Ok. I recently repurchased Final Fantasy XIII for $9 at Gamestop the other day. I don't know why, but I had an urge to give it another try. I guess it just bugged me that this was the only FF game I've ever sold. I did sell it for Dragon Age Origins Ultimate Edition, which is a vastly more enjoyable game, but it still bugged me not owning all the Final Fantasy games still. I also justified this purchase to myself by getting it on PS3 instead of the 360 this time. Not that there's much difference besides only needing one disk. So, my impressions after a few years to get over my initial dissapointment? Not much has changed. Knowing what I'm getting into, I find I'm better able to enjoy what's here for this game. Still, it seems like they forgot to add in the Role Playing aspect of the game. There is literally nothing to explore and no context for the world they have you fighting in. Why the heck would I give half a crap about Caccoon and Pulse? I've only walked along a few of both places hallways while watching a bunch of whiniey people from past FF games with different names fight it out in these hallways. The combat is still somewhat refreshing and fun, albeit sometimes frustrating and a few times nearly impossible. Still, besides a few select areas that atually let you explore, that's all there is to the game. Cutscenes and fighting. No towns to explore, no npcs to talk to and get side missions from, no shops to visit (there are shops at each save point though), no overworld and no real need to explore. Just a straight path from one cutscene to the next with a boss fight or two peppered in. There a minor small branches in the path that lead to obvious treasure, but no other variation. It's like they crafted this beautiful world, came up with these awesome cutscenes and then were told they were out of time and had to ship before they could implement the rest of the game. It's such a wasted oportunity, since Caccoon and Pulse seem like they'd be amazing places to explore. Plus, I might give a crap about them if I got to wander the streets a bit and talk to the people I'm supposed to be fighting for.

Of course, if the characters were at all original that might make a difference. They're not. Nearly every character you fight as has been ripped from another FF game. There's main heroine Lightning, a.k.a. Ashe from FF XII, whiney girly-boy Hope, a.k.a. a very annoying version of Vaan from FF XII, the irritating doofus Snow, who best reminds me of Zell from FF VIII if he joined a grunge band and bought one of Seifer's trench coats from a thrift store, Sahsz (I know I didn't spell it right) the token black guy, who starts off kind of funny, but reverts to a whiney jerk like everybody else, Vanille, a.k.a. an Australian Selphie from FF VIII and Fang, whose kind of a butch lesbian version of Lulu from FF X. Besides the token black guy, all the other characters are slight alterations of previous FF games.Only whiney and moody. Lightening barely has a personality (much like Ashe), which makes her the most likeable character of the bunch.

I am able to enjoy this a little more this time around though. Mainly because I already know about these flaws and have had time to cool off over my extreme dissapointment in this as a Final Fantasy game. This is definitely the worst entry yet. Still, as a stand alone game, there's plenty to enjoy here if you have the patience to endure. It just sucks that there's such wasted potential here. This could have been the best entry yet if Squenix took the time to flesh the characters out and let players get to know the game world. Instead you only get a bunch of poorly attempted dramatic monologues and forced conversations from character we don't have nearly enough insight with to appreciate their plight. And you get many battles down alleys and walkways while getting to see what looks to be an amazing world in the background. Still, I have hopes that XIII-2 and Lightning returns will address these issues and possibly renew my faith in Square Enix and Final Fantasy. SInce Dragon Quest is now a mobile series for Nintendo, it's really all I have left from these guys besides Eidos games.

