Vader, you'll just have to jump off the sinking Sonic and RE ships and join up with a gaming series that's unsinkable:

The Mario series!   Mario is always reinventing himself.  See: Super Mario Galaxy.

Oh...

Oh No...

.

Ok, enough!

Stop!

STOP IT!!

DAMMIT, MARIO!!...........

Ok, it's timereinvent yourself with a new console.  New, powerful console with an awesome new controller!  You can't lose!

Why couldn't you finish 4?  I couldn't put the controller down.

Then you made a smart move Leo.

Zombie blowjobs!

I am at the point where I have no clue what people want from their games anymore. Do they need their games to fit into a easy to recognize category? Do the controls have to be exactly like every other game? I honestly dont know. Finished chapter 1 of Leon and I absolutely loved it. I saw stuff that looked like RE2/3 remade in ways we could only dream of.

But let me start from the beginning, it begins with a tutorial section that is horrible. You have limited control of your character and all you do is QTEs and a ton of crazy **** is happening. After that you begin the section that was the first demo, which if you played it you remember how mindnumbingly boring it was as you are forced to slowly walk down empty hallways. Once that demo ends you begin right at the second demo. So at this point I am bored out of my mind, I have played these demos enough already. As always though I enjoy the combat, I don't understand how being able to smash zombies into walls, slide kick them then smash their face into the walls and other awesome moves is bad gameplay, but whatever. I managed to counter one zombie which allowed leon to throw the zombie at a bunch of enemies. The combat is a blast, not as focused as RE4/5 but great in its own way.

FIRST CHAPTER SPOILERS AHEAD...

So finally I am out of the demo and into the sewers which is where this starts getting really good. Spoilers ahead I am going to describe this so you get a sense of how the game is. You are in an underground railroad, pitch black except your flashlight. You see a figure in the distance start to shamble at you so you take it out. Soon zombies start crawling from vents and stuff, they come at you pretty quick, some leaping at you (which you can do an backward dodge and shoot them while in the air). Then TRAIN! A button prompt shows up and you have to quickly press it to avoid the train. So this happens one other time, not that hard to avoid. Later you see a bunch of shadows along a wall, the zombie horde coming right at you, great atmosphere. I walk further and I hear growling, here come the zombie dogs. They will try to leap at you, time your counter right and you will push them away. Later you are in an area where you can move in and out of tracks and avoid the train on your own, no button prompt, you can lure zombies into its path and such. At the end of this segment you rescue a woman on a stopped train and she of course proceeds to open a gate full of zombies. But all of a sudden these zombies hurl vomit at you, so now you have to dodge out of the way and keep some distance.

The next section takes you outside into the city and this is where its full on RE2. Cop cars destroyed, buildings on fire, zombies all over some eating survivors. You start to move and in real time an ambulance will slam into a building. People are screaming, some being eaten, you maneuver around the mayhem fighting zombies that get in your way. It is all cleverly shut off to create one path but the start of RE2 was basically the same way. Its just the way it is presented is so awesome and captures that city overrun by zombies perfectly. So now they are a bunch of them and some are SWAT zombies who have body armor on so gun fire does no damage. Later on some of those zombies have guns which they randomly spray bullets. There are firefighter zombies who have O2 tanks on their back which can explode.

So you go through buildings, jump on rooftops and eventually reach a gas station where you see some survivors so you have to eliminate the zombies. As you do this you hear a horrible scream and a new type of zombie shows up, one that lures other zombies to you, so its best to take them out. Then AMBULANCE, BAM IM DEAD. Out of nowhere an ambulance crashes through the level and killed me. So yes there are some random deaths but the checkpoints are everywhere so I started almost where I left out this time I new to stand away from the ambulance. I guess something like that can piss someone off (how dare they have to replay 30 seconds!) but I found it hilarious and it adds to the chaos of what is going on.

Now you and these survivors enter a gun store with an owner who is an ass and wont let you up on the roof until all zombies are dead. So this becomes a standoff with zombies coming through windows as you and the other survivors fight them off. One survivor decides to jump out the window and run and he meets up with a zombie that becomes a crimson head basically, its a red skinned zombie. So now these super zombies start to jump in and there are swat zombies around as well, great time for some explosives. The owner of the shop lets you into his room and he is going to lead you up to the roof when this giant fat zombie bursts through the door. So now you are in a small room with everyone trying to shoot down this blob of a zombie, takes some time but it goes down. Up to the roof you go where you reach another point where you have to hold off until a bus comes to get you. Crimson heads and a fat zombie are jumping over gates you got to use your weapons well of course.

