It's Far a Future on PLANET

eff eff thirteen deux

2010-01-08T18:36:43Z

i already wrote about this, here, on le blog, but if you missed it or you just can't get enough, i played a couple more hours and then wrote an analysis for gamasutra: The Conundrum of Final Fantasy XIII.

i posit that the game is interesting and valid from a design perspective, which is pretty much the opposite of what (some) people are saying on the netssssssss because they can't walk through towns omg.

ADD

2010-01-06T07:08:30Z

i would never have been accused of having ADD. or ADHD. or, well, you know. but my attention span really has been shot to shit, as i noticed. today at work was so hard to stay focused and get anything done, and i actually forgot to do a "must do" item. it's not a major emergency (should be able to get it done tomorrow AM) but it's a fucking bother.

i sat down to play FF13 for the first time since before vacation today and i could NOT stay interested. nothing wrong with the game; i just found myself wanting to jump away and do something else. check twitter! check the TV! argh!

so i just forced myself to play and after about 25 minutes i was into it, and thne played for a good hour + with no issues. o_O what is wrong with me

at least i turned this nervous energy into cleaning my room up. i fully unpacked and put everything away, sorted shit out, and put up my 2010 calendar (yotsubato.) hoorayz

O_O

2010-01-05T22:28:18Z

i have begun to realize that my attention span is shot to shit, and that's causing a lot of my problems with actually enjoying life and getting shit done at work. i never want to sit down in front of a game anymore because, simply, i know i'm going to be there for a while.

the weird thing is that when i'm actually interested in what i'm paying attention to, i don't have major attention span problems.

at work, it manifests as an inability to get a single task finished before dicking around with something else. sometimes i catch myself thinking, "wait, did i finish that?" and then realizing, no, i didn't.

ughhhhhhhhhhh

so

2010-01-05T07:14:45Z

tonight has been fun.

i have

1. been tired
2. eaten a lot of cake
3. freaked out for no reason

seriously. i am so fucking tired! what happened. second night in a row of playing zero FF13. wish i had, i guess? i ended up sort of like watching tiny bits of dr. katz in between using the computer, since i dunno how to pay attention to two things at once. i can't write a blog post while watching TV! then i won't hear the TV. that's pointless.

really what's been bugging me a LOT is the melting pot that is my facebook friends list. this after i put down "stop worrying about irrelevant shit" (more or less) on that giant list i made. and now i'm thinking: i have to spend tons of time organizing everybody on facebook into CRAZY LISTS so i can restrict their access to things. what things? i'm not sure! what lists? i don't know! who are these people? some of them are total strangers! what is facebook for? i'm not sure!

neurotic neurotic.

FUCK YOU

2010-01-04T20:41:25Z

by "you" i mean just about anybody who sells bagels in california.

i had a real bagel in chicago. i had forgotten what they were like. jesus. they're crunchy and beautiful on the outside, and chewy and flavorful on the inside.

the worst thing about california is that sometimes the bagels aren't cooked all the way so that when they toast they brown. but you can't always get them toasted -- often you're buying them from a stand in the airport or whatever. so it's like, oh great, a semi-raw bolus of dough. fuck you people!

i've long been aware that californians can't do bagels or pizza right -- it's something i've known since i've moved here. sometimes, though, you can find a pretty authentic pizza, or you can find really good pizza that's good despite the fact that it's inauthentic.

but bagels? no. the bagels here are so lame. i eat them all the time but it's been so long since i had a real one. and then i remember what i'm missing...

and of course, egg rolls. i'm sure that east coast style egg rolls are not authentic chinese cuisine, but they deserve to be. west coast egg rolls use spring roll skins, are small, and filled with mucous.

chicago and grand rapids photos

2010-01-02T21:49:07Z

grand rapids and chicago photos are up.

i have a couple of chicago photos on my real camera, which i almost never use anymore. i really wish i had it the day i was wandering around downtown chicago taking snapshots, though. i never think about it anymore -- the iPhone is good enough most of the time. but there are definitely times where i regret not having it on hand, and this is one of them.

sitting in ohare

2010-01-02T21:26:02Z

security was empty and more or less unconcerned with my existence.

checkin was also empty, but despite that, i somehow was the victim of some screw-up with my ticket and had to use e-upgrades to get into business class or i would have been crammed into a middle seat in the back of the plane. um, no. well, it'll be nice, and i guess probably come with dinner.

