Must be some kind of contract that says Kratos has to stare menacingly into your face on every title screen, just to remind you how ANGRY he is.

I hit the start button and was IMMEDIATELY plunged headfirst into the action with nary a loading screen.

Awesome.

Don't ask me the plot, I have no idea. Kratos is angry. A hoard of Persians on a religious campaign are plotting to "cleanse" the city, the gods don't like it, Kratos is sent to deliver this message in the only way he can. However, there is a rather large monster roaming around the city. Hmm.

On a technical level, it's incredible, running at a fairly smooth 60 frames (it's really hard to tell since the PSP's refresh rate is so rubbish) with all sorts of effects and madness going on in the background. Case in point: As soon as the demo begins, you're fighting about 6 people at once while a massive sea battle (heh) rages on in the background. All of this is done with nary a hitch in the framerate. It really LOOKS like God of War, which is the best compliment I can give it because the PS2 game looked so superb.



Being too lazy to either reach over and grab my headphones OR plug it into my reciever, I cannot however, comment on the game's score in detail. If it's any consolation, it sounds quite epic even through the tinny, bassless speakers on the PSP.

Control is buttery smooth, and being used to the PS2 controls, I adjusted rather quickly. Anyone wondering about the scheme since there are quite a few buttons missing, it's really no different, most of the actions like opening doors has been mapped to the circle button, using magic is as simple as holding R and pressing one of the face buttons, and as for the largest concern, due to the lack of a right analog, rolling is now done by holding L+R and moving the nub. It's something that sounds awkward on paper, but becomes entirely second nature within minutes.

The demo is fairly lengthy (it took me about 25 minutes to finish), throwing you straight into the madness and hardly letting up. You traverse rooftops, the insides of buildings, fight several bosses, solve a puzzle here and there, and it ends with you wanting so much more. For some reason though, even though all this is great, and it's even all the more impressive that it's running on the PSP, I have a small concern.

It's very GoW esque, of that there is no question, but that in itself may be a problem. The game has a formula that works-- massive environments, impeccable art design, organic puzzling, exciting setpiece after setpiece, but as the third game in the series, it seems like starting off on such a high note with the first has trapped the designers into a very strict formula to follow. As much as I enjoy it all, don't get me wrong, it's starting to feel very by the numbers. It also doesn't help that Kratos' movelist has barely changed these past 3 years. Whether it's the small screen or just me being used to it all, even Kratos' barbaric nature during the fights and QTEs doesn't really surprise me anymore. While I was thoroughly entertained, it just doesn't really "wow" me any more. It makes me wonder if they've run out of steam.

Don't take this as me bashing the game though, I did enjoy it, the above was just a small concern of mine, and this is just the demo, so the actual game still has the potential to blow everyone (including me) out of their seats.

In fact, I'm going to play through it again right now.

While continuing to stare at and admire my personalized demo casing.

Here's hoping..

It is, of course, the God of War: Chains of Olympus package for the PSP, that I expected.

So I tear this beast open, and look for my swag.

Omega insignia doohickey -- check.

Best Buy Coupon -- Check

Demo? -- Check.

What I didn't expect, however, was this.


Dear Lucien,

Enclosed you will find your God of War--


I stopped reading. The rest of the letter became irrelevant.

Wait.

Does that say my NAME?!

Mind you, this is printed on the packaging itself. Not some slip in letter, not some email, My name is on the fucking demo packaging.

Holy shit.

This means that while this particular packaging was being printed en masse, my name was SPECIFICALLY printed on THIS package.

I'm never throwing it out.

Ever.

Impressions soon, along with a few other things I've been doing.

This is some delicious repost from my other blog, anyone who has read it already has my sincerest of apologies..(Not really, it just means you caught me in the act) But this is part of something new I was trying out where I would sit down, play a demo, and literally just write whatever I thought, without editing, proofreading, or otherwise double checking what I'd written. Now, it's being thrown at you guys. Here goes..

---

I'll be honest, I've never really given Gundam Wing a chance.

I never saw the huge draw of the series.

Maybe I'm not a fan of the whole Japanese fighting robot scene..or maybe it was the fact that in my teenage years, Cartoon Network kept trying to shove every convoluted plotline and side story of Gundam down my throat to the point where I was not only lost, but uninterested because I couldn't tell what from what. It didn't also help that due to my relative ignorance of the series, all the robots started to look the same. So out the window that went. I'll never understand the craze, and I don't care to.

However, the best way to my heart is through a video game.

Gundam Musou attempted just that. I'd never liked Dynasty Warriors, it always seemed to me like it was a "Hey, look at how many enemies we can fit on the screen!" kind of game than one of actual progress, the unevolving button mashing gameplay was a testament to that...but after playing Ninety Nine Nights, I had somewhat of a renewed faith in the whole "kill all 500 of these thingys on screen" genre. So with a heavy and somewhat hopeful heart, I downloaded the demo for "Dynasty Warriors: Gundam", or as I refer to it because I heard it this way first, "Gundam Musou".

