Games Cheats and Reviews

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Xenoblade: Final Fantasy XII meets Modern Warfare 2

Posted by admin On June - 25 - 2010 ADD COMMENTS

JRPGs have fallen on tough times as of late. Final Fantasy XIII, the flagship of the genre in the west, received lukewarm reviews when Square Enix released it earlier this year. Meanwhile, Dragon Quest IX has been setting Japan on fire for nearly a year, but has yet to see a western release. The best titles in the genre in recent memory have been for handheld systems. That may be about to change. Nintendo released Monolith’s new Wii RPG Xenoblade this month in Japan. The game is headed by Xenogears and Xenosaga creator Tetsuya Takahashi, and by taking specific cues Modern Warfare 2 and wester MMOs, it may just help lift console JRPGs out of the doldrums when it sees a western release.

Xenosaga is probably a better representative of the future of JRPGs than Final Fantasy XIII was. While both titles use AI-controlled party members (a mechanic that is fast becoming a staple of the genre on consoles) Xenoblade’s “single-player MMO” mimics the strong points of MMO combat-namely, coordinating and balancing skill selection, recharge times, and party cooperation- while avoiding the overly technical aspects that can dominate high-level MMO play. By borrowing from a genre that is popular in Japan and the west, Xenoblade offers mechanics that will appeal to those on both sides of the Pacific–if they can stomach certain JRPG tropes. that is.

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The Best Games of Q1, 2010.

Posted by admin On April - 21 - 2010 ADD COMMENTS

Gamer Limit writes "I’m still somewhat in a state of disbelief at the sort of quality 2010 has imbued upon us. Mass Effect 2, God of War 3, Bioshock 2, Final Fantasy XIII, Heavy Rain, Battlefield: Bad Company 2…"

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DoubleJump, Volume 2.5, Episode 4: A New Beginning (again)

Posted by admin On April - 20 - 2010 ADD COMMENTS

DoubleJump is a free audio podcast that we deliver to you!

Click here to subscribe in iTunes

Click HERE for the RSS Feed

Listen in as Melody and Rob go over their views of Final Fantasy XIII and its ups and downs. Then stay tuned as we are introduced to the NEW host of the DoubleJump podcast. That’s right, once again the DoubleJump Podcast goes through a bit of a revitalization process.

Busy schedules have led to the crew to hire another host, Scott. He has written several reviews for the site, and also brings with him podcasting/editing experience from his own site and show over at 3SMOV Radio.com.

Melody does a bit of an interview/introduction to Scott, and thus the torch has once again been passed. So what’s in store for the DoubleJump Podcast from here on out? Who knows! Don’t think of it as the end of an era, think of it as the beginning of something new and exciting. Just like that time in Tijuana…

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Final Fantasy XIII Sales Analysis, Xbox 360 Version Looks Strong

Posted by admin On April - 16 - 2010 ADD COMMENTS

Go! Gaming Giant takes a look at the NPD sales numbers for Final Fantasy XIII in March 2010 and analyzes what this might mean for future iterations of the franchise on the Xbox 360. Go! Gaming Giant compares the sales numbers between the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 versions, and explains the public relations and advertising process leading up to the release of the game.

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Square Enix wants to know why you bought Final Fantasy XIII on PS3 or Xbox 360

Posted by admin On April - 16 - 2010 ADD COMMENTS

Square Enix is currently conducting a brief Final Fantasy XIII survey on its Square Enix Members website. According to NPD Group’s March 2010 sales numbers, Final Fantasy XIII sold almost double on the PlayStation 3 (828.2k units) versus the Xbox 360 (493.9K units). There was considerable more promotion on the Xbox 360 in North America with the Xbox 360 Final Fantasy XIII bundle, Xbox 360 Final Fantasy XIII Faceplate and Xbox 360 Chocobo Avatar giveaway. But Square Enix wants to know from Final Fantasy XIII players why they chose Final Fantasy XIII on one platform over the other. Here are a couple of the questions and options in the survey on platform choice:

Why did you select the PS3 version?

– Prefer PS3’s graphics appearance

– Controller preference

– PlayStation Trophies

– PS3 is my console of choice

– PS3 version had only one disc

– Other

Why did you select the Xbox 360 version?

