So in an effort to let some steam off I though I’d make a “reply” to one of these stupid comments.

k gave it a3:
Same old story, same old song and Danceeeee my friends, this is Ridiculous! I just wasted 50 dollars on this game, and its basically the same stupid Mass Effect one problems, Over-bloated, unfollowable story that’s plagued with the same problems as the first one, you’re telling me they still can’t figure out the AUDIO levels?! I can’t hear half the lines of speech, My character plods around space like playing an old SNES game, whereas you just keep hoping he’ll move alittle faster, or this crummy repaint of the same garbage Bioware tricked me into buying last time called Mass effect. I don’t understand the Hype at all, have you all been paid for you’re time? This game falls far, FAR, short of anything ground breaking like Fallout, Bioware in my opinion, after Dragon age’s slight disappointment < or major disappointment if you bought the Console version like me > Is slipping down hill in quality. It used to be I’d pick up a bioware title just because they put out great games, but now it’s getting to be they put out buggy, lower quality games they expect to patch and make proper? TRY shipping a properly looked over product, instead of trying to pump out game after game. It seems as though the scores are so high maybe due to the fact those that didnt like the first havent brought into the hype, but I did, and let me tell you I regret it already, The excitement the silly articles and scores people have given this game undermine the product itself, They claim in one major Magazine put out by a giant game retailer, that the mechanics people complained of have been removed, but that really only boil down changing the unlocking and hacking parts of the game, Which are two seconds stupid little mini-games, THE ENGINE RUNS THE SAME! Shepard’s choices for looks are still the same generic space-man, the voice actors still grapple with a lore that’s far too overloaded with nuances for anyone really listening to get bored and left feeling as though it was written for people who just click through this garbage they’re calling dialog, Why do I care, I ask them, You’ve hardly even made me feel like I am this character, it’s more like watching a movie you don’t care about, you’re just waiting for the shooting to start, And Thats just about the same as the first game as well BUT WAIT, we need a clip now! oohhh that makes a ton of sense, we don’t overheat now guns use antiqued bullet clips when last installment I had a Assault rifle firing thousands of odd shaped plasma green b.b’s a second. That was the only complain about the gunplay?! Fallout 3 has a better grasp on RPG gunplay then they do over at Bioware, and Bethesda has alittle ways to go still as well! If you’re thinking like me, that It seems people are making this game out to be one of the greatest of all time, try to start thinking of all the games they’ve been using this STUPID new marketing tactic on us, the communal memory of our glorious public about 5 seconds, We forget they just released the best game of all time two weeks ago, and three weeks before that, and two months prior to that Another Greatest game of all time was Uncharted, OR ANY other big huge media spend fest, if you give these guys a few bucks, They shout Its The Best! yeah right… Avoid Mass Effect 2, it’s horrible

Now let’s pick apart the really stupid bits in this waste of data comment.

I just wasted 50 dollars on this game, and its basically the same stupid Mass Effect one problems, Over-bloated, unfollowable story that’s plagued with the same problems as the first one,

The story really isn’t that complex K, I can understand people not quiet getting what is going on if they didn’t play the first game but you just said you did play the first game. What confuses you K? Do you also get confused reading Dr Seuss books?

I can’t hear half the lines of speech, My character plods around space like playing an old SNES game, whereas you just keep hoping he’ll move alittle faster, or this crummy repaint of the same garbage Bioware tricked me into buying last time called Mass effect.

Your also probably one of the fools who complain they can’t read the text on a SD TV. Don’t blame the game, blame your equipment.

K you can “storm” when you press the A button it will make you run faster for a short period. Maybe you should learn the game controls.

How does someone trick you into buying a game especially when you hated the first one? God that’s like being tricked into jumping off a building for fun when you break your leg the first time only to do it again 2 years later?

It seems as though the scores are so high maybe due to the fact those that didnt like the first havent brought into the hype, but I did, and let me tell you I regret it already,

In what fucking universe does that even make sense in!? Why don’t you go wrap your head in tin foil.

