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Final fantasy has been a worldwide phenomenon for years now and with the upcoming release of the thirteenth installment, it is getting hard to wait for it.  In Japan there will be a demo released with the special edition Blu-ray release of Final Fantasy Advent Children.  Unfortua7natly, the US release will not include a demo of the long awaited role playing game.   My favorite game in the series so far has been the tenth game Final Fantasy X.  I enjoyed that game more than any other so far, but I have not played Crises Core on the PSP.  I do want to play that one but I sold my PSP before it was released.  Unfortunately there was a drought when it came to good new games for the PSP last year and I should have waited.  I hope that they will release a version of it on the PS2 soon, they seem to do that with all the other games that are hits.  They haven’t released God of War: Chains of Olympus on the PS2, so maybe they want those two titles to be the reason people buy a new PSP.  I hope not, but I have played the GOW game, and would like to play Crises Core.  I might have to find a friend that has a PSP and borrow it from him or her.  I guess that means that I will have to find a friend first.  That will be the hard part i guess.  My least favorite in the Final Fantasy series is the latest installment, number twelve.  It was such a pretty game, with amazing graphics, but the game play was not what I really liked, and the characters lacked something and I never became attached to any of them.  It was a real disappointment for me, but I am afraid that the new one is going to play the same way as the twelfth one did.  I was not happy with the real time fighting, it was to confusing and had to much going on screen at one time.  I don’t know if I can handle playing through another one like that.  I am sure that the graphics and production values will be sky high, nobody even accused Square of making bad looking games.  I just hope that the game play can match the look of the game.  We will have to wait a few months more stateside to find out if the wait was worth it.  That seems like a long time, but it will be here soon enough.

I guess that I just don’t get it.  With the recent release of a highly anticipated expansion pack for the Xbox 360, GTA4 is just as popular as ever.  Why?  I played through the PS3 version, and couldn’t get past the clunky control scheme and the lack of story.  I know that there was a story, or what passes for an interesting story these days.  But I couldn’t get behind the characters or their plight.  It seemed like a second rate cable cop show.  Not a multi-million dollar development cost triple A title video game.  The characters were one dimensional and what makes anybody care what happens to these two bit criminals.  There is only so much illegal activity that can pass for fun on a video game.  I don’t care about talking to some scummy crime lord and running errands for him that involve shaking down hoodlums and petty drug dealers.  I want a game that doesn’t involve selling drugs or beating up hookers.  I know that there is supposed to be more to it than that, but it  all comes back to that. Even the driving mechanic, which is a huge part of the game felt second rate and cheap.  I found myself running places that were close enough because I didn’t want to bother driving anywhere.  I will admit that I didn’t play through to the final frame, which doesn’t happen too often, but I was so bored.  It just wasn’t any fun.  I guess that I can’t figure out what the huge appeal to this series of games is.  I tried San Andreas and Vice City, I didn’t make it through those either.  I guess that I am not the demographic that they are going for.  I have no problem with violence in a game.  But it needs to serve a purpose, drive the game forward.  I  loved the GoW series and can’t wait for the third instalment to hit next year.  All I am saying is that if I am going to play a game that builds most of its game play around violence and crime, it needs to be compelling enough to justify the violence.  That’s all.  This instalment of the game didn’t even have good radio stations to listen too.  Sure, the commentary was amusing, but not enough to keep it all from feeling adolescent and juvenile.  I can see why 14 year old boys like this kind of game, but that doesn’t mean it is any good.

