You get to have fun making things that will let you show people when have fun! Well.. I just sat and cooked up this Live blog thing, it will fetch the latest E3 Tweets that WEastFellows @Reetesh and @SM2099 will be tweeting whole E3 time.

Enjoy this post to see all the latest tweets that we’ve been making.. related to E3 No need to refresh the page or anything. Just leave it like that and it auto-updates

Its seems like “late night” is the best time to do anything now.. be it playing games or sitting and writing this thing.. everything else just doesnt seem to get finished by near mid-night now a days. So, lets get on to the juicy details!

The first DUNGEON!

Very useful they be!

My First marathon session (6h) ended with me getting back all my stuff at the Nalbina prison. I just saved and stopped at that point.. and it happened to be a good time to stop too! soon after continuing from that point I found that… BASCH IS ALIVE!!! Also.. someone who looks JUST LIKE.. BALTHIER.. is supposed to be Basch’s twin brother and impersonated him. The whole explanation of the events sounds crazy, but the fact that even I believed that it was actually Basch who killed the king makes the story feel much more immersive!

Later I escaped to the dungeon along with Basch as a guest in my part and started the “great escape”

*The Great Escape

I spent atleast 30minutes sitting and changing all my gambits and equips, getting licenses and buying stuff from the merchant at the entrance gate of the dungeon that leads to the exit.

After preparing well and everything, I found out there is this battery level and that things will reduce it. I thought I will have to open many gates but it turned out to be only TWO I found the flans and batteries quite hard to defeat.. they were quite large in number. But luckily all the “ally <30% = cure” gambits that everyone had helped in not dieing.

Although, the practically naked, flank punching Basch got KO’ed in the beginning and that was the first time in life I got to use… ‘Tuft of PHEONIX DOWN” ooh yeah! I only heard of it till now.. but finally got to use the thing

The only problem I had was during the opening of the last gate, when the power went down to 40% something and there were many skeletons, zombies running towards (makes no sense) Instead of wasting time and fighting everything I just Ran away.. rather FLED from the fights to safety. Which was the best decision IMO.

*The Second Boss Fight!

Late in the night… around 2 AM I came to the final boss fight.. I wasnt too sleepy, but it was apparent my brain was not at its best.. It took a LOT of time for me to BEAT the boss.. I succeeded to beat the boss, Queen MIMIC, in my First try itself.. but had to use 4 Phoenix Downs! That was too much I felt! also.. at the end there was only 1 alive.

So after beating the Boss.. I just shut the PS2 down, without saving, and left for bed.

*The Boss fight for the Second time!

This time I was ready, I knew how the Boss worked.. so I first sat for 5 minutes and adjusted all my Gambits accordingly. Now I went around beating the small mimic’s first, all the three were focusing on the Queen.

The whole boss fight was done in under 5 minutes! No Phoenix downs, no nothing.. the gambits helped me beat the thing flawlessly. was quite happy with my performance, felt 1337

The Great Eastersand Journey

*Finished in FIVE-TY minutes

Now I was left on the “Eastersand” Place and had to go back to Rabanaster. All those Orange Wolves were so easy to beat, they were dieing with just one shot from me and one from an Ally. So I took the liberty of killing EVERYONE of them, haha.. good for earning LPs and EXPs!

I then went to this Beach type place and there was this small village that thing had this “Teleporting stone” I saw that and I realized that I could just end the “huge journey” just now as I had 3 Teleport stones with me.

I used it and voila! *cutscene* However, I didnt feel I did the right thing.. it felt a bit like cheating.. also I thought that something interesting might happen if I walk and go via the “intended path”

So I saved in another file and then returned to the old teleport save stone and I took the advantage of my awesome party and traveled each and every small part of the Eastersand. I saw the Nalbina Fortress , Went through ALL the connecting paths, even t0 Giza plains

After exploring the whole Eastersand and NOT screwing around with the “friendly” dinosaur. I ended up reaching Rabanster in 50 minutes. This journey took me 10x longer than before.. BUT now I had LOTS of items gained a lot fo experience and had that inner peace feeling that I Explored EVERY corner possible

Hard Head Hunting

*Roaming and Talking..

When I was in Nalbina Fortress I saw the Hunting board and noticed the new hunt for “Thraxen” . When I returned to Rabanaster, instead of searching for Penelo I first went to the Tavern and talked to the person for the HUNT. Then I went and roamed all of the City SEARCHING for Penelo.. I even saw the whole Bazaar for the first time. I went to the Aerodrome and talked to each and everyone in there. All that was again about an HOUR or so… all that roaming and talking, I somehow do it like a bot.. no feelings that I am wasting time.

The Moogles with their teleporters and that dude asking me “Whats in it for them?” made me think the moogles have some kind of super secret plan where they steal all the brain data or get energy whenever someone teleports.. I mean, really What’s in it for them?

Where were we? yeah.. So, lastly, I went to Old man Creepy-face and followed his orders to the rebellion’s HQ and somehow, now I started TRUSTING Basch.. just because.. I dont know… because he said Sorry many times I guess.

