ok lets being with 1999 because that was a great year (even though its not part of this decade).

1999

1. Final Fantasy VIII
2. Medal of Honor
3. Metal Gear Solid
4. Driver
5. Jade Cocoon

2000

1. Hogs of War
2. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
3. Medal of Honor: Underground
4. Colin McRae Rally 2.0
5. Parasite Eve II

2001

1. The Legend of Dragoon
2. Final Fantasy IX
3. Breath of Fire IV
4. Pokemon Gold/Silver
5. Digimon World (it was a great/hard game)

2002

1. Final Fantasy VI (first official UK release)
2. Grandia II
3. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
4. Kingdom Hearts
5. Golden Sun

2003

1. Beyond Good & Evil
2. Project Zero (Released 2003 on Xbox)
3. Final Fantasy Anthology(FFIV and FFV)
4. Call of Duty
5. Clock Tower 3

2004

1. Tales of Symphonia
2. Disgaea: Hour of Darkness
3. Star Ocean: Till the End of Time
4. Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen
5. Final Fantasy XI

2005

1. Fahrenheit
2. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
3. Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean
4. Guild Wars
5. Roller Coaster Tycoon 3

2006

1. Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King
2. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC)
3. Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories
4. Kingdom Hearts 2
5. Final Fantasy XII

2007

1. Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions (first official UK release)
2. Eternal Sonata
3. Blue Dragon
4. Portal
5. Team Fortress 2

2008

1. Valkyria Chronicles
2. Lost Odyssey
3. Fallout 3
4. LittleBigPlanet
5. Saints Row 2

2009

1. Dragon Age: Origins
2. Star Ocean: The Last Hope
3. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II
4. Dissidia: Final Fantasy
5. Final Fantasy VII (PSN) (ran out of good games for 2009)
6. Steam Arena

The Decade

1. The Legend of Dragoon
2. Valkyria Chronicles
3. Lost Odyssey
4. Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions
5. Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King
6. Hogs of War
7. Disgaea: Hour of Darkness
8. Beyond Good & Evil
9. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
10. Team Fortress 2

I’m Sure this list has annoyed a few people but I don’t care these are my games of the last 10 years so to you.

I also sure I’ve missed a few but at the end of the day if I’ve forgot about them there not important.

I’ve also noticed that my top 10 of the decade are almost all RPG’s

Well Happy new year to everyone

Also note to self buy a damn camera in the new year!

Challenge

now I’m setting myself the challenge to play every single one of those games from start to finish over the course of 2010. Starting with 1999 and working my way up to 2009 should be fun

EA please do us all a favour and drop them or atleast drop need for speed and or even better move the studio on to a worth while project.

the only problem I have with this is if EA are dropping this Chav fest of a game which in all fairness is a good seller this will probably mean more games being rushed out the door so basically more expensive shovel wave like mirrors edge. ok harsh comment on mirrors edge but strip back the graphics and the original idea and that what EA did to it.

oh also in other news Zavvi have gone a dropped the price of the 360 to £99.99 now after the drop they did on the PS3 last Friday I honestly didn’t expect the 360 to drop as well.

second off kind of a WW2 shooter/RPG so people who say WW2 makes a game crap please leave now.

thirdly this game is purely battle/level based so no roaming between area to advance the plot and no random battles. so those FF7 Fanboys this isn’t for you either now

for everyone else who actually like playing games this is for you. so Review time

Valkyria Chronicles

ok, this is a PS3 only title developed by Sega and it technically falls into the catagory of JRPG, which i think came about due to the graphical style and the plot driven game play but hey. but the whole game seems to be told as someone reading a book but thats never really touched on apart from in some cutscenes. the book is split into chapters and chapters contain a few cutscenes/plot releated events and one or two battles/levels. so nice a simple.

