So I was lucky enough to visit CES on the first day for few hours courtesy of Samsung. I was hired to do surveys that were far to long for anybody to sit through on a show floor. Needless to say it was a disaster, but I came out with a few miscellaneous photos that are mainly from the halls and a few in the samsung booth. Let it be known that most of these photos aren't very interesting and are of the quality you can get from an iPod touch.

Now lets start that wall of photos!



Here we have the Galaxy Note lounge under construction



Even still there was a longgggg wait



Just inside the front entrance of the convention center



Badges!! Badges HERE!



Walking through the halls



This is a HUGE 3D display that I passed by. Unfortunately I didn't catch the manufacturer



Inside the Samsung booth (east side)



Parking was 10 dollars but luckily only a few minutes walk from the convention center



Entrance to North Hall which I unfortunately couldn't see



Another pic of the WALL SIZE 3D DISPLAY!



Here's the main entrance to Samsung's booth (C4)



Going under the CES arch



Believe me they have no problem yelling about keeping your badge facing forward



Little farther back from the arch and a little blurry (sorry!)



Ahhh CNET, you're still the king!?!?!?



Some of the crowd from the Samsung booth



Just a miscellaneous sign *sigh*



Yet another arch picture *sigh*



Ready for 2013!!!



Walking the GIANT hall from the entrance



Make. Believe staying strong



More walking the long hall



Just out of frame on the right is a Nathan's. Oh how I crave thee



Here's a little peak at the Engadget booth



Something a little more exciting is a pic of the giant TV cubes hanging from the ceiling of Samsung



Finally a pic of my badge. I'm not actually from Ridgefield Park, but Samsung for some reason put that on all their employee's badges. I'm actually a local to Vegas. HHMMMMMMMMM!!!!!

Winter is coming.

Although Summer still has about a month left, winter is looming on the horizon. For gamers this means an absolute onslaught of new realeases. The gaming winter typically kicks off with the realease af the new edition of Madden. For me it personally kicks off with one of my most of anticipated games of the year, Deus Ex. I decided it would fun to write a sort of wrap up blog to my summer, mostly in terms of gaming but with an occasional real life aside. Now onto the blog!

L.A. Noire



Summer for me kicked off with Rockstar's blockbuster title L.A. Noire. I picked it up about 2 months after release and ended up blazing through it in about a week. I thought it was great, but this game wasn't without it's detractors. In hindsight I can see where a lot of people had their problems with the game. The interrigation sequences are amazing on first glance, but you can soon see the failings of the system. Evidence that seems like it should work in context often fails, Doubt often doesn't mean what it should, and even though someone is telling the truth, it turns out that you were supposed to doubt them because you know something they don't. It can get really confusing and pretty absymal in some cases. Despite that the setting and style of the game gripped me from beginning to end, I hope this game gets a sequel down the line because the potential here is staggering.

Shadows of The Damned



Next up is the soon to be cult hit known that I like to refer to as just Shadows. A surprise highlight of my summer, Shadows had me laughing all the whole weekend I played through it. This was my first Suda51 game, but definitely won't be my last. The whole game just has a certain feel to it, a mix between campy horror and dick jokes that really meshes well with my personality. Although the game was only about 8 hours long, it constantly keeps things fresh with new weapon upgrades and the occasional easy puzzle. The only thing that makes me hesitate to replay it is the horrible turret sections and 2d sections of the 4th act.

Portal 2



Unsurprisingly, Portal 2 turned out to be one of my favorite games of the year. I sat down to play Portal 2 on a Friday night and ended up playing nearly all night long. Once I awoke around noon on Saturday I proceeded to finish the game in under 24 hours. Every minute of the game was engaging and funny. The difficulty curve in the puzzles was damn near perfect, and I only had to look up a puzzle solution mayble 3 times during the single player campaign. I just recently got a chance to play through the co-op which only made me love the game even more. All in all, I saved science!

Real life aside

It was between Shadows and Portal 2 that I graduated from high school. I took the long the way around, but on the 21st of July (also my birthday) I finally picked up my degree and finished what I started nearly 5 years ago.

