I'M GOD NOW! HAHAHA!

Okay, where to start. I’m a big Sims fan, but I’m a fan of the console versions of the game – I can’t stand playing games on PC. It’s just so awkward, I end up forgetting the controls quickly, and I doubt my laptop was built to play games as it overheats when I so much as watch a high-quality video on Youtube – heck, I had to hold my breath when I opened word to begin my rant.

So yeah. I own all of the Sims games on Playstation consoles; The Sims, The Sims Busin’ Out, The Urbz: Sims in the City, The Sims 2, The Sims 2: Pets, The Sims Castaway and now I have The Sims 3. Which is a fun game, but it’s definitely not my favourite. And here’s why: WHERE THE HELL ARE MY DIRECT CONTROLS?!

I suppose by that reaction, you can tell which my favourite Sims game was... In The Sims 2, you could control the movement of your Sims, which was amazing. It made the game less boring because you could really take control of your little people and play God like never before. I hardly ever touched the point and click option because there really was no point. Also, because you could control your Sims, there wasn’t ever any awkward movements around other Sims – with point and click, your Sims seem to have a problem when someone walks in front of them, and will sometimes throw a tantrum because of it. Also, I LOVED some of the items you could use only with direct controls, like the vacuum you could put on your back to clean up puddles and trash – came in a lot of handy when I threw a wild party and the millions of times my sink broke. Honestly, after playing The Sims 2 games, I didn’t go back to point and click adventures in the previous games.

The Sims 3 was first released on PC last June, I think. I was so disappointed that there was no definite news for a PS3/360 version until almost a year later. But I told myself that it’d be better if I wait, because I’ll most likely get direct controls, and that’d be really awesome. As a matter of fact, it was because of that which stopped me from buying The Sims 3, despite a friend going on and on and on about it, and how much they wanted to play it. I waited from June 2009 to November 2010 for my version... and there was no direct control.

Oh. But the Nintendo Wii gets the direct controls! Yippe! Okay, but seriously. That console to me was more-so designed for point and click games – not the PS3 and 360. I don’t understand why they decided that that would be a good move. The Wii controller controls what you see on the screen by pointing and clicking anyway, whereas the PS3 and 360 controls have analogue sticks – it’s a no brainer to me. I’ve heard on forums where people are hanging on to a little bit of hope that a patch or DLC will be released allowing the direct controls, but I doubt it’ll happen – Oblivion will sooner get a trophy patch than this will get a direct control patch. /lesigh

The one thing that really annoyed me about the Sims 2/direct control games was the lack of family. The Sims 2 let you WooHoo with who you wanted, but you couldn’t have or design kids. The Sims 2 Pets didn’t even let you WooHoo (or engage in any other remotely sexual conversational options The Sims 2 had), but let you have pets. In The Sims Castaway, it was all pecks on the cheek, marriages on the beach and no honeymoon. Not having kids is boring, even though the little wretches eventually get on my nerves (you have The Sims 3 to blame for that one, which I’ll get to in a minute).
Do direct controls make sims infertile? Is that it? Is that why it was taken out of The Sims 3? /logic

Okay, back to The Sims 3. You have everything but direct controls. Oh, and pool tables, hot tubs, pets, bigger paintings, 3D gaming machines, arcade games, and layered clothing. Pretty much everything that made the other games where you couldn’t have kids cool.

One thing that I like is the customisation tools, being able to save the styles and textures I create, and then uploading them for other Simfanatics to see. Navigating around My Studio and The Exchange is a very long process though, as each page takes up to five seconds to load – not a big deal until you want to delete the hundreds of things you accidently saved. As well as it taking forever, the items images are small; I have a thirty inch television and I still can’t work out what I’m deleting.

As for making your own textures and items... I’ve found the process annoying and overly complicated. I never know if I’m saving a whole outfit, or just a piece of it, hence why I get frustrated with My Studio and its speed. The amount of times I’ve hit the circle button to come out of a menu to go back to something else, and I’ve had to start at the beginning is ridiculous. It took me long enough to work out where to find the Create a Style option... it would have been better in My Studio with view and rotate options so that you could see what you where designing, rather than designing it where you place it.

As with all Sims games, I really HATE the wallpapers. Seriously, whoever designs them hasn’t the least bit of internal designer in them. I remember all of my houses in the previous games having the same themes throughout. At least in this game, you can design the colour of your wallpaper. However, I’m more of a one colour in a room girl, maybe with a feature wall if I design the rooms properly. The one colour option, my Sims didn’t like. At all. I had to litter my entire house with art to stop them from noticing. Which is really freaking annoying if you have a small lot because then you have floating obstacles everywhere, preventing you from seeing the action.

Having an upstairs is amazing. It saves so much space, especially on small lots where you’d quite like to have a front and back yard. My only dislike is the stairs. Sims take forever going up and down them. They have to pause for two Sim minutes before using them. If I stood at the top of the stairs for two minutes before going down them, I’d never get anything done. My house is on foundation blocks, so I need stairs to leave the house... and my carpool isn’t very patient with me. As well as that, having a wall built around them takes up so much space – I think it’d be cool to have items stashed away under them – it’d make my kitchen one hell of a lot bigger, and I’d be able to get that breakfast bar I always wanted. Spiral staircases would be pretty cool too for the smaller houses I’d like to build, and one house I have in mind would need a spiral staircase to get to the tower on the top.

Vehicles are cool. I liked being able to pick my own in Busin' Out, and I did miss them. However, they're really expensive if you plan on getting anywhere fast. I also noticed that my son has a bike sometimes, which is odd because I never bought one. It's fine, and is a little perk, but... yeah. What's the point on having an option to buy something if it's already free? I don't condone stealing, if that's what he gets up to when he's out with friends. Also, carpools and school buses park inside each other. The school bus used to hide my carpool every single day, and made it look as though the school bus had six wheels. Cool, but not cool. There should be more NPC parking spaces along the pavement.