and my headphones, which i bought in april, are the victims of a dying plug. i've suspected this for a while, but the extent of my attempt to fix it will be trying to shore it up with duct tape. i assume it's actually relatively easy to just snip and replace the headphone jack, but i don't know how to do it. tresch?

to back up a bit, randy and i arose a little bit late and after showering and packing, we went with will to get dim sum at a place near will's which he'd never tried before. it was not bad. they had the interesting tactic of swarming anybody who sat down with all of the carts at once. kind of odd.

yesterday, we just sat around and recovered from new years eve, in various states of hungover. randy and i got up around 2, i guess, and went out around 6, to meet up with my friend hyacinth who lives in chicago. we got dinner and drinks and had a really long, entertaining conversation. good thing.

i didn't get to see a lot of the chicagoans or travelers (my lunch plans with tim rogers disintegrated, i ended up not going out the night before NYE so i didn't get to see patrick klepek, and i had jennanemone's number, but didn't really have a chance to make a connection) but overall it was a nice trip. i do feel like i'm a bit traveled out for awhile, though i do have to go to pennsylvania in about two weeks -- a trip i am pretty much just dreading.

now: almost 2 hours to go in ohare. well, that's why i have iPod, books, and a laptop, i suppose.

a decade in pictures

2010-01-01T01:42:20Z

these are all from my flickr, except for 2005, which is from ray's.

1999

pittsburgh angst.

2000

seganet party, gamers.com (and dreamcast!) salad days, san francisco

2001

james meilke's birthday party, san francisco, and also what became my first EGM bio pic

2002

the defining time of 2002: summer, unemployed in richmond, CA. philip and anna by my side, also starring shane, special guest appearances from k. gifford and n. maragos

2003

sidetalkin'

2004

my first crazy-ass vacation to tokyo. 13 people!

2005

justin and kate's wedding (lexington, KY)

2006

vestal exits japan. i was also there in CA the day before he shipped out. bookends. i almost used that linked pic as my 2001 rep, but the other is so iconic, if i do pompously and narcissitically say so myself.

2007

me + bill @ sea ranch

2008

puppy!

2009

just out of shot -- randy, brow furrowed, as he thinks at his laptop.

some weird meme i am making up

2010-01-01T00:44:34Z

i think i did something like this last year but since i don't want to hew to any previously devised formula, i am just going to glance over the blog posts from every month of 2009 and try to synthesize some reflection on whatever the fuck was going on. this is for my own brain more than it's for anybody else, but it might be entertaining. let's see!

i am just doing this via subjects, so let's see what catches my eye...

january: egm went to its death. i finished crisis core and moved onto FF7. somehow those both seem like two of the most interesting things in 2009. i didn't like many games in 2009 very much, as we are all well aware by now, and i am realizing that is permanent and is actually a major part of my interest on getting into making them. i mean, i think i maybe just have grown beyond playing them.

the way i am feeling about the game industry can be (a little bit) summed up by this: i have been thinking about assassin's creed 2 and i can't think of a reason to be interested in it. on one hand it is an amazing achievement on technical levels (and maybe artistic levels!) on the other hand i can't imagine why i wouldn't just put the $60 i could spend on it into a jar as a starter fund on airfare to venice instead.

i made a list of my five favorite songs. like, ever. this will never work but those things are fun.

february: i got extremely drunk in vegas. 2009 was the year i got bored with getting drunk. i guess it was a good run (2002 to 2009!) i don't have a lot of regrets about drunken behavior (that's probably relatively novel for a human being) but i have sort of mini regrets about what could have easily gone a lot wronger if i weren't so lucky or so surrounded with helpful friends (and strangers!)

never forget: the pepsi ratio is aesthetic geometry.

retro game challenge was by far my GOTY. nothing even comes close. it was borderline idyllic, and until FF13 came along, the only time i played games in 2009 the way i think of playing games: just pouring myself into it. i can't play games in dribs and drabs; they need to consume me or i'm not satisfied.

march: gamasutra became like a fact of life. the last job to do that was gamespy. gamesradar and GMR never got there. the former sucked too much and i always knew i would quit sooner or later. the latter just didn't last long enough. not sure when it did, but the fact that it redesigned while i was there seems factoidy. my 2 year anniversary was in august, making gama the official longest place i've ever worked.

i replayed ys I & II and it was awesome. still pretty much my favorite game ever. i took hundreds of screenshots and never did anything with them really.

in fact i think my GOTY list for 2009 really reads like:

1. retro game challenge
2. ys I & II
3. FF13?
4 - 10. TBD

i bought a mac and it's nice but it has problems and i don't want to be a fucking mac person. i am not into cults of personality and i am going to buy a win 7 desktop in 2010, for work-at-home purposes.

