Showing posts with label Square Enix. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Square Enix. Show all posts
Friday, March 20, 2015
Final Fantasy XV: Episode Duscae Demo Impressions
Earlier this week, we were given our first real taste of the long-in-development Final Fantasy XV. How does it sit with me, someone who has been a long fan of the series, and one who has also believed that Final Fantasy has been on a steady decline for quite a while?
Find out after the jump!
Disclaimer: I apologize in advance for any odd pacing in this article, as it's pretty difficult to write about a game that's a small piece of a bigger whole. Not to mention, the full game isn't even finished yet.
Friday, April 11, 2014
Incomming
Hey, folks!
Just wanted to apologize for the lack of posts lately. School has been killing my free time lately (only 2 more classes to go until I graduate, though! Whoo hoo!)
There are several reviews that I've written, but haven't gotten around to posting yet. They'll be up soon.
In the meantime, here's what you can look forward to:
Bravely Default (3DS) - Review
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (PS4) - Review
Skyborn (PC) - Review
Titanfall (Xbox One) - Review
-Josh
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Josh's Inner Dorkdom Journal - Episode 10
1. HD for last-gen games?
Go on and do yourself a favor and download a Playstation 2 emulator. I've recently been replaying Final Fantasy XII and I can honestly say that one of the low points of the series (in my opinion) is now a more pleasurable experience because of PCXE2. The once (again, in my opinion) horrid graphics of one of the last major PS2 titles are much more palatable at a higher resolution, due mainly to the various plugins available for the emulator.
I'm not condoning the use of a pirated copy of FFXII, as PCXE2 will play titles directly off of the original game DVD. So if you have some old PS2 games (and a powerful enough PC rig) and you want to see what those games look like in HD quality, download the emulator and give it a look. You won't be disappointed.
2. Selling your soul to the devil... all for a videogame.
In my last post, I talked about the fact that I would probably be reviewing Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. To someone like Nic, this may come as something of a shock since I've been staunchly against paying a monthly fee for a game.
My opinions on charging players to play a game is a whole other story for a whole other article.
But I figured... what the heck? (censored Back To The Future quote)
The pricing schemes for FFXIV are kind of ridiculous, but I won't be playing the game forever. I'm planning on paying the minimal fee so I can see if I like it or not. Plus, you get a month free when you start the game, so that should be plenty of time to check the game out and give it a trial run.
When The Elder Scrolls Online releases, however, I may just have to suck it up and pay for it full-tilt. Those are games I can get into for a long period of time, so I'll probably be just a tiny bit more justified in the month-to-month fee... right?
3. People need to leave Ben Affleck alone.
Seriously, what did this guy do to garner all this hate over him playing Batman? I think it's a great choice and he's a great actor. I've never seen a movie with him in it that I didn't like. Or at least, I've never seen a movie of his that I thought was terrible.
Yes, I saw Gigli, Phantoms and Daredevil. I personally like Daredevil, and Phantoms (in which he was da bomb, yo) and Gigli certainly weren't the best movies I've ever seen, but they weren't nearly as bad as jerks on the internet make them out to be. And even if one thinks that those movies are bad, exactly how much do they really believe that Affleck was the cause? He didn't write those films, or direct them, he just starred.
So I guess because Ben Affleck, a good actor, decides to take a few acting gigs in movies that people deem terrible means that we should crucify him for playing Batman? Really? The internet really needs to take a minute and think about the logic they use to come to a conclusion sometimes.
Just as a side note: I also think Ben Affleck should play Eddie Dean in The Dark Tower films if they ever get made.That's the guy I've always pictured since I read the character in The Drawing of the Three. Hate me, internet.
-Josh
Go on and do yourself a favor and download a Playstation 2 emulator. I've recently been replaying Final Fantasy XII and I can honestly say that one of the low points of the series (in my opinion) is now a more pleasurable experience because of PCXE2. The once (again, in my opinion) horrid graphics of one of the last major PS2 titles are much more palatable at a higher resolution, due mainly to the various plugins available for the emulator.
I'm not condoning the use of a pirated copy of FFXII, as PCXE2 will play titles directly off of the original game DVD. So if you have some old PS2 games (and a powerful enough PC rig) and you want to see what those games look like in HD quality, download the emulator and give it a look. You won't be disappointed.
2. Selling your soul to the devil... all for a videogame.
In my last post, I talked about the fact that I would probably be reviewing Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. To someone like Nic, this may come as something of a shock since I've been staunchly against paying a monthly fee for a game.
