Blue Chi’s

I didn’t play a lot of games last year, and Castlevania is the first game I play in 2009. I’m a die hard fan of 2D Castlevania games, I played all the three games that were released on the DS and the Dracula X remake on the PSP. I adore classic 2D platform gameplay.

Luckily, Castlevania Order of Ecclesia does not revolutionize the Castelvania series, it has the same old Dracula plot with a huge map to explore and spells & items to discover. Gameplay differs a bit as the game has a new combo Glyph battle system that requires you to use MP in every single strike you make. Moving between levels is now done through a world map which I thought was cool and much easier than previous games that required you to move around slowly and use teleportation rooms to move around. The game also has a lot of small quests that are accessed by interacting with town villagers – a bit reminiscent of the old NES Castlevania II.

I really enjoyed the game, but I thought that it was a bit too easy as I almost relied exclusively on a single magical spell which I found half way through the game. I was also disappointed by the fact the game does not make any use of the DS touch screen capabilities  - not even to mark the maps as was the case in Portrait of Ruin. If Konami had no intention of the using the stylus and really didn’t have to use the upper screen either, then why the hell didn’t they release this game on the PSP? It would’ve looked a thousand times better in widescreen and they would have been able to improve the graphics as the PSP is more powerful than the DS.

Anyway, still, a very enjoyable game, especially for those who need to have short gaming bursts which you can put down quickly. Found it helpful in breaks between long reading sessions in the library! Highly recommended for fans of 2D platform games and Action RPGs.

4/5

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce to you MoodyGamer.com, the newest hot blog on the Omani blogosphere. Moody Gamer is a video game blog written by Mohammed Al Balushi (we are not related and we never met). Mohammed is very passionate about gaming culture and has been a gamer for as long as he can remember. He will be posting about all sorts of gaming related stuff with a little focus towards PC gaming as it is his gaming platform of choice.

Moody had previously published his blog on http://omanigamer.blogspot.com/ – I provided him with some setup help and advice in moving his blog to MoodyGamer.com. You will see one post written by myself on Moody, but that was just a little experiment and I will not be regularly participating with him on his blog.

I wish Moody the best of luck with his new blog. Check him out at MoodyGamer.com.

Here is an exclusive to the readers of my blog, we are launching a new project called ‘Chemical Orange’ tomorrow at KOM’s eGames conference. Chemical Orange is a portal for downloading free mobile phone games. The slogan of Chemical Orange is “Fun, Fresh Gameplay” and that is exactly what it’s about. Our games are very *ethnic*, simple and addictive. We have two games at the launch and they are compatible with a large number of phones (all Nokia N-Series and E-Series all other phones running the Flash Lite Player). Our games are free of charge, but you might need to pay for using data on your phone, however, our games are about 50KB to 80KB in size, so that is about 40 to 25 baisa if you are on Oman Mobile’s postpaid. You can also download the games onto your computer and then transfer them to your phone if you don’t want to use the mobile portal.

To access the mobile portal, open your phone browser and access m.chemicalorange.com. Our actual website can be found at http://www.chemicalorange.com/

I am also going to speak tomorrow at eGames conference, hope to speak to some of you attending the event tomorrow!

I previously said that I’ve been working on a mobile phone game, it’s done, kinda, I wanted to add so much more stuff to it, (online score board, etc), but I’m afraid that might take me sometime to get to do. So I thought that I’ll share the game at this stage. It runs on the standalone Flash Lite Player that comes preinstalled with the majority of modern Nokia phones, Walkman Sony Ericsson phones, and many others. Even if your phone does not have it, you can download the player for free from Adobe’s website here.

The game is optimized for phones with a portrait QVGA display (240×320px). The text might not be readable on smaller displays.

Download the game here, unzip it, and then send it to your phone to enjoy.

(The name is silly, I know!)

