thirdworldgamer

We at Pinoyxbox are now initiating a search for a Guitar Hero player to represent the Philippines for the World Cyber Games 2008! If you're interested to join, please visit the PINOYXBOX EVENTS thread and help contribute to the discussion for the qualifying tournament! WCG Philippines 2008 - Guitar Hero III http://www.pinoyxbox.com/phpnuke/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=214198#214198

I've been in contact with Mr. Joan Martinez from WCG Philippines and he informed me that, currently, they have 8 player slots for the WCG, and only one player slot is allocated for console gaming (Xbox 360). That said, their initial choices for the games were either Virtua Fighter 5 or Guitar Hero III. Since they can only bring in one player for consoles, this means that they can't bring in players for Project Gotham Racing 4 or Halo 3. I've informed him that I feel the Pinoyxbox community can best contribute to the WCG by helping bring in a team for Halo 3. I've seen the skill of the Philippine Halo 3 players on Xbox Live and on LAN tournaments held during Pinoyxbox's local events. Some of our players have very high rankings for Halo 3 on Xbox Live and they already know how to work well together and play as a team. They are very familiar with many of the nuances of Halo 3's various multiplayer modes and are aware of the strategies and tactics employed by player...

Earlier I posted about how the PS3 is no less susceptible to hardware problems. The issue was dubbed the 'BDL' (Blu-Ray Disc Laser problem) over on Pinoyxbox by the multi-console users in the community. You'd find a lot more information about this by searching for error 80010514 and 80029906. That said, I saw this post on AICN from Moriarty ....apparently he also got hit by the BDL problem. He had the console repaired by Sony, and when he got his replacement, he was hit by another problem: he encountered an issue while updating his PS3, causing his system to get bricked. So now he's had two broken PS3s in a row, and the system has lost his recommendation as a blu-ray player system of choice for consumers: "Regarding Moriarty’s Awesome Non-Stop Blu-Ray Coverage... Or Lack Thereof! Dear Sony... Y’know, some days it doesn’t pay to be a movie fan. I’ve done tons of DVD coverage over the years here at AICN, and it’s funny... I’ve heard some people actually say, “But yo...

http://www.worldcybergames.com/6th/fun/news/news_view.asp?keyno=C08031710001 " Official WCG 2008 PC Games: · Half-Life®: Counter-Strike™ 1.6 (5 v. 5 Team FPS ) · Starcraft®: Brood War™: (1 v. 1 RTS) · WarCraft® III: The Frozen Throne™ (1 v. 1 RTS) · Command & Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath™ (1 v. 1 RTS) · Age of Empires® III: The Asian Dynasties (1 v. 1 RTS) · FIFA Soccer 08 (1 v. 1 Sports) · Need For Speed™ ProStreet (Xbox 360 in US & Canada) (1 v. 1 Racing) · Carom3D (1 v. 1 Casual) · Red Stone (4 v. 4 Team MMORPG) Official WCG 2008 Xbox 360 Games: · Halo® 3 (4 v. 4 Team FPS) · Project Gotham Racing® 4 (1 v. 1 Racing) · Guitar Hero® III: Legends of Rock (1 v. 1 Music) · Virtua Fighter® 5 (1 v. 1 Fighting) Official WCG 2008 Mobile Game: · Asphalt 3: Street Rules (1 v. 1 Racing)" Pinoyxbox has been in touch with WCG Philippines and we hope that there will be a contingent for Xbox 360 titles. I think some of the gamers in the Pinoyxbox community are very skilled at Halo...

