I have been an avid Final Fantasy player, even though I wasn't playing it from the original. You may have read, in past blogs, about my distaste for FFX2. Unfortunately, a new, and even worse failpion has arrived: FFXIII.
Backtrack just a second here. FFXII wasn't exactly...amazing. It was easy, story wasn't too impressive, but it wasn't as bad as X2. However, the new installment is even worse. It makes the adventures of the bimbo trio seem like a work of art.
First of all, let me admit, I've only played three hours in. There is a reason for this. Many people have told me, well, you like FFXI, and that's Jcrap too! Jcrap is my new nickname for XIII, in case you haven't noticed.
Let me set these people straight. To me, FFXI isn't "Final Fantasy." It's called FF, but in my mind it's an MMO that I enjoy playing with my friends. Yes, it has potions, mages, and chocobos, but for me, it's a separate entity from the FF franchise.
FF13 though...what more can I say but..it's linear. There is no sense of adventure. In the beginning, you are thrust into different character roles, the same general area, but slightly different stories. You have no control over the situation, nor can you control any other character except the leader.
Bo-ring.
To make it easier, they have added the "auto-attack" function, which lets lazy gamers become even LAZIER, by simply hitting the button and letting the game figure out the best things to do for that specific battle.
This linear bit is atrocious. Final Fantasy, although sometimes throwing you into situations you can't get out of, was always an adventure to me. You had a map, and it showed you where to go, but you didn't always have to go there. Sometimes weird, obscure little towns were on the far edges of the map, and you could go there for fun, to get new items or equipment, or just to see some silly cutscenes. XIII doesn't even have towns. No, you get a map, it shows you where to go, and sometimes, SOMETIMES, there is a single treasure ORB around, but it's in a very obvious place, and generally contains 50 gil. Wow.
Back to this, FFXIII doesn't have towns CRAP. What. The. Hell. Why didn't they have towns? Because it was too hard to do in HD. Too hard, on a game they spent years creating. Well, what were they working on?
I know the answer, and it isn't the game. It's...get ready for this..
...Cutscenes and FMVs!
In the three hours I have played, 85% of my time has been stuck in cutscenes or watching FMVs. When it isn't doing that, I am running a character through an obvious and linear map, avoiding enemies if I want to. Yeah, everyone bitched about random battles, but what would FF be without them?
Crap.
Let me introduce, FFXIII!
Most of the FF team is gone. Uematsu, who has done at least SOMETHING for every other FF, is GONE. The music in this game is atrocious. No prelude, no victory fanfare. I feel like the battle music throws me into a time-space continuum, with crappy music. To me, horrible score.
Around the two and a half hour mark, I fell into a cutscene. Then another. Then it asked to save my game. Then another CS. Oh, one more. THEN, I got to run my character down a slope. But..wait, what is that at the bottom?
Another cutscene! Twenty+ minutes of cutscene and three seconds of actually character movement.
It was after this instance that I put the controller down. I didn't save my game, I simply put it down and shut off the PS3. Never in my gaming career have I put down a Final Fantasy game. Not for X2, not for XII. Yes, I suppose I have put it down cause I had to sleep, or I was tired of trying a boss. Not for XIII. I put the controller down, and I haven't picked it up in 6 days.
I really don't have any intention of doing so, either.
FFXIII has made me dislike what FF has become. It marks the end of an era for me, in a way. The point at which Katy puts down a FF game out of pure dislike is the point at which it has died.
R.I.P., Final Fantasy. December 18, 1987-March 17, 2010.
Gamerscore: 1/10 (the one comes from the little chocobo in the afro. ridiculous idea, cute bird.)
Monday, March 22, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
Donkey Kong Country 12,3 and Rabbit Rampage Just For Me!
(First of all, Rabbit Rampage is a game for the SNES that stars Bugs Bunny. I understand it wasn't that mainstream, yet I Know four people who owned it.)
This post is going to gush awesome, because it's all about the DKC games for the SNES. Yes, another blog about the SNES. Why? Come on, if the SNES doesn't deserve kudos, then what does? Certainly not the Dreamcast....
I know I've said before my first gaming experience was the Donkey Kong SNES pack, complete with palm tree decorated box (which I still have, at my mother's house). Since it was my first, it holds a special place in my heart, which is only shared with Zelda64.
