There are two schools of thought over Final Fantasy XIII. One is that the game is a linear turdpile populated by unlikable characters, driven by an incomprehensible plot which plays itself for almost the entire 40-50 hour runtime. The other school of thought is that it's a glorious game with a superbly tactical battle system. The problem is that there is very little middle ground. Having been playing it pretty much all week though let me talk about my opinion a bit better equipped and informed than I was last week. I still love it. However what I think is the best FFXIII review I've read is the review from Edge (which you can read here. Now Edge praised the latter half of the game highly but punished it in the score department for it's glacial ending and the fact that you really have to put the effort and time in to get the most out of it. I agree with pretty much all of their points, but I haven't been as annoyed by certain things. As for Jim's review though, the day it went up one Mr Yahtzee Croshaw put on his Twitter that he's doing FFXIII for Zero Punctuation next week. As much as Jim may have been disappointed and dismayed to have to rip the game up I have a feeling Mr Croshaw is already deciding which knife he's going to use.

The second part of this -isms bit was going to be a heartfelt defense of Jim Sterling, a man who I refuse to stop loving a defending even while he's ripping my puppy's limbs off but it was getting too depressing. So instead I'm going to talk about Blur. Blur is absolutely glorious fun when it works. Now with this being a beta I'm not demanding 100% working code, but the ability to connect to a game and not losing all my stats any time my connection drops would be really appreciated. The balance also seems to be fucked up the ass, the opening 20 seconds of a race determine what kind of race it will be. Will it be the '1 guy escapes the opening melee to never be seen again' or the 'everyone bunches up to create a decent race'? Most of the time it's the former, meaning that if you don't win the starting grid lottery you'll be racing for 2nd at best. The idea is pretty damn good, but the game needs a massive amount of balancing work if it's going to be any good come release.

Also played Perfect Dark XBLA for a little bit earlier, strange isn't it how you don't realise how much you've come to rely on FPS signposting until it's gone.

Oh yeah, I'm supposed to do something about Cblogs...



* -There are some golden comments here.
* - Neonie doesn't blog much, but when he can produce lulz like this...
* - The rebuttal, equally lulworthy
* - This guy has the right idea, also makes a similar point to the Edge review I linked
* - "Jim Sterling wins the lottery, immediately gives it a 4/10"
* - This is a good blog that contains the single greatest metaphor I've ever seen



A - The fine line between videogames and storytelling
A - What the 2010 IGF tells us about indie games
A - Another response to Jim's article
M - Sex is awkward
M - Sex.
S - TSP beat Spirit Tracks
S - Metallion continues to look back over the X-Com series
S - AniWednesday, supposedly vidja-related
S - JanitorShmoo is trying a new series with some final opinions on Heavy Rain
P - SEGA ADDICTS!!



E - Gobun's Deadly Premonitions contest entry, it's funktastic (entry not related to Funktastic of the forums)



B - I don't have the Birthdaytoid banner code due to the frontpage, so they're going in here, this is Zodiac Eclipse
B - VGFreak
B - Bigby
B - Nihon
B - Siegfreid
B - Walrusmustdash
B - Cypher
B - Marioland
B - Gaping Maw

E - Adopt an Avatar for PAX East
I - Ctrain's new here, and brings his opinions of Dtoid
C - Monkey King has a good rant about Nier
C - Studakris wonders about the lack of WW1 games
S - Cazza was spurned by Nintendo, serves him right for being Scottish
S - Jomonoe talks about that first ice break with a fellow gamer



N - Hmm, Rainbow 6 news in July?
N - Interesting rumour, Gamestop being bought out?
N - God of War 3 soundtracks are downloadable apparently
T - TSP's impressions of Infinite Space, a game I really want to play
R - Heavy Rain, sorta
R - Heavy Rain again, the opposite to the other one
R - God of War 3
D - Iconstyle talks about his game, he lost me at zombies



A - Lekku made some custom shirts and they look pretty damn good



? - BreakmanX is interviewing CHAAAAAAAD tonight and wants your questions
C - Yeah you're in the wrong place for this
C - Ehh, this could've been funny



F - Yeah, I'm not letting this slide
F - Bad blog, simple as
F - Preview is your friend
F - Troll be trollin'

>NJ

FPotD