Sales figures now up. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10191438&postcount=1 "Hardware PlayStation 2 351.8K PlayStation 3 280.8K PlayStation Portable 243.1K Xbox 360 254.6K Nintendo DS 587.6K Wii 432K Top 10 SW Top-Selling VG Software - February 2008 RELEASE TOTAL U.S. RANK TITLE PUBLISHER DATE UNITS 360 CALL OF DUTY 4: MODERN WARFARE* ACTIVISION 7-Nov 296.2K 1 360 DEVIL MAY CRY 4* CAPCOM USA 8-Feb 295.2K 2 WII PLAY W/ REMOTE NINTENDO OF AMERICA 7-Feb 289.7K 3 PS3 DEVIL MAY CRY 4* CAPCOM USA 8-Feb 233.5K 4 WII GUITAR HERO III: LEGENDS OF ROCK* ACTIVISION 7-Oct 222.9K 5 NDS MARIO AND SONIC: OLYMPIC GAMES SEGA OF AMERICA 8-Jan 205.6K 6 360 LOST ODYSSEY MICROSOFT 8-Feb 203.6K 7 360 TUROK TOUCHSTONE 8-Jan 197.7K 8 PS2 GUITAR HERO III: LEGENDS OF ROCK* ACTIVISION 7-Oct 183.8K 9 360 ROCK BAND* MTV GAMES/ELECTRONIC ARTS 7-Nov 161.8K 10" What can I say? I called it. Devil May Cry 4 on the Xbox 360 outsells the Playstation 3 version in the United States by a good margin. ...

I found this really, really awesome AMV for Lost Odyssey on Youtube. To find more AMVs, type "Lost Odyssey AMV" in the search box in Youtube. The fandom for this game, it grows day by day.

I spotted that FanFiction.Net now has a Lost Odyssey section! Check it out below: http://www.fanfiction.net/game/Lost_Odyssey/ Right now it's still relatively new so there's only one story there....but I'm sure that this game's fanbase is rising by the day, and there will be more stories posted there soon. I wonder if anyone will be able to pen a tale that can rival those in "A Thousand Years of Dreams"? Or if anyone can write something about what happens after the game's end? The game's story really opens up a lot of ideas for writing; it really has that much in terms of content for other story ideas. The inclusion of the game on FanFiction.Net is quite fitting, in my opinion. Here's an idea (anyone out there from Microsoft? Hehehe....). There should be a writing contest for Lost Odyssey. If someone can write a story as good (or better) than the stories in "A Thousand Years of Dreams", they should win a prize of some sort (Autographed co...

Microsoft releases this little announcement about Xbox 360 not having Blu-ray for the foreseeable future, and then it causes this utter flame war on Neogaf. The thread title gets changed from this: "Microsoft Says No Blu-Ray for X360" To this: "Microsoft Says No Blu-Ray for X360 - choice doesn't live here any more :(" That and the allowance of the excessive trolling from Sony fanboys in the thread makes me question what kind of moderators control that forum. I'll just be blunt---it's obvious the NEOGAF moderators are strongly rooting for Sony and are deeply against having Microsoft in the console business. Having threads like these, with sensationalist title changes, and having them run rampant with excessive Sony trolling clearly reveals their bias against Microsoft and their desire to have the company fail from a public relations standpoint. Here's my take on this news, as a gamer. 1. Blu ray doesn't matter to me. Perhaps it will matter for th...

The official website for Mistwalker Corporation has been updated with new artwork and some articles (in Japanese). What was known previously was that their next project was titled 'Cry On'; however, these new pictures don't indicate that title. They do feel somewhat related to the older artworks released for that game. In line with Lost Odyssey , the theme for this game seems more mature compared to other JRPGs.

...come more hardware problems, as Sony is beginning to learn. http://news.filefront.com/rumor-40-gb-playstation-3-has-high-failure-rate/ " Rumor: 40 GB PlayStation 3 Has High Failure Rate Posted by Chris on Wednesday, November 7th, 2007 at 4:21 pm under Hardware, Gamer Life, Sony, Sony, Game Platforms, Game Consoles, Game Companies Tagged: failure rate, Playstation 3, PS3, red rings of death and Sony Gamed.nl is reporting that the new 40 GB PlayStation 3 has a failure rate of 40% – an astonishingly high number. According to the Dutch site, Belgian retailer Games Mania has stated that the new PS3 model is selling well, but 40% of the consoles sold have been returned due to hardware problems. The problems primarily relate to the system being unable to read discs, Blu-ray or otherwise. I’ve yet to hear of anything else regarding problems with the new hardware, so I’d hesitate to say this is a new another Red Rings of Death scenario. We also can’t confirm the validity of these report...

