Here's a Clue for something no one guessed in the last post....
I am still enjoying all those things my bro brought :P and if anyone knows how to get Guitar hero Games(for Ps2) in India (Without Guitar) please tell (Is this another Clue?)
Go to Previous post and see if you can point out the new ones :D
My bro returned home today after being in the US for more than 1.5 years..... and.... O.M.G
look at all the goodies and surprises he got me :o
I am still in awe..There are many more things not in pic! (like a REAL bass guitar :o ) My bro is sleeping for sometime because of jetlag... we will start unpacking and stuff soon!!
man, I am sooooo happy now :P
I got to see my dear bro after so long, and also sooo many things like a santa he brought! :lol:
Now the TRINITY is complete! I can turn on all three at the same time and travel to the other dimension and play among game characters :shock: :D
and yeah... I think this will go down in history as my shortest blog!
P.S: special Cookie to anyone who guesses ALL the things in there :D
Disclaimer: The Characters and Events depicted in this Entry are REAL. If you happen to be one of those people in the events, I say....."Hi, Nice to meet you here" :D
And another note: This isn't Orange Box preview /review/impressioins/conclusions etc. Its about the series of events that made me spend a lot of time just to get the thing finally working. So if you are one of the 10% of the Orange box retail population who have had problems Installing the game via the Discs,at the end you will find a cost effective solution to fix it.
-End of Notes
*The Hype
On Feb 2006 there was a news on Gamespot Saying that HL2 would soon come out, I was neither surprised nor excited. I had yet to play EP1. Ep2 was supposed to come out till "end of year"(year =2006) and after a series of Delays, to "Early 2007" and then "Summer 2007". Finally in summer they told it would ship on Oct 9th 2007. My excitement for this would have died somewhere in between, but the thing that kept me waiting for the release was This announcement that was made amidst the delay.
Orange Box and Black box(cancelled later), What was so special about them? Well, I saw a trailer for Portal and being the nerdy, brain-usage-having-game-liker I am, I became an instant fan of the game. From then on, whenever a friend or a GS staff mentioned orange box in their blogs, I would just go and say " I am getting it only for portal" :lol: Later I looked into the other games, and it increased my excitement.
Now October was near, and all those HD gameplay vids of portal were filling my HDD. The only thing in my mind was, "how much would it cost". Me being in India , The price of the games is something that often makes me not buy a game when I go to the store, because there is no prior info on the game's price and often I find out its Rs.2500/- or in that range, which might not sound much when converted to USD, but still is quite a lot. And from out of nowhere I saw a blog post by my friend in GS(who also happens to be an Indian) in which he said that the game is going to sell for Rs.999/- and that's just 25$! You can see my excitement in the comments I made :P
*The Purchase
And the price was really ONLY Rs.999/-
The original Release date was oct 16th but it got a bit delayed and came on oct 18th, on Oct 20th I went with my friends to IMAX theater to watch Transformers on the big screen, and I also planned on buying Orange Box that day. We enjoyed the Movie on Big screen and then as soon as we came out, I went to the gameshop in the multiplex and bought the game with no second thought.
Just like the time I got my 360, I was very much excited, my friends suggested I have a pic taken to remember this great day, and there-> you can see it :D
Soon after paying McDonalds a visit we started for home, the whole 15Km journey took 1 hour. Coz you know, THIS is how Indian traffic is on a VERY good day. I reached home at 11 PM and was very exhausted. So I slept just so that I could wake up the other day and have full energy to complete Portal and EP1 on the same day :P
*The Events Begin!
I woke up early in the morning, it was Saturday and I had the whole day to just sit and play, I started to install OB at 8:00AM and at the first setup screen I saw which games to select. The whole thing required 15GB! I had only 7 GB free in my 180GB HDD (UT,Oblivion,Dreamfall, etc take a lot of space :S ). So I selected only Portal in the beginning (as I didn't want 0 GB free). With the same enthusiasm I had when I first saw the trailer, I was watching those yellow steam bars move forward. But then .... I realized something 20 mins have passed, and my spongebob face was fading . The bar was still moving, the disc bar got filled and started over again.
And then THIS happened.
Da Da Da Daaaaaam.
I was completely _______. Only thing I could do was take a screenshot for "future references" and then I ejected the disc, surprisingly, it asked me to insert second disc, and, you can't even guess what happened, the showed up "EMPTY" and "Unformatted" :|
I couldn't make head or tails of anything, I bought a NEW Sealed Box and I get such Discs? I was in full despair. I saw the 2nd disc and it had a huge scratch on it, as you can see the BOX of the Orange Box was quite badly made, it had a "Cheapo" feeling to it, it was no where as good as my CoD Delux edition Box (which I got from abroad). And the box was a "5 Disc Capacity" one, hence there was Huge Empty spaces, and maybe that was the reason for the scratch.
Nevertheless I tried again, I put the First disc again, and this time it was taking a very long time to read the disc. Now even the first disc had gone bad? Luckily it was read after some minutes. And It was installing but at a speed of 1 MB per 10 mins! I just quit the setup after that.
*Steam @ 8K no good
Now you all might be wondering, "Why didn't you just download it off steam" well the thing is that, living in a developing nation has some limitations, the internet connection I have is only 128Kbps during the no-download-limit time (10PM to 7AM) and 512kbps on the remaining times (2 GB download limit). And the thing was 4 GB(only portal)
It would take me 4096*(2^10)/(16*60*60*24) = 3.034 Days of continuous download and with my limitation I have only 9 hours a day to download that would bring it to 8 days! Also steam servers are not the world's best servers either, I was getting 10-12 KBPS max download from them.
Now in total despair I started asking my friends(not the ones with whom I went to the movies, they aren't gamers, like 90% of
Indians) sabout their Copies, no one had bought it till now. I immediately called the shop guy and told him about this , and then he asked me to call another number which was of the main distributors of games in the whole south Indian region :shock: I called them and they asked me things ranging from "Did you put it in a DVD drive" to "Did you try it somewhere else" Well, I did put it in a DVD drive, and I have two, it didn't work in any of them. I however, didn't try it in any other's PC. They asked me to check it in another system, so I immediately went to my cousins house who only a few months ago bought a PC, and tried it there.
Sadly it didn't work even there :( so I called those guys again and they told me that they will replace it that Monday, the thing being, I have to go ALL the way to that place and get it replaced :S and here comes the big part, that place it 20-25Kms away and it took and 1 hour to go just 15 kms :roll: and I also had my exams from Monday, so I told them that I would come there on Saturday(next week) to get it replaced.
I however was not happy, All I wanted was to play these games for which I waited for so long, and now I had the box right infront of my eyes but could do nothing.My whole Saturday from 8 am to 8PM was spent running around and trying to get Orange Box working. But all work but no fruits.
It was Sunday and I started asking one friend after the other about their copies, again
*Friend 1
First came Gagan, he bought a new computer and Orange box on the same day(Sunday), and EVEN HE had the same problem but the first disc was working fine for him. First disc had HL2 and EP1 he already played those,so even he was suffering now :( The only access to internet he had was GPRS, and he was downloading the whole eps using GPRS from his cell :o Since it had no limitations, he could get them installed in 4-5 days. After being unsuccessful there I asked Neeraj
*Friend 2
Neeraj too was waiting for OB since very long, being a HL freak and all :P and when I asked him, even he got both discs corrupt :( He got them replaced the same day, but even those replaced discs were NOT working! But, he being in another region of India had access to 256Kbps unlimited internet and hence was downlading all the eps (that too would take 2 days of continuous downloads, not economically, and ecologically feasible)
*All Friends Same outcome
Similarly 5 of the people I knew had the same disc problems, I was guessing the whole Indian made ones had a problem, but one friend of mine, indzman, didn't have any problems. I just couldn't understand what the problem was.
Sunday was over and now I had my exams, everyday after finishing my exams I came and asked in Indian forums if anyone's copy was working, many days passed by but no one else's worked and soon I got a reply telling me that the discs that were "corrupt" showed up fine on a Mac. He suggested the Drives were old. But I recently upgraded my firmware for both the drives. And also gagan had a BRAND new PC, it should be working in that, but it didn't!
One of the days before Saturday came, I left EP1 for install at 10PM and woke up at 7 am to check it, and only 300 MB was copied from disc :shock: it was as slow as installing from Internet :x
A week of Orange Box Trial and Error had gone, I was so crazy about orange box that, everything I knew was being orange, even my desktop had a complete orange feel to it. But things happened, all the excitement and dreams I had for playing orange box faded away , I remembered nothing about the games themselves, other than getting them installed, I was in a complete Irritated stage for the week.
*Replacement Time!
Saturday came and I took one of my friends with me to that far off place, as it had a huge computer shopping area in there too and we decided to buy and check prices of computery things in the market. After finding the place we were greeted by the owners and they started checking the discs, in the 1.5 hour attempt to get the thing installed we had a great talk which I wrote down HERE they were in the gaming business since very long and I got to a lot of the "other side" of gaming which deals with publishers and how they ship game to India.Both I and the owner Enjoyed talking, and after 1.5 hr when we looked at the computer screen, even the cache files didn't finish being made :lol:
He immediately opened a new orange box and it had a different packaging the discs inside were kept in paper packs, I think those guys realized the problem of scratching and packed the later things properly. I checked the installation there and it installed
nicely. He gave a "retailers only" catalogue for winter Ps3 games release date(knowing Indian release dates before hand is really cool) and also a halo3 poster, which I stupidly forgot to take while leaving :x
*Another Misfortune
The installation was happening nicely, 1 GB was copied in Minutes.. but it again stopped at 1.5 GB :cry: I couldn't believe my eyes, I removed the discs, cleaned the things and then tried again, but to no avail :( and the stranger thing is that, Drive A could read disc 1 and Drive B could read Disc 2 but not the other ,for both. I was in disbelief as I saw the things working in that place.
