Firstly a Thanks to Tom Champion and Eurogamers who are providing the Tickets for the Expo,
As you guys know Eurogamers Gaming Expo is one of the largest gaming events Held in the UK every year since 2008 and as the years have passed it has increased in Size and the number of people who attend each year increase.
Over 50,000 people attended last year and tickets always sell out within days
So this is your chance to Get hold of Tickets for Thursday the 26th
You will Get Two Tickets for the Day to attend Eurogamers with anyone of your choosing, you don’t want to be enjoying such a gaming Event on your own now?
You will get to play some of the latest Games to be released and soon to be released
Enjoy the Developer Sessions.
So the Question you must be asking,
How do you get hold of these great tickets?
Simple Register at http://www.gamingrev.com/forum/ and Say Hello (Introduce yourself in the new member section) and then enter the competition in the giveaway section
You have to be a Resident of the UK to Enter and Be able to Make it to London on the 26th of September
You must be 16 or over to Enter this Competition
Winners will be notified that they have won on the 1st of August
by Participating in this competition you agree that your Name, Date of Birth and Email Address can be shared with Eurogamers if you win, As they will be sending you the Tickets.
Remember, if you will, the most preposterous contretemps with a final boss you ever had. Kicking Bowser right in the eyeball with your faeces-stained plumber shoes will not suffice, we’re talking strenuous, half an hour wars of attrition against aggressors that would make Godzilla look about as physically imposing as a one-legged kitten with a limp scrotum. The painstaking endeavours as you tortuously chip away at its vitality, until you emerge victorious (with excitement-urine and sweat dribbling down your legs. Legs of SWEET, SWEET WINNING!). The Monster Hunter franchise has crafted an entire game from these theatrical confrontations.
Which, I’d venture, warrants worldwide acclaim as ludicrous as the series’ success in its native Japan. In the Orient, you’ll see commuters, schoolchildren and pensioners alike all indulging in some dragon slaying. Each Monster Hunter release has become a veritable national holiday, with canny employees adopting their stricken ‘pinched nose for nasal voice and melodramatic false cough’ routines on the telephone to the boss so as to spend every daylight hour with the new title. (“I can’t come into the office today, I’ve… got the plague. On… my testicles.”)
Lamentably, though, this remarkable franchise remains an obscurity in Europe and the U.S. Since the inaugural outing on PlayStation 2 in 2004, these have been largely unheard of PSP releases. The most recent Monster Hunter frolics, the Wii-exclusive Monster Hunter Tri, was a tenuous success in these territories in 2010. Y’know, modestly. If you squint a bit. As such, Capcom are striving to expand on the series’ less-than-meteoric rise to world domination (unless said meteor was being transported by an elderly mule with arthritis and/or no legs in a wheelbarrow across a minefield) with the impending March 22 appearance of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate for Wii U and 3DS.
What you’re asking right now, though, is “JUST WHAT IN THE NAME OF SATAN’S SWEATY SCROTUM IS THIS ‘MONSTER STABBER’ YOU SPEAK OF?” (Don’t deny that this is precisely your question. ‘Tis folly.) What we need just now, then, is a brief synopsis for the uninitiated. Monster Hunter is an action RPG, loosely defined (loosely enough to drop right off, I’ll concede, but let’s not be pernickety). You create your hunter via a reasonably meticulous, The Sims-esque editor, and are thrust groin-first into life as a fledgling village’s resident exterminator.
In Monster Hunter Tri, your tiny coastal village was beset by a abominable beast dubbed Lagiacrus, and your initial object was, as the chief proclaims, to “Stab this mother RIGHT IN THE ANUS. SEVERAL TIMES.” (Except he didn’t.) You had no hope of dispatching this behemoth from the off, so it was incumbent upon you to ‘train up’ for that encounter. This you do by bolstering your weaponry, armour and abilities by embarking on a series of tiered quests, given to you by the village’s clerks. You will begin by hunting innocuous, piteous wildlife to harvest materials from them, and gathering herbs and ore to fashion into items.
