So in March 2006 me and some World of Warcraft friends created a guild, we need a name and thought <Super Happy Adventure Club> was a harmless, ironic and cheesy enough name to make us lol while we grinded 1000 boars a day to make ourselves feel happy.

All was fine until one sunny September morning when we all log in to see that the guild has changed names to <Guild of Tofu> apparently there was a south park episode where a bunch of child molesters called themselves "Super Adventure Club" and this vague link meant that we could no longer have our awesome name even though it breaches none of the naming policies the GMs are useless and refuse to budge.

Sorry I just had to air this frustration.
Pathetic.

So I restarted FFVII for about the 10th time, I find that leaving Midgar is a point of no return for me, if I restart FFVII and get beyond that point I know I’m going to the end again. I very recently tried to play it through again on the PC using all the "ultimate edition" mods, but these wouldn't all work at once on my PC and i ended up jacking it in. Then I got the PSN edition, it’s no different to just using my PSX discs on my PS3 but I’m very lazy and don’t want to have to sit through longer loading times and have to get up and change a disc.

I wanted to write a diary of what is probably going to be my final play through, an as honest as possible account.

I forgot how dated the graphics are, after hours of vomiting and exorcising my graphics-whore demon i'm ready to start, EX-SOLIDER EY? I DONT TRUST YA!

I've wittily decided to call Aeris "Aerith" however misspelling it the first time I have to restart to spell it properly, thus setting a theme of failure to my play through.

I forgot how bizarre and fucked up Wall Market is, when I first went to Wall Market back in 1997 I actually felt DIRTY and sleazy just playing through this part, everything wasn’t quite right and everyone was cross-dressing it seemed. Not that you could tell the gender of the playmobil-esque character models most of the time anyway. I do it every time but I have no idea why i pursue the “get Cloud chosen” option, I did it this time but fucked up the squats in the gay club/“gym” and even RELOADED MY SAVE FILE 30 MINS BEFORE just to do it right a second time through, thus proving I am insane.



One new experience was in Honeybee, when I played through this part for the first time, I think I must have had parents flitting about the house so I probably skipped through as quick as possible not exploring the other rooms, not that there is anything really remotely sexual in them when you peek through the keyholes. One seems to have a bizarre conversation happening, with Cait Sith FOR NO REASON bouncing up and down, and the other room seems to be some kind of satanic cult chanting and talking about business. Rather than being taboo, this part of the game seems to be just fucking insane. There are things that I can’t believe got into a 12+ PEGI rating game, one of the rooms is labelled “The ^%&$ Room” therefore suggesting it’s called “The Fuck Room” this room name seems completely out of place, perhaps it was just a last minute change by a translator. Choosing either room ends in suggested homosexual rape.

Under Corneo’s mansion, is where I distinctly remember dying for the first time on my first ever play through, I must have left everyone under-prepared or something, but as the boss hit his suicide Tsunami attack, I died, and I hadn’t saved for hours that’s why I remember dying there, so now, like an OCD child I save AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY.

So we come to the Train graveyard, I don’t understand why, just because trains have been abandoned here, that there are ghosts here, this has always bugged me, have the ghosts come here just because it’s called a graveyard? If I called my house a swimming pool, would I then have people queuing up outside in speedos?
I remember the first time I played through, actually fighting my way through the ghosts, struggling to hit them and I think getting a "game over" at one point. Little did I know back then, that healing ghosts kills them, now all I do is lob hi-potions at them laughing insanely not even bothering to waste my mana on such petty mobs. This brings me to another gaming OCD that I’m sure others share, item hoarding, if an awesome healing item drops such as a Megalixer I will keep this item and never use it, always thinking that I will find a better time to use it.

On my pass back through Wall Market for some reason I rechecked the entire place in-case much had changed, it hadn’t, but it was a good job I checked everywhere because I forgot i needed batteries for that annoying climb to the top of Midgar. So another part of the game I hate, the climb up to Shinra HQ, I failed four times at the timed jump onto the swinging bar, this is why I play RPGs because my timing and reactions are so horrendous so I like turn based play, so all FFVII serves to do here is mock my lack of platform gaming skills, worst thing is a friend is watching me play this part.

I decide to go into Shinra all-guns-blazing to impress my friend, I don’t think he has seen much about FFVII before so I didn’t want to bore him with flights of stairs, instead I bore him with the elevator game. Who would design an elevator that randomly scrolls through numbers? Oh and my timing skills are mocked again by the little stealth mini game you do with the guards, who after failing to do their job at guarding the place all seem to retire to one room on the left once you’re finished with the mini game. I couldn’t be bothered with going through all the air ducts to get the ALL material, fuck it. Another bit I don’t quite get because I’m an ignorant cunt is why does Hojo decide to breed together a hobo girl (Aerith) with a talking dog –man? During this sequence I had a pang of hatred for Red XII thinking that he was an awful character for reasons I couldn’t remember, then I remembered that I never use him but his back story is awesome and that scene when he finds out his dad wasn’t a prick after all is tear-jerking, I named XIII his proper name Nanaki giggling to myself.

Talking of tear jerking I’m going to state now that I don’t care for Aerith, and I’m completely pragmatic about her existence in the game, I don’t use her, she’s a waste of my time in my opinion, yes you can get her ultimate weapon and limit break, but truthfully, what’s the fucking point? She just fucking dies, why don’t they just chuck a Phoenix Down on her when Sephi isn’t looking? Bitch.

