Thursday, March 11, 2010

Too many...or too few?

So a bunch of the blogs I follow have picked up on this story. For realsies.

WTF is the Department of Education going to do with only 27 shotguns(note: the model shotgun they want is actually the exact one I have, with the same modifications I made. The only difference is the ones they want have a 4.5in shorter barrel and a permanent choke.). 

Either this is a test batch and have a follow up order for several thousand shotguns, or they shouldn't have them at all. However, I doubt they're going to used for the purpose I envision, and this is just some kind of typical bureaucratic screw up. What are twenty-seven short-barreled boomsticks going to do anyway?

In other news:

Final Fantasy XIII. I've only played 3/13 chapters, but I will say this:

Awesome as expected. Words cannot describe how beautiful it is, and I truly believe it pushes the PS3 graphics hardware to the max. The battle system is nowhere near as annoying as XII was, and the music is appropriately well matched and a pleasure to listen to.

HOWEVER, the characters suck. Really. And for many reasons. First of all, the world is well written, so far as I've seen, and the plot seems alright, for the moment. But the characters are illogical and irrational, almost seeming schizophrenic at times with the speed at which they shift moods. And do I ever wish they had Japanese voiceover included in the PS3 versions, seeing as they could have fit the game in twice over within the available space on a Blu-Ray disc.

Not to say that the English dubbing is bad. It's certainly better than I expected, except for Vanille. Her Queen's English accent and high pitched voice kills the good thoughts I might have had for all the other voice actors. And Hope's interactions with her seem awkward and disjointed, with long pauses and weird movements. I'm sure timings wouldn't be as bad with Japanese dub, but apparently, they modified facial and lip movements in the US version to follow the English dub, so the Japanese dub wasn't included "because it might look weird."

More to come on this later as I move forward in the game.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's awesome to find a "twenty-something" who is a "logical person who tries not to let emotions get in the way of his decision making."

People like that in your age group are more and more rare.

Rock on!

Ray said...

Most likely poor American voice actors rather than poor character design. In Japan, a rpg will not sell if it didn't have good character design (including voice acting!). I really don't understand why the US sucks at voice acting when almost all of the shows (and some movies) these days are voice overs?!? Maybe it's just hard to act with a translated dialog...or foreign developers always go cheapo on voice actors.

Julia said...

English dubbing is usually frowned upon, but I do know a few people who prefer English dubbing, for reasons that escape me. I'm a fan of the original acting. Seems more serious. =)

as for the recent comments widget...where did you find it? i found the blog list thingy though >.<''