Review: Just Cause 2

It was mere coincidence that i got to play this game, someone borrowed it to me whil he was on vacation and so i got the chance to test it out.

I honestly didn't had a clue what to expect from this game but the start wasn't promising, it cutscenes were lagging like hell, so i needed to turn down the graphs, not that i care about them, but even with high settings, there was some delay on the visual output. after the cutscene were the sound ended a minut before the the visual was done i was soarinf trough the sky and plumeting towards mother earth only to get close to my death comrade who was shot out of the helicopter and who had my pda, also i don't know his name. Then i safly pull my parachute out of nowhere and land neaby a militairy instalation on the island of Panau.

At this point i did not gain any intrest for the game, but then i got to test the grappeling hook, from that point on, the game was fun. In this game you can blow up militairy installations and you get paid for it, you have a whole island to explore and more then enough towns and militairy basas to destroy. Although the targets you need to destroy are mostly the same (Water towers, broadcast towers, satelite discs, fuel tanks, gas tanks, pipelines, AA sites and i can go on) so after a while (about 20 houres of destruction , you feel that it is getting dull and the missions do not bring any change in this. You got several sorts of missions, agency missions for the good old USA, territory missions for the rebels on Panau to gain new terretory (duh) and faction missions for those rebels to make their fight more easy (because you do all the work) those missions except for the agency doesn't really differ from the usual destruction you leave in your wake. Everywhere you go, you either destroy and flee or capture and flee, both are fun in the beginning, but later on its boring.

Storywise is this game a joke, its nothing were decent and posseses nothing entertaining (except for a few cutscenes) but this game doesn't really need a story, the story is only there to give you a reason to blow things up. At somepoint i wished that they left the story behind and said : " here, your job is to destroy everything you meet so get to it, you get objectives, fullfill them for stuff and parts.".

like i said you can explore a whole island, so you can also find parts to upgrade your weapons and vehicles, you can buy them from the black market, but they only deliver one item at a time, that means when you need explosives ( and those you need a lot), and ammo for your 2 weapons
you gonna need to call the black market seller 3 times
and watch the cutscenes of him comming and going ( yes i am aware you can skip them, but most of the time you forget that). transporting yourself across the landscape to a certain point is a pain in the ass, because helicopters are dull and slow, airplanes hard to control, the same for cars, after a while i got used to traveling with my parachute, it was fatser then the car (no need to get on the road, trough the jungle) i have seen and done many things in order to get to my obective (transportation by the black market seller helped to).

Your grapple hook is your friend, you can do the most awsome stuff with it, like grappeling and pulling yourself to a driving car or grapple the car and apply the other end with the ground (in a chase this is really handy) overall the gameplay is good.

So what i think is, if you like destruction/explosions/mowing down lots of soldiers with diffirent kind of weapons this is your game. If you are looking for a good story, don't try this, it wil strike as a huge dissapointment.

anime: Dance in the Vampire Bund

Intruduction
Japan is shaken when the Vampire Queen reveals herself in a tv show and claims to create a place for vampires. The next day, a high school boy named akira is approached by that Queen who ask if he remebers the promise.

I would rank this as a weird anime, the story is decent but sometimes hard to follow. Personalities of your main characters are well designed, altough i didn't was really fond of that lolita Queen. i believe the ending was a total mess and i'm still wondering how we got to such an ending.

Overall i would say to only watch this if you like vampire series, those who like vampires will have their fill. Its also a bit filled with ecchi stuff, so be carefull befor you decide to see it.

Anime: Kiba

Introduction
Zed, a 15 year boy, would be your above average troublemaker, whenever he sees a door he get the urge to smash the door. Because of his behaviour in public his friend Noah, who covers for him, try to talk to Zed, why he breaks door. Zed is feeling like a bird in a cage, sufficating and boring. zeds mother is hospitalised and doesn't seem to see Zed at all. When Zed is accused of a fire he didn't start, he runs away, is assautled by a strange creature that calls him a shard caster and then captured by the police. Noa who have seen Zed fighting the creature tries to save zed by releasing him by force. Unknowing of Noa, Zed escapes in the confusion and runs to his hideout, there a portal appears and takes zed to another world.

The first episode of this anime is a bit depressing, my first impression would be that it wouldn't last long before i call it quits. But the second episode changed everything, you get in a cheerfull environment and get to know a lot of characters that have interesting personalities. The rest of the story develops in a nice way, they like to suprise you with new areas every 6 episodes.

The story itself is decent enough, i had my questions at certain parts, but it wasn't anything that could burn it into the ground. I even came to like Zed mentality, he was in the search for power, but also want to know if he needs that power. Now to be honest, the first time i saw Zed i figured he was an evil guy, because of that mean look in his eyes.