File this under "I'm doing this for a worthy cause!", Lost Odyssey is still doing quite well in Europe. It's the 10th best selling game in the UK (previously 5th), 19th in Ireland, 8th in the Netherlands, and 3rd in Spain! Also it's the 4th best selling game in Sweden! For a JRPG that isn't Final Fantasy to be on the charts in Europe, this is spectacular sales. Normally an unknown JRPG franchise drops off the chart by this point. I'm surprised it's still hanging on. It could be gone by next week, but to stay for that long for two weeks already....Mistwalker, where's my Lost Odyssey 2?? I'm only doing this because I want to see the sequel! :D For the full charts, check these links. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10140358&postcount=1 http://next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9471&Itemid=2 And by the way, VGChartz "edited" their Lost Odyssey figures for Europe to 57,166 for Week 1. It said...

http://gamerscoreblog.com/team/archive/2008/03/10/emeaannouncedrop.aspx " Everyone's Invited to Experience Xbox 360 as Microsoft Lowers Estimated Retail Price in Europe With Estimated Retail Price Starting At €199.99/£159.99, Even More European Consumers Can Enjoy The Definitive High-Definition Gaming and Entertainment Experience LONDON - Monday 10th March, 2008- Microsoft today announced it is lowering the estimated retail price (ERP) for its Xbox 360™ family of consoles in Europe. Now with an entry-level ERP of €199.99/£159.99, Xbox 360 is a mass market entertainment proposition with something to offer for every interest and budget. From Friday, 14th March, Xbox 360, which includes a 20GB hard drive and one wireless controller, will have an ERP of €269.99/£199.99 – a saving of €80/£50 on the current ERP. The Xbox 360 Elite, which comes with a massive 120GB hard drive enabling consumers to store huge quantities of content downloaded from Xbox LIVE™ Marketplace as well as the...

According to this thread on NEOGAF , a price drop for various Xbox 360 SKUs recently took effect at Amazon UK and was announced in two stores in the Netherlands. Here's the scan from Gamed.nl of the flyer from the stores which 'announced' the price drop. Another site has reported this , and as of this writing Amazon UK pulled their pricing change on the 360. However, in the same NEOGAF thread mentioned earlier, it was also rumored that a more official stance regarding this price drop should be revealed in a few hours. Hopefully it will also take effect in other territories, too (Asia, Japan, US etc). The new pricing is as follows: For the UK, the Arcade pack on Amazon is now under £150, at £149.99. The retailer is selling the Premium pack for £189.99 and the Elite for £249.99. For gamers in the Philippines, that means that the cheapest Xbox 360 in the UK is about 12,391.87 PHP (converted via XE.com). From the flyer released by the two stores in the Netherlands, the pricing ...

Just finished Devil May Cry 4 on Devil Hunter difficulty. I enjoyed the action a lot; I found it smooth and easy to play while at times providing a fair enough challenge to keep things interesting! The story is very standard but I guess the question is, was I entertained? And the answer is yes. Now this isn't really a full review of DMC4, I just wanted to say this: Capcom's "MT Framework" Game Engine is absolutely fantastic. I think it's even better than EPIC GAMES' UNREAL ENGINE 3. Yes, I've probably lost my mind, but that's the conclusion I've arrived at after playing three of Capcom's latest games in recent years: Dead Rising, Lost Planet, and now Devil May Cry 4. I just want to keep this short, so I'll just say a few things about Capcom's fantastic engine: 1. The quality I'm seeing [on their Xbox 360 games] is just so consistent. Their engine barely chugs through whatever the game designers throw at it, be it snow-filled science...

