Kazuma Kiryuu is one bad-ass dude. Not only does he have the chops to pull of a hawaiian shirt and a white suit with pink button down while still looking intimidating, he also is genuinely intimidating. Kazuma solves problems … with his fists … and just about everything else that is lying around. Though he is gangster to the bone, he is certainly one of the good guys. Hell, the game starts with him running an orphanage. However, much in the vein of your favorite Grand Theft Auto game, Kazuma gets tangled up in gang warfare and it is up to him to set the record straight … while taking generous time off to play golf, sing karaoke, and take pictures of people with his camera phone.

The gameplay of the Yakuza series is very simple. You find a guy, get a mission, go to the mission site, beat the shit out of a mob of guys, and repeat. The whole game basically is Grand Theft Auto, except you deal out punishment with your fists rather than guns, like a real man. The fighting system isn’t very deep. You have a weak attack button, a strong attack button, and a block button. You lay on strings of weak attacks for damage, and use strong attacks to break through guards and such. You have a bar that represents your fighting spirit, and when it is full you deal more damage and are harder to knock down. You can also trade in that bar for a chance to do a finishing move, which does massive damage, mostly through quicktime event sequences. The final combat element, is the ability to use an array of weapons. Kiryuu will gain access to swords, staffs, bronze knuckles and much much more. Aside from traditional weapons, you can also pick up just about anything in the environment to give your enemies a sound thrashing, and I mean anything, from bicycles to fence posts, to signs, to chairs, to garbage bins. Character growth, is basically governed by sinking points into different stats. Sink enough points and you will learn new techniques, however you also can do this by reading books and by taping strange events on your camera phone. All in all, the game is pretty fair, but you do have to manage your stats effectively, or else you will quickly fall to some rather cheap bosses.

Dealing out punishment with your manly fists of compassion is not the main attraction in Yakuza 3, believe it or not. Like Grand Theft Auto, this game boasts a large open world that you can just mess around in. There are side missions, shops, mini-games, and all sorts of other things. To be honest, I still don’t know what half of these items do. No one with a normal amount of time on their hands will come anywhere close to 100% completion, and as a completionist this makes me cry! It’s like Shenmue with more fists! You can’t ask me to go to batting cages and then sing Japanese karaoke while other people’s lives are at stake! GAH!!!

The graphics are pretty damn good. Sega used the PS3 to the best of its ability. Some people’s faces are frozen in angry glares, but that’s how yakuza members look in real life, so it’s OK. Bodies move realistically, if not over-dramatically. The fighting is damn near anime style, even though the graphics go for a more photorealistic look.

The music is OK at best, but the voice acting is great. Yakuza 3 doesn’t make any concessions with its Japanese flair. The voice acting is all in its original Japanese, with English subtitles plastered over them, and this is exactly what we wanted. The characters just seem so much more natural when they speak in Japanese, especially considering that the whole game is set in Japan.

Yakuza 3 is a pretty good game all things considered. It’s not going to fly off shelves any time soon, but it is a decent fusion of a Grand Theft Auto free world mission-based game, and a rough and tumble action RPG beat ‘em up. If you have some money to blow, and you are looking for a good action game … and you already blew through God of War 3 and Bayonetta, then Yakuza 3 is a good buy.

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I hate previz. I’ve never used it, and I will never use it. I didn’t use it on The Wolfman, and I won’t use it on Captain America. Hate it. Previz tells the crew this is exactly what you want, and I think it’s much more of a crutch than anything else. It sends a message to the crew that you’ve worked out all of your problems, you’ve had your meetings and you’ve figured out exactly what you want to do, and here’s the movie, take a look. But nothing could be further from the truth. It’s a sequence that was created in a computer, and it has no relation to what it’s going to be when you’re really out there, on location, on a stage, with real actors who are hitting their marks and saying their lines. It’s completely useless. There are visual effects people who will say, “Gee, we’d better previz this so we know exactly what we’re doing,” and I tell them to go ahead and waste money on previz because you need it to understand the elements of the sequence — for instance, identifying at what point you’re going to duplicate the army or create set extensions — but don’t show it to anybody and say this is what the director wants. Never.

I think storyboards are great and do more than previz can do, and they do it in a form that everyone understands. No one assumes it’s exactly what you’re looking for because it’s a piece of paper, a static image. Animatics, while they sometimes stray dangerously close to the evil previz, are more like moving storyboards that can give you a sense of timing and, for people who look at storyboards and can’t imagine what the sequence is, animatics are OK. But previz has an aura about it because it’s so close to what they think you want. It moves, people change and look like they are walking; you’re moving through a virtual set, and it all becomes very misleading. Previz is banned from the Captain America world.

