My Little World10

The government know how to piss me off - 'we're installing average speed cameras to protect you' - bowlocks! this is a money spinner, this road, which shall remain nameless, is a deathtrap - it is basically a 2 lane motorway which is the main throughfare for lorries crossing to ireland, the government claim that the huge amount of accidents on it are caused by people (cars - because few lorries can speed due to restrictors) going too fast for the conditions

i admit people will do this, but proportionally very few, normally the twats in powerful cars who cut across lanes and dont indicate, the vast amount of accidents are caused by lorries buggering about, they swerve, pull out, overtake each other for no reason (please bear in mind there are only 2 lanes and lorries tend to travel at the same speed) and they will screw you over - the lorry may not even be involved in the accident, it may be left in its wake

i dont know where they have got this idea that speeding causes all the accidents when the road is used primarily by lorries, anybody who drives the road will tell you what the problem is - the lorries and the number of lanes not being suitable for the usage, a result of the tories in the 80s refusing to make it bigger

average speed cameras are basically cameras every 100 metres over each lane, it is horrible driving under them because you don't constantly monitor your speed when you drive on a motorway like that, it's easy to slip over 80 for a while, and then the cameras work out you were too quick inbetween a few cameras and bang, you get fined and points

this will not reduce casualties and i have no idea where these statistics, or the analysis of them comes from - you can make statistics prove whatever you want at the end of the day and this is just a way of increasing money from road fines - i wish someone would invent teleporters or airships or something, as we can't use trains due to the cost

i hate our government, the nanny state is the foulest form of government britain has ever had and i for one don't want us to become like america, or even australia in that  regard - the problem is we can't oust them because not enough people will ever vote lib dem and the tories are even worse  

i've been having some bizarre dreams lately, the only one i can remember at the moment is one where i was meeting a woman, attarctive, young, red brown hair - i walked in to a bathroom place which said bar hostesses, she then ran off and i chased her, then she was in a red dress and i somehow screwed up and she left, and i didn't get her number - i was very confused when i woke up

ok so no idea what that meant

meanwhile still ploughing through ffxii - i have played 70 hours! this game is huge, and it is somewhat irritating, i admit that i could go a lot quicker if i skipped the optional bits, but the optional bits are so intrinsic, and i'd be so weak without that time that i doubt that i'd be able to finish the game 

so for ages i have craved a game that is this long and yet i'm complaining...i know! it is unfortunately because the story of the game is somewhat lacking so you spend most of the time doing hunts, which are fine in themselves but after several hours there's only so much running across deserts you can take, true you can teleport or use an airship but i prefer to level up because you can't 'power-level' (a trademark of ff games where you run around tough places quickly rising in level) - well obviously you can to a degree but it's not as easy as previous games - a good thing probably, but maybe annoying

anyway the length of the game is a problem because the story isn't particularly huge or involving, this i believe is a side-effect of ff10, which had a huge story and a very linear structure, which everybody whinged about, me included, so now we have a game which is very much gameplay and exploration driven, it's the flip side of the coin and i prefer it to ff10 anyway, it essentially makes up for the loss of the world map

the story is however the game's greatest and probably only real weakness, the gameplay is excellent, the new battle system is refreshing and probably the greatest thing about the game, the cities are a bit scarce but are highly detailed and well thought out, i do prefer a whole world to just a section of a globe though - i like remote islands in the corner dammit!

gambits are pretty good i find, people may whinge but they can turn them off, although that would be incredibly hard and tedious - i prefer a very basic setup which means i attack when attacked or when i say attack once, auto-revive and cure when i get too low in health, any thing else i handle myself, which is bearable

licences are pointless but i wouldnt say a flaw, because they're so easy and don't really cause any problems

the battles remain challenging, provided i stray into the newest zones of enemies, old zones you can walk through and one hit kill everything - which is much more pleasant than if you had a random battle situation

characters, i recently learnt that basch was supposed to be the main character, and i was intending to have a rant about this but didnt for some reason - basically they made basch, who is older than your usual main character and experienced in battle but decided that the key demograhic didn't like older male leads, they have to be 17 year olds who are based on 14 year olds for some reason...