They claim in one major Magazine put out by a giant game retailer, that the mechanics people complained of have been removed, but that really only boil down changing the unlocking and hacking parts of the game, Which are two seconds stupid little mini-games, THE ENGINE RUNS THE SAME!

Those are called game mechanics and yes the stuff people complained about were removed. Such as the Mako and the annoying inventory system! I don’t think anyone really complained about the hacking in the first game!

the voice actors still grapple with a lore that’s far too overloaded with nuances for anyone really listening to get bored and left feeling as though it was written for people who just click through this garbage they’re calling dialog, Why do I care, I ask them, You’ve hardly even made me feel like I am this character, it’s more like watching a movie you don’t care about, you’re just waiting for the shooting to start,

Now we’re getting too the truth! You even hate the awesomely written dialogue of the game, something which Bioware really excels at. Which also happened to by done by great voice actors! But nooooo you just want to shoot shit, so why didn’t you just buy Modern Warfare 2 you mouth-breather

we need a clip now! oohhh that makes a ton of sense, we don’t overheat now guns use antiqued bullet clips when last installment I had a Assault rifle firing thousands of odd shaped plasma green b.b’s a second.

Did you really play the game at all or are you just stupid? The clips are “thermal clips” that means that the guns do still have unlimited ammo but you need thermal clips to take away the heat generated when you fire your guns. If you didn’t have any thermal clips you would break your gun. This is much faster than waiting for your gun to cool down like in the first game.

fallout 3 has a better grasp on RPG gunplay then they do over at Bioware, and Bethesda has alittle ways to go still as well! If you’re thinking like me, that It seems people are making this game out to be one of the greatest of all time, try to start thinking of all the games they’ve been using this STUPID new marketing tactic on us,

Ugh back to guns again. The gunplay was so much better in this game than the last but you still seem to hate it. Also the gunplay in Fallout 3 is really average when you  didn’t use V.A.T.S., that’s what made Fallout 3 so fun to play.

I don’t remember anywhere where Bioware said this was the greatest game of all time! Their marketing slogan for this game was “Fight of the Fallen”. Now some magazines and people may have claimed this was the greatest game of all time but then that’s really down to personal tastes isn’t it!?

In finishing I’d like state that you sir are a moron of epic proportions. I think you should stick to games where you can tea-bag people online and laugh along with the rest of your primate buddies. Try not to construct any criticism of anything in the future because you fail on so many levels.

Intro

Having written a MHF2 newbie guide already, I thought I’d update it for MHFU. There is some differences between MHF2 and MHFU such as the addition of Felyne Comrades. I will outline some basic tips for new players to get them started in the awesome world of monster hunter!

If you have any questions about any MHFU info that I haven’t listed here, please leave a comment and I’ll do my best to provide you with a helpful answer.

Weapons

There are a total of eleven weapons to choose from in MHFU. They all have their advantages and disadvantages. Just remember staying alive to finish the fight is the most important thing, so thing’s like damage might not always be that important.

• Sword and Shield (SnS) – Doesn’t do that much damage, but you have the advantage of blocking whilst being highly mobile.
• Dual Swords (Ds) – Have the ability go into a “demonization mode” which constantly drains your stamina. The upside is that wind pressure doesn’t effect you, you striker quicker and your attacks won’t bounce. These are supposed to be hard to use effectively.
• Great Swords (Gs) – A huge slow sword. It does some great damage and a lot of hunters seem to prefer this as their main weapon of choice. Since its a cutting weapon (All swords are) you can do things like cut monsters tails off and the reach of the weapon is a big plus.
• Long Swords (Ls) – is a jack of all trades weapon. It has good speed, raw power and elemental power. Ls will be out classed by a weapon and specialises in any of these fields however.
• Hammers (H) – My favorite weapon. Hammers are impact weapons that do great amounts of damage. They are slow to hit however, but you can charge up attacks and release them when your ready. Unlike the Gs where you have to release the charge once its at 100%.
• Hunting Horns (Hh) – Another type of impact weapon. It’s like a hammer that can play music. The music can do things like giving you an attack or defence boost. Hh are much weaker than hammers because of their ability to give stat boots to the player and his/her group. Hh’s are great for solo and groups.
• Lances (L) – Are the only defensive style weapon in the game. They do both cutting and impact damage. They also have the strongest guard in the game. Sounds like the best weapon right? Only if you an experienced MH player, otherwise you will end up being pretty frustrated at how slow you are.
• Gunlances (GL) – A very limited ranged weapon that does cutting damage. The advantage of this weapon is that you can do combos while you block with it. Which is great for turtling!
• Light Bowguns (Lbg) – More mobile than a Hbg but at the cost of damage. These bowgun weapons are great because you can use different types of status ammo such as poison etc.
• Heavy Bowguns (Hbg) – Pretty much what I said before but slower and does more damage. You should note that both of the bowguns need ammo to be brought for them and that ammo does take up room in your back pack.
• Bows (B) – My second favorite weapon. Bows have unlimited ammo and are highly mobile. They might not do as much damage as a Gs or a H but if you want to avoid a fast moving enemy bows are great.

