002 Rocktober and Gamelist I

Hello, emptiness of no one, who’d read this. But I’m writing anyway.
It’s October’s rain of releases, and out of all that’s coming out I wanted to get these fellows:

1. Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2
2. Brutal Legend
3. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
4. Demons Souls.

And out of all that I only bought Uncharted 2… No, not cause of money or it’s inept awesomeness. I was actually planning to get it in the end (save the best for last), and besides I had a preorder on NG∑2, so it was first on my list.

But none of the other games made it to EU yet (gonna import DS), and nothing except Uncharted 2 (which was obviously too sweet not to ship) made it to my local stores yet.

I’m probably gonna buy Katamari Forever, to spend the time as I wait…

Oh and BTW, I’m gonna go try and sell my games to a used games store, if I find one. But my brother said it might be a good idea to list all the games I had an rate them, before I get rid of some of them.

Alphabetical order. Rating is S, A, B, C, D. These are my marks for the game’s enjoyment by ME. Total IMHO.

These are the ones I’m planning to sell, so they get priority.

Armored Core For Answer
-the mech-sim of gray uninvertable axis-
Story: C (or rather I never gave a damn, which means it wasn’t gripping)
Gameplay: B (not that bad, but there was no way to invert the axis and the controls felt funny. Also a tad hard, not challenging, just hard)
Design/Art: B+ (I’m a mech fan, but these were a bit average IMHO)
Music: ? (there was music in this game? Totally forgettable)
Overall: C+ (I dropped it, came back to it out of renewed interest, and dropped it again)

Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice
-antiquated 2-D tactics harcore-
Story: ? (never got that far)
Gameplay: ? (Not a fan and the features seemed too complex, and the game not-too-promising to learn them.)
Design/Art: ? (If you’re going for 2-D in this generation, if better be friggin’ Blazblue level)
Music: B (Japanese soundtrack at it’s good days)
Overall: C+ (I have good friends who are genuinely liking this game, so I guess it has it’s audience, but that’s not me.)

Dynasty Warriors: Gundam
-dynasty warriors IN SPACE!-
Story: B (It’s Gundam! But it has no Gundam 00, so that’s a let down)
Gameplay: B (Dynasty Warriors IN SPACE!)
Design/Art: A (it has a power of ultra franchise behind it, what did you expect?)
Music: B (Epic gundamness)
Overall: B (Dynasty Warriors 6 was still kinda better. Not enough Gundam to keep me rolling)

Heavenly Sword
-overhyped and unworthy hell-knows-what-
Story: D (Was aiming for Wuxia-esque epicness, but damn the ass-pulls and randomness)
Gameplay: C+ (Throwing shit with the sixaxis was fun. Combat is bland, not DMC, not even God of War. And why so short?)
Design/Art: B- (had a few nice ideas, but they were too abrupt and unimmersive)
Music: C (I am so tired of
Overall: C- (Don’t buy this, just don’t. It’s a 4 to 5 hours waste of your time.

Prototype
-oh so forgettable and inferior in comparison to Infamous-
Story: D (Friggin’ predictable)
Gameplay: C (needlessly complex combat system and crappy acrobatics, which I miss with all the time)
Design/Art: D (not creative at all. Resident Evil biohazard monsters is all you get.)
Music: C (Usual epic stuff, I’ll be saying that a lot)
Overall: C (Not that bad of a game, but comparing it to infamous kills it for me)

Resistance: Fall of Man
-dark-horse shooter-
Story: C (Space Marines versus Aliens! Well maybe not, but the so lost the alternative WWII theme along the way)
Gameplay: A (Hell yes! for all those fancy weapons… And they were original too)
Design/Art: B- (Not that they’re bad, but not all the original either)
Music: C (unmemorable, but not bad.)
Overall: B (I enjoyed it. And then forgot it. Haven’t bought Resistance 2 either.)

