Final Fantasy XIII - A Preview

Final Fantasy XIII is scheduled for release at SOME point in the near future and it has been announced to come out on the xbox360 which will save me from having to pick up a PS3. As other FF fans can attest to I would have HAD to pick it up if it was exclusive to the PS3. Lucky for me that it will make its way to the system I actually own. Though I did not start out as a fan of final fantasy when it originally came out as I was maybe 5 or 6 years old at the time (not sure of the exact date and I'm too lazy to find out). Indeed, I never owned any of the Nintendo incarnations and I never owned a playstation until I was in college.

Final fantasy has become a cultural phenomenon since its original entry back in the '80s well before all the fancy and new-fangled graphics capabilities of today's modern systems. It was a completely new gameplay experience at the time and many, myself included, have fallen in love with both the gameplay and the overall experience. There are many people out there who cannot quite fathom why these games are such a success and I cannot quite explain it myself. There is just something about the way that the Japanese create their RPGs that is just a great deal of fun to play. Most western style RPGs focus seem to focus more on frenetic combat while the JRPGs (Japanese RPGs) favor the more deliberate pacing of turn-based action. See the two different takes on the genre below.



Personally I enjoy both types but I get a greater sense of accomplishment through playing many JRPGs because they seem to require more tactics than some of the western RPGS which feel more bash-em-up at times. With this background I am extremely excited from what I have seen with FFXIII not only from a visual perspective but also from a gameplay perspective. The video below is a preview of the game from IGN that has me really excited.

More Final Fantasy XIII News & Previews

The first and most obvious thing is how gorgeous the game looks!! I consider myself somewhat of a graphics whore in that I just love it when games look incredible in action, especially as concerns water for some reason. I just love running around in puddles in games that I've played lately. Back to FFXIII I just love what I am seeing so far in the gameplay footage. With these games, which often have off the wall characters (thank you Japan for having a sense of humor even if I don't get it all the time) as well as fantastical settings it is important these days to really portray the characters onscreen in a living and breathing tableau. I've been honored to play many of these games and I will readily admit that Square-Enix has some of the best designers in the field and I often catch myself staring at the amount of detail that they have always been able to cram into their games. The images below are just a couple of examples of the scenery in the games.



The second big thing that I noticed from the trailer above is that they have once again tweaked the combat from its past iterations in their neverending quest to find the perfect combat for Final Fantasy. The combat here takes cues from past entries in the series as well as other games such as Knights of the Old Republic where you can queue up moves and unleash them at your will. One thing that I didn't notice in the trailer is whether or not their will be the ability to freeze time and reassess your actions. Call me old-fashioned but this is one of the reasons I enjoy turn-based games because I'd rather have some time to do that. Now I suppose I could just "Pause" but I would like to see an option similar to past Final Fantasy games allowing for those like myself to play without worrying about the enemy taking too much of an advantage when I'm sorting through my inventory looking for that vital potion that I need. A minor gripe, but I would like to know if that will be an option in the game.

The last thing I want to mention in this preview relates to the characters themselves. While the trailer is in Japanese you can get a sense that they behave differently and act differently from one another. This level of characterization, while still difficult to tell, is something that I have grown accustomed to in past games. While the american voice actors may get on player's nerves sometimes the writing has generally been well above average and in games that routinely top the 60 hour mark (for the main story alone) it is important that we care about these characters or else we have no real incentive to keep playing after the initial period right after starting a game has worn through and the real grind begins. The video below shows some of these fanciful characters who always seem to be just the tiniest bit at odds with my western sensibilities but I can't help loving it.

More Final Fantasy XIII News & Previews

My favorite part of that last clip is definitely the black dude with the chocobo in his afro causing the little child to laugh. I really hope that in the final incarnation of this game little moments like this that make you laugh or cry are liberally spread throughout the entire game. Sometime in the future can not get here soon enough!!

Lord of the Rings Online Review

I posted a little while ago about Star Trek online, but lately I've been much more enamored with another online roleplaying game: Lord of the Rings online. I don't believe that there are many people throughout the world who have never heard of this monumental achievement in literature. The books almost single-handedly established the modern genre of fantasy and I am hard-pressed to name ANY fantasy novels published since that don't have a core that shares elements with Tolkien's work. The amount of history that he was able to pack into his fiction is inspirational for anyone who has ever considered sitting down and writing.

