So I couldn’t play the game…not a good start, but I’ve had worse. To be perfectly honest I knew it would happen, the BETA was so unpolished and needed more work to be truly complete…but now its becoming a Battlefield thing. Each and every game simply sucks until about 1.4 patch.

Anyway I have had a good crack at multiplayer and finished single player in one sitting to make sure it would crash, so I will do this review in two parts.

But first a quick background on what the game is:

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is the typical Modern Warfare world saving sort of game. A pitched battle between super powers, the Russians and the US…every Americans wet dream. Unfortunately EA have not quite figured out that the rest of the world doesn’t really like the US marines and special forces all that much which is why Soap and Price from the Modern Warfare series were received so well.

In true Battlefield tradition this game is set over large battlefields in most cases and makes use of stationary guns, tanks, planes, helicopters, road vehicles etc. It’s not the usual Modern Warfare troop conflict which I both like and dislike…the idea to me of “battlefield” combat is that you realise that you are simply a small part of a war machine…however when this game puts you in the troop combat position you become Ramirez, the guy that has to do EVERYTHING.

If you have played any Battlefield game mixed with any modern warfare game then you will feel comfortable in how to play.

Single Player:

As said before, I had to complete the Single player game in one hit to make sure I could finish it and to be honest I was disappointed. Firstly I played on low graphics as I always did on the BETA because it means you load twice as fast as every other person in the game in MP and thus you get the tanks/UAV at the start. However there is only one setting for both MP and SP so I had to change it for both to get SP to full graphics…but who cares…my point is: Play on high graphics…its about ten times better than low, its actually amazing.

Premise: You are an elite combat force promoted to a spec-ops position on the Battlefield due to your deeds in combat. You have to traverse the world and infiltrate enemy territory to gain control of a weapon that utilises EMP technology that will basically knock out the entire power grid from the US and allow the Russians to invade. In the famous words of Robin Williams: “DE JA FUCKING VU!” We did all this shit in Modern Warfare 2! What the hell?!

Unfortunately unlike MW2 your “elite” force consists of four all-American blokes which makes for a frustrating American propaganda game. You have the cliche Texan (although not fat), the token black Sergeant, the nerd guy that talks to much and the unsung hero known as Marlowe who you play as. Somehow you are four normal soldiers that can simply “adapt” to become amazing spec ops units that can save the “world” (I shit you not, you are only there to save the US but each time they mention it they talk about “the world”).

You travel into various locations around the world and make assaults on key locations to gain information about this “world/US” destroying technology. About the only thing I enjoyed with the entire single player campaign is the Helicopter pilot who was just hilarious.

Anyway gameplay time.

It is shit…well…the first half was fun, getting into it all…but it was so frustrating that it became shit…no matter how good the firefights were. Let me tell you this, play on easy mode. I played on normal mode which is apparently for “experienced” players…which I definitely am. Problem is, the difficulty curve is out of this world. In the initial missions the only thing that could kill you was heavy MG’s, in the later missions you were being triple head shotted by guys you couldnt see.

You can have at all times two main guns as well as various tools like C4 (which never gets used) and a Gustav RPG. The thing is, in games like MW you have to strategically use guns. Typically you keep your preferred weapon as well as an enemy weapon of sorts to make sure you never run out of ammo. In this game ammo is EVERYWHERE. You will NEVER run out no matter what you do so just pick your favourite weapon of choice and take an RPG as your second weapon so that you can destroy tanks, buildings and walls.

I’m going to give you one piece of advice here: Take the QBU-88 T88 semi-auto sniper rifle with red dot sights. It kills everything in one shot, is supremely accurate and can be used like a shotgun. I used it from about 1/3rd the way in all the way to the end because it was so damned easy to use.

As I said before the whole of the single player campaign is cliche American “trooper” propaganda where they try make “heros” but end up making retards. Here is a classic example: “Bravo two (my squad), there is some heavy artillery about to rain down on your location, I tried to delay them as much as I could but they’re beginning to fire”, “Oh shit sarge! Thats where the guy we need is!”, “Well lets go get him”.

You then procede to literally run through an artillery shelling…

Then about an hour later the Sergeant is like: “I’m too old for this shit I was supposed to retire, I have two kids, wife etc…oh! mortar bombing?! RUN THROUGH IT LOL!”

I kid you not…its stupid. In fact, if you play it learn this: After the mortar bombings…everything becomes insanely hard for no reason.

