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.
The fine people at Redmond’s video game console division think it’s a great idea to “reach” the country’s youth by marketing Rock The Vote via Xbox. While I do feel that getting America’s youth to vote is a great idea, the simple act of voting does not hold merit if the voters are ignorant on the topic.
“Xbox is a natural partner to help us reach out to youth voters,” Heather Smith, executive director of Rock the Vote, said in a statement Thursday. “To realize our goal of registering 2 million young Americans by this fall, we need to go where young Americans are, and there’s no doubt in our minds that many are on Xbox 360 and Xbox Live.”
Apparently Superman has two weaknesses…Kryptonite and magic. Wtf?
I’d hate to see what would happen to The Man of Steel if they were to throw Harry Potter in the mix.
Despite Superman’s illogical weakness, an idiosyncratic T for teen rating and a painfully stiff “revamped” fighting system, MK vs DC is beginning to look like it might turn out alright. Wait, allow me to rephrase that…MK vs DC just might pass everyone’s low expectations.
Emergence holes that can take out a whole city? I wonder what types of grenades you’ll need to close them up. What I am “digging” Senior Cliffy, are these new single shot weapons that seem to be more accurate than the chainsaw; I could never aim with that piece of crap.
Now the only thing left to wonder is how Epic is going to gel the chainsaw battles into the multiplayer. It seems as though the winner is determined by how fast one can tap the B button. Cool, but any n3wb sporting a third party controller with an auto function will pwn every time. Here’s hoping that they won’t make it into another humdrum Halo-esque sword battle.
I know this is an old issue, but only now is it affecting me (I’m selfish like that). I recently brought home a gorgeous HP w2207, wide screen 1680×1050 monitor. That translate into a 16:10 aspect ration, which differs slightly from the typical HD 16:9. Despite a variety of odd output options for VGA users, 16:10 resolutions are lacking. Looks like our friends Ana and Hana have been slacking. So Microsoft, please add some 1680×1050 support. Most all 22″ monitors run this native resolution, and 22″ monitors are the new hot ish.
Even if this doesn’t effect you now, it may some day. Sign this petition for 16:10 support. So far there are over 700 signatures. And if you think online petition’s never work, they brought you the BioShock collectors edition. While there was never a HDMI cable release, our very own 360 HDMI petition garnered a good amount of signatures and now we’ve got HDMI in the Elite and Pro. Miracles do happen!
I’m not going to lie, I’ve grown quite fond of GOW’s online multiplayer. With the addition of these four free maps, I’ll be more than occupied until the 25th.
BUT…I’ve got a serious unrelated bone to pick with this game…
WHAT IS UP WITH THE ACHIEVEMENTS!?
For all of you achievement whores out there, I’m sure you’ve already come across this problem.
If an achievement reads (get 100 headshots), you should expect to have it by your hundredth head shot…not forty some odd kills later. Apparently, this unattainable achievement nuisance has become a raging epidemic that has “GOW-’ERS” everywhere frustrated. I’m starting to think that the achievements might be reached through some sort of a chronological order (chainsaw first, execution, curb stomp etc.). Or quite possibly, you can’t get these achievements at all unless you sell your soul to the gaming gods. Oh well. At least Process will be kick-ass.
Do not believe this preview. I had the first hour of the game played in front of me, and none of Destructoid’s criticisms are valid. This is either truly awful taste or a pathetic attempt to get more hits. Possibly both.
Mass Effect has the most incredible facial animation of any game ever (at the time I saw it, anyway…Heavenly Sword tops it in cutscenes, IMO), and the voice acting is perfectly fine. The beginning of the game is all space navy “Sir, we have visual” shit, anyway. It’s obviously not going to be Gone With The Wind.
There are plenty of things to worry about with Mass Effect without making up shit about the presentation. This preview is simply not describing the game I saw.
Just what I suspected. This all but confirms my suspicion that Destructoid is a piece of crap, immature site. But I guess someone has to cater to the 12 year olds that wont stop uttering curse words in my headset.
Depending on who you ask, that is. Gamespot and Destructoid both posted their impressions of Mass Effect being displayed at GC, and they couldn’t be more polar opposites. What Destructoid calls “emotionless voice acting and subpar facial animations,’ Gamespot calls the game dramatic, innovative, “exhibiting a lot of polish and flowing smoothly.” Destructoid says that it’s at worst, disappointing, and at best “not that bad.” Gamespot thinks it looks great at this point.
So who do you believe? (My vote goes to Mr. Brad Shoemaker. I’m not sure I’ve ever disagreed with him).
Update: Fixed all my gramatically errors. I wasn’t drunk when I wrote this, I swear.
I had some free time today, so after getting the damn Historian achievement in BioShock, I decided to play around in Photoshop. What do you think? When I get around to it, I will redesign the rest of the site to more or less match, and just look cleaner. Sorry, but I had to add some ad banners. I’m still paying every month out of my pocket to host the site. I’m just crossing my fingers I can at least break even. The hole in my pocket is getting ever bigger, and my wanted list is growing longer (games and the like).
Please drop some feedback on what you want to see more or less of. I’m sure you are going to say “more posts!” I would love that too. I’m open to new writers, so if you are passionate about games and can string a sentence together in proper english, let me know. Hope you are all enjoying BioShock (except Tarun–I hope you are enjoying Totem Ball). Burn!
I might have been living under a rock, but I was just introduced to Moola. To concept is simple. If you double a penny 30 times, you have over $10 million dollars. For real, do the math. Every member on this site is given a penny (ad driven) and you can risk your penny in a duel with another player. There are three flash games you can play. Win, and you get the other guys penny (don’t feel too bad, when you go broke, you are given another penny.
Now you’ve got 2 pennies! Play and win again, and you’ve got 4 pennies. Win 30 times, and you’ve repeatedly doubled your money to a staggering $10 million. It’s not completely a crap shot though, since you can cash out any time. You also don’t need to risk all your money at one game, since you can play any level up to and below what you can afford.
People do end up amassing a pretty large sum of cache (with pics of checks to prove it). All it takes is a lucky streak. If you win just 12 games in a row, you’ve already turned that penny into $40.
At the very least, I know you waste enough time on the internet playing flash games, it’s just as well you try to win some cash while doing it.
The site is still in beta phase and requires an invite, but I’ve got almost 100 on a first come, first serve basis: click here for an invite.
In case we meet in a match, my name is Skitals… prepare to be owned
Update: By the way, you can also get “boosters” for completing sponsors offers. You know, the usual… trial for this, trial for that. One I thought would be of special interest is a free Gamefly trial. You get $17.60 added to your account for doing the trial. You can either cash that money out, or try your luck at doubling it a few times!
