Justin Wu

Splinter or Gear

Rain, Rain, Rain. It's going to a rain all weekend long so I have some time to kill indoor aside from writing this weblog. Gaming off course! However, I have a problem as you'll see in a second.

Here is the dilemma, for someone who likes espionage strategic action gaming, among other things, has a limited amount of gaming time in between work, study and live itself to decide what to play. In the TV console platform, there are only two contenders that I would like to sink my teeth into; to the left Splinter Cell 3: Chaos Theory and to the right is Metal Gear Sold 3: Snake Eater. I've played the 1st and 2nd incarnation from both franchises and I'm happy to say that I had a tone of fun with both. Hence the dilemma when the third series are available from both on the store shelve for purchase and play.

It's a difficult choice here believe it or not. In my opinion, Metal Gear Solid series has always been very interesting on the story, character development and boss fights. Splinter Cell series has been fun with the realistic playing mechanics and interaction with the environments. However, the latest installment on Splinter Cell's Sam Fisher infrared view has changed to an eliptical bubble like view in the game is distracting. The SC designers went overboard with the realism here and I'm forced to play in a circular view as opposed to a rectangular view in our conventional TV box. I've only played through level one in SC3 so it's not too late to switch GEAR. :)

Both side of the camps are superb in every-way but in the end, I have to decide between better story telling in Metal Gear or realistic play mechanics in Splinter Cell admitting the circular view issue I have may be the show stopper here. I'm leaning towards playing the Metal Gear 3 as I'm finishing this commentary but who knows. Off course I have Splinter Cell 3 already as you'd imagined but I have to get Metal Gear 3 from the store today if I decided to play it first.

Off course there is the PSP version of Metal Gear Ac!d which I'm about to finish soon but should reserve for travelling. :)

Cheers,
Wuju nonono!

Metal Gear Ac!d - Glad I bought it

I've recently bought the Metal Gear Ac!d game for the Sony PSP system inspite of bad reviews from various review sites.

I'm glad I took the risk and went ahead and bought the game anyway because I ended up loving it. Metal Gear Ac!d use of card playing technique in a strategic game environment is refreshing. Granted, the game mechanic of a card/strategy turn-based game is not as visually stunning or fast pace as the PS2 format where you move the character in a real time 3D environment but it requires just the same amount of thinking and strategy to play the game.

So the lesson here is one may read reviews to get a sense on the quality of any given game but if you want to try something new, take a chance and try it regardless of the reviews. I'm glad I did.