Now for Karma Powers. What the hell? Okay, so some of them have come in handy when I’m pestering my boss for a raise or if I want to give him a really bad day out of revenge, but I’ve had enough to waking up at midnight because of an earthquake. I wouldn’t mind, but I’m hardly using my Karma Powers, so I’m not upsetting the worldly karma balance or anything by using them. I remember that I’d spent a good §10,000 getting a new bathroom and kitchen sink fitted, then literally a few hours later, my husband was running around fixing everything for me (I couldn’t afford to get a repair man.. doh!). I think they’re unnecessary. Karma should go up by a random amount every evening, and if there’s anything bad to happen, there should be good things too – I’d be happy with a one percentage rate of a random karma power fixing and cleaning everything, and improving everyone’s moods. Last things my Sims need is to be fixing sinks at 1am in the morning when they have to be up for work at 4am.

I also miss being in control of a town with my own people running around it. I want to be able to go into a “My Town” menu, and switch families for a while as quickly as I can say my ABCs. Maybe you can do that, but you have to have multiple saves; one per family and that. In The Sims 2, there was a free mode where you could manage four families, and that was horrible – to pick one of the other families to play as, it was back to the main menu to load them with you.

Trophies seem reasonable enough too. A couple of tricky, time consuming ones, but it’s a straight forward Platinum for those interested them as none of them are hidden.
I’m looking forward to see what the store has to offer when it finally gets some items. I’m hoping for that pool table and hot tub. A firework bench wouldn’t go a miss either!

Gameplay: 7/10 I really want to give this something like a five or a six for the lack of direct controls, but it’s still playable. I guess it depends on what you like. It’s easy enough to get used to, but just confusing and complicated in a lot of places.

Story: N/A. No story, really. You make your own.

Play Time: 10/10. It’s a Sims game, so there’s a long way to becoming a multi-millionaire and getting that cliffside mansion and swimming pool you always dreamed of.

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

In this case, it should DEFINITELY stay in Vegas. Grrr.

I bought the collector’s edition, because I like those. Sometimes you get the cool stuff which you’ll probably see on amazon or ebay in a few months for stupid amounts of money. It’s also nice to feel like you have a piece of the game, especially if it’s a game from a franchise or company you like.



In short: this is a very frustratingly awesome game to play. I like the oxymoron. I’m at a stage now when I just want the game to end. I’m doing the story missions, but with each mission, there’s a couple more waiting for you. Each mission seems to take forever to complete if you’re taking the “good” route. I’m currently “sorting out” the Brotherhood of Steel for the NCR, and instead of going in with all guns blazing, I’m taking the time to sit down and listen to what they have to say for themselves. Now they want me to do a million and one different things for them. I feel like I signed up to do the recycling and got put in charge of doing the trash as well. There’s always a damn catch – the elder wants to read a book, but his light bulb blew up, so you have to travel to the other side of the wasteland, into one hell of a confusing tunnel full of baddies to find a new light bulb. I don’t mind doing the missions, but I know that the next mission will be the same.

I don’t expect a flawless video game to come out, but I at least expect a game to have been tested and corrected enough before retail to make it playable and loved before the hate comes spilling out. I do expect glitches and bugs, but not to the extent this video game demonstrates. Some people have found this game virtually unplayable with its constant sticking – honestly, I found that the game ran fine with me until the save game increased its size by over 5000MB. Now it sticks and freezes a lot more than before. A patch came out shortly after release without many details on what it was supposed to be fixing... for me, it just caused problems – my game ran fine before I downloaded it.

Going further on that matter, this game made me believe that my console was going through the early stages of YLOD by restarting my PS3... multiple times within about ten minutes. What the fuck is all that about? It happened three times to be fair, just as I was following Red Lucy into her room for sex, so it was definitely the game messing up on me. Or maybe my console is just homophobic. The later I highly doubt though. Highly.

According to my save data, I’ve played for about eighty hours. That’s because it is a fun game, and I can’t put my controller down. So I’ve found one hell of a load of bugs and problems, and the most frustrating thing for me is being unable to complete side quests I’ve found. There’s one which is given to you by a ranger lady who is on lookout to the southwest by the giant statues of the two people, who asks you to investigate smoke coming from Nipton. Firstly, the Legionaries were unresponsive, and the leader came up to talk to me, said nothing, and walked away. Charming. You can apparently ask a guy called Boxcars in the general store about what happened, but he only gives me a “Goodbye” option when in conversation. I’ve done everything to try and trigger another journal entry for that mission and to no avail.

There’s another mission called “Wheel of Fortune” in which you need to speak with Boxcars again. I thought it’d trigger some more dialogue options with him, but I was mistaken – still just a “Goodbye” option. What gives?! I’ve never even spoken to this NPC before, and I’m getting the silent treatment!

I’ve done uber amounts of exploration in this game too and I’ve found what appears to be pointless and shabby cover-ups in regards to items, textures and scenery. Again, the floating rocks from Fallout 3 have returned. I’ve found a plane of rock texture come away from another rock texture... there was no need for the additional plane. When running away from the Red Rock Drug Lab, the canyon wall ahead changes shape and colour. In some places, graffiti seems to come away from the wall. In trying to find a shortcut over a rock, I managed to jump over an invisible barrier, and trapped myself on top of a rocky hill. I got stuck in a window when trying to chase a fleeing fiend, who was obviously a lot skinnier than me and managed to get through it.
I’ve heard a voice actor cough and come out of character once in a conversation, and the subtitles don’t always read as what the NPC says.

I remember Fallout 3 having glitches and bugs, but this is that twice and a half over. It’s a damn shame because it’s a good game.
Now moving on to the better points...

Post-apocalyptic Vegas? The idea is brilliant, and I’m really liking the story about hunting down the person who shot you at Goodsprings. The story kind of goes out the window when you get sucked into the missions after you’ve dealt with your suited friend, and becomes less interesting. Well, that’s not really my place to say because I’ve not finished the story, but based on my impressions so far, that sums it up.
I’m really enjoying exploring, and I’ve discovered pretty much all the locations and looted everywhere. My ammo is well stocked due to me sticking with the unarmed and melee weapons early on. That’s not to say I’ve not experimented with all the weapons I’ve come across so far – the 9mm was by far the single most used weapon I had until I got to the Helios plant. Or there about. The Fire Axe has become my best friend, and I’ve not had to repair it once.

