I'm not going to go through this whole argument, as I've bitched about NG 2 so much already, but to put it shortly, all the refinements made to the combat system were, for me, completely ruined by terrible enemy and level design, horrible boss encounters, a tremendously bad camera and just general tedium in gameplay.
Like I said, I have no desire to play the game again. I thought it was, compared to the first game, utter shit. I hate it. But only because it took something as great as the combat/weapon system and completely pissed all over it by putting it into fucking Dynasty Warriors.
Oh God you got me started again :P
Nah, I guess we can all agree on that it's a good thing that Sigma 2 exists. Er, barring the whole blood thing.
Cherrn on
All creature will die and all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai.
I'm not going to go through this whole argument, as I've bitched about NG 2 so much already, but to put it shortly, all the refinements made to the combat system were, for me, completely ruined by terrible enemy and level design, horrible boss encounters, a tremendously bad camera and just general tedium in gameplay.
Like I said, I have no desire to play the game again. I thought it was, compared to the first game, utter shit. I hate it. But only because it took something as great as the combat/weapon system and completely pissed all over it by putting it into fucking Dynasty Warriors.
Chern, you're absolutely entitled to that opinion. I think Sigma was a sad excuse for a PS3 port, especially given what it was capable of, and had all the same camera problems of the original release--the primary differences being a new playable character and a severely dumbed down single player mode. The fact that it's basically divided up into tiny, tiny rooms with their own loading screen, like a game for an 8 year old console, and had invisible loading walls is just an insult the capacities of the PS3. Seriously, there is no fucking excuse after a hard drive installation for that many load screens. Especially if jumping back across the same area causes another one. Black was superior in terms gameplay, and it had a third the loading time.
Basically, it's Ninja Gaiden Lite with horrible memory management. Doesn't change the fact that I bought it, though, and still play it--I enjoy those games way too much.
Well, I can't really argue with that seeing as I've only played a few chapters into Sigma (without any complaints so far). I've never heard anyone refer to it as "dumbed down" before, though.
Cherrn on
All creature will die and all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai.
Well, I can't really argue with that seeing as I've only played a few chapters into Sigma (without any complaints so far). I've never heard anyone refer to it as "dumbed down" before, though.
Well, in all fairness, a lot of people who purchased Sigma never played the original (I'm not saying they're bastards or anything, it's just an observation, and a surprising one at that). Probably because there was no PS2 form, I imagine. They wouldn't have any way of knowing (for example, how to acquire the Owl's Eye or how to unlike the Ziggaraut behind the Imperial Palace). The puzzles are quite simple, I have no idea why they removed them.
If you played the original on Xbox, you'll find some puzzels missing, replaced by rather arbitrary surprise battles. Then again, it is an action game. I might be being too cerebral about it anyway.
If you're still at the beginning, that would suggest you've only faced one mass enemy challenge (on the Airship to Tairon), which is when these tend to happen the most (lots of bodies splashing up at once). Trust me, you'll run into them--as well as the load barriers throughout Tairon (to be honest--it does look better than it did on the Xbox years ago, they added nice touches like flags).
Basically, I'm not saying you'll dislike it, I'm just saying don't be surprise when you get a 3-second-loading pause in the middle of a battle, than the same pause again because you jumped backwards or got tossed across a barrier. It's hilarious than an installed game on a PS3 would have this sort of problem, when an disc-loaded Xbox 1 game didn't.
Hey, the Xbox 1 installed secretly. I remember the first time putting the disc in (or the first time in a while, if I had played a bunch of other games) the load time would be tremendous, and then go away nearly completely. Yay for mandatory hard drives...
Honestly, if they just took NG2 exactly the way it was, and removed all the fights involving flying dragons (except that one with the 2 golds as bosses was honestly prtty fun using the hadoken ninpo) I would have bought in a heartbeat.
Some people say that after running marathons, everything in life seems easier.
Well, I beat Ninja Gaiden Sigma on Hard. Everything in life is easier to me now.
Master Ninja or bust, baby.
Granted, that was more a challenge of abusing a few moves and ultimate charges, but hey. It's not meant to be beaten by anything less than a robot, anyway.
Hey, the Xbox 1 installed secretly. I remember the first time putting the disc in (or the first time in a while, if I had played a bunch of other games) the load time would be tremendous, and then go away nearly completely. Yay for mandatory hard drives...