Then I learnt what happened to Penelo and Now I had to go to the aerodrome to meet Balthier and life BURBURLand or whatever it was I thought it was a good time to finish the hunt because Westersand was just there right beside me.

*The Biiig Wolf

So I saved and went to westersand. this was the first time I entered the place so I got that Panning intro type thing, which reminds me of Zelda OOT. The Huge Wolf was there just beside me.. somehow I was the only one in the party (Basch and other were not being shown)”

But I easily managed to beat the thing.. I first cast a “Protect” on me and then a “Slow“on the huge wolf and the rest was a peace of cake. I was on top of the worrrld!

I had lots of monnies so I visited each and every shop and then went to the clan place and talked to the Clan leader and OMG he Showered Money and stuff at me. It was awesome.. one for beating each boss (even the FLANs were a boss? lol)

This big cock and its chicks!!!

*The Big COCK

I learnt of two new hunts realized one was in Burburland and the other was in Giza plains.. so decided I would do the giza plains one before I go to burburland. I went to Giza plains.. accepted the hunt and then saved and started to the North bank.

After getting the habit of killing all animals, due the eastersand journey, I killed everyone in the North bank expecting the cock to pop-up but it didnt. So, I went to the South bank and killed everything there too and when I returned.

I saw this huge Harvest moon type Cock running towards me and it had protect on it.. and before I knew it.. I WAS DEAD!! and then it asked me to “select party members” at this point I realised that I actually had to select the part members first to make them appear! (I was thinking they were not there because all were waiting at the aerodrome)

But soon.. GAME OVER! I was like I mean.. I was killing everything with ease and winning everything BUT died so easily with this cock.. I was not understanding AT ALL!

*The nth Encounter with Big Cocks

I then continued and went on trying again and again to kill the huge Cock and its progeny but even after 5 times of clearing north bank and then dieing I was NOT ABLE to beat the thing.. I dont get!

The thing is Immune to my spells, its really fast.. all chicks gang up on my party.. I cant run too far away either.

I did notice some of the chicks getting lowered in health sometimes though.. but NO IDEA. I was very disappointed and left the place totally demoralised.

Is there no way I can beat them??

I guess I will have to learn some new tricks or something.. or maybe they are weak when it rains? any tips?

Off to BurBurLand!

OMG thats an Indian Language!

All I know is that its Bursomething and its a SKY ISLAND! something like Skypea from One Piece? oooh yeah! As soon as I landed there.. I noticed someone say “Bhadra” it sounded very Indian to me.. and then later I talked to a guide and she said…

“SVAGATAM”

and then I was like “OMGOMGOMG that IS an indian language” Then I saw that soldiers were called “Sainkahs” which is the equivalent of soldiers in Telugu/kannada

*The Indian Language Comparator

Now I was frantically talking to people just so that I could get more Italicised words to observe and find out which Indian language they were using.

One kid says ‘Ambah and tatah” Amabah means “mother” but tatah means “Grand Father” either they made up their own mixutre of things or the kid was actually talking about his mom and grandpa being worried.

Also one lady said “kastam” which means “trouble”

Now the thing was I had to find out which language it actually was.. coz if it were only “sainik” it would be Hindi but its  “sainikah” so that means its either “Telugu” or “Kannada” ,Kastam also supports the aforementioned findings.

After seeing all this I just decided to turn the Ps2 off and sleep a happy sleep (it was 2 AM now anyways). The next day, the searching began.

My father knows a LOT of languages (Eng, french,Hindi,tel, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, marathi etc etc) so I got everything confirmed and filtered it down to Telugu or Kannada.

Telugu is my mother tongue so I felt a bit WOW seeing words from my language being used in a game that too something like FINAL FANTASY!!

I then talked to my Kannada speaking friend from karnataka and asked him the same questions.. I just had to check if “Bhadra” means something like “dude/pal/friend” because the game people were using it like that in the game.

But in kannada too.. just like in Telugu.. Bhadram is used when someone wants someone to “be careful”

Hence I clearly state here

“Obviously no Indian worked on this game”

anyhoo, Both me and my kannada friend were happy that our respective language was being used in the game! And with that I conclude this ER write-up.

E3 is coming and I guess everyone, like you.. is geared up for it! Have a nice day! Enjoy this song that has Bhadra and many other words that I heard in FF. One of my old time favourites. Listen the whole thing you will LOVE it i’m sure!

E3 2010 (June 14th – 17th) Live Broadcasts schedule can be found at the same links give below. The first one by MS starts on June 14th 10 AM PST, that’s 10:30 PM IST.

As all websites follow universal time preserved addressing for the E3 sites, all links still work and lead to the latest 2010 sites.

The Live Blogs will be updated with new links as they come.

UPDATE : Check out our Twlive Blog here for all E3 stuff! (No Refresh of page required  )

June 1st- 4th 2009 Its just a few days from now!

WEastFellow's E3!