Because of this insane amount of detail that Tolkien included in his writings, which include more than just the trilogy, the creators of the Lord of the Rings Online didn't need to stretch too far to find inspiration for this game. From the moment I set foot, figuratively of course, inside the world created on the computer I was mesmerized by the scale of it all. With the help of my new memory card, which finally started working thank God, it looks absolutely amazing on my 22" widescreen monitor. All I want to do is visit all the places that I loved from the books and the movies (though this game legally has no ties with Warner Bros and the movies) but this isn't possible right away except through pictures and clips posted all over the internet.

The gameplay is fairly standard for anybody who has played World of Warcraft, they borrowed a great deal of the mechanics from this industry giant. I was pleasantly surprised by the writing and the polish that seems evident throughout the game and I can only imagine that it gets even better throughout the rest of the game. There are a few technical issues that I have noticed that seem to make certain things difficult to accomplish such as finding one Quest giver out of a sea of NPCs (Non-player characters) and there doesn't appear to be an option to zoom IN on the little mini-map in the corner of the screen.

Another thing that gives me some pause is that the world doesn't seem as populated as I would have hoped with human players. However, I did see enough and from browsing the internet I have no cause for alarm as the game appears to be going quite strong and the latest expansion, "The Mines of Moria" sold quite well and even garnered a few awards with its content.

I have yet to meet anyone from the movies, with the exception of a brief appearance from Elrond, or interact with any scenes straight from the novels but I have been assured by many articles that it is only a matter of time. This brings me to what I think is the single greatest strength of this game: longevity in the market. So many people are knowledgeable about the books (thank you Peter Jackson!) and they know the plotline that Turbine's decision to have the game parallel the events is absolutely inspired. What is even more inspired is how they have chosen to do it.

When the game first came out about two years ago the epic storyline (which loosely follows the plot of the trilogy) ended around the same time period as the council of Elrond. Through a series of free updates (nice!!) and larger expansions to the game, the developers would seem to have a very long timeframe in mind. For instance, they just released "The Mines of Moria" which sees the Fellowship into Lothlorien where they meet Galadriel for the first time which is still within the first book of the trilogy and it has been out for two years!! At this pace, they won't get anywhere near the conclusion of the saga for at least a decade which is simultaneously scary and really fun to consider.

In the end, I really like this game and am looking forward to being able to feel a part of this preeminent fantasy epic. Anyone who likes WOW should at least try this and get away from the potty-mouthed children who always seem to play World of Warcraft. The people playing seem more mature and willing to help a noob like me.

Star Trek Online

I've recently become rather addicted to the new Massive Multiplayer Online Game Star Trek Online. This is particularly odd because the game hasn't even come out yet but the website, at www.startrekonline.com, is very good with alot of great information for fans and non-fans of the series alike. There is so much history behind the series, that has been created through 10+ movies and 5+ series (if you include the animated series) as well as multitudes of novelizations, that a game based on this information is quite exciting.

I'm also kind of looking forward to starting an online game like this from the beginning to see how it changes over time. All of this will be moot of course if I don't get a computer that will be able to handle the graphical requirements which I am currently in the process of researching. I don't honestly anticipate this game to come out before the end of the year but I'm hopeful. I know this earmarks me as a nerd but I'm okay with that.

The other concern that seems to pop up with any online game is the potential to become addicted to it. I've been playing games for years and I can honestly say that any addiction to it has never interfered with my normal life though I'm sure there are some out there who feel that this may not be true. Regardless, it is really sad that some people do escape so inexorably into these shady dimensions and imagined worlds that they sometimes DO neglect the outside world. This brief musing aside, I will certainly never get to this point.

In the end, this should be an interesting experience once it finally comes to fruition. There is something so magical about what video games provide with their escapist notions that I am genuinely surprised that more people aren't into them.

Video Game Censorship

So, I was cruising online today and came across a youtube video from Fox News. It is about the horrible sex scenes in Mass Effect, a roleplaying game for the Xbox360 that I happened to have greatly enjoyed. The people at Fox News claim that this game allows for fully interactive sex scenes along with full-frontal nudity. Anyone who has played this game all the way through knows that it does no such thing. In fact, the announcer in the video as well as one of their "experts" admits that they have never even played the game. I am sick and tired of people making complaints about things when they have never even experienced what they are fighting about.

