09.09.09

Damn, I skipped this all important date because of work. Anyway, what's so special with it you ask (particularly the numbers)? Why, it was when the Dreamcast first launched in the US silly (September 9, 1999).

An amazing console backed by an amazing lineup of games, the Dreamcast was one of the best things that ever happened in the gaming industry. Heck, I loved it so much that I actually have 3 working units at home right now (c'mon, their dirt cheap now).

Launching in the US, it went head-to-head with the Playstation's own Final Fantasy 8. As much as I loved the Final Fantasy series, we bought a Dreamcast instead for Christmas. The first time we laid eyes on NBA 2k and Soul Calibur, everyone at home was floored. It was crazy, truly a generation ahead of everything! All the other games were great and the Dreamcast was just in a league of its own.

So how did it fall so badly? Yep, Sony and their senseless "Playstation 2 will be better than God" banter stole a lot of the thunder. Now don't get me wrong, the PS2 was a great machine, but it wasn't exactly the behemoth Sony was preaching. In fact a lot of times, it had a lot of inferior looking games compared to the Dreamcast. If Sega's console didn't just die so quickly, I can assure you that it would have been able to stand up against the PS2's best looking titles.

In the end, for all the true gamers out there, the Dreamcast will always live in our hearts (yes, can you feel the cheesyness haha). Let's all celebrate this 10th year anniversary by showing our lil friend here some gaming love :)

Leaked PC Game "Batman: Arkham Asylum" has problems?

Yep, if you are one of those downloading the leaked direct2drive copy of Batman: Arkham Asylum right now, be warned that it contains a lot of game breaking and irritating bugs in it. It might be an early beta copy because some of the core files are actually older than the ones found in the demo. Or maybe its just a part of the Joker's gloriously sprung trap lol.

Anyway, one fix to get physx working was to copy over some of the demo files. Unfortunately, you'll still encounter frequent crashes due to some other files missing. The grappling hook also doesn't work in some key points and there are places where NPCs will just stop spawning. Game breaking indeed.

It might be a faulty crack, or a faulty beta release or whatever. The game is still a few days away from release and its a leaked copy so you can't blame the developers. Just buy it when it comes out, the developers deserve it for giving us the best comic book game ever.

Assassin's Creed 2 "Visions of Venice" Gameplay Trailer

A new (first?) gameplay trailer of Assassin's Creed 2 was shown by Ubisoft to world today. Called "Visions of Venice", feast your eyes on what I believe will be the best looking multiplatform game coming out this year.