Mass Effect 2 - what a game!

I've spent most of my freetime the past week playing Mass Effect 2 on my Xbox. And after finishing it, I'm simply staggered... It's one of the best games I've ever played!

The game looks amazing, the controls feel right, the music, sound and voiceacting are excellent... but most of all: it has atmosphere! The story is solid but what really takes you in are the characters, the people, the places, the worlds, races and crew-members feel believable, real, with substance. They all are unique, have personality and strengths and weaknesses.

You play the game and you're sucked into the world of Mass Effect and you begin to genuinely care for your crew-/party-members. The dynamic plot- and chat-options often give you really tough choices, and many times I've found myself really cringing and wondering what I should chose... and the gameplay was so much fun I ended up playing all bonus- and side-missions and quests before starting the final battle, because I wanted the gaming-experience to last as long as possible and I wanted to see everything the game has to offer.

**** SPOILER ALERT ****




It went even that far that I ended up re-playing most of the final mission a couple of times, only to ensure I made the right choices to not have any of the party-members die (and I mean die story-wise!) because I didn't want to lose precious, loved characters and I wanted to make sure I can see them again in the 3rd and final game of the trilogy.

If a game takes me in that much, it's something special, and I enjoyed the ride alot. I was sad when the game was over, but at least it lets you continue to "free-roam" the galaxy afterwards, which makes you feel alot better since the ending is not so "final".

So how can I end this? By thanking Bioware for creating such an amazing gaming-experience! And with one of my favorite quotes that made me laugh after finishing the game and talking with my crew again... (though I fear only people will understand that did actually play the game aswell and in a certain way)



"I just wanted you to know, I'm running a minor fever, my joints ache, and my sinuses are packed with I-don't-know-what. But it was TOTALLY worth it."

Dragon Age: Origins and DLC issues on Windows 7

I recently got "Dragon Age: Origins", including promotion codes for 2 additional DLCs: "Blood Dragon Armor" and "The Stone Prisoner". I knew I especially wanted the latter, since having a Golem as Tank in your group is simply cool! And after trying it out, I can only say: It rocks! (pun intended). And so does the game, btw! It's another amazing game from Bioware! Thank you!

But as so often with PCs, I had to tinker with things first to get the DLCs to work at all:

1. DLCs not available

The problem was that even though I successfully registered my unlock-codes on the website for my online-profile, the DLCs didn't show up ingame, not as available, nor pending or installed. In fact, no add-ons did show up at all, no matter if I was signed in to my account in the game or not.

After some searching, I found the answer in the official Bioware-forums: Dragon Age installs a Windows-Service that takes care of the handling of DLCs and that service needs to be running. Well, it didn't on my system. It was installed with the start-method "manual". After actually starting it, I could see the DLCs ingame and download and use them.

A few things came to my mind right away (usually in form of rants, as usual when I'm fixing computer-issues):

• For one, why does it have to be a Windows-Service? I am no fan of such background-processes constantly running, using up resources, especially when I have no idea that those are installed/running. And for a game? come on! I might have the game installed for a long time, but it doesn't mean I'll be playing it constantly. But the service will... Wouldn't a user-process have been enough for this? Ok, I can see things like background-downloading as an advantage, but not as a big enough one to justify using a windows-service.

• Second: if using a service, then at least have your game check that it's up and running, and not silently fail/ignore if it's not. If I wouldn't have known that I have DLCs, I wouldn't have ever found out about them when playing the game, since it simply does not show any. This is actually quite counter-productive regarding the fact that Bioware tries to establish an additional income-source via the DLCs they provide for their games.

Anyway, once I installed the DLCs and played the game some more, I ran into another problem...

2. DLCs not "authorized"

When I tried running the game again later and wanted to resume my last savegame: I got an error saying that the savegame requires additional DLCs that are not enabled. So I checked the DLC status ingame and it did show them as installed, but also had (unauthorized) next to the status. I was guessing that it's an online-verification thing, so I tried logging out of my game-account and back in. Then I realized that when I was logged out, the "(unauthorized)" status disappeared and I was able to play the game again. As soon as I logged back in, I had the same problem again.

Well, solution for that one was to run the game "as Administrator". Well, Windows 7 is still Windows, so I'm not too surprised about that "fix", but it still annoyed me. Maybe it has to do with the fact that there is a service involved. But I don't really want to have to think about such issues! These things should work out-of-the-box, and I do neither have a very special system nor a very special configuration. I simply installed the game from DVD, created an online-profile and registered my 2 promo-codes.

But despite all my ranting, I still think that "Dragon Age: Origins" is an amazing game! It has depth, nice graphics, great voice-acting and an epic, exciting story that really takes you in. When a game has that much spoken dialogue and I don't mind at all sitting through it and really listening to it without skipping and when I start to genuinely care about my party-members and their personalities, the game achieved what is hardest: an atmosphere!

So if you have a faible for RPGs and Tolkien-style fantasy-worlds, then go and get this game! And hopefully, you won't be running into problems like I did. And if you do, I hope my post helped you resolve them.

Bayonetta Tips

First off: Thanks to the guide at http://scathingaccuracy.com/article.asp?guide/2009.11.08-S.A._Renegade which really helped me (and still does, since I'm not done yet) finding Alfheim Portals and beating them.

While trying, I've found out some things myself that might help peopl beating those events just as they helped me.