Stroy

now above I mentioned this is set during WWII but that was a lie well kind of. Well the year is 1935 EC and the country is known as Gallia and its the start of the second europan War. ok to Gallia in terms of position on the very deformed Eurpoa map is round about where the Netherlands are and everything east of that is the bad guys. and its amazing the whole war happens the tiny little country of Gallia, which is basically the same as if the whole of WW2 happened in poland, which of course it didn’t. well anyway the reason for the war is the need to resourses and no not coal its a magical jack of all trades thing called ragnite this stuff powers everything and is also used for explosives and healing.

ok to sum it up quickly the big bad emprie is trying to take over poor little gallia because of all its ragnite and you (Welkin Gunther) join the militia along with ur trusty side kick Alica and his adopted sister Isara. and you get promited to a squad leader and you get your wonderful squad 7. and well yea you do missions kills stuff find out the true history of the world lalala you get it.

come on Rosie (Shocktrooper) smile

Gameplay

well the gameplay is nice a simple you are given a mission, which 9 times out of 10 is capture the enemies base which might sound boring but it can be god damn hard because I knows it turn based combat but the enemy can still shoot and kill you during ur turn if you are in there line of fire or when they counter attack you (which is everytime you shoot one of them and you are in there range of fire) so after getting your mission you select the placement of your troops for at the start of the mission of which you can pick anyone member of your squad all with there own perks but there are 5 main classes, which i’ll explain in a bit. once the battle begins you will be presented with the a screen very similar to the following this is just used for unit selection and well reviewing the current situation, but this screen will only ever who you known enemy locations if you don’t have them in direct sight they are displayed as a ?

first the scouts these guys are quick they can get anywhere on the map at pretty much anytime they want so these are best used for well scouting out the enemy. they come equipped with a rifle and a grenade (later they get a grenade launcher as well)

next we have the Shocktrooper these guys can be a pain to fight because if you step into there line of sight well expect a hail of bullets coming your way. unfortantly because they are stupidly over powered they can’t move very far and there range isn’t that good. as you may have guessed they come equipped with a machinegun and later on a flamethrower as well.

next is the mighty lancer who you need to watch out for if you are a tank but normally they can be ignored because there accuracy is terrible but if you get a head shot with them they can kill pretty much anything in one hit. as the name suggest they come equiped with a Lance, which is this worlds equivalent to a rocket launcher with a spike on the end. there main purpose is to take out enemy armor such as tanks, bunkers and turrets.

next up is the good old sniper these guys unforantly have very poor movement as well, actually they are the slowest movers of the game but what they lack in movement they make up with fire power and range. just put one of these in a tower and they can just pick of the enemy one by one. another down side to them though is they only come with 3 bullets and only gain one bullet per turn so they have there draw backs. as you can guess they come with a sniper rifle.

lastly we have the Engineers these little people have a high movement not quiet as much as a scout but enough so they can run around the map stocking up ammo, removing mines, placing sand bags, and repairing your tanks. they come equiped with a large medi pack, a rifle, engi tools and 3 grenades.

ok so after you have your squad you have Command point (the little star things at the top) each one of these mean you can move one unit by there set amount and fire your weapon once and once you run out of these command points your turn is over.

so once you have selected your unit you can run around freely dodging enemy bullets unit you decided you want to unload a few into them. so this continues until you either get a game over or you win simple. well its can be very hard but still simple.

Graphics

now the graphics in this game are somewhat unique becasue the whole thing is set out like a drawing that has been painted with water colours then had some pencil lined added in for shadows etc. but unfortantly i’m yet to find a screenshot they shows this off correctly i suppose you see it more when the picture is moving.

unfortunately that video doesn’t really do it any justice. but you get the picture.

over looking that its just your everyday cellshaded anime style graphics but just the attention to detail
just makes this game all that more special like the fading to just the pencil outline when you get a
game over it just added to it.

Characters

there lovable and let you get into the story, which is what you want really and you can play in both
english and japanese they both sound outstanding, i suppose there are a few squad member who are just plain annoying but still there good voice talents.

the good old squad 7 well the main cast anyway just before a big battle

and after one.

oh and one major MAJOR plus point about the English voice talent Mona Marshall (no offence to her but I’m so sick of that voice)

Music

now this kind of hurts the game becasue the same soundtrack is played over and over but saying that I havn’t found is annoying and i’ve been playing it for over 35 hours now.