GDC was fucking awesome. looking back at my posts about it, i am looking forward to GDC 2010 so much. i need to meet people this year!

april. i went to japan again and the trip was this bizarre mixture of awesome and terrible. day to day and even hour to hour ratings went from like 10/10 to 1/10. nuts. i was lonely and bored and together and ecstatic. and i was a mess because my tonsils were the size of beachballs and i couldn't breathe or sleep.

may. i had my tonsils out early in the month. this fucking sucked so much. but it was worth it. and my mother came out to CA for the first time in years to nurse me, and i realized i had to come out to her, but i didn't (for more on that we'll come back in like, october?)

i had a shitload of fun following idol obsessively with raymond. i wish we still lived together -- but can the show possibly top glambert and iraheta? no way.

i played a ton of star ocean 4 thereby ensuring that 2009 was the Year Of Disappointing games. other pieces of shit i wasted varying amounts of time on include killzone 2 and bionic commando.

june. this is the month i started to go insane with stress, i think. i had a stressful year. every month brought something new. i made the decision to not go to the london blur reunion show in july, which was sound but sucked sucked sucked. i am still mixed about that.

my birthday is in june. 32 in 2009. i got together with randy over my birthday weekend and it was incredible -- the most romantic experience of my life. but we didn't get together officially till august.

i got rid of my XP box and so far i haven't liked that decision much. the macbook is totally great as a computer for main use, power wise, but i don't like not having a home base. it's like living out of a suitcase. i need a bedroom.

july. i started wearing jeans again after a decade. okay!

august. i wrote an editorial on shadow complex which i would easily describe as the most significant thing i've ever written profesionally and may become the defining moment of my career. which seems odd on some level.

i got together with randy and came out to my mom pretty much simulatenously. i think if you take all three of these things together this is the point in 2009 where my brains started to liquify and leak out of my ears.

september. i flew to michigan to be with randy and it was idyllic -- the early days of relationships are so fucking amazing it's not hard to understand why lots of people throw themselves right back into them whenever they break up.

the hard part is continuing to make it work, as i have discovered. it's not easy, and it's not idyllic, and it involves getting to actually know the person you're dating at a level consummate with your intimacy level, which given that the person is essentially a stranger when you get together is not easy.

i saw rannie for the last time. i went from GDC austin to tokyo with one day in between. my brains continued to drip out of my ears, and i started to notice.

october. rannie died. seriously, nothing can compare to this, even my trip to shanghai. it was the defining moment of 2009, which sounds fucked up given that randy is here and alive. and he's doing his best, and has consistently done his best. life and death, e'er intertwined.

the defining theme of 2009 is that i realized that i am an adult. rannie's death isn't the entirety of why. being with randy isn't the entirety of why. coming out to my mom isn't, either. a lot went into it. those were some of my clues, though.

hikaru utada hikaru utada hikaru utada.

november. i was down at the bottom of a fucking well.

i started to realize some of what i needed to do to get out, though.

i think getting my rockman 3 box framed is like accidentally symbolic, in retrospect: freezing the way i felt about games at the moment where i was forced to confront that you can't go back home and things need to pivot. i need to become creative, not consumptive, in other words, and i am realizing that more and more. and i am starting to face up to it. that began in november.

i mean let's face it. FF13 is kind of an anomaly in that it both continues contemporary design philosophies and is in step with current prodcution values yet interests me in a direct lineage from the old days. watch me struggle with a remake of one of my FAVORITE FUCKING GAMES. watch me not care about modern warfare 2 or not even really do a convincing job of pretending to. &c.

mmm, gravy.

december. hey that's now!

for the first time in ages i gave a shit about christmas, because it was both cold in san francisco and because i had someone to share it with. which i did, just a few days ago, and which was fantastic. more becoming an adult: stepping into your own way of celebrating the important things.

i dunno, this is all fresh so i don't have much more to say. my friends who live in japan and europe are already in 2010. so hi guys, i'll be there soon! just ahead of the californians.

things i want to do in the 2010

2009-12-31T23:56:48Z

these aren't resolutions, or even goals. they are things i want to do.