Time to talk about AI. There is none. Your team mates cant hit anything and when they do, it does little to no damage. So in effect your squad is entirely useless in every form of the word. If you dont do things in order like clear an area before moving on, you will come across a vast array of bugs. I came across dead ends because I didn’t trigger a movie, I came across invulnerable enemies as I needed to trigger an event before they could die, I got stuck in buildings as I waited for my teammates to shoot and kill one guy in open ground. It was highly annoying. Not to mention that your teammates dont move smoothly, they simply teleport around the battlefield as you advance. In one of the inital missions I got pinned down by two rpg’s, a heavy MG and about six guys with rifles but my squad hadn’t triggered the “move up” command yet so just stood in safety around the corner.

RAGE OMG SRSLY WTF?!

You will come across impossibly hard missions even on normal mode, like the truck stealing mission…the only way I could get through it was to spam grenade launcher at everything that moved while they had RPG’s and heavy MG’s returning fire killing me either instantly or in two to three hits, it was rubbish unnecessarily frustrating. Apparently I am to think of it as a “challenge” when simply put it was just stupidly hard.

So I dont think I’ll go into the single player more, in a word it was frustrating. The difficulty curve was all over the place and the story didnt make sense, not to mention the all-American HOOAH-ness of it all which no one bar Americans cares about.

Multiplayer:

In all honesty I got this game purely for the multiplayer. Unfortunately however it retains many of the bugs that the BETA had, the rego is still dodgy, searching for servers still takes forever, video lag still exists even on highend systems, crashes, no “hold” on ironsights – only toggle. However the core gameplay carried on through and the multiplayer is still hugely intense and fast paced and I love it.

I raised a point in my BETA impressions post that your level pretty much told you were you would be on the scoreboard. In MW you could still top a score board with low level perks and guns like the M16 with penetrating rounds or something, in BC2 you will struggle. We take in a squad of four experienced guys, usually two medics, one assault and one engineer and we all work together on vent but one high level guy will simply have too much cool stuff for us to be useful against him. I came across a medic with flak jacket and full level LMG, I unleashed about 30 bullets into him close range and he simply turned around and shot me dead…and walked off. So my point here is, expect to suck. Once you start getting unlocks you will get better.

The one level we have come to enjoy (I have forgotten the name) starts as a beach assault on small islands and ends up in your team assaulting up and over a large hill. The battlefield is littered with stationary weapons and vehicles and it is small…so the fighting gets REAL intense which makes the game so worth it.

There are many types of Multiplayer gameplay most of which you would expect but the game lacks in proper team management so most of the time you will be against a stacked team…which sucks.

Quick outline on the game types:

Rush: 16v16 match on a large battlefield where the attackers must smash through the defenders and destroy communications stations and force the enemy back. Typically the assaulting force will have the best firepower to start with but by the end the defenders will have some serious fire support to aid them.

Squad Rush: 4v4 troop combat without vehicles. Similar type to Rush but involves much more squad orientated combat, you need to work together to advance/defend.

Conquest: Typical capture and hold mission. Whoever holds the most points will force the enemy tickets down meaning they have to move harder and faster to gain the points back. This gametype involves a LOT of stealthy flanking missions which will drive you nuts when you’re on defence.

Squad Deathmatch: Squads of 4 will get together and battle it out for kills until they reach a kill limit, simple combat and usually has one light vehicle for a single squad to command.

I’ll keep talking if I’m not careful so I had better cut myself short here. Essentially if you’re going to get the game, get it purely for the multiplayer and make sure you are prepared to stick it out and put time into it as you will get sick of having crap weapons. If you can, try organise to play with friends on vent/TS as this not only makes the game a lot more fun, it also allows you to make tactics on the fly. The guys I play with (budda and co) always proves funny. Budda causes havoc, especially when he tries to fly, Gamgee is the pub hero who just wins all the time, Fairy rages too much, Fredzz is a good team player though

See you all on the battlefield!

Game gets 8/10, Multiplayer is buggy but really fun, stuff the single player.

As most of you know by now, I love me a good RPG and I hate me a bad console to PC port. The original Mass Effect had me raging due to its console-ish feel and its supreme bugginess that basically made the game completely unplayable unfortunately.

But dammit, I’m a sucker for torture…so I got Bioware’s Mass Effect 2 for the PC

Two words: Fucking Love.

At 11gbs unpacked, I had high hopes for this game content-wise and it didnt disappoint. Lets do this in an orderly fashion:

Story:

When it comes to RPG’s, you expect a solid story with unique gameplay to back it up. If it fails at achieving this then its simply not worth playing (obviously).

Mass Effect 2’s story can be a wee bit dodgy and thin at times but mostly it holds strong. A quick summary is as follows (spoilers inside):

You are the Legendary Human “Commander Shepard” who led the assault against the now infamous Geth in Mass Effect 1. Some time after the first story you are floating through space in your ship the “Normandy” when suddenly some half asteroid/half ship appears belonging to what are known as the “Collectors” which are a forcefully evolved ancient Prothean race. The collecters blast you clear out of the sky but most of your crew escapes through escape pods, Shephard however is not so lucky.