I actually prefer to just work with a shot list on set and not even storyboards, because I think if the crew has previously seen the storyboards, and they’re familiar with the sequence, then they can use the shot list on set to organize their knowledge of what the scene is, the same way I do. It’s a more effective tool for making the day.

There’s no hard Captain America news I can share with you right now. I’m really pleased with the team we’re assembling, though. We’re shooting in the UK, so we’ll be hiring some people over there, and I’ve got Rick Heinrichs as my production designer (he was also my production designer for The Wolfman). Shelly Johnson is shooting the picture, and Rick Whelan (who saved my life many times on The Wolfman) is my first assistant director. We don’t have an editor yet, but we’re pulling the team together. Stay tuned, though; we’re going to be assembling a tremendous cast.

Joe’s going to be blogging for 30 Ninjas on a regular basis. Come back and read more!

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Though there are some that say I should have been, because of how different Final Fantasy XIII is from every other game in the Final Fantasy line. There is very little exploration, no towns, and no MP. Outside of the Chocobos, familiar Final Fantasy elements seem to be absent. If it weren’t for the familiar music and the random appearance of Afro Chocobo, I would have never known I was even playing a Final Fantasy. The game is so different that I find myself lost at where to begin the review, so let’s just start with the gameplay.

Whereas other developers are using current generation technology to stretch the limits of gameplay through glorious non-linear RPGs that stretch on for hours, Squeenix has said “fuck that shit” and has finally stopped lying to themselves. They have always made interactive stories more than true games. Their unique brand of JRPG was always known for being very linear with few choices along the way, simply ferrying the player on until the story’s inevitable end.

Final Fantasy XIII is as linear as ever, in pretty much every sense of the world. There is no world map to traverse, no thrill of flying around the world on an airship. Instead, you are simply brought from one locale to another as the story permits. The different areas of the game are very pretty and stunning to look at, but in reality they are little more than corridors with a few short branching paths that lead to treasure chests (or weird floating item pod thingies as the case seems to be in FF XIII). The game opens up in the middle with some mission based gameplay, but at this point you become so used to the linearity of it all that you feel de-motivated to do much other than advance the story.

The story itself, is pretty damn complicated. There are a few very small elements of discontinuous narrative, but mostly you are pushing the story forward toward the end at all times. Characters move in and out of your party according to what role the story has for them, and although you are introduced to all of the key characters very early on, you have very little control over who you use in your party for a majority of the game. The story starts out assuming you know the back story of the Final Fantasy XIII world, and if you are as obsessive as I am, then you probably do. For everyone else, there is an in-game datalog that continually keeps you updated with all the latest important information. It’s pretty long winded though, so you may spend as much time reading up on the game as you do playing it.

If you really want a run down, here you go. There is a floating technological world called Cocoon that floats over the primal, more naturey, world called Pulse. Cocoon good. Pulse bad. There are machine gods called Fal’Cie, that hang around. The good ones made Cocoon. The bad ones curse people by giving them a focus, a task they must complete, and magical power to do so. These cursed people are called l’Cie. If they complete the task they turn to crystal, and this kind of sucks. If they fail the task they turn into horrible ghoulish monsters, and this too kind of sucks. In fact, this sucks so bad that the government of Cocoon is basically killing everyone who has had any sort of contact with Pulse. Your party, which consists of Lighting, our badass fighter chick main character, Snow, a dude who really wishes he was the main character, Sazh, a man with a baby Chocobo nesting in his afro, Hope, a kid whose mother dies in front of him and who hates Snow because of it, and Vanille, THE MOST FUCKING ANNOYING HAPPY-GO-LUCKY CHARACTER IN EXISTENCE, is out to save Serah, Lightning’s sister and Snow’s fiancé. However, in the process, all of these characters end up getting turned into l’Cie (and meet up with another one later in the game to round out the party to six) and now they have to deal with their fates.

At the very beginning of the game you can’t even level up. Once you go l’Cie though, you can level up via Crystogenesis via the Crystarium menu. Don’t let the big words fool you, it’s basically just the sphere grid from Final Fantasy X all over again. You spend points to advance on a path and activate nodes, and while there are a few branching paths, progression is pretty linear. In fact, progression is way more linear than you originally might have thought, since enemies are all present on the map, and they don’t respawn once you defeat them. This means that you can’t actually grind, even if you want to, until you get to the later more open parts of the game.

