God DAMN I want to play all of Dead Rising. I got to play through about 65% of the story tonight at a friend's house and I just want to keep playing it (probably played about five or so hours). It's too bad that it is the only game for 360 that I want... if only it was on PS3 then I would have got one months ago.

It is just so awesome. I can't find anything wrong with it... aside from there not being more stuff you can use to beat zombies with. It is the ultimate zombie game and will only be surpassed by it's sequel, if it is ever made (hopefully THAT one will come to PS3).

People complain about the save system. I don't see what is wrong with it. You save, if you die, that's your fault and you get to try again. It's just like the good old days of gaming. It makes the game more challenging and makes you strategize more... do I clear a path through the zombies with my trusty sledgehammer and risk getting hit or do I just book it through them and hope I don't get caught but have a higher chance of not getting hit? It works and really couldn't be made better aside from going and giving it full quicksaving, which would remove any challenge whatsoever.

That and it's got one of the most attractive and "real" female game characters I have ever seen in a game, Jessie. She doesn't dress scantily (aside from showing a lot of juicy cleavage), she is chubby and curvaceous (like most real women, not models) and she just seems like any normal woman you would meet on the street. Just like a lot of the characters in that game, she is extremely "believable," which is what makes the game even better.

What I also find to be pretty damn awesome is the main guy in charge of everything, Brad, shares a couple things in common with me. Our name is the same and he's a badass. He took charge of the situation and didn't get freaked out or started crying like most of the other "men" in the game. That and he looks just like Ving Rhames from the Dawn of the Dead remake. He just needs a shotgun and he's set.

I just couldn't get enough of the game. It just consumed me like the zombies consume the flesh of their victims. Those cult guys were extraordinarily creepy... *shudders* and I first got to see them in broad daylight, I couldn't imagine what they appear like in the night... *shudders some more* It must be those masks.

I had spent a fair bit of time at my other friend's house just messing around on his complete file but once I got into the story and doing the rescuing, it got even better and more enjoyable. All it needs is some deeper RPG elements (both gameplay wise and story wise), some more stuff to kill zombies with and some bigger and better areas to do it in and it is pretty much the closest thing to a "perfect" game as you could possibly get. If the second one gets set in the town or something similar to that town, I don't know what I would do... >_>

Over the past few days I have been watching the two GITS movies.

There really isn't much to say. They are outstanding anime films with absolutely stunning soundtracks, great stories, awesome characters and beautiful settings and animation.

Now I have to get the Stand Alone Complex and the manga and really get into it. The whole "cyborg/existentialist/cyberpunk" theme of the series really has me intrigued and wondering why I took so long to watch them.

I don't want to get ahead of myself but so far GITS is as impressive to me as Neon Genesis Evangelion and is already making me question which one I like more. However, it still is no match for the Rebuild of Eva.

Ratings:

Ghost in the Shell (1995): 5/5 stars
Ghost in the Shell: Innocence (2004): 5/5 stars

I would like to be able to separate the two with a gap in the rating, such as giving the first one 4/5 stars, because I found the second one to be such a major improvement over the first in terms of visuals, action and story-telling. But the first one is still fantastic and good in its own right. Comparing them and moving the ratings around because I enjoyed the second one more even though they are equally fantastic movies would be unscrupulous reviewing.

[/obvious shot at Gamespot reviewing standards]

Now don't get me wrong, the proper usage of the silent protagonist can be beneficial to a narrative and make immersion that much better. For instance, the player character in Persona 3 is designed to be the "shell" in which you the player are supposed to use as your medium to become part of the game world.

But there is one "silent" protagonist that I will just not stand for:



She doesn't say much but when she does open her mouth you cannot help but listen. From the beginning the intention behind Samus Aran was not as that of Gordon Freeman. She is not a vessel in which you implant your own personality in and become the person in the Power Suit. She is a human being with her own thoughts and feelings of whom we must come to understand and connect with on a personal level. We are not Samus. Samus is herself.

She is a character who has a developed personality and history. Nintendo themselves have released a game (Metroid: Fusion) in which they not only have her narrating the events in the game and pouring out her innermost feelings but actually speaking vocally to other characters present.

On top of that they have also released an official manga (translated into English here) detailing the early years of her life before the events in the first Metroid game that gives her a full and complete speaking role.

