The Xbox Live Indie Games Marketplace is rife with half-baked ideas and poor production values. Its existence as a place for amateur programmers to showcase their talents and test new ideas is admirable, but rarely does it translate into an actual, solid game. I’m more than willing to pay a couple bucks for an interesting concept, but REVOLVER360 is one of the few times on the Indie Games Marketplace I felt like I paid a couple bucks for an actual game.
As several staff members have an interest in Catherine, we are offering multiple opinions on the recent PS3 demo.
This week Index Holdings released the free playable demo of Catherine on the Playstation Store and Xbox Live in Japan. Like the good Atlus fan I am, I checked it out dutifully. Before the demo, it wasn’t entirely clear to me what sort of game Catherine would be, aside from some sort of puzzle/action game with boxes, some climbing mechanic, and horrific and nightmarish bosses.
After playing the demo, the sort of game it was became pretty clear. The narrative frame of the game is executed in a very Japanese adventure game style – which is to say it has anime movies, fully voiced cutscenes of characters talking on and on, and occasional interactive decision-making (in this case, in the form of replying to mail messages from your girlfriend on your phone). Continue reading
On my trip to Japan last March, I had the chance to pick up both The Cameraman for PS1 and Gekisha Boy 2 for PS2 for cheap. I’ve been able to play through both in the past few days, so now’s as good a time as any to talk about them a bit. Continue reading
So, I’ve picked up RTK10 again lately and have continued my game as Yu Jin, except I’m serving under the Southland’s ruler Sun Jian instead of the crafty Cao Cao (who Yu Jin served historically). The AI in this game really is too dumb. I’m the only reason Sun Jian has gained any territory at all, since I’ve been serving as prefect and later viceroy for most of my game. I’ve conquered quite a bit of territory, marching steadily up north from the Southland through the middle of the central heartlands, right up until I’ve bumped into the Yuans and have started to encircle the Caos, while Sun Jian’s mostly traded a few petty cities back and forth with unambitious Southland lords. Continue reading
For what hopefully represents the last of my experimental purchases for a long, long while to come, I picked up a copy of Sega’s rather obscure PS2 slash-em-up Blood Will Tell. duckroll ordered a copy during Play-Asia’s February sale, and delivered me enough good impressions about it that I decided to try it out. I’d ignored the game since its announcement circa E3 2004, having passed it off as “just another slashing game.” Upon trying the game, I find that my early snap judgment was…not too far off, really.