• 6Jun 12

  E3 Press Conferences

  Well I just watched Sony and Nintendo's press conferences (actually in the opposite order to as written). I was too busy to catch them live but I'm glad i got round to it.
  
  I think Nintendo's Wii U has some great ideas and if implemented well they will genuinely revolutionise many aspects of gaming in the same way that the Wii did. The only concern is that it might be sort of, well, too little, too late. With both Sony and Microsoft offering these aspects already (minus the AWESOME second screen), Wii U might need early release just to stay afloat when faced with the next efforts from their rivals.

  I loved the Sony conference. It was **** hot. Between Playstation Allstars (yes okay it's a total rip-off of Smash Bros but I'll buy it just to see Kratos and Cole Macgrath fight it out), Beyond (OMG graphics) and The Last of Us (There's just something about it that's better than I've seen from the genre), I didn't even have time to think about God of War: Ascension.

  I'd better start saving so I can spank about a grand on all these games and platforms as they appear.
  
  Oh and I still want a Vita.....even though I have an iPhone, iPad etc etc

  • Posted Jun 6, 2012 5:40 pm GMT
  • Category: Editorial
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• 24Feb 12

  Skyrim can glitch forever and I'll still love it.

  I keep hearing people going on about how glitches have ruied Skyrim for them.
  
  Not the case with me.

  I may just be very lucky that my (now five year old) PS3 hasn't crashed that many times (I think twice in Skyrim and one of those just might have been a long loadtime), but I just can't see the possibility of glitches as anything but an unfortunate occasional occurence in an otherwise near-flawless game.
  I play a lot of RPGs and I haven't been so compuslively and self-destructively addicted to a game since the last good Final Fantasy (you GTFO XIII!!!).
  Actually, scratch that, I was pretty darn addicted to Zelda: Skyward Sword.

  But this feels different. Like I'm in some way incomplete when I'm away from Skyrim. Like I constantly compare reality to Skyrim, and Skyrim wins every time.
  The only other game world I honestly think is superior to reality is the PokeMon world. Yes I said it. I'm 27 this year but I still think that the inclusion of capturable pocket monsters would be a great addition to our lives.
  
  But, as usual, I digress. Skyrim is like a lifeline and I may want to die when I finish it. Which I probably never will.
  
  Peace out!

  • Posted Feb 24, 2012 5:35 am GMT
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• 28Aug 11

  What the Hell is wrong with Square-Enix??!!

  So, Final Fantasy XIII-2 is apparently going to offer separate corridors and the pretense of exploration. I'm afraid that this is probably too little, too late. Don't get me wrong, I'm probably one of the most completely dedicated Final Fantasy fans that exist, but I just can't seem to make myself care about Final Fantasy XIII-2.

  
  I say this because I really cannot believe that Final Fantasy is still Final Fantasy. The games we loved were based on 3 things.

  
  1 - Plots and Characters by master storyteller Hironobu Sakaguchi. The man just gets story structure. From I-X, his plots have utterly epitomised the ideals for JRPG storytelling. Cloud, Sephiroth, Squall, Rinoa, Aeris/th, Tifa, Red XIII, Terra, Cecil, Tidus, Zell, Kain, Barret, Yuna, Laguna: all great characters who have come to be cultural icons within the RP gamer community. Life, death, causality, predetermination: all have been explored by this masterful mind. Even XII was good, though a departure from the Final Fantasy archetype mostly because of the lack of Mr. Sakaguchi. XIII gave us (i think) six characters who were unbelievably dull, drab and who had inexplicable reactions to situations. I don't honestly know whom I hated more: Hope, the unbelievably whiny little runt whose mother was killed and who took very little time to accept it, but never stopped feeling like the world was a dismal gloomy place, or Snow, arguably gaming's biggest douchebag, who not only wore a bandanna (of all things!) but went around calling himself a hero despite having no idea of any situation or anyone outside of himself. I didn't even like Lightning, who was supposed to be a female version of Cloud, and yet all she did was reflect as nastier version of Cloud as he was before any of the plot development in VII. I was hoping for some grand epiphany for her, but alas, there was no development of any worthwhile mention.

  
  2. A Nobuo Uematsu soundtrack. Bombing Mission, Eyes On Me, One Winged Angel, JENOVA, Melodies Of Life, Cloud's Theme, Forever Rachel, Darkness and Starlight (The Opera from VI), Aeris' Death, Every Battle Theme I-X, the list goes on. All amazing melodies that played more than a small role in making Final Fantasy what it was - moving. This man transcended gaming and brought notice to the fact that a series of beeps and midi sounds can be taken seriously as beautiful music. If you don't believe me, search for any orchestral version of any FF music score.While I enjoyed the battle theme/main theme/almost every damn theme of XIII, and to some extent the DMC-esque techno of some scenes, there were only two recognisable musical motifs in XII, one of which I really cannot remember if I try to hum it. Oh, and the theme tune was a mainstream pop song whose lyrics bore no relevance to the game or any of its plot or characters.

  
  3. Exploration. The single biggest failing of XIII. We used to have world maps in which we could wander aimlessly looking for new loot or Gil, or perhaps just find some town that bore no weight on, nor relevance to the plot, but was simply there to flesh out the idea that this was a believable and entire world. X took a bold step in taking away our world map and yet the game lost almost nothing because of the richness of its world and the possibilities for exploration and revisiting of locations. XII was a colossal world of locations that needn't have been explored but were ripe for looting. XIII, sadly, was one long corridor of battles and beautiful but empty cut scenes before a final insult of using the phrase 'It's easy to lose sight of things in a world as wide as this one' in the game's end sequence. I'm sorry, What? Wide? I've seen Call Of Duty games with more exploration.
  At this point, the only thing that can possibly make up for the total lack of exploration in Final Fantasy XIII is to give us a lovely new HD current gen World Map. Bring back the idea that the plot will wait for you to get to it, that we can do whatever we like, and that we might be able to explore what could be some amazing secret location.
  In short, and I realise that this is an essay rather than a comment, unless XIII-2 turns out to be Final Fantasy VII HD on PS3, or at least some semblance of that ideal, this game is going to bomb harder than XIV. On one final note, If Square-Enix want to pull themselves out of the financial crisis in which they recently found themselves on the back of XIII and XIV, why don't they give up on regurgitating pointless beautiful yet glacially empty worlds of nothing and finally give the fans what they want in FFVII HD? One of the things that has made gaming the dominant media industry of the 21st century over film (Yes I'm talking to you Hollywood) is the fact that many developers actually listen to their fans' opinions and often give them what they want. Has Square Enix really fallen so far as to think it doesn't need its own fanbase?

  • Posted Aug 28, 2011 6:52 pm GMT
  • Category: Rant
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