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PS3 RPG Demon’s Souls headed for US

It seems that Tokyo based publisher Atlus has taken time away from getting their website hacked to bring From Software’s Demon’s Souls to the US.

Having been already released in Japan we know what to expect of the game with game reviewer Paint Yamamoto from Famitsu giving the game a 9 saying:

This is a game you learn how to play by losing — you’ll face sudden death frequently. But! Keep playing… and you’ll realize how deep it really is. If you’re looking to experience rich RPG elements, by all means play Demon’s Souls!!.

Sounds promising considering the Japanese really know their RPGS. Demon’s Souls will let players choose from a range of different classes and adventure through the fictional Kingdom of Boletaria to reclaim the land from demons.

Like what you hear? Demon’s Souls will be out exclusively for the PS3 sometime this fall.

Armored Core 4 Game Review–Fun With Giant Mechs Is Back

I was always very fond of the Armored Core series, all the way back to its original iteration back on the Playstation one.  And as it continued, through its good times and its bad times, I kept up with it, generally enjoying what it had to offer but never quite as much as I did the original.

And when I finally managed to lay hands on Armored Core 4 on my Xbox 360, I began to wonder—was this it?  Would this be the one that managed to restoke my ardor for the series that had begun to flag in recent years?  Could this be the giant mech game to end them all?

The answer to that question, sadly, is no…but Armored Core 4 will really not be all that big a disappointment.  It’s better than anyone probably expected, and probably better than it really has any right to be, being this far into the series.

The world is a much smaller place in Armored Core 4, with global food and energy supplies stretched to their utmost thanks in large part to a massive surge in population that went on for several years.  The gap between the haves and the have-nots widened impossibly as there were so many more have-nots than ever before in human history.  Naturally, a whole lot of have-nots results in a really, really torqued underclass, and that means civil unrest.  So much so, in fact, that the traditional concept of nations falls apart, and what rises to replace them?  Why, none other than our good friend the multinational corporation, who steps in with private armies and mercenaries to protect their property.  When chunks of the underclass decide they’d rather be protected than killed for whatever scraps of scraps they have left, they end up becoming essentially slaves to the corporations and their wealthy few owners as they trade their freedom for peace, safety and food.

From there, the corporations expand their holdings and their mercenary armies to include the Armored Cores, like the one you’ll be piloting.

Yeah, I know, not exactly a candidate for feel-good plotline of the year, but if you take out the giant battle mechs and dial the plot back to, say, Next Sunday A.D., you might be looking at something downright plausible.  And plausibility in a video game plot is always a welcome wrinkle.

I may have put way too high of expectations on this sucker to begin with, folks—I was expecting it to be as big as the original which we’d never seen before, but what I got was an experience that was actually very similar to the original, just with ramped up graphics.  I still had the ability to juggle parts and reattach them to my mech.  The controls are actually pretty smooth, and the game’s pace is almost shockingly fast.  More than once I’d discovered that I’d finished a mission when I was still wondering what I was supposed to do. The action has to be pretty fast and furious when you’re done before you even fully realize you started. I love the fact that there’s a wide variety of weapons involved, and plenty of parts to trick out your Armored Core, or AC as they’re most often called.

However, difficulty will start ramping up surprisingly quickly, and the garage system wasn’t exactly the most intuitive of the series.  For some reason I had a tough time figuring out how much parts cost and how much money I had.  Weird, I know, but still.

Basically, Armored Core 4 is a worthy, if flawed successor to the original and a high-quality part of the series.  If you love giant robots then this game is all for you, but plenty of lower-grade sci-fi buffs will still manage to find plenty to like.

Ninja Blade Game Review–Easy Competitor For Boring Game Of All Time

Ninja Blade, one of the newest titles out right now for the Xbox 360–at least until later this year when Playstation 3 fans will get their crack at it, proving once again that Sony’s marketing divisions are run by some type of lower primate who’s probably drunk on tequila twenty three hours out of every day.