I went on trying doing many different things till 1:30 Am, I didn't get sleep, but with the exhaustion because of driving(total 4 hours, bike) and all, I fell asleep, Even in sleep I was thinking of getting the thing to work, I woke up at 5:30 AM and resumed trying to install it, I didn't feel asleep at all, I didn't have any caffeine either.
My aim to get the thing working was above all, I forgot about everthing else
*The PLAN.
Upto now I was working normally, but after seeing what happened the prev. day my brain went in overdrive,I started using my geeky superpowers. I calculated all possible solutions.
In my first attempt I tried to create an image of the disc and then run it off image drives, but alas, the discs were only readable to certain extent, and hence read errors stopped the image from being created, after that I tried a lot of things, but all failed.
As a last ditch effort I googled again, and this time my keywords hit the spot, and I saw many people Buying NEW drives to play the game as their old drives were not reading. It was still not understandable to me. The disc is still of the same type, either DVD-R or DVD+R then why have the problems, if it uses a new type of file system my firmware upgrade should have fixed it. And also, Gagan's drive was a new one. Then I remembered that guy in the forums talking about it being read in a mac.
My mother suggested that I buy a new Drive which are worth around 1500 (more than the game). Being the "Get things done in cheapest way" guy I am, I didn't want to have another drive when the other two are working fine, just for one game.Also there was no guarantee that the new one would work (as is the case with gagan)
Soon I had a brain flash, and remembered that my friend has a dell laptop, Since it's a branded thing(unlike every other home PC I know, which are assembled) they are bound to be new and upto date in every way. I thought of creating an image there and then writing the images on normal empty Sony DVD Rs of whom I have stock. This would cost me only Rs.20/- :lol:
But then I thought that it will have copy protection, So I thought of installing the game in his laptop and copying the Cache files onto DVDs and getting them home, but I would require a Internet Connection to access steam and my friend had no connection, So I took my cell and Nokia PC suite to use GPRS for that purpose, But GPRS costs, so I searched for a way to circumvent the copy protection:P
30 mins of googling and I found out The Discs had no Copy Protections :lol: because of Steam and all . So I went to my friends room, and kept the discs there, when it was being read, I prayed as much as I could. And YES it was read :D I used Alcohol 120% and created the image, then burnt them on the DVDRs. The whole process took 1 hour and during the whole time, I, My friend, and the hostel mates were all singing and rejoicing :lol:
Everyone felt my pain and understood the sad situation I was in, and when I was finally getting it written all were happy :D After the writing was finished, as show of entertainment, I played a hard boss in Typing of the dead, in full uber fast typing glory and all were amazed, lol.
But soon, I thought, what if these written things are also not read? It is the file format after all! :shock: All happiness down the drain, and like a sign from god, another friend dropped by and he lives near my house.
I got another plan just in time, I asked him to stay there, and told that I will go home and try installing from the discs, IF the installation is not successful (:() I will ask him to get my friends laptop to my home, and then using my home made wifi network I can easily install the game in his laptop and then copy the cache files from his laptop to my PC and enjoy :D
*Mission Accomplished?
I left for home, and tried it immediately, and on Sunday oct 28th 1:30 PM I was FINALLY able to install the game! YES!! I called my friends and they were happy for me :D After that I finished installing portal in a RECORD SETTING 10 mins!
As soon as it finished installing! Nothing could stand between me and portal! Except for.... POWER CUT! Once again, a thing something you have to be accustomed to, by being in a developing nation.I played my recent addiction Tony hawk PG for DS, Awesome game.
Current Came back at 5 PM, I Finally started portal, but first I decorated my Orange Dtop which now looks like this.
~~~~~
When I started portal I couldn't believe my eyes that it was finally happening, a week of trial and errors, and two days with only 4 hours of sleep, all for a BOX and its games. And as and when I was playing all those dreams of me playing portal, Eps and TF2 were coming back, I was having a blast. With all the driving and no sleep, I was in a semi sleepy state, I spent almost 30 mins in lvl 17 for something whose answer was just beside me :lol: I was trying all this impossible things , because I was overthinking everything.
I thought of completing the game in one stretch but had to attend a party so left it at 7:30 PM I also had to read for my Next exam AND complete my LAB records, but the whole day I was busy with these things that I didn't do anything. I came back from the party thinking I would read, but I sat down and played portal :P
Completed the game at stroke of midnight and then heard the awesome PORTAL song! Filled with all those jargon that I like :P it was so cool. After finishing the game I realized that I didn't get the achievement for finishing it, as I was disconnected from steam, so I reconnected and played the ending again, and heard the song again :P this time, WITH ACHIEVEMENTS. I had basically every achievement except the camera one (only could do 19) for the story mode.. yes... Sorry Companion cube :(
Completed Portal in 3.5 hours, now off to EP1 and then EP2 and all full completion of Portal then playing TF2... for...ever? :P
That was how this series of misfortunate events surronding the orange box came to end with me finally getting to play the games have a blast!
*looks up* Woot, that was long, Hope this helps the people who have the same Orange Box retail problems. In simple words this is what you do.
"Take your Discs to some branded computer/laptop create an image of those discs and write them onto normal DVDrs"
Thanx for reading. Now heres the infamouse portal Song "Still Alive" Uploaded by my good Friend PeldonPeldon.
[video=d3dgnmes5b8EszTY]
Hello Everyone :D This time, I will be talking about all the Extreme(Spelled Xtreme with a capital "X") Games that I played along the years.For most of us, Tony hawk defines Xtreme Games, and yeah, I am also included in that US, But there were other few games that were really good, So lets have a look at the past, present and future of Xtreme Video Games (As seen through my life , of course :P )
The Pre-Tony Hawk Era.
I started Gaming, when the only console we had was a ATARI 2600, now... at that time.. these "Xtreme Sports" were not that much of the "In Thing" the most extreme I can say... was the Teeter- Totter Game(Names Circus for some strange reason) where the other guys crashes into the hard ground if you miss him :P there was Skii-ng, but its not extreme unless there's an avalanche behind you.
Even in the NES era there were not many Xtreme games, And I don't remember playing any either . Same for the SNES, But Super Punchout was pretty Xtreme XD
Tony Hawk Cometh
(Not so Xtreme Before TH eh?)
*The Intro to TH
Then came PC gaming time, and it was in around 1999-2000 when I and my brother saw Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 Demo being shown as "Demo of the Week" on CNET's TV.com, the TV show that came in CNN (or was it BBC? don't remember exactly) After seeing that video with the character flying and going round and round in air we were excited very much! We wanted to play it very badly, so after a few months or so we got the demo (yeah, slow internet)
*The Demo that Started it all.
When we started the demo we were thinking of all those cool tricks we saw in the video.. and as soon as the game started... the controls were oh so awkward... we didn't even know how to go straight :lol: We tried a lot to play the game and reach those video levels of tricks.. but we were only in the baby-steps phase. There was a 2 min limit to the game but we could retry as much as we wanted :D at the end of the first day we were able to jump from ramps and do some grab tricks.
We wanted to do awesome tricks as in the video and hence played the demo almost everyday.. and within the same week... we went from 0 level to uber level :P now we could do awesome tricks and 360 Grab Tricks were NOTHING! We Always tried to beat the top score, and when one beat it.. the other would try to top it.. so we started playing Tony hawk like that.
NOW, we were totally addicted to tony hawk. There were so many tricks we could do and the place was also loaded with so many things to do tricks on, The concept of "GAP"s and going across them to increase the multiplier was so cool, also the different sound it gave when we cleared a gap and a different looking BLUE thing in our trick list while comboing, really added the feeling to have "more blues" in the score :P
There was no list of gaps or anything, we went on trying to cross any possible(and also tried the impossible:P) gaps, and also sometimes wanted to see if we could jump so high if we could go OUT of the locked place where we allowed to play.
All in all, this game really got us hooked, and the demo was very awesome! The thing is that we never bought the full game :( because you know.. at that game shops in our place were almost nonexistent.
*Spelled "Extreme" != Xtreme
But we did buy one game.. and it was Extreme Boards and Blade... and I have to tell you... WORST.Game.Ever. it was NOWHERE near tony hawk.. we only bought it because it was the only skateboarding game available (found it after a lot of searching) and I gave puppy faces(the expression that puss-in-boots gives in Shrek) to my parents to get that game! How sad I felt, that was the first game that we sold off/threw off or completely erased from memory (I don't even want to find out if its still there somewhere in the house.
After juicing out whatever we could from the THPS2 demo, we were left with emptiness inside, but this was only temporary as we got another demo soon! What was it you ask?
*Unbreakable Mirra on Bike
Dave Mirra's FreeS.tyle BMX! This game wanted us to have the latest directX 7 compatible GPU :o we at first were worried It wont run.. but it DID work and it was cool!!
