OMG A NEW BLOG POST. Just Cause 2!

I could begin to sum up why this took so long, but to make it even shorter = life. This past week has been insanely weird and busy, absolutely no free time.



Review: Just Cause 2

This game is stupid fun. Simply put, you are a CIA agent looking to undermine the Panuan government by creating chaos and unraveling the mystery of why the US backed dictator decided to turn upon the government. But who cares about this weak as story, it's all about the gameplay.


This game is Grand Theft Auto, with a hook-shot and parachute, creating a formula of incredible awesome. Combined with an absolutely massive map and hundreds of towns, villages and military bases to sabotage and undermine and you have hours upon hours of fun on your hands.

What impresses me the most with this game is the sheer ridiculous scope of it all. There almost seems to be no end to the detail and environment. With new vehicles that pop up all the time, the means upon which you can traverse your environment only seems to expand with time. As I continued to play, I began to expect all my pillaging would eventually get tiresome, I don't know why but it never ever did.

This game is simple stupid fun, there isn't any depth to be found here. The graphics are nice, soundtrack great, AI clever and entertaining, controls intuitive and fun, story and dialogue is hilariously bad.

Verdict: BUY BUY BUY.If you want something fun and simple to dick around in, you really can not look much further than Just Cause 2.

Review: Narcissu

Almost... finished... Just Cause 2....

But for now

This was the very first Visual Novel I ever played. It's a true statis Visual Novel, no decision points, this is merely literally a Visual Novel. It is seen through the eyes of Yu Atou, a young, terminally ill man, assigned to the 7th floor of a Hospital, reserved for patience who have no cure and are waiting to die. It is portrayed as a very meek and cold place. In here he meets Setsumi, a young girl of similar age, who eventually opens up to him (slightly) and tells him the rules and purpose of the 7th floor. Yu's parents leave him his car and he seizes on this opportunity to escape with Setsumi to the Narcissu (Daffodil) fields, to see them once more before they die.

This is a very heavy, grim game, and it utilizes every bit of its limited resources to portray this; an old fashioned small landscape film template for its story telling; a GORGEOUS soundtrack

show cased to the max here. Much is made these days of cult indie games, this is an exact prime example of this, released in Japan in 2005, it was merely a "doujin" (fanmade) work, but it has such polish and immaculate presentation crossed with brilliant story telling that will bring you to tears as the adventure goes on.

It's been so long now... but I do recall it is only a couple of hours at most long. I will never forget the second to last scene in the game, it is chillingly well set, immaculately acted by the voice actor, with incredible, striking dialogue all to the most fitting of settings with an extremely emotional soundtrack overlaying it in the background.

A prequel has been released, that is far more lengthy than the first. You can legally download both Narcissu and Narcissue side 2nd here. I have yet to complete it because Windows stole my save data when I was 70% completed -_-. But I will finish it in the coming weeks, make no mistake ^_^.

Verdict: DOWNLOAD IT NOW, PLAY IT. It is the most politically incorrect approach to depression relating to terminal illness I have ever seen. It is moving, it is unique, it will take one nights playthrough to finish and less than an hour to download. Do please try it, I can not recommend it highly enough.

Apologies for my absence. Review: Saya no Uta

I got some 'splanin to do.

First, Sunday, I just ran out of time, work etc. Monday, well, I love in Christchurch, New Zealand, a lovely place. Except for when there are earthquakes. And on Monday we had an okayish 5.7, and then a 6.3 which rather effectively shut down my life for the rest of the day. As such, because my part-time work to pay for my studies is working in a pizza place, I was called into to work extra last few days straight, because of a rather insane rush that tends to follow earthquakes.

I have somehow found the time to make decent headway into Just Cause 2, which shall hopefully have a review incoming tomorrow

One commenter of mine (Alice) mentioned if I had played the Visual Novels Saya no Uta and Narcissu. And I have indeed! Allow me to tackle Saya no Uta first.

While watching Ma Bonjwa stream, damn he's still so clutch...

