My PS3 strikes back: The games I missed out on !

So, yesterday I had the abominable, unheard of, never-to-be-mentioned thought of selling off my ps3 :O ! I know, I know, I heard them too as the Meta Soul of all gamers all over the world screamed so loud that every analog stick in the world trembled with rage, rumble motors or not ! I dwelled on selling it off and getting a Vita to play all the wonderful Ys games I never played on the psp. Memories of my time with Ys Seven came rushing through my gamer brain and along came teh tumultuous joyous goosebumps of time lost and hope of it to be found again ! See, the intentions were never bad, exchanging one joy for another , the greed for more gaming was the root cause of the thought of selling my ps3....however convoluted it may sound....:P Tee Hee !

So, what happened then? Did I forego my sense of gamerness and sell off my soul ? Did I do the unthinkable ? Am I proud owner of a Vita with my fingers sliding caressing over Ys games?


Well, lets say, the thought got me thinking about my times with the ps3, which were the best ever, no doubt. What it also got me thinking about are the games I never played on the ps3 and boy it turned out to be quite a list of really really good titles ! Even though I have played tons of games on my ps3, to the point that the poor thing died twice on me and I had to buy new ones, but I was amazed to realise that even after my exhaustive gaming time with the console, I still had quite a few great titlesthat I never really played before the ps4 arrived and swept me away with the 1080p crispness ! So, I decided to give my ps4 a very very well needed rest and turn my ps3 back on again for some good old revisit-a-thon ! :D


So, here goes a list of titles tat I want to play on my ps3, even as my ps4 library grows by the day and begs my time:

Final Fantasy XIII : The poster child of next gen back then which I completely missed out on when it finally released !


I have actually started this one already and boy am I amazed by the graphics, the music, the impeccable presentation and the unique battle system. having warmed up to RPGs over the years, I am enjoying this a lot currently !

Okami HD: I did play this one back in the ps2 era, but never really completed it.

 With the season of sales in full swing, I plan to buy this for the ps3 and see it to the sweet end for real for this time ! With the beautiful art style it has, one only needs an slight excuse to jump into Okami's world.

The Darkness: From the talented developers at Starbreeze, this is one title I always had my eye on but never really played it for some unknown reason !

The game has that very unique Starbreeze touch that continues to this day in the new Wolfenstien games made by the same devs, now called MachineGames. Also, apparently , the game has very unique storytelling moments which I would like to experince first hand. Hope I can get a copy soon, but its a difficult bet these days. Lack of a PSN version is a real bummer :( !

Max Payne 3: Max Payne was the game that thrust me into the business of games and game development but when Max Payne 3 was announced I just could not associate this new bald headed alcoholic to the legend that was Max Payne, the icon who changed my life.

It just did not fit and I never got even a tiny inclination to play this game. Now that quite a lot of time has passed and I have gotten over that gloom, I would like to give this title a try and check out what dpressed maniac has been let loose by Rockstar games.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker: Whoa ! I know, this title here will throw a lot of people off balance as I am known as a hardcore MGS fan. I even have the game installed on my ps3, its just that .........I don't know, I guess I got too busy enjoying Ground Zeroes and replaying that tiny snippet to hell to come back into this game. This will be top priority after FF XIII, for sure ! Big Boss cannot be kept waiting ! We are the Homo Ludens after all !

God of War Ascension: This was one demo where my jaw never closed at all ! What a rush, what an amalgamation of brilliant visual ideas was this single piece of demo for the game that I was left asking for more RIGHT now ! I thikn the only reason I missed out on this might have been to do something with some Naughty Dog game and the fact that GOWA required a 35 gb download  and I was totally against discs at that point of time. Whatever may have been the reason, I really want to play this now and guess what, it even went free on ps Plus recently and my bad luck that I forgot to add it to my library and missed it ...........Waaaaaaaaaa ! I am searching for a cheap copy now !