My kid is a huge Halo fan. Ever since he and I first joined forces to battle the Covenenant when he was 6 he has been a huge fan of the series. As I once was. After the original Xbox offerings, something changed. Halo 3 still had a lengthy story, but the story kinda sucked and the game had a large feeling of "been there, done that". ODST and Reach had the same problem, along with one new one. They were really short. ODST I get. It was originally supposed to be an expansion DLC. Reach however, should have taken more than one night to beat. Now Halo 4 is finally out and my kid could not wait to play it! So much so that we let him open it on Christmas Eve about two hours before I left for work (I work third shift and am VERY well compensated for working the holidays). I know via text message that he went to bed at the usual time that night. So I was extremely pissed off to find out that he had just finished the last level and beat Halo 4 by the time I got home in the morning. It took him three and a half hours to beat this thing. I paid $60 plus tax and he beat it in less than 4 hours. I was actually looking forward to playing it with him, but what's the point? With two people, we'll probably have it beat in just under three hours. What a freakin rip off! This piece of crap game was over in less time than I had to work to pay for it! How in the hell can developers get away with making these short ass games and still get high ratings on them? This crap-tastic shooter was a little more than an hour longer than the fantastic Journey. Which was a quarter of the cost. It's another case of a once great franchise, reknowned for it's immersive story, decides to focus on the online multi-player and scraps the story to cut corners. On the reverse side, great shooters like Borderlands and Deus Ex are offering huge campaigns that offer great experiences. Unfortunately games like Deus Ex are fewer and futher between than they once were. Borderlands is an exception to the shooter rule though. It offers a huge story mode that taylors both to single player and multi-player. With how expensive games are now, I think developers should really focus more on making games with a fair amount of content for the money they charge. tacking on multi-player to increase the longevity of the game is a very lousy way to treat the fans who enjoyed the single player experience you once offered. They do this to try to dissuade people from selling their games. In my case and the case of many of my friends, this hurts their sales causes me not to buy games new. I now only buy rpgs new, or games that I know specifically last longer than one night. I definitely won't buy a game that lasts under 10 hours new. I wouldn't pay $20 for a dvd with only one half hour episode on it, I won't pay triple that for a game the length of a Lord of the Rings movie. Once upon a time, games the length of Fable were considered short (10-12 hours). Now that seems like an epic-length game and that is just sad. Developers want to whine and moan about how used game sales are hurting their profits, but they don't want to make games long enough to justify paying so much money for them. Digital distribution should be the answer to that. Since you don't have to manufacture discs, you can sell the game for less and make a profit. Plus, there's no selling the copy you have since you only really own the rights to download it. Again, this sadly isn't the case. They try to charge the same $60 price. This offers no incentive to buy this way. If I'm going to spend that much on a brand new game, I want to hold the physical game in my hands. Plus, if it does suck and end in less than a day, I can sell it and get some of my money back to make up for the fact that the developer ripped me off with an expansion pack they tried to call a full length game.

So last December I repurchased yet another Xbox 360. The Slim model this time. It thankfully hasn't died on me and has been mostly reliable (although it did scratch a ring in my copy of Skyrim for no apparent reason cuz Micro$oft uses cheap disc drives). After 4 RRODed old model 360s (all of but the last of which were covered under extended warranty) I shouldn't have given them another chance, but I own many games for 360 and really didn't want to repurchase all those games. The slim model is quieter, has built in wireless and runs slightly less hot. However the touch sensitive power and eject buttons are quite annoying and beep unneccesarily. All in all I am not that impressed since this is the system they should have released initially, not the old model with a 100% failure rate (I know that's not accurate, it's closer to 50%, but absolutely everyone I know who owned one has had at least one 360 red ring, so from personal experience 100% of the old model systems has failed). Between this, fried systems and ridiculous fees for online gaming most people I know have moved on to the PS3.

Hence last tax season, when I finally had the money, I purchased a PS3 bundle with Uncharted 3 for $299 plus the extended warranty. COnsidering the 320GB model without a game normally runs $349, this was an awesome deal! Score one right out of the box for Sony. I have been consitantly impressed with this system since then.

The old comfy Dual Shock controller may not be as good to use as the 360 controller, but that's really the only drawback to this system. The dashboard layout is consitant and easy to use, with no hidden menus often obscured ny advertisements for movies I don't want to see. In fact advertisements (which are mostly for games and deals) are handled in a very unobtrusive way. They are displayed briefly in the upper corner in a small scroll box. I love that internet service is free and that it has a browser in case I'm too lazy to hop on the computer. Most services like Netflix are available to use with the free internet service. Purchasing games online is a breeze (I pay for the actual amount of the game! Not buying points with stupid remainders for amounts they don't sell anything for). Yes there's a $5 minimum, but if you have money leftover after that, it goes towards the real-time amount of your next purchase. Speaking of games I have been loving the PSOne Classics. Some of my all time favorite games are available for download for either $5.99 or $9.99. SOme of these games are now rare gems. Granted I still own most of these games, but I'd rather spend a few extra bucks and not risk damaging my physical copies. Plus I don't have to hook up the PS2 to play them again. The Playstation Plus service is also great! Instead of forcing you to pay $60 a year just to play games and services online (regardless if you're paying separately for those services), SOny offers the PS+ package for roughly $40 a year. This package includes all kinds of awesome benifits and deals. Anything from early access to download content, free games for download (only playable for as long as you're a plus member), discounts on select games and dlc and all kinds of other small incentives make this a much better deal than paying $60 on top pf your existing internet service just to get full access to your games that you just payed $60 for. I don't have to pay to go online with my computer, why should my console be any different? If I buy a car, should I have to pay a yearly fee to be able to allow it to go up to freeway speeds? Greedy old moneysoft really screwed us all with that one.

