Ben-DutkaMade a big purchase today, which means I'm ready for the future…
I guess I don't care what an "RPG" really is
The lines really are blurred these days. Role-playing elements can be found in many action/adventure titles and perhaps Obsidian is right when they say the only remaining differentiating factor is choice and player freedom . Maybe it's now inaccurate to call something like Final Fantasy XIII "role-playing." But I don't really care; I know what type of gaming I like, and I've always loved turn-based. That hasn't changed. I know it's linear; I know there's little to no "choice" involved; I know it's nothing like D&D; I'm aware of all that. But I don't care, anymore. I know what I've always liked so if the purists want to label such games as something else, fine. The problem is, we may never see any game that features that gameplay again (unless it's on a handheld) and that means I'll be stuck playing my old classics for the PS1 and PS2.
WorldEndWithMe mentioned in the Comments that he wants Suikoden VI , which I've wanted ever since I finished the fifth entry. Next to FF, Suikoden is my all-time favorite RPG (oh, whatever, call it what you want) franchise. Unfortunately, I know that even if Konami makes a sixth Suikoden , they'll muff it up and eliminate the turn-based mechanic, which will piss me off entirely. 'sigh'
Okay, so…what the hell if Final Fantasy Versus XIII?
I ask because I still know very little about it. They say we should see the official unveiling at the Tokyo Game Show, complete with new details and even gameplay…but I coulda sworn Square-Enix promised this very thing for "early 2010." What happened? I suppose I could accept the idea that many developers who worked on Final Fantasy XIII moved over to Versus XIII but FFXIII launched back in March (and well before that in Japan), so what the heck are they doing ? As far as I know it's still exclusive to the PlayStation 3 but at this point, I'm not sure I really care . I know I won't get turn-based back, but I would like something unique…you know, even though it's technically turn-based, that Judgment Ring in Shadow Hearts is an example of a unique, engaging, highly entertaining combat mechanic that can really spice up a game. Why can't we they try something like that?
Based on the details and info we have thus far, it certainly sounds intriguing. I really like the idea of some RPG elements I know and recognize that were absent from FFXIII, and everything I've seen certainly looks great. But really, could we at least get a teaser or something? And not just a CGI teaser?
Personal gaming update
This is more of a personal update because the gaming aspect hasn't changed much, although I did get a chance to play some of the Medal of Honor closed beta. It's pretty damn good, although the graphics aren't as rich as I would like them; the gameplay itself is pretty sweet, though. No, the big news is that my TV died today. Played Transformers for a few hours, went out to get something to eat, came back, and there was no picture. Got sound…but no picture. And after a while of tinkering and getting a flickering screen at best (and when it did show up, it was all distorted), I realized it was dead. But…ironically enough, I just sold my Uncharted 2 Fortune Hunter edition for a relatively healthy sum this past week, and I kinda wanted one of the new 3D TVs. Look, I'm going to need one at some point, anyway, and I actually think I can call it a business expense…
But anyway, due to my recent sale, I really only had to pay an extra $200 for the Samsung 46" 1080p 3D LED 240Hz. It's just unbelievable. Now, does anyone else have a 3D-enabled LED? Because even though I'm not watching anything in 3D, I could swear there's a distinct change in how things are moving on the screen. Blu-Ray anything is so unbelievably realistic in how people move , that it almost feels as if they're directly there in front of me. It's not the picture; per se, it's the movement . Maybe I'm just going crazy. It's quite possible. But whatever…this thing is pretty silly amazing. 🙂
People who have not played with the 3D tech call it a fad.
Trust me, its great.
If you look at the specifications of the 3D LED TV's, you'll notice that they are great for regular 2D viewing as well. Base model 3D TV's are a great value. It is the newer higher end models that have a massive price jump. The new silver 9000 series from Samsung look sharp. This is what happens with home electronics. About every 3-5 years they go between black and silver. It looks like Samsung are trying to get the jump and influence the market.
That's not really a "sucker" move since his TV died on him. If mine croaked I'd probably shell out for the best tech available too. Plus Ben has to review these games you see…
3 or 4 hours into Demon's Souls last night – Got a bit drunk and frustrated… killed everyone in the nexus. Good times. Guess I'm starting again.
I think drinking and demon's souls would definitely make things difficult and frustrating, game can be difficult enough when sober.
From what I've seen of FF Versus XIII, it looks a lot more like an action adventure game than any sort of RPG. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out. Hopefully it will turn out to be a PS3 exclusive.
Personally, I put a new 500 GB drive in the PS3 the other day. Everything went smoothly and worked great. Only surprise was that my "500 GB" drive only has 412 GB of usable space. Oh well, more than I can ever imagine using.
Started on Final Fantasy XIII last night. The graphics and art style are absolutely sensational! Looking forward to spending many hours with this game.
That is odd when I upgraded to a 500gig HDD mine only showed 465 gigs. What kind of HDD did you use? I have a Western Digital Scorpio Blue.
That's exactly the same one I've got. It says it's got 465 GB total space, but immediately after installing it, it showed that only 412 out of the 465 were left. There was nothing on it at that point, I hadn't restored any data, just put the latest firmware update on it, which was a few megabytes or something.
