Hey folks your friendly Fallout 3 hater is back. I wanted to give a spin on the new community blog features that the good dtoid hackers managed to implement!

Here's something I haven't seen around here yet, THE LATEST RUMOUR (Right after the Yakuza 1 & 2 playable on PS3 through PSN and that Yakuza 3 is coming to the west by means of a company I forget the name):

YAKUZA 3 is coming to europe in march! (or so sayeth a spanish magazine) (courtesy of Sega Nerds, courtesy of The Vandal)

So what does this mean? Is this god damn game finally gonna be translated?

I don't know, but listen to this awesome battle theme from the first game:


GET YOUR FUNK ON

Anyone that tried the demo can attest that this game rocks, even if you don't understand crap about what they're saying. The combat system is just sweet, using those nunchuckus (nunchakus?) to unleash PAIN on those bastards is great. Batman also shares this characteristic with the Yakuza series, where you really feel the BEATDOWN you are deploying on those poor guys (mostly through a slow-down finish on the last guy and by EXTREME punching and cracking sounds).


NOT PICTURED: Excruciating sound of PAIN

I finish this post with the obligatory hot hostess:

Free hot picture for your pleasure

Even if this is just bullshit, we all know this game (and 4) must come to the WEST! And don't forget Yakuza Kenzan. Though I guess that one won't be coming here, since it features some kind of slave girl market or whatever.

Throughout the years since I first started gaming I witnessed, as many of you, the evolution of the game box.

My first games were Spectrum games, so the boxes were simply regular tape boxes with great covers, that most of the time didn't even had that much to do with the actual game. They featured great art that set the imagination on fire, which helped when the game's graphics were most of the time really simple.

Then, I got my first PC games, and they came on cardboard boxes, big ones that attracted the eye when one wandered through the shops. First the boxes contained floppies, and then these were replaced with cds. Besides this, the boxes contained manuals, sometimes large, sometimes small, sometimes maps, and sometimes other stuff, like quick reference cards and weirder things like Leisure Suit Larry 7's Smell-o-vision piece of paper that had 9 different smells, that you would smell as instructed during the game.

And then, sometime in 2000, 2001, or 2002, games started to come in DVD boxes. Manuals had to be shortened or neglected at all, maps became extremely scarce, and the box artwork was diminished, miniaturized. No longer could a publisher use the width or size of a larger box to call attention to itself. Every game now occupies the same space, and has only that cover artwork to sell itself.

Nowadays, game boxes are under the risk of disappearing, being replaced by Steam and Direct2Drive releases.

What follows is a sample of photos I took of my best looking game boxes, from my best games.
Click on any of them to go to the full set of photos.
Enjoy the ride.


The great collection. People just don't make boxes like this anymore.


All of these games' manuals and maps stacked together. Nowadays this kind of stuff only comes in special editions.


The game that started it all.


Fallout 2 Manual's Introduction, written by the Vault Dweller of the first game.


The map of Baldur's Gate. The ingame city is as big as depicted in here, with as many nooks and crannies.


The manual of the game that kick started the PC Action RPG genre.


Diablo's manual, open. It's in Portuguese, and it makes it all the more mystical. Gorgeous artwork.


Absolutely amazing.


Planescape: Torment poster. The best written game on any platform.


Behold Bioshock's father, Ken Levine's and former Irrational Studios fairest child: Shock 2.


The evolution of the Ultima series, as depicted on the box's cover panel. Peculiar how Ultima VII is above all the others.


Promotional flyer for the cancelled Warcraft Adventure game.


I heard this game is getting a sequel soon...


Jagged Alliance 2, one of the finest turn based experiences.


The map of the Northern Kingdoms, The Witcher's world.


Here's the collection again, this time ordered by year of release.

There are many more photos of these and other game boxes from my collection on my flickr account, specifically on this set.

Here's hoping that collector's editions keep bringing back the big cardboard boxes, the manuals, the maps and the extra trinkets of old.