Weapon and ammo modifications are a nice touch, despite me not really using them much. I’ve found that there’s always a weapon for any situation, and mods don’t improve or worsen that. Some mods are useful, say to increase the rate of fire or damage a weapon can do, but I didn’t even bother with those. Maybe I just need to adjust to it. I’m not too good with playing around with my ammo – I’m a pick one and stick to it kind of girl. That’s not to say neither are helpful, I just don’t see the need. Maybe it’ll help me with those blasted Deathclaws though...

Factions are interesting. Each group has their own little story, but I feel like I can only explore that feature so much before I’m forced to pick a side. I was originally planning on being on Mr House’s side, but he turned out to be an asshole. I then get a message that the NCR and Yes Man will hate me if I keep helping Mr House! It was expected, but I at least thought I could take it a little further with each before I had to make a choice. Mr House was keeping too much from me, Yes Man is too helpful and is on Benny’s side, the NCR want to control everything to give it some order, and the Legion are just horrible. If anything, I hate every faction – I want to destroy them all, and take over Vegas and the Dam on my own. Something tells me you don’t get that option though.

The new enemies are a lot of fun. Is it just me, or are Geckos really hilarious? One comes running up to me, and instead of pissing my pants in fear, I’m pissing in them from laughter! It’s the way they run, with their mouths open in what looks like a grin, and when they dive at you? That’s exactly how my dog greets me if he hasn’t seen me all day.

I like how the super mutants/nightkin have been worked on. Yeah, they look even more like a plastic model, but at least they look better. Jacobstown was interesting for me, and not just because of “granny”. I just wasn’t expecting a civilised community of super mutants.

All in all, it is a good game if you can get past the bugs and the glitches.

Gameplay: 7/10. That’s me being generous. There’s a lot of bugs this game can do without, but overall it’s not bad. New Vegas brought along some excellent new features, which would have done well in Fallout 3.

Story: 7/10. This is just so far for me. It’s a drag full of catches.

Play Time: 9/10. There’s a lot to do. I’m at eighty hours, and nowhere near completing the story just yet. Loads places, loads of loot, side quests, and hidden gems to discover along the way.

Entitainment is here!

Yup, that's right. I've been doing a lot of consideration lately, and I finally decided that it was time to make a proper review blog for myself. The blog I was using before I made as a spur of the moment type thing, and not a lot of thought went into its content/what I wanted it to contain. It comes to a point where you have to make your mind up about which path a certain project is going to take, and I decided that "What is your cage like?" will now be my personal blog. Meaning reviews go here, rants about my beautiful day go there.

The only thing that took a while to come up with was a decent name for myself/my blog. I tend to use the name "Entity" a lot online, so I'm pretty sure that's the name I want to go by. But "Entity" doesn't say anything about what I do, or what I'm interested in. I still wasn't sure when I was thinking of using "Entity's Entertainment", and just before I hit the button, a dear friend of mine saved me from that terrible mistake. Thanks hun. <3

The story behind me doesn't go very far, if I'm honest. I'm a girl who likes video games, and has done since I first played Tomb Raider III on Playstation back in 98/99. I'm a Playstation fan - the only game I'd buy a 360 for is Fable II and III - I own the original Xbox, but I don't play it as much. So yeah, I own PSOne, PS2 and a PS3. I also have a PSP and a DS, so expect a couple (maybe) reviews on those.

As well as games, which will be the main feature of this blog, I'll also conjure up some book and film reviews if you can get me away from my consoles for long enough.

Keep in mind that my reviews might take a while to pop up. Many reasons, main one being that I can't afford all the games out there and even if I could, I wouldn't have the time to write a solid review based on a game I've finished/explored properly. Plus, I need a job...

Below I've posted my previous reviews from "What is your cage like?" so they'll always be around. This is most likely a one off note from me. If you'd like more of me, then check our my other blog. Outtie, Entity.

How far will you go to save someone you love?

Finally, I’ve moved on to my Heavy Rain review. I’ve only just now got the Platinum trophy for it, so I’ve seen all the endings you can possibly have for each character, played out every single scene at least three times (even though it takes two times to find the trophy IF you know what they are), and... I’ve done everything. I’m a master. Give me a cookie.

As usual, there might be spoilers. You’ve been warned; you can’t take the cookie back.

In 2006, I watched The Casting after reading a small (read: so small, it was just a mention) article about it in OPM, and I wanted to feed my curiosity. The Casting, especially for the time it was revealed, was absolutely astonishing. I will happily put my hands up in the air and say this video made me start saving for my PS3. Two years passed by and I got the PS3. Another two years later, I had Heavy Rain in a HMV bag, on a bus, on my way home to play it.

Of course, I bought the special edition. I wanted everything I could get from this game.

So I got the cool looking case, the PSN download voucher for the soundtrack and The Taxidermist, along with two pieces of Heavy Rain inspired paper to make an origami figure with. Sveet.

I will start of congratulating David Cage. Heavy Rain was a risky project, and where it does have its low points, it’s outweighed by the higher points. I’ve never played a game that I’ve grown so intimately attached to like that – you’re pulled into the stressful situations, forced to make a choice, forced to make that choice quickly, and then forced to suffer the consequences. Bringing up other games, I give you a GTA game: you get a gun, and you can shoot anyone you please, but the police come after you, but you can lose them by A) running and hiding, or B) using a wanted level... reduction orb thing around the corner. Consequences don’t have a lasting impact, but in Heavy Rain they do.

The start of this game starts off slow. Not boring for me, because I was too busy admiring the architecture of Ethan’s home to care. It’s a nice home. The first few chapters (I will refer to them as chapters in this review – level makes it sound too much like a game) set the scene for the game, and it allows you to get to know the characters. Lunging right into the action is all well and good for some games, but for a game like this, an interactive movie, it needs to start off as a movie. People who have complained about this wouldn’t be complaining if they didn’t have a controller in their hand with the free will.

