thirdworldgamer

Gamescom 2014 just happened and there's been a lot of anger over the Rise of the Tomb Raider going exclusively to Xbox One. That was yesterday. Today we found out that it's not really a true exclusive but a timed exclusive. So in the past 24 hours, all I've been reading on Neogaf is just page after page of vitriol loaded posts. It's pretty upsetting. Personally, it doesn't bother me that ROTR is going to be exclusive to any platform at all. It's just one game. It's a great series, and we all know how iconic Lara Croft is. But still, the level of anger and the stuff people are saying online about it is kind of ridiculous. In the first place, if the game was fully exclusive to Xbox, it's not like Playstation owners don't have enough games to play anyway. They've got practically every multiplatform title coming for them, supposedly in full 1080p so they already get the best versions of everything. They've got Uncharted 4, which is probably goi...

I got this game a few weeks ago and I'm really enjoying it. As a showcase for the Xbox One it definitely works; it demonstrates what 'next-gen' visuals should be all about. Great art direction, extremely sharp CG level graphics...this game is just beautiful. And it's a first gen game! Imagine how good Xbox One games will get after 2-3 years. It's mind boggling to think about after seeing this game. The combat reminds me of old games like Golden Axe but with hyper-realistic graphics, great voice acting, sound effects and music. This game is a like a big tribute to major films like 300, Troy and Gladiator...it just has a lot of great moments that make you think back to those films, but---this game manages to have a character all its own. A lot of the action involves button mashing and good timing with QTEs...it just feels good to play. Maybe some would say it's repetitive because there are just a few enemy types but I don't know....have they played Double D...

One thing that bugs me about Asian/Philippine console game pre-order bonuses --- those damned black t-shirts. 1) They're always too small [hey guys, we aren't all teens!] 2) They always come in BLACK [which makes their usability quite limited, in my humble opinion] Enough with the pre-order bonus black t-shirt!

We picked up a [kinect-less] Xbox One a few weeks ago and have been putting it through its paces. Overall, right now I feel pretty good about this console. But I have to admit, the first experience of buying it is not very good. I'll go with the BAD news first. But do note that it isn't all bad news.... - The first time you bring it home, the console can't work without Internet. That's because it needs an absolutely-unoverrideable mandatory update. Basically, if you get this for your birthday and it's 7PM, expect to actually play games on it around a day or so later, depending on your internet speed. - The first patch I got for it was around 800MB. This number might have changed by the time of this writing. - All the launch games now have accumulated patches/updates over 16+ GB in size. Not just Dead Rising 3, which has been reported widely in the media. Even Forza 5. - My internet at home is PLDT 3Mbps; managed to get all the updates pretty quickly....that...

Instead of just having a two hour press conference for game journalists, Nintendo decides to take over E3 by creating a SERIES of events on the first day to highlight their upcoming games for both the Wii U and the 3DS. What we got wasn't a short conference but an 11 hour odyssey, focused on the games and explaining DIRECTLY to gamers the best features of their upcoming titles. What Nintendo lacked in graphical horsepower, they made up in finesse, and they did this in spades. Knowing full well their console can't handle the gigantic textures and polygon counts of their competition, their first party games focus on providing cartoon-like graphics with very speedy animation and bright colors. Hardly a shade of brown, grey or red was to be seen during Nintendo's Digital Event. Nintendo showed off some spectacular visuals for their upcoming games: specifically, the Legend of Zelda and Super Smash Bros Wii U were just impeccable  in quality. Their work looks to be a triumph ...

Just sat through the two major press conferences for E3 2014. Without Nintendo yet for comparison, but perhaps I'll write again if anything notable comes up during their 'digital event', which is a few hours from now. (It's going to be today at 12 midnight, Philippine time) Microsoft had a strong showing. While I will admit they didn't have anything mind-blowing, or the type of 'shocking' announcements that these types of press events become memorable for....they did bring a good list of exclusive games. Most notably, the game that grabbed my attention (and seemingly everyone else's) is Sunset Overdrive. Part Dead Rising, Part Infamous, Part Ratchet and Clank....the game is very colorful and a big departure from the usual dreary, bloody games we get year after year. Yes it still has some adult-level violence but at least the presentation isn't the usual 'guy-in-military-fatigues' fare that all companies seem to be churning out for console...