You are killed.

A company who’s sole focus is the dominance of humanity in the galaxy appears and spends a fortune reviving you back to health by basically turning you into some sort of super-human android. The company is led by an individual known as the “Illusive Man” who is fucking awesomely acted. Seriously, out of all the conversations I had in this game, the ones with the Illusive man were the best. The Illusive man needs Shephard to gain a team to take back the Galaxy from the threat of the “Collectors” who are harvesting human colonies.

And away the fights go.

Combat:

At first the combat sucks, its tedious, boring and does not add anything to the game. Enemies have a combination of Health, Armour and Shields. It is up to you to tactically decide in battle which ammo types, powers and guns you and your team should be using to try combat the diversity of the enemies. Its frustrating as you run out of ammo on the guns you like and are forced to use guns you dislike just to get through a mission.

Oddly enough, the game gives you the option of focusing on “tech” (engineer powers), “biotic” (Force powers) or “Combat”…but the combat is almost useless, you increase the damage on your guns…FOR WHAT?! The assholes have shields, your super powered heavy pistol is USELESS until you remove it…its hugely frustrating as you have about 25 shots only on your pistol before you run out of ammo if you are unlucky and dont get any ammo drops.

I have not tried “tech” gameplay simply because I never used tech teammates and I was a Biotic specialist myself so I really cant speak for the gameplay there. The powers I granted myself was some teleport leap at the enemy to get me nice and close and powered up guns (I was a class known as a “Vanguard”). Here lies the biggest flaw in the game I played. I could teleport at the enemy, presumably so I could nail the pricks with heavy pistols and shotguns…but NOOOOO! Shields stop pistol and armour stops shotgun, you have to change guns in melee range against 3-4 enemies with more spawning to kill them efficiently…so Bioware…Why oh why did you make such a useless skill.

I look to Halo (God forbid) for a good example here, if you cant kill an enemy with the guns you have, you simply go and get bigger guns. Sure you could be more stealthy and go snipe him for a bit, but its preferable to shot him with rockets and then get nice and close and blast the shit out of him with shotgun. Its tried and tested combat…if people want to be a brute, let them be a brute…let them have dickloads of ammo and big guns but no powers…its their choice.

The biotic powers are kinda fun to start with but turn out to be game winners by the end. In the end I maxed out loyalty on Miranda to get her “Slam” biotic attack. Couple that at heavy level 4 with heavy level 4 shockwave and I didnt use ammo at all in the final mission…Husks die one hit and the end-game collectors died one hit or were knocked of the edges…it was too easy. So max out dem biotics…especially Slam and Shockwave…Slam for many enemies scattered as its spammable and shockwave to hit those spawns coming in.

The Ship:

The “Normandy” (rebuilt by Cerberus to keep players happy) is deceptively large as once you get in it, its rather small. But its still large enough to keep you entertained without making travel between crew mates tedious. It looks amazing and has some cool features like when you walk from the main floors terminals around the side, it will change the image in the centre from a galaxy map to a ship map…its neat and really adds to the atmosphere.

Dont get fish either, you need to feed them or they die apparently…

Anyway, you use the Normandy as your home and its your battlestation, your upgrade centre, your personnel carrier, your miner and your mission centre. Lets talk about mining:

What you can do in this game is fly to planets all over the show in various systems throughout the Milky Way galaxy and essentially scan them for 4 minerals that you require to upgrade your ship, guns and equipment. Element Zero, Iridium, Platinum and Palladium. Palladium is by far the easiest to obtain, and Element Zero is an absolute asshole to find. Heed this advice, when you come to upgrade, don’t upgrade things you dont need like ship fuel, its a waste of Element Zero and you will regret it when you suddenly can add 40% Biotic damage instead. The mining itself is made thousands of times easier on a PC with a mouse that has a sensitivity button, I was able to scan through planets at very fast speeds due to the speed I could move my mouse. Oh yea, on that point…in typical console port style, even on the lowest sensitivity, you still zap around so damned quick you cant see what you’re doing…I had to go down to 400dpi on my G9 to be able to play which is just annoying.

The upgrade centre is straight forward, spend resources, get cool shit…Nuff said.

What I loved about being on the Normandy though was that it was a social hub. Every person you help on missions will mail you to your inbox which you can read on ship and you can chat with your team members while on board about various events in life and whatnot and gain a real feel for whos who…Eventually you will come to love 2-3 people and just take them everywhere. Mine (and Budda’s) was Miranda and Grunt/Garrus. Miranda’s full level Cerberus Operative skill offers a 15% bonus to squad damage and Grunt fully upgraded wont die (I managed to kill him in the last mission, he solo’d 2 Collector Scions in the open…goddamn it was funny).