Whilst playing as Norman, the FBI agent, you can make a very stressful choice to kill a religious, freak man who’s attacking your partner, or talk him out of it. You’re probably thinking: “Yeah, it’s a controller – just push a button for your choice, and it’ll end either way. No big deal.” BUT IT IS A BIG DEAL. I let myself get attached to this game, and I was just dragged mentally into this game, and I felt the stress of the situation. The other cop was shouting at me to pull the trigger, the religious guy was yelling all this mumbo-jumbo, I was standing there with a finger on the trigger not knowing what to do.

Norman is a man who is good at what he does – you just immediately pick that up about him when you first meet him at the start, and the man who he works with, Carter Blake, is just a police officer who doesn’t seem to care who the culprit is, just as long as someone goes down for the crime (in other words, a real asshole). So I felt like I wanted Norman to do the “right” thing; talk the guy out of hurting Blake in a calm and professional manner. And it worked, but I got an earful from Blake when we went back to the car.

I’m probably going too much into it by saying this, but Blake is the prime example of what happens when someone is given too much power. He didn’t think anything of Norman shooting Nathaniel, and bet he would have shot him if it was the other way around. This is exactly what Heavy Rain is; you are given the power to pretty much make everyone’s choices for them. You can be an ass like Blake and make everything go to shit, or you can play like how Norman comes across – the good guy. That being said, there is no right or wrong way to play this game; you just have to live with the consequences for the choices you make.

There are eighteen different endings, but you don’t have to play the game eighteen times to watch them all – some unlock at the same time. So think of it as... there’s a small cut-scene for each character at the end, depending on who lives and who dies. You can find them all using the same saved game, never having to go back past the “On The Lose”, or “Fish Tank” chapter. Not every choice you make in the game effects the ending, but it affects your opinion of characters, and helps you learn to accept the consequences of your actions.

Every single scene is perfect; it’s like someone, a place, a scenario just became a soft copy on a computer overnight. The texturing is pretty good, despite there being a few “odd one out”’s (for example, a bin in the hospital later on in the game has waaay too much shine on it to be realistic), and the loading messing some up for a few seconds (an origami book you look in later can be quite pixelated for a while). There’s a lot of detail, and you can see a lot of care was taken during the creation.

Slipping off of the good points for a moment, because each scene is crammed full of detail, it does take a while to load some things, or the scene will freeze along with the audio. Usually, this lasts a second or two, so it’s no big deal, but on a first play through, you can miss out on important audio (for some reason, the audio will lag out for longer than the freeze). Once or twice the game completely froze, and I had to restart the console – I’ve played for about six hours in the last twenty-four hours, and it did this once to me already.

One thing that happened to me, which was very amusing, was during one ending when Norman is sitting at his desk working (the one with the tanks on the desk... ahem), his entire face scrunched up to his nose, leaving his eyeballs and teeth floating in mid air. It wasn’t as funny when he turned his head for a moment, and his face was pulled out around the room though – floating eyeballs and teeth FTW.

It makes you wonder if this game was tested, because there are many more bugs and glitches (besides loading time ones, which can’t always be helped).

Going into controls, you have to be on your toes for the action sequences that can came from nowhere. Taking your attention elsewhere for more than a few seconds, or being too slow to input commands can lead to a completely different scenario. Every button on the controller is used at some point during the sequences, so it happens. Maybe you planned for that to happen or not, but still.

Movement is made by holding down the R2 button, which isn’t as much of a pain in the butt as you first think it’d be. You can move left and right using the left analog stick, so you move in the direction that the character looks in. It can get quite difficult in some areas, especially when the camera changes. There’s a scene where you’re in a house on fire, and you have to follow a path through to the front door that isn’t on fire for some reason, and it can be quite difficult to get out without setting your pants on fire (which leads to vigorous shaking of the controller if you plan on saving your character before they start rolling around screaming in the flames...).

Now... the story is good. It’s an amazing idea that makes the game feel like a movie. But... I wouldn’t say it was completely flawed, but there are a couple of moments that feel wrong. I guess it’s to do with the choices you make as the “director” though, but some things don’t make sense, and would make you a real shitty director, dreaming of Hollywood. One thing that has been talking about is the sex scene with Ethan and Madison. IT DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE AT ALL. No matter what choices you’ve made before, Ethan will always be sitting there as a destroyed man, going over everything he’s done (or didn’t do), and Madison walks in, sits next to him, tells him she knows he isn’t the killer, goes to kiss him (at this point, you can either kiss her back or reject her... I kissed her because sex sells, what can I say?), and then they have sex. The scene is tastefully done – there’s not a whole lot of moaning, cursing, asking for more, bare skin... etc.

But... WHY? Why is there an option for them to have sex? It’s not something that would happen. THEY JUST MET. There’s no development in the relationship up to that point, besides Madison stalking him and playing nurse – even then, he is pretty much out of it when she finds him! Ethan is really not in a good place either, and depending on the choices you’ve made/actions you’ve done, he’s exhausted. Also, he has his kid (who is missing and about to die) to think about.

There’s a few more moments, but I don’t want to spoil anything people might not know yet.

In closing... what an experience Heavy Rain is. If you own a PS3, this is one for the collection in my opinion. It’s not just a game, it’s a whole new take on the PS3, and what it can achieve.

9/10

Damn you, Barthandelus!

Firstly, I think that only avid players of the latest edition to the Final Fantasy franchise would understand the meaning in the name of the title. That’s right; Final Fantasy XIII. Apologies for the misleading title name, but I couldn’t resist. Hopefully you didn’t read that, and lose interest...

On to the review of Final Fantasy XIII!

This is the first Final Fantasy game to be released onto the Playstation 3 console, so you can place your bets that the guys and girls at Square Enix have put a lot of work into creating something beautiful. Before you even get the “New Game” option, you’re welcomed by theopening cinematic, which has the most amazing graphics you’ve probably ever seen. Of course, that’s my opinion – depending on the games you play, you may have a different opinion. Nevertheless, truly amazing. The opening theme sets you up for the game ahead, and is also very pleasant. Afterwards, a quick click on “New Game”, and you’re on your way to uncover the story ahead.

