thirdworldgamer

We happen to pass by Rustan's Department Store in Shangri-La today. We almost didn't see it but there was a stack of older titles on sale for the XBOX 360, XBOX, Gamecube and a ton of GBA cartridges. The table was in front of the huge 'Bakugan' poster near the escalators. We picked up Ninja Gaiden Black for P500! XBOX titles sell for PHP 500 only while XBOX 360 titles sell for PHP 700. When we were there the note worthy 360 titles are Tomb Raider Legend, Rumble Roses and Prey. For the XBOX, I saw Silent Hill: The Room. There are also tons of Gamecube items. I saw Baten Kaitos Origins and a Donkey Kong bongos game (complete with instruments!). It's also a nice thing to bring your kids there in case they spot a GBA game that they want. If you want to check out this sale, you better go NOW ! According to the sales lady we spoke with, the sale ends tomorrow, May 31, 2009!

Legendary game producer Tomonobu Itagaki, famous for the Ninja Gaiden series of games on the Xbox platform, returns to gaming with a new team---focused on a new game for the Xbox 360 platform! http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=362921 http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3174393 1UP: Can you tell me who else from Team NINJA is in your new company now? HM: Well, I can give you a list, but it's probably faster to just tell you that we got all of the leads and directors and such. 1UP: All of them? HM: Well, you see Okamoto, the producer here, and Ehara and me, the directors. We got Maeda and Sasaki, the engineering leads. These guys are amazing, they put together a brand new game engine in less than a year. 1UP: Does that mean you're coming up with a brand new title? KE: That's right. That's why we made an entirely new company. HM: We also got Motosa, the animation lead. He worked with me to create the high quality and quantity of animations in Dead or Alive and Nin

Expect the first salvo for E3 from Microsoft on TUESDAY morning Philippine Time; the first day for E3 is Monday in the US so most likely the first info out of E3 will be out by Monday evening or Tuesday early morning.

We were at Glorietta 4 today and surprisingly, we spotted 2 Street Fighter IV arcade machines at Timezone Glorietta 4. They had two system-linked SF4 arcade cabinets, where each cabinet only has one set of sticks. When you start the game, you're given an option to play 'arcade mode' (which is open to challengers), 'beginner mode' and 'trial mode'. (Pictures of the unit are at the bottom of this post, if you skip the impressions). Unfortunately, the other SF4 machine wasn't working at the time that we visited, so we weren't able to play versus mode against other live players. So I was only able to try out single-player mode. Some impressions: 1. The graphics are not as good as the home versions of the game. The arcade cabinet used high definition LCD monitors, much like Tekken 6; however, compared to the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game, it seems the arcade version is running on the lowest possible graphical settings. Earlier on, there was a pers

Here's Kotaku making too much of a big deal of Capcom Japan's decision not to go to E3 2009. I actually AGREE with Capcom Japan. I'd rather that Capcom Japan's very-talented-developers and staff not take the risk of being infected with the H1N1 virus. Personally, I can wait for Dead Rising 2 to be revealed at another time. It's not like the game itself is getting delayed. I think it's just the game journalists over at Kotaku crying over not being able to get first dibs on Capcom's upcoming games. And besides, Capcom can always organize their own press events later on this year, with much more attention directed towards them, than having to fight for attention at a noisy convention center during E3 itself. At this time, I think Capcom has the best and most talented development teams outside of the United States and Europe developing games for current generation consoles. It would be a real shame to lose them to H1N1; it's definitely NOT worth the risk for

The article is titled, "Virtual Leagues Fold, Forcing Gamers to Find Actual Jobs", with a slightly (probably implicitly) mean first picture and description: Excerpt from article: (For the entire article, check out this link.) Until recently, Emmanuel Rodriguez worked on a stage, under bright lights, amid intense competition and before cheering fans. He was a professional video-game player, and a world champion. Now he works at the customer service desk of a Sam’s Club in Dallas. Rodriguez, a brash 23-year-old whose nickname in the gaming community is Master, dominated an international field in July in Dead or Alive 4, a popular fighting game, on the Microsoft Xbox 360. He picked up $5,000 and a trophy for the victory. The competition, held in Los Angeles, was part of the world individual finals of the Championship Gaming Series, a league started two years earlier by News Corporation and DirecTV. And Rodriguez, given his success and his swagger, was a star. As a designated fra