An old interview I found by accident, from all the way back in May 7, 2007. An excerpt: "Gamasutra: What do you think it will take Microsoft to succeed in Japan, not necessarily financially, but in terms of really winning over the audience? RN: Online. I don't know what's going to happen to PS3, so it’s (up in the air). Right now, in Japan, the Nintendo DS and the Wii are very successful, so many developers and publishers in Japan are focusing on the DS and the Wii, and very little on the PS3 and the Xbox 360. So eventually, most of the Japan-made games will be on either handhelds or the Wii. They were ready to invest in the PS3, but the PS3 wasn't as successful as people thought, and it's expensive to develop PS3 games, so a lot of publishers now only do a couple of PS3 games, and many DS and Wii games. Then a little Xbox 360, because the 360 is successful in the United States. But its presence in Japan is small. That was one of the reasons AQI started: to be uniq...

It's been 10 years or so since I played Final Fantasy 7 and Xenogears for the Playstation 1. Those are two JRPGs that I actually bothered to replay. As I finished both games, I had the feeling of both joy and sadness. Joy for finally being able to finish the game and sadness that the journey is over. And after 10 long years those feelings are recaptured in Lost Odyssey. This is my second time in playing Lost Odyssey. To my surprise, I am still enjoying the cutscenes and movies from the game. It's so nice to be able to view the game all over again. And we'd like to share those scenes with the gamers who has enjoyed the game the same way we did. As for writing, I have finished recording and encoding all the scenes from Disk 1. Of course, its not perfect. There are moments where I had to switch from full screen to widescreen format. I have uploaded most of the videos on GameTrailers under my user account: ' yahoosoda '. Although I can't promise we'll finish eve...

The picture says a thousand words.

According to VGChartz's latest figures (some argue they're accurate, some argue they're not), Lost Odyssey sold 45,000+ units even in its third week in the US market. That's just incredible for a JRPG! Normally games in the JRPG genre only sell 50,000 units on the first week alone and then they're forgotten immediately after. Strong word of mouth is likely driving the sales of this title, coupled with other factors such as having no real rival on the market other than Devil May Cry 4, and the fact that it is an Xbox 360 Exclusive (Xbox gamers seem to want to buy something more if its 'exclusive' to their system, just my personal observation....). VGChartz's sales figures for Lost Odyssey in the United States: Week 1 - 101,277 Week 2 - 50,516 Week 3 - 45,161 For the purpose of comparison, other JRPGs for Xbox 360: Blue Dragon US Sales figures Week 1 - 59,791 Week 2 - 23,438 Week 3 11,740 Eternal Sonata US Sales figures Week 1 - 28,079 Week 2 - 14,377 We...

Based on this survey for Japanese gamers conducted by Degenki Online, Lost Odyssey is the only Xbox 360 game to be considered as one of the 'best games for 2007'. Also notable is the absence of any Playstation 3 games in the list. Go figure.... http://dol.dengeki.com/data/news/2008/3/5/17cb4f32b0d592ef30e5407df6f2fa6c.html What is the best game you played during 2007? 1. Monster Hunter Freedom 2 (Sony PSP) 2. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (Sony PSP) 3. Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo Wii) 4. Dragon Quest IV (Nintendo DS) 5. Super Robot Taisen Original Generations (Sony PlayStation 2) 6. Persona 3 (Sony PlayStation2) 7. Etrian Odyssey (Nintendo DS) 8. Ar Tonelico 2 (Sony PlayStation 2) 9. Fate/stay night [Realta Nua] (Sony PlayStation2) 10. Lost Odyssey (Xbox360)

So, my wife and I had a conversation, "Should we buy a PS3?" The reason why? No release date for the Asian Xbox 360 version of Rock Band. Sounded like a plausible argument, but then I thought, if we buy a PS3 how exactly are we supposed to find the time to play on two consoles? Seriously, who has enough time to play on two gaming systems? I also have work and other real life concerns to consider, so there's only really room for game time on one system. From our little conversation we concluded, it isn't fanboyism to stick to one system (as most forum goers will tell you). It's simply a matter of practicality. If you have two consoles you'll inevitably spend more time with one and leave the other one to dust (literally). I can't imagine anyone who has all the free time to play on two consoles and ensure that both are being used equally. I just think it's a waste to just 'have' another console, just for the sake of having it. I've read on som...

