First Impressions: The Dissent Of Man (By Bad Religion)

So, the album I have been anticipating for a good while now has finally come out... though to be fair it wasnt too long ago that I discovered it, and Bad Religion already have so many albums at this point that any new releases are just icing on the cake.

So before I go into discussing the tracks of this album on an individual basis, I will talk about the other details first. As my brother suggested, you should be given some 3D glasses with this so you can see the album art in "Threeeeeeeeeeeeee-Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" though it really wouldn't matter either way. It's interesting that they differenciated from the red, black and white colour-scheme they used for their past couple albums. I always thought that colour-scheme was a reference to their old albums as a "just in case this is our last album we need to reference to their early works" kinda thing. This seems pretty obvious, when Los Angeles Is Burning has the title of their album How Could Hell Be Any Worse? and this especially true on their previous album New Maps Of Hell as not only is "Hell" in the title but the artwork has a very similar dark/sinister theme as How Could Hell Be Any Worse? did. Also consider that the disc itself had nothing but the band's logo on it. Maybe they changed it up for The Dissent Of Man because they no longer believe it could be their last album, or more likely they just think the fans wouldn't appreciate another red, balck and white album. Anyway, The Dissent Of Man's artwork looks a lot like an old science text-book, or more specifially a old biology text-book.

Bad Religion have had a particular structure with their recent albums: fast songs first, slow songs later. The Dissent Of Man only very partially follows this structure, this time there is only one track under the two-minute mark, which is the first track. So that leads me onto the tracks

01. The Day The Earth Stalled
This surely is a fast song to start out with, as they usually use fast songs to start out with. However this song for somereason sounds a bit strange to me. It starts and parts of the song just seem a bit "off", for example when you hear the word "stalled" being sung, it goes all over the place.

02. Only Rain
Decent second song, I would expect a song like this to go somewhere in the middle or towards the end. This song gets a lot of praise though it doesn't work so much for me. Don't get me wrong I do like the song but it doesn't reach that level of "awesomeness" for me.

03. The Resist Stance
Favourite song on the album, really full of energy (which I feel is generally missing from this album). The only song I recall using any distortion on the guitars. Great song!

04. Won't Somebody
Average, seriously, not bad, not great, quite catchy, but not catchy enough.

05. The Devil In Stiches
Now this is a song that proves how time can make songs sound better. This was the first song from the album I heard before the album came out, and I hated it. I even went as far to compare it to Prodigal Son (Gah, I hate Prodigal Son). But after a while I started humming it to myself and I started to like it (I still don't like Prodigal Son by the way, even since 2007 I still think that song's one of their worst).

06. Pride And The Pallor
This song irritates me, not because it's "bad" but because the tune sounds like it's going somewhere other than where it does (after 14 seconds). It sounds like another song before that point but I can't put my finger on it, hold on, I know what it sounds like! it sounds like Victory for the first 14 seconds (I literally just figured it out as I was typing this) and then it just goes away and the rest of the song is "ok" but not catchy at all.

07. Wrong Way Kids
This song has a catchy chorus, with all the "whoa"s they have going . Reminds me of The Bravest Kids by Rancid (maybe the title is the reason there). But yeah, the chorus is catchy and so are some of the verses.

08. Meeting Of Minds
What can I say? It sounds a lot like Germs Of Perfection, and Germs Of Perfection is agreat song, and so is this one, fast, catchy, powerful. It has that Bad Religion feeling to it.

09. Someone To Believe
This song is also catchy, It's one of those songs where the title is a strong element to the lyrics and the melody. I get the feeling that this song will fall under the category of songs that are fun to listen to but will get too critisised just because it's not "deep" and "meaningful". Raise Your Voice! and The Hippy Killers also fell victim to this.

10. Avalon
A strange one, it's not too memorable for me, but I still enjoy it. It's reasonably paced and the melody is decent.

11. Cyanide
Not fond of this one, I can hear the tune to it, but it just doesn't work for me. This song is the longest on the album aswell, why do short songs always seem to sound better than the longer ones?

12. Turn Your Back On Me
Worst song on the album, I just think the chorus sounds rather bland and stale, especially when you consider how strong their music usually is

13. Ad Hominem
Now this is good example of a good slow Bad Religion song. Reminds me of Submission Complete, it has a very powerful beat, the pre-chorus is both catchy and powerful, the chorus itself is still just as powerful. "Powerful" is a good word to describe this song

14. Where The Fun Is
Does anybody else think 21st Century Digital Boy when they hear this song? This song keeps making me want to sing along to 21st Century Digital Boy whenever I hear it. I think this song is pretty decent overall. 21st Century Digital Boy I always found to be a song for people who are new to Bad Religion, so maybe this song will od the same

15. I Won't Say Anything
Oh dear, I can hear the fanboys screaming right now. This song is very poppy for Bad Religion, my personal opinion of this song is that it's "ok", not great but not bad. I do get thrown off by how poppy it is. That being said people critisised Lose As Directed of doing the same thing but I thought that song was pretty good.