Items

Items can make the difference between finishing a quest or failing it. You can’t just go out on a quest without proper planning and preparation. Here’s what I suggest you take out on your quests:

• Potions – Pretty obvious. Bring 10 normal potions and some mega potions wouldn’t hurt either. If you’re having trouble with a monster bring 10 normal pots and 10 mega pots with 10 herbs, blue mushrooms and honey so you can make more.
• Well Done Steaks – four or more. Anything else that boosts your stamina would suit also. Trying to fight with red stamina is pretty dam hard, so don’t put yourself in that position by bringing some nom worthy steaks.
• Paintballs – Five or more. I usually keep 40+ in my inventory and just make some more when I get low. Remember to keep marking the monster your fighting as it does wear off after about ten minutes.
• Pitfall/Shock Trap – Bring one of these plus materials to make a second incase you mess up. Some monsters can’t be captured at all and some traps only work on some monsters. Also some traps won’t work in things such as snow etc. Try to read up about the monster you’re fighting so you know what trap to bring. You can also use traps to hold monsters while you attack them, which can be great if you’re getting owned on a regular basis.
• Tranq Bomb – Three should do it (two to throw and one back up), once you have trapped your monster. Capturing monsters is always more rewarding than just killing them.
• Psychoserum – I’d suggest one of these if you haven’t done the quest before. These let you see the location of the monster you are hunting on screen for a few seconds. They basically save time finding the monster. You can also use the wave gesture to wave at the blimp if you see it, this will work the same way as psychoserum. You can only use the blimp once per quest (if its there).
• Whetstones – If you have a weapon that requires sharping, these are a must. You don’t want to be attacking a monster with a dull weapon for the next forty minutes.
• Ammo/Coatings – If you are using a ranged weapon that requires ammo or a bow that use coatings. I tend to use power coatings x50. I also carry x99 empty bottles and x20 Nitroshrooms to make more power coatings.
• Hot/Cool Drinks – If you’re going to the snow have some hot drinks etc. I’d take at least four as you can drink these by accident sometimes. Some maps might have hot and cold area’s such as the desert during the day.
• Power/Armour Charm – You buy these from the guild vendor once you hit 4 star elder quests (might be wrong about this). These will boost your armour and attack power so long as you keep them in your inventory. You can purchase these from the vendor in the gathering hall. Once you beat Lao Sharn you can upgrade these charms for even more power!

You can find a guide here that will show you every possible item combination in the game. Combining items is a lot cheaper than buying an item from the vendors. Books you buy from vendors will record what items you can make after you make a combo once.

Pokke Farm

This is a small farm near the village. The farm is used to well farm items such as different ores, bugs, fish, mushrooms,herbs and you also send a feylne out on his own quest to find rare items. You can upgrade the farm via account items. Upgrading will let you get more and rarer items from the farm such as dragonite ore. Account items can be found during quests by doing such things as mining, gather and hunting animals such as popo. The items will be found randomly such as when you’re mining and you mine a goldstone piece you will get 200 pokke farm points at the end of the quest. You can find a guide here that will show you how much certain account items are worth.