Chapter V - Alfheim 10

You gotta stay in the air for 60(!) seconds. The tactics discussed on other sites said to use Shuraba's (the katana) charge attack to stay in the air while using the big head to jump on constantly to stay in the air. But there might be a better/easier way to do this: you need to have Kulshedra (the whip). It has an attack that can pull an enemy from below you towards you (press and hold triangle while in the air). Once you pulled the mob towards you, you can simply jump on it and gain more airtime and simply re-pull him underneath you again.. and so on... that's how I also did the achievement "Higher and Higher". Make sure to only jump once, don't use double-jump since you might need that additional jump in case you run out of enemies to pull underneath you.

Chapter IX - Alfheim 13

Here you have to beat the mobs while being "out of body". Beating them is not hard, but not letting your real self be beat up is annoying. Even at normal difficulty, you always have to watch out.
What I found out though is that if you equip Gaze of Despair, the mobs will all be angered towards you and not even bother about your real body in the bubble. Even when new mobs spawn right next to it, they will be angered right away and also go after you instead.

Chapter XII - Alfheim 18

You got to beat mobs within the time-limit, but they are on fire - well, all except the Manta-rays in wave two. Anyway, you can only hit the mobs with melee during Witch-time. But what helps is that Kulshedra (the whip) can actually hit mobs that are on fire without you taking damage. So use the whip to dish out some damage while you aren't in witch.time. Once you are, switch back to the main dmg-dealing weapon set and do your thing. The whip also works quite well on the Manta rays.

Bayonetta on PS3 (JP)

I've been waiting for this game ever since I've seen footage of it. And no, actually not because of the most obvious reason. Ok, a sexy witch who wears her hair as clothing and gets rid of it when her hair is needed for more devastating finisher-moves is surely not on the downside - but I got it because it seemed to be the kind of game I like. Right there with DMC4 or Ninja Gaiden.

What can I say about the game? First off: If you liked DMC4, you'll like this one too. It's fast, I mean really fast! It's crazy and all characters are super-cool (though beating Dante in coolness is another thing). The story is insane and makes no real sense (at least as far as I've played) and it's violent and bloody but kinda ok since it's so over-the-top you can't possibly take it serious. And it's hard! Oh yes, it is!

so far so great...

But there's one downside to my purchase that bothers me a little:

I had to import the PS3 version of the game from Japan - since this was my only option as a European who didn't want to wait til January to get the local release. I did so after finding out that the Japanese PS3-version will be featuring English subtitles (and as it turns out, language as well).

The game looks nice, I can't complain. It delivers the action fast and smooth no matter how much is going on, but there are a few things I did notice negatively:

• washy textures during cut-scenes


• screen-tearing here and there.


• long load-times

After some researching online, I found out that the game was originally created for the 360 by Platinum Games but the port to the PS3 was done by Sega. And it seems like they didn't do their very best job. And it annoys me to know that I might have an inferior version. It's simply how I am, I want the best-possible experience I can get. Above all, my preferred console is still the 360 to be honest - mainly because I think the controllers are simply better. And now I get to know that the issues I have witnessed myself while playing the game seem to be mainly a problem of the PS3-port. Now I'm wondering I should perhaps have waited til January after all.

I can easily live with the slight technical drawbacks - the game is that good. But one thing I simply don't get: Why on earth didn't they add an option to allow installation of the game on the PS3's hard-drive? It's a no-brainer: It's the cheapest, easiest way to speed up the loading-times of the game with little to no effort. Lots of PS3-games actually need to be at least partially installed to the hard-drive to work at all. So why not add that option for Bayonetta, which clearly could use an improvement in that field? I can't believe no one during the testing-stage didn't notice that.

Don't get me wrong, the game is great! If you're into these kinds of games, you'll love it! It certainly delivers, but I wish some of the things mentioned above would've been addressed before releasing it for the PS3. So no, I don't regret getting the game, but if I knew then what I know now, I'm not sure if I wouldn't have waited alittle longer for the 360 europe-release...


Not to forget though: People did contact Sega about those issues - especially the long loading-times - and it seems that Sega is at least considering releasing a patch to address those. Let's hope they will, since it will simply make a great game even more enjoyable. It doesn't feel fitting that the game itself feels very fast but everything around it rather slow.

and again: games crippled for german market

I knew already when I wrote my last post that I soon will put up another one that deals with cut games. And here it is...

I'm really getting sick and tired of the shit going on here. Most games that are just a bit violent are getting a rating of 18+ already. While I could easily live with that, I still don't understand it. And games that actually should be 18+ (and usually are in pretty much all other countries) are either banned from the market or have to be released in a "special german-only" version that sometimes is then 16+ instead, or still 18+.

And it's that what's grinding my gears! How far those "modifications" sometimes go is taking on ridiculous porpotions. I already ranted about a really bad example before: Wanted. Here are a few recent examples:

- Wolfenstein (2009): Rating of 18+. The amount of blood has been minimized. You're not fighting Nazis anymore, but some organisation they call "Wölfe" (wolves). All Nazi-references have been replaced.  So that's how Germany is coming to terms with its past...

- Assassin's Creed 2: Rating of 16+, pretty much all blood from the game has been removed, one whole mission has been removed. I'm not sure yet why, but since the game is released today we'll know soon.

Update: Official sources now state that the german version is 100%uncut and still 16+. It seems that one mission is not included that the PEGI-rated version featured but it considered a bonus-mission, so no main one. Blood is included, only turned off by default. Way better than I hoped. Thanks Ubisoft!

- Modern Warfare 2: you can not shoot civilians

Those "special versions" surely aren't cheap for the developer/publisher. So of course you don't get the games any cheaper, even though there's less content. You have to pay the full prize nonetheless.

Often enough, those "special versions" take away alot of the spirit of a game, remove certain elements of a game completely and temper with the design of a game's gameplay or its story.