Fans of the Parasite Eve game series were shocked and disappointed today by the announcement by Square-Enix of the release of long waited sequel to the game. The original Parasite Eve game was released in 1998 as a cinematic action RPG, it was an amazing game with a unique gameplay, intriguing storyline and beautiful FMVs. And after all these years, Square decides to release the game on mobile phones in Japan only. Mean while, Square-Enix continues to pump endless remakes and released of Final Fantasy games on all the consoles known to man, FF1 and FF2 are coming the PSP, after being released on the original NES, the PSone, the GBA, the Wonderswan and mobile phones. FF4 is going to be remade for the NDS after being released for the PSone and the GBA. I am, just like the majority of the fans, craving for a new Parasite Eve game, Chrono game, or even a Vagrant Story game on a modern console. Mobile games released by Square-Enix are never released outside Japan.

Yes, I actually finally managed to get and complete one of the games that I’ve been searching for for ages. Castlevania PoR is the second CV game on the Nintendo DS, it is a 2D scroller with action RPG elements (experience points, equipment, custom skills, etc.). The game’s storyline is pretty lame, just like the majority of castlevania games, but the gameplay is awesome. The dual character system is really tight, quick, and adds a new depth to the game, the game progress is quite non-linear with a lot of extra items, spells, and quests to complete even after completing the game. A new feature that I found really helpful and was actually surprised not many people had it in their games was the ability to mark up certain spots on the map to check certain areas again later. It’s so basic, and the use of the style to position those ‘bookmark-like’ markers was just perfect.

A new edition to the game were the WIFI coop mode and the WIFI shop mode. While the concept itself is cool, in reality I did not enjoy any of these modes. Just like the majority of DS games, online gameplay is not about the community, but about being able to play with somebody you know while you’re away. I do not know if that makes any sense to the reader, but there is no online portal that you login to, see who’s online and then decide to play with those people, chat with them, save them to your list, and ‘play with the community’. All you can do is, either play with people you already know from somewhere, you have to input their friendcode, which is an annoyingly long, telephone-like number, or you can just play with random people, that you connect with during that match only and then never see them online again. I did not think that it was fun, because even for the people that you already know the gameplay is not seamless, there is nothing like an alert that tells me someone I know is online so that I can go and play with them, I just have to check and search every once in a while. If I wanted to play with someone I know, I need to call that person and tell him to search for online people from his list (people he added using their long friendcodes), and I then go online, search for online people from my list and only then I can play with that person. Urgh.

That is not to say specifically that CV PoR online modes suck, because the procedure I described is the same for almost all DS games with online gameplay capabilities, THEY ALL SUCK.

Anyway, CV PoR is a really great game nonetheless, the extras awarded by completing the game are really worth it, there is an extra new gameplay mode that introducing a whole new gaming concept to the CV series based solely on touch in-put, another one with Richter playing in the traditional way but in impressive action-packed speed.

I was really pleased with this game, and I’m looking forward to new 2D episodes in the series, especially the new remake of Dracula X on the PSP. I managed to get this game from a gameshop hidden upstairs in Al Wadi Center in Qurum.

4/5

The title of this post was inspired by 43 Folder’s episode on Media Diet, which I do take occasionally. However, this post is not about having a proper media diet, it’s about all the media I’m consuming simultaneously at this moment.

I have completed about the third of Stephen King’s Cell. It is the first proper book I read by King, a post about it at Engadget earlier this year got me interested in it. The cell is not a science fiction book, but a story about how we shall act when civilization falls. I enjoy reading contemporary novels more than anything else, Cell is nice thriller that I’m very much enjoying at the moment.

In Cold Blood is a book that I never was able to get in to, I purchased it after watching the movie Capote which told the story of how the book was written. I really do not like the fact that the book is divided into huge chapters as I find them very tiring to read. I failed my second attempt at reading this book, I stopped reading it when I got Cell. I do not know if I’ll get back to it once I am done with the other one.

I’ve read quite a bit of HTML & XHTML – The Definitive Guide, but it does not look like I’ll be able to finish it anytime soon. I do not know if I will finish it ever. I am a great fan of Oreilly’s Definitive Guide series, but the topic of this one is very dull. I got it learn XHTML, and it looks like I’ll just skip into the relevant chapters and leave the rest as I do know what I need to know about HTML already.

