Loot for Oct 29-Nov 5

It probably seems like I don’t actually watch much anime or play much games. I certainly haven’t been keeping a steady flow of content here. However I figured I’d post what I’ve acquired within the last week alone to show that I do, in fact, enjoy and purchase anime and games. Scrubs too.

Click for full-size.

I’ll list what these actually are:
Row 1
-The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya: Special Editions vol 3 & 4 (Complete)
-Eureka 7 Special Editions vols 9 & 10
Row2
-Fighting Spirit/Hajime no Ippo Complete Collections vol 1 & 2 (Complete)
-Gundam the Movie: Char’s Counterattack
-Scrubs season 6 (one of these things is not like the others…)
Row 3
-Virtua Fighter 5 for 360
-Ace Combat 6 for 360
-Zack & Wiki for Wii (this game is all kinds of good. I’m thinking of making a post about it in the future)
-Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations for DS
-Flash Focus: Vision Training in Minutes a day for DS(I really like these games. Once I get bored of them, I can give them to my mom as a gift…if she doesn’t go out and buy it herself)
-Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles for PSP

So there. Eight of these items I have already seen/played to completion in previous forms. Suzumiya, Eureka 7, Ippo I’ve seen on fansub. Virtua Fighter 5 I already had for PS3. I had already played the Japanese/English version of Gyakuten Saiban 3.

Please don’t ask how much all of this cost me. I really don’t want to think about it…

Stranglehold demo

This is on Xbox Live right now, but I believe demos will be coming to the PSN and somewhere on PC as well. (Long story short, I want this game now.)

Quick history lesson: Stranglehold is the ’sequel’ to the John Woo film ‘Hard Boiled’, starring Chow Yun Fat. Fat’s likeness and voice are in this game as well, as the main character ‘Tequila’. The PS3 special edition will actually come with the BluRay version of the Hard Boiled movie.

Dodgeball DS – 8 player wifi

I don’t know how many beats my heart skipped when I saw this.

Microsoft’s E3 press event

Just finished watching the press conference. All of the games that they focused on (except one) will be out this year. Before I go to sleep (it’s after 2 AM here) I’ll run through some bullet points:

-Microsoft made a Wiimote–though more in Design rather than Function (one big ‘win’ button and other smaller buttons, but no motion sensing or pointing was mentioned)
-Resident Evil 5 made an appearance, but it’s not coming out this year. Everything else Microsoft mentioned is coming out this year
-Mass Effect, Lost Odyssey coming out this year. Fable 2 was barely mentioned, if at all, so that isn’t coming in 2007.
-They showed a live-action trailer for Halo 3. A little strange, but interesting.
-Gears of War PC
-Call of Duty 4
-They featured the Naruto 360 game for a while
-Peter Moore played the ‘Rock Band’ guitar and sang a little.
-Microsoft is releasing a Spartan Green (my words, not theirs) 360 to commemorate the launch of Halo 3. Some might call it Diarrhea green.
-Assassin’s Creed continues to look darn cool
-They stressed that GTAIV will have more content on 360 than ‘other platforms’, and VF5 will be online only on their console
-They announced a bunch of XBLA games, one of the notable ones being Marathon. There were lots of other stuff, including original Sonic and Golden Axe which they said were available *now*. Nifty.
-Video Marketplace, announced partnership with Disney (which includes Miramax and some other stuff). They showed a whole bunch of movies from that group, then announced that all of the movies that they just showed were available on Marketplace *now*. Nifty again.
-Played some PGR4, showed off the bikes
-Other stuff. I’m tired, it’ll be all over the net soonish anyway.
-Closed with a Halo 3 gameplay/story trailer. Wasn’t terribly impressed, but it was fine.

I thought it was an ok show. Outside of the Wiimote and RE5 showing up, there wasn’t anything particularly unpredictable or shocking. I was watching it both through Gamespot’s live feed and on G4, but G4 kept going to commercials at the most random and inappropriate times. Mass Effect trailer? Commercial. Call of Duty 4 demo? Commercial. Halo 3 trailer at the end? ‘nother commercial. Good thing the Gamespot channel was about 15 seconds behind the G4 broadcast, so I didn’t miss anything.

Anyway. I sleep.

Virtua Fighter 5 on 360 will be online.

Sega, no doubt feeling the pressure from Namco, revealed that the 360 version of Virtua Fighter 5 will feature online play.

