Aren't You Tired of Ruining Everything? Part II

I recently posted this regarding changes made to the most recent Final Fantasy game in order to accommodate the Xbox360. Now that the game has been released and I've experienced it myself, I can safely say that it is clear that choices were made to streamline the experience in order to make it work without having to swap a DVD every five minutes. The game is practically on rails in that you are carried from scenario A. involving combat to scenario B. involving combat with very little in between but some very polished cut scenes. Because it is so different from the typical Final Fantasy experience of having an open-world feel with a large world map and many towns to visit, one must assume that these things were left out of the game for a reason other than design preference. This argument is made stronger by considering the fact that including that type of content would be storage-intensive and would place a magnifying glass squarely over the already obvious difference in capacity between the Xbox360 and PS3. The conclusion that one is likely to draw is that choices were made to cut this type of content in order to be able to provide a similar experience on both consoles. A sound financial decision if not a resoundingly emphatic artistic one, that.

This is not to say that the game is not good. On the contrary, the combat is extremely well balanced and polished. The new elements introduced in the game breath new life into turn-based RPG combat. The visuals are, as always with a Final Fantasy game, astonishing: the animation is excellent and the imaginative vistas, style motifs, and character designs are everything one would expect. The music, if you like this type of pseudo-Japanese-American pop with orchestral flair, is spot on. I haven't finished the game yet so I won't comment on the story, but at first blush both the plot and characters are at the very least serviceable. In short: the game is excellently produced, extraordinarily polished and enjoyable on its own. It is only when comparing it to previous Final Fantasy games that it falls short due to the lack of the full-fledged Final Fantasy experience. Would the game have been better had it been released exclusively for the PS3? One could argue that is the case, but if placed in Square Enix's shoes, I'm not sure I wouldn't have made the same choice: there are around 34 million PS3's in households around the world, and there are around 39 million Xbox360's. Inviting the 360 to the party more than doubled the potential market. That's a tough carrot to ignore.

Stupid People Need the Most Attention

You're starting to hear the argument that the large snowfall in the mid-atlantic states means that there is no global warming. What I find astounding is that those who should be our more responsible citizens are using...well, I can't even call it pseudoscience...lay observation to feed a partisan political argument. What I'll never understand is how the argument about global warming ever became a political argument in the first place. It's ass-backward that conclusions in political circles have been drawn before a substantial scientific theory has been completed. It is frankly irrelevant whether one "believes" in global warming, or aspects of varying theories on global warming and its causes, or other competing theories. There is simply no relevant discourse on this topic beyond the scientific. With a significant consensus on most key aspects of global warming, I would say that discourse has been, in part, concluded. All that remains is what to do about it, but somehow that fact is being ignored in favor of stirring up partisan emotion on a very non-partisan topic.

As for the snowfall in mid-atlantic states: anyone who has read the scientific discourse on the topic of global warming over the past decade will know that, again, general consensus is that global warming will cause an increase in severe weather events (at least in the short term), including snowstorms. Partisan politicians conveniently ignore these facts because, hell, it's far more fun, interesting and ultimately profitable to get people worked up over they-have-no-idea what.

Aren't You Tired of Ruining Everything?

When Final Fantasy XIII was first announced, it was a PS3 exclusive title. Last year Square Enix announced that they would be developing the game for Xbox360 as well. Now, it is well documented that the Xbox falls short in certain technical respects when compared to the PS3, one of the key areas being storage. The PS3, with a Blu-ray player, can store about 50GB of data on a single disk. The Xbox, with a DVD player, can store about 9GB.

Recently, this story came out regarding Square dropping quite a bit of content that was originally slated to be in the PS3 version of the game in order to make it work on the Xbox360 (presumably because to keep it in would mean shipping the game on about 5 DVD's). Now, I ask, if you are a fan of the Final Fantasy series, and you own a PS3, what do you think about that?

How art thou a pain in the ass? Let me count the ways...

