Deeply Delving Dungeons

Ok, another stretch of not writing, but anyone who knows anything (about nothing) would know that a new primary installment in the Final Fantasy series came out last week and thus is my absence explained. For anyone who doesn’t know me (which should be everyone) you should realize that I am a HUGE fan of Final Fantasy. I not only own every single game, I have beaten them all (well, in the main series anyways, Tactics Advance can go fuck itself) and even own multiple versions of many of them (and have beaten each of those versions as well). They are some of my favourite games, period. I even loved the oft-maligned by fans Final Fantasy XII, though coming from a programming background that may be due to the Gambit system feeling like a little slice of heaven.

So how am I liking the latest entry in this illustrious franchise?

I’M NOT!!

Oh, sure, I’m kind of having fun now- 28 FUCKING HOURS INTO THE BLOODY GAME! “But Alcasm,” you may ask yourself, “Why would you play the game for so long if you weren’t enjoying it? Surely you’re just screaming hyperbole!”

Well, first of all: YOU DON’T KNOW MAAAN!! YOU WEREN’T THERE! Heh, in seriousness however, I had known coming into this fuckfest that things weren’t supposed to get really good until around 12 hours into it. I knew that before that time had elapsed it would be linear as hell. Now, that’s a bit of a sore spot for me as I am an Explorer through and through according to the Bartlett evaluation so if I don’t have interesting locales to mess about with I become not only bored out my skull I also become easily frustrated.

BUT! I was going to give this game a chance all the same.

12 hours passed….

THIS GAME STILL FUCKING SUCKS!

Well I can’t give up now, not after putting in 12 hours! 23 hours passed before I could choose which characters I wanted on my team! What the hell is that? 28 hours passed before there was finally a large map to explore, only the encounters on the map are so phenomenally unbalanced all of a sudden that it’s no fun exploring! I think this article is breaking a record for number of exclamation marks used!!!!!!

Anyways, it didn’t help that the story sucks, the characters are boring and annoying, the writing is terribad, and the art design follows that mindless devotion to tacking on countless bits that look cool without paying a thought to some function to go with that form. This is, without a doubt, a poorly made game. Even the visuals aren’t impressing me, and it’s not because they’re bad, hell no. I’d have to be blind with rage (almost there ) to think that. No, it’s just that with games like Uncharted 2, Metal Gear Solid 4, God of War 3, and Crysis out there that Final Fantasy XIII just isn’t blowing me away in the slightest.

So, I still haven’t beaten this badly designed POS and I’ve been wracking my brains on how I could review it without suffering through to the end when Jim Sterling, professional troll courtesy of Destructoid.com, came to my rescue. I love Jim Sterling, apart from being an excellent writer he is also a master at whipping up fanboys into a glorious shit storm of a frenzy. I had been eagerly awaiting his review of this game, hoping against hope that he would give it the thrashing it deserves.

Now I don’t always agree with his opinion (I quite liked Assassin’s Creed 2) but then I’m not an utter moron like most of the commenters on Dtoid who need everyone to agree with their opinions. So, even though I had a feeling Jim would hate FF13 as much as I do, there was still some doubt in my mind which made me sad. Well, if you could see me now you would notice a rather large grin on my face as Mr. Jimothy delivered in a most splendid fashion.

So, rather than write my own review I’m just going to point you to his. Not only is it a good read, it also perfectly encapsulates almost all of my thoughts on Final Fantasy XIII as well.

Bon appetite!

http://www.destructoid.com/review-final-fantasy-xiii-167136.phtml

Well, it took a little longer than I had intended but I must say it does feel good to be running a freshly formatted computer. The primary reason for it taking long was my thorough use of Windows Update which was possessed of a seemingly limitless supply of updates, with even more appearing as other applications came into being on my fresh install. Normally I ignore Windows updates outside of service packs so I’m hoping that perhaps my patience this time around is rewarded in some way. In any case, I am now back up and running again with only a few more installs of importance that need dealing with before I can just sit back, relax, and bask in my computer’s new-found glory.

There is no unifying theme to this post outside of “stuff that’s happened since my last post,” in case you were curious. Still, I suppose that is still a perfectly valid theme so let’s get on with it.

First thing’s first: Star Trek Online.

When I started the whole process of backing up my old files before beginning the wipe of my hard drive I began to question whether or not I would bother reinstalling STO considering how little I have cared for it thus far. In the end I decided to reinstall it, though it wasn’t so much to get my money’s worth (I don’t consider wasting my time not having fun to be a great cash-in on my investment) as it was because I was infected by a short-term version of that typical MMO nostalgia we are all afflicted with at one point or another. Mostly however, it was because during the process of cleaning up my computer I had started to go through all the old Original Series episodes in air date order on youtube. The enjoyment I got from following the escapades of Kirk and friends was what ultimately convinced me to give Star Trek Online another shot.

Continue reading ‘And I’m Back’

… or Lieutenant Commander as the case would be with me.

Okay, so I finally hit the Lt. Cmd. rank in Star Trek Online today after struggling through the tedium that is the STO mission structure and I was all set to have my mind absolutely blown! So what does it feel like having received a promotion within the Star Fleet command structure?

Meh...

Yeah, kinda meh, kinda how it felt when I first started out the game. Sure, I got a new ship (I decided to go with a cruiser which is what contains the famous Constitution class starship from TNG), I got a new tier of skills, access to new items, and the ability to promote my Bridge Officers (amusingly referred to as BO in STO parlance. Guess there are no showers on board), but none of that really cried out, “The game as you knew it has changed for the better!“. It could have though, if Cryptic didn’t seem to be so terrible at designing MMOs past the character creator (just my opinion, yeah, but there is something seriously wrong with this studio).