I have no regrets. I knew it was coming for the 360 before I picked up my PS3 and was thinking of waiting, but certain news about the PS3’s future caused me to get one early.

It’s unknown whether or not they will update the PS3 version to do this. One theory that was floating around back in the ‘no-way-vf-is-gonna-be-online’ days was that if the Console games featured online play, no one would go to play in the arcades anymore. If this was/is Sega’s way of thinking, putting VF5 online on the 360 isn’t a big deal. Japan, for the most part, doesn’t care about the 360 so putting it online there won’t eat into the arcade market.

I’ll probably buy it again for the 360 depending on what exactly is being done online. I don’t intend to do much online fighting, as my latency is horrible. But if they offer downloadable updates to costumes and stuff that the PS3 won’t see, I’ll definitely get it. Also, Achievements.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl website reveals Music talent, possibly more…

Finally reaching the end of its countdown, the official Smash Bros. Dojo website is live.

There isn’t really much to talk about it if you look at it on the surface. Series creator Masahiro Sakurai’s first couple of posts explained the basics of the game that anyone who has touched it will already know. Most recently however, he revealed a list of the composers who are contributing to the soundtrack this time. Click on for the list, and my speculation.

Final Fantasy XIII Exclusivity ‘in discussion’.

There are several reports on this out there by now, but I’ll link to this one from Joystiq.

What’s happening is Sony France’s boss mentioned that the exclusivity of FF13 is ‘in discussion’. The article brings up a good point: was FF ever exclusive anyway? Most of us know FF7 and FF8 were on the PC not too long after the PS1 version came out. It could be that the later games were ‘only on playstation’ because it was most profitable for them to keep it there and not bother with porting it over. If they saw an opportunity to make some more money with a port, I’m sure they would have done it (FF11).

That could be the situation FF13 is in. No one is really sure if having their game ‘only on PS3′ (or any system for that matter) is really profitable. The PS2 had a commanding lead in the outgoing generation, so FF could sit pretty on PS2 and not have to worry about making money. PS3 doesn’t have that guarantee of profit at this point, and it still may not by time FF13 comes out.

If Sony wants to keep FF13 as an exclusive this time, they may have to pay up. No longer do they have the luxury of saying “Your Game + Playstation = $$$.” Judging from recent announcements–beyond Devil May Cry and Ace Combat–Sony hasn’t fought hard enough (if at all) to keep some of its prior exclusives. Final Fantasy is one of their only remaining established heavy-hitters. From what I understand, Sony owns some small stock in Square-Enix, so I’d imagine they’d hold on extra tight to this one.

Dragon Ball Z MMO

I would have thought this happened already, but perhaps that’s my fond memories of my brief stint with Bid for Power some years back.

BFP is the first thing I thought of when I saw this, but this is an entirely different (and entirely avec Toryiama legit) project. You can create your character as a child from either the Saiyan, Namek or Human races, and the child will grow up as the game progresses.

Seems interesting, but I’ll probably never play it. Chances of it coming to the US are slim, but not impossible. DBZ is still pretty popular in the west, but it’s nowhere near popular enough to make a dent in WoW in the MMO space–or even FFXI for that matter. I won’t be spending money to import it either, despite my efforts to be learning Japanese.

FF12 Revenant Wings Gameplay

Click here to have a look.

The gameplay looks similar to the underappreciated DS game “LostMagic” with the spawning monsters and RTS style navigation. It appears that the gambit system may be intact–I noticed Penelo casting cure spells without being provoked by a menu and the others attacking the nearest enemy before focusing on Vaan’s target.

Doesn’t look half bad.

From the Horse’s Mouth

The Mario says Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) will be amazing.

“Mario Galaxy is going to be the most exciting, amazing fun ever. I played a little preview of it and I had goosebumps of joy and was giddy with laughter. The new Wii controller has so much versatility and makes possible all these things you could never imagine doing before.

It is like magic. This game takes it to a completely different level for Mario. I’m not allowed to reveal yet what I say in Galaxy but I can tell you there will be some surprises.”

My 3D Mario experience hasn’t been too spiffy. I didn’t have a 64 and the DS version I got for free didn’t impress me, and neither did Sunshine. But I keep hearing from people who managed to play the demo of Galaxy that it is great. I couldn’t really tell that from the little bits of video I’ve seen, but I guess ‘playing is believing’.

He also mentions ’surprises’ when talking about what he/Mario says in the game. Is he going to rap or something? Or perhaps there will be more ’story’ to the game?