Recent Buys: Episode 19 - Equipment Upgrade, DLC, and Small Final Fantasy Characters

It's that time again. Money saved and money spent. And money well spent if I do say so myself.

First off let's go with the big item. I got myself a new microphone. It's the Zoom H2n. I was actually planning to go for the Samson Meteor USB microphone but after a friend of mine showed me videos of the Zoom H2n, it was just a night and day difference in the audio quality. The fact that this is a portable microphone that's battery powered is a huge convenience. With my old setup, I would record gameplay and audio separately and would then run the audio through some noise removal (the microphone can pick up the sound of my electric fans, it's hot in this country). The Zoom H2n also mounts on camera tripods which is cheaper, easier to find and a whole lot lighter than regular mic stands. couple all that with awesome sound quality, wish I knew about this mic sooner.

On to the video games. I went to Datablitz in Greenhills asked if they had any Hong Kong PSN cards in stock. Lucky for me they just got a new shipment that very day. With that, I finally got the DLC characters for Street Fighter x Tekken. Since the ver. 2013 update changed the game so much (for the better), I thought it was time to get the characters. With the remaining money, I also got the DLC character color pack for Persona 4 Arena. I kinda want to get another card for the glasses DLC pack.

Getting a Hong Kong PSN card is cool and all but that wasn't the reason why I went to Datablitz. The real reason I went to DB was because of an action figure. A Squall figure from the Final Fantasy Trading Arts Kai Mini series of figures. Squall is not my favorite Final Fantasy character but the figure just looks too cute and one I saw that the figure comes with him in his SeeDs uniform, I was sold.

After messing around with the Squall figure, I was curious as to what other Final Fantasy characters got the chibi treatment. I remember seeing a figure of Lightning in the SM Megamall DB branch and found it cute. I looked up the pictures of the Lightning mini figure and that one of her extra faces have her doing the "whatever" eyes. She also comes with her riding the Odin horse and Odin's swords which are all pretty cool too. But it's really the eyes that sealed the deal.

Last but not least, I also got a new set of component cables called "4 in 1 HD Component Cable" by a brand called "Cable". It's one of those "all in one" type of thing where it has 3 connectors at the end. One for PS3/Ps2, one for Wii, and one for the Xbox 360. It fixed the ghosting problem that I had with my older set of component cables which is a huge sigh of relief for me as the ghosting would happen on both the TV and the captured game footage of my laptop. So expect the newer videos to be in better quality with these new set of cables.

Going Old School #2: Fighting Force 2

If you didn't know, the 3D beat-em up game on the PlayStation called Fighting Force got a sequel. You'd expect the sequel to be the exact same game just with different stage or at least , while being different, would be similar enough to the first game in both genre and play style. Boy, would you be wrong.

Fighting Force 2 is an entirely different game. Instead of being a 2 player arcade style beat-em up, Fighting Force 2 became a 3rd person action game. Now that might not sound very different but let me put it this way. Imagine turning a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles SNES game into Tomb Raider.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter announced by ex-People Can Fly devs

The founders of People Can Fly (Better known as the developers that worked side by side with Epic Games on Gears of War titles and Bulletstorm)have created another studio called The Astronauts and they just announced their first project - The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. Described as a "Weird Fiction Horror" that's coming to the PC this year, I'm quite excited to see how this game turns out, we need more horror in our gaming lives, screw all the shooting. Check out the quick teaser below.

The story revolves around the kidnapping of a little boy and you play as a detective with supernatural abilities. According to the Press Release, the investigation leads you to a beautiful mountain area, where you come across a severely mutilated body of one of the kidnappers. Using both your paranormal skill and modern detective tools you discover the mystery behind the trail of corpses in the valley, the roots of an ancient force ruling the area, and the fate of the kidnapped boy.

“What we care about the most is that the players feel like they’re really there. Immersion is our number one priority”, said the game’s designer, Adrian Chmielarz. “It’s a game about exploration and discovery. We’re not abandoning the gameplay – on the contrary: we’re trying to strip it down to the bone and make sure it’s always meaningful and truly makes the experience better.”

You need to take note that this is a bunch of developers that used to work on Gears of War and Bulletstorm, this is completely out of their comfort zone. I applaud any developer that decides to branch out and take the risk, so I'm definitely keeping an eye on this one. The game is being produced on the new Unreal Engine 3 created by Epic Games.

[Source: The Astronauts]

Metal Gear Rising Unmanned Gears and Unique Weapons trailers

We're only two weeks away from the release of the hack and slash Metal Gear Solid spin-off and Konami is keeping the hype going with more trailers. We know Raiden slashes everything in sight in a cool but sadistic way, they have shown so much of that, but these new trailers focus on the unmanned baddies you get to fight and the unique weapons Raiden gets to wield once he defeats a boss. Check the trailers below.

Unique Weapons

Unmanned Gears

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance comes out on February 19 for Playstation 3, and Xbox 360.

Dead Space 3 unlimited resource farming glitch already found

I'm sure right about now you guys are playing some Dead Space 3. Alone, or with a buddy, resources are quite scarce in the world of Dead Space so looking at every corner or room is a must. Just in case you need more reesources to craft but don't want to spend money with the optional microtransactions, a glitch has already been found to get as many resources you need.

It's tedious, but if your that desperate, you can try this out yourself before Visceral Games patches it up. Game Font discovered this glitch and can be found at the end of Chapter 8. It involves you entering the same room over and over again. check the video below.

It's crazy how players find these glitches, the game is not even 2 days old! Oh well, I'd take this any day rather than spending real money through microtransactions. Now hurry to chapter 8 and get as many resources as you can!

[source: Game Front, Destructoid]