Once again the first impressions were somewhat strange... we couldn't do things like in Tony Hawk.. the jumping was totally different in this.. and "can we grind using a bike?" we wondered, and the answer came soon, as we used our TH experience and tried out everything. The area was once again a small place, and it had many places to do tricks.. after a few test runs we started getting the rhythm of the game and started breaking records like longest slide, highest jump,highest score (obviously :P) This was a great Tony Hawk-ish experience we had. But once again.. never found the games on stores(during that time).
That was basically the last Xtreme game we played on the PC...coz after that we got the PSone! As I mentioned before, we played 3Xtreme too, it was like a Motorstorm of extreme games, with bikes, Skate boards,roller blades all facing off in one match.. oh and did I mention the ALIENSssss?
*THPS 3 Arrives!
After that came THPS 3!! Oh yeah! Thps3 for Psone (not PS2). At first sight we were like.. "ooh look at the awesome graphics!!" And" look at this controller how much easier it is to control the game now!" But you know.. it was like returning to ground 0 as it had been a long since we played the game and were back to being total N00bs.
But, This began something both I and my Bro remember as the Tony Hawk phase of our Life. Once we started playing the game.. it was months of Tony hawk for us! We never wanted to stop playing the game. We only progressed to the other level after completing each and every thing for one level. Yeah we became absolutists :P We had different saves for each player. My player was always Tony Hawk (coz you know, he is in the cover so, he is the best) and my bro always took "Kareem Cambell ".
Our day consisted of doing whatever we did, coming home and then playing tony hawk, that's all. My bro became like a Pro Grinder, you give him ANY surface he would grind though that place and increase the combo like anything. And I was the Grab Master :P I would grab whenever there was even an inch of gap between me and ground. And also Turn while grabbing.. even when I grinded and came down, I would do a grab trick :P. I would often tell my bro that grinding wont get you a high combo and he would do "In your face" by breaking my combo record :lol: then I top his and then him, and vice versa, it was like an infinite loop.
The game also had great BG music, the songs always circulated in a particular order and after playing the game for oh so many hours we got the order embedded into our minds :shock:, there would be a second of silence between two songs, but during that silence we would do crossfading type music making :lol:
Our scores were now always top, as we never crossed a level until we beat the highest score for that level, and doing the best we could for a heat level (not just finishing and going to next level) The game had 2 min time limit for everything we did, and that was the best part as it gave us a feel of tension and need to complete a thing on time!
*Xam ShmXam
My brother was soo immersed with the game that.. even when he had his internal Midterm exams in college, he played the game till late nights! Lol, that's the first instance that I can remember when anyone of us gave higher priority to games over studies :P I told him to stop play as he had exams, but the determined look in his eyes to complete the level showed that he wouldn't so I stopped trying.
We went on playing the game and now our one trick combos were greater than what our high scores were for the initial levels :D We used to look at old scores and laugh at ourselves :lol: But every phase has its end, after so many great adventures(Too many to mention) in the game we completed the game... the final level was as intense as any boss battle in any game we played, we were like "We have to use our skillz to the max" and Bazillion 2 min sessions were played trying to top the highest score and complete with all golds.
It felt like world has ended and there was nothing more to do.. as we had golds in everything, everything completed 100%, a new stage was unlocked after completing, we nailed that too :P We juiced out everything we could from THPS 3. After completing the game.. we just revisited old stages everynow and then to have fun and pass time.
Umm....Juuuuuuuice
*THPS 3 Again?
Afterwards we realized that there were many other versions of THPS 3 and got it for the PC, my bro didn't play it, but I completed that game too, it was pretty easy now(had a gamepad for PC), the only things different in the game were that there were people other than the skater in the game (the PSone version didn't have anyone else) and a few levels had extra things, and ofcourse, It looked better! The extra level in this was a ship loaded with swim suit models :P Maneuvering the camera to get the best shot was what I did in this level :lol:
*THPS4 = THPS3-Insanity
Later we bought THPS4 for PSone too, I don't remember much of it, other than it being goal oriented, There are a lot of levels in my memory, maybe some of them are from this (a big tree in the middle level, airport , know which they are from? ) Maybe some THPS3 memories are mixed with this too :P.A Few years passed and we bought a PS2, We bought THPS4 for it anyways and, once again the first reaction was "look at the GFX!" :P the game was almost same as before but we had to move here and there and get missions from other people(there were no people in Psone version)... somehow, it didn't feel all that great, I don't even remember if we completed that or left it like that.But there was one good thing.. it made us play THPS 3 once again (just a level or two :P )
After that THPS series went BOOM shaka laka for us.. Tony hawk underground came, and we were like "whaaaaat a STORY?" We are "NOT tony hawk? "OPEN WORLD?" Just played the game a bit, it was fun... but the open world concept didn't catch our attention. It totally removed the fun of THPS.
*Open Worlds Closed Appeal
In the old games the levels were small confined places, and we had to utilize the level as much as we could, to score, there was a limited number of things, and only our brain to think and combify. Whenever we discovered a small secret place in the levels, we were like "ZOMG! More combo possibilities!" Its good to have Open world in a game but I didn't see it working in THUG. Just think of it like the XBLA games and Games on Blu Ray, the XBLA game creators have more fun because their game should be fun and also fit into a small size, there is some kind of fun in that, where as when you have a 50 GB blu ray disc,you can make the game more expansive, HD, etc etc, but there that "fun" part is lost... this might seem not too much of a big deal, but in THUG, that open world concept was something I didn't like, everytime I see something tony hawk related , I go and play some THPS3 :P
Burnout Paradise is trying to bring the open world concept to something that shouldn't be of such type.. but if it clicks well(of which there is a good possibility), I hope tony hawk takes some pointers, I mean NFS :MW was basically open world but one could directly jump to blacklist and do things just like that, without having to go here and there just to start a mission(which is GREAT!). THPS4 was something like that, but THUG was not, Even the scores we get, didn't count unless we were in score missions. Better leave open world concept to GTA and others where it really is meaningful and cool.
Post TH Era
*Ystream?
Now let me list those other games that I played when I got "Xtreme" with everything :P
Razor's Frees.tyle Scooter : This game felt a bit like THPS as its trick system and button layout were quite similar, it had some interesting levels, and you could fall off buildings in it!!1! Completed that game too, it was quite interesting. Not groundbreaking or anything, but cool.
Pro Body Boarding : Seeing that we like Pro Skater so much, Father bought us this game thinking we would like this too. But sadly... this was Nothing like THPS (Surfing?!) and we shelved it permanetly after playing it once :?
SSX 3: Totally different, Very Cool (literally even :P ) first game I played with DTS support (awesome sound!) Fully deserves the 9.0 GS gave it.
Hmm....
*Latest Ventures
As for the Xtreme games that I have played recently, I only played the THP8 Demo on 360 and Skate Demo on PS3. THP8 demo was quite cool, it had the closed environment feel, although it didn't have that "heat" feeling, I went on doing tricks again and again, luckily the control layout was kept the same. That is the most played demo on my 360 :P and then Recently played Skate demo, it was cool and all. The graphics are great with that bloom effect on the characters taking full force. The controls were TOTALLY different, don't know if I can get accustomed to that.The camera angles were the best part, played for an hour or so (two times) it was interesting but, I am sure we can't do all those crazy stuff like in Tony hawk..
*Breaking some Bones
The game is trying to approach "Real Skating", The new way of controlling is cool and all but I like games that have that unreal feel in them, when games try to get too real, it just isn't a "video game" anymore. that's why I would prefer NFS/Ridge Racer over Forza/GT anyday :P Or even think of them as Second Life and WoW Almost same, but TOTALLY different, get it?
If the Level design of the next Tony Hawk is like the old days, also if (atleast) the MP modes have 2 min Time limits I MIGHT just get it, or else.. will skip it like every other tony hawk after THUG.
What about the future? God only knows :P maybe they will introduce special bone crunching controllers that will break your bones "LIKE REAL SKATING!!" :lol: Totally removing gamers from the scene and only "Real Skaters" will play em.
So, What do you think? Which was your Fav Xtreme Game, what do you think about the present Xtreme games? How do YOU want it to be? Comment away :D
And Here is a Totally Unrelated Video for you Viewing and Listening Pleasure :D
[video=KyQwlDD45b8LuTHX]
Player = Me.
Continuing my series of entries about my gaming past starting with the ATARI 2600, NES and PC I've been talking about the Psone Experiences from the past few entries. As for this one, I will be talking about the feelings I had playing on a console shifting directly from the NES.Also how I and my Bro Continued our Co-Op madness even here and also how we had to decide Specific Timings so that both would get a chance at playing the Psone :P So get ready folks, have a drink beside you if you will :D
Spyro- The Fire Breathing flightless dragon
First Off, I need to mention Spyro! This game is very memorable to me.Its one of the games I got in the first batch of games. To be exact it was Spyro 2 : Ripto's Rage. It had many levels ranging from a quite and nice grassy land to Icy lands where you would play Ice hockey :P The game's Lead was Spyro a small fire-breathing-air-gliding dragon who along with two friends a Tiger man and a Tiger lady(that's what I called them :P) was on a quest to get that shorty Ripto guy. He also had a Dragon Fly friend who would point at others things and show you directions at times he was there always with spyro.
*Over is NOT, the Game..