am i not a key demographic?? i admit im not japanese or a yank so i probably dont get counted but surely males from about 14-30 are the key demographic here?? and i want an older lead, every single lead since ff8 has been 17 or under - cloud was 21 and was the best! zidane and vaan are/were never 17, and are basically children - squall got away with it and tidus just sucked -

also, this is the reason vaan sucks so much, they intended basch to be the main character, (possibly balthier too if you ask me) as both he and balthier do most of the talking and are far more integral, fran was clearly designed in the redxiii/kimarhi role and is fine, ashe was clearly designed in the 'i don't know what the hell they were thinking' role and penelo is plain pointless, basically a last minute addition to give vaan someone to talk to, and fall in love with, awww

so again this game falls down in the story/character area, but fortunately you only have to be vaan in towns, and you can have whoever you please as leader in the field

i am still impressed with the gil and equipment side, i have more money now but it still goes quick if you're not prudent and armour really is essential, which i realised about halfway through - usually these games provide decent enough stuff or you have more gil than you know what to do with, the menu is also good, with handy info on enemies and a nice inventory and all sorts

so all in all this game is not a full score if you ask me - from a gameplay point of view it probably is, but as a ff title? nope, these magazine reviewers love playing the game, they care not for the story as much as the fans and therefore believe it a masterpiece, they seem to appreciate the loose story and lack of lead character, which i dont mind so much - it's just not done that well in my opinion

but at the end of the day given a choice between the weak story and excellent gameplay of ff12 and the big (although not great) story and crappy gameplay of ff10 id choose 12 every time

i will give it a score when i finish it - next july... 

yes, hard to find things to rant about - but it's woman time

not in the convential sense however - last night the bbc for the first time ever got a woman commentating on a premiership match on motd (match of the day)

now for the record ive definitely heard female commentators before, on sky rather than bbc and usually on lower league games or match analysis so i don't really see this is as such a big deal - but some people do

journalists love to create a storm over nothing and they had a variety of views, some were supportive, some were independent, and some were weeping - a few made comments like "im not watching and anyone who likes football shouldn't" etc

i personally go for the view that any commentator should be knowledgable about football, and preferably have played - where you draw the line i don't know, i haven't played since i was 16 and i never played a lot or very well, but i watch a lot of it and like most english men feel i have a right to tell managers what to do and commentate on the game, if you stand in a pub on a match day watching the footie the blokes in there know what theyre on about and normally agree, bar obvious bias, and so do the minority of women if they like the game

so this woman, who has worked for five live (bbc sport radio) knows what she's doing and she did fine, the media like to sell papers so i can see why they did it but as far as i'm concerned it's not a problem, had they picked a random woman from the street as a gimmick then it wouldve been but i don't consider it a gimmick, and why should it matter what gender or race you are and why is it so important when it's the first time?? i guess being a white oppressive male ill never know

admittedly the first thing she said did make me worry but after that she caught up and did fine, probably nervous - i havent been controversial for once.. 

i love peep show, jez just tried to sell his girlfriend for 530 quid to a bloke who slept with her anyway and mark pissed off a stripper and called his lackey a knucklehead

got to be one of the best shows on tv

meanwhile on lost...what the hell?

well i'm pretty sure nikki and paulo died after being buried - whoops, hehe, you've got to admit the writers are unpredictable

this ep saw desmond saving charlie and basically the whole plot was leading up to desmond allowing him to die because he thought penny was coming to him......i know!!

but he saved charlie, and they found the helicopter pilot...oh and desmond was a monk...

i have no idea what is going on - but the parachutist was alive, for how long i have no idea

and meanwhile a load of crap was happening with kate and sawyer etc... 

indeed it's still spring, but the weather is awesome today and so out come all the women in little tops and tight shorts

it's irritating when you see all these hot women wandering around with their boyfriends, only blokes like me seem to be single 

so annoying

and i was shopping with a woman - 'ooo shoes!'... i just don't get their attraction to overpriced shoes or pointless clothes, i really don't

i wanted to rant more, but i fear i'll sound like a perv

meanwhile south park just took the piss out of 300 with lesbians - brilliant! 

i dont care that no-one likes my ff talk! i dont have enough personality to do emotional stuff all the time

i got a little sidetracked with ff12 - i felt i was losing interest abot 10 hours in and i read some reviews and i heard the same thing

people seemed to think the story wasn't gripping enough and that the characters suck - which are pretty relevant points which ill probably whinge about later but i kept going 

it seems as tho square have reacted to ff10's problem of basically being a story with the odd battle and instead made it more of an adventure game, possibly like ff11 or an mmmmorrrppg or whatever theyre called, ive never played them so i wouldnt know

it reminds me of zelda to be honest, i kept pressing x all the time (to roll) and going into the menu, bloody annoying but im getting used to the system now

