On the Fence: Pure

Today, I played the Pure demo on 360 (PSN demo should be up later today) and I have been sleeping on this racer till recently since the game is out in two weeks. After two hours of madness, Pure is a surprisingly fun game and likely will be the sleeper racing game of the year (with Motorstorm: Pacific Rift, Midnight Club LA, and Need for Speed Undercover out in the fall). First of all, the game looks amazing for a racing game in this generation with great environments (only seven different types are in the final game with about 50 tracks as the demo says in the end) and draw distance. For the gameplay, Pure plays like a simple racing game with alternate paths and a huge emphasis on the trick system. The trick system is basically the bread and butter for Pure as doing them well will dictate your races. There are four levels of tricks which depend on the buttons will also dictates the boost meter. The more tricks you do, the more boost you gain as these tricks are done with any direction of the left stick and any of the face buttons (X however is boost). Whether to sacrifice doing advanced tricks (on the Y button) to boost more frequently if behind the pack or the other way around is a nice element to Pure's racing.

I'm still on the fence with Pure after playing the demo. This definitely feels like an off-road SSX than a core racing game, which is cool. Basically, this racer is simply fun to play with great graphics and soundtrack to listen to full of rock and electronica tunes. This one has that sleeper hit in it to be something overlooked with other racing games coming out around the same time. Then again, I can see some repetition with Pure as you progress through its World Tour mode if the races feel the same throughout the whole journey or the tricks eventually getting old pending on the character. Other than that, Pure is flat out fun to play and worth your attention for your dollars if you're looking for a new racing game this fall.

Another reason why the Dragonball movie will suck

Apparently, this is Piccolo in the upcoming Dragonball movie and another reason why it is an embarrassment to all the fans of the franchise. I don't know why they still plan to release this thing next year as this is almost like Street Fighter movie territory for how horrible it will be. Piccolo is played by the James Marsters, who was Spike in the Buffy and Angel TV shows. So yeah, can they at least try to get the source material right for once?

Lumines returns home...

Playstation 3 owners will finally get Lumines on their system with Supernova for the Playstation Network. This is actually more of a "finally" moment that Q Entertainment is now supporting PSN along with Xbox Live Arcade (Meteos Wars is their next XBLA game). I still wished these guys will make a new original IP someday, but I guess that could wait a little longer. This new Lumines has new exclusive skins and downloadable ones (not yet confirmed on the specifics on that like Genki Rockets skins). In addition, a new mode called Dig Down will be introduced in this iteration putting a different spin on the Lumines formula. It is still fudamentally the same game, but it is great that PS3 has their own version of Lumines now and the fact the franchise returns home to where it started, which is the Playstation brand (I'm curious if PSP Remote Play will be in this version as well).

The Ting Tings Appreciation

I finally got around to download my current favorite band's album, We Started Nothing by The Ting Tings. They're just a fun little Euro band to listen to right now. Sure they might another one hit wonder with "Shut Up and Let Me Go," but their other singles like "Great DJ" (above) are pretty catchy and enjoyable as well. I started noticing them after watching the "Shut Me and Let Me Go" video on MTV2 and then I didn't realize how popular the song is to even have an iTunes commercial looping at Las Vegas's Fashion Show Mall. At least their music videos get a million+ hits on YouTube. I recommend checking out this Euro-style band if you haven't yet and I also won't mind them having their singles on Rock Band 2 as well.

The 360 has another Japanese Action Game

So Microsoft had their pre-TGS Media Briefing today and other than Capcom teasing some of their upcoming lineup (Bionic Commando, GTA IV for Japan, Street Fighter IV, and Resident Evil 5) rather than announcing the dream sequel, Dead Rising 2, the only big thing worth mentioning about the event is the official unveiling of Ninja Blade. This Japanese action game is published by Microsoft themselves and developed by From Software (Chromehounds, Otogi series). During the briefing, they showed a teaser clip (below) of what to expect graphically in terms of cutscenes and a brief gameplay clip (not yet up anywhere). They also announced this game being playable at the Tokyo Game Show next month, so hopefully we'll have more impressions around that time.

ABDC VMA Battle Recap!!

