Final Fantasy X - 14 hours in

Ah, Tidus, the prepubescent Aryan posterboy we've come to expect from the FF franchise and you're no exception with your terrifyingly defined pecs, oddly tailored clothes and gravity-defying hair. After playing for just over a week, the game play counter informs me I have played for fourteen hours. I refuse to believe it. I don't have that much down time during the week, let alone to fritter away on games. I'm a casual gamer, casual, so it can't possibly be fourteen hours.

Anyway, within the first few I was all misty eyed, basking in the glory of Squaresoft's incredible production values which, in the cut scenes at least, still hold up seven years after UK release. Okay, so the motion capture now looks pretty shonky, with Tidus's flailing arms making him seem like he's valiantly battling a stroke every time he tries to emote, but the image of the Blitzball sphere slowly filling with water is a beautiful one that would shame the visual effects of many a current hollywood blockbuster.

Speaking of crap emoting, I had looked back on this game with rose-tinted spectacles, thinking it a shining beacon of decent voice acting in a medium usually mired in. stilted. speech. But I had forgotten about the staggeringly bad Kirk-like inflections employed by Yuna. I IMBD'd the voice artist, Hedy Burress. Oddly enough, she's never been in anything that wasn't shit.

I had also forgotten that FFX was created in a different time, a simpler time before women were employed in the game industry. A time when it was perfectly okay for one character to be little more than a pair of breasts that do magic. Why not go the whole hog with Lulu's victory move and have her squeeze them together and give the nips a quick lick?


Ah, and I also made a mistake that I remember making when I played this originally (I borrowed it from a friend in 2003 - I didn't buy it, it's within the rules!) and hired Ropp for Blitzball even though he's as much use as a sack of spanners would be in a watery environment.
Also got over excited in the battle with Belgamene and thought 'Nah, my Valefor can do her Ifrit no problem' and got filled in. Again.

But I'm old school, I don't go back to the last save and start again. I just think 'I'll remember that next time I replay . . ."

Acknowledgements

Statement of Intent

I recently completed Infamous and so irritating was its half-baked conclusion I vowed there and then never to waste money buying games on their release date. If they're any good, they'll still be good months, or years after release.

(I realise writing this that I'm lying, because in November when Heavy Rain comes out, I'll crawl over broken glass to get to that game first, but give me a break, I've been salivating over it ever since Quantic Dream said they had another game in mind after Farenheit in 2005.)

So, anyway. In these blogs, you can expect no up to date reviews, no previews, no cutting edge material of any kind whatsoever, just my musings on stuff I'm playing loooooooooong after its release. Not too long. I mean, I'm not from the 1950s I won't go into raptures over Centipede or Pong or anything. But early noughties at the very least.

Expect nostalgia.

Expect reminiscing.

And bitterness. Lots and lots of bitterness.

Acknowledgements and stuff