Is Final Fantasy 7 That Great ?

Don't get me wrong I don't think Final Fantasy7 is a bad game; I just think it’s a very overrated and over hyped. I know of plenty hardcore fans that claim it’s the greatest Japanese Role Playing Game (JRPG) of all time. But many people that adore Final Fantasy 7, because it was the first JRPG they ever played. If you played Final Fantasy 4-6 first, you would have realize that they are better games with better character growth systems, better stories, and even though the graphics are not as advanced I think they hold up better overtime. “Where to start?” I know how about the battle system and the story line the most important elements of a JRPG. Final Fantasy 7 failed to add anything meaningful or different to the {ATB} system that wasn’t already used in Final Fantasy 4-6; other than the long ass summon spells. Bahamut Zero and Nights Of The Round yeah do I need to say anymore, and don’t get me started on the use of save points and random battles. Now, the Materia System which essentially gives any character the same ability kind of breaks the system, because there’s no different between the case of characters; unlike Final Fantasy 5 which did a far better of executing the use of this system. The Materia system hides the fact that there is no real progression in the leveling system, because whatever Materia you give to one character doesn’t necessarily mean the character is good, just the Materia is. One the biggest problem with Final Fantasy 7 and other modern JRPG’s is they suffer from is a bad story lines and poor character development. The main character is a sword- wielding, spiky-haired hero, get this he Has Amnesia! Well I’ll be damn imagine that. Go and play a game called Planescape Torment and Memento; I don’t know about you but I’m sick and tired of stories using amnesia it’s the most overused plot device in JRPGs period. Also what kind of fucking name is Cloud Strife; the name is half Emo have Goth and very lame. Just joking about that previous sentence I really don’t care about the names of the characters.

But most of the characters in the game are clichés like the Mr. T clone Barret; Cid of course who is in ever Final Fantasy game; the bizarre anime character that has no place in the story Cait Sith; Aeris the girl whose magic powers will determine the fate of the world. The list goes on but I will stop to talk about one particular character I that requires a closer look. I am referring to the worst character to ever grace a video game, Yuffie. Webster dictionary defines a (Ninja) “as a member of a feudal Japanese society of mercenary agents, highly trained in martial arts and stealth (ninjutsu), who were hired for covert purposes ranging from espionage to sabotage and assassination”. Why do I hate the adorable, fun loving ninja? First of all, her name is Yuffie. Second, ninjas are neither fun loving nor adorable! Infiltration, carnage, and drinking the blood of their enemies is what makes ninjas happy. Yuffie on the other hand is the stereotypical anime chick that jumps up and down screaming “Ya-ta!”. What’s my point? Yuffie is the only ninja in the history of video games to break the tradition of ninja being awesome in spite of their lame surroundings. Final Fantasy suffers in my opinion the worst character designs ever to grace the series; I would think the story would carry the game right? Not so; the main protagonist has amnesia which is lame. The setting is cool, he lives in a technologically advanced steam punk world or so you think until you leave this highly futuristic city. Too find the entire surrounding world looks like a generic Final Fantasy countryside. It’s like leaving Neo Tokyo and winding up in Tennessee for the rest of the game. Here's a quick run down of the story, so Cloud meets Sephiroth, who is still filled with teen anger towards Shinra his Mom and Dad. To get back at them for being mean, Sephiroth arbitrarily burns down a village and summons a meteor. Aeris decides that she is going to use the power of love and hope to stop him, and gets stabbed in the back. In a scene that is poorly executed, then she dies. Whoops!, I should have put a spoiler alert for that, but you can’t ruin a story that is already bad. Cloud has amnesia so he forgets to cast resurrection. Cloud kills Sephiroth but is too late and Aeris uses her magic to stop the meteor. Oh and I forgot to mention Cloud thinks he some guy name Zack, because when Zack was about to die he told Cloud to live for him. Fin

And that’s why I don’t like Final Fantasy7, but who the hell I’m I to judge. I really didn’t even make any good or compelling points to back my argument; I guess I’m just hating to hate something a lot of people enjoy.

Film Review: Splice

Splice (2010)
Director: Vincenzo Natali
Writers: Vincenzo Natali, Antoinette Terry Bryant, and Doug Taylor
Cast: Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley, and Delphine Chanéac
Grade: B

Creature features tend to be cautionary tales: "Don't fuck with science because it will fuck with you."

It's worrying to see such a regressive message toward technology as a trope in horror sci-fi films, but honestly, it works.

Splice fully beautifully exploits common and misunderstood fears of cloning and stem cell research for a compelling sci-fi drama.

