Hey man, I know exactly how it is. I'm a sound designer/audio engineer and not only is it too frequently overlooked, but it is often also one of the last priorities during production, with sometimes even things like catering getting a higher budget.
In film, there aren't enough directors who realize the importance of the audio and just have minimal training with it. They might be able to direct a great scene, and even sit there with the editing crew explaining each cu...
Well said sir. I'm personally just waiting for Vita to get a small price drop, then I'll snag one and a bunch of titles. Off topic, but Wintersun is amazing. I can't wait for "Time I" to come out. Its easily my most anticipated album in years. I'll definitely be trying to see them when they make it to North America for their upcoming tour.
I haven't grabbed the game yet myself, however I did own the original Death Rally (probably about 15 years ago) and that game was amazingly fun and addictive. It was a part of the golden era of 90's PC games, and it was very original in it's premise. This game seems to be a very solid remake/re-imagining of the original, and I'm definitely considering grabbing it.
The thing that really drew me into the original was that it took the idea of a basic top-down ra...
As for myself, I've found that a combination of Amazon and Gamefly seems to offer the best prices almost all around. Especially if you're a Gamefly subscriber. If you check out Gamefly's store prices, there are a massive amount of games you can get "used" for lower than anyone else offers. The reason I put the word "used" in quotations is because those games can hardly be considered used. The games themselves have been played before (the copies they send to cus...
This DLC is amazing. Its only $3, and the game has changed so much its practically a new game. It is also definitely much harder, enough so that I haven't been able to get to Mom in the Womb even. There are so many new items, new rooms, surprises, plus the trinkets, new enemies and bosses. I highly recommend it to anyone who liked the original, especially if you like a challenge.
To answer your questions, while Sony doesn't seem to own the IP (just going off the list of owned franchises on Wikipedia), they have a large enough stake in it that I think it essentially is their IP, and the game's creator/director/producer Toshihiro Nagoshi has explicitly stated that he's going to keep the Yakuza series on Playstation consoles. That being said, I can't highly enough recommend anyone to check out this series.
It is similar in ways to Shenmue...
Above all the other Tales games, my highest recommendations so far would be towards Tales of Symphonia (only the first game though), and Tales of the Abyss. Both of them are amazingly fun, but for me I think the voice acting talent (both Japanese and English), as well as the overall refinement for Symphonia give it a slight edge. Tales of Graces F is great however I'm not very far into it right now, as I'm trying to get through some other back-cataloged games before I keep going.
Actually Derpy, I'm not sure if you are aware, but you aren't playing as the "bad-guy" in Yakuza. The main character in the series is Kiryu Kazuma, and from the very first game you can tell that he's generally a really good person. He was associated with the Yakuza at a younger age, but due to many events that occur, he tries to distance himself from the organization. The problem is that things keep happening which draw him back into the problems that they experience, ho...
While I'm not terribly far into the game yet (trying to get through some of my backlog before getting back to it), I'm having a ton of fun with Dead Souls. I can't really understand these reviews/reviewers and where they are coming from, but then I also couldn't agree with many of the Yakuza 3 and 4 reviews that lambasted the games for silly reasons. In fact I'm finding that many of these reviewers don't even know the basics about the game/series, such as knowing which...
Yeah I'd definitely agree with Morgan. I'm just starting it, but I still love it like the rest of the Yakuza series. The shooting mechanics don't take too long to get used to, and it still has all the other aspects that are trademarks of the Yakuza series, like all the mini-games, side-missions, hostess bars, etc.
If you are really on the fence about it, you can check out the demo on the JP PSN store, although the controls are substantially different in the local...
Don't feel bad man, I know exactly how it is. I've got a backlog of over a hundred games now that I'm trying to get through. With all the new releases (especially RPGs that can take dozens of hours more than other titles), its actually hard now to experience all the good games out there while still working/living life. The Yakuza series has become a favorite of mine though, up there with the original Deus Ex and the Metal Gear series, so this sort of takes precedence over my backl...
Holy crap, that was amazing. Majima doing karaoke, I busted out laughing! I can't wait to see this in action. That plus Tales of Graces F are my two most anticipated games for a while to come. I'll be picking both up first thing tomorrow.
I can't wait to see what Yakuza 5 is going to be like, and while they're at it I'd love to see an HD collection of the first two games. On my PS3 there's a point in the first game that it won't continue past the l...
Thanks for the response Bizzel. Like I said, it is a shame that it turned out that way, but you live and learn. I've lived in four different states over the past seven years and I can't really say I've had a very positive Best Buy experience at any point, and so this was essentially the breaking point for me. Consistently the employees have been unhelpful, didn't know anything about the products I was looking for/interested in (including if they even had them in-stock sometime...
I wish I had your positive customer experiences there ABizzle, because honestly I've lost most of my interest in shopping at Best Buy due to their atrocious customer service both in-store and online/over-the-phone. During the general "holiday season" I had placed an order online which they actually changed several parts of it after I had placed it, including one item that they marked down as having been "returned" by myself, and then added the same item over again onto...
Hey Ryu, I'm on this game also for PS3 (might grab it on PC now though as well), and I'm looking for good communicative people to play with. I haven't really played since the demo came out, but I grabbed this when it went on sale on PSN and haven't had anyone to play with, so I've put it off until now. If you feel like gaming together on this or anything else, add me on PSN or Steam.
PSN: akiraburn
Steam: akiraburn_ (its the profile with the mang...
With each new trailer they release I'm consistently getting more interested and excited to play this when it comes out. I thoroughly enjoyed the demo and my as-of-yet only unconfirmed hope is that this game gets wide enough recognition to both continue the series and so that there isn't a lack of players for its online modes.
Definitely agree NukaCola. I also grabbed the JP demo a year ago and had a lot of fun with it. Its crazy how long and in-depth they end up making the Japanese demos for this series. I remember playing the Yakuza 4 demo off the JP store and that was like 3 hours long.
I don't know if either of you were prior fans of the Yakuza series, but if you haven't checked them out I would highly recommend them. Right now you can get Yakuza 3 and 4 for less than $20 each, and you...
I was thoroughly pleased with the demo for this. I was already a fan of the Yakuza franchise, so I had high hopes for Binary Domain (given it comes from the same developer) and I was definitely left excited with the end result. The demo has also made me decide that for me this is worth a purchase rather than just a rental, however the only issue is that from now until the end of March there's a slew of other great titles also worth a purchase. In addition to this, many gamers (myself incl...
This is definitely my most anticipated game coming up anytime in the near future. Yakuza (or Ryu Ga Gotoku) as a series has easily become one of my top favorite franchises of all time. Its one of the only game series that I so thoroughly enjoy that I will take the time to do literally everything in the game that I can do. Seeing them improve on all these aspects definitely raises my anticipation that much more.
I also really hope they have discussed and considered the possib...
I was also very stoked when I heard that other versions of Dragon's Dogma were getting the special armors and all. I've been direly awaiting an announcement of a new Berserk game as well. Here's hoping that the new movie trilogy spurs the development of a game.
And I too have Sword of the Berserk on Dreamcast, and was crushed when the PS2 Berserk title never came received a localization. By the way, if you haven't seen that already, check out the videos of it...