- travel somewhere that i have never been
- learn to make and start to make games
- move
- continue to build my relationship with randy
- read more
- internet less, or rather, take back some control over it
- eschew tunnel vision, learn to see things in a bigger picture sense
- trust my gut more (just to reiterate that)
- stop buying shit the way i buy shit, but instead, buy shit only after i've thought about it
- pay off my CC debt and
- save more money
- not be as distractable
- stop feeling guilty about not giving a shit about games either (a) the way i used to or (b) the way i feel like i am supposed to as a Serious Journalist, it's another example of trying to live up to nonexistent ideals
- deal with my mother and my father and coming out in an effective way that leaves everyone with the least emotional damage
- stop dreading everything
- not worry about things like airline mileage programs, AT&T, apple, JP Morgan Chase or other corporate irrelevancies
- figure out if there is any way to participate in the political process on any level meaningfully
- not bow to the zeitgeist. fuck the zeitgeist. but
- harness and exploit the zeitgeist when it's on my side
- get in on the ground floor of something
- figure out more and better ways to use my facility with language, i.e. less glib, more meaningful
- realize that putting something to the side for right now is not abandoning it
- see the medium and long term and not just Right Now
- don't become a curmudgeon, but don't feel pressure to stay with the times either
- have more sex
- keep moisturizing my hands, they're dried out!
- buy the TNG box instead of getting cable, once i've moved
- keep working on my ideas, find a process for getting around creative walls instead of running into them
- not feel bad about limiting my infovore tendencies, i can't pay attention to everything
- realize my limitations are not defeats, they're just my limits
- tighten up the graphics on level 3
- stop being so fucking negative, jesus
- not worry about whether or not i need to get rid of shit. it's here now and it's easy to get rid of it and it's easy to not
- sausage soup
- cat?
- accept that it's often serendipity, not intent
- on the other hand, effort works
- remember: symbols aren't the thing they symbolize
- get better at getting up and getting to work on time. i mean, jesus
- develop my time organizational scheduling skillz, i am predisposed to this, but also extremely moody
- maybe go back to therapy?
- care less about what people think about me. this also means putting less effort into my image (haha)
- that's online (mental) image; put more effort into my physical image because i'm enjoying it
- comfortable chair, reading lamp
- europe!
- make the most of what i've got, not worry about what i don't
- eat at home more
- take care of stuff instead of ignoring it! that hasn't worked out great
- communication communication communication

i don't do the resolutions thing.

2009-12-31T23:03:45Z

but i think if i have a goal, it's to listen to my gut, more. i tend to overthink things dramatically and can convince myself into and out of any decision a million times before i make it. but i have to listen to my gut more.

so, i'm going to move out of san francisco in the new year. it's what i want. if it doesn't work out, i can always move back.

hang on hang on!

2009-12-31T04:09:26Z

my last post obviously came over way more down on lj than i am. i actually love lj and want it to never go away.

i love having a place for my thoughts, feelings, insights, and game posts. there's nowhere else for that. like i said, fb and twitter are blips. fb is starting to just full-time annoy me, kind of, because of the weird mix of people i have on there. i am not sure what to do about it and i'm kinda ignoring it for now. the problem, not fb. i use it off and on, but fairly on.

anyway, lj is awesome. i just feel like writing The Rundown of My Day is not a place where lj excels, but it is a place where twitter excels, and in fact i think surpasses, because you just get the chosen highlights (complete with at-the-time pictures.) in fact, if you want to know what i am up to, i recommend you just check in on my twitter sometimes. you don't need to sign up, you don't need to respond, but you can find out what is going on -- really quickly! -- by checking there.

chic

2009-12-31T00:37:08Z

today was a bit of a chicago adventure. i had caribou coffee for breakfast and chicago pizza for lunch. i bought some CDs and a scarf. it's cold.

i can see why people are leaving LJ for things like FB and twitter. updating your step-by-step life isn't as much fun in retrospect as it was at the time. nor are these posts fun to read, are they? i find myself mostly motivated so i can look back at this later and remember what i was doing. the "journal" in livejournal is coming to the fore more than it used to.

which is okay; and i still do love to blog. and where else would i post about FF13? or my real thoughts, as twitter and FB don't really cater too much to more than blips? but...