I'm quite surprised publishers and developers are still putting up with all this shit from us germans. I guess we should feel really flattered that we seem to still be such an important market that they even give in and release special versions for our market, just so that they are still allowed to sell they games here.

I thought the gaming-industry is a multi-billion dollar international industry... so they should have some influence, some "arguments" on their side. And they should flex their muscles at least a little bit.

EA recently tried giving that topic more public attention (see here - german only)  That's what I would like to see more often. And not just from one publisher, but from all of them!

I've been thinking... what would actually happen if the publishers of a massively-hyped game like "Assassin's Creed 2" simply said: "You know what? if you tell us our game can't be released in your country the way it's being released in all the other countries, then we won't be releasing it in your country." I wonder if politics would actually notice the outcry that might follow...

but I don't know. Perhaps I'm over-estimating the power of the gamers and geeks. Maybe all that'll happen is that the game-stores in Germany will feel the effect since the people who want to have the game would simply import it... something that german politicians and regulators don't like to see, of course. Well, it's certainly not the gamers' first choice... but we're often left with no other option.

Why is it that gamers are the ones who seem to be restricted most in living their hobby? I can't think of any other legal activity/hobby that gets similarely controlled and instrumentalized.

Leave me alone! You're not my parents! I'm working hard for my money and if I'm old enough to be held responsible personally for all my actions, I also want the freedom to buy and play whichever legal games I want to purchase!

I simply want the full gaming-experience

Christmas is getting closer and this is the time of the year where lots of new, great games are released or at least announced. And everytime, I happen to run into the same problems when I'm thinking about getting those games... because I want them as "original" as possible.

1. original language

To be honest, I hate dubbed versions of anything, no matter if movies, tv-series or games. I always prefer the original, prefer to see the piece of work as intended by its creator(s). And that is especially true for computer-games, where the quality of the german translations can vary immensely - more than when it comes to movies or tv-series. But even if the german version is really well done, some things simply get lost, may it be word-plays that only work in the original language or simply the original voice-acting, which is usually done with a bigger budget and thus more professionally.

2. original content

But I'm not satisfied with just the original language. I want the original content too. And that includes all the violence, gore, sex or whatever else "bad" the creators might've come up with. I don't want a castrated version of a game where ppl don't bleed, civilians can't be shot or complete enemy armies consist of "robots" instead of humans and bleed "black motor-oil" instead of red blood. If I buy a certain type of game, I want to see chopped-off limbs and puddles of blood. While of course those things are not neccessary and I am certainly not craving for them, the creators of games put those in there for a reason, as part of the whole experience.

But enough of that - I could rant on about this way longer, but that would be material for another post. Instead let's head back to the topic of this one...

So what I really want to know before buying a game is 3 things:

1. Will the version released in germany feature the original-language?
2. Will the version released in germany be cut/cencored/modified in any way?
3. Will an import version be region-locked?

Those things are important, because thanks to the EU, I'm free to import games in the version I want to have from pretty much anywhere in the world - and in case of the UK, it's often even cheaper than buying them here instead. The problem is: It's very hard to get this information before the game is actually released and the first user-experiences start spreading through the net. Before that, it's usually just rumors that you hear...

I'm at a point right now where I really find it way easier to simply not bother anymore and just order my stuff via Amazon UK. I don't mind a perhaps missing german translation at all and I can be very sure that the game is get is uncut - and that it won't suddenly be unavailable on the market anymore because it got banned.

That's all I want... if I pay a lot of money for a game, I want the full gaming-experience out of it. And to be honest, with Germany's addiction to translate everything and to censor/ban/cut games - even 18+-ones -, it's really not fun anymore to buy games here. You sometimes do feel like a criminal if you're a gamer like me...

The Prince is back

Ever since I saw the trailer to the new "Prince of Persia" that featured the wonderful song "Saeglopur" by "Sigur Ros", I was looking forward to the game with alot of anticipation - and high expectations too.

I got the game now - well, finished it already actually - and all I can say is: Wonderful! It's a beautiful piece of software!

You can just tell that the game was made with alot of dedication and attention to detail. The graphics are amazing, state of the art and the style is new and refreshing, looking sharp and still manages to look mature despite the slightly cartoonish looks.

The controls are very easy. And even though I consider myself as more of a hardcore-gamer, I don't think that's a bad thing. Having played the latest Tomb Raider recently, it kinda feels like two different worlds. Lara simply jumps anywhere you tell her to (sometimes even somewhere you never wanted her to) - even if it means she's jumping to her death. The prince feels "smarter" when you control him. He usually lands where you wanted him to. Missing a ledge or a cliff or platform is nearly impossible. Where you have to tell Lara every move exactly, it feels enough to tell the Prince "I'd like you to jump that way / on that ledge", something that reminds me alot of how it felt to control Altair in Assassin's Creed - and back then it was one of the things that made playing the game feel nice and smooth. Running through the huge levels is very enjoyable and way easier than it looks - another similarity to Assassin's Creed. So, it feels easy to control, even though it less direct than controlling Lara.

And one thing definitely deserves mentioning here: the camera. Usually that can be biggest enemy of such games, often making things harder than they should be - unintentionally. This game features a quite good camera - it doesn't need alot of adjustment and you usually see quite well what you wanna see, where you wanna go and where to better not go. That might be a bit because of the intelligent, if not guiding character of the controls themselves, but it's a combination that plays well indeed.