Alice: Madness Returns



I picked up Alice to fill out a buy 2 get 1 sale at Best Buy, and I can firmly say I made a good choice. Madness Returns is probably one of the only platformers I've truly enjoyed this generation. The game starts out strong with an amazing artstyle that immediately draws you into the world of Alice's wonderland. The game then finds a sort of mediocre grove of fairly easy platforming and a surprisingly good fighting system. Then you hit the peak of the game, The Red Queens lands. The opening of the level is one of the most visually stunning in the game, featuring a road of cards that come up to meet you as you walk along towards a castle made of cards. If you enjoy unique visuals I can't recommend this game enough, as it's art direction is something to behold.

Dead to Rights: Retribution



I bought this on a whim for around 8 dollars on amazon and ended up liking it more than I thought I would. This game is just balls to the wall action. Every second is a flurry of melee and gunfire. The main problem with the game is that it's all action, and it gets fairly repetitive. The only thing to really break up the arcadey action are the occasional stealth sequences in which you play as your dog Shadow. Although these sequences are cool, even they get fairly repetitive after you see the same kill animation for the tenth time. If you can find it for cheap and hace a few days to spare, I'd say it's worth checking out.

Dead Rising 2



The final game of my summer that will lead me up to Deus Ex is Dead Rising 2. Always the bargain hunter, I picked up the zombrex edition for about 25 bucks on amazon about 2 weeks ago and started playing it last Friday. I decided I'd give this game a chance after hating the original and I'm glad I did. Playing through the game co-op is incredibly fun. The combo weapons keep things fresh, and the time limits are much less strict then the first. I actually finished it with an S rank on Sunday, and I turned around and started the campaign again. This game has so many secrets and little interaction that keep me wanting to play over and over, and I plan on doing just that all the way up to the release of Deus Ex.

Real life aside 2

Over the summer I got a job at a greeting card store part time. I'm not making much, but It's enough to keep my gaming habits going while I live under my parents roof. Soon, I will be picking up a second holiday job selling Calenders which will potentially double my income. Despite this I'm trying to cut down on my gaming in order to save a little money for the future. Why is this important to this blog? I have no idea.

The other stuff



A lot of my summer was also spent with DLC and downloadable games. Fallout: New Vegas' DLC Old World Blues was a highlight that kept me playing for a weekend. Call of Duty Classic was played sporadically throughout the summer, and I finished it a month ago. Black Ops has kept a consistent spot in my gaming life, with a ton of hours dropped on the downloadable zombie maps. I also played a bit of Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, but I really don't feel compelled to play more of it. Borderlands DLC's kept me up for days in the month of June, and I'm both excited and worried about Borderlands 2. Lastly I spent a few days with Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection replaying some of my first games. E-Swat is still fucking awesome.

The world of tomorrow!



The games of Holiday 2011 have already become overwhelming. Having drooled over the realease schedule for weeks, I've decided on the games I really want to play over the holiday. That doesn't mean I don't want to play a game if I don't include it, but I most likely won't get to it until the start of the new year. Also note that I'm only listing games that are coming ouat calender 2011.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

My second most anticipated game of the year, Deus Ex looks to be a GOTY contender. Every trailer and preview around the game has consistently impressed. Here's to hoping it holds up to the hype!

Gears of War 3



By far my most anticipated game this year. Gears of War has become my favorite franchise this generation. I've already paid off my Epic Edition and just today picked up the limited edition controller. I'm eagerly awaitng the 20th.

Dead Rising 2: Off the Record

A recent edition to my holiday list, My infatuation with Dead Rising 2 has lead me to start eagerly anticipating Off the Record. The recent reveal of the achievements has me excited to give this game a shot.

Metal Gear Solid HD Collection



I love Metal Gear Solid. Every game in the franchise has a place in my heart for all time. Despite owning these games on the PS2, I will assuredly play them again come November. On top of that the inclusion of Peace Walker which has online co-op should keep me playing for a while.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Although I'm not a big fan of Oblivion, Skyrim looks amazing. The footage coming out around this game is nothing less than astounding, here's to hoping for a bug free bethesda game! (not likely)

Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3



I played Marvel vs. Capcom 3 when it came out at my friends house and that was the extent of my experience with it. However I've recently got into fighting games and just purchased a terrible Tekken 6 arcade stick on the cheap. Plus Strider is back!

