Dynasty Warriors 7 - A Quick Review

Dynasty Warriors’ first leap to the next generation of video game consoles (Dynasty Warriors 6) was received with mixed reviews upon its release. The game was criticised for the dumbing down of characters’ move sets, lack of graphical capabilities, and the removal rather than addition of characters.

However the latest incarnation; Dynasty Warriors 7 is a much more worthwhile purchase. The missing characters are back, complete with many new additions and a whole new kingdom to play as: The Jin Dynasty. Plus the familiar ‘Charge’ move sets are back too with the ‘Renbu’ move sets being discarded; to the relief of the majority of the series’ fans.

As to prevent the stagnation of the series, Koei have added certain innovations and changes to bring Dynasty Warriors back to life. Musou Mode now forces the player to play as a certain character for part (or all of) a battle; which is historically significant to that character. Musou Mode is complimented by emotionally moving cut scenes, with much better voice actors that ever before.

Another big change is the addition of a new mode – Conquest Mode. It replaces the familiar Free Mode unfortunately, but the two do share certain similarities. This new mode features battles across the majority of China which increase in difficulty, and free choice style gameplay in which the player can choose to play as characters in the ‘Other’ kingdom, due to the fact that they have not been given their own parts in Musou Mode.

In short, this is the game that Dynasty Warriors 6 should have been. Koei have seemingly listened to the fans’ opinions and given us the charge move system back, along with later era battles and characters to play as. For long-time fans of the series and new players alike, Dynasty Warriors 7 offers endless hours of enjoyment and endless battlefield K.O.s!

8.5/10.

The X-Factor

So, we're well into X-Factor season now, with the selected 'great rather than good' contestants holidaying at the judges' houses; holiday homes, vilas, private islands etc.

What really gets me about the X-factor is the amount of contestants who bank on their 'sob stories' as much as their voice. I've composed a little psuedo-X-Factor sob story actually: A few months after I was born, my pet rabbit died. I swear to God, his (or her, can't remember too well as I was so young) last words were 'be a singer...' From then onwards it has been my dream and destiny to be a popstar! I wish contestants would just leave it out. It's much like footballers pulling up their shirts to reveal a thank you note to God for their talent. The two things should be separate; as FIFA agrees.

I've also always wondered why no bands ever try out for the X-Factor. I mean, it'd be awesome to have Cowell's socks well and truely rocked off by an auditioning band playing some thrash metal. But at this time, the audtionees aren't allowed to have any musical instruments with them when they do their routine... Shame, but it's definitely something I'd like to see in the future!

Warriors Orochi 2 Character Modifier

So I've been messing around with the character modifier code for Warriors Orochi 2 lately. Thanks to Godshin for the PAL-DE version of the code and to Wonderpierrot for the NTSC version; those codes were a lot of help in converting to PAL UK.

Anyway so I should have a video up sometime in the future but for now, the code to play as Gyuki in free mode is working, and I've also managed to play as one of the NPC generals: 'Suzuki'. (Presumably Shigenori Suzuki) However the game is prone to crashing when playing as the latter. I also need to hack a joker code to be able to play as Dodomekki in free mode, and perhaps more NPC generals and even troops maybe... Anyway, I will be updating on the situation and I'll probably make a short preview video while I'm working on the rest of the codes.

FIFA 12 Demo - Some First Thoughts

So the FIFA 12 demo was released yesterday and my friend and I met up for a few pre-season matches. I'd ended up despising FIFA 11 for various reasons at the end of last year; just various important parts of the gameplay felt like they hadn't quite been perfected by E.A. I know it's early days, but I'm staking a claim and saying that these problems have been rectified in FIFA 12. These problems were:

Strength / holding up ability of the forwards.
Defensive movement and reactions.
The passing system.

