Dan’s Space on the Web

With E3 2007 going on, gametrailers.com has been unleashing quite a few amazing trailers. They’re all almost worth watching, but if you only have time for 4 trailers (yes, 4 – not 1, 3 or 5) here are the Enhance’s top 4:

4. LittleBigPlanet – this trailer showcases the “create” aspect of the game.

3. Killzone (Available in HD) – a gameplay trailer with amazing visuals. The game seems to do a good job of replicating a full-scale futuristic war zone.

2. Mass Attack (Available in HD) – ever once in awhile, we get a game trailer that’s as good as a movie trailer – fun to watch, whether or not you care about the game. But the game does look pretty freaking good.

1. Halo 3 (Available in HD) – Plenty of new gameplay footage, including some planet glassing action, along with an awesome arrangement of the Halo theme makes this a must see E3 2007 game trailer.

Yup, that’s my top 4. And now here’s #0 (because I can’t believe I left it out):

Metal Gear Solid 4 (Available in HD) – Cinematic trailer. Ever once in awhile, we get a game trailer that’s even better than a movie trailer. (note: the first half may be a little boring, but wait for the second half.)

Like I mentioned, there are still a lot more trailers worth watching, too many for me to list. Head over to gametrailers.com to see them all.

The Enhance Approves: Worth Trying.

note: Rating Scale-

• Better to Read a Book (Disapprove. eg. MapleStory)
• Only if you have Lots of Free Time (Disapprove.)
• It’s OK
• Worth Trying
• Must Try
• Worth Playing/Buying
• Definitely Worth Buying (eg. Guild Wars)

Quick Review:

Granado Espada’s unique system gives you control over 3 characters at once. The result is, as a friend puts it, a very RTS-like experience where you are controlling customizable hero characters. To help you in controlling 3 characters at a time, there are a few commands that will be your good friends throughout the game:

• patrol mode: your characters attack whatever comes close
• hold mode: similar to patrol except your characters do not move to engage in combat
• assault mode: your classic RTS attack-move command
• harvest mode: your characters get greedy and pick up everything along the way

These make controlling your 3 characters at once a lot easier, but one thing that still bothers me is that if you don’t tell them to do anything or are in harvest mode, they’ll gladly take a beating until they are dead. Also, you can opt to either control them individually or entirely as a team. Separate hotkeys and shortcut icons for each of the character’s skills makes executing skills and spells a breeze, without you having to select a character before you can use his skills.

GE isn’t all about killing stuff and leveling up, which is a big factor for me. It features a rather clever quest system, where quests aren’t just simply “kill 128367 of Blah”, and in addition each has a reasonable back-story plus sometimes tie-up with other quests. A minimum level requirement also gives you a sense of order as to which quests to do first. Finally, at the start of each area “Hunt Quests” are issued, where you get rewarded for killing x number of certain monsters in the area, giving you some sense of a target while you are doing your grinding.

GE also features an extensive world with beautifully crafted maps, and each map has a general guideline telling you what level range the map is suited for. This helps you know where you should go next, and when it is time to move on, so that you don’t waste time trying to find a suitable place to level up or staying in the same old boring place for too long.

Instead of just buffing all your characters to the max, GE’s skill system is broken up into different “stances”, where which stance you use is determined by what you have equipped. Stances are, simply put, a subset of your character’s class – each stance can be leveled up separately and give access to different skills. This adds to the tactical side of Grando Espada, making things slightly more interesting.

With the new “trinity” concept, good quest system and a beautiful world to play through, GE is definitely a game worth trying. Let’s just hope you make it through the 3+ gb download.

Note: there is still a lot more to the game (eg. forming factions, having colony wars or something) that I have yet to experience, as I just started a few days ago.

Finally, I have completed the Nightfall campaign.

However, I still have plenty of quests to complete, 3 elite missions / areas to conquer, and of course the option of creating a new character and playing through to the end. Yes, after 90 hours and 40 minutes, I am only about halfway done with the game.

http://eminenceonline.com/passion/

“Performing in Sydney, Melbourne and Singapore, �Passion� is a concert series which combines talented musicians with powerful and evocative music from some of Japan�s most loved anime and video games.

Performed by a small ensemble, consisting of violins, percussion, guitar and piano, �Passion� will feature the unique and innovative arrangements of memorable themes from games such as Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Tsubasa Chronicle, Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy XII, Xenosaga, Haibane Renmei, Shadow of the Colossus, Super Mario Bros., .hack//Liminality and many more.”

w00t, there’s no way I’m missing this.

Grid Wars 2

This is an amazing game. Very simple, yet tons of fun. Small download, grab it and give it a shot!
update:

• I recently learnt that the creator got a cease or desist letter for Grid Wars 1, and as such I have decided to no longer provide the direct link to the download, so as to avoid it from becoming too easily accessible and suffering the same fate as its predecessor. The game can still be downloaded from the page linked above (it’s kinda hidden, but still quite obvious).
• In case you didn’t know, Grid Wars is a clone of a hidden game for the xbox, known as Geometry Wars.

Note: It seems that the default control settings is set to “Dual Analog”. I believe most people would be using a keyboard, so to change this,

• press esc
• go to settings
• change controls to Keyboard
• config keys to see the keys

By default, the keyboard keys are

• W,S,A,D to move
• Space to bomb
• up, down, left, right arrow keys to select which direction to shoot