This year will be my 5th online E3, but this E3 is more pre planned than ever! I’ve got special Internet hooked up JUST for watching E3 live with no lag (unlike the last 4 years) among other things.

Just when I finished planning everything I thought why not give out all the details I gathered just so that it will help you, the gaming enthusiast, who is  sitting at home and planning to watch E3 live… VIRTUALLY!

Here I will list out places which will have Live coverage of the Pre-E3 Press conferences by the “Big Three”, also, I will list out some popular websites that you should check out to be keep track of all the E3 News overflow. (All site names Linked to their E3 sections for your convenience!)

The LIVE Video Coverage

*Gamespot

Gamespot's E3 Logo

Let me start off by mentioning the place that I’ve been visiting for the past 5 years for my Live E3 dosage. Gamespot might not be now, what it was about 2 years ago, but, it still has many people who are very experienced when it comes to E3 and proper management.

They are also the most experienced when it comes to doing E3 live broadcasts. Just a single look at their E3 page shows it. Everything is properly organized and you can filter things with easy clicks.

You can find the page for press confereces here.

Just bookmark that or set a reminder (they send you an email). They offer various qualities of streaming, because of which I, with my 256k internet was also able to enjoy a good E3 Live experience.

After the Main Press conferences are over, Gamespot has its own booth at the LA Convention center where they host live shows with users having the option to comment, live, and ask questions to the people being interviewed.

The schedule can be found here.

All you need is a free membership to access the streams. The only drawback is that sometimes the streams are like  a minute late. (comparing tweets to videos :P  There’s no saying till you actually see it though. This years might be on time!

*IGN

IGN's E3 logo (cropped)

Then comes IGN. The other BIG gaming site thats been in the business for a similar length. They too provide all the live streams for free, to their members. The thing with IGN is that I never liked their interface. Their design always gives me that, suffocating feeling. Also, their navigation is so serpentine that it will take you quite a few clicks to get where you want. Nevertheless, they deliver the goods, and watching E3 Live is what we want

You can find their E3 page here.

There is no exclusive page that you can keep track of , for the conferences, so be ready to go there and click!

*Gametrailers

GameTrailer's E3

From being “that site where you get HD trailer downloads for FREE!” (with resume support ) The site has now become one of the most active gamer communities on the internet. The site is quite young compared to others. But is A1 when it comes to providing great video service. They too dont have a specific page for the conferences so

Keep track of their E3 page for the link to the Live Coverage!

*G4Tv

G4TV's E3 Logo

The TV Channel for gamers! Well, I never got to see anything from it.. not being in the US and all.. but I am pretty sure they are a very experienced bunch of people, their site promises “22hours of live coverage”.It has Live stage Demos, Interviews just like all the others, but it will also stream the Record attempt by Steve Wiebe for Donkey Kong High score! That should be interesting to watch They will also have the fancy user controllable cameras  that Gamespot (and IGN?) have had before.

You can find their E3 Page here

The LIVE Blogs

There are many famous blog sites that have a live blog posted at their place when the conferences go on. The way how blogs work do not allow us to know of the link for the posts, so best we can do is look at their homepage which will obviously have the live blog post posted on top when its actually happening.

2010

• Kotaku – MS ,
• Joystiq – MS ,
• Giantbomb – MS ,

2009

• Kotaku – MS , EA , Ubi , Ninty , Sony
  
• Giantbomb – MS , EA , Ubi , Ninty , Sony
• Joystiq – MS , EA , Ubi , Ninty , Sony
  

( For your convenience,I will link the names their live blog post, as soon as they’re up)

EDIT: All major Live blogs are done.. wont be updating any more.. just keep track of whats happening now using the various links to sites provided here

are the “big three” when it comes to online blog sites.. they always have their live blog posts going on. Not only for the Press conferences but also for the small keynotes and meetings and other stuff that happen during the three days of E3.

Hey Listen!

The advantage here is that you will get the updates AS FAST AS possible and there is LOW BANDWIDTH requirement Always keep atleast one live blog open alongside your video feed to not miss anything!

The TWEETS

Last year was very different from all the other years, a new form for information passage had been widely accepted, namely twitter. I myself was tweeting everything as I saw the live conferences and blogs the last time. But thats not all! Not every editor, news person out there is going to be live blogging. Many of them.. just sit and tweet!

Well, now for your twitter dosage from game journalists, you can follow this list

Video Game JOURNALISM!

From what I saw last year here are a few you should be following, come E3 time, to get all the news, even on the go!

• @leighalexander
• @jeffgerstmann
• @taswell

I know there are many more on there at twitter, but last year, they were the ones that were tweeting something or the other about every noticeable thing that was happening at the confereces

I think @ncroal, @TraceyJohn and @exxy should also be tweeting interesting stuff during the conferences.

The Bloggers/Pressers

After the live conferences are over, you can expect an overload of information pouring out of various game blogsites. Most of them will be what you saw in the conferences, ofcourse, till the ACTUAL E3 starts. Which is after all the three finish their conferences. (June 2)

All things like neatly organised videos and news can be found in the sites mentioned above. But there are many other great news portals out there each reporting the news you want, with their unique flavour.

Be sure to check out

• Giantbomb.comThey are personal favourite when it comes to video features ( they should be yours too! ) Expect crazy videos at the end of each day and fun reports al-throughout. They even have BOMBCASTS (podcasts) everyday too. You already know most of what they’ll talk. But just hearing them say is worth it Another plus is that they always get many special guests in their shows, so its good to have a variety of people talking.
• 1up.comSimilar to Gamespot, its not what it was. But still, expect to find good coverage from them during the 3 days. The link above leads to their E3 section.
• Kotaku.comThe Kotaku towers.. the single place where you are sure to get EVERYTHING. They donot hesitate when it comes to posting NEWS (Linked to E3 section)
• Joystiq.comThey have their fanboy sections where they have dedicated people covering everything you need for your favourite platform. A simple tag search for these sites will be great to filter news to your liking
• Destructoid.comThe commentary and reporting done by the people here at destructoid (and its community)  is something you will want to keep a track of. Be sure to check the place out too!

Mii Too!

Ofcourse, where would I be without plugging myself here in the post somewhere I will obviously be keeping track of everything thats going on. I will be posting everything I see on my twitter feed( @Reetesh) which you can keep track of if you dont mind getting your timeline filled with your post.

Check out our Twlive Blog here (No refresh required just sit and stare  )

*Finally

Ofcourse, there might be many other places giving live feeds and live blogging, which might also be quite respectable. The ones I mentioned here are what I feel are more than enough for a person to keep track of the news, if you want to mention something, be free to keep it in the comments :

Also remember! #e3 is the  official tag for all things E3 at twitter, not E309.

Anywhooo… What kinda kept echoing in my mind were the lines Kratos spoke during the trailer, yeah I know he doesn’t speak much but that’s kinda Kratos thing when he speaks you listen cause its probably a life or death deal involved in whatever 30 seconds speech he decides to give out; he also almost whispers them, you know why? “To make you listen”. So I’m gonna try to brake it down as I see things going on with K’s words and what it could mean to the future of the game and why I think he could try to pull a One Winged Angel trick in this final instalment as this blog goes along.

“DEATH… IS IN MY BLOOD”

Kratos just before dropping some fools

Obviously this is no new statement for a badass anti-hero like  K, but this is usually a statement brought on by someone who, in many cases, has had all of those close to him die because of actions directly linked to them. I’m guessing being someone of Kratos’ life experience is not such a good thing, you know with the wanting power and selling your soul to the thing closest to the devil in Greek mythology, being betrayed and murdered multiple times (Kratos might literally be referring to the murder in the “Death” statement), etc.

Of course, there are people unaware of Kratos’ history, as to why he thinks death flows within him, as well as the innocent people caught in the line of fire of Kratos’ personal vendetta… So, here is a small list of people closest to Kratos, who were murdered or basically wiped-off the face off the land because of their connection to the fallen God:

• His Wife and Daughter. These two people were special enough to subdue, with just kindness, and love a very angry and power hungry guy. Then some evil jerk tricks Kratos into killing them with his own hands in a blind and murderous rage… I think you can start seeing where Kratos is coming from. I mean Calliope (daughter) must have been very very very special to Kratos to have him sit under a tree, carve a wooden flute and hear her play it in the middle of an open field! You know, Kratos, he is a very hard dude to get to stay still (not even several deaths could do the trick  ).

Why daddy?! Why?!

• Athena. Yes, she rolls with the Olympus entourage and yes, she kinda slipped the old “Well, technically I said…” trick on Kratos (lame )… but you forget that she was doing it on orders of Zeus and because of his twisted father-son issue with Kratos and actually wanted better for Kratos before her death by trying to free him from that sad destiny. She was also kinda like Kratos’ mentor and sponsor, she kept him in line, advised him, recommended him for the open God of War job position, took compassion of him even after he slaughtered her villages, saved his life twice, she was the only god to try to change Kratos’ power hungry ways after he became a god and gave a good word of him to some gods (maybe to persuade them to take away the nightmares after finishing his services and rightfully compensating him).
  

Dude, I like war as much as the next god, but your taking it too far.

I think those few points above would kinda get her on Kratos’ goodside. So it must have really hurt to put a huge sword through her and see how see gave her life to prevent him from killing his new found true enemy.

• The people and kingdom of Sparta. Well I think this could be a bit more ambiguous point to defend Kratos’ statement with, but lets remember that there was a time, before he became the lone wolf we all know and love, where he bled and fought for this kingdom. His family was from there, maybe some friends and towards the non official end of his reign as God of War the people of Sparta fought in his honour and glory. He was a good god to them by leading them to victory in battle and taking care of them as a good ruler would do for his people. So this an O.G.-street rule back in the days of Zeus: “You take something from me and you can be damn sure I’m taking something from you”. I mean we all saw his reaction when the gods/The Fates tricked him (again!) by making him kill the last survivor of Sparta who was looking for a way to apeace Zeus after his genocidal spree on the kingdom and it’s people just for being close to Kratos.