You should visit the Pokke Farm between every quest as you will build up a nice selection of items that you can use to make items, weapons and armour now and later in the game. Just remember not to sell your items as they are worth more too you as resources rather than just cash. If you’re strapped for cash repeat some quests a few times such as Yian Kut-Ku (more advanced players might go after something worth more zenni) which pays out around 2000 zenni. If you need to farm pokke farm points there’s a nice strategy right here.

Feylne Kitchen

You can hire Feylnes to cook your raw meats between missions. The number of Feylne’s depends on how far you have progressed through the game. The Feylnes will also make you meals between quests that you can eat in the kitchen. Depending on what dishes you choose you will either get a boost, nothing at all or a negative effect on your character on your next mission. You can find a guide for all effects here. Eating meals between quests is well worth taking advantage of.

Feylne Comrades

Just like feylne cooks you can now hire feylne comrades. These comrades will go on most of your solo quests with you to help kick some monster butt. The feylne’s come in a range of personality types, picking the right type from the start can make a big difference. If you want a bomber cat your going to be looking for a cat who is a bomb lover and uses bombs only. I’d suggest after you pick the right cat/cats to put them into “growth” training right away, don’t waste any time doing it. Also keep taking the cats on missions with you to level them up and also to train them in different skills.

Theres a guide here. Do be aware that the names are based of the a english patch for the japanese version of MHFU, so there might be some diffrences.

Armour and Weapon Building

This is a area that usually confuses a new player. Weapons and armour can be made from items found in the pokke farm and from killing monsters. To progress through the game will need to make new weapons and armour from monsters you kill or capture. You can also put decorations into certain weapons and armour, I’ll talk about decorations in more detail later.

Some new players will kill a monster such as Yian-Kut-Ku and wonder why only certain parts of the armour set can be made via the armour/weapons creation vendor. Some parts of an armour set require to break certain parts on a monster or get a rare item from that monster. In the case of Yian to make the helmet you need to shred his ears. This can be done hitting his head or shooting his head with a ranged weapon, these items don’t always drop when the area is broken however. Sometimes you will need a certain type of weapon to “break” an area such as breaking blangonga, you will need fire to break his fangs.

This is similar for weapons, you won’t see a weapon on the vendor creation screen until you have at least one of most of the required parts. Weapons can be upgraded via new monster parts and pokke farm items. Each weapon has a different upgrade path. The Hammer for example has a long bone and metal path in which you can take your starter hammer made of either bone or metal and upgrade it to a end game hammer. You have to be careful to pick the right path though. You can find all the upgrade paths for every weapon here.

Decorations and Skills

Once you have a armour set you usually get a bonus such as “Attack up (Small)”. This is because every item in that armour set will be putting your attack skill up. The attack skill itself doesn’t do anything its when you reach a certain number of points in that skill that you gain the effect. Such as “Attack up (Small)”. You can also boost your skills via decorations that fit into slots on your armour and weapons. The number of slots varies can differ from each piece of weapon and armour, even if they are in the same set.

Skills can made a big difference in a fight. The skill earplug skill which gives you High Grade Earplug at 15 points makes you invulnerable to monster screams which would be great for fighting a wyvern such as Tigerx.

A list of Skills can be found here

A list of Decorations can be here

————————————–

List of changes for Monster Hunter Freedom Unite from MHF2:

• New Felyne Comrade system.
• Felyne next to Village Elder, giving out G rank quests.
• New subspecies: Desert Blangonga, Emerald Congalala, Plum Daimyo Hermitaur
• Monsters get new attacks.
• New area: the Sea of Trees.
• 1st Generation maps of Jungle, Volcano, Desert and Swamp added.
• New monsters: Nargacuga, Hypnocatrice, Yama Tsukami, Ukanlos, Lavasioth
• New armor sets.
• New Weapons.
• New hairstyles.
• New Starter Clothes.
• Third quest giver wearing yellow in Guild.
• Eight equipment pages instead of six, and possible extend to 10.
• Forest and Hills quests can now be at night.
• Fighting 2 or more different boss monsters is a must in some G-rank quests.
• Dual Swords may now have two separate elements (example: one fire sword and one ice sword).
• Bows: White Coating (increases melee power) and Pink Coating (Paintball)
• Hunting Horns have a new note that works like a Sonic Bomb.
• Crag shots of Bowguns to the head can KO monsters (like Hammers and Hunting Horns).
• New Sharpness superior to white: purple.
  You can now hold up to 99 of each item type in your box.
• You can now store up to 20 equipment sets.
• Buy your items and send it to the Item Box.
• Directly combine items inside the Item Box.
• Media Install System that speeds up loading times.
• Skip animation scenes with SELECT.
• Trenya can now be sent for 1500 Points
• Trenya can be sent to the Sea Of Trees.
• Treasure Quests can be played at the Sea Of Trees.

