It's been forever since I updated this. In this period I played plenty of awesome titles, but none made me want to spend some time to actually write down my impressions. None but one game. The long awaited hotness! It has finally arrived, I've played bits of it and I couldn't help it but come here and give you all the details!

So I picked up my pre-ordered copy of Final Fantasy XII today. I also ended up getting the strategy book that came with it. Which is plain disturbing. I usually don't spend money on those cause I don't even use them, but, I just couldn't help it there. It was sitting right in front of me, begging to go sit next to my sexy copy of the game.

Anyways, I decided I didn't feel like going to my History class and I just came back right after my French class and started playing the game. :D

So I started the game. The intro just blew me away. The game has simply some of the best graphics I've seen on a this-gen console.
The voice acting is amazingly... GOOD for a change!
The storyline seems to do justice to the ret of the series.
But let's get to the important part: all the changes. I was very much worried about the direction Square was going to take with this title, especially since they one of the main changes was going to involve the combat system. Surprisingly, the result is A LOT better than I expected. I never really liked the concept of random battles, which is no longer "inavoidable" like before. GREAT improvement if you ask me! Now I can actually run around and choose who I wat to fight, who I want to avoid and also, when I want to fight a maximum enemies or when I just wanna get to the point without dealing with those.
The other improvement, i my opinion, is the new system which enables the player to see who actually has something to tell you. So basically, no more running around, talking to everyone to figure out who's ablt to talk and who's not. That's just a detail, but it just makes the game better.
The new license system seems a little weird. But just like the rest of them, once you get used to it, it's practical and makes the game better.

The music played in the menu, the same old theme old-school gamers would remember from the oldest titles that made the series what they are, made me think about the evolution of the series. I my opinion, regardless of the semi-perfection of the game, something is lacking. A little je ne sais quoi that was once the source of my interest, nah, obsession with the series. So what's so different? Maybe the surprise effect has disappeared. After all, when they announce in the game tha the Princess is dead, we all know that it is not true. Or maybe the characters are not as attractive and sweet as some of the all-time-favorites. Or maybe I'm just being too quick in starting conclusions and theories. After all, I still have probably 100's of hours of game left, which will, hopefully, prove me wrong. Let's wait and see.

Overall, the begining of the game, although quite slow, promises a lot.

If you believe the critics, this is one of the best titles in the history of the series. As such, I'm expecting a lot from it. So far, it has all the ingridiants one would expect from a Final Fantasy game, plus the little surprise factor tha has made the series what tey are today. The game being the last title of the series on the PS2, it is going to be a transitional one, the path leading the series in a new dimension.

In other news, **** I really want GTA: Vice City Stories for the PSP!

The last addition to the this-gen Prince of Persia series : The Two Thrones is finally here, sitting next to my PS2! I went and picked up my copy today (I hate to step into an EBGame, it just makes me realize how many games I desperately want right now : Soul Calibur 3, Resident Evil 4, Dragon Quest VIII, Indego Prophecy...) and started playing it straight away. The game is awesome so far.

God of War sure looked like a great game and I'd been willing to get it since it was released. I finally got it for my birthday and was able to check it out, and I came to the conclusion that not only GoW is a awesome, but it's also probably my favorite game this year (on the PS2). Everything is great about it : gameplay, storyline, character (Kratos is so cool!), music, graphics... There are pretty much no cons!
Now I wonder how the movie is going to be like. I hope it's not yet another cool lisence, waisted...

Finally something new about FF XII! It was about time we had an update, right? Well I read GS's preview, and it kinda scares me... What I like about the FF series is that Square always tries to improve it instead of stagnating. Like the Materia and Sphere systems in FF VII and FF X respectievly, were great additions that brought so much to the gameplay. But I think that getting rid of the turn-based battle system is a major change that I kinda fear. However I might play the game and realize that it's great and wonder why thet didn't make this change for the previous titles. Wait and see I guess...

Whatever happened to the "add to favorites" feature on the boards. I only have 5 boards left in my favorites which pisses me off cause I ad like 20 of them. And now I have to search for ages to go a particular board instead of just going on the main forum page like before.

Anyways, I'm absolutely addicted to SSX On Tour and Burnout Legends lately. I also love the fact they added ski race and ski slope, which is exactly what the series were lacking IMHO. Burnout Legends is highly addictive as well, it has everything that made u love the series : spectacular crashes, breathtaking pursuits, fast as hell races and kick ass cars.

I also tried Dynasty Warriors. It's alright but the camera system sucks. It's impossible to see what the hell is going on in front of u. The game is quite fun for a few mins but gets boring then though.