You will ascend from these humble heights to casually dispatching the largest, ghastliest, groin-punchiest and hallitosis-est wyverns in the Monster Hunter menagerie. The all-pervading sense of progress is quite a wonder, particularly when finally killing a beast that defeated you in several prior instances. This is, most pertinently, because your triumphs are solely skill-based. You can, I’ll concede, bolster your defensive and offensive capacities with upgrades to your equipment, but even the most formidable blade will be as ineffectual as stabbing a knight in his steely codpiece with a broken matchstick if not wielded well.
There is an array of weaponry to utilise, and the disparate playstyles each one demands will render it your de facto ‘class.’ A user of the preposterously large hammers, for instance, has the ability to knock out a monster (making it immobile and vulnerable to mass stabbing with a side order of stabbing and extra stabbing sauce for a fleeting moment). The elegant, katana-esque longsword, meanwhile, has neither the brute strength or cumbersome, slow attacks of the hammer, but dispenses swift, precise attacks, wonderful for cutting off a beast’s tail (thus giving you extra items and other rewards for crafting equipment). The sword and shield bestows upon you the ability to block, as opposed to the ungainly desperatehaul assroll away when some big ol’ dragon targets your buttocks with a fireball you must often employ. You are also very mobile with this armament, the shortcoming being that its hasty flurry of attacks are, comparatively, somewhat feeble.
Monster Hunter is, as the tedious old sports presenter’s adage proclaims, ‘a game of two halves.’ While the deftly-tuned combat (hunting) is your primary pursuit, there’s an obscenely compulsive ‘collection’ aspect that is its catalyst. Each monster you defeat can be captured or killed, the latter of which allows you to carve its corpse for items. It is these that are fashioned into an upgraded weapon or armour piece, created by the craftsmen of the village. It will adopt characteristics pertaining to the foe they were gathered from (materials from the venomous abomination Gigginox will result in lances, blades, bows and so forth that can inflict the poison status on opponents, for instance). Setting one’s sights on a new armour set or weapon is the very notion that brings average save files of Monster Hunter titles into several hundred hours.
Image source: www.godisageek.com
In summation, this franchise is a remarkably tough sell. It has such nuanced and varied combat that a simple decision to try to master another of the twelve weapon classes can eke weeks of new gameplay from any one installment. The online play (hunting in a party of up to four) is some of the most compelling co-operative gaming I’ve ever experienced, when you gather an effective team together. Nonetheless, this very ponderous, tactical combat has contributed to the niche worldwide nature of Monster Hunter. Frequently, you are deftly timing very slow attacks, with the deliberate, slow animations you’d associate with such. Hack and slash sensibilities will only lead to the monster trampling your gonads into the dirt, perhaps pausing to give your dessicated, blood-bleeding corpse the middle finger as it does so before galumphing back to its cave to take a triumphant crap.
As newcomers to the Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate demo currently residing on the eShop will attest, it does not pander to beginners. The remarkable immersive quality of the games is also a shortcoming, in that it DEMANDS such a commitment. Farming is the name of the game, and it is for the player to decide is this is an appealing trait. This is perhaps the very epitome of the love it or hate it concept.
In the next Few Months we can see titles from the past brought back to life in HD quality
up scaled using the latest software and computers to give that extra bit of oomph.
So far we have
Metal Gear Solid HD collection Kingdom Hearts HD collection Jak and Daxter HD collection Devil may cry HD collection
and much more
In my opinion This is great as the originals aren’t compatible with current systems by porting them over to the latest generation of consoles
as older classic games are revamped and up scaled in graphics it will give the ability to play older games of latest releases, gamers can get a sense of feeling of the game and its history then having only the option to play the current game and then judging the game from that release.
at the end of the day old school games in most cases have more depth, Character.
and that’s something I miss in most games which are released in this day and age.
maybe with the rise of the older games, game developers will return to their roots and produce games which enticed and made gamers keep on coming back for more.
