Sky Pirate's Den
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Minecraft Country, Episode 1: Pastoral Symphony and Cats!
Welcome to the start of my Minecraft series, Minecraft Country! Originally, I wanted to just upload a video of the Note Block Studio, but I decided it would fit nicely with everything else I added. No other intro in this series will ever be that long. In this episode, I attend a performance put on by none other than the Minecraft Chunkarmonia, and afterwards I learn the responsibilities and difficulties of owning a cat in Minecraft.
At last, I got it uploaded! Hopefully there will be more to come. I'd like to thank Akalron and JewsofDeath for being a part of the fun.
My Thoughts on Final Fantasy XIII-3 (Lightning Returns)
I really hoped I would put off Final Fantasy for a while so that new Readers and such won't think of this as a Final Fantasy only blog. I really hate thinking of this blog that way, especially considering how lousy Square's been with that franchise these days. Oh well.
Final Fantasy XIII is probably the most troubled game in the entire series. I'm even willing to say it's even more troubled than Final Fantasy XIV, which is an utter nightmare of problems. Still, Square seems to know what they're doing in fixing that abomination of bugs and interface screw ups. With Final Fantasy XIII, however, it's just one stupid issue after the other. As every fan of the series should know by know, Final Fantasy XIII was received horribly for it's ridiculous gameplay. I remember I tried to defend that game when it was the second one I played, and then after going through Final Fantasy III, VI, VII, VIII, X, and XII, I realize now how terrible that game is in the context of the series. FFX actually has the same linear gameplay as FFXIII, but somehow FFXIII somehow takes the linearity and amps it to a point that nobody could even imagine. Somehow, the linearity, while annoying, feels acceptable in FFX. I really have no idea why. I guess it could be because FFXIII has way more and maybe even longer cutscenes. In any case, that really crippled the gameplay. The developers explained that the linearity was meant to coincide with the story, but the story itself really wasn't as gripping or exciting as the others.
I liked the battle system in FFXIII, but that's all it had going for. Square didn't need to make a sequel to the game, but they announced that they would, so it then became a matter of fixing the issues with gameplay. So what happened there? Well, they certainly fixed the gameplay; they made the world widely accessible and their time-travel thing added many possibilities for sidequests and exploration and interactivity with the world and such. It was incredibly wonderful. So how is it that that game managed to fail so hard that I refused to buy it?
DLC. That's the answer to everything wrong with that game, as well as the reason why games these days can end up sucking badly. It's the reason why companies (I'm looking at you, Activision and EA) release games in pieces just for money, to eat away at the gaming community, rather than releasing what I call Gestalt Videogames. What is a Gestalt Videogame? Simply put, it's a video game before DLC was conceived.
I'll certainly bring up that term time and time again, but let's return to Final Fantasy XIII. So in XIII-2, the game ends with your main characters failing. It ends with an ambiguous, "To be continued," as the endgame screen. That is the biggest dick move anyone can pull in anything. If I wrote a short story that said, "To be continued," at the end, I would seriously have to reconsider having Creative Writing as my major. If a movie had a, "To be continued," at the end of the movie, they'd better damn well have at least summed up the main plot of that particular movie. Besides that, you can sort of get away with that in a movie since the audience has a passive role in the events of the movie. In a game, however, gamers are the ones who ultimately control whether the game finishes or not. They are actively engaging with the game to reach some form of closure by the end of its story. When you have someone do that just so that they can die in the end and have to wait for the next thing, you are being a moron. You are pretty much raping the gamer of his experience with your game.
Then, as I said before, a good one hundred and eighty five percent of Final Fantasy XIII-2 consists of DLC. Why bother paying sixty bucks for a game that's just in pieces?
So that ultimately leads me to Lightning Returns. Lightning was my favorite character in FFXIII for being awesome, well designed, well voiced, and well developed as a character. She was able to hold everything together when everyone else aside from Fang was being ridiculous in that game, kind of like how Auron keeps the group's shit together in FFX. The fact that Square has taken that and turned Lightning into a selling point for the FFXIII series just disgusts me in ways I couldn't have imagined. What they did with Lightning is essentially what presumably Activision did Treyarch's division of Call of Duty: they took the best character from World at War, Sergeant Reznov (a.k.a. a Soviet Gary Oldman) and turned him into the reason why you have to buy Black Ops and Black Ops 2. Who does that? Greedy companies who don't care about their games and only focus on what makes money.
