Impressions on the PS Vita

It's finally out!  The last (if you believe market analysts) of a dying breed: a dedicated gaming hand-held!  On 22 February, Sony released their super powerful PS Vita to the masses (in the West).  Coming in two flavors: Wi-Fi only and one that also sports 3G compatibility, the little powerhouse aims to give gamers console-style gaming on the go.  It's pricey, setting you back $300 for the 3G version, $250 for the other, but this beauty seems to be worth it thus far!

News Roundup: 19 February 2012

Another week done, another week closer to Syndicate.  This coming week is big (to me, at least) with the launch of the aforementioned Syndicate and the PS Vita.  I'm stoked to get my hands on the Vita and Uncharted: Golden Abyss.  Also, Alan Wake's American Nightmare comes out on XBLA for week two of their "House Party" promotion!  So, I'll be rather busy this week (yay!) with new releases.  On that, let's get to some things that me smile, laugh, frown or just plain struck my fancy!

Impressions on Binary Domain

The third-person action shooter market is pretty crowded these days.  There are plenty of options for those that want to play burly men who shoot things in the face and move between conveniently placed chest high walls.  When the folks at Sega announced that the mind behind the Yakuza series, Toshihiro Nagoshi, was making a third-person shooter, my reaction was along the lines of "...kay."  I love the Yakuza series, but another military shooter just wasn't something I cared about.  Binary Domain releases on 28 February, which was another reason to skip it.  It falls right between Syndicate and Mass Effect 3.  So, I skipped over reading more about the title and promptly forgot about it.

Killer robot, meet high-powered assault rifle

Impressions on Mass Effect 3

We are only 20 days away from the epic conclusion to EA and Bioware's space odyssey.  I couldn't be more excited to see how my Paragon female Commander Shepard unites the galaxy to stop the Reapers.  This entry promises to tie all the loose threads together and show players who have been dutifully transferring their saves between games how their decisions play out.  The demo for the single-player campaign released on Valentine's Day (on PSN, today for XBLA) takes the same road as the Mass Effect 2 demo: it shows the opening mission and a truncated mission a bit later in the story.  This game has me so excited!

Commander Shepard and crew mean business

Let's Have a Cat Fight!

Thanks to the success of Street Fighter IV, we've seen a resurrection in the fighting genre.  We've got some good looking downloadable fighters coming out this Spring/Summer.  And most of them star all female, all sexy casts.  First, we have the slick looking Skullgirls.  Smooth animation, lots of T&A and interesting characters are the main selling points for this game.  Now, out of the shadows, appears another all-female throw-down.  Here's a link to the press release for Girl Fight, which seems (as far as I can tell) to be a descriptive title.  Well, all right then.  I'm sure this is what the developers were thinking about when coming up with this idea.  (via Joystiq)

Skullgirls looks badass

A challenger appears?

News Roundup: 12 February 2012

Happy Valentine's Day week!  It's that time were there is copious amounts of red splashed everywhere and couples spending time together.  I'm of course talking about the release of Twisted Metal.  Otherwise, have a look at some interesting news stories from the week!

Review: Final Fantasy XIII-2

Final Fantasy XIII-2

PS3 (reviewed), Xbox 360

Publisher: Square Enix

Developer: Square Enix

Release Date: 31 January 2012

JRPGs have suffered this console generation. The heavy hitters in the genre have moved to hand-helds (like Dragon Quest IX) or were met with fan backlash and derision (like Final Fantasy XIII). The problems facing XIII-2 were daunting: the original was blasted for being too linear, not having shops, taking way to long to open up into the larger world, having a weak story/characters (I disagree on this point) and having a battle system that was innovative, but also frustrating. The producer of the game, Yoshinori Kitase, promised to rectify the issues fans raised about the first game and deliver a sequel that not only made apologies for the first game, but expanded and improved on the game. I was worried, but after playing through, I can safely say, “Apology accepted, Square Enix.”

Serah, Mog and Noel traipse through time