about figuring out something to do, more that I'll simply have to decide what I need to do of everything available.  I want to find out what my protagonist (named Masamune Noboru btw, Last/First) is like after answering enough of the (sometimes silly, as you see above) social link responses and otherwise, and after enough of day-to-day activities.  Not to mention the learning of the finer points of the rest of the cast along the way since I'm assuming that's going to be 4's strength as it was one of 3's.  To that end, I think it's time to hop back into the Castle and slay some more shadows, as money for weapons and armor is not just appearing in my pockets any faster by not doing that.