“Dojo, Casino, it’s all in the mind!”

[Um Jammer Lammy - PS1]

As soon as I completed Shenmue 2, I thought “Yeah! I kick ass! Bring on the next game from the List Of Games!” So I threw in Sega Rally, not sure why, I lost at the arcade mode, twice… And then I saw Um Jammer Lammy taunting me from collection of PS1 games.

Now back when Pa-Rapper The Rapper first came out around ‘97 I played through it round a mate’s house and it was awesome! So then I asked my Dad for Pa-Rapper for my birthday or Christmas (I forget), but he got me Um Jammer Lammy instead! At the time I was into Rap and Hip Hop and didn’t play the guitar. So I was immediately disappointed when I found out it was a guitar rhythm game, but I stuck it in anyway. It was way too hard; I put it on easy and the game ended after three levels. So I thought, this sucks, and never played it again.

Until recently when I kept hearing Shane Bettenhausen from 1Up/EGM mention on the 1UpYours podcast how Um Jammer Lammy is probably the best rhythm game, period. Ever since then I’ve been meaning to dig it out again.

No more easy-mode for me, this time I’m playing it properly and it rocks! It’s still super hard in places and I’m stuck at the forth level, but it’s still good fun. It reminds me of Elite Beat Agents on DS in the way that you can keep loosing, and not get frustrated. For me this is because you get a little further on each go. Slowly learning combinations, until you master it.

And one of the cool features that I haven’t seen in other rhythm games is the fact you are rewarded for improvisation. The scale goes from Awful to Cool. You can reach Cool from keeping good timing and a bit of improvising. But if you keep improvising you soon move back down to Bad. When Cool mode kicks in you get to play whatever the hell you want, which is a satisfying reward and a nice break from all the tricky combos.

The songs are catchy and on par with Pa-Rapper, Onion Man makes a re-appearance, and Isaac Hayes sings one of the songs! Basically if you like rhythm games such as Elite Beat Agents or Guitar Hero then you’ll love Um Jammer Lammy.

[Post by Robert Langley-Jones]

It’s all over so unexpectedly

[Shenmue 2 - Sega Dreamcast]

I completed Shenmue 2 the other day, and it was an almighty anti-climax, more on that later. You arrive at Guilin in search of Bailu village. Soon after there’s a cool cut-scene with Shenhua (the woman from the cover), a stormy river and a white deer. Shenhua’s trying to save the deer and you save them both. Once that’s over it’s a long and eventually boring walk to Bailu village with Shenhua, you learn about her and her village, through a choice of what to talk about. There’s camping in a cave and a fetching firewood minigame.

A nice touch was where she asks you about your friends when you’re sitting round the fire in the cave. This is cool because it relates to your Shenmue 1 game save. So you get a show a picture of Nozomi, Ryo’s girlfriend from Shenmue 1. It’s like Psycho Mantis reading your game saves from MGS all over again, yay!

One thing that did annoy me a little is how un-interactive and full of cut-scenes disc 4 is. I found myself wanting to get to so much Bailu Village that I ended up skipping the optional conversations with Shenhua, walk on god damn it and no I don’t want to stop to take a detour to look at the butterflies!

I won’t give away the ending, but needless to say it’s very unexpected. It left me thinking “what the hell? That’s it!” Don’t get me wrong the lead up to it is still pretty cool. And it has left me wanting more so much so that I googled Shenmue 3, and found this really cool fan made trailer from the Shenmue Online footage (I think Shenmue Online was cancelled or something?). It has graphics you could easily see on the 360 or PS3, how amazingly awesome would that be!?!? Check it out…

[Posted by Robert Langley-Jones]

I’m selling my NES!

Hello people,

If there really is anyone who reads this blog regularly they’ll know I intended to complete all my video games. Until now I haven’t included my NES games: Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt, Super Mario Bros. 3 and Kung Fu. Out of those lets face it, the only game that is really worth completing is Super Mario Bros. 3. And seeing as you can now buy Super Mario Bros. 3 on Virtual Console, that is what I have done.

