There Goes the Neighborhood
Ugh… well we got our new neighbors this week. I knew this would happen here eventually. We’d been lucky so far that the folks that have lived behind us were 1) a quiet single guy, 2) elderly woman, and 3) single college student.
Now make that 4) Two hoodlum roommates.
The way our place is situated our house is what you see from the street. But behind our house, literally in the back yard is another small house with a little two car garage. There’s one driveway that runs from the street out front of our house, to the alley in the back. It’s not ideal, but it works for now. I guess I had kinda gotten used to a single person always living there (I’m pretty sure it’s a one bedroom house), so there was always one car there. Made maneuvering around pretty doable. Now there’s two cars back there, which sure they are entitled… but it makes getting in and out of our half of the garage a pain in the ass now.
The worst part is that ever since they moved in, people have been coming and going all the freakin’ time. There were two high school aged kids that were sitting in the driveway, waiting for the new neighbors to get home for (no exaggeration) 4 hours. There’s not too many things kids that age will wait that long for, and I’m pretty sure none of them are legal.
Maybe I’m a grumpy old fart now. But I just don’t feel like putting up with it. This really isn’t a great time for a move, but since we aren’t locked in to a lease here, I’m really going to start looking around. Ugh. I can’t wait until we’re ready to buy a house.
Final Fantasy XIII accomplished
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI3lqWhuQlA]
Well it took me forever, but I finally beat Final Fantasy XIII. Very worth it. Several folks on the IGN boards were pretty critical of it, but I thought it was great. Different than the few I’ve played, but not necessarily in a bad way.
Since FFX is the first game in the series I’ve played I always seem to use that as my benchmark. I’m a sucker for the cinematics and the new game didn’t leave me disappointed. While several of the scenes are pre-rendered at some high dollar CGI studio, a majority of them are real time and running on the PS3 hardware. They blend surprisingly well, and in the video I posted above, if you aren’t paying attention, you probably can’t tell which is which. I have to glance down at my original NES and just appreciate how far video games have come.
The story is another good ole’ “save the world”, “will we ever see each other again” tale. The thing about these games and the stories (for me at least) is that they are so damn long, and at times so frustrating, you can’t help but become emotionally invested in the characters. Even if the story isn’t a literary masterpiece. When you finally just beat some hard ass boss and you feel that sense of relief and victory, you also see those same emotions coming through the characters in the game. And when you fight that enemy and win, still only to have someone they love ripped away from them, it makes you want to know why. I’m a geek like that I guess.
So I’ll admit, against the grain of the Final Fantasy purists that spin ye olde tails of classic turn by turn, overworld exploring, 8-bit times, I play the game, for the scenes and stories in between the battles. I still enjoy PLAYING the game, don’t get me wrong. I love customizing the weapons, and filling the screen with huge numbers with the best of them. But if it weren’t for the dessert, I probably would skip the meal. There I said it!
In FFXIII The battles are pretty automated in that you aren’t picking every single attack, but you do get the ability to issue specific orders to the character you are controlling, and focus your party’s attacks on a single target. The real meat of the battle system is setting up paradigms. Basically mixing and matching combinations of specialties which you can readily switch in the middle of battle. You don’t have the luxury of having enough experience to just make everybody specialize in everything, so it’s best to diversify the disciplines of your characters so you have the flexibility to adjust to whatever the battle calls for.
All in all, I’ll probably find myself playing this game again sometime soon. The end wasn’t quite what I expected (in a good way) but I wish sometimes the endings weren’t quite so perfect. But then again, there’s my FFX bias shining through again.