Saya no Uta is a visual novel developed by Nitro+, makes of some of the most dastardly and twisted horror/gore/Lovecraftian Visual Novels out there, and Saya no Uta certainly does not deviate from this method. Saya no Uta looks through the eyes of Fuminori Sakisaka, a medical student who found himself on deaths door step after a car accident that killed his entire family. A medical miracle was performed allowing him to keep living, but in a world like the one pictured, full of gore, blood and organs. People are reduced to Lovecraftian horrors in his vision, except for one. A girl named Saya appear to him, desperate in his nigh insanity he clings to her as he now sees her as his sole shinning hope for happiness in the world.

I went into this game completely dark, I knew absolutely nothing other than my best friend tell me that it was really good and telling me to not ask questions. And other than that very brief blurb, I do not want to tell much more about the story, for I think a complete absence of information makes this game oh so much more intense. What I will say is every character has a purpose, everything was clearly well thought out and developed, the story unfold, although in a shocking and bewildering manner, it has no holes and is solid and truly well written.

This game is extremely linear, even for a visual novel, there are three endings, decided by two decision points. But Saya no Uta's strength as a game comes from how it utilizes its endings. Each ending feels canonical, but at the same time, no ending solely explains the story comprehensively. It is therefore much needed to gain all 3 ending to get a true perspective and understanding in this rather unique and well told story.

A final note, this game is extremely dark and gruesome, with fully featured sex scenes, mutilations and disturbing and terrifying content. I was thoroughly terrified of playing the story through out my first play through, but the story and "wanting to know" drew me back in.

Verdict: Highly recommended if you think you can stomach it. This may be an elusive title to find, but it is totally worth it considering the brilliance of this game,

Gaming: The New Canvas

As now I sit at my lovely computer having my exams and major commitments behind me or ignorable, I would like to talk about my feelings on gaming, and what it means to me.

As you may be able to tell by my blog title, I believe gaming is an art form, something in which artists who understand and can utilize it can weave forms of art that are to be admired and cherished. However, I do not see many games fully utilize the medium onto which they are born. Games like Call of Duty, while enjoyable, are merely nothing more than interactive movies, I don't feel as though I have any real influence over the story, nor do I feel my actions progress it. Contrast this with my favourite game of all time, Ever17: The Out of Infinity, which, while the story maintained a linear progression, unfurled itself in a way that made the player feel involved in such a way that gives you the feeling of tremendous control over the story, while not actually doing so.

Game companies, I feel, need to NOT follow the Hollywood blockbuster approach and focus on creating an experience than not only pull the player in but immerses the player in it. My 2nd favourite game of all time is another Visual Novel, Kana: Little Sister. Kana utilizes a games ability to not only tell a twisting narrative, but make the narrative, direction and ending feel unique to the way the player choose to nurture his terminally ill sister Kana. This cause a heavy emotional investment in the story and the way you begin to approach some of the major decisions later on in the game. It also caused it to be renowned for being THE crying game. When I first played it, I got the ending called Snow. I have never ever, even when my Grandfather died, cried so hard in my entire life. It was so twisting, heart wrenching and emotional, I cried solidly the entire last hour playing (for what was at the time 4 years since I had last cried). I dragged myself to bed, cried myself to sleep, teared up at the very thought of what unfurled in that ending for the next week and could not bring myself to load up the game for another 2 weeks. This can not be done in any other medium, this level of investment can only be reached in incredibly well manipulated and thought out video games. Until Ever17 came along a year ago, not a single game could even touch how highly I regard this game, it went Kana>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Everything else. Even then Ever17 wins ever so slightly and even then I'm not sure if I would think of it in the same way if I had played them the other way around.

I wrote this piece to convey how I feel about gaming in general, and with my upcoming reviews now that I am on holdiays bare in mind this is the approach I shall take to game reviewing. How well games utilize the medium to convey their message.

So my dear followers, What is your favourite game and why? And what makes it your favourite?

FINALLY, NINTEDO E3 WRAP UP: I see two screens.....

Nintendo have recently had a string of good E3's and this year was no exception.

First we come out with an orchestra performing Legend of Zelda music to a montage of various Zelda games. To celebrate the 25th Year of Zelda of course! In celebration, Shigeru Miyamoto came out and announced that they were adding Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past to a new 3DS virtual store, and Four Swords Adventures to the DSi store for free! Yay, can't wait to play this on my DSi. Also an OoT soundtrack for the first of you to register your copies of OoT 3D on Club Nintendo! Also an orchestra tour, Skyward Sword in the holiday season and a 25th Anniversary controller.