Honestly, if they just took NG2 exactly the way it was, and removed all the fights involving flying dragons (except that one with the 2 golds as bosses was honestly prtty fun using the hadoken ninpo) I would have bought in a heartbeat.
Initial load times were long--though only the first time. If you turned the console off and turned it back on, without playing another game, much shorter load time. Different game, and when you went back it was long again. I remember this because I spent a lot of time wondering about the precise cause, since I didn't know anything about the Xbox's memory management.
On the PS3, we get a lovely install sequence, and three times as many load screens. That's being generous. Apparently, Sigma's installs don't work, but Black's did.
Some people say that after running marathons, everything in life seems easier.
Well, I beat Ninja Gaiden Sigma on Hard. Everything in life is easier to me now.
Master Ninja or bust, baby.
Granted, that was more a challenge of abusing a few moves and ultimate charges, but hey. It's not meant to be beaten by anything less than a robot, anyway.
I am way behind. I beat Black on normal and hard, and was on my way through Master Ninja (moment by bitter moment) when the Xbox 360 was first released and, strangely enough, my latest save got corrupted (so I started again, until NG2 came out--BC worked very well, except for one odd graphical glitch on the essence orbs).
I'm finishing NG2 on Warrior, and still need to beat Sigma on hard. Yes, despite all my bitching about load times, if I weren't typing right now, I'd probably be playing Sigma if not NG2. :winky: All this talking has gotten me in the mood to string together some combos.
Still gotta clear out all the submissions as well. 'Nother complaint about Sigma: they never patched it for rumble. I like rumble.
Demo is available on the Japanese PSN store, and everything is in English. It's pretty bloody impressive - the demo for Ninja Gaiden Sigma really turned me off, but I'd definitely pick up Sigma 2 for a reasonable price.
Chance on
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
To paraphrase the new director: Ninja Gaiden 2 was a game designed to be as violent as possible; Sigma 2 is a game designed to be the definitive Ninja Gaiden experience.
He's also said that, in response to the fans, they've gone through the game and tweaked enemy spawns and makeups so the game will be more consistent. Not easier or harder, but more consistent.
There was one moment when the camera was an issue in the demo - I turned a corner and it hadn't swept around yet, so for a moment I was fighting guys without being onscreen.
As for the blood... yeah, to be honest I think the game would be better with it left in. Now you get a glowing orange stump when there's a dismemberment - the brutal kills on weakened enemies are pretty cool, but they'd certainly be awesome'r with arterial spray.
Chance on
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
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MongerI got the ham stink.Dallas, TXRegistered Userregular
Gamersyde put a bunch of high res gameplay up, as they are oft to do. Supposing you'd like to just see what it looks like now. Have to say I'm not a fan. Everything about the game was very obviously designed around the absurd level of gore, and it doesn't look visually cohesive at all with the mist replacing it. The intro is so weak now. Even outside of that, something just looks off to me in places in the visuals. I can't really put my finger on it.
It does look like it plays way better, though. It has a definite Black vibe now.
So, the game is out. And I've read through a few reviews to see what's what. These seem to be the major changes:
- Drastically (or at least very noticeably) easier on normal difficulty.
- More frequent save points and checkpoints.
- Can play through story mode with all 4 characters, each has unique areas and boss fights. New boss fights for Ryu as well.
- A few new weapons for Ryu. Weapons have been rebalanced.
- Ryu gets a gun now. Bows and guns have unlimited ammo.
- Challenge Mode missions have been taken out of the story mode completely and are now accessed from the main menu.
- Co-op has around 30 separate missions to go through. Co-op mode is available offline, but your partner will be controlled by the AI.
- Unlock costumes for each character by playing Challenge Mode, Story Mode, or Co-op.
- Generally improved camera and new camera controls.
- No blood or gore. Cut limbs still litter the battle area. Game still gets an M, so I don't see why they did this.
- NEW SIXAXIS INTERACTION! YOU CAN INDUCE JIGGLE DURING CUT SCENES BY SHAKING THE PS3 CONTROLLER.
That's all I've got for now. I don't have a PS3 at the moment, so if you want more info someone who got the game will have to post here.
From what I've heard, most of the changes are for the better. It apparently has some really nonsensical ones, however. First of all, the incendiary and windmill shurikens are gone entirely, and they even kept the incendiary shuriken crates in the game. You just can't use them.
Secondly, they removed UTs from projectiles. I don't have a fundamental problem with this, but it apparently makes the bosses that are dependent on ranged weapons an enormous fucking chore.