So the fact that Square's gone on that road with FFXIII is pretty much the central reason why I try not to have anything to do with that game anymore. But, as much as I hate what they're doing with the game's trilogy, I can't ignore Final Fantasy XIII-3's fine points. I don't really know for sure what they are specifically, beyond making Lighting the sole playable character and increasing interactivity by like tenfold, but from what's shown, they seem like good ideas. But as Blue Highwind had put it, it's not a matter of whether the game will be good anymore. Rather, it's a matter of how Square will manage to screw up the game this time. Blue said he won't play the game unless it gets stellar reviews. I'll probably play it if the gameplay is good, if there's finality to the story, and, most importantly, if somebody says you can play the game without feeling like you were gipped by Square for whoring out the name.
From what I've seen, all I can say is that I like the level/concept designs, but do I really have to say that? Square is known for their detailed worlds and such, even when they are straight lines like Spira or Cocoon. Also, I find it really interesting that the game once again takes place way off in the future, and I would like to see how Square's managed to tie that in with all the characters and such. I also find it interesting that they are writing the game in the vein of Majora's Mask, where you have to compete with time before it runs out. After playing Majora's Mask, I wasn't sure how well that gameplay element could be replicated in another game, but if that isn't criticized too badly in FFXIII-3, I'll look into it.
There's a moderate chance I'll actually get this game. I guess not having played the second one has allowed me to take things into consideration. We'll see what happens when the time comes.
Final Fantasy XIII is probably the most troubled game in the entire series. I'm even willing to say it's even more troubled than Final Fantasy XIV, which is an utter nightmare of problems. Still, Square seems to know what they're doing in fixing that abomination of bugs and interface screw ups. With Final Fantasy XIII, however, it's just one stupid issue after the other. As every fan of the series should know by know, Final Fantasy XIII was received horribly for it's ridiculous gameplay. I remember I tried to defend that game when it was the second one I played, and then after going through Final Fantasy III, VI, VII, VIII, X, and XII, I realize now how terrible that game is in the context of the series. FFX actually has the same linear gameplay as FFXIII, but somehow FFXIII somehow takes the linearity and amps it to a point that nobody could even imagine. Somehow, the linearity, while annoying, feels acceptable in FFX. I really have no idea why. I guess it could be because FFXIII has way more and maybe even longer cutscenes. In any case, that really crippled the gameplay. The developers explained that the linearity was meant to coincide with the story, but the story itself really wasn't as gripping or exciting as the others.
I liked the battle system in FFXIII, but that's all it had going for. Square didn't need to make a sequel to the game, but they announced that they would, so it then became a matter of fixing the issues with gameplay. So what happened there? Well, they certainly fixed the gameplay; they made the world widely accessible and their time-travel thing added many possibilities for sidequests and exploration and interactivity with the world and such. It was incredibly wonderful. So how is it that that game managed to fail so hard that I refused to buy it?
DLC. That's the answer to everything wrong with that game, as well as the reason why games these days can end up sucking badly. It's the reason why companies (I'm looking at you, Activision and EA) release games in pieces just for money, to eat away at the gaming community, rather than releasing what I call Gestalt Videogames. What is a Gestalt Videogame? Simply put, it's a video game before DLC was conceived.
I'll certainly bring up that term time and time again, but let's return to Final Fantasy XIII. So in XIII-2, the game ends with your main characters failing. It ends with an ambiguous, "To be continued," as the endgame screen. That is the biggest dick move anyone can pull in anything. If I wrote a short story that said, "To be continued," at the end, I would seriously have to reconsider having Creative Writing as my major. If a movie had a, "To be continued," at the end of the movie, they'd better damn well have at least summed up the main plot of that particular movie. Besides that, you can sort of get away with that in a movie since the audience has a passive role in the events of the movie. In a game, however, gamers are the ones who ultimately control whether the game finishes or not. They are actively engaging with the game to reach some form of closure by the end of its story. When you have someone do that just so that they can die in the end and have to wait for the next thing, you are being a moron. You are pretty much raping the gamer of his experience with your game.
