My quick 2 cents on PS Vita

I give it to Sony that they make great hardware and the PS Vits is another example of it, but however I am not sold by it yet. It dosen't matter how how good your gaming platform is unless you have the games to show it off and that where I think Sony didn't do a good job at.

Now grated I do enjoy the Unchatred games and Street Fighter x Tekken Looks sweet on the Vita but Sony needs to announce more games for the handheld to compete against future 3DS games like Starfox 64 3D, Zelda OOT 3D., Super Mario 3d, and so on. 

I was, however surprised by the Vita's price. Its will be $249.99 for the base model and $299.99 for the G3 model. I think the G3 one is point of pointless (plus its bound to AT&T'S crappy G3 network) but sony still manage to compete against the 3DS in terms of price

Overall: Good hardware and good price but needs more games for the system and a G3 model was pointless.

A First Look at the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play

Today killatia takes a look at the recently released Sony Ericsson Xperia Play and see if it really is a gamer's phone.

Cam's Eye View: Modnation Racers for the PS3 review

Who here likes Little Big Planet? I know I do! I love that game so much. Great graphics, great platforming, and an overall great package that is a good reason to buy a PS3. Though what do you get if you take the simple version of Little Big Planet’s creation formula and combine it with Mario Kart-style gameplay and those mighty mug doll things? Well then, you get one unique package of a game known as Mod Nation Racers for the PS3! Although it isn’t as amazingly creative or as polished as Little Big Planet or Mario Kart, Mod Nation Racers holds up on its own as a great and fun racing game where you can create your own character and tracks. It definitely isn’t in the top 10 PS3 games, but it is definitely in the top 20. So, let’s create a character and drive our way through Mod Nation Racers on the PS3.

Unlike a lot of racing games, this one actually has a story, but its simple so I won’t talk too much about it. The story is about a young driver named Tag as he dreams to be the best racer. He signs up and goes through 5 different tours to win the gold. There isn’t much as of story and there are some predictable outcomes and twists, but it does have some memorable characters.  I warn you though, don’t expect a deep story for this racing game

Like I said, the gameplay is a racing game. It’s more along the line of Little Big Planet and Mario Kart combined into one. You get the Mario Kart-style racing with item uses and the size of the karts. The Little Big Planet parts come in with the Mod creator and level creator. You can design your own Mod and your own kart and get more pieces by winning races and completing specific challenges within the race. You also get the usual kind of online play as you can race up to 12 people. You can also play with up to 4 people in split-screen action. The challenges within the races are usually like get multiple points by drifting or spinning and even hitting opponents. The main gimmick, which seems to be a common gimmick now in racers is drifting. Drifting is the only way to gain boost in your boost meter. You will need to master this if you want to get through later races. Like I said above, there are 5 tours that you need to go through and you either need to be in third, second, or first to continue on in the tours. They usually have about 5 to 7 races.

While not the most graphically accomplished game on the PS3, since God of War 3 and Uncharted 2 cover that territory, I can safely say that it is a very good-looking game. It definitely has its own charm with the people looking like those Mighty Mug figures in motion. While there isn’t much story, the voice acting is pretty good. The conversations that the two announcers have get you through the story pretty well, and are fun to listen to at times. The music is also fun to listen to with some cool songs through certain levels. I also like that there is a hub world that you can share your creations with. You can easily kill a few hours just driving around in the hub world. I should know, I did.

However, if you thought I didn’t have anything bad about to say this game, well you-are-WRONG! I actually have a rather big list of faults that this game has. Number 1, the load times. These load times are awful, since it seems like it takes forever to load the levels and it just gets tedious when you don’t want to race and want to go to the hub world and etc. Number 2, the AI is overly aggressive midway through the game and to the end also. This has to be one of the most unbalanced racing games I have ever played in my life. This isn’t like the rubber banding like in Mario Kart, oh no. The AI in this game will do anything to make you screw up! Number 3, the AI is trigger-happy. This has happened A LOT throughout the game for me. I am in first place and I am driving my merry way through the final lap way ahead of the opponents and then BAM! A squad of missiles or something hits me and then 6 racers pass me. I mean it happens A LOT more so than it should. Number 4! Poor design flaws in the tracks. Sometimes when I am racing it seems like the tracks themselves are not fully polished. Not that they look bad or anything, but I feel like I could have made it through the game easier if there weren’t certain obstacles, or better designed roads to ride on. I had to restart like 45 to 50 times because I fell off a cliff or into the water because I made one wrong turn or didn’t drift at the right moment. Finally, we got number 5, unforgiving gameplay. This is basically an issue of all of the above problems. If you mess up once, it always seems like the game won’t give you any time to recover. You fall off a cliff, 7 racers pass you. You get shot, 5 racers pass you. You don’t land correctly after being thrown in the air, you’re stuck on the other side of the road and all racers pass you. My final complaint however is the unbalanced online multiplayer. It always felt strange since it was like I was working at a disadvantage for some reason; it’s hard to explain. I felt like a lot of this game could have been polished more, but that is just me.

So, that is my review of Mod Nation Racers. While it is definitely a flawed game that should have been more polished instead of trying to release it by a certain time, they should have saved it for the fall. I would be lying though if I said I didn’t have fun with the game. It is definitely a good kart racer, but like I said, it needs some work done on it. I say for now, rent it, but if you are hardcore about your racing, then yeah I would be glad to tell you to get it, but for little kids and for people like myself, I don’t see any reason for them to get it. Just go get a PSN card instead and go buy Joe Danger, which is more polished and more fun, in my opinion. Like I said, it’s definitely one of the better PS3 games, but it definitely isn’t top 10 material.