16. Finite
Well when I bought the album, I listened to this song and thought.... oh... that's right... I didn't get this song. Yeah, this is a "bonus track" that just doesn't happen to be on the version of the album that I got. I have heard this track from somebody else who hosted it on YouTube but I don't think I should review a track that wasn't on the actual album that I bought. Since I'm reviewing an album that I bought, why should I review content that I didn't get? A message to all the bands out there, stop doing this, it's annoying. Bonus tracks that only certain countries get, they are just pointless and annoying. If a song belongs on an album it belongs on every copy of that album, if it doesn't belong there then don't put it on any of them.

Overall, it's a pretty good album, I would say about "average" for the band (which overall still very good since this is my favourite band), even though there are a selection of very strong tracks. One complaint I do have is that the gaps between the tracks are too long, sometimes they're ten seconds long! That's ok if you're using it for artistic effect or is the song itself is pretty long but these aren't. I would say a couple seconds is long enough. Even better; no gap at all. The first two tracks do this and it works.

Do Modern Gamers Have Short Attention Spans?

It always seems to me that in modern times there has been a higher ratio games released that cater towards those with shorter attention spans. I mean this in many respects, the marketing of games and the game mechanics themselves.

Now before I continue, I just want to make a few things clear... I am not referring to casual gamers specifically nor those people who are unable to play games for large periods of time. I am referring to gamers as a whole. I am also not criticising individual games for using the "short-term mechanics" that I mention (as some of those mechanics I do enjoy myself) but rather the widely held belief that those mechanics are inherently superior.

It's clear that more and more games are using short-term mechanics. When I refer to "short-term mechanics" I am simply referring to mechanics that condense the risk/reward structures of a game into a shorter period of time. Basically, a short-term mechanic is where the punishment for failing and the reward for succeeding is low (this is not in reference to the difficulty). More and more do we see these in games. More and more do we hear people praising games when they do this, and criticising them when they don't.

There are many different ways that games use short-term mechanics.

First of all, there are save-features. Everyone seems to want to be able to save their game at any time. Place save points too far apart and there'll be a ton of complaints. Understandable if people are unable to play the game for large periods of time, or if such people are forced to leave their game too far from a save point, but I hardly think allowing people to save anywhere is going to make for a really enjoyable experience... Those two problems can be easily solved with a "quicksave" feature. Quicksaving is where the game allows the current state to be saved (as with normal saving) to a different file, but that file instantly deletes once it is reloaded. This is used to avoid "save scumming" that could be used with a "save anywhere" feature. "Save scumming" is where the player keeps reloading a save file in order to accomplish a specific goal (often not required for progression with the game) and keeps reloading until they succeed.

The problem with being able to save anywhere is that it greatly reduces risks that the player has to take, and simply replaces them with trial and error. Imagine this, you're in the middle of a dungeon haven't saved for 20 minutes, you need to get out in order to save. There are two treasure chests in front of you, one of them contains gold and the other contains a monster that could easily kill you, but you don't know which one is in which. Do you choose a chest at random or do you ignore them? In cases like this, you have to make a conscious effort to choose to pick one randomly or to ignore them. You would have to take into consideration many things. Is the gold worth taking the risk? what would you lose if you failed? is there a small chance that you'd be able to defeat the monster if you got it wrong? would it take 20 minutes to back here or would it be faster next time because you know the dungeon a bit better?

Now imagine that same scenario, but this time you're able to save anywhere. Not as much of a big issue is it? You'd choose one, if it was the wrong one you reload and pick the other. This would make the decision simply a small cost to your time more than anything else. Generally, such a decision that is placed directly after a save-point is rather pointless, it falls into the "decision that can easily be undone" category (which has an effect on linearity of the game, but I won't go into that just yet).

Save-anywhere games aren't necessarily a bad thing. Tomb Raider II for example uses a save-anywhere feature, but it takes about 10-20 seconds to save. This is good as it discourages constant saving, if the saving took the simple press of a button, without a doubt people would be pressing it every few seconds (I don't consider pressing "save" every few seconds fun). On the otherside you have Tomb Raider III that allows the player to save anywhere but the number of saves is restricted, if you ask me, that goes a bit too far in the other extreme and the lack of saving makes it far too hard (I'd probably give it more of a chance if save crystals were more common).

Going back to the example of being in a dungeon and having to choose to pick a chest or ignore them. It is an example how saving abilities can alter the time in which the risk/reward is an issue.