- rental car return
- caribou coffee
- walk through downtown
- CDs and scarf buying adventures
- tim cancelled our lunch plans after i'd waited 30 minutes -- i.e. 30 mins after he was supposed to be there
- pizza
- train back

i could make a real effort and add all sorts of color and texture to that bullet pointed list. but then you'd be met with a wall of text. who wants that?

bigger version

2009-12-30T07:39:21Z

watching randy play new super mario bros wii so i suppose i have some time to chat. except for when he hands me the controller in frustration and i'm on gamer boyfriend duty.

i got into grand rapids on christmas night without incident. there was some fear that i'd be screwed over at o'hare -- to the point where i (mentally) prepared to potentially rent a car and also lined up potential chicago-area crash space. neither ended up being an issue, though our plane was delayed for de-icing and also because ATC made the planes start leaving further apart due to safety rules.

anyway.

i got to GRR and randy had everything ready and waiting -- presents, chili in the crock pot -- when i got there. we had a really lovely gift exchange.

grand rapids is surprisingly fun. and beautifully snowy.

saturday: we had fondue (so yummy! so slow! randy knew our waiter!) went to see avatar (my capsule review: "a one dimensional 3D film", but i did like it) and got trapped at meijer (which is like wal-mart, more or less.)

geeks: the cinema with avatar had a japanese scud race cabinet, though the game was running in english. it was clearly from a namco arcade, too, because it had the old "namco: amusement to entertainment" stickers on it. so somebody is reselling japanese cabs in the US to midwestern movie theaters. odd! remember when that game had by far the best graphics ever? aka 1996.

on sunday, we sat in a great coffeehouse all day and i met some of randy's pals. it was surprisingly entertaining and very cozy. good music on the barista's iPod, great beverages. we made lasange for dinner, which took forever, but was its own reward. and i made ricotta for the first time, which was easy.

yesterday, i went to one of randy's Official Work Things (a visiting playwright Q&A/meet n greet) and kvetched with his assistant and met a lot of friendly people. then we went out for drinks with some actresses.

today, we rented a car, got lunch at the amazing marie catrib's, which had a ridiculous wait because everybody was off work, and then drove to chicago. i like road trips and iPod a great deal.

-- pause to beat world 3 castle for randy --

anyway, that's pretty much it. i mean, that's just the pared down version, but if nothing else it might remind me wtf went on! if not elucidate it for you.

tomorrow, i have to return the rental car (chevy HHR) and get pizza with tim rogers and who knows what else! adventure awaits. back in SF 1/2/10~~

chi ca go

2009-12-30T05:10:32Z

made it from grand rapids to chicago without incident. had fun so far and looking forward to more. that's it for now.

eff eff thirteen

2009-12-27T21:58:23Z

here's my demand for you. i'm 8.5 hrs into FF13, but i want to talk about it anyway. your job is to remember that i'm 8.5 hrs into it and forgive that.

it's odd. on one hand the preview is an established and necessary form of enthusiast games journalism. on the other hand, would you write about a film, or a book, or a novel, before completing it? maybe some preliminary thoughts. EW does film previews based on apparently very little, if the text is to be judged. yet... it feels weird and incomplete and uncomfortable for me to do it now. no matter how many times i did it before.

Final Fantasy XIII is too monumental. to me personally, to the industry, to the archipelago nation of japan. it represents something. the fruition of a cinematic technique for gameplay design that was deeply influential but is losing sway, needs to justify its existence.

FF13 is going to be a polarizing game. and a lot of people will be very loud about how incomprehensible or badly bad or loud and empty it is. from now until march and beyond. or maybe i'm the only person who gives a shit who works outside of shinjuku. who knows?

anyway, it's tough to write about. but...

let's try.

final fantasy XIII

final fantasy XIII is an RPG by square enix for the playstation 3 computer entertainment system. it was released in japan december 17, 2009. the worldwide release is scheduled for march.

the game features command input battles utilizing, in a wisp of its essence, the ATB battle system introduced by final fantasy IV in 1991. the game features exploration, and cinematics, and dialogue. the game features fireworks and armies and nonlinear narrative and linear gameplay. it is, nominally, an RPG.