My opinions on charging players to play a game is a whole other story for a whole other article.
But I figured... what the heck? (censored Back To The Future quote)
The pricing schemes for FFXIV are kind of ridiculous, but I won't be playing the game forever. I'm planning on paying the minimal fee so I can see if I like it or not. Plus, you get a month free when you start the game, so that should be plenty of time to check the game out and give it a trial run.
When The Elder Scrolls Online releases, however, I may just have to suck it up and pay for it full-tilt. Those are games I can get into for a long period of time, so I'll probably be just a tiny bit more justified in the month-to-month fee... right?
3. People need to leave Ben Affleck alone.
Seriously, what did this guy do to garner all this hate over him playing Batman? I think it's a great choice and he's a great actor. I've never seen a movie with him in it that I didn't like. Or at least, I've never seen a movie of his that I thought was terrible.
Yes, I saw Gigli, Phantoms and Daredevil. I personally like Daredevil, and Phantoms (in which he was da bomb, yo) and Gigli certainly weren't the best movies I've ever seen, but they weren't nearly as bad as jerks on the internet make them out to be. And even if one thinks that those movies are bad, exactly how much do they really believe that Affleck was the cause? He didn't write those films, or direct them, he just starred.
So I guess because Ben Affleck, a good actor, decides to take a few acting gigs in movies that people deem terrible means that we should crucify him for playing Batman? Really? The internet really needs to take a minute and think about the logic they use to come to a conclusion sometimes.
Just as a side note: I also think Ben Affleck should play Eddie Dean in The Dark Tower films if they ever get made.That's the guy I've always pictured since I read the character in The Drawing of the Three. Hate me, internet.
-Josh
Friday, June 8, 2012
!!! Game Developers Are Going To Make Us Squeal Like Little Pigs !!!
Hey, video games, you sure do have a pretty mouth!?!
So E3 is over and we are left wholly underwhelmed. Not to say that there wasn't anything good at the great convention in the sky (or Los Angeles), but we saw less mind blowing new stuff and more things that (while good) we already knew about. The few outstanding titles shown were expected to be outstanding, so no surprise at all really. I am excited about "The Last of Us" and "Beyond: Two-Souls", "Alien: Colonial Marines", "Halo 4", and to some extent the "Wii U". For the most part, I am more excited about the prospect of the future than I am the reality of the present. Current Generation hardware is reaching it's limit and the time is coming closer for us to move forward to bigger and better things.
Let's Talk Graphics!!!
There are PC gamers out there (you know we love you), but I am not one of them. I much prefer playing on a console, because I like the simplicity and the lack of headaches that it provides. There is, however, a trade-off between playing on a PC versus playing on a console. The upgradability of PCs almost always assure that they will be better (in the graphics department) than consoles. That also means, PCs will always be more expensive to the consumer than their more limited cousins, the consoles (especially if you want the best and fastest machine to play the newest and biggest games to their fullest extent). I have always wondered if there would come a day when the two would be evenly matched. I don't foresee this happening and, if it did, it would only be for a very short span of time (think months not years). The shelf life of a console is about 4 to 5 years. The life of a PC (in the world of gaming) is maxing out at around 2 to 3 years, and that is if you can handle being behind the curve when it comes to the newest games on the market at the end of that cycle. Almost every year, the specs for PC versions of games jump higher and higher. Console game designers have a set ceiling of specs that they must conform their games to every time they produce content for the home market (these designers can improve the quality of their games as the life of a console progresses, but they still can't exceed the limitations of the hardware). Even though these statistics lean heavily in favor of PCs over consoles, I have neither the time nor the money to be apart of that particular demographic. So consoles it is (for me anyway). "But Todd, consoles are expensive too?" Yes, weird little third person voice inside my head, but in the long run the cost is less, especially if you can only devote so much time to video games as a whole. With consoles, I don't have to constantly tweak my settings so that I can run at optimal levels or spend large amounts of time installing the game to a specific location on a specific hard drive with the right settings so that my graphics card can handle the load between it's internal memory and the computer's ram, not to mention the need to constantly buy new and better hardware to stay ahead of the current game specs. Wow, see my point?... No?... Well kiss my backside, fanboys... wait, does that mean I have to kiss my own rear (you know, cause I'm a fanboy)? I just find consoles work better in the context of my life right now, so that's what I want news about.
