I tell ya, it’s been a good long while since I’ve had to write a post that’s not really about baseball and it’s got me rather at a loss of what to do. Instead of focusing on one topic today, instead let’s look at a variety of things going on that I care about:
Peter Molyneux has got a problem. You see, he’s one of the movers and shakers in video game design and his ideas have more or less shaped the industry as a whole. For example, while you can argue that Ultima or Fallout did it first, Peter and his boys at Lionhead popularized the whole good vs. evil aesthetic that so pervades the medium right now with his landmark title Black & White. You can’t really argue that his game made it cool for the visual look of a character to change dynamically with alignment that Bioware eventually used in their epics Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect.
The problem though, comes when you realize that Peter is more of an ideas man. Black & White sold tons of copies, but was generally tepidly received or remembered due to its feel as more of a sandbox game or a tech demo. Its unfocused nature. The idea was gold, the game wasn’t there. Fable was promised to be an epic story where things you did from day 1, like planting a tree, would radically change the future. It didn’t. The list of things promised for Fable that weren’t delivered was so long that it became a media point to say that what Peter says doesn’t necessarily get into the game, no matter how enthusiastic and brilliant he may sound saying it.
Today I’ll be picking up my pre-order of Fable 2. Will it satisfy or will it fall short of his promises? You can be sure that I’ll let you know here once I have a solid conclusion.
Also on the table for today: I tried adding some Just Bunches to my Honey Bunches of Oats and I’d have to say the result was stellar. The addition of more bunches really makes the cereal better without overpowering the other elements. A great idea, but not one I’ll be repeating by buying another box of Just Bunches in the future.
Little Big Planet, if you hadn’t already heard, was delayed until next week due to a controversial music track included in the game. The game had, I should say, a track in which passages of the Qur’an were recited in the background. Muslims claim that it is offensive to include passages in the Qur’an in art, so Sony decided to push back the game’s release date and Media Molecule, the game devs, removed the track from the discs. Some say that Muslims need to learn to chill out if they want to be respected in the global, free world, others say that they’re in the right to ask that their religious texts not be used. I agree more with the former, but I also understand why Sony did what they did and I do think that they at least made a good business decision, since they get pretty good sales in the Middle East.
The Rays have finally gone and done it. In order to make the series more interesting, they let the Sox tie it up at three games a piece, but in Game 7, Matt Garza and the Rays showed the world that they were capable of going to the series and beating Boston in their 25th showdown this year.
It started out looking a bit rough for the Rays with a Dustin Pedroia homer that put the Sox up, but it started to turn around with an RBI double by Longoria, RBI single by Baldelli, and a homer by Willy Aybar, putting the Rays up 3-1. There was also that dicey moment where the relief squad kept the Rays safe in a bases loaded situation, all combining to bring the Rays their first world series berth ever.
Now it’s up to them to take down the hated Phillies in a matchup for the history books! No Florida team has ever lost in a post season they attended and no Florida team has ever lost in a World Series. Will Tampa Bay be able to keep it up?
Deep from the trenches, it’s time for your Monday video feature: Embedded Reporter.
What happens when you choose the wrong best man? Take a look:
Whether or not this is staged matters not to me, it’s still funny.
How the Rays managed to lose a 7-0 lead to lose the game on Thursday against the Sox, I do not know. It’s really a shame that they couldn’t hold on for the pennant. Now it comes down to the game tonight (or the next game).
In better news, Longoria smashed another one out of the park. He’s unstoppable.
Insert another credit, because it’s time for your weekly video game news and you’ve just hit the Game Overview screen.
With every Final Fantasy game there exists great (and not so great) teams of heroes bent on saving the world from some sort of evil force. While we could take a look at those heroes, let’s instead take a look at the evils that motivate these heroes to do what they do.
It should be noted that this feature will be full of spoilers.
Week 1 – Garland Week 2 – Emperor Mateus of Palamecia Week 3 – The Cloud of Darkness
Final Fantasy IV was a masterpiece of soap operatic storytelling. Characters joined, left, fell in love, died, were amnesiacs, and were under mind control. It was a mess, but it was an entertaining tale of redemption for an evil man and his love for his woman.
Unfortunately we still had this very strange story anomaly where you’d play through about 90% of the game thinking one guy was your enemy (Golbez, in this case) only to find out that the real culprit was some other bloke (Zemus/Zeromus, in this case). While we can forgive the weak characterization in these early games, FF IV started to reach the saturation point for this nonsense. Sure, we love fighting evil, but wouldn’t it be nice to not just have a quick “Oh, this guy was mind controlling everyone” kind of thing be pulled on us?
So Zemus/Zeromus happens to be a Lunarian, or a dude from the moon, who’s decided that living on the moon blows. To fix this problem, he’s decided to kill everyone on the planet and take the planet for the Lunarians to live on. The other Lunarians are, surprisingly, not on board, so it’s up to the crew to take this sucker down.