If Samus Aran was intended to be a silent protagonist, an empty shell for us the players to imagine ourselves as, instead of a character with her own unique personality to which we must empathize with, then Nintendo would have made all of the Metroid games with no single thing coming from her own perspective, whether actual spoken words or recorded logs detailing her thoughts (the opening of Super Metroid).

Just because she does not speak often doesn't mean that she is a "silent protagonist." Samus is a woman with a unique personality that amazingly (and ironically considering so many people view her as a silent protagonist) goes well beyond most female characters in the gaming world today. Metroid: Fusion alone shows us what kind of human being she is. A caring person who respects life and fights for justice to protect the innocent.

Not since the debut of StarCraft II has a teaser trailer made me cry. I have never even been a Diablo fan either but Blizzard really knows how to impress. With every incarnation of CG cutscenes they make, they improve upon their previous work. Blizzard truly are masters of their domain.

Diablo III Media

If both StarCraft II and Diablo III hit in 2009 I don't know what I am going to do. I guess this means I have to go and get the Diablo Battlechest and sit down and finally get around to going through both games.

After watching that trailer I really am sure now that Blizzard needs to start making feature-length CG films.

---

So the gameplay trailer finally finished downloading... O_O

I really have nothing to say. I must play Diablo III. Destrutible environments, new cIass, unique armour that has different appearances, male and female versions of every cIass, beautiful environments (I laugh at the people who complain about them, they are stunning) and what looks to be even better gameplay over the second iteration.

I don't know... 2009 is shaping up to be a pretty hefty competitor against 1998 for being "the greatest year of gaming." StarCraft II AND Diablo III? 1998 had just StarCraft...

The more and more I look into all of Blizzard's stuff the more and more I want to play World of WarCraft... I just wish it wasn't a MMORPG that cost $15 a month to play. The lore, story and world just seems so interesting yet the game itself is just so unappealing. Why couldn't it have been a single player RPG?

Steam has announced a HUGE update for Day of Defeat: Source. Player stats, 51 achievements and a new map. I am at a loss for words... nearly three years after its release and it is still getting updates. Long live VALVe and PC gaming!

I have played DoDS on and off since it came out in late 2005 (I started playing DoD1.3 seriously earlier that year). For a while I was a fantastic player (most public servers I went onto I could be on top of a team in a few rounds) and loved the game. Now with this update I will have to get back into it... and since I have so many other games to play this summer, I'm not going to be leaving my house except to go to work now. >_>

Hopefully I can meet some new people before my life completely disappears.

The time just disappears in Tartarus. For those of you who read my last rant about the game I was more than successful in beating (it was more of a massacre than anything else) the 10th and 11th Full Moon Shadows, I went from level 30 to level 43 in six game days in around seven actual hours (I actually had time left to do nothing and let time pass).

Now I stand right after the 12th Full Moon shadow, level 56, the ****-storm plot twist has dropped, I am on the verge of being able to fuse the best Persona's in the game (Melchizedek, the ultimate Justice Persona is first up) and nothing will stand in my way anymore because I am shooting for the top of Tartarus and won't ever have a problem with being under leveled again.

It is a damn good game. My only real complaints so far have been 1) some of the voice actors (Fuuka Yamagishi and some secondary characters) inability to actually "act," but this is a case with a lot of localized Japanese media, 2) the lack of save points after major boss fights (after I beat the 12th FM Shadow, it took about an hour before I could even get to a save, which made me very uncomfortable) or in general and 3) the copious amounts of Personas that will take me forever to collect (not a bad thing, just a complaint... >_>).

This is easily the best JRPG I've played for a long time. I ironically noticed that it resembles Pokemon a great deal, at least in that you collect a bunch of "monsters" and you kind of store them in your "pocket." But at least with Persona 3, all the Persona designs are incredibly cool and "mature." They aren't cuddly and cute stuffed animals who look like they couldn't beat a mouse... many of them are scary and gruesome and many of them look like they could crush you just by looking at you.

I do have other games to play this summer but I really want to go through it again and max out all the social links so I can get all the ultimate Personas (if I can't do it by the end of either The Journey or The Answer). Like come on... mother ****ing Odin and Thanatos! (Emperor and Death Arcana, two of the five Arcanas I have maxed out, out of the total 22...ugh...).

EDIT: Oh yes, and I decided that I will be playing Chrono Cross after Persona 3. I've been dying to play it for years now and finally have a copy of the game (I played it many years ago back when it came out and never got far into it since I was just borrowing it from a friend).