This will also revive most companies by giving them extra revenue from game sales increasing the chances of them producing more and better games.
So A few week’s has passed since Metal Gear Solid had been relaunched in the US and Canada, Thank you Konami for being Jackasses and making the Rest of us having to wait till February 2012.
The Game has been Released on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 (Thankfully the Playstation games are all Region Free) so I was lucky enough to get one exported from Canada on the Playstation 3.
Apart from the short Rant at Konami and them acting like as mentioned Jackasses for giving us Brits and the others across the channel a three month wait for the game.
Anyhow
Metal Gear Solid, one of the highest grossing Games of the last 2 Decades (well more than that since its been around since the 1980s)
So what do we get in this HD collection
Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty
Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater
And finally Peace walker
You may ask why the HD collection doesn’t have Metal Gear Solid Tactical Espionage, the reason for this is due to the game being somewhat impossible to scale up in terms of graphics or to re-master without going full out and recreating the whole game from bottom up.
So hopefully in future we can see a remake of Metal Gear Solid as it would be great to play in HD quality (even better maybe we can see it in 3D)
Even Though Metal Gear Solid isn’t in the Collection I still feel it needs a couple of Paragraphs on it.
History of Metal Gear Solid (List of Titles and Year of Release)
Metal Gear Solid Tactical Espionage
Metal Gear Solid was released back in 1998 on the Sony Playstation after almost a decade since the Original was released on the Snes; this was a great decision by Konami as they finally had a platform where they could push the boundaries of game design during that period and make a game that provides a game with more realistic environment and graphics then any game on the market.
Well they succeeded
The reason I say that is Metal Gear Solid pushed the boundaries when it came to gaming in that era,
Almost Full unrestricted 360 Degrees of Control.
The Game was created using the latest 3D Computer technology with artists using polygonal sculpturing to ensure as much realism as possible.
User Interactions were above par compared to other games. (Hiding Bodies, Hiding in Card Board Boxes, Avoiding Obstacles, Hanging off ledges)
Great Back Story, Metal Gear solid had a great story to it and it was great how it unfolded and had a nice twist to the end.
Weapon selection was great, Nothing like running up the communications tower with the Famas and mowing down the bad guys (they had technicians and advice from experts on how a weapon should work and how the user can interact with it)
In all Hideo Kojima along with Konami were able to create a game with an environment that allowed the player to immerse themselves into.
My only issue with Metal Gear Solid was the weapons collection, I say this because it was a pain to always have to go back to the storage room and collect the weapon before progressing any further.
This was done after each boss or event in the game where Snake would acquire a new pass key which allowed him to open higher security level doors.
So apart from that Metal Gear Solid was basically flawless to me.
Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty
Metal Gear Solid 2 sons of Liberty was probably the most anticipated games on the Sony playstation 2, This was mostly thanks to the success of Metal Gear Solid and the cinematic trailers before release which were made in true Hollywood fashion with Graphics and Music to match composed by none other than Harry Gregson Williams.
Metal Gear Solid Provided couple of new things to the Sega of Metal Gear Solid which were greatly welcomed by the fans and gaming community.
One of Many was the ability to use first person view on all weapons and at any position, this is a change from the original metal gear solid where this was mostly restricted to the sniper rifle but that also meant having to go prone while shooting.
This new feature allowed more control of the weapons and how they were fired and in which general area the user wanted to shoot. (Great for torturing the guards by shooting them in the arm and then Leg and watch them limp in pain; yes I can be a cruel bastard in the game)
Metal Gear Solid 2 also had a Twist to which some fans found disappointing as you didn’t get to play as Snake from the start to the end but also as a new face to the game, (Raiden)
His Back story is a bit iffy and as you play through the game the story behind him starts to unravel its self and you get to learn about the true agenda of Solidus and that of the Patriots.