I think these 3 points could kinda make me see why Kratos is pissed and why he would declare such a bold statement as to link himself so deeply to death itself.

Oh yeah! I almost forgot, I still gotta kick dad's ass.

Another thing that came to my mind when I heard Kratos making his statement is how basically he could be at the end of his rope. Not that he could kill himself as in the first game but I could see him going on very, almost wanting it, careless/suicidal path. Point in case, in the trailer he didn’t even try to fight off the undead soldiers but just went towards them and even let them pile up on him… which I guess he got out of because his third statement woke him up to remember why he has gotten this far. He now basically doesn’t even think twice, he will just charge toward his enemies no matter how big or small, strong or weak, a huge centaur or zombie soldier they could be.

With death in his blood (to paraphrase) he could also be trying to act as an agent of Death… something like the Grim Reaper but the only Grim Reaper capable of taking down the gods definitively because, I’m guessing, normal death couldn’t take down immortals and around that mythology the action of death was ruled by another god (Thanatos) who abided by Olympus’ rules.

So, I´m guessing just his [Kratos] mere presence will soon signify the end of existence for Zeus and his allies.

What I’ll do here is, point out what all I didn’t like about the thing, and try to think of a reason WHY it was put in such a way.. i.e how the devs possibly justified their decision

So lets get to the dark side!

The Class system!

No choices till you do the other things you dont want to.

First thing you’ll hear about Killzone2 MP is that its “Class based” well.. class based is when the player is allowed to choose which type of weapons to use during the matches.

BUT, in the beginning,  the game limits the weapon to only the Assault rifles. At first, I was thinking that it was because of the server side settings, but later found out that it was because everything else is “locked” till you level up.

You don’t get a new weapon ability even till the 3rd rank, and the sniper is unlocked when the highest rank is achieved. Its quite absurd actually, if you’re supposed to have a class based gameplay, why not allow the player to choose the class from the beginning itself?

*How it should have been

Once the basic classes are chosen, the levelling up of character should unlock more powerful weapons of the same class, or just allow access to other general weapons and abilities. If the game was of that kind, then everything would have been lot better.

Right now..a person like me, who is itching to get his hands on the rifles, will not get the hands on the weapon till many hours of gameplay. There’s a good chance, that I, after playing for so long with only the assault rifle, will find it to be the best choice. Which will be the case with many other people too.

*Why did they choose this?

Having invested so much on the MP experience, I was wondering why they made this different choice.. the only reason could be that they thought its better to let the player progressively experience every class as he reaches the top rank, and then choose his/her own path. As opposed to having the player choose his/her own path from the beginning itself.

That reason is.. quite good I think, but I think most of the players now a days already know what kind of player they are, assist, attack, defend etc.. so why make them all go through the same thing again? The part with sniper being the last rank is quite sad.. because only a few will want to be a sniper and they have to rank up, using weapons which they dont have fun with.

If only the rankings had nothing to do with classes..

No Assist points!

No points for assisting men

Another big thing that you notice while playing the game is that.. there’s no assist point in the game! Assist points are those points that a player gets if s/he does a good amount of damage to someone else’s kill. Its not the question of kill stealing, many people are assist type who move around behind people and give backup.. most of the times they spot the enemy first and shoot him so that the one in front doesn’t get hurt, and the one in front kills the wounded enemy.

Its a good tactic used by many when in a good team.. also theres the sniper which people just call “Assist class”.

*So, what’s the problem?

Well, not only does the game requires you to reach a high level to first get access to weapons like rifles and snipers, but then you’re ranking up is slowed down, IF you’re a rifle/sniper user, because of the fact that there is no assist points. Once again.. degrading the whole gameplay experience, alienating a huge piece of player pie.

*Why did they choose this?

Most probably they couldn’t find a way to properly decide when to give an assist and when to not.. or maybe the devs thought that people should be rewarded in non uniform ways.. no matter how you look at this.. it feels like its because of their laziness.

Take Cover!

One of the best things about the Single player campaign of KZ2 was its really nice and unique cover system. I don’t think any other FPS ever implemented the cover system in such an intuitive way. If you want to play with thought, then cover comes into play very much.

But oh noes! The cover mechanics are totally disabled in the multiplayer modes. I couldn’t think WHY one would remove such a good part of the game.. the only reason that could justify this decision was that..

Maybe they thought it’ll allow people to perform some weird wall sticking or other things to glitch and cheat.  Don’t think they would have removed the Cover Mechanism.. just coz, that would be lame.

Super Low ammo, No packs

When you start a match, with the assault rifles, you’re given only 64 bullets for what people usually tend to use like a machine gun. The game has no concept of ammo packs and such, therefore, making the player to learn how to frugally use ammo. You can run and pickup ammo from the downed players however. The problem arrives only during stand-offs and last man each team type situations. You’ll have to think a lot and only then shoot, and if you’ve lived for a longer time then you’ll have to keep moving in search of others dead bodies for ammo.