MHFU Monster Strategy Guides Coming soon! (For real this time!)

I’ve been a huge tactics fan since I first got Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis back in 2002. Since then tactical RPG’s have become my favorite style of game. So far I’ve played Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions, Final Fantasy Tactics: Advance and now Final Fantasy Tactics: Advance 2.

For those of you who don’t know tactical rpgs are played out on a isometric field. Movement order is based on a characters speed. You build up a team of several characters and jobs/classes more than you can put into play at any time. In A2 you can use up to 6 units/characters at a time but you can have many more than that in your clan/team.

The full name of the game is Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift but for the purpose of this review I’m just going to refer to it as A2. There were a few things I really didn’t like about the first FFTA game, one of them being the judges/laws system.

Any time you had a battle a judge would be present and there would be a random law such as “No Ranged Weapons” or “No Multiple Targeting”. You could use law cards to bypass these laws if you had the right one in your limited inventory. But if one of your units broke a law he/she would get a yellow card and if he/she broke the law again he/she would be sent to jail.

Thankfuly the Judge/Laws system in A2 is a lot more forgiving. At the start of battle you can choose a privillage such as Power up to increase attack power slightly, you gain better privillages via clan trail quests. There are no law card to bypass the laws anymore, but the punishment for breaking the laws isn’t as bad. Now when you break a law you loose out on bonus rewards at the end of the quest, you can’t resurrect KO’ed units and you loose your privillage buff (it’s still better than loosing units forever though).

I quiet like the job system in A2. You have to learn a certain number of skills in a job to be able to use a more advance job. Instead of learning skills via jp points you earn in battle you now learn skills from your armour and weapons. Once you master a skill (completely learn it) you can use it regards of what armour or weapon you have.

The bazzar system is also very cool. In every quest you get random unusable items from monsters and also as your reward for finishing a quest. You use these items to unlock weapons at the shop, so intead of getting better weapons from new shops as you quest, you can get them at every shop once you unlock them on the bazzar. Some weapons need to be unlocked every time you buy one from the shop however.

I’m horrible addicted to this game as I’ve been playing it for about 15 hours in game. I pick it up and a few hours go past and I haven’t even noticed. I hope square keeps making more tactics games as they seem to keep improving the forumla. I’m going to try to have an army of ninja’s in A2 like I had in tactics ogre.

I’m giving Final Fantasy Tactics A2: 9/10 
It would of got 10/10  but the judge system is still a tad annoying sometimes

The Official site is now up and can be found at: http://www.monsterhunter-freedomunite.com/

Edit: http://www.encyclopedia-gigantica.com/ is now also up

Here’s from details from the capcom blog:

As you know from my many Monster Hunter blogs over the past few months, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite is heading to the west. Unite packs over 500 hours of gameplay spanning some 400 missions. Above is a few of the brand new monsters, the Nargacuga, the Lavasioth, and the Hypnocatrice. Check out more info about the new monsters, screenshots, and features of the game released at Captivate09 after the jump.

Using the Ad-Hoc connection players can adventure with up to three friends for a savaging multiplayer hunting party. From devising strategies to executing the attack, players will need to work together in order to hunt down the ferocious beasts and progress through the wide range of quests on offer. Players will be rewarded for their use of the deep fighting combat systems, encouraging them to seek out the more experienced hunters and team up in order to learn from their experience.

Even in single player mode Hunters won’t be alone thanks to the introduction of the new AI feature, Felyne Comrades. Accompanying players on quests your furry ally will helping them battle monsters and gather extra resources.

