What I'm looking forward to...

While 2012 was a bit lacking for me (even tho they were a few incredibly great games, as mentioned in the post before...), 2013 seems to be more than promising. There's tons of stuff I'm looking forward to and I'd like to share my excitement with you guys. ;>

First of all there's Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch coming up in a mere 15 23 days (just as I was writing this, Amazon informed me that the game has been delayed to the first of February... orz) - I've been wanting to play this game ever since the DS version got announced. I was severely disappointed when they announced a localisation for the PS3 version but not the DS one... I had no PS3 then and I didn't think I'd be getting one so soon either. But then I did and after playing through the demo once, I immediately pre-ordered the Limited Edition of Ni No Kuni. It's so fun and so pretty! The story seems to be promising too (but I didn't expect anything else, I mean.. it's Ghibli!) and Level 5's cel shading is marvelous as always... hell yeah. I'm excited for this game!

Next up is Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Escape (Vita version), which gets released on the same day as Ni No Kuni over here in Germany. I decided to not import the game, when I saw it's only gonna cost 28 Euro over here - a price I'm certainly willing to pay for that game. :D (Usually prices in Germany have the same numbers as in the US, just with a € behind instead of a $ in front of them... so, a 40 USD game suddenly turns into a 40 Euro game which is about $52. How is that fair? ;_;) 

In February I'll finally get to play Persona 4 Golden too! The main reason I got the Vita, as I was never able to finish the game on my shiny pink PS2! The little one deleted my 90% complete save game and ever since I just couldn't bring myself to start from the beginning... after enough time had passed to make me wanna play the game from scratch again, the upgraded Vita version got announced and I decided that if I'm gonna play the game again, then I'm playing that version! So I got me a Vita.. and it has been waiting ever since... waiting for me to finally push the game's cartridge into the game slot and play til the battery runs dry... 8) And that I will do in February!

The game I'm probably most excited about tho, is probably Atelier Ayesha - I've been drooling over this game ever since it got announced and after Tecmo-Koei bought Gust I was a little scared that we won't see this game localised or that it would take ages at least. But what's that? A European release, you say? In April? Pre-ordered. WANT NOW!

Don't Starve will also finally see it's official release soon! The Beta has been available for purchase for a while now and it's pretty fun to see the game expand and give you more options to die every few days... 8) It's also 20% off if you buy it now before it's released. :)

Then there's Deponia 3, The Rabbit's Apprentice (another P&C Adventure game by Daedelic & the awesome Matthias Kempke of lassiegames!), Pokemon X & Y just got announced for this year too...

And of course Fire Emblem: Awakening! Finally a Fire Emblem game that has no perma death! And oh, how I look forward to marrying off all my characters to each other, haha.... 8)

Last but not least there is also the release of GTA V to look forward to sometime this year... who knows when exactly that is, but it's gonna be awesome!

So many games I'm looking forward to... I wonder if I'll even have the time to play them all.

If you haven't yet, you can also check out what 2012 games I'm looking back on... ;>

What I'm looking back on...

So I'm a little late with the list of my ten favourite games of the year 2012, but let's do this anyway:

Coming Soon...

I've been a little absent from the internet lately, busy with real life stuff and I've got to admit, mostly I was using all my free time to catch up on a few games I haven't been able to play before.

But with the Christmas holidays coming up I might even be able to review some of the games I've been playing lately. This list consists mostly of:

Puzzle Agent 1 & 2
Chaos on Deponia
Home
(all of these were played together with J, as usual)

1931: Scheherazade
Dandelion
Don't Starve
FTL: Faster Than Light
Portal 2
King's Bounty: Crossworlds

Saturday I'll start playing GTA IV with J on my PS3 - we actually wanted to play it last weekend on my PC, but found out it got ridiculous CPU needs that my computer sadly can't fulfill (which results in lots of lag while driving - unbearable.). Luckily I got a friend with the PS3 version and since I recently bought a PS3 (which is actually a Birthday-/Christmas present for me and the little one (his bday is 4 days before, mine 10 days after Christmas, so that works out well for big presents.. :>))

Anyway. Expect some updates from my side the next couple weeks and maybe there might even finally be some info I can share on my own game as well. :)

In any case: Awesome holidays and everything to all of you for now! <3 p="p">

[Let's Talk] Multiplayer Games

Recently I've been trying lots of turn based multiplayer games, trying to find a few ones I can play with J when we don't have time to meet up and fulfill our point & click adventure urges. I've stumbled upon two games I found very worth mentioning:

So... Elementary.