What can I say about DKC? It was a challenge and it pissed you off. A lot of games now just lack that horrible, headache-inducing, teeth-gritting, goat-slaying challenge that old systems and games had. Nowadays, if you decide that the boss is too tough, chances are you can just randomly switch difficulties and finish him off on an easier mode. I will confess now to playing some games on easy mode, but this is generally so I get a feel for it if it is something I am unfamiliar with.
Not Donkey Kong. My cousins and I logged some serious hours trying to beat certain levels in that game. We didn't even use the 99 lives cheat, because the closest thing we had to Internet then was WebTV (that should be its own blog someday). Months of childhood went to trying to beat such levels as "Platform Perils" and "Elevator Antics". However, as challenging as it was, the blood, sweat and tears brought me closer to my cousins than a lot of people are to their own siblings. Together, the 3 (sometimes 4) of us went through frustrations that only gamers can truly understand.
Who has ever thrown a controller in frustration? Yes, I saw everyone's hand go up in the air. It was always the game's fault, or the system's fault, or perhaps the controller was not "working properly". Mostly likely, in the case of DKC, your timing wasn't perfect to the second and you missed a vine, or you slid down a snowy hill because even in video game land, there is no traction in a blizzard.
Pets. You got to have animal allies in a few levels. This is an awesome concept, and for the most part it was useful and let you fly, ram into, or stab enemies by the dozens. As cool as the stabbing may sound after a rough day, the animal ally who was capable of it was not so.
Yes, Engarde, I am talking about your wide-eyed, swordfish buns.
Engarde was an awesome blue swordfish with a huge..sword...fish..nose. Perfect to skewer underwater kremlins with, right? Too bad it's an example of idea and practice not being on the same page. This ally was just a pain in the butt, because you could charge up his sword attack and definitely get some baddies in the process, but he was set up to maneuvering was difficult and the charge attack was near unstoppable, which meant if the baddies moved, the fish got flushed down the porcelain bowl.
DKC 1 for the SNES: 9/10 (Engarde, you bastard, you ruined it)
Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest. I was SO excited when I heard this was coming out! I loved playing as Diddy in the first one, and now he had a sidekick all his own, a girl monkey named Dixie! Actually, she didn't have a tail so I am thinking she was an ape...but I digress.
I actually picked up this game the day it came out. It was so cool, not only did I have two awesome characters, but the environment and theme for this game was PIRATES. The first level took place on a pirate ship! If I thought DKC had me hooked, I was wrong. DKC2 nabbed me and practically puppeteered*** my existence for a few months, at least.
Dixie had a helicopter spin, and Diddy did cartwheels! AWESOME.
Not only was this game entertaining, it was also even more frustrating than the first title. How is that possible? Bramble levels. Bramble levels with an animal ally who was not only hard to control, but who spit eggs or rocks at enemies, but had to be rightnexttothem to have any effect whatsoever.
You, Squawks. The Macaw-type bird who was somehow strong enough to carry two monkeys (possibly one ape) through a maze of brambles and still manage to be alive afterward. Don't get me wrong, I love birds, and Squawks even made one appearance in DKC1; however, the mechanics of this ally were horrible. Brambles all over meant you couldn't touch ANYTHING, yet you still had to maneuver not only through that environment, but also around enemies, some of which you couldn't kill with the macaw rock-egg attack.
This game had some of the most difficult levels I have experienced in my whole gaming career, and to this day they give me trouble.
DKC2: 9/10. I just can't give perfect 10s.
I don't even want to talk about DKC3, but for the sake of the blog I will. To me, DKC3 was a game I played with high hopes, and only because it was a DK title. More recent version of this would be playing FFX2 because it's an FF game, or FF13 for the same reason.
I got DKC3 and started playing. Dixie was back but...oh no, Diddy was gone! In his place was Dixie's lumbering idiot of a cousin, Kiddy. Who, although similar to Donkey in his weight and actions, was one of the most annoying video game characters I have encountered to date, save for Rinoa from FF8.
He's a big, fat ape baby in a onesie, and when he dies he cries this horrible cry. The only good thing he can do is break things and throw Dixie up in the air. Awful.
