1999 Mode!

Bioshock Infinite - Elizabeth

“BioShock Infinite’s 1999 Mode will feature an especially demanding gaming experience, forcing you to examine your decisions while going through your adventure in Columbia. With every choice you make, there are irreversible implications, and if your choices guide you down a path not suited to your play style, you will suffer for it.

It’s not simply a matter of adjusting the difficulty sliders in the game – the team went much further than that. Resource planning? If you’re to survive this mode, proper planning will be crucial. Combat specializations? You’ll need to develop them efficiently and effectively throughout the story; any weapon will be useless to you unless you have that specialization. Combat? You will need to carefully target every shot, and your health will be set to an entirely different baseline. Game saves? Well, yes, there will be those, but according to Irrational Games Creative Director Ken Levine “there are game saves, and you’re gonna f***ing need them.””

Source: Irrational Games Insider

I say: Hell YEAH! Looking forward to this challenge. :] Btw, isn’t the pic of Liz super cute? I love it! She really reminds me of Eleanor from Bioshock 2 on it too.

FFXIII-2 pre-ordered!

I really approved of the demo so I decided to pre-order FFXIII-2 even if I won’t be able to play as often as I would like during spring; working with a degree project and a side project will probably be very time-consuming. I’m sure I’ll be able to play some at least, because you need to unwind (“varva ner” in Swedish) sometimes too. :] Guess FFXIII-2 and Mass Effect 3 will have to fight for my attention!

Btw, my new Xbox arrived today (fast delivery, yes?) and it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen! <3 Happy times…

Cheers!

Going slim

My 360 has been a sad one for quite some time now; it makes weird noises and the graphics sometimes get messed up, therefore I’ve been thinking about buying a new one. GAME (in Sweden) has a great offer on the Xbox 360 (320 GB) Gears of War 3 bundle today so it was hard to resist, especially since the offer ends today. From what I’ve seen a new 360 slim (250 GB) with one controller (I get two with the GoW3 bundle) is just about 15 bucks (~100 SEK) cheaper so I believe I made a good deal. I can sell the including copy of the game so it makes the deal even better. :] The awesome skin is a nice bonus too of course:

FFXIII-2

The demo for Final Fantasy XIII-2 was released on Xbox Live today (for free but only available for Gold members) so I decided to check it out. I didn’t plan to buy FF13-2 until later this year but after completing the demo I don’t want to follow that plan anymore, I want to play it now!

As I’ve said before I love the battle system in FF13 and they have certainly spent time on improving it; you can now tame monsters and use them as a part of you team, which is awesome and offers great variety in battles. I really LOVE this new feature! The tamed monsters are almost like pets since you can collect adornments for them and even name them.

Another new feature is the “Cinematic Action” which works as a QTE (Quick-Time Event) during cinematics, rewarding you in some way if you perform well. It’s a quite nice feature I think.

One thing I don’t like on the other hand is the voice acting of Chocolina (a traveling merchant). She looks pretty stupid too. It’s not like this really matters of course, but still… Why couldn’t it be a cute traveling Moogle merchant instead!? Luckily you have a cute Moogle traveling with you (at least on the demo) and it even helps you find hidden treasure, kupo!

Chocolina

The demo takes about 1-2h to complete so it’s definitely worth a try if you have any interest in the game at all. If you haven’t played FF13 it may take some time to get used to the battle system, especially with all the new features, but it’s really fun once you get a hang of it. :] The graphics are amazing too and some music scores are wonderful. I don’t know much about the story yet though so I can’t give my opinion on that but I’m sure I won’t be disappointed since I don’t have particurlarly high expectations.

Farewell…

... You have served me well!

 

Happy New Year and all that

Some awesome games are released this year and I’m especially looking forward to Mass Effect 3 and Bioshock Infinite (no surprises there?). I probably won’t have time to play ME3 right after the release though since I’m aiming for a bachelor’s degree in computer science this spring/summer. I’m a bit nervous about all this!

I have also started to plan for my return to Japan next spring (2013). I’m looking forward to it A LOT but I have yet to decide if I’m going to Gifu, Osaka or Tokyo. I’ve already been in Tokyo for half a year so it’ll probably be Osaka or Gifu but it mostly depend on the selection of schools available. It’s also a matter of expenses so I have to think thoroughly about all this! Totally different cities too. xD

Osaka (source: Wikipedia)

But enough of that for now. I completed Illusion of Gaia yesterday and I really did enjoy it but there were some great disappointments. First of all; the story is messed up and mostly due to some of the characters’ actions. The plot itself has potential but the “execution” of the story is close to horrendous. Secondly, the soundtrack is not even near Soul Blazer’s (which I think has one of the best soundtracks ever made). I don’t care about the story that much, the soundtrack was the big blow for me with one memorable song at the most (yes, music in games is something I tend to prioritize). The gameplay anyway, is really enjoyable and definitely Illusion of Gaia’s highlight.