So one of my fave cut scenes in the game is when they bust out of Midgar on the outrageous vehicles, I remember when I played this the first time, my dad knew what type of bike Cloud was riding, I think he was lying. I’m crap as usual at the bike mini game then it’s out of Midgar and I’m immediately attacked on the world map, an air buster gives me the E-Skill “Matra Magic” and I remember how imbalanced that attack is this early in the game it hits for like 1.5K per enemy at the moment.

I have mixed feeling about the flashback in Kalm, I think seeing Sephi for the first time is cool and “One Winged Angel” is one of the greatest baddie themes ever, I just have hate for this bit of the game, I think it's because in my first play through, I had just realised “whoa this game is huge” when I hit the world map and then I couldn’t explore the world because Cloud has decided to make up a load of shit about being really buddy-buddy with Sephiroth even though it was Zack. I like the cut scenes here, the famous “Sephi turns in the flames” one and the end of the flashback where Sephi is all emo about Jenova and rips what appears to be a fluid filled statue out of the way.

I save it outside Kalm, my friend asks me why Cloud is so big on the world map, I explain to him that its a placemarker and represents your party. Then I decide I can’t be bothered to go on into the wilderness without some real-life rest.

See you in part 2 when I’ll no doubt fail to see the Midgar Zolum coming and die, I will avoid Fort Condor and fail at the Rufus parade show.

Maybe working in the retail industry has marred my judgement, but I find it very hard now to look forward to a new release. I can't get excited about anything anymore without fear of disappointment. I looked to my childhood to remember when I last looked forward to something, and by looking forward to it I mean involving myself holistically with the hyperbole, I remember one tragic event, one that many of us share.

I remember seeing the trailer for Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace, this trailer took me by the balls swung me around the cinema beating me senseless against the walls until all of my brain matter and head related sinew exploded all over the faces of my loved ones, this movie trailer was a sexual experience, the John Williams score reaching an ear battering climax while light saber duels blasted out of the screen as love goo directly into your face and a little bit in your eye so much it stung, and you loved it, Jar Jar Binks appearing popping his head up to say something really "funny" and "witty", momentarily ascending the coital haze in your nerd-lust trance (like that bit before a climax when you need to postpone it so you think of your gran nude, but you remember she's dead, and then that helps) but you think nothing of it, "oh its some crazy alien, Star Wars has crazy aliens, he doesn't seem THAT annoying, hes only in 2 seconds of the trailer maybe he's a minor character"
After such an amazing life changing experience of a trailer I was so pumped I bought anything remotely Star Wars related, poster, mugs, action figures, books, magazines, comics, home pregnancy tests...

Then I watched the film....

My childhood pretty much ended full stop after the closing credits of Episode One, George Lucas had pinned me down, spread me wide and raped me with a Jar Jar Binks shaped dildo until every orifice bled, beat me to death with it, raped me again then stole £5 for the privilege. Mere words cannot describe my disappointment in EP1, I think if I were to express my true feelings towards the film in any kind of noise it would be the noise of the Apocalypse, a sort of howling screeching nonsense that would cause the entire human race to collapse and lose control of all bodily functions shrieking in desperate pathetic agony as their brains exploded.

When new releases come into my shop we open masses of them, to shelve and price them, this very act of opening the games on mass has raped the ritual from me as a consumer, I think part of the "Newness" of a title is in the opening of it, taking this away from new games has de-mystified them, this is also a factor in my excitement castration. When you see thousands of copies of a big new title it completely shits on the idea of a game being special, or some kind of personal experience.

Then again, SF4 and Resi 5 are lookin' good ey?...
Kill me.

Cheers,

Rob

Sometimes I annoy myself when it comes to gaming. I look for imperfections in every aspect, mainly lag, resolution, and sound. There are thousands of gamers who play for the games, oh no! I spend more time tweeking performance, if my game is lagging on the net i'll spend the rest of the day fiddling with my network. Whats that? Ghosting on my HDTV? Look like hours spent fiddling with colour spacing and contrast settings... (Does anyone with a Samsung use the backlight high and the brightness at 0?)
A slight crackle with my sound? Uninstall and fiddle with the wires for hours!

Then when it comes to actually playing i'm reading Dtoid or 4chan for hours never actually playing, I have the perfect future proofed setup...one day i'll actually play some games on it. People buy PS3's and 360s from the shop I work in and use the composite cables on a HDTV even though we offer HDMI cables from £9.99, they dont care, I wish I could live like that. I think if heaven existed i'd hate it, so i'm glad it probably doesn't.

Cheers,
Rob

So I was thinking about 360 sales the other day how the margin between 360 and PS3 sales over the Xmas and New Year holiday was quite large. However, working in retail I see a lot of faulty 360s especially around this time of the year when a lot of people get new games/360s at Xmas and boot up thier 360s to find the dreaded RROD (or any of the other myriad of issues)

When issuing a replacement 360 the sale can, and does, go through on a completly seperate transaction to the return, how much a percentage of the sales figures over Xmas of "New" 360s are actually just replacements?

Microsoft have sacked the Flight sim team and have started to make heavy staffing cuts, is this JUST the so called Credit Crunch?

Working 5 days a week in games retail it beggers belief the amount of faulty 360s you see, sometimes just in one day.

Jus' thinking..


PIC UNRELATED


Cheers,

Rob