Allowing players to save more frequently is becoming more and more popular within games. Old platform games didn't allow saving at all, and dying too many times caused the player to have to restart from scratch. This is clearly because the games would otherwise be too easy (in general) and would be very short. In those days (as a child) games were more about retrying a game over and over again until it eventually got completed rather than continuing a savefile and progressing a bit more each day. Of course, the ability to save (even if rarely) is a feature that is favourable in many current games due to the overall length of the game.

autosave after each gamble, the player could just save scum until they get it right, which in reality just costs time.

If save scumming usually creates "un-fun" gameplay, so why would people do it? Well the simple answer is "because it works"

So why do people like to save anywhere? Well (ignoring those two reasons I've already given an answer to), the general answer is that it is not fun to replay a part of the game if you lose. I don't know why that is exactly, I'd understand if the game arbitrarily made you replay one segment over and over again without any changes, but that's not the case. If you lose, it's your own fault. You're supposed to be punished if you lose. If you're not punished for losing (or if that punishment is small) then that in-turn lowers to quality of the reward for winning. In the end people like to be given great rewards. The "greatness" of a reward for success depends on the difficulty of the task and the punishment for losing, it's about striking the balance. Besides, if the punishment for failure is low, then the difficulty must come from the difficulty of the individual tasks (or else the game would be too easy) (short-term mechanics). If the difficulty of the individual tasks is difficult then there are still going to be segments of gameplay that are to be replayed. These segments would be shorter but more frequent (due to the difficulty of said tasks)

It is true that a reward's size is based off the size of the punishment for failing. For example, Prince Of Persia (the 2008 version) is a very easy game. For one, if you fall down you're only punishment is that you have to re-attempt the obstacle that you failed at. The obstacles are not that hard to begin with. But even though some are more challenging than others, the feeling of accomplishment for succeeding them is not that great because there is that "I would've done it eventually anyway" feeling.

"short-term mechanics" also appear in other ways, a very common example in modern games is "regenerating health". Where the player's health recovers over-time. Even Final Fantasy does this. In the early FF games, you needed to go to a town to save, or use a tent, if one of your characters died, you had to go all the way back to the church. Later games in the series made it a lot easier to recover KO'd party members. FF10 and 12 fully cured all party members at every save-point, FF13 did it after every battle (of course due to FF13's battle system, that worked). Lots of more modern games allow players to regenerate their health over short periods of time, Gears Of War, inFamous, Uncharted all do this. There is less concern about preservation of health... in the early Tomb Raider games you could accumulate medi-packs and ammo over a series of levels, and you would be rewarded for skilled gameplay earlier on. With regenerating health, you're not rewarded for you're skilled "health preservation skills" from earlier in the game. In Uncharted this also is effected by the limitations on ammo, reaching the max ammo for the guns is so easy that preserving it only has a short-term effect.

"short-term mechanics" can be found all over, games don't use "lives" as much as they used to, or at least to not as much of an effect.

Remember, I am not saying that these mechanics are bad, but I think it is wrong to say that all games "should" use them... and it's this mentality that makes me think that modern gamers (in general) have a shorter attention span

My Experience With Buying Games From Second Hand Shops

I generally find that you get two groups of people when it comes to buying games. One group is the group that are "hardcore gamers" so to speak who'll buy something the day of release, or maybe the week of release for £45 or £40. Then you get the people who aren't gamers "to the heart" they just play games for a bit of fun... I'm not necessarily refering to casual gamers here. Typically these people are either kids who don't have much money, or parents who dont have much money.

The second group are the type that you find in second hand shops. These shops aren't very nice to go into; let's be honest, they are small, cramped, not all that clean and the they are full of kids "running around" (of what they can) and their parents shouting at them whilst they rummage through the 7-year-old PS2 games for £2. These shops target the unemployed, and it's generally those type of people that go to these shops. These shops don't offer much for stuff, and there are many games that you'd expect to see there... Fifa '07, Fifa '08 and all sorts of cheap games that nobody's really heard or cared about.

But here's the thing, I have bought quite a few games there. Why? well because if you manage to get passed all the rubbish that's there you'll find a pretty good deal. i got Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box for £2, same with Need For Speed: Pro Street. I got Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer's Call there for 99p... that's right 99p! I can't find that game for any less than £30 anywhere else. It's because they don't understand the value of certain games, so they can't effectively price them, it seems to me they go off assumptions... "oh, this is a PS2 game, every other PS2 game we have is £1 or £2, let's make this £1"

Of course the football games are priced slightly higher than anywhere else (well, think of the customers who enter these shops)... oh and did I mention the stacks of 2-year-old football games there? that's another rant for another time.