I finally took the time to play Metal Gear Ac!d properly (since it's not exatcly te kinda game you can play w/ people talking and laughing around you) and I really enjoyed it. The card system is kinda weird at the beginning but after a little while it gets very interesting. The storyline and graphx r quite cool.It's nice to have quite a unique title in the very racing and sports oriented current PSP lineup.

I'm pissed that GTA LCS requires 2.0, I love 1.50. So no more Iso, PDA and .ogg music for me. :(

My friend has pretty much all the interesting games that are out for the PSP (and even non-interesting games or games that are only out in Japan so far). So I tried a couple of them, both in single player mode and in multi-player with him.

Marvel Nemesis has probably one the worst camera systems I've seen in a while. It makes you feel all dizzy and sometimes you just have no clue what the hell is happening, where you are and where the other guy is cause the camera keeps doing this weird rotation. The single player mode gets boring after 10 mins, especially when you start the game cause you only have 2 characters unlocked : The Thing and Spiderman. The only cool thing in the game is the multi-player mode, which can be quite fun but doesn't justify 40 bucks that you could've saved for a better game.

I also tried all these different racing games (racing games are the only genre the PSP isn't lacking...) : Burnout, Ridge Racer and Need For Speed Underground Rivals. Ridge Racer is awesome and NFS U R is quite fun, not really different from the prvious titles in the NFS U series and definitely the weakest racing game the PSP has to offer so far. The best one being Burnout of course. The only problem with Burnout is the graphics IMHO. It's way too "pixelized" sometimes.

I finally tried Lumines. I was wondering why everyone was all crazy about it. The single mode kinda got boring after a while but the multi-player mode was quite fun. However I still don't understand why everyone says that Lumines is the best PSP game... But I think that they're gonna change their minds once GTA is out. :D

'till then, I think I'll be playing Metal Gear Acid. I started playing it the other day but my buddies were around talking and MG is the kinda game you really need to focus on. Which is what I'm gonna do this weekend. I'll have 3 hours to spend on it in the train while going to London and coming back. And I'll probably write something about it here once I play it properly... and if GameSpot stops being so weird (I gotta say the new design is growing in me though).

I just ordered a 1G mem stick for my PSP. I hope to recieve it before I head down to NYC in 4 days, cause I'm not coming back home before XMas, since I'm going to back to Paris.

Anyways, the great thing about having that 1G mem stick is that now I can finally have movies *coughACcough*, anime, manga and music on my PSP without sitting there and counting how many MB I have left. Besides, I'm planning to keep my 32 MB mem stick for game saves and my friend is doing the same thing. That way, I can borrow his games + 32 MB mem stick w/ all his game saves and updates and vice versa. Wicked, huh?

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I just think I can't post an entry here w/o talking about Final Fantasy at some point, especially now that AC is out. Anyways, I watched Last Order today. It's a nice anime, WAY short though. At first when I unzipped the file I saw 12 parts, I was all happy cause I thought 12 parts = 12 episodes and each episode = 15 mins... I ended up discovering that 12 parts = 1 episode and hardly 25 mins long... So now, I want mooooooore! lol

I know that a couple of months ago I was complaining about Square milking FF VII, and how I was sick of them going all Nintendo-ish and releasing all these FF VII stuff, but AC is awesome (as I thought) and LO was alright (way better than what I expected). If the rest of the FF VII Compilation is as great as the rest, it'll be tremendous! And I'll be a happy chappy FF addict. lol

Speaking of the Compilation... I just saw the Crisis Core trailer. I'm disapointed, I was expecting images from the game not the anime! Blah. I'm looking forward to this game, an FF title for the PSP, that's great stuff! It better be good too!

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Speaking of trailers... I was checking out the new vids from the Tokyo Game Show, and I gotta say I'm kinda disapointed. I was expecting more trailers and news on next-gen games... The highlight of it is hands down, the MGS4 vid, I can't wait for that game, it looks damn cool! Can't wait for next-gen and all these awesome games!

Haha, first of all, Japanese accent kicks ass. It's just so cute... :D

Anywayz, I watched the video on GS and I gotta say that this Nintendo really surprised me... For some reason, I was expecting a HUGE controler (since it's supposed to be backwards compatible) with buttons everywhere. And what do I get? A remote controle thingy. Weird...

It looks fine but my main concern is how the hell does this thing work? As in, how are you supposed to handle it? It doesn't really look comfy for several hours of gaming. Just wait and see I guess.