On Second thought, if you think hard enough.. it feels like this decision was made so that many situations can be created where the tension is high.  Not only will it teach people to use ammo properly, but it will also make the player want to move from one location to another, because staying in one location and shooting will deplete the ammo and then you cant do anything but move out of there in search for more ammo.

What’s my Ping?

I dont understand why many console games just don’t show ping while selecting server? With many of the servers being player created ones.. ping should be an important factor for deciding which match to join.. BUT they don’t show it.. in any form.. not even those traffic light type signals.

I mean, Warhawk has a really neat match selection area, where it shows and allows us to sort things by ping.  I don’t know if there’s an internal mechanism which auto sorts everything by ping or whatever. It just isn’t nice to not show the ping while selecting matches!

The other Stuff

Halt, Who goes there?

There are some more smaller things that bother me a lot.. like that fact that you die too easily in CQC conditions, You need to press X to respawn, and then in the menu that comes after that, pressing X takes you out, but pressing O re spawns you.. you if you press X twice (of which there are LOTS of chances) then you will be taken to the quit option.. and if you’re really in the heat of the battle.. you will immediately press “Oh no, its O” and then quit the match.

A very irritating irritation indeed!

All in all.. the game is quite enjoyable, but its sad to see that many easy to do things were taken out of the game and many features are not implemented well.. Its hard to think that its been under 5years of development, and still have such simple problems. Oh well.. I guess after a few months, when EVERYONE is top level.. that’s when the real games start, because that’s when all will be free to choose their own class of interest and play how they like.

The single player was short and sweet.. it had its WoW and pft moments. After playing trough it, I was left with greater expectations for the MP. The selection of weapons available in the game was pretty good. It had a good single shot rifle,something that many games lack now a days, and a sniper rifle that actually depended on the stability of the player’s hands. With me being a huge single shot- head shot guy, this was good news, as there have been very few games with rifling MP matches.

Let the Games begin!

Finally the servers were made live, and as soon as I got the time, I sat and started playing the MP. After the first day of playing, “Sinusoidal” was the only word that I could think of,  It had some really great features (like Sin0 – Sin90) then had things that basically killed the joy of the MP(Sin90 – Sin180). Well, enough of the geek chatter,  let us first see what the good things were.

*Seamless structure

The most interesting part about the killzone2′s multiplayer (warzone) is the seamless way in which modes change from one to another. Instead of the traditional “one match one type”, it has a “One match, many rounds, each of different type”  approach. The varied match types it provides, make the whole experience really enjoyable and meaningful.

*Announcements

The first thing you notice as soon as you join a match is a authoritative voice that shouts at you and tells you what you have to do in the present round. Every mode has a specific voice over from the commander, unique for each of the two factions. This complements the structure of the matches very well, as you are told what is to be done, rather than being given the name of the mode. There is a different comment/compliment from the commander at the end of every round, which adds a lot to the immersion factor.

*InterComm.

The game allows for max 32 player to play simultaneously in a match. Immediately, this brings up the question of “nonsense jibber jabber” and other common irritations, but the game has a neat “squad” feature which is pretty easy to use. Anyone above the 2nd rank can start their own squad, people in a single squad have their own channel for chat, so.. if you have a lot of people who are to be muted.. rather than taking any troubles, just join one of the proper squads in the match on create your own. A nice workaround.

The Squad feature adds a lot more functionality as it allows you to monitor your team-mates’ location and statistics. In addition to it, the squad members will spawn just beside the squad leader!

Best of all, I, with my 256k connection, was able to get head shots using Assualt rifles! Which is quite fascinating because there has always been a considerable lag in MP games when the action gets serious. Not in this game.

*Side dishes

There are many other small features in the game which are pretty good, like the map voting feature at the end which is, once again, pretty seamless and very easy to use. Joining friends’ matches is pretty easy too.

These features are available elsewhere too, but the way how everything is nicely integrated makes it all a good experience. This is a small lowdown of the good things in the multiplayer, then comes the disappointing stuff. We’ll have a look at those in the coming post.

Also, remember we are still using the skill chart for reference as to some of the conclusions. Okay? OK.

* Pain must be ridiculously powerful, maybe the strongest ninja in the Naruto universe.

First lets lay the facts. Jiraiya was among the top ninja of the Naruto world and overall on par with such a complete ninja of the level of Itachi who is a genius Uchiha and owner of a Mangekyou Sharingan. (Remember that Jiraiya was one of the few that Itachi showed concern to fight against)

Now with those facts in mind let us note the following main points:

1. Pain man- handled Jiraiya even before revealing his “Six Paths of Pain” (Jiraiya was able to sustain himself without being completely dominated only for a while) and then smacked him around with summonings, taijutsu, ninjutsu and some weird genjutsu towards the end.

1. Then there was the part that was not shown in between, where the 6 avatars of Pain attacked Jiraiya.It ended with Jiraiya only being able to trap one of them and loosing the ability to sustain Sage Mode anymore.