We drove over to the Xbox 360 LAN Gaming Place XBX Interactive for the first time this morning. We were supposed to try out their Rockband 2 VIP rooms, but unfortunately I didn't have enough money for it. Instead of opting to come back again next time, though, we asked if they had STREET FIGHTER IV , and they did. And the second question we asked...was if they had fighting sticks. The answer was, yes. They had 2 of the fighting sticks pictured above; you could rent one stick for 25 pesos (so if there are two players you would have to pay 50 pesos). I remember seeing this stick before on Ebay; in fact, I think this link shows the exact same stick being sold there today. Unlike the CD-R King stick, this stick feels much more solid and responsive. The stick itself is a tad higher than the one on the Hori EX2, so occasionally I found myself unintentionally crouching (pushing down forward). But a little bit of personal adjustment on my end and I was very comfortable with it already. E

I really missed out on a great RPG last April; that RPG is Star Ocean 4 :) I think I've reached the middle of the game now; the in-game combat system is now showing some level of sophistication. It's nice how you can switch characters in the middle of a battle sequence, and how your party isn't 'wiped out' unless everyone (and absolutely EVERYONE) gets killed. Not that it makes things any easier. Later on enemies will use attacks that are harder to overcome and you have to manage your party's tactics correctly to win. And use the 'food' that's in your inventory to even stand a chance (some food items buff your stats before a battle). Maybe it's my fault for not level grinding so much that I had to depend on in-game items; granted, I did go for a lot of grinding in one planet where your party stays for quite a duration. But upon reaching what seems to be the middle of the second disc, I think I need to do a bit of work with my characters. Since co

I was expecting them to fail Microsoft (like they usually do); surprisingly, they demonstrated how MS actually lived up to MOST of their promises (practically all of them, actually). http://kotaku.com/5259178/microsofts-e3-promises-one-year-later They gave them a 'B', perhaps to ensure that they don't get the ire of the other console fanboys; but judging from the actual article, Microsoft clearly deserved a far higher rating for fulfilling their E3 promises.

A few hours in, I'm getting the impression that the game's designers were heavily inspired by the style of Star Trek. Human space explorers together with a few alien beings find uncharted territories, investigate, seek out new life, gather information/intelligence...At the very least, the first few quests have that consistent feel about them. After leaving a particular planet it felt to me like the 'end' of a Star Trek episode, and the start of a new one. I didn't expect the game to be like this, so I was a bit surprised by the game's style. I expected a Japanese RPG. For the most part, it still is. But the Western influence in the storyline is very much welcome. The one annoyance I've encountered? Save points are very, very far apart, so expect to be spending hours playing the game without stopping because you won't get the chance to save often. It has frustrated me at some point, but when the story gets going, it does grab my attention. The characters

News flash! We spotted the PLAYSTATION 3 MAD CATZ STREET FIGHTER IV Standard Arcade Fightstick over in I-TECH (Mr. Dynamic) in Virra mall/V-Mall Greenhills! Price: PHP 7,290.00 Platform: PLAYSTATION 3 Number of items: 2 Fightsticks still in stock as of 12:00 NN today. A couple of other stores were also selling what appeared to be a Chinese-made 'Fighting Joystick' for prices ranging from PHP 1,800 (Rockfire) to PHP 2,500 (Gamezone, i think). There were other stores which had this cheaper fighting stick. We got to take a look inside the box and despite the stick not being the 'TOURNAMENT EDITION' stick that is usually featured on most tournaments internationally, it still has a high-quality feel to it that you won't find with most other arcade sticks. The build quality on it seems much better than my existing Hori EX2 stick for my Xbox 360. I couldn't afford the stick at this time; got bills to pay and all....so in the end I didn't buy it. I am sure that t

