Now I’ll admit that my passion for RPGs has dwindled with age, but Final Fantast XIII is seriously lacking almost any redeeming qualities. FFXIII is another one of those games I wish I didn’t have to force myself to play in order to justify a wasted sixty dollars. The game is riddled with an inane
fighting system, painfully stock characters, American laughable voice acting, never ending
walks through repetitive grounds and a story line I couldn’t care less for.
Plot: In nine out of ten games, I really don’t care about the plot. However, I feel as though RPG’s should maintain a certain standard of story telling that will keep the minds of its players remotely engaged. Unfortunately, FF XIII does no such thing. Everyone is off doing their own thing and rarely moving together in a group. It’s somewhat like an episode of Lost when they go off into each characters story. From what I’ve played thus far, the characters move in teams of two, the one kid’s mother dies, another character’s girlfriend gets turned into a crystal and the heroine seems to be mad at world. Very intriguing stuff indeed. Well, maybe the fighting system is good right?
Fighting: Negatory. It’s not quite turn based, and it’s not quite an open system either (a la Tales Series). You basically punch in commands and wait for a fight meter to fill up before you can attack a selected enemy. Simply put, this is irritating. If you keep pressing “A,” you’ll more than likely win the battle without even looking at your screen. Although this quite handy when reaching for a beer, it does not provide solid gameplay.
The fighting system does however incorporate a “paradigm” system that allows you to change your characters’ fighting styles mid-battle. This can be used to harness different powers (healing, offensive or defensive) depending on the battle’s current situation. If only one of your characters is getting pummeled, you can switch someone’s role to “medic” which will keep the victim afloat for the duration of the battle while others attack. In addition, you can also have all of your characters attacking all-out to overwhelm enemies quickly. The paradigm system is definitely a small beam of light in an otherwise redundant fighting system.
Characters: Token black guy? check. “Damn, that is whack!” Rebellious anti-hero chick? Check. Little punk kid that complains about everything? Check. That annoying girl with the high-pitched voice that heals everyone? Check. Blond haired guy that’s too cool for school? CHECK! How about we try some innovative new characters for the next title in the series? Maybe I wouldn’t be complaining so much if the battle sequence had been a tad better. Case in point: Tales of Vesperia. Tales executed the same tried lineup of characters and yet I played the hell out of that game until the very end glued to the very edge of my seat.
Linearity: Probably the most irritating thing about this game is that there is no open world feel to it at all. If there are any side missions, I sure as hell haven’t found them yet. The backgrounds are reminiscent of the original Halo and are also just as repetitive. Players will find themselves walking back and forth along the same paths multiple times. Good shit.
I understand that I did not organize my thoughts at all for this rant, but it does seem to reflect the subject matter quite well wouldn’t you say? I’m about halfway through disc two and ready to throw in the towel on this one. If you haven’t tried FFXIII yet, you are not missing out on much. Don’t let the major critics fool you; this game is in no way, shape or form anything above a 7. This rating system, which is supposedly unbiased, should not take into account the previous success of a given title. Would you give Apple an 8.5/10 for their iPad? Hell no. Their track record, popularity and previous successes should not hinder a critic’s rating scale in the slightest bit. The iPad is a sack of shit and so is this game.
Konami is giving away beta vouchers to “qualified” users that sign up for the promotion. Not sure what the qualifications are (probably by region), but I signed up and shortly after I got a free beta code in my inbox!
Yes, Konami fumbled the Beta launch (it was supposed to have started already)… but I can’t argue with free.
The verdict: Star Wars just makes everything that much sweeter. I’m in quite a dilemma having both 360 and the PS3. The problem starts when I’m forced to decide between the notorious gamerscore perk versus an enticing tandem of playing as Darth Vader, all the while being able to control my character with a fully responsive D-Pad. Decisions, decisions…
Remember when Sony told you don’t need rumble anymore? That’s so last gen. Well everything that is old is new again. The DualShock 3 is coming state-side April 15th. Do you really need a picture? Dust of your 10 year old Playstation controller. That’s what it looks like.
A nice move by Sony which will benefit movie pirates everywhere! Up until now, i was watching downloaded movies via the prehistoric VGA method. None of that for me anymore! This does however somewhat defeat the purpose of incorporating an online movie library within Home doesn’t it?
“We are excited to work with Sony Computer Entertainment to bring DivX to PS3,” said Kevin Hell, CEO of DivX, Inc. “Our technology will expand the multimedia functionality of PS3 by enabling users to enjoy access to the broad library of content in the DivX digital media format.”
