Menu

big boobs

ps-vita-pics

Survivor Series: PS Vita: Up Till Now

/ , , , / , , , , / 0 Comments

Hey everybody! I hope everyone is having a good Christmas season out there in the AAA community. What I’m going to talk about today is the first year of the PS Vita with all the ups and downs (mostly downs), and what the future might hold for the pretty little handheld.

So the Vita launched a year and a day ago as in Japan as I’m writing this, and it had a pretty auspicious start in the lands of the rising sun selling 325,000 units in the first few days, a good launch compared to other systems like the 3DS. However, in the next weeks the sells cratered dropping to as low 12,309 units in the week of February 13th, and being outsold by the PSP. Now the sells have recovered somewhat in the following weeks averaging about 40,000 a week worldwide. This pattern followed with the North American and European launches, initial sales was great and then sinking down to low levels. The black Friday and holiday sales good, but this is likely a temporary bump as with all holiday’s seasons sales always rise dramatically over normal sales figures.

So now let’s look the games released for the system so far. There are currently 158 games as of writing for the Vita. Of these 25 were the launch titles, including Little Deviants, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Wipeout 2048, Rayman Origins, BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend etc. The best selling game is Uncharted with 850,000 units sold and will likely also be the first 1 million seller on the system. Not of the other games come close to Uncharted; however three games have about half the sales. Some of the games have been released to critical acclaim such as Persona 4: The Golden which is the highest rated handheld game in 2012 on Metacrtic. Gravity Rush has won handheld game of the year from some publications. So the Vita does have some games to answer that question people like to ask all the time about Sony systems haha. There are a couple games that came out this year that were suppose to turn the fortunes of the Vita around, the so-called “Killer App” that people are always talking about that sells systems, but neither Call of Duty: Declassified or Resistance: Burning Skies became the killer app as both suffered from bad controls and were a little short on content. One of the key selling points people were touting was the ability of Vita to play FPS on the go with the dual analog sticks. Now that two high profile FPS have come out and both have been utter disappointments and in my mind this has damaged the Vita brand.

There is isn’t much to say about what Sony has done to turn around the lackluster sales of the PS Vita because there hasn’t been a permanent price cut, the marketing has largely remain the same, and the Playstation Plus is now on Vita and that should help with sales, how much it will help remained to be seen.

 

Now I’m going to discuss some things that I think Sony can do to turn Vita around and get it selling good. Here’s the strategy I have conceived that Sony can follow to make sell well and make a profit. They cannot drop the price until the handheld can be redesigned into a form that makes a profit off each unit, otherwise Sony will be losing even more money then they already are on each unit sold. This could take a year or so, but in the end be worth it if they include the features I’m about to list. Include a drive to play all the PSP games; all of the people on the fence about buying a Vita that have a big PSP game library would have a huge reason to buy the system. Add an SD card slot; having only Sony memory cards as the only storage media on Vita has hurt the system even if its not the main reason people often point too. The Vita memory cards are expensive and are an unnecessary extra expense for buyers when they probably have a few SD cards they could be using to store games and data. Extend the battery life of the system; this is probably the easiest one to implement as it has been done many times for other handhelds. The most recent example being the 3DS XL, which added an extra 1.5 hours to the 3DS’s battery life, so it is not that hard. This could also be done through third party batteries such as the ones by Nyko, and that’s what I did with my 3DS and its battery life is actually better than the XL’s. Make games that are an unique experience to the Vita; I think the major problem with Sony’s ideology towards Vita is that they are trying to create scaled down versions of PS3 games for Vita instead of developing games from ground up specifically for Vita. In order to attract people to spent the money on a new hardware you need to have exclusive software that is found no where else. Marketing the Sega Genesis style; it would be extremely funny to watch Sony do some commercials along the lines of the ones done by Sega against Nintendo in the early 1990’s, and seeing how those worked well for Sega it could work for Sony as well.

 

 

Well until next time,

Devil_Survivor

1559 - attractive gamer girl taken

Survivor Series: Finishing a Anime Series or a Game

/ , , / , , , , , / 2 Comments

Recently, I been reading a lot of articles on game sites I frequent in which the authors lament the fact that studies show that only about 20 percent of gamers actually finish a game they start.  When I heard this I was a little shocked and thought no way that can be right but, then I started to see in multiple articles on multiple sites.  So in my mind this is a disheartening for a couple reasons; one that developers put so much time into making a game that only a very small minority of people that play games see the end and that people paid like 60 dollars for a console game these days and that’s like getting only a portion  of the value of what you paid for.  I’m the kind of gamer that must finish a game’s story all way through. I’m what you might call a “game finisher”, however I’m not a completiontist  by any measure as I don’t feel the need get every achievement or trophy in every game I play.  Its more about seeing that the job gets at the basic level by simply beating the game  because that is still is the base objective in any game even games that are multiplayer centric like Call of Duty and Battlefield 3. I finish a lot of games, this year so far I think I have finished maybe 20-25 so far this year, which probably puts me in the 1-5 percent of that 10-20 percent of gamers that finish games.