Dragons Dogma: Considered a gem by RPG players all over, I really wanna get into it. I really wish they release a ps4 remaster of this one because from the time that I did spend in this game at one point of time, it really was asking for better hardware. I will keep this on the back of the list just to see if a remaster crops up. If not, then ps3 shall rev its engines again for this one !

Dark Souls : Yes Yes, I admit it T_T ! As much as a die hard Bloodborne fan I am, as much as I swear by the level design of Demons Souls and BB, I have not played Dark Souls and my soul cries for the heresy committed ! I feel deeply hurt for having not played it but having played Dark Souls 2, an unpure, non-Miyazaki game ! My heart cries for a Dark Souls on PS4, but considering DS3 is almost here, I do not believe we will ever see the original remastered for the ps4 ever, which is a massive shame cos I would pay full price for it anyday !

HAZE:  Yes, as much as it was hated, I liked the shooting in the demo a LOT !

The game has bad story and bad bad writing but I somehow feel it would be a very fun game to "play" and sadly I never got my hands on the full game. I really wish I can find an old cheap copy  but it is extremely hard to find considering no one has it anymore. Everyone seems to have rid themselves of it. Wish I can find one and try it out myself.

ICO: Shadow of the Colossus is all time favourite game along with MGS3,

but yes, I never really got to play ICO and I believe the ps3 version is the best way to go before The Last Guardian finally graces the ps4 and sweeps me off my feet again !

Puppeteer : The game where nothing is ever repeated, everything you see on screen is new ! I bought it very proudly only for the ps4 to wean me away again before I could finish it ! Honestly, the game looks so so so good that it could easily have been a ps4 launch title and wowed everyone while at it. I am coming back to wield those magic scissors again !

Tales of Xillia : Because : the amazing and unique Battle system !

I have the game purchased and installed , just waiting for the go ! If one can't have a Ys game on a system, one needs some kindof replacement, I am hoping this will be the one !

hmmm...this has turned out to be quite a long list, feels shameful in a way that I missed out on all of these during my time with the ps3 but OTOH, it also shows how solid and diverse a library PS3 has that even after begin a loyal and dedicated gamer for so long, there are still such beautiful gems ready to be enjoyed on a system that almost a decade on now ! Here's hoping I actually go past FFXIII and manage to play these games and am able to withstand the calls of my beautiful ps4 for the time being atleast !

Here's to the New Year and some Old Wines that are yet to provide the heavenly bliss of gaming !

Destiny : Where is your Fantasy ?

(Lets say this is not one of my usual articles and its more like what I think about Destiny right now put into text. That said, lets dive in !)

Anyone remember this video? this is what Destiny was conceptualised as :

Where is this adventure and exploration? secret areas and secret loot?
Yes, Bungie,  the pressing question I ask of you:

Where is the 'fantasy' of Destiny?

The fresh start:

I am fan of Bungie and Halo and I have been playing Destiny since the Alpha, the first time Bungie let players get their hands on it and have loved the gameplay since the first time I moved my trigger finger in it! Its been more than a year of shooting Hive, Fallen, Vex and Cabal and I will be honest, the amazing art and the super fun gameplay loops have kept me hooked for so long. I still remember seeing Moon for the first time and declaring on forums that it was the best Sci-fi rendition of Moon ever. I didn't like Venus then, because it was just like earth, to be honest, but then I landed on mars:

 and watching a dawn on mars was enough to make me stand in awe again till a rocket from the Cabal brought me back into the "shoot>jump>headshot>Super Charged>Obliteration!" loop of Destiny fun :^) ! And boy did the Cabal know how to fall gloriously when shot in the head .........bam...pooff....phhkkhkhkhkh !

That kind of stuff reinvigorated the play sessions with smiles back on where they belonged :) !

Then came the strikes, something that's still my go-to place for fun and then, after month of not being able to form a group came the raid :O

 The Vault of Glass !