"RPG". i just dug into this with parish and kat and travis a little but on the ATB podcast, but FF13 is not an RPG that allows for even a smidgen of role playing. if you play a role, it's the Sky Auditor, making sure that the movements of the little people on the ground are directed according to as proper a formulation as you can execute at all times.

though i am going to avoid talking too much about the counterarguments against the game's design, a little hay has been made that the game is simply one long corridor you run down. i can split hairs, but the game is almost literally linear. the question that is not being asked is: is this a good thing? it's being so far assumed that it is not.

i don't mind. i kind of like it. give me a goal and i'm a cheerful button presser and stick waggler.

the JRPG genre has long been in thrall to linearity. the games are generally rather story-driven and also quite determined to present a crafted worldview and cast of set characters for interaction. on a strucutral level, they are often a system of locks and gates; while you can go from town to dungeon and dungeon to town as much as you like, there's only ever really one right thing to do.

that's because there is a goal in the form known lately as JRPG: that goal is to move forward in space and in time, and to trigger the next cutscene. in a bad game with good cutscenes (cosmic fantasy 2) this could not be more apparent. in a good game with bad cutscenes (star ocean 4) it's just as apparent in the inverse.

in a good game, you advance the plot and you enjoy the core gameplay simultaneously, but they have a fundamental disconnection. that disconnection has been getting greater and greater as games get more advanced and thicker and fatter in their storytelling.

at the budgetary level of FF13, the amount of creative energy expended on both of these aspects, the storytelling and the gameplay, is exceptionally high. i'm not sure if it's a mere consequence that an exceptional linearity is the result. it's more likely that it's a purely conscious design choice on the part of the team.

FF13 has no towns. many are surprised by this. i'm not particularly so. i was actually kind of hoping it wouldn't. in short, i kinda called it.

it was over eight hours into my play session before i could walk up to someone and push the X button to talk to them. the decision to experience dialogue, to that point, had been purely noninteractive (either ambient or cinematic.) can you imagine that in a JRPG?

the impetus

anybody who reads my blog knows that i'm a big fan of crisis core. that game, being a streamlined thing designed for the PSP -- and quite unlike the game it's a prequel to -- follows a mission structure. you deploy from a hub (shinra HQ) into external environments (dungeons).

in my opinion, it cut a lot of the fat from JRPGs. not all of it -- there are still some tedious segments where you run around talking to people and trying to force what happens next to happen soon. but generally it's a good structure for a game. and they added shopping (for potions etc) to the main menu, so you don't need to go out to town to resupply.

well, FF13 took it a step further. the game is paced and structured more like devil may cry than an RPG. you explore its world, which is generally laid out before you as an easy march, and periodically you'll run into the story.

i think people who aren't happy were hoping that the game would keep the form of towndungeontown and just make the towns interesting. the shocking conclusion the team reached was "why not just cut the fucking towns?" you're not getting half a game: you're getting a hibachi steak that's already had the fat trimmed and has been cut into small and succulent chunks for simple consumption.

i think that people expect artifice to be hidden in games. i think people have recently been looking for some sense of "reality". take call of duty, which despite being the most popular thing going, often gets knocks for being linear and design-heavy. the designers employ tricks (like grenades that spawn out of nowhere) to keep you on the path, rather than just physically hemming you in. the designers employ tripwires that dump out the next cutscene... but they don't mark them on the minimap, like FF13 does. (make sure you save first!) FF13 is designed to be easily grasped and, with its tremendously high number of save points, consumed once, consumed in order, and consumed safely and in the dosage you require.

i think there's another piece of the unspoken RPG covenant that FF13's designers stepped back and thought and said "no" to. usually with RPGs, the game hands you a great deal of its core gameplay and says "make of this what you will." this gives rise to quite boring infodumpy tutorials. they are usually far too early into the game to make any sense. the throttle on this gameplay freedom is usually just the leveling system -- you have access to an extremely limited subset of everything you will get access to. JRPGs usually take this a step further and wait until Act II to dump the crafting (or whatever) system on you, but that's about it on the paradigm shifting front.