With that off my chest I will now try to finish my AI report! Yep, it’s not finished yet… But I’m getting there!

Merry Christmas!

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey!

Arrived in Gothenburg a few days ago to celebrate Christmas and New Year’s with family and friends; happy to be “home-home” again! I didn’t take my dear 360 with me but I need a break from it so it doesn’t hurt (but I miss my Gears of War comrades, won’t deny that!).

I’ve started playing SNES again though and the game is Illusion of Gaia (or Illusion of Time). I think I’m about 1/3 through and I enjoy it but I think Soul Blazer is a lot better (so far at least) and I’m trying not to be biased by the fact that I played Soul Blazer a lot when I was a kid. But I do like it and I regret I didn’t take it with me to Gothenburg… Wanna play it so badly!

Hi there, my beloved achievement!

OBS! SPOILERS!!!

Last week I completed Mass Effect 2 on Insanity, which felt great. It was definitely a greater challenge than Dead Space on Impossible. I found the “Collector Ship” mission to be the hardest one since I was forced to go there earlier than I wanted; my squad members were not prepared at all and I pretty much had to go through that mission on my own (yes, the baby-sitting failed miserably :D).

The earlier stage of the tedious boss fight on Horizon was almost as exciting as the fights on the Collector ship but only because of the Husks. They are extremely annoying, especially together with Scions. Same thing about the “Reaper IFF” mission where Husks are EVERYWHERE. Oh dear.. I never saw the end of them there.

No. I don't like you and I don't like any of your friends. And yes, that includes the pyromaniac ones.

The challenge really went up and down though. Apart from the three missions already mentioned I only found the boss fight on Miranda’s loyalty mission and Jack’s recruitment mission hard (as in insane). Of course there were some parts harder than others but they were not nearly as challenging as the main missions (except the “Suicide Mission” which wasn’t very suicidal at all). I’m not saying it’s a bad thing for the main missions to be harder than the others, they should be, but it’s a bit annoying when the degree of difficulty between missions goes from low to sky-high.

BUT otherwise, it was great. I really had to focus and come up with strategies in most fights. Especially the fights involving YMIR Mechs; they were so much fun and thrilling! Playing as Infiltrator at least which, by the way, was a totally different experience than playing as Soldier since sniper became my main weapon. As Soldier I only used it a few times.

Boom! YMIR Mech in action.

END OF SPOILERS!

Anyway, now I feel ready to welcome Mass Effect 3 any day! “Lucky me” the release is a couple of months away; my school work is piling up and my presentation in game physics next week is far from prepared. This one will be impossible to improvise too, maybe I’ll just run away or something. :D

More about Mass Effect 2

Last week I played a lot of ME2 and finally finished my first round (played as Soldier). I’ve also finished all DLCs except Firewalker Pack and want to share some opinions:

Overlord. Felt very tedious at first but the later part is pretty cool (and touching) and made up for the boring beginning. In the end I enjoyed it!

The Arrival. I did the mistake to play this DLC super early, it is definitely made for endgame. I found it interesting anyway and it had some fun achievements.

Lair of the Shadow Broker. Pretty long DLC with some strong characters and exciting story. Liked it a lot.

Kasumi – Stolen Memory. Short but charming!

Zaeed – The Price of Revenge. Always fun with a new playable character but besides that, nothing interesting.

——————————————————————————

During the weekend I actually started a new character, this time as an Infiltrator on Insanity. I know this will be an awesome challenge but the biggest challenge will probably be controlling the squad members; they can be such a pain in the ass. Wouldn’t hurt if they were more on the defensive.. But I guess it’s part of the game to baby-sit them. :]

My new geisha/samurai-inspired Shepard:

One step closer to graduation

The  exam in database systems turned out to be one of the better exams I’ve done! And it feels good to have one course less to worry about. The report on my AI stuff is still behind but I’m trying to write a little every week, hopefully I’ll be done by Christmas… No stress!

Now I’m gonna celebrate this with some Mass Effect 2! Speaking of celebration, I made this Game & Watch cake on my birthday some years ago:

Aaaaa… Makes me wanna eat cake and strawberries and liquorice.