The team:

Major spoiler alert here as I will be listing all the available characters. You start with two humans Jacob and Miranda, two Cerberus operatives. Miranda is a vat born super Biotic human and Jacob is a biotic in his own right specialising in combat. Jacob loves doing things the military way and following orders, Miranda has a tortured past as she was not born, but created to fulfil a legacy for her power hungry father. From there you gain Garrus and Mordin.

Garrus is a Turian Guerilla specialist. He uses snipers and assault rifles to basically be a heavy firing pain in the ass. He’s also as tough as nails and is the man in every right, if you dont like him from the moment you meet him, then you’re a pussy. You also pick up Mordin, a Salarian Tech doctor. He’s a massively intelligent genius doctor who has an odd way of talking and struggles to get what he is thinking into words, I loved talking to him because of it. Then theres Jack and Grunt.

Jack is another Biotic test subject. She is known as Subject Zero and was part of a rogue Cerberus operation to create a super-Biotic, basically they tortured kids with biotic experiments and the ones that proved useful would be pumped into Jack. Unfortunately they hit a point where they had too many powerful Biotic kids and they broke free, Jack included. Grunt on the other hand is an instant favourite. He was a vat-born pure Krogan warrior and he IS the man. He will kill anything and will not die as well as be purely loyal. He is a must have on the team and he will make even the hardest mission seem survivable. Next is Tali’Zorah, Legion and Thane.

Thane is a Drell Assassin/Monk thing. He’s awesome in every way and you will only understand this once you get him. Tali’Zorah is a whiney little teenage Quariann bitch who will make your life a living hell but use her for the tech mission at the end and she will survive, as it happens, Mordin will not. Also its worth noting at this point that “Legion” is Geth…Thats right, Geth. As it happens, the Geth you fought in the first game (and throughout the second) are a rogue sect of the original Geth and Legion (a hiveminded Geth Tech warrior) informs you that Geth also wish to stop the plight of the rogue Geth on the galaxy. Legion gets his name from the quote: “We are Legion for we are many” (I think it was) as he represents all Geth, not an individual…He’s also very cool.

The graphics:

Pretty, beyond belief. Seriously I played on high graphics and am fortunate enough to be able to get a tolerable frame rate out of it. Each planet landing gave me a new spectacle to marvel at, and each new city boarding would stun me with its visuals. Its the sort of thing you would just drool and stroke if you had it in your own house. Unfortunately this game cant escape bugs…from graphical glitches like my green haze getting stuck on permanently even when I went back to the Normandy to the bonus mission where you have to do a lazer puzzle…ALSO NOTE: If you come across this mission, move the mirrors first, then activate the lazer…Then LOOK AWAY. This way the game will not crash to desktop…its basically the only solution at this stage. Also at many points you will randomly get stuck walking, its annoying as fuck, moreso when you cant escape. So save often.

Anyway, I’m not going to write too much more. This game was awesome, the combat might suck in the start but its such a small part thats its barely worth mentioning as you will master it and conquer all. The end mission is fucking amazing (nothing else describes it) and is based on how you did throughout the game. If you upgrade your weapons and hull it will make sure to have cutscenes showing this…you will also have to lead several teams at the end which is awesome as pretty much all of your team will come in handy.

This game easily gets a 9/10. If they had a handle on combat and simple PC controls like mouse movement, it would be a 10/10. It was an amazing high quality experience that makes me want to go back and play again. RPG games in 2010 have a huge marker to step up too if they want to overcome this machine of a game.

We were meant to start with 7 people, but one cbf…and one couldn’t join due to internet connection issues. But we had a team of 5:

- Dante

- Fireryda

- Affian

- Illiana

- Nobody (who had to leave unfortunately)

So yea…we had fun laughing away at the ridiculous antics of the show. Fireryda and I lost years of our lives due to brain hemorrhaging each time Sora appeared on screen…Affian concluded that Tsuyuri was the most appealing character…Illiana pointed out that Nidou looks far better in a bikini than Najimi.

And I was the only one that frowned upon boy love.

So good times…not sure what anime is up next, hopefully we can get a few more people

First things first…I KNOW THIS IS A BETA AND I KNOW I SHOULDN’T BE JUDGING IT UNTIL RELEASE! Seriously, there’s always someone that points out the obvious…and to that someone I need to say that because I am aware of the Beta status, I am also able to predict somewhat what will be seen in the final edition…so stfu.