Ok, so for the most part, I hate this game. If you’re going to become a Guitar Hero freak and spend countless hours learning how to pretend play a plastic toy, LEARN THE FRIGGIN INSTRUMENT. It’s not that hard. When I think about the level of ease on all the songs in this game, it would seriously take a n3wb guitarist the same amount of time to learn the tabs as it does getting a 100 note streak.
It looks like they’ve added some very influential guitarists to the GHIII lineup (mainly Slash from Guns N’ Roses and now Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave) RIP.
The Rage song on the game………….BULLS ON PARADE!!! Activision has stated that players will need to “emulate some of Morello’s extremely innovative guitar-playing antics.” How he makes those freakishly amazing sounds with his geetar you axe?
I’ve met Tom once; he’s an ass. Nevertheless, this is innovation at its finest.
Who knows J-Town, maybe a Bright Eyes song for GHIV? BOOMERANG BURN!
Word on the street (well, Gamespot) is that Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is going to be the sweet price of free. Sure, GT HD was a free preview as well, but Sony keeps promising that Prologue will be a full fledged game. Here is the quote from Gamespot:
Today, we sat in on a presentation hosted by Gran Turismo series creator Kazunori Yamauchi as he demonstrated some of the new features that will be present in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. The game is due for release on the PlayStation Network as a free download later this year.
Something lost in translation? Not as full of a game as we’ve been lead to believe? Or a free gift from Sony? For now, your guess is as good as mine. There is always the chance the game will be ad supported. Sony was just blabbing about how ads and nickel and diming microtransactions are the future (hello Home). Time will tell.
I couldn’t have been less excited about Stranglehold. That all turned around when I played the demo today. Good lord. What it lacks in graphics (which, despite what I’ve read from some people, aren’t too shabby) it more than makes up in production values. It totally captures that ass-kicking, action movie feel. Except you are at the controls. The ass kickin controls, that is.
I don’t know what else to say, just play the demo yourself and get hooked. After that moment of glee, the sorrow will kick in when you realize that’s another $60 hole in your pocket this holiday season.
Take-Two is reducing its fiscal 2007 guidance primarily to reflect the movement of the launch of Grand Theft Auto IV for the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system and the Xbox 360â„¢ video game and entertainment system from the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007 to fiscal 2008, due to additional development time required to complete the title. The title is now planned for release in the Company’s second quarter of fiscal 2008.
The bad news is you wont be killing any hookers until Q2 2008. The good news is you will be $60 less in debt this holiday season. With so many AAA titles coming out between now and the end of the year, I don’t think GTA would have been overshadowed, but hopefully this will give some other games an opportunity to perform well.
I’ll be frank and honest… I’ve never played a Metal Gear game, and I’ve never wanted to. I tried one out about 7 years ago at my cousins house. He was all into the game, and I just didn’t get it. MGS4 is now coming, and people are hailing it as the second coming. I still don’t get it.
Graphics: The graphics are great, but nothing we haven’t seen before. Don’t get me wrong, the graphics are good, but they don’t make the game stick out (and yes, I watched the HD 720p video).
Gameplay: Again, I don’t see anything to write home about. Not only is the stealth ridiculous and unrealistic (pretend to be a statue? turn argyle and dry hump the floor… and you are completely invisible to the enemy? squeeze a guys balls to knock him out? turn into a barrel and roll around?), but it looked pretty boring to me.
Homoerotics: Probably my biggest qualm is just how gay the game looks… literally. Am I the only one that DOESN’T want to look at Snake’s ass in those tights for a prolonged period of time? Not only is the statue camouflage gimmicky, does he need to grab the statues package? Does he need to look like he is humping the floor when he crawls? Is the “judo” hump kill necessary? Again with the packages… can you stay away from the enemies balls?
And no, reading porn mags in-game doesn’t hide your homosexual tendencies. Again, another WTF moment.
I get it’s suppose to be humorous. The impression that I’m left with is that this game is a joke.
Oh yes… MGS4 is going to be online! Oh… no it’s not. Metal Gear Online will be online. Why not split the multiplayer mode from a game and sell it as it’s own game. We can milk those Metal Gear fans dry!
Please let me know what I’m missing.
And before you start flaming, I do have a PS3. I’m dying for some good games (LBP couldn’t get here sooner).
This does however somewhat defeat the purpose of incorporating an online movie library within Home doesn’t it? 
