Resident Evil 2 (PS1) - As you can see, I finally picked up a copy of RE2 after not having a copy since it originally came out in 1998. I popped it in to try it out and that brought back some fond memories! It still seems to hold up today and the "tank" controls didn't bother me at all, which kinda surprised me.

Bomberman Blitz (DSi) - I bought this kinda on a whim when it came out last week on DSiWare because I still had my full 1000 free DSiWare points from when I bought the DSi. Blitz is a Bomberman game with the single-player campaign nixed in favor of a lower priced multiplayer only focused version. You can play single player with bots or play with up to eight players locally or up to four online. It's definitely Bomberman alright and the online works very well. I'd say the 500 pts. spent on it was worth it provided you still care about Bomberman.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3) - I have to say that Uncharted 2 is definitely a massive improvement over the original is almost every way. The addition of competitive multiplayer and co-op are easily the best new things. I love that they took the way most shooters deal with grenades (e.g. selecting them manually and then aiming and finally tossing) and made it so much better in that now you simply aim like you normally do when you are firing a gun but press the grenade throwing button instead and you will throw the grenade were you are aiming. I find that to be an ingenious way of handling something that used to be a slightly cumbersome thing to do.

I still have two main problems with the game, however. The first is pathfinding. What I mean is when you have to look around the area for a "path" via platforming elements of climbing around and jumping. I found it brought the game to a screeching halt many times when I was trying to find the correct way to get to where I needed to go and that was pretty annoying especially since the hint system would only show you where you needed to go and not necessarily where to start from. The second problem is the same problem a lot of games have had for a long time now: "difficulty increase." When you play a game at a higher difficulty a lot of them aren't content with just making the enemies take more hits, but they also add the unnecessary frustration of giving you less health which I have never liked.

Uncharted 2 is definitely a game worth playing and while I didn't like it quite as much as all of the hyperbolic reviews pretended to, I would still recommend it highly.

inFamous (PS3) - I finished this twice, once as good and once as evil, like I'm sure most people who played it did. I really liked Crackdown when I owned an X360 and this game reminded of that game a whole lot, but better so it should come as no surprise that I enjoyed the hell out of inFamous. The main improvement inFamous has over Crackdown is that inFamous actually has a decent story to tell with a number to legitimately surprising twists you won't expect. Having said that, the reason to play this game is for the fun gameplay with a lot of great powers to use. The worst part was all of the glitches I ran into. I must have experienced at least a few dozen during my two playthoughs, but none of them were game breaking, just slightly annoying at times.

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There is this place in my city that sells used media like DVDs, CDs, BDs, VHS, and video games for most systems called BuyBacks. Most of their prices of pretty average with some good deals here and there, but there are a number of games I noticed that have outrageous prices and I decided to show them to you.

[Click each title to see the picture with the actual price they charge.]

Tekken 2 (PS1) -- normally ~$6
The Warriors (PSP) -- normally ~$14
Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition (GC) -- normally ~$40
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Mutant Nightmare (GC) -- normally ~$15
Burnout Legends (DS) -- normally ~$13
Smarty Pants (Wii) -- normally ~$15
BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger (Limited Edition) (PS3) -- normally ~$50
Aerobiz Supersonic (SNES) -- normally ~$20
Super Mario 64 (N64) -- normally ~$20 -- Blurry photo, but their price is $109.99!!
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner - Raidou Kuzunoha vs The Soulless Army (PS2) -- normally ~$30
Rock Band 2 (PS2) -- normally ~$25
Rygar: The Legendary Adventure (PS2) -- normally ~$7

Also, here are a few price discrepancies among multiple copies of the exact same game!
SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals (PS2)
Shadow of the Colossus (PS2)

インファムス

This past week I got a few more things:



DualShock 3 (Metallic Blue) - This is my first DualShock 3 as I have been playing my PS3 mostly with the original SixAxis controller of which I have two. I have always felt the original was a perfectly good controller, but I just liked the look of this controller in blue so I picked one up. There is also a red one too.

Doom (PS1) - I accidentally found this in the original long box version and had to get it. I had this back in the day when it originally came out and it's a really good port of Ultimate Doom and Doom II on one disc!

