Judgements what I got in-store, Judgement on the PS4.

It's called Judge Eyes in Japan. 

Ooooooh girl, check out that mans by the bar, he's got those Judge Eyes. I think I'm going to talk to him.

The man at the bar.

Uhh Becky, that's not a handsome guy at the bar, that's an Eurasian Eagle-Owl. I don't even know what he's doing at this SoHo bar, those predatory birds are localized in Europe and Russian primarily. This bar doesn't even serve rodents, they serve drinks for humans.

Oh wait, he's buying drinks. WAIT UP FOR ME BECKY.


That little story? That tale of warning? A dark demise for Becky and her friend who was also named Becky who didn't realize that the man she was sliding up to was actually one of the largest species of owl, belonging to the genus Bubo? That story?

YEAH THAT STORY MADE MORE SENSE THAN THE STORY-LINE OF JUDGMENT. What you just read was more believable and sensical than the storyline of old Judge Eyes.

Judgment's plot issues. I guess.

Judgment is an open-world action-adventure game, from the same house that made the Yakuza series. Hell the entire game takes place in the same exact city as Yakuza. Yakuza is the Japanese version of GTA/Red Dead. Sort of. Open world cinematic series. Whatever. Now that that's out of the way, let's get cooking-

I'll spare you the plot. It's confusing, takes some weird turns near the end. I watched every single cut-scene, even read a few explanations after I finished the game, and was still left wondering "but then why did this and this and those things do that???" No fault of the devs, probably entirely me not understanding Japanese culture subtleties and maybe Japanese courtroom procedural things. BUT SOME SHIT JUST SEEMED WEIRD FOR WEIRD SAKE. SO Instead give you some highlights and you'll see why they make no sense.

• You fight doctors in a hospital that you broke into. When you defeat all of the doctors, you fight the security guards, then the police. This is after you'd already broken into the hospital/research center about a half dozen times. Each time you're in the research hospital, they kick you out and ask you to leave. Give it about another 30 minutes, and the main character says "lets go back, I have to ask them another question". Now maybe in Japan they're a bit more lax to trespassing, and most people tell the truth to random private investigators about crimes they committed. 
• But uhhh.... here in America, I was banned from a Chinese buffet (for valid reasons) and straight lied to the police about it. But hey, different strokes I guess.

• Guns are mostly banned in Japan. But sure enough, one roving gang leader that just wanders the streets will fight me the moment he sees me, and pull out two guns and just starts blasting. Crowds of people surround us to watch. REALISM? I DUNNO. But early in the game, anyone who has a gun and shoots me, you know as they do, I lose a little recoverable health. This gang leader shoots me? Permanent health loss. He's got one of them ultra damaging guns, it's probably a DLC weapon or some shit. ALSO EVERY SINGLE TIME SOMEONE BRINGS OUT A GUN, MY MAIN CHARACTER POINTS OUT "HEY THOSE ARE ILLEGAL". First of all, you're an ex lawyer turned private detective. Secondly, that's a real laid back way to address your imminent death. YOU CAN'T KILL ME, KILLING ME IS ILLEGAL!!

• On one of the dates you go on (I SAID IT WAS A JAPANESE GAME), you tell the girl that your preferred girls are usually 15 years younger than you. Bruh. Weren't you a lawyer? And also you are 35 in the game, and the girl you're dating is living at home with her parents. BUT HEY, DIFFERENT STROKES I GUESS. 

Kids? Guns? COLD SHOULDER.

You track down an old man who's exposing himself to girls, you fight all sorts of folks with clear mental issues, you buy drinks from a girl with a big chest because she lacks a personality and confidence, you're dating multiple women, get a severe head wound near the end of the game that everyone calls "temporary fogginess", you track down multiple killers, slam guys heads into car doors, but somehow never once kill someone. It's a Yakuza game, so it's expected.

Now considering that all that is in the game, there was a bit of drama with the lead voice actor. The original actor was arrested for suspicion of cocaine use, and had his voice removed from the game, as well as delaying the release of said game.

For possible use of cocaine. Removed from the game for possible cocaine use.

Don't get me wrong, I love RDJ. I'm saying that sometimes your good actors have to have a little pep in their step. Don't delay the game (and in my opinion ruin possible sales) because of what a voice actor did. But again, DIFFERENT STROKES.

What do I like about the game? 

