Er-herm.... Is this thing on?? Ok..

Let me just say that.... this game has exceeded my expectations for it!

Firstly, I get home at quarter to 3, download the demo, which gets done a lot
quicker than usual...

Then I fire up the N3 demo... 2 things I am loving right now.. The art direction
and the music. Also, for a hack n' slash, the story seems very deep.

After getting a nice taste of what to expect in the full version, I get to the title
screen, I stop and close my eyes, listening to the music, and doing that stupid
motion that musicians do with their hand when they can feel the music.

I press start.

Cut scene!! Woohoo!!! (One of the single reasons I actually like MGS, the only
reason to be exact!)

Using the in-game engine to render, I wasn' t expecting a " Squeenix" budget
CGI, but it was enough to definitely help the story along.. First thing I notice
is the bad lip syncing..

The game loads quite quickly, (blu-ray pfft) and I finally get to play my first
REAL japanese moving around game (I say moving around because DOA was the
first jap 360 game I played.lol) I spend five minutes getting used to the controls,
it handles nicely so I start moving around; my first batch of goblins didn' t stand
a chance.

Now me being me, I decide to button mash randomnly (but strategically) to see
what combos I can pull out, and I also tested what everyone has been saying
about the game - a hack n' slash with substance. I find that I can pull off a fair
amount of nice combos, but I would really like to know what I am doing.. So
I pause and check the command list, there' s a nice melton mix of combos, but
too many button presses to actually remember, so I remember 3 and then I
realise how much I want to play as Inphyy.

Now I am ready to roll, but first my kryptonite kicked in: default camera controls.

Now, if you' re one of those people where FPS are helicopters to you (?), then
you' ll find that inverted suits your hands better and shock horror, the bast@rd
demo doesn' t have the option to change camera controls!!!

Fine!

So I press on, now came about the time when I realised that you can actually
dash with the " R" trigger (In case you were wondering, yes, I am one of
those people that does not read the loading screen when it tells you the controls).

This nifty feature helps to navigate the battlefield with more guile. At this point I
wanted to just do one of those big screen clearer moves, and after conversating
and familiarising myself with the power/health gauges at the bottom-left of the
screen, I began to realise that I am WAY away from doing my BIG kahuna move.

Difficulty:

Here is when my brother asked me " What would you give this game so far?"
I replied " About a 7 out of 10, it' s kinda repetitive" how quickly that changed
when I had my first real encounter with hostile A.I. Now I didn' t really expect the
A.I in this to do my taxes, and pay my bills, but it was decent enough in the
sense that, if the right moves aren' t pulled off at the right time, you WILL find
yourself on the ground mostly!

ARCHERS are a b!tch...

I was feeling a bit brave, so I told my men to hold position. No come back!!!

Yes, I needed them. I was thinking back to Otogi days, where the protagonist
could just jump in and clear a room as if he announced he was carrying a bomb
in his trousers. But Lord! I find that the characters powers are superior but
not cosmic! So I jump straight in the heat of my first " horde after horde"
battle. I was in one of those moments where my health was low and I could' ve
sworn I uttered the words... " Is this really the end?"

.....and Hell no it wasn' t!

This game has a levelling up system, and just when one courageous goblin thought
he had laid me to waste... I levelled up!!! And what' s this? A new move?? Why
thank you.... and oh? My health replenished fully????

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!

The level up could not have come at a better time!!!

Now, the big hitter and the main reason I played this demo finally came!

When it did... OMG!!!

The enemies flew into the sky!!! SO high! So High!!!

Then came down..

I had to do it again!

Overall, the demo is seriously amazing, most of the time the framerate is pretty
solid. Asphaar has enough moves to satisfy an honest pirate, it caught me off
guard this one. The more I watched people playing the more I was like..

That will get soooo repetitive....

Then I realised they were crap and were only using one combo... Who the
f$ck does that????!!!!

There are enough combos to kepp you playing, and rewards for levelling up.

I haven' t completed the demo yet because I am tired and can' t concentrate.
As soon as this comes out in the UK, I will be soOooOo happy to hand over money
for it. Then play it!

Yes, as good as the demo is, I do have a few niggles about it...

- The strangling camera: The camera needs to pan out much farther in order
to be able to see a lot of the action, it feels too strangled.