When I started playing the game I Noticed that the whole story and everything was shown using the game's graphics unlike in 
other Psone games I tried out which had Movie type stories. After that I entered the game and it had many levels in it. Each level was of a different kind and it was all fun to play, I discovered one ability after the other and it was great to see that I could do so many things. After I beat the boss in a big Boss fight(after completing all the levels) I thought to my self "yay my First Psone game is over" but to my
surprise there was another world to go to! Soon there came a hot air Balloon which I had to ride to go to the other stage. At this point I was thinking "Omg So many levels and boss fight later I have more to do?" and this is when I felt that the game is "really long" it was THE first game that I played which was longer than the average 5-6 hours length. And that too The whole game had 5-6 worlds :P I was not even near the end when I finished the first world :P
*Is this what they call Memorable?
The game awesome nevertheless as It had many varied places. The things you could do in it were itself great, there were also side stages which were based on going through all the rings by making Spyro fly those were a nice touch and I would usually try to go off course and see what else is there in the new land rather than trying to complete the rings first :P And there are some points where I was playing the game and there were guests at home, and.. whenever I think of Spyro I remember that exact point of game I was in, the guests that came to the house and the exact dialogues they were talking :shock: and it happened around 6 or so years ago :P I don't know why.. but maybe that's the definition of "memorable"
Let the CooP-ing being!
After such Single Player (SP) experiences I and my bro started playing Multiplayer player(MP) Co-op games,and this was something we were very good at :D we had great coordination. We used to watch a lot of cartoons(and still do), Looney toons were one of them, when we saw Bugs Bunny and Taz time busters, we immediately got it :D It was the first Co-op game we played for the PSone. As I was the smaller one,I wanted to be Player 1(just like in every other NES game we played) and my bro being the understanding guy he is.. used to be player 2 without quarreling :D
*Bugs and Taz? Where's Daffy?
In that Game play
er 1 was bugs bunny where as 2p was Taz the Tasmanian Tiger, the game basically revolved around us both going to different time zones of the planet and collecting things to fix something. It had its varied types of places too.levels in the game were, Huge areas where you would do things and then collect the necessary things and then progress to the other timezone. Oh so very simple :P
One problem in it was the camera angles which I never could make it go like I wanted, and also the camera followed player 1 by default and I would run here and there disturbing the camera :P This one of the cool things.. my brother understood how the camera works and everytime we wanted the camera to
come behind us.. I and he would run in long circles together and by doing that the camera would follow us and then come to a nice behind view type position, lol. There was no single button push to get the camera at back or even a camera rotate feature :P And when 2P dies a box drops from above( from acme), which when opened by 1P brings back the 2P, because of this.. Always my brother used to go front as a scout and then I followed :P lol.. The game was a different and nice experience for us. Even though it was one of those franchise oriented games, we still had a great share of fun :D
Sadly we didn't complete the game :P as we came to a part where it was Dracula themed, and me being the small and scary one, always said "no" when my bro asked about playing the game :lol: I used to tell "There are so many other games that we can play.. lets play that :D". But now I am all "growed up":P so maybe the when my bro comes back someday we will turn on the psone and complete that game........
Card battling? *yay*
Oooohh Yeahhhh(macho man's way) Digimon Digital card battle. As I mentioned previously, in our frenzy of checking out everygame we got the first time with Psone we kinda got Bummed out after seeing oodles and oodles of text and non moving pictures in the game. We actually didn't touch the game till long. One time when almost all the games in our collection were completed or played till its worth. We looked at Digimon Digital Card Battle(CB). As usual, as this was the first time we were actually planning on playing the game I and my bro together started the game, once again we saw the cool intro and got hyped up :P we actually had it all planned, that's why started playing at an early hour, we read all the instructions it said in the beginning, kinda didn't understand all at first... soon we met our friend "betamon" and then he taught us all what we needed :D after playing through the first battle we felt it was kinda good.
Mind you that we never heard of Digimon before playing this game :P and this idea of collecting monsters and card battling in a very strategic way was exciting for us. First my Brother started the game, he took "Veemon" as his partner. He liked Fire for its great attack power and hence took it. It was like both were playing :P because I was also telling what to do with his card when he was playing, and he would tell me why he was not doing that and about his strategy. It was interesting as we had to use our brain and think a lot :D
*Awesome Attacks.
This game which at first site we thought was one of the boring-est game we had turned out to be something we liked a lot! Soon I started playing the game too and I took "hawkmon" as the nature Cards had almost everything in balance :D I and my brother started playing parallely and We had our saves in different memory cards :P Soon my bro and I would be seen playing ONLY that game. It had great elements like, us choosing a very less powerful attack with 'X" Button which had things like reversing the enemies "O" attack(which is very powerful) so that gave chance for a situation where our health is less that your opponents "O" attack and you KNOW he is going to use it to kill you and you can use you X attack(if it has "O" Reversal) and take it to your adavantage :D
It also had things like using support cards and making your attack power for all attack same as you health, and also some "X" attacks had "eat hp" for some Digimon where you would eat all the hp you took out from your opponent with X attack and hence giving a chance for an attack where you could make your attack power as much as your health and then double it! :lol: The game also had the Digivolve thing which was another great part of the game!
Man that game was awesome, everything depended upon YOUR capabilities.. because even with the worst of cards one can win if he has nice strategies and support cards. Because of this factor we went on playing the game.
*Vacation Time!
I and my Bro had summer vacation at same time as we studied in the same school and in the vacation when we were playing Digimon. We set up small rugs on the floor near the TV and would play sitting in front of the TV till late nights:P and then sleep whenvever we wanted to :P sometimes I would sleep and see my brother playing and it was like some bed time story for me :P In the same vacation time we went to Saudi Arabia for the first time and there we took our Psone with us.
*Nothing to do but game.
This was when it got even more extreme :P Since I and my Bro had nothing else to do than play in there(no kids no nothing)
I and my brother made a tight schedule, in a day 4 hours I play and 4 hours he plays, and alternate like that :P How were we playing the game even there you ask? The thing is that.. we used to save a LOT! And rather than saving in new blocks we used to overwrite the file and once when we were around 30 hours into the game BOTH the save files were gone.. we had to restart the game all over :lol: but my brother told "since we know the game now, we can gather better cards and play without loosing" and this was the start of our Continuous winning streak :D We started playing the game again and NEVER..i mean NEVER lost the game :P we had every strategy we could think of(all made by us, as we never used to come online for help or anything)
So we came to Saudi now and the heat was on! I and my brother both wanted to see how the game progressed and reached the end. But the thing was that.. the game Never used to end!! There was one stage coming after the other and we went on playing :P Soon we saw places like Card fusion shops and everything.. since we didn't see Digimon show till then it was all guess work for us... but the best thing was that.. in Saudi TV for the first time ever.. we saw "Digimon TV SHOW!" :lol: that Arabic title song is still embedded into my mind :P and luckily it was near the fusion saga, so we found out which to fuse and got great cards! Soon we were almost 80 Hours into the game, we went on playing for days and never realized we spent so much time with that :P This time after playing for every 30 hours we made a new save file and deleted the old one., so that there would be no problem in the game like before.
*Is there a End to this Game?
We made our partner cards so ultimate that we could win matches only using one card :P We armour digivolved them, added some parts to them and what not. It was just awesome! We collected 95% of the 200 or 
so cards and soon we reached the FINAL level! At this point we were more than 100 hours into the game! and this was just the main story! This was because we played EVERY battle Defeated EVERYone and Collected all the cards from one place and only then progressed :P because of this we rarely had problems in the other levels. We made so many special decks of our own giving them names and everything :P
In the final Level there was a continuous 4 battles without saving or anything when we tried to save. It would say something like "your system is hacked" or something like that :lol: it was creepy indeed. As the whole game was about data,digital and everything. The final boss "A"(Apokarimon) he was one TOUGH guy! All his cards were special option cards called "sevens" cards, which were overly powerful shifting the balance completely. And the guy had attack powers of horrible magnitude greater than many Ice Digimon had (Ice have the biggest HP/Defence)
After loosing sometimes (and resetting :P ) I finally Beat it!!! Yahoo! :D Both beat him actually(alas, Both I and my bro had ONE loss during these battles :(). Still there is a dispute on who did it first :P(as we were playing in one order, it could be totally opposite if we played in another order :P) and there were the credits and everything shown.. I was so much happy that the game is over.. but oh noes! There was more.. digimon like Dark Gurumon and Dark xxxxmons started coming.. and it was like another whole season began :lol: we continued to play it and finally reached the end. There was NOTHING left in the game to do :lol:
Everything was complete, all parts were got, all people were beat, everything unlocked :D the ONLY thing was that we didn't have 3 cards out of all the things.. these were VERY hard to get.. its like PURE luck if you get it.. as the cards that people give are very random, and also sometime fusing two option cards you get another option card.. we spent 5 or so hours trying to fuse almost everything and get that card :P we NEVER got that.. so other than those 3 cards(all option cards) every ounce of juice from the game was squeezed out by us :P and best of all, this was the FIRST and ONLY game till now that we played for so long, it was around 300 hours(Both I and my Bro combined). I was trying to recollect exactly how much and turned on my Psone the other day :D sadly my Save files are all gone :cry: atleast my brother's save file was safe :D I and my bro played at separate times but played for the equal length :D you can see his stats in the pics below.. I had more cards with me though :P
*There's More?