Mario Kart 8 is the Wii U's strongest title to date. Based on my three days of play with the game over about a dozen or more hours, both in single player and multiplayer....this game is an absolute blast. The graphics are gorgeous and everything about it screams good design and art sensibility. I can imagine some people might be turned off by the cutesy graphics and Nintendo characters, but underneath all that is a well designed GAME. Multiplayer is the absolute star of the show. With my Philippine-quality internet I get into races in literally seconds. With past games on both Playstation Network and Xbox Live, matchmaking can take 15 minutes or longer. I don't know how Nintendo did it. Maybe Mario Kart is just simpler to code for since it just involves race cars? This game doesn't have the usual issues with driving games on laggy connections. Things like teleporting cars, cars going much faster than you....I have seen none of this happen while I was playing this game, ...

Playing through a big chunk of this game currently and I really have a hard time believing this got scores as low as 6/10 and 4/10. The game is pure spectacle and while it is no longer the 2D game most game veterans are familiar with, it is a good if appreciated as a pure action game. With every action beat I'm reminded of the God of War series, but I think this game just feels more fluid and smoother than that game. There's a lot more technique to fighting since there are various combinations you can do with the shadow whip, the void sword and the chaos [knuckles? gloves? can't remember it's official name]. Also, you can't just mash mindlessly since some enemies are well armored and you need to switch between weapons to do any real damage. The game has a ton of boss fights and each one of them is epic thanks to the really nice soundtrack. I kept thinking of the first game and what I liked about that one as I played this. To think I actually ALMOST missed out on...

Having undertaken a few weeks of hunting down my older gaming consoles, cartridges and CDs, I learned the hard way the consequences of not taking good care of your stuff, no matter how seemingly irrelevant they are at the time. It was an interesting experience to say the least. You wouldn't believe how 20+ years of ignoring an old piece of electronics can do to it. In the case of the Super NES, it turns out that (and I don't even remember this) we had 2 SNESes in our house. Maybe this is explained by the fact that I have mostly brothers with me. So maybe, back then, there wasn't really much sharing going on with the consoles and some guys wanted to play sports games and there's this other guy (me) who wanted to play those RPGs. I didn't find my OWN SNES games, well, I didn't find a good majority of them. What I did find were my brothers' games. It was a good thing though that some really important games like Final Fantasy III (VI in Japan) and Super Stre...

When I was young I had all these games and systems from SEGA and Nintendo. I didn't really think much of them, so occasionally I'd misplace them and never really kept things organized. I'd toss a controller here, an old game there....I'd ask someone to move them to another spot to make room for other things. I didn't think that about 20 years later, I would end up looking for those old things.  Now the problem is, the people who moved around my stuff are no longer around, so it seems they're all scattered somewhere in my old house (I've since moved out since I got married). There are a few stock rooms in my place and as you can imagine, 20 years is going to build up a ton of junk in those places. Who knows if my old stuff is still there! Maybe the maid threw out some of them!  So why am I obssessing over classic games? http://classicgameroom.com , for one thing. I just turned 35 a few weeks ago, too. That and seeing how everything is going digital now...

It's good to see a lot of ads for Playstation in Metro Manila. There's this gigantic streamer over at Glorietta today with details on their upcoming PS4 launch tomorrow. I guess if you're a big Sony fan here in the Philippines, times are good. Almost every bit of news out of the gaming press and forums is positive for the Playstation brand, but most of it is positive because of its potential for great games. Great games have not YET arrived for the PS4 but because of things like theoretical perfomance measurements, and comparisons between multiplatform games, it seems the Playstation 4 is winning. But until we actually see more 'must-play' games, the PS4's success isn't guaranteed yet. At least, in my humble opinion. On the Xbox front, locally it looks tough for them because of the higher price tag, but out of the gate they have some games considered as 'AAA' by most gamers. Games such as Forza 5 and the latest Dead Rising are pretty high profile...

A year ago it was pretty clear to me that the Xbox 720 (now the 'Xbox One') was going to be my choice going into the next generation. The Xbox just has the better first party series with Halo, Gears, Forza and various other MS only franchises, and it has all the third parties behind it, so I know I wouldn't really be missing out. I've been pretty loyal to Xbox for a long time and while there was a period where I gamed primarily on PS3, the reason for that was I couldn't afford Xbox Live anymore with the changes in my life (with having a kid and having even more bills to pay). I was generally OK with paying for Xbox Live for a long time but there are occassions when I wonder why I am paying a yearly subscription when I am playing multiplayer just for a few periods in a year, or only when a game has working multiplayer for a guy like me living out here in the Philippines where the Internet is just not very well structured locally. Then, a lot of stuff just happened ...

I was informed recently that the Philippines is now an Xbox Live supported region. The odd thing is, it's based on a posting by Major Nelson all the way back in October 2013: http://majornelson.com/2013/10/01/xbox-live-free-gold-weekend-this-weekend/ Starting this  Friday (4, October)  through Sunday (6, October) we’ll be unlocking Xbox Live Gold  for the below regions. If you are not a Gold Member yet, it’s a great opportunity to try Multiplayer on your favorite games. Regions include: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines , Portugal, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam Your region not listed above? We’ve got your covered with the following dates: Oct. ...