One thing that really annoys me is this; the conditions of these games. I don't even understand how anybody could have so little respect for games as to put them in the state that they become. I have PS1 games that I have played many times, Final Fantasy VIII I got on September 30th 2000 (My 12th birthday) and the discs are still working fine, not all that many scratches. But I sometimes see these 360 games and PS3 games with tons of scratches all over them. The cover art on the box isn't in all that good condition either. Now consider this, I got Lucifer's Call for 99p, a bargain, I am very pleased... but the disc was full of scratches. Think about this, the person who sold it to this second hand shop kept the recipt of their original purchase of this game, they bought it 2nd hand for £18 in 2006 (guess that means I got it at least 3rd hand then). They clearly didn't take care of it very well, they probably turned it on and thought "bah! this game is slow and boring" (knowing the mindset of the youngens today, gee, I'm not that old). Now considering that I bought it for 99p, that means the previous owner must have gotten even less than that! 50p maybe? what does 50p get you? barely even a drink! so they must have thought "50p is better than this game"... not only that, but the shop thought "how much can we sell this for? 99p? alright then!" So what would've happened if I didn't but that game? well probably some random kid would get it and treat it just as badly. It just annoys me that there are people willing to pay lots of money for these games but can't get them cause some ingoramous is using it as a coaster.

I guess all in all what I'm saying is that if a game comes out, just wait! don't pay £45 for a 1-day-old game, unless of course you've been anticipating it for a couple years then I can understand. Before you know it'll be in some second hand shop somewhere for a bargain. I suppose this is also a message about not getting games brand new on the release day but I might talk about that another day (that is people who in general pay way too much money for the value they get)

Response To TheLithP's Take On Final Fantasy XII

I've decided to use my blogspot page to respond to a comment I got from "TheLithP". I'm doing it here because 1. it's more accessible for people to see, 2. it's a lot to respond to, and 3. youtube's 500-character limit isn't a very friendly system.

I'll go through this bit by bit, (with his post in red italics):

Now, here's some complaints that I think you missed: The story & characters are terrible, the Espers are weak & the player does not have many options with them, the limits are poorly designed, the areas are often put together with little to no regard for a target level, there are long tedious dungeon/field treks with little storyline payoff, & my biggest one, it completely sucks at its goal of being part of a mini-series, this "Ivalice Alliance" shit.

First of all, I never thought the story and characters were terrible, though storyline I've always thought exists in games as a secondary feature behind gameplay. If a game has a bad storyline that only "ruins" my gameplay experience very slightly.

You're right, the espers do change very little the gameplay (from my experience at least), I never used them, I don't see this as much of an issue though as they're not central to the gameplay

The quickenings are not poorly designed, the main purpose of the quickenings are for a last-resort attack. When you are low on health and normal fighting is not enough to beat the boss, then the randomness of the quickenings is you're last hope of standing a chance. As they're damage calculation includes an extreme random multiplier, they give you a chance of succeeding against a boss which otherwise you'd have no chance.

Also consider this, obtaining the quickenings multiplies your max MP by however many you have. Each quickening on the board can only be acquired by one character... A lot of people complain how the FF12 characters have "very little difference between them" (which I don't think is a problem anyway) but if you want to max out their potential MP use, you have to take them in different directions.

About recommended level, I guess you're right, but I think its better that way... I've never seen character-levels as a goal but as a means to accomplish a goal. I've noticed a lot of people aim to reach certain levels, where grinding is their means to reach that goal... but the way I see it is that your levels are a by-product of the game itself, they are a means to accomplish a goal, not a goal themselves. I've always thought that if you're giving the player a "target level" to reach then that takes away from the flow of the game. If there is an area with strong monsters, I want to find out myself how strong I should be in regards to my own skill level.

Last point on this paragraph... I love dungeon crawling, especially when the game uses a self-revealing map system. I tend to find that big dungeons have that "relaxing yet challenging" feel to them. I love wondering around, bumping into a dead-end, turning back, checking the map, fighting enemies along the way. I could sit down for hours crossing dungeons if I had to. I have no problems with long paths and going the wrong way. Like I was saying about self-revealing maps, if you bump into a dead-end you still progress because you've discovered a "wrong" way. Also when you think of FF13 and it's linearity, people complained about that. On the contarary what I really dislike is being completely lost and end up running in circles, or not knowing what NPC to talk to to progress the story

1. Dude...it's an MMO fighting system. Reviewers have said that. It's not just moving around while fighting. More on that part, I'd suppose my problem IS that it doesn't change the gameplay. Movement should allow for better ability to evade. We shouldn't have so many enemies that come out of nowhere when it was advertised that this would "eliminate random battles." And in the process, it made it a LOT harder to actually avoid tedious fights.
Ok, I'm not too sure about the whole "MMO-likeness" of the game, but even if we say for now that it is exactly the same as an MMO fighting system, is that a bad thing? I love FF12 but I'm not interested in playing MMOs at all

