Damn Apples

I don't know if any of you remember or know the fiasco that was Windows ME (Millenium Edition), but it seemed to be pretty much a gamble on whether it would work. Of 4 people (including myself) that I know used it and of my own experience installing it, you had about 50% chance of everything working absolutely 100% fine (as far as possible with windows), and 50% chance that it would just barely start every morning.



It seems that Apple, known for their iMacs, iPods and of course the macbook air (among other things) liked this idea because they seem to have adapted it to their own stuff. I've had nothing but trouble with my aunt's iMac, which is of course mostly her own fault since she doesn't know the first thing about any kind of electronical appliance, so she messed it up a lot. But it was unfixable.

A friend of mine on the other hand has no trouble at all with his macs. Then my mom's fiancée can't get his macbook to work at all, my sis had 2 iPods die on her already within 1 year, though my girlfriend's old iPod lasted nearly 5 and her new one is already showing problems after a single day.



I seriously wonder how these things happen? Are they pressured so much as to bring unfinished products onto the market? Of course they're not the only ones who do this, Microsoft just did it again with their Vista.



Well, highly annoying, a brand new iPod given to her by me for her birthday and after a single use it seemed to have died (luckily it hadn't). They can't do this to people, it's shocking.



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Now playing: After All - The Shadow Wall
via FoxyTunes

I beat my boss at Tekken

And now I'm afraid he might fire me!



Naaah, but we have been playing Tekken on the train lately, he has to go a few stations in the same direction, so it's a nice 20 minutes or so of fun.

Usually, so far, he starts with winning big and often. But then when I've 'warmed up' after about 10 minutes or so, it becomes a real challenge for him.



I've always only had friends who were really good at Tekken, well, except in the beginning. When a friend of mine first got his Playstation and then got Tekken 3. We played that game to no end and he usually won, but after a while we played so much together that we did stuff we didn't even know was possible. I'd duck under a punch and grab him and stuff, it was crazy.

Now though I understand what I'm doing and we're up to Tekken: Dark Ressurection. In the beginning my boss would first beat me to a pulp and then I'd get my revenge after a while. Now he beats me to a pulp and only by the time he gets to his station I start winning some. But those few are very exciting. It's cool to finally have met an equal match instead of someone who's waaaaaay above me in skill.



I shouldn't beat him too much though I guess, otherwise he might just fire me, he got pretty pissed at me today because in the end I started beating him with a PERFECT. Ouch.



A lot of fun though!

The End of Final Fantasy III

After 30 or so hours I have gone through the Crystal Tower and the World of Darkness, I've met the 4 warriors of Darkness, got the ribbons and apparently beat the living hell out of a cloud that looked like a twinkling star and fought like medusa.



A friend of mine had already told me that you get some items that negate the annoying part about the final boss, and it's true. But it was pretty strong, so my heart was still pounding, because I was afraid that I could die at any turn, which I almost did a few times, good thing though that my Devout had enough agility to be one of the first to act, so even though it was close, it was pretty easy. I was only lvl63, which is pretty low for any FF game I've finished yet. FFX of course didn't have the conventional level system, but FFVII I finished somewhere in level 80's or 90's using Knights of the Round which made it a total piece of cake.



It was a fun ride, but not one I'm going to repeat any time soon. It's time for a little change now from the conventional FF style game, it's Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles time!

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Some Semi Pre-Emptive Thoughts

Over the last few days I've been playing 2 games almost non-stop. Final Fantasy III and the just recently released Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. The only reason I stop playing is to recharge my battery or just because I'm so dead tired and need to sleep.



A friend of mine played the japanese version for a bit, because he couldn't stand to wait as long as we had to for it to be released in US or EU. I didn't even want to see the japanese version, I wanted to be totally surprised and awe-stricken. And now that I have it, I'm totally surprised and awe-stricken.

I knew that it was going to be an action-rpg, but when I first got my hands on it and fought my first battle, I have to admit that I was disappointed in how slow it seemed to be. The army of shinra look-alikes (who seem to be put there for some nostalgic reasons) shot at me and I stopped. At that point I thought I would be very disappointed and wished that I hadn't had so many expectations.