And yes, you can't die in the game. Alika will save the Prince whenever he falls too far or before he gets slain or whatever. While you might complain that this is lame, I don't see it that way. The thing is: when playing a game like Tomb Raider or Ninja Gaiden, you'll eventually end up dead. But when you do, you either automatically respawn at a checkpoint somewhere or you have to load an older savegame. The result is the same, except that you spend alot of time watching loading screens... ok, I agree that the "checkpoints" in Prince of Persia are very close together and you hardly ever end up far from where you were when you get saved, but even if it would put you back more, it would still feel great because it doesn't slow down the pace of the game. It was alot of fun and some challenge too to fight the boss mobs and spend many many minutes in the fight while trying to figure out their weaknesses, master the quicktime events and find the best combo to do damage to them. I rather have that than having to reload a couple of times until I actually figured out the tactic to beat the boss mob. It all works well and gives the game a nice, smooth flow. It's simply fun to play, and the fantastic environment is always enjoyable while you run through the world - a feeling I can best remember from playing "Shadow of the Collossus": It's not just beating the enemy, it's also getting there, and getting lost in the world and it's atmosphere. Maybe it's just me and my lack of interest in human relations or huge crowds but I simply love being left alone with the level itself from time to time... that's why I liked the new Tomb Raider and that's one of the main things why I like this game.

The prince itself is designed to be kind of a thug. But you catch the drift very quickly that he's got a big mouth but also a big heart. His funny, silly and cool remarks are always good for a chuckle or smile when you play the game, since he often says what you as a player might think yourself. There's alot of possible dialog and conversation between him and the princess that you can manually start. I was amazed about how many dialog sequences they added. It takes a while til you hear a generic soundbite twice. And being able to also let the prince talk while you are fighting a boss mob and hear him say "You sold your soul to look like THIS?" is just so amusing! I can't remember a game where I had people watch me play and seeing us laugh quite alot just because of the small remarks the prince made. When I initially read a review before I got the game and they mentioned the new type of character of the prince, I was alittle worried that they might've tried to make him extra cool and relaxed and laid back to be "up-to-date" with teenagers and to have him be completely different from all the former protagonists.

---- SPOLER WARNING ----

the ending itself is interesting - and wasn't even too surprising for me either. But it did leave a slightly melancholic aftertaste. Not bad, but not exactly happy either. I could see where they wanted to head with this ending, but they could've spent alittle more time actually preparing the characters' development for that moment, since the prince's final decision does not seem to be fitting his previous actions and beliefs up to that point. The ending did remind me alittle of the one from Assassin's Creed (not too surprising) with some touches of "Shadow of the Collossus". And it left me with the same kind of unsatisfied feeling, paired with the need to have a sequel as soon as possible. I guess that was Ubisoft's goal in the end - and they got that one right.

new games and what I think of them

Ok, as written in my last post, there are alot of new games out now or in the nearer future that deserve attention. Since I own a few of them now and will probably get more, I wanna use the chance to talk about my experiences and thoughts. This is not meant to be a full game-review of some sort, just my personal feelings as well as I still remember them.

Gears of War 2

What should I say? Awesome! Amazing! Incredible! The game rocks, it's fun, challenging but not unfair, looks amazing and plays smoothly. In co-op, it really shines and is even more fun! In fact, I didn't even play the game through by myself, I always had help - help that you need when you play on higher difficulty settings. There aren't any annoying parts really and even on highest difficulty, you always feel more challenged and motivated to try again than annoyed and frustrated.

Perhaps the only bad thing of the game that I can think of is the "A"-button. Before the game was released, Epic claimed they optimized its function and the character should behave better as you expect him to when you press the button. From my own experience, I can't say I've seen a difference. It works ok, but sometimes the char doesn't do what you want it to do. But hey, that's the case in many games, usually alot worse. And if that's the only thing I can complain about, then I'm ok with that.

Mirror's Edge

Ok, some games are hard to judge. Mirror's Edge is definitely one of them. I have to say ever since I saw preview-material, I was amazed and really interested in the game. And most of the things that made me want the game then did actually impress me once the demo was out: I like the Trance/Ambient style soundtrack, the clean and high-contrast surroundings, the pace and speed. All really well done and set in scene.

The finished game itself did have some problems though - and I don't just say that because most official reviews state the same. I have to admit I did get really angry with certain parts of the game since those were simply incredibly unfair or hard.

But after finishing the game, I have to say I might have to blame myself to some degree. Here's why: I made the mistake to play the game on "normal" instead of the proposed "easy" setting. That alone wouldn't have been a problem, but in addition to that, I intended to get the achievement "Test of Faith", which requires you to not fire a single shot at any enemy during the whole game. That turned out to be rather tough in many situations, as Faith can't take alot of damage in that mode. And when you are faced with a whole park-deck full of cops with shotguns and automatic weapons and you have to disarm them all while at the same time you can't take more than 2 hits, you can see why you need a couple of tries to get through there.

In defense though, I have to say that during the end of the game, the fun increased again - maybe because I actually did get the hang of the controls. After finishing the game, I realized I should've played on easy-setting, especially since the available achievements don't care which difficulty you finished the game on. What did surprise me is that after finishing the game, playing the time-trials is actually alot of fun. I can see myself trying those more often, even after finishing the game. Maybe I'll even play the game fully again, on hard mode - should be fine as long as I can shoot people! :)

Tomb Raider Underworld

I have to admit I've always been a fan of Tomb Raider. The first one grabbed my interest back when having 3D hardware-acceleration on a PC was the exception. I liked the first one, especially after applying an OpenGL-patch and running it with HW-accel. I didn't play all the sequels really, since the 2nd and the 3rd already went downhill in my view. There was so much more focus on fighting enemies rather than the exploring and solving puzzles part.

