Finishing a Final Fantasy

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Yesterday, Final Fantasy VIII was uploaded to the Playstation Store. For just ten bucks, you too can relive one of the most controversial and most poorly regarded games in the franchise. I know I intend to.

My history with FF8 is long. My brother bought it at launch as one of many people who were swayed by the graphics alone (no offense intended bro. I’ve probably done triple the number of stupid things in my gaming life). He eagerly tore into it, and I followed shortly after with my own save. We both slowly crawled through the game, amazed by the visuals but struggling with each new challenge. He quit somewhere around disc 2, and I puttered out around the third. Looking back, I consider this an insane achievement, because we both got that far using GF summons almost exclusively during battle. →  Gotta get down on Friday.

Post PlayStation 2: Choose your own adventure!

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You are in an excellent position as the market leader in the gaming industry. The PlayStation 2 went from strength to strength and, with few exceptions from the enemy, had some of the best games ever created. Nintendo have frankly just given up on the Gamecube and the Xbox is really heavy. With a huge installed base and the future looking bright what do you do next?

There’s only one thing for it! Make the PlayStation 3. Go to 1
We’ve only just seen the true power of the PlayStation 2 with, of all things a Gamecube port. Let’s stick with it for a while. Go to 2

1) A good idea but disaster! Microsoft have announced a successor to the Xbox and it looks like they will get it to market before you. →  Sid Meier’s Alpha Centarticle

Bordello of Bugs

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A few days ago I lost about five hours of time to the notoriously buggy Age of Empires DS. I’d waged a long war of attrition against the Taira and it was roughly round 80 when mid combat the game just froze. Majesco did put a piece of printing paper in the game’s case that warned of bugs, so really it was my own fault.

Ten minutes ago I got permanently stuck in Grandia for the PS1. A river of poison was just too magnetic for my four member party to escape and so no matter what direction I pushed, they simultaneously ran in place.

We have written about bugs and glitches many times before, but this time I have a solution. Not a useful, working or well thought out solution, but a solution none the less. →  Ba da bam ba baa I’m readin’ it.

Review – Gitaroo Man Lives!

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Gitaroo Man is PS2 rhythm game originally released way back in 2002 At the time, lack of availability prevented it from gaining anything but niche popularity, but a 2005 reprint by online retailer Games Quest Direct brought it back into the gamer’s eye right around the same time that Guitar Hero was poised change the genre forever.

The increased availability (you could find the reprints at almost any Gamestop) and the game’s quirky Japanese style helped make it into a cult hit that is still revered by those who found Guitar Hero and its ilk to be a little too influential. Even better, the game was released yet again in 2006 as Gitaroo Man Lives! on PSP. Having myself been burnt out on rhythm games for the last year, I decided to see whether this really would be a refreshing change of pace. →  Read Danger!

Review – Devil Survivor

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Sometimes innovation doesn’t come from wild, crazy new ideas but from the melding of old. Like combining the wheel with fire, Devil Survivor melds two of the oldest RPG battle systems and the result is a flaming tire of fun. Battles take place on a grid following the standard SRPG trope of battles taking place on grids, but when two combatants meet the map cuts to a standard turn-based party-on-party RPG system. Suffice to say, the integration of these two long lived standards is almost as exciting as the monetary standard integration of Europe following World War II.
What Yuzu lacks in personality she makes up in breasts.

Battles are entertaining and copious; free battles are always available and the grind is only mostly mind crushing and soul numbing, a definite improvement over most RPGs. →  I’m readin’ here!

Tomb Raider Underperform

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My newest Gamefly mailing was Tomb Raider Underworld, one of the only games on my queue that isn’t new and low in availability. I figured that if the last two Crystal Dynamics led TR games were solid, that they’d follow it up with another winner. Boy was I wrong.

It isn’t that Underworld is terrible. Just incredibly mundane, and in some ways a step back from Legend. Whereas that game was much more linear and straightforward than Tomb Raider usually is, Underworld edges back toward the large, mazelike environments of the old games, where you aren’t always sure of where to go (especially when backtracking), and sometimes the next route pops up in a place you could have swore was blocked off earlier. It isn’t quite as bad as it used to be, but it was nice to play Legend and know you didn’t have to climb up several floors because you missed a jump. →  Read, I am your father!

Review – Play!: A Video Game Symphony

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Last week my buddy, Tony, called me and told me that I should drive my unemployed butt to Salt Lake City to go see a concert with him. As an added bonus, he had already bought my ticket and was willing to part with it for the awesome price of free if I could make the trip. The concert is a traveling event called Play!: A Video Game Symphony. Play! started in 2006 and the name of the concert pretty much says it all, a full symphony orchestra, accompanied by a choir, playing some of the best video game scores in existence. Of course I made the trip!

The vast majority of symphonies I have been to (and oddly enough, that has been quite a few) tended to be stuffy events that required me to shower, do my hair, and dress nicely. →  Final Fantasy Mystic Post

Love the Capcom

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This is a transcript of a presentation I gave at the Women’s Institute last week.

In the ongoing, victimless, and utterly pointless console wars Capcom is America. It’s selling arms to everyone. Ammunition for all the fanboys to use on each other. Sure the Wii can’t do Dead Rising but then Zack and Wiki just wouldn’t work on the Xbox 360. HD is the only way to play Resident Evil 5 but then is there any greater pleasure than being able to carry around the entire original Resident Evil around on the DS? Science says no. So as the fanboys shoot each other down in flames Capcom continues to produce a stream of the greatest games that ever existed. So here are the reasons why I love Capcom.

Sure, we may all have our Capcom favourites. →  Ikari Warriors 2: Postery Read

Review – King of Fighters XII

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The King of Fighters XII has been out for close to four months. I have had it since day one. I apologize for the delay, but I finally came to terms with why it took me so long. KOF XII is not a good game, and my old review tried to hide it by going over every detail and feature while ignoring the big picture. And the big picture is not pretty.

Here’s the problem – SNK had a vision, one that involved taking this franchise in a slightly new direction. Tag battles, quicker combat, and a new story and new characters were all in the cards. It may not be what everyone wanted, but it was a good excuse to keep the series going well after it probably should have died. →  When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called a game.

Review – Shadow Hearts

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Continuing my trend of catching up on PS2 RPGs, I picked up the Shadow Hearts series a few months ago. Since a recent spate of games (including Demon’s Souls, which seems to be a videolamer favorite) has kept me busy, I’m just now making my way through the series. The PS2 may have an impressive spread of RPGs – as I’ve discovered, still playing games I had barely heard about – but Shadow Hearts really stands apart, despite being an early game on the system that hasn’t really aged well.

By far the most impressive part of Shadow Hearts is the atmosphere. Set a little over a year before World War I and taking place in both East Asia and Western Europe, SH manages to portray a surprisingly realistic world, given its focus on demons both internal and external. →  Oops, I did it again.