Trash Panic (Japan Title: Gomibako) [PS3] Review

LETTER OF UNDERSTANDING

I, the understand, do solemnly swear on pain of death by robotic rottweiler mauling, that the following review shall contain no poor rubbish based puns, including, but not limited to ‘Gomibako is (not) rubbish’ ‘Gomibako should (not) be consigned to the rubbish bin’ and ‘ Gomibako is (no) more than a collection of puzzle game mechanics recycled from other successful titles.’

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Want Cheap Video Games? Korea got you cover

Ever wondered how is the video game market in other places beside  US, Japan or European countries? What about Korea?  We know they have TV shows dedicated to Starcraft but what about Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii?.

Now, let`s get together around the fire kids, time for bedtime stories.

Post E3 2009- Japanese devs strike back?

The geographical centre of the games industry has shifted. Milking the cash cow PS2’s huge installed base created for too long has lead most Japanese developers to fall behind the times, and the pinnacles of modern game design are coming from the West, with the Japanese gaming industry in big trouble.

That was the consensus coming out of TGS 2008 and yet now, shortly after the games industry’s Great American Bash that was E3, it seems like some focus is coming back East. Or is it? Or IS it? Let’s take a look.

First and third party Japanese developers have been crucial to the success of almost every format from the mid 1980s on. There were great games which shifted systems and had tremendous cultural influence worldwide. Super Mario Bros. not only shifted Famicoms in Japan and affected Japanese lives to the extent that the term ‘B-Dash'(hurry!) is immortalised in katakana English that’s still being used today; it also shook the foundations of pop culture in the West. Suddenly Mario was a more recognisable face to children in America than Mickey Mouse. Sega’s Sonicin 1991 had similar importance, capturing a slightly older audience. In the Playstation era, Final Fantasy VIIand Metal Gear Solid joined the likes of the N64’s Ocarina of Time to be internationally hailed as some of the greatest games of their generation, if not of all time.

From Mario to MGS and Zelda OOT- Japanese games matured with their key audience over twenty years, but recent attempts to recapture the young have lost some of what was the core market

Re-thought: Phantasy Star III

Most people dislike this title of the Phantasy Star series. This is because the story has very little to do with the other three Sega titles. I, however, couldn’t find many things I disliked about the game. Since the first introduction of the game back in 1991,  Phantasy Star III rarely gets the respect it deserves.

Originally, I was lucky to play this game back in the Sega Genesis. After years of practically forget about it, I got my hands in the PSP Sega collection that includes Phantasy Star III along with younger sisters Phantasy Star I and II. Still, after all these years, I found the storyline very original and engaging while the gameplay still holds there despise all the grinding you need to go through every two seconds.

Goodbye Altair, Welcome Enzio

Issue 103 of Game Informer magazine should be hitting store shelves soon, featuring the world exclusive reveal of Assassin’s Creed II, while also introducing new assassin Ezio posing on the front cover.

Now, the word around the net is some of the new details that will be revailed and discussed in the next issue. From what we can gather in our usual net rounds, some of this details are:

Best Game of all time announced; other developers give up to save effort, money

Those who share my affinity with wrestling games, and quite a few who don’t should be very excited by this:

The Fire Pro Club is reporting that to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Fire Pro Wrestling (the best series of wrestling games in the history of all things ever), two new games are being entered into the canon. Fire Pro Wrestling Anniversary Collection will pack in ten games from the PC Engine titles up to Super Fire Pro 3 (meh), to Fire Pro X and Fire Pro X Premium(worth the asking price by far) as well as a specially reduxed version of Blazing Tornado (read Fire Pro Arcade) alongside some new video content.

The big deal, though, is Fire Pro HD, which will feature a rebuilt game engine, and online play.

The Collection will be available on Wii later this year, and HD will be on XBLA and PSN on September 9th. We at Gaijingamers compel you to stockpile PSN moneys and MSPoints now, lest by September your credit card details get lost or stolen or something, and at the same time a bizarre mix-up leads to a worldwide shortage of the prepaid cards.

EDIT- Aanndd it was all an elaborate early April fool, apparently. One we here were certainly in on from the start. We’re obviously too smart to be taken in by internet ruses. What?

Resident Evil 5 Impressions

Back in 1996, Capcom debut the first of several game from the Resident Evil franchise, changing forever the landscape of what action games could bring to the table. While not the first game to introduce the now famous catch phrase “Survival Horror”, Capcom sure took the term “survival” in a threat typical of horror fiction to another level.

Forward to 2009 and after a group of well established games and spin-off from the series, Capcom once again deliver another journey into the land of zombies where you main objectives are to manage your resources and escape at all cost, or perhaps just shot your way through anything that move and waste away whatever resources you get along the way.