Cherrn on
All creature will die and all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai.
I got approval from a new site I'm freelancing to review this (they pay for the games). My PS3 is scheduled to arrive back from repair tomorrow, so I plan to purchase the game then.
I'm really stoked to play the online co-op, so I was wondering if we could get a collection of names on the OP. I have way too many unknowns in my PS3's friend list, and I want to expand with some PA people (and who hopefully have headsets).
PA name is SOLDIER. If you're adding me, please state in the message you're from PA. I'm so sick of getting random invites from people I never met.
After the first chapter you get Team Mission mode. You still have to unlock extra costumes and possibly weapons.
Seems like you still have to beat certain chapters to unlock the other characters. You should have them all by the end of the game, though. Probably before that.
Whatever happened to that Sexual Harrassment case against Itagaki?
Apparently a court exonerated him. As hilariously stereotypical as this is, I for one can't fathom getting a clear image for inter-office politics and relations 1) somewhere thousands of kilometers away 2) in a legal system I'm not familiar with and 3) given when I've seen sexual harassment in places I've worked, it's been way too complicated for me to even fathom. And I was sitting at the next freaking desk.
tl;dr--I can't even figure out what's going on with sexual harassment charges for the T.A. in the office down the hall, much less in a gaming studio in Japan. o_O
I just find it odd that they're playing down the violence but playing up the sex.
Because it's Japan.
And Itagaki isn't there to dial back the Japan.
Not that Itagaki isn't guilty of Japan. That guy has been known to Japan it up.
I don't know if "adding Aerosmith" is really dialing back the Japan, so to speak. Maybe dialing up the America. I mean, Namco added a bar in character creation in Soul Calibur IV with the sole function of modifying breast size. I guess that's more Japan, rather than less?
Then again, the choice to remove the blood effects is just...beyond me. It's a violent game, for god sakes. I want to say some sort of problem with the PS3's graphic processors that they didn't want to sort out. Or someone on the design staff had a really big aversion to blood.
I miss it. But that's just me.
EDIT: Ah, I need to start getting names for people to play co-op with. That's a lot of fun. My PSN name is 'Desynthesis', feel free to add me.
Synthesis on
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MongerI got the ham stink.Dallas, TXRegistered Userregular
Whatever happened to that Sexual Harrassment case against Itagaki?
As I recall, Itagaki's testimony was that he and the girl had dated and she filed the harassment case after they'd broken up on account of her being a crazy psycho bitch. I think after that came out she either dropped the charges or settled out of court. I don't know if anyone has a full rundown of the whole truth of the incident.
I don't know if "adding Aerosmith" is really dialing back the Japan, so to speak. Maybe dialing up the America. I mean, Namco added a bar in character creation in Soul Calibur IV with the sole function of modifying breast size. I guess that's more Japan, rather than less?
Then again, the choice to remove the blood effects is just...beyond me. It's a violent game, for god sakes. I want to say some sort of problem with the PS3's graphic processors that they didn't want to sort out. Or someone on the design staff had a really big aversion to blood.
I miss it. But that's just me.
I just mean that sexual content is generally acceptable in Japan and violent content is not so much. Itagaki has a largely western mindset, hence his enthusiasm for Microsoft's platform. Also why everything he's not involved with stays way the fuck away from Microsoft's platform.
As I recall, Itagaki's testimony was that he and the girl had dated and she filed the harassment case after they'd broken up on account of her being a crazy psycho bitch. I think after that came out she either dropped the charges or settled out of court. I don't know if anyone has a full rundown of the whole truth of the incident.
Given that it's a sexual harassment suit in a different country with very different privacy laws, not to mention civil law versus common law (which is what we have here in the US)...yeah, I don't think anyone knows. It's like trying to explain the minute details of Space Shuttle operation to a seagull sitting on the launch gantry.
If it did come out like that, I'm sure it was pretty damaging to his reputation (he has a wife and children), but then again, the guy has kind of a reputation for claiming not to care what other people think? Not like anyone could tell behind those sunglasses.
Synthesis on
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MongerI got the ham stink.Dallas, TXRegistered Userregular
edited October 2009
He does have the oatmealiest poker face I've ever seen. He may very well have bluffed his way through court.
