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By Scott Jones | November 3, 2009
I've been chipping away at Final Fantasy XII over the past 10 days or so. And, to my surprise, I'm actually getting into it. I find myself looking forward to the little theme song that plays when the game first loads up. Doot, doot. Doot, doot. Doot, doot, etc.
One thing I've been having to learn how to deal with is the inherent ambiguity of the genre. I can't stand ambiguity. I need the world, and my books, and my movies, and my games--especially my games--to make perfect sense. (Music, less so.) I have a friend in Boston who made a baby about a year ago, and since his gaming time is severely limited now, he refuses to play anything but Rock Band. His reasoning: There is absolutely nothing about Rock Band that is ambiguous.
But FF XII throws a bunch of stuff at me--armlets and wolf pelts and fancy leather wear and various types of stones--and basically says, "Here. You figure out what to do with all of this shit."
Each ...
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By John Teti | November 2, 2009
Swag Tester is like backwards American Idol. We do the results first, and then we ask the contestants to perform. Yet it works. So first things first: Here are the results from the last Swag Tester. Randomly selected Killstring walks away with a Dark Void travel bag. And This_is_suicide gets a runner-up swag gift, grabbed haphazardly off my desk, because s/he came right out and begged for some swag. Note: That trick will only work once. (Also, This_is_suicide, see the note at the bottom of this post.)
Here's the thing about the good folks at PopCap. They make excellent games—generally well-loved in the Crispy offices, even if Jones turns his nose up at Peggle—but the above-and-beyond part is that their swag is pretty good, too. It seems they put as much creative energy into coming up with swag as they put into the actual ...
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By Scott Jones | October 29, 2009
1."Now who the hell is this guy?"
2. "Battle legs? I have to put my 'battle legs' on? These ARE my fucking legs!"
3. "Where should I go? Queens Harbor or Container Terminal 3?"
4. "Ooof, that Hillary Clinton clone snuck up on me."
5. "Hello infamous panty-flash juggle."
6. "He's a big one; I'm going to get a lot of chicken from him! And money!"
7. "Shit, I should have opened those crates. Shit, man!"
8. "Man, why not just MAP IT TO THE RIGHT STICK?"
9. "I need to get my eggs over here."
10. "It's funny. No, wait; it's stupid."
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By Scott Jones | October 28, 2009
So it looks like I'm really going to go through with this whole FF XII thing. I kind of can't believe it. I'm not having a terrible time so far. Which is more than I can say for most games. The dialogue is uneven, but actually pretty good in spots. Though I do wonder at times why all the citizens, even the elderly ones, are wearing half shirts and tiny, sleeveless vests.
I care a little bit about Vaan and Kytes and Penelo. They're street urchins who are always scheming. They are the Little Rascals of Rabanastre. Most recently, Vaan is scheming to find a way into the Palace; and Old Dalan might have a crystal that can help him accomplish this.
I also defeated the Rogue Tomato this morning. He was a total push-over. He was a tiny dude who only came up to about my knees, with a large, red tomato on his head. I don't really even know what he was, technically speaking. He didn't seem too viscious. He was barely aggressive at all. I slapped ...
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By Scott Jones | October 27, 2009
So I knew the opening cutscene would be long, and lavish, with lots of action and characters staring up at the sky with their blonde hair waving in their faces.
But man! This one was REALLY LONG. It was kind of exciting for awhile. Some airships flew over and everyone stared up at them. And then there was a war sequence which was very exciting and made me REALLY LUST FOR COMBAT. And then some Chocobos were running around, but these Chocobos looked kind of menacing, so I was OK with them.(I'm Chocobo-Averse. It says so in my eHarmony profile.)
The game opens with a slow-paced tutorial, which I appreciated, since I'm not a FF expert, or an RPG expert. It was so slow that I'm sure anyone who is either of those two things would be horribly annoyed by it. It's RPG 101 stuff. Again, I didn't mind.