The SP part of the game was done.. so now what remained? There was a MP part to it too! In it two players could load their decks and then exchange cards or fight against each other.. this was the real fun part :twisted: I and my bro rarely competed against each other, but when we did.. we used to get so seriously into it :P from this stats pic below it will be clear who was better :P
But we played only a few matches against each other.. coz you know.. we don't want to see who is better or anything like that.. that would bring up differences in us.. but if there was something like tag Team match against someone.. then I am sure. I and my bro can pwn others real good!
*Bye Bye Digimon...
So.. that was the end of the Digimon CB Saga/Arc in our life. We played it so much that EVERYONE knows that game :P even now when my mom sees me playing any game she asks about that "card game" that we used to play a lot and why we don't play it now.... I really hope that there will sometime soon be a card game as interesting as this released in the future.
Until Next time.
And I think that's all for this entry. I was thinking of mentioning Tomba!2 in this.. as it was during the same vacation in Saudi that we played it. But. GS Character limit says "leave it for later" So.. until then See you guys around :D
Heres a Video to get you entertained :D
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First and Foremost Watch this...
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More details on it soon.
Here I am with another one of those Intermission in my long running blogs about my past.. I felt this was necessary as a LOT has happened and also many of my friends were asking me WHAT has happened and where I was for so many days... so you all can find out everything here :D
The first Big thing that Happened was that I bought a Xbox 360 on March 22nd and That too thanx to my Good Friend Gagan I got a Superb offer of $300 on it. I went on my bike top pickit up from the courier office and got it back.. unpacked and did everything with it. I enjoyed it a lot. and the Next day itself I got it LIVe and completed Gears of war in 6 hours in online Co-op with gagan :lol: It was AMAZING fun.. we played like we were some elite S.W.A.T team or something :P talking on the mic and everything.. it was my first ever online Co-Op experience and it was Funnnnnnnnnnnnn.
After that I met a lot of others online and talked to them too, like Peldon, Interstate,played gears with Gagan and Kbshaffer and made many new friends too.
My Home theater got a New member** :D it took me a lot of time to think where to place it and do the wiring.. it was a tiring job but worth it nevertheless. I even did a H/W reivew of it for my brother as for every console we owned till date .. we would close our eyes and open it together to see the console at a time :P in a way to say its both our console.As they are in Hindi I didnt Upload them here :P You can Find them HERE
I made a HUGE blog about it in 360 you can Check it out.
As for other things.. I had my 1st year end of semester exams for the WHOLE may.. and then went to Saudi Arabia and Dubai for Vacation. stayed there for More than a month.. and during these two months I was unable to constantly come online at GS. hence no contact with you guys :P
But Man! the trip the was awesome! After going there no one will think that its a Desert land.. it has more greenary than india :lol: But they are a very conservative bunch.. lot of strict rules.. but still good. You see more fillipino people there than Arabs :P The Cars there are SUPER fast min. Speed is like 100KMPH there! where as no one can go above 70 here in indian roads :P Also.. cars are too cheap.. you get honda Citys for half the Price! Petrol is 20 TIMES! cheaper and watewr costs more than petrol :P
On The First day itself My father Bought me a new cell which was a Nokia 6300, I selected it after comparing eveything.. and its
price to Features ratio is just amazing! got it for $50 less than in India :P And the BEST part was that.. after going there.. I got a PS3! I got it on June 14th as an Early B'day Gift :D I searched for that thing in EVERy shop I went and after searching and searching one fine day I found a hidden lane of Games (like some secret area in a game it was :lol: ) and I searched it and got a PS3 which was Ntsc J version( no matter as Ps3 is region free and I will keep my PS2 just as I did for the Psone) and I got it... for an amazing $400 less than what I get here :shock: that was a steal! I even got Resistance free with it :D
The first ever TV I ran it on was a 4" B/W tv for testing :lol: later played it on a 18" CRT TV with Mono sound :P I wanted very much to come home and play it in my home theater. I completed Resistance there and had a Lot of fun playing with the bullseye, thats one of the best guns in a Game IMO.. there are so many unique things you can do with that thing.
During the remaining days in there.. I searched for the games I wanted and Got all of em! I wanted MotorStorm and got it.. also on my B'day (july 4th) i got Vegas! Which is awesome btw. and For NGS.. I searched a LOT.. one day I did around 3-4 KMs walking and asking everyshop for that game but didnt find it... but on 7/7/7 I found it which was a very lucky day for me indeed :D
With all these four games I was very much content and wont buy more till holiday season or maybe LAIR if its great.
Also.. there I searched very much for a Wifi Router so that I can lay my DS and PS3 online at home and also use it for guests' laptops The average price was 75$ for those.. but I searched and searched for weeks and found it for 50$! another great example to show that searching does give you good results!
Similarly I searched for a Bluetooth headset and after weeks of searching I got it for HALF the pricfe in a Carrefour.(less than $20)
On the last 3 Days we went to Dubai and toured the place.. I have to say, its a marvel of mans creations. 
That place has all seasons happening in it all year round at the same time! they have man Made islands and what not.. also the WORLDS BIGGEST MALL! We went to that place and it was awesome.. the sheer amount of games there amazed me.. I never saw so many game related shops at one place.
I took a lot of PIcs to show all you guys.. and also it was the first time that i played Guitar hero there! (360 version) I got 88% in my very first attempt :P The Games priced OK there.. but Things like TVs were So cheap.. they are HALF the rate what we find in india. I enjoyed a lot watching the TV shops and looking at their HD glory :P
Another Special thing was that we found a Nice Cell phone there which had Multi-touch, Huge screen all media Compatibility AND a 
feature to use TWo sim cards Simultaneously.. The price of these things with ONE sim cardFunctionality is around $670 and we got it for $245! Another great deal in the bag :D Also! There was NO CUSTOMS charged at the airport :D:D:D:D I was in so much tension thinking we would have to pay 10% customs or something.. but luckily it didnt get customs! yay :D
Now I was home.. missed a lot of college all friends were calling. I was very much hapy to see that 30 Friends had sent me Wishes on my B'day and was very touched :oops: After coming I had Huge body pains and head ache as in the past Three days I slept only for 5 hours! It was a very tiring journey..
And after coming home I setup the home theater with a Lot of ethical thinking of where to put those consoles :P Because of the the way my Arrangement was made and how the Holes are made.. it was only possible for me to keep it in a way such that the PSone and 360 (white consoles) were kept at the Bottom, and Ps3 and Ps2(black consoles) at the top..I dont know why.. I think I was thinking too much :P
I was telling my self if I keep ps3 in bottom people will call me 360 fan, if i keep ps3 on top the other way around, and if i keep black seperate from white they would think I am a person who sees different colours differently..:roll: I thought of keeping black and white combo to have a multicoloured thing but keeping PS3 and 360 together would blow things up :lol: and Psone and PS3 didnt look that great. In The End I thought that.. well, Its ONLY CONSOLE PLACING!! And I kept in most opposite way imaginable only so that I can say I am not a bad person its only becasue of the technicalities of the situation that I had to place them.. not considering the ethics :lol: I should be sounding like a crazy man right now.. but I feel that even my consoles will fight among themselves if i dont play them much :P
I Even Got Internet Working on the Ps3 and Installed Linux in it too :D Did almost everything imaginable with it, just like the
360(hearing Internet Radio on it using Media Center, Using Media center, using MSN Messenger BEFORE the Update, again, Via Media Center, Sharing media and what not :D)
So here is the Final Pic of the NEW IMPROVED home theater.. and I Will make another video about it. when the TRINITY is complete ;)
Hope This fills all of you in on what was happening these days.. I could say a lot more.. but that would be Toooo long :lol:
P.S I found this Funny Things At Dubai.. apparently People are Copying from game Consoles. So can see a Media Center Device of Same Shape as PS3 which won an award for "Excellence in Design" (what a ripoff) and Another Portable HDD which looks like the 360. Check em out.
Last time I gave a small preview of the years of gaming with me and the PSone. It was the about the first day when I and bro finally got the long cherished dream of having a Psone Fulfilled. After the initial Burst..we played Psone Every weekend. And EVERY day of holidays.. it was not normal playing.. we would play it like theres no tomorrow :P Hereon follow the recaps of great moments I had with its games, that will forever and always be remembered... not in my brain..but in my heart.
*With Great Consoles, comes great changes.
After the first day..things went on smoothly.. we soon got the cargo we were waiting for, it had an extra controller and few more games.. we went through those too. But they were not as much as we got in the first day :P After that we had to decide how and when we played the thing...I was kinda like the guy who always gave Home work and other studies first priority.. I would always finish my homework first and then think of playing on it. Usually.. I had Cartoons to watch after homework.. So it was mostly Weekends for me.. and BOY! Did I wait for weekend so eagerly.. Every Monday I would think of when Saturday will arrive. I would finish home work with great determination so that I never have any work on Saturdays and Sundays :D and because of this.. I had hours of gaming time at hand :D All my friends always asked me, how I play a lot and still get good marks :P I can say that in a way games IMPROVED my studies :lol: My brother was more of a dormant gamer at this time. As he had higher studies(more serious work) but he NEVER gave up a chance to play a co-op game. We were like the unbeatable duo, every game we beat with such great teamwork, no matter how good the AI.. with our nice logical thinking and teamwork we always tricked it and beat it.