FF13's design team is like, "no, we're going to dripfeed you a new aspect of the gameplay system every so often as we choose. not you choose -- no, we choose." everything is paced manually. it's crazy! you'll beat a boss and be handed something new. not because you earned it through accumulation of points; nothing so arbitrary or gameable. the designers have decided: this is when they'll be ready.

there are two obvious benefits to this: one is that i understand all of the gameplay in FF13 because i learned it in sequence and at intervals. this is in stark contrast to a lot of RPGs where i see a tutorial at hour 2 and then forget how to do any of the gameplay by the time the battles actually get hard at hour 6 or 8. it is also a good hook into continuously being interested in the gameplay: something new will unlock and keep me interested.

that said, the control can be a little excessive. the artifice does shine. i think the tension for people with this game boil down to: how much control are they willing to give up?

uncontrol

i replayed the first chunk of FF7 earlier this year, because of crisis core (primarily). i wanted to see where that had all come from originally, since it had largely passed out of memory. that game was somewhat notorious in its time for trapping you in midgar for the first 7-or-so hours.

i get the sense from what i've read, which is not very much, that FF13 traps you on its line for about 20 or 25 -- not having gotten that far i can't say -- before something changes. i think people are going to have a hard time with that. if you think GTA or oblivion is the thing, then this is not the thing.

i think that some developers are good at specific things and others at others, and that trend-chasing is to be avoided. i mean, that extends beyond developers into films and other art. play to your strengths. in that sense i think FF13 is the right game for this team. but there's obviously also a need to play to the tastes of your audience. particularly when you factor in a budget like this. in that sense i think FF13 is something of a gamble.

more

there's a lot more to talk about, though. the characters and story, for example. here i feel very impeded by wanting to see the shape of the whole before discussing its parts, and also by the language barrier. when people talk i get between 0 to 100% of what they are saying. i would guess that on overall dialogue comprehension i'm hovering somewhere around 60% and overall story comprehension (remember, it's highly visual, and i have no small amount of practice dealing with this stuff) i'm probably around 85%.

of course, since a story in FF is designed to be complicated and twisty, it's hard to even know what i am meant to not yet understand and what i simply don't understand through my own fault.

that said, the story has its hooks in me. there's a reasonably elegant framing device that's being used repeatedly. as tim rogers said in his kotaku piece, you keep thinking you know what the story is about and the story keeps showing you a new facet to show you that, in fact, you don't know what it is about. that is an effective structure for a game.

i think what's worth discussing is its pacing. as you traverse the dungeons you get short but frequent cutscenes. this is an intelligent refinement of the long dungeon, long cutscene paradigm. they're rarely so frequent they feel like interruptions. it's more evidence of the careful massaging this game has been through. years of development that i assumed was more related to the difficulties of creating a next generation engine were also spent in some large proportion on polish. i am left somehow surprised. that's where the relief comes from.

lightning, hope, sazh, vanille, snow, fang. i guess all i really have to say about the characters is that is the order i put them in without thinking about it, so that's a relevance pecking order dumped from my brain directly, without thought, at 8.5 hours.

and that's where i'll leave you. i've gone as far as i can with this right now. time to give randy some attention instead.

randyland

2009-12-26T22:20:45Z

made it to grand rapids without incident. weather at o'hare was not that bad. my flight had to be very slightly delayed for deicing (snow began to fall about an hour before its departure) and also because they started spacing out the takeoffs for safety. but it was not a big deal. at all. i made it here just slightly late.

we had a very lovely christmas present exchange (there's a major present coming on monday too it seems) and we watched a bunch of dr. katz episodes (my main present to randy was the dr. katz box set.) i adore that show. falling asleep with your bf while dr. katz is on, on christmas = nice.

we got to play with randy's landlords' cats, because he's taking care of them while they are out of town. we also had chinese for lunch. REAL EGG ROLL. <3 food is so ridiculously cheap here. and we're going to see avatar tonight in imax 3D. hooray.

now: who knows what! the afternoon is wide open.

wow, it's christmas

2009-12-25T08:57:40Z

i think this is the first christmas eve i've spent in san francsico and only the second in california (it's my 9th since i moved here in 2000.) usually, i'm already home by now or at least arriving this evening. but this year i am not going to visit my parents. i am going to visit my lostncove. and since we're not religious, and today was not a free day off in gamasutra-land, i stayed home and am flying out tomorrow (wish, pray, or hope for me -- weather conditions in chicago look a fright.)

