My First Impression of Killzone: Mercenary

Killzone: Mercenary is a First-Person Shooter for the Playstation Vita that just came out yesterday in the U.S. There is a campaign mode with 9 unique missions that you must complete to finish the game. There is also the multiplayer which allows up to 8-players to face each other or work in teams. The modes in the game are Mercenary Warfare mode, Guerrilla Warfare, and Warzone--you can tell how much effort they put into naming these different online modes. The first one is a free-for-all style mode. You basically are tasked with killing everyone. The second mode is team a death match mode. The last one is an objective based game with 5 phases. Both single and multiplayer share a common element, the weapon shop. Here, you can purchase new guns, armors, grenades, and special items. With these purchased items, you can customize your loadouts. You gain more loadouts by gaining new levels during your playthrough. This game shares the same basic elements of most FPS games.

My first impression of this game has been positive. If there was one thing that truly stuck out at me, it's the detail and overall graphics in this game. No lie, they are really good. This game demonstrates the capabilities of the Playstation Vita amazingly. There's not one game that I can think of that looks this good right now--I do think it looks better than Rayman and the Ateleir games. Once you see the game yourself, you will understand why I say this is what sticks out in the game. Not the great gameplay, but the graphics.

The selection of weapons is pretty grand for a portable game too. I wasn't expecting so many customizable weapons, armor, grenades, or vault items. It's too bad that you only get a few loadouts, because the amount of customization begs for more. The guns in this game are really fun to use. Right now, I am experimenting the preorder weapon, and man, do I love raining hell on opponents with it. Also, The sniper--which uses the back controller to zoom in and out--is tough to use. The machine guns are as expected and so is everything else.

So far, the multiplayer has been running amazing. It might be due to the limited amount of players allowed in a game, but it's noticeable the difference in quality. I have not once seen slow down in the game. The connection is running well for me too. I haven't been booted from a game yet! And lastly, getting into a game doesn't take a year. It's a few seconds and you are in.

This game is easy to control. One thing I worried about in this game was the controls and how they would respond. I am not disappointed. Once I adjusted my x-axis, I had no problems playing the game. Killzone also makes use of the touchscreen and the back controller pad. I typically select my secondary weapon and grenades with the screen. The back controller pad is used for zooming with the rifles as far as I know. really, the controls in this game are fantastic and easy to use. 

Basically, I have a favorable first impression of this game. If you have a Playstation Vita, I would recommend picking this game up as soon as you can.

Monday's Gaming Post: BlazBlue and How DLC Sucks

Geez, I honestly don't have much to post today. My day consisted of applying to jobs I will never hear back from and playing BlazBlue on the Playstation Vita. That reminds me, you can download BlazBlue for free if you are a Playstation Plus member still. It's an amazing fighting game that I keep getting my ass kicked in. I am doing better, but it's going to be an uphill battle. The variety of characters and their unique styles of fighting really shows that Arc Systems put a great deal of time into making an excellent game. There are so many options to choose from. I find myself always selecting network and ranked match, only to be disappointed by my abilities in this game.

In other news, apparently data is showing that Halo 4's DLC is not keeping players engaged in playing. If you look at these charts, you can see a drastic dip of hours logged into this game. I am not really surprised by this. What keeps players engaged is a great game. Look at Halo 3 for instance. It may have had DLC, but what kept players coming back was an incredible and basic multiplayer. There were no superpower ups that you attach before battle like Bro of Duty, you just went out there and kicked some newbs ass while Teabagging them and telling them how much sex you had with their mother. DLC is only good if it adds to the game tremendously like Blood Dragon did for Far Cry 3 or Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen expansion did. Making DLC for stupid stuff will not keep gamers engaged in your product. I mean, the spartan missions were the same thing every time, so the lack variety did kill it a little bit. The point is, if you are going to make DLC engaging, it has to be ridiculously awesome to the 10th power.

That's it for today, happy gaming.