Tekken 6 (PS3) - I have been a big fan of Tekken since the original game's release on the original PlayStation and, like always, I picked this one up day one. Unfortunately, my biggest fear came true with this entry: It is too much like the previous Tekken 5. At first this realization really upset me because I have felt the series really needs to do something to freshen itself up since the last iteration. Since then it has grown on me once I came to terms with it being all-too familiar. I still feel Tekken 6 is the best overall game in the series and if you are new to it or haven't played it in a long while, this is certainly a good game to start with/get back into it. (My favorite thing so far was being able to make Law look just like Kenshiro from Hokuto no Ken/Fist of the North Star!)

鉄拳6

As you can see from the above photo, I picked up three of 2009's highest rated games. Toys-R-Us is having a buy-2-get-1-free on all video games and that is how I got them. This sale makes me glad I didn't rush out and buy inFamous or Batman when they came out. Now I have three excellent games to play for a good long while along with my continuation of Ninja Gaiden Σ 2 and the upcoming Tekken 6 at the end of the month! Needless to say, October has been awesome!



Two more older games were also picked up this week:

Power Instinct - This is an Atlus fighting game ported from the arcade to the Super Nintendo. Very obviously Street Fighter II inspired, but still pretty good nonetheless. The later games in the series, especially Matrimelee for Neo Geo, were a good deal better than this one.

WWF Smackdown! 2: Know Your Role - In what can really be considered more of an upgrade rather than a sequel, Smackdown! 2 is a very good follow-up to the original PlayStation Smackdown! wrestling game, a game that changed how wrestling games have been made since.

Thexder NEO - This is a downloadable game for PSP that is a new game in the Thexder series of games that were mainly on different PCs back in the 1980s. The only other one I have played before this one was the port of the original Thexder to the Famicom. It's a pretty bad port, but the concept was interesting enough that I wanted to try out this new one once I saw some gameplay footage and I wasn't disappointed. It is a good game that stays very true to the original games while still being fun today and it even has online multiplayer, but I haven't been able to try that out yet because it seems that absolutely nobody is playing this online. Thexder NEO is $10 and for that price it isn't really worth it, but if the price ever drops to $5, I would recommend it.

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I finished Ninja Gaiden Σ 2 yesterday and unlike most games, I actually want to play though it again already which I would say is a testament to my enjoyment of it. The camera was definitely a pain at times, but overall still a great game that I recommend to anyone that is into the Ninja Gaiden series and even to people who have been intimidated by the difficulty in the past as this one is definitely far more accessible than previous games. Also, I'm looking for anyone who would like to play some co-op in Ninja Gaiden Σ 2. If you are interested, send me a message on PSN.

Another game I finished recently was one I purchased around the time of my last blog which is L-Dis for PC Engine. It's a pretty good shoot-'em-up with quite a few stages and some satisfying shooting action once you get powered up enough. Late in the game is pretty difficult mainly because there is a lot of crazy obstacle dodging and the bosses take quite a few hits before they go down! L-Dis is a shoot-'em-up I would only recommend to fans of the genre because I don't think most others would like it as much.
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As always, thanks for reading and until next time! (Psst! Next time: Tekken 6! )

豪血寺一族

Hey peeps, Usagi back to talk some more games so here we go!



Yes, I already bought Ninja Gaiden Σ 2! I didn't expect to do so until I was out and about one day and saw it on sale and thought, yeah, I wanna kick some ass! So far it is definitely much better than when Itagaki was with Team Ninja. Many differences are there that certainly wouldn't be there if he was still in charge. For one, the easy difficulty is actually manageable for non-masochists while still being challenging and the harder difficulties are still there for people who want them. There are also many more checkpoints that completely refill your health and you get back a large chunk of health when you finish a battle instead of having to gain it all back yourself. In other words, it is a much less frustrating, but still plenty challenging experience than before. The dismemberment is still in the game and the enemies will still try to suicide bomb your ass, but it's just much less bloody than before. I, for one, am glad Tecmo is free from Itagaki's ego because now they can and are already releasing more than just DoA and NG with the likes of the action game for PSP called Undead Knights and also the upcoming third-person shooter Quantum Theory for PS3.



Four more PC Engine games this week too!