Which is good... when you get to grips with understanding certain things.

You’re Lightening, a female soldier making her way into the depths of the world she lives on called Cocoon. Why? It’s very vague at this point, but during a battle cinematic in which you’re introduced to another of the main characters, Sazh, you know Lightening means business. You quickly learn that Cocoon has turned into a war zone, and you switch to another character called Snow (AKA “Mr 33cm”... his shoe size. Woah.), who is, I presume, is the leader of a rebel group. Again, the cause is rather vague.

To cut the long story short, Lightening is after her sister, Serah, who is a L’Cie. Snow is also after to rescue Serah, who is his fiancé. What is a L’Cie? Who knows at this point. All you know is that they’re considered the enemy, and have to be put into quarantine. The two ‘teams’ eventually meet up and find Serah, who looks incredibly weak, leaves them with a few words along the lines of “Save Cocoon”, and collapses in Lightening’s arms. She then turns to crystal.

***I wasn’t paying attention to it at this point, but there’s a Datalog in the menu which may or may not explain certain things to you at this point. So my advice would be to pay attention to that every now and then. I know it’s hard to take your eyes away from the stunning graphics, but you need to if you wish to understand a few things.***

So basically, a L’Cie is someone who has been marked by a Fal’Cie, the beings/machines which created Cocoon and help keep it running for the ordinary citizens. The Fal’Cie make the people believe that the L’Cie are the enemy, and that they should be feared. Now... when someone becomes a L’Cie, they are given a ‘Focus’, a vision of a goal the Fal’Cie wish them to complete. The Focus is almost meaningless, but the L’Cie have to pass their Focus in a small amount of time to be able to return to ‘normal’... meaning eternal life locked inside a Crystal. However, if they fail to complete it, they become a Cie'th – a walking, crystallised corpse. Forever, until someone kills them.

Lovely.

Without explaining too much further, Lightening attacks a machine thing, which is a Fal’Cie, and turns all five of the playable characters at this point into L’Cie. Nice going, Light.

Given their Focus, they go off in search to find the answers to complete it. Whether they pass or fail, I will not tell – that’s up to you to find out...

Besides the sudden jump into the story, and not understanding things as well as you should with a story that could be rather complex, it’s still fabulous. It’s quite easy to pick up after a while, or (as mentioned before) if you read the Datalog. Do it. Regularly.

The thing that bothered me a few chapters in was the lack of exploration. It’s very linear, moving your party in a continuous straight map. A few places lead off this way and that, but they most of the time (read: all the time) lead to a dead-end, with a treasure orb. It’s hardly exciting; the world doesn’t open up for you until you reach Gran Pulse in Chapter 11. Chapter 11 took me just under 30 hours to get to. Granted, I took some time out to grind CP (I’ll get to that further on), so someone could get there in much less time, but over 20 hours until you get to pick a direction to go in? It’s lucky the story is so good; otherwise I’d have bored of the game before the really good stuff.

Gran Pulse is the other world in the Final Fantasy XIII universe. It’s a world that has long since been abandoned by its former occupants. Pulse is a dangerous and wild place, with beasts that walk the land. It’s kind of no wonder no one lives there, really. It’s pretty, but I’d rather not be trampled by an Adamantoise, and have my remains eaten by a lion-like creature, thank you. The L’Cie find themselves there looking for answers, and a way to complete their focus.

To be honest, I didn’t actually understand what they gained from their visit there. Maybe I spent too much time exploring to bother with the story at this point, and simply missed that part when they chirped up: “I know what we have to do! Let’s do this and that, and maybe that... then we can complete the Focus!” For me, up to a point, it was a quick detour from what I was supposed to be doing. Instead of making my way to Fang and Vanille’s old hometown of Oerba, I engaged in more CP grinding and the missions. All in all, I spent about 30+ hours on Pulse doing nothing story related, and forgetting what the meaning of it all was. Fun times.

The character development is interesting. You watch an aggressive soldier become warm and ‘almost’ motherly – you certainly see Lightening smiling more later on in the story. She’s so quick to attack everything that angers her at the start. Which, I don’t always blame her considering, but I thought she was a bit of a bitch. She attacks the Fal’Cie, gives Snow a bollocking, and screams at a whiney Hope for being... whiney (>>;), and then slaps/punches Fang around a bit. Fang almost seemed amused at this, asking something along the lines of “Do you feel better now?”/”Does that solve your problems?”

You also watch young Hope transform from a whiney, chicken-wuss into a courageous teenager (before you say “Uh oh. That ‘teenager’ word...” you’ll be pretty relieved when he toughens up – trust me). He’s too scared to confront and get revenge on Snow over something that occurred on Cocoon near the start, and despite being encouraged by Vanille a few times, he doesn’t. Seeing that Lightening resents Snow too, he decided to follow her to gain experience for when he’d be ready to take on Snow. Snow works out the issue later on, and protects Hope from a nasty fall during a battle. Hope is thankful, and decides that what happened wasn’t Snow’s fault.

Remember Gambits from FFXII? Well, they make somewhat of an appearance in FFXIII. They’re called Paradigms, and they’re not as big and advanced and as messy as they were in FFXII, which to me is a good thing. Instead of setting Gambits to every single character, you give them a role to play in the battle. Any one character can play up to three roles in the early stages, and that goes up to six after a certain point of the game. Because you can only ever play as one character during battle sequences, this makes it handy to control the other players (it’s far, FAR better than switching out to another character to input commands every thirty seconds).

The Roles are:

Commando = Devastating physical based attacks. Handy against staggered enemies.

Ravager = Devastating magical based attacks. Handy to stagger enemies.

Sentinel = Tanking /damage takers. Taking the attention away from certain members who are focusing on a different role.

Synergist = Buffing the party. Handy protection.

Saboteur = De-buffing the enemy. Handy against stronger enemies who can be de-buffed.

Medic = Healing party members. Important for healing. Duh.

