thirdworldgamer

It's still hard to believe that Final Fantasy XIII is Xbox-bound, but it is.... the trailer is up on the US Xbox Live Marketplace now. From this point on, there can be no doubt....Final Fantasy XIII is truly arriving on the Xbox 360 platform.

Now with 30% real-time footage (Somewhere near the end of the vid)

And some other facts and figures, too. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=350442 Top 50 software to date (Based on sales/units sold): 1. Blue Dragon 203,740 2. Tales of Vesperia 161,070 3. The Last Remnant 134,611 4. Infinite Undiscovery 112,444 5. Lost Odyssey 109,517 6. Dead or Alive 4 108,618 7. Viva Pinata (Platinum) 101,552 8. Forza 2 (Platinum) 100,591 9. Ace Combat 6 95,002 10. Halo 3 83,696 11. Idolm@ster Live 4 U 75,272 12. Ridge Racer 6 73,501 13. Oblivion 72,274 14. Eternal Sonata 70,435 15. Gears of War 68,270 16. Dead Rising 68,078 17. Lost Planet 61,555 18. Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 60,544 19. Grand Theft Auto IV 59,893 20. Assassin's Creed 55,261 21. Devil May Cry 4 55,259 22. Call of Duty 4 54,742 23. Soul Calibur IV 53,403 24. Fallout 3 49,543 25. Ninja Gaiden 2 48,945 26. Dynasty Warriors 6 48,796 27. Idolm@ster 48,695 28. Idolm@ster (Platinum) 47,344 29. Fable II 43,682 30. Ace Combat 6 (Platinum) 41,880 31. Beautiful Katamari (Platinum) 41,492 32. Armored

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=350394 Famitsu 360 Reviews Ninja Blade 8997 Midnight Club 8888 Street Fighter IV 9988 Skate 2 7887 Shooting Love 7767 Star Ocean 4 9988 Sonic 8889 Chaos Head Noah 8879 Regular Famitsu scores Chibimarukochan 8777 Destiny Links 9889 Tantei Conan and Kaneda Shounen no Jikenhaku 7876 Midnight Club PSP 7888 Enkakusousa 9888 Shaun White Snowboarding PSP 6777 Demon's Souls 7967 Shaun White Snowboarding PS3 6866 Midnight Club PS3 8988 Midnight Club 360 8988 ************ MS - didn't expect the hardware sales to grow as much as they did - gears 2 is in the process of being properly localized for JP, some stuff must be cut - not considering BD version of 360. they slyly dodge the question of a slim 360, but seems something will happen Bandai Namco - surprised how well ToV sold. Gundam Musou 2 also did well - Naruto Narutimate Storm (sp?) showed Japan's ability to put out a "super anime" game, or something - plan to release 5-6 gam

With Street Fighter IV and Tekken 6 Bloodline Rebellion around the corner for both the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3, it's surprising to me that SEGA has not yet made any announcements regarding the latest in their very own premiere fighting series, Virtua Fighter 5R. The game has been out for a long while now in Japan, yet has not received any sort of announcement for home consoles. As a player who has enjoyed Virtua Fighter 5 for the Xbox 360, I think that the game initially didn't do well because it was made exclusive by Sega for the Playstation 3 first. Had they went with a simultaneous multiplatform release, they may have gotten more hype and more sales for their game. Also, it would have actually helped the game if the improvements for the Xbox 360 version, such as online play and more intelligent Expert A.I., were also given to the Playstation 3 version. Lastly, SEGA could have gotten more sales for the game if it had a few other elements to make it more popular; in p

Namco / Bandai loves the Philippines....or maybe, Timezone loves Namco. Because they've already gotten Tekken 6 Bloodline Rebellion machines in. Me and my wife spotted them at SM Megamall Timezone, Basement Level. Most likely T6BR is also already playable in most other local Timezone arcades. I think these T6BR machines just arrived today, considering most people were being greeted by a 'DATA TRANSFER' screen (which let you upgrade your older T6 data). Thanks Namco-Bandai for knowing where the Philippines is on the world map :) Unlike some other game companies......... ***** Little tidbit....I also spotted a VF5 machine in World of Fun, which was just next door to Timezone. No, it didn't have any of those fancy Data Card readers where you could dress up your character. It was a really plain machine where you could just play VF5. Apparently nobody has touched the game considering the scoreboard was empty. So I completed one run through the game and added my initials to t

Click for the full article: Computer game players 'more likely to drink, ignore family and have low self-esteem' Regular players of computer games are more likely to drink alcohol, stop talking to their family and have lower self-esteem, a new study has found http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/technologynews/4323067/Computer-game-players-more-likely-to-drink-ignore-family-and-have-low-self-esteem.html I wholeheartedly disagree with this article , though I can imagine how easily a non-gaming person can come to these conclusions. I mean, when you look at a person playing a game, it's easy to think that that someone gets 'zombified' by the whole activity of playing a game (imagine being able to step outside of yourself, and watch yourself as you play a game. Or, even easier....ask someone to film or take a picture of you when you're really intent on your game). When you look at the photo, you'll see a person so engrossed on gaming that a

I watched a preview for this game on Gametrailers. It really makes you wonder what's taking Polyphony Digital so long when this Western development house can churn out a quality racing sim in much less time.....