Even after knowing all this…

Given that Jiraiya pushed him so hard so as to make Pain reveal his secret… Pain’s abilities are far beyond an S-class ninja. This just means that Pain must be on some level comparable to that of Rikkudou Sennin (the sage who created ninjutsu) or even superior. I mean we know that Nagato (Pain’s “real name”) was able to control and use all of the 5 elemental chakras by the age of 7, yet we did not see him even use one of them during his fight with Jiraiya… nor do we know if he has the capacity of fusing them to make Mokuton and/or Hyouton like elemental techniques, given he has the eyes of the person who helped the first ninjas understand how to use them.

Then there’s facts like him finishing a whole civil war, by himself! Murdering the leader of the Hidden Rain Village (who even the Legendary Sannin had in upmost regards as a very powerful opponent) and all his allies and family, and has a technique in which he has complete awareness of all that happens in the radius of the whole village and to an unknown limit, it’s surroundings.

Pain’s techniques, experience and personal resume are probably as or even far greater then those of Madara. Pain may not have controlled the Kyuubi nor have a Mangekyo Sharingan, but he has the eyes and intelligence of the man who created the ninja world and all in it! He can control all the natural elements, can use all type of techniques and even separate into different bodies. He has an omniscient ability that far exceeds the Byakugan and is more penetrative and incisive than the Sharingan

* Note: The Sharingan and Byakugan are a derivation of the the Rinnegan. *

No doubt that by the present chapter (424), 6 Pain’s are very troublesome to handle even for an elite ninja as Kakashi and other Jonin and Chunin of Konoha… I can only wonder what the original body is capable of, I’m guessing it’s not friendly.

A true feeling of fear and desperation will come, to any mortal who dares challenge a god.

I don’t know, it doesn’t ring with me like Donnie Darko did and hence the “Mad World” trailer. That trailer was set in a very depressive and gloomy environment filled with children killed insinuations in the form of broken statues, war torn cities with pouring rain and a lonely single man in the midst of it all. OF COURSE! The Donnie Darko theme was perfect for that trailer.

In my opinion the theme song for the new trailer should have reflected more of the “finish the fight” ambience that the trailer, and I guess, the game speak of. Have you not seen the previews?! They are fighting on top of Brumaks! Hot Brumak on Brumak action. Personally, maybe some Metal would have been fine or to keep it kinda emo, some Within Temptation.

Still, I think… I really think that this trailer could foreshadow the possible coming out of Dom and Marcus. I mean, it’s there and out in the open. I guess the world isn’t ready for it. Also, that rumour has already been debunked and apparently Marcus will have a female love interest this time around and who knows, maybe Dom will get some alone time with his wife too.

Getting this whole gay and emo thing out of the way… man! does this trailer look alot like an Anime opening or what? The whole helping each other up the platform, the shots in dramatic posses of the characters, they all seem too Anime familiar to me. I could name any number of Anime OP’s but I’ll just show you the latest Naruto Shippuden opening (Blue Bird) so you can get an idea of what I mean.

Just goes to show that all of life’s answers are in Anime and Manga, you just need to look for them.

Lets have a look at short video to introduce you to the game

*How to be rhythmic

The game has stuck to its core and the gameplay is as rhythmic as before. The cartoony and personified art style is retained in RTG, and the animations of the characters will make you want to swing along to the rhythm. This time, you will observe that the game takes advantage of the DS’s power and contains many levels where the objects are rendered in 3D rather than in good ‘ol 2D. Every thing represented on the screen has high quality animation expressing their own rhythm, be it clapping hands, or rolling blocks.

Gameplay this time revolves around you doing two basic actions (as opposed to the previous’ single-button-press gameplay). The first action being a single tap on the screen, which feels very similar to the old button tapping gameplay. Then there is the second action which is a “down to up” sliding action. This might take a bit getting used to, as changing instantaneously from a continuous tapping motion to a sliding one can get confusing at times. Also, timing on the sliding motions have to be more precise, making games based on sliding a bit more difficult. Overall difficulty of the game is “OK” with games not being too easy and not too hard with the exception of 1 or 2 games which can be very difficult to pass.

*Simple yet effective

RTG has the same basic game structure as the previous one. There are 4 different mini-games to be played in every level. Each game begins with a simple training session, which any one (even those, who have little to no knowledge of Japanese) can understand. After succeeding in the training level, the main game starts, usually lasting ~2mins.

The simple level structure and lack of “story” allows for a perfect handheld experience which means that you can just turn your DS on whenever you want, play for a while and then shut it off. There is nothing like the player will get “out of sync” after not having played the game for a long time (Aka, ouendan etc) as there is basically no concept of memorisation used in the levels, and the gameplay itself is simple.The songs themselves this time are very different and nice, but the remixes do not impress much, when compared to the ones in the GBA game. They are good, but not as good as they could have been.

* Is it Freaky?

These minigames are the heart of the game. Each one is unique in its own freaky way. Games where you make frogs swing their hips or make a guy eat eggs, all while responding to beats in a rhythm, are some of the game’s defining moments. You will have to see it to understand how and why these are the main selling point of the game.