Now you may think this would be a sad moment for me, but the NES doesn’t hold any sentimental value for me. I never owned a NES back in the day, my first taste of computer games was with my brother’s Commodore 64 and then his SNES. I bought my NES about 10 years ago, on a family holiday. At the time thinking in my head about the SNES. So when I got it home, it was a bit of a shock seeing inferior graphics and in most cases worse game-play (apart from Mario). So it’s with no regret that I’m putting my NES on eBay.

Not only that, I have also added to The List, the rest of my Wii Virtual Console games, not sure if I’ll actually manage to complete Bonk’s Adventure or Gunstar Heroes mind you:

NES -

• Super Mario Bros. 3

SNES -

• Act Raiser
• Super Metroid
• Zelda: Link To The Past

Sega Mega Drive -

• Gunstar Heroes

Turbo Grafx16 -

• Bonk’s Adventure

N64 -

• Paper Mario

[ Posted by Robert-Langley-Jones ]

Goodbye Ren, Joy and Wong…

[Shenmue 2 - Sega Dreamcast]

After a long time spent with Shenmue 2, it’s possible to forgive it’s old fashioned ways and pretend you’re still in 1999. When the Dreamcast was 128 bits of cutting edge technology and the best graphics available anywhere.

One of the main gripes is when you have to repeat the QTE sections over and over because you miss just one -> or <- prompt. But when the plot gets a moving and a grooving you don’t mind so much. And through the climax of disc three you’re rewarded with loads of fighting sections.

[SPOILERS - you have been warned]

They know how to hook you in

[Phoenix Wright - Nintendo DS]

Phoenix Wright is one of those games where they really know how to hook you in. Each episode develops the main characters and every case seems to in some way be tied to the other.

So far I’ve played through the first three episodes and I’ve just started episode 4.

Episode 3 felt a little too long. Maybe it’s just the way I play games of this sort. But I like to tap on every question and look at very bit of scenery.

I did have lots of profound and interesting points to make about this game. But the last time I played it was several days ago and I have forgotten most of it.

So I apologise for the briefness of this post. When I next play it I shall put a new post up as soon as possible.

[ Posted by Robert Langley-Jones ]

Tarnishing my fond memories for the original Shenmue

[Shenmue 2 - Sega Dreamcast]

First I tried to find the Phoenix Bldg or Pellow Bldg (or similar) where Hang On and After Burner II are. While doing so I happened upon a gambling spot, and after much betting all my money and resetting my dreamcast I eventually walked away with 3,000 yen from 500 yen I started with. Now with loads of money I set out again to find either of the bldgs, but I had no luck. I aimlessly ran from place to place, whilst putting up with endless loading screens. Enough was enough, so I thought let’s get on with the story!

And you’d think it’d get better. But no, you ask one person where is Yuan, you follow them to the next place, ask another person, follow them to yet another place. This turns into a very long, drawn out, un-involving part of the game. For instance you’ll ask some walker passing by “where is the — bldg?” and they’ll  say “what a coincidence I was going that way, follow me.” And follow them you do at a snails pace, and sometimes even through loading screens. I guess they want you to appreciate the scenery while you walk, as you can use the left analogue stick to look about. But 7 years from it’s release for the most part the graphics ain’t pretty. I even tried to get the locals to speed in guiding me to my next location by using the talk button and they say “Oh yes I do know where I’m going even though I’m old!” and keep waddling onwards… Ahhhhhhh!!!!

Anyway once I’d survived through all the endless rambling I had arrived at the bldg/shopping centre/block of flats containing a talking bird shop where Yuan (some woman who is a gangster, I’m not sure why I’m after her) was likely to be. But it got worse. Firstly on the 1st floor they say these talking bird shops are on next floor, you go to the next floor and they say they’re on some other floor and so on. But it’s not as simple as that, as there are two lifts, both only going to certain floors. So you have to keep to-ing and fro-ing between the lifts. Thankfully there aren’t loading times between lifts.

After all this you end up on the roof. And Ren turns up as well, Ryo and Ren decide to follow Yuan. And I keep thinking, oh we’ll follow Yuan for a bit and then beat her up, get some info and then the story will progress a bit. But that’s not for a while yet. First you get stuck into a very long section where you can’t save. You have to follow her but from a distance, if you get caught the game starts again from a couple of scenes ago (which is a long time ago) and you have to repeat the section all over again. The bit that really pisses me off though is the fact that the repeated scenes are UN-SKIPPABLE!!! And then if you miss the bloody QTE’s you have to start again from several minutes ago again!!! It’s safe to say this whole section tarnished my fond memories for The Original Shenmue.