I really don't see how movement not affecting the battles is a problem at all. People never had a problem with the inability to move during before so why is it a problem now that you're able to move without effect on the battles? Now I'd understand if for example, FF7 allowed to move whilst in random battles but had no effect, moving in that case would be a pointless feature. But FF12 does let you move because you're still in the "world" during fights... I thought it would be more annoying if you saw an enemy and then your characters couldn't move until the enemy dies, because in that instance the sudden inability to move would just slow down your progress

Even though I'm a big fan of random battles in RPGs, I dont think FF12's system was a bad one, you could say it did remove the random battles... my main point is that I don't think random battles are a bad thing anyway in games like this, and I don't understand why people hate them so much (I've gone through this in a previous blog post)

2. Straw Man, frankly. It IS true that you can make gambit systems that will fight entire battles for you. There are players who set up gambits to fight the entire Yiazmat battle for them while they take a nap. This IS a bad thing. A game should not be made so that you can spend hours not playing it. To be fair, the Gambit system is promising, but this is a pretty glaring flaw.

Personally, I found that only the bosses near the beginning can be done with ease just using the gambits themselves. But even if I am able to beat a boss with just gambits alone, I still have to set up the gambits myself. Not only that I'm having to constantly check to make sure that everything's going alright... most the time I find myself fighting a boss (especially that group of annoying small big-headed fruit things) and I'll find that things aren't going quite right, or the situation changes and I have to rearrange my gambits, this happens a lot.

I am sure there are people who can set up a perfect gambit configuration for Yiazmat, but you have to remember that there are people out there who are total obsessive with FF12... I don’t think many people can do that. I think most people wouldn't want to fight Yiazmat and just leave it up to chance, considering how long the fight is (several hours). Now if I was to fight Yiazmat (which I haven’t yet but I REALLY want to) I would not be sleeping as it happens, I'd be there to make sure I'm doing the best I can (don’t forget you need to actively move to restore MP over time, and you have to manually switch party members yourself)

3. There are 2 main problems with the license system. A, it's stupid. Gameplay restrictions in Final Fantasy are often linked to the storyline. This was done in the most slipshod way this time around. You're not exactly upholding the law. (B) Everything is shoehorned into this system. Gambits, summonings, equipment, abilities. It really cuts down on the strategic element, especially since you can't plot your course ahead of time without a guide. The thing is that this puts additional work on the player for something simple for no good reason. Also, you straw manned AGAIN. They're saying that, logically, you should not need a license, not that the game lies.

You said "Gameplay restrictions in Final Fantasy are often linked to storyline" now I'm not quite sure what you mean by this, I can think of two things that you could mean:
1. The storyline is fixed, you can't change the storyline yourself
2. What you're limited to is determined by your position in the storyline.
I assume you meant the second, but I'll answer both just in case... all Final Fantasy games have a fixed story line, but storyline =/= gameplay. In all FF games your limitations are determined by your story progression, especially in the more linear ones (FF4 and FF13). But in the more open FF games your limited by storyline not as much, such as FF12 and FF10-2. but even FF12 limits you by storyline to some extent... you can't acquire more powerful equipment/abilities until you reach the shops where they are located in the story. Now FF12 does give you opportunities to get things earlier if you work your way around, which just adds openness to the game... I think this whole linearity vs openness (in gameplay) isn't such a big deal, they both have strong and weak points.

As for your second point on this paragraph, I don't really have much to say... it would be nice if they let you see what all the licenses are before you're next to it so you can plan a route more. However I don't think that's much to do with the lack of user-friendliness, more so just a different way of setting the board up. If the internet didn’t exist (and people weren’t able to look up what's on the board) then discovering what exists on the board would be an element of gameplay, but since people feel like its "their right" to look up what exists on the board then people look it up without considering it "cheating"... I'm not saying it necessarily is cheating, for me, it's just an element of game-research but I just find it interesting how people feel like a full knowledge of the board is their inherent right, rather than their task. (again, remember, I'm not saying I disagree with you here, I just think it's interesting).

I'll give you an example of something that is really user-unfriendly... the FF13 crystarium, you have to manually hold down the X/A button to slowly put in points towards a crystal, and is harder to navigate round than it should be. FF12's interface if you ask me is the most user-friendly I've ever seen, but I'm going slightly off topic here.

Ok, final point. You said that you should "logically not need a license". But the thing here is that we're arguing semantics. If you replaced the word "license" with "skill" would it really make a difference? what about "materia"? The term "licenses" only exists to match the theme of the game. The only reason such restrictions become more obvious to people is because the game actively says so. There are many other features of games that make no sense using "real life logic"... like in FF7, why can't Cloud equip one of Vincent's guns, surely there's no logical reason why Cloud would be physically unable to hold a handgun. Using "real-life logic" you could make it so that he can, but is less skilled with it. FF12 uses "law and order" as it's theme, so licenses are used. Similar to how FF8 uses "abstraction" as a theme, what is Junctioning? why can each GF only be juctioned to one character at a time? How is it that you can hold 100 tents but not 101 potions?

