I don’t know how true is this but I heard that retailers and importers alike got together to fix the price of the first batch of Region 3 God of War III at about RM 200 a copy. This is significantly higher than a typical Region 3 version of a game, which usually goes about RM 170-ish a game.
In any case, it gets better. The restocks coming in next week will be at around RM 230 a copy!
For that price, I can get an R1 over at Play-Asia (click here to view). I think I’ll wait it out until the price stabilises.
Ah, the number of Final Fantasy XIII merchandise keeps on increasing week by week, taking up various shapes and sizes, so much so you can’t blame Square Enix for being boring.
The Final Fantasy XIII Arts Museum Trading Cards , yup Trading Cards, are sold in packs of 10 cards. While I don’t think Square Enix are into the TCG scene, this look to appeal more to collectors.
There are 63 different cards available and you can order a box of 10 packages to receive a factory-sealed container with 100 cards inside, maximizing your chances in getting all 63 unique cards.
Each pack of 10 cards costs USD 3,90. Interested? Click here for details.
Modern Warfare 2 caught some flak with the release of its ill-fated spoof video titled Fight Against Grenade Spam (a.k.a F.*.G.S). Heh, I don’t know what people have against grenade spam (I personally like doing so in Halo and Red Faction), but I guess it’s the not so P.C. acronym that became the lightning rod.
So in a pretty smart example of one-up-manship, Bad Company 2 teamed up with New York Yankees pitcher and 2009 LCS MVP C.C. Sabathia to stand up and speak out against grenade spammers with a response video aptly titled: Friends Really Against Grenade Spam (F.R.A.G.S)
Besides obviously spoofing the MW2 video and making it look dull and uninspired at the same time, this PSA provides useful tips to gamers so we can all put an end to the shameful waste of grenades (damn, they are still talking about me..and probably you) and as a team, play together. Check it out:
What’s coming in a couple of days, costs USD 10 and lets you drive 7 exotic racing cars in over 50 racing events? It’s the Need for Speed: SHIFT Exotic Racing Series DLC!
Released for both the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 consoles, you get to race some iconic cars like the McLaren MP4-12C, Gumpert Apollo and the BMW M1. I’m particularly excited over a certain “Stirling Moss” edition of a car.
Check out a couple of car shots below from the DLC and more importantly, the trailer is here too! So mark down your calendars and dust off your racing wheels as the DLC goes live this 18th of March!
There’s this particularly nasty bug going around the office comprising of a triple threat of cough, high fever and sore throat. It was so bad that when yours truly got infected, he didn’t even manage to turn on his PS3 for the past three days at home!
Good thing that I managed to finish Red Faction: Guerrilla the day before the bug hit, and that pretty much is a record on its own. 3 weeks of gaming and wah-lah, a completed game. In comparison, I spent several months on inFamous and the better part of a year on Fallout 3.
And what do I feel about Red Faction? The game still feels like a suicide run, right up to the final mission!
In any case, what’s next for me? I have Bayonetta, Dead Space and Mercenaries 2 for company.
February brought us BioShock 2, but March….March brings us a trifecta of games, consisting of Battlefield Bad Company 2, God of War III and Hokuto Musou. I’m likely to get a crack at Bad Company 2 but what I’ll be putting up cold hard cash for are brand new copies of God of War and Hokuto Musou. If you are wondering why Final Fantasy XIII is left out from the list, lets just say I’m mildly allergic to JRPGs and emo character types.
I was watching a gameplay trailer of God of War III earlier today and it looked amazing! I can’t help but be stoked that the game is going to be released next week.The only problem is, I need to hack, slash and blow stuff out of my way in Red Faction, Mercenaries, Dead Space, Bayonetta and BioShock. I suppose that having too many games can be considered a happy problem for any gamer.
Plenty of server related action over the weekend. First Ubisoft’s DRM servers took a nose dive and caused plenty of dis-contention among its PC-based customers since they can’t play their games, particularly Assassin’s Creed II and Silent Hunter V. That’s an entire weekend wasted trying to get their games to run.
Those who own pirated versions of the two games didn’t have a problem with the dead-in-the-water servers; apparently they were having a blast playing the games over the weekend.
On the other hand, Battlefield Bad Company 2 had a field day with its North American and European servers over the weekend. Due to a high surge of traffic, these servers encountered outages. These ARE NOT DRM servers, but rather dedicated servers for multiplayer action.
Here’s an update for all 3 platforms:
Xbox 360 was severely impacted, and the service is being restarted. It should be back online and the EA Team are monitoring closely.
PC had an outage, but the service is offline currently and the service is being restarted. It should be back online and the EA Team are monitoring closely. The quality of the customer experience will be checked to determine possible next steps.
PS3 appeared to have a brief outage, but has quickly recovered and the services are functioning properly at this time.
All teams are working on diagnosing and remedying the issue, including adding additional servers to help alleviate the load. The EA team sincerely apologizes for the inconvenience and stay tuned for updates.
It looks like the jury is out on Final Fantasy XIII and the court of public opinion has never been this divided on a Final Fantasy title (not counting derivatives). Most of the reviews highlight that the game plays babysitter for the first 25 hours of game time and while it eventually opens up, it’s a case of too little too late.
The guys over at Wired’s GameLife gave it a 6/10, EDGE gave a 5 out of 10 (!), GameSpy 4.5 stars out of 5 and Gamespot an 8.5.
Not too long ago, most people would state that they purchased a PS3 in order to play FF XIII. My reason for buying the PS3 was simply due to wanting a modern-day console; besides, there are just so many hours a Nintendo DS can captivate you.
In any case, I think I’ll wait it out until the game hits the 2nd hand market. I don’t see the game getting rave reviews like that of Demon’s Souls, so maybe, just maybe, the resale value wouldn’t be as high as From Software’s magnum opus.
Battlefield Bad Company 2 is out. For those who pre-ordered, congratulations on your free upgrade to the Limited Edition copy of the game. And for all of you who purchased Bad Company 2 brand new, please don’t forget that you can download the Day 1 DLC Map Pack for free!
The Map Pack contains two new maps, Nelson Bay (Rush) and Laguna Alta (Conquest). Console gamers who purchased used versions of Bad Company 2 which don’t include a code can purchase one via the in-game store for $15. PC gamers will get the content via game update.
If you have not checked out the Battlefield Bad Company 2 TV Spot, here’s the place to watch it:
P/S: I find it a little ironic that with the release of BFBC2, Infinity Ward (developers of Modern Warfare 2) is having a pretty serious crisis.
I personally think that a Sony engineer mistakenly thought that the Winter Olympics were held on leap years and then proceeded to hardcode 2010 as a leap year in the early model PS3s. Other than that, I can’t comprehend how can this ridiculous situation (ApocalyPS3) happen.
Aside from a date adjustment, which was done over the Net, my PS3 seemed to be working today with both trophy lists and saves intact. Now I get to continue my Red Faction Guerrilla missions (which were stalled yesterday) and it looks like I just earned another trophy:
