The Tales Of Brave Vesperia.

Tales of Vesperia is the latest in the long running Tales series and it had alot to live up to being the first next-gen entry in the series and boy did it live up to it all. It's great to see a classic style J-RPG come around as we don't get many of them very often anymore. 

First off lets talk about the graphics in Vesperia. Vesperia uses a Cel Shaded style popular among anime themed games and for good reason as it's the closet thing to anime you can get without using full blown anime cut scenes 24/7. However don't expect to be blown away by Tales look. The game looks great but isn't even comparable to something like Trusty Bell (Eternal Sonata for those in the US). On the other hand the anime cut scenes will blow you away. The character design and anime cut scenes were handled by Production I.G. and any anime fan worth their merit will know that Production I.G. does incredible stuff. Many of these cut scenes are down right stunning in their beauty, It's a shame there aren't more of them here.

The combat is extremely fun. Think the Devil May Cry of RPG's only slower in pace. Everything is in real time and you will form combo's guard and use special moves and Magic to survive encounters. The great thing about the combat is that it is constantly evolving over the course of the game. Be it from new mechanics being added or the hundreds upon hundreds of moves you can learn the combat always feels fresh and fun to play.

The story is a bit off putting in that at first glace it seems to be nothing special. It simply starts with the main character Yuri Lowell investigating the theft of a Aqua blastia core from the Lower Quarter of Zapias. He soon gets arrested and breaks out of the Dungeon where he meets up with a young lady who joins him on his journey to find the stolen blastia. Now the story takes the first 6-7 hrs of game play to get you introduced to the various characters from the game but the story quickly becomes far more mature and deep then it first lets on. There are plenty of plot twists some of which come out of no where and you will never seen coming. It is certainly a story worth experiencing granted it takes a little to really take off. 

Now as for sound the game has a decent soundtrack by Motoi Sakuraba but it's not close to the level of his other work in games like Trusty Bell and Valkryie Profile 2 Silmeria. The voice acting on the other hand is a grand slam. We are talking about a All star anime voice cast here with the likes of Liam O Brian, Sam Regal, Michelle Ruff and Wendee Lee just to name a few. There are no bad voice with the exception of one and that's done of purpose as he is a annoying character so they helped get that across  via his voice. Combat is constantly full of chatter be it story related chatter or simply spells being chanted and moves being called out. One of the great things I noticed from the game was the amount of victory dialog there was. There is at least 50 different things that the characters will say after a battle depending on who is in the party who killed the last monster who performed the best and so on and they are all very funny. The game also has this innovative feature they call Skits. Skits are little dialog sequences that can be activated when the game tells you to press the Back Button. These Skits are basically the characters talking to each other about various things and it really helps you learn about them and also gives a deeper understanding of whats going on in the storyline. A simple but very effective method of getting to know the characters. There are 100's of these skits and I don't even think I was able to see them all.

So as you can see the game really is a great entry in the series. There is little to bog down the experience. You vary rarely need to grind because of the nature of the combat system you can win battles even if you are very under leveled in fact one of the games achievements is about that fact. If you are a J-RPG fan or ever just a causal RPG fan there is no reason for Tales of Vesperia not to be in your collection. 

Will Xbox 360 Final Fantasy XIII outsell PS3?

So recently I have been seeing alot of debates and alot of articles talking about how it's a very real possibility that the Xbox 360 version of Final Fantasy XIII will outsell the PS3 version. Now I am not here today to have yet another discussion about why it will outsell the PS3 but I am here to tell you why it wont.

Personally I think it's gonna sell better on PS3 because First and foremost PS3 is the only place to get the full Final Fantasy XIII experience by which I mean VS XIII is still exclusive and Nomura-san said it would stay so. You may not consider that a very valid reason but trust me for Final Fantasy and RPG fans in general it is a very big deal. Second is the PS3 version is going to be better quality.Be it better graphics, faster load times, better sound or simply the fact that it will be on a single Blu-ray disc the PS3 version is going to have something on the xbox version. Personally I think the Xbox version may suffer from slowdown. Any of those who have played Ninja Gaiden II know that there are many points in the game in which the game has a bit a slow down and one point in the game with MASSIVE slowdown. Lets be honest with ourselves Ninja Gaiden isn't even close to being in the same ball park graphically as FFXIII is. With that being the case it is reasonable to assume that the Xbox 360 version of the game is going to have some sort of technical flaw.