Uncharted is a pretty fun game.  I know there is a sequel on the way, but I am just now playing the first one.  I hesitated playing it because I thought that it was going to be just another Tomb Raider clone.  I have played enough of those games to quench my thirst for lost treasure and adventure.  But there is something different about Drake and this game.  It could be that the next generation machine allows for so much more detail that the environments look real and ripped from the jungle that they are trying to be.  It might be the likable characters and the adventure based somewhat in reality.  From the opening sequence, it shows itself to be a different game.  I am just a few hours in right now, but I’ll keep you posted on what I find.  I am just up to the submarine scene.  The other games I am playing is Final Fantasy 9 and Yakuza.  I am about half way through FF9 and am only on chapter four on Yakuza.  As far as FF games go, this instalment has kept pace with the others.  Although 10 and 7 are higher on the list of favorites.  This one has kept me interested because of the dynamic between Zidane and Dagger. I feel that there is a real emotional conection between them and he writters did a good job of making the player feel that.  I am trying to finish this one before starting my next Playstation classic-Chrono Trigger, or Grandia.  I may play Legend of Dragoon.  I haven’t decided yet.  After Yakuza i will either play Yakuza 2 or the Shadow Heart series.  I have only recently gotten the first one and am looking forward to playing them.  On PS3, I am almost done with Resistance and Uncharted.  I need to start MGS4 next.  I have held off, letting my excitement build and replaying some of the older games first.  I am almost ready to see how the final chapter for Snake ends.  I look forward to it, but am hesitant to see it end as well. That is probably why I have waited so long to play it.

I can’t wait for the Metallica guitar hero game to release.  Metallica has always been one of my favorite bands and for a long time, it was my favorite band.  In high school, call me a dork if you want to, but I had Metallica posters all over my room.  In fact, not many people can pinpoint the exact moment in their life when it took a turn for the worse, I can.  It was when I brought home Metallica’s Ride The Lightning CD.   Up until that point I was a good kid, never getting into much trouble and was still making honor roll every grading period.  After getting that album it was all downhill for me.  I spent way too much time listening to heavy metal and screwing around with my friends.  I look forward to reliving some of those moments when GH Metallica releases later this month.  It will be good to see them in all their metal glory, especially after the release of their latest album, Death Magnetic.  It was good to see them get back to their old selves and put out a good, fast heavy metal album.  When they are on top of their game, nobody is better.  Now that we have had an Aerosmith game and with the upcoming release of the Metallica game, it got me thinking about what other bands I would like to see an entire game built around.  The obvious is of course The Beatles.  Rock Band is already doing this and I can see it being great already.  There are so many different sounds that the Beatles have, it could cover so much ground.  They could even throw in a few solo samples.  Other bands that i would love to see would be Guns N’ Roses and Iron Maiden.  Both of those bands would make great choices for individual games.  There is so much to chose from their back catalog.  I would love to see either of them, hopefully someone has already started putting something in the works for them.  The Rolling Stones could probably be a fun game, but maybe it could be alongside some other great bands of the seventies.  I don’t think that there are enough good Rolling Stone songs to make a whole game.  That’s just my own opinion.  Some bands that I would never want to see whole games built around would be Led Zepplin and Pink Floyd, and Soundgarden.  Lenny Kravitz and anything Reggae would also be horrible.  Zepplin and Pink Floyd are two of the most overrated bands of all time and I would rather poke my eye with a stick than have to listen to their music anymore.  Those would definitely be two games i would not be buying.  Let’s hope nobody is thinking about making them.