The combat system is kind of cool. I open the menu, select ATTACK, then move Reks, whose wedding was interrupted by the Archadian Empire's ...
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By Harold Goldberg | October 26, 2009
I had to stop working to think about life and death today. Many of us did.
They often say that our business is a business of youth.
But you never expect those who are young to leave, to go, to die.
Rannie Yoo was a public relations person par excellence. Like many of the public relations pros with which we writers deal, she was a sweetheart, funny, thoughtful, giving. She certainly always went the extra mile for me whenever I had a request.
Rannie just died of a rare form of cancer. Few of us knew of her condition until she posted “25 Things About My Cancer” on Facebook a week or so ago. Bravely, she wrote, “I have to sleep with my head elevated every night, because of the swelling on my face and neck due to radiation. My jaw tends to drop open in this position, causing my mouth and throat to become PAINFULLY dry. I've been tucking teddy bears under my chin which keeps my mouth closed most ...
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By Scott Jones | October 26, 2009
I'm back in New York for the first time in a couple months. Back in my old bed, back in my old desk chair, back in my neighborhood of many years.
It's strange being here. I find myself looking at my old things like an anthropologist, wondering: Who this person was who lived here? What were his values? How did he live? Did he enjoy his life at all?
Clearly this person wasn't terribly organized (note: laundry discovered in closet that has been sitting there for several months). He seemed to enjoy pornography and dry roasted peanuts and string cheese. The kitchen drawers are stuffed with old soy sauce packets and chopsticks; he must have had at least seven thousand dollars worth of Chinese food delivered over the years.
And clearly this person played a lot of games. Bad games, mostly.
I am astonished, and more than a little embarrassed, by the mass quantities of terrible games I'm still harboring.
True Crime: ...
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By Scott Jones | October 22, 2009
I'm heading for the airport shortly, boarding an Air Canada flight, then beginning the long journey back to Crispy Central in New York City.
I actually fly into Newark.
#$@*&!.
For those of you who don't know, Crispy Gamer is rare in that it's one of the few gaming-centric publications unique enough, or crazy enough, to set up shop in New York City.
The orange-painted office--that shade of orange has been known to drive lesser men insane--is located in a no-man's-land part of town that probably resembles Grand Theft Auto's Liberty City more than it does the rest of New York. Downstairs from our building, there are many suspicious clothing shops (which are no doubt fronts for other activities) and places to buy chicken (which are also no doubt fronts for other activities). It seems like everything is being torn down and/or built up around us; huge pieces of yellow-colored construction equipment rumble along the ...
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By James Fudge | October 21, 2009
I had an interesting conversation with a colleague (who I won't mention out of respect) this evening about game reviews and how much a reviewer has to play what they perceive as a bad game before they throw in the towel and write a review. To my way of thinking you should try, to the best of your ability, to play that game as far as you can, barring a show stopping bug or design flaw that prevents you from continuing.
So if a game is awful, are reviewers allowed to say at some point "hey I wouldn't play this game anymore than I have to and you shouldn't either" or should they do the heavy lifting and play it to the end? My thought on doing that is that it is wrong and it makes it difficult for an editor to know whether that person was truly playing an awful game or was just being lazy.
As much as I loathe playing crappy games, I take the responsibility ...
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By John Teti | October 19, 2009
Enough of this transpacific travel and caption-contest folderol. We must return now to the serious business of Swag Tester, which in our last episode, granted commenter Confessor the coveted prize of a Modern Warfare 2 pen set and a Crispy cap.
But hey, posting the funny comments on the caption contest was fun, right? So, if you want to be humorous in the Swag Tester comments, let's do that. The winner will still be picked at random, but in the meantime we'll have some laffs.
The prize this time is a "Tesla Air" travel set to promote the game Dark Void. It's coming out in January from Capcom, and I wasn't aware of it until I got this package, so it was pretty effective swag, I guess.
This is also the most useful piece of swag I've ever received. We all were marveling in the Crispy office about the attention to detail on display. It really is quite a good little pack for the plane. Here's a picture:
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