The way SE has been talking about the 360 version it seems as if they haven't even tested it yet. Meaning they don't know how well it will work. We have heard them many times say that the 360 port is not underway and it will not begin until after the PS3 version is complete. That being the case I wouldn't be shocked if they bit off more then they can chew and just aren't aware of it yet. Although this is SE we are talking about so they must have thought it through to some degree.

Also you must consider that alot of the Final Fantasy diehards like myself bought a PS3 long before they announced the Xbox version and they are not going to sell off their PS3's or anything. At least the majority won't as I have heard of people that say they will be boycotting the game because they feel betrayed by Square. Let me say this now Square did not betray anyone. They have always done what is best for the company. Back in the days of the PS1 and N64 they knew that the N64 would not be able to deliver on their vision for FFVII and because of this they changed over from Nintendo to Sony. Just think Final Fantasy simply would not be what it is today had it stayed on the Nintendo consoles. This generation is notorious for insanely high production costs in some cases exceeding those in Hollywood. Developers need to find ways to help recoup these losses and that is exactly what Square did. Sony was not betrayed in fact I would say they have it pretty good as far as Square goes. Square recently announced PSP versions of both Parasite Eve The 3rd Birthday and Final Fantasy Agito XIII not to mention the already in development Dissidia and Kingdom Heats Birth By Sleep as well as Final Fantasy VS XIII. Sony has plenty of Square exclusives so it is clear the relationship between the two companies is well and good.

So fear not it is a strong possibility that Final Fantasy XIII will sell better on PS3 and not only that but it just may be a better game on PS3.

A Tale of Souls Eternally Retold.

Soul Calibur 4 is finally upon us. It's a exciting thing considering we don't get much quality fighters anymore. Soul Calibur 4 is probably one of the best fighters this generation and easily the best in the series. However that doesn't mean its perfect in fact it is far from such.

First off the game is gorgeous easily one of the best looking fighters out there. Environments are indeed destructible however you may not really notice as you wont see it all that often. Armor and equipment can be destroyed this time around which is nice. Some Environments are beautiful and really show off what the engine can do however the vast majority of the areas are dark dank cave or castle like areas that don't really show off much. The fighting animation is also top notch.

Now when it comes to balance well.... Soul Calibur has never been a series to concerned with balance. Yoda on the Xbox 360 version of the game proves this. Yoda is straight up broken. Far to many attacks miss him because of his height and he seems to be immune to throws. Vader is better balanced however if someone can learn how to use his force powers well enough he too is broken. Many of the characters have a few attacks that can be spammed over and over to win with very few chances to stop the chain and mount a counter attack. However the AI in the game doesn't do this and you will only have to worry about friends and people online doing this.

Which brings me to the online mode. Soul Calibur online is a very mixed bag. Often there are mass amounts of lag that will screw with your timing preventing you from playing properly. When the lag isn't there you will most likely be facing off against one of the aforementioned spammers which will quickly become annoying. However when these problems don't appear playing online is incredibly fun. It's great fun to show off characters you have made against others online and it's always entertaining to see what others have made and their reactions to your creations. Which brings me to the best thing about Soul Calibur 4.

Create a Soul mode. This is a mode that allows you to create a character which considering how many characters are already in the game is impressive. You start off with a decent amount of gear and will gain more by unlocking Honors(PS3) or Achievements(360) or by earning the gear piece by piece in the tower of souls. The sad thing is that the Create a soul mode could be alot deeper and I'm sure it will be as more and more DLC becomes available but it's sad it wasn't there from the very start. Also something to note that I found a little odd is that Male characters are far more customizable then female characters. Male characters have more gear to choose from as well as more faces which I found a bit odd. That being said Create a soul mode is still the best thing Soul Calibur 4 has going for it.