Regarding HDD sizes. When a HDD manufacturer sells a HDD with a 500GB capacity, they mean 5 hundred billion (500,000,000) bytes, which is not truly 500GB. In truth 1GB is 1024x1024x1024 bytes or 1,073,741,824 bytes, not 1,000,000,000 bytes as the marketing folks at HDD makers want us all to believe.
Your 500 billion bytes of HDD space do in fact equate to 465.6 GB of actual space as measured in real GB, instead of marketing GB.
Unfortunately HDD manufacturers have been doing this for upwards of two decades and don't look like they will stop anytime soon. So when buying an HDD remember to look for the actual size in bytes, and not just the number of GB that is claimed in the product name or description. The 1TB disks sold are, for example, not truly 1TB since they end up with a formatted capacity in the 920GB range.
When you buy a larger HDD like your guys 500GB HDD, sometimes thats not the actual space they hold. The PS3 itself also takes up some space while formatting, and then you have to count all your backed up data.
For instance when I bought my 60gb PS3, it had only 55 GB of space out of the box. My 80GB PS3 had only 70 out of the box. I upgraded to a 310GB and it had only 270GB after install and format, but with all my backed up data it instantly dropped to 191GB of free space.
You should see what happens to TeraByte HDD. They lose a ton of space!
Just listen to what Highlander said! He hit it right on the head! And explained it much better!
Last edited by bigrailer19 on 6/27/2010 12:00:56 PM
Thanks for the info guys. Just out of curiosity, what takes up the difference between the 465 GB total and the 412 GB that I actually had to start with?
It's the space taken up by the PS3 system files and the overhead of the file system itself.
Playing Castlevania SoTN, and FF IX. So my PS3 is a really powerful PS1 right now. Oh and SSF4 Dhalsim is my new main and I'm enjoying learning a character I hadn't used much since the Championship Edition days.
I just got £34 free amazon vouchers through a referral site so i bought Bioshock 2, Infamous and Xmen origins.
Going to borrow heavy rain off a friend as well so now my exams are over i can finally get up to date with all these games I've been missing!
BTW Did i miss the Modnation Racers review?
My family just bought a Sony KDL-40HX800 40" HDTV LED 240 Hz as well, for around $2,000 we had to get a new one for the living room being as my dog knocked over the previous entertainment setup we had. Thankfully my PS3 and 360 Elite were in my room again as I got a new TV for my room a Philips 42" its only 120 Hz and not 3-D capable LOL, we have since gotten rid of the dog so I'm going to try the 3-D MLB 2010 The Show Demo in 3-D later tonight.
The one you see in my picture is the Philip with my 360 and PS3 I understand the 360 screen is up but oh well the PS3 is still on I was just downloading a demo ATM and wanted to play some Crackdown 2. and yeah the computer there is very sub par I know but I'm building my custom setup right now. So soon that will replace that dinosaur tower and monitor.
Why did you get rid of the dog?
that was the first thing I wondered too.
Yeah, ya gotta care for your dogs man. Too easy for them to be exterminated out there.
Kinda funny that was the first thing through everybody's head LOL well first off he bit everyone and he was kind of an ass to guests haha and one of our family friends offered to take him off our hands, see he was an Australian Blue Heeler and hes used to being an outside dog as he is usually a sheep herding breed and I dont think he did well with being inside so he got too rowdy, and the friend lives on a farm much as i do but he actually has animals and stuff, where mine is just corn fields.
Last edited by JMO_INDY on 6/27/2010 2:35:12 PM
Dog whisperer speaks truth, any problem with the dog is usually the owner. Thumb me down, but Cesar Millan tells it how it is.
You actually listen to that guy? LOL and no we treated the dog well, we just got tired of him tearing stuff up, so we gave him away, it's not like we put him down, he's actually a lot better behavior wise now since he has been at the friend's house, and he is a completely outside dog now, where here he was an inside dog year round.
yes I listen to him, he saved my dogs life. I thought it was going to have to be put down because it seemed aggressive, but two weeks of watching the dog whisperer and he had a complete turn around.
It's been over 2 years since then and now he is one of the sweetest and laziest dogs I've ever seen. He's 100 pound lapdog now.
As far as rpgs go I just want Demon's Souls 2
I think I'll give up on FF
FFXIV is the closest thing to good 'ol FF, but even that's just an MMORPG
Next FF will be multiplat with even more guns and ****
FF IX is so refreshing, it's amazing since I never played it for more than ten minutes being a fan of 7 and 8 but the change of atmosphere to one of actual fantasy, is a breath of fresh air.
Here's to hoping FF get's another breath of fresh air in a game that doesn't take itself too seriously another great aspect of 9, and a setting that isn't so "me too", because the whole Sci-fi world thing is getting old.
FFXIII is such a big failure
Specially in the areas you just pointed out
I agree, when I first played FFIX back in the days it was like "wow, completely different from VIII, awesome!"
FUNNY game, I really loved IX, more than VII actually.
But yes the series needs to get back to being different and unique again.