You know what? I think I like not knowing how it went down a lot more. In my head I'm imagining an episode of Night Court with some Japanese chick bringing in DOAX as exhibit A and staring daggers at a sunglassed, poker-faced Itagaki, who's downing shot after shot of God-knows-what while the cast tries to ineffectively confiscate his mystery booze.
Since we're on the topic, Itagaki's face wasn't always like that. I remember interviews from around the time of DOA2 in which he looked like...pretty much every other Japanese game developer.
Yeah, that's him. Every time I dig out this video, people tend to be surprised. I have no idea what happened to him, so I'm going to go with "got drunk and dared someone to run over his face with a car--discovered Aerosmith, American booze, and steak for breakfast shortly afterwards. Painkillers are for wimps."
More interesting this way. I'm pretty sure the second half is at least partially true.
EDIT: Also, Professor Snugglesworth, with your permission I'm adding you to my Playstation Friend's list...I think. The message will include a note.
DOA2:HC was such a fun game. The whole series went down hill from there.
I have to disagree, frankly. I was a little underwhelmed with DOA3, in retrospect (I didn't realize it at the time), but I thought DOA4 was a huge step in the right direction and far more fun a game than DOA2.
Of course, god knows there are endless debates about the balancing and mechanics. I'm just happy they nerfed Jan Lee, but I am absolutely not a 3D fighter expert.
Meh. Balance isn't important; no game in the series has been close to balanced. But DOA2, and HC especially, were the most fun to play. There were some neat ideas in DOA4, but they changed a lot of things for the worse, and it was generally less fun. I still bust out HC now and then, but I've had no desire to play DOA4 since launch.
Meh. Balance isn't important; no game in the series has been close to balanced. But DOA2, and HC especially, were the most fun to play. There were some neat ideas in DOA4, but they changed a lot of things for the worse, and it was generally less fun. I still bust out HC now and then, but I've had no desire to play DOA4 since launch.
Balance is important when newcomers realize they can crush other newcomers by using the same three moves from Jan Lee's list set. Getting rid of that problem automatically made the game a lot more fun when introducing it to friends.
Personally, DOA4 offered a lot more fun--for starters, online mode basically meant a multiplayer game at any time of day (literally). Bigger stages too. And after adjusting to DOA4 and DOA3's faster pacing, DOA2 became less fun. I still have DOA2 on Dreamcast, but I never play it. And I preferred DOA2 to DOA:HC personally.
The actual imbalances of the game go a lot deeper than Jan Lee having a few really good moves. Every character in DOA2 has retarded cheap shit to draw on -- that's what made the game fun. New players to any fighting game will bitch and moan about imbalances that don't exist. They should be ignored at all costs. Besides, once you realize how broken low counter holds are you can avoid most shit anyway.
DOA4 had too much OMG NINJA! for me. Plus, they got rid of the tag throws and added in some other gratuitous tag stuff instead. The online was bad, but all fighting games are pretty bad online. What really set DOA4's online apart was that the lag was often disguised, but it could hurt you so much if you tried to counter anything but the most obvious more way ahead of time.
The actual imbalances of the game go a lot deeper than Jan Lee having a few really good moves. Every character in DOA2 has retarded cheap shit to draw on -- that's what made the game fun. New players to any fighting game will bitch and moan about imbalances that don't exist. They should be ignored at all costs. Besides, once you realize how broken low counter holds are you can avoid most shit anyway.
While I certainly agree that every character has cheap moves, I don't agree that "retarded cheap shit" is what made the game fun. I'd say the implementation of four-players and a change from the old-as-time octagonal stages to multi-tier stages made the game fun.
DOA4 had too much OMG NINJA! for me. Plus, they got rid of the tag throws and added in some other gratuitous tag stuff instead. The online was bad, but all fighting games are pretty bad online. What really set DOA4's online apart was that the lag was often disguised, but it could hurt you so much if you tried to counter anything but the most obvious more way ahead of time.
Tag throws are still in DOA4. And as you stated, any online fighter will have to deal with lag. I prefer the option to play laggy online (and non-laggy online, depending on the connection) over nothing. As for OMG NINJA, heh, you do realize this is DOA, right? Hell, I think the OMG NINJA! makes the game fun.
Personally, I feel DOA4's larger cast (when unlocked) puts it over DOA2 as well.
I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree at this rate.
But the new characters in 3 and 4 were laaaaaaaaaaaaaame. And they nerfed Bass and Gen-fu. Gen-fu was probably the strongest character in DOA2. Actually, he was the strongest by a wide margin if I remember correctly. Soccer combos ftw!