Quick Post

As I wait for this rain delay to be over for the Mets vs. Yankees game, I find myself surfing the web for new videogame news. Well, it's slow out there and probably due to the E3 show coming soon in June. 

It seems like this E3 will be a big show case for the PlayStation Vita. It's about time the system started picking up the pace. The lack of games that I haven't beaten is killing me. I am sure Dragon's Crown will have some play time. I also read Koei will be show casing two games that will get a Western release, nice!

Anyway, it's a slow blog day for me--yesterday too--and I don't have much more to share that you probably haven't already read. Back the Mets and Ni no Kuni.

Ys: Memories of Celceta and Why I am Excited

Ys: Memories of Celceta is a re-imaging of the two Ys: IV games, Dawn of Ys and Mask of the Sun set to be released in September. If you are unfamiliar with either of these games, don't worry since both versions never made it out West and both versions came out in the early 1990's. Thanks to XSEED, we will now have the opportunity to play Falcom's retelling of these tales. The basic premise of the story follows Adol Christin and his exploration of the Celceta forest.

I can't lie, I am really excited that this game will be localized. The Playstation Vita is lacking in localized rpg games and I feel it's suffering because of it. So far, the Vita only has PSP rpgs and Persona 4: Golden. That isn't enough to quench my thirst for epic tales and experience grinding. I am aware that the PSP has some awesome rpgs to play, but I want to see the Vita's full potential being used on new games here. If this game does well in the West, I think it will open up a door to more game releases here. It might make these game companies give up on holding their reservations about releasing games here.

I will leave this post with some images of the game for you guys to look at.

Summer 2013 of Gaming

It's a beautiful, allergenic May with summer being around the corner. This summer will mark the last push of this era's consoles before the new ones kick into full steam. We will most likely see the end of the Nintendo Wii and  DS's game lineup as Nintendo moves forward with the Wii U and 3DS. We will see Sony and Xbox push an avalanche of big titles before their new systems come out for the holiday season. It's going to be a hectic and awesome summer of gaming. My intention over the next few blog post is to blog about my expectations of Summer 2013 in gaming.

Soul Sacrifice Demo: My Impressions

I was left with a choice in this game. Do I sacrifice or save this tainted wizards life? I had made my choice and sacrificed him to gain new destructive powers. I was ready to continue to the next mission, no matter how brutal the next encounter will be on my character. I was armed with mostly ice spells and healing spells to tear my opponents up. I knew the next battle would be brutal.

It actually was pretty hard. It took me a solid 17 minutes to take down the Giant Harpy. Oh yeah, this giant harpy had a fat woman's face. No, this was not part of the main stories harpy either but a trials boss. I had used up a lot of my spells before this beast went down. I was basically clinging on to life thanks to my A.I. allies. Things definitely got harder after that because I had to take down a Cerberus and it's tough. I had to use up all my magic, burn my skin for a really powerful spell. and sacrifice an ally just to beat this monster. If the rest of the game pans out like this, I am going to be in for a fun nightmare.

My overall impression of the game has been positive. I am enjoying the Monster Hunter-esqe feel to the game without it actually being Monster Hunter. I am loving the fast pace, magic slaughter-fest this game brings to the Vita. I like that I can choose to go all ice or fire based magic but still use the similar basic magic as other elemental wizards. The magic is pretty unique and if timed perfectly, can be pretty devastating to the monsters. I also like the aesthetics in this game. The colors--even though a darker tone--are very vivid and the costumes are fashionable for a videogame. I can even tell the difference between my character and another person's character during battle. The worlds are beautifully crafted and the enemies are fearsome looking. I find the detail in this game to be A+ material for a handheld. Finally, the controls respond well. I honestly had no problems attacking or moving my character around. I just wish they would add a jump button to this game. Here is hoping for one in a future update

This game has so far reeled me in. I am enjoying this more than most games I have played in recent memory. I find it to be a great alternative to Monster Hunter if you are into faster moving battles. The full game comes out April 30th so be prepared to be sacrificed!