Is the Wii too geared too much towards the casual gamer?  I think that in some ways it might be, but there is no way that Nintendo is going to be able to compete with the straight up hardcore game systems made by Sony and Microsoft.  I think that I remember a couple of years ago, back when the Wii was still called the Revolution, that Nintendo said that it was not just going for the hardcore gamer.  That it was trying to bring in a whole new audience, open video gaming up to the non-video game playing masses.  Bringing people together that would not normally shre this type of activity.  Well, in that respect, Nintendo did exactly what they said they wanted to do and they did it their way.  Just because the hardcore gamers feel left out, doesn’t mean that Nintendo did not accomplish what they set out to do.  I look at this way, if I want to play a casual game, a game with my kids that the whole family can play, then I will pop in a Wii disc and we can have some family fun.  If I want to play a game where I’m shooting aliens or blowing stuff up, then there are plenty of games on my PS3 that I can play.  I’ll just wait for my wife and kids to go to sleep.  That way I don’t have to worry about them seeing inappropriate content.  There are still fun games for the so called hardcore gamer on the Wii and I wouldn’t necessarily let my kids see them either.  They can play Zelda or Mario and I have just as much fun playing those as well.  All I’m saying is that there are different games for different people and they don’t necessarily have to be on every system.  I don’t have to be able to play GTA 4 on the Wii, that is not why I bought the Wii.  See what I mean?  I don’t have to be able to play the same types of games.  That is why I bought two systems.  I have a DS and a PSP for the same reason.  I don’t expect to be able to play the same games.  hey both offer different experiences and different game play mechanics.  That’s what they call variety.  So if someone says that they can’t play the Wii because it doesn’t have enough good games for their taste, than they aren’t looking in the right places.  Ember, there are tons of good old fashioned 8 and 16-bit games available for download at the Wii store.  Those are plenty of hardcore gaming fun.

Why are games for kids usually so bad.  I guess the developers know that al they have to do is slap a picture of the newest fad or Disney movie on the cover and the kids will whine long enough to get their parents to buy it.  It really doesn’t matter how bad it is.  Okay, enough of that.  I was going to talk about Metal Gear Solid a little more.  After playing the first one, I had to play the second two games in the series.  They were just as good as far as the game play went.  The story in the second game was a little bit convoluted, a bit hard to follow especially if you didn’t play the first one and really pay attention.  The game play mechanics and the graphics were definitely a step up from the first game and it was one of the best looking games on the PS2 at the time.  It was a shock having to play most of the game as someone other than Snake, but Raiden did a respectable job of completing the mission.  The boss fights were amazing and the end fight was good, but mystifying in its attempt to be dramatic.  One thing that I wish they would stop putting in games, is the arbitrary babysitting mission.  Having to lead a character that does nothing and is unable to help at all, is getting old and annoying.  Oh, and the water level, there always has to be a water level and it is getting old.  They do it in every game, no matter how good the game id, the developers can’t help themselves, they have to put it in ther.  They must have some sort of signed contract with a water distributor or something.  It gets old.  Even great games like Metal Gear and God of War do it.  And if it’s almost unbearable in those games, developers that can’t get it right make it downright torturous.  After the second game, Konami returned to form with MGS3.  This game is a masterpiece of entertainment, even though they have one of those obnoxious babysitting missions in it.  he story dove head first into the back story and revealed a lot of answers to questions and left open many more questions to be asked.  Again, the gameplay was just as engaging, though at this point feeling a bit antiquated, but it delivered nonetheless.  Not having the radar in the same sense as the first two games was a bit of a shock to the system, but once I was used to it, I never looked back.  The boss battles were again amazing and the climactic ending had me reliving the eye misting from the first game.  It delivered on every level that a game needs to deliver on and then some.  One game, that most people haven’t played is the Metal Gear Solid on the gameboy color.  It’s events take place at the same time as Shadow Moses, but is an entirely different story.  Even though it is on the handheld system, it is nearly as engrossing as it’s console counterparts.  The boss battles are tough and epic and there are back stories to all of the characters that reveal the story.  It is worth checking out if you are an MGS fan, although it is getting harder and harder to find.