Then, as I said before, a good one hundred and eighty five percent of Final Fantasy XIII-2 consists of DLC. Why bother paying sixty bucks for a game that's just in pieces?
So that ultimately leads me to Lightning Returns. Lightning was my favorite character in FFXIII for being awesome, well designed, well voiced, and well developed as a character. She was able to hold everything together when everyone else aside from Fang was being ridiculous in that game, kind of like how Auron keeps the group's shit together in FFX. The fact that Square has taken that and turned Lightning into a selling point for the FFXIII series just disgusts me in ways I couldn't have imagined. What they did with Lightning is essentially what presumably Activision did Treyarch's division of Call of Duty: they took the best character from World at War, Sergeant Reznov (a.k.a. a Soviet Gary Oldman) and turned him into the reason why you have to buy Black Ops and Black Ops 2. Who does that? Greedy companies who don't care about their games and only focus on what makes money.
So the fact that Square's gone on that road with FFXIII is pretty much the central reason why I try not to have anything to do with that game anymore. But, as much as I hate what they're doing with the game's trilogy, I can't ignore Final Fantasy XIII-3's fine points. I don't really know for sure what they are specifically, beyond making Lighting the sole playable character and increasing interactivity by like tenfold, but from what's shown, they seem like good ideas. But as Blue Highwind had put it, it's not a matter of whether the game will be good anymore. Rather, it's a matter of how Square will manage to screw up the game this time. Blue said he won't play the game unless it gets stellar reviews. I'll probably play it if the gameplay is good, if there's finality to the story, and, most importantly, if somebody says you can play the game without feeling like you were gipped by Square for whoring out the name.
From what I've seen, all I can say is that I like the level/concept designs, but do I really have to say that? Square is known for their detailed worlds and such, even when they are straight lines like Spira or Cocoon. Also, I find it really interesting that the game once again takes place way off in the future, and I would like to see how Square's managed to tie that in with all the characters and such. I also find it interesting that they are writing the game in the vein of Majora's Mask, where you have to compete with time before it runs out. After playing Majora's Mask, I wasn't sure how well that gameplay element could be replicated in another game, but if that isn't criticized too badly in FFXIII-3, I'll look into it.
There's a moderate chance I'll actually get this game. I guess not having played the second one has allowed me to take things into consideration. We'll see what happens when the time comes.
A Tweak in Language and Other Stuff
This is just an apology to anyone who reads my old posts. I needed to edit some of the profanity I've used throughout the blog, because looking back, I was really stupid with that. Unfortunately, this meant sacrificing the flow of speech, so if something reads awkwardly, I apologize for that. This also meant that I had to delete my written playthroughs of Final Fantasy X, XII, and III, because the language was just so all over the place and there was just so much stuff I'd have to edit in one sitting, and I have no time for that so I just deleted them. Yes, this is a very sad thing, but on the bright side, I have a FFXII video let's play in mind, which hopefully will be more fun and entertaining than the written one. I know for sure it will be easier to make. I can do that with FFVI as well, but I don't really want to at the moment. Also, I got Final Fantasy X, so when I can get the chance to privately record myself, I'll make a video let's play of that!
Blog news: I've got a Minecraft video in the works. Hopefully that will be uploaded by the end of the week, so look forward to that! Otherwise, that's all I got.
Actually, another thing. Ever since the horror that was FFXIII-2, I've tried to forget about its existence and move on with my life. Unfortunately, so much stuff about FFXIII-3 has been shoved right up in my face, so now I can't ignore the game. Perhaps I'll post my thoughts about it when I find the time to do so. Maybe I'll check the game out and review it on this blog. But I'm not promising anything, really. The only certain product Square is releasing that I will eventually talk about is Kingdom Hearts 3, and that's not until at least a couple of years from now. As for everything else, I've forgotten about Final Fantasy Versus XIII, ignored the FFXIII saga, and lost faith in a U.S. release of Final Fantasy Type-0, so until FFXV comes out in about five or six or whatever years from now, don't expect much from me about Final Fantasy.