In the latest Game Informer all previously leaked information from Ass' Creed 2 was confirmed. The game takes place in Venice, therefore expect some kick ass buildings to climb and jump around, such as St Mark's Basilica.


This holy place will probably show up in the game. Kick ass.


The view will be like this, only without any recent buildings!

Also confirmed is the main character's name, Ezio. It's a cool, foreign sounding name, but does it beat Altair?

Here's hoping that for the third outing, Ubisoft sets the game in Barcelona, in the modern days. If only to climb Gaudi's still WIP Sagrada Familia:

Altair would love to check this out.

RYU GA GOTOKU 3

Anyone that's been following Yakuza news knows that Yakuza 3 is going to be released in Japan on February 26, with currently no plans to bring it or the samurai spin-off, Kenzan!, to the West. This needs to change!

After some folks on Gamefaqs chatted up Sega, a hopeful response came through: "show us there’s a strong net community for Yakuza and we will think about releasing the games there".

That’s when a couple of members of the gamefaqs forums banded together and created Yakuza-3.com, currently being maintained by Pixel.

Let’s show Sega that there really are Yakuza fans in the USA, Europe and Australia and elsewhere in the world.

It has a good wealth of info, and while the site itself still has a lot of work todo, we already have forums up and a wiki, so the sooner people start pouring in, the better.

Our objective is to organize the Yakuza fans, currently spread over the various general gaming sites, and strive for our goal: to bring Yakuza 3 to the west.

______________________________________________________________________________________
That said, I leave with you my own personal experience with the series so far (it's long):

I’ve been playing Yakuza 1 sporadically, ever since I got it, which was a good while before Sega started talking about finally bringing Yakuza 2 to the West. I read about the spin-off set in samurai times being released, and then the announcement that there would be a real Yakuza 3, continuing the story.

Yet, I haven’t finished Yakuza 1. Between getting a PS3 and playing some recent (and decent) PC games, Yakuza kept getting forgotten. But now I’m back to finish the job.

Yakuza is a game that doesn’t give a great first impression, at least from what I can tell from my own first reaction and my friends’. The game was released in 2006 in Europe, and while the cover looked awesome, the game didn’t really grab me. I mistook it for just another brawler, like Final Fight: Streetwise and the like, and probably a crappy one at that.

Huge mistake.

The fans of the series already know what makes it special, but for those that never played it, here’s the gist: details. The game is crammed with stuff to do, stuff to read, details to discover on your own. At its heart, it’s a fighting game, with a couple of combos that you will use from the beginning until the end of the game, but with plenty of new moves to learn at your own pace, using experience points gained after finishing enemies and doing side-missions.


The city looks gorgeous for a PS2 title

The game takes place in a neighborhood of Tokyo, a faithful recreation of Shinjuku. I don’t know how faithful it is, but it sure feels like I’m moving around Kyriuu (that’s the main character) in the crowded streets of the Japanese metropolis. There’s neon signs everywhere, lots of characters on screen, and you can even overhear conversations while walking around, displayed in dialog bubbles. When you bump on someone, they get knocked back and wind up a bit; it’s great for a game from 2005 on a PS2.

Wandering about you can reach various shops, bars and gambling areas of the neighborhood. It’s up to you if you want to run over to the next story mission, displayed in glowing red on the map, or if you want to explore the place and see if you can find characters needing help. While doing this you’ll have some random encounters, though since the enemies are already on screen when you reach them, the game really makes it feel like it’s not a random encounter, just some bastard that was already waiting for you up ahead.

And then the fighting starts. Like I said, it’s not terribly deep, but there’s enough realism and brutality in the fighting that it really feels as if you’re punishing some punks for pestering that girl. You’ll pull the two-punch, two-kick combo plenty of times, but when your special spirit bar is filled up you can do some different moves.
During these fights there’s usually some piece of furniture standing around, waiting for you to pick it up and bang it on your foes’ heads, a use meter making sure it’ll break quickly. If you have your spirit ON, you can use a special move that’ll show Kyriuu smashing the whole item on top of the enemy, destroying the object no matter how much uses it had left, and most of the time killing / knocking out the enemy right there. There’s an early mission that happens on a graveyard, and it’s awesome that you can pick up a tombstone and smash it on top of the poor folks ordered to kill you.