Dungeon Explorer & Dungeon Explorer II - Excellent action RPG games that are essentially Gauntlet with a fully realized story many different characters to choose to play as, RPG elements, and up to 5-players simultaneously! If that sounds good to you and you have a Wii, download the first DE now! DEII is only on the Virtual Console in Japan, unfortunately.

L-Dis - This is a shump of the cute-'em-up subgenre that is pretty good with some funny things like the sound of 'meow' coming out of certain enemies when you destroy them, at least that's what it sounds like to me.

Fire Pro Wrestling 3: Legend Bout - The Fire Pro series has always been known for being an excellent series of wrestling games where the gameplay is all about timing your button presses rather than mashing them to win grapples and it's a great system that is still great today. If you like pro wrestling games I recommend Fire Pro Returns for PS2 since that is the only one to come over to North America outside of the two GBA games.

Tetris (PSP Minis) - I bought the new PSP Minis version of Tetris and I think it is an excellent game of Tetris. It offers 15 neat variants of the game in addition to the usual marathon mode. It even has it's own achievements that are fun as well. The game is $10 which is definitely too much, but I would recommend it if there is a price drop in the future.

ダンジヨン エクスプローラー

I'm back this time powered up with 12 new games that are actually old games. What can I say? I'm going classic gaming cRaZy!!!



First up is the Gate of Thunder 4-in-1 CD that originally came packed with the North American Turbo Duo in 1993. As you can see, Gate of Thunder, Bonk's Adventure, and Bonk's Revenge are on the disc. The first Bomberman release for the system is also on there, accessible with a code. Only Gate of Thunder is a CD game on the disc because the rest were originally released as separate HuCard releases and thrown on here as a bonus. Getting this CD was a great savings because separately those 4 games would cost a total of ~$90 instead of the $28 I paid.



Next up we have a strangely named fighting game that has an arcade only sequel. I'm looking to put up some game footage soon for it to give an idea of what it is like. I think it's a pretty solid fighter with an interesting dual super meter that has an 'offense' part and a 'defense' part. When they both are full, they combine to give you the ability to do a Critical Art as opposed to an Offense Art or Defense Art.



These three Game Boy games were bought from eStarland.com because of a recent Buy 2 used, Get 1 used free promotion. I had Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge when it was originally released in 1991. It was great then and is still a great Castlevania game now unlike the other Castlevania games on Game Boy. Operation C was one I also played at the time, but never owned and it too is a fantastic portable game. Street Fighter Alpha for Game Boy is an interesting game in that it is actually a very good port of the arcade game. The music is the worst part because it grates on you with how annoying it sounds. Very impressive animation and gameplay which is surprising considering we are talking about a 6-button game being pared down to only 2 buttons. The AI is also exactly like the arcade version for the most part. Overall, Street Fighter Alpha on Game Boy is easily the best fighter for the system and a good fighter in and of itself.



I was out earlier this week and happened to stop by a local place called Buybacks that sells used games as well as other things like used VHS tapes, DVDs, music CDs, and Blu-ray movies. I wasn't expecting to find anything I'd want, but I lucked out and found a copy of Vampire Night. It was never on my want list, but I knew about it and it always sounded like a fun light gun game with a vampire theme, so I decided to pick it up. Turns out that it is pretty good and was developed by the same Sega team that developed other great light gun games like Virtua Cop and House of the Dead! I also found a copy of Loaded and a long box version no less! Loaded is one of my favorite early PS1 games so I'm glad I found it.



My final shipment of PC Engine stuff for now arrived too. Two more controllers, mainly for Bomberman matches and Dungeon Explorer co-op (which I will get sometime). The green one with orange accents originally shipped with the PC Engine CoreGrafx II and the weirdly shaped (I usually call it the batwing) black one with blue accents originally shipped with the PC Engine Shuttle.

Speaking of Bomberman, I also got Bomberman '93 which is one of the best games in the franchise and also Mr. Heli no Daibouken. Mr. Heli is an interesting, somewhat unique take on the cute-'em-up sub-genre of shmups.

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NEW VIDEOS
I have uploaded new videos to my YouTube account showing my Famicom/NES, GBA, and DS collections.

In the coming weeks you can expect more gameplay videos of many of the above games. Until then, arrivederci!

ザ・ランブルフィッシュ