The battle system is kind of like what would happen if Squeenix took a crack at the Persona 3 battle system. You only control your main character in battle, and if your main character dies it is game over. The ATB bar is back, however it is broken up into segments. Different abilities use a different amount of the bar, with more powerful attacks using more bar. There is no MP whatsoever. Magic spells are free to cast, as is almost every other ability in the game. HP recovers after every battle and recovery items pretty much affect the entire party. You can choose your own actions, but most of the time you can also just choose “auto battle” and the computer will choose the best possible actions for you.

This may make battles seem easy, but that is actually not true. Unlike other Final Fantasies, Final Fantasy XIII seriously ups the damage dealing ability of both you and enemies alike. Individual combat action choice matters little, but managing the Paradigm Shift system matters quite a bit. “Jobs” are back, but this time they are called “roles” and they can be switched in the middle of battle. Switching role layouts at the right time is key to winning battles. When you are low on health, it’s better to switch to a role with a medic (white mage) and a sentinel (knight) to soak damage and heal your party. When high on health, it’s better to switch to commandos (fighters) and ravagers (black mages) to lay the damage on thick and attempt to stagger the enemy for a damage boost. If an enemy seems unbeatable, a creative Paradigm Shift might just save the day. Some enemies with high defense are very susceptible to debuff, and other powerful, slow enemies falter once you buff your own party. The Paradigm Shift system (along with occasional item use and summoning) is where the meat of the battle system lies. In truth, you will actually, more often than not, simply be clicking “auto-battle” and focusing on your paradigms, than choosing individual battle actions.

Though every commando in the game focuses on attacking and every ravager in the game focuses on magic, each individual character differs in his or her given roles. For example, when Snow acts as a ravager, he casts blizzard magic, while Vanille casts aero. Careful managing of what character uses what class is crucial. As you reach the endgame, characters become able to take on any role they want, but there are certainly paths that are better for specific characters to follow. It’s pretty obvious that a character that carries around a sword in her back pocket is better off swinging it than trying to use it to cast spells.

God, there is so much more to go into about the system of the game. Let’s see, all your shopping is done at save points, so the notion of RPG towns is no longer applicable. Save points are very frequent so you never feel as if the game is forcing you to play it for extended periods of time. Weapons and accessories can be upgraded to provide greater benefits to the characters equipping them. When you max out a weapon or accessory, you can use certain materials to turn it into a whole new item that can then be maxed out all over again. Much like Final Fantasy XII, you don’t get cash from winning battles. Instead you have to sell monster loot to get your hard earned Gil. Unfortunately, it is this same monster loot that powers up your weapons and accessories, so you will be playing a bit of a resource management game there.

Outside of the system and story you have the graphics and sound and all I can say about that is wow. Just … wow! The game is absolutely gorgeous. The characters are animated very realistically, and somehow, the game finds a balance between realism and animation that totally bypasses the whole uncanny valley thing. Honestly, I think it’s the outrageous RPG outfits. The environments are stunning, and they are all just so pretty to look at. The music is great, as it has always been, and the voice acting is believable. Perhaps the only thing that this game lacks, is the dialogue itself. The melodrama is pretty heavy, and you’ll see characters go through life changing events and deliver inspired monologues after no more than a few minutes into the game. Its inspiring at first but eventually runs on a little long.

To wrap this all up, I have to say I am not disappointed by Final Fantasy XIII in the least. I know I am not, because as soon as I got the game I played it for 9 hours straight without pausing for food or water. It does exactly what JRPGs do best, linearity. It tells a story and makes all of its systems revolve around that story. If you like the sort of RPG that gives you freedom to do whatever you want, then this game isn’t for you. However, if you are looking for Final Fantasy once again distilled down to its best parts, then go out and pick up Final Fantasy XIII.

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Then, the Wii came out, and motion control has been the talk of the town ever since. Originally, Sony debuted their SixAxis controller which, frankly, due to its lack of vibration and general unwieldy nature, was considered a bit of a joke. Now, however, they have done what they do best, rip off Nintendo and do it better with their new Playstation Move, which seems to be copying the Wiimote right down to the wrist strap. Like the Dualshock back in the day, the Move will be a whole separate controller that you will have to purchase separately from your PS3 system, however it promises an immersive gaming experience unlike anything you have ever experienced, even the Wii!