But then I got just a little further. I had just beaten the first Behemoth and they started talking. I'd of course watched the intro and I have to say that it is very possibly the best intro I've ever seen. They talked and talked and talked and I wanted to see more of the game, though I wasn't really aware of time since I was still ecstatic about actually having it and being able to play it.



Well, finally I could walk around myself, I met Kunsel, one of the other SOLDIER members and he gave me some tutorials and stuff and then I was told about missions. So I went for it, I tried a mission. I won. I'm hooked.

I've gone through maybe 1% of the story (I hope) or perhaps even less (hoping more), but I'm level 31 now, and already completed 25% of all the missions. I con't stop going through them, they give very nice items and of course the chance you get to level up in them is very excellent as well. I got some nice summons from it (Odin, Ifrit, Bahamut) and I already have Firaga materia and such (I think all things that are actually way too high lvl for this part of the game usually) and some very nice equips too.



The game itself looks absolutely perfect. The in-game graphics are atleast as nice as FF12's and the FMVs are of Advent Children quality. And the awesome part about that too is that all summons are shown in such FMVs. And that is totally kick-ass dude!
It's also fun to see that they tried to stay close to what the FF7 summons were, because that just plain rocks. Ifrit still throws a giant ball of flame at you (or is the ball actually), Bahamut still shoots from the sky like a madman, and Odin still cuts everyone in half and jumps down from his cliff. Very stylish.



The story seems pretty strange, though it's cool to see Zack (who I'd only seen in the main story in FF7), it's awesome to see Sephiroth back in his 'sane' days and to see the human side of him, Hojo is pretty funny to see what he looks like here with his oversized sideburns and his too-cocky attitude. The Turks are back again of course, they're pretty cool, they not nearly as annoying now that they're on your side, they're actually pretty sympathetic.



The voice acting is the only thing I'd like to change really. I don't like the english voices. Sure they're not as bad as they could be and most other games usually are, but still I've seen some japanese trailers and they just sound cooler there (very possibly also because I don't understand what they're saying). But they're not annoyingly bad in my opinion.



It's fun to hear some of the old songs in their new packaging. quality of sound has improved in games since FF7 obviously and it's nice to hear that.



The slot system that they use in battle is still a little vague to me. It's awesome, don't get me wrong, but I don't know if I do have any control over it or don't, I just don't know. But the way the memory thingies work and the summons and the 'Chocobo Mode' is all very cool and awesomely done.



All in all I just can't stop playing and if you like action-rpgs and the Final Fantasy VII world, you might not either... Must... Play... More...

The GOD of GW

Yesterday my girlfriend wanted to check up on her Guild Wars characters to see if she'd gotten any new birthday presents. She asked me if I'd like to join her, but I was right in the middle of a mission in Crisis Core so I was hesitant about leaving the most awesomest game ever made to get caught up in something that would involve me just standing still in a game and switching from town to town to see what she'd gotten.

But, since she did ask me and I knew she'd be disappointed if I didn't join her I thought 'what the hell' and joined her anyway. It helped that I'd just finished my mission.



After some 10 minutes of updating and then some more minutes of updating I was standing in Lion's Arch once again.

Damn did I like the look of it! Even thinking about it now makes me want to start playing again.



I asked her if she didn't miss it, we've both played that game a hell of a long time.
She said she did, but also she didn't like Nightfall or the Factions expansion and she hasn't played the Eye of the North expansion yet so she doesn't know if she likes that. That's why she quit. And eventually it was also why I quit because I didn't like playing alone even half as much as playing together with her.

But having revisited the past like that does make me long for the Good Old Days of Guild Wars.



But then I also think about Final Fantasy III on the DS and Crisis Core on the PSP and all the other games that I still want to play and finish. In that respect, I just don't have time to play never-ending games.



'It's better to burn out then to just fade away' is a saying right? It's better to love a game to death and be somewhat disappointed when the game ends because you loved it so much then to be able to play it endlessly untill it doesn't feel the way it used to. I like finishing my games. When I finished Final Fantasy VII I was excited because I'd been playing it for years without finishing it, but I was also kind of sad because that was the end of it. But because it ended where it did I kept loving the game. I loved Guild Wars, but because it didn't end, it was pretty much just waiting for me to get bored with it. 'Quit while you're ahead'