Killzone Trilogy Trailer: Guerrilla Finally Brings It All Together (Almost…)

Posted on September 7, 2012 by geelw

Even though I own all three originals, like a lot of gamers, I’ll be shelling out for Killzone Trilogy for one reason: the chance to replay the first Killzone game in HD (thank you Sony!). That said, where’s Killzone Liberation? That excellent (and under appreciated) PSP exclusive was quite a solid chunk of side story action that, despite the third-person viewpoint and bird’s eye view camera angle, still looked and felt like it belonged in the canon (which it does). I’d have added it as a free PSN download if there were somehow no way to fit it on a disc, but we’ll see if Sony decides to give the game a proper fit somewhere as part of this great collection set to land on October 23 (October 24 in Europe). Between this and the massive God of War Saga, Sony is certainly making sure its main franchises remain in the minds (and libraries) of gamers who can’t get enough of them…

Video Game Appreciation 101, Scary Side: Roxy’s – A Little Slice of Silent Hill, Circa 1960…

Posted on August 29, 2012 by geelw

Edward Kienholz was an artist you may or may not have heard of (depending on your level of education), so if you know his work and happen to be a gamer, you’re smiling right now. For those of you who are scratching your heads, I’ll let you Google him and more of his work up at your leisure. Before that, take a peek at that image to the left. Go on, it won’t bite (I think)…

OK, maybe this should be ART Appreciation 101, huh?. It’s from Roxy’s, an environmental installation piece from 1960-61 (and the artist’s first large scale work) based (loosely, I hope) on the artist’s memories of a visit to a Las Vegas bordello in the 1940’s. Long story short, I’d seen this image years ago in an art book and it bugged the hell out of me for weeks. As in seeing that figure hovering around in a nightmare or two and maybe wanting to dig my eyes out with a cold spoon after waking up bugged…

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Random Game Never To Play Alone (Or Else) #1: Dokapon Kingdom

Posted on June 24, 2012 by geelw

I have a stupidly long list of article idea and as usual, not enough time to get them all written, but every so often I’m going to post the occasional test article for your perusal. Here’s one goofy idea I had ages ago while writing for another site about games that made for a terrible time when played alone. I thought about reviving the idea recently while listening to some folks in a game shop arguing about what was the worst game to play alone and getting a chuckle that every game mentioned in their discussion revolved around survival horror, MMORPGs or assorted shooters (with every game mentioned in the latter two genres geared for multiplayer gaming). The first game I thought of was Atlus’ 2008 US release of Sting’s 2007 hybrid board game/RPG, which some have very incorrectly labeled a straight Mario Party clone. The Dokapon series was around a bit longer than Mario Party and Dokapon Kingdom is more or less a polygon-based reworking of a Super Famicom game from 1994 called Dokapon 3-2-1: Arashi o Yobu Yuujou, which is equally challenging as a solo play experience. Now, neither are anything resembling “bad” games at all. They’re fun to play and funny, but are both just designed to work better with more than one person playing them…
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Gallery: PlayStation 2 Library (US)

Posted on January 5, 2012 by geelw

Minus about 15 games that are out on loan, here you go. I have to call this gallery “updated”, as it was a lot larger a few years back. I had close to 450 or more games here at one time, but it was a bit hard to get anything for any other system stored, so I started whittling down quite a bit. There’s an import in one of these pics (oops), but that’s because it was borrowed before and returned after I took pics of my PS2 imports Yes, there were a few Final Fantasy games here, but those went to someone who’s probably a lot more appreciative of the direction the series has taken than I am. I think I sold off a few games I meant to keep otherwise for reference purposes (oops), but most of what I’m looking for is dirt cheap these days and pretty easily located. As for some of the pricier games I no longer own or never got around to getting, well, I’m not dead yet…

Yeah, yeah, those press DVD’s aren’t “games”, but they were on the shelf, so in they went. I have a ridiculous amount of press kits stored here in a few bins (I saved nearly everything I’ve gotten since the late 90’s), so perhaps I’ll post a gallery of those if you ask nicely. It’ll take me a while to go through them all, that’s for sure…

Twisted Metal Update: Back in Black On Launch Day…

Posted on December 28, 2011 by geelw

Well, well, well… looks like PS3 who snap up Twisted Metal at launch (or in a timely fashion within the launch window) will be in for a super treat. Included inside the first pressing of the game will be a PSN voucher for Twisted Metal Black, still an amazing car combat experience that holds up to this day as one of the best PS2 titles ever made. Remember the date: February 14, 2012, boys and girls. Some will be smooching their sweetie, me, I’ll be kissing my PS3 for having such a stellar year (well, ANOTHER stellar year)…