Overall

well overall this is defo my favourite game of the year if not this console Generation I certainly have missed the feeling you get when your addicted to a game just a shame this one will have to end soon. but they are doing a big No no and making a Anime out of this (which will be out next spring)

please don’t ruin the game please please please. and no sequels

ok score time

Graphics: 10
Sound: 7
voice: 9
Gameplay: 9
Story: 8

Overall: 9

WOW I actually something a 10! and i only gave it a ten because clearly alot of effort has gone into making it look like it does. and the reason for the story being an 8 the twist were to easy to work out they could of so easily have hid it alot more and done like a flash back later (which the game does do at time but for the wrong events) and all I can say to sign this off with is if your looking for a reason to buy a PS3 and you like RPG’s the above is a perfect reason. oh and if you grab it before Christmas its only £20 at Gamestation (if they havn’t sold out of course) oh and the demo is the PSN so grab it and have a quick play.

now that seems like a plan considering I could probably fly though them all in under a week along side doing my work that needs to be done. lets just hope pay day this month is a good one.

the closest thing I can compare it to would probably be the Jak games… but thats doesn’t feel right

anyway trailer time WHOO GO Jade!

oh yea its Ps3 and 360 oh and Jade is the one under the umbrella not the pig.

I’m now tempted to get a PS3 just so I can play the first one again (but first lets see if it runs on the PC)

I highly recommend watching it in HD

all I can say is wow the screenshots showed the game off nicely but this video shows you everything very nicely. I honestly can’t wait for this game and I think i’ll be getting it on the PS3 as well because I just have a hunch its going to look alot better and it might ever control better with the motion sensors in the control.

but this is all guess work we’ll just have to wait and see.

Ricky Gervais will be in this game yay… All I can say is I hope he’s a killable NPC (i’d buy it for that)

yay now I really want to buy this game just so I can burn it.

I’m still waiting for a good reason to buy this game to show up other than its GTA 4…

ok this software project is give me a headache programming a new gui in jigloo is a pain in the backside ok example

right click on the object to want to edit or add something to ok a box pops up you press add/ok and nothing happens… you need to basically write it yourself and wait to days for jigloo to guess render it so F it text editor time.

anyways my coffee break was really to have a quick look for new RA3 content (non) and have a look for some new info on Mirrors Edge once again nothing…

I was going to wait a while longer before blogging on it but it just look amazing c’mon a First person shooter with no guns!! (ok that was a lie)

ok so Mirror’s edge is made by DICE (battlefront) and EA and it looks stunning its almost a first person Assassins Creed.

makes it look like there’s no guns right? well wrong

now is it just me or does it look and feel alot like perfect dark zero??? or is that just me?

poor old snake looks like he’s getting fat in his old age so old in fact that 1 blue ray disc isn’t enough… this kinda pisses on Microsofts plans for getting MGS4 and it once again proves the statement that DVD’s are a tad to small. well ok theres still nope if you want to put MGS on like 7/8 DVD’s then go ahead.

Hideo Kojima said this to Famitsu

“For us, we’re not still not satisfied with the quality we can do. You know, there’s not capacity space. There’s not enough space at all… We always talked about where to cut and what to compress,”

and even in the latest pod cast it was mentioned that there isn’t enough room for the two audio tracks (I assume this is English and Jap)

so it looks like snake is going to need to shed a few pound/GB before June 15th… the made thing is whats wrong with using 2 blue ray disc MGS was on 2 CD’s, which was for some reason in a 4 Disc case, which you needed to look on the back of…

i’m still trying to get my head round how MGS is over 50 GB… now either they have some very bad coders (50gb of code don’t think so) or the graphics designs are going OTT on the graphics (yea this on damn art people) so it looks like the graphics of the game will be dropped YAY!…

i was going to save this till after E3 but it appears there’s another game to be announced yet but in light of some more information the game in the trailer (link at bottom) isn’t what we are going to get… if we even get it at all that is. what’s strange about this is its another world release from square enix which is amazing really but no EU release… but there’s still time the game is copyrighted 1997-2008 so that means a release Easter 2008 so who knows.

looks good looks like its going to be a bit like FF12… but a bit of hack and slash I dunno we need more info.

well trailer here

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/21252.html?type=mov

so enjoy