Hands on with Disgaea 4, Dood!

Though it is a few weeks away, NIS America seems to know about my secret love affair with strategy RPG games. Anywho, I had received Disgaea 4 and after about ten hours spent with the title and a couple nights waking up on the couch, it is time I let you SRPG and Prinny fans know about the time spent with this gem. In Disgaea 4 you play as the vampire Valvatorez, a Prinny instructor that does not drink blood but feeds on sardines. Since this is a hands on preview, that is all you get story wise, but I will let you know it does get rather deep for a lighthearted game.

To start, this is a game you have to play with the volume on. I say this because there are times in which the volume is very low or off for the sake of sleeping family members, but the dialogue and voice acting make the writing very humorous. The maps and characters are very bright and crisp while also having variety, but where the game needs to shine the most, in gameplay, it does very well. In fact, almost too well at times, as I am one who likes to try everything in this genre of games to find out what works best, but in the case of Disgaea 4, there is almost too many possibilities from the specials, to the skills, and the equipment. That is just the basics though, there are other abilities learned a couple of hours into gameplay, that will have you spending as much time trying to figure out your strategy as you will with the execution of it.

Like most strategy RPG title, there is a steep learning curve, taking upwards to two hours before letting you loose to do your bidding if you choose to take the tutorial, which I would highly suggest as there are new battle features to learn. The tutorial does move a bit slow but it does pay off in the end, as the story moves along at a nice pace. There is a LOT to be done in this Disgaea entry, quite possibly more than can be seen in one playthrough based on your play style, making for a large amount of replay value.

Disgaea can be found in stores on September 6th, 2011.

Last and certainly not least from E3 is Southpeak Games

Texas based Southpeak Games allowed us over to see them at E3 to show off a little of what they have to bring to the table in the new future and it was fun! Three words, I got nail’d! I will explain shortly, but what they did give us was time with their upcoming off road racer, Nail’d and their upcoming sequel to the massively huge RPG, Two Worlds II. Aside from their patience of having to deal with me after three NOS energy drinks and being in awe from just entering E3 for the first time in ten years, they handed me the controller and let me loose.

As stated above, the first game I got to play was Nail’d, and from having a past with years of ATV riding and my love of racers, I was ready and didn’t need much of an explanation. This title is not your realistic racer with lots of stunts, but more of an extreme over the top racer, focusing on landing huge jumps and avoiding environmental obstacles to gain boost to work your way to the front of the pack. Yes, the developer gave me an ample looking racer which I blame most of my crashes on, but the real fun was hitting massive jumps and the new feature to me, which was the ability to steer in mid air. Along with the fast gameplay, large tracks, and larger jumps, I was ready for more, but they took away my controller and sat me in front of Two Worlds II.

Now I never played the original Two Worlds title, so I had one of the developer’s actually play it for me switching between classes, skills, and environments while explaining changes made between the original and the sequel. We starting in a dungeon to show off how detailed the environments can be and the improvement of collision detection from walking through puddles, rattling hanging chains, and attacking encountered enemies, and it was pretty damn smooth. After the environments and graphics, comes the character development and here is where I am happy I didn’t get to try my hand at this because the number of options are limitless between the three classes as you have the option to customize your abilities, weapons, and armor at any point during gameplay. Here is where I fell in love, with the game of course, you can reassign you ability points towards different attributes at any time to change your character’s strong suits to help take down the harder to defeat fiends.

Sega keeps it short and very sweet at E3

Though it was the first booth I went to and regretfully the last post regarding my time at E3, Sega's booth was one of the first booth's was saw as we entered E3, and with the bright colors and of course Sonic it definitely caught my attention. Though we did not have time to check out a lot of what Sega had brought to the show, mainly because I had been distracted by a couple other games, what I did get my hands on were a lot of fun.

Tournament of Legends is a new fighting game slated to come out in the next couple weeks, and it was a very well polished fighting game for the Wii. The only other fighter I have played for the Wii was Capcom vs Tatsunoku, and thought it was not as fast paced, it was a lot prettier and technical. Also the fighters in this title are legendary creatures and warriors, so it is less cutesy and more of a grown up fighter. Though it was not the controls I was used to, I do want to put in the time to learn and master Bravehoof the Minotaur.

Sonic Free Riders did not get any hands on time from me but it did have me standing outside the playable booth drooling on the window. Free Riders is a racer that uses the Kinect peripheral and you control a variety of characters from the Sonic titles with yourself as the controller. The person playing the game was able to jump, reach out and grab power ups, and then throw the power ups at the other racers.

Valkyria Chronicles 2 was probably my personal favorite, even though it is for the PSP and that is the only portable device I do not have, luckily my cowriter will not know his is missing when I take it. Like the first title, this is an action RPG and takes place two years after the original. I was placed back in to the war and immediately into battle as new recruits still in military school. As most of you may know or will soon find out, I love tactical strategic RPG titles and this is one. I had not played the original but after 15 minutes with Valkyria Chronicles II, I bought the original in preparation for the sequel.

Tecmo Koei felt safe enough to let MashButtons play their games

I promise I am finally coming to the end of the E3 coverage, but don't quote me on that. One of the larger booth with a great and more organized setup and most if not all game there playable, was Tecmo Koei, though being strapped for time, I was only able to get my hands on two of their titles on display. These two titles being Quantum Theory and Warriors: Legend of Troy, below is a brief hands on summary of my first impressions.

The first game I picked up was the third person shooter Quantum Theory. I got the play completely through the demo level, only embarrassingly dying a couple times. But the control this far was a fast and fluid style that reminded me of the Gears of War games. However, that is the only thing the two titles seem to have in common as this contains more a fantasy aspect where you play as Syd and it is your goal to destroy an evil tower. The tower level I played through had a dark fantasy look and was introduced to a unique element of controlling a partner through gameplay which appeared to be a woman I could throw at enemies to help distract or take them down.

The other title I got my grimy hands on was Warriors: Legend of Troy, which was an action hack and slash game that felt like Dynasty Warriors, however seemed visually more entertaining as you play due to the story or setting taking place is the poem about Troy. Yes,kind of like the movie if you want to be technical about it, but without Brad Pitt and with better action sequences, more along the lines of 300. Though, I have never gotten into the Dynasty Warrior games, this game was entertaining and full of action and violence.

Compuexpert shows off their new cans and the newest in joystick protection

As a fan of all things loud, so loud it rattles windows and wakes babies, that sort of thing does not really fly when you have a wife and daughter that go to bed at 8 PM and then it is time to game...quietly. So of course I see a pair of headphones and my instant thought is just how loud can it be. On my way between meetings, I came across the Compuexpert booth and see the Sharkoon Xtatic digital headphones and remember reading the specs in a previous press release so I give it a go. The headset goes on and the volume goes up, the Split/Second race begins, and I get a grin from ear to ear. These black beauties send 5.1 sound to your ear holes, rather well I might add from the three laps I raced before having them pried away. My only issue was bass, but I am used to two 12 inch woofers in a hatchback so what do I know? The other thing that caught my eye was that these were compatible across multiple platforms, supporting Xbox, PlayStation, DVD, PC, and other devices.

Before I end this memory of headphone bliss, I was leaving the booth and was handed what looked like joystick condoms, which I guess are just that. The Grip-It product wraps around the top of the joystick and does exactly what it says, grips. I would not think it would make much of a difference with the joysticks being rubberized in the first place, but it does reduce sweat, and I did find myself using less pressure to accomplish the same actions, so I am hoping they last a while, as they wont be removed from my 360 controller anytime soon.