Skip to content

Crystal chronicles

Final Fantasy XII wallpaper
(Image source: Square Enix.)

Coming as I do from a PC gaming background, I’m used to saving wherever and whenever I like. If I feel the fan is not only about to get hit but completely smothered, I’m saving. If I’m about to take on a dastardly boss, I’m saving before the battle. If the bladder is about to burst and the game isn’t turn-based, I’m saving.

The reason I prefer to save and save often is I detest having to replay entire sections of a game. I play games for the challenge, true enough, but I also play games for fun. Going over the same old ground simply because I lacked the fallback of a recent savegame is definitely not fun for me. It’s especially tedious when there are no random elements to keep things fresh and unpredictable. Nothing sucks the fun out of the game quicker than the same combat encounters with the same foes for the same rewards.

I was rather unhappy when I discovered what Final Fantasy XII’s save system was like.
Continued…

Posted in Games, PS2.

Comments Off on Crystal chronicles

By Gobi – Saturday, June 7, 2008

Game I’d like to play

It is a land torn apart by internecine warfare. Ancient enmities have caused Cantha to be embroiled in a conflict spanning generations. No mortal man can hope to bring peace here.

But you are no mortal man.

You play the role of an ancient evil, reviled by all for treachery and murder most foul. Your only hope of redemption, your only hope of escaping exile in the Mists between worlds, is to reunite Cantha through the healing power of music. Do you have the rhythm? Do you have the style? Do you have the burning passion?

Of course you do.

For you are Shiro Tagachi.

And the game is [click]

(Image sources: 1, 2.)

Posted in Games.

Comments Off on Game I’d like to play

By Gobi – Saturday, June 7, 2008

A return to Ivalice

Final Fantasy XII wallpaper
(Image source: Square Enix.)

Mr. Postman delivered Final Fantasy XII (ver. Greatest Hits) today. I skimmed through the manual (thick by today’s standards) and put the disc in the PS2 to confirm the region 1 title played flawlessly on my modded region 3 machine. Then I thought it would be nice to see the opening cutscene …

About 25 minutes later, I was saving my first savegame and 35 minutes after that, I saved for the second time. My spell of Impulse Control failed. Damn.

Comfortable with the basic controls by this point, I exited the eastern gates of Rabanastre, the starting city, and made for the desert where walking cactii, wolves and my prey, that dastardly scoundrel of a fruit, the Rogue Tomato, stalked the hot sands. Spotting my mark, I unsheathed my blade and began the battle. Man against tomato, no quarter asked nor given. Vicious blows were exchanged and ultimately, I emerged victorious. Tales will be told generations from now of this titanic conflict, I wager. Fruit-Bane, they might name me in those stories. Or the Tomato-Terminator. Killer of Killer Tomatoes, perhaps.

Though bloody after the struggle … no, wait, sorry, it’s just tomato juice … I returned triumphantly to the city gates and cast a spell of Save Game once again.

It’s a very good start to what promises to be a very entertaining game.

Posted in Games, PS2.

Comments Off on A return to Ivalice

By Gobi – Thursday, June 5, 2008

Age

Gamers carded. “The clerk made me show him proof of age ID … BTW, I turn 52 this Friday …”

Posted in Web.

Comments Off on Age

By Gobi – Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Make a better world

Fancy being a superhero and saving the whole damned planet? Well, you can. It turns out all that nonsense about mutation or irradiated spiders wasn’t at all necessary. All you have to do is simply buy a book.
Better World Books
Better World Books is a US-based online bookseller founded by college students who decided to start a business with the unusual goal of being socially responsible and making a better world. Better World Books does this by selling books and using the profits to fund literacy programmes worldwide.

If that wasn’t noble enough, Better World Books is also a launch partner for Carbonfund.org, an organisation that helps offset carbon emissions. Remember, kids, don’t be an enemy of Earth; stop global wanging.
Stop global wanging
(Image source.)
Continued…

Posted in Books.

Comments Off on Make a better world

By Gobi – Tuesday, June 3, 2008