I'm still kinda hesitating on whether I should pick up the Revolution or not. The only feature that'll make me buy it is its backwards compatibility, being the classic RPG fangirl I am. Guess I'll see how much money I have after I guet my PS3. :D

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I went to the Carousel mall today to go kick some ass at BestBuy... I'll skip my adventures on the road and my symptoms of road rage (cursing, showing ppl my middle finger...), oh and my mom shouting at me cause she's so worried about her car. Anyways, I got to the mall (alive, and no, I did NOT crash the stupid car!) and went to BestBuy cause my PSP had been acting weird lately. It'd freeze everytime I put it in sleep mode, which is quite frustrating when you're in the plane, and that u have to put it on sleep mode, without saving ur game, and then when u turn it on again to finish ur game... u're holding a frozen screen in ur hands and u have to start everything over again.

So anyways, I exchanged my PSP and in the meanwhile asked the guy if I could get a wriststrap, since I never got it w/ my value pack. The answer was of course "well it's kinda too late, u should've come before" and me going all "but I was in Europe, I wasn't gonna come all the way here to get a stupid wristrap", and him going "well call Sony, I think they misplaced it" and me going "oh, I guess some bastard got 2 of them, lol".

I was checking my PSP to see if everything worked fine, I found a stuck pixel. OMG!1!11! A STUCK PIXEL!! I 4M SO RE7URNING IT RI73 N0W!!11!!1!! lmao

Oh and I need to upgrade to 2.0 again. Blah.

But at least, now I can put it on sleep mode whenever I feel like it. How handy is that for a handheld system? Worth all the trouble if you ask me. :)

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I was watching AC again... I've been watching it 3 times so far. It's my favorite thing to do lately : especially since my arm hurts as hell. I just always manage to get myself injured somehow... Anyways, I just can't play any sports for now, so whenever I'm home, I watch AC. Great timing, huh? lol

I'm waiting for the UMD and DVD now. Oh, and I LOVE the cap that comes with the limited edition DVD package. So I figured out, since I'm not spending 300 bucks on that, I'll just get it on EBay at some point. :D

It's been a long time since I posted here, but I've been way busy to think about that. But I just couldn't avoid posting here after seeing... AVDENT CHILDREN!! Finally! Oh joy! I don't think I ever watched a movie w/ such a huge smile on my face. From the very begining of the movie (the end of FF VII w/ tremendous graphx) 'till the very last second, I was sitting on my butt going :D

Pretty much everything is as good as I expected: excellent storyline, awesome graphics, great music and kickass fights (the limit breaks were breathtaking) ! Anywayz, I give it 2 thumbs up! :D

The greatness of this movie, does not however change anything to the fact that I hate Square-Enix for pushing back the American release AGAIN! But I'm still buying the DVD or UMD or whatever they release cause I'm such a FF fan girl.

And I'm gonna watch this movie again tonight. I just can't get enough of it. :D

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I'm so disapointed GTA - LCS was pushed back, I was hoping to get it before I go to Europe. Guess I won't get my hands on it for a while now. In the meantime, I'm getting Burnout Legends... after a break ! I'm really sick of racing games right now. They need to make a couple of good RPGs on the PSP instead of a billion racing games. Even though I can't really complain about having some kickass games, such as WipEout Pure. I wish they'd remake an old FF title on the PSP instead of making all of them on the stupid GBA. :(

Speaking of oldies... I'm really into old school games right now. I been playing a bunch of NES classics again, such as Final Fantasy, Prince of Persia, Legend of Zelda... It's just amazing how these games w/ such outdated graphix are still playable and entertaining.

I get time to hang out with my friends, party, play a few games and do lots of worthless but fun stuff, such as making a banner for my GS journal, or making Skins for my PlayGear Pocket. :)

I've made a bunch of them lately, I figured I'd post some of them here and see what everyone thinks of them. So feel free to rate them and post your opinions on them.

Gunnm:

Tekken:

A mix of Advent Children and the FF VII tech demo:

Animatrix:

Batman Begins:

Well that's all for now folks. :)

PS: Sorry for the tiny pics, but I figured it'd be better than scrolling around.

Level 10, and no journal banner... how could it be?! So I thought it was about time I made myself one. So here it is : a FF VI banner (that I made in 5 mins, lol), with the Opera House as background, the 5 favorite characters of the game, the ones that I always used in my party : Terra, Celes, Edgar, Locke and Sabin and my screen name in Hiragana.

I'll probably make another one in a while, when I get tired of this one and when I'm inspired. So feel free to post your suggestions. :)

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I did something really stupid that pisses me off : I accidently formatted my mem stick! So I lost all my WipEout Pure game saves. Grrr!! I have to start everything all over again now and get every single ship, race, track... again! I guess I'll have a bunch of time to do that in the airport and in the plane though. lol

Speaking of WipEout, I got Gamma packs 1 and 2. They add 3 skins, that look horrible, especially the red one. Seriously, who'd use that?! I'll stick to the Hacker skin, I love it! It's so classy! They also add the Gamma tournment which is pretty cool! I can't wait for the next updates.