Evil Rating:
He’s evil, but not evil enough to want to get his own hands dirty. 99% of the evil he causes is realized through his mind controlled puppets. I’ll give him points for wanting to kill everyone on the planet, but he’s gotta lose some for laziness. That and he totally gets owned by the heroes and has to let the embodiment of his hatred be the final boss.
7/10 (mostly because his evil intentions raze an entire town, kill multiple player characters, and are cool, but he loses points for the totally lame mind control plot)
Cool Rating:
Well he gets cool points for being from the moon. He’s also too cool for school, preferring to make others do his dirty work while he chills out on the moon. It doesn’t get much cooler than that, except that he gets owned pretty easily and has to unleash his hatred upon the world to actually be formidable.
7/10
Images:
Zemus (DS) Zeromus (Amano Artwork)
Video:
Well, they’ve done it for the first time since 1993. The Phils have won the NL pennant. Their victory came at the expense of sloppy play by Rafael Furcal and the Dodgers in general. In the end, it didn’t matter that Manny Ramirez was batting .500 coming into the last game. It didn’t matter that the Dodgers had Joe Torre manning their ball club. It just mattered that the Phils wanted it more, were a more solid team, and took it in five.
Speaking of a team that wants it, the Rays will have a chance to take the AL pennant tonight as they face off once again in Boston. Let’s all hope that Longoria belts in another few homers.
You’ve probably heard the saying that hindsight is 20/20 on Monday morning, so just imagine how well I can call ‘em two days later on Wednesday. That’s right, it’s time for Wednesday Morning Quarterback, your weekly sports round-up.
13-4. I don’t think anyone expected that at all. Tim Wakefield used to be dominant against the Rays. Now, in the past two games, he’s been hammered. Evan Longoria set himself a rookie record by smashing in five homeruns in the post season. The Rays are now 3-1 over the Red Sox. It’s only a matter of one game. Could be over as early as Thursday when Daisuke will try to stun the Rays again like he did in Game 1.
Tonight could be the end of the NLCS, when the Dodgers and Phillies go at it in their series. There’s tons of pressure on the Dodgers, but I think they can turn it around for a great upset. Torre’s done it before.
It’s been a wild few games in the League Championship Series as Tampa moves ahead 2-1 and the Phillies come back in a ridiculous game to bring their series to 3-1.
After suffering from a mini-slump, it seems that Evan Longoria is definitely back. He’s homered in both of the last two games helping to propel the Rays to a 9-8 win in Game 2 and a 9-1 win in Game 3. Why these games have turned into such slugfests despite the excellent pitching on both sides of the plate baffles me, but there’s no reason to complain about excellent TB performance. Game 4 will begin tonight at 2007.
Despite having a strong lead early in Game 4, the Dodgers managed to drop another to the Phillies to lose 5-7 by allowing four runs in the 8th. As the series begins to look more desperate for Torre and his Dodgers, we’ve just gotta hope that Manny keeps being Manny and propels this team ahead tomorrow night to avoid elimination. Good luck Dodgers!
I skipped a day, but we’re here: The League Championship Series. Even though we’ve already had two days of competition, the ALCS has only played one game while the Phillies and Dodgers are two into the NLCS.
Philadelphia finds itself two games ahead after winning 8-5 last night and 3-2 on Thursday. I must admit, this series has been a little less close than I expected it to be. We’ll see what happens on Sunday when the series moves to LA. Will the Dodgers be able to pull a win in sunny LA instead of cool Philadelphia? We’ll find out in a few days.
On a sadder note, Daisuke Matsuzaka pulled some of his road magic on the Rays last night as the Red Sox shut out the Rays 2-0. I’m really hoping this isn’t just Red Sox postseason magic and just some solid pitching that held them down. The Rays play again tonight and should hopefully win.
Week 1 – Garland Week 2 – Emperor Mateus of Palamecia
Final Fantasy III spearheaded the amazingly innovative, and often imitated, job system that sneaked its way into every other Final Fantasy game starting with III, was enhanced in V, and up until Final Fantasy VII (I claim that materia is a modified job-system). It was also utilized in Final Fantasy X-2 via dress spheres. Unfortunately for us, it had yet to refine its villain characterization, resulting in a final boss who you basically don’t see or even know about for the vast majority of the game.
The actual final boss of Final Fantasy III is about as nebulous as they come (sorry in advance for this terrible pun). The Cloud of Darkness is a chaotic force that seeks to end the world after it was thrown out of balance by the light and dark warriors and crystals. She (it has female appearance) actually kills the light warriors at one point (the player characters) and it takes the sacrifice of the dark warriors to allow the light ones to even have a chance to kill her.
It’s a tough battle, being an old school FF game and all, but good job composition will allow the team to take her down and save the world.
She’s a force of nature hell-bent on ending existence. That being said, what Final Fantasy villain isn’t? You don’t see her until the end of the game and most of the evil situations going on in the world are not even close to her or her minion Xande’s responsibility.
1/10 (remember, wanting to end the universe is not that evil in FF games)
She’s an amorphous, naked, green cloud of evil. Lame. She does kill the Light Warriors though, so kudos for that.
3/10
Image:
DS Remake Model