A very talented artist that probably nobody ever heard of is the Danish ‘Maria’. In 2003, she released in the US a single titled “I Give, You Take” and one beautifully crated soul album titled ‘My Soul’. Sadly, Maria never made it big and completely disappeared after the failure of her album. I downloaded this album in 2003 and really loved it. I had to purchase it when I randomly found it at a shop here in Muscat earlier this month.

I am currently playing Final Fantasy XII on the PS2 and really enjoying every bit of it. I no longer have the time to play every single RPG that comes out, so this is my annual dose of old school Japanese gamplay goodness. FFXII has got it all perfect, the storyline, the characters, the gameplay, the music, and obviously the art and graphics. I am at the final stage in the game, might finish it soon.

I am quite pissed about the fact that I cannot find a couple of DS games that I craving for, Final Fantasy III and Castlevania Portrait of Ruin, it looks like I’ll be ordering these online soon. I hate you stupid game shops of Oman.

Final Fantasy XII finally got released in the US yesterday. The game scored 9/10 at GameSpot, 9.5/10 at IGN, and 9.5/10 at 1UP.com. You can view other review scores at this link.

Title: Megaman ZX
Genre: 2D Platform Scroller
Released: September 12th, 2006 (US)

Megaman ZX is the first Megaman to be released on the DS and the it title suggests the start of a new sub-series; ‘ZX’. The game plays and looks similar to the ‘Z’ series on the GBA and because it does not make much use of the unique DS features it feels as it was made for the GBA and then got imported into the DS. However, the graphics and sounds of the game are top notch and do not look much different from the recent 2D Megaman games we have seen on home consoles.

ZX is a traditional shoot, cut and proceed old-school 2D scroller with great action packed gameplay powered by tight controls and challenging level design and bosses. ZX departs from the traditional Megaman series by offering an exploration-based gameplay instead of the previous known level selection mode of play making the game play somewhat similar to the Castlevania games in that the player could go back and forth through the different areas in the world which are connected through a single map. However, the awesomeness of this new addition is undermined due to the nature of the poorly designed map. Unlike Castlevania maps that show sufficient details of how each room is connected with another, the map in ZX shows only whole areas and not actual rooms giving you no help on how to actually reach a certain area from within the area that contains a link to it.

Though it is possible to explore the majority of the game freely, the player would have to select a mission to undertaken at save points to proceed with the storyline to trigger story events upon reaching certain areas. It is also possible to undertake optional requests from various NPCs found in civic areas in the game, accomplishing those could offer the player secret items and equipment that cannot be found otherwise. What I did not like about the option quests is that they play exactly like the story-related missions in that they have to be accepted at a save point even after finding the trigger character for a certain quest and the player can only select ONE mission OR request at a time, so it is not possible to accept a mission to go to fight a certain boss and while being there look for an item needed for a certain quest because you can only do one thing at a time.

The Megaman games have been always about the different weapons and forms that Megaman can transform into, ZX offers five standard weapons (called Biometals in this game) that you have to find to complete the game and one optional one. All the five standard biometals are unique and interesting to use, but only if you know how to use them. I completed the game without knowing what the ‘Overdrive” button does and only knew, by mistake, halfway through the game about the special charge commands to be executed while holding certain directions for certain biometals. The game manual did not say anything about these and it was not mentioned in the game as there is no tutorial feature in it.

Megaman ZX is a great 2D scroller, but it could have made better use of the the DS hardware, deciding not to use the touch feature in the touch screen could be a matter of choice, but that does not leaving it empty. While it is supposed to change in accordance to what biometal is equipped, the main form; ZX, leaves the lower screen with a screensaver-style image saying MEGAMAN. It could have at least be used to show the status of the player or the equipment menu.

I do not know how I managed to make this review sound so negative, the game itself is fun to play is one of the greatest 2D scrollers available on the DS currently, but it left this bitter taste in my mouth as I played it for all the potential it had to be an a serious masterpiece if it was not for all the little annoyings I noted above.

4/5

The English version of Final Fantasy 12 is finally coming out soon, the game that took about five years of development time is the first Final Fantasy to receive a 40/40 from Famitsu. The game has already sold more than 2.38 million copies in Japan only. The North American version is due October 31st, 2006. Here is the English trailer of the game:

Official website.