Gallery Update: A Few Boxed Sets (PS/PS2)

Posted on December 27, 2011 by geelw

Oops. I’d forgotten to add these big box sets in the earlier photos, so here you go. With the exception of ZXE-D: Legend of Plasmatlite, everything’s been played. I haven’t actually had the will to snap together those robots in that big box and get someone else to sit down in front on the TV to try the game out, but if I ever stumble across a second box one fine day, I’ll actually play the game. I’m not expecting Soul Calibur or anything resembling a great fighter, mind you. But it should be good for some mindless fun for all the work it takes to build those robots. Oh well. maybe I’ll go track down a copy of Panekit instead. That’s an import I’ve been wanting for a long time. Oh, if you want to know what’s inside that big ZXE-D box, there’s an old, but in depth post HERE, courtesy of NCS. I had a couple more (Mars Story, a few Square Millennium boxes, special Dual Shock controller/game/t-shirt bundles and others, but I had to condense things because I’m out of room here).

Gallery: PlayStation 2 Import Library

Posted on December 26, 2011 by geelw

Yikes. I hadn’t realized that I’d sold off more than half of what I had until I started going through my PS2 stuff. Most of it was budget-priced Simple 2000 stuff, launch/launch window titles and a few oddities. Still, I thought I had a bit more than what’s here. Hey, as long as I have my Chikyuu Boueigun and Onechanbara games plus some of the other fun stuff here, I’m set. Of course, I’ve played a LOT more imports than I actually own and thankfully, my PS1 collection is a lot larger (although it’s shrunk a bit over time from the insane pile it once was). Then again, I’m still nowhere near the back end of the tower of games yet, so a few more PS2 imports may spring up in the coming weeks. We shall see…

Gallery: U.S. PlayStation & PlayStation 2 Demo Disc Library (Part One)

Posted on December 26, 2011 by geelw

Absolutely not a complete set at all (I’m missing about 15 OPM discs from the later end of the mag’s run as well as a bunch of PS1 demos), but there’s a nice selection here that’s always great for reference purposes. It’s too bad US gamers didn’t see a lot of PS3 demo discs like the ones released overseas in the UK and Asian territories. At this point in time I only know of a handful of PS3 demo discs that were released here but I could be wrong. I actually need as many of them as possible just so I can see what actually made it out around the world. I really, REALLY miss the great days of being surprised by some cool US demo discs popping up in the mail, that’s for sure. I have some other PS1 and PS2 demos and Jampacks in a big box of PS1 games (or behind a few hundred games currently stacked on top of a dresser) that I’ll post at a later date.

Gallery: Assorted Preview/Review Disc Library

Posted on December 24, 2011 by geelw

Yes, I’ve kept almost everything I’ve gotten to preview and review (save for stuff I’ve had to send back), so here you go, a bunch of Xbox and PS2 games (plus a paltry few PS3 and 360 ones for good measure). Some are demos or incomplete beta versions, some are complete trade demos, check discs or debug code plus some quirky stuff like that E3 2006 PSP Memory Card. Of note are some titles that were almost to completely localized and SHOULD have been released (Dinosaur Hunting, and Rent-A-Hero #1), an awesome build of Arx Fatalis (it had the infamous “chicken cheat” from the PC version that was taken out of the console game plus a weird save game with a nude barkeep) and some other fun stuff. Yup, that’s Bedlam, an unreleased Sega Saturn game in the last photo (it was a port of a PC game). I haven’t played it, as I don’t have any way to at the moment, but it does have a nice Redbook soundtrack. Despite its popularity, I’m not one for “dumping” stuff, but I’m all for legal emulation on older unsupported consoles or abandonware PC titles.

Gallery: PlayStation & PS2 Demo Library (Japanese)

Posted on December 24, 2011 by geelw

Nowhere as many as I’d like to have and some aren’t pictured here, as I need to move about 500 or so games to get to the remaining few. I’ll update the gallery once I get that mighty task done. Some of these are incredible for what’s on the discs, from memory card download, interviews and exclusive content not seen outside Japan. Stuff like Net Yaroze demos (games made by those who bought the special Net Yaroze PlayStation model), some hilarious commercials and some great demos of games that were drastically different than what ended up on store shelves. The Project Zero disc is a DVD that features CG from the game and some other cool stuff, but isn’t playable. I know there are a ton of these non-playable demos out there, but I’m a lot more interested in trial version discs these days. The one other exception is the Summer Special 1996 disc that has a bunch of game trailers including the first look at Metal Gear Solid. That long movie was created entirely with in-game asset and actually makes the game look like a more action-packed experience than it turned out to be.