2002-03-26
Memes, memes, the musical fruit...

Find out which anime character is perfect for you.
quiz by Sera*chan
I have no idea who this is, but the description sounds about right...
Mexican Radio!
Damn, I haven't heard this song in years! Z's right - this is an awesome streaming music station.
Worst. RPG. Ever.
That award has to go to Xenogears. More specifically, Xenogears Disc 2. Why? Because it's perhaps the biggest letdown I've ever had when playing games.
See, Disc 1 had a moving story, interesting characters, inventive gameplay, a fun combat system... it has a lot going for it. I finally completed Disc 1 last week while borrowing it from Dennis. So I put in Disc 2, hoping to have more of the same.
Guess what? The computer takes control away from you!
That's right. Whereas in Disc 1, you (the player) were an active participant in the story, moving it along directly by your actions, free to explore the game world in any way you wanted, on Disc 2 you're demoted to being a mere observer. The game begins dictating what you do... and then compounds this sin by only showing you stills of what happened. You don't even get to watch your characters do anything; you just get the postcard version. If you're lucky, the game gives you a boss fight to actually participate in. If you're really lucky, you might even get to go through a small closed-off area and solve a few puzzles before the boss fight. Then, you give control of the game and story back to the computer, and you sit for several minutes while it tells you what you're doing and how it turns out.
I'm sorry, but I enjoyed Final Fantasy 8 more than that. As much as I detest FF8, at least it never stole my ability to dictate what pace I took while playing the game, and never stole my ability to trigger story points myself.
Xenogears Disc 1 gets a hearty 5 out of 5. Xenogears Disc 2 gets 0 out of 5. I'd give it a higher rating, but I don't even get to play the game...
See, Disc 1 had a moving story, interesting characters, inventive gameplay, a fun combat system... it has a lot going for it. I finally completed Disc 1 last week while borrowing it from Dennis. So I put in Disc 2, hoping to have more of the same.
Guess what? The computer takes control away from you!
That's right. Whereas in Disc 1, you (the player) were an active participant in the story, moving it along directly by your actions, free to explore the game world in any way you wanted, on Disc 2 you're demoted to being a mere observer. The game begins dictating what you do... and then compounds this sin by only showing you stills of what happened. You don't even get to watch your characters do anything; you just get the postcard version. If you're lucky, the game gives you a boss fight to actually participate in. If you're really lucky, you might even get to go through a small closed-off area and solve a few puzzles before the boss fight. Then, you give control of the game and story back to the computer, and you sit for several minutes while it tells you what you're doing and how it turns out.
I'm sorry, but I enjoyed Final Fantasy 8 more than that. As much as I detest FF8, at least it never stole my ability to dictate what pace I took while playing the game, and never stole my ability to trigger story points myself.
Xenogears Disc 1 gets a hearty 5 out of 5. Xenogears Disc 2 gets 0 out of 5. I'd give it a higher rating, but I don't even get to play the game...
(no subject)
I don't ask for much.. just a wife who doesn't have the same sleep schedule as an eight-year-old. Why does she always fall asleep before 10?