SOme people complain that installing games is mandatory for PS3, but I find it refreshing that they went that route. It minimizes disk drive useage, helps the system run quiter and cooler and improves load times. Plus a developer can rely on the fact that the game will utilze the hard drive and program accordingly. Speaking of drives and running tempuratures, the PS3 runs incredibly cool for such a compact system. After hours of gaming, my system runs a little warm. After 20 minutes of the 360 slim running with an external fan the system is almost hot to the touch. Not to the point where I think it'll overheat, but definitely not running cool. And running it without an external fan is even worse. Which leads me to think my PS3 will far outlive my 360 and that I will eventually repurchase most of my games for it after all in a few years.

Nother interesting thing about PS3 is the excusive games available for it. Quantum Dream's awesome games, God of War, Team Ico's games, Little Big Planet, Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Daxter, Sly Cooper, Twisted Metal, Resistance, Killzone and a lot more! Micro$oft has what? Halo (meh), Gears of War (alright these are cool), Fable (I confess I love me some Fable), The Witcher 2 now (really good game) and then what? That's really it for their exclusive franchises (and I'm not even sure if they own the rights to The Witcher, I think it just got ported there instead of PS3 cuz it was easier to do). Nearly everyting else is available on both systems.

This was a bit of a long rant and I know it makes me seem like a Sony spokesperson, but I am floored by how shady Micro$oft is. And going back to Sony is kind of like coming back home again. Sony's never steered me wrong. I've only replaced one system from them and that's the PS2. My disc tray stopped working, but I was living in a damp basement and I suspect it just got too gunked up down there (it still lasted me 5 years). Otherwise my original Playstation works, my replacement PS2 slim still works fine and I suspect that my PS3 will be owrking fine for years to come. In contrast I replaced my old Xbox because it stopped reading discs alltogether and am on my 5th 360. Not very encouraging M$! I know which company I'm going with next console generation!

Well, I finally broke down and bought a PS3. I was gonna just get a large hard drive for the 360, but decided this was cooler. I haven't really had a chance to play it yet, but I got the Uncharted 3 bundle for $299. A great deal. A 320 gb hard drive and Uncharted 3. Roughly a $410 value. My girlfriend is pissed I got it, but it's gonna be a while till this kinda deal pops up again. Now if my mother in law would leave so I can have my livingroom back and play it in HD. In the meantime I rented Saints Row the Third, so at least I have something to play till I pass out. Haha Moneysoft. You lose. (of course I'm still going to get the occasional 360 game, but PS3s getting most of my money from here on out.)

So 360 #4 has fried on me and I am quite pissed. It's been a few months now and naturally Moneysoft has been no help. My Xbox Live account can't be frozen till I get a new 360, so there's 6 months of waisted money, it'll cost about $100 to send in my old 360 and get it repaired. Naturally there's no option to upgrade to the slim model that doesn't have a hundred percent failure rate. I honestly just want to get a PS3, especially after the price drop, but I don't want to start over with over. I have over 2 dozen 360 games. So I'm toughing it out till tax return time when I shall get a slim model 360. this is Moneysoft's last chance with me though. And I'll be damned if I'm going to get their next system until they can prove without a shadow of a doubt that they didn't make another lemon.

