Author: Individuo

Videogame Blogger and general layabout.

Final Fantasy XIII (PS3, XBOX 360)

 

This week I take the plunge into the fictional world of Gran Pulse to review Final Fantasy XIII.
I just finished it today and I must say I was a bit disappointed. With the development time that it had I was expecting alot more, which is a shame really. I’ve been a big fan of the series since early on and with Final Fantasy’s track record on new consoles (FFVII on the PSone and FFX on the PS2), I was hoping for something that blew me away like the pre-mentioned. Regrettably I ended up with an experience I would describe as “meh” at best and boring at worst.
Starting with the nitty-gritty stuff, the gameplay. The “free-roaming” section of the games outside battles would have to be my biggest niggle. Previous Final Fantasy’s made you believe that there was a big expansive world out there to explore. FFXIII turned out to be a bit linear (to put it lightly), The objective, some bad guy or chocolate or whatever always ends up being at the end of a long linear pathway. I was hoping this linearity would present us with the open world later on. If it is there I went through the whole game without finding it. “What about the Plains of Pulse?” I hear you cry. All Pulse was was a cross-road where lots of other linear corridors meet, also give that any other pathway except for the one that leads to the end is a dead end, if you think that is open-world then I pity you.
The battle system, in a nut-shell, like the rest of the game, they’ve taken Final Fantasy X as a bench mark and thrown in the good bits of XII. My problem with it is it’s inconsistency between fast pace hacky-slashy-stop-to-refill-HP frantic changing of tactics and simply bashing O until everything dead. Against some of the harder enemies and most of the bosses the game requires you to think ahead and plan for the “what if I get shot in the face with a very big laser” moments, the “dam, I’ve just been shot in the face with a very big laser, best heal” moments and the “I’m good on health, time to lay the smack-down” moments. These require switching between classes at appropriate times and against appropriate enemies, which work well against equally matched and harder opponents, but against most of the enemies and the odd boss fight you can pretty much get by just making everyone warriors or ravagers and mashing O till they die. Although the ability caps at points in the game try and still this it wasn’t quite enough to keep the combat even, and I just complained about my abilities being capped until I beat a certain boss.
The characters didn’t impress me and all felt like copy paste stereotypes without 2 strands of originality to rub together between them. Lightning, being the “cold soldier”, uncaring of the rest of the group until the convenient plot driving epiphany. Snow, being the “hero”, must save the day and must make sure everyone knows about it, while the rest of the characters kind of just hung out in the background to make up the numbers. It seems they referenced the characters from XII when they really should have used X as a guide, maybe someone at Square-Enix ticked the wrong box, or the characters were lost in translation. Can anybody who’s played the Japanese version verify this?
The story is that of any Final Fantasy. A group of people become aware of an evil threat and it’s up to them and them alone to save the world. Although this turned out to be right on the money the actual story is slightly more compelling than that. No real plot twisters like in other Final Fantasies but a the story flows with a natural progression which is easy enough to get to grips with without dumbing it down too much.
Oddly enough one thing I do think is worth mentioning is the soundtrack. It’s really good. Switching seamlessly between the ambiance of a full orchestra to a slow tempo trance and still maintaining the appropriate atmosphere of the game. I’m not usually a fan of trance and other genres of music as such, but the trancy tracks in the game would be something I would be more than happy sitting down and listening to.
Graphically it’s pretty (but then again in the current console generation what isn’t?) some pathetically outstanding scenery later on but apart from the Plains of Pulse there isn’t anything graphically that hasn’t been done better before.
You can tell when playing the game that it has taken a very long time to make, every aspect of it polished to a fine glistening finish. Unlike alot of other recent releases (Fallout 3 & New Vegas to name the biggest offenders) it’s not kicked out onto the shelves still with a good no. of bugs, which is sad in a way that a game is merited for something that should come as standard.
Now for my final thoughts. Final Fantasy has taken another step with XIII away from the traditional turn based RPG’s as demonstrated in IX and all those before it and I for one am for it. Sure FFXIII is a bad example of this but given the change in gamer demographic over the Final Fantasy lifeline, it’s just the natural evolution of the game to keep up with the times. I’ve played all of the main series from I through to XIII and I must say that it’s in the latter half I find some of my favourites (FFX taking top spot).
On a final final note, Why is this game getting a sequel? Hurry up and release Versus XIII already, a game I’m actually some what excited about.
by Individuo

Warhammer 40k Space Marine (PC, PS3, XBOX 360)

