[Demo] Afro's and Chocobos (Updated)

Yesterday I had the pleasure of sitting down with a good friend of mine who'd received an item that he'd purchased off eBay..that item being the recently released Final Fantasy Advent Children Complete Blu-Ray set, which includes the demo to the upcoming Square Enix title Final Fantasy XIII.

First things first...the demo is Japanese, with no option of English subtitles or dubbed voices, meaning guess work is required. Luckily, after the first two battles it sort of all fell into place which 'button' did what.

The demo was surprisingly longer than I anticipated, giving you a chance to play through sections of the level with two groups of characters. I'll be honest, I've not read that much on the storyline/characters set to appear in XIII, so I'm afraid I can't give you more of an idea of who you get to play as. I'm trying to keep my mind clear on whats going to happen in-game, as I personally think that's one of the great things about the Final Fantasy series, meeting the characters for the first time and entering their in depth stories from the beginning with no thoughts on what may happen along the course of the game's storyline.

The combat works well, utilising a 'combo system', allowing you to choose up to 3 attacking/defending techniques in one turn, with each technique ether taking 1 or all 3 combo bars to use. With the game being totally in Japanese, its quite hard to explain exactly how it all works!

It was a very enjoyable experience. I was already excited for its release, and now the demo has made me even more so. The opening cinematic is fast and frantic, and sets you up well when it comes down to taking over the controls.

As for the Blu-Ray edition of Advent Children, I didn't sadly get the chance to view it all, managing only to see the opening 5 or so minutes of it...although within those few minutes I saw new/extended scenes not seen in the original release.

At the time of writing this article, Square Enix are set to release Final Fantasy XIII in Japan before Christmas, with no word on a date for the West. I've got my fingers crossed for before Summer 2010.

[Update] Advent Children has the option to have English speaking, but sadly no English subtitles.

[Events] i36 Review

Day 1
Leaving at 4:30am wasn't fun, though it was needed, the car was full and on the way we got lost a few times. Got there about 8:30pm where we parked the car and grabbed our bags. Upon entering Stoneleigh Park the sheer amount of tents were incredible, and therefore gained the name "tent city" on the forums and irc.

We got our multiplay lanyards and visitors badge and entered to find our seats. I went with a TUP (Turn up and play) ticket which game us access to everything but also included a Packard Bell computer instead of bringing our own, I plugged everything in to find that my mouse had a hissy fit on the way there and decided it wanted to double click everything or not click at all. So I kindly went up and asked if I could borrow one, and received a old Razor mouse, but a mouse none the less.
Some of the main games were all ready installed and therefore only needed a CD Key entering. I locked my computer and went to look at the M-Festival exhibition in which I would be able to see some games and hardware that haven't been released to the public. After getting inside 20mins after the annonced openning time. I was able to see a dozen or so stands with some interesting kit, but they were flocked by the rest of the participants and I was unable to get a good look in, but on stage they were giving out some free stuff and annoncing the line up for the days to follow and what the exhibitors were doing during the weekend. I then proceeded back to my computer and decided to play some COD4, of which there were only 10 dedicated LAN servers in the listing but played on them none the less. Until we retreated to our hotel at approximately 5pm.

Day 2:
We woke up late as we were tired and didn't get to the venue to later on, I went to get another mouse as I returned the one I used yesterday, but was told there weren't any other mouse's left, so I decided to buy one from the Kustom PC stand, a Razer Copperhead would do the job. Today being the FIFA group stages, I went to the tournament area to find such chao's, I didn't know when my match was going to be played or who with or on what machine, so i decided to forfit and not turn up to any matches (I wasn't going to win anyway). We went around the exhibition more today but only really a glimpse and didn't look into anything much, though got my first free Rustlers burger. Mainly played some COD4 again today, but played a few other games to fill the time up. Went home about 8pm just after the pub quiz had started, we were going to enter but we were still quite tired and decided to have a few beers at the hotel.

Day 3
We woke up today, got to Stoneleigh and setup only to hear on the tannoy about Seinheisers's easter egg hunt, they had ran it yesterday but we hadn't found anything and all the prize's had gone, so we had a fresh start today, I had a look at a few of the stalls today, including Overlord II which was very buggy (I walked through two building) though acceptable as its not been released yet publically, I've never played the first one but seen it being played, there was a little improvement on the graphics, the level I played was set in the snow, the storyline seemed interesting. The next game I tried was called Fuel by Codemasters which seemed pretty good, though a great copy of Motorstorm but more open. Again I played some more COD4 and had leveled up around 8 - 10 levels by this point.

Day 4
The last day, we went in to see whole rows of computers missing and lots of packing up being done, I installed Farcry 2 and again played some COD4, when I heard the raffle draw tannoy annoncement. Everyone flocked to reception to hear Wizzo (Craig Fletcher) announce the winning ticket, I unfortunatley didn't win anything (There was one on the back of the visitors badge and I bought 5 more). The lucky guy infront of me had won a G15 Keyboard and a Seinheiser headset, combined win was around £150. Everyone was packing up, so I uninstalled all my games, I didn't have to but I wanted to be safe, as I was leaving I spoke to someone abit further down sking if he was leaving to and found out he lived about 3 miles away from my house. As we were leaving I was surprised to see how much empty rubbish including many Pizza Box's were there.

Overall a good experience and definatly would go again, though would:
Bring My Own Computer
Stay on site
Go as part of a clan
Bring more money
Buy more raffle tickets.

[Events] Ready for I36

Hey just a quick post before I go bed,

Im all packed to go to make my way down to Stoneleigh Park for this Easter weekend, as I'll be attending the i36 and M Festival.

Got my Mountain Dew and Jolt Cola packed ready for an exciting weekend. This being my second games exibition and my first major LAN festival.

I'll be bringing you all the information in the next few days. Including previews of Overlord 2, Jumpgate Evolution, Fuel and Damnation from Codemasters. Also any ongoing's of the i36 LAN competition.

Rory

P.S. Wish me luck in the FIFA 09 Tournament, cause I'll need all the help I can get.

[Warhammer] Something a bit different

A quick, but slighty different update for GamePad

I collect/build/battle with Warhammer minitures from time to time. I'm currently collecting a Tau army for Warhammer 40,000.

Something I don't usually do is paint, as to be honest, I'm a poor painter. I don't have the arty skills required, not to mention the co-ordination and patience.

However, I'm currently painting one of my Tau battlesuits, of which below, is an image of how it currently looks:

















I know its got bits of paint where their shouldn't be, as well as looking patchy, and some paint has ran, and the red and white look a little poor..and so on.. But hey! I'm still pretty happy with it!

I'll post more pictures of my Tau as I paint them, as well as posting a picture of the battlesuit once completely finished.

[News] OnLive: Reaction

Just a quick update for you folks!

BBC News have done an article on the upcoming OnLive service, which can be found here

EuroGamer.com have a new article online, as they look to answer the all important question 'Will it ACTUALLY work?'.

Meanwhile, Penny Arcade's Tycho compares OnLive to the Phantom (remember that?), and have posted a new comic strip for the occasion, which is below:

For those of you who don't read Penny Arcade, you really should...

With thanks:
BBC News: Streaming Games Service Launched
Eurogamer: Why OnLive Can't Possibly Work
Penny Arcade: Lunch