The other fault I have with this game is not the difficulty, because it was plenty horrible (Lightning Look-Out strike fear in the hearts of anyone?) and posed enough of a challenge to keep that part of me sated. However, the cutesy, almost bumbling, aura given off of this game was displeasing. Yes, DK games are meant to be silly and cartoon-like, but this one almost pushed the limits. I am not sure if it was because of the changing graphics of games (by this point, both the N64 and the PS1 had launched) but something about the game was no longer crisp. Crisp is the best word I can use to describe how I feel about it.
DKC3: 6/10. Challenging, but that didn't make up for the fail. Banana birds? Come on....
Thus concludes my DKC discussion.
***puppeteered: analogy that something controls your life so much, it is as if the thing has its imaginary (usually) hand up your ass and is keeping tabs on your every move.
This post is going to gush awesome, because it's all about the DKC games for the SNES. Yes, another blog about the SNES. Why? Come on, if the SNES doesn't deserve kudos, then what does? Certainly not the Dreamcast....
I know I've said before my first gaming experience was the Donkey Kong SNES pack, complete with palm tree decorated box (which I still have, at my mother's house). Since it was my first, it holds a special place in my heart, which is only shared with Zelda64.
What can I say about DKC? It was a challenge and it pissed you off. A lot of games now just lack that horrible, headache-inducing, teeth-gritting, goat-slaying challenge that old systems and games had. Nowadays, if you decide that the boss is too tough, chances are you can just randomly switch difficulties and finish him off on an easier mode. I will confess now to playing some games on easy mode, but this is generally so I get a feel for it if it is something I am unfamiliar with.
Not Donkey Kong. My cousins and I logged some serious hours trying to beat certain levels in that game. We didn't even use the 99 lives cheat, because the closest thing we had to Internet then was WebTV (that should be its own blog someday). Months of childhood went to trying to beat such levels as "Platform Perils" and "Elevator Antics". However, as challenging as it was, the blood, sweat and tears brought me closer to my cousins than a lot of people are to their own siblings. Together, the 3 (sometimes 4) of us went through frustrations that only gamers can truly understand.
Who has ever thrown a controller in frustration? Yes, I saw everyone's hand go up in the air. It was always the game's fault, or the system's fault, or perhaps the controller was not "working properly". Mostly likely, in the case of DKC, your timing wasn't perfect to the second and you missed a vine, or you slid down a snowy hill because even in video game land, there is no traction in a blizzard.
Pets. You got to have animal allies in a few levels. This is an awesome concept, and for the most part it was useful and let you fly, ram into, or stab enemies by the dozens. As cool as the stabbing may sound after a rough day, the animal ally who was capable of it was not so.
Yes, Engarde, I am talking about your wide-eyed, swordfish buns.
Engarde was an awesome blue swordfish with a huge..sword...fish..nose. Perfect to skewer underwater kremlins with, right? Too bad it's an example of idea and practice not being on the same page. This ally was just a pain in the butt, because you could charge up his sword attack and definitely get some baddies in the process, but he was set up to maneuvering was difficult and the charge attack was near unstoppable, which meant if the baddies moved, the fish got flushed down the porcelain bowl.
DKC 1 for the SNES: 9/10 (Engarde, you bastard, you ruined it)
Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest. I was SO excited when I heard this was coming out! I loved playing as Diddy in the first one, and now he had a sidekick all his own, a girl monkey named Dixie! Actually, she didn't have a tail so I am thinking she was an ape...but I digress.
I actually picked up this game the day it came out. It was so cool, not only did I have two awesome characters, but the environment and theme for this game was PIRATES. The first level took place on a pirate ship! If I thought DKC had me hooked, I was wrong. DKC2 nabbed me and practically puppeteered*** my existence for a few months, at least.
Dixie had a helicopter spin, and Diddy did cartwheels! AWESOME.
Not only was this game entertaining, it was also even more frustrating than the first title. How is that possible? Bramble levels. Bramble levels with an animal ally who was not only hard to control, but who spit eggs or rocks at enemies, but had to be rightnexttothem to have any effect whatsoever.
You, Squawks. The Macaw-type bird who was somehow strong enough to carry two monkeys (possibly one ape) through a maze of brambles and still manage to be alive afterward. Don't get me wrong, I love birds, and Squawks even made one appearance in DKC1; however, the mechanics of this ally were horrible. Brambles all over meant you couldn't touch ANYTHING, yet you still had to maneuver not only through that environment, but also around enemies, some of which you couldn't kill with the macaw rock-egg attack.