I'll Also give a quick mention of the guest characters. You all already know about Vader and Yoda. However there are a few characters designed by famous manga artists in the game as well. They look great and each of them has a good back story. What is sad though is that they are all just pallet swaps of other characters already in the game for example Shura = Cervantes. It's sad because when Namco made their own character they made a new fighting style I'm of course speaking of Hilde who is the only new character that has her own new style of fighting. It's disappointing yet they are still welcome additions to the game.

So all in all Soul Calibur 4 is either a love it or hate it affair. I would suggest giving the game a rent to see how you like it and if you do buy all means buy it. I'm sure the game will receive plenty of DLC in the future. The question of if that content will be worth paying for is debatable.

E3 Thoughts.

Well E3 has come and gone and while there were some great announcements I would argue that most gamers will feel that it wasn't the best of shows this year.

Nintendo's presser was to me a big slap in the face of the core gamers. Nothing they showed proved that they cared about the core gamer. Sure they briefly let out that the teams behind Zelda and Mario are working on new projects but they never told us what they were or when to expect them. A new Animal Crossing game was announced but that's more of a casual game then a Core gamers game. Everything else was casual fair such as Wii Sports Resort and Wii music. Wii Sports Resort is the title that will be used to show of the new Wii Motion Plus attachment that tracks the Wii motes movement far more accurately supposedly a 1:1 ratio. The Nintendo conference was definitely the bore of the Big 3 conferences.

Next we have Sony. Sony's conference was pretty good in that they showed the games and they kept the numbers game to a minimum. However considering they used a very creative Little Big Planet level to show the numbers in a very fun way that showed off what Little Big Planet can really do I guess we could have done with more numbers in this case. It was a great way of getting more people to realize how great Little Big Planet will be once it finally ships. They showed a incredible demo of Resistance 2 that showcased a battle with the MASSIVE levitation. The demo was certainly impressive as the monster is immense. The player was picked up a few times and needed to fire a rocket into the monsters mouth before being thrown down. While the demo was brief it did show that Resistance 2 is certainly stepping up the intensity the second time around. Also of interest was a new game called M.A.G or Massive Action Game. This shooter is said to allow up to 256 players into a single game. They showed a CG trailer show casing the concept of the game but it really will be hard to tell just exactly the game will function with that many players until we see more. They showed a concept of squads of players but that doesn't help explain enough. Oh and lets not forget the God of War III teaser trailer. Yes the game is now official however the teaser trailer was very short and little was revealed about the plot. However there is already rumors spreading that the game is close in terms of graphics to the CG teaser that was shown off.

Now Last but certainly not least we have Microsoft. Plenty of rumors were proven to be true for Microsoft as they announced a complete overhaul of the Xbox Dashboard that will implement Avatars. Avatars seem to be alot like Mii's except far more customizable if the video shown was anything to go by. Also announced was Lips. A very Singstar esque game however the video shown shows being able to use a Zune or a Ipod to import music into the game possibly allowing you to use your own music in the game. However it is still somewhat unclear exactly how that will work. In addition to many proven rumors Microsoft also showed off what we want, The games. We were shown Demo's of Resident Evil 5 which showed for the first time that the game will be Co-op playable. Also shown was a very impressive Gears of War 2 demo. The demo showcased just how far the game has come since the first. There is always alot more going on on screen as well as the fact that the areas seem to be far more expansive then the first. The biggest moment came when Microsoft dropped the biggest Bombshell of the show and that is that Final Fantasy XIII will be coming to Xbox 360 in America. I say America at the end of that because it will only be coming to Xbox 360 in the US and Europe it will stay a PS3 exclusive in Japan. This news was certainly a shock to everyone in attendance. It was a shock to me that news this big didn't leak before the show.

Other games at the Show that impressed me were Mirror's Edge. This First Person Action game is very different then a FPS so you shouldn't call it one. You play a runner named Faith who is out to get revenge on the government for framing her sister for a murder she didn't commit. What is so great about this game is how the immersion really makes you feel for Faith. When Faith runs you she her arms pumping when you roll you see your torso it's as if you are seeing things through Faith's eyes and not just drone as in most First Person games. Think Breakdown except far more fluid and polished. Combat is not the focus of Mirror's Edge in fact it will be the running and platforming that is. There will even be a achievement for getting through the entire game without killing a single person.

