When it comes to games, a language barrier can be hard to overcome. Then again, finding new things to do with a so-so game can be entertaining as well.

Well, I just finished Final Fantasy III last night, and while I enjoyed the game, I'm not sure how I feel now that it is over. The confrontation with the final enemy is set up in such a way that you cannot save your progress at any point after you face the first of 6 final enemies. In other words, when you die, you have to start all over again with the first one (and there's more than a few critters in the way, too). This would not be so bad except that there is a lengthy bit of exposition that they stick in the beginning of this sequence that I had to sit through three times because I was not skilled enough to defeat the final villain the first two times (the disparity in strength between the final boss and the first 5 is rather annoying.) Oddly enough, when I built my party up for my third run at the boss, I was surprised at how easily I defeated it - either the enemy just wasn't built to handle high-level characters or I just got lucky.

At any rate, I'm ready for a new game. Any suggestions?

Labels: Final Fantasy, Translation

When it comes to games, a language barrier can be hard to overcome. Then again, finding new things to do with a so-so game can be entertaining as well.

Well, I just finished Final Fantasy III last night, and while I enjoyed the game, I'm not sure how I feel now that it is over. The confrontation with the final enemy is set up in such a way that you cannot save your progress at any point after you face the first of 6 final enemies. In other words, when you die, you have to start all over again with the first one (and there's more than a few critters in the way, too). This would not be so bad except that there is a lengthy bit of exposition that they stick in the beginning of this sequence that I had to sit through three times because I was not skilled enough to defeat the final villain the first two times (the disparity in strength between the final boss and the first 5 is rather annoying.) Oddly enough, when I built my party up for my third run at the boss, I was surprised at how easily I defeated it - either the enemy just wasn't built to handle high-level characters or I just got lucky.

At any rate, I'm ready for a new game. Any suggestions?

This week's cartoon is inspired by a new use of technology by Hasbro. Believe it or not, they have a toothbrush that plays music inside your head. The toothbrush sends vibrations up your jaw which is picked up in the inner ear. Want to hear a song? Then that toothbrush better be up against those teeth, buddy! Hasbro has been marketing toothbrushes (called Tooth Tunes) with a variety of music from such artists as Destiny's Child, Hillary Duff and Kiss. Guess which one is currently hard to get? Yep, it's the one featuring music from that 70's heavy metal band. Man do I feel old.

Labels: Kiss, Tooth Tunes, toothbrush

One thing that is constant with game consoles is that when it comes to entering information, they make "hunt and peck" look like speed typing.

Not much to report this week. I'm still playing Final Fantasy III and while the game is great, I'm still ticked off about the online message system. Read last week's post for more info.

I have this to say about Nintendo's Wii - setting it up is a lot easier than buying one.

Labels: Final Fantasy, hunt and peck, Wii

Bill Gates just won't give up. After I suggested that he would be going door to door to sell Windows Vista, I saw him touting the virtues of Windows Vista on the Daily Show (not quite - yes, Bill was a guest on the show and yes, he was there to sell his new OS, but no, he didn't say anything about why I should buy it).

I'm sorry I missed last week's post. Would you believe I was waiting for it to get warmer? Well, yesterday's high temperature was 1° F (-17° C) and as I'm writing this, the temperature here in Chicago is -15° F (-26° C) - so something has frozen over and I feel like hell which must mean that the Colts won the Superbowl. (How's that for a segue?)

I just started playing Final Fantasy III and while it's just about everything I could want in an RPG (and what I'd expect from a Final Fantasy title), the online component of the game is a joke. Here's the deal. Whenever a player goes into town to rest, buy supplies, etc., they also have the opportunity to send messages to characters they've met in the game. So far, so good. Additionally, you can send messages to people you have shared friend codes with and that's where things break down. First of all, the interface for composing your message is painfully awkward, with punctuation AND the space on a separate page from the letters. So you have to switch pages after each WORD to write a sentence. This would be understandable if they were short on space, but clearly there are many unused spaces on the letters screen where a space key and maybe a comma, period and question mark could be inserted. But that's not the only problem. See, both you and your friend need to have their friend codes entered in your respective games to send messages to each other. Simply sharing messages via wireless isn't enough to prove to the server that you two know each other. So I've got 3 friends on my friend's list and the computer says I can't send messages to any of them. Of course, with the stupid interface, why would I want to? Actually, there is a reason for that, but I'll get into it later.