In the old days of video gaming, when you saw a weird peripheral, it was usually a gimmick to try and get you to play a new game.  Well, I guess that much hasn’t changed, but it seems that the gimmick are getting better and so are the games.  Does anyone remember the little robot guy you got when you bought the NES when it first came to America.  Most people probably don’t.  What about the Power Glove.  Does anyone remember having any fun with that piece of crap?  It looked awesome on the commercial, but it wasn’t very practical to use.  Who played the Virtual Boy for more than just a few seconds at the store?  Did anyone actually buy one and take it home?  I can tell you that at least two of the peripherals from the NES days were cool.  The light gun for one, and the power pad.  Playing track and field on that thing was so much fun that it was ridiculous.  It made you feel like such an idiot, but I couldn’t stop laughing.  These types of things are getting better and there have been a few gimmicks that have even become mainstream and I’d bet that almost every person with a gaming console has tried one.  The DDR craze from Japan tat swept over the US a few years ago.  Tons of people played that thing and rolled that mat out across their living room floor.  What about the bongos on the Gamecube games like Donky Konga?  Those things were pretty fun when they came out.  And the biggest one of all, the cool guitars that everybody is using and dreaming of rocking out in a real band in front of millions of adoring and screaming fans.  I don’t see that one going away anytime soon.  It takes a little bit of risk and innovation and vision to try something new like this.  It takes a lot of commitment from the publisher and the developers to try and find new and innovative ways of using the peripherals so that they are not just gimmicks, but viable options for playing games.  Nobody wants to buy an add-on that just sits in the closet collecting dust when there is only one game to play it with.  What about games like the Eye of judgment and the Eye toy.  Those look to keep making innovations and making game play in new and exciting ways.  Most people thought that the Nintendo Wii was nothing more than a gimmick and an elaborate peripheral when it was first announced.  I remember reading about it and the motion sensitive controls when they were still calling it the Revolution, and thinking that this was either going to be the best thing ever, or complete crap.  No in between.  Kind of like the movie Paul Blart: Mall Cop.  It was either going to be epic, or completely blow.  Lucky for us, it was awesome.

So, one of my favorite games, if not my favorite game of all time, is Metal Gear Solid.  It was the first game i the stealth genre that I played.  It blew me away, but not at first.  It took me a few tries to really get my bearings and begin to enjoy the game.  It took a few deaths and a few restarts for me to get the hang of it.  It was the first game that I played that was truly cinematic in scope and had me riveted, not with just the game-play, but by the story and the need to find out what happened next.  The boss battles wee epic and the control scheme was something that I had never seen before.  Was it perfect?  Of course not, no game can be perfect, but what it did right, it did really well and what was wrong could be overlooked because the rest of it was so great.  The two parts of the game that gave me fits at first was the sniper level and the way you had to slow your breathing in order to aim the rifle correctly.  The other section of the game was the ridiculous climb up the tower in order to get to the roof.   Those two parts of the game were  a little harder than I felt they need to be.  The control scheme had something to do with it.  The climb up the stairs when all the guards are chasing you, the game is set up for run and gun action.  So it made it harder than it should have been.  The bosses were some of the best I had seen in video games.  Especially Psycho Mantis and the Metal Gear itself.  The ingenious way that Mantis could “read” your mind, he could anticipate your every move and knew what you were going to do before you did.  The way he read my memory card and talked to me as if he knew me and my gaming style.  It was awesome.  It was so unexpected that it threw me for a loop and I nearly didn’t recover.  The final epic battle between the main bad guy and then metal gear was ridiculous. I thought I was never going to beat them.  And how could I forget the tank battle and the cyborg ninja.  It was so bizarre, but I couldnt look away or stop playing.  I had to go on and se what happened and how all this craziness was tied in together.  It was a great game and I’ve enjoyed playing it many times.  From the revolutionary graphics for the day, to the story that was as good a s a Hollywood movie, to the music and voice acting that pulled everthing together, it was probably the greatest game of all time.