Because you can have three characters in the party, and six Paradigms to play within a battle using the Paradigm Switch, you can have a lot of fun with this feature to find what suits you. With a possible total of eighty-three Paradigms available, it pays to do some experimenting. I’ve spent over eighty hours in the game, and have stuck with less than twenty in most case scenarios. No matter what, I always found Aggression (COM/COM/RAV), Relentless Assault (RAV/RAV/COM) and Combat Clinic (MED/MED/SEN) to be particularly important. It wasn’t until far later into the game that I started experimenting with buffering and de-buffering, and furthering the use of my tank.

Much more fun than FFXII on that front, less time consuming, and certainly less complicated.

Now on to the Crystarium: the new “levelling up” system. Characters are no longer exp reliant to level up, because... well, they don’t level up. Instead, the power of your characters is determined by how far you’ve progressed in the roles you can learn. Think of the Sphere Grid from FFX, give it one path to follow instead of it being totally optional, and you have the Crystarium. This is where CP collecting/grinding comes in handy. For every skill a character can learn in the Crystarium, there’s a certain number of CP cost. It starts off as little as a few hundred CP per skill – possibly less. Now, I’m farming to get the one-hundred and twenty-thousand CP points I need to get the good stuff.

As amazing as it looks, the Crystarium isn’t without its faults. Personally, I didn’t mind this as much (mainly because of the pretty noise it makes when you level up), but a lot of people didn’t like the way you have to press and hold the (X) button to go to the next skill... and then wait for the spark thing to reach the skill orb. Apparently it’s unnecessarily time consuming – most people would rather select something that they want over waiting for it to happen. To me, it gave me a sense of achievement when I’d collected enough CP to make it shoot across the Crystarium. Some people also didn’t like how linear it was, and they’d have preferred to take certain characters down certain routes earlier. Well... I worked with what I was given, and it worked out fine for me.

As for Crystarium Points (the CP I’ve been going on about)... that’s been frustrating to collect at times. I spent best part of three hours running up and down a corridor to farm it. As you can imagine, it got boring fast, but it gave me some pretty strong characters for an upcoming boss battle, and some left over CP for later spending. That wasn’t so bad when I think about it now. Now that I’ve finished the game, and have to earn one-hundred and twenty-thousand CP for certain skills... there’s nowhere decent to farm. I had an excellent farming space, where I was earning two-hundred-thousand CP every six or so minutes... guess what? It was taken out of the game. The Tesseracts (my farming place) will live long in my heart, and I’ll remember it for when I want to replay the game. *sigh*

Now I’m lucky to farm just over thirteen thousand CP in about a minute by running up and down a flipping hill. Or taking on an Adamantchelid, which is still a pain for me to do at the moment (maybe I lack the patience? I certainly have the skill and the HP...).

In previous Final Fantasy games, you had to purchase new weapons and armour/accessories if you wished to make your attacks stronger. In FFXIII, that’s not how it works. Whilst you can still buy weapons and the like, you can only ever buy low levelled gear. Why? Because you can now upgrade weapons and the accessories using various components found after defeating an enemy, in treasure orbs, or in the store. Upgrading requires a lot of trial and error, especially if you have no idea what you’re doing or how much exp an item needs before it reaches its maxed level.

It’s not like in FFVIII, where you needed specific parts if you wished to upgrade a weapon – you can now use anything. However, certain parts are better for doing certain things. To get the most out of your upgrades, you need to up the exp multiplier (after using a large amount of a certain item, future items used to upgrade will have an effect of a max of x3). Usually, from what I discovered, it’s always the components that give the lowest exp that can boost the multiplier quickly. Once that’s up, using things like... oh, the Ultra Compact Fusion Reactors, which can SERIOUSLY add some exp to your weapon (we’re going into a hundred-or-two-thousand exp using about three).

I’ve not dabbled in the accessory development much, putting my concentration on the weapons. I’m not too sure what to make of it now that I’ve unnecessarily spent loads of money on parts that I didn’t need/couldn’t be bothered farming for. I think that that aspect of the game requires too much attention if you wish to go ahead and get the Treasure Hunter trophy. Probably too much. To fully max the weapons, you need to buy/hunt Trapezohedron... which costs two-million Gil and is a rare drop by my friend the Adamantchelid. To make matters even harder, you also have to fully upgrade some accessories using Dark Matter, which costs eight-hundred-thousand Gil and is a rare drop from Shao Long Gui, who appear after a certain mission to replace the Adamantchelid. A lot of work indeed...

Going on to the expense... where’s the Gil? It’s incredibly difficult to get Gil in this game. You don’t earn Gil after battles; you earn it by selling particular items you rarely get from battles. Really, you don’t need Gil unless you rely on healing items at the start. You only really need it when you get to around the Gran Pulse stage, or perhaps even further than that. Everything you can buy can be found in treasure orbs if you look out for them, which is much more cost efficient that buying everything.

In closing, because I can see that I’ve gone on for a while, Final Fantasy XIII is a fabulous and welcome addition to the franchise. It has its flaws just like most video games, but if you look past that, there’s a very good game to be found. Action filled battles, likeable characters (to a point, Hope and Vanille), epic bosses, lots to do and a decent story line... it was totally worth the £60 I paid for the Collector’s Edition. Especially since it gave me over eighty hours worth of play time.

9/10

Totally worth it.

A very different rant... about Twilight.

Okay, before you roll your eyes and walk away from this rant because you’ve read a gazillion rants and reviews by Edward’s boner-biting fans or the haters, - this is not a hate or love rant. Can you believe it? In fact, if you keep reading, you’ll find my real hate for the series.

Before I begin, I’d like to set the record straight. I don’t like Twilight. I have my reasons; in fact, I have many. I don’t plan on reading the books unless someone is willing to lend me them for free, and preferably when I don’t have something better to do. Like coursework, perhaps. My reasons are thus:

1. It is sexist. Bella is a “typical woman” who happens to cook and clean a lot, and falls in love (very quickly, might I add) with a vampire, who is supposed to be sexy (Robert Patterson, I’m sorry, but you really did look constipated throughout that whole movie).

Constipation in Science class One.

Constipation in Science class Two.

And that was just the Science class scene!