All very awesome, but I would have liked a compilation like we got for Mario.

Then a sick line up for the 3DS of Mario Kart, Super Mario 3D, Luigi's Mansion 2, Kid Icarus (with awesome looking 3v3 multiplayer), and Starfox 3D. With also some wicked 3rd party support in the form of Snake Eater 3D, Resident Evil: Revelations and Tekken. Oh and some Pokedex thingy.

And then this emerged.

The Wii U. The first announced 8th generation gaming system. With a touch screen that has all the features of a 3DS, wirelessly streams data to both supplement and replace the console screen entirely.

We got a few titles, new Smash Bros, New Super Mario,  Darksiders II, Batman Arkham City, Aliens, Assassins Creed, Ghost Recon, new Metro game (drool), Ninja Gaiden 3.

And this was fairly much the conference, now considering this write up is shorter. I shall now offer my thoughts. This is just my opinion, if you disagree, more power to you.

As you will notice in my reviews, my favourite games are those that revolutionize the way I look at how I can play games. Many of these titles have emerged from Nintendo consoles as of late. As such, the Wii U makes me very excited, the potential for innovation is incredibly intriguing,

This came out today, glad it did helps me prove my point. Gaming graphics are plateauing, as all developers and console manufacturers recognize this, they are seeking ways to increase interactivity and player immersion without having to double the memory which would only make the most marginal improvements. Also, considering the sizeable the WiiU had, ON ANNOUCEMENT, I have got a lot of faith in Nintendo's ability to reign in the "hardcore" developers and create some serious, solid titles.

Overall grade A-. Very exciting E3, how far we have come from that horrible, horrible 2008 one...

EDIT: Apologies for any poor grammar usage, I am extremely exhausted after this week. Thank you everyone for your messages of support, it really helped me ^_^

Minor Update.

I am fairly exhausted due to me sitting my exam block from this past Wednesday to tomorrow so I'm extremely flat out. I'm sorry for the delay on Nintendo's E3, I'll get it out straight after my last exam tomorrow, for I shall be free. Thank you to every commenter and follower, and if I missed something at your blog, sorry! I'll be on to it after all this is over!

E3: Sony

Sony was in need of a good E3, to bounce back from the troubles of the last 2 months, and a good one they did.

First old Jack Tretton shows up, I like Tretton a lot more than Mattick, I guess I feel he has a more honest aura. Gives us a nice, non teleprompt apology for PSN, nice to see Sony wasn't just going to dodge the cloud hanging over it. We hit the stage with Uncharted 3, which again looks great, I do hope Naughty Dog starts work on a new IP soon though, I don't want Uncharted to start feeling stale, although currently I still do not feel that way just yet. Resistance 3 footage, looked fairly cool, I loved Resistance 1, this seemed a lot closer to Resistance 1 than 2, which is certainly a very good thing. Bundled with a Sharpshooter, I kinda want one of those.

We get a PSP-PS3 HD remake of the PSP God of Wars, I'm not really a fan of the series but I like this idea of bringing PSP games to PS3, especially MGS:Peace Walker and Portable Ops. After this Ico and Shadow of the Colossus HD were announced to fairly large applause, as expected from such legendary titles.

After this the PS TV, which utilized 3D glasses to allow two players looking at the same TV to do co-op without having to do split screen, I remember seeing a patent filled for this thing by Sony a while, still a very impressive concept. Then sports games on Move, didn't care, Kobe Bryant doing fake enthusiasm. Usual celebrity crap. We saw a game called Medieval Moves: Deadmunds Quest, which looked fairly cool, though I'm not sure if it was on rails or now, if not, I would feel considerably less affection for it

Starhawk appeared next. I loved Warhawk, it was one of my favorite online games of all time. Starhawk is looking just as impressive and unique as it's predecessor, Macross style mechs, a RTS style building system, incredible promise for this title. Then something about a new exclusive called Dust 514 which links to Eve online, interesting concept, but currently, not something I have much interest in.

Then some arm twisting on Ken Levine, from Irrational games to say nice things about the Move and announce a Bioshock game for NGP. Saints Row 3 things, I don't like GTA style games but for those of you who do will probably like some exclusive PS3 mode. Star Trek, not really me, but a Phaser shaped Move sounds cool. EA announced exclusive game modes for SSX, NFS, and BF3 comes with Battlefield 1943 on the disk, nice!