– Prefer Xbox 360’s graphics appearance

– Controller preference

– Achievements

– Xbox 360 is my console of choice

– Enjoy Xbox’s community when playing games like this

– Other

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Review: Final Fantasy XIII (Xbox 360)

Posted by admin On April - 16 - 2010 ADD COMMENTS

Game: Final Fantasy XIII
Publisher: Square Enix
Platform: PS3/XBox 360 (our review platform)
Price: $59.99
Pros: Beautiful scenery and characters; battle system is zen-like in practice
Cons: Melodrama gets a bit thick; no way to create your own story
Verdict: Rent first, to make sure you like the mechanics and themes, then Buy It.
Review copy provided by publisher

I’ve found Serah, encouraged Hope and gotten him home, chased a small yellow baby chocobo around a strangely boring amusement park, and helped Snow become more of a grown up. I’ve helped Lightning find her heart, Fang her lost partner, and Vanille, well, move around in a bouncy fashion. And I’m still playing this game. Anyone who said they finished Final Fantasy XIII in a week is either lying or does this for a living. I, however, do not do this for a living. My save file says 28 hours, but I’m pretty sure six of them were me accidentally leaving the Xbox 360 on for about that long. I’m engaged in finishing this game, mainly because I think it does some wonderful things connecting the thematic and story elements to the gameplay itself, as suggested by Simon Ferrari in his amazingly intelligent analysis of the game. I really want to get these characters to Pulse, to see how they react to the more wide-open spaces and much less linear (he says) levels. I really want to stop grinding up each hill only to find a big bad boss at the top that requires either a great deal of time or recourse to an online walkthrough.

Let me get this off my chest – There is no way I am going to finish this game before this review is stale news. NO WAY. Look, I know all you gamer types can sit on the couch all day and night and just play these things, but I have a day job, a family, three websites to oversee, and a disco band. Seriously, is 22 hours not enough to know whether I like this game enough to recommend it to you? If not, please go elsewhere where the reviewer probably hasn’t actually played through the full game but won’t tell you anyway.

See, I don’t typically put twenty hours into a game, in fact, this game has many things I don’t like about it. I don’t like the endless running from battle to battle, watching a cutscene, and rushing off to the next. I don’t like the overly melodramatic dialogue, or the overly sexualized female character, Vanille. I don’t enjoy having to spend ten to fifteen minutes on a boss, only to die and have to resort to an online walkthrough to figure out the secret to that boss’s success. So why am I still playing this game?

First up, it’s drop-dead sexy gorgeous. The developers have created a new universe full of bright colors, neon particle effects and all sorts of eye-candy – much more than I could ever describe. The end result, from my perspective, is a world that looks and feels real enough to ignore the fact that characters have hair that never musses in any strong wind and defies gravity at all sorts of angles, that giant yellow birds exist that will carry you like a horse, and that one teenage boy can carry around so much unexpressed angst. This is a game for the high definition systems out there, looking better than pretty much any game I’ve played. The environments are varied enough that I can actually find my way around in them, and if you knew me at all you would realize that must be some fairly specific praise. I get lost in the real world often, having a poor sense of direction and if a game has too-similar level design, I’m hopeless without a map.

The storyline is unfathomable to me when relayed in the cutscenes. I rely on the summary text when loading my save game to let me know just what, exactly, is going on. The Final Fantasy universes have always been full of strangeness that I tend to attribute to their Japanese origins, and as such, I like them very much. I just don’t grok them very easily. The Final Fantasy XIII universe involves two different planets, Pulse and Cocoon, the latter being the starting setting, a “benevolent” totalitarian government ruled by virtue of force and the bizarre-to-me fal’Cie, which is sort of a god that you can see. Cocoon citizens are told that Pulse is bad, and is out to invade them. Some citizens are drafted into service to these fal’Cie, turning them into l’Cie, a kind of soldier with a bizarre, un-specified purpose, called a focus. If these l’Cie don’t fulfill their focus, they are turned into shambling monsters; if they DO, they’re turned into crystals. Sounds like a crappy deal to me. There are fal’Cie on both Pulse and Cocoon, and when a l’Cie is drafted, they have to act like a l’Cie for some reason. Maybe a tradition of hierarchical relationships in Japanese culture is the reason this kind of storyline exists, but as a western gamer, I really didn’t buy it.