FFXIII just wanted to be FFVII + FFX *facepalm*
Last edited by Scarecrow on 6/27/2010 12:58:59 PM
not to sound lazy ben, but i have often wondered why developers do not offer a 3D veil instead of glasses. IE put the 3D glasses tech on a sheet attached just in front of the screen. i personally have a tough time with the glasses they give me headaches.
The shutters have to be close to your eyes since they alternately block the view of each eye as the screen displays each alternate point of view required for Stereoscopic 3D. You can't put the shutters on the TV.
The polarization technology does something similar by polarizing the image so that alternate polarization filters block alternate images. This passive technology achieves the same trick as the shutter glasses but again uses a different filter at each eye and so can't be done on the screen.
The final type of technology is to have some kind of prismatic filter on the screen that separates the image into two points of view by splitting the light coming from the pixels so that your brain sees it as if it were truly stereoscopic. However this is very difficult to do well on a moving image because the depth of field is fixed for the entire screen. You can adjust the depth by adjusting the prisms, but the technology to do this per pixel doesn't exist yet.
Holographic display might at some time in the future work, but without that, 3D is effectively limited to some form of stereoscopic view.
In other words, there is no 3D stereoscopic veil that can be applied.
The headaches are due to some people being sensitive to the shutter speeds, and some people being more sensitive to the effects of the false perspective and depth of field. In short. Some people will get head aches and some will get sea-sick watching 3D.
Last edited by TheHighlander on 6/27/2010 1:10:47 PM
I was just wondering if I could get peoples opinions and/or knowledge on the best quality, most practical or most reliable type of HDTV to go for. looking for 1080p and above 60hz. Which one? Plasma, LCD, or LED?
LED
People seem to like their LEDs, I went with LCD because despite their long-life claim every LED device I've ever had died extremely early. However I haven't heard of that happening to a TV screen.
Last edited by WorldEndsWithMe on 6/27/2010 2:58:42 PM
They're not LED TVs, they are LED backlights on LCD panels.
Theoretically LED backlights should have a far longer life and brighter lifetime than a CFFL backlit TV. But please, there are really no commercially viable LED TVs for the home.
heh, didn't know that. Which kind eats up more power Highlander?
LED should be more power efficient, so I'd have to say LED backlit TVs use less power. Plus they have brighter light, and can use various techniques to do local dimming, which increases the depth of dark tones and blacks. That local dimming boosts the contrast of LED screens compared to conventional CFFL backlit ones. The LED responds as fast or faster than the LCD pixels as well, so there is no problem with the backlight taking too long to dim or brighten as there would be with CFFL. LED Backlit TVs are awesome. Sony has a tri-color LED backlight which in theory allows their TVs to have more vibrant colors as well as the other advantages of LED backlights.
thanks guys. Nothing on plasmas huh? Always was curious as to why they were so high on the hrz.
Plasma technology has some unique pros and cons. It's fast because it doesn't depend on how quickly the liquid crystal can change. Response time is near instantaneous which is how it manages such high refresh speeds. But the flipside is that Plasma technology suffers more burn in issues than LCD tech does. They have implemented a lot of strategies to avoid the issues associated with burn-in in Plasma TVs, but the issue remains. They are also generally heavier than LCDs (which are heavy enough) and I believe that they use more power/give off more heat.
However they have great brightness, contrast and color, as well as very, very quick refersh rates. For whatever reason, Plasma TVs have gone out of fashion with manufacturers.
Last edited by TheHighlander on 6/28/2010 9:59:47 AM
Kraygen! You out there? How can I contact you outside of these comments?
kraygen is also my psn id, hit me up with a friend invite
Versus XIII, from what I've heard in the past, is supposed to play like a much more mature Kingdom Hearts game. Sounds good to me. As much as I want Kingdom Hearts III already, Versus XIII is something I've been waiting for a longer period of time to be honest.
Ben, I don't know if you'll read this, but I saw that you were going to wait on the 3D glasses…are you going to use this for 3D movies much or more for games?
Also, if you are doing 3D movies…would you buy a 3D bluray or just go with the PS3 after the update? The guy at Best Buy was trying to tell me that the PS3 might not look as good….naturaly I told him to shove off since the firmware is not even out yet, but…
Any thoughts from the rest of the group?
I'll likely use it more for games, if only because it's my job.
And I have no idea about 3D viewing concerning the PS3 vs. other 3D Blu-Ray players. But considering that most experts will tell you the PS3 remains one of the best BD players out there, and Sony wants to promote 3D through the PS3, I'd be surprised if the game console didn't do it so well.
Thanks. I'm definitely considering a purchase but may wait until KZ3.
@Highlander sorry mate, its ccfl(cold cathode flourecent lamp) not cffl.
Thanks for the correction, I was talking about the cold cathode fluorescent backlights, but messed up the abbreviation. Funny thin about them being called 'cold'. My LCD gets decidedly warm, and always has.
The new TV is amazingly crisp and clear. The higher refresh rate makes me think I'm standing on set watching the actors ten feet in front of me. Have to say the glasses are a bit pricey and ben you can borrow the Wii next time you swing by
I think I'll wait. The most expensive one here in New Zealand is around $5000 I think. I know that's NZ$ but still $5000 is still $5000.