- Voice acting: Whilst being as about generic as an apple trying to stand out
in a fruit section, I hope they include an option for japanese voices.

- Save points: I died after playing the demo for about 20 mins, and
shot straight to the beginning of the level... WHAT? There need to be
frequent save points..

Finally - Archers: There needs to be a move that can physically
burn them from the game.

Otherwise that is it! If you haven' t downloaded the demo.... DO IT!!!

Last note: On thing I loved about the demo was when Inphyy ran ahead to kill
and I could see her red blade flashing up everywhere amongs a sea of smelly
goblins.. I just watched as they were all thrown helplessly into the air, and I swear
I heard one of them say " Goddamn!!!"

Done!! For those of you that read this... COngratulations, you' re crazy..

I played it a little more and the graphics do seem OK-ish if you just keep the camera looking down and dont raise it to the semi-3rd person view, because when you do thats when you see the nasty blurs on environments and enemies across the view distance.

I completely disagree with Evil Man (he' s a nub).

The game is awesome and the graphics are awesome. I' m playing on my new ViewSonic VX922 19" 2ms LCD in high definition.

Things that are out of focus are blurry (just like in real life). All of the artwork is first class.

The opening CG movie is stunningly high quality.
Gameplay is quite fun and there are a ton of differnet moves you keep learning new ones as you progress.

The only thing I don' t like about it is the voice overs, they aren' t horrible but they aren' t great either. I would rather have the original with subtitles. The demo doesn' t let you pick any options. I don' t know if the full version lets you or not.

What happens in N3 is like if I was driving in my car and saw people and cars two blocks down the road and they appeared blurry, it' s unrealistic.

I don' t think I' m crazy and just imagining bad graphics, it really looks bad, I mean compare it to DOA4 or Oblivion in hi-def, and it looks about half as good IMO.

Ya lets not forget that DOA has on avg. 2 entities on screen whereas N3 has fuckall 100' s! And they arnt even full blown idiots either. Hell caught a few of them get to a good spot behind me and charge up an attack. And did you think that you can' t notice the excess detail simply because the game is moving at a consistant freakish rate?

I willadmit tho that the enviroments are a bit barren but fuck with that many characters wouldnt that shit slow down and put a damper on these crazy battles?

About the blurring whether its there to keep the game at 60fps or artistic reasons I don' t know, however it shoulndt really hinder the game much as you really should be focusing on the people trying to put a sword up your ass. What te fuck are you doing during the fights? Wondering which of the goblins is the most fuckable or somthing?

Like all of Microsoft' s " wannabe" Japanese games the characters are generic and the voices dont fit them well. It just screams " American game trying too hard to be japanese" I propose they buy some japanese companies and let them make the games, watching this is like watching japanese games that try to be american (like MGS) - it just doesn' t work. Let the americans make american games, let the japanese make the japanese games.

WTF?! Wasnt this game developed by a Korean and Japanese studio?! Microsoft is just publishing it. That quote there practicall shows you dont know one damn thing you' re talking about. Sure we' re all entitle to an opinion but please ooooh please make them a fucking educate opinion you ignorant bastard.

Why do you get all defensive because the game sucks? It' s not like I made it. Blame microsoft. The environments arent just barren, theyre straight out of a ps2 game, they look awful. I admit when you' re fighting 200 goblins at the same time and they all fill up your screen it looks nice, but that just make it even worse to go from the coolness of fighting 200+ entities on the screen to the lameass environments.

As far as why I' m looking at the environments, uh, if you actually played the demo and stopped talking out of your ass, you' d know everytime you beat a batch of enemies or a battalion, whatever you wanna call them you have to walk a bit to get to areas with more enemies, this takes 1 minute or so of running forward around the area and you need to put on the high 3rd person view to see ahead, and when you do its like you' re playing a PS2 game, except with a detailed main character and army.

So yes, when the screen swarms up with enemies it looks pretty cool, but it isn' t always 100% of the time full of people, you have to walk around the barren areas too.

ORIGINAL: Tiz
I was feeling a bit brave, so I told my men to hold position. No come back!!!