Our heroes are Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley, a scientist power couple. Their discoveries include slug-hybrids which make moist, gushing sounds whenever on-screen.

In their world, Brody and Polley are so hip and cool, they hang posters of anime characters on their walls, listen to heavy metal and jazz, and have made it onto the cover of Wired.

These character flourishes are a nice deviation from the stuffy scientist archetype. They also confirm that Brody and Polley's characters, despite their breakthroughs, still have a very juvenile attitude toward life.

Their teenage personas are challenged when they introduce a third character into their life, a creature far more complex than a meaty, gooshy slug.

Pieced together from human and animal DNA, the CG and puppet rendered monster is a lovely young woman with a bisected head, goat legs, and a tail. It grows quickly, a child maturing into the attractive Delphine Chanéac.

The conflict comes when Dren, as they name the creature, becomes resentful of her adoptive parents and eventually tries to fly the coop. Literally.

This thoughtful film about the uneasy transition of parenthood becomes a standard horror movie by its third act.

Splice's careful drama falls apart as it becomes the very creep-fest its posters promise it to be. Clunky dialogue becomes far more jarring as the film draws to a close.

But the thoughtful build-up in the first two-thirds of the movie are still with worth the price of admission.

Brody's traditionally quiet performance shows a man struggling to juggle responsibilities. Polley threatens to become a cinema scream queen during the first part of the film but finally settles on a heart-rending performance where her emotions lurk just beneath her skin.

Both they and Chanéac give excellent performances, even if they are stuck in a world where scientific advancements only mean trouble.

Korean StarCraft Match Fixers Banned by Pro League

Man, talk about burn; the StarCraft Professional League Kespa has permanently banned a host of players involved in last month's cheating scandaled. Some of the greatest players to ever grace the game won't be able to play professionally anymore. Reports say team Liquid not only barred the eleven players from playing again but also took there awards and professional recognitions out of the record books. Goes to show that South Korea takes their Star Craft very serious, and how its an deep part of there cultural. So deep that matches are regular aired on T.V the way football or basketball is watched in America.

Bethesda E3 "Secret"

Japanese mag Famitsu Abstract 360 latest issue reports that several company's still have unannounced surprises to reveal at E3, including Electronic Arts, Capcom, Konami, Square Enix, Sega, and Ubisoft. Even though Bethesda studios already released their E3 lineup earlier this week, the company claims to have a "secret" announcement to reveal at E3. What on earth could Bethesda have up there sleeve's; seeing how they already announced Fallout: New Vegas, Brink, Hunted, and id Software's Rage at an early show. The net has been buzzing with rumors of the next installment of the Elder Scroll series or possible MMO base in the Elder Scroll universe. According to a source speaking to VGA247 back in January, Bethesda had plans to announce an Elder Scrolls MMO last year, but ended up pushing the announcement back (for unexplained reasons). According to court documents which involved a dispute with Interplay and Bethesda. Interplay said that Bethesda has been working on an new MMO since 2006; with a team of 100 so working on the project, but Bethesda hasn't confirmed or denied anything yet. Elder Scrolls V doesn't seem possible now after the statement made by Bethesda game director Todd Hines "we no current plans to make another game in the Elder Scrolls series." But not long after the new Elder Scroll novel was released which seem to hint at the possibility of an new game in the series, and the publisher describe the book as "[partly bridging] the gap for the next game, which is set 200 years after the Oblivion crisis." All this speculation makes me wonder what the big surprise is.

25 Best Video Game Cameos (6-25)

Mikhail Gorbachev in Zangief's Street Fighter 2 Ending

In Street Fighter 2, When you take down M. Bison as Zangief, you're greeted by the splotchy headed former President of Russia. Ol' Gorby thanks Zangief for his fighting on behalf of the Soviet Republic. Then they do a traditional Russian dance. Yes, this happens.

Not only is Rockstar willing to tip their hat to Miami Vice as a source of inspiration for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, but in the PSP game Vice City Stories, they go nearly wholesale and have you go to a Phil Collins concert to hear "In the Air Tonight."

The King of Pop was a huge video game fan, and apparently a SEGA fanboy. When shown a near-final version of Space Channel 5, he asked to be put in the game and "Space Michael" was born. His cameo in Space Channel turned into a full-fledged role in Space Channel 5: Part 2.

After his "Chaos Dunk" caused millions of deaths in Neo New York, NBA legend Charles Barkley became a wanted criminal on the outs with the law. When a second "Chaos Dunk" kills millions more, a framed Barkley becomes hunted by the "B-Ball Removal Department" led by one Michael Jordan.

