Friday, March 12, 2010

Gaming Update: It's About Time!


This week, I gained accessed two games that I have been waiting nearly a decade for.

My first year of college, I met two of my best lifelong friends from across the hall, and they introduced me to Starcraft (among other things, such as whiskey, another lifelong friend).

My second year in college, I met my current female lifepartner. In the early days of our relationship, one thing we did together was play through Final Fantasy 10 (her idea, not mine . . . she's awesome!)

This week, Final Fantasy 13 was released. It is the first "real" FF in my opinion since 10. I'm sorry, but 12 flat-out sucked. The graphics were good, and the story as well, but the gameplay systems were a disaster. We bought it with excitement upon release, and gave up in disgust a few weeks later. We spent last night playing FF13, and have loved it so far. If anything, it feels so far like the spiritual successor to FF7 (tied with 6 for my favorite ever), in so many ways.

Also this week, I was reading this interview with Dustin Browder, lead designer on Starcraft 2. He mentioned offhandedly that they had "added a bunch of new keys this week", meaning beta keys. I had been avoiding my email and battle.net account page to save myself the heartbreak of not being in the SC2 beta. Hoping against all hope, trying to keep my excitement in check, I futilely logged into my battle.net account.

Well, not so futilely - the beta was there.

So in conclusion: you know how people tell you "life isn't fair"? Well, guess what: for me it is. There is a god, and I believe in miracles.


So far, I love both games. Have a great whiskey! I mean, weekend!

1 comment:

Rich said...

I brought home FF13 yesterday (with an american PS3, hooray me).

Played it a good few hours last night, and am liking it so far. FF7 was the last FF I gave a crap about, and this one looks like a winner.

The combat system has certainly been... uhh... streamlined. I could get a 'turbo' controller and just hold down X i reckon, but to be fair I haven't unlocked any new skills yet.

I decided to buy it having read nothing about it... my only exposure being seeing a clip of combat looping in the 'buy a monitor' section of Fry's.

It looks GOOD. too good.

Starcraft? DON'T CARE.