I have to admit, it's pretty funny to be so psyched up about a patch for Gears of War 2. We're not really talking about an expansion here or a map pack...it's a PATCH/UPDATE for the multiplayer mode. Gears of War 2 may win accolades for its single player campaign, and Horde Mode is one of the best innovations introduced to the series....but a lot of players moved on after that, instead of investing a lot of time in the Multiplayer Mode. I recall with Gears of War 1, I spent a whole lot of time with that game (lag issues and all) because the gameplay felt quite good. The bullets would lag but you could predict the timing and at some point you could get good at the game even with the problems online. With Gears of War 2, there seemed to be many problems plaguing it. I'm not the first to complain about the decreased power of the Gnasher shotgun at close quarters. Another observation by some players is that running with the chainsaw seemed too effective a tactic, and it see

A new update was released for Gears of War 2 Multiplayer. I've stopped playing GOW2 multi because it seemed it had a lot of bugs. Looks like this new update fixes a lot of them: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=349656 Exploit Fixes Title Update 2 fixes these possible exploits, where under certain circumstances: * A player could melee or grenade tag through certain walls. * A player could equip a shield and a two-handed weapon simultaneously. * A player could make their shield invisible. * A player could become invisible. * A player could do a "super" mantle or "kung fu flip," flying high into the air. * A player could gain unlimited ammo with the Lancer Assault Rifle. * A player could fire while roadie running (also known as "crabwalking"). * A player could pick up a weapon while sliding into cover. * A player could walk forward while firing a deployed mortar. * A player could force an opponent to be stuck in the down but not out (DBNO) pos

As a programmer myself, I can't believe what I just read about the Playstation 3. Apparently, Sony intended to make the PS3 hard to program for, so that it would have a longer life cycle in the market.... Yes, that's his logic. And I quote... http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21933 He also took on frequent accusations that the challenges developers often find in programming for the PS3 represent an obstacle for the console. "We don't provide the 'easy to program for' console that [developers] want, because 'easy to program for' means that anybody will be able to take advantage of pretty much what the hardware can do, so then the question is what do you do for the rest of the nine-and-a-half years?" Hirai suggested the PS3 would see the same kind of software evolution curve that the PlayStation 2 did, as represented by the fact that God of War 2 was noticeably more sophisticated than its predecessor on the same console. "So

I was watching "Attack of the Show" and they had this video of this program from Microsoft. It's called 'Microsoft Songsmith'; it's a program that helps you create your own music. All you have to do is sing into the microphone, and the program takes care of creating the musical accompaniment. The description for it is here on the site for it: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/songsmith/ What is Songsmith? Songsmith generates musical accompaniment to match a singer’s voice. Just choose a musical style, sing into your PC’s microphone, and Songsmith will create backing music for you. Then share your songs with your friends and family, post your songs online, or create your own music videos. It's easier to understand how fantastic this program is by watching these videos: Now here's a guy who tried the program....and the results he got were pretty amazing. At the very least, it seems to me that you could use the results of the program

This console generation in the United States is all about Nintendo for the casual / mainstream gamers, and Microsoft for the hardcore gamers. Here are the latest NPD figures for December 2008. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=349076 ******************** Care of NPD Group PS2 410K PS3 726K PSP 1.02M X360 1.44M Wii 2.15M DS 3.04M WII PLAY W/ REMOTE 1.46M 360 CALL OF DUTY: WORLD AT WAR 1.33M* WII FIT W/ BALANCE BOARD 999K WII MARIO KART W/ WHEEL 878K WII GUITAR HERO WORLD TOUR 859K* 360 GEARS OF WAR 2 745K* 360 LEFT 4 DEAD 629K NDS MARIO KART 540K PS3 CALL OF DUTY: WORLD AT WAR 533K WII ANIMAL CROSSING: CITY FOLK 497K* *Includes Collector's, Limited, Legendary, and Bundled Editions Top selling games of 2008 WII PLAY W/ REMOTE 5.28M WII MARIO KART W/ WHEEL 5.00M WII FIT W/ BALANCE BOARD 4.53M WII SUPER SMASH BROS: BRAWL 4.17M 360 GRAND THEFT AUTO IV 3.29M* 360 CALL OF DUTY: WORLD AT WAR 2.75M* 360 GEARS OF WAR 2 2.31M* PS3 GRAND THEFT AUTO IV 1.89M* 360 MADDEN NFL 09 1.87M*

I have been meaning to post more relevant discussions regarding XNA for quite some time now but just like everything else my blogging takes a back seat to real life as well as are actual game time on our consoles. But every so often, a news article strikes me as something of interest that I feel the need to write about it. And one such news is ‘Bob’s Game’ . In summary, ‘ Bob’s Game ’ is a classic old school RPG that has a mix of the old sprites and textures in a more western setting (as compared to the default fantasy realm settings of similar JRPGs). This game has been a pet project of Robert Pelloni since 2003, a one man army wrestling with programming code, art assets and everything else that go into a game. Any person who has tried to make a game would sympathize with his plight. Making a game is no easy task. Making a game by yourself is near impossible without putting the rest of your life on hold. This man apparently intended the game to be released on a Nintendo platform