"The environment should be the enemy", that's what I always thought. When Tomb Raider got revamped by Crystal Dynamics and Legend was out, I got it for the PC and I liked it alot! Great level design and a Lara that never looked - or sounded - better! I still don't know why I never got the remake "Anniversary", perhaps for the same reason I almost didn't get this one for the 360... I'm not a HUGE fan, but I like the game idea and our heroine. I got the game when it came out mainly because I could get it alittle cheaper than normal and I don't regret getting it at all! Great wide huge levels, few enemies, lots of puzzles... it's all mainly about the exploriation part and I love that! Spoiler warning: There's not one real boss-fight in the whole game... but I didn't mind at all. After beating the game, you can revisit previous locations again the way you left them - with the riddles solved and enemies killed. Perfect to explore and search for those treasures to collect gamerscore.

All in all, I liked the game alot. It has issues, mainly with the camera and with Miss Croft not always getting what you want her to do and willingly jumping to her death. It's not the easiest game overall now that I think about it, but it's fair enough with savepoints and medpacks and me being no "casual-gamer", it was rather easy to finish. It plays smoothly, it's not too short (if you take your time exploring rather than rushing through) and the atmosphere is great - mainly due to the impressive sound effects and musical score. I felt very entertained during the time I played the game. And I can see myself trying to collect all treasures still while exploring the levels some more. And finishing the game at hardest setting - which shouldn't be much of a challenge either.

Images taken from and probably © www.amazon.de

been a while - too many games

It's been too long that I've written a new post. I shouldn't allow myself to get lazy like that. Ok, given there were reasons for that but that's not really a justification. I did have time to write something - but was lacking the motivation.

Anyway, x-mas is getting closer and many many new games are out already or still coming out. Some I bought already (and finished), others I will buy and with some games I'm still not sure or pondering wether to get them. It doesn't happen alot that there are actually that many good/interesting games coming out that I even have to think of not getting some of them right away since I won't be able to play them anyway. I'm bad when it comes to multitasking - and especially with games, I like concentrating on one at a time.

Here I will just list the games. The games I played so far I will put in seperate posts.

• Prince of Persia - Definitely!
• Street Fighter 4 - Definitely!
• Resident Evil 5 - What I've seen so far makes me want it
• Left 4 Dead - Only if I find enough ppl willing to buy it too - and if the aiming is ok even on a console
• Gears of War 2 - Got it already!
• Tomb Raider Underworld - Got it already!
• Mirror's Edge - Got it already!
• Dead Space - Still pondering
• Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe - probably not... *gasp*

The Force is unleashed!

Finally the time is here: the force unleashed has been released! And to my surprise the german version also included the original English version. The voice-acting is great just like the video sequences. Overall, the presentation is very good - even though we've seen more detailed character models in games like Soulcalibur 4 or Mass Effect. Nevertheless, it looks great.
First off, I wanna say I really enjoyed playing the game. Ok, it's rather short. I finished the game in like 8 hours. But I was very entertained and I even didn't mind restarting again and finishing it at a higher difficulty setting. Ok, I had to restart, but I'll come to that soon.

The game has many good features. The graphics are great just like the sound. The levels are fun too most of the time and using the force gets to be alot of fun. The story is interesting aswell, tying together the end of Episode 3 and the beginning of Episode 4. The gameplay is fun and quite intuitive. The camera sucks at times but I'm used to worse and it doesnt bother me much. Most of the time it's fine once you got used to it.

There are some issues with this game that annoyed me:

glitches (or even bugs):

• if you change your lightsaber and your outfit at the same time, one of the changes won't get activated.
• when doing sith lightsaber combos, the glow of the lightsaber gets messed up until you swing it again. This was in the demo already and I'm alittle disappointed it didn't get fixed.
• holocrons might be missing for some reason. That actually happened to me and I ended up having to restart the game again since I wanted the achievement for collecting all holocrons. My friend has the PS3 version and he experienced another known bug that forced him to restart aswell. He also had the game crash once and so did I. I would expect alittle more quality from a final release version.

Gameplay issues:

• the apprentice might be strong, but if he's knocked down he tends to lay around way too long. So long that you usually get hit one or two more times before you get back up and can control yourself again. Sone enemies even juggle you during that downtime. After some playtime you know how to use the force to stabilize yourself when hit, but it's still quite annoying.
• targetting with force powers sometimes seems harder than it should be. Especially the force lift sometimes seems to target everything but the one piece of junk you actually wanted to grab. This couldve been implemented alittle smarter I think.

Nevertheless, it's a great game and fun to play. I finished it twice now and replayed many levels multiple times and it never got boring so far. I was actually surprised how well it all went when I tried the 3rd difficulty setting. I could really see that I did improve ever since finishing it the first time. It gets more tactical and you have to use your surrounding to get things done without too much trouble. But still, there's alot of freedom on how to do things and beat enemies. That alone makes you feel quite free. And it has replay-value for me, since it's simply fun running through some levels and - probably after lowering the difficulty-setting a bit - beating the shit out of the enemies with the force...

The problems with translations

We germans localize and translate almost everything. Above all movies, of course. But also games. Both things have a drawback for me: I prefer the original language versions, well, if those are in english that is. But also Animes and Japanese games I prefer watching in the original version, with either german or english subtitles then.

I am by far not an enemy of my german native language, but I keep noticing that alot of translations these days must've been done by ppl who are not really into the background of the shows/movies/games/etc that they are translating. I mean, how stupid do you have to be to translate "Dungeons and Dragons" literally word by word? Such things are inexcusable!