I have already discussed my love of story over multiplayer (yes, we are all well aware of your lengthy written discussions on many topics), but that is not the only quality I look for in a game (really, pray tell what might another one be, because you ARE going to bore us with the answer, Yipee). I am also a sucker for great graphics. If a game looks great, I'll be the first to try it out. Oddly enough a game with great graphics and mediocre gameplay is better to me than grap graphics and great gameplay. So, I am ready for the next generation (not Star Trek) of video game systems. The interesting thing about E3 is that some of the most graphically impressive games shown were done so on PCs and not consoles, even though they have been presented as coming to consoles too. Some of these game companies have not specified which consoles their respective products will appear on (no mention of Xbox360, PS3, Wii regular or U, or Sega Saturn [just kidding], just that they will be on the "generic word": Consoles). Also, none of the games in question were presented at any of the keynote presentations, and Sony famously makes the developers show their games on Sony hardware during their keynotes. Kotaku, on their website (here), have speculated that we may be seeing some games, which are listed as being released in 2013 (the predicted year of the new consoles), that may be intended to debut on the new systems first, before all others (current gen.). The new Star Wars game, "1313" (have you seen this thing) and Ubisoft's "Watch Dogs" (way out of left field) were running on PC hardware, not consoles, at their respective booths and the representatives of Lucasarts and Ubisoft were non-committal when questioned about which consoles the two games would be seen on. Is this an indication of the impending new console releases, maybe, maybe not, the game developers aren't saying. But these very same people are winking and giving very sly smiles when the topic arises. They, however, are not going to out the products of their biggest partners (the big "N"eh, Spidey's pimp, and Officesoft), so we'll have to wait to be amazed. It is certainly fun to think about though.
While I'm on the subject of graphics, take a look at the new graphic engine demos that premiered at E3 this year. They all were impressive (some more than others), but it appears to be a bright future ahead. With Square Enix's Luminous engine, the Unreal Engine 4 by Epic, and the CryEngine 3 by Crytec, I can safely say that I am impressed (not a difficult thing to do I assure you). This means that our new games will be more like the "Mean Girls" Lindsey Lohan and not like the "I'm going to run over you with my car" meth head Lindsey Lohan, and that's always a plus. Stay tuned for my review of Ridley Scott's "Prometheus" that's in theaters today (can't wait). Until then, no sleep til' Brooklyn.
Todd "The Master of Unlocking" B.
Updated For Reference (1:15 AM Sat. 6/9/2012)!!!
"This" is Epic showing off the Unreal Engine 3 (and it still got a little juice left in the tank) at last years GDC 2011 with a demo called "Samaritan". They said at the time that this demo represented how the next generation games should look. Another (read not) subtle kick in the crotch that it's time to move on up to the top "where the Jeffersons live" (to that Deeeluxe apartment in the sky hi hi, with anti-aliasing and dynamic lighting effects). "Hey, Sony and Microsoft, quit living on the couch in PC's basement. And just because he's slow to the party, doesn't mean you two should always make little Nintendo go out and get you more smokes, he wants to play Halo too, sometimes."
[Kotaku, Gametrailers.com, and IGN]
So E3 is over and we are left wholly underwhelmed. Not to say that there wasn't anything good at the great convention in the sky (or Los Angeles), but we saw less mind blowing new stuff and more things that (while good) we already knew about. The few outstanding titles shown were expected to be outstanding, so no surprise at all really. I am excited about "The Last of Us" and "Beyond: Two-Souls", "Alien: Colonial Marines", "Halo 4", and to some extent the "Wii U". For the most part, I am more excited about the prospect of the future than I am the reality of the present. Current Generation hardware is reaching it's limit and the time is coming closer for us to move forward to bigger and better things.
Let's Talk Graphics!!!