The overwhelming absurdity of DOA2's movelist helped balance it out. Any character had the potential to win with 2 or 3 mistakes, so you could never count them out. And it made tag fights more fun.
DOA4 replaced the normal throws with tag throws, which was dumb as hell, and seemed to have far fewer actual tag throws than DOA2:HC. Or there weren't that many new ones.
From a visceral, good times perspective the DOA series is top of the fighting game heap. They just need to make some smart changes and they can have a properly balanced game to go with all that fun.
I wish I could have played DOA2:U more, though, to see what that was like. The changes they made to holds seemed kind of unneeded to me, but I never got to see how the rest compared. The game looked really nice, though.
Posts
Like I said, I have no desire to play the game again. I thought it was, compared to the first game, utter shit. I hate it. But only because it took something as great as the combat/weapon system and completely pissed all over it by putting it into fucking Dynasty Warriors.
Oh God you got me started again :P
Nah, I guess we can all agree on that it's a good thing that Sigma 2 exists. Er, barring the whole blood thing.
They tried that in Black (and I think it's also in Sigma). It didn't work, no one used them. Lightsabers sometimes aren't your first choice. :P
Chern, you're absolutely entitled to that opinion. I think Sigma was a sad excuse for a PS3 port, especially given what it was capable of, and had all the same camera problems of the original release--the primary differences being a new playable character and a severely dumbed down single player mode. The fact that it's basically divided up into tiny, tiny rooms with their own loading screen, like a game for an 8 year old console, and had invisible loading walls is just an insult the capacities of the PS3. Seriously, there is no fucking excuse after a hard drive installation for that many load screens. Especially if jumping back across the same area causes another one. Black was superior in terms gameplay, and it had a third the loading time.
Basically, it's Ninja Gaiden Lite with horrible memory management. Doesn't change the fact that I bought it, though, and still play it--I enjoy those games way too much.
Well, in all fairness, a lot of people who purchased Sigma never played the original (I'm not saying they're bastards or anything, it's just an observation, and a surprising one at that). Probably because there was no PS2 form, I imagine. They wouldn't have any way of knowing (for example, how to acquire the Owl's Eye or how to unlike the Ziggaraut behind the Imperial Palace). The puzzles are quite simple, I have no idea why they removed them.
If you played the original on Xbox, you'll find some puzzels missing, replaced by rather arbitrary surprise battles. Then again, it is an action game. I might be being too cerebral about it anyway.
If you're still at the beginning, that would suggest you've only faced one mass enemy challenge (on the Airship to Tairon), which is when these tend to happen the most (lots of bodies splashing up at once). Trust me, you'll run into them--as well as the load barriers throughout Tairon (to be honest--it does look better than it did on the Xbox years ago, they added nice touches like flags).
Basically, I'm not saying you'll dislike it, I'm just saying don't be surprise when you get a 3-second-loading pause in the middle of a battle, than the same pause again because you jumped backwards or got tossed across a barrier. It's hilarious than an installed game on a PS3 would have this sort of problem, when an disc-loaded Xbox 1 game didn't.
Well, I beat Ninja Gaiden Sigma on Hard. Everything in life is easier to me now.
Honestly, if they just took NG2 exactly the way it was, and removed all the fights involving flying dragons (except that one with the 2 golds as bosses was honestly prtty fun using the hadoken ninpo) I would have bought in a heartbeat.
Granted, that was more a challenge of abusing a few moves and ultimate charges, but hey. It's not meant to be beaten by anything less than a robot, anyway.
Initial load times were long--though only the first time. If you turned the console off and turned it back on, without playing another game, much shorter load time. Different game, and when you went back it was long again. I remember this because I spent a lot of time wondering about the precise cause, since I didn't know anything about the Xbox's memory management.
On the PS3, we get a lovely install sequence, and three times as many load screens. That's being generous. Apparently, Sigma's installs don't work, but Black's did.
I am way behind. I beat Black on normal and hard, and was on my way through Master Ninja (moment by bitter moment) when the Xbox 360 was first released and, strangely enough, my latest save got corrupted (so I started again, until NG2 came out--BC worked very well, except for one odd graphical glitch on the essence orbs).
I'm finishing NG2 on Warrior, and still need to beat Sigma on hard. Yes, despite all my bitching about load times, if I weren't typing right now, I'd probably be playing Sigma if not NG2. :winky: All this talking has gotten me in the mood to string together some combos.