This game had some of the most difficult levels I have experienced in my whole gaming career, and to this day they give me trouble.
DKC2: 9/10. I just can't give perfect 10s.
I don't even want to talk about DKC3, but for the sake of the blog I will. To me, DKC3 was a game I played with high hopes, and only because it was a DK title. More recent version of this would be playing FFX2 because it's an FF game, or FF13 for the same reason.
I got DKC3 and started playing. Dixie was back but...oh no, Diddy was gone! In his place was Dixie's lumbering idiot of a cousin, Kiddy. Who, although similar to Donkey in his weight and actions, was one of the most annoying video game characters I have encountered to date, save for Rinoa from FF8.
He's a big, fat ape baby in a onesie, and when he dies he cries this horrible cry. The only good thing he can do is break things and throw Dixie up in the air. Awful.
The other fault I have with this game is not the difficulty, because it was plenty horrible (Lightning Look-Out strike fear in the hearts of anyone?) and posed enough of a challenge to keep that part of me sated. However, the cutesy, almost bumbling, aura given off of this game was displeasing. Yes, DK games are meant to be silly and cartoon-like, but this one almost pushed the limits. I am not sure if it was because of the changing graphics of games (by this point, both the N64 and the PS1 had launched) but something about the game was no longer crisp. Crisp is the best word I can use to describe how I feel about it.
DKC3: 6/10. Challenging, but that didn't make up for the fail. Banana birds? Come on....
Thus concludes my DKC discussion.
***puppeteered: analogy that something controls your life so much, it is as if the thing has its imaginary (usually) hand up your ass and is keeping tabs on your every move.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
New Additions Bring New Addictions
Since my last post was a long time ago, I feel an update is necessary. No, I did not fall off the face of the planet, I've just been caught up in that whirlwind of life. Lucky for me, that whirlwind contains many new video games, which I feel compelled to discuss.
First of all, I want to talk about Dragon Age: Origins. Although I have not yet finished this one, I've definitely done a lot with it. The game contains a LOT of content, including a lot of nooks, crannies, and suspiciously empty rooms that fill with enemies in a split second.
I began this adventure with a mage, as is my custom, and I was kind of put off at first. The battle system seemed awkward compared to what I was used to with the other games I have played, and it seemed too fast-paced to even survive. This was before I discovered the spacebar "pause" option. Pausing the battle to make tactical decisions was a good idea for this particular game, just because it can be overwhelming with the amount of enemies and traps you are forced to contend with.
As far as looks, the game isn't too bad. Bioware, makers of other games such as KOTOR and Mass Effect, kind of rushed the gun and yes, it has glitches, but overall it's decent. Plus, the hideous amount of things to do and decisions to make makes up for what it may lack.
I'm still running through Hurlocks and spiders, so this will have to be continued...
On to the biggie 2010 Game of the Year contender: Mass Effect 2. I'm going to be completely honest here and say right out I didn't play far into the first one--in fact, I found it to be unsatisfying for all of the crap you had to put up with. However, I decided to give ME2 a chance, and lo, I was kind of addicted.
Kind of might not be the best way to put it...I /was/ addicted, and I sat on my arse for a few days, playing through everything.
Now, I'm going to try and make this as spoiler free as possible, but even though I didn't play the first title, I was engaged and able to understand what was going on throughout. This second installments gives players the option to import the character they beat the first game with, and continue with the decisions they made, carrying into the second. Luckily, you CAN change appearance of characters from game one, which is probably a good idea, since the character creator has undergone some positive changes (although Male Shepard still resembles Vin Diesel no matter how hard you try).
One thing I will say is this game is epic, and perhaps more discussion can be had on the topic in a month, when most people will have beaten it.
The last game I want to talk about here today is Fallout 3. Now, I realize the game has been out for a while, but I am apparently behind the times. I actually didn't know what Fallout was until a few months ago--well, I'd heard of it but I kind of assumed it was like Call of Duty or Splinter Cell, and that it wouldn't hold my interest at all.
So.Not.True.
After a few people gushed and seemed shocked that I hadn't played it, I decided to give it a whirl. The fact that it was described to me as Oblivion with Guns made me interested...and yes, it IS Oblivion with Guns. Big guns.