and i have created a fairer view of the game in my mind now, i think it's more fun than ff10 and i like this new battle system, mainly because its more challenging, which i suppose is more the enemy set-up more than the system itself but still - fighting your way through hordes of the same enemy can be slightly tedious but then i cross the same area at least 5 times for some reason and its much preferrable to random battles in a diff screen - however i feel the series must always keep the same stats system (to a point) and menu driven attack, because i do fear that if it starts veering to much into zelda style teritory it would not be in keeping with the series - but its ok so far

im not sure about gambits - they are quite good from a tactical point of view but it does make some battles very easy, but like i say this is me running through old areas for stuff and fighting weaklings by just running around and not even touching a button so this is probably good - i am overcoming the gil problem by doing this but i am clearly not behaving as i should and it still hurts when i purchase goods

i think i have played 20 hours and still havent got a decent variety of spells and equipment, or gambits which is slightly frustrating but i think it will get better soon - more options

the one thing which is a bad idea is the license system - it is pretty redundant, for equipment and stuff it's utterly pointless, although as i have progressed i have found the augments area to be highly useful for powering up my team - which is similar to the ff10 sphere grid however it is very easy to sweep the board and get every boost and get every character the same, unlike ff10 where you had people heading off in the magic section while others headed through the hp/power area in this everyone gets the same boosts so there's no specialisation which is good from the point of view that the battles are tough enough to warrant it but it just seems pointless because everybody is the same and everyone can equip the same thing if you so desire, so it's a bit like ff8 in that respect - basically the board needs to be bigger, much bigger

however it is saved by the difficulty of battles as its still challenging, but still, a poor system

anyway - want a lost review? - spoilers! not that anyone seems to read this when i mention games or tv

well basically this is about juliet whilst jack, kate, sayid return with her to the beach, no-one trusts her of course

a lot is answered in this ep (hence big spoilers here) like the whole thing with claire when she was pregnant and why juliet was upset in the first ep - she was upset because ben got cancer, which is impossible and considering he supposedly cured her sister (to make her stay on the island) 2 years before she's a little pissed  

meanwhile juliet saves claire from a mystery illness which is caused by the drugs the others put into her before the birth - forgot to mention babies can't be born on the island (i know?) - so she saves her and everyone trusts her a bit more, and she reveals to sayid and sawyer that they were both killers 

but here's the twist - we get to see what happened after that bit with her upset, ben takes her to mikhail (dead russian - remember) and they can see all the news stories from the day the plane crashed and there's a vid of her sister (now with hair) with a child - she's happy now

and so when the 'left behind' bit occurs juliet wasnt gassed - she took kate out there, and the whole claire thing was a set up by ben

so once again lost answer lots of old questions and throws a load of brand new questions up - there is some serious plotting going on by the others but to what end? the ep showed flashbacks of reality and so they do seem relatively decent but there's obviously something bigger going on

and the whole jack and juliet thing in the past few weeks? was that all manipulation - the tumour and everything was real before the crash so i dont really think the others are 'bad' but they are certainly scheming, but ben said see you in a week - which would imply a season finale answer (ie cliffhanger) as there's usually one day per ep and were at 16 of 24ish

and likewise mikhail definitely had outside contact so they havent lost it at all - what's going on! 

yes that's right...i've finally got it! (ffxii) and i keep dying!

i was told before i got it that it was tough and so it is, they have really worked out some of the fundamentals with the series in this

so far i've only just started, i hope, ive been running around the desert for several hours and finally made it to the second city, i don't know how long the game is and it's hard to tell because ive spent a long time just running around doing sidequests (known as hunts) and as far as storyline goes little has happened

likewise im still quite weak but i'm getting used to this whole license and gambit system, it's quite similar to the sphere grid in ff10 but much better in my opinion - basically the licence board allows you to equip certain things and use certain skills, unlike in ff10 the board doesnt teach you things or develop your stats - you have to buy magick (there's a k?) and`you level up in true ff style,

 once you have bought the magic/equipment you need the licence to use it, you may already have it or you might need to get it - basically a licence allows you to use a few similar things eg. black magic 1 allows fire thunder and blizzard, so that one licence covers those 3 spells, all you have to do is purchase the one spell of each and any one can cast them if they get the licence, which is not cumbersome at all really - i did fear having to buy spells repeatedly but itsbeen done well

so in that case i can't see why you shouldnt just get everyone learning magic as well as physical stuff, so specialisation is actually taken out of the equation if you ask me - it's pure customisation though as the characters seem more or less equal so you can get them using whatever you want - e.g. vaan starts with a small sword and steal so is a thief (if you want to be technical) but thieves are useless and so i simply got him a big sword, and then for a laugh started using poles (spears) for big hits

and because new weapons and magic are only available the further you get into the game you can afford to have your characters learning the same stuff as it's all they can use, and you will have plenty of lp (think ap) to use later on