Still gotta clear out all the submissions as well. 'Nother complaint about Sigma: they never patched it for rumble. I like rumble.
Not that I care really.
To paraphrase the new director: Ninja Gaiden 2 was a game designed to be as violent as possible; Sigma 2 is a game designed to be the definitive Ninja Gaiden experience.
He's also said that, in response to the fans, they've gone through the game and tweaked enemy spawns and makeups so the game will be more consistent. Not easier or harder, but more consistent.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
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Getting this, though only after I finish Uncharted 2 and brutal legend.
My monies.
edit; also, going through sigma right now. Fairly easy compared to the oXbox version.
But new weapons and enemies and areas and bosses and shit will probably bring people in as well.
Easier? Harder? Ninja Gaiden 2 is generally considered to be easier than Black, but also more unfair (cheap) and less consistent.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
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As for the blood... yeah, to be honest I think the game would be better with it left in. Now you get a glowing orange stump when there's a dismemberment - the brutal kills on weakened enemies are pretty cool, but they'd certainly be awesome'r with arterial spray.
It does look like it plays way better, though. It has a definite Black vibe now.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
If that was to me, I meant sigma 1.
Just meeting the beasties and didn't really have a hard time. Even the spider ninjas are easier to deal with this time.
Except for the airship boss. Goddamn you fat bastard. :x
Totally hyped for co-op though. Should be great.
- Drastically (or at least very noticeably) easier on normal difficulty.
- More frequent save points and checkpoints.
- Can play through story mode with all 4 characters, each has unique areas and boss fights. New boss fights for Ryu as well.
- A few new weapons for Ryu. Weapons have been rebalanced.
- Ryu gets a gun now. Bows and guns have unlimited ammo.
- Challenge Mode missions have been taken out of the story mode completely and are now accessed from the main menu.
- Co-op has around 30 separate missions to go through. Co-op mode is available offline, but your partner will be controlled by the AI.
- Unlock costumes for each character by playing Challenge Mode, Story Mode, or Co-op.
- Generally improved camera and new camera controls.
- No blood or gore. Cut limbs still litter the battle area. Game still gets an M, so I don't see why they did this.
- NEW SIXAXIS INTERACTION! YOU CAN INDUCE JIGGLE DURING CUT SCENES BY SHAKING THE PS3 CONTROLLER.
That's all I've got for now. I don't have a PS3 at the moment, so if you want more info someone who got the game will have to post here.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
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Secondly, they removed UTs from projectiles. I don't have a fundamental problem with this, but it apparently makes the bosses that are dependent on ranged weapons an enormous fucking chore.
I'm really stoked to play the online co-op, so I was wondering if we could get a collection of names on the OP. I have way too many unknowns in my PS3's friend list, and I want to expand with some PA people (and who hopefully have headsets).
PA name is SOLDIER. If you're adding me, please state in the message you're from PA. I'm so sick of getting random invites from people I never met.
Blog||Tumblr|Steam|Twitter|FFXIV|Twitch|YouTube|Podcast|PSN|XBL|DarkZero
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
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Blog||Tumblr|Steam|Twitter|FFXIV|Twitch|YouTube|Podcast|PSN|XBL|DarkZero
Seems like you still have to beat certain chapters to unlock the other characters. You should have them all by the end of the game, though. Probably before that.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
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You unlock characters through the singleplayer. Same for weapons, ninpo, and I want to say costumes.
I just find it odd that they're playing down the violence but playing up the sex.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
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And Itagaki isn't there to dial back the Japan.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
Apparently a court exonerated him. As hilariously stereotypical as this is, I for one can't fathom getting a clear image for inter-office politics and relations 1) somewhere thousands of kilometers away 2) in a legal system I'm not familiar with and 3) given when I've seen sexual harassment in places I've worked, it's been way too complicated for me to even fathom. And I was sitting at the next freaking desk.
tl;dr--I can't even figure out what's going on with sexual harassment charges for the T.A. in the office down the hall, much less in a gaming studio in Japan. o_O
I don't know if "adding Aerosmith" is really dialing back the Japan, so to speak. Maybe dialing up the America. I mean, Namco added a bar in character creation in Soul Calibur IV with the sole function of modifying breast size. I guess that's more Japan, rather than less?
Then again, the choice to remove the blood effects is just...beyond me. It's a violent game, for god sakes. I want to say some sort of problem with the PS3's graphic processors that they didn't want to sort out. Or someone on the design staff had a really big aversion to blood.