Im gonna keep this simple by simply listing what I like and dislike:

Pros:

• Intense and fast paced gameplay. The rush mode (only one available in the beta) is super intense and requires strategic attacks and retreats.
• The voice acting while I didnt really like the “quality” of voice acting, I really liked its placement. I mean you could be walking along and your teammate gets sniped next to you, your character will instantly yell out: “OH SHIT THERE’S A SHOOTER OUT THERE!” or something similar…its wonderful and frequent without the same voice saying the same thing over and over.
• One button to rule them all. Pressing Q will do a vast host of things…at least most of the time. If you’re looking at an enemy it will declare his location for your teammates, if you’re looking at an objective it will declare that objective as a priority target…and so on.
• Bullet fall. You shoot a bullet over distance and it will fall…you shoot a rocket over distance and it will most likely land about 20m short of your target…this makes for a challenging experience.
• Shit blows up yo! If some asshat sniper is camping in a room with a tiny window, shoot a rocket at the wall…et viola…larger window.
• Anyone can blow up the objectives by planting a timed charge on it, however a scout class can dump hordes of C4 on it and take it out in one go (seriously no one realises this).
• Vehicle gameplay…in most games that you have tanks, you use it as a tank. In this game if you charge your tank in, you will lose it…You need to play it strategically.
• No Prone! I HATE proners with a passion…so this is one thing I am supremely happy to see gone
• Upgrades. You know how you love to upgrade and get new guns in the Modern Warfare series? Well BC2 has you well covered with a vast array of perks, weapons and gadgets for you to use.

Cons:

• Upgrades. You know how you hate those assholes in Modern Warfare that had all the awesome guns that you didnt? Well BC2 does exactly the same…but I believe it does it worse. The initial gun for engineer (my preferred class) has 20 rounds…and due to the useless hitreg in this game those 20 rounds will not be enough to kill anything…which is just plain stupid.
• Lag. While this issue is being sorted out its still a raging nuisance that apparently only occurs on PC’s. Put it this way, I play all my games on 1920×1200 on full AA and I still manage about 60fps which I am happy with. In BC2Beta, I have to put all my graphics settings to low to be able to get a managable FPS from the game…so retarded.
• Hitreg. As stated before, the hitreg in this game (the beta at least) is beyond shocking…You will waste entire clips to kill someone and god forbid if they are any sort of distance away from you…cause NOTHING will hurt them. Rockets can go off right next to you and you will stand unharmed…knifing is next to useless unless the enemy is standing dead still because if they even flinch…you’ll miss. It’s frustrating and annoying and a game killer if the dev’s are not careful.
• Adding to the above point, ‘double-KO’ scenarios are annoying…when I’m right in front of an enemy and I blast him with my shotgun and he retaliates with a few rounds of his rifle…only one of us should die. I will shoot him clean off his feet yet somehow even though he is dead, his bullets magically lodge themselves into my chest post mortem. Ugh
• Knife. It has no reg, its slow, its autoaim sucks. Useless.
• No tap out…I am not a fan of suiciding, if I run out of ammo I will charge the enemy in hopes to do as much damage as I can before I respawn…when I die however I do not have the option to “tap out” and wait for spawn…so if some maniacal medic charges in to rez me when I only have 3 pistol rounds left, I have no choice…I have to fight on…and die again.
• Helicopters are back! I love piloting helicopters and all…but when you simply cant shoot one out of the sky, it starts getting ridiculous. At one point, 2 guys in a chopper simply flew around our spawn killing our tanks and antiair weapons before we could use them…and unless you have a high level engineer with targeting optics or w/e they are, you cant use homing missles on the damned thing. SO YOU CANT KILL IT! Rockets travel too slow to hit such a small target in the air. Annoying.
• No “aim down sights”. You can “toggle” iron sights as with Modern Warfare…but you cant opt to simply look down sights when you right click…which is hellishly frustrating because you constantly have to slam right click as well as left click to get the correct firing mode in a close quarters firefight.

Anyway there are a few more Pros and cons but I shall leave it there…I love the gameplay but theres just too much left to be desired. EA did their typical thing of focusing on fancy bits and pieces and less on core gameplay which is annoying…but I still have hopes for this game as if they fix a few little niggles then it would be largely playable.

That said however, I doubt it will be fixed in time for its March release…so expect to run into trouble

What I expected was a romantic comedy slice-of-life anime that I enjoy so much…and it started out so well. The humour was on the mark and the characters were well portrayed but the novelty started running out by episode 10. Aisaka Taiga was portrayed as the typical moe tsundere girl and it worked well for a while…but as with all Slice-of-life anime, you expect to see change. Change that didn’t appear until around episode 20.