Oh, hell yeah ! The feeling of wonder restored beyond expectations, we followed our leader "HarshadB" like hobbits would follow Gandalf into the unknown! Each step taken as told..."Don't worry, jump down"....."Stop !"....."Crouch"....."Hide from the white ones"...."follow me" ! I was a wide-eyed boy again :^) , a little child filled with wonder as the rabbit hole (literally) kept getting deeper and deeper ! "Those are Oracles,this is the Relic, one portal is the past and one is the future", shouts of "I am blind!" "shoot him now !"........I was lapping it all up like a hungry boy let loose in the toy store of his dreams ! I was ecstatic and, like a perfect Hobbit, when "djsinghaero" told me there's a hidden chest beyond Atheon which only the first timers can see, a blatant lie, I immediately jumped over to my death ! :^)

I was in awe, I was in reverence of Destiny and Bungie ! It was one of the most memorable gaming time of my life , up there with Journey !

....and it lasted for a while.Once it was all done, I kept playing for the loot, the exotics, the Gjallarhorn and the fun the game was, including the PvP(however much lag it may have, it does have the needed ingredient: fun) ! But over time, as the surprises and awe faded away and I had my Hawkmoons and Gjallarhorns,  I turned my eye towards the world of Destiny.....only to find none ! 

Then it started snapping:

I mean..... where is the Fantasy of the world? When Bungie initially revealed Destiny as a concept, the world, the fantasy was huge, and even in the final game the way each place is well named , it all hints towards a very strong mythos. 

But where is all of it? Where is the reason to fight? Where is the context? Where are the people who need saving ? 

Something as simple as , Why is the "Valley of Kings" on Mars called the Valley of Kings?  Or Why are we, a group of Exo, Awoken and Humans, going together in this battle against the Hive, Vex and the Fallen? Why are the Exo and Awoken even interested in it? cos the Queen doesn't seem to be and we have no idea where the Exos came from and thats me, my Warlock is an Exo and I have no idea who he is ! I know the game went through some development hell back then, but it been an year since release and we should now be treated to a proper game ! Heck, Witcher 2 got a totally new opening cut-scene months later because the devs felt it was needed and this is supposed to be a 10 year haul of a franchise and we don't get a proper beginning or basis for the fight !

......and Who are we saving? Humans in that slum under the Traveller that we never ever visit? What are they doing there all day?

Who is that Speaker who has nothing to do at all? He has no role I can tell? I have never seen one human from the city, has anyone seen any human we need to save? I am at the tower, I take orders from a broadcasting robot, I go out into the designated areas, do what the broadcasts say and I come back into the tower. 

That's my Destiny ? My Legend ?

The story quests provided no context at all either,except for "Shoot! Its the bad guys!" and the DLCs just keep adding new Bad guys to shoot, albeit in the same old places. I have recently been getting interested in FFXIV and even Elder Scrolls Online and these games provide tons of unique story content before asking you to jump into Dungeons (Strikes in Destiny) and you can stay engaged with unique content for months before you start redoing the missions for grinding.

Dear Bungie, Where is the world of Destiny? Please spare me the Grimoire cards Bungie. I am a book lover and I have read all the books of the Witcher series but..... it did not serve me a videogame when I bought a book, nor did it serve me a book when I bought Witcher 3. There is a difference, right? 

The godforsaken Grimoire cards!

If I want to read a book on Destiny's universe I would buy and love it too, if its good, but I didn't spend $100 to read flash cards on my PC ! I spent them to live in a world full of wonders , forge my own legend in it and there is none in Destiny ! 

House of Wolves: The promised DLC to solve this exact problem !

This was supposed to be the saviour of the fantasy, the story, but it did nothing at all ! Its still the same ol', same ol'.Why is my Queen not angry at me(an awoken) for not serving her but instead serving a Speaker of the humans? And all those mentions of many Houses of Wolves, I got nothing out of it. Skolas is the new bad guy and all other new bad guys are clones of the older bad guys. "Kill them all ! " That's all I got from it because all the past events Ms. Petra keeps referring to while describing missions to me, they have never been told to me by Destiny before.....ever !