So MTV gave us an ABDC special to hype up for this year's Video Music Awards, which could be likely crap - Live blog of that craziness when that happens. Anyway, let's recap today's ABDC show of five of the top crews from the top 2 seasons competing for a VMA slot doing the nominated videos for Best Dance Video and 25k for their favorite charity.


Actually, the show started off with a performance by Jabbawockeez and SuperCrew, the winners of the two seasons, and it was sick. The number is a collaboration of the two crews and Shane Sparks and it is just awesome seeing these winners do their thing together.


The competition started off with Irvine's very own Kaba Modern doing "4 Minutes" by Madonna and Justin Timberlake. Right off the bat, the conveyor belt they used is true to the video and plus its your typical Kaba performance of isolations and MTV cameras following Yuri around. Good thing they're not letting their success of traveling worldwide performing everywhere get into their heads because they're still doing their thing.


Next up is BreakSk8 doing Ne-Yo's "Closer" and they also ripped it. It feels good that they are still doing their thing showing that skating and dancing can mesh pretty well together. Like Kaba being true to themselves, BreakSk8 stayed true to their style with various b-boy moves on skates and being accurate to the video from the outfits to the chorus moves.


So Real Cru continues to do their thing as well fresh off their loss to SuperCrew last week at the Season 2 Finale. At least their hunger for winning was still in for this little competition doing Chris Brown's "Forever." Nothing really surprising from this performance since the ABDC audience is pretty much used to their style already of crazy hand illusions and bringing the "Explosion." Plus, we finally to see So Real and Kaba dance in the same show since everyone says they're the same, but there are noticeable differences with their styles.


Once again, Fanny Pak continues to amaze with their creativity and crazy concepts for their performance of "When I Grow Up" by the Pussycat Dolls. From the beginning, you just expect randomness from them, but the whole thing still came together with the baby carriages to the various outfits they were wearing just like the song of what they want to do when they grow up. This is hands down my favorite appearance of the show today.


Last up is Status Quo and no wonder they disappeared after Season 1 because of drama and their egos going off. Yet, they still managed to do okay doing "Damaged" by Danity Kane despite getting a song they don't like and doing LOTS of flips at any moment. I hope they stay broken up and MTV could of replaced them with Boogie Bots. This performance was the worst one compared the rest of the competition.

So the judges picked the top three crews to have a shot of being in the VMAs and I agree with who they picked.

1. Fanny Pak
2. Kaba Modern
3. So Real Cru

After that, people vote for the top 2 they want to face off at the VMA pre-show and then the winner gets the 25k for charity along with being in the award show as presenters. Its pretty obvious Fanny Pak gets in as one of those two, but it can be a toss up between Kaba and So Real for the other spot. Overall, this ABDC special is pretty good with great performances and shows how why the show is successful. Good thing Season 3 is in January, but the tour should be cool with the lineup of crews in.

Capcom gets GGPO

According to Capcom's Unity Blog, they announced a multi-year deal of games to have the GGPO netcode. For those who don't know, GGPO has been the saving grace for fighting games on the PC for playing online which is usually for 2D fighters like the Street Fighter games (Super Turbo and Alpha 2 are favorites). The article stated that the head of GGPO stopped by the Backbone offices to consult about the online netcode for Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. Capcom getting the multi-year license of GGPO for future games like the console versions of Street Fighter IV and other games is a good thing for the fighting game community that wanted near-perfect online play for their matches. This is another reason why Capcom has been perhaps the best Japanese based publisher / developer now delivering on solid products, listening to the fanbase, being one of the ambassadors for downloadable games (Bionic Commando Rearmed), and bringing back the franchises people care about (Strider could be next). Imagine the possiblities with GGPO on Capcom's side, they could finally release my dream of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 HD Remix with lagless online play if they could get the Marvel rights back. To celebrate another victory for Capcom fans, I posted another Street Fighter IV match with Ryu and Dhalsim (the Dhalsim is pretty good using the telports to his advantage).

Slightly off topic but SF4 related: Check out the blog links here for The Street Fighter Blog for more on my most anticipated game with new footage of playable Akuma with two versions of his Raging Demon as his super and ultra as well as his ending possibly hinting Gouken as another secret boss / playable character.