This game gets a 7 out of 10



Cam's Eye View: Ratchet and Clank series part 2: Ratchet and Clank Going Commando for the PS2

As you all can see, I do a lot and I mean A LOT of reviews. I passed the 150 mark and I still have more to review. Sadly, I recently realized that I have deserted one retrospective that I wanted to do. The series I wanted to do a review on besides the Yakuza and Prince of Persia series is the Ratchet and Clank series, since a Crack in Time might have been the last game in this series. I decided to get back on the ride with this retrospective and review the next game in the series, Ratchet and Clank Going Commando. Released a year after the first game, Going Commando continues the franchise that’s held on the back of a humanoid lombax and a small sophisticated robot. I thought I would never say that, ever. Anyway, let’s dive into Ratchet and Clank Going Commando and see how this sequel does.

The story starts us with a “behind the music” parody called Behind the Hero as the episode stars Ratchet and Clank. It shows us what has happened between this game and the first game. It seems that our two heroes have been more relaxed after the whole “we saved the universe” ordeal. So, yeah, they’re not as popular as they once were, kind of like John Romero’s career after the release of Daikatana. Ion Storm and John Romero, even though you are now defunct and not famous anymore, consider yourself Burned! Anyway Ratchet gets a call from Megacorp to get back a certain experimental product from some thief. It is up to Ratchet and Clank to go commando and find out what is going on with this experiment that was stolen. The story is long, and it has a lot of different plot twists that are somewhat expected, but some are interesting, so it’s worth playing the game to see what happens.

The gameplay is in the form of a third-person-shooter, mixed with some puzzle and platforming segments. You still have your handy wrench, which can now be swapped for stronger wrenches during the entire game. You gain a whole new assortment of weapons, like the mini-turret glove, gravity bomb, and a lot of other great gadgets. If you have saved data from the last game, you can easily gain some of your old weapons from it, like the bomb glove and other weapons. Just like the last game, you can play as Ratchet and you can play as Clank through different areas of the game. There are also gladiator sections of the games, where you can earn new gadgets and some bolts. There are other sections, like racing and hacking mini-games, where you can unlock things and win some more gadgets. There are Rogue Squadron-style space fights, where you earn an element that can help you upgrade your ship with more weapons, stronger shields, and better wings. This game definitely delivers more content than the last game, but let’s talk about the graphics and the other parts of the presentation.

The graphics definitely look a little better than the last game, which sometimes you can hardly tell by today’s standards, but there are a few areas where this game has done better in its presentation. The voice acting is even better than the last game, and the one major improvement that they made was to replace Ratchet’s voice actor, which was a stroke of genius since I HATED his last voice actor. Instead of “freaking Mike Kelley”, they brought in James Arnold Tyler, who I think does a better job with Ratchet’s voice. If you have an eye for voice work, you know that James did Tidus’ voice for Final Fantasy 10, Wooldoor Sockbat from Drawn Together, Green Arrow, Master Disaster from Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and Gabe Logan from the Syphon Filter series. David Kaye has returned to do Clank’s voice and again does a great job. Before I continue, I want to talk about Ratchet and Clank’s relationship. It is definitely more like they are friends and are more likable than the last game. We also get new voice actors like Kath Soucie who voices Angela, the thief who stole the experiment, Jim Ward who voices Abercrombie Fizzwidgit, Steve Blum (heck, yeah!) who voices the Thugs-4-less leader. Voice acting has always been a high note in this series and it doesn’t disappoint here. The humor in the game is downright funny, and when it wants to be, it can be really gut busting hilarious. I say that this game has one of the funniest scripts of all time, and it’s not because the voice acting sucks like Resident Evil or other games that have lousy acting, but the script itself is really funny. I laughed at a lot of the inside jokes and other jokes that are in the script. David Bergeaud does the soundtrack for the game. He has also done soundtracks for games like Disruptor, Resistance, and the rest of the Ratchet and Clank games. Overall, this game has a great presentation.

However, there are a lot of things that hold this game back by today’s standards. This game, in the end, gets really difficult. The sole reason for the difficulty is that in the ending levels of the game, it is basically hoards of enemies and annoying puzzles. It forces you to grind to upgrade your arsenal and make all your weapons the best. The camera control is also an issue from time to time where it just doesn’t work out. Another big issue is that the machines you ride are sometimes hard to control. It’s like if you don’t move the right way, you skydive to the ground and whatnot. It gets annoying really fast. Because of this, the space battles seem unfinished, like they might not have tested this area of the game enough. To me, personally, the story drags on. It’s like, hey, this looks like it’s going to be the last level, no, wait, this is going to be the last level. For me, it drags on more than it should have.

So, that is Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando. What do I think of it? While it is a lot better than the last game, it still has its faults, though the fun levels and great humor cover up the faults. While I wouldn’t recommend the first game, I would rent this game from Gamefly.com or something. If you like to collect games, you can probably get this game for cheap. All and all, this is where the series is now getting good for me, so now, I must play some other games of this series and other games since it’s a full time job to review games.

This game gets a solid 8 out of 10



Magicink special nintendo and sony e3 press conference impression

Killatia's impression of nintendo's and sony's e3 press confrence. This time hes joined by his friend huskobon!

Yes the video quality isn't all that good but i didn;t want to bring the good camera with me.