To be objective on the Internet, you have to hate everything. Everything's cliche', everything's been done before, and don't easily be impressed. That goes with every kind of interest group online. Movies, games, it doesn't matter. You're a 'fanboy' if you're easily impressed. You've got good taste when you're not. Its moments like this when I think back to a time when the Internet wasn't around, and it's a whole lot easier to make up your mind about what you think about anything. To me it boils down to 'I like it', or 'I don't like it'. Now there's always the pervading force of "69% do like it" while "31% don't like it", and the pressure that asks you, "What's your taste like?". Implicitly, if you defy the convention and you like something that everyone else hates, you must be insane and should be cast out with monickers like 'Fanboy!' or whatever terminologies the...

God bless the Xbox Live Gamercard. More evidence of how game reviewers really shortchanged this JRPG: According to the gamercard of Gamespot's Kevin VanOrd , he only finished up to Disc 1 of Lost Odyssey before writing his review and giving it a disappointing score of 7.5. http://www.gamespot.com/users/Kevin-V/ If you click on his gamercard and check his achievement list for Lost Odyssey, it clearly shows that he only finished up to Disc 1. That's just pathetic! To think that gamers trust these people to give them a qualified opinion on games....when they don't even finish the games before they write their reviews. Are these game reviewers *gasp* casual gamers? Is that the new standard for gaming now, that my grandmother has to be able to stand them? That's just wrong. If that were to happen, we're in for another video game crash, because once all those casual gamers get bored and move on to the next big fad, gaming is finished. Gamespot definitely fails right ther...

Based on the latest PAL chart posted on NEOGAF, Lost Odyssey is doing very well in the UK marketplace, debuting at #5. If I'm not mistaken the game was released on February 29, so it only had about a day to track on the chart, and it was on #5 right away. That's pretty phenomenal if you ask me. It looks like today's web-aware generation has read the user reviews for the game and are buying it because of that (and not because of the ill-informed paid critics reviews). http://www.charttrack.co.uk/index.jsp?c=p/software/uk/latest/index_test.jsp&ct=110032 UK TOP 40 ENTERTAINMENT SOFTWARE - INDIVIDUAL FORMATS (UNITS), WEEK ENDING 1 March 2008 01 (03) [NDS] Dr Kawashima's Brain Training (Nintendo) 02 (01) [WII] Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games (Sega) 03 (02) [NDS] Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games (Sega) 04 (__) [360] Frontlines: Fuel Of War (Thq) 05 (__) [360] Lost Odyssey (Microsoft) 06 (09) [NDS] More Brain Training From Dr Kawashima (Nintendo) 07 (__) [PC...

Michael McGaharn, the voice actor for one of our favorite characters in Lost Odyssey, Jansen, is talking to gamers over on this thread on gamefaqs.com: http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?board=928334&topic=41685801 (Sorry, I couldn't find his real-life photo :P) It seems real nice of him to take the time to talk to the gamers about his work :D Check it out!

Composed by Nobuo Uematsu.

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/856/856154p1.html Now this is the strangest thing.... Lost Odyssey wasn't quite well received in IGN. If you read the review itself, it was quite scathing of the game, and note that they reviewed the game twice, and twice did they trash the game for what they considered 'flaws'. Surprisingly, they've chosen it as their GAME OF THE MONTH. Over Devil May Cry 4. Craziness. Looks like they finally got around to actually playing the game, instead of putting out a review based on their opinion on Disc 1. It's just sad that IGN's review score and the unfair criticism that they gave for the game isn't going to change anytime soon. I don't really know why they made it game of the month....maybe because of all the backlash to the game reviews for Lost Odyssey in general. If you try to read a lot of the feedback online for Lost Odyssey, you'll see that GAMERS say that Lost Odyssey is a great game, and in some cases (like mine...