Another example: The recent Batman movie. Joker holds Rachael outside the window with one hand and Batman says "Let her go!", with Joker replying "bad choice of words". Well, I've honestly never seen the original language version yet, but when I saw the dubbed version of that scene I immediately knew that that was the wordplay they originally did. And what did the german Batman say? "Lass sie frei!". "Let her free?" WTF is that? "Lass sie los!" Would've fit perfectly, even lipsync, and all that with preserving the word-play...

Ohwell, the good thing is that nowadays, you get DVDs and Blurays that have the english language track on them and thus give you a choice. And you get two languages instead of one. Very nice indeed!

With games however, you don't always have that choice. And what's even worse: It's really hard to find out what kinds of choices you will have prior to when the game is released. But that is usually one of my biggest questions before I decide on buying a game: "Will it be localized? How is the german translation? The voiceacting? Will I be able to switch to the original-language? Is it included on the german/european disc?". Or for JRPGs: "Will the original japanese language still be available?" - I don't really care if german or english subtitles then.

Those facts normally influence where I'll order a game. Here or in the UK. I prefer ordering stuff in Germany, but sometimes I simply can't. Worst example: Burnout Revenge / Paradise. The demos supported multiple languages, chosen by the one you set on your console. But the full game released in Germany didn't feature the english language anymore, but instead french and another one that I forgot. So when I inserted the game and my console was set to english, the game thought "ohwell, I don't have english available, so I guess I'll start up with the next best language close to that one: french". Yep, so I had to play the game in german - which sucked for Burnout - and for that I even had to change the language of my console! Well, I learned from that incident and when Burnout Paradise was coming out, I checked messageboards online first and ended up buying the UK version... perfect!

Mass Effect was another example. One of my most highgly expected games ever and it got pretty clear that they will make a german-only release for Germany of course, since the amount of voice-acting simply wouldn't allow putting more than one language on that disc. That was fine too. I knew about it beforehand, and even though the german version was actually quite good, I still ended up getting it from the UK again. And I was happy.

But not that the Force will be unleashed very soon, I am still trying to figure out if the german version will be featuring the english voiceacting or not. The german voices suck compared to the original english ones (Darth Vader!). Quite a long time ago already, I preordered the UK version. But of course I'd prefer buying the game here in Germany - also since I'll probably have it a day or two earlier than having it ship to here from the UK. But I can't cancel my order unless I'm absolutely sure I'll get english voiceacting when I buy the game here.

So , to sum up my rant: I love german, and I think it's quite nice that we get localized version of games and movies. I'm not that egoistic to demand that we should stop translating everything. I know many many ppl here are really glad we get almost everything localized. But all I am asking for is a simple way to find out which language / subtitle tracks a game will feature when it comes out. And that - preferrable - before it comes out! But I find it quite hard to get that information. If at all, you don't usually get it from the official distributor, but from other user in messageboards or from websites specialized in games.

My Takis

General Hints

Taki is fast! Use that to your advantage

You'll often end up close to the enemy. Many of her moves have low range so you'll have to be close anyway. Don't go all offense (unless you are spamming of course). Be ready to block alot.

Moves

4+B - Does huge Soul damage. Very long reach, easily underestimated. Can also be chained to keep hitting opponent when he/she gets up. Two in a row trigger a soulcrush when gauge flashing red. Sometimes one is enough if enough hits took place prior to it. Has a chance of even causing a guard block first, repelling the enemies attack before stricking him!

6+B - Good when close up to the enemy. Can be chained with most NPCs. 4th time being blocked in a row when soul gauge flashing will result in a definite soul crush.

A+B, B, B - Attack Roll with Airstrike. Nice opener and lots of Gauge dmg too if blocked. Usually, only the second hit (from the air) will cause a soulcrush. You don't need to wait til you are back on the ground to initiate the Critical Finish then.

Taki 1: High HP, High Gauge Dmg, Medium Dmg

Equipment Taki (1P) Life Gem: Sun Style/Weapon Taki Kagekiri Skills Soul Gauge Damage A Soul Gauge Recovery A Start Dash B Double-Edged Sword

Equipment Color upper body: 2:44,28 / 6:11,01 / 5:60,27 / 4:37,17 lower body: 6:36,23 / 3:54,27 Stats Attack: 107% Defense: 117% HP: 190% Power: 0 / 0 Impact: 0 / 0 Boost: 110 / 120 Gauge: 130 / 130 Special: 60 / 6

---

Taki 2: Medium HP, High Gauge Dmg, Auto Impact

Equipment Taki (1P) Repel Gem: Plover Style/Weapon Taki Fu-Ma Kugi Skills Soul Gauge Damage B Auto Impact A Appeal

Equipment Color upper body: 7:32,19 / 6:11,01 / 5:60,27 / 9:09,14 lower body: 6:36,23 / 3:54,27 Stats Attack: 137% Defense: 119% HP: 110% Power: 0 / 0 Impact: 120 /130 Boost: 50 / 50 Gauge: 60 /80 Special: 0 /0

Taki rules!

I'm a big fan of Beat'Em Ups. And In almost every game, I end up playing a female, fast character. Not that I actually want to play a female character (though hot chicks surely are a plus), but I simply love fast fighters. And it usually turns out that the fastest ones are often female.

So when the very first Soul Edge / Soul Blade came out, I quickly focused on Taki, the fastest of all the characters available back then - and also the one with the tightest outfit. And even though I also came to like other fighters when more and more sequels were released, Taki always remained my favorite.

Now that Souldcalibur IV is out, I first feared after playing it a while that in order to get achieve missions and grind money, I might have to rely on other chars that are "cheaper" and more effective to play, like Nightmare or Kilik. Those characters have huge range and many moves to throw opponents out of the ring. That combined with high dmg output makes fighting the CPU and finishing the game quickly rather easy. So I stuck to such characters, always alittle sad since I wanted to do that with my favorite character instead.