However, the part of the game I’ve played forces you to watch what the characters do to deal with their motivations, not my own. This fits in well with the idea of Cocoon: thematically, the characters and world they live on are very controlled, and reacting to events, rather than initiating or rebelling against them. The linear gameplay (little battles, bigger battles, huge boss battle) fits right in with the linear storyline. It plays like a movie with a cool battle system. Unfortunately, if you don’t like the movie, you can’t change it, as you can in many more western RPGs. This is the game and story the developers have created for you. Like it, and it’s a joy. Dislike it, and it’s a chore. I’ve bounced back and forth between these two opinions over the time I’ve spent on Cocoon. There are times when I look forward to the cutscenes to find out what’s going to happen next. There are other times when the melodrama and dialogue is too cloying, too teen-angsty, to really keep me interested. I find myself relating mostly to Lightning and Sazh, who seem to be a little older. Sazh even has a young son who he’s going to find/protect/turn himself in for. That resonates for me, an older gamer who has two children of his own. On the other hand, Vanille grates on every nerve I have, and Hope is just a giant emo mess. Younger anime fans will eat it up, however, I’m sure.

The battle system is where this game really shines. Controlling one main character alone or in a group of two or three is a joy, especially once you get past the learning levels. Tutorials are integrated into the early battles, and spread evenly across a couple of hours of gameplay, giving players a chance to integrate the lessons learned as they go. This is a nice change. As the story progresses, the battles increase in size and difficulty, adding new enemy types and mixed groups of enemies. Strategic battling is key, and the game encourages a much higher level of that in this game than any other I’ve played before. You can micromanage your character’s individual actions, but the game encourages the use of Auto-Battle, in which the game AI chooses the different chained battle actions for you. Your role is to then focus more on the team itself, choosing among several “paradigms,” which are basically sets of actions in the categories that relate to healer/magic user/soldier/buff, de-buff. Choose the right paradigm and you’ll be able to “stagger” any enemy, which allows damage to proceed at a much faster pace. In addition, many enemies have unknown weaknesses, that you need to cast “Libra” on. Libra gives you information about the enemy, what they’re weak to (fire or water or lightning spells, for instance), or what will heal them (some enemies heal when hit with a fire spell). Finding this information out early is key, as the AI will choose your attack spells and strategies – within the set of actions available to your class – based on that information.

It’s devastatingly complex and interdependent set of variables that get managed more and more successfully as the game wears on. This can lead to a certain zen state in which I find myself:  switching paradigms and all the affected class and available actions is strangely soothing, taking me to a place of no-mind that is highly satisfying and relaxing. The grind is a great place to be. Just maybe not 22 hours worth. This is the problem with any game that takes its cue from movies. Movies work at about 1.5  - 3 hours, and the entire language of film is built up around that time frame. There’s no way to keep my attention for much longer without some more compelling content, perhaps, a la Uncharted 2.

Should you get this game? I would. It’s given me far more to think about and enjoy than a mere $60. I’d be hard-pressed to find any other entertainment that lasts for as long as this one has for that price. Think of it as eleven movies, and you’ll know what I’m saying. And I’m not even finished with the game. I still want to get to Pulse. Honest.

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Final Fantasy XIII sells 1.3 million in March; PS3 sales double 360 version

Posted by admin On April - 16 - 2010 ADD COMMENTS

Final Fantasy XIII’s first month sales figures in North America are in, and they are quite good. Releasing simultaneously on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, Square Enix’s RPG pushed some 1.3 million copies between both consoles.

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March NPD Sales Report

Posted by admin On April - 15 - 2010 ADD COMMENTS

The sales data for March is in. Find out which version of Final Fantasy XIII performed the best and how did God of War III do in the opening month of sales on the PS3.

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Can Game Development Take TOO Long?

Posted by admin On April - 5 - 2010 ADD COMMENTS

DualShockers writes: "Starcraft II, Diablo III, Gran Turismo 5, Final Fantasy XIII – what do all these games have in common? I feel the development and/or release of these game have taken way too long. Now, before you jump to conclusions about what I just said, let’s clear something up – I’m not a fanboy; I don’t feel they’ve taken too long because I want the game now and nothing later than now will suffice. No, I feel games like these take more time than is really needed in development or in the release process. Let me tell you a little story."

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6 April games you probably won’t buy (but totally should)

Posted by admin On April - 4 - 2010 ADD COMMENTS

Ex: "After the literal deluge of high quality video games over the last several months, it’s perfectly understandable that April might be a time where gamers decide to give their wallets a little bit of a respite until summer. There’s still some big name titles coming out this month, but it’s a far cry from January and February which brought gamers a slew of top tier hits like Bioshock 2, Heavy Rain, Final Fantasy XIII and Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

While it makes sense to save your money this month for the likes of Ubisoft’s Splinter Cell: Conviction or Square Enix’s NIER, there’s a number of hidden gems being released over the next several weeks as well. They might not be as heavily advertised or hyped as mainstream titles, but they have just as much potential. Most will probably end up overlooking these lesser known games in favor of April’s "big releases", but you should totally buy them anyway."

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