Continue reading ‘Fire At Will, Commander…’

Okay, I swear that I will post the final part of my Mass Effect 2 review later today. I actually had it mostly written out already but ended up scrapping it because my lack of sleep had spilled out onto the page. But that’s not the real reason for my lack of discipline.

It should come as no surprise that STO is distracting me from my bloggerly duties, though not in the way that it should. Truth is, I don’t quite know what to make of this game yet. As of this moment I am almost a grade 9 Lieutenant and so far this game is boring me to tears. So why am I playing then, you ask? Well, like many that must be suffering through the early levels I am hoping there is a light at the end of the Lieutenant tunnel in the form of upgrading my ship (which is why I’m playing so much to the detriment of other activities, I want to get these early levels over with!).

As it stands right now I find myself sailing through battle (which is pretty much the only thing to do in this game), employing the exact same tactics every single time, coming out on top without breaking a sweat. I’ve only died once so far and that was because I was dicking around in a Fleet action (sort of like a raid) when I got surrounded by ships that warped in and blew me back to the Stone Age. Other than that combat has been relatively tame and uninteresting, which is a shame because it seems to have a great deal of potential what with the whole juggling of power distribution and balancing of shields and managing fire arcs and what have you. Maybe if there was something else to do it wouldn’t seem so bad but so far every exchange has been pretty well the exact same encounter every time.

This is how STO is making me feel right now.

Continue reading ‘Boldly Going Forth and Procrastinating’

You can find Part 1 here.
You can find Part 2 here.

Ok, just so we’re clear, this isn’t the final part of my ME2 review. I was just listening to the latest episode of Podtoid where they discuss the latest Mass Effect and had a few things I wanted to mention before they escaped my notice, a few shortfalls to be precise. Just think of this as part 1.5 as it deals heavily with the story aspect of Mass Effect 2.

One of the biggest problems that this game has is a problem inherent to narrative game play of any sort, that being the player’s tendency to meta-game or use outside knowledge (or tools) in order to further themselves in game. At its most basic level this can be simple foreknowledge that a character in the game world would not rightly have access to though it can also present itself in the form of meticulous stat tracking (and by stat tracking I’m speaking more along the lines of statistics that are hidden from the player for the most part that can determine the likely outcome of certain scenarios in-game) or by reloading your game in the case of an unfortunate turn of events (not a series of events though, that’s under copyright). You get the basic idea.

My positive reaction to the game’s ending would have been greatly diminished had I meta-gamed (well, meta-gamed more than I had up until that point, some habits are hard to kick) and reloaded my save when Tali fell to enemy fire. Sure, I could have gone back in there and done things right gosh darnit, but then the ending wouldn’t have had quite the impact that I ultimately felt it did. The temptation was there, don’t get me wrong, but I knew (despite all my years of gaming training telling me otherwise) that doing so would have been a cop out and disrespectful to the story as a whole. But that isn’t what I’m going to nitpick; this problem of reloading saves is a very difficult problem to solve without removing a lot of player control and doing so tends to foment resentment.

Continue reading ‘Mass Effect 2 Review Supplement: Meta-Gaming’

Borderlands has certainly been an interesting experience for me, though not in the way I had originally expected. Now, I know I’m way behind the curve on commenting on this game but that’s just what happens when you don’t have any money for an extended period. As it is, I decided to pick up Borderlands when I had been given a PS3 for Christmas, finally replacing the one that had been stolen from me a couple years ago. I wanted a new game to have fun with on my new system and seeing as I couldn’t a find a single copy of Little Big Planet anywhere I settled on Borderlands (and Uncharted and Red Faction: Guerilla, but I’ll get to those later). Normally I would have purchased a shooter like Borderlands on the PC but I had heard that the online setup for the game was somewhat disappointing on Windows, so PS3 it was!

I’m just going to get my opinion on this game out of the way right away: I like it, but I don’t think I should. Please allow me to clarify.

Borderlands has been, for me, one of the most frustrating experiences I’ve had playing a game in recent memory, yet for some reason I just won’t give up on it. I think it has a great deal to do with the rush that comes with obtaining new and exciting items in a game and Borderlands certainly has no shortage of loot in it. However, even in that respect I feel that the ball was dropped. I should of course mention that I had been following this title for some time before its release, even prior to the unveiling of the re-done cel-shaded visual style, and my interest generated certain expectations for the final product. Oh, one more thing I should mention before continuing is that I have not yet beaten the game as of this moment (I’m still in Rust Commons West and am Level 26) but I just felt an overpowering urge to write about the difficulties I’ve been having with this game.

Continue reading ‘Borderline Bad’

There appears to be a bit of a shitstorm brewing along Destructoid’s shores in the wake of a Rev Rant made by the eternal Indie Fag, Reverend Anthony. Now, I mean no insult by calling him that because I am 100% on board with him most of the time, but most people certainly perceive him in that light. Now what is so special about this particular rant of his? Well, apparently David Jaffe (of God of War and Twisted Metal fame) missed his reading comprehension classes in school (I know it’s a video but the same principles apply) because he made a rebuttal wherein he completely missed Rev’s point.

Today's weather forecast...

So what was Anthony’s point? The way I saw it was that he was frustrated by people who casually toss around the argument that games need to be fun whenever someone steps up to question that particular convention in the hopes that such defiance might allow for more artistic expression in this burgeoning medium. He sums it up quite well in the last statement he makes, “If you think that games should just be fun, you are a coward.”

Continue reading ‘STFU People Wot Have Thoughts!’