After this they show us NGP, now called Vita, showed us Uncharted utilizing a unique touch system, an MMO called Ruin that allowed cross PS3- Vita play, Wipeout 2048 ( I am a huge Wipeout fan so I really loved this news, would have liked some footage though) ModNation Racers, a game I hugely enjoyed for its amazing online system, and LittleBigPlanet of course, just because LBP goes with everything, more Hot Shots Golf, the only golfing game I actually like, also some curious title from Vanillaware which has remained a mystery. Then a well placed price at $250. Very well played Sony.

Grade: B  Sony's conference worked out pretty well, Vita looks good, some decent PS3 content on the way, wish there were a few more demos and some news on Last Guardian and Twisted Metal.

E3: Microsoft

As I began writing this I decided to split it into 3, they will all be published consecutively 
Sorry for the delay, I had back to back exams today so missed the live stream whilst studying/sleeping.

Lets run them in order shall we

For images I shall be using pictures from the Engadget live report, All copyrights AOL Inc 2011
Microsoft: Xbox 360 Please reconnect the controller

 
We were shown footage from Modern Warfare 3 to start out with. A wee mishap occurred, little did we know this was an ominous omen for the games to come. Firstly, from here Microsoft continued to do as they always do, and spent the first portion of their conference talking about multiplatform games. There is nothing wrong with advertising Call of Duty's, they do have timed exclusive content for the 360 it makes sense. Some of them I don't get though, Tomb Raider is over a year away and doesn't have (unless I missed something) any unique feature for 360... Anyways..

I remember when Modern Warfare 2 was played up on Microsofts stage for the first time, it was intense, gripping exciting, different even! Today I saw the exact same thing done, as such it was remarkably less impressive, absolutely no engine update on what is an increasingly outdated engine, I saw absolutely nothing new that I had not seen out of a Call of Duty previously, it was incredibly boring to me, I'm not entirely sure why. I loved Call of Duty, I've played it for years, maybe it's time for this series to go into retirement, I think it has lost its spark. Blegh off to a bad mood. Then this prick comes out.

God I hate Don Mattick, every single year he comes across as the most pompous dick in the world, something about him rubs me up the wrong way.

Next we had Tomb Raider, which did look pretty neat, abeit very pedestrian, I'm not sure if it would be worth the buy, while the concept was nice, QTE fight scenes are always a big turn off for me.

And then Peter Moore, good god, just after I was feeling better from Tomb Raider... Talks about EA Sports title supporting Kinect, kinda cool I guess, personally the only sports title I play though is Fifa, I would be interested in seeing that perhaps work on Kinect, but today was not my lucky day.

But with EA comes Mass Effect, and I'll be honest I LOVE Mass Effect, both games have been such a thrilling experience, the story is so well told and presented I just feel so immersed and invested in them.

We saw the use of Kinect to pick voice options in the dialogue wheel, which is kind of neat I gotta say. Then we saw a short battle, showing the player commanding Garrus and Liara via Kinect, again very cool. Although I could do this on the PS2 in Ghost Recon: Jungle Storm (which I did absolutely love to pieces). Also saw a omni-tool blade, cooooooooooooooool!

Next we see some Ghost Recon, I never really got into the Advanced Warfare series, but they showed of a Gunsmith mode, which you could interact with using Kinect to take apart and modify guns. Now while this is impressive, it does strike me as something that would get old after about 20 minutes.

Did I mentioned we have another New Xbox Experience for the dashboard?

What was wrong with the first iteration, it was so fast and easy to use.... Every iteration gets further away from this slick design to something more artsy and inefficient, also Youtube and bing on the 360. Why its better on 360 than a PC, I'm not entirely sure. Xbox TV, I won't comment on since it is unlikely I'll receive it in New Zealand. The system for watching MMA seems neat, picking who wins in what way, if it was for Starcraft I would be all over that, but nah cool feature.

Now we are down to exclusive town all Xbox only games from here. Next is Gears 3, I love Gears of War, but this seems a little samey, at least its the last in the trilogy, I have it preordered, nothing shown today changed it, looking good.  Next we see Ryse, a Roman fighting game(?) from Crytek, using Kinect, no gameplay was shown, so I don't think I can pass judgement on it.

