March 9th, 2010
I finally got my hands on Final Fantasy XIII this morning!
I’m only one hour in the game, yet my impressions are pretty strong. I feel it’s a RPG that I will not get tired of that soon! I won’t want to stop until it’s over. Hehe.
The opening sequence is reminiscent of the Bombing Mission in Final Fantasy 7. Powerful atmosphere. The overall style reminds me of FFX as well (after all it’s the same director). Graphics and motions are unbelievably spectacular. Besides, I’m playing the PS3 version, which means nothing has been compressed.
This game broke molds with most of the golden rules of Role Playing Games. Many unconditional fans seem to criticize the huge unconventional changes, but to me the new direction taken by Square-Enix is just perfect. For example, there are no villages in Final Fantasy XIII; it’s exactly this approach I tried to do with Eternal Eden. As far as I’m concerned villages bore to tears in most RPGs. There are some exceptions of course; I think villages are required and great in games like Suikoden, but in many other games villages could be smaller or completely skipped. In other words, I don’t believe villages are a necessity to give a soul to a game. So it’s not a minor detail like this that’s going to alter my opinion on a game.
P.S: One thing that I found strange when some people reviewed Eternal Eden, they blamed my game for using clichés (which is true to some extend), but paradoxically they protested when they noticed the absence of full-size villages. When we think about it, full-scale villages are among the most obvious clichés in RPGs
The battles in Final Fantasy XIII are fun, dynamic and addictive. Each battle is packed with action; there is a lot of stuff to watch on the screen to survive the fights. Just what the doctor ordered for my eyesight recovery!
Enough talk! Duty is calling me! I have a world to save!
Posted in Misc | 6 Comments »
March 8th, 2010
William Knight (co-founder of Gaming the Media) is a member of Blossomsoft, he actually helped to write Eternal Eden :) Enjoy his podcast! It worth listening to it!
EPISODE 4 – PRINCE OF PROPERTIES
Here, in episode four of Gaming The Media — the best episode of Gaming The Media since episode three of Gaming the Media — the audio demons finally spare WillyBeans for an entire podcast, making way for the Greys (that’s grey aliens, mind you) to recruit him into their army to engage in righteous battle against the spider people. And when WillyBeans is finally done providing the hard evidence that litter will help keep away the ET invasion, DocBrown teaches us all about this crazy, mythical object known as a dictionary.
We answer listener emails (HELLS YA!) before moving into a discussion of failed videogame franchises and the gaming media we hate for fooling us into loving them. In-depth discussions of where they went wrong take us through the franchises Wing Commander (Including Privateer!), Sonic The Hedgehog, Doom, Ultima, RockBand, Jade Empire, Chrono Trigger, Shadowrun, Kingdom Hearts, and an in depth discussion of Prince of Persia.
Next, WillyBeans and DocBrown settle an age-old argument on whether or not Nintendo Power is for kids (spoiler alert: it all ends in us trying to decide exactly how awesome Nintendo Power was).
And then we wrap it up in Play As You Go, where we decide whether our next multi-podcast game will be Oddworld, Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection, Phantasmagoria, or Mother 3. You may be surprised! Actually, you will be…
Oh, and Garnet Lee is a space alien. But you don’t have to take our word for it. (Listen now!)
Find the media we game at: Nintendo Power (www.nintendopower.com)
Music in this episode:
Reading Rainbow
Mortal Kombat (The Movie)
Chrono Cross
The Who – Won’t Get Fooled Again
Jade Empire
Kingdom Hearts 2
Ultima 7
Shadowrun (SNES)
Prince of Persia (Original)
Intro music for this podcast provided with permission by
Xavier Dang at www.xavierdang.com
Posted in Misc | No Comments »
March 8th, 2010
I’m now using a new laptop. My plan is to try many models until I come to a verdict. The current model I’m using is an Acer Aspire 8942G. I must say this model is highly appealing even if it doesn’t use the latest standards for performance. Nowadays anyone would be expecting a powerful quad processor (such the Corei7 series from Intel) and 8GB installed memories. The model I’m using uses a modest Core i3, 4GB RAM and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650. Yet Acer succeeds to ensnare me in their world with plenty of other features. For example the 18.4 Full HD CineCrystal LCD panel with 1920×1080 pixel resolution IS A DELIGHT FOR THE EYES. I’ve never seen such a clear and colorful screen for a laptop. It also uses 8ms response time and native 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio, the golden ratio to benefit from HD content with realism and accuracy. It also suits my eyesight theraphy. The quality of a screen plays a huge role for the preservation of the eyes :)
The design of this model is very elegant and cute :) The backlit keyboard looks great in the dark, and it’s practical too! Other cool features are: Multi-Gesture Touchpad, HDMI out, cinematic surround, etc. A BLU-ray disk drive is a nice addition, although I don’t plan to watch movies with this technology. Too bad it cannot be used to burn Blu-ray disks.
