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OK, so I promised to do Warcraft III. Someone had given me a nice copy of the game (a hacked image file), and I loaded the game up. It wanted a CD key for me to install it.
Since the game is not out yet, I determined that I had only two courses of action. Either I could dive deeper into the well of corruption, and hack the game, set up my own
server on which my friends and I could play, or I could turn away from the dark side, and politely ask Blizzard for a CD key for the purposes of writing a review for a questionably
legitimate online magazine, which shall remain nameless. Given that Im stuck in BFE College Station, another friend is in Way Friggin BFE Lubbock, and a third lives in grand Fort
Worth (all here in Texas), and our connections with each other have such a high degree of suckage (it is so a real word), they could suck-start a leaf blower. And so to continue, I wrote a nice,
almost semi-professional sounding letter to blizzard support, and waited eagerly for a reply. And waited. And waited. And waited. And then came to the conclusion that those lousy
Sons of Biscuit Eaters had snubbed me. How *dare* they? Dont they know one day *I* will be the Supreme Exalted Ruler of the Planet and Southern Mars? I hereby and forthwith swear
that they will be held accountable for their sins, and I am leading a boycott of Warcraft III, at least until it comes out at which point I can then buy it. Hmmph! And so I announce
that I am actually at the last minute and at great expense, reviewing Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds.
Oh bugger! Went to save my work so far, and just learned that I have already reviewed galactic battlegrounds. I cant believe this. Ok, announcement take two: And so I announce
that I am actually at the really, really, last minute and even greater expense, reviewing Final Fantasy X for Playstation 2.
For a quick . . . whatever the word for my inane babbling before the guts of my review is . . . preamble? For a quick preamble, all FF games SUCK!!! (Not really, I just want to see
how many people I can make mad.) In all semi-seriousness though (as serious as I ever get anyway) The Final Fantasy (FF) games are console games that are RPGs. You get a character, and
get to name them, and then you run around on a map, and defeat badguys though a turn-based menu system of attack, do magic, run away, etc. Generally the games are quite longer than standard
games, have a great deal of plot with inevitably a few plot twists (except for FF mystic quest, which really does blow), etc, and in the end you are trying to save the world or some such
nonesense. Through the game you gather a party of other people you control, and then you all go running amok. The actual skill required to play any RPG is not very high. All it really
takes is a bit of foresight (very easy when you can save your game a lot, if you die, just restart from the last save spot and dont make the same mistake) and perseverance (i.e. you might
die many times, or be stuck trying to figure out what to do next . . . just keep trying). SO anyway, every FF game is plot-wise very different from the rest. In recent years the games on
the Playstation 1 (FF VII-IX) have been very eye candy- and plot-intensive. A lot of people are scarily hyped about FF and swear up and down about how great the games are. *shrug*
Plot. I shall endeavor not to spoil the plot, Ill just tell the Intro, which you will learn in the first 15 minutes anyway, for all you paranoid fanatics out there. It starts
out in a futuristic setting, your character is a really popular sports figure. You play blitzball, which is like underwater football/soccer. Anyway, this big thing suddenly comes and starts
to destroy the city, and this older guy, who is an acquaintance, teams up with you, and you both get sucked into the thing. You revive 1000 years later in this post-apocalyptic society. The
thing is called Sin, and it comes every 10 years or so and destroys a lot of stuff, and you eventually get teamed up with the people who are attempting to destroy it for that decade. Thats
the overview. There are a lot of subtleties, and the character interactions are the best part in my opinion. As far as I have seen, there werent any plot twists, but I think were about to
hit one . . .
Graphics. Playstation 2 graphics are generally quite good. FF X graphics are VERY good. The game doesnt have to worry about fast graphics from all sorts of angles, and so they
take all the console's excess power and pump it into very high quality in-game graphics. For in-game graphics, this game is the best PS2 game Ive seen to date. In-game graphics are just a bit less
spiffy than the full-CG cinema from the last game, FF 9. The cinemas for FF X are eerily close-to-life-like CG video. I cant stress how good it is. The programmers made full use of all the PS2s
graphic abilities. In the in-game graphics, the character faces have real-time flexibility. You can watch their faces pull back and rise when they smile, blink, laugh, talk, etc.
Sound. Sound is quite good too. Almost everybody in the game talks audibly, as opposed to having to read text. The only language option, unfortunately, is English, and so the talking doesnt quite match up with the lips syncing, as the English track is just dubbed over. The game has lots of cool sound effects too, and the music isnt bad. The voice actors they got for this were quite decent.
Gameplay. Standard RPG-type menu system. Only big difference is in leveling up. All ones characters are on
a big grid full of paths and nodes. Almost every node has a small level up of some sort, i.e. strength +3, learn a
specific ability, etc. As characters get experience they move along the paths under your direction, and you can, to a
degree, pick what they get. You can even have their skills overlap, so that you could teach a fighter black magic,
etc. Its really very interesting. It also makes one feel nice, because the movement points arent that far apart, as
opposed to normal RPGs where each successive level can take a long time to get, and you have no control over what they
get.
Difficulty. Like I said, RPGs arent difficult. But they are fun, and although I dont know how long this
particular game takes to beat, the last few have taken somewhere in the 90-hours-of-play category to finish.
Replay. This is a person by person preference I think. I have one friend who will beat an RPG, then
immediately start all over. He likes to find everything in the game, and make all the different choices, and
just generally likes to play them. I would probably only want to play the game maybe once a year. It is mindlessly
entertaining, and the plot is amusing.
Neato-Stuff. The leveling-up system gets bonus points, the real-time facial expression gets bonus points, and
Auron (a really, really, really cool looking character) gets points, because he looks just too darn spiffy.
Overall. This game is definitely worth playing. Really. Nuff said.
Final Ratings:
Plot: 9.0
Graphics: 10.0
Sound: 9.0
Gameplay: 7.5
Difficulty: 5.0
Replay: 4 / 10*
Spiffiness: 8.0
Overall: 7.5 / 8.357*
* Depending on your preference: 4 OR 10. A 4 if you dont like replaying the same plot -- a 10 if you do.
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