Persona 4 Arena - Learning Yosuke

I am not the best at the fighting game but I do appreciate them and definitely enjoy playing them. Living in the Philippines, we don't exactly have the best internet around so my choice of online games are a bit limited.

Persona 4 Arena is one of the most playable games online that I own and it is one of my favorites. Me and my cousin (KickinTotz) try to take on the online world of P4A in the hopes to get better and rank up. Here we take what we hear is one of the hardest characters to use and that is Yosuke Hanamura and try to learn how to use this character. The keyword being "try".

Donkey Kong Country Returns with Migoy and Bud

I've been meaning to play this game for a while now but since it appears to be best enjoyed when playing with another person, I got my cousin Bud (PSN ID: KickinTotz) to join me.

With how crazy the stages can get, especially the minecart segments, this is surely a game that will test friendships. Expect to hear us screaming, sometimes at each other, through out the videos.

Weekend, what are you playing?

We're at the last weekend of November and like I said last week, tis the season for new releases. Did anyone get any new games? What are you playing?

Migoy: I slept through most of my Saturday and didn't really get a chance to play any game. Sunday morning is gonna be spent watching the Curleh Mustache 5 tournament over at TeamSp00ky' twitch.tv. I'll probably end up booting Super Robot wars OG Saga: Endless Frontier EXCEED again since I'm really into it, plus it's on a handheld so you know, ease of access. Planning to play a bit more of Persona 4 Arena and hopefully remember how to play that game again and maybe this time do more than just auto-combo my way to victory.

Quash: Played some Black Ops 2 this morning. It still surprises me how people think Capture the Flag or Domination matches are still all about the kills. I'll also be playing some Street Fighter 4 with some friends, we miss the old days.

Arlie: Mass Effect 3. No spoilers please.

DmC Devil May Cry Demo Impressions

The demo of the new Devil May Cry game (spelled as "DmC") with the new emo Dante just came out this week and I tried it out.

The demo includes a short campaign segment called "Under Watch" where in the game teaches you how to pull off attacks and demonstrate Dante's new platforming tools to go about the environment. I like the combat in this game. It still stays true to the whole "make your own combo" asthetic that made the older Devil May Cry games so fun. Comboes are easier to pull off than in the older games but is complex enough for you to put in a bit of effort if you want to keep the combo going. Aside from the standard sword and dual pistols, Dante has access to two weapons. The Osiris (scythe) and the Arbiter (axe/hammer) which are mapped to the L2 and R2 buttons respectively. Dante doesn't switch with the two weapons but instead, the buttons act as a sort of move modifier. The Osiris acts as the "crowd control" weapon, dealing multiple hits while covering a wide horizontal space. The Arbiter acts as the hammer type weapon, with earth shaking strike powerfull enough to break shields or launch enemies in the air. You can switch between all 4 weapons (sword, guns, scythe and axe) at any point during move strings which lets you mix and match and create your own combos. And yes, the guns do keep opponents airbourne ala the first Devil May Cry.

Aside from that, the demo also includes one boss fight in a mode called "Secret Ingredient" which pits you against a large larvae like creature that knows how to drop the F-bomb. There's actually a challenge room to the left of the area before the boss that asks you to defeat a wave of enemies before the timer runs out. The twist being that the enemies only take damage when they are above the ground. It's a good little way of telling the player that thinking of creative ways to combo enemies can benefit you instead of just hammering away at the attack button.

I have to say that I liked the demo. Combat is fun, the environments look nice, and even though the punk "I can swear in a video game" theme doesn't rub me the right way at the moment, I have to say that DmC will surely be one of my game purchases in 2013.

I played on the "Devil Hunter" difficulty which I'm guessing is the normal difficult level. The game offers your 4 difficulty levels, with the 4th (Son of Sparda) being initially locked. At the end of each game mode (after the game trailer plays out) you are given a rating on how you performed in combat. I don't know what the required rating is to unlock the Son of Sparda difficulty but I believe I got rank B in both Under Watch and Secret Ingredient and got access to Son of Sparda in both modes.

If any of you are on the fence about the new DmC, then by all means try the demo out and remember, Dante's new look does not define the game, gameplay does.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8V_6dFprU4[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjYiXFWaEWc[/youtube]

Skyrim Challenge: self-applied rules to spice up my new playthrough

A couple of days ago, I posted my Diablo 3 Hardcore playthrough without using the AH. Well that's a bust, not because I died or anything, but because my graphics card died. So, until I get a replacement, I have no choice but to put my Hardcore progress on hold. I loved the idea of adding extra rules to give a challenge, so I decided to play Skyrim on my Xbox 360 again with a set of rules to spice things up a bit.

I've played through the game twice at this point with different builds and I don't think I have another normal playthrough in me. So I decided to do this which brought back the fun in this game.

Here's my set of rules for the challenge playthrough I just started yesterday:

1) No fast travel - Might sound a bit painful to some but it's actually not that bad. If you make use of the other forms of travels in the game like horses and caravans(which was considered useless right after you figure out how to fast travel), moving from point to point isn't so bad. Plus you get to explore new locations that you most likely missed thanks to fast travel.

2) No crafting and enchanting, only alchemy allowed - Everybody that has finished Skyrim knows that the best gears in the game can be crafted, making you overpowered for some content of the game. By restricting yourself from ever using these skills, items and gear you earned through chests and exploring the world in general comes out more satisfying. When I first played this game, nothing I found in the chest was ever helpful since my crafted gear always came out better. If I did find something good, I improve it even more with crafting.

3) One save file for the playthrough, can only save in inns or owned houses - This rule is to eliminate those constant saves before dungeons for when you die or make a mistake. With this, the game is a bit more intense too since you know you will restart back to the inn if you die. This also gives inns some sort of purpose at the start too.

4) Play on master difficulty - The max difficulty of the game. Beware of the two-handed bandit chiefs.

5) Never use any restoration spell - This was a bit too much I think. I noticed that the restoration school is always the go-to place to get health back, which results in me wasting experience on this school. This also makes health potions very valuable in this playthrough. My past playthroughs, regardless of what build I was going,I always had the restoration school up because I needed a heal now and then. I'm still considering this, but so far the game isn't so bad with this restriction.

6) No waiting, only use if required for a quest - This is to avoid an easy way to heal your character. When you wait in Skyrim, or any Elder Scrolls game, you regenerate your health, mana, and stamina. Usually, waiting for 1  or 2 hours would fill your bars.

That's the set of rules for my Skyrim challenge. A different spin on the game, which I'm hoping isn't too difficult as I get farther in, but enough to make it challenging, fun, and possible to progress when I sit down to play. A bit too early to tell, but this could make the game better. I could go overboard by saying if I die once, it's game over for good, but that's way too much. I'm not that crazy.

My character for this playthrough will be built as a stealthy ranger since I've always wanted to play this game with a bow as my main weapon of choice. As I write this, I just started and I'm now at level 6 and finding some bandit camps to raid to get stronger. The first dungeon in the main story is impossible at the moment (died twice already) so I'm going to save that for later. I played a couple of hours and it's doable....so far.

If you plan on playing the game again try it yourself if you want a different take on Skyrim, or apply your own set of restrictions and see how it goes.

So what do you think? A bit too much? Have any suggestions? Hit the comments below.