So that got me wondering what percentage of anime fans actual finish the anime they are watching? Now I don’t any figures for this like with game, but I’ll try to use what I know from anime fans I know have told me. The hosts of the anime podcasts I listen to will often comment that they have only seen a portion of a certain  that is in a given discussion. This is probably because they are also reviewers and they have a lot anime to watch and its just not possible to watch the entire series. Also another difficulty is access to the whole show which is sometimes hard because maybe you cannot find in your country or its not very popular and thus not streamed or fansubbed.  Then there is simply having not a lot of time to devote to watching anime, which is probably a problem we all have unfortunately.

So the point of me bringing this up is that I just think its a bit tragic that all these talented people put so much time and effort into making great anime and games and the vast majority of people never see them. Some tips I have to have to maximize your game and anime experience is to focus on perhaps a couple at a time and clear them out move on to the next game or series. In anime series skip the opening and ending credits as this can often save about 5-6 minute per episode of a series.So get out and actual finish a game of anime!

Here are some the articles taking about the low number of gamers that finish their games:

http://www.gameguru.in/general/2012/27/hitman-absolution-director-says-20-percent-gamers-will-finish-title/

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/08/18/cnn-report-only-10-percent-of-players-finish-games.aspx

 

Cheers and Beers,

Devil_Survivor

Catherine2

Survivor Series: Catherine Review

/ , , , / , , , , , / 2 Comments

Hey Anime Addicts, so I finally finished main lining the wondrously busty Catherine and now will proceed to review the game. I know that this game has a big following on this site, and I hope a lot of you will read this who are not yet fans of this game will pick it up and play it because its really a one of a kind game. This game has controversy surrounding it, not only for the mature content( when I told a friend I was playing this game she said oh the sex game :P), but also for the difficult of the game itself, I’ll address both of those points below.

Background Story:

In this game you take the role of Vincent Brooks, a 32 year old, systems engineer for technology company. He’s kind of a lazy, unorganized, and very in the moment average guy with not much of a future planned out. He has a girlfriend of 5 years(amazing I know), called Katherine. Katherine has recently began to talk about getting married and then Vincent started to have very dark nightmares. The next morning he wakes next to a hot, young, and curvy girl also named Catherine and wonders he how he will get himself out of this mess.

Game play:

Catherine is two games in one, a puzzle game and what you might call a ” moral” psychological thriller. The puzzle element of the game is pretty straight forward as it involves 9 stages with various themes and lengths. At the end of each stage there is a boss stage in which a large creature will change up the wall of blocks and will attempt to kill you. In each puzzle stage there will be various items that can used to help complete the stage. Sprinkled through the stage you find “sheep”, other guys like Vincent trying to escape the nightmare and they will try to impede your progress. As you proceed through the game there will different types of blocks you will encounter, ice blocks, spike blocks, exploding blocks, black hole blocks, etc. and learning how to manage each type of block will be integral to your completing the game.  Also important is mastering the various techniques for scaling the different walls of blocks, these will be taught to you at certain points in the game.

The other element of the game, the moral psychological thriller, mostly takes place between each stage in the form of questions asked by a disembodied voice in a confessional booth and the question is usually on the subject of some issue of morality. How you answer the questions affects the ending you will get upon finishing the game, there are 8 endings in total, three for each Catherine, and two neutral endings. Some of the questions will asked at a bar called the Stray Sheep where you will interact with your friends and get messages on your phone from both Catherine. In the bar there are additional features like a mini game called Rapunzel which is also a block based puzzle game, and there is a jukebox that plays various songs from different Atlus games.

As for the game being too difficult, honestly with any game you should probably play it on lower difficult levels, learn the game,get skilled and then try to beat it on the more challenging settings. Its true this game is very challenging, in fact the develops actually created a very easy mode because people complained it was so hard. I found the game to be not as insanely difficult as people make it out to be, playing on easy I think I never dropped beyond 90 retries as there are more enough items that give retires, so on normal and hard it cannot be that impossible.