But when it came to getting the achievement for 100 critical finishes, I started playing with Taki again... and I realized once more just how amazing she is! Well I always knew that and loved her for certain qualities (pun intented) but I found out a few more things that I never thought I could use her for:

one reason: critical finish galore

Her attacks are fast and - given the right equipment and skills - do huge soul gauge damage! Then all I needed was to find good attacks to actually cause the soul crush in order to finish the opponent. And it turned out that Taki has quite alot of moves like 4+B or 6+B that make soul crushes quite easy to do - especially because those can be chained / spammed, at least with slower opponents.

another reason: cannon-throws

I never used the ground explosion techniques of Taki too much in the past. But when fighting the CPU at high difficulty, it "showed" me an arial throw that started with that explosion. I don't remember the name given for those moves in the game, but I simply call em "cannon-throws" myself. And after practicing those, they now became a fixed addition to my move-arsenal - at least when fighting against the CPU.

With those 2 new discoveries, I ended up finishing the game and story-mode with Taki over and over again, grinding money, critical finishes and guard blocks. And I was surprised how easy the game is with her, even in hard mode. And above all: It's so much fun! There aren't many games where I have a character that fits me so well... I just feel comfortable and home when I can control Taki. Her swift moves, her direct reactions to my button-pressing. And with the new techniques, I don't feel weak or fragile at all, not even when facing the biggest, strongest characters.

Had to take a picture of this. Was such a nice score with Taki on hard mode. Wasn't even aiming for it.

So thank you Namco, for designing such an amazing Fighter. And sorry for ever disbanding your for that long, Taki! I hope the long sessions I had the past few days compensated for that!

Images taken from and probably © IGN and Namco

Shoot 'Em Up

I watched the movie "Shoot Em Up". I heard of it before and I was interested but I never got around to see it. Now I did, and I have to say I liked it alot! It's without compromises. It wants to be a picture-intense, pure shooting-feast with cool guys, hot girls, bad guys, alot of guns and shooting and impossible situations, and everything in the all so nice and dirty "Film-Noire" look. And you exactly get all that! It's like a mixture of "Sin City" and a movie version of "Max Payne".

The movie was violent yes, but also very good-looking (in its own way), smart, funny and just damn damn cool! It is like a computer game made into a movie! If there's ever gonna be a movie version of "Max Payne", please let Clive Owen be in it! He's Max! :)

Finished Ninja Gaiden II

Ok, normally it's not really something that special if I finish a game. I tend to finish most games I get - at least once. But if you actually finish a game like Ninja Gaiden, it's alittle special and you can be proud.

I did finish it at the lower of the 2 difficulty-settings, ok. And I have to admit overally it was quite easy most of the time. Only the one or the other boss-mob gave me troubles sometimes, but most of them were easy. It's a very good game and I enjoyed playing it alot... except for the final boss! Why? Because you had to finish him with the bow! I never liked the bow. I love the game. It's fast, the combos are smooth and you hardly ever feel slow or cornered. Ryu twirls and flies around and you never feel like you can't control where he's headed and what he's doing. Very good responsiveness, high speed, that's how I love games! But when you use the bow, you don't feel fast anymore. You're slow, standing, aiming. A sitting duck, having to wait til your bow is fully charged so you can release one arrow and hopefully hit the right spot in time. It takes away the key element of the playing-style of the game, that's why I never use the bow. I prefer the shuriken since you can just throw those while moving and doing your combos.

And if that wouldn't be annoying enough, the final boss has to be fought a total of 3 times, that right after a previous boss-mob and even adding a final boss mob to the very end for a whopping chain of 5 boss-fights, all without savepoint or shop to restock. Looking back afterwards, it wasn't too hard to do either - since the mobs before and after the annoying fights are actually doable with melee-action, but the arrow-part is very annoying because there's alot of luck involved and there's a high learning-curve involved - at least there was for me, who never had to rely on the bow much before that.

But I'm proud I finished the game, and it was alot of fun indeed! So much I'll surely go for the higher difficulty setting soon... very much doable, just some boss mobs I'm not looking forward to. But I can live with a game that' 95% fun and 5% annoying - I just wished they wouldn't have put the most annoying part at the very end.

image taken from and © www.ign.com

Ninja Gaiden 2 is here!

Today I got Ninja Gaiden 2 for the 360! I've been waiting for it a long time and I've been excited to play it. As I wrote before already, I was hoping that they don't change too much since the first one already was quite perfect... and I didn't get disappointed!

It's still as hard and fast and smooth, the chicks still have the Tecmo-typical sexy outfits showing big, bouncing breasts, the boss mobs are huge and the atmosphere is great!

I'm not sure about the graphics. To me, it still looks like the first one, no real improvement. Then again, the first one was quite amazing already. It's probably the same as with Dead or Alive (the fighting game and the volleyball one), which didn't seem to be that much better-looking on the new Xbox either.

A definite improvement is on the gore-factor! Blood, blood everywhere! Chopped off body-parts and corpses that stay where you left them. I'm not sure if I simply had a censored version of the first one or if it really was that less bloody. I like the more intense display of violence, though it's not a must - the game would've been great with alittle less too. (some might say that the same goes for the bust-sizes of the females in their games, but that's a big NO from my side!)

The one thing that didn't get improved is the camera! I hear all Ninja Gaiden fans cheer "Yay!"... it's still as crappy, too slow, never focused on the thing you wanna see and so you end up controlling it yourself with your right thumb-stick while you are playing. Well, I guess most fans are used to playing it that way anyway.