I’ll quickly summarise the story by saying that we follow the life of Takasu Ryuuji as he enters his second year of high school. Ryuuji is very kindhearted but his face and eyes make him look like an angry deliquent which earns him a fearsome reputation for no reason. He befriends many people throughout his high school life (most notably Aisaka Taiga) and his goal becomes to date Kushieda Minorin while Taiga’s is to date Kitamura Yuusaku. Other people get mixed in with the strange love scene and you can predict very quickly what is bound to happen.

Its essentially the daily life of a group of friends trying to find some love while learning from a teacher with bipolar or something.

Let me say quickly that while I enjoyed this anime, it was far from what I would have liked. It started out as a fantastic romantic comedy but turned into a serious drama from ep 10. By the time ep 20 rolls on by, the drama is so serious that there just isn’t any humour to be seen which in my eyes degraded the anime. I watched the first 15 episodes almost back to back but I struggled to watch anything from there on because I knew what was coming and I didn’t like it.

The last episode was almost completely world shattering (I expect only 1-2 people will get that joke) until the credits rolled on by and the season outro played…the last 10 seconds of the anime saved it…if they had not been there I would have eaten my own arms off. It was actually gut-wrenching waiting for it to happen not knowing if it would and I was starting to get seriously angry at the sudden turn of events in the second to last episode which simply made no sense at all and served only to create a “dramatic suspense” which turned out to be “a joke”.

Anyway, good anime but can be a little tedious when the drama gets real heavy…but I enjoyed it.

Also, forgot to mention…the OPs and EDs were very cool…loved the soundtrack.

First and most importantly, the OP to the anime is fucking awesome. I have the song on my playlist because of the songs from Stepmania but I never knew where it was from until I fired up episode 1…and I came. Hard:

Anyway, let me point out quickly here that if you have not played Star Ocean: The second story and dont know that Celine loves Baby Rabbit Risotto, then don’t…I repeat, DONT, get this anime…It is very slow and tries to pad out 5 minute scenes in the game over 2 episodes BUT in being its downfall, the fact that it remains true to the games story makes it very fun to watch for Star Ocean fans. The first 3 episodes revolve around Claude getting owned by a teleporting machine then meeting Rena who is portrayed as a moebomb with an annoying voice…so…exactly the same as the game.

Some things in the story are over embellished and some are completely skipped. For example Mayor Regis is a ninja and tries to smash Claude in his sleep to see if he really is the warrior of light…but then he suddenly goes back to being a frail old man…which of course makes perfect sense. Then there’s Claudes raygun…get this:

Talk about extreme…just to kill that oversized gorrilla thing that attacks Rena in the forest.

The anime itself makes use of a hell of a lot of still frames…the animation is somewhat shoddy and in the still frame shots (obviously) completely missing, which is kinda annoying. In certain scenes, like when Claude chases after Alen once he steals Rena, the animation is very smooth but then straight away its back to still frames with voices thrown over top…Which not only downtrails any semblance of good animation pants, it also slows the anime down further.

Recognise this place?

Although this sounds like I’m just complaining about the anime, I still kinda like it. I’m not sure why but I can only think that its simply because I found an anime based on a game that tries to stay EXACTLY on the story instead of making some arbitrary side stories. I seriously doubt I’ll ever finish this anime though unless something changes by episode 9 (which is the last episode I have on my HDD) because when I get to this point, I then have to go find a torrent containing the next 15 episodes of an anime that no one really cares about.

So yea my final words are: Only get this anime if you liked Star Ocean…otherwise don’t, it’s too slow to warrant watching frequently.

Time to go watch Durarara!! Ep 3 methinks.

EDIT: The anime is now going off track and losing focus from the main story…Celine is a bitch and Rena is stupid…also:

The former marks one of the best RPG’s ever made that even spawned an anime, the latter you all know about so I wont talk about it.

The game itself features in much the same as every other old school RPG you can think of…you gain a party of mixed individuals and skills, you pick the group you like the best and you go off to kill everything and save the world from impending doom.

The doom in this case is a meteor-thing which contains and powerful and sinister power. It smashed into the planet and is causing chaos and turning people/creatures into demonic beings and naturally it’s your goal to save them all!

You can start the story as either Rena (pictured above on the very left) or Claude (again but on the very right). I’ve played this game twice through as each character but this time around I started as Claude again which means I am a space traveller under my fathers stern rule travelling about the galaxy surveying planets under rule of the Earth Federation. He ends up on Milocinia studying an alien ruin which he, in his retardation, thinks is a playground. So he jumps on it even though his commander and father says no.