Oh besides it’s my first time with Windows 7. I was very eager to try it after hearing about it. I love it so far. Although it’s too soon to tell if it surpasses XP based on my preferences.
Well, I think ACER Aspire 8942G fulfills its duty wonderfully for multimedia purposes. Performance isn’t that bad either; It can run all my programs without any lags. The fan is silent and doesn’t seem to go crazy when I run complex tasks.
I must confess that it’s going to be painful to me to return this model at the store to try another one. Because I’m in love with this jewel.
The next models I’m going to try will be:
• Pavilion DV8 from Hewlett-Packard.
• NV77905H from Gateway.
• Satellite P500-018 from Toshiba.
I’m going to sell my previous laptop to a friend of mine at a decent price, it’s going to be very convenient to upgrade to a new one. :)
Posted in Misc | 7 Comments »
March 5th, 2010
My eyesight has definitely improved during the period between February and March. I’m quite excited with the results! I can see at farther ranges than I could before, I can now read text passages that weren’t legible at all to me four weeks ago.
Unfortunately, as I’m still in some sort of therapeutic process, I can’t write detailed articles at this moment. It’s vital that I manage my efforts, because such acuity training exhaust the muscles of my eyes on a daily basis, and my mental need more rest. However I’m scratching notes everyday on a legal pad about my activities. As soon as I attain a level of great satisfaction with my eyesight I’m going to update this blog (or even write a nice PDF file that could be shared on Scribd).
Just know that improving eyesight is possible. :)
Posted in Improve Eyesight | 5 Comments »
March 1st, 2010
Boy, I’m on fire!
The more year 2010 is progressing the more I’m feeling splendid!
Everything is shaping for the best in my life: My health, my incomes, my studies, my projects, my concentration, my inspiration, my determination. I haven’t felt like this since year 2007. Pray with me that my situation remains great like this :) In return I’ll pray for each of your life! Deal? ^^
My plans with Dream Venturos are going along very optimistically. While being abstracted, the design of Season 1 is almost finished. What does abstraction means in this context? It means that I’ve reduced and factored out details so that I can focus on an episode at a time during the ongoing production. The important point to retain here is that there’s a solid blueprint with a direction for this project. It’s exactly like the concept of vectors with mathematics; You simply need to know about the direction of an expression without requiring details about a position. That’s what I love about generalization. This mathematical approach can be used in life too. Well, for example in some contexts we can know about the orientation of a project or a dream but completely ignore ‘how’ it’s going to be accomplished at this point in time. Anyway when we keep heading in the wished direction, we realize that things adapt accordingly to our plans. At least it seems to work for me and other people.
I receive about three emails per month from fans asking when “Eternal Eden ~ New Game Plus” is intended to be released. They all want to know eagerly what happened to Downey at the end of the game. ^^ I don’t want to shock anyone but this expansion of the game is formally canceled. I have absolutely no intent to make ‘new game plus’. The good news though is that your curiosity will be satisfied with the third episode of Dream Venturos subtitled “Where on Earth is Downey!?!?”
Great surprises await you, fervent fans. ^^
Posted in Dream Venturos | 4 Comments »
February 28th, 2010
Tomorrow I’m going to pay a visit at the optometry clinic and ask them to print my previous acuity report.
Then I’m intending to order a pack of Snellen Charts. This type of chart is a standardized test for measuring visual acuity. I’m going to explain how it works later.
I think this approach is the best coherent way to keep track of my results, especially if I want to share my data with other interested people later. After all this kind of topic seems to belong in the domain of skepticism more than certainty.