Next Halo 1 HD, confirming rumor's we had heard all week. Not a big Halo fan, but I did particularly enjoy Halo 1 so I may have to look into it. After that Forza 4, I do admire the speed at which Turn 10 puts out quality titles.

Now up to here, its an okay conference, a B-, now here is where it goes down hill. Next we see an on the rails Fable game, which seems to be about everything that Fable isn't. Minecraft with Kinect, I may not be the most knowledgeable about Minecraft, but if I was acting out every motion I would get pretty exhausted mining all day, Minecraft is great on PC, I don't see it working on 360.

Next was Disneyland Adventures, uggggh, UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH, WHY DID YOU GIVE SUCH A HUGE AMOUNT OF YOUR CONFERENCE TIME TO ABSOLUTE TRASH.

Star Wars Kinect, because every Jedi activates his lightsaber by saying "Lightsaber on".

Tim Schafer, gaming genius, making a Sesame St game for Kinect, not even my worst nightmares could have conjured that up.

Kinect Funlabs, kind of cool, giving us many features shown in what was called Natal 2 years.

Kinect Sports 2, because we needed another one
Dance Central 2, including co-op dancing, no gripes but I didn't see why it couldn't be put in the first, at least I was proved right for waiting

And we finish it off with a trailer for Halo 4. Just because the entire Microsoft conference couldn't state enough how over they were on being original.

Rating? D-, horribly disappointing. Arguably one of the worst E3 conferences in years.

Figurines! What is a Man?

Dracula from Castlevania, only cost me $28 NZD!

                          

And Nathan Hale with a Swarmer from Resistance 2!, $7 NZD

 

Fairly happy with them, decent detail considering the price.

MLG Final Thoughts

I will do a "thoughts of E3" after Nintendos conference tomorrow, sneak peek ( MICROSOFT YOU SUCK, SONY YOU'RE OKAY, NINTENDO TBD). Also new figurines post sometime later tonight when I find the time, very busy this week.

MMA played outstanding all tournament, with incredible Medivac harass  and the most impeccable of timings. His victory overy Losira on both Shattered Temple and Metalopolis demonstrated the incredible power of multi-pronged drop harass, though never at any time, other than the final battle, being in a position to take the Zerg army on head to head, he utilized his amazing micromanagement and out maneuvered the Zerg time and time again. The final award ceremony, with "MMA, MMA, MMA" being chanted by the audience hopefully showed the Koreans that we are just as passionate about e-sports as they are.

I actually really want to mention Idra today. Due to the time zone difference, I missed his match with MMA  and as such this.....

Idra played incredibly on Day 1, showing amazing finesse and strategy, somewhere around the time he played Thorzain, losing his first series he went on a horrible tilt. He had this game won, you can see the shock in his opponent MMA, Day9 is left utterly speechless in disbelief. It makes absolutely no sense as to why he left, he had the game won. From here, he all-in'd MC three games in a row, each time failing, and then quitting an even 4th game. Idra truly demonstrated yesterday that he is his own worst enemy. This tournament was lost by Idra, he could have won it, his mindset threw it away.

Anyways, stay tuned, figurines, E3 impressions incoming.

MC vs Idra: MLG Columbus Semifinal

MC managed to fight his way through the losers bracket to emerge to take on Idra in the Semifinals. With massive amounts of hype it was sure to be an epic, bad mannered series. Due to the extended series rule, MC would have to win 4 times with Idra only having to win twice.


First game took place on Shakuras Plateau, and saw MC go for a forge expansion, Idra faked his expansion and threw down a Roach Warren, making 7 roaches and going for a standard Roach-Zergling all in. MC planned on going Stargate which perfectly countered this all in, after it failed Idra didn't even attempt to salvage his economy and gg'd.

Second game saw Idra go hatch first on Tal Dar'im Alter, to which MC responded to with Cannon Rushing him in, and as soon as the first Cannon popped Idra gg'd out, evening up the extended series advantage.