http://kotaku.com/5256610/street-fighter-iv-hyper-turbo-pc-specs It does make me wonder....what will SFIV on a low-end PC look like? Minimum OS: Windows XP CPU: Intel Pentium4 2.0GHz or higher RAM: 1GB or higher HDD: 10GB of free space or more Video Card: DirectX 9.0c/Shader3.0 or higher compatible, NVIDIA GeForce6600 series, ATI Radeon(TM) X1600 or higher or higher, VRAM ：256MB or higher Sound: DirectSound compatible, DirectX 9.0c (or higher) compatible Input Devices: Mouse, Keyboard Maximum OS: Windows Vista CPU: Intel Core2Duo 2.0GHz or higher RAM: 2GB or higher HDD: 10GB of free space or more Video Card: DirectX 9.0c/Shader3.0 or higher compatible, NVIDIA GeForce8600 series or higher, ATI Radeon(TM) X 1900 or higher, VRAM ：512MB or higher Sound: DirectSound compatible, DirectX 9.0c (or higher) compatible Input Devices: Gamepad ：Xbox360 Controller for Windows

Blame Capcom. Blame Street Fighter IV. And blame Resident Evil 5. We got Star Ocean 4 a few months back; my wife got to about near the end of the first disc but then a lot of work came in, so she never finished the game. I got started on Star Ocean 4 a few days ago. She said she'll just take turns with me playing the game instead. Yeah, it was hard to get out of Street Fighter IV to try out a different genre. In fact, I'm still playing SFIV these days; though I'm trying my very best to get out of the habit. Street Fighter IV is too addicting, particularly thanks to the solid netcode for the game on Xbox Live. Note: I also have the same game for the Playstation 3, but my online experience with Street Fighter IV on the Playstation Network has been dodgy at best. I've had more disconnections and laggy games for Street Fighter IV on Playstation Network than I've ever had on Xbox Live. I think I've reached my peak with Street Fighter IV; I'm simply not getting an

Looks dodgy, but who knows. E3 is coming. So all these crazy rumors/faked(?) pictures start coming out right about now. http://kotaku.com/5253475/are-these-the-first-pics-of-the-ps3-slim Source where Kotaku found these: http://gamecolumn.blog17.fc2.com/blog-entry-3136.html

Saw this story on Kotaku today, and then I watched this video (note: This contains SPOILERS! If you're planning to buy the latest DLC, stop reading right now). It seems to hint at a future game...or DLC? Whichever the case, it impresses me that Fable II's DLCs have added voice acting. Usually these things are just tacked on to existing games. Good for Molyneux and Co. to actually put in more effort than usual.

This rumor is everywhere right now on the 'net, and a lot of people are expecting this to be announced at E3 this year. Here's my position on it: 1. I don't really care - It's too late for the game to be released on the Xbox 360. It has had enough time released on the Playstation 3 and I think by this point in time everyone who wants to play the game has already bought it for the PS3. If it were to be released for the Xbox 360, it would just be something that MS would add to their bullet point of exclusives stolen from the Sony lineup; but I don't think it would have that much of a drastic effect on the battle between Microsoft and Sony. 2. I still think it's unlikely to happen - despite all the rumors online, it just feels too much of an insignificant game to be released at this point in time. As I already mentioned, most people who want this game already got it somehow, for their PS3s. It wouldn't be as big a 'megaton' as, say, the announcement o

To watch Apple's counter-ad to the 'Laptop Hunters' series of ads, click here: http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/13/video-apple-responds-to-microsofts-laptop-hunters/ That ad just reeks of fail, in more ways than one. Regarding viruses on PC: Responsible computer use/internet surfing and ample prevention meausres can protect you quite easily from viruses on Windows. And its not like Macs are completely free from viruses, either. Crashing/Reliability: Did the ones who wrote this ad use Windows 95? This is not really much of a problem these days, with Windows XP, Windows Vista or the upcoming Windows 7. The ones who usually experience these issues usually have bad memory modules that are already several years old. Mac laptops are also not known to be reliable pieces of hardware. If you're aware of the Xbox 360's 3RL/RROD issue, did you know that the solution to 3RL/RROD originally came from people who repaired Mac laptops? The well-known "Heat Gun Fix" for the

