Event Aftermath: PlayStation Philippines Launch

Sony made a new milestone in the Philippines as they unveil the release of the PlayStation in the local market. The said launch event was held at the Glorieta Activity Center last March 27-28. The whole weekend at that time was filled with activities such as preview of their best selling games and free play of the latest games from God of War 3 to Final Fantasy XIII for the PlayStation 3 and Roco Loco 2 to Resistance Retribution for the PlayStation Portable.







On Saturday the event featured a cosplay competition where participants cosplay their favorite anime or gaming characters to get a chance to win a PlayStation 3.





Then on Sunday it was all about gaming tournaments with Tekken Dark Ressurrection on the PSP and Ridge Racer 7 on the PS3 was held on that day, with a prize of a PlayStation 3 and a Final Fantasy XIII game for the winners of each tournament.
And players who registered on the Launch event get a chance to win a PS3 in the raffle.







Although there were no major announcements of any new game releases, it is still unsure whether PlayStation Philippines will provide easier DLC access and more community support in the local market, but it is still nice to see that Sony has now recognized the Philippines as one of the major gaming community.







You can visit the Official Philippine site of Sony PlayStation

Survive with the Zombie Flowchart

What happens if there was a zombie apocalypse today? Will you survive? or even just for a day or two?

Well with the help of the zombie flowchart (from GameInformer) you can survive the zombie assault (well maybe extend your survival rate)

Read the flowchart and get lol'ed with some references of famous survival video games.

Download the full image here

A Very Secret Surprise

Looks like there's a very special surprise for players who played God of War 3 in the PlayStation 3 console.
Players who earned a Platinum Trophy in the game gives them a very interesting reward: a link to a secret page, with the link entitled "Spartans Stand Tall".

For now, the teaser site only reveals falling rain and a shield on the upper right corner, which could possibly a timer or some sort.



Many are speculating that it could be a God of War 3 DLC or even the much rumored PSP version, sequel or maybe a spin-off of God of War.

The same kind of teaser also happened when they announce God of War: Chains of Olympus where they also revealed a secret website hidden in God of War 2 for the PlayStation 2.

You can visit the secret website HERE

Fat Princess Fistful of Cake Game Review

The PlayStation Network's (PSN) widely recognizable game, Fat Princess, has just arrived on the portable console with a longer title: Fat Princess Fistful of Cake. With more maps and gaming modes and more humor, will the portable version gets the same excitement as from the console version?




For those who haven't played the original Fat Princess, here's how the game works: in the default game mode (Rescue the Princess), the game revolves on storming the enemy's castle and rescuing the princess, but watch out, as the opposing force is also attempting to rescue their princess that is imprisoned on your castle. To slow the enemy's pace on rescuing their princess, you feed the princess with cakes scattered around the game map, the more you feed, the fatter the princess gets, making her larger and more difficult for the enemy to carry princess out of your castle.



You can get to select five different classes (Warrior, Mage, Priest, Ranger and Worker) by picking up a hat that is generated by the hat machine inside your castle. You can upgrade your castle to fortify its gates, create catapults so your troops can infiltrate the enemy castle faster and even improving your hat machines to upgrade your character classes like rangers using muskets, warriors using spears and so on.





Aside from the Rescue the Princess mode, there are other modes like Demolition, where you attempt to plant a giant bomb on the enemy castle and set it to explode before the enemy does that to your castle and many more.

The portable version is almost the same as with the console version, but instead of 32 players, the games is limited to 24 players, and only allow 8 real players (the rest are controlled by the computer), but what's better on the PSP port is that it's 50% bigger than the original, with more maps and modes, and also a single player campaign that composes of 15 chapters which at the same time gives you an introduction to Fat Princess and it's basic gameplay. The story is introduced in a story book-like presentation with added internet humor to make the presentation funny and entertaining.



The single player mode will give you a few hours of pure mayhem, but the best asset on this game is the multiplayer mode, you can select from Ad-Hoc to Infrastructure to join multiplayer matches, sadly it's only limited to 8 players and rest will be AI-controlled. The lack of voice chat from the original is a bit letdown as this will be difficult to coordinate with your teammates online.


Music and the sound effects are okay, with the quirky and crazy voice overs still retain the humor, the music tracks are catchy too.

Fat Princess Fistful of Cake is one great game, as it also stays faithful to the original game with more added content. The single player mode may be short, one of it's best feature is its multiplayer capability, a great choice to play with your friends, in short, it's an all-in-one package. So if you are looking for a new kind of game for you and your friends, this one is for you.

Game Rating: 8 out of 10

Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake was developed by SuperVillain Studios and published by Sony Computer Entertainment America

Faces: Lunar Silver Star songs

For this episode of Faces, we'll be focusing on the different versions of Lunar Silver Star, but for this case, it's more on the songs.