Third game, Typhoon peaks, again against a forge expand Protoss, Idra went for another all-in, except this one took place of two base, MC's sim city wasn't quiet tight enough to stop Zerglings but Idra did not notice and attempted to break it in from the front, again MC had a Stargate up, causing the all-in to eventually fail and again Idra gg's out early

Fourth game started out with some BM in the chat, MC asking Idra "Are you angry?" to which Idra replied "Why would I be, Zerg isn't supposed to win" to which MC responded with "okay gg". This game on ICCUP Testbug saw a macro game with 5 base zerg vs 3 base Protoss, Colossus-Blink Stalker vs Corrupter-Hydra-Roach. Idra successively won multiple engagements, but after lots of DT harass, gg'd again, a bit early, in my opinion.


MC will play the loser of MMA vs Losira, and then the winner of that match will play the winner of MMA and Losira. So now we have a guaranteed Korean First, Second and Third, stay tuned to MLG to see how it all ends up!

MLG Columbus Day 2 Review

Due to no work today I was able to watch almost the entirety of MLG Columbus. And damn was it awesome.

We saw some major trash talking between Idra and MC, culminating in a show down in front of the stage to the cheers of the crowd after seeing MC hit back on form. MC managed to defeat Thorzain, continuing a rivalry that started after Thorzain knocked out the 2-time GSL Champion out of the Team Liquid Star League. Contrarily, Thorzain defeated Idra quiet handily 2-0 in a very decisive set. Slayers_MMA continued to steam roll every single game, showing impressive macro and micro over a long sustained set of matches. JulyZerg emerged from the open bracket and stomped almost his entire group, falling just short at MMA. Naniwa also continued to show us why he is the reigning champion showing incredible consistency and only dropping one series.

The stage is set tomorrow for the final conclusion as to who will emerge from the first true global LAN for Starcraft 2.In the Winners Bracket: Naniwa is set to square up against Incredible Miracle's Losira and Idra will take on the Emperor's apprentice Slayers_MMA. Down in the Losers Bracket: Can oGs MC emerge and extract his revenge on Idra, will July and Thorzain manage to come through the long slog of the Losers bracket to be the the 2nd player to rise up through the open brackets and emerge victorious once and for all.

Tune in to MLG in 2 hours to find out!

MLG Columbus, thoughts so far

It wasn't going to be hard for MLG to outdo Dallas, but Columbus has been incredible so far. Firstly we've had these two ballers running for 8 hours a day. This gave us two streams, one by the traditional DJ Wheat and Day9 (<3) and the other by Artosis and Tasteless. This allowed us to view more games which was the one of the bigger general complaints of the format, because they have to play four groups of pool play into a further four brackets, complemented by a open sign up Open Backet, which eventually turns into an elimination bracket for the championship. By having the two streams we have enjoyed a far greater pool of games.

And oh those games oh were they awesome. First we had Idra vs MC, an amazing high level game. Idra played an absolutely incredibly brilliant game, utilizing Hydra drops in the first game and neural parasited immortals in the second game he gave us the first of many victory over the Koreans. Followed by Naniwa vs Moon, seeing 5 base Protoss vs 5 base zerg generated an absolutely incredible game, Naniwa utilized fast tech switches, from Colossus, to Immortal to High Templar to take out Moons Roach Baneling style it two straight games. Ret vs MC finally saw MC back into form, taking the his first win from the group.

Over on the blue stream we saw some awesome games from MMA and Kiwikaki, MMA Boxer's apprentice has been performing incredibly well this weekend, and seems to continue to pull back incredible come from behind victories. With Thorzain, July, Major and Fenix who have advanced through from the open bracket, the next two days will be nothing less than top level Starcraft.

Head on over to MLG to check it out!

A guide to collecting games

A few people remarked at how many games I have accumulated and that it would cost me considerably large amounts of money, quiet the contrary, collecting games isn't as cost taxing as you would think. As you may have noticed I did accumulate a large variety of games, simply because I play all genres, this allows me great freedom in collecting but if you only like a certain genre I don't imagine it is as taxing.

Anyways General Principles!

1.Know your genre inside and out, recognize the lead developers of the genre as well as the up and coming one. Just being able to walk into a gamestore and being able to trust upon a developer regardless of game makes the decision way easier

2. Don't always buy games at launch. Recognize the ones that will run out and are on a limited print, for example, the Zone of the Enders series, 3D Dot Game Heroes, most games produced by Atlus. Games by large publishers will never run out and are almost always overstocked, just hold up, don't buy it at launch, pick it up for half price 2 months later.