Ok, that's my response, please let me know what you think.

Regarding FF13 And The "Evolution" Of The Genre

you have one group of people who say FF games (and JRPGs in general) are getting old and they need to "evolve" (which i think they have been doing this whole time, no 2 FF games are alike)

and you have the other group of people that say FF games need to "go back to their roots" and arent satisfied with anything other than FF1-6 and FF9.

I don't get either of these 2 extreme mentallities that most people seem to hold.

for those saying "JRPGs need to evolve", I ask you this: what other genre has had larger developments in their gameplay styles other than JRPGs?

Driving games you stil have cars, turn corners, accelerate, brake etc
Fighting games you still have 1 on 1 side-scrolling fights
Platform games you still run and jump, with the biggest difference being the switch from 2D to 3D
RTS you do the same things

Sure, all these genres have changed things up over the years, driving games now let you upgrade/buy new cars, Fighting games have extra modes that allow you to customise stuff... but how is this any more than what JRPGs have done? in FF1 you chose individual permanent classes for each character, FF4 and FF13 were less about customising and more about dealing with situations as you get to them, FF6 was about managing a large group of characters and splitting them into teams, FF7 was about building your own set of abilities and distributing them amongst characters, FF10 had unique characters that could venture into other areas of skill over time, FF12 had gambits, FF13 had paradigm shifting... These are all very unique systems

All this stuff changes over time, you can't say that it doesnt... some of the "needs to evolve" claims I hear are based around these games (generally) being turn-based and random-battles. But then why "should" that change? its not a broken system and it works fine. Im not saying that deviation should not be there, but why should it be forced when there's really no need for it? Why should a game incorporate "new" ideas just for the sake of them being new rather than enjoyable? Look at New Super Mario Bros Wii for example, an old idea yet fun to play.

using FF13 as an example, some of the complaints were about "no towns" and "no NPCs". But in all honesty, how many people played FF7 to be able to talk to random strangers? I know I didnt, I played to kill sephiroth, and to another degree ruby/emerald weapon... I remember beating ruby/emerald for the first time and feeling a great sense of accomplishment... it was the building up of my characters and using my materia that got me there, that was the fun part. I was not bothered so much by the towns. Now I'm not saying that FF13 is better in that regards, in actual fact I do think FF13 was one of the worst in the series, but I just think some of the complaints are a bit out-there.

also, talk about linearity, why does nobody complain about FF4? if you ask me, FF4 has been the most linear FF game of the main series... "linear" doesnt mean geographically necessarilly, granted I would say FF13 is linear, probably the 2nd most linear, with FF10 being close. Take FF4 for example, you can never change your party, you can never customise other than through equipment... the game only really opens when you're able to go around and collect summons for Rydia. On a side note, I find it ironic that people accuse JRPGs of being linear, when the only less-linear genre that I can think of is WRPGs, if linearity is a problem then why play any other genre?

There is a positive to a game being linear however, and that is that it allows for a stronger structure in individual events... FF4 and FF13 (I think) are perfect examples of games with really tense boss battles. In FF4 you're always "almost dead" using rosa to heal, and telling you're characters to "hurry up" in your mind. FF13 however did this by reducing your options in combat, giving you 6 paradigms to switch between. Even though your options were small in battle, you have to examine everything all the time... you have to keep an eye on the stagger bar whilst tryng to stop it from reseting you might have to heal at the same time with more than 1 medic. I remember a few times where I would stagger an enemy, then get hurt a lot and I'd think "not now!" and it gets more difficult to decide whether or not to take the risks. FF13 gave me that experience that i havnt experienced for a while

And don't say stuff like "the characters are too emo" because if you ask me, that's just petty. It doesnt effect the gameplay AT ALL. Besides the FF franchise has a new world, new characters and new story every time.

On a personal note, I MUCH prefer the JRPG style of playing a game with a story attached to it that the WRPG style of having story-related consequences to your actions. I've noticed that when people say stuff like "I dont like JRPGs cuase your actions dont change anything" by "change" they mean affecting the storyline... I much prefer making actions that effect the gameplay, like choosing a weapon to level up and such. And I generally have a disliking of a non-canonised story. And besisdes, if "not changing the story through your actions" is such a problem, then how about complaining about every other non-WRPG genre aswell? This is not to say that i dislike theconcept of an open-world game. Let me make this clear... just because a game has an open-world, lots of "quests" for you to do and lots of different means of developing your character... this DOES NOT mean that the game automatically has a non-linear story and a "create your own character" feature. (personally I would be interested in an oblivion-esque open-world game that uses a battle/leveling system similar to FF12)

On the flip-side I still find there's problems with people saying that FF games need to "go back to their roots"... I see this as a problem because this would simply make the games too similar. You can still prefer one system over another, but using the exact same methods over and over again creates no variation. I even saw one guy saying that he thinks every FF game should use the same leveling system in each game, to which I was thinking "dude! are you crazy!? that's what makes the games interesting!"... imagine if every FF game used materia. Learning and adapting to the new systems is what makes the games what they are.