Thus ends my Summer wrap-up and my future gaming plans. I realize it's fairly long but hey, it's almost a half a year of gaming. I know there are quite a few games that most people are anticipating that I didn't include. Among them being MW3, Battlefield 3, Assassins Creed: Revelations, Uncharted 3, Saints Row 3, and other's that I can't think of at the moment. I want to play all these games eventually, but money and time become factors in this case. Well that's my plan for the winter, how about you?

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

In Soviet Russia, game profile you!!

Played to completion on default difficulty (Wii)


You know your in for something special when the first thing you read is a warning. A warning that specifically says "this game plays you as much as you play it." A game that promises to analyze every move you make and tailor itself specifally to who you are as a person. The most amazing thing about it though, is that it succeeds.

As a psuedo remake of the original Silent Hill, the game opens with protagonist Harry Mason waking up from a car crash to find his daughter Cheryl missing. Armed with a flashlight, cell phone, and your wits, you'll soon begin to explore the town or Silent Hill. However, before all that you'll be introduced to the your characters pychiatrist. He makes frequent appearances along your journey to test you with various mental excercises ranging from coloring to psuedo rorschach tests. These tests can impact your games in surprising ways that I don't want to spoil. I'll just say that sometime's these tests are more literal then they seem.

Silent Hill fully embraces the wii's unique control scheme and is definitely one of the best games to showcase the Wii's potential. The wiimote acts as your flashlight, which helps to put you in the protagonist's shoes and immerse you in the game. Also unique and immersive is the in game cell phone, which acts a a mulit-tool in the game. Your cell phone houses your save games, GPS, contacts, messages, and camera. Messages are central to the game's narrative and once again uniquely immerse you in the game by playing through the wiimotes speakers which give a distinctly bad cell reception sound. The camera main use is to see ghosts ala Fatal Frame.


The Cell phone is a fantastic tool

Most of the game will be spent investigating the town of Silent Hill trying to find your daughter. Along the way you'll encounter you'll find various ghostly apparitions to photograph and often come accross extremely disturbing voice messages. The games atmoshpere is constantly reinforced by these messages which leave you on edge and often wondering the fate of the people whose messages your now hearing. every once in a while you'll come across another person in Silent Hill. These characters appear and disappear frequently, always leaving you with more questions then answers. This portion of the game is heavily altered based on the games profiling of you. The characters you meet can change appearance dramatically, one example being the cop you meet early on. In my game she dressed seductively and flaunted herself. The next time trough she had completely changed her look to a conservative sherriff look. Not only do the characters change but so do the locations. Billboards and signs change, storefronts can be completely different, and building can be locked and unlocked based on your choices. The differences are so immense that this game can essentially be played through mulitple times with completely different looks and feels every time.

The other big gameplay element of Silent Hill ate the enemy encounter sections. At various points in the game the world will freeze over, indicating that you are now being pursued by the monsters of Silent Hill. Shattered memories has no combat mechanics, your only choice is to run to safety. Here is where the game sort of falls apart for me. Every enemy section is basically a maze that you must navigate to reach a safe room. Enemies will chase you doggedly, jumping on you from all sides in an effort to take you down. Your only defense are the rare flare pickups and your ability to quickly find the exit. Here the wii's controls easily and often become a problem. The heart of it lies in how you shake off enemies by waggling. There are many times you can't avoid enemies jumping you and you have to frantically waggle in the right direction to throw them off. This often leads to the remote losing sync with the sensor bar, leaving you standing still for precious seconds. I've died more than once trying to get the sensor bar to pick up my remote, which is extremely frustrating. For the most part though, these sequences are a sort of hindrance to the main appeal of the game, the plot.


I NEED THAT FLARE NOW!

Silent Hill Shattered Memories is without a doubt my favorite game on the Wii. For the most part the game lives up to it's promise of fully bending itself to your personality. The enemy segments of the game aren't anything special, but luckily they're fairly brief and few and far between. In many ways this game blew me away. It's ability to change itself so completely is something I've never seen before. The ending itself is worth playing through the game for, if just to see how well a game can understand you.

4/5

[Next up for reviews are Portal 2 and Alice: Madness Returns. Also I'm still looking for feedback to see if people would enjoy game deal blog entries on a semi frequent basis.]