3. Sales!!!!!!, recognize game sales periods, I live in New Zealand, for us, EB Games always has a Mid June-Early July stock take sale, Mighty Ape (my favourite online retailer), has a sale every public holiday and daily deals. Also often, because they cater to the import market, you can also pick up discounted unpopular niche titles like Muramasa and Fragile Dreams, two most excellent Wii titles

4. Get into the habit of searching a few key words through ebay/trademe, you never know when someone will drop an extremely rare title with little knowledge for its actual worth

5. Finally, have a list, a list you can either write down or save in your head, have how much you are willing to pay for it and rate them on how much you want them, it gives you such a greater sense of fulfilment especially when you are starting and when you put all your games together and it doesn't feel as impressive

Figurines! Alter Saber 1/8 Scale by Movic

From time to time I will import high quality PVC figurines of various of my favorite anime and gaming characters. Today I had Alter Saber waiting at my door for me.

The detail on the armor and skirt is simply immaculate, is an amazing highly detailed piece. Featuring Saber from none other than Fate/Stay Night.

The other side of my blog: General Gaming

While a good half of my content will be about Starcraft 2 and esports, the other will be about reviewing various games from my collection or giving say an overall perspective of a series. In aprox 1 weeks time, I will be past my final exams and be gaming fairly solidly for the next month.


With all that said, here is a brief look at my collection

Over the next month, along with eSports reviews and impressions, I hope to give at least 1 review a day, if not, a long one every 2 days. Keep me honest guys and thanks to every commenter and follower, I read every single one!

MLG Columbus & Nvidia Starcraft 2 tournament

After the absolute trainwreck that was MLG Dallas, MLG seeks to redeem itself with MLG Columbus. And so far so good.

New booths, shinny neat trophy. But most of all, the contingent from Korea. First we get THE Casting Archon, Tasteless and Artosis who are without a doubt the most exciting and entertaining casting duo on the planet. AAND then we have the Korean invites.

IM.Losira, the heir to the Zerg throne under Nestea his team mate. Slayers_MMA, The fast rising "Legend Killer" Team League legend, iloveoov in the making under the Emperors wing. FOXMoon, Warcraft 3 legend, likely looking to prove himself after a considerable slump lately.ST-Bomber, oGs_MC, after Bomber had Visa issues, MLG scrambled to find a solution, and boy did they come through, this man needs no introduction to anyone who follows Starcraft 2, arguably the best Protoss in the World, Dreamhack Winner, 2-time GSL Winner, First (and only) Protoss Winner of the GSL. He's also playing Idra first broadcasted game, oh look forward to the tears.

The Open bracket is full of wild cards, most notably; Thorzain, TSL3 winner, all-round amazing Terran, showed us an incredibly solid but versatile play style throughout his TSL run, taking out FruitDealer, Liquid_Tyler, oGs_MC, Empire.Kas and Reigning MLG Champion Naniwa, it will be interesting to see if he can thrive under the intense back to back pressure of the MLG format. Mouz-Morrow emerges too, my favorite European Zerg someone who has remarkable play and consistency and definitely worth looking out for. But the God Of War too waits in the Open Bracket, ST_July also known as JulyZerg, Brood War legend and without a doubt one of the best Korean Zerg with a unique highly aggressive style.


I could write for pages and pages about the old talent but I decided to stick with the new, and give you a more general heads up and the newcomers to MLG. It will sure to be an entertaining weekend so make sure to check out the stream over at MLG. Look forward to a highly entertaining and hopefully problem free weekend of Starcraft 2 action!

Edit: Forgot to mention the brand new Tournament announced today ( that I even put in the title -_-), the Nividia Starcraft 2 tournament, casted by Day9 and HuskyStarcraft , $22,000 prize pool. Both amateur and pro bracket, sounds like a new exciting concept.  If the HDH invitational, and Day9 King of the Beta are any measure to go by, it should be an amazing tournament.

Introduction

Hi, I'm Superarmy, this is merely intended to be a brief introduction to my new blog. I intend to talk about the variety of new releases and up to date gaming information. Also I wish to post plenty about e-sports, particularly Starcraft 2. If you like that kinds of stuff, watch this space. Will post more detailed blog in 12 hours, likely about MLG Columbus. Watch this space!