The first Lunar Silver Star was released on 1993 on the Sega CD under the name Lunar The Silver Star, then a remake for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn entitled Lunar Silver Star Story Complete was released on 1998, a portable remake for the GameBoy Advance (Lunar Legend) in 2001 and another remake was followed on 2009 this time for the PlayStation Portable with the title Lunar Silver Star Harmony (Harmony of Silver Star in Japan)

There were two songs with vocals in the two remakes and one for the original version. The two songs were Wings (Opening song) and Nocturne of the Wind (the Boat song), the original version has a different song and it was removed from the remake versions.

Ironically, Jenny Stigile, sang both the songs of the two remakes, but the two remakes had different lyrics both the opening and the boat songs. The Japanese version still retains the PSone version songs on the PSP version.

For my personal take, I like the PSone version of Wings and the PSP version for Nocturne of the Wind.

To find out more, you can check out the songs from the different versions of Lunar Silver Star:

SEGA CD

Intro


Japanese version
Click here


PlayStation version

Wings


Japanese version
Click here


Nocturne of Wind


Japanese version
Click here


PlayStation Portable version

Wings

Nocturne of Wind

Take the Epic Gamer IQ Test

Think you're a hardcore gamer? Think you know every character of every game?
Think you know some of the classic titles?



If you are, then you better take this hardcore gamer IQ test, if you think you got the balls and the wits to name all of the characters (and some hidden) in this massive picture of more than 400 of them from more than 300 game?

If you're ready then proceed to the link below and start naming all of them, much like in Pokemon, but more like "gotta name 'em all" rather than "gotta catch 'em all"

Click to view the full picture

Komikon Summer de Avance

KOMIKON SUMMER DE AVANCE
April 17, 2010, Saturday, 10am - 8pm
UP Bahay ng Alumni, UP Diliman, Quezon City
Entrance Fee: P50.00 (NO PRICE HIKE!)

Source: komikon.deviantart.com

Ozine Fest 2010

Ozine Fest 2010
April 9-11, 2010
SM Megamall, Megatrade Halls 1 & 2

Activities:
Ozine Maid Cafe
Cosplay Competition
K-Pop and J-Pop Dance Competition
Karaoke Contest
Plus many more...

Booths:
Online & Console Game
Anime Toy Displays
Many other activity booths

Dante's Inferno PSP Game Review

Electronic Arts (EA) and Visceral Games just unleashed the PlayStation 3 game Dante's Inferno to the PlayStation Portable system. Will the portable version be a hit for the on-the-go gamers or will it fail to meet the same intense action?

Dante's Inferno is inspired on the Inferno, the first book from Dante Alighieri's epic poem, "The Divine Comedy". The story revolves on Dante, a knight from the Third Crusades, who tries to rescue his murdered wife's soul, Beatrice from Lucifer, who tries to make her as his bride so he can escape from Hell and tries to take over the Throne of God. and Dante has to pursuit Lucifer and take him down, but he has to face Lucifer's minions in the nine Circles of Hell and also his wicked past before the can reclaim his beloved wife.






At the first glance, you would probably compare Dante's Inferno to another popular action game (ehem* God of War anyone?) although it looks and feels like God of War, there are still some original stuff on it. One of these was having a unique character development system called the Absolve or Punish System, where you can choose to develop your Holy or Unholy skills depending on how you eliminate your opponents. You can also get exp points for your skills by punishing or absolving lost souls such as Pontious Pilate, Elektra and other historical figures that appeared in The Divine Comedy poem.






The controls are somewhat similar to God of War, so players who played GoW will have to trouble playing Dante's Inferno. The combat is as usual, intense similar to GoW,which can make the game a bit unoriginal.




The Graphics is still good, but not that very impressive, what makes it up for it are the cut scenes, instead of in-game scene, they take the cutscenes from the PS3 version, making it more entertaining to watch, and they manage to fit almost most of the important scenes without sacrificing the quality.





Sounds are mediocre, the soundtrack is very few and feels as if they are all the same tracks. Sound effects is still good, from the sound of the scythe swinging to the screech of the damned souls. Voice acting is pretty impressive, as well as the script, it feels as if you are watching a Hollywood movie.

Some of the major drawbacks is the frequent loading sequences, every time you enter a cutscene, the game loads for a couple of seconds, and you'll encounter this very often. Another is the lack of replay value, after completing the game (which can be done in around 5-6 hours), you'll be entertained with a comic book feature and a hard mode, but it would been nice if they had some more unlockables like a challenge mode feature and new weapons and costumes.

Overall,for a portable version of Dante's Inferno, the game is still good if you want more intense action games and if you want to experience how the gameplay of the PS3 version would feel like, or if you just want to play a God of War-like game. Although the game was good, it still can't beat the incredible experience the portable version of God of War was able to provide. But you still shouldn't miss out this game, with an epic storyline and great gameplay, despite having the frequent loading issues, it's still worth to be added in your gaming collection.

Game Rating: 8 out of 10

Dante's Inferno was published by Electronic Arts and developed by Visceral Games.