Spotted by my brother as we were watching the fight in HD. Check out the jacket of the guy on the left side of the screen. (Click the image to see a larger version of the picture.) Namco-Bandai games does own the trademark to the name 'Pac-Man'. So perhaps they approached him and, instead of suing for copyright or whatever, just asked for some kind of sponsorship? Or maybe the guy with the jacket is just a huge Tekken 6 fan. Who knows. Interesting bit of trivia, nonetheless. I never noticed it at all while watching the fight; the quick eyes of my brother easily spotted it during the fight introductions. If you manage to catch the HD video of the fight, you'll see that the TEKKEN 6 patch is also on the other side of the guy's jacket. (so both the left and right shoulder of the jacket he's wearing has 'TEKKEN 6' on it.) I've tried to take screenshots of the other patch but it always ends up blurry. EDIT: Here's the other side of the guy's jacket. U

This ad for Punch-Out seems tailor-made for players who have already played the original NES version to try to convince them to buy the upcoming Wii version. In short: fan-service! Heh.

Will this continue the storied tradition of game-to-movie disasters? I hope not....

Stunning.

http://www.eventhubs.com/news/2009/may/04/justin-wong-says-hes-player-beat-years-evo/ Twin Galaxies: In the International Finals round of the Tournament, you lost to Daigo Umehara. Tell us about that experience. Justin Wong: I lost to Daigo at the International Exhibition. If that was a real tournament, I would have changed to my counter character. He uses Ryu, and Ryu counter’s Rufus. Don’t get me wrong, Daigo is REALLY good; maybe too good. For someone like me, though, he's just my peer; I know what can beat him and what can't. A lot of people don't know this, but I went to Japan and beat him 10-4. It’s the truth. If someone says it’s a lie I'll go back to Japan again, because I'm going anyway, and I'll beat him again. ******************** IMHO, after watching his match with Daigo at this year's US Tournament, I'd still bet on Daigo. Justin Wong is a great player, the best in the United States---but I just think that Daigo is more exposed to a healthy

Video Games - Video Game Reviews - Xbox 360

Eagerly looking forward to this one: http://www.capcom-unity.com/kramez/blog/2009/05/06/capcom_and_you_at_e3_2009 E3 -- aka the Electronic Entertainment Expo -- is fast approaching. "What's that?" you may ask. "Why the hell should I care?" you may shrug. If you had either of these responses, you've accidentally come to Capcom Unity on the way to finding either sports scores or porn or both, so move right along, quit wasting our bandwidth. For the rest of ya, you know exactly what this means: crazy amounts of games invading the LA Convention Center from June 2 through the 4th. Now, onto the even better news: some of you will be hanging out with us at the show! Last year, we hosted 30 members of Capcom Unity at out teeny-tiny E3 booth and we'll be doing the same this year. If you live in the greater Los Angeles area or plan on being there on June 4th, watch Unity over the coming weeks to find out how you can score a pass to the show, meet Seth, Shawn, Chri

I tried to get SF4 online play footage via webcam; the quality was so horrible that I can't imagine how much worse it would look if I uploaded it to youtube! I really should find myself a way to capture HD game footage....

Another example of how you can't always trust game review sites, even those who seem to already have a good reputation: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=360734 The game? Darkfall Online. Eurogamer posted their review of the long thought to be vapourware MMO this afternoon and it has received one of the lowest scores ever given to a game by Eurogamer. Ive just come across this little gem on the Darkfall forum from one of the developers and he claims that the reviewer did not play more than 2 hours of the game...and most of those two hours were spent on character creation. Now im normally one to defend Eurogamers usually excellent reviews, but even not having played the game, it reads like a poorly written fanboy rant. The review now has over 300 comments with many of them pointing out the factual errors they allege the review contains. How many on GAF have actually played the game? Is the review accurate? Is it fair to review an MMO based on only 2 hours of play? Hell, s

Quite impressive, for graphics on a portable system!

Let's let the video speak for itself:

Just watched it 5 minutes ago, amazing second round knock out! WOAH! Articles: http://sports.yahoo.com/box/news?slug=ap-pacquiao-hatton&prov=ap&type=lgns http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8031286.stm http://kevin-blackistone.fanhouse.com/2009/05/03/pacquiao-the-destroyer-sends-message/ Congratulations Manny Pacquiao! Go Philippines!!!!