As for the Single Player Gaming experience.. It was like a whole new thing for me.. Most of the games I played were NES and 
SNES till now.. most of which were all one sitting completion type or infinite time pass gaming type. We looked very strangely at the memory cards as it was a totally new concept,never heard of saving games into another thing and then loading :P in the beginning we thought it was only for saving Hi Scores or something.. Some of the first games we went on playing for hours together thinking that the next stage would be last, but we were so wrong :P The game used to go on and on and we had to save. This was very new to us and also the controller with so many buttons and VIBRATION. It was pretty cool.. the only device we knew which had vibrations were pagers..(cell phones were not "all that" back then).The Start was all oohs and and aahs and then we soon started getting into the GAMES instead of the GamING :P Now... which game should I talk about... oh.. maybe...
TOMBA!
*Not an RPG, not a Sidescroller, Not an adventure... but a Mixture of all.
Yeah. This game is like something that will never get off me. This was THE first game that made me sit and play through it completely, on the PSone. To begin with,it was a 2D sidescroller but categorising it under one genre will do no justice. It was like a combination of many genres and yet it was coherent.. it didn't strangle itself in a mess of gameplay features.
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The Intro
(not the same as the one in previous entry)
I started playing it. The intro was great and it left me moving the controller like a banana in a chimpanzee's hand.The game's
first stage was at the entrance of village and it looked quite nice. I talked to some guy who told me I had rad pink hair :P Soon, I started catching and throwing pigs and then talking to monkey that wears pants.That monkey is our friend Charles.. who speaks the animal language like tomba does, yes.. there is some secret jibber jabber language that all animals and mowgli like tomba can communicate with :P Its a Fantasy world one can say, with dwarfs, mouse people and what not. A variety of people can be seen throughout the game. Charles, helps us many times but only when we do him favours. he teaches us how to swim, gives an umbrella and what not.
The Story of the game is that your world has been invaded by "Evil pigs" and they are taking every Gold they can find in the lands for some kind of magic related secret plan, and one fine day they steal the armlet/bracelet that your grandfather gives to you. So you embark on a journey to get back the bracelet and in a way you even save the world :D The Evil Pigs have cursed all land and transformed them into something that doesnt allow the inhabitants to live peacefully. So what I do is capture the evil pig that has Cursed the land, and pack him in a PIG BAG, thats right, a bag to conviniently carry those evil pigs around :D No Princess/Girlfriends to save here :D Now that you know the story.. hear it from the one I got to know!
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If you can understand in first view, then..:shock:
The game was mission driven but it was VERY non linear,you could do anything you wanted and roam anywhere you wanted. 
Associated with Missions were AP points, which were given when you complete the certain mission, you might not understand why its used... but as you progress in the tomba series you will understand ;) The missions were Puzzles which required Platforming. It also had RPG elements. With character development and skill/weapon upgrades. For example, at first I would just run normally but after wards. I learn how to "dash" like an animal :D(Charles teaches me that too) after learning that, there was no normal walking. Always dashing.. a finger on square, always.
Level Design Was Superb in this game. there were many level types ranging from SideScrolling type to Top Down View type. every place had its own kind of
inhabitants.There was this place called the Mushroom Forest where you would see large flowers in the background. The whole place had different kinds of mushrooms layed out. and when you ate a crying mushroom all flowers would start crying and you too, in every short interval would start running and crying :P Similarly with the laughing fruit where tomba laughs uncontrollably in ever interval with the flowers behind giving a chorus (got a bit frightening at times :P). Only way to escape was to eat a normal mushroom.
The music in each
level was very good, it was so good that many of them are still stuck in my head(Heard em more than 5 years back), and I even put up some as my ringtones :D just hearing a small bit of the music reminds me of the things I did in the game. Its like, everything from the game flashes in my head when I hear VG music. The game itself is rare to find in stores.. and there is a least bit of chance you will ever find its OST though :( But its best hearing VG music as and when you play it I always say :D
There were weapons like grappling hooks too. And the best thing about it was that it didn't have specific locations to attach to like in most games today. It grappled any surface it could penetrate through giving great opportunities for custom made, unintended shortcuts :D
The missions in the game were all varied, having us do many different things. The game had a LOT of missions. Not all were needed to be completed in order to complete the game.. but all challenges were fun to accomplish. There was no repetition in the type of missions and it was another big plus point. There are a few secret missions in the game too. I completed the game and roamed the whole place almost thrice looking for
new missions but never found them (the undiscovered missions were faded in black in game menu).All the missions listed in FAQs I had already done.. and there was no mention of these.
*The Great Research, A travel back in Time.
And this was the FIRST time that I would go to any Forum. Back then GS had forums.. but it was only accessible by PAID members, also..I couldn't understand anything in the forums :? It was all greek and latin to me. So I searched for another place and found this place called "GameTalk.com" This was the first ever Forum that I posted in. It was supposed to be the third most active forum (after IGN and Gamespy) in those days. It had a pretty good layout too. Simple and plain kinda like GS of today's.Too bad its very much dead now a days :(
I first started helping others(dated Back to March '02 :shock: ) in getting things done and all that. And later started asking my
doubts.. there I found this guy who was like a HUGE HUGE tomba fan(Protector Wind). He played the game so much that at any point he could recollect a mission and tell how to solve it. And when I asked him about the secret missions even he didn't know about them. So, one day.. like my usual self I started doing different things with the things I had. I put in the PSone Disc into my computer's Drive and then thought to see whats there inside..there were only files and I couldn't understand what they were. I started roaming the internets and soon found this place called NGEmu.com which had these "Players" that play FMVs from PSone discs! So, I downloaded that thing and tried the tomba disc.
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This thing started days of research.
This was one of the biggest things that happened with me and tomba. The levels in the game always transformed after the curse from that place is removed. And among all the known ones there was a video of some strange unknown place being de-cursed. Even now as I type, and it has been 4 years since I saw , I remember each frame of that video. I immediately went to the forums and asked about the thing(Feb '03 :o ). And that tomba fan had no idea about it. He soon posted about it in his website and asked all the people there.(it was great to know that he even had a website for the game, back then it was) There was no one who ever saw that.. So I told him how to see it, about the software and all, and we soon started something like a huge conspiracy theory research..
After months of asking here and there and also contacting people who knew the non existent whoopee camp. The results were unfruitful. No one knew what that video was and no one ever saw it while playing the game.. it was like one of those mysteries that were never answered. After some month or so of research I and that friend thought to keep it aside and played tomba again just for fun and searched the maps after completion,but to no avial.
*The ones Who DoneDidIt then.
If there is one thing that I would like to see in the gaming world then that would be to gather the whole Whoopee camp people and then get them to make another tomba or maybe a "spiritual successor" to the game. All those people who worked on the game were true geniuses. To give you an Idea. The Main Director of the Game(Tokuro Fujiwara/Professor F) was the one who was the producer of the original Resident Evil Game and also worked the legendary Street Fighter 2, he even was the chief producer of Super Ghosts and Goblins,Megaman X and many others. As for the People who did the Art part of the game, the members of the team did the Character modeling and animations for games like Okami, Genji(ps3), Metal Slugs 1 and 2!, Devil may cry 3, Final Fantasy XII,Ace Combat 4, to name a few.
Atleast there should be a re-release of the game on PSN so that people can play it on their PS3s or PSPs.
They were like the Clover studio of the present day, They(whoopee Camp) made two games and then went separate ways and did different works, to become great people,They were also kinda opposite to them because, Clover consisted of already great people getting together and making games. Luckily Clover Studio is going to be reborn as Seeds, but there will be no more of Whoopee camp :( As a tribute to the great developers and people who worked for the game. Here is the end credits of the game.
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....
Well, I've planned on writing much more but it might be too much to handle for a few:P See you all in the next blog :D More Psone Goodness awaits.
Welcome to Another Entry of my journal :D Last time I told you all about how I and my Bro got a PSone after years of waiting. Along with the Console we got a loads of games to play.. and play we did! The whole day we spent switching CDs and trying out all the games we got.. it was what you call.. a FRENZIED gaming session. In this Entry I will tell few of the most memorable moments we had that day.
* Same Name,Different Numbers
After opening the PSone's Box we read the whole Box turning it in all kinds of directions thinkable :D We Didn't remove the white soft material within which the console was rapped.. we used it as a cushion to put under the PSone :D and even NOW we have it under the PSone, not torn even a single bit.We waited for Dad to show us all the things he brought and oohed and aahed at all the things different things:D. Dad remembered that we told him that we liked 3Xtreme a Lot.. so he bought a game called 2 Xtreme.. He told us this when he bought the game.. and we thought that it was a prequel to the game we already had (3Xtreme).. so we told OK and he brought it :D Along with that there were many other games(as mentioned previously).
Soon all the unpacking and stuff was over.. Pops told us to Enjoy the PSone and we Jumped and started connecting the thing.. it was quite easy for us to connect, and then we turned it on.. we saw that white screen and PSone Logo come up, It was the first time we heard the sound (previous time we played PSone, it was already turned on) Soon we put the Games in and started the playing!
Tomba!
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The First game that always comes into my mind when I think of the day that I played the PSone is TOMBA!, I don't know how many times I have mentioned it.. but that game was a true GEM! It was very unique and it left its mark on my brain..I always try to compare other games with this and see how good they are. Its not REALISM in games that I desire.. its FUNNISM. This game was filled with fun and also had great thought provoking puzzles. So how did the first experience go ??
