Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Why is it that I always write when i'm exhausted?
So I guess there's gonna be a FF:CC throwdown at Tom's place on Friday. I'm looking forward to it. I found a deal (misprint, loophole, deal, it's all good) where I can get a new GBA and an E-Reader for about $40, which is a hell of a price. I almost took the plunge, but a couple of things stopped me; for one, I usually go for the top-of-the-line product if i'm making a decently big purchase (and if I can afford to), especially in the case of electronics. So when I know that a superior product exists in the same line, in this case in the form of the GBA:SP, i'm very hesitant to spend money. I feel like if i'm going to get a new console, I might as well go all out and get something that's not already obsolete. And I would have, months ago, if they hadn't announced the PSP. It seems like an amazing little machine, and pretty much every big developer around has already signed on to make games for it (I'll go into the details of why I like the idea of it so much some other time). So if it ends up being $200 or less there's a fairly good chance I'll buy one. It's pretty much a guaranteed success already. I mean, no one has seriously competed in the portable market with Nintendo since...ever, but then again no one had made a successfully competing console until Sony released the Playstation. And look at where we are now. I'm not saying the PSP will immediately take over the market, but unless the NintendoDS ends up being something amazing, the PSP will do just fine. So, I figure spending $40 or $100 now could be used towards a PSP or a game or something in ~eight months. And I have plenty to play in the meantime.
Meanwhile, I've been playing Super Smash Bros. Melee with Dan intensely for the last couple days. I got it about a month ago but hadn't touched it until a couple of days ago. It's pretty damn great. Four player is awesome and all, but that's to be expected (pretty much any game player with 4 people in the same room is great in my book). What has really surprised me though is the single-player game. It's much deeper and much more well-structured than I would have assumed, and actually gives an incentive to play when your friends aren't around (or forever sleeping) with approximately seven hundred billion things to unlock. Granted, most of it is useless trophies and shit, but a new character or level every couple hundred things is enough to keep me motivated (note: I guess this is kinda turning into a short quasi-review, but since we don't have a review section yet I'll jive with it anyhow). I do have a couple of problems with the game: analog controls just don't work well in fighting games (especially Nintendo's "you can press it all the way to the right or you can't press it at all - nothing in-between, fuckface!" ones), so to have them be the only mean of moving around is fairly annoying; i've gotten used to it, but it's still not as precise as I'd like it to be. Also, while there are plenty of items to pick up and things to collect and such, you never know what something does until you use it a bunch of times, and you never know what's next to unlock, or how to unlock it, without a faq of some sort. Considering the Mario series is fairly user-friendly, I was surprised at the lack of indication or instruction here. Anyhow, none of this really takes away from the game much, as you get used to it all eventually. Tom offered to give me his game save so I wouldn't have to unlock everything (I'm assuming he has most of it unlocked), but to me that's at least half the fun.
Oh, I almost forgot. Yes, FFVIII has it's fair share of Japanese cultural/anime influence, but it's done (I thought), in such natural, subtle ways most of the time that it feels much more mature than any other FF game up to this point as a result. Some parts are definitely still over-the-top and, to us, rediculous, but that's to be expected from a game born entirely of another cultures influences, especially one this prolific.
What ever happened to the new Altered Beast? I mean, it looked about as good as two donkeys having sex, but still, I want to know it's fate. Same goes for the new Vectorman.
Hey Tom, you gonna come see 50 First Dates with me this weekend? I'll let you touch my hand in the theatre..... ;-)
Meanwhile, I've been playing Super Smash Bros. Melee with Dan intensely for the last couple days. I got it about a month ago but hadn't touched it until a couple of days ago. It's pretty damn great. Four player is awesome and all, but that's to be expected (pretty much any game player with 4 people in the same room is great in my book). What has really surprised me though is the single-player game. It's much deeper and much more well-structured than I would have assumed, and actually gives an incentive to play when your friends aren't around (or forever sleeping) with approximately seven hundred billion things to unlock. Granted, most of it is useless trophies and shit, but a new character or level every couple hundred things is enough to keep me motivated (note: I guess this is kinda turning into a short quasi-review, but since we don't have a review section yet I'll jive with it anyhow). I do have a couple of problems with the game: analog controls just don't work well in fighting games (especially Nintendo's "you can press it all the way to the right or you can't press it at all - nothing in-between, fuckface!" ones), so to have them be the only mean of moving around is fairly annoying; i've gotten used to it, but it's still not as precise as I'd like it to be. Also, while there are plenty of items to pick up and things to collect and such, you never know what something does until you use it a bunch of times, and you never know what's next to unlock, or how to unlock it, without a faq of some sort. Considering the Mario series is fairly user-friendly, I was surprised at the lack of indication or instruction here. Anyhow, none of this really takes away from the game much, as you get used to it all eventually. Tom offered to give me his game save so I wouldn't have to unlock everything (I'm assuming he has most of it unlocked), but to me that's at least half the fun.
Oh, I almost forgot. Yes, FFVIII has it's fair share of Japanese cultural/anime influence, but it's done (I thought), in such natural, subtle ways most of the time that it feels much more mature than any other FF game up to this point as a result. Some parts are definitely still over-the-top and, to us, rediculous, but that's to be expected from a game born entirely of another cultures influences, especially one this prolific.
What ever happened to the new Altered Beast? I mean, it looked about as good as two donkeys having sex, but still, I want to know it's fate. Same goes for the new Vectorman.
Hey Tom, you gonna come see 50 First Dates with me this weekend? I'll let you touch my hand in the theatre..... ;-)
// posted by Nick @ 9:58 PM 
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