 

Visuals and Graphics:

The game play graphics are pretty good for this day and age, the blocks are rendered in nice detail and are as the characters. Where this game really shines in terms of visuals is in the cut scenes. There are two types, ones that are CG graphic or ones that are anime style. I really love the anime cut scenes, I have never seen such great animation in a game and Atlus really went out of their way to make those scenes so beautifully animated. The CG scenes are good as well, just a little overshadowed by the anime scenes.

 

Closing Comments:

I loved playing Catherine its a one of a kind gaming experience that combines two genres of games that I think no one  ever thought would go together, and yet it seems to work in this incarnation.  Its a special treat if your a anime fan like me, and most of you that will read this most likely are. This game asks some interesting questions about relationships  and what people want out of life and I found myself rethinking a lot things I thought I had figured already about life. In sum, if you want a game that will make you think, with puzzles, and you are a fan of anime this game is for you.

 

Until next time,

Devil Survivor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

bots master 1

Survivor Series: Spotlight- Bots Master

/ , , / , , , , , / 3 Comments

OK, so I said that from time to time I would bring to your attention shows that I thought deserved more attention then they garner when they first aired , and this one is no exception. The first offering I have for you in this special feature spotlight series is the 1993 French series Bots Master. The reason I ever saw this show as child was because executives at Youth Television(YTV) in Canada though the show would rate well with kids. I think it stood out to them because it had a story that didn’t treat kids as idiots and actually delivered a substantive story at least for a children television show.

The background story as follows; in the year 2025, robots have become part of every day life for many people across the planet. The innovation that led to this new reality occurred in a garage, when teenage prodigy Ziv “ZZ” Zulander created the first of “3A” robot series. Soon after ZZ goes to work for the  Robotic Megafact Corporation aka “the Corp” and mass product of the 3A robots begins. After sometime ZZ uncovers a plot by the president of the Corp, Sir Lewis Leon Paradim, and several other executives at the Corp to take control of the world government through a series of plots involving the company’s 3A robots which are positioned all over the world in key places. ZZ knows that Paradim is a well respected figure in the business world and he plans to run for the world presidency in the election upcoming in the next year, and  most likely no one in power will believe him without hard evidence. Facing this situation ZZ decides to embark on a covert, below the surface, guerrilla campaign to stop Paradim and the Corp and gather enough evidence to bring them to justice. Assisting him are a new generation of robot known as the B.O.Y.Z.Z ( Brain Operated Young Zygoetopic Zoids), robots with the ability to think and reason with very different personalities.  After rescuing his sister from the Corp private school, Blitzy, she joins him, and they together face a long, uphill battle to expose the Corp.

I think the creators of this show envisaged  a world where at some point there would be a one world government, like we see in so many Japanese mech animes like gundam, macross, etc. Now I don’t think there will be a world government by 2025, however its likely that at some point there will be a world government, so I give them points for presenting a possible near future world, which was over 30 years away at the time of production.  I get the feeling Bots Master was meant for an older audience, maybe 14-16 year olds,  given the more mature type of story, and the political, corporate, and social overtones.

There are several themes that appear throughout the series. The major one is the issue of corporate influence over government and methods used by companies to gain influence in political spheres. The role of the media is a also secondary theme, as the media at first has a negative view of ZZ and then as he slowly exposes the Corp, the image becomes more favorable. Another theme is how much are people willing to sacrifice to see their goals through to the end as at times ZZ questions if its all worth it. The theme of artificial intelligence plays a part in this series with the boyzz robots come to terms living in a world where robots are seen just as servants and menial labor workers.

Of course this series has some gimmicks and downsides. The main gimmick is the 3D sequences during each episode when which with or with 3D glasses you could see the action in 3D. As a child this was off the chart for me, but now its just something to chuckle at lol. Some of the characters are annoying and one dimensional and this can wear on your nerves. The use of stock footage is a bit much at times, but as an anime and more importantly an a mecha anime fan, I’m used to stock footage :P.

I would recommend this show to anyone who likes mech shows or anyone that enjoys a show with politics or addresses social themes.If you want to watch the show here’s a link to a youtube channel with all 40 episodes and its been there for years, so don’t worry about copyright law lol. I’m probably going to give it a re-watch myself soon.

http://www.youtube.com/user/cmeister2

http://www.veoh.com/watch/v15644200B5scXPCd?h1=The+Bots+Master+Ep.1

 

Until next time folks,

Devil_Survivor

 

971344-devil_survivor_super

Survivor Series: Devil Survivor Review

/ , , / , , , , , / 1 Comment

So I thought it would be appropriate for my first game review to be my namesake, none other than: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor. This game is part of the long running Shin Megami Tensei series and its the first of the series that I have had the pleasure of playing. It also has the title of the first of the series to be released outside of Japan. Devil Survivor received very good reviews averaging an 8 out of 10. So let’s now take a look at the specifics of the game.