2. It calls love “neglect” and “abuse”. It’s not a romantic story at all, yet I know many people who swoon over the “happy couple” as if it was real. If my partner punched me across the room to “protect me”, they’ll become an ex-partner. If my partner went away for a long time without contacting me, it’ll hurt, but again – ex-partner. He treats her like booty-call, except without the sex part, because he doesn’t want sex.

3. Not wanting sex isn’t a bad thing. But Edward’s reason is ridiculous. He won’t have sex with Bella until he turns her into a vampire, and won’t turn her into a vampire until they are marred. What? You know, that’s seriously messing up someone’s life – he’ll be taking away her life to give her eternal life (which is something that I don’t think anyone needs – Bella looks depressed just being alive, and Edward looks depressed being somewhat dead), and then wants to claim her as his own by sticking a ring on her finger.

4. It’s stupid. “I’m a vampire with super-speed powers, and I sense that my girlfriend is in trouble! OH NOES! I’ll just take the car around to her place!” -_-;

5. Vampires don’t sparkle in sunlight. They’re engulfed in flames, melt into a pile of steaming blood and guts, and scream curses hoarsely.

6. Combining reason 4 and 5, and many other scenarios, Twilight is incredibly unrealistic.

7. Twilight made me hate vampires... except for True Blood.

8. The fans. My GOD. Edward is NOT REAL, and he’ll NEVER LOVE YOU.

Finally, we get to this stage. My ultimate hate... is the people who hate Twilight with a passion*.

I don’t like Twilight, but I don’t make every single day about my hate for it, or overreact when I see the books in the store, or a billboard or trailer for the films. No, your day wasn’t made worse because of a new trailer or book release, and touching/looking at it will not kill you. A small paper-cut around a hungry vampire will though (couldn't resist).

I actually wanted to read Twilight once, and a friend literally screamed and ranted about how silly I was for wanting to. I only wanted to read it because they’d spent the last however long ranting about how shit it was, and I wanted to feed my curiosity. I felt stupid for wanting to read it, and so the desire to read Twilight left me... but I watched the films out of curiosity. Heh.

No one is asking the haters to read the books, or watch the films. Yet they do anyway because, you know, they either want a 1) ego boost; 2) to feel better about their fan-fiction (which in turn gives them an ego boost); 3) to write a rant like hundreds and thousands of people already have done (which in turn gives them an ego boost because they feel like they fit in with the rest of the worlds Twilight haters); 4) because they want to write a better rant/review than their friend; 5)because they secretly like it, and don’t want their friends to find out.

Also, their rants are exhausting. Every single sentence of the book is carefully analysed to pick out the raw details, and hidden meanings that probably only exist in the mind of the analyser. “OMDZ, BELLA TOOK OVER FROM HER DAD IN THE KITCHEN AND CALLED HIM A DISTATER - SEXISM BECAUSE SHE IS FEMALE, AND HE IS A MAN (no shit)! ANTI-FEMINSIT!” Umm... Bella’s dad might actually be shit in the kitchen, and might have lived off microwave meals before Bella turned up. I’m a woman, and I know how to cook – does that make my brother sexist when I take over in the kitchen when he needs help or makes a mess of things?

... Nope. o.O;

I know someone who wants Stephanie Meyer dead. That’s harsh. She’s a bad author with a few issues – is death the answer to that? The books will still exist, the movies will still exist, the graphics will still exist, and the imprint Twilight has left on the souls of silly/horny teenagers (and adults) will still exist. In fact... like all famous deaths, hers most likely will only make her wealthier.

The people who hate Twilight make themselves fans of Twilight. They live and breathe it like the fans, and can’t stop themselves reading or watching it like the fans. They just have a different take on it.

*I don’t hate the people, just what they’re doing. I have and have had friends who are haters, and they’re really lovely people. Just hating on something that much is life draining; for both them, and the person who has to listen to it.

I hope it was enjoyable. Should have been better than my Sabriel review. Maybe I’ll see you again?

Who will guard the living when the dead arise...?

This has taken a while to get up, I realise. I’m sorry for that... a lot has happened since my last entry (which I noticed was on my 18^th – go me!). Nothing terrible – just laziness, coursework and distractions *cough*games*cough*. Well, here’s my Sabriel review. Leave comments if you have any tips on how this can be improved. Go easy – first time and all that. ;)

Sabriel, despite being a pretty teenage book, has been one of my favourite books since I first started reading it when I was in roughly Year 8 or 9 (I was around thirteen/fourteen years of age). My mother bought me a copy of Sabriel when it first came out in 2003 on paperback, but I could never get into it; I’d read the first few chapters (read: I got halfway through the second chapter), and entirely give up on it. It does feel as if something is missing from the start of the story to explain things properly, which is a little off putting. I put the book back on my shelf, and picked up the Harry Potter books my brother had got me into.

As fate would have it, on my next birthday my aunt bought me the full Old Kingdom trilogy, leaving me with two copies of Sabriel. Then I realised that maybe something was telling me to just read it. I brought Sabriel in with me one reading lesson at school, and forced myself to read it and understand it. I must have, because once I got going, I wouldn’t stop.

Below will be an odd spoiler. As much as I’ll try not to reveal too much, this is the outline of the story.

The story is about a girl called Sabriel (in case you hadn’t guessed already) who is brought up in a boarding school in a place called Ancelstierre, which is on the South side of The Wall where magic is almost non-existent and very difficult to cast. The dead can’t journey here, mainly because of the defences at The Wall, stopping anything from coming in and out of Ancelstierre. One evening, she is visited by a spirit in death, which brings with it her father’s belongings... the fabled bells of the Abhorsen and his sword.

Fearing for his life, she makes the journey into the Old Kingdom on the North side of the wall to his house to find a clue of his whereabouts. His house is a place she hadn’t visited since she was four years old, so how she was able to find it is beyond me. There she is met by a talking cat called Mogget, who she assumes is her father’s pet. He is in fact a magical creature, bound by the miniature Ranna bell (the Sleeper) attached to his collar. He tells her of his suspicions of where her father is, and so they take an aircraft called a Paperwing to the skies.