Shadows of The Damned

When demons hear the name Garcia Fucking Hotspur...

Played to completion on Lemon Hunter (Easy)


In Shadows of The Damned, hell isn't your typical vision. Fire and Brimstone are replaced by medieval streets and light barrels. In this hell goat heads expel darkness and alchohol UN-kills people. In this hell the demons fear only one human, Garcia Fucking Hotspur.

Shadows opens up with the gruesome death of your girlfriend Paula, only for her to be revived and kidnapped by the demon king Fleming. Par for the course, you follow Fleming into hell to take Paula back. Here your road movie starts in all it's glory, as you break the sound barrier on your skull motorcycle to get o the gates of hell.

Gameplay in Shadows controls like a more fidgety Resident Evil 4. You have your standard LT-RT shooting configuration that comes complete with a sprint and melee attack. In addition you also have the ability to shoot a light shot that will stun demons for a short while and come into play in psuedo enviormental puzzles. This leads to a pretty standart shooting experience that is broken up by the games main twist, darkness. The darkness essentially covers the map in shadows that slowly drain your health. A lot of the game revolves around expeling the darkness. This usually breaks down to locating a goat head and using the lightshot on it, or finding a darkness spewing hand and stabbing it with your torch. It all boils down to a fun romp that can become a little stale but is usually carried well by the funny quips and banter between Garcia and his Useful friend Johnson.


Garcia Hotspur and Johnson's Boner form

Johnson is your token british sidekick in Shadows. Johnson is your best friend and most useful tool throughout the game. He can seemingly transform into anything, but he usually manifests in the form of one of 3 weapons that you use throughout the game. These weapons: The Boner, Teether, and Skullcussioner are the only weapons you get throughout the game. Luckily they upgrade as you progress through the game, turning into extremely powerful weapons that can shoot mines and look on and trace enemies. Johnson's best trait though is that he has a seemingly endless amount of dick jokes.

Heres where we get to the most interesting and devisive point of Shadows of The Damned, the non-stop dick jokes. Everything from the afformentioned weapon the Boner, to the doors locked by demon pubes, to the seemingly endless quips all revolve around dicks. Dicks are everywhere in this game, and not 5 minutes go by without some dirty reference usually revolving around dicks. It gives the game a certain campy atmosphere that will either make you laugh or make you want to stop playing, depending on your deposition. All in all, if you like dirty jokes you will most likely enjoy this games style.


Oh god RUN!

There are a few things I have a bone to pick with though. Although you eventually get used to it, the shooting is very loose and feels far to floaty for a third person shooter. The biggest offender though is basically the whole 4th act. It opens with a very boring "Turret" sequence where you will hear the main charecter say "taste my big boner" over and over for about 5 minutes. Once your done with that you hop through a portal that takes you to the exact same sequence with a slightly altered landscape. Then after that you repeat the seqeunce for a third and thankfully final time. I can't fathom why they decided it would be good to put 3 badly designed turret sequence's back to back, but then again I'm not a developer. Unfortunately you are then thrust into a side scrolling level that although not bad, it is extremely boring. Then once again, your forced to do 2 more side scrolling levels that are only broken up by extremely short normal gameplay levels. Act 4 really leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I'm really dreading going through it again on my second playthrough. Luckily the 5th act is arguably the best in the game.

Shadows of The Damned is hard to recommend from a value perspective. The game is about 7-8 hours and has no multiplayer, no new game+, and no replay value beyond just the core gameplay. However I highly encourage any fans of dirty humor to give this game at least a rental, or at least look up a few videos to gauge how well the humor meshes with your personality. Shadows is a game that screams of cult hit, and it's unfortunate that it will most likely be relegated to the bargain bin.

4/5

[Next up for reviews are Portal 2 and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. Also I'm still looking for feedback to see if people would enjoy game deal blog entries on a semi frequent basis.]

Persona 3:FES

Slaying monsters with style; The RPG way!

Played to completion on easy difficulty (PS2)


Let me start off by saying this, Persona 3 is an astonishingly involving time suck. My plan of finishing and reviewing everything I play came back to bite me in the ass here. This game has been my life for the past month. Every day at work I would think about this game. Every night as I lay in bed I would think of ways to maximize my S. links. With the exception of some random multiplayer games this game stole all my free time. Barring a few annoyances, I can freely say it was well worth the investment.

