Gran Turismo - PSX

As the release day for Gran Turismo 5 looms over us, I want to take a look back at the first Gran Turismo that started it all in 1998, twelve years ago. It's hard to believe how few racing games there were before that.

What drove me to play the game was that it almost worked like an RPG to me. Instead of gaining levels, you gained licenses. Instead of upgrading weapons, you upgraded your vehicles. Instead of fighting monsters, you raced cars. It was a numbers game to me, and I liked it. I remember the first license that you have to do is the start and stop. All you had to do was stop the car within a certain distance and do it within a certain time frame, it was like 30 seconds or something, but it was something that I couldn't do in the first try. I couldn't do it in the first five tries to be honest. The game was hard, but it was fun to play. You start buying cars and you start learning a thing or two about automobile distributors from all over the world. It was car porn and young men loved it. It sold 10.85 million copies world wide, making it one of the greatest selling titles for Sony Playstation (wikipedia).

With great music and simple menus, the game really lived up to its name as the "real driving simulator". The game was intuitive in a sense that sooner or later you learned how to slow down at S-curves and attack hair-pin turns; because if you didn't, you probably would end up losing. Sure you can use a stronger vehicle, but a lot of races limited you into using only a specific type of car. I remember the "Normal Vehicle" race, where you can only pick from vehicles with their stock options with no upgrades. I'd always use the Dodge Viper. Because it started with 400 HP and it handled awesome. My next favorite car was the Hond Del Sol, modified by Mugen. It was small and nimble so it could get through all the tight spaces easily.

And I did so to get myself to first place. I completed almost all the races and collected all of the unlockable cars. I sometimes wish I can play this on a handheld, but I didn't buy a PSP. Either way, great memories with this game.

• Game Time: 100 Hours
• Completed game in all it's difficulties

Final Fantasy 13 - PS3

Like every other RPG fan in March, I took time out of my schedule to play Final Fantasy 13. Scoreless screen shots and reviews have been written on the game and I might as well try to write one also. I'm not going to lie, this isn't a game for everyone. It's not much of a RPG game, but it is a very beautifully crafted cinematic piece of work. I'm about 26 hours in and I'm not sure if I would class this as an interactive movie or a really linear episode of Final Fantasy.

The story begins with a band of outcasts are being chased down by the local government of Coccoon. They are seen as diseased elements and all those that come in contact with them are to be "purged"; they are the L'Cie. It's not long that you realize that Lightning, a former captain of the military is the main character. Snow, the young leader of the resistance group, NORA (No obligations or Authority?), gets sucked into the mess because he's trying to save his fiancee. His wife-to-be has already been changed from L'Cie to Crystal because she had fulfilled her "focus". This will inevitably happen to all L'Cie. The other three characters that get dragged into this are Sahz, Vanille, and a boy named Hope. They later meet a fighting woman named Fang, who is in search of Vanille; she plans to rescue her.

These six characters are in search of an author. No, not really, but they are in search of some answers as to what is the connection between Coccoon and Pulse, legendary city outside of their world. They're also wondering if it's better to fulfill their focus and become crystal, or run away. They've already tried running. So they decided to take up a third alternative and rush towards the highest office of the Coccoon order, the Sanctum, and ask for answers.

So if I had to guess what happened at the game designer's table at Square-Enix, I'd have to say they were trying to concentrate all the "good" stuff in Final Fantasy and take out all the "bad" stuff. The players love the feeling of beating a boss, so let's make it so that all the battles are pretty similar to boss battles. Players loved the seeing Cloud, Squall, or Tidus slashing monsters in the air, so why not make it so that you'd get to see that in every battle?! Sounds great so far. People love cinematics, lets give them more than they've ever seen before; how about one after every chapter! Now to the bad stuff. Players didn't like talk to people in towns, let's just take out towns. Let's take out weapon shops, item shops, magic shops, and inns and put them all neatly in a save-point. Let's take out that tedious aspect of healing yourself after the battle also. Well you get the point. It's evolution, sort of. I'm not saying I don't like the game, but it sure is a different approach to Final Fantasy.

For the best, longest, and funniest review of Final Fantasy 13, please see Action Button.net's review. It's 18,000 words, and pure entertainment.

Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Souless Army - PS2 (part 2)

Check out the first write-up about this game here: Part 1

Raidou, why did you choose to go against fate? That is one of the many conversations that the bad guys say to you in your attempt to save the metropolis of Tokyo from destruction. As your adventure goes from saving one girl to infiltrating secret government labs under the ocean, you realize that your "job" isn't just being a good detective; it's saving the world.

Well as the game proceeded to it's closure, I started getting really impatient with it. For some reason, the more I played towards the end, the more I felt disinclined to play it. Perhaps because I really wanted to get more demons, and I knew that the ending was coming up soon and I was nowhere close to getting even 80% of all the demons. My strongest persona was "Siegfried" at the time, and I started seeing enemies with higher levels from him. Then I realized that I was running out of time. Not because there are time limits in the game, but because of the big impending event, the release of Final Fantasy 13. I knew that once that came out, I'd devote all my time to it and not want to revisit this game. I made a time slot for the game, and finally beat it in a three hour sitting.

The game took Raidou to battle against Rasputin, the mythical Russian sorcerer, to a crazy robotic warship possessed by evil spirits. It was fueled by a satellite that you had to destroy. I really liked the concept of the game, and I think it would definitely make a great movie some day. There's a scene where they decapitate Rasputin's head and interrogate it for solutions as to how to stop the mutant warship robot. Why not? I guess. Magic, mayhem, and mischief - you'll find it all in this game.

But back to the battle. You defeat the warship by sending your cat buddy, Gouto, into space with one of your demons and have them destroy the core. With that, they sacrifice themselves in the skies. The robot that shook the shores and sent projectiles to the city was thwarted for awhile. But you know you have to stop the evil force that possessed Kaya. Save the cheerleader, save the world? Yeah, pretty much like that. Before you do so, the game made you go for one last pep talk with your buddies: the reporter girl, the Yakuza boss, and the rocket scientist. All great guys to have a drink with, I'm sure. From there you use a sacred talisman and transport yourself to the final dungeon, an astral plain where time moves in decades as you take a flight of stairs. I loved the lay-out of the place. Reminded me of Final Fantasy 4's Crystal palace and the final dungeons of Persona 4.

You fought left and right, destroying hour-glasses which contained "memories of old wounds". This was the game-makers' way of saying, "please beat these bosses again". It was not that bad, now that you're so much stronger, but of course it's tedious and uninteresting. Once you defeat them all you'll go on the stairway to 20XX, somewhere after 2050. You'll be greeted by an angry school girl rage and a katana. She wants to slash your head off, and that just might happen if you're slow with the controls. The presense inside Kaya will be the last boss. This is the entity that orchetrated the soulless army and defeating it will take you to the end of the game. Naturally, there's more than one boss. Perhaps a possessed warship? Yeah, why not. I stayed focus and was able to beat it in level 67. The game ends, and you're transported back to Tokyo. Kaya is conscious too. The world is saved, and Raidou the 14th did not disgrace his clan's name.

• Game Time: 36 Hrs and 10 mins.
• Completed game in normal difficulty