So when you finally finish following Yaun you end up at her flat and it gets better. There’s cool cut-scene where Ryo and Ren find some guy dying, handcuffed behind a desk. Dou Niu (Sumo-wrestler looking guy who Yaun works for) is on his way to the flat, so you hide, lock him in the wardrobe with a QTE and escape with the handcuffed guy.

Back at Ren’s Hideout, in the old handcuffed guy’s last words tells you to go to “10F of the Ghost Hall Bldg” and gives you a key, which Ryo calls a “snake tortoise.”

It seems to me like things may be hotting up, or it may be wishful thinking. Either way I’ve decided to keep slog it out and complete this game over the next few days, so I can move onto the next one. Any suggestions on my next game from The List Of Games will be much appreciated.

[ Posted by Robert Langley-Jones ]

It gets a lot better

[Shenmue 2 - Sega Dreamcast]

Hello people,

I thought about cracking out my arcade joystick for the crate lifting. And then I thought there must be a better way. So I looked up a guide online. And they said the best way to get wads of money was to gamble. I went to the closest gambling place I could find and won around 2000 yen!! And before I knew it I was on disc 3!

What can I say about the opening sequence to disc 3. I can see that they were going for an epic scene where Ryo Hazuki arrives in Kowloon. I’m sure the real Koloon of Hong Kong is very impressive. However what you get are a big clump of sky scrapers that all look the same, jumbled together in a mass of grey.

Once I’d got over the opening I thought right lets get on with the story. You play as Ryo. At this point in the game you are with a guy called Wuying Ren, who is helping you get to Yuanda Zhu who will lead you to Lan Di, who killed your father. Somehow Ren wants a cut of money from somewhere in these shenanigans. It’s been a fair few years since I was playing this game, so I don’t fully understand the story.The general gist of Kowloon seems to be lots of bldgs as the game puts it, shopping centres for the rest of us. Some are full of tea shops, some have just a couple of pawn shops in them. And for an hour or so I’m being told to go this and that building, which is fine.

Any-who, I’ve just completed a cool and actually pretty funny section where you get stuck with Ren, handcuffed together in a locked cell. There’s a long of QTE*, where you and Ren escape. It’s actually quite fun, and some of the dynamic between Ren and Ryo comes across well.

Then there’s an odd min-game where you listen to loads of audio cassettes. There’s also a funny bit on there where a voice tells you where to find After Burner II and Hang On, but it’s in English. It sounds like a Japanese woman trying to sound American, I guess if Japanese was your first language you wouldn’t be able to tell.

My current notes in the game say: “Zhu’s associate was captured by Yuan. Find her quickly with Ren’s help.” But seeing as I now know where After Burner II and Hang On are, I think I’ll check them out first…

*QTE = Quick Timer Event – buttons/directions come up on screen, and you have to quickly press them to continue in the cut scene. It’s been used allot in God Of War (PS2), and all the way through Fahrenheit (Xbox/PS2/PC)

[ Posted by Robert Langley-Jones ]

So far the game is brilliant

[Phoenix Wright - Nintendo DS]

I absolutely loved Hotel Dusk, and this is like a faster paced version of that. It’s so well written, very funny and witty.

Phoenix rules!!!!

[ Posted by Robert Langley-Jones ]

Doesn’t quite live up to the first one so far

[Shenmue 2 - Sega Dreamcast]

Well so far it doesn’t quiet live up to the original, it seems a bit too big. I’m often not sure where I’m supposed to be going. Now I’ve got to earn 500 yen and give it to this guy to progress in the game. So this means: crappy work, and the ball game stand, heavy crate lifting…etc. The crate thing would be great, but what with the dreamcasts crappy d-pad being too raised and inaccurate it makes it a grind. Maybe I’ll try my arcade joystick on it!!!

[ Posted by Robert Langley-Jones ]