O to the P to the M

Saturday, November 15, 2003 » gaming thought

I recently picked up this (?) month's Official PlayStation Magazine (the one with Yuna doing her Tomb Raider-impression on the cover) because the bonus disc included, among other things, a demo of Final Fantasy X-2 and the special "Eternal Calm" epilogue/prologue movie that I thought was a Japan-only thing. Impressions follow.

• Final Fantasy X: Eternal Calm - Unfortunately, only mildly interesting, although it sets up X-2 pretty well. Wakka sounded a little less Wakka-ish, and oh my, Rikku is so incredibly annoying.


• Final Fantasy X-2 - I think I played a bit of this at E3 (IT HAS OFFICIALLY BEEN SIX MONTHS SINCE E3 AND I HAVE NOT GOTTEN AROUND TO POSTING PHOTOS) and found it incredibly disorienting. This experience was a little less so, although battles are now furiously fast-paced. It seems a bit ridiculous at first, but I expect one becomes accustomed to it after a few hours. Rikku is so annoying.


• XIII - I was really looking forward to an actual demo of this in hopes that the gameplay would be dotted with all those half-witty one-liners which are so popular in recent games, although in this case they would be delivered by none other than the David Duchovny himself (he's so dreamy~). I was treated to nothing of the sort. I'm hoping it's just an issue with the demo and the dialogue is not confined to cut scenes alone. Oh, who am I even kidding – The gameplay is just a generic FPS with unwieldier-than-usual console controls. I'm not buying this. Also, the graphical ratatata!s (and the occasional crash!) look just as goofy as I expected.


• I-Ninja - Hey, it's the latest incredibly generic 3D platformer.


• Need for Speed: Underground - This tricked-out street racing game (KEKEKEKEKE) controlled like an absolute monster. I was impressed by the environment graphics, though. They were pretty blurry, but man, them's some good-lookin' blurs.


• Castlevania: Lament of Innocence - :(