I just saw the pilot episode of the upcoming CBS show Elementary and hell, I liked it. But I won't spoil the fun for you, so here's just my first impressions on the characters and overall feel of the show:

Sound Shapes

I'm usually staying away from platformers, as I really, really suck at them. But add some creative options, like making your own levels and composing music at the same time - oh well, I can't help but get curious...

And since the Vita hasn't seen much love and since I like to support indie developers.. and the game is 20% off for PS+ users, I just couldn't resist and pre-ordered it last week. 8) (It's also for both Vita & PS3, no matter which version you buy, you'll get the other as well.)

So on Tuesday the game was finally available to download and since then I've been spending quite a bit of time with it. And not just me, the little one is rather fond of it as well - which is just awesome, since he can go and do all the jumping and running to unlock more items and sounds, so I can fiddle around even more with the level creator.. ;>

But admittingly, the stages aren't actually that hard (at least not all the time) and there's no game over, you just respawn at your last checkpoint and merely have to collect the coins you gathered after the checkpoint again - luckily you can use the checkpoints again after picking up coins, so you won't lose them any more after dying. So all in all I am actually having a lot of fun with the platforming as well - which is mainly due to the awesome artwork and music in this little gem. 

                                                                          A few of the different stages

The level creation mode

Most of the levels feel more like an artsy interactive music video than just a platformer, especially Beck's "Cities" was a lot of fun to play through since everything was so perfectly synched to the song's rythmn and even after ten minutes (I died A LOT ;>) I didn't get bored of the song.. :)

I'd recommend this to anyone who likes artsy stuff, good music and doesn't hate platformers with a passion.. the 20% discount for PS+ still lasts til Tuesday as well! :)

There will be updates

Soon.. ish.

Done with my first play through Atelier Meruru - it's fucking adorable and SO addicting. It's good I didn't play the other games, since Meruru balances the micro-management extremely well with almost no parts where I got frustrated or annoyed (except for boss battles - but that's how it should be.), I actually liked the game so much, that I would have instantly started a New Game+ after I finished the game with the Good Ending (Took me around 50 hours in total). Now I want to get all of the endings. And fully develop the kingdom! And synthesize EVERYTHING with alchemy!

... too bad my Playstation 3 times are depending on my brother's whims. And now that he moved out of our mum's place I can't even sneakily occupy his PS3 while he's out when I'm visiting mum. Damn.

But I can have it next week, he promised. ;>

Well, while I've got no PS3 around I'm using the time to (finally) finish Hexyz Force, I'm on the last chapter of Cecilia's story and should be done in a few days. (I always play before going to bed and almost always fall asleep within 30 minutes, so I'm not making that much progress per day.. XD) The game is more fun than I expected (after reading a few negative reviews), but it's not really anything special. Pretty much standard RPG formula, stereotypical anime-fantasy characters and nothing too deep gameplay and story-wise. But still fun. I especially love that you can fast-forward the battles, that way I actually don't mind grinding a little more. I wish every game would have this feature.. :> (The only other game I remember playing that allowed to fast forward battles was Harukanaru Toki no Naka de 4..)

I also finally got to buy the current Humble Indie Bundle - anyone who doesn't own these games, well, actually, even if you own them already: GET THIS BUNDLE! It's way too awesome to pass up on. You can gift it to someone else as well and make them happy! (I did that with the Botanicula-Bundle, birthday present for my mum <3) Bastion alone makes this bundle worth the money already.

Sooo then my bestie and I started playing Lone Survivor yesterday night and OMG, IT'S SUCH A FUCKING SCARY GAME! ...we kinda gave up after 45 minutes. SO CREEPY. Geez... but still, very, very awesome. I totally need to find someone who's not as easily scared as I am to play the game while I just sit next to them and ogle at the game's awesomeness. 8) Same goes for Watch Dogs, definitely my highlight of this year's otherwise extremely disappointing E3. I can't watch this trailer often enough:

(Watch it on full screen in HD!)

But I'm definitely too slow/dumb/inaccurate for the action game play sequences... 

Besides my avid gaming sessions I spent most of the past weeks working on my own game and it's slowly taking some form.

At least I've finally decided on a title for it and I hopefully will be able to officially announce the game soon. And show off some of the shit we made. Yey. :>

I'll also try and at least write up a Meruru review some time next week. :)