Another impressive game was inFAMOUS. This game is by the guys at Sucker Punch which you may remember from the Sly Cooper series. Infamous is a open world game in which you play a guy who gains powers that you must choose to use for good or bad. The short demo shown was quite impressive. However alot more needs to be seen to show off the true potential of this game.

While there are certainly alot more games to talk about these are just the great ones that caught my eye. Also keep an eye out for. Little Big Planet, Mercenaries 2, Fallout 3, Far Cry 2, Halo Wars and the many more incredible games that will be coming soon. This will certainly be a very full holiday season.

But wait. Didn't I say that I didn't feel this show was really all that great? Why yes I did. My reasoning behind this is that in the past E3 always had many HUGE bombshell announcements and new game reveals. While we certainly had alot of incredible games at this years show we really didn't see that much new announced. We basically just got more info on the games we already knew about. While that is great there is just something fun about being shown newer, bigger and better games. I read a interesting interview where a dev said that the mid July timing of the new E3 may be to blame as most of the devs are simply trying to get their games ready for the Holiday Season and they really can't focus on revealing the next big game they have on the way. I tend to agree with this thinking. What we need to see is E3 moved back to the old May timing and maybe things will start to get better but its really hard to say at this point if that will ever really happen.

Expect alot more news in the coming months as we will be hearing from Square Enix at their own private party where they have revealed some major announcement about Final Fantasy VII will be unveiled. We also have Leipzig to look forward to as well as PAX and TGS.

Metal Gear Solid: The Motion Picture?

As many know there has been lots of talk about a Metal Gear Solid movie recently. So many people have been getting caught up in who will write it, direct it, star in it, etc. But no one has stop to think would a Metal Gear Solid movie even work? Think about it this way. There is so much plot in MGS that certain cut scenes in the game near the 90min mark which is close to a feature length film. With that said is it even possible to make a Metal Gear Solid movie fit into the mythology of the series and be cohesive. Or would it simply be a cash in with a random Solid Snake adventure?

Then there is the important stuff like writers, directors, actors and so forth. Recently IMDB has listed Hideo Kojima as the story writer and David Hayter( The man behind Solid Snakes voice) as the screenplay writer. Now if true that is great however last we heard from Hayter himself that he was not involved and struggling to get Sony to allow him to write the script. Hayter is a rare breed indeed as not only does he play Solid Snake in the games, he is also very passionate about the series and knows just as much about it as any fanboy so Hayter doing the screenplay is a very good thing if it turns out to be true. Then there is the problem of casting Solid Snake. Snake is a Icon no doubt. Even if they got someone who looked exactly like Snake does in the games as soon as he spoke most fans would give up as we have heard Hayter's voice in the role for the past 10 or so years. There has been talk that David Hayter himself could play the role and I would tend to agree with this as he does indeed look a little like Solid Snake. I would rather have someone who looks close and sounds exactly like Snake then someone who doesn't look or sound the part. However Hayter has said in the past that he isn't very interested in acting in film. Could a Metal Gear Solid film make him change his mind?

Oh lets not forget the biggest thing and that would be who would direct. Now my vote would go to Hideo Kojima himself. Kojima-san has said it has always been a dream of his to be a director and this could be the perfect project to jump in on that. Now if this were to happen it would not be the first time a Japanese director would be making a film for a American audience as Takashi Shimizu director of Ju-on directed the American remake of the very same film better known as The Grudge. We have all seen what Kojima-san can do with the Metal Gear Solid 4 cut scenes it amazes me to think of the possibility's should he be allowed to direct the film. We could certainly expect great things from him.

All said the Metal Gear Solid Film has alot of hurdles to get over. Not to mention the bad track record of Games to Film adaptations. Could the movie be great? Of course it could. However the odds are very much stacked against it. However it is still a very early project and almost nothing is known about who will be working on it. Until we have more concrete info we cant really get a idea of how the film will shape up. Lets hope we get more news soon.