Silent Hill: Homecoming
-western take on the survival horror legend-
Story: A- or B+ (Not silent hill level, really, but still nice enough)
Gameplay: B (Creepy, yet the aiming works)
Design/Art: A- (pretty sick, but that’s what horror needs I guess. The Bosses is where it really shines.)
Music: S (It’s Akira Yamaoka, how can you be wrong? “One more soul to the call” is awesome beyond words)
Overall: B+ (Great game. Not the NEXT great Silent Hill game, but a fresh start for the genre)

Soul Calibur IV
-almost plotless fighting-
Story: C (Story mode is too short and meaningless. Also who the hell thought that Darth Vader was a nice addition?)
Gameplay: B+ (Soul Calibur’s pros and cons are their best)
Design/Art: A (I love Hilde. And everybody else was slightly redesigned for this. They’re flashy and memorable, as fighting characters should be)
Music: B (Usual epic stuff, I’ll be saying that a lot)
Overall: B

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
-wasted plot and nice physics-
Story: D+ (It had the balls to give Vader a secret apprentice and then flushed any good ideas they could have used. Vader had a secret apprentice, and nothing else is really interesting.)
Gameplay: B (It was original, but flawed. Not nearly as deep as it could’ve been)
Design/Art: B (Star wars, not much to say, except that the Apprentice is bland)
Music: C (Star Wars music can be fun only so many times)
Overall: C (overhyped, not that good really. The story really killed it for me.

Street Fighter IV
-let’s get fugly!-
Story: C (What story? I barely understood anything.)
Gameplay: B+ (Pretty awesome, but a tad too difficult for me. But it’s my fault I’m not skilled)
Design/Art: A (Trendy ink is awesome!)
Character Design: D- (Why are they so ugly and dumb? That was intentional!)
Music: B (Jpop is nice, but overall not memorable)
Overall: B (Too fugly to look at and too difficult to master straight away)

001 Ninja dogs have PRIDE! but I'm not one of them.

Hey.
I passed all the exams at the University and am FREE!
Well I’m still wasting time with stuff…

First of I started playing Ninja Gaiden ∑

Oh boy. I read it was hard, but I figured, what the heck, I passed DMC on Dante Must Die, so I’ll manage…
And I fell through the trap door in the first level 9 times…
And the bosses. Hell even simple mounted enemies are H-A-R-D.

The combos can’t be interrupted. The enemies gang up on you. And what the f is up with Ryu’s jump? And I bet you don’t want to hear about the camera either…

On the 2nd level – the airship (how does Ryu stow away when he’s a highly visible shiny black latex ninja?) I found a killzone, with tons of enemies I figured there’s something of value there and tried killing off all of them. And I couldn’t.
After dying a lot I saw the “Do you wish to abandon the way of the ninja?”. I thought it was a different variable continue screen. But it’s not…

Oh so it’s a difficulty-down screen? Like in Onimusha, when ya die 3 times you get the offer to switch to easy. But I just said
“I’m hardcore. That just how I roll…” © SpoonyOne
And ignored it.

But after dying 6 or more times I decided to try it…

I got a “Are you sure?” screen – why not, my ninja ass hit the floor only so many times.

“Are you really sure?” – screen – oh come on I already swallowed my pride…

Then Ayane (or generic Hayabusa-village girl) shows up and taunts you for being “overestimated” and changes the difficulty from NORMAL to NINJA DOG. Ninja dog? That’s kinda offensive, but hey, it’s your fault you suck…

And on the “easy” dog setting – I still get my ass handed to me!

Damnit Ryu…

So I figured, if they kick me around either way – might as well have them kick me around on NORMAL… And just switched back to the “Ninja way”

Surprisingly after 9 more deaths I actually got the hang of it and beat them on NORMAL. Whoo.

It’s true when they say that, Ninja Gaiden is hard, but it feels really, REALLY, rewarding when you get to it…

Hooray for me and those 2 katanas…

I’ll do a ‘Stylistics’ review of Ninja Gaiden ∑, when I beat it.