I miss it. But that's just me.
EDIT: Ah, I need to start getting names for people to play co-op with. That's a lot of fun. My PSN name is 'Desynthesis', feel free to add me.
I just mean that sexual content is generally acceptable in Japan and violent content is not so much. Itagaki has a largely western mindset, hence his enthusiasm for Microsoft's platform. Also why everything he's not involved with stays way the fuck away from Microsoft's platform.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
Given that it's a sexual harassment suit in a different country with very different privacy laws, not to mention civil law versus common law (which is what we have here in the US)...yeah, I don't think anyone knows. It's like trying to explain the minute details of Space Shuttle operation to a seagull sitting on the launch gantry.
If it did come out like that, I'm sure it was pretty damaging to his reputation (he has a wife and children), but then again, the guy has kind of a reputation for claiming not to care what other people think? Not like anyone could tell behind those sunglasses.
You know what? I think I like not knowing how it went down a lot more. In my head I'm imagining an episode of Night Court with some Japanese chick bringing in DOAX as exhibit A and staring daggers at a sunglassed, poker-faced Itagaki, who's downing shot after shot of God-knows-what while the cast tries to ineffectively confiscate his mystery booze.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
Since we're on the topic, Itagaki's face wasn't always like that. I remember interviews from around the time of DOA2 in which he looked like...pretty much every other Japanese game developer.
Itagaki sans long hair and sunglasses.
Yeah, that's him. Every time I dig out this video, people tend to be surprised. I have no idea what happened to him, so I'm going to go with "got drunk and dared someone to run over his face with a car--discovered Aerosmith, American booze, and steak for breakfast shortly afterwards. Painkillers are for wimps."
More interesting this way. I'm pretty sure the second half is at least partially true.
EDIT: Also, Professor Snugglesworth, with your permission I'm adding you to my Playstation Friend's list...I think. The message will include a note.
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I have to disagree, frankly. I was a little underwhelmed with DOA3, in retrospect (I didn't realize it at the time), but I thought DOA4 was a huge step in the right direction and far more fun a game than DOA2.
Of course, god knows there are endless debates about the balancing and mechanics. I'm just happy they nerfed Jan Lee, but I am absolutely not a 3D fighter expert.
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Balance is important when newcomers realize they can crush other newcomers by using the same three moves from Jan Lee's list set. Getting rid of that problem automatically made the game a lot more fun when introducing it to friends.
Personally, DOA4 offered a lot more fun--for starters, online mode basically meant a multiplayer game at any time of day (literally). Bigger stages too. And after adjusting to DOA4 and DOA3's faster pacing, DOA2 became less fun. I still have DOA2 on Dreamcast, but I never play it. And I preferred DOA2 to DOA:HC personally.
DOA4 had too much OMG NINJA! for me. Plus, they got rid of the tag throws and added in some other gratuitous tag stuff instead. The online was bad, but all fighting games are pretty bad online. What really set DOA4's online apart was that the lag was often disguised, but it could hurt you so much if you tried to counter anything but the most obvious more way ahead of time.
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While I certainly agree that every character has cheap moves, I don't agree that "retarded cheap shit" is what made the game fun. I'd say the implementation of four-players and a change from the old-as-time octagonal stages to multi-tier stages made the game fun.
Tag throws are still in DOA4. And as you stated, any online fighter will have to deal with lag. I prefer the option to play laggy online (and non-laggy online, depending on the connection) over nothing. As for OMG NINJA, heh, you do realize this is DOA, right? Hell, I think the OMG NINJA! makes the game fun.
Personally, I feel DOA4's larger cast (when unlocked) puts it over DOA2 as well.
I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree at this rate.
The overwhelming absurdity of DOA2's movelist helped balance it out. Any character had the potential to win with 2 or 3 mistakes, so you could never count them out. And it made tag fights more fun.
DOA4 replaced the normal throws with tag throws, which was dumb as hell, and seemed to have far fewer actual tag throws than DOA2:HC. Or there weren't that many new ones.
From a visceral, good times perspective the DOA series is top of the fighting game heap. They just need to make some smart changes and they can have a properly balanced game to go with all that fun.
I wish I could have played DOA2:U more, though, to see what that was like. The changes they made to holds seemed kind of unneeded to me, but I never got to see how the rest compared. The game looked really nice, though.
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