The one thing that really annoys me is that you don't have a clear understanding of who can beat who, i had several times thought: he is weaker, beat him.

Now overall, i would say it is a decent story and is worth the watch if you like magic in battle with some star wars rippedoff swords.i don't recommend that you make time for it, watch when you have time should be better.

Code Geass Season 3

This post contains spoilers about the story from season one and season 2, do not read it, if you haven't seen them yet.

The reason why i wanted to make this post is not about conformation of season 3, but more to tell why i don't want to see a season 3.

After going around on some forums, i noticed that a lot of people are saying that a season3 is comming, they try to back it up by saying that lelouch isn't dead yet and always point out to the last scene where C.C lifts her head as she was talking to the driver who is supposed to be Lelouch.

For starters i want Lelouch to be dead, if he was alive and living in hiding with C.C that would totaly defeat the purpose of zero requim. Now i can hear you, but he got the global peace, I agree to that, but another achievement was to be killed bu Suzaku as redemption for Euphy. If getting killed by Suzaku means nothing, then their friendship is worth nothing as well, and the words he said would be meaningless to (Only those who are prepared to fire, should be fired at). If he was planning to live afterwards with the code that activates on death, for me that would totaly take the strenght and meaning of the ending away.

Now i got that clear, there is one other thing i want to say, IF they make another season, i hope they wont go further on what they have, i would rather want them to see making another story with new characters etc. The Geass have mass potentional, you can create so many stories with it, the story doesn't even need to be in the same timeframe or world. They could easily play a geass story in the medieval times or in another dimension, but if they somehow 'revive' Lelouch, i think i would be unable to watch the season.

Btw, a reason why lelouch doesn't have the code and so could revive is that the code should be taken and not recieved, i can state that by CC saying to VV "Charles,why did you take away VV codes at this point of time" meaning as soon the Geass user has the power he can choose when he takes the code. The second reason is that Charles grabs him but then disovles into the world of C, i believe that Charles isn't dead (also because i don't want him, his speeches are so good) and still has the code. Now i also agree that my second reason doesn't have much base but Lelouch is dead and stays dead.

anime: Trigun

Introduction
Vash the stampede is hunted all over the world because he is the man with 60 billion dollar on his head, being known as the ledgendary outlaw who destroyed the city july vash is avoided and consantly shot at. To prevent any more dammage, the Bernadelli insurance company sends 2 workers to look after vash making sure he doesn't destroy anything. While following Vash, also know as the humanoid typhoon, they learn that bad luck is all around him as he always tend to get into trouble.

This anime dates back from 1998 but is well made for its time, the story is above average although the end is not worth the watch. If you want to watch this, be sure you like western anime, although the story isn't worth that much, i garantee you going to love Vash, because of his childish acts in battles, he doesn't look like a ledgendary outlaw, but he knows how to overcome many battles.

Overall, this anime is worth seeing if you like western, the characters make a decent addon to the story, but the end was totaly worthless.

Review: Final fantasy XIII

Now i finaly finished the game, but to be honest i didn't like it at all.

For starters it lineair gameplay, they just set a marker for you to walk to for some cutscene or a boss fight, now mostly i don't really care that it would be lineair but this is off the charts; Normaly if i arrive in a town, i want to explore, explore and explore, now you just follow the path to the marker, no shops to visit, no NPC's to talk to (well sometimes they are there and reduced to nothing usefull to the game), there is nothing to interact with, just follow that orange thing on your minimap; I got the feeling i was walking trough a metro tunnel where the sideways were actualy painted to give me the idea i had freedom of choice. This goes on until you get to chapter 11, now you get in a huge area where you can explore, but not for long because they locked most of the pathways that goes from that huge area to another small area. Even from this chapter 11 i never had a good feeling of freedom, more a feeling like:"hey this is your new area, explore for half an hour, momma will be back by then so you can put back in the cage" and after you did the most you could from missions etc, you decide to go to the next area and guess what, we are back in the tunnels. Now i don't want to break it totaly down (if you are reading this i can hear you say: "Yeah, right") but this is depressing, in comparison with former final fantasy's this is really sad, now you can say: "final fantasy 10 was linear to, you just need to follow the marker", i say: " ok, but at least i could turn back to besaid island at the end of the game or had fun minigames.".