This hoopla about Mass Effect is really only the latest in a long line of controversies that the video game industry has had to endure. Ironically, it almost seems that people are complaining about games more now than they did in the past. I suppose this has alot to do with the overall prominence of video games in this culture: far more than in the past. This is ridiculous because the video game industry is far more regulated now than ever in the past, with the regulation enforced by the ESRB (Entertainment Software Ratings Board). Prior to that, there was no watchdog in the industry and many blatantly sexual or violent games were released to the general public. Custer's Revenge is a famous example of a blatantly pornographic video game, where the soul point was to have sex with the squaws.

Nowadays, every game is rated from E for everyone to AO (Adults Only) along with between 3 and 6 descriptors of what is to be found in the video game. For instance, it might say something like 'partial nudity' or 'simulated violence' or 'suggestive dialogue'. These may seem kinda vague, but in video games that may occupy dozens of hours of a gamer's life it is very difficult to portray everything a game has, without publishing a small volume. It would seem that it would be much easier to rate movies, yet many movies get released at the PG-13 rating that I would not want my children to see.

It seems that in many ways our society as a whole is getting desensitized and callous about sex and violence. Regardless of your own individual viewpoint on what should or should not be allowed, it seems blatantly obvious that more of it is being allowed on TV and in the movies than ever before. This has never really bothered me because from the time most of it had been allowed on tv I've been old enough to view it. Video games, however, seem to provide a unique controversy with many conservative individuals.

Traditionally, video games seem to have always been child's play. Many of us in our twenties have grown up with video games and they have consequently grown up with us. As such, they have increased in complexity over the years even as they have become more and more adult-oriented. While there may have been some games, like the aforementioned Custer's revenge, that could never have been considered to be a kid's game the amount of adult-oriented subject matter in today's games has increased exponentially as the same kids who used to thrive off Super Mario Bros. now find more pleasure in killing aliens (Halo 3) or in killing prostitutes (Grand Theft Auto). Since this is what the general populace seems to want, can you really blame the companies making the games for making what their audiences want?

I guess my point is this: with so much crap going on in the world why are people so worried about this entertainment industry that has done more than any other entertainment industry to try and regulate what is being produced. With the ratings boards, and the family-settings on many of the xbox games presently available, they are making a valid attempt to keep games that have to much violence or sexuality from out of the hands of those who are not mature enough to handle the subject material. How can it possibly be their fault when there are parents out there who would readily hand over any games their children want regardless of the rating simply to placate them or get them out of their hair. The problem is with the individuals and should not be laid at the feet of the companies' making all the games and the video game systems.

Art vs. Gameplay

Video games as an industry is really quite young in the grand scheme of things. We sometimes forget this as the next big thing in video games always seems just over the horizon. Indeed, visions of holodecks and holosuites is not just the fevered dream of Trekkies all over the world any longer. Now that may be many years off in the future, but the fact remains that video games today are getting so ultrarealistic that some people are developing headaches simply because their brain is trying to tell them that what they are seeing simply cannot be that realistic. With this realism, however, has seen in many a knockoff game after another a gradual decline in the amount of attention paid to the real reason people play video games: gameplay.

From my earliest memories of video games, I remember the puzzles being challenging enough and the gameplay being really fun to play around with. One shining example is the first Super Mario Bros. game where there was a general dearth of story, just a save the princess scenario, but that game is still played in earnest by many people all over the world because of its incredibly satisfying gameplay. With today's games I fear that much of this has been lost in favor of the more sensational high-powered graphics seen in the majority of today's games. A synthesis of the two is needed to really create the best possibly video game.

Retro Studios, the developers of the excellent Metroid Prime trilogy have managed as near as possible to combine both into three extraordinary games. Though I have not played the third game, its Wii-oriented control scheme is sure to delight many a fan. Many games rely almost solely on the storyline and cutscenes, with the gameplay seemingly thrown in at the last second; but only after every shaded nuance of the cut-scenes has been seen too. As one might expect, this leads to extremely jarring transitions between the cutscenes and the gameplay. With the Metroid series, I rarely find myself taken out of the moment.

Whether it is through spot-on sound, atmospheric environments, or intriguing and well-designed gameplay elements, Metroid's ventures are a treat to play through time and time again. If only Nintendo would realize what a treasure trove it has in this series and publicize it accordingly, then they would indeed have a great system-seller on their hands but I am afraid that this Metroid installment may fade before it is even allowed to shine simply because people don't have enough knowledge of its brilliance.