To pass a game you will have to get most of the hits/slides correctly. There are two ranks given for passing, you either JUST pass,which is indicated by a silver/ash outline on the game’s selection box, or you do very good and get a gold outline. As soon as you pass, the next game is unlocked. If you fail, the next level is not unlocked and you will have to retry till you pass.

There is a small feature in the game which allows people to bypass this in case you are failing repeatedly in one game (~5+ times continuously). When that happens, the kettle icon on the right-end of the line with the “move” icon starts boiling and upon pressing that, you can select to unlock the next level. Once 4 games from a level are completed the 5th game is unlocked which is a remix using all the previous games of the level. Once this is completed the next level is unlocked.

* Import friendliness and worth.

Apart from the 50 levels that that you play to get the “end credits” (which again is a minigame in itself) you have loads of extra games. These levels feel more like an integral part of the complete experience one can spend a great deal of time just playing these unlockable games. They are unlocked when you get a “gold” for the levels you play. These games range from things like flipping coins to punching those “hit me nots” toys, all to the rhythm, making nice music as you do it. These are very addictive and add a lot to the whole value of the game. Makes all those golds you get in the games really feel “worth it”

50 levels each with around 2 minutes of gameplay might make it sound like a short game. But the mini-games are just so good that, no matter who you are, you will find yourself replaying some of them, just for fun. Also, its not like every level can be crossed at first try. It takes a few tries to understand the music and play accordingly. All these factors, along with the infinitely long long extras that you unlock by playing game, add a lot to the replay value of the game.

The game is very import friendly

The game being Japanese only for the time being means that importing is the only way to get it. But how import friendly is it? Well, lucky for all of us, the game is very import friendly. It will only take a few minutes to figure out what is happening and which buttons is the “ok” or “cancel” button. The meaning of all the extra options in the menu can also be found out by trial and error method. There are usually images on the other screen which give a basic idea on what it is.

*In Conclusion

The game’s very import friendliness, great replay value, catchy music, easy gameplay and “handheld” structure really make it a must have for anyone who is looking for something fresh and entertaining for their DS. This will keep you busy for 10s of hours and will you want to get back to it even after months of playing it. All in all, it is something that every DS owner should atleast try out. The game has already sold over a million copies in japan, that sure speaks volumes of its appeal.

Lets end this review with another nice video

*The Occasion

Its Diwali time once again in India, and everyone is busy buying sweets and crackers (thats what we call fireworks here, not something that polly would want). Its India’s festival of lights where people of all ages have fun blasting crackers the whole night. Little kids with sparklers and plastic guns that blast “tickli”s , big kids with atom/hydrogen/lakshmi bombs, and then everyone else with their flower pots and rockets.

It is indeed a sight worth watching where everyone tries to show off their purchases by blasting at the right moment. Its not like a special location is fixed where you can blast them. Anyone and everyone blasts them on their colony roads, in their house’s plot etc.. the community handles the aftermath (cleaning roads etc)

*The Point

Now what does all this have anything to do with the topics that we at WEastGamers deal with? well, the special thing about Indian crackers is that there are many companies/small households making these things and the best way to sell their wares is by having the most attractive covers for the boxes they sell them in.

They usually have things that kids (cartoons) and adults (famous actresses) would notice the most. Not too many years ago, I started seeing things like Mario and Sonic popup in these box covers. I immediately wanted to have a look these boxes, and then understood how effective this idea is. However, the first thing I got in my head was “copyrights!” but seeing that this is India and no one cares for such small things.(not like they are earning billion dollars and they don’t have an “official” presence here either) Its freely done.

*The Reason

Recently I saw a post @ Kotaku showing “devil may cry fireworks” People went “Wow” by looking at it.. seeing that how everyone was surprised at the thing, I commented there saying this:

Wow, guys, if you find that amusing, wait for “Diwali” to start here, there are so many cracker boxes with Mario, Peach, Sonic and many other game characters that are sold here since years!

Cool, so I will take pics and send them this diwali!

So, yeah I am man of my words, today was diwali crackers shopping time for me and I took pictures of all those boxes with references that I thought you all can relate to.

Without further ado..

From Diwali Crackers

From Diwali Crackers

From Diwali Crackers

From Diwali Crackers

From Diwali Crackers

From Diwali Crackers

From Diwali Crackers

From Diwali Crackers

From Diwali Crackers

From Diwali Crackers

From Diwali Crackers

From Diwali Crackers

From Diwali Crackers

From Diwali Crackers

From Diwali Crackers

From Diwali Crackers

From Diwali Crackers

These are the ones I could find, but I am sure there are many more somewhere out there. I leave them here, for your viewing pleasure, to make it more interesting, why not try and name all the characters that you see here in the images.

Will try to take videos and more pictures of things this diwali. Keep looking for updates But yeah one thing is for sure.. people found it very amusing, seeing me take pictures of these things As for myself it felt kinda different but nice!