...is the part where he seems really fascinated by the 'winning credits every time you race' game mechanic. Seriously, Adam?

When the launch stream for Xbone finally got started, I couldn't even make myself sit through it. Every single month before launch, it's been bad news after bad news after bad news for my last favorite system. - Forza 5 cars require ridiculous grind to get. Either that, or PAY for them with real money. - Reports of consoles eating discs. Yes, eating them. - Reports of downgrades in the graphics of Forza 5. - Really bad scores for Dead Rising. And it's no longer a funny game. - Same goes for Ryse Son of Rome. - 720p for most Xbone games The list of bad news goes on forever. On the other corner, we have the PS4. Seemingly the belle of the ball (of NEOGAF, anyway---which is regarded by most as really pro-Sony), this one had no flaws, practically, and in terms of raw power, PS4 wins, hands down. Where it does NOT win, at least right now, is with games. The only game I want to play on PS4 is Infamous: Second Son. I saw that game at E3 and it was easily the most sp...

GTA V. I don't think I need to add more superlatives to how awesome this game is. This game takes open-world action to the next level, as well as characterization and storytelling. It's the best game of this gen, right up there with the mighty Skyrim in terms of scale, gameplay quality and innovation. GTAV probably nudges Skyrim a bit because it does characters better, with a lot of dialogue and cutscenes which really flesh out everyone in the cast.  So yeah, this is the best game ever. Why the hell can't we play it in front of everyone and tell them how awesome it is? While it is a true technical marvel, an achievement for this game generation, the sad truth is, it's just too obscene and explicit at times to be a good centerpiece of gaming for all audiences. There is just way too much swearing and obscenity in the dialogue that it does get uncomfortable to play. Not because I'm a prudish guy, mind you.....just try to play this with a straight face if you...

At E3 2013 there was a lot of focus on online modes and multiplayer for most of the new games coming out on the Playstation 4 and Xbox One. The biggest games of the show, Titanfall and Destiny, are largely multiplayer driven, with their core gameplay clearly linked to the ability of your console to go online and connect with other players. Major developers like Vince Zampella of Respawn Entertainment have gone on record to say that it isn't worth spending several years to make a single player experience that players can break down in mere hours. Online functionalities in games are expanding with these new consoles; developers are focusing on multiplayer because it keeps their games relevant, and it keeps from players selling their games back to stores like Gamestop, which is bad for developers (in terms of keeping their games continuously profitable). I think that this focus on multiplayer is actually a bad thing. This approach isn't something that hasn't been done before...

I really enjoyed the first GRID game on the console. What I liked about that old game is how expressive it was about automobile racing. Instead of going for complete realism, it went for exciting moments. It had AI that weaved and bobbed about like real players. It had active environments that made every race truly exciting. That philosophy continues with GRID 2. On a decent PC this game is the most beautiful game you've ever seen. It does a lot of stuff that makes each racing sortie all the more interesting and fun, and it does it in very minute details that only make sense when you put them together in a complete package. The handling model is simpler than sims like Forza or Gran Turismo, but it never goes to the extreme control style of the latest Need for Speed game (Need for Speed Most Wanted). Somehow they found the perfect balance here, allowing you to drift and glide through corners but still requiring you to follow good racing lines to win. You'll be doing a lot of...

After the festivities of E3 I bought my wife a laptop. Originally we were debating if she should get a Macbook Pro or a super powerful gaming laptop; in the end.... The gaming laptop won. More info: Asus G46VW I've been spending a bit of time playing Grid 2 on this machine and I am unbelievably, madly in love with it. I want to take it away from my wife already. The PS3/Xbox 360 haven't been seeing any action thanks to this guy. In the United States this laptop is seen as a mid-range gaming laptop. When you bring it over here to the good old third world, this thing is a monster. It plays Grid 2 on High settings at over 60 FPS (or more, if you turn off V-sync). The image quality is insane especially if you turn up the anti-aliasing. I'm just floored by what gaming PCs are capable of now...even more floored that more PCs like this aren't available here locally. In the US this thing is about 38k; it's really hard to find here in Manila and if you do find anythin...

Just saw this on Facebook... http://www.gamesreviews.com/news/06/ps4-online-blocked-for-countries-without-a-store/ If true, this is pretty disappointing. The press isn't making that much noise about this news and frankly I only heard about this today. Why would Sony want to do this?