Well, We put in the CD and I started playing.. at first we saw the Whoopee Camp Logo and it was nice with the jingle and giggle :P The Game menu didn't tell much about the game and then the game started loading, there were pigs dancing in the
loading screen :lol: so I figured out it had something to do with pigs.. and then soon the intro started.. and the intro was very nice:D It was one of the first 3D cutscenes we saw for games, as up until then we played only 2D snes games where the best cutscenes were like Anime Sequences. After that we were thrown at the village that is show at the end of the intro..I had no idea what to do and moved my character here and there. Tried jumping and all that.. the first time I saw an enemy, instinctively, I jumped on the enemy trying to take it down :P and it did work! What tomba did was.. bite the pig and catch it from the top :lol: I was so surpised :P and then later on jumping he threw it with a spin jump.. 
that was quite funny and exciting.. and I started doing it again and again for more pigs :P and then later on realized that we could shift from fore ground to BG! Which was also cool! Giving a new dimension to a sidescroller game.. I played around a bit more and then returned to the CD switching.. but in the end came back to this game and played a LOT. It was such a Varied Game it had many different things. This was the only game that I felt that Is worth reviewing.. coz every other game there are many reviews and almost everyone knows of them.. There is another reason, if I write a review I tend to mention even the minute details and since I usually don't have time I don't write reviews that much..but I felt this was worth spending some time sitting and reviewing.. so check out the review if you like :D
Spyro!
Now for the other games.. along with that we also saw other games.. one of them was Spyro 2. The game was the first 3D 
platformer that I played and playing in 3D was really different and cool :D We have so much freedom in them.. This began a journey into the 3D platformer world for me which almost never ended.. From a simple D-pad controls Its evolved to Dual Analogue Controls with body movements and Camera Movements at the same time. I liked this game too.. and more on this game later :P
*Different Numbers, Different Games.
Next was 2Xtreme.. which turned out to be NFL Xtreme 2... That's shows how easy it is to get tricked by a smart game naming 
system :P Its like buying rainbow six thinking it was new Splinter Cell game just coz they have "Tom Clancy" in their names. :P It was the first time ever I played an American Football Game..we had no friggin idea what it was :lol: we were kids, and we turned on the game and there was a pic of a girl with pom poms and miniskirt in the in menu screen :lol: we just pressed x x x x and then soon the game started..we got the ball ran for some time and then some guy threw us down.. that's what we understood..and after that we were shown a screen with some dots and lines.. we had NO single idea what it was :lol: ... just pressed X and then continued... and then after sometime figured out it was some player movement thing.. and we started selecting by thinking.. but then we thought "We are playing against computer.. and it will know which move we are taking.. so whats the point"
*Computer = Smart,Humans = SmartER
That's what I think even now.. If you are selecting some move.. its obvious that the game knows it.. so the computer will automatically come to that place where your player will go.. I've felt like this so many times :P even in FPS games with hard difficulty., I think that the AI calculates the time and position of reaching(for our bullet) as soon as we click the mouse and they can easily dodge it.. so its almost impossible to kill them.. unless you shoot another bullet before they can react to the new bullet.. that's what I do in UT :P Shoot first bullet somewhere and the computer dodges it, I know which direction it will dodge so shoot another bullet even before it jumps and it dies in air :lol: ... some more analyzing like this helped me a lot in competitions :P and hence I never play in least difficulty as no matter what game it is .. it's always a cake walk :P
As for the NFL game.. it turned out to be one of the games that we NEVER played again :P
*Layeth the SmackethDownWe continued playing more and more games throughout the day. I and My bro were HUGE WWF fans back in the days.. we've 
followed WWF(E) since '92 and DID try those things at home :lol: and even on huge sand dunes :P It was fun having a brother as you can fight as much as you want, as in real FIGHT(piledriving, Clotheslineing,DDTing, SleeperHolding ....) and still not worry about the future :P coz we are stuck together forever.... and NOW ! we had a realistic game to fight in! We were so stunned with the graphics after watching the SmackDown! Game.. it was like nothing we saw before.. all had resemblance to the real self..unlike the blobby sprites in the NES games :P We played the game for sometime.. and then didn't play much as we didn't have the second controller yet :P
*Monkeying Around
Ape Escape was another game that we got with the PSone.. and The game was an instant hit for us :D It was the only game that we saw that utilized the dual analogue sticks in a unique way.,.movement with one stick and then attack with another stick.. the 
games intro itself was very nice..with all monkeys going crazy :P The game has great sense of humour.. there were so many "cheeky monkeys" in it.. and the things they did was Sooo hilarious! The best thing was that. There were HUNDREDs of monkeys but NO Repetition in the personalities of the monkeys! All were unique! The way the game sent us to the stage itself was very nice.. with this nice BG music and warp zone type screen. The sounds were very arcadey.. and added to the fun. We liked the way that we had to row Boats in it.. one analogue stick for one paddle and then rowing them EXACTLY like we do in real life.. very immersive! We played for quite some time and then changed to the next..
*Card battling?! Text?! *yawn*
[video=KiRlwjf65b4OszbW]
This Changing and Playing Continued for ours together and soon it was bed time.. but we had this one last game to see. And it 
was Digimon Digital Card Battle.. We put it in and then we started the game... The starting intro was the Coolest! Intro!ever!.. We had no Idea what was happening but it had super cool things like transformations , stuffs happening and this cool Theme coming in the BG. We were thinking it was some cool game and started playing it... there was this training thing at first.. and I and my bro have this thing of playing the training first no matter what :P
The game was saying something about nature, earth, fire and all that. It was all text based and soon, after reading it for a while we got sleepy.. and tried to skip it and see the gameplay... we went on pressing "X" but one after the other text kept on coming! We went crazy with all the text.. and thought it was some waste game not worth playing.. so we just closed the thing and took rest for the day... Little did we know.... That this would turn out to be the LONGEST GAME we both ever played.. and the first game that we fought over for,like anything :lol: More on this later :D:D:D all I can say is that.. we played it so much.. that even now(more than 4 years later ).. whenever our parents think of us playing games.. ask about it :P
This was just the Tip of the iceberg that was filled with gaming joy with me and PSone. What you saw here was the first day and initial Impressions of the games.. I've spent hours and Hours playing all these games, and my Detailed desc. of these games will soon follow :P but that's it for now :D Next one will be about the different games some EXTREME...
Here is a Video which all of you will Enjoy :D
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video game with the graphics of our NES! The only Handheld gaming devices we had in India were the "Brick games" with tetris in them and then those racing games and others. some even had
Voice :o (:P) I was looking at the Shop keeper playing and then he saw me and asked if I wanted to play and I nodded and he gave it to me :D the game was Pokemon game, I had idea of what pokemon was even thought it was almost 4 years after(i.e. 2004) that Pokemon officially entered India. I was just looking at how it looked like a NES game and couldnt play anything :P To add to it all the sounds were not just bleeps!
more now :P He also showed us tekken 3 (that guy was a pro at it :o) and also MGS1. He told that it was his favourite game and completed the game twice already. The game was 12-15 hrs long:o that was also a amazing thing for us. as all we played were rather short games. He showed some level where snake got up from an elevator and went to some place. even in the elevator there was vibrations. it was such a cool experience! We were so happy that we were getting a PSone finally after so many years :D
his arrival and before he came here with the Console, we told him about the emulator and he sent us a few games via a colleague who was coming to india. One of the game was 3Xtreme.(my Father bought games by asking the shop keepers and sometime what he thought we like :D, and this was one of those shopkeeper recommendations :lol: ) We didnt bother seeing the internet for info on the game(as we were still in the era when we used to buy games with no idea what so ever) The game was very nice.(we Felt so, As it was our First experience and we didnt know anything else) It had this looping music and 3D grafixz!! We could either be a Byker or a skate boarder or roller blader and all would race at the same time. Kinda like Motorstorm of Xtreme racing :P The levels were nice. and all were more like Downhill runs. It was the first game we played on our own and liked it a lot :D The levels and characters were limited though :( we depleted its replay value completely even before our father came, lol.
the game. The mini games were very nice in it. and it had a good replay value. the first levels were fun to play. But then the things kept repeating over and over again :( It was enough to play the first level itself :P We always would think how much fun it would be later when we could play it in the TV ,with Two controller and sitting a bit FAR from the screen :P 
always, days float by as we wait. And it was a Special Homecoming! as this time My pops was bringing so many things that he had to use a shipping service to get the things here(as it was much more than the allowed baggage limit!) we
were very much excited.Whenever he comes home we gather around and my father opens the baggages and we all look and "ooh, aah" and keep every thing properly :P So we were waiting eagerly for the instant when he would remove the Psone. and remove he DID! When he gave to us we took it with our eyes Wide open and with excitement like the n64 kid but without the jumping :PFirst of all, I wish you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR :D
Hope everyone gets a nice share of True next gen gaming that begins this year :)
In the Previous Entry, Most of the games I mentioned were for the PS2, here you can get to see some of the multiplatform games that I played. I’ve bought and played around 30-50 games this year and remembering all of them Is next to impossible for me :P I Will try my best :D So lets get Started.
Q3 : Waking up the Sleeper Hits.
*Psychotic Exorcism.
Psychonaughts, another platformer worth playing, the game reminded me VERY much of KYA dark lineage, It(KYA) was 
almost the same, with a huge village instead of a summer camp, and we went to one part of the forest instead of brains. While PsyN one had 
different Psychic powers, KYA had the Power of EXORCISM! We could Exorcise Wolves back into their human form! KYA was very nice with many things to do in the main village even, The physics and graphics in it were also amazing. Both these games were amazing! but Psychonaughts had a lot of humour in it:D which is ofcourse a good thing :D
*"Come out and PLAY warriors..."