So he gets teleported to the aforementioned planet named Expel who apparently speak the same language as he. He finds Rena being attacked by a demonic creature and rushes to her aide using his Blaster pistol which spurts out huge rays of light as it shoots. Unfortunately for our poor lost hero, the townfolk believe in a prophecy where a “hero with the sword of light” will appear which means he’s now going to be raked into helping these poor sods look after themselves.

(The above picture is part of the anime not the game…but w/e…ACTUALLY! I just found out its from the PSP version of the game! I NEEDS THAT VERSION!)

Anyway as it turns out Rena isn’t from Expel either and that she was found and adopted by her “Mother”…which explains why she has mystical healing powers…powers which make her a highly useful companion. So the town tells Claude and Rena to go fix the world…you can probably fill in the blanks from there…GAMEPLAY TIME!

The outdoor areas are about as indepth as you’d expect a game this old to be, they’re mostly empty with simple paths and forests and you control your main character as you run between cities performing various quests. As with most JRPG games, random encounters feature heavily in this game…everywhere you move outside and in dungeons, you can expect to encounter various groups of enemies who can either be pathetically weak or could severely out number you and on top of that they can enter battle from behind, front or even above you in some sort of fucked up air assault or something. Naturally these surprise entries can force you to move your characters out of certain danger lest your weaker spell casters and healers get eaten alive making combat highly difficult.

The map itself is very simplistic and chances are if you are like me you simply wont use it other than to get your bearings (ie…head north)…I just remember where towns are and map it out in my head as it seems a hell of a lot easier.

Inside towns you will meet NPC’s and be able to traverse through buildings by walking straight into doors that give way when you faceplant them. NPC’s show emotion by using speech bubbles which you can see with the whistling kid above. Moving around is pretty easy but occasionally you get stuck on objects/cant find a way to a particular place you need to go which can prove highly frustrating as you cant move the camera.

By now anyone that has played the game will realise that these Screenshots that I have are from fairly early on in the game…Anyway the combat is very JRPGish, click a button to choose your attack (you can set up to 2 special attacks to be used on L1 and R1 buttons) and then choose your target. The major problem you will come across in this game when it comes to combat is the AI.

You can program your teammates to follow certain routines when it comes to attacking, the problem lies in that the commands lack diversity…I like Celine (my spellcaster) to blast the living shit out of mobs while I go through and mop up…what I dont like however is when she waits till I kill off most of the mob and approach the last living creature where she casts a full screen aoe attack…when I can easily kill it without trouble. Note: This scene is pictured above.

Oh yea…at the end of every combat your heros will say something based on how the combat went…ie: “That was TOO easy”…It seems so trivial…but really when I picked up this game and heard Claude and Rena claim their victory I was taken aback at the onslaught of nostalgia…the voices and the music stuck in my head for years between play and I could still remember the names of most of the characters which made for an awesome nostalgia conversation on xfire with Fireryda who also played the game.

To sum the game up I cant really go much further than to say its very typical of a JRPG that is to say the gameplay is familiar and the game focuses highly on the characters, music and dialogue over the actual story line. But to an extent I like that, in fact I would say that I enjoyed this game far better than the Final Fantasy series (albeit I’m not a huge FF fan really but I still enjoy it).

Anyway, that is my gaming experiences as of late thrown into a quick summary of the game. Time to go find some cash to get Global Agenda…somehow

Beware, this short review thing is a bit spoilerish…but kinda not really…who really cares…its K-ON!

Anyway I picked it up because I’m bored and cbf watching Moetan like I should be doing and I watched ep 15 of Railgun earlier (dont watch it…srsly its rubbish…I must be masochistic or something). I expected this episode of K-ON! to be just another episode with nothing spectacular which follows the life and times of 5 girls as they tear apart the world of music.

What I got however was completely the opposite.

Alright I lied, it was exactly the same…nothing changed, not even the theme songs.

Basically our crew has got themselves invited to a small live gig by Ritsu’s drummer friend from another local band “Love Crisis”. We follow them as they completely muff everything up then end up putting on a half decent gig. Sawako turns up with a leather outfit on and meets up with some old friend and they all fall asleep waiting for the start of the new year.

Let me point this out loud and clear…if you liked the way K-ON! was, then this episode is for you…I nostalgia’d a little when the theme tunes came on which sorta got me a little pumped for the episode…but yea…its the same ol’ same ol’ which I can appreciate and I know others will…but in the same sense it will add to peoples scorn of me for finding this show watchable.

Duarararaarararara comes across as a semi-slice of life anime following this bloke Mikado Ryugamine (what a mouthful) who is sort of…well…weird. He spent most of his life indoors and has never left his local town…so naturally he thinks it will be a wonderful idea to go park up at Tokyo and study there.

