Playing Tekken 6 on PSP. Graphics are a bit better than 5 but other than that, it’s an absolute mess. I will delve into the mediocrity in great detail at another time.
@nessisonett Oh noes! After your semi-positive thoughts on Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection I was kinda expecting to read about improvements (graphics notwithstanding). Will you struggle on, or abandon it?
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger Considering ‘story mode’ has been reduced to 4 fights with zero incidental dialogue, I’ve put it on the easiest setting with only 1 round. Even then the boss character is cheap. I’ll muddle through for the plot and then it’s just 7 I’ve got left which I bought on PS4 as it’s on sale! I do have Tag Tournament 2 as well but not really sure of the best version to get, might get the Wii U one because of the Nintendo outfits.
@nessisonett Yikes. I respect your perseverance for the plot's sake, even though it doesn't sound like there's much of it to stick around for. Playing on PS4 should feel like a vast leap forward, at least!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger From what I understand, the PS3 version had a big story mode that was mostly terrible and was a sort of expansion of the Tekken Force mode seen in earlier games. It contained an arena inside that mode, which served as the basis for the version in the PSP game. A couple of rivals with no dialogue, your Mishima of choice and then Azazel, a big purple mess that takes up half the screen. Considering 5: DR had 8 rounds, 2 rivals with in-engine cutscenes, voiced prologues and interesting epilogues, it’s a big step back on that front. Still, it was pretty late in the PSP’s lifecycle so perhaps I’m hampering my experience a little compared to the excellent port of 5.
@nessisonett That was the problem with the PSP because it straddled two console generations, so it was designed to handle proper ports of PS2 games, but eventually got outclassed by the PS3. I guess developers could take the risk (like with Tekken 6, which would sell well regardless of quality) or just abandon the idea of a PSP port when it came to multiplatform games.
Reminds me of that terrible Spider-Man: Web of Shadows game I played a while back.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger I think the sad thing is that the game actually handles well, the gameplay’s great and the graphics are good. They just skimped on content.
@RogerRoger I got it for £20 on a UMD so naturally I ripped it onto my PC so I could transfer it over to my Vita. Not extortionate but still not what I’d pay for it!
@nessisonett Oof... yeah, that's roughly what I paid for that Spider-Man game, too. Retro gaming can be a bit of a value-for-money gamble sometimes but, as you say, could've been worse.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
In an effort to mix things up, I started Rainbow Six Vegas 2 earlier.
Off the bat, it's a huge improvement over its predecessor which, on the PS3 at least, ran like an octogenarian with the flu. Once again, the prologue takes place far from Las Vegas, but it's set in a bright alpine location, providing far more colour and drama than the brown-on-brown urban slog from before. The overall visual quality is much sharper, and firefights feel fairer as a result (even if I'm hopelessly rusty, so spent a pleasant couple hours being handed my butt).
I also really liked the introduction of character customisation, giving me a range of male and female presets to choose from. I've selected a very handsome African-American chap for my first playthrough, but I reckon it'd be fun to play as female Special Ops someday, given how rare the option is.
The audio is still broken, though. Incidental dialogue can frequently drown out my squadmates, who themselves are louder than my earpiece briefings, leading to an overlapping cacophony of unintelligible noise which I just had to blank. There is also a spectacular amount of SFX lag, with my gunfire sounds rattling off a good three or four seconds after I've pulled the trigger. It highlights how vital audio is to an action game, as I was forced to scour the HUD for a pop-up confirmation of my muted kills because I wouldn't be hearing the victorious "argh, thud" of each dead terrorist quick enough. I'd stay out of cover, thinking they'd fallen when they hadn't (resulting in my getting shot) or worse, thinking they hadn't when they had (resulting in me giving an innocent wall a good seeing to, wasting ammo whilst the next villain in sequence draws a bead on me and lo, I'm still getting shot).
That issue aside, I'm up for another short campaign full of orange-flavoured soft drinks, and am therefore looking forward to blasting through the rest of its set-pieces over the weekend.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
If things weren’t bad enough with Tekken 6 on PSP, it’s crashed on me while saving twice now, both times wiping my data. This... is not ideal. At least I haven’t lost anything worthwhile as I’m just playing through the story modes for each character and throwing it into the nearest bin but still, another nail in its coffin.
Making some proper progress in Assassin’s Creed 2, strangely I think the PC version has the DLC included so I’ll be starting that as part of the main story tomorrow. Still have no clue why the base game jumps from Sequence 11 to 14 and the DLC is sequences 12 and 13, that’s insane. Imagine selling an actual part of the main story, utterly bonkers.
I bit the bullet and started up Syphon Filter as a PSone Classic on my PS3.
Not sure whether I'll play the entire franchise one after the other, or use them as intermediary distractions; I'll see how gripped I remain by the end of this first game. I'll be skipping The Omega Strain on PS2 anyway, as I still have nightmares about its demo, but I do have the pair of PSP games downloaded and installed on my PS Vita, so I'm keen to get to them.
Anyway, my early thoughts are mostly positive. They're sprinkled with semi-nostalgic recollection as well, since I owned and played Syphon Filter 2 back in the day and there's some environment re-use going on (although it's back-to-front for me; I had no idea the PharCom Expo Centre was a copy and paste job, regardless of the fresh approach they give it second time around). It's quite tricky in places, but in an acceptable "this is an old game, so cut it some slack" kinda way. It's unquestionably more accessible and straightforward than its contemporaries, especially when compared to Metal Gear Solid.
Still haven't been brave enough to abuse its famous taser, but mostly that's because I'm opting to stay as stealthy as possible (and screams from an immolation-in-progress tend to raise the alarm). I'm sure I'll find a safe place to test it out eventually.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@TheFrenchiestFry I've never been brave enough to play the first Metal Gear (beyond a five minute curiosity dabble). Despite having to lean on a guide, are you enjoying the experience?
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
Started Assassin’s Creed Revelations. It’s a strange game, it feels like they kinda ran out of ideas. I quite like the setting and it’s cool playing as older Ezio but the series needs a bit of a shakeup. Hopefully 3 delivers.
@nessisonett Well, with AC3 you finally get to leave Renaissance Europe, so there’s at least a shake-up in the setting.
And actually, I recently said something about the paucity of Native American representation in gaming (in reference to Aloy and the Horizon Zero Dawn artistic and aesthetic vibe), and AC3 is one of the few chances you get to delve into that culture. The shift in focus to American history may not be of interest to most but I quite liked AC3. The major gameplay advance is the introduction of ships, seafaring, and naval battles, which of course became a huge focus in Black Flag, Rogue, and even in Origins and Odyssey. Despite this major innovation and the unique setting and cultural representation, most players and critics call AC3 one of the weakest of the mainline games, and I don’t know why. Personally, I liked it leagues better than AC4, but I know I’m in a small minority.
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