You can still like a particular system more than another, but I still think the "worst" systems can still be interesting enough to keep you playing. For example, FF5 is my favourite in the series, I love how the job system works in that game... I like it a lot more that the license board on FF12, but I still like the license board and still find it interesting enough to play the game. Would I want every FF game to use FF5's system? of course not! (On a side-note, people complaining about FF12 needing you to get a license to equip a weapon and how it "doesnt make sense", its really just another requirement implemented by the game, you could just as easilly argue that FF7 doesnt make sence how Tifa can't use Vincent's guns)

And just because a system appears similar to another (or uses the same terminology), doesn't mean it is... FF5 is my favourite, FF3 is my least. I love FF5's job system, but FF3's annoyed me... same label doesn't equal similar system

wow, that was a lot longer than I intended it to be...

In Defence Of Random Battles

The thing that's really been grinding my gears recently is all the hatred for random battles

Now here's the thing, I'm not saying that random battles is the only way RPG battles should be done, nor am I saying it is inherently the best way. Overall it is my favourite way though I am willing to accept that games without them can have battles implemented in an interesting way that works.

I have been noticing that random battles in games arnt as prevelent as they used to be, and I hear so so many complaints about them that are completely unjustified.

So first of all I will address my own reasons for liking random battles. Then I will address the common complaints I hear and finally to be fair I will explain a something that I dislike about random battles (I'm trying to be subjective as I can, or is objective? I get those words mixed up sometimes).

What I Like About Random Battles
1. I like random battles because it is an effective method to make absoloutly sure that the skill required in order to defeat enemies is completely focused on the actual events during the fights. If I know that I can't "avoid" fights then it feels more of a challenge to me to be able to actually kill the enemies.

2. I find they enhance the exploration element as you do not have to worry about physically avoiding specific enemies on the field

3. It allows for more of a strategic approach, this is because finding enemies on the field and running toward or away from them involves twitch-based skill. I'm not saying twitch-based skill is bad, but I tend to find that it's not as interesting when it comes to running to/from enemies in RPGs. The game can still have twich-based mechanics inside the battles themselves (I like how Shadow Hearts did that)

Addressing Complaints About Random Battles
1. I can't choose who I fight

Well in most games you cant choose who to fight, in most cases you always know who the badguys are and you fight them.

2. They're too random

The law of large numbers, considering the amount of time spent playing these games the amount of randomisation will average towards the mean. But even so, the battles aren't so random that its like playing "heads or tails" (as some people make it out to be)

3. It takes no skill

True, but why is this a problem? Adding more events that require skill doesnt make a game better, as I said before it means that the skill is focused entirely during the battles. If for example Sonic The Hegdehog "added skill" to it (such as finding power-ups in order to level-up your jumps) then the other features would have to be lessened in importance in order to balance out the difficulty. Also games with random battles have skill in different areas

3. I get into one every 3 steps

That's really over-exagerating, even saying 10 steps is over exagerating

4. I was just one step before entering a town and I got into a damn battle

And what is it about that "one step away" feature that adds any sort of dissatisfaction to the entering of a battle? would the battle have been any different from a battle that heppened two or three steps away? If it takes (on average) 10 battles to get from point A to point B then what difference does it make "when" on that journey you entered the battle? (Provided that enemies are the same throughout the path, but a couple steps outside a town is barely going to make a difference)

5. (In response to above) If I had just gone one more step then I wouldn't have had to enter this battle, I was so close to avoiding that battle

True, but how is that relevant? If getting into a battle just before entering a town is a negative, then is it not feasible to say that reaching a town in just enough steps that the next step was going to trigger a battle is just as positive as that is negative? You could also use that logic to say that "one step before town" is a positive as it guarentees a 0% chance of any battles for the rest of that journey

6. We now have the technology so that we don't need random battles anymore

So? Just because technology can handle more doesnt mean that it directly translates into a fun experience. People still play Chess and they enjoy it, regardless of how much data the current consoles can handle

7. They slow the game down

This doesn't make any sense, a game feature can't slow a game down as it is a part of the gameplay. If you removed the random battles, you wouldnt be "speeding up" the game, you'd be changng it. You could also say that Super Mario Bros. would be faster if there were no pits or enemies, but then you'd just have a different game

8. The animations takes soooooo long

Seriously? Most of these complaints I hear talk as if an attack takes half a minute to complete, these complaints are really over-exagerated. Even so I think people are just being far too impatient for their own good. (This isn't directly linked to random battles but it kinda is)