Haven't gotten around to actually watching the VF5 videos from Germany until today. I found these on Youtube; the video on the official WCG site was so laggy and unreliable so I had better luck finding it elsewhere. Itabashi (Japan) vs Danny13 (Singapore) Japan won the tournament; here's footage of the last two rounds. Round 1: Round 2: For third place, AdamYuki from the USA won against stprock from Germany. Here's footage from Round 2:

Saw this video on Kotaku today: http://kotaku.com/5128769/super-stage-production-of-super-mario

The official web site for Final Fantasy XIII is now up (was it up before? Not sure....I haven't checked in the past). There's a preview of the game's soundtrack and a few pics there, along with some character profiles and art. http://www.square-enix.co.jp/fabula/ff13/ Now that we've got a PS3, we're likely to get the PS3 version for this game: not because I think the Playstation version will be better....it's more because I'd rather see both my consoles get used in one way or another. I wouldn't want any of my systems to gather dust! It's not like my Xbox 360 is going to miss any action either, with all the games that will be out for it. It is good to know that the game will be multiplatform, so even Xbox 360 gamers can get it. Everybody wins! And if the demand is too crazy for the PS3 version, there's always the Xbox 360 version as an alternative. I don't think the PS3 version and the Xbox 360 version will be that different from one another

On a forum I saw someone post a reply using this site: http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/ Hahaha!

For no apparent reason I decided to play Virtua Fighter 5 again for the Xbox 360; Quest Mode set to Expert difficulty. I picked up on it really fast even if I haven't played the game for months. I practiced so much with Jacky (for the WCG last year) that playing with this character is just second nature already (much like playing Ryu in Street Fighter II; you just know how to play once you've played one character enough times). A fighting game like VF5 is a great way to pass the time, and for some reason it just doesn't get old. The AI set to Expert offers a great enough challenge even if it does not match real human opposition. Well, with internet lag and all, playing against the AI fills the need for fighting action quite nicely. No need to wait in the lobby to get an opponent....no hassles with lag and disconnects, too. Despite my enjoyment of this fighting game, I don't have any plans to personally join any more gaming competitions/tournaments. After WCG 2008 last

So busy these days, hardly have the time to write on the blog....anyway, just got Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction for the PS3 the other day. [It was either that or Resistance 2. Well, Ratchet was on sale at I-Tech for 1,900 bucks, so why not?] Super fast impressions: - Graphics are beautiful, in spite of all the detail, the game manages to stay locked at 60 FPS! Wow! - Gameplay feels fun and varied. Thank goodness I could turn off the Sixaxis controls...One part of the game required it, and it's really frustrating to use. I prefer to just use the sticks for the gliding portions. - There was one cutscene at the start of the game that really made me LOL because the joke was really good....the one where Ratchet and Clank ride the spaceship and then the system engages cryo-sleep....hehehe! One of those rare occasions where a video game really made me bawl out laughing. :) *** I was supposed to write a review for Little Big Planet. I finished that game a few days ago. It

It turns out we have this spare laptop HDD lying around the house (dated 2006!) which is compatible with our newly purchased PS3. It's an 80GB Hitachi Laptop SATA drive. The space isn't much by today's standards, but compared to the 40GB that's already being eaten away by the PS3's constant patching and game installations, we thought that putting the old 80GB drive into the PS3 was a viable option. At first, I thought that the installation of a new hard drive to the PS3 might be complicated, but I found out that it wasn't. I watched this video on Youtube and was surprised (actually, AMAZED) at how easy it is to put in a new hard drive for the PS3: I was even more amazed at the fact that I could just use *any* laptop SATA drive available in most computer stores locally, to upgrade this PS3's hard drive; it was just so convenient, and inexpensive :) So I eagerly opened the PS3's HDD Drive bay. Our PS3 is a newer model than the one in the video, so the insi

It wouldn't be fair to call this post a review of Little Big Planet, because I haven't completely seen the entire game yet (I haven't completed it yet). I will say that I've played enough to give my take on the game, and most likely after finishing it I'll post a short review on it, too. Initially, Little Big Planet rubbed off the wrong way with me. For starters, the first 'level' is an area where the developers stuck their real-life faces on a bunch of wall textures to give themselves some credit for the game. I didn't like that first area; granted, it's a tutorial and an introduction rolled into one. I can imagine some people will probably think that that first level was well done (because of the developer's faces plastered everywhere), but it just didn't work with me. A few levels in, the thing that bothered me the most early on was the soundtrack, which was just horrid (now, before you overreact and think I hate the game let me just say

Here's a useful link with some technical information on the Playstation 3. Quite useful and informative if you just bought one recently: http://www.edepot.com/playstation3.html