I'm delighted to say that the forwards seem to have a lot more ability to be able to hold the ball up and shield it from opposition defenders. However the demo doesn't contain too many strikers which have low strength abilities, e.g. Neymar for Santos in Fifa 11. His strength was roundabouts the 45 mark (out of 99) and would be shrugged off the ball incredibly (and annoyingly) easily. So, I'm going to partially sit on the fence on this one, though the outlook is promising.

Now a lot of people have been saying that defending on the Fifa 12 demo is fairly difficult, but I found it to be a massive improvement! Their reactions and the control for the player to put them exactly where they want them felt great. I felt in full control of my defence.

The passing system was a big let down for me in Fifa 11. E.A. attempted to create a system to eliminate 'ping pong passing' which I concur was much needed; but what we got was something much worse. The passing was slow and sluggish, and I felt that I was always tracking backwards to receive the ball. On the Fifa 12 demo, the passing was very good. Every pass was of a decent speed and for the majority of the time, they reached their intended target.

One thing that bugged me was that Wayne Rooney was the player that featured on the 'arena', however Manchester United are not available to play as in a full match. It makes me think that, as on a lot of demos; there were more things that remain locked to the user. Though the teams that were included were pleasing; apart from having Manchester City rather than United! (But maybe I'm slightly biased.) The playable teams are: Barcelona, Manchester City, Arsenal, Borussia Dortmund, Marseille and A.C. Milan.

So, a big thumbs up overall and I'm looking forward to the full release on the 30th September!

Experience - The worst word in the English language

After finishing my degree and making the decision to undertake a masters course in Journalism, I was faced with the task that every former student is faced with; finding a job. Albeit a part-time one. It then dawned on me that for pretty much every job advertised today, you need experience! Seriously, there was a Christmas temp job at Primark advertised, that stated the dreaded words; 'experience essential.' What kind of experience is required to be able to to handle shit clothes and give crap customer service? Are they wanting experience of working in a sweatshop?

Considered applying to work in a little local cafe, although they not only wanted experience but a 'food hygiene certificate' as well!

:O

I mean, the fact that I'm alive and not sat in hospital shows that I know not to eat raw chicken, then ponder who I could have caught salmonela off... A hygiene certificate could be more apparent in Primark, considering the threat of catching aids from brushing against a casually shopping (I mean shop-lifting) chav.

It's not all doom and gloom. I'm sitting here looking at my Euromillions ticket fro Friday's God-knows-how-many-times rollover. The optimism of winning a cool £126 million jackpot is keeping me going. :)

Tekken 3 Arcade Version Combos

Hi everyone,

I'm working on some combos for the arcade version of Tekken 3 at the moment. Hopefully I'll get enough time to finish it in a couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, I've uploaded a few new videos lately;

GTA:SA Secret Vehicles
GTA:LCS Secret Vehicles
GTA:SA Liberty City.

I'll be updating my blog on how the video is coming along. :)

Matt.

Blog No. 1

Hi, it's MattJ155 from YouTube. Decided to start writing a blog as I currently don't have an enormous amount to do... So, what's it all going to be about? Well there are a lot of video ideas I still have to do, but I'd also like to hear from you lot! I'd like to know about any secret levels, characters, vehicles etc. in games that I haven't yet covered. It might be that I don't have the game, skipped over them or just plainly didn't know about them. :S But I'll do my best to look into it. :)

Also, I've got lots of ideas for codes yet to be created or just some thoughts that I'd like to be able to write down somewhere and keep track of. Plus there are certain ideas I had that aren't really suited to being put into a YT video such as top nostalgic soundtracks. I know many people have uploaded videos alike to that, but here I feel I could write a bit about them and why I've made certain choices.

Well here's what will be coming up over the next few months with my YouTube channel:

Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks Secret Characters PART 3
Gran Turismo 2 Secret Cars PART 3
Grand Theft Auto San Andreas Secret Vehicles
Grand Theft Liberty City Stories Secret Vehicles
Tony Hawk's Underground 2 Secret Areas PART 4

... and many more that I can't remember right now. :(

Anyway, so I'll be updating this as often as I can; so keep checking back. :)

Matt.