The major reason why I believe it’s possible to improve eyesight is because mine had sharpened drastically twelve years ago when I dropped school.
At this current moment my sight is pretty bad.
As soon as my eyesight recover again, I’m going to pay another visit at the optometry clinic and do another official test. And finally I’m going to post a before/after analysis on my blog.
I consider this challenge very important for me during 2010.
Posted in Improve Eyesight | 2 Comments »
February 27th, 2010
Since the beginning of this month I’m determined to improve my eyesight. If you haven’t forgotten dear readers I conducted a similar experiment in 2007 (with encouraging results) but because of unforeseen circumstances I abandoned my personal researches. Now that I’m back on my feet there’s no reason that I cannot do it again.
To feel sure of myself, I took a drastic measure: I crushed my glasses under my car and I disposed of my eye lenses. A total of approximately 500 dollars. Yulp. Just like a smoker, it’s preferable to get rid of the bad habits otherwise chronic needs always come back. :)
This was act-1 of my challenge. The primary objective of this goal is to recover my eyesight without wearing glasses or disbursing large sums of money for a laser surgery.
Hence my new passion for first-person shooters with therapeutic motives! I believe these type of games packed with action can help to improve eyesight by providing plenty of exercises for the eyes and the mental. I’m going to provide more explanations later. :)
That said, I’m totally new to FPS games. To tell the truth, I was a hater during the two previous decades. A challenge like this one was absolutely needed to get me interested in such games. I’m enjoying Gears of War recently. Not bad at all. I’m not very good with the control but I hope to become a master :D
Expect to hear more about my ongoing challenge in the upcoming weeks!
EDIT: Wait! This idea just crossed my mind: I have a WIFI connection and it seems that multiplayer games are very popular and fun nowadays. Though I’m completely illiterate with networking environments. Anyone would like to give me a primer? For instance where/how can I join? How do I find friends? :D
Posted in Motivation | No Comments »
February 26th, 2010
Yay, currently 3000 fans :) It’s coming along very nicely!
JOIN HERE
I’m maintaining this channel since summer 2009. It’s the result of patience and genuine efforts. It’s important to know that I didn’t use any silly spamming methods (such mass-adding friends via other profiles), so for the most part, all fans there are authentic RPG lovers.
Posted in Marketing | 4 Comments »
February 24th, 2010
I’m curious.
What do you, dear fans, want to see in the sequel? Anything in particular that you loved in EE1 that you would like to see inevitably in EE2?
What are your expectations?
Posted in Eternal Eden 2 | 13 Comments »
February 22nd, 2010
It seems that I suffer of the blank page. I’m trying to fill the main website with pertinent pieces of information but I can’t come with anything interesting. Furthermore I’m completely uninspired to write new articles on my blog. Ever since I was determined to improve my English I’m unsatisfied with every sentence I write, as if there is always something wrong about them. My mind is lazy and fuzzy. It’s probably because I’m too much immersed in Lost Odyssey haha. I’m over 35 hours in the game, on DVD 3. The game is astonishing – though the random encounters annoy me very much. I can’t understand how a legend like Hironobu Sakaguchi can’t admit once and for all that random encounters are as irritating on the nerves as tv commercials or Disney’s animated films that are constantly interrupted with boring songs.
That’s probably why I will never do random encounters in my games… unless I have something brilliant to implement to make the encounters fun. For instance, in Wild Arm 4 and Deadly Sin you can turn off the random encounters after finding a special switch.
Overall my life is pretty cool. I’m taking a good rest and I’m relaxing a lot from my recent difficulties.
My next purchases are ultimately going to be a new laptop with higher performances and a Cintiq 21UX to speed up my techniques with my drawings. Year 2009 was experimental to me, I tried various laptop models and finally my mind was set on HP, although I loved ACER very much too. I’ll probably stay with HP as my experience with them is great. My mind is hesitating between the HP Pavillon Quad Edition series and the HP Envy series. The DV8 model is tempting. I may end to purchase a tablet PC instead. Time will tell.
So, what is your opinion on random encounters?
Want to talk about your own experience with laptops or tablet PCs?
Posted in Misc | 9 Comments »