Well, we might as well finish the series on rockin’ video games.  I’ve not played the DS versions of Guitar Hero, so I can’t comment on those.  What I can comment on is the bodacity of Guitar Hero III.  I know, I stole that word from Po of Kung Fu Panda.  And yes, that is sad, but I like that word.  Anyway, after the huge success of the first Guitar Hero games, it was only natural that there would be another sequel.  GH III was the next step in the series, but had some stiff competition from a new kid on the block.  A little sensation called Rock Band.  The most noticeable thing about GH III was the boss battles and the end song.  It introduced the world to Dragonforce.  A throwback to old school hair metal, mixed with thrash and goth.  It was the perfect end to a great game that totally upped the ante and rocked your world.   Guitar Hero III had some more great songs and added to the winning formula that the GH franchise was known for.  But then there was another- and it was good.  Rock Band brought a whole new dimension to the genre, introducing the whole band.  It was what we, the fans had been dreaming of.  Imagine being able to play all the instruments with your friends or online.  It was the natural evolution of the genre.  Rock Band got a lot of things right and made for a good time.  It was a perfect party game and was even fun to play alone.  The drums and the singing kicked butt.  The only problem was that there might be a chance of over saturation in the rock music thing.  It was almost too much and you knew that there would be more coming.  It wasnt long before Guitar Hero announced a whole band game and promised to make it even bigger and better.  Then, this Christmas it arrived.  There were new instalment in the Rock Band franchise and the Guitar Hero franchise.  Not to mention a whole game built around legendary rockers Aerosmith.  It almost is too much rock.  Just kidding, there can never be too much rock.  I just wish that the makers of these games didn’t feel obligated to put in bands because of their supposed greatness.  If I didn’t have to play another Nirvana song or another song by The Police, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.  These bands don’t have the appeal that they may have once had.  They are very over rated and it is not necessary to always squeeze Kurt Cobain in the mix.  I’ll get off the rant about over rated bands and get to the topic of the future.  Both Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero: World Tour improved on their mix of fun, challenge, music and accessibility with their latest instalments.  The down-loadable content is just as easy to use as advertised and adds to the longevity of these games.  It is just a few weeks until the release of the next game based on a single band and it just happens to be one of the greatest of all time-Metallica.  The only thing that would make this game better is if they could make every song in their library available for download.  I also read that there will be a Rock Band game based on the Beatles.  Now that sounds exciting.

I thought that I would continue on the subject of games like Guitar Hero.  When the first one came out, it blew me away.  By the time the second one was released, fans were excited , but wanted even more.  Better control, a better more varied track list and a deeper experience.  Well, when 2 came out, I for one was not disappointed.  The songs were even better and now you could play the bass line, which was good because now I had two guitars.  The new wireless guitar made the whole experience even better.  The game was great and come on, does it better then Freebird?  I submit to you that it does not.  It was an even better experience than the first game but I thought that it was a little easier.  Either that or I was just getting better.  Some of those songs on the first game were pretty hard and I had to practice just to get through them on medium.  I know that sounds bad, but Pantera Cowboys From Hell and Ozzy’s Bark At The Moon were freaking hard.  I know that I wasn’t the only one that had trouble.  The second game was great because now the bands that you really wanted to hear were here.  Megadeth and White Zombie and Pantera were great, but now we got G’n R and Aerosmith and Primus and Motley Crue.  And not to mention Skynyrd.  It was even better.  It set the expectations even higher for the next instalment, but that would have to wait because next was a blast from the eighties and it was going to blow your leg-warmers right off.  It was Guitar Hero Encore:Rocks the Eighties.  Now you can call me a dork, but I was looking forwatd to this game even more then the third in the numbered series.  I of course grew up in the eighties and love all that is from that decade.  So naturally I would love to play the rock and pop hits from those years.  I mean, a game that let’s you play a Billy Squire song can’t go wrong, can it?  There were some awesome, I know I use that word too much, tracks on this game.  Oingo Boingo, which I’m sure most people had never even heard of, but bigger names like Anthrax and The Vapors and Skid Row.  Those three are almost enough to make the game rock on their own.  But there was something missing.  This instalment just didn’t feel like an evolution to the series.  It felt like a little brother to the other ones.  The track list was smaller and it just didn’t feel as polished as it could have been.  It was like an expansion pack for the price of a new AAA title game.  They cheap ed out on us a little.  But I will have to say that I had a great time playing it and still pop it in to get my eighties fix now and again.  The track list looks suprisingly like a ply-list on my IPOD.  Strange.