Weekend! What are you playing?

It's the weekend again! Early in the week Dead Space 3 came out and I'm sure a bunch of you guys are playing it. Sadly, that's not my game of choice, but the game I plan to tackle this weekend does share the same atmosphere in some way. Instead of space, the terror is deep below the metro system of Moscow. What are you playing this weekend?

Carlos: This weekend I'm hell-bent on finally finishing Metro 2033. I played this game and loved every minute of it, but thanks to my PC's hard drive dying on me, my Metro 2033 save file went with it. I'm a sucker for survival horror and this one fits the bill perfectly. I'm going to start my new playthrough and hopefully I get to finish it this time by the end of the week. Oh and of course, I'm planning to do a bit more Guild Wars 2 because dailies are evil.

Migoy: Gotta do some more training in Persona 4 Arena and Tekken Tag Tournament 2. I can hold my own in P4A online ranked but I just want to get better and learn some new stuff. As for Tekken Tag 2, I really need to up my game.  The online world of Tekken Tag 2 is relentless and cruel. With people bringing in their Tekken 6 tech and discovering new things with the tag mechanics, this is a game that I can't scrub my way through.

As for the single player stuff, I actually have a lot of backlog. I just don't feel like playing any of them at the moment though I should probably finish the games that I borrowed from friends. Mainly Batman: Arkham Asylum. It's not that I don't like the game. I just don't find the combat as interesting as everyone says it is. I guess I've just been spoiled by Bayonetta and the DMC series when it comes to action games.

Final Fantasy Trading Arts Kai Mini

Datablitz has been selling videogame figures for a while now. Namely the World of Warcraft figures. Now, they've recently been selling action figures, mainly from the Play Arts and Play Arts Kai line. While all those are well and good, I did see a few figures that I wasn't familiar with. The Final Fantasy Trading Arts Kai Mini series of figures.

Chibi Final Fantasy character is the most straight forward way of describing these figures. Unlike other Final Fantasy Trading Arts figures, these chibis have a bit of articulation to them. All have the same sized faces, neck ball joints and for the most part, the same hair connection. Each figure comes with 3 extra faces, a body wearing the default outfit, a second body (usually an alternate costume from their game or the character riding something like Cloud's bike from Advent Children), a hand/hands holding their signature weapon/weapons and sometimes something extra like a summon creature. Each figure also comes with one spiky speech bubble, a regular speech bubble, and a sign usually displaying the ATB command list from their respective games.

They're priced at 795php each, 750php if you pay in cash. I've recently procured 2 figures from the Trading Art Kai Mini line and though not the easiet figure to work with, they are a good value for their price. If you guys like the Final Fantasies, check these figures out. They're hella cute.

Recent Buys: Episode 19 - Equipment Upgrade, DLC, and Small Final Fantasy Characters

It's that time again. Money saved and money spent. And money well spent if I do say so myself.

First off let's go with the big item. I got myself a new microphone. It's the Zoom H2n. I was actually planning to go for the Samson Meteor USB microphone but after a friend of mine showed me videos of the Zoom H2n, it was just a night and day difference in the audio quality. The fact that this is a portable microphone that's battery powered is a huge convenience. With my old setup, I would record gameplay and audio separately and would then run the audio through some noise removal (the microphone can pick up the sound of my electric fans, it's hot in this country). The Zoom H2n also mounts on camera tripods which is cheaper, easier to find and a whole lot lighter than regular mic stands. couple all that with awesome sound quality, wish I knew about this mic sooner.

On to the video games. I went to Datablitz in Greenhills asked if they had any Hong Kong PSN cards in stock. Lucky for me they just got a new shipment that very day. With that, I finally got the DLC characters for Street Fighter x Tekken. Since the ver. 2013 update changed the game so much (for the better), I thought it was time to get the characters. With the remaining money, I also got the DLC character color pack for Persona 4 Arena. I kinda want to get another card for the glasses DLC pack.

Getting a Hong Kong PSN card is cool and all but that wasn't the reason why I went to Datablitz. The real reason I went to DB was because of an action figure. A Squall figure from the Final Fantasy Trading Arts Kai Mini series of figures. Squall is not my favorite Final Fantasy character but the figure just looks too cute and one I saw that the figure comes with him in his SeeDs uniform, I was sold.

After messing around with the Squall figure, I was curious as to what other Final Fantasy characters got the chibi treatment. I remember seeing a figure of Lightning in the SM Megamall DB branch and found it cute. I looked up the pictures of the Lightning mini figure and that one of her extra faces have her doing the "whatever" eyes. She also comes with her riding the Odin horse and Odin's swords which are all pretty cool too. But it's really the eyes that sealed the deal.

Last but not least, I also got a new set of component cables called "4 in 1 HD Component Cable" by a brand called "Cable". It's one of those "all in one" type of thing where it has 3 connectors at the end. One for PS3/Ps2, one for Wii, and one for the Xbox 360. It fixed the ghosting problem that I had with my older set of component cables which is a huge sigh of relief for me as the ghosting would happen on both the TV and the captured game footage of my laptop. So expect the newer videos to be in better quality with these new set of cables.

Going Old School #2: Fighting Force 2

If you didn't know, the 3D beat-em up game on the PlayStation called Fighting Force got a sequel. You'd expect the sequel to be the exact same game just with different stage or at least , while being different, would be similar enough to the first game in both genre and play style. Boy, would you be wrong.

Fighting Force 2 is an entirely different game. Instead of being a 2 player arcade style beat-em up, Fighting Force 2 became a 3rd person action game. Now that might not sound very different but let me put it this way. Imagine turning a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles SNES game into Tomb Raider.

Weekend! What are you playing?

Yey, the weekend! Do I go out and have as many drinks as I can until I pass out on a sidewalk, sleep all day, or just play more video games? Actually, I'm going for all three this weekend so good luck to me. What are you playing? 

Quash: I might call it an early night this friday, but after doing my errands tomorrow, I'm planning to play the Metal Gear Solid: Revengeance demo. Been waiting for this demo for weeks since Revengeance might just be my first game of 2013. As of right now, I haven't bought anything new since my Halo 4 purchase in early December. I also plan to play some Path of Exile and get to act 3, and hopefully do some Guild Wars 2 dungeons with some friends if they get online.

Migoy: Haven't really thought about what I'll be playing this weekend. Will probably get around to starting Dmc Devil May Cry on the Son of Sparda difficulty. I definitely need hit the lab in Persona 4 Arena and Street Fighter x Tekken. More so in SFxT because I recently got blown-up badly by a few players online. Plus I just need to step my game up in general. Can't rely on the scrub skills forever. I also borrowed Arlie's copy of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and heard that there are still people who play it online so I'll try that out. I also just got a new microphone so I'll definitely do some tests for that. Who knows, maybe some good footage might go along with it.

Arlie: What is up? I'm still at the office and I can't wait to get home for the weekend. I'm planning to get into Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch more and play less of Guild Wars 2. I'm only just 16 hours in Ni No Kuni thanks to my schedule. THIS GAME IS SO AMAZING that playing it only for an hour or two a day is just dumb. Earlier this week my Human Elementalist already hit the max level cap of 80 in Guild Wars 2, only to realize that (shit!) this was just the beginning. After that, I've been running down dungeons and trying to finish the story arcs. A major update was up this week in Guild Wars 2 and its called Flame & Frost: Prelude (Game of Thrones reference? anyone?). Feel free to add me in GW2, my gamer tag is arliedavid.6123 roaming at Isle of Janthir. Excelsior!