Spoiler

Ok I had to post this. (Spoiler) This is the ending of Portal from Orange Box. If you are still playing portal don’t watch this video. If you have you need to relive it. There is a ton of buzz about this game and this closing song in general. If you haven’t picked up The Orange Box what are you waiting for. Unless you are one of those people that gets ill from FPS.

Portal is not very difficult but oh so relaxing. It is one of those zen type of puzzle experiences. Levels can be defeated a number of ways. The achievements on the 360 are tough to get.

I really enjoyed Portal and I am sure I will be checking it out again.

Hailin signing out, peace and game hard.

Wings of the Goddess

Love it or hate it Final Fantasy 11 is coming out with another expansion. Wings of the Goddess will be the fourth expansion (Correct me if I am wrong) in the FF11 series.

You can find the trailer here and here is an interesting interview from 1Up’s Milkman.

Someone asked me last week after my massive amount of MMO whoring what was the one MMO I wished I hadn’t given up. I said without a thought Final Fantasy 11. I loved the game and for the life of me I can’t remember why I quit so many years ago but I do know that it was for the best. Looking at the content SE has provided is staggering. It still does to this day has one of the best macro systems available and was the first to go multi-platform. SE like in the early days of there RPG’s (FF and Dragon Quest.) Broke the rules and new ground and succeeded. For that alone they should be commended. They have always made expansions that rival all other MMO companies.

So why in a blogging sense or MMO sense does FF11 never get talked about. Well I can come up with a couple of opinionated ideas.

1. It was to hard. From raids to standard grouping FF11 was the most difficult game at it’s time whether you were 10 or 75 the game and mob AI pulled no punches they whipped your ass and welcomed you to come back every time. When I think of all the times I have grouped in EQ2 and the tank has round up every mob in the place I laugh and watch as my group lays waste. Hmm try this tactic in FF11 you will die, A LOT!

2. Time investment. Really the time you had to invest in FF11 was years. Not months. People when they buy a MMO in most cases and especially today they want to be at cap in a couple of months. When someone hears they have to invest two years to get to raid level they back away slowly and don’t want to take part. If you didn’t have 4 hours for a group to spare you weren’t playing FF11.

3. It was unique. Being unique can hurt games if the core audience doesn’t grasp a hold of the concept of gameplay and art.  So why does WoW excel with its goofy cartoon graphics? Well simply put it doesn’t follow idea 1 and 2. The game can look like ass (runescape) but if it is easy to get into then people will play. Most people were turned off by the graphics, the camera system, the macro system (game relies on it heavily), language barrier and the fact it was on a console.

I feel the last one is a big one. PC MMOers (UO, EQ, Ash’s Call) at the time had points one and two but putting a MMO on a console for shame. It was unheard of to anyone that hadn’t played EQOA on the PS2.

Today it is still hard to get subscriber data but I would have to guess it is still sitting comfortably around 400K to 500K. Which brings into question if Eq2 is the second most talked about MMO on the blogosphere why isn’t FF11 the number 2 or 3. I am sure SquareEnix is quite happy to sit in the back and collects it’s estimated 5 million+ per month quietly. Other then for the points that I listed I don’t really know. If you have an idea please share it with me.

Hailin signing out, peace and game hard.

Must See Video

I have heard this gentleman’s name around on a few sites and podcasts as of late. But it was Tycho’s article over at that place that he like owns and stuff, that pointed me to his little video at The gaming/slash/blog/editorial/humor site The Escapist.

Anyways without another word I present Ben Croshaw’s review of Psychonauts.