Fun gaming (or maybe not)

(tags game, Unreal Tournament, Ketsui, Kumatan, Xbox 360, Dual Screen)

I am just having a blast playing the Unreal Tournament 3 on the Xbox 360. Sure I miss the keyboard and mouse controls, but the analog joystick controller is way fun all the same. I'm still an offline gamer playing bots in Team Deathmatch. I discovered the Kill Slow Time mutator, which slows time down Matrix style after you get a kill. I am surprised how fun it makes the game.

And I'm still playing Ketsui. Even on the bus, but I get mad at the bus driver for actually moving the bus while I'm trying to squeeze through a danmaku gap. The game says 7 hours in, and I've uncovered probably a little more than 70 panels out of 110. I still die readily on the Very Hard difficulty, but I suprise myself sometimes by going through a boss battle or two without a scratch. I guess I'm figuring out the boss patterns subliminally.

One guy at the new forum I'm frequenting, Gaijin Gamers, told me that Breakdown had the first person gimmick down way before Mirror's Edge, so I nabbed a copy of this Xbox 1 game. After half an hour I didn't feel much of pull towards this game. The environment feels so static and the gameplay feels a little too formulaic. Not very fun.

Kumatan still makes me smile. But I noticed I need to at least play this game two times a day to maintain my "totemo suki" love level.

Welcome to before Mirror's Edge

(tags game, Kumatanchi, Ketsui, Unreal Tournament, Tiger Woods, golf, Mirror's Edge, Dual Screen, Xbox 360)

Portable gaming and Xbox gaming, and even PC gaming. Can he stop?!?

Ketsui DS rewarded me for playing 5 recorded hours. All of the videos for the "Welcome to Special Round" second loop clear for the second ship have been uncovered, but I have at least 40 panels out of 110 to uncover. This game is winding down for me, but I still love the feel of trying to avoid all the bullets. It's just impossible for me.

I'm still playing Kumatanchi. About a week ago I thought I was done, but there was one more furniture set revealed called "Future" (未来). And the prices were from the future, fully inflated. :-/ This game is getting long in the tooth, but I love how Kumatan smiles. Plus I don't think I uncovered all of the drama bits. One good thing is that Sumomo is now inviting me to her place, ha ha. Words only.

Xbox 360 is getting some love. According to my records, I've picked up at least 5 games for it in the last month! The latest conquest is Unreal Tournament 3 for cheep. It was fun to play it on the controller actually at a Sofmap demo unit. Of course, I was only playing Team DM with Experienced bots in Deck 16. Sweet Deck 16.

And my trend to getting the Tiger Woods continues. I got the 2006 version, thinking I was done, but then the game I was playing was the 2009 version. I found the 2008 version and I bought that one cheep as well. 2008 is graphically improved, but it's so hard to improve my career stats. Argh!

And yes I did try the Mirror's Edge demo game. I want more! But, I was let down. You know that first part where you jump off the billboard onto the crane in demo movie mode? That was my first let down. Tell me that you have to actually do in game some time, instead of watching her do it automatically. That would be pretty wicked sick.

Ketsui makes me wish for the arcade version

(tags game, Dual Screen, shmup, Ketsui)

Hey so I bought Ketsui for the DS. Ketsui, official name Ketsui Death Label (ケツイ　デスレーベル, NTR-YKDJ-JPN) is a port of the arcade vertical scrolling shoot-em-up (shmup) of the same name from 2002. I think Arika is the publisher. I believe this is the first home port of the game, while it is rumored to get a Xbox 360 version pretty soon.

Usually shmup ports are pretty much the Arcade mode plus a remix and a high score table. This DS port is something different though, because it's not a complete port of the Arcade mode. Rather, the main gameplay is the boss fights only. Now my judgment is clouded because I'm thrilled for a Cave property on a DS, but this is plenty fine. There are enough bullets and boss patterns to memorize to get you going. The gameplay pace really captures the speed and terror of swarming bullets. Also the game has a bunch of extras that add some value.

The graphics are fricken noisy, no joke. The DS never chokes. Well I haven't seen the whole screen completely covered in bullets, but see there's this game mechanic where you collect Chips that fall from fallen enemies. These Chips are thankfully of muted color but there are too many. Plus they come right in front of your ship. As a Cave game, the bullet colors are the classic light blue, pink-red and violet (and green), so it really should be no problem once you get used to the screen. Actually you can adjust how long the Chip is visible, from Always to 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32 frames. I set it to 4 and they are barely visible.