Oh and I started taking my drawing skills back to work condition. I still suck, but hey “Good artists are crappy artists who never gave up”


Till later...

Sylistics: Titles.

OK. Welcome once again to 3-6-9, and today we’ll dive into Stylistics. 
Today I’ll talk about titles in videogames. And I don’t mean titles as in franchises, but as in their names and their style.

Now I won’t go into this really deep and all this is just an observation and not an serious science study.
But how did titles look in the 80s and 90s? They were big and artsy, always trying to invent some new font and be all individual.

Examples?






And it wasn’t limited only to the western market.
Take a look at this.


What is that, you ask? It’s final fantasy. They’re usual FFy font wasn’t there yet.
And FFII was



It carried on into the 2000s with things many thing, like Halo for example.


But that’s oldschool now. The new trends are attacking. Watch out for the ‘plain fonts’ and ink attacks.

What are those? I’ll illustrate with Metal Gear Solid series. Cause Kojima always knew and followed style.

MGS1.



The first logo was on all the rules of it’s time. Those lines and the “M” and “R” stretching downward to the “solid”.

But as times changed the logo became…


No stylizations. Just Helvetica Ultra Compressed. A ‘plain font’. 
The ultimate principle that’s ‘Less is more’. It became more popular and subsequent MGS games all used it in one way or another.
The cause for this is also probably oversatisfaction and saturation with previous styles.

And this trend touched lots of other franchises.

Of course FF.



DMC3’s oldshool griny text.


To the simpler


And I’m sure many others.

Now let’s get to MGS4.
It had… this.



The old text, but with some added tricks. And it’s also pretty common. Again you can dilute plain fonts with symbols or artwork, like the FF began to…





Also there’s a tendency to make your plain text either beat up and falling apart 

But that’s the artwork of MGS4 cover, in game the title was different, and sadly I don’t have a pic of it. But here are the same pics of the same font.


It’s painted in ink, Japanese style.
That was possibly started or spearheaded by Okami (at least in videogames).


This is a game that was very unique in style and inspired tons of things to the ‘ink’ style, street fighter IV, prince of Persia and others. 

I guess it’s main characteristics would be flowing, blur, gritty and ext. (gone pretty far from Okami). The main idea is, that the title is not that easy to read. It’ a bit obscured by some style decision…

It’s influence in titles right now is minor, but I predict that it’ll go far.
It’s not limited to Japanese brush black ink (example Muramasa)



But also to just sloppy, hard to define or blurred text. I also put fragmented text here.



And there’s also a mix of both. Plain text with some minor obscurity.
As in



And this isn’t only limited to games.
Plain text.





Ink-blood obscurity


Plain text + obscurity (of the symbol being beat up or showed on the building not directly, but through flames.



So I see “Simplicity” and “Obscurity” as the the biggest trend in visual style nowadays. And I think there’ll be more obscurity…

See you later.
Signing off, Sieg.

3-6-9

Couldn't let this day go by without a post for 2 reasons.
1) It’s 03.06.09, which mirrors the name of the blog
2) It just happens to be my birthday. ;)

So maybe you were wondering why the blog is called 3-6-9.
Well it’s cause I like abnormal names for things and cause those 3 numbers are kind of present in many-many things I do. For starters as I mentioned my birthday, which is 03.06.1989.
Many of the registration numbers I receive have them in one way or another.

I don’t believe in numerology, but I do believe that with persistence, you can find it anywhere.
And I just like abnormal names for things.

See you next time, when I rant about something else… 

000 Introductions are unnecessary

Yo.
It’s me, Zeke Axel, Sieg-sama or Shirokurou.
This blog is something I wanted to do for a long time now.
I’m planning to rant about and subsequently review certain manga.

And finally – draw an online manga. Which is still a long ways off, due to my drawing skills…

Congratulations on reading a as-of-yet useless intro.

See you tomorrow.