Background Story:

In Devil Survivor you are a high school student, who is referred to as Hero and who you give a name too at the beginning of the game,  who is about to enter his third year of high school and the game begins with you meeting your friends to hang out in downtown Tokyo. One of your friends is late and he explains your cousin gave him three new Comps, DS looking devices that are very popular with the Japanese, and he hands you one and tells you that your cousin has modified the Comps with a new program he wrote. Then you get an email on your Comps from something called the “Laplace System” and it makes some dire predictions about the future including a lock down of Tokyo. Soon the Japanese Self Defense Force announces a lock down of a large area of downtown Tokyo. Soon Hero and his friends discover that the Comps have an intriguing ability to summon demons  and battle other demons. The main characters are then attacked by demons and became aware that the modified Comps allow humans to fight demons on an equal footing and defeat the demons. They then embark on a journey to uncover the mystery surrounding the lock down and ultimately escape from this nightmare.

Game Play:

Devil Survivor is a tactical role playing game and plays much like similar games such as Final Fantasy. You have a team of three characters, but with a slight difference  that human character is part of the team along with two demons. You can have up to four teams at one time on the battlefield, however you might have many other playable team leaders in your party. As for demons, you can carry up to 24 in your Comp. One of the coolest features of the game is the ability to fuse your existing demons with ones you can buy in auctions or that you acquired other ways into more powerful demons. There are two types of battles you will encounter; ones that are plot related and free battles.  Free battles are pretty simple they just allow you to fight some enemies to gain experience to level up and earn some money to buy more demons in auctions. The plot related battles are more involved as the ones you choose will influence which character’s ending you will get at the conclusion of the game. These are called “paths” and every major character has one. The two times I played the game so far I got Yuzu(Hot chick in the pink with the very large boobs) ending and Gin’s ending(Gin is the badass in the tie that owns his own bar). There are other events which are non-battles that advance the story as well, you can tell them from battles because an icon appears next to them with a red exclamation mark and say “battle”, pretty easy to tell apart I know :P. The game is broken up into 7 days and each event you do moves the clock forward 3o minutes, so beware of this if you want to level up some more before moving ahead in the story.

Personal Comments:

I really enjoyed this game a lot, its exactly what I like in a role playing game. The game has a deep and richly realized story with many twists and turns, characters with good development(yuzu and mildori are annoying at certain points), and a simple and easy to learn combat interface. The replay value is high as there are many different endings depending on the path you decide to take. The game places the fate of you and your friends in your hands and its up to you who lives and who dies, it almost gave me a god complex lol (P.S. I’m not as crazy as I seem). I’m excited about the sequel that is coming in fall, and will review it when it comes out. If your looking to buy this game, I would go with the new version called Devil Survivor: Overclocked, which adds an 8th day to the story. I’m going to buy it for my 3DS(I was dumb and brought it at the high price early on, but I’m looking forward to my 20 free games from the virtual console and will get Netflixs soon on it). I give Devil Survivor 4.5 of 5 big boobed anime girls.

Ok that’s all for now. Not sure what I’ll review next, I’m I need to jump into Catherine because I know so many people on this site love that game.

 

Cheers and Beers,

Devil_Survivor


 

bleach-english-dubbed

Rant Time: Shonen Hate

/ / , , , , , , , / 2 Comments

Shonen anime and manga is the biggest form of the medium, period.  The anime series Bleach for example makes up half the revenue and watches for Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim” Saturday nights. This almost constantly stream of money comes from one thing, teenage boys. Now, I am a teenage boy myself ( I am 16) and yes I do not mind watching a kick-ass fight scene, but when is enough enough? Everywhere I look there is a picture of some muscle-bound Neanderthal carrying a huge ax, or some scrawny teenager with a massive sword, or the worst of them all, a big-breasted teenage girl wearing little to no clothing.  When is the anime industry going to grow up and realize the anime fans of say 10 years ago is now closing in on their 20’s or 30’s? The 15 year old who watched every episode of Yu-Yu-Hakusho is roughly 25 now. To all the anime companies, please let deep thought provoking anime get made, or we as fans will stop watching.

Well this rant hopefully did not offend anyone. On a side-note I plan on doing this “rant time” blogs a lot more often, if you have a hate of something anime or manga related let me know in either the comments or as a PM on the forums.

 

Later,

Gabriel Lopez