I'm Blue, updated Tuesdays and Fridays without fail.

An Inadvertent Souvenir
November 7, 2003

[Happy birthday to us, happy birrrrrthday to USSSS]... ::grin::

Yeah. I'm Blue turned two years young yesterday. Hee! Look for many more years after this. Wow, y'know, I'm excited. When we turned 1, the indomitable Chris Morrison of Polymer City Chronicles (go check out his comic! GRR!) not only was kind enough to congratulate us on the occasion, but state that we've gotten through the first of the two most difficult years of a webcomic's life. Now we've downed Year #2, and are starting out on the great adventure that is Year Three... I have to smile. What a long strange trip it's been, sure, but there so much more to come... ::cackles::

Really quick: I think this is the site with the greatest comic potential I've seen in a long time. -No, don't ask me what it is. Just GO. Oh, and be sure to turn off your MP3 player before you go: it requires sound, kiddies. Ah, and it is such a thing of beauty... ::sighs happily:: GO! But after rant and comic! Then go! Woo!

Oh, and by the way. I TRICKED YOU ALL! You thought there was going to be a picture of me as a pirate last rant but there wasn't! HA! I'm so tricky!...

::pause::

Oh, hell, I'll admit it. I didn't trick nobody but myself, because I forgot to send Web Guy Josiah the picture, and when I discovered the problem I decided to keep quiet about it because I already whined at him to fix one problem in the rant, and didn't want to start yelping about another. So. Here's the real picture:

Yarr. Ye olde coat was a bit big, but I think it was smashing, yarrrr. The sword sucked, but the HAT, me laddies! Keep yer eyes fixed on the glory of the coat and HAT, me lubbers! Yarr! ::laugh:: Someday I'll be a ninja pirate, just you wait. Yeah!

So I played the demo of Final Fantasy X-2 tonight. And I'll honestly tell you what I think, because I'm an honest kind of person:

Feh.

Sure. It looks beautiful. And the story sounds really intriguing, honestly. But the gameplay? Hokey. The "real-time" (NOT turn-based) combat? Confusing and annoying as hell - the "costume changes" (the job system, essentially) look like pages right out of Sailor Moon for crying out loud - and everything moves too fast to figure out any decent strategy.

Finally, the costume factor itself: I believe the industry term for it is "cheesecake." The more accurate way to put it is that this game shows more skin than a Victoria's Secret Runway Show. Seriously. There is not an ass-factor high enough to rate this game, and it pisses me off more than I can express. Apparently "being in disguise" in Spira also means "dressing like a bucket of sluts," because that's what I'm seeing. There is no rhyme or reason for this decision, these ridiculous, over-the-top outfits. If you sniffed in disdain at Lulu falling out of her dress in the first one, this game will give you a god-dammed aneurysm.

Look. I know the game industry is mostly made up of guys. But over a quarter of the people who play games are women, and this game doesn't seem to connect to that fact at all. Sure, all of the main characters are chicks, and they kick butt. But what the fuck is the point of dressing them up in string bikinis to fight? Sure, the ladies in Dead or Alive: Beach Volleyball can play a mean game of sand-ball, but that's not a Final Fantasy game. With DOA: BV, I know what it's about - cheesecake. Babes in bikinis. This is NOT that, and it makes me very irate to know that what might have been a good game and a promising sequel - the FIRST Final Fantasy one! - has largely been ruined for me (and other female gamers, I would suspect) for such a fucking stupid reason.

Come at me on this issue, if you feel you want to. I'll tell you the same thing in longer format. Nobody likes being ignored, and that's what most of the gaming industry is doing to the majority of women gamers. I've gone off on this before, and I'd like to stress that there are just a few things I feel extremely strongly about in my life, and this is one of them. Gaming for me isn't just about picking up a controller in a way, it never was. If you know what I mean.

Anyhow, enough of the craziness. I also played Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, as I said before, and methinks I'll do what I can to wrangle some more playtime out of it, if I can borrow it again. Hm. I was only mildly impressed by that game when I first took a stab at it, but methinks perhaps more play will yield more impressive results. ..Okay, okay, I give. It's because a guy at work told me that as you're going along this level with stained-glass windows, the further you get, the more the windows turn red with bloooood... BOOO. See, I don't play survival horror games, but that doesn't mean I don't like a bit of spookiness now and then. Plus? That's a nice touch, for the Castlevania world. Well. We'll see. You can count on me keeping you posted... that is, as you know, what I do. ::wink::

Well, I've gone on for long enough, but take care and all that. Look for good things coming your way... ::giggle:: ::dashes off::

News Of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated,
Annie "Blue" C

The time has come at last
To throw away this mask
Now everyone can see
My true identity...
- Styx
"Mr. Roboto"

Yeah, like Annie, I'm not a real big fan of the whole 'real time combat' either. It's a fucking button-pushing festival. I don't know about the rest of you, but I LOVED the list on FFX that told you the order of the next 6 or so people, it was PERFECT for strategy. You could plan out the next half-dozen moves, from who casts what, to who to switch out so that everyone get xp, etc. I'm not a real big RTS gamer (always having done poorly), but give me a combat system I understand, give me a turn-based game, and I'll take you to town.

Not to say that FFX was perfect. The one thing that truely pissed me off about FFX is that you couldn't wander around. When you finally had the chance to do what you wanted to do (at the end), you were at the fucking end, you didn't get a chance to really do any wandering around to try to figure out what you were supposed to do. That's not cool. FFX is basically a FMV with minimal interactive elements inserted so that they could call it a game. Apparently FFX-2 allows one to wander around and decide, but again, the real time combat feels too rushed. Maybe it was because they dropped you off in a level that is a ways into the game, but not having played the game (it doesn't come out until the 19th in the states, according to Annie), I can only speculate that the combat, in general, sucks.

Which reminds me. I wasn't impressed (at all) with Castlevania: Lament of Innocence. I know that Annie wants to play it again, but the controls feel awkward as hell. Give me Symphony of the Night. That was a game. Best Castlevania, ever.
- Josiah