There are five new monsters to the game waiting to challenge gamers in battle. These include the Nargacuga, who inhabits the old forest and attacks at lightning speed, the Lavasioth, a lava-breathing reptile who hides in volcanic areas and the Hypnocatrice, a bird-like monster that wards off hunters with its unique ability to produce sleeping gas.

Features:

• The biggest Monster Hunter title to date with over 500 hours of gameplay
• Huge variety of character customisations including 1400 weapons and over 2000 armor sets
• Players can form a team of up to 4 players through Ad-Hoc play and experience the social gaming phenomenon
• Media Install option where players can save the game to a memory stick, allowing the game to load from the memory stick and UMD simultaneously for faster loading times
• AI Felyne companion who will accompany players on quests and gather extra resources. With the ‘felyne exchange’ feature players can share their companions with other players, transferring data using the PSP’s sleep mode.
• Fans of the series can transfer their data from Monster Hunter Freedom 2

I picked up Fable II just after xmas and after 30+ hours of game play I’m ready to review this awesome game. I never played the first Fable game and it doesn’t seem to make much of a difference at all, aside from some small bits of lore. Same as the first game you start out as a young boy or girl this time. The first hour or so is spent doing small time quests with your sister to earn five gold coins to buy a musical wish box and to learn the ropes of the game. I love tutorials like this that well don’t really feel like tutorials, learning how to play a game should always be enjoyable and not painful.

I decided to go with a good character on my first play through because that seemed like the harder option and I was right. Being evil is rather easy but going with a good character takes some real effort. Getting my purity up to 100% was probably the hardest thing until I worked out that buying a few houses and putting the rent down by 100% would send your purity skyrocketing( I did this with the caravans in the gypsy camp). Becoming 100% good was easier, just do the right thing in quests and donate your extra gold to the temple of light.

The best thing about this game is how your character changes as your progress depending on your actions and how you fight. If you use your melee attack a lot you will look more buff, if you use your gun/skill attacks a lot you will grow taller and finally if you are a heavy magic user you will get blue veins.  At the moment I’ve got a very buff, tall guy with bright blue veins, it’s not really hard to max out all threeof the different combat branches, magic being the easiest with AoE (Area of Effect) attacks. It would most likely be harder if you just picked one type of combat style and stuck to it, but then game only really gives you XP (Experience) bonuses if you use all two or more styles.

I’ve found the main story line to be somewhat dull aside from rescuing the hero of skill. The side quests are fairly amusing but fairly short, most dungeons seem to be less than ten rooms and you can breeze through them in under ten minutes. I would of loved some huge dungeons crawls in this game, but having quests you can do in 10-15 minutes is great for my weekday morning game sessions.

The only realy thing I dispise in this game is the god awful menu system. If you want to go eat a item from your inventory you have to bring it up then click through a maybe 3 screens then select the item to eat it and then you’re out of the menu and have to repeat the whole process over again. I find this really annoying as Fable II is such a well made game in every other aspect. I forgot the map completely sucks as well, but that nifty glowing trail does make up for it somewhat.

So I’m giving Fable II

9.0/10

I’d recommend this game to anyone who likes action rpgs or wants a medieval style grand theft auto.

According to Wikipedia

Song Summoner: The Unsung Heroes is an iPod tactical role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix worldwide.

So when I heard about a tactical rpg that lets you make troopers from your ipod songs, I knew I just had to get it.

I’ve only clocked up an hour so far, but every aspect of the game has been enjoyable. Compared to other tactical rpg’s it has been a bit simplified in terms of inventory management and character leveling, but that’s expected on a game designed for the ipod.

The best part of the game definitely is making troopers from your music collection. It was interesting to see my Foreigner tracks turn into whimsical female archers and “Holy Diver” by Dio turn into a armoured warrior. It was also pretty amusing to see my girlfriends screamo tracks come out as pretty boy mages with angel wings. I also like the fact that if you listen to the same tracks you used to create your troopers, you get groove points which boost your characters in battle.

In other Square Enix news Final Fantasy XIII is also coming out on the xbox 360, woot!