There are PC gamers out there (you know we love you), but I am not one of them. I much prefer playing on a console, because I like the simplicity and the lack of headaches that it provides. There is, however, a trade-off between playing on a PC versus playing on a console. The upgradability of PCs almost always assure that they will be better (in the graphics department) than consoles. That also means, PCs will always be more expensive to the consumer than their more limited cousins, the consoles (especially if you want the best and fastest machine to play the newest and biggest games to their fullest extent). I have always wondered if there would come a day when the two would be evenly matched. I don't foresee this happening and, if it did, it would only be for a very short span of time (think months not years). The shelf life of a console is about 4 to 5 years. The life of a PC (in the world of gaming) is maxing out at around 2 to 3 years, and that is if you can handle being behind the curve when it comes to the newest games on the market at the end of that cycle. Almost every year, the specs for PC versions of games jump higher and higher. Console game designers have a set ceiling of specs that they must conform their games to every time they produce content for the home market (these designers can improve the quality of their games as the life of a console progresses, but they still can't exceed the limitations of the hardware). Even though these statistics lean heavily in favor of PCs over consoles, I have neither the time nor the money to be apart of that particular demographic. So consoles it is (for me anyway). "But Todd, consoles are expensive too?" Yes, weird little third person voice inside my head, but in the long run the cost is less, especially if you can only devote so much time to video games as a whole. With consoles, I don't have to constantly tweak my settings so that I can run at optimal levels or spend large amounts of time installing the game to a specific location on a specific hard drive with the right settings so that my graphics card can handle the load between it's internal memory and the computer's ram, not to mention the need to constantly buy new and better hardware to stay ahead of the current game specs. Wow, see my point?... No?... Well kiss my backside, fanboys... wait, does that mean I have to kiss my own rear (you know, cause I'm a fanboy)? I just find consoles work better in the context of my life right now, so that's what I want news about.
I have already discussed my love of story over multiplayer (yes, we are all well aware of your lengthy written discussions on many topics), but that is not the only quality I look for in a game (really, pray tell what might another one be, because you ARE going to bore us with the answer, Yipee). I am also a sucker for great graphics. If a game looks great, I'll be the first to try it out. Oddly enough a game with great graphics and mediocre gameplay is better to me than grap graphics and great gameplay. So, I am ready for the next generation (not Star Trek) of video game systems. The interesting thing about E3 is that some of the most graphically impressive games shown were done so on PCs and not consoles, even though they have been presented as coming to consoles too. Some of these game companies have not specified which consoles their respective products will appear on (no mention of Xbox360, PS3, Wii regular or U, or Sega Saturn [just kidding], just that they will be on the "generic word": Consoles). Also, none of the games in question were presented at any of the keynote presentations, and Sony famously makes the developers show their games on Sony hardware during their keynotes. Kotaku, on their website (here), have speculated that we may be seeing some games, which are listed as being released in 2013 (the predicted year of the new consoles), that may be intended to debut on the new systems first, before all others (current gen.). The new Star Wars game, "1313" (have you seen this thing) and Ubisoft's "Watch Dogs" (way out of left field) were running on PC hardware, not consoles, at their respective booths and the representatives of Lucasarts and Ubisoft were non-committal when questioned about which consoles the two games would be seen on. Is this an indication of the impending new console releases, maybe, maybe not, the game developers aren't saying. But these very same people are winking and giving very sly smiles when the topic arises. They, however, are not going to out the products of their biggest partners (the big "N"eh, Spidey's pimp, and Officesoft), so we'll have to wait to be amazed. It is certainly fun to think about though.
While I'm on the subject of graphics, take a look at the new graphic engine demos that premiered at E3 this year. They all were impressive (some more than others), but it appears to be a bright future ahead. With Square Enix's Luminous engine, the Unreal Engine 4 by Epic, and the CryEngine 3 by Crytec, I can safely say that I am impressed (not a difficult thing to do I assure you). This means that our new games will be more like the "Mean Girls" Lindsey Lohan and not like the "I'm going to run over you with my car" meth head Lindsey Lohan, and that's always a plus. Stay tuned for my review of Ridley Scott's "Prometheus" that's in theaters today (can't wait). Until then, no sleep til' Brooklyn.
Todd "The Master of Unlocking" B.
Updated For Reference (1:15 AM Sat. 6/9/2012)!!!
"This" is Epic showing off the Unreal Engine 3 (and it still got a little juice left in the tank) at last years GDC 2011 with a demo called "Samaritan". They said at the time that this demo represented how the next generation games should look. Another (read not) subtle kick in the crotch that it's time to move on up to the top "where the Jeffersons live" (to that Deeeluxe apartment in the sky hi hi, with anti-aliasing and dynamic lighting effects). "Hey, Sony and Microsoft, quit living on the couch in PC's basement. And just because he's slow to the party, doesn't mean you two should always make little Nintendo go out and get you more smokes, he wants to play Halo too, sometimes."
[Kotaku, Gametrailers.com, and IGN]
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