For all of the glitches and horrors Bethesda crams into their games, and even though I spent hours puzzling over the random shutdowns and "fallout 3 has stopped working" popups, I was determined to fix the problem. Eventually, with the help of google and human ingenuity, this was possible. I was now able to commence playing without wondering if the History Museum would freeze my system. Damn you, history. Damn you <3.
This game really hit a home run with me. I love the cold war propaganda mixed in with the post apocalyptic environment, and the crazy feral ghouls. This game is HUGE and there is SO MUCH TO DO. Unfortunately, like Oblivion, it's way glitchy, and even doing everything right could cause something in the main storyline to just stop working. Despite that little tidbit, the game is quite enjoyable.
The realistic environments and the strange quests kept me riveted (I haven't beaten this game yet, either) and I spent many evenings glued to my monitor, blasting through mutants with more rounds of ammo than should ever exist in a post apocalyptic wasteland.
These were only intros to some of the games I've been exploring while on blog hiatus, and as soon as I get more sleep, I'm going to add more!
First of all, I want to talk about Dragon Age: Origins. Although I have not yet finished this one, I've definitely done a lot with it. The game contains a LOT of content, including a lot of nooks, crannies, and suspiciously empty rooms that fill with enemies in a split second.
I began this adventure with a mage, as is my custom, and I was kind of put off at first. The battle system seemed awkward compared to what I was used to with the other games I have played, and it seemed too fast-paced to even survive. This was before I discovered the spacebar "pause" option. Pausing the battle to make tactical decisions was a good idea for this particular game, just because it can be overwhelming with the amount of enemies and traps you are forced to contend with.
As far as looks, the game isn't too bad. Bioware, makers of other games such as KOTOR and Mass Effect, kind of rushed the gun and yes, it has glitches, but overall it's decent. Plus, the hideous amount of things to do and decisions to make makes up for what it may lack.
I'm still running through Hurlocks and spiders, so this will have to be continued...
On to the biggie 2010 Game of the Year contender: Mass Effect 2. I'm going to be completely honest here and say right out I didn't play far into the first one--in fact, I found it to be unsatisfying for all of the crap you had to put up with. However, I decided to give ME2 a chance, and lo, I was kind of addicted.
Kind of might not be the best way to put it...I /was/ addicted, and I sat on my arse for a few days, playing through everything.
Now, I'm going to try and make this as spoiler free as possible, but even though I didn't play the first title, I was engaged and able to understand what was going on throughout. This second installments gives players the option to import the character they beat the first game with, and continue with the decisions they made, carrying into the second. Luckily, you CAN change appearance of characters from game one, which is probably a good idea, since the character creator has undergone some positive changes (although Male Shepard still resembles Vin Diesel no matter how hard you try).
One thing I will say is this game is epic, and perhaps more discussion can be had on the topic in a month, when most people will have beaten it.
The last game I want to talk about here today is Fallout 3. Now, I realize the game has been out for a while, but I am apparently behind the times. I actually didn't know what Fallout was until a few months ago--well, I'd heard of it but I kind of assumed it was like Call of Duty or Splinter Cell, and that it wouldn't hold my interest at all.
So.Not.True.
After a few people gushed and seemed shocked that I hadn't played it, I decided to give it a whirl. The fact that it was described to me as Oblivion with Guns made me interested...and yes, it IS Oblivion with Guns. Big guns.
For all of the glitches and horrors Bethesda crams into their games, and even though I spent hours puzzling over the random shutdowns and "fallout 3 has stopped working" popups, I was determined to fix the problem. Eventually, with the help of google and human ingenuity, this was possible. I was now able to commence playing without wondering if the History Museum would freeze my system. Damn you, history. Damn you <3.
This game really hit a home run with me. I love the cold war propaganda mixed in with the post apocalyptic environment, and the crazy feral ghouls. This game is HUGE and there is SO MUCH TO DO. Unfortunately, like Oblivion, it's way glitchy, and even doing everything right could cause something in the main storyline to just stop working. Despite that little tidbit, the game is quite enjoyable.
The realistic environments and the strange quests kept me riveted (I haven't beaten this game yet, either) and I spent many evenings glued to my monitor, blasting through mutants with more rounds of ammo than should ever exist in a post apocalyptic wasteland.
These were only intros to some of the games I've been exploring while on blog hiatus, and as soon as I get more sleep, I'm going to add more!
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