this brings me on to the next point - gil, it's bloody hard to amass like in earlier games, you no longer get it from destroying enemies which is probably good as you fight a lot in this (exp is pitifully low when you defeat enemies) and you seem to rarely get new equipment as treasure, so you have to buy it

and it's expensive - you have weapons, armour, accessories, magic, gambits, techicks (skills), and items to buy, and of course you have to choose what you need most on your rather limited budget

forgot to mention the main way to get gil is to sell the trinkets you get from enemies, which isnt always provided, you have to kill them in a row to improve your chances of getting items and then you take it to a shop and sell the stuff for a fairly minimal fee which keeps you in business but will limit you, especially with the cost of decent equipment

this, i think is the finest achievement of the game - it sounds stupid i know but for every ff game you always end up with extortionate amounts of gil and always have too much if you fight more than you 'need' to and obviously  this is more realistic as you wouldnt expect wolves and things to carry money - so no more going into the newest town and buying everything on the counter, you have to choose and choos wisely at that

anyway im not that far in so maybe ill be loaded later, but ive waffled on long enough - my views on gambits and combat will have to wait til later - but it's good!

i'm bored so i thought i'd talk about something, so i looked at 300 which i saw on thursday - which is pretty good, i can't say it did anything for me other than being enjoyable but i was interested in the accuracy of the plot

turns out it's based on a frank miller (sin city bloke) comic and is very true to that, as for historical accuracy apparently it's pretty accurate, at least accurate to the sources available - i've always been pretty skeptical about greek and roman history, all we have are accounts and archeology and we seem to have got this image of a utopian society where everyone was fit and healthy and the sun always shined - and also that it was the only place in the world, thankyou 19th century for that, it's also because those lot kept records unlike other cultures

but i am no ancient historian, too much assumption for me and i'll leave that to the professionals, fact is the story is reasonably accurate, despite giant rhinos and assorted mythical beasts

i however am far more interested in it's reception, which was very mixed and for some reason people have to see a tie to comtemporary politics in every thing they see

the film is about 300 spartans (west in this case) fighting off the massive persian army (east), the spartans are a bunch of perfectly sculpted muscle men (which is in line with the history) and the persians are a freakish demon like bunch with a nutty angdrogynous bloke for a king

so ok you can see a west vs east thing going on here - but this is from a comic decades ago and is the history, it was not intended to be political commentary

iran don't seem to like this film - get over it! i saw a south park episode the other day which had British red coats and the queen shooting herself, do i care - no, it's south park (which people rarely seem to care about these days) and ancient persia hardly relates to modern iran in the same way - they need to be a bit more tolerant, that was a stupid point, didn't even need saying

yes bask in my glory for i have complete a 15 yr old game! ff5 is over and that is one less thing on my to do list - now all i need is ff12! admittedly i should play 6 first but i can't wait for 12, maybe in summer ill get 6

i shall give a short review

the plot is pretty good, fairly standard save the world sort of stuff which you would expect from any ff

graphics are over a decade old so it's not very fair to score them - they were good in their day

battle system - much improvement since ffiv so therefore it scores well, this seems to be the first where you really get control of battle, due to the intro of atb in battle and its something which makes later ff games better so good good, still a bit slow and annoying but thats because its dated

gimmick - this time it's jobs and theyre good, i am not a huge fan personally but they do add the idea of customisation and the job system provided a lot of ideas for later games, slightly modified of course and it makes for good replays

so all in all it's a classic, which i feel i could replay but not straight away as i find more challenging games fun to replay a lot, eg. i like replaying the first (midgar) section in ffvii because you are limited and requires a degree of tactical ability at first, (to do well at least)

so as for a score ill give 8.5/10 for ffv

if anybody is interested in lost it's got mysterious again!

basically this week we got to see kate meeting sawyer's bird who he conned (and impregnated!) and kate meets her mother (aunt zelda from sabrina) all very emotional im sure

meanwhile kate is left by the others tied to juliet in the jungle and they wander off, encountering the monster (which still isnt explained!) and eventually get back to the village - jack and sayid were left too, locke left with the others at the beginning so god knows what he's going to do but the rest headed back off for the beach 

meanwhile hurley tricks sawyer into being nice as sawyer is basically the leader now, and by the end everyone is happy ladeda

and paulo and nikki didnt get up - although we never saw graves or anything, and the actors names were removed from the credits - im not sure if it's a trick or not, seems daft to kill em off but this is lost! 