Because y’know…that makes a hell of a lot of sense.

He meets up with his childhood friend Masaomi Kida and for the first episode, he follows him around and meets Kida’s friends and learns about the local populace.

In this world, there is a headless Biker with neko-mimi slapped on the helmet…inorite? Headless with a helmet? Yea…I don’t get it either, but that’s the point. People relate this anime very kindly to Baccano! Which was amazingly entertaining however Durarara!! does not quite promise as much as Baccano did, but then again I am basing this on the first episode.

So far our hero has met a guy who throws vending machines at people, a giant black Russian sushi chef, an assortment of Kida’s odd friends and watched an overly moe girl get dragged off to be raped…or tickled…or who knows, only for the girl to be saved by our headless mystery hero…who has a giant scythe that cuts through people…but doesn’t.

Yea, that’s about as much as we are allowed to know after the first episode…however it was entertaining enough an episode for me to at least try out the series and see how it pans out, however it is a 24 episode series which leads me to believe at some point there’s going to be some horrid fillers, however in saying that I realise that they have introduced a LOT of interesting and unique characters that might allow the series to flow well.

So yea, I’m going to give this a go as a comedy/almost slice-of-life anime and as with Sora no Woto…I’ll let you know if I ditch it/love it.

So, episode 1 of Sora no woto.

Firstly, let me say I’m a little hesitant to either recommend this anime or to tell you to spend time elsewhere…It hasn’t really given me a large buzz, but nor has it completely turned me off…So I’ll just write my thoughts.

Thought #1: What the fuck, it looks like K-ON!
I am not shitting you in any way or form…firstly there’s using a style but then there’s blatantly cloning it. Sure it may be from the same studio (at least I think/hope it is) but seriously! ITS FUCKING K-ON!

Thought #2: I don’t get where they are…
It looks German, it definitely has festivities that are European, it has French soundtracks and it has references to “Helvetia” which to my knowledge is Swiss…WTF! Admittedly though, it does look kinda good. Using the simplistic character design of K-ON barraged on top of large still environmental shots works well and they do manage to portray a very World War 2-esque feel.

Thought #3: Army people are stupid but these guys go beyond the call of arms.
Ok sure I’m just nitpicking here…but why the hell are all the army guys so nice to this girl that’s clearly a dunce…YOU’RE THE ARMY (well…an army…) KICK HER FUCKING ARSE UNTIL SHE STARTS PERFORMING!…Also a sergeant gives her a gift of “expensive” caramel before he even asks her name or why she is there. That to me is a waste of a way to introduce someone….

Thought #4: Cool folklore bro.
A LOOOOOOOT of emphasis is put into the “lore” of the land she is in (which btw is called “Seize” … I’ve never heard of such a place but I am not geographically inclined). The people of Seize believe in a series of events that shaped their town based on demons being wrestled by maidens and doused in water. But, they wholeheartedly believe it…or seem to. I understand folklore is there out of tradition…but they seem to think its all very real! And then you see a giant dragon winged thing which kinda makes you “wtf”. So I’m confused…is this meant to be real-ish? or a complete farse…Time will tell.

Thought #5: Arty…yay for art!
The opening scenes are pretty out there with crazy contrasting colours and heavy use of panning still frames…but unfortunately it seems to only be an eye catcher to keep you interested as the style doesn’t appear again…which I sadfaced at.

Thought #6: Srsly man, the villagers are batshit insane.
At dawn break, our main character Sorami Kanata blasts out a horrific noise that is meant to resemble music through her trusty Bugle…and the villagers laugh! LAUGH! If you played that shit outside my house that early, I would ram that thing so far up your ass that you would be able to taste it!
In other notes, I used to play a bugle…so I kinda feel for her cause that shit is hard but I much preferred it over a trumpet…which is kinda cheating really.

Final thought:
Honestly I don’t expect much out of this K-ON! clone…but I do expect that the writers are not daft enough to simply carry on exactly the same way that K-ON! did which is why they might be focusing heavily on the folk lore which may well be real. The first episode was, to me, not a riveting tale by any means but as I said it wasn’t exactly bad either. From memory K-ON! did the same and sucked from episode 7 onwards…here’s hoping we don’t get a repeat.

Random Screenshots:

The Mio clone (named Rio) who’s more of a bitch but still Tsundere. I dislike her quite a lot…but she has large hangy-outy breasts:

Bath scene first episode with our Yui clone (exactly the same airhead) that goes by the name of Kanata:

And a Kanata bum shot for good measure:

You’ll notice I haven’t covered much in the way of characters and their likeliness, that’s because I would rather get to know them better first.
Anyway, see you tomorrow with Durarara impressions.