The fighting in the game is brutal

All of this is accompanied by great sound effects, every fist hitting flesh, every object breaking heads, and when you dispose of the last enemy there’s even a slow motion effect to show off your might.
Kyriuu is taller than his enemies, which is one of those details that really make you feel like a famous ex-Yakuza of great strength and might. Walking around amidst the smaller enemies, you’re a force to be reckoned with and can lift them easily, throwing them on top of other punks or headbutting them until they fall down.

This kind of atmosphere isn’t usually on display on games that feature brawling or beat em up gameplay. Devil May Cry is too floaty and light, while God of War, which is very brutish, is too supernatural to be compared to the “real” pain of Yakuza. Only No More Heroes achieves a similar effect, even with all the blood (or ash, in Europe’s case).

But the game isn’t just fighting. There are also diversions, like a batting minigame, and the hostesses, virtual girls that you can chat up and offer gifts and the like, hoping for some more intimate encounters. They don’t go very deep, finishing on a pink screen probably reflecting Kyriuu “getting it on”, but’s great that the feature’s there, even if it kind of reeks of dating sims. In Yakuza you really have to pay even just to chat with these girls, it really is a service that you’re paying for. And it isn’t cheap!

Other details worth mentioning is how you can buy real drinks in the various bars, a lot of them from Suntory (if you’ve seen Lost in Translation, you know what I’m talking about, it’s a very famous Japanese beverage brand), and every time you drink a beverage that you haven’t tasted yet, you gain a couple of experience points. It’s just cool that the game rewards you for trying out the drinks, reading their description and checking them out on the table of the bar.

First off:
YAKUZA 3 DEMO (Japanese obviously)


Download that shit mother fuckers ITS FUCKING AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!! I've played it and it's really awesome, sure I don't understand ZIP of what they're saying, but the combat system from Yakuza 1 and 2 has been improved and flows much more freely. The graphics are amazing and the music continues to amaze.

GET A JAP ACCOUNT ANY WAY YOU CAN heres a simple video for you non-readers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hUJ4rrzi9c

Second off:
NOBY NOBY BOY IS GONNA STRETCH AROUND YOUR SOUL


No words can describe this game, not even the Keita GOD himself. I'll buy this and the world will end.

Every Katamari Damacy lover (and HATER) needs to buy this and play it until we get the size of the GIRL character around the whole UNIVERSE (the GIRL character's size is determined by the size of ALL players on the PSN, and she starts off around Earth and expands outwardly).

Check the trophy list for the game, its not only revealing of the gameplay but also has a great design that forms a giant WORM when you get them all. This is how trophies should be.
http://playstation.joystiq.com/2009/01/25/trophies-noby-noby-boy/

Third off:
I don't know about anything else hitting PSN today worth mentioning, if you guys know, post a comment.

I must confess, something that I've kept from my "10 things you dont know" post.

I'm a crazy Yakuza fan. I haven't even finished the first one but I got the second one all geared up for when I'm done with the first one, and then if Kenzan never makes it here I'll have to import it, unless of course, SEGA has published Yakuza 3 here in the meanwhile.

I'll post my "Why Yakuza rules" article later on, right now this is just a knee-jerk reaction to the shots posted on dtoid itself: http://www.destructoid.com/new-yakuza-3-images-are-fantastically-horny-action-packed-120220.phtml


This one is particularly awesome, I can imagine the kerpow that will follow after this attack, and the billboard thingie smashing into a million bits on top of the bad guy's skull.

Of course, Dtoid also linked to CVG's new gallery of girly action:
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=207205

Just remember folks, the girl on the second picture is actually the cg model of a transexual:


What the hell is a guy supposed to feel when looking at that? Is she hot, is he totally not hot, which is it?