The fighting is good, on par with usual Yakuza games. You're limited in how many fighting styles you can have, but Yakuza Zero spoiled me with their 3 fighting styles, Judge Eyes only has 2. The writing is goofy and weird and hilarious and all the things you'd expect from a Yakuza game. The side quests and mini-games have heart and interest. Story was a little long, and dragged near the end, but that's starting to seem like a standard for Japanese action games like this.

What do I not like? 

Little stuff. Nitpicky stuff. There are the roaming gangs that want to fight you. Outrunning them doesn't always work. So when you're going from Main Story-line Point A to Main Story-line Point B, you'll get stopped at least 3 times by these gangs. You fight 3 or 4 guys, then you're back to the main game. There's  a way to stop these random encounters but you can't do it until after the game is over.

Come to think of it. I just now realized it. That's exactly what these are. Random Encounters. These are the jellies in the fields of Dragon Quest. Ok cute and all, but then let me get to the castle or town, or whores-bath or whatever. I'm not trying to grind stats.

OH THAT'S THE OTHER THING I DON'T LIKE. The stat progression is a little....lax. You can upgrade your health, speed, and attack, but only three times. And each jump requires a hefty chunk of experience points. All other upgrades are special moves, that you really won't use. "Press square 4 times, triangle 1 time, square 2 times". NOPE. IMMA BASH THE BUTTONS AND SQUISH THEM DUDES.

You play as Yagami. He's showing off his lawyer badge. He's very proud of it.

It's a good game! 

The music is sparse, but good. Controls are nice and tight. You'll get 20 hours out of it if you try to do like 70% of the tasks, but you'll want to. There are few fetch quests, and even then it's fairly quick.

Near the end of the game, I felt like I was going through the motions a bit. Story-line got weird, but you could tell it was near the end, so it was justified.

I'm realizing that the chunky, satisfying 3rd person action games that I do so love and enjoy are gone.

Freedom Fighters, Ratchet and Clank, Jax, Bloodrayne, Punisher, Triggerman, Syphon Filter, I'm just looking at my shelves but those are some of the games that jump out. There were more on the 360, but I'm way too lazy to scoot over and check. Crackdown? Stranglehold? You get the idea. I'm realizing those games are dead, but their more modern incarnation are games like Yakuza and Judgement. Fine by me. I like GTA and Red Dead, but Rockstar is incapable of making a more manageable and complete-able game (THEY'RE ALSO INCAPABLE OF MAKING A BULLY 2).

Give Judgement a try. If you like it, you'll enjoy the Yakuza series. If you don't like it, fine. It's absolutely not everyone's cup of tea. But it's fitting into a category that American developers just don't seem to focus on. An American based action-adventure game has to either be a 700 hour ordeal, or as low budget as possible.

Plus you can hit on Japanese women and not feel creepy. 

I'm not saying I'm a neckbeard, but the threat is always lurking, in the corners near my Gundam displays and hiding within my cargo shorts pockets.

REGULAR BASEBALL HATS DON'T FIT MY HEAD, AND I ENJOY ANIME AND JAPANESE CULTURE AND STRUGGLING WITH WEIGHT IS A SERIOUS ISSUE, BUT I'M TRYING TO LOOK CLASSY.

Shoot, reload, Shoot, reload

Rapid Fire Time!

I have a lot of blog ideas that have been on my mind, so I’m just going to hit you with several at once, since none of them are especially important long enough to be full blogs.

1. A large amount of tech journalists are claiming that the 3DS will be a failure because the older PSP is currently outselling it and some people hate the concept of a 3D screen. Here, literally Game Design 101 (as in, this was a topic in my first Game Design class): Consoles don’t win console wars, games do. The 3DO, though powerful as can be, failed because of a lack of games and developer support. The Dreamcast was years ahead of it’s time with features we take for granted today: Online play, DLC, freaking’ voice chat in game! But, alas, Sega fu**ed over their third party developers by almost secretly releasing the Dreamcast only two years after the Sega Saturn, making third party developers sick of Sega’s constantly changing console BS and moving on to other places, like Sony and their PS2. As I said a couple months ago, the regular DS has been outselling the PSP year after year by almost double because it has a good library. This is taking into account that the PSP is twice as powerful as the DS.

Point made simple, the 3DS is a good console, but it was rushed to market (for what reason, I still don’t know) and it is a half-baked system. As of me writing this, the 3DS is still missing the following: An internet browser, Virtual Console support, and DSiWare support. Also, the launch line-up was, umm, lackluster. Street Fighter IV and Ghost Recon may be the only games right now worth playing on it. Nintendo should have released this console on the same day the Ocarina of Time remake was done, or packaged in Pilot Wings Resort as a free game, like Wii Sports, and then this console would have sold like gangbusters. Give it until this fall, and the 3DS will be in a lot more hands once decent games for it come out.