I recently received an email telling me that my XBOX Live! account was going to be automatically renewed. Since I didn't remember activating automatic renewal when I originally purchased the subscription, it came as news to me. When I went to the XBOX Live! site in an effort to cancel the automatic renewal, surprise turned to anger as, first of all, the area to which one must navigate in order to cancel the subscription was deliberately hard to find and, secondly, I was subjected to page after page of "are you sure you want to do this?"

The PSN is free.

That is all.

One Month of Fatherhood

I'm not reinventing the wheel here, but I suppose I wanted to record my experience for posterity.

My version of the wheel now weighs about nine pounds. She was born weighing about seven and one quarter pounds. She lost almost three-quarters of a pound in her first few days, which means that she's gained well over two pounds in less than a month. That number doesn't sound like a lot until you consider that it represents over twenty-five percent of her original birth weight, which would be like me gaining around 45 pounds in a month. At her age, it makes everyone happy. At my age, it makes people start death watches.

The scale-topper doesn't like to sleep at night. At all. Which makes her exactly like her father, perpetuating that most ridiculous of curses: "May you one day have a child exactly like you!" What other type of child was I going to have? One like the milk man? DNA is funny that way: it likes to replicate itself, and in so doing makes us much like our fathers and mothers in almost every way. This comes as no surprise to biologists and to the great chagrin of rebellious teenagers everywhere.

Life is definitely different now. I'm not sure exactly how it is different beyond the sleep deprivation, but I'll let you know as soon as I come out of this haze.

The last rumination is probably the most obvious: she is instantly and irreversibly loved beyond words.

On Legitmacy

Digital content is not inherently free. It is not up to the masses to determine whether or not the creative expression of an individual is free. It is up to the masses to determine how much one should pay for said work of expression. Traditional economic factors of supply and demand play a very indirect role in much of digital distribution (e.g., one needs a digital medium on which to store the content, one needs a computer or some other form of access, and one needs communications gear), so the most significant driver of price can simply be called desire as a function of disposable income. That price is of course arbitrary, and difficult to predict, but one thing is certain: if the creator of such content does not give it to someone for free, and expects to be compensated for it, a price must be paid. The buyer has a simple question to answer: "is that piece of creative expression worth the price being asked of me?" If the answer to that question is "no," the next step in the algorithm should never be "steal it."

Route 219

Is it really necessary to extend a 4-lane expressway from Springville, N.Y. to Ashford, N.Y.? Western New York has a declining population, and constituents are constantly complaining about high taxes. Still, very few citizens seem to understand a very important correlation: the cost, per person, of maintaining infrastructure will go up as there are fewer people to pay the bill. There are two ways to mitigate this: attract more people or encourage those remaining to move into an urban center (and thus removing the need for expansion and, in some cases, maintenance of infrastructure). Given this context, spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in order to make living away from WNY's only urban center (Buffalo) more convenient does not strike me as the best use of funds.

Why not use this same money to lure businesses into the area? How about expanding the woeful public transportation system in Buffalo? How about giving the money to schools, or libraries, or...just about any other worthy endeavor?

This type of misappropriation of energy is demonstrative of the type that has put WNY into such a deep, dark hole.

To the people of Western New York: would you like lower taxes? Then, for the love of God, stop building new homes on the edge of the suburbs! Have you ever stopped to consider how much it costs, in time, labor, and money, to expand and maintain roads, bridges, gas lines, water lines, sewer lines, communication lines, bus routes, police departments, fire departments, libraries, schools, and a multitude of other social services to these areas? There is a lot (and I mean a lot) of top quality home stock already in the area -- hell, there's more of it than we need, obviously! So, please...pretty please, stop being stupid?

To the Government of Erie County: please, for the love of all that is holy, consolidate your local governments! There is absolutely no reason for the redundancy in staff that exists throughout all of your local townships.

...and stop spending money on new highways that go nowhere.