             So, how do I care if a certain Fallen Captain clone with a yellow bar on his head has fought in the Great War of AwesomeTreachery? What war, who fought.......never heard of it, never been told ! Oh, maybe my Ghost knows as usual, but he is silent this time....maybe the speaker at the tower would know....nope, he just sells some piece of cloth and arm bands !...........what are you doing Bungie?

So, it all made for no context to me.

 "Get a Scorch cannon and shoot the rest: That's House of Wolves for me !"

 and for all of us out there actually !

 Same problem with the new playable activities:

Prison of Elders: 

Why is there no context in POE at all? We aren't even trapped in a prison by someone's treachery and trying to escape, instead we are just in there playing gladiator for Variks ! Why the hell, may I ask ? The Queen never asked for Gladiatorial events, she asked for help from the Guardians to defeat the Fallen.

 Just to make a point about context, why can't I be escaping out of a prison while finding tougher enemies as I go? Why can't each round instead be about escaping an area, blowing up a wall to get to the next, finding a key from a special target to move on and ending up in cells with tougher enemies untill we reach the boss and escape the prison? It  doesn't change anything, we can still have the same objectives as now, but it changes everything. Now, there is a reason for doing it all, there is a story to it all that fits inside the universe we are fighting for,  not disjointed levels that need clearing of enemies ! Now, its an actual event happeneing in the current history of Destiny. It makes a difference, we are not playing Pong here, Bungie, are we? :-/

Trials of Osiris:

Who the hell is he, the Osiris? Why is he giving out Egyptian headsets that belong more to a costume party than Destiny? Is he a religious fanatic, cos his servant is a "Brother" Vance surrounded by Candles? Why has he organised this event? What purpose does it serve in the overarching (lack of?) story of the Destiny universe? 

Stop checking messages Dude, we are angry here !

.....and for all things spoken and said why the hell is he on The Reef that belongs to the Queen of Awoken? Mr. Vance isn't an awoken from what I can see ! Is the Queen sharing profits with Mr. Osiris from this reality TV fight show of the guardians? I know, its all for fun and everything does not need justification, but going that little extra bit is what its all about ! 

         If I know there is a rogue group of Gaurdians fighting back for mysterious reasons that need to be subdued or if Osiris, the last king of Ancients has an artifact/weapon that can turn the tide against the darkness and Guardians are being tested for being sent to him (Mercury Lighthouse?) then wouldn't this "just-another-MP-Mode" turn into an actual event happening in the Universe? How hard it is to put such context in?

C'mon, Bungie,  HoW content has the same issue that Destiny has had overall.

  Lack of context !

The game is great and the gameplay the best out there, but the gameplay cannot hold on its own forever ! 

Where is the fantasy, Destiny? 

How do I become Legend without a world ?

    I know you will just say 'The Taken King' fixes everything, just like you said House of Wolves will. House of Wolves didn't, it added more activities but it didn't fix the basic issue here, the complete lack of a believable fantasy which we can invest in ! 

                 

After being burnt by it, I am very wary of buying The Taken King and I believe my money can be better spent on a very awesome Hideo Kojima game that month and on a specific Sci-fi game called No Mans Sky after that. And if that doesn't arrive soon, I may just try Final Fantasy XIV instead.

You might say my comparisons are unfair and FFXIV asks you to pay each month to play it(and it ain't a shooter), but then I have also spent $100 on Destiny. With that money I could have bought and played FFXIV for 6 whole months with much larger content and updates and , not to mention, Elder Scrolls Online does not even charge a subscription fee and for the base price $60 I could have had an immense world of my own !

But, lets say this isn't about money, I still can't get over the fact that after putting in $100 and hoping for similar content as other games ,after 2 DLC packs, I am still left with a game which has about less than half the content of a similar format game and has no fresh events regularly which even F2P game Warframe hosts every other week!

I am not optimistic anymore, Bungie ! I think the time has come to put down the rifle and take a break...............

...the problem is...it makes me sad :( ! That's is real problem, that it makes me sad, cos I want to play Destiny, but the game is getting jaded and is revealing its empty-ness as I come any closer. Its a Shiny hollow shell, where my Legend is just a Mirage.............

Save it Bungie !