Now for the worst part, the story, i have a lot to say about that. For starters, WHAT WERE THEY THINKING, i mean the story they have come up with is waaaaaay below their usual lvl, i feel like they have listend to a 5 year old sputtering words while drawing something. The story is a mess, there were things that were so stupid, i was thinking: " this game has gone to hell", like i first stated in my review part 1 (or 2 whatever) your characters are retarded, snow Villiers in particular, he runs around yelling :" It was a sign of serah" every time something minor happends or when they got some luck and escaped death. Hope was the next in line, while losing his mother and becoming to hate snow for it, he is perfectly able to fight alongside him with not any troubles, that is really unrealistic in rpg games, even in final fantasy 9 some times the story had effect on your battles, like Dagger who lost her voice of the shock and is so unable to cast in combat, making her totaly useless, But hope has no troubles with that, If i was him i would have stopped healing snow and just run off. Lightning was then something strange, i have come to like her attitude, but the way she thinks was something that i didn't like, she goes from realistic to suicide attacker to someone who knows she is wrong but fails to do something about it. Sazh was the person who i liked the most, he is normal, he has funny comments, his actions are in the best way said something i expect from a final fantasy game. fang was then again a annoying character, even though she had bahamut as summon , i never found a good reason to put her into my team, or even listen to her rambling (i did listen for the story's sake). At last Vanille was the second closesd character that came to the final fantasy mindset, in someway she reminded me from vivi in final fantasy 9, lost, the feeling you're alone and many other things. The fact that the story isn't that great almost makes this game worthless, a final fantasy game is soley based on its great story. When i finaly reached the last boss (there are 3 of them) i had more trouble with the first of them, then i got with the last, they almost feel like routine bosses, "oh it has been 20 minutes, time for another boss" , most bosses doesn't really have anything special that really makes them bosses, they have high hp, much dmg, and some moves. So in short, this game story is really no worth the trouble of playing.

Next on the list is the endgame stuff you can gather, in short: almost nothing. Execpt for some material, you don't really get anything extra, some boss cource that are practicly ciet'h missions, but nothing that is worth to get, only the chocobo's are worth to find and unlocking the teleport stones, other than that there isn't much. Well you can upgrade your weapons, but it takes a lot of items just to get one weapon upgraded, so why bother to do all 8 of them for every character and don't forget the armlets etc, i beated the game with a star lvl helter skelter (or something like that) for lightning , that did the trick.

Now for its positive point, the graphics. Anywhere you look, you see details, enemy's well designed, the areas are something that i said: "oh my god" i can't denie it, it's so beautifull, but there is a downside, graphics don't matter to me in a game, i'm perfectly able to play a ps1 game graphics, as long the story is worth the trouble. What also come to my attention was the repeated use of enemy skins, how many times have i beated those flan creatures, so there weren't many different enemy types. next to that there is nothing bad to mention.

We move on to the next part. The FFX Sphere looking grid thingie. Here you can upgrade your character in a chosen role by spending CP earned in battles. Now i don't believe this is a bad system, but the roles are open to every one, making the person with the lowest hp the most useless one (and yeah that's Hope). because none of your allies are really unique, you only need a combination of characters, that have a decent hp and have usefull roles. All the roles are usefull, so i decided to implement Lightning into my party as my favorite commander with a sucky summon, followed by vannile who was the best healer in the group and as last there was Sazh, he is funny he is very usefull, he has the buffs and the magic. The grid doesn't give you much choice of where to go and what to learn, unlike FFX you can't go off that path and start learning another characters grid, here you need to follow it to the end.

The battle system, I agree that it works and it is ballanced, but it also makes the rpg element fade away, in other games where it was turn based, you could choose what you were gonna do and so control the battle, now you can hope for the best that your npc heals you instead of the other one. the paradigm system lets you control them to some extend, but not much, i have spend most of my time staring at my atb bar, my hp, and to my enemy life bar, i have absolutly no clue what is going on, on the battle field, i don't care, i'm just smashing the X button so auto combat would be selected, Yathzee from escapist does a good job explaining it watch it here. I don't want to select my actions into that bar, auto battle does it for me and hey i played it out with it, stacking them takes time, and when i have haste i'm wasting more time stacking then i would be smashing that auto button, so on that point the battle system is a serious letdown.

Now the music, for many years squaresoft and square enix were known for their high quality music, story and graphics, today it nearly grinded almost everything into dust. The music is not bad, but not outstanding either, when i was in chapter 13, the last steps from the boss, i heard a sound that made me think of final fanatsy 9 memoria, i wouldn't believe it, they don't even have the orginality to create new music, even in the battle, no victory music or nothing that even resembles that.


There isn't anything else for me to Fanrage on, i have took the trouble to summon up the wikipedia page and there was something that totaly shocked me rightout. Most of game reviewing magazines, rated this game actualy as a good game, at that moment i was thinking that square - enix must have bribed them all, i mean i agree that this was an higly anticipated game, but that doesn't mean you need to shove it bad points under the carpet. Or maybe it is because people only watch at the graphics, the better the graphics the better the game, bullshit, thats not true and will never will be, i have friends who say, that the game is good because "look at thoise graphics man, awsome" that doesn't imply that the game is fun.
Now if i would rate this game, it would be a 5/10, the bad story takes most of the points away. Also this game has no moogles ...