So remember the DS has a 256 x 192 pixel display. An old school Cave game like Dodonpachi is 240x320, so we're only missing a few (tens of) pixels. Okay, so were missing a lot of pixels. You will need all of that space to get through the curtain fire (danmaku). Thankfully your hitbox is just one pixel. I have trouble remember which pixel on my ship is the right one so... :-/

The bullet patterns are classic. Actually I've played some of the famous Kenta Cho (aba games) freeware shmups that copy the bullet patterns so I feel right at home. The gaps are crisp and you will be travelling all over the screen.

Though Ketsui is supposed to be a skills game, there are a lot of beginner oriented boss mixes and gameplay settings. I would estimate Novice, Normal, Hard Mode 1, 2, 3 to be equivalent to a Normal difficulty up to level 3 of a 5 level shmup. Auto-bomb (get hit once and it bombs for you) is on by default, and after every cleared boss you get 3 bombs.

There is a Very Hard mode, an even more difficult mode I have not yet unlocked, and probably the hardest mode of all called Doom Mode.

Plus there is coffee-break, enriched drama mode called Oshiete IKD-san!! (おしえて! IKDさん!!) which is a dialogue between illustrated characters and IKD, real-life suit dude-sensei. Just imagine a contented straight-laced 30-something Japanese dude who doesn't act like he should in a suit, telling you non-obvious techniques for massive damage and BURNING PASSION. I like it.

What I like even more is that there is video and godlike replays in this mode as well. It's not limited to the DS but there are some videos of the Arcade version as well. Cave is beckoning to come join them in the game center for a round of arcade shmup. It's grand.

The gallery mode, called EVAC report, has pseudo-Achievements/Trophies with really easy ones such as "Auto-bomb activated 100 times" and "changed key config" :-/ There are 113 in total and assemble 9 or 16 of them for a complete picture of a CG rendered boss. Sexy.

You can save three of your replays (!) and send them to friends via Wifi (!). I don't think it's Internet. Also there is a Kizuna mode and other Wifi modes that let your tag-team on bosses and/or score battle.

Rounding it out, the game saves a lot of statistics like average bomb rate and pickup multiplier, etc. Key config is 1 key to a function setting, so multiple keys can be set to a function.

Finally there's a pack in DVD so you can see Ketsui the arcade version in all its glory. It doesn't fit in a regular DS case, rather it's a special, non-standard box.

The game is 5000 yen, a high price for even a DS game. If you eat up shmups then you will be elated, amused, and sated by this DS port. It's very competent for what it has (WTF no zako sections as PROMISED in teaser trailers), but I wish Cave/Arika put this on a more visually endowed portable like the PSP.

Dual Wield Dual Screen Duel: Pokemon Pikachu DS and games

(tags hardware, game, Dual Screen, Pikachu, Princess Maker, Ketsui, Chrono Trigger, telephone card, television)

The other reason I was in shop today was to pick a screen protector film for my Pokemon Pikachu DS. Yes I haven't opened it until now and I've really been meaning to do it. The film made by Suncrest and called "magic film", claims to "self-heal any scratches". Sure. I only tried it out because it's about the same price as the other films. Anyway, slap that puppy on. I'm pretty happy with how I positioned the film. Usually I'm pretty sloppy. Unfortunately air bubbles and dust never seem to leave me alone.

So I recommissioned the DS (lite) I have been using, my pink Love and Berry DS, as my permanent One-Seg TV in my rack. I can't keep it on twenty-four seven: there seems to be a hot-spot that whitens the center of the screen after a day or two. Don't worry, it seems to disappear after I power off for a couple of hours.

Anyways, in a couple of days, I will have two DS games in the "training" catagory. (How else do you translate "育成"?). One is Princess Maker 4, of course I cannot pass up the ero-kawaii Naoto Tenhiro telephone cards. The other is the Kumatan-chi (くまたんち). I only liked it for the 2D static graphics, then I saw a gameplay/official trailer video and I was completely (re-) sold. The animation is so fluid and so cute. Plus the telephone cards FTW.

And Japanese shopkeepers never remind you to preorder. That's just too pushy. Instead, they have a wall where you can anonymously gawk and slack. I took a ganderand there was Ketsui DS coming around on 2008-10-23. Shmup action on the DS, bring it! Also Chrono Trigger DS as dated as 2008-11-27. I am not missing this one either, in both senses of the word. (Still need to dig out Chrono Cross, ugh) Neither of them have telephone card type omake, but they come with soundtrack CDs, I think. Perhaps Ketsui has a "superplay" video disc?

Surely now I can restart my Mysterious Dungeon: Shiren The Wanderer stuff again?