This time without my 360 has been a mixed blessing in ways though. I've been going back into the vaults and playing some of my classic games that I never made it through the first time around. RPGs in particular have been giving me much more entertainment than the newer ones on 360. I never did finish FF 9, but now Im'm as far as ever in it and loving it all over again. I doubt it'll take away the sting of not playing Skyrim when it comes out, nor of losing my deposit on it, but it's still a very good time playing the classics. Modern RPGs are trying too hard I think. With the exception of the Elder Scrolls games and Fallout and the like there really arent any really good RPGs out at the moment. Dragon Age was good, but nowhere near how epic the FF games of old were. Even the newer Final Fantasies are lame compared to their predecessors. I think with all the power under the hoods of these new systems developers are trying too hard to utilize the new tech. Worry about making a fun game first, then make it look good and shine. Modern RPGs seem to keep trying to reinvent the wheel as opposed to just making a fun game with a cool story. I don't want to walk in a straight line and watch life-like cutscenes every ten minutes. I want to explore a new world and interact with virtual characters. So far there are only a handfull of modern RPGs that seem to get that. Of course the Elder Scrolls series, Fallout, Fable and the few JRPG developers who aren't trying poorly to mimic the Western style. There's a few other developers who are trying to mimc Elder Scrolls and sort of get it right, but what else is there? Yeah Bioware is making good RPGs, but they're fusing so much into them that they're barely recognizable as RPGs anymore. I'd love to get the same thrill of exploration and combat that the old-school games offer, but with graphics and scenarios that make sense with the current generation of systems. I know it can be done, but I'm pretty sure it's wishfull thinking for the moment. Unless I go the portable route anyway.

So recently I picked up Dragon Age Origiins Ultimate Edition. I lucked out n found it used for $40. New it would have been between $50 and $60 depending where I found it. I have to say this is one amazing game. It was definitely worth the wait. The thing is, when it first came out I just had too many other games I was into and this one kinda got left to the sidelines. I am greatful for that tho. I did the math on how much this game would have cost me with all the things that come in the Ultimate Edition. It would havebeen around $160 after taxes. That is absolutely ridiculous! I enjoy the extra content, but it is completely ot worth the money to buy individually. I would have been quite pissed to have spent nearly $10 for dlc that lasts little over an hour with little to no replay value.

Now Dragon Age 2 is on the horizon. I want this game something fierce, but I doubt I want to pay $100+ for the complete game. I understand that developers deserve moey for their efforts in expanding a game, but if I'm going to fork over more than $5, it had better have several hours of enjoyment, or at least replay value. Otherwise I'm better off just wwaiting for a Game of the Year Edition or it's equivilant. I'd rather pay a $80 for the entire game up front and wait a year to play it than pay an extra $40-$100 to get all the content when it first came out. Sorry I'm not made of money. I know developers want their money for the extra work they do to enhance games, but I simply dont have the extra income to keep pumping into one game.

So yeah, I recently bought Halo Reach and am astounded by how manyy people are praising this game as utterly amazing! Nearly all my friends are shocked when I say "it's ok". This usually breaks into them lecturing me for 10 minutes about every single part of the game and how incredible it was and how could I just think it's ok? The answer is simple. The game is ok. I've played this game before. 3 times in fact (not counting ODST as a seprate title). Absolutely every encounter in this game has been done before. Not only that, but many of these encounters have been done better. The so called fight with the scarab in this one? Yeah I took down multiple scarabs in 3, this tim I just get to watch one smash things because I lack the firepower to take it down (unless you somehow manage to save your rocket launcher for a very long time). Seriously, every battle has been done before. Albeit with a slightly different layout. You take away the standard Flood encounters, the less intense scirmishes between the big battles, and a few bells and whistles from past Halo games and you have Reach. Not the Holy Grail of shooters. A stripped down Halo game with roughly 4 hours of non-stop action. And as far as multiplayer, so many games are doing so much more with multiplayer than this. It's hard to accept that Bungie focused so much on multiplayer and really only added and tweaked a few things. Is it fun? Yes. Short? Very. Awesome? Not so much. In fact I'd really like my 60$ back so I can buy a shooter I might play again. My kid likes it though and it gives us something to play together, especially firefight mode. So for now I won't sell it.

So fanboys please, shut up with the speeches on why I should love this game. I've played many shooters more fun and intense, with many more hours of story. Stop telling me that I'm not a real gamer if I don't think this is the greatest Halo game yet. Combat Evolved was way better. If you honestly belive this is the greatest shooter ever that's great. Glad you like it. I for one would like a bit more effort for my 60$. Not a glorified expansion pack with a graphical upgrade. Oh well, soon New Vegas comes out and I'll get all the story/shooter/rpg action I could wish for.