The first thing you'll probably notice as you start the game is it's sense of style. It's very reminiscent of an a J-pop inspired anime. This style flows throughout the game from the attack animations to the menus. Scattered throughout are various animated cutscenes that reinforce this style and give the game a cohesive look. It visually meshes very well with the unique flow of the games dungeon crawling and high school simulation gameplay.


They save the best personas for last

Now's the time to get straight to the point, how does it play? The battle system combines typical turn based RPG gameplay with an atypical ability system. You'll always have the ability to attack or use items, but your spells and abilities are all mapped to your Persona's. Personas are monsters that are essentially extensions of the charecters soul's. You as the main character are the only person who has the ability to switch between various personas at will. This allows you to flexibly tackle most enemies you encounter. As you progress through the game you will both find and fuse many new persona as the enemies get progressively tougher. Each Persona has unique abilities, strengths, and weaknesses that your main character takes on when you equip them. The way you summon said perosna's by shooting yourself in the head with a fake gun. It's a cool and shocking effect when you first see it but it soon becomes typical. Most battles break down into a simple pattern. Find the enemies weakness and use a persona that can exploit that weakness for an easy win. The system works great for the most part but I definitely have a few bones to pick with some of the design choices made. The most major complaint I have is the lack of control over your party. Unfortunately, someone had the great idea of having the AI control your teammates in battle and only having the player control the main character. I can't tell you haw many times I would silently curse the stupid AI for either wasting my time or completely screwing me over. The only control you have is to give general orders for your teammates who then proceed to do the most stupid thing they can. I've heard they fixed this in Persona 3 portable, so that may be the version to play. In addition there are a few little things that can be annoying. One being that you can't use the main menu to equip items and heal your party members, instead you have to physically walk up to them and open a seperate menu to even see what they have epuiped and what abilities they can use. Also some of battle animations take a long time (especially the enemies) and are unskippable, which isn't to big of a deal but it is a bit frustrating. Last but not least you only visit one dungeon throghout the entirety of the game. While the general look of it does change occasionally, It's not enough to avoid getting bored of the same walls for 30 or so floors at a time.


PERSONAAAAAA!!!!!

The other major aspect of the gameplay is Social Linking. S. Linking basically involves hanging out with your friends in order to become closer or possibly start a relationship. Your social links level up from 1 to 10 generally increasing a level every couple of time you hang out with them. There are a ton of possible S. Links and it's entirely possible that you will miss out on a few of them without prior knowledge of the game. The social links are where you will have to really focus on time management, because it's impossible to max every link without following a stringent guide. The main benefit of your S. Links is that there level will make a big difference in your persona fusion by granting bonus levels based on your S. Link level. Properly blending dungeon time with S. Links is the key to success.


S. Linking in style...

As I mentioned before, the aesthetics on display here are unique in their style. The sound design perfectely matches the odd anime style with some outstanding musical styling. The music basically correlates to locations and events, so you'll be hearing a lot of the same music as you go back and fourth from school to the dorm. Thankfully the music is great. You'll find a good mix of Japanese inspired hip hop and classical music with a few upbeat tunes thrown in. The soundtrack came packaged with the game and I will soon be ripping it to my hard drive for my personal listening pleasure. I'll have to dance around spoilers here but at a point near the end of the game the music takes a complete left turn and remixes all the sounds you've heard for hours into some great depressing songs. It's very successful at turning the mood in the game and is a highlight of the whole experience.

Persona 3 FES is a game with so many hours of content it's hard to fit it all in a short review. It's a game that takes a lot of typical RPG aspects and adds a ton of layers to create a very involving system. There are a few small flaws here and there but with the exception of your teams AI, nothing is to bad. I'm both a little sad and extremely relieved to have completed this game after a month of my life fell to my 98 hour save file. If you've got time to spare and enjoy RPG's give it a go, but know that you probably won't be playing many other games for a good long while.

