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Join sisters NinJaSistah and Pandalicious and the rest of the ESH Crew each day as they discuss video games, tech gadgets, anime, manga... pretty much everything within the geek chic lifestyle.

From Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, and PC game reviews, previews, news, and gushings to audience questions and rumor mill seeding galore you'll find it here at ESH!
First Nerdgasm of 2010: ESH@CES Las Vegas!
 

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    CES Coverage

    We went to CES and here's what we saw and molested.

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    Manga Love

    We less than three manga as well, so peep the manga reviews.

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    Monday Freshness For You

    posted @ 9/21/2009 08:00:00 AM by Ninjasistah
    Start of a new week means it's time for a new episode of the ElectricSistaHood podcast, and in this episode NinjaSistah and Pandalicious talk games, gadgets, and cosplay.

    The gals kick off the episode by answering a question submitted by audience member KevinCrave about costly options for Halloween, hot now demo's for the Xbox 360 and PS3 Wet and Brutal Legend and what first impressions they were left with, and some giveaway goodness that is going on this week and next.

    Both the Need For Speed/EA folks and Inspired Instruments have some great things popping off this week. NFS is running a mission based deal from 12:00am PST on the 21st of September to the 25th of September until 11:59pm where they will be giving away a bunch of NFS: Shift goodies. Oh yeah, and a beemer. Inspired Instruments will cut you a $10 break for every friend you refer that buys a You Rock Guitar from them. Gear and goodies, gotta love it right?

    For a better picture of the episode, here are some of the titles we came up with, but didn't use:
    • Buy Our Magazine and Get a +5 to Purity
    • Inside: Girls Talking About Getting Wet
    • Every Roadie Is Named Eddie
    • "Jack the Bus" Shouldn't Mean Actually Jacking a Bus
    • Need For Speed Needs to Satisfy My Need For Car
    • Panda Hokey? That Pretty Much Describes It
    • and finally
    • I'll Be Broke For Christmas

    We enjoyed recording this episode a bunch, so enjoy the fruits of our labor and kick it with ElectricSistaHood podcast episode 164: When In Doubt, ALWAYS Go Awesome!

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    Another E3 in the Can

    posted @ 6/08/2009 08:00:00 AM by Ninjasistah


    We aren't dead, but our feet [and brains] are dead tired from traipsing around the LA Convention Center last week to cover E3 for you guys. [And if I'm honest, for ourselves as well.] I couldn't tell you how much both Pandalicious and I enjoyed our time in LA. First there was the catching up with the rest of the AllGames fam, followed closely by the meeting and greeting of new gamer-type press groups and the exchange of thoughts and ideas over free drinks. [Crix Lee from GirlGamer, Destructoids' Nick Chester, and Mr. Crecente himself from Kotaku to name drop a few.] The side-story fun stuff aside, we descended on LA for a reason and that reason was to get the low down on the soon to be released and up-and-coming video games.

    I won't bore you with a list of what we looked at, and whom we spoke to now as it wouldn't leave us anything to write for the rest of the week. What I will do is tell you that this podcast was one of our more enjoyable ones to record. We recorded it live from the show floor and Crix Lee popped by during our The Beatles: RockBand time and shared some great insights with us. A few people were wow'd by my laptop skin [courtesy of DecalGirl] and interrupted us a bit so you may notice that in here as well, but we had a lot to talk about... Bayonetta, Scribblenaughts, Prototype, and Batman: Arkham Asylum come to mind as I write this.

    From the stronger female presence both physically and pixel-y at this years' show to media briefing impressions and being excluded from demos we talk about it all. Grab your beverage of choice and put on your headphones, it's time to enjoy Electric Sista Hood podcast 149: While My Pocketbook Gently Weeps

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    E3 Day 2: Bayonetta

    posted @ 6/03/2009 06:31:00 PM by Ninjasistah
    Click the image to check out the photo gallery I put together from the show floor, or hit the jump and find out what I think about the game, then look at the pretty pictures.

    The choice is yours.
    Either way works for me, but you better get this game when it releases kids. Bayonetta is just fun. I got hands-on with the game on the floor here at E3 after a private demo of the game which just prepared me for what I was going to play on the floor as I originally had no idea what I was in for.