tonight, instead of flying to pennsylvania, i had a nice time hanging out with the convalescent franken_bear and his hubby 50poundnote, sftekbear and blakes_7. we ate snacks and chatted under the warm glow of christmas lights. that's how i like my christmas eve -- low key and chatty.

adult life. i really feel like 2009 is the year of my adult life really beginning. it's peculiar to be coming at it so late, but as i've said before, i think it's also kind of typical these days, or at least in my circle of friends and acquaintances.

whew. all packed and ready to go tomorrow AM. i'm so excited.

and i'm 8.5 hrs into final fantasy XIII. i think i might try to bang something about it out on the plane or during my layover tomorrow, but right now i just don't have the energy. i'm all squirrely with anticipation of what's going on tomorrow as well.

whoever and wherever you are, merry christmas.

deck the halls

2009-12-25T06:03:43Z

WITH FINAL FANTASY FUCKING THIRTEEN

forza and qore

2009-12-25T05:55:26Z

i have download codes for some forza 3 DLC and a qore episode. i don't want either. anybody out there want them?

the horrible conundrum

2009-12-24T19:45:57Z

feeling "why am i here today" about being at work on christmas eve does nothing to reduce your workload, and sitting here in a mixture of torpor, self-pity, apathy, and annoyance and not doing work doesn't help anybody get home and play final fantasy 13

must remember!

also THIS

most accurate review of lady gaga in 2009?

2009-12-24T19:00:04Z

thanks, WBC.

seriously, these people are complete nutjobs, as we all know, but i have to say, i do agree with this statement about lady gaga: "as much as she'd like to pretend otherwise, there's nothing new or different about the hussy's pretentious prancing." i don't think i could have put it better myself.

via philbutrin

more framed pics

2009-12-24T08:34:17Z

IMG_1600
Originally uploaded by ferricide

you've already probably seen my framed rockman box which was both the most special item in my framing set and the one that came out the best.

well, yesterday i got two more of my framed items back from michaels: a ma vie en rose poster and a tokyo subway map (that's still wrapped in brown paper.) i hung the ma vie en rose poster tonight alongside the evangelion poster i got back the same time as the rockman box.

you can see a bigger pic of the two posters here.

both of these films are very special to me, for very different reasons. i'm in love with the frame job for the ma vie en rose now that it's been fixed; the photo just does not do the silver wooden frame justice. it's beautiful.

the eva frame i am not thrilled with, as the words just run so close to the edge. if i had been warned about that i would not have allowed them to frame it like that but instead gotten it framed with some margin, or matted. but it's not so bad that i am barfing, and i am certainly too sick of them to take it back and try to argue into getting it redone. but it's okay.

love the poster, and that's what matters.

the ma vie en rose poster, i bought off of yahoo auctions (the US one. remember that?) in 2000 right before i moved to CA. i never hung it, always intending to get it framed. and i'm glad i waited till i could afford to. i have some other posters i did hang, and more or less ruined, and i now regret it... some, i even threw away, because they were so damaged. but this is pristine.

on the other hand, i got the eva poster off of yahoo auctions japan with help from johntv some time ago -- like 2001. thanks, john.

it's such a mystery, she said to me

2009-12-24T01:29:50Z

today is just not going as planned. i wanted to come to work and kick ass, and instead came to work and got distracted and now it's 5:30 and i have gotten done not nearly what i had intended at first. when i look at what's left for me to do tomorrow, i realize: there's no way i can leave now. so i'm going to have some tea and get the fuck back to it.

i'm not going to get to play much FF13 before i have to leave for MI. while there's absolutely no contest between randy and FF13, it's frustrating. i think it probably would have, in retrospect, been worth the fucking $140 to get it last friday. harrumph. i'd say that's a lesson learned, but i have a hard time believing i will ever be put in a similar position. unless they decide to make phantasy star V.

san francisco, "the worst run big city in the US"

2009-12-23T20:22:28Z

http://www.sfweekly.com/2009-12-16/news/the-worst-run-big-city-in-the-u-s

page 5 seems particularly meaningful in my personal case, in light of my recent blog posts, eh?

sigh.