At the GDC this year, Sony showed just how capable this device is. The device uses a camera to track the movement of both a Wiimote like device you hold in your hand, and your body itself. A second device, similar to the Wiimote nunchuck, features a dpad, an analog stick, and triggers to allow for game control. Unlike the Wiimote, however, these two controllers are completely wireless and do not have to be connected to each other. In addition, the system can connect multiple primary wands to track two totally separate points of movement. A demo was shown in which this dual connectivity was used to control a Fight-Club esque, street fighting game.

Applications for this new motion capturing setup are numerous, although many of the demos shown seem to be catering to a more casual gaming crowd. Between applications for the EyePet, numerous sports games, Move Party (which is somewhat like WiiSports) and even new compatibility with Little Big Planet, it appears as if the Playstation Move will mostly be a tool for family gaming, something that the Wii currently has a monopoly on. However, SOCOM 4 was also showcased with a pointer based aiming system reminiscent of what we have seen on the Wii.

We will bring you more updates on Playstations new Move technology when details are released.

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http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i755f10fb8f89b626a26d3e9469b3d6d7

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Street Fighter IV is actually a whole lot like Street Fighter II. Combo strings are short, damage scales very high, and the majority of the game is based on fundamentals. The most complicated system in the game is the focus system, and even that is little more than a rock-paper-scissors “soak one hit” mechanic. Beyond that, you have a super bar that lets you do more powerful moves, and a revenge bar that lets you do a very powerful move, and that is about it. Lots of the old gameplay conventions return. Characters become trapped in fireball wars, jumping in (due to lack of air blocking) is very risky, and most of the game involves poking and positioning.

BlazBlue, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. While is has fewer buttons compared to Street Fighter (4 instead of 6) it has an incredible amount of complexity via the burst mechanic, the barrier mechanic, the guard libra (or primer if you are playing Continuum Shift), negative penalty, movement options like air dashing and super jumping, instant blocking and air blocking, the counter (and fatal counter) hit system, different kinds of throws and throw breaks, and every characters unique drive system. Yeah, though I don’t seem to notice it while I’m playing the game, this game is fucking balls to the walls complicated.

Which game is “better?” though. Honestly, if this were a personal article, which I suppose to some extent it is, I would simply take the cheap way out and say neither is better, they are both just different, we can all enjoy everything with varying levels of appreciation, everyone hold hands and have a multi-cultural sing-along. However, both of these games really do bring up a good question. Is a fighting game (or any game for that matter, but fuck you I’m keeping this example small and local) better with lots of complex systems to take advantage of, or is it better off being a digital version of Othello, simple to learn, hard to master, and filled with little pieces you eventually end up losing between your couch cushions.

There are a lot of arguments for both sides. For example, BlazBlue characters are far more unique than Street Fighter characters. In fact, characters are so dissimilar that you have to totally rethink your fighting style for each one. Some characters can control the wind, others can magnetize you, nearly every character has their own unique meter or gauge that ties into their moves somehow, and button mashing will do little but get you killed right out of the gate. Unfortunately, this also means that there simply aren’t many BlazBlue characters to choose from. When the console port of Continuum Shift releases, there will be fifteen characters to play as, which isn’t a whole lot by today’s standards.

On the other side of the argument, Super Street Fighter IV will be releasing with 35 playable characters, more than twice what BlazBlue can advertise. However, these characters are much less unique, with many sporting small variations on traditional moves such as the fireball or the dragon punch. However, since Street Fighter is a much simpler game, it means that these subtle differences such as range, hitbox, speed, and so forth, make a very large difference in gameplay. It also means that moves are easier to pick up. Most characters have the button combinations that fall into a pattern. If quarter circle forward punch produces a fireball, then it will do so with any punch button.

BlazBlue on the other hand features very obscure button combinations that require very specific button presses that produce moves that don’t seem to naturally follow from the combination you pressed. Very few characters have generic moves, like fireballs, and nearly every move in the game has special properties that you have to learn, making learning the game from the get go a project and a half.

Both games have evolved complex meta-games and tier lists, and both games have their share of celebrities and pro players. Both games have had their balanced re-worked and have been broken by people who try hard enough. However, you seem to get two different feelings of accomplishment for mastering both games. Street Fighter boils down to fundamentals. Players spend a good portion of the game laying on chip damage, locking their opponents down into positions that are advantageous to themselves, and overall making it difficult to approach or get the other hand. BlazBlue, however, recreates the feeling of an anime battle, with a focus on aggression and combos while still balancing gameplay with any number of trump cards, reversals, and surprise attacks with special properties.