    If you don't know much about Bayonetta you should head over to Platinum Games' website to bone up on your history. The lead character is a sleek and sexy witch with some incredible powers and guns in her shoes... which she does shoot from in battle. There hasn't been a lot released about her past or the main story in the game, and honestly I don't care. I know, I know, you may be saying to yourself, "...but Ninja is all about story, WTF?" Well, Bayonetta is just so damn fun I don't really give much of a crap about the story but I'm sure it's a good one.

    The gameplay is fast, furious, and fluid. During the loading screens, you get to practice Bayonetta's combo moves so you can better lay the smackdown on your enemies. Once you have downed an enemy you can pick up any weapon that they have dropped and use it against other opponents for a limited time. You can also charge up attacks and enter an overdrive type mode called "witch time" which essentially slows down your opponents giving you a vast advantage during the fight.

    There have been a lot of parallels drawn between Bayonetta and Capcoms' Devil May Cry series and though the lead developer on this title from Sega did work on the DMC title that is the only similarity that should be drawn. Bayonetta has her own swagger, style of movement, and use of weaponry than Dante and has yet to drop an out of place one liner.

    Strong, sexy, female action lead number one down... 15 to go.

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    Little Big Purchase

    posted @ 8/30/2008 02:36:00 AM by Ninjasistah
    I know it's like beating a dead horse, but I just am becoming more and more impressed with Little Big Planet from Sony.

    Today I got to actually play a hands on demo before show hours of the game at Sony's booth, and it really made me want to steal the dev-kit it was running on.

    LBP is a side scroller at it's core, with multiplayer racing game mechanics on the facade. You create a puzzle level, and then post it on the PSN or simply play it on your system. The game supports up to four players, and is a downright hoot! I was privileged enough today to play two levels, the "Skulldozer" level and one that the developer had just created earlier that morning.

    In the "Skulldozer" level, we had to get to the finish line of the level without being touched by a bulldozer made out of skeleton bones that gave us chase...and from the rear no less. While you do have a limited number of times you can respawn in the game, being able to watch others play is a huge piece of the game play. At no point in time during the day today was the line for LBP shorter than a 45-1hour wait, and that I think says a lot about the game.

    One of the first things that strikes me about the LBP demo is that the level creation is ridiculously deep. LBP has it’s players moving left to right through each level on three planes of existence depth wise, which is really the only difficult piece of the game controls to get used to. Everything else in the game deals with you jumping, grabbing, pulling and pushing objects in the level using the “X” and “R1” keys making LBP an easily picked up and played game. It will be a game that I think I can even get ESH Mom to play when she comes to visit. Now back to the level creator, and it’s being deep.

    LBP does need some way to rank you though for finishing the race, and that's where bubbles come in. During the levels of the game you have to collect these bubbles as they are the equivalent of points in the game, and she who has the most points laughs last... or something like that.

    There is not firm ship date on LBP yet, but I'm not going to work on whatever day it is.

    More news to come

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    Juiced 2, Frustration 0

    posted @ 7/25/2007 12:14:00 PM by Ninjasistah
    I have spent more than my fair share of money fixing my damn car in the original Juiced title, so much in fact that when I was presented with a chance to see a demo of the new addition to the Juiced franchise I almost passed on it. After the demo, I felt better about the title, and better about being a tuner poser.

    But we'll talk about that another time. Right now I want to talk about THQ's new addition to the race driving genre Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights.

    I think that I am one of those rare people that [for the most part] enjoyed the first Juiced title when it came out. I love racing games. I love them even more when the cars retain damage over time. I love being able to race other drivers from across the globe in real-time, and I love being able to modify my in-game vehicle as I choose as I have no real money to do so in the real world. With all that said, Juiced the first really should have been an out of the park hit for me, but it wasn't.

    As I said earlier, the first game was plagued by keeping many drivers from progressing very far. You had to earn money by winning races in order to buy better cars and compete in different circuits, but if you took too much damage during a race you had to spend that money on fixing your car so you could continue racing at all, let along purchase a new vehicle. This lead to a vicious circle which ultimately lead to my giving the game away and going back to Turismo. At least there I could progress up the racing chain as it were, but for me it wasn't as fun as Juiced the first originally was in the beginning of my gameplay. After being treated to this demo of Juiced the second by licensing manager [and drift master extrordinaire] Nick Clarkson, I think that frustrating loop has been addressed.