Next, I and My bro had some Co-op Fun we played "The Warriors", This game, IS the best Movie based game! It can stand alone as a game. Not only does it have the story of the whole movie(which itself was great) but it had Many extra hours of things which happened Before the Movie! and 
the co-op part of the game was great as ever with an intelligent split screen feature. The game was by Rockstar ,so, it has "Great Varied gameplay" written all over it by default :P The game also had a lot of free roam features, which were rather useless but still fun :D And the best part was.....WE FINALLY GOT TO BEAT UP THAT STUPID GUY! yeah that guy who shouts "The warriors did it"&”Come out and play Warriors”, didnt get any beating in movies end, but in the game credits! we get to beat him up to our hearts content! An awesome ending I must add :D
I also played Indigo Prophecy this year, it was a game that I was looking forward to very much, and when I finally got hands on it, I played it till 3 Am and finished it the next day :lol: It was rather short, but still a very interesting experience, it was like watching a 8 hour movie, where we get to decide things and at points, things really behave differently according to what we do!A Unique Experience, Best played on consoles.
Later I got Killer7, something that I was waiting to get my hands on since very long, The game is , simply put, WIERD! 
No matter how good you are at english, if you dont have subtitles on, you can Never understand anything in the game except, "the Master. This is dangerous. This is VERY dangerous" :lol: (people who played the game will get it :P) The gameplay of the game is also quite different with this "Railed" routes, Its kinda fun to have a different experience everynow and then.
Then I got some Cool Old-skool games, PaRappa the Rapper and Um Jammer Lammy! both unique and awesome in their own way, The Songs are some of the best I have heard in recent past, anyone with a interest in Rhythm games should get it :D "Chop! Kick!"
I shelved Ratchet Deadlocked for Quite sometime and then 
finally played :D it was somewhat of a breeze to play, I completed the game 100% Within no time,(and yeah, I NEVER use game guides for secrets and all that) It was definitely not as great as the others, but graphically it was stunning, and it had all its trademark humor sequences in it :D
After a LOT of pain and searching I was finally able to get my 
hands on KATAMARY Damacy, I had the OST of it before I could get the game :P The songs in it are amazing, and the game itself Is crazy! i've never met a king wearing Pink Stalking before :lol:
Q4:Adventuring in the PCs
On the PC, I got reintroduced to my fav Genre(for PC games) thanx to the Classic Adventure Games union, I Played a LOT of adventure games in the past and now again, I started playing, 
I enjoyed Sam and MaX a Lot, Have great memories of it implanted in my brain :D presently am playing the First episode of the next series :D I also Played Monkey Island 1 and 2 This year, I've the played the other two many years ago, but couldn't get my hands on these until recently.I started playing MI 2 at the commencement of my vacations and Finished it at its LAST DAY :lol: I enjoyed the game a lot.classic Threepwood Action at its Best! .... "Look! Theres a 3 headed monkey behind you!"
Another game I would like to mention is NEVERHOOD, As previously mentioned in another entry, we had great fun playing
this game,It was So hard, but we managed to use our analyzing power and solve each and every puzzle in it, without even using a guide.The jokes in it were very nice(Even uploaded a Video) , But the puzzles were the main thing of the game, as they were all very analytical and required us to use Pen and paper I most of em :P
In July I Finally got a HUGE upgrade for my PC(after 3 years)(Click Spoiler for Full Details)[spoiler]
CORE
Accesories
[/spoiler] and Now I could finally play HiFi PC games :P I went on a Two day marathon, and on the First day I Finished CoD2(my Fav FPS series) In 11 hours ,one day, one sitting, and Quake 4 in 7 hrs the next day :D it was great coming back to the PC after so long :P Quake 4 was great graphically and all... but I dont like the fact that the enemies keep moving even if I hit them, like in CoD if you hit them, its like a bullet in fact hit them, their body moves and they slow down... but Q4 Even after a Rocket launcher pounding the thing runs towards us like a mad Dog... but hey, where would quake be if it had sissy enemies :P
Then on August 9th my Near and Dear Bro left me :cry: He went to US for his Higher Studies,Whole year I remembered him in every Festival, as it was the first Time in my life that i didnt have my caring bro beside me :(
But the best part is.... I can get games and consoles direct from the Center of Western gaming world!! U.S.A! Wohoo! and things are so cheap there :D (including the PS3 :P) He always takes pics of gaming shops and Ps3 and sends em to me :D
I just loved the concept of Guitar hero, but the thing isn’t available anywhere in my state, So what I did was get this game called FRETS on FIRE (around 3-4 months ago) and I started playing it with my wireless Keyboard :D Its almost the same, and the Best part is its FREE! Yeah FREE! You also get new songs for it every now and then. And one can also download the whole GH 1 and 2 songs set for it :D
Friends and Internet.
After that,on OCT 14th I got Brain age for the DS :D our whole family was already addicted to Sudoku and I like brain related activities :P, The game turned out to be simply amazing! I play it DAILY! Along with that I got Zelda:A link to the Past(something I was waiting for since very long :D) and Also Wario land 4. Both excellent portable games! The DS on lowest brightness gives me 12-15 hours of gameplay, and its very bright in the lowest brightness itself.I played Zelda for 4 hours straight on my DS once :P I also got an awesome DS Cover which I use to hang the DS on my Belt whenever I go out :P TRENDY :lol:
This year I was introduced to Videogamesblogger.com thanx to Astro, The site is just amazing, its a VG news site, and it covers almost every gaming news on the planet,GS only posts the News which it is 100% sure of, and for which it has First hand info, but this website being independent gets news from almost every gaming portal(one can never see GS referring to a IGN new or vice versa:P) The Website gets almost 10k Hits a day, and this Xmas they had half a million Hits!, It looks simple, but its really great, I even participated in a Competition there, and View a SIGNED(by Tetsuya Mizuguchi himself) copy of Lumines for the PSP!(more details in Link) my Name was even featured in the Video interview :D
*Two of a Kind.
Also this year, I met My friend Gagan :D his Profile was almost empty with one blog about him saying that he would get both PS3 and 360 :P, the blog even had a reply from Justin Calvert(GS staff). I Found him and many other Indian GS members using my Secret power(:P), I contacted him, made him Join IGG, and then soon, he Started blogging and now has almsot everyone I know visiting his blog :P He Just Wrote his 100th Blog recently :o An Ardent 360 player , No doubt about that :P, I was just talking to him one day and mentioned how I had to change two discs of GoW and Still had problems in the game(it didnt load after I crossed the Bridge on the TITAN) he simply said..."I'll Give you my Copy" I was thinking he was joking or something but turned out he really meant it :O he said he had the same problem but managed to get a good one as he knew a shop owner and he could exchange the game many times and got a good one :D, Within a Week I got the Game and I was Mad Crazy to find a PoP:WW Disc also in it! :o The game used to get stuck after I beat the princess, I just told him that he sent me that game too :o Great guy!
ON OCT 27th he Visited HYD(city where I live), and Called me just when I reached home from college, saying that we could meet in the mall, I without any second thoughts just started off to the mall, which took me an hour to reach due to the hectic Traffic.We had a great time talking, Finally I got to meet a guy like me :P I touched a PSP for the First time! played SVR 06 in it, saw a bunch of High Def Videos,had Iced Tea at Pizza Hut. I was planning on having fun in the arcade with him, but it seems He had some work, so he had to leave, it was a short meet, but a great one indeed :D And that day when I returned home I got my Copy of Lumines Via Courier :D I was so happy that day :D I didnt even have a PSP :lol: I and Gagan thought of meeting again so that we could play some DS MP also play My Lumines on his PSP.. but tight schedules didnt allow it :(
One fine day, I was decided to Buy Component Cables for my PS2 as I knew that I wasn't going next gen soon, and I had to use my HDTV in someway or the other(normal input is waste for the HDTV).I did Intensive Testing later, Pics and Details can be found here :D
*Mashing to the Beat!
Near the End of the Year I got Rhythm Tengoku, a game that GS made me fall in love with(Thanks to Jeff and OTS) I watched its video on OTS almost daily till I got the game :P and after getting it, even till today, I play it daily atleast once, the game is So unique, and I love Beat-ie music AND J-POP! Its a great combination of the two, I'v got medals in many remixes and stages in it :D I've shown it to many kids and they all like it :P the Ghost stage is the one everyone liked... Every music in it makes you swing your head in the rhythm :lol:
*2007 : Games that'll be played.
As for Other Games, I have LOADs of them on Reserve, I had this planned when I bought my PS2 itself, that I would leave some games for the big gap when I will be stuck in old gen :P The Games that I have in reserve are.
These two I will be playing FOREVER and ALWAYS
I think that brings this to the conclusion :D I still feel I missed something :P '06 was great for me!
ThanQ all for reading :D Hope I gave a nice insight on the games that mentioned,Try out one of em, I am sure you will have a stupendous time playing them :D
Once again I wish You All a Happy New year :D Also a big ThanX to all my GS friends who made me have nice online year :) and Hope you like the changes in my Profile :D The old banner and icon were more than a year old :P
P.S: Dont Forget to See the PART I
Here's Something I've Been Playing
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