Now if i offended some people, or you want to argue, go ahead make me see why i was wrong. I will answer to people who give smart arguments, dumb arguments are left alone for other people to read and think: what the...

anime: Ghost In the shell: Stand alone complex

Introduction:
It is the year 2030, Cybernetic implants are a daily use, meaning without the use of a computer you an acces the internet or communicate with eachother. You follow the acticivities of a intelligence department calles section 9, a group of extraordinairy people who fought in the last war. By accident they stumble on the case called the laughing man witch happend 6 years prior to the story start. As they try to uncover the truth they learn that many parties are involved in this case and some of them are deadserious.

most anime about technology, be it mecha or sience fiction, i would probably like it, this one is no diffirent. I like they way how they gradualy set the gears of story in motion, the first episodes have nothing to do with the main story, they are only meant to show what and who the members are. Later on they set the start of the main story, progress with that and then give it a little break, later on they will once again continue with the story to the finale.

Although you got about 7 main members, you only get to know a few of them, you get more background on some members in season 2 but thats for later. As the main story continues you get to see how their thinking tanks actuly develop a mind of its own, a ghost as they mention it, but also the troubles that cybernetic implants bring with them.

The main story is well thought out and have almost no room for error, i especialy come to like the laughing man, he is a A+ class hacker with a good mind for justice, so i feel sorry they didn't adapt him in the second season.

overall for people who like this new technology thing it really a good to watch anime, for those who like to see some good battle scenes with guns, they can watch it to. Btw, in this anime, i haven't seen any katana ore somthing that resembles it so that really came to me as a surprise, mostly in any battle scene there is at least one person who wields a katana, and now i never seen it.

Anime: Code Geass Lelouch of the rebellion R1 & R2

From now on ill give a little introduction from the anime.

Lelouch Lamperouge is a high school student in the new Tokyo settlement, japan was taken over by the holy empire of brittannia and rename in area 11. Only a few people know that Lelouch is a banished prince from the Brittannian family and was send a year prior to the war to japan with his sister, carrying a great hate for his home country he swore to destroy it by any means.now as a high school student in the ashford acadamy( the ashford family knows of his heritage) e encounters a witch named C.C., she gives him the Geass, power of kings. The geass is diffirent from person to person and lelouch gains the power of absolute obedience, he must reamain eyecontact and say a command that the target cannot ignore or refuse, when the command goes against the personal wish the target could refuse but it will eventualy give in to the geass. Having this power lelouch have all means to fight against his home country and desides to organise the japanese rebbels into an army.

Because this is my favorite anime, i will try to be objective, but i don't know if i will be able to.

It was by mere accident that i discoverd this anime, having looked arouned on some forums i found this one in someones top 10 anime list of the year, being intrigued by it message saying: Lelouch>Yagami Light, I started watching season one, lucky for me season 2 was already airing so i could immidaitly follow where season one left off. This anime blew me away, it had everything except for good intro music, It had mecha, te geass, a smart protagonist, wide cast on characters and foremost a solid story.

I had seen much in anime already, but lelouch actions were outstanding, he could always come up with a battle plan to turn the tides in his favor and sometimes he did things that was so obvious that i would think someting like: Dammmmmmn. I also noticed that it handels a lot of irony like lelouch, a brittanian, is fighting against his country alongside the japanese and his friend Suzaku, a japanese, is fighting against the rebbels alongside Brittannia. I also have a need to say that our Japanese voice actors did a really good jobs(also those who editted the voice) because there was moer than enough scenes were i thought: if i could have a speech like that, it would make my day. A good example would be the speech of charles Di Brittannia in episode 6 of season one, by the end of it the

All Hail Brittannia

Gave me the chill, the same applies for episode 16 where both oppsoing parties scream out their battle scream.

Now what made lelouch great was the combination of its tatctics, theatrics as zero and his use of Geass. Being able to think so far ahead so he can use his geass to its maximum potetional is something that was able to make this story a succes, i can also note that lelouch was always prepared to shoulder the burden even if it was not his fault, when people ask about it, he would say that it was his fault.

Now i Know some people who where hesitant of watching this series because there were mecha in it, but they soon realised that you can perfectly delete the mecha and still have that awsome story, the mecha only makes it that tiny better because the geass is a story on itself, as you see more of the story the more complex it becomes, you need to do some thinking, but its not needed.

Overall i would recommend this anime to everyone, even those who doesn't like mecha anime.