Tag Archives: final fantasy

E3 2013 Day 3 Impressions

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It took me a few days to digest and examine the gameplay videos for Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy’s The Division but I was finally persuaded into a pre-order. I also added a handful of additional titles that were no brainers to me.

Here are today’s additions:

  • Final Fantasy Versus XIII XV - It will either be the best Final Fantasy in years or the last Final Fantasy game that Nomura will ever lead.
  • Metal Gear Solid V – Horse based stealth mechanics & Keifer Sutherland
  • Tom Clancy’s The Division – I’ve always wanted to visit Manhattan without the crowds.
  • Mirror’s Edge 2 - I was going to wait for the eventual Origin sale but I decided to reward DICE & EA for giving this cult classic another go.

Other Notables

  • I urge anyone looking for a recap or an enlightening behind the scenes look at how media covers E3, check out GiantBomb’s 50 minute video.
  • I checked out PlayStation Home for the first time since the launch of the service. Sony have this virtual E3 booth setup and while it’s neat from afar, it continues to be weird and bewildering. Still, I thought it was worth visiting for the 30 day free trial of PlayStation Plus.

Game of the Year 2012 Day 2 of 3

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Day two brings the pleasant and unpleasant surprises of 2012.

Also forget finding a runner-ups, I had a difficult time finding a winner for the “Most Disappointing Game of 2012″ because of the pre-screening I conducted before committing any resources on a game this year.

On the other hand, there were plenty of surprises to name. I kept it to three but as you will see tomorrow, I found many great experiences from some unlikely games.

Most Disappointing Game of 2012

Winner: Final Fantasy XIII-2

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I enjoyed Final Fantasy XIII. I was looking forward to this release because I actually liked the universe Square Enix fabricated. I also heard some utterances of this game being better than the original which probably raised my hopes up a bit too much. In the end technical issues, grinding and unlikable characters soured the experience for me.

Runner-ups: N/A

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LTTP: Final Fantasy XIII-2 (PS3)

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LTTP or ‘late to the party’ pieces are opportunities for me to catch up and write about games I missed out on the first time around. They may contain spoilers.

I don’t believe many people were clamoring for a sequel to Final Fantasy XIII. I was in the minority and actually enjoyed the game. The battle system and brand new universe itself was enough to carry me to the very end. It was also quite the looker which was a nice bonus.

I grew a fondness for Final Fantasy XIII’s lore. From a high level perspective, I even enjoyed the events that transpired in that game. However, I didn’t develop an attachment with any of the main characters. So you could imagine my level of excitement for the new game’s protagonists: Lightning’s sister, Serah, and her new Kingdom Hearts friend, Noel. (He wasn’t really from Kingdom Hearts but he could have been. Oh, that Nomura!)

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Checkpoint: Octoberkast 2012 Edition

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I spent most Saturday watching Tested.com’s Octoberkast 2012. I didn’t stay up for 24 hours straight but I did manage to watch most of it live. It was an entertaining show and they raised quite a bit of money for Child’s Play. The archive will be up by Monday and they will be keeping the donations opened until November 16.

I was trying to play Final Fantasy XIII-2 and watch the podcast at the same time. The results were pretty poor to say the least. I was far too distracted to solve the relatively simple “puzzles” in the last levels and my patience for the cutscenes was pretty thin. I did eventually reload and watched all the cheesy nonsense again. So all I have left to do is beat the final boss which requires me to grind some more levels before I can do so.

I hate that. And you can be damn sure that I’m putting that as a point of criticism in my review.

Checkpoint: Server SSD Edition

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checkpoint-server-ssd-edition

I bought a new OCZ Vertex 4 for my home server. It’s the same sever year old home server that is only equipped with a SATA 150 port. It may seem like overkill but I figured I could migrate it to new hardware in the future.

Before I did the switch, I wanted to see how the 200GB Maxtor SATA hard drive fared. The result was shockingly poor:

 

I knew it was bad but I didn’t think it was going to be this bad. And this is was tested without the SATA to IDE adapter which I apparently only need for the initial install.

Migrating to from HDD to SSD is taking a bit longer than I thought. I used these guides from Lifehacker and HowtoGeekI tried using EaseUS Partition Master but it wouldn’t install on a “server” operating system. So switched over to Clonezilla for the cloning and Gparted Live for the alignment.

The alignment process could take hours. Thankfully there is football.

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I started Final Fantasy XIII-2 this week. It’s not that bad but it isn’t outstanding either. The framerate issues are putting a damper on the feel of the game early on though. Fortunately, it’s not happening during battles.

The Sad Timeline of FFvXIII

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squareenix-logo.gifI remember back in 2006 when Final Fantasy Versus XIII was announced as part of the “Fabula Nova Crystalis” range of games. I remember thinking that it was a bit too much to announce so many Final Fantasy titles. I was actually worried about Final Fantasy overload.

What a silly thought that was. It would be three years before the first title in Fabula Nova Crystalis is released and another two years before a second title joined it.

So where’s Final Fantasy Versus XIII? Apparently Square Enix is still working it. And as this timeline from August 2012′s Game Informer outlines, they’ve been working on it for a long, long time.

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Checkpoint: Summer Gaming 2012 Edition

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The slow season begins with dual wielding slow motion diving action. I’m replaying Max Payne 3 on “Old School” difficulty. But what’s after that? Without physically sifting through my back log, I’m just going to come up with a list of games I’d like to get through over the summer months.

  1. Nier (360)
  2. Darksiders (PC)
  3. Final Fantasy XIII-2 (PS3)