*starts up the demo*

The game gives the option of English or Japanese language, eh?....At least they're not forcing me into it.

Gah! The voices are terrible. How do Gundam fans put up with this crap?

...Graphics are decent, not bad looking, but definitely has that PS2 in high res look (which really isn't too much of a knock, the PS2 Gundam games usually looked better than decent) but heck...this is a 360....bleh..

Controls are somewhat....off. Jump is assigned to the right bumper (?!), A is to dash, X attack, Y fires laser and modifies, B button unleashes special move...hmm...where's the block button? Ah, nevermind.

GOD the voices are terrible. If a standard episode of this show has an actual flow like this, I'm never watching it. Oh god, I can't. Could Heero be any MORE generic? Could Master Asia be any LESS of an archtype? Nope. Can't do it.

The engine manages to throw a ton of enemies on the screen, which is somewhat impressive, but at what cost? These guys aren't DOING ANYTHING. I feel like I'm beating on mannequins. Or cosplayers in Gundam suits. Their AI is so basic that I can run through a crowd of them, and funnel them to me in a straight, single file line like they're in the Hot Gates of Thermopylae. What the hell. Is this really what they've been playing for years? I can't stomach this.

(Does it look like ANYONE is fighting besides him? Also, note the enemies actually looking AWAY from their friends being beaten to pieces.)

Hack,hack,hack, slash. Slash, slash, slash. Special move when gauge fills. This is boring. In fact, I'd even go as far to say that it's insultingly boring, for a number of reasons.

First, the overall visual style is dry. There are suppsed to be these massive battles taking place, but there's no noise. No activity on the screen. No desperation or feeling like I'm on a battlefield. How can this be? I'm stunned at the fact that several at Koei basically made a huge map, tossed groups of enemies into the level at random intervals, and then sat down and were completey satisfied with what they'd done. The sporadic banter of others on the battlefield doesn't do anything for the mood either. They just feel like filler to distract you from the fact that you're engaged in something incredibly BLAND. There literally are no explosions, crossfire, sound effects, ANYTHING remotely resembling conflict, except when I was bashing the brainless AI into submission, which brings me to my next point:

I'm not fighting enemies. It's at the point where it almost feels cruel doing this. I run into a MASSIVE group of robots, and all they do is stare at me. I break the silence and start pounding them into smithereens, and they stare at me as I tear their comrades a new one. Occasionally a "boss" character will fly onto the screen, apparently pissed at the mass genocide of their subordinates, and starts throwing down chain combos in patterns. As in, they'll throw down a combo, and then STAND patiently, as if waiting for the counterattack. I oblige them, and suddenly, actual combat takes on a repetitive, but annoying dimension. Attack, block combo, attack, block combo, attack. They are literally, the ONLY thing capable of killing you in a mission, and therefore, the only thing that'll keep you from falling asleep. Every so often, weapons will clash and some Anime panels pop up on the screen and the characters exchange cheesy lines. Then it's back to the grind. Woo berries. This of course, leads me to something else:

It's repetitive as all hell, and BORING because of it. Experimenting with the controls, I found a total of five different combos to use, and of course, the special attack. Out of those five combos, only two were actually useful. Do you know what that means? Of course you do. Every battle, large or small, boss or not boiled down to me doing the same 3-4 hit combo over, and over, and over, and over again to the point of madness. Midway through the demo, I was intent on finishing it not because I was genuinely interested, but because I wanted to see it through, just in case something awesome would happen to make up for all the bad gameplay I was slogging though. (Protip: It didn't happen.) All this was punctuated by the realization that I didn't even feel like I was piloting a Gundam.

Whenever I tried to do ANYTHING even remotely Gundam like, the game denied me. There's a limit on dashing and hovering that only allows you to do so for about 3 seconds, so any attempts of dash slashing, flying around, hell, even FEELING like you're piloting a high powered mech are immediately squashed. This stood out for me especially because you spend an AWFUL lot of time in these stages, and the realization that you could potentially spend 25-30 minutes in these stages walking (yes walking, I don't care if I see a run animation, even Jackie in The Darkness moves faster than you do through the levels) around, beating on braindead enemies with an incredibly shallow fighting system for hours at a time is enough to drive someone insane.

I've purposely avoided Ninety-Nine Nights comparisons while writing this, but I will say this: For all it's faults, the one thing it DID do right was give you the feeling you were a powerful soldier taking place in a massive war of thousands, and this in turn gave you, the player, a feeling that you were actually ACCOMPLISHING something great. In Gundam Musou, not only do I feel like my character has had his legs cut off for the sake of "game balance", but the entire experience felt like I was wandering through a desert (if N3 had this problem with it's environments, DW:Gundam has it in spades) beating on mannequins in order to make minibosses show up. Unbearable.

However, any Dynasty Warriors fans reading this have already made up their minds, so why should I bother? The Church of the Repetitve Mashing of the Square Button would surely strike me down because of my blasphemy.

I will, however, calmly go back to my indifference towards BOTH series, and curse myself for thinking that them joining forces would finally change my mind.

Hi :)