By playing as a second character in this game somewhat gave a new look at solid snake from the perspectives of someone else, which was a good thing in some ways as you got to see snake for who he is as you try and reach your final objectives of getting to the bottom of the high jacking of The Big Shell clean-up facility.
You have Snake guiding Raiden in somewhat as a mentor.
One quote I liked from Metal Gear Solid would have to be when Snake quotes Red Fox.
Solid Snake: “We’re not tools of the government, or anyone else. Fighting was the only thing I was good at, but at least I fought for what I believe in.”
With True style Hideo Kojima was able to get a game designed and produced that didn’t fail; the game lived up to all the expectations and was a great success.
Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater
now time for some time travel as we go back to the cold war and the origins of Big Boss and we get to play as the legendry solider that spawned the hero that we have come to know as Solid Snake.
Metal Gear Solid 3 has had a complete revamp and the changes are pretty much noticeable when it comes to game mechanics as it introduces the players to new environment and game mechanics.
1. The introduction of camouflage which allows the player to blend into the back ground allowing greater ease when it comes to evading enemies or to just hide in plain sight.
2. Limit on Weapons and Items, In Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 2 players were able to quick select from a list of weapons, In Metal Gear Solid 3 this has changed completely where the inventory has been restricted to the number of weapons and items that can be selected from quick select.
This means the user has to choose which weapons and items he or she will most likely use and then select them from the inventory and put them in the quick list.
3. The Introduction of Stamina to the game, this BAR reduces as the time goes by or when you get snake injured. This is replenished by killing wild animals or eating fruits.
4. Introduction to CQC (Close Quarter Combat) this new ability allowed the user more than the usual punch and kick but with a verity of moves to take on an opponent unarmed or with just his knife.
5. As mentioned Snake can get injured and unlike the previous Metal Gear Solid where it was eat a ration and you get back to full strength and carry on the fight, in Snake Eater you have to Heal your wounds by using the medical supplies collected as you progress through the game.
By ignoring injuries and just carrying the health Bar will be restricted and can’t heal above a certain point.
So as time has progressed so has the metal gear solid Sega and with that the game has evolved to its surroundings allowing the user a more immersive environment to interact with.
one Issue with Snake Eater was mostly the camera control which was a royal pain and thankfully this was addressed on the re-launch on Metal Gear Solid Snake Eater Substance (Unlike the Previous Metal Gear Solid 2 which was ported over to the Xbox 360 console as substance, Snake Eater remained on the Sony Playstation 2)
Peace Walker
Peace walker was originally designed and created for the PSP so don’t be shocked when you play this and you find the environment and Graphics not that much up to Metal Gear Solid standard you would expect on a Playstation 3/ Xbox 360 let alone Playstation 2,
It’s great that Konami have ported this over to the Sony Playstation and Xbox 360 and allow people to play peace walker without having to buy or borrow a PSP.
In Peace walker we get to play as the Legendary Snake (aka Big Boss) as he is on a quest to find out if his mentor that if she is still alive and get closure on the actions he took all those years ago.
The weapons selection has changed considerably and made simpler to organise and select which is always great when you are playing the game on a PSP, so it’s less fidgety then it would have been if they had used the old school style of weapons and items selection.
As you are on a mission to free Costa Rica from CIA control.
Peace walker also has Multiplayer mode where you can team up with friends and strangers to go out and kill each other, like most online multiplayer games as you progress through the game you unlock items and weapons which you can use to customise your inventory for different maps and objectives.
Items are also unlocked as you progress through the game, these items can only be used in multiplayer mode.
At the end of the day it’s great to see a game like Metal Gear solid revamped and up scaled in a way that Metal Gear Solid Fans and those who never played it to relive the original Games on a HD TV with great Graphics.
If you are a Metal Gear Solid Fan I would say go buy it or if you are like me and impatient Import it as you will not regret this Purchase.
This is a US Import Version for those that don’t want to wait, only avalible on Playstaion 3 as Sony havent region locked their console.