So I just saw that this latest review I've written is my 33rd review. COnsidering I'm just doing these things to waste time and talk up or trash games, that's quite a lot. I could see if I was getting paid to write these, but I just do it because I'm bored. Of course there's far worse ways to kill time so I guess it's not so bad. Plus it helps keep my brain from turning to mush from watching movies and playing games with my kid. Movies that are entertaining to an 8 year old are fun and all, but far from intelectually stimulating. Plus I enjoy writing in general. Since I'm too lazy to ever write the book I've been planning on I suppose reviewing games I've played at least keeps the skills up to par. Anyway, off to mindlessly kill some ninjas. Later goons.

I never thought I'd see the day, but I have now officially sold my first Final Fantasy game to Gamestop. FF XIII is no longer in my posession. It's sad because I own some version of nearly every numbered FF game since the original (not counting XI). They are all good enough games that I'll at least pop them in every few years when I'm feeling nastalgic. XIII however is pretty much crap in my eyes. I made it about halfway through and just started to loath the repitition followed by the frustration of Eidolon battles. I want my game to be challenging because the boss battle I'm on is truly difficult, not because I didn't switch between 2 attact ypes fast enough to meet the bogus time limit offered me. Add to that the non-stop battling and there's nothing more to do in this turd of a game. How can a company go from a masterpiece like X to a polished turd like XIII in just 2 installments (I really don't count XI as a true FF game as it's an MMO)? Pretty graphics and moody characters aren't enough to keep me tridging through 60+ hours of battles and cut scenes. A rpg needs to have something more to offer. This game doesn't. If you're looking for a decent fantasy rpg do yourself a favor, buy Dragon Age, or Tales of Vespiria, heck even Star Ocean is more fun than this game. I'm a bit of a rpg collector, so hanging on to XIII should have been a no-brainer, but I know for a fact I will never have any desire to play this awful game again. FF XII was a dissapointment. I made it about 50 hours in and just got bored with the story. Not to menton I never cared about any of the 1 dimensional characters. I still played it for 50+ hours though and I still occasionally pop it in again because I enjoyed the world and gameplay. It seems as though the Final Fantasy series is going in a downward spiral with each installment. The developers are caring less and less about delivering a fun world filled with interesting characters and more about delivering action packed cutscenes. When FF XV comes out I will not be pre-ordering. In fact I might very well end up renting it before I even consider wasting my money on it. I've been pre-ordering Final Fantasy games since 7. No more shall Square Enix get my money on day one for a game that dissapoints this bad. It's a shame because back in the day Square was the one company you could count on to bring you a solid rpg every time. I guess they got too complacent with that rep and have decided they can do whatever the heck they want and we sheep shall fall in line.

Just to prove a fact here, I recntly dusted off my old NES (yes nearly 24 years later mine still works) andd started playing the original FF (after replacing the battery for memory). It is still way more fun than XIII. With nearly no personality or side missions i still enjoyed romping through dungeons and level grinding my 8-bit pixled nameless 4some more than dealing with Hope and Vannille. God does XIII suck.

So I've been downloading quite a few games off of Xbox Live recently and I have to say, the idea of downloading cheap games that might not match up to current gen graphically is awesome. Yes these games are often ugly compared to graphical powerhouses like Gears of War, but they offer some pretty awesome gameplay for a low price. It's been a blast playing Doom again and discovering Shadow Complex. I finally get to try Monkey Island (I didn't have a pc when this first came out) and have discovered a few cheap time killers like Avatar Golf and 3 on 3 NHL. I'm looking forward to discovering more hidden gems from Smaller developers and indie developers. Besides Netflix this feature is probably the most used on my 360.

Now on to Mass Effect 2. I just downloaded an update patch for what was already one of my favorite games and I have to say, I am quite pleased. For Bioware to take the time to address issues like the speed of the scanner for the scan minigame several months after the release of ME2 is quite commendable. Now the planet scanning is only a minor diversion instead of a slow-paced tedious chore. I did notice however that this new patch makes the game a lot more prone to glitches than it was so I'm not so sure if the trade off was worth it. The patch supposedly addresses the issue of the game being unplayable without access to the dlc you have downloaded (which I think it's ridiculous you have to be online to use your dlc in the first place), but at least now I don't have to start a new game if my internet goes down. All in all I'm very pleased with all the effort Bioware is putting into this game. This is definitely one of my favorite series and it's nice to know the guys who made it care so much about it they're willing to work extra just to tweak some of the things they didn't like about it.

Well, that's about it for my random babling. I effectiveley killed time while waiting to take my kid to school. Until next time goons.