So which one is better? Well, as I said before I am a BlazBlue fan, but honestly I’m not king high muckity muck god of gaming. I can’t tell you which one is better. I can tell you that you are trading off intricacy for accessibility and expansion for uniqueness in both cases. If you are the kind of gamer that really likes knowing absolutely everything about your character down to framerates, you may enjoy BlazBlue, however if you are the type of gamer that likes a lot of options with a decreased focus on combos and memorization, Street Fighter IV is probably the game for you.

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So the last rumor about Super Street Fighter IV’s roster has finally been confirmed. We are in fact getting Hakan, the Arabic grappler that is obsessed with oil. However, Capcom pulled a fast one on all of us. While we were all stuck dumbfounded on how racist the character concept was, Capcom was probably snickering behind the scenes at the final reveal. First of all, though Hakan is Arabic, he actually comes from and represents Turkey, and uses Turkish wrestling as his fighting style. Second of all, while we all thought that “Arabic grappler obsessed with oil” was some kind of horrible commentary on the war in the middle east, we were dead wrong. Capcom pulled a 180 on us, because the oil that Hakan is obsessed with, is actually body oil. Now, he and his shiny, bronze, and oh so slippery muscles will be entering the ring and fighting against Street Fighter characters new and old!

There has been a bit of a community backlash against Hakan ever since his reveal. His peculiar style of fighting certainly paints him as a “joke” character. Most of his moves involve squeezing you so hard you pop out of his slippery grip, or using his own oily body to slide around the ground at high speeds. In fact, one of his ultra combos involves spinning around on your body, tucking your head in between his legs, and squeezing you so hard you shoot out like a missile and slam into a wall. This oddly sexual display deals quite a bit of damage and does not seem enjoyable to his victims … er except for Dee Jay … Dee Jay seems to enjoy it way too much.

However, aside from the negative reaction to his joke like fighting style, Hakan is actually quite interesting from a gameplay mechanics standpoint. He is a heavy grappler with high mobility, which breaks the heavy grappler mold. El Fuerte is a light grappler with high mobility and Zangief is a heavy grappler with low mobility, but Hakan seems to have all the aspects of a heavy grappler character (360s 720s and all) with moves that easily move both him and his opponent across the screen.

Let’s take a look at his other moves. His slide seems to allow him to cross up characters by moving underneath them. He has followups that allow him to belly flop onto characters while they are downed. He seems to have a variety of standing throws, and some throws that actually cause him to dive through the air, that appear to be able to hit either standing or aerial opponents. One of his ultras seems to be a pretty standard close range grapple move (even though it shows him taking his opponent on a roller coaster ride across his oily body), but his other ultra appears to be an anti-air counter move. If an opponent jumps in while the ultra is active, they slip on Hakan’s oily chest and the entire ultra plays out. Even though this is hilarious, it is the first anti-air counter ultra we have seen in the game, which is quite a change in terms of gameplay mechanics.

Hakan also has a move where he oils himself up even more in the middle of a match. This makes him shine for a few seconds, however, what effect it has is yet to be seen. It did not appear to make him move faster, take less damage, or deal more damage. It may be conditional, and might only effect the moves that use his oily body. He did appear to slide farther on the ground when this buff is active.

Though he may be a “joke” character, he appears to have an interesting fighting style that may have a decent impact on the Street Fighter IV metagame … that is … if pro players can stash their pride long enough to pick up a joke character. We will give you more details on Hakan’s movelist, and Super Street Fighter IV’s release as they become available.

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Get out your iPhones and download this goddamn game. Right now. Why? Well quite simply it turns all that inane tweeting you are doing about the boy who doesn’t like you and the movie you just saw and the ludicrous prices at your local cafe into zombie killing awesomeness. The game synchs up with your Twitter account and translates your Twitter stats into weapon stats. It bases this all off of your friends, followers, and amount of tweets, however the game developers have been saying that even more Twitter stats might factor into the game, such as what you tweet about and how often people retweet you and how often you are replied to and so forth.

Sure, Tweet Defense isn’t the year’s next big action game. In fact, it probably won’t appeal to anyone who hasn’t been a part of the slow moving Tower Defense craze. However, it does exactly what a Twitter based game should do: waste your fucking time. Honestly, we can’t help but be behind this, if only for the fact that it might make people’s Twitter streams more interesting. If what you tweet about effects the powers you have in the game, I truly hope that some day we get to see people ranting about all the zombies that are trying to kill them on Twitter. “ZOMG ZOMBIE AT THE DOOR EATING BRAINS” is way cooler than just about anything else you could tweet about.

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