Not very far into the journey, they’re attacked and crash land down the bottom of a huge sinkhole. It is Mogget who saves them from the fall by having Sabriel release his bounds, making him turn into his original form and stopping them from hitting the ground... so hard. Once he is back in his bindings, they rest a little and explore the caves and find a crypt full of ships. She senses something about the naked male figurehead of one of them, which looks real, as if it shouldn’t be there. It turns out it didn’t, and she releases the figurehead from its wooden state of two-hundred years. His name - so he says – is Touchstone.

They then journey to the city Belisaere, to the North of the Old Kingdom by boat. Here they rest for a while, have a much needed bath, some food and some beers before heading to the Great Charter Stones, which rest under the City. Here they find Abhorsen frozen in death, to which Sabriel enters death to find him, while Touchstone and Mogget guard her body. She finds him, and frees him from death very temporarily, as the antagonist Kerrigor comes into the cave to ambush them. Abhorsen asks Sabriel for the bell Astarael (the Sorrowful, which sends all those who hear it into death), and tells her and Touchstone to run and meet the Clayr atop a hill nearby. On the way, they hear the call from the bell, and Sabriel kisses Touchstone to keep him in life as she can feel him slipping into the will of the bell.

With her father gone and Mogget pulling a disappearing act after his bounds being broken again, they make their way to the top of the hill, meet the Clayr who give them directions to killer Kerrigor, whose body lies back in Ancelstierre and another Paperwing. They fly there very quickly, and make their way into Ancelstierre to find his body. They find his sarcophagus, but don’t have the power to open it, so have it taken by horse and cart to her boarding school, where there are some mages who can help them. Many die there in the process of destroying Kerrigor who consumes Mogget, who then is bound again... but this time as two cats; one Kerrigor as a black cat and Mogget back to his bound form as a white cat.

I’ve probably confused you a lot about the story - it really does feel as if something is missing from the start of the story to explain things properly. It crossed my mind that Garth Nix was probably trying to be clever in that aspect in regards to Sabriel being tossed into a world which she was sheltered from all her life, and not knowing what’s happened, but I still maintain that perhaps Mr Nix just didn’t know how to introduce the audience to the story.

There’s a lot of missing time in the book. Parts should have chapters labelled as “Two weeks later” or similar. I don’t expect to read about every single day of the journey, but so much more depth could have been applied in certain areas; something could have happened whilst Sariel and Touchstone were at sea, such as a storm, or even a conversation which lead into their friendship/relationship. They spent an awful lot of time together, yet the development of their relationship seemed to come down to Sabriel kissing him to keep him alive – for the majority of the time before that, she was impatient and a bit of a bitch to him.

It has its faults, this book, and lot more could have been put into it (Garth Nix proved it by making Lirael and Abhorsen almost twice the size of Sabriel). However, it is a very good book. Want magic, mystical creatures, sprits, romance, and DON’T want to pick up Twilight? This is the book for you.

Again, apologies for this taking so long to get up. I’m currently reading Lirael and playing Final Fantasy XIII, AND doing coursework. Reviews for Lirael, FFXIII and Heavy Rain will be up shortly.

So, tell me what it is you're doing in my domain?

Anyone else notice the new Spaces feature on hotmail? Well, I made one of those but realised that only people in my network would be able to view it, seeing as I love privacy and all. It seemed like a waste, and so I remembered a site called Blogger. I joined almost this time last year on another account, but that was for part of my course.

It was completely shameful (I still can't believe it helped me get a Distinction), and so this one was raised from the ashes of that one. If you're curious, I may just link it one day... but for now, you'll just have to live not knowing. I consider you fortunate in that sense.

So, what will I use this new, shiny blog for you ask? Maybe I'm practising and harnessing my skills for some bigger fish. A very good friend of mine (who happens to be more than a friend, if you know what I mean) has her own website. You'd do well to check it out, and I'd do well getting down to business, writing some reviews for here and over there. I'll be reviewing books, movies and video games, everything you'd need for a rainy day. Heck, I may even add in a 3am rant about an issue that was brought up in my day, (like how can telling someone you love them be a miscommunication? Fair enough, it didn't happen today, but for example purposes...) or a short story or poem.

Aren't you lucky folks?

Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Gemma Adams. Friends call me Gemma, Gem, Gem-Gem, Gim, Gemmy and Entity. I was born and raised in London, England. Tourists get excited here, when really there isn't much to get excited over. The big ferris wheel got boring yonks ago, the white tent was only interesting when all the cool stuff that was in there when it opened in 2000 was still there, and the big clock... lets face it, it's a clock. That I can hear from where I live if the wind blows in the right direction.

It's a pessimistic view point, but I bet it made you smile and nod.

*hopes it did and moves on*

I'm an atheist, and I dislike Richard Dawkins. I'm sure I'm not the only atheist who does, but I thought I'd throw that in there. I'm not here to convert anyone - I respect other people's beliefs, whether you're a follower of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism or your next door neighbours unicorn. It's all good.

I like video games and books to pass the time, hence why I made this blog. RPGs and fantasy novels are my favourite. Have you heard of the Final Fantasy franchise? I'm a big fan. Wonderfully created worlds, equally as wonderful characters, and an amazing plot. Final Fantasy VII is my favourite. I fell for Vincent Valentine, the guy wearing a "cloak of menstrual blood". Cheers to the friend who came up with that.

My favourite book series is the Old Kingdom trilogy by Garth Nix (which, no doubt, my first review will be on). I'm currently reading Lirael, after reading Sabriel for the umpteenth time. I can't help it - it's got a good story. Not the best written novel, but I love it. I'm moving onto bigger stories next...

I'm easy going when it comes to movies. I'll watch anything (besides Twilight. I'll review it for some lulz though). I love a decent horror/thiller movie. Action movies too, and the odd fantasy movie. I don't like gross-out comedies all THAT much, but sure. Maybe I'll throw in the odd anime review - Ghost in the Shell and DN Angel is awesome.

Anyway, I think that's it for now as far as introductions. You know a little about why I'm here, who I am, and what I like. Thanks for reading, and I hope you visit my cage more often.

Outtie, Gem.