2. Speaking of consoles, the Kinect seems to me as a waste of time and money, right now. This thing was released on November 4th, and as of May only 25 games exist for this add-on, and 17 of them are sports, dance/fitness related. So far, it seems like that is all we have to look forward to from this item, Dance games and workout simulators. At my local Gamestop, I counted 10 used Kinects just hanging from the sales wall, waiting to be bought. My only guess why there wasn’t more is because the wall didn’t have any more space on it, but I am sure there was more in the back. Listen, I am all for game innovation, but motion control gaming is becoming a slight fad, like 3D TVs. The best games I have played in the last 4 months (Dragon Age 2, Dead Space 2, Dissidia 2) have all used standard controllers. The worst thing is the Microsoft has yet to announce any new games for this system. It’s like they are personally giving up on it. I realize it was the fastest selling console ever, but I wonder how many people kept the damn thing or were still using it after two months. Dear Microsoft: support games, not peripherals.

3. The Playstation Move is a failure in my view. First off, the cost of entry is expensive as hell.It costs $210 for a two-player set with one game, barring that one already has a $300 PS3 in their home. You know what you can get for $210? A New Wii, two-players worth of controls, and an extra game. Hey, and the Wii has a MUCH larger library of games with motion-control specific games, where as most of the Move games are Motion control OPTIONAL. This means their perfectly fine games without motion controls (MAG, Killzone 3, Sly Cooper Collection), but Sony wants you to feel justified for spending an inordinate amount of money on this add-on. Fair enough, since the entire collection of Move-specific games are Wii copies anyways. Dear Sony: Support games, not over-priced peripherals. Hell, just get the PSN system to NOT FAIL at every step of he way.

4. I love American Football (been a Steeler’s fan since I was 8), but nothing pisses me off more than a sports strike. I used to love the NHL, but when they struck for what seemed like years, I lost ALL interest. I haven’t watched an NHL game in going on a decade and I have no regrets. I may just do the same if the NFL teams don’t play this year. You know what the league minimum of the NFL is? $300,000! Since a football season is up to, and including the start of training day, about 7 months, that means that even a rookie player makes about $42,000 A MONTH for one season. The average American makes that a YEAR, according to the 2006 GDP. Here’s something else to boggle the calculator, the average NFL player makes 1.2-1.5 million dollars a season. Michael Vick, before he became an animal abusing douchebag, made 25 million a season, making him one of the highest paid athletes in the world. So, I think we can all agree, that when the players want to strike because they “aren’t getting paid enough to play two more games”, it screams ludicrous greed to me.

Don’t get me wrong; I think players deserve to be compensated for their time, but a strike? Gimme a break! At what pay ratio is it no longer the “love of the game” and it becomes “I am already making money hand-over-fist for throwing and catching a ball or blocking/tackling pretty well, I deserve thousands more!” It’s ridiculous to me. Sports athletes are overpaid, they know it, I know it, the whole damn world knows it, and yet we allow these strikes to happen.

SPOILERS OF THE HARRY POTTER SERIES

5. My wife forced me to watch every Harry Potter movie made thus far so I can take her to the premiere of Deathly Hallows, Part Two and appreciate it. After watching every single one in secession, I have only one thought: I still don’t care. What the hell is the big deal with these movies/books? Yes, I am all for character development and I can appreciate it, but why is it every one of these 2 ½ hour movies dedicates 2 of those hours JUST TOWARDS CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. All of the “good” parts of Harry Potter can be described in five words: first and last fifteen minutes. The rest in-between is tween middle-high school drama about “who likes who” and how unfair is this teacher!” and “even though he has killed people,is Voldermort real?” Am I the only one that saw Dumbledore being killed from, like, the first book on? These books follow the bare-bones basic archetypal models established years ago be Carl Jung almost to a fault. As a matter of fact, almost every archetype and every step of Jung’s “The Hero’s journey” is followed here, and maybe that’s why the books did so well, because they are formulaic and in plain enough English even kids can understand them. It’s not that I don’t think the movies are terrible, I just think they are woefully predictable. Heck, I enjoyed the first Deathly Hallows, for whatever that is worth. I actually want to see the second. As for reading the books, no thank you, sir.


SPOILERS END HERE

And so does my ammo count.