5/5


[Unrelated note: I know there is a guy doing UK deals on the Cblogs but I haven't seen one for the U.S. That said I haven't been on in a while so disregard this if someones got it covered. Basically I'm wondering if anyone would be interested in a Semi-regular Deals blog that cover all the best deals from around the U.S. If you think it's a good idea please say so in the comments.
Thanks!]

As gaming has evolved over the years, games have seemingly gotten easier. A lot of players complained about how the difficulty of the NES days were gone for good. Some developers decided to keep the spirit of difficulty alive, but most invested in making roller coaster experiences that people of any skill could get through. Many RPG developers however, went the route of making the games difficulty scale to the player level. Unfortunately, difficulty scaling rarely works as it should.


FFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!

My first foray into the world of scaling difficulty came in the form of Final Fantasy 8. Squaresoft took Final Fantasy 8's leveling system in a completely different direction than any previous franchise entries, in that leveling up is worthless. The games junction system is where your charecters derive there meaningful stat boosts, leveling barely makes a difference and can actually be a detriment down the line. All enemies including boss encounters scale to your parties level, and unless you junction the right way you can easily be steamrolled. Back in the day I didn't understand how this scaling worked and would completely screw myself by trying to power level as I had in many other RPG's. When I got the internet it wasn't long before I found myself looking up FAQ's for FF8, in the hopes of actually finishing it. As I read various walkthroughs I found myself getting angry with the game. Why the hell would they scale the difficulty in a linear RPG? The FAQ's lined out two paths to finish the game without much trouble. Either play the crappy card game for ten hours to become super powered or draw and run from random encounters to slow leveling. I went with the latter managed to make it to the last disc without much trouble. My experience didn't have a happy ending however as my 4th disc was so scratched it was unplayable and I never finished the game. This experience was the first time I fought against scaling difficulty in games, but it wasn't the last.


The shining example of good scaling

It was many years later that I laid my hands on a little game called Oblivion. Coming off of Fallout 3 I heard from friends that Bethesda's previous game was even better than Fallout. I quickly picked it up and started my journey through Cyrodiil. I played the game for a few days and enjoyed it, but not to the degree I was hoping for. I ended up shelving it for a while and I still pick it up every few monthes to try and get into it. It wasn't until after my first experience in the game that I learned it had scaling difficulty. I did have trouble in a few spots of the game but the handy difficulty slider and save anywhere feature got me through any tight spots. This seems like the best solution to the scaling problem, let the game scale but allow players to lower the difficulty if they need to. After Final Fantasy 8 made me sour to scaling, Oblivion put me back on the positive side. To bad the next game I played put me firmly on the side against difficulty scaling.

Here we get to the game that made me want to write this blog; The Last Remnant. This game became the bane of my existence for weeks. A huge 3 disc RPG whose difficulty destroyed me. This is most definetely the hardest game I have ever played to completion. Luckily by the time I got this game I had a computer and high speed internet to help me through tough games. Before I played the game I went on gamefaq's and checked out the message board to see what I was getting into. It wasn't a good sign when on the front page I saw a post titled something like " Scaling is ruining this game for me" After a few minutes of browsing I decided that a walkthrough would be necesary for me to get through the game. Even with the forsight the walkthrough gave me I still strugled harder then I ever have in a game. Every battle was a fight for survival, from lowly map encounters to the major boss battles. I must have reloaded the game a 100 times after getting completely blown away by regular enemies. I used the guide to max my stats in comparison to my level so the game would be easier and I must say, if that was the easy way through I don't know how anybody could get through the game normally. One battle I literally played for 2 hours before I got mercilessly destroyed in one turn, I never raged harder then I did when that happened. The last boss took me somewhere around 7 tries at 30 minutes a piece. Only luck got me through that and many battles in the game.


Just seeing this makes me angry, even years later

After that last experience I now remain weary of difficulty scaling in games. I'm very worried about the upcoming Deus Ex: Human Revolution and how it will scale considering the various ways you can spec your character. I know there are many games that Scale that I didn't mention, including basically every Bioware game. I can see that it is necesary in some games, especially in non linear RPG's such as Borderlands and Mass Effect. I just hope that something can be tooken from the way bethesda handles things with smooth level scaling and a slider to help you get through the rough patches. Til then, I remain wary but hopeful of the future of Difficulty scaling in games.