The bus arrives you jump in with all survivors, the bus driver is about to take off but a fat zombie grabs the bumper and holds the bus in place. So now you have to shoot the fat zombie off but zombies are coming in through the windows. Two of the survivors get dragged out and eaten. Once you shoot the fat zombie enough you run over it and ride off which ends the chapter. This leads to a rank screen where everything you did is accounted for and awarded medals. I did pretty horrible I actually died a bunch (playing on veteran), there is so little health. Most of the time I was on my last bit of life hoping to find another herb. Overall that took a little over two hours. I also reached the first skills screen where I could use the points I got to unlock skills, I got better defense and stronger melee. There is a bunch of options with multiple levels to achieve so getting all skills will take some time. You can only have three active at a time but can switch between pairs of three quickly. There is a lot going on this game, loads of depth.

I will say this about the combat, the hold your ground segments were messy compared to RE4/5, mostly due to the camera being a mess. The areas were very tight and a camera that likes to spin a lot in a tight spot is not good. So if game cameras have bothered you in the past and can see you hating parts of this level I played. I thoroughly enjoyed it, it had so much happening, with a new type of enemy showing up like every 15 minutes. No two areas were the same, it always kept me on my toes which is more than I can say about many TPSs.

I also tried Mercs for a quick moment and it seems very fun. The level I have only has the zombie enemies which dont make an intense situation, it was really easy to get a combo streak. Also the level layout pretty much sucked. But it gets more and more awesome as time goes on, by the time I ended I had dogs, crimsons, fat zombies, swat zombies, it was a whole mix of them. In these mercs if you satisfy some condition you get a special boss enemy to show up, it says this I have not seen it. Mercs has its own skills to earn and use, again adding some depth to an already addicting mode.

I loved my first few hours with this game. It is a bit different but nothing about it was bad (ok the camera a bit). I really cant wait to see what is next, I am at a cemetery, should be awesome.

Dvader said:

I have seen a clear trend in sites and the way they review and you can see it clearly here. You have IGN which is the optimist, always looking for the best in games. You have Gamespot which is the pessimist, always focusing on the worst aspects of the games. Then you have Eurogamer which is the realist, they just kind of tell it as it is.

I am defintely an optimist, I agree with IGN scores a lot.

Yeah that's about right.  I honestly think it has something to do with the companies they work for. IGN is doing great financially, and traffic-wise, have plenty of staff etc... whereas Gamespot has been laying off people, always seem to be fighting tech problems.

Writing-wise I prefer Gamespot because they seem to actually use a traditional editorial review process, whereas clearly IGN has no technical editing process, but in terms of their perspectives on life and gaming I favor the joie de vivre of the IGN staff.

I don't go to their site as much, as I find it a train wreck, but I do listen to many of their podcasts.

Yeah, THAT FUCKING AMBULANCE WAS SOME HORSESHIT.

But good to know you're digging it. And I love how that particular section's practically begging for a RE2 remake. Found they did a real nice job with that.

Also, sup Vader.

Japan fails to realise its not that people want them copying western, PC style developers. People want them making ultra-polished, high quality Japanese style games like they used to do. You know...like Nintendo STILL does (which is why people still love their shit).

I don't want Final Fantasy to be Elder Scrolls. I don't want Metal Gear to be Splinter Cell. And I don't want Resident Evil to be Gears Of War. I want them to be themselves.

You know I don't think I really want anything out of a game. I'd rather something that wasn't generic, but even then, what are you going to do? I certainly don't care about quality, or even if the game is a pain in the arse. Altered Beast is awesome; it's also frustrating, stupid, and just plain bad. But that's part of the charm!

Then again, I can't say I would want to play through Half-Life 2 again...yet I want Episode 3, and will play through the original eventually, even though I know it's almost certainly going to be worse still than 2.  I'm not singling out Half-Life here, just too lazy to think of another example as GME mentioned it above me.

Maybe sometimes I'm just a masochist?