Gaming and New Additions

Hey all,

Been taking time out for playing games. As of sometime early last week, I completed Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII and have started playing Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga. Allow me to discuss the former at some length, and highlight some news regarding the latter for you fellow Europeans.

Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII

Hmm...it was somewhat so-so at best. That's me being nice about it, because I feel that it should be owed something for the effort. The story was generally good, but there were points where it was incredibly iffy and left me wondering "What the hell?". Examples of such situations include the scene between Vincent and Reeve, and the one between Shalua and Shelke. Oh and quite a few scenes with Lucrecia; I gather that this game deals with Vincent and revolves around Vincent, much like Advent Children was for Cloud, but these scenes seemed to exhude a strong amount of attraction between the two...something that most fans have been rooting for since Final Fantasy VII. I was personally disappointed with Hojo's voice; they did what I feared, and gave him the cliche "crazy-scientist-bastard" voice. They also pushed him a bit further off his rocker, and his appearance was far from what I had assumed; I mean Sephiroth has to get his looks from somewhere, right? I don't see very many Lucrecia features in him, and I see quite a lot of no Hojo.

It also felt like Vincent was given the role of Cloud, and one of the lines I found annoying was when Cait Sith exclaimed that Vincent did care for the rest of the gang...well DUH! I never would have picked up on that! Really, you'd think he'd get some feeling for the people he took up arms with, after traversing the world with them to take part in a battle he could have walked away from as soon as he settled his score. By the end of FF:VII the guy was comfortable enough to crack a joke!

I feel that a lot more could have been done with this game, or maybe a bit more care could have been taken. I guess this could be the price paid for a company that wants to finally milk it's cash cow.

I admit, when getting this game, I had hoped that I would get to see more of the other characters, that everyone would have a decent part and not just be random cameos thrown in at the end. Looks like I was asking for a tad too much there. However, the night before I completed the game, a thought occurred to me: No other title based in the world of FF:VII would ever tie the characters in, except for the sole reason of helping their comrade protect the world from the evil they encountered.

You see, in FF:VII everyone had a reason to fight. Their own personal reason that gave them depth and purpose. A purpose that came first and foremost, with the smaller reward of saving the world, which soon became a secondary reason to fight. Now, however, with the story complete, the characters have nothing to do in the spin-off's except for running around with pom-pom's and leaving the big-bad to be dealt with by whoever encountered them first. Nothing will ever tie them to the story apart from that.

Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga

About a third of the way through the game and I'm loving it. I need to order the second part, and aim to complete all the little bits so I get all the bonuses in the second game. Oh oh, speaking of which, I aim to get the Collector's Edition, which comes with some kick-ass stuff.

Original Programming

That last header was not necessary, but the following had to be differentiated some how. Yup, I've added two new web-comics the list. Go check'em out.