All we hear is...

Tearing myself away from Final Fantasy XIII for a moment, I recently noticed a story about Rock Band's latest DLC. It's Lady Gaga. My reaction? Seriously, what the crap, Harmonix?

Now, I don't like Lady Gaga, as you may have guessed from said reaction. I think she's an attention-seeking, weird-looking pop tart whose songs are dire and tuneless and who puts more emphasis on her stupid outfits than she does on making music. She claims those outfits have "deep meanings", but seriously, no one cares about that when you look like a Roman candle. I'll let Eminem's expression here say it all:



















But regardless, I accept she has fans, and someone out there might actually want this stuff in their game. No problems with that whatsoever. My problem, of course, is that her songs lack anything resembling a guitar.

Normally, a lack of a guitar in a song doesn't bother me. My music collection is full of songs with no guitars. I like plenty of songs that utilise synths and turntables and other weird non-guitar instruments. However, in Rock Band, a game that simulates, well, a rock band, with vocals, guitar, bass and drums all present, I feel including a song for the DLC that lacks guitar is baffling.

I don't have an issue with the fact that Lady Gaga's been included in Rock Band because I dislike her, it's because her songs would be so dull for the "guitarists" playing the game. Seriously, why?

To put this in perspective, there are also songs I like included in the DLC that I also question the inclusion of. I like The Chemical Brothers, for instance. They've released some awesome tracks, one of which has also been included in Rock Band, as I noticed on their website, and as much as I love Let Forever Be, I don't think it should be in Rock Band. Why?

IT HAS NO GUITARS!

I accept diversification in the music of Rock Band. In fact, this is the single reason I class RB better than its cousin Guitar Hero. While Guitar Hero is "oh, more Metallica? How fun...", Rock Band is more "holy shit, Still Alive from Portal's in this!" and "Oh wow, I forgot how awesome this Fleetwood Mac song was!" and "oh, this Main Drag band are pretty good, gotta check them out!" and of course "HOLY SHIT! 10 QUEEN SONGS! BEAT THAT, GH!"

The inclusion of funk and country packs as DLC was unusual, but I could understand their inclusion. They use guitars. They're not necessarily "rock", but hell, if they have all the components for all the players to enjoy, why not? Hell, funk generally gives the bassist more to do, while retaining things for everyone else, so I'm all for that. So that shows you I like the diversification. I may not LIKE everything that's included, but I can understand it.

Including Lady Gaga, however, is like putting up a pack of instrumentals that ignore the vocalist. That's how I feel about it. Or putting in an acoustic pack, with songs without drums. It's why Yesterday wasn't put into The Beatles: Rock Band - the bassist and drummer wouldn't have had anything to do.

So no, Harmonix, don't give us Lady Gaga. It makes no sense from a gameplay perspective. Pop songs with guitars? Sure. But synth-heavy pop songs? No.

In other news, FF13 is awesome. I've reached the part where the world opens up for you, allowing much more exploration, and it's so awesome. The game's become more of a challenge, and the party's much more customisable. Plus I can kick Hope out of the team forever, which is a bonus. Not only is he an irritating little shit (although, to be fair, less so than he was before), but his HP is the lowest of all the characters, and quite frankly, I don't want to waste my components on him to upgrade his equipment.

Fun fact: the ladies seem to be the best characters. Fang and Lightning kick ass, and Vanille makes a good White Mage (there's always one). So for the first time in FF history (bar X-2, where you had no choice), I have an all-female team. And no, it's not because I like gawping at female video game characters (although, to be fair, if Lighting was real, I would...), it's because they're the most well-rounded stats-wise. In fact, I'd actually like Sazh in my team, because he's probably my favourite character, but in terms of stats, his Strength and Magic are both fairly low by default, which is disappointing. Chocobro will have to remain sidelined :(

There's been some annoying moments where I've had to spend ages levelling up my abilities because everything was kicking my arse, but hey, that was bound to happen. It's Final Fantasy.

I honestly don't get the negative reaction to this game at all. The linearity and the lack of towns makes sense in terms of the plot (I won't go into it at risk of spoiling something, even though the last part probably did have spoilers in it), and the battle system is X-2 on speed (for those keeping score at home, X-2 is probably my favourite battle system of the whole series). The characters are relatable and interesting, and the story's compelling. It's actually my third favourite Final Fantasy behind IX (which wins on art direction, characters and tone alone) and X-2 (which was just plain fun). So screw you, naysayers, go back to bumming the highly flawed and overrated FF7 and the rest of us will just enjoy the game for what it is. A lot of fun.

This will not be my final word on the game, since I have yet to finish it, but needless to say, I've said enough you need to know if you're contemplating buying it. Buy it. Buy it now, and enjoy it.

