Update: Foreign Exchange

Well it's been a while since I've posted so I thought I'd throw together an update.

Upon hearing that Yakuza 3 was going to be translated for a US release I decided to hit up the Japanese PSN store and check out the Yakuza 3 demo. Now I've always liked Japanese culture so I always found Yakuza to be an interesting series even though I don't understand one word anyone is saying. Yakuza 3 despite it's slightly dated looking animations really drew me into this foreign world something that most GTA games were never able to do. The combat can be a little jankity and certain terrain looks like it's way to small in comparison to the main character (ie Giant Character little stairs) but there is something about Yakuza 3 that grabs me ... which is odd because for all I know the characters could be fighting over rubber ducks.

I also picked up the Peacewalker demo that IGN made available during TGS. Once again the language barrier may have retracted from my experience but I really enjoyed what MGS:PW had to offer. The demo starts off with the infamous Metal Gear Solid cliche of cut-scenes and after a (skip-able) tutorial that took forever you are given a set of 4 levels to explore. The PW gameplay is a modified combination of MGS Gun play and MGS3 stealth. The camera and aiming cursor are fitted to the face buttons which replaces the much needed second analog stick. The triggers are your combat buttons and the D-Pad handles Item/Weapon management as well as crouching and general actions. As a fan of the more dim witted AI of MGS1 and 2 I found MGS:PW enemies more fun to sneak up on and offers added flex-ability that MGS4's perfect hearing enemies did not. I really look forward to checking out the co-op me and my buddy were already thinking up a ton of strategies for the tank boss battles.