The plot requires an extensive background in science fiction, horror movies or Japanese culture to fully understand, because this sucker is a nightmare of overcomplexity.  In Japan, in 2010, a small village was attacked by…creatures.  That’s really about the best description for them.  Anyway, those who survived the creature attack were moved to a central research facility for further examination, and the village, or what was left of it, was declared “Alpha Site”.  The surviving villagers, undergoing that further examination, are revealed to be suffering from a flesh-eating disorder, caused by some kind of hookworm.  This hookworm, not surprisingly, is dubbed “Alpha Worm” (Alpha Site, Alpha Worm, yeah yeah, we get it), and it had some surprising effects on the infectees–it made them super-strong and resistant to damage, but it also made them violent and insane.

The infectees broke out of their research-based containment, and both do a whole lot killing as well as spreading their infection around.  Thus, Japan sends its greatest natural resource to take care of the problem–ninjas.  Yes, ninjas.  Actual geniune honest-to-god NINJAS.  Now, most other places would’ve sent their army, or perhaps a dedicated squad of special forces types like SAS or Green Berets or even the French Commandoes, but not Japan–when the insane superpowered hookworm-infested monsters break loose and start running amok in Tokyo, Japan calls out the NINJAS.

See what I mean?  This is WAY too much plot for this game, which is basically run around from point A to point B and then all the way to point Z where you’ll fight a gigantic monster and then repeat the process on the next level.  You’ll have a collection of unlikely weapons to accomplish this not so stellar feat, including the Twin Falcon Swords that can be used as grappling wires with their extendable blades (no, it really doesn’t make much sense to me either) and a gigantic sword that’s extra heavy meant for breaking open monster armor.  And my description isn’t so glib as you’d think, either–all you do in Ninja Blade is run around a level, killing whatever infectees show up, and then continuing on until the end of the level, where you’ll fight some huge infectee that’s quite possibly several infectees melted together.
Yes, as a matter of fact, I DO enjoy typing the word “infectee”.

I will give Ninja Blade some credit for pushing the envelope by also including periodic action sequences that depend on timely button presses to be passed successfully, because this really adds a note of high energy to otherwise drab proceedings, but frankly, it’s too little too late as the rest of the game around these great sequences is just another drab run, jump and slay platform beat-em-up.  There’s not a whole lot to distinguish this game from others in its classification, and frankly, I can’t abide by that.  Thus, Ninja Blade turns out to be way too dull to get any kind of recommendation from me.

Download Ninja Blade demo early

Mjor Nelson posted on his blog yesterday that a demo version of Ninja Blade had hit the Japanese Xbox Live Marketplace. Well that doesn’t stop us from getting it. Below are the directions to download the demo of From Software’s Ninja Blade courtesy of PlanetXbox.

We must warn you we are not sure of the legality of doing the following procedure to approach with caution.

Creating your own Japanese Xbox Live Silver Account:

Head on over to Microsoft’s passport Web site (if you’re logged in to a current account, make sure to sign out). Sign up for a new, free Hotmail account.
When asked, remember to answer that you’re from Japan — don’t worry, you dirty liar, we won’t judge you.
The next part, which would be the “trickiest,” is entering some additional information about where you are from. You’ll have to enter bogus information. The following should work fine (the phone number is for a Domino’s Pizza near Akebonobashi Station in Tokyo):
Postal code: 150-2345
Province: Tokyo-to
Phone Number: 098-974-0604

Once you’ve activated your new Hotmail account, it’s time to head on over to your Xbox 360. Switch profiles if necessary (the X button) and create a new profile, and a new Xbox Live account.
You’ll next have to sign in with your new Japanese passport. Keep the number for Domino’s Pizza Akebonobashi handy, because you’re going to need to enter it again. Also, you might get hungry.
Create a gamertag and the first screen once you sign in will have the Ninja Blade demo as the very first selection, click it and then select “Download Ninja Blade Demo” … that’s it!