    Gone is the need to repair your car after a race. Gone is the race buy-in. In HIN you make money only to purchase new cars, or mod your existing one... and that's the way I like it. A new addition that I think will add to the gameplay is the ability to bet on races in order to make money to better your vehicle or use towards the purchase of a new set of wheels. What's even better is that you can bet on races that you aren't even driving in... on or offline. So if your tuner and or turning skills suck, but on a surething online. If things aren't quite going your way, you can change your bet in the middle of the race and hope to recoup some of your losses. And do I have to mention the ability to slap some true to life aftermarket parts on your psuedo ride is kinda pimp? I don't? Didn't think I had to.


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    Hands-On: Darksiders

    posted @ 7/21/2007 04:50:00 PM by Ninjasistah
    I like to imagine myself as a great connoisseur of video games. And while there are many flavors of games available to me, I find that the games that cleanse my palette tend to be those that are more unique in their format than anything else. [Can you tell it's close to lunch time?]

    Taking a few days to go over the notes I took while in Santa Monica for E3, I realize that I keep going back over my notes for the same few games over and over again. Not because my notes suck or that my drunken penmanship leaves anything to be desired, but because I get more and more excited each time I read over my notes for those titles. One of those yummy/unique titles happens to be Darksiders: Wrath of War.

    Let me get the business out of the way so we can talk about what I find interesting about this title. Darksiders is a single player action title that will out sometime in fall of 08 for the XB360 and PS3 console systems. Made by THQ's in house development studio Vigil Studios penned by Joe "The Man" Madureira. Joe is responsible for some of my more favorite Uncanny X-Men comic books so it should not have been a surprise to me that Darksiders would have been the type of game that grabbed my attention.

    Darksiders is set in post-apocalyptic Earth [all action titles must start post-apocalypse, it's the law] but instead of being the requisite lone "badass" human that is out to save what is left of humanity, in this game you are War, one of the horsemen of the apocalypse.

    Right off the bat I know that I am going to like this game.

    It's not that I don't like being a goody-two-shoes hero, [I do] but I value the fact that I'm going to get to play a character that probably lives in that grey/dark grey/ok, dark-charcoal area between good and evil. I think that creating a story for a game that has the player walking the fine line and gives them the ability to choose how far into the light or dark they venture is a title worth investing in.

    As War, you start the game battling Abaddon in a duel that ends with your defeat and loss of many of your Horsemen powers. You spend the rest of the game questing for revenge against Abaddon and recovery of your powers. At E3 I got to spend some time with Vigil's general manager David Adams who walked me through an early level of the game that flowed wonderfully.

    It was obvious that the developers were going for the God of War action style while trying to take advantage of what the XB360 and PS3 architectures had to offer. The demo I got was on the XB360 system and the environments looked amazing and were surprisingly interactive. Items that weren't nailed down could be used as weapons in a fight or to solve puzzles. Adams said that there wasn't a lot of puzzle solving that was going to be involved in the final game but that Vigil wanted to make sure that any inclusion of mini games/puzzles added to the storyline without complicating the gameplay. As I stated earlier, the environments are yummy but they aren't trying to be super realistic and I respect that as well. I don't need to be beaten over the head with a bunch of polygons to appreciate a good story or depth of a character.

    That being said, I shuddered a little bit when I started hearing more details about the storyline. In this day and age any game title that starts using the bible as material for the storyline makes me nervous. Why? Well, with the wrap that videogames are taking in the media and from the likes of the Jack Thompson's of the world basing a game on the book of revelation may just invite in an even more brutal “moral” advocate group. You know what I'm getting at. Scrutiny from the religious right with Thompson leading the way could make it very difficult for this game to gain the attention that it should in my opinion. After reading an interview done with Adams in a recent issue of GameInformer I think they are well aware of how much headache they may be in for. In the interview Madureira tries to stress how much this game is, “...our own fiction...” and that they [the developers] did, “...not follow the bible or get religious with it.” Which, from what I've seen they are pulling off. Darksiders does not follow any doctrine, nor does it try to create any of it's own.

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