As for other games, though, things are looking good. I've got video let's plays and such in mind, which should be loads of fun here. Right now, I've got that Minecraft video in the works. Again, look for that sometime by the end of this week, hopefully.
Blog news: I've got a Minecraft video in the works. Hopefully that will be uploaded by the end of the week, so look forward to that! Otherwise, that's all I got.
Actually, another thing. Ever since the horror that was FFXIII-2, I've tried to forget about its existence and move on with my life. Unfortunately, so much stuff about FFXIII-3 has been shoved right up in my face, so now I can't ignore the game. Perhaps I'll post my thoughts about it when I find the time to do so. Maybe I'll check the game out and review it on this blog. But I'm not promising anything, really. The only certain product Square is releasing that I will eventually talk about is Kingdom Hearts 3, and that's not until at least a couple of years from now. As for everything else, I've forgotten about Final Fantasy Versus XIII, ignored the FFXIII saga, and lost faith in a U.S. release of Final Fantasy Type-0, so until FFXV comes out in about five or six or whatever years from now, don't expect much from me about Final Fantasy.
As for other games, though, things are looking good. I've got video let's plays and such in mind, which should be loads of fun here. Right now, I've got that Minecraft video in the works. Again, look for that sometime by the end of this week, hopefully.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Friday, October 5, 2012
Scout's Day Off
Here it is, my first recorded gaming session, with my roommate Akalron. I'm pretty nervous about this, considering how stupid this video is and how massively flamed I'm going to get on YouTube. In this video, I check out the BeerHeads achievement server, where people pretty much just screw around and do weird stuff. I loathe everything about this video, though. Hopefully, when I decide to start my Minecraft feature, the awkwardness will dissipate.
The Fantasy Never Dies
Jesus, what a stupid name for a blog post.
I'm going to quote this blog's description here and add to it:
Wait, BREAKING NEWS! I found all of my blog posts :D What I figured I'd do is post them before this post so that way this updated information doesn't get buried beneath my old posts.
Okay, now I can carry on with what I originally wanted to say. Going through my previous blog posts, I have one thing to say: MY GOD, ALL THE POSTS ABOUT FFXIII-2.
I guess one of the reasons why I shut this blog down was how much of a failure that game was when it was finally released, after all the damn hype I built up for it. Also, you might notice all these posts about Type-0 being released. Those were written nearly over a year ago. Look now, try as you might, you'll never find any information about whether that game will be released overseas or not. In short, Square Enix is managed by morons, and that greatly contributed to the shutting down of this blog.
As I alluded to in the blog description, I've gained wide access to the opportunities presented by PC gaming. In the case of Final Fantasy, I can now play FFXII and FFX on my computer, because I have finally found an emulator for PS2 games! In general, pretty much every Final Fantasy ever released is accessible to me, but I'm not going to bother with that opportunity that much. With FRAPS, I can make video let's plays of FFXII and FFX, allowing for a kind of entertainment that cannot be achieved through a written playthrough.
However, why limit myself to Final Fantasy? In my opinion, that was why my blog died. Therefore, even though my blog template and design runs on a theme of Final Fantasy, I want to emphasize this new factor of this blog:
I am not solely focusing on Final Fantasy anymore.
So there you have it. What does this mean? This means I will discuss any game. That includes my current library of games, which includes:
I'm going to quote this blog's description here and add to it:
Originally my Final Fantasy blog, I shut down this blog for a few months before ultimately realizing I had a lot of fun with it, even though nobody read a single thing. Now, with the world of PC gaming fully open to me with Steam, emulators, FRAPS, and so on, I felt it would be awesome to take this blog and turn it into a general gaming blog.Unfortunately, I lost the backup copy of this blog, so all of my previous posts are gone. In one way, this is a good thing because these posts featured opinions of mine that I look back on and realize how invalid they were. But for the most part, this sucks because I just had so many awesome things beyond the posts themselves. Thankfully, I've managed to salvage my playthroughs of Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy XII, along with my unfinished playthrough of FFIII. The FFIII playthrough might just get deleted, though, so don't expect that to remain salvaged for long.