Preview of "Too Human"

I have been a fan of Silicon Knights ever since they put out one of the greatest games of all time: Eternal Darkness. As a warmup to talking about Too Human, I want to briefly discuss the merits of Eternal Darkness and what it says about the commitment of Silicon Knights to transcending the art of video games to a new level. Eternal Darkness may have had some small problems, but I was so attuned to the storyline and the visceral images being presented that I found myself not caring about any small clipping problems or frame-rate dips. The game was positively oozing with subtleties, especially with the incredibly innovative insanity effects. With as much care as was evidenced with that game, I have been positively drooling over the possibilities of Too Human.

Those possibilities have been displayed of late by all of the screen shots and videos that have been available on the various gaming sites as well as the homesite of Silicon Knights. Additionally, they have shown through their blog their desire to let their true fans and even those who are not initially fans in on their philosophies about game design as well as the latest news on Too Human. I truly admire this, because I have never known of a game designer to truly care as much about the opinions of their fans as Silicon Knights. They are truly a fans' company.

Too Human is a game that takes a new take on Norse Mythology, an oft overlooked religion of our past ancestors. As an anthropologist, I am inherently intrigued by the care and attention that they have been evincing surrounding the intricacies of this ancient mythology. It is nice to see them branching out and attempting to educate many of their players about that long-ago culture instead of taking the easy route and taking a mythology that is "easy" and known by the majority of people: such as the ancient Egyptians. Now, I realize that their reimagining of the Norse mythology is adding several fictional components by making them, instead of gods, a highly technological society where it is the technology that makes they "like gods". However, simply by telling a story and allowing the background research to fill out the universe that they are recreating, players will be hard-pressed not to learn something. After all, in this particular medium it is not necessary for Silicon Knights to actively teach us about this universe because we will be experiencing it.

As a video game junkie, I am ecstatic about both the look and the feel of the game. The look is, quite simply, absolutely amazing, and I can imagine that while playing it I might just wander around aimlessly looking at the surroundings. Here we come to the hard part to define, because I have not personally had the chance to play any portion of the game. All I have are impressions of others, which have been very good so far. The actual gameplay seems to be an RPG hybrid of sorts, where it is very action-oriented but with very many branching possibilities on upgrading skills and talents. I'm not sure at this point whether anyone but Silicon Knights is truly aware of just how deep this system might go, but from several hints that I have read I get the impression that it is deeper than most games out there on the market today.

I have a plea to Silicon Knights: Please don't make us wait forever for the game though if it helps to make the game better than even I can imagine I can most certainly wait.

Price drop on Xbox 360

I have just been informed, via IGN, that Microsoft has finally lowered the price of their XBOX 360 hardware. The Premium Unit, which had previously retailed for $399.99, will be lowered by $50 dollars in anticipation of Halo 3 in September. I suppose the thought is that more people would pick up systems and the game for the same price as they would have paid for the system alone. While I appreciate the gesture, it seems a bit condescending for the average gamer out there to say that this will really even matter for a system known to appease hard-core gamers.

Now if the Wii, a system not appealing strictly to the hard-core gamer, were to do something like this I would say it was a great idea and just might sway an otherwise stubborn parent to budge and purchase the system. But for Microsoft to do it, I would say they would have to make it more worth our while than a $50 dollar price drop. Add in another wireless controller and we would have a bundle worth purchasing, because who is going to want to play Halo by themselves. The vast majority of gamers who buy this game will be doing it for the sole purpose of playing via xbox live and showing the world just how superior they really are (or aren't).

To reiterate, I feel the price drop is a nice sentiment, but when you are paying over 300 dollars for a system alone (without the benefit of either two controllers or a game!!) is 50 dollars really gonna make a huge difference? However, with games coming out such as Mass Effect and Too Human (of which I am eagerly awaiting), I do enjoy the fact that the system is less money because I will then feel better about the possibility of purchasing just one more game.


Update: Mere moments after I post this last news article, IGN has just announced that Microsoft has cut the price of the xbox 360 by $100 dollars in Canada! If this would have been the cut here in the states I might have hummed a different tune, because 100 is certainly more desirable than a cut of 50. With that much of a cut, buying a second controller to play Halo would not be a problem. Why, O mighty Bill Gates, is Canada being treated thusly? Are we richer in general, or just already suckered in by his charms and guile? I don't know, but I just hope that this reaches this land of freedom that we live in!