Posts tagged ace attorney

It seems like I’ve had a little bit more time to play games this week. I finished COD black-ops, finished ace attorney trials and tribulations and played some Pokemon. So lets get started.

I bought black ops at release but I never really got into the single-player, I played a fair amount of multiplayer but for whatever reason it’s taken this long to finally get around to finishing the single-player. Overall I would say that the single player for black-ops was really underwhelming, the set pieces were boring and the characters were uninteresting. In terms of the multiplayer I think there are some really good maps, not quite as good as the original modern warfare, but much better than modern warfare 2. So yer unless your into multiplayer don’t buy black ops

I’m gonna get straight to the point and say I loved Trials and tribulations. The previous 2 ace attorney games we great but this was the best overall. All the cases flowing together was a great idea. I’ll probably move onto the next game in the series eventually but I’m a bit apprehensive because of how nicely this game wrapped everything up. But so far the ace attorney series is something anyone with a DS should play, it really doesn’t get the attention it deserves and if more people buy the games maybe capcom will translate investigations 2. 

So finally this week I played some more of pokemon white. Thats the game I’m focusing on at the moment so hopefully I’ll get it finished soon. I’ve only just beat the 6th gym so I have a way to go yet but I’ll take my time and enjoy it. I’ve mentioned pokemon a lot in past posts so I’ll try not to repeat myself. I will however, say that the 6th gym was stupidly easy. A gym that far into that game that uses nothing but flying type pokemon really doesn’t offer much challenge. Anyway in summary i’m still liking the new pokemon and I’m looking forward to playing it some more.

I guess that’s pretty much it for this week, hopefully I’ll have a little bit more to talk about next week seeing as the whole team is meeting this week to do some recording. Anyway I don’t have any cool minecraft pictures so I’ll just end it here.  

With deadlines creeping up on me I haven’t played a lot of games this week but I have completed mass effect 2, played some ace attourney and played a bit of Amagami Ebikore+ on the psp.

I’ll start with the game I finished early in the week and thats mass effect 2. I’ve said previously that I had no problems with the game but I wasn’t very interested in the story and now that I’ve finished the game I think I know why I wasn’t interested in the story. I think it’s because I haven’t played the first game. I was quite far into the game before I realised the reapers were ships and not some enemy that I could fight. Although saying that, the final boss was a reaper but that wasn’t a ship. So I have no clue who the reapers are. Anyway I wasn’t interested in the story but the character missions were much more interesting. Overall I liked the gameplay and have no problems with it, I do however, think that the final boss was completely stereotypical. It’s not what it was that was stereotypical it’s just what it represents. I think huge boss battles have been completely overdone in the past few years and I think don’t think it added anything to the game. Apart from the final boss though, I enjoyed mass effect 2 and I’ll probably play mass effect 3 when it comes out. I’m don’t think i’m interested enough to go back and play the original mass effect, but I never really got into the overarching story. 

I’m not going to talk much about ace attorney simply because I haven’t played it much this week. At the moment I’m on the final chapter of the third game (trials and tribulations) and I’m really enjoying this game compared to the second game. This game feels like the cases really tie together whereas in the previous game the middle cases were pretty uninteresting. Also I think this game flows much better and keeps me interested as apposed to the previous game that dragged on for way too long. Anyway thats about all I’ve got for ace attourney, hopefully if I complete it next week I’ll talk a lot more about it.

So finally this week I’ve been playing the Amagami visual novel on the PSP. Now I’ll start by saying that this game was entirely in japanese and I have a very limited knowledge of the language. So I couldn’t understand much of the games dialogue but I still wanted to play the game because I really enjoyed the anime which was based of the original ps2 game. I think this game might be a port of that game but obviously I can’t say 100%. Anyway I thought it’d be a typical visual novel but it was actually quite unusual. Essentially you have about 40 days to get one of the heroins to like you enough and depending on which heroin you get to the ending zones depends on what ending you get. There is also a conversation mini game which was fun but I had no clue what effect that had on the actual game. In the end I got a good ending with the character I was aiming for, I think I got the perfect ending but I can’t confirm that. Overall it was fun I played an entire route in a single play session and I probably won’t go back to it any time soon, but it was a fun distraction.

So thats my week in gaming, not very long but with uni deadlines it can’t be helped. See you next week and I’ll leave you with a picture of my minecraft wolves claiming their next victim.

So I just finished the first Ace Attorney game and since me and Sam (the guy who started the S.T.A.R.S Marathon team) often have debates over Professor Layton and Ace Attorney, no doubt brought about by the announcement of the crossover game, I felt I should air my opinions on both games. I am a die hard Professor Layton fan so I was quite dismissive of Ace Attorney at first. I know there both different games made by different people I just meant in terms of comparing the two games I felt I had a loyalty to Herschel Layton.

Watching Sam play Ace Attorney, I could see how there was certainly a good game there, yet I wasn’t ready to admit that, not till I had played it myself. So I’ve played it and damn Ace Attorney is really good. The mystery of solving the cases with all their twists and turns, it is in no way predictable and it has you hooked. I’m still not convinced on the art style personally, like it’s very good but I have no desire to see Phoenix Wright sweating profusely.

I like that the game is a challenge the whole way through. In order to work it out for yourself without using a guide you have to pay so much attention and always be three steps ahead. I thoroughly enjoyed playing the game, note I’ve only played the first one but shall be playing the others in the series, and look forward to getting a chance to play the others. In fact I was tempted to not bother writing this and just continue playing the games. Ace Attorney is a damn good game and to anyone who hasn’t played it yet, get out there and play it. Seriously you wont regret it.

Yet as this entry is titled there is still the matter of Professor Layton. I’ve played all the Professor Layton games that have been released in England and they are all really good. I love everything about the games from the story to the puzzles, from the art work to the music. It is safe to say besides Little Big Planet they are my favourite games. The more recent game The Unwound Future being the better of all three, not by any large distance because they’re all equally good games.

I can’t say anything bad about the Professor Layton series so I will admit, I still prefer the Layton series compared to Ace Attorney. However I like the differences between the two games, the differences which make them different but both amazingly good. Take Ace Attorney, you have to some extent solve the mystery of the cases in order to progress. You need to look for contradictions but you have to know where those contradictions are taking you and what it means for the case. Comparatively the mystery in the Professor Layton series unravels within the cut-scenes, not to say the narrative is secondary or unnecessary in fact it adds so much to the game and really develops the characters and the world of Professor Layton. You can progress through the whole game without any knowledge of the narrative and still be successful in completing the game because all the puzzles are in a sense completely separate. The puzzles are unrelated but this is by no means a negative. If you love puzzles your going to love the Professor Layton games. The narrative within both games are extremely captivating in their own way, whilst Layton draws on elements of the fantastical, Ace Attorney has a strong sense of reality though not necessarily being part of our own.

Both games are extremely good and well made, I’d recommend them both to anyone. They both deal with issues of mystery and unravelling cases in unique individual ways. Both games are incredibly fun and it’s hard to put down either of them, they are so addictive. I really hope that Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney gets a UK release that would make me so happy. I think as a game it could only be amazing. Both games warrant merit and hopefully I’ve convinced you enough to try both, I have and I loved them both and appreciated them on different levels.