And just be glad that this time I had comments to make on a different game for once :p

Further Final Fantasy Firteen Foughts

Well, I've been playing a little while longer, and I have a little bit extra to add. There may be spoilers within, so please don't read any further if you don't want to know.

Remember in my initial thoughts, I said this:

"Hope...he's just Tidus but in child form, making him worse x1000000. I want to punch him, and half the time I'm genuinely surprised that Lightning doesn't just stab him, especially with the way she looks at him half the time"

Guess what? Since that point, I've learned to hate him even more! :D

Seriously, guys, I have never hated a video game character as much as I've hated this guy. There are villains I feel more sympathy for than this guy. Even Tidus from FFX is forgiven his sins just because of this guy. Tidus was just a cocky git with daddy issues, Hope's a whiny emo boy with parental issues, whose single-minded twatiness has meant that Lightning's attempts to stop him being a whiny self-centred fuck have turned him instead into a whiny self-centred fuck who wants to kill people who piss him off. NO REALLY.

Look, kid, I know your mum died and all, but don't you think you're being a little overdramatic about all this? I mean, come on, you can't honestly believe Snow's responsible for her death, right? Your mum wasn't forced to go with him, she went of her own accord. To protect YOU. And yet not once have you acknowledged your mother's bravery in all of this. Not to mention in a flashback you threw a tantrum at the idea of meeting your dad again, who's absent for some currently unmentioned reason. Seriously, SHUT. THE FUCK. UP.

Guys, I'm actually angered by this character. Genuinely, seriously annoyed. I'm also annoyed that the battle system doesn't allow you to target party members during battle so if he says anything in his whiny little voice I can just have Lightning stab him. Sure, it's counterproductive to the gameplay, but it'd make me feel better. He is the Scrappy Doo of video games. Here's hoping he dies later.

And honestly, I've actually gained a greater deal of appreciation for Lightning's character. She has the patience of a saint. She's been having this little weasel following her around for the past few hours and she has yet to turn her gunblade on him. I certainly would have done by now. So go Lightning. Your character has depth in my opinion just because of this. You're a moody soldier type hiding a lot of inner feelings (what moody soldier type doesn't?) but also, you can keep your cool around this...thing. I applaud you, Lightning. I liked you already, since you kick ass and you're hot, but this? This has added to all of that. Go you.

Hope aside, I am warming even more to the cast. Lightning, as mentioned above, is getting more interesting, Sazh I genuinely feel sad for and Vanille is intriguing with her mysterious past (was that really her in that flashback? What was all that about? The plot thickens...). Snow's been absent for a while, but I like what little I've seen of him. He seems like a cocky bastard, but as we find out more about him, it's easy to feel sympathy for things that have happened to him.

But seriously, Hope. He better get more likeable quickly or god help me I'm going to go hunt out his character designer and voice actor and punch them both in the face for creating him. He's the single blip on an otherwise interesting story. Why Square? Why? D:

Greased Lightning

So, Final Fantasy XIII came out yesterday and I battled the crowds to buy this momentous life-changing game. I came home and put it in my PS3 and played it and then...I WAS HORRIBLY DISAPPOINTED! D:

God, guys, this isn't a proper Final Fantasy game. GOD! It's so linear and I have such a problem with that even though all the other games bar FFX-2 were linear too when they started but I like to pretend that wasn't the case. And GOD! Nobuo Uematsu didn't do the music so I instantly hate it even though it's actually kind of good, but that doesn't matter because th victory theme isn't right and without the da-da-da-daaa-daaaaa-da-da-daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa how can I possibly enjoy this game? AND GOD! The battle system moves too fast and it's just pressing X a lot and has no strategy even though I haven't even passed Chapter 2 yet and haven't seen the battle system properly in action yet. GOD! IT'S SO SHIT!

The above is, obviously, a lie. I actually quite like the game. I think it's good. Yes. I just wanted to poke fun at some of the worst complaints I've heard about it so far.

Now, I've not played much so far (I'm just on chapter 4, I believe, which is only really because chapters 1 and 2 are shorter than a very short thing and pretty much hold your hand the whole way through), so I can't give my full opinion on the game. But my first impressions are good. The game, obviously, looks gorgeous. The characters are well-animated, the environments are stunning and there are a ton of lovely looking effects all over the shop.

Beyond this, initial impressions of the game were a little mixed from me. Yes, it's very linear at this point, but it doesn't really feel any more linear than FFX did. And the battle system, while very impressive, did start getting a little tedious after a while. Well, until Paradigms were introduced and suddenly everything improved and got a lot more tactical. Plus there is a general sense that the game is merely preparing me for something bigger and better to come. In other words, it's a bit of a slow-burner, but it's definitely worth sticking with.