This week I’ll be taking an intergalactic look into the future with Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine.
First and foremost I think I must mention that I am not a huge fan of the Warhammer series. Not that I have anything against it, I just don’t get it is all. That disclaimer aside lets get our teeth straight into it.
The story centres around a small group of Space Marines (surprise, surprise) as they fend off an invading horde of Orks on one of the Imperial Forge Worlds. There is a sub-story but much of it may not even be there. All you have to really think about is that between you and the end of the game is a mass of enemies, they must die.
The combat is solid if at times a bit stiff, much like any modern 3rd person shooter. Feeling like the bastard child between the Warhammer universe and Gears of War. The transition between ranged and melee combat seems unnatural with our dear Captain Titus harbouring the ability to switch out a bolter and equip a bolter in but a fraction of a second. Although adding any kind of realism in this instants would just slow the pace of the game down, hence why it can be forgiven.
The game-play feels a bit schizophrenic with what can be rather large gaps between combat scenes, which can get rather boring and drag on a bit. Fans of the franchise may be more incline to keep playing because of the driving plot, but me not being a fan this was lost on me and left me feeling the game was a bit linear and plain.
The multi-player is fun with each class having their own distinctive weaknesses and strengths. I find the game options and maps to be a bit restricted giving only two types of match as of this review. Annihilation which is the first team to reach 41 and Seize Ground where your team must take strategic point, which team holds them the longest wins, with only a handful of maps the novelty wears off pretty quickly, although there are alot of unlockable armours and perks for accomplishing different objectives during the game which might keep some playing for a wile.
Overall I’d say the game was fun but defiantly not breaking ground anywhere. The game has an almost Dynasty Warriors, hack and slash feel to it. I feel the game could be better if a co-op campaign was available, because lets face it, two chain-swords carving an orks skull is always better than one.
by Individuo

Heavy Rain (PS3)

 

Anyway, lets start this with a game that as soon as I bought it kept me playing for 18hrs solid, Heavy Rain (as if you couldn’t tell by the title).
When I first heard about Heavy Rain all those years ago I eagerly anticipated it’s release. During the later years it seemed the more I heard about it, the more excited I was about the game (I’m usually quite sceptical about new releases so this is a rarity). Alarm bells started to ring though when I started seeing all the adverts for the game and news of the “4 Days Challenge”. In my experience most products marketed that heavily usually fair rather poorly. I’m glad though that in this instance this wasn’t true. Heavy Rain is by far most recent gaming example of gripping story telling and with an atmosphere thick enough to cut with a knife. There is no other current generation game that comes close to the Heavy Rain experience.
The story revolves around a serial killer known as “The Origami Killer” who kidnaps children and drowns them. Your viewpoint switches between 4 playable characters. Ethan Mars, Farther of the most recently kidnapped victim. Madison Paige, A Journalist reporting on the Origami Killings. Norman Jayden, An FBI Agent working on the case of the Origami Killer and Scott Shelby, A former cop now private investigator hired by families of the Origami Killers victims, as they all search for the Origami Killer and his current hostage Shaun Mars.
The story is gripping and the game-play is unique. Although, the game is not what I’d call perfect, there are a few blemishes to it’s character. My main niggles are as follows.
1) Glitches and freezing – As some of you may be aware of, there are still a few bugs in the game that need ironed out. I experienced a few minor one-off glitches (my favourite one being when Scott’s head decided to twist 180 degrees for a brief moment) but one that really annoyed me was when my game would freeze when I get onto the dance floor in the Blue Lagoon in which I had to reset the console. It would work normally once I loading my game again though. I’ve also heard stories about saves corrupting, although I never had a problem with such. Although with the release of the patches this isn’t really a problem any more.
2) The Controls (Movement of Character) – Although the control layout sounds good on paper (assigning the movement to R2 allowing the left analogy stick to change the players point of focus), paper can be a flimsy thing. Since you walk in the direction your focusing in, the analog stick is pointing in the direction you want to be going anyway, all this button configuration is doing is making me hold down an extra button to move. I personally would have though it would be better using the left analogue stick to move the character and using R2 to run (since most of the game nobody can go faster than a pleasant stroll). I’ve read other reviews praising the controls so maybe it’s just me that doesn’t get it.
3) Slow Beginning – The neck breaking intro meant to drag you kick and screaming into the game runs rather too slowly, mostly serving as a 20min tutorial on the controls. To which less than 5mins of that time is necessary to the story. Meaning that it does drag on a bit for a wile but about 30mins in it’ll suddenly grab you by the balls and drag you through until the end (hence the 18hrs of continuous game-play). As the old saying goes “Good things come to those who wait”. Heavy Rain being no exception.
4) Story Inconsistencies – Although from a distance the story is well rounded and intense, if you were to look at it close up you will notice that a few bits and pieces don’t add up. One that immediately springs to mind is near the end Madison upon finding out the identity of the Origami Killer has the opportunity to ring Ethan or Norman about the location on Shaun. The thing is though, Madison had never met Norman during the game, so how did she have his phone number? I couldn’t help thinking when noticing this that a few scenes could possibly have been cut from the final game, and that I wasn’t getting the whole Heavy Rain experience.
If you’re willing to forgive the reasons mentioned above, you’ll discover a unique gaming experience unlike any other, where with every action comes a reaction capable of changing the very course of the game. Beautifully presented both visually and audibly with probably the best rain effects I’ve ever seen in a game. A must buy for any PS3 owner.
One minor thing I have to mention. With the game you get a sheet of printed paper so you can fold your own Origami Figure like that shown on the box. The instructions on how to fold it are shown on screen whilst the game installs giving you something to do during installation. It’s a minor thing but it means you’re not sitting around twiddling your thumbs whilst the game installs.
If anyone has games they would like me to review leave a comment and I’ll see what I can do (as long as they are not for the Wii, since I don’t have access to one and don’t particularly want to).
by Individuo