Wait, BREAKING NEWS! I found all of my blog posts :D What I figured I'd do is post them before this post so that way this updated information doesn't get buried beneath my old posts.
Okay, now I can carry on with what I originally wanted to say. Going through my previous blog posts, I have one thing to say: MY GOD, ALL THE POSTS ABOUT FFXIII-2.
I guess one of the reasons why I shut this blog down was how much of a failure that game was when it was finally released, after all the damn hype I built up for it. Also, you might notice all these posts about Type-0 being released. Those were written nearly over a year ago. Look now, try as you might, you'll never find any information about whether that game will be released overseas or not. In short, Square Enix is managed by morons, and that greatly contributed to the shutting down of this blog.
As I alluded to in the blog description, I've gained wide access to the opportunities presented by PC gaming. In the case of Final Fantasy, I can now play FFXII and FFX on my computer, because I have finally found an emulator for PS2 games! In general, pretty much every Final Fantasy ever released is accessible to me, but I'm not going to bother with that opportunity that much. With FRAPS, I can make video let's plays of FFXII and FFX, allowing for a kind of entertainment that cannot be achieved through a written playthrough.
However, why limit myself to Final Fantasy? In my opinion, that was why my blog died. Therefore, even though my blog template and design runs on a theme of Final Fantasy, I want to emphasize this new factor of this blog:
I am not solely focusing on Final Fantasy anymore.
So there you have it. What does this mean? This means I will discuss any game. That includes my current library of games, which includes:
- Arma 2: Combined Ops
- Black Mesa (basically a graphical overhaul mod of Half-Life 1)
- Counter-Strike
- Continent of the Ninth Seal
- Day of Defeat
- Day Z
- Fallout: New Vegas
- Garry's Mod
- Half-Life 2
- Half-Life 2: Episode 1
- Half-Life 2: Episode 2
- Left 4 Dead 2
- MicroVolts
- Minecraft
- Portal
- Saints Row: The Third
- Team Fortress 2
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- PlayStation 2 Emulator
- Dr. Muto
- Kingdom Hearts
- Kingdom Hearts Final Mix
- Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories
- Kingdom Hearts 2
- Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix
- Final Fantasy X
- Final Fantasy XII
- Nintendo 64 Emulator
- Banjo-Kazooie
- Banjo-Tooie
- Conker's Bad Fur Day
- StarFox 64
- Super Mario 64
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
- The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
- Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (Can't get to work)
- Jet Force Jemini
- And so much more, my god
- GameBoy Advance Emulator
- Metroid: Zero Mission
- Metroid Fusion
- Final Fantasy VI
Whew. You never realize how many games you have until you count them all out. And I still plan to add more games to that library!
Beyond just the games I own, though, I'll still talk about games in the same sense as how I talked about Final Fantasy, by looking through videos and news and concept art and such. So this blog now has no excuse to sit around for long periods of time anymore. In short, I anticipate a very lively blog here, and to celebrate that, I will find a way to upload my first FRAPS video ever in the next post!
Friday, March 9, 2012
Final Fantasy III, for the iPhone!
I managed to find some iTunes gift cards and buy myself FFIII for the iPhone now. I left my DS at home since I didn't see myself using it for anything other than this game (if it were the 3DS, the case would be different). The game is beautiful on the iPhone 4S! Making this a game on the cellphone was such an excellent idea from Square. I read somewhere that there's no Mognet in this game, so supposedly you can get the Onion Knight Job without doing that stupidity. Still, I doubt I am going to have the patience to level up all the way to 99.
Overall, I am really excited to be playing this game again. As the great Blue Highwind said, it's "A wonderfully charming little game about kids who switch Jobs and wander around the world so lovely it doesn't need a plot." Plus, this means I can return to work on my playthrough for this game, though it'll be a while before I can continue since I have some catching up to do. Overall, I'm liking the feel of the game so far. The controls work wonderfully well with this game, and I am looking forward to using it on my dreadful eight hour bus ride.
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