Back before Bill Clinton stormed Washington D.C., he didn't fake the funk on a nasty dunk in NBA Jam. Bill and Hil weren't the only unlock-ables, which also included Al Gore, Scorpion, The Beastie Boys, DJ Jazzy Jeff and a ton of others.

Mario showed up in a slew of NES games, but perhaps his best cameo is as the referee in Punch-Out!! Too bad he sucks at keeping it clean and allows magicians to cast spells and drunks to spit their booze in Little Mac's face.

By Paul Furfari of 1up.com

Predictions Anyone ?

E-Readers Vs. Books

Well I knew it would happen sooner or later. If you aren't aware E-readers are a growing business, and like all businesses there in it to win. And to show that there product is better and superior than the current norm. So what’s my point? It’s the question that no one in the industry has tried to predict yet. That is in till now, typical Sony jumping the gun as always recently made bold statement predicted the demise of books within five years. That comment comes courtesy of Sony's Steve Haber, head man of Sony (DRBD) digital reading business division. He said that: "within five years there will be more digital content sold than physical content." Really, Mr. Haber I wonder, because he said "digital content" so I presume this also includes magazines, newspapers, and books too. That’s a very bold statement for Sony to make, but there more to this story than meets the eye. Haber also insisted that there is no room in the market place for a stand alone E-reader; with devices like the Ipad to compete with. saying that, "it's just like digital imaging, where you can take pictures with a cellphone - and many people take pictures with cellphones - but if they want the best possible picture they'll use a point-and-shoot camera or a digital SLR." I can't really make what Sony is trying to say; do they have plans to bring out a product similar to Apples Ipad. This would eventually lead to the fall paper-back products, just like Cds have already lost to MP3 players.

Greatest Game Of All Time.

GoldenEye

Whenever I hear the words GoldenEye I reminisced fondly of my younger days as an adolescent in junior high school. Coming home everyday racing to my friends Donelle’s house to get a spot to play. In retrospect GoldenEye change what first-person shooters were all about, and by far it's one of the best movie-based games ever created. Almost every aspect of this game is amazing; for starters the A.I was highly intelligent and unpredictable for it's time. Whenever I would encounter enemies immediately two guys would take cover shooting, while one guy ran for the alarm button. It doesn't stop there either in some encounter the A.I would run a short distance take cover and fire; then if you got within a certain distant of them they would get out from that cover and repeat the process. In a way it s kind of repetitive but for its time it was pretty impressive. Second, just the way the story float altogether it gave you the same adrenal rush as the movie did. Most of the time in movie-based games the developer throw in extra stage or add characters that weren't necessarily apart of the original story; it’s mostly stuff you don't care about, but it’s not the case with GoldenEye. The best and most Important aspect of GoldenEye is the multiplayer FPS were pretty much the same back in the day, but it was the way Rare implemented a user friendly interface with the playability to match that made GoldenEye a huge success. The huge assortment of weapons and stages to choose from the balance between catering to a hard-core audience and a casual was done to perfection. Anyone could just pick up the game and play it and be juggernaut or just okay at the game. So whenever someone started a match they could really specify what they want as far match types guns, and characters; at the time a lot of FPS did not offer this depth in playability.

The game did so many things right from the amount of characters you can choose before a match, the number of stages available. There was a real science to the game; the precision and accuracy of your shot all play a major role in whether or not you got a kill. The choice of weapons and even the character you pick all played a part and the placement of weapons it was truly a game of wits. I still remember all the nights I spent at Donelle’s house playing all the way until the next morning. Golden Eye was a game of its generation it came out at the right time to give people something to talk about, something to reminisce about later. A Nostalgic feeling comes about when I think of Golden Eye. It was more than a game it is a part of my history something I would tell my children about. Something that sets my generation apart from the rests, and you can look back on and smile upon behold this is what we had back then and we were damn happy and it's still fun to this day. Golden Eye is a game that should and always will be remembered by those who grew up on and it is by far one of the greatest games of all time.

Nvidia GTX 470 Prototype

Measuring in at 12 inch Long and Housing not one but two Fermi dies on the
same broad; with six GDDR5 memory controllers, each operating two channels of memory. This is one nasty little monster, and powering the two 8-pin power connector goes beyond the normal standard of 470's 215W TDP, this dualie card sure looks set for a similar future of pretty pictures and no retail viability. The GTX is so powerful you might find yourself using it too power a wind turbine or factory. Engadgets's Vladislav Savov reported that the GTX actually caused an power shortages in Taipei recently.