Yes, I needed them. I was thinking back to Otogi days, where the protagonist
could just jump in and clear a room as if he announced he was carrying a bomb
in his trousers. But Lord! I find that the characters powers are superior but
not cosmic! So I jump straight in the heat of my first " horde after horde"
battle. I was in one of those moments where my health was low and I could' ve
sworn I uttered the words... " Is this really the end?"

.....and Hell no it wasn' t!

All my soldiers except for 1 (the one with the nice armor) were dead halfway through the demo, they are pansies and you have to protect them or they die, I think they should be protecting ME. Anyway I let them all get slaughtered when I was down to 2 men I had no problem taking on the rest of the leveling including the final fight with that big ass troll, I deffinetely didn' t need my army.

ORIGINAL: Evil Man

Like all of Microsoft' s " wannabe" Japanese games the characters are generic and the voices dont fit them well. It just screams " American game trying too hard to be japanese" I propose they buy some japanese companies and let them make the games, watching this is like watching japanese games that try to be american (like MGS) - it just doesn' t work. Let the americans make american games, let the japanese make the japanese games.

ORIGINAL: Evil Man

Why do you get all defensive because the game sucks? It' s not like I made it. Blame microsoft.

...if you actually played the demo and stopped talking out of your ass,

It' s fine for you to have an opinion but you need to take your own advice and stop talking out your ass. Do you know the difference between a publisher and developer?

Microsoft had nothing to do with the development of N3. Microsoft didn' t make N3. Phantagram and Q Entertainment co developed the game together. If you read up about them you' ll know that they' re not western developers.

Just another ingorant person jumping on the bandwagon....

So you' re saying you agree the game sucks and have nothing to say other than ramble on about publishers and developers? Gotcha.

What happens in N3 is like if I was driving in my car and saw people and cars two blocks down the road and they appeared blurry, it' s unrealistic.

You know when things are out of focus in the background.... That' s what N3
is doing, when you have a spare moment, hold your finger in front of your eye
and concentrate on it.... You' ll notice that you can' t really make out anything
in the background, or if you can, just about...

I dont notice the camera focusing on anything, when I play, say, Halo, I see my gun near me and I can see a long distance away, the gun is not blurred out, nor is the distance. The character in the game is like the gun, immediately infront of me, well almost anyway, yet the distance is all blurred out.

Evil Man, just to clear something up. The " blurry" thing is actually newer texturing technology that you will actually see in most Next-Gen games (Black on XBox and PS2 " faked" the technology). Play any recent sports game and you will see what is being done.

It may in fact be just to keep the framerate up, but I think it adds to the graphics rather than detracts from them. Actually, I played it for my friends, and they all shouted about how cool the background blur was. If the screen was too clear I think it would actually take away from the artistry - you' re at war here, son.

To each his own I guess, but I for one found the demo to be quite enthralling, and am definitely considering this for purchase!!

Oh, and Tiz, I noticed you complaining about the camera. Forgive me if you' ve tried already, but if you click the Right Thumbstick the camera pans out a little. I found that to be my camera view of choice! Forgive me if you' ve already tried it.

*High 5' s Tim Strickland*

i knew it wasn' t just me..

*tries to barge in for a group high 5.. gets a slap instead*

It isn' t just the loss of focus. If you put your finger infront of your eyes whats beyond your finger looks out of focus, NOT blurred. There is a difference.

Blurr example = if you wear glasses, smudge your fingers against the lenses, and put them back on and try to see, THAT is a blur. And that is what N3 has, a washed out blur effect accross the far distance.

ORIGINAL: Evil Man

It isn' t just the loss of focus. If you put your finger infront of your eyes whats beyond your finger looks out of focus, NOT blurred. There is a difference.

Blurr example = if you wear glasses, smudge your fingers against the lenses, and put them back on and try to see, THAT is a blur. And that is what N3 has, a washed out blur effect accross the far distance.

Are you still talking?........

Seriously, Evil Man, what ruffled your feathers?

If you want to complain about over-use of blur, find a few " in-game" Motorstorm
demos.

If you do look at your finger up close, the background is even more blurry
than the N3 demo!

If you can' t see that, then you my friend are genetically enhanced and a threat to
society, and rest assured George Bush knows all about you.

It' s called " depth of field" , and a lot of next gen games (including DOA4) use it.

Is that idiot still talking complete rubbish?!

Resort to insults when you are getting destroyed in an argument - typical.