And the battle system, coming back to that, is actually great fun once it really gets moving. It's basically like FFX-2's (which is probably what's got some of the unpleasable fanboys on the run) but faster and with control over one character (which draws some parallels with FF12's system, but only slightly, it's nowhere near as awful as that game). At first just bashing enemies to death gets a bit tiresome, but the Paradigms add an interesting level of strategy, basically switching character roles around for the entire battle. At first it seems like you can get away with using one system but it quickly becomes apparent that you NEED to learn how to switch, and switch tactically. As the system gets more complex, the more interesting and fun to use it gets. I highly applaud it. Sure, it's not traditional FF, but it feels like a natural evolution to me (particularly with its similarities to the aforementioned previous games' systems).

The linearity I can cope with for now. I've heard it gets more open later, and judging by the trophies, there's a few side quests awaiting me when I get there. Of course, this is no different to previous FFs (most of FF7's sidequests were unavailable til part of the way through disc 2, most of VIII's weren't available til you got the Ragnorok on disc THREE!), but try telling that to some people. Like I said before, it feels like X (with hints of X-2 in the jumping bits). Sure, the lack of towns feels a bit weird, but I can live with it.

The story is great so far. There's a lot of interesting mythology going on, and already it's making me question things and push forward to find out more. And after XII's disastrous character set, the fact that I've warmed to this cast almost instantly is a definite achievement. Well, apart from Hope, since he's just Tidus but in child form, making him worse x1000000. I want to punch him, and half the time I'm genuinely surprised that Lightning doesn't just stab him, especially with the way she looks at him half the time. Sazh is just plain awesome, Snow is surprisingly likeable despite my initial impression of him, Vanille is kinda fun (no, she actually doesn't annoy me!) and Lightning is just plain badass. Not just in character, but in game. Honestly, I missed her when she wasn't in my party recently because everyone else seemed so underpowered in comparison.

All in all, so far so good. It's certainly a grower, I can say that much, but it certainly is showing signs of becoming one of my favourite FFs, probably coming in behind IX and X-2. Even if the FF7 fanboys will probably hate it. But who really cares what they think, right? :p

OH NOES!

OMG THE PS3 IS DOWN! GUYS IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

Yes. The PS3 is currently throwing a fit, apparently. It's got itself confused, thinking today is February 29th, when in fact it's March 1st, resetting its internal clock to NYE 1999, preventing people from logging into PSN, preventing people from accessing games, erasing trophies from the server, and other lovely things.

Sony are aware, and are in the process of fixing it. Best thing for people to do in the meantime is be patient and do something else until Sony provide an update proclaiming it to be fixed. Go read a book, leave the house, dust off the old PS2 if you must get a gaming fix, do whatever. Don't, for the love of god, do what half the PlayStation community seems to have done on the PS Blog.

Cry, and whine, and bitch.

What is it with gamers these days? Does everyone just have an overinflated sense of self-worth, that every game company must do exactly as they say and any deviation from their plan is deemed unholy and wrong, a bad business decision that proves they just screw over the consumer?

I touched on this in my Sonic 4 post, and I've also heard the Square fanboys kicking off when Yoshinori Kitase "vaguely" denied there'd be no FF7 remake (he actually said it's "highly unlikely", which sounds like a no to me), claiming that they should make one anyway, even if it takes 10 billion years. Now it's this.

People are actually demanding compensation for a glitch that, in all probability, may only last one day. ONE DAY. OMG I CAN'T GO ONE DAY WITHOUT MY PRECIOUS PLAYSTATION3! SONY GIVE ME MY MONEY BACK OR I WILL SUE!

Ugh. Just turn it off. You know how to do that, right? Seriously, if you can't go one day without the console, seek professional help. That, I believe, is called an addiction. And addictions are harmful.

I can understand some people's annoyance if they'd bought a couple of new games yesterday or something, but they're the only ones I feel sorry for, since I know how great it is to put a new game in the system and boot it up for the first time, and they have to miss out on that for a while. Well, I also feel sorry for anyone who may potentially lose data out of all of this, but with a bit of luck that won't happen.

Sony don't owe anybody money. If this glitch ends up bricking the console, then sure, free replacements PS3s all round, but right now, that seems unlikely. Sony have said they're working on it, and it will be fixed eventually.

But this has brought with it conspiracy theories. "Sony have done this deliberately to force people into buying the new slim model!" But of course! Brilliant business sense there, forcing people to re-buy something just because a new variation's been made. Remember when the PSOne and PS2 Slim came out and Sony came round to people's houses in the night, stole their original consoles, forcing people to buy the new ones?

Yes, it's frustrating, and no, it shouldn't happen, but it's technology, it's unpredictable. All you can do is wait and be patient until Sony have announced something official. The problem is still ongoing, after all. If they announce the consoles are now bricked, then commence rioting. For now, sit tight, children. Your prayers may yet be answered.

After all, do you want to be like Hitler?