i am devoting this blog to final fantasy! - why you may ask, partly because im getting ff12 tomorrow, and partly because it's my bloody blog

and also i am nearing the end of ff5 at last - taken bloody ages, i think it's only about 25 hours in game time but ive been playing very sporadically until these past few days so it's been about 3 months

having completed most of the game i have essentially done everything but fought the few last fights so i've got all the toys, seen most of the story and therefore am reviewing it now because i hate the bit before the final push

i like the game, it can be quite challenging, i think they made it harder than the original nes version as ive been cheating looking up guides and stuff when i got stuck and the nes version doesnt seem nearly as tricky

the reason it can be hard is because it's so versatile, it uses the job system and i believe there are 22 jobs, and you have to learn abilities for each as you go and whilst you have the usual knight/black mage/white mage etc you also have red mage/geomancer/bard/trainer etc which have their odd uses but you never really know what to use - particularly when you have several more powerful, useful jobs such as ninja/samurai/lancer/sorcerer/monk who can all inflict heavy damage so which should you use? perhaps its a matter of choice, and of course it depends on the foe but every time you change job you risk cutting hp and mp 

and of course if you want to do some serious damage you want the excalibur sword, which requires a knight or at least the equip sword which you can learn off it

to be honest it's not that hard and i can just smash my way through like you can in all ff games but i feel i should be like a god at the end, i have all these abilities and can only use a few in a battle - it's a paradox because in games like ff7 you can take all your high level materia and breeze through the super tough bad guys at the end, just laughing as they try to poison you or scrape off a bit of hp

but in ff5 you need a bit of intelligence, choosing a combination that will make you hit hard and be able to cure and resist damage, i don't know what i want to be honest - the level up and pummel approach with a strong, rigid team or the versatile, tactical system 

thing is with ff5 i feel ive learnt all these skills which im not using, so i feel sort of 'empty' (bear in mind this is a game), but it's more of a challenge, but with others i feel confident at the end, which in a way is boring as you finish quite a while before the end

so i don't know, but i basically don't feel as confident as i'd like and i'm not as comfortable with my fighters as i'd like, but i'll do it, of course i will - especially as i've done all the side quests and got lots of good stuff

this brings me on to my next point, i've been trying to think of a battle system which would work

i've played almost every ff game, (not 6, or 12, yet!!) and ive seen a lot of systems, and my favourite is probably materia in ff7 - but in fairness i started with ff7 and i know it backwards so i am very comfortable with the whole game

but what else is there?

you have basic levelling up which is basically only in the original ff - buying spells as you go along, i think, with restrictions on how many spells you can have - this is very basic and also 20 years old

in ff2 there were no levels, skills improved as you used them, so a similiar idea to ff10 which had the far more advanced sphere grid - i quite like the idea of strengthening in certain areas as you go, rather than buying or learning things at set times

i think thats why i like ff7, you still have levels but you also control what you become strong in, to an extent

ffiv introduced more character driven plots and had jobs predefined for you, which is occasionally used, it also had 5 strong parties but i dislike the idea of learning stuff at set points - but i feel its a staple of the series as you get 5 characters to power up in their own profession and become a powerhouse by the end 

ff5 also introduced a fairly major idea - jobs, being able to change at will created a versatile system, but i do feel that particular use of it resulted in a bit too much, but then if it didnt it would be too restrictive - i dunno maybe i just dislike having to decide how to do things myself, although i would think most people fail to use all of the jobs, it's just a matter of choice

ill skip 6 and we all know what i think about ff7 - materia was cool, it had the freedom, ease of use and tactical skill which helped make it such a classic game

which is where ff8 falls down - the junction system which is best described as an 'experiment' was evil, it was a pain to use and just annoyed me half the time, and i usually just went physical, but its good to see new ideas because as much as fans complain about new ideas the series needs to be creative - just because the old games did it doesnt mean the new ones have to - you need some common themes but it doesnt necessarily have to be in the tactics area

ff9 really went back to old school, ive noticed this since playing the old games - it had crystals for a start, as well as specific job classes like in ffiv and you learnt stuff based on equipment, which was interesting, a little simplistic though and didn't really involve tactics, had elements of both iv and 5 in terms of battles

10 of course went back to turn based battles (why??) also had job specific characters, but with the flexibility of the grid which was pretty good but it was a pretty easy game

x-2 is getting a mention because it used 'real time' atb which was the next step realistically, it also brought back jobs in their full glory, allbeit with the awful plot and characters

my conclusion: ive basically been using this to justify jobs, and im not a huge fan of them, they have a novelty aspect and are fun but i think i prefer flexible job-specific characters, something where ff7 and 10 did well i think