They added an easier difficulty setting. I have to admit I started on that one and it wasn't that challenging. I might still finish the game quickly on that one but just like with the first game, I'll replay this game on higher difficulties too. It's a challenging game, but thanks to the higher amount of save-points and the now included max-health at those spots and the self-heals after fights, this game will probably frustrate a lot less than the first one did.

So, the game has been worth the wait. Some things could be a little more impressive - especially for a 360 game, but it's got all the things I loved about the series so far and I'm looking forward to beating the game and seeing more of the plot - which I can't say too much about yet.

Grid - first impression

Ok, after getting "Grid" for the 360 a few days ago, here are my first impressions:

The game feels good. The physics engine is amazing and I can't remember ever having so much "feeling" for the car and the track when playing a racing-game. Surprisingly, the 1st person "helmet view" is the setting I like driving most, despite the drawbacks. But I think it gives the best feeling about the behavior of the car - and more reputation points if you set the camera fixed to that view. And playing the game sitting close to a big HD-screen makes it even more amazing!

Now I'm actually thinking about something I never thought I would: should I get the steering wheel for the 360?

God of War - Chains of Olympus

I don't own any Sony-console. My first console I bought was a PSX, but I boycotted them ever since then for different reasons. I do own a PSP though - the old variant, not the "slim". It's a niftily little gaming-machine for old-school players and geeks, without stylus and touch-screen but with full-fledged WPA-enabled Wifi access and USB mass-storage support.

I got "God of War - Chains of Olympus" for the PSP not long ago. There are only a few Sony-console exclusive games that I actually missed so far, and the 2 God of War games certainly were amongst them. The happier I was when the PSP-game was announced and I've been looking forward to the game ever since then. Now it's here and I have to say: It's really great! Very impressive what they got out of the good old PSP-hardware! The game itself has the Kratos-typical, involving and impressive storyline which is told by beautiful video and realtime-3D sequences. The sound is amazing and very fitting. All in all, this game pretty much looks like its predecessors on the big consoles... I don't have a PSP slim so I can't observe the gfx on the big screen via TV-out, but I doubt it'll look that much worse than the PS2-games.

The game is a lot fun so far. I didn't finish it yet but since I have all my stats and my items maxed out, I doubt it'll be that much longer til I see the credits rolling. I did read reviews and the only thing most of them saw as drawback was the short playtime. And if I'm done with the story soon, then I have to agree with that. I only started playing the game on Friday and spent a couple of sessions during the weekend... so all in all if I finish it during my next session, I think that's a little short indeed. Ok, given I never played any of the other games much but I do have a lot of experience with those kinds of games - which are one of my favorite kind of games - so maybe I simply was a little fast. The game itself didn't appear hard at all so far, only 1 or 2 slightly annoying situations that were very doable once you figured out the right tactics.

But to sum it up: Great game! Even if it should be done in a few hours of playtime, you definitely are very very entertained during those hours! And I rather have a shorter game that rocks 100% of the time than a long, boring game!

picture taken from and probably © Amazon.de

Amazon UK cheaper than DE?

I ordered some games from Amazon today. The strange thing is: I ordered them from the UK. Why? 3 reasons:

1. Not all games were available in Germany, either because they simply take longer to be released (localisation?) or they are not even rated yet and might be forbidden to be sold here in Germany. I'm not gonna go into details about why - I have my own opinion about this whole thing but I would just end up ranting about it.


2. Altogether, the whole thing was cheaper when ordering from the UK. They usually have a 10% off the price when you pre-order games, and almost all of them were pre-orders. So even including shipping and handling and tax, The UK order was like 10 Euro cheaper than if I had ordered the same games from Amazon Germany.


3. I prefer original language versions of games normally. Usually that means having an english version of a game. Most games are localized for the german market. That wouldn't be a bad thing, but sometimes the original language is not included anymore. And german translations aren't always the best, especially when voice-acting is involved. The problem is that it's often unclear how the german version will be and if the game will still feature the original language support until the game is actually released. And I don't like bad surprises like that.

So when I think about it, I'm usually better off ordering from the UK anyway. Just surprised me today that the whole thing actually is cheaper than I thought. But ohwell why not? We live in a globalized world, right? Well, might aswell go with the advantages of that.

more games coming up

After some time passed now without me buying new games, there are more and more coming up on the horizon that I simply want to have. And strangely, they are all coming out for the 360. Ok, not really surprising. It just makes me realize that I really don't need a PS3 - except for like 1 or 2 games perhaps and as a Bluray-Player.

Anyway, here are some more games I'm looking forward to.

Soulcalibur 4 I've loved all Soul... games so far. Starting with Soulblade/Souledge on the old PSX. That game back then was actually the reason I got myself a PSX. Soulcalibur on the Dreamcast was a milestone concerning graphics and playability in my eyes, while Soulcalibur 2 was more solid - it didn't blow me away that much, probably because it was released on the PS2 aswell and I was spoiled since the Xbox was able to deliver much nicer graphics at that time. The 3rd sequel didn't make it to any Microsoft-console, so now that the 4th one is announced, I'm really looking forward to it! From what footage I've seen so far, they can't really do much wrong anymore. Looks nice enough for me. Now I only hope for 2 things: same playability as the old games and let Taki be part of the cast! Then I'll buy this game without even reading a review.

Star Wars - Force Unleashed I can't say much about this game yet, cept: Looks cool and very promising! It definitely does, and as a big Star Wars- and lightsabre-fan this surely caught my attention. Now lets hope they get the rest of the ingredients for a good game together aswell, then this will be one hell of a game!