9. It's not realistic

And why does that matter? I am well aware that people dont enter "random battles" in real life, games are supposed to be about overcoming challenges, whether they be presented in a way that reflects the real world or not

10. It's not immersive

I disagree, I find random battles to be very immersive. This is because of reasons stated in my "What I like about random battles" section

11. It's just about selecting "Attack" until the enemy dies over and over
That is usually an over-exageration, but even if it wasn't the point is still invalid. Even if that was the case, it doesn't link with the actual random battles themselves, there are many action games have this exact "problem". It may be true that a game with random-battles does this but its not the "random battle" feature that causes it

12. (In response to above) But it is, you said before that random battles allow for more strategy style gameplay and so it does link as the twich-based effect of avoiding/chasing enemies is not there

(Actually, nobody's asked me this before but I thought I'd fill it in just in case somebody does)

Well, that is a valid point. However if game has both random battles AND combat so easy that you can get through the whole game by button mashing, then thats probably just an overall poorly designed game.

All this really proves is that random battles can't do everything, nothing can.

13. I just want to get to the end of this frickin' dungeon but enemies keep popping out

Hey, it's a game, you're not always going to get what you want. You will have to overcome challenges on the way. All games do that. Things will always get in your way when you play games.

What I Dislike About Random Battles
The main thing I find annoying about random battles is when you're trying to grind. Having to run in circles I find is rather awkward. It sure is better than waiting for enemies to respawn but its a problem that could easilly be fixed. Cross Edge had it so you had random battles, but you could also manually enter a battle by the single press of a button. What I would like to see is an "enter another battle?" option at the end of every fight

A New "Lara Croft" Game

So I wasn't planning on making any entires, I didnt have any subjects in mind... but as I was looking at Kotaku I found this:

"Lara Croft And The Guardian Of Light" hm? Wait... what? Not "Tomb Raider"?

Well, according to Kotaku it's going to be a downloadable game, and "different"... Not too sure about this, will definetly check up but I don't have any large interests. Since Tomb Raider got onto the PS2 I was not all that interested anyway. We'll see.

Pinball Dreams On PSN Minis

So one game that came out on the PSN minis is Pinball Dreams, a game that I had a long time ago on the Amiga. I don't remember much about the game back then, but I did remember the machines, and the fact that my uncle's favourite machine was Steel Wheel.

So yeah, I got it for £4 off the PSN Minis:

The machines:
So the machines: Ignition is alright, those three lights that you have to hit to get the "Ignition" letters to light up? Yeah they are pretty easy compared to the lights of the other levels, but when I do I can't seem to hit the jackpot, and it only lasts for that one ball when you do. If I eventually do hit that jackpot I'll probably get a massive boost to my high-scores. Also I've found that if the ball falls down one of the drains, I can lift up one of the flippers and use the tilt to nudge it back up... not sure if that technique works on any other machine.

Steel Wheel is definetly not my favourite but I always end up getting the most points on that level. For example, I spent a while trying to reach 10 million, and in my first time being able to do this I somehow ended up with 19 million.

Beat Box I'm finding has the catchiest music of the lot... I can't remember it off-hand though. This machine appears... "empty"? I say that cause all of the stuff seems to be on the top half... or is that just me?

Nightmare I would say is probably my favourite, though I can't tell why exactly. For some reason I like the way that the ball doesnt start directly at the top, rather it gets shot out from the side. This particular machine seems to not have any specific "hard to hit" areas, except for the letters at the top but that's a standard.

The PSN Minis version:
Slight differences that I notice in the Minis version. First of all is a slight alteration to the graphics, just a slight upgrade. I don't notice too much of a difference. The main two things that are noticable are the way that the score boards are saved (which is great) and that a side-ways view is optional. What this basically means is that you can press select and the screen will flip on it's side. This makes X the button to control the left flipper and triange to control the right. On the PS3 this is pretty pointless, but on the PSP its great. It means you can see more of the machine at once (almost all of it) having the PSP flipped on its side. Only complaint about it is that it means the score display is cut-off at the edges, and if I'm wanting to lie down on the side, it gets top-heavy.

The peg:
I'm not sure if this is a standard for pinball machines, or if it's just in this game but the peg is a brilliant idea. Allow me to explain: on every machine, just below the gap between the flippers is a peg. What this means is that if the ball was to travel directly down between the flippers, the ball bounces back. However if this happens and the flippers are up, its more likely that the ball will just bounce back down (from hitting the bottom of the flipper). If the ball just fall down naturally cause the player messes up then the ball will just fall down the side next to the peg. What this means is that the player doesn't just have to think about "when" to flip but also "if" to flip

New Blog

Ok, so I don't know how this will turn out, just experimenting with it... see how things go