In my last post, I made this bold statement and supported not only why Final Fantasy Tactics is a superb game, but I began to review some of the more popular video game series, and explain why each suck. Instead of a lengthy introduction, I am just going to get right into it and continue with explaining the suckiness of these other games.
Grand Theft Auto (the series) - Ahh, what a perfect series to start this post with. Those of you who have read my previous post on GTA IV already know my feelings about these games. Those of you who haven't still already know what this game is about: you run around, shoot anyone you want, steal any car you want or just blow random shit up. This shitty series brings new levels to the term "redundant". In my last post I mentioned how redundant the Mario series is, but these games bring redundancy to a whole new level. At least with Mario, while the concept with each game is redundant, the content of each game themselves actually mixes it up with slightly different enemies and levels. The content of each game in Grand Theft Auto, let alone each iteration is redundant in and of itself. You can't tell me that you actually don't get bored of running around the street for hours on end watching your avatar pull a rocket launcher out of his back pocket and blow up a car. The variation of what you actually do during the game is exceedingly minimal and the game itself just finds different ways of you doing the same thing over and over again, without the relief of different enemies or scenery.
Metal Gear Solid - If I wanted to watch a movie, I would rent a movie, or go to the movie theater, or buy a Pay-Per-View. When I am playing a game, I expect to PLAY it. Not watch it, not listen to it. Metal Gear Solid (all four of them) suffers from the unfortunate problem of having a producer/director who wishes he was in the movie business. Or rather, he saw the disaster that was Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and decided he should continue creating video games and not CG movies. The gameplay in these games are great. Unfortunately, I really don't consider something that has more time dedicated to cutscenes then game time an actual video game. This "game" has a script that is four times (yes, 4X) longer than the average movie. In the first three games, you spend so much time in the Codec screen that you could have probably spent that time writing, producing and directing a new, better game. And just when you finished rejoicing after hearing that the fourth game reduces the amount of time you spend in the codec screen, you find out that, instead, Kojima took the total amount of time you spent listening to codecs in the first three games, multiplied this amount by five and dedicated this amount of time to the cutscenes just in Act 1 (note there are 5 acts, a prologue, and one disgustingly long epilogue). Kojima was actually quoted saying that the Dual Layered BluRay disc, around 50GBs was NOT ENOUGH space for his game! The Metal Gear Solid series is fun, but they are not video games, they are movie wannabes. Oh, and for MGS 4...who wants to play as an old guy? Snake literally groans and holds his back has he crouches. That seriously takes badass points away from Snake.
God of War - Admittedly, there is more difficulty in finding fault in these two games. Primarily because the gameplay is incredible, Kratos is a colossal badass, the story-line is solid but not overpowering and the series is only two games deep (again, not counting the handheld games) so its too early to say that the games are redundant. So you know what? I'll give this series a pass, God of War does not suck. BUT, David Jaffe better bring us a consistent yet fresh God of War III.
All other Final Fantasy games - Have I mentioned redundant before in this blog? Well either way, I'm mentioning it again. Probably one of the most outstanding characteristics of Final Fantasy games is their story-lines, and oh how redundant Final Fantasy story-lines are. Thinking of buying a Final Fantasy game? I'll sum up the story for you here instead. You play a young man, around the age of 17-23, he has long blonde hair, kind of surferish or may have brown hair. He bands together with a group of about seven people and embarks on some minor task such as sneaking into a castle or blowing up something. While performing this task your pokey-headed character and friends unveil an evil plot of some androgynous-looking villain to gain ultimate power and take over the world. Every single Final Fantasy game follows this same exact story pattern with little variation. As disappointing as it is to discover that, yet again, Final Fantasy has followed this story-line template for their next game in the series, it is even more disappointing to see that their villain gets more and more feminine as each game is released without actually becoming a woman. The only exception to this rule is Final Fantasy VIII, which at least decided to take the plunge and actually make a female the main villain.
However, with Final Fantasy Tactics, there is no androgynous villain. In fact, the final boss is a woman. The sub-main boss (Vormav) is a middle aged man and by no means womanly. And what's the main evil plot of this game? Not world domination, not world destruction, just to resurrect an evil saint. They never get into detail as to what they want to do after that. So while there are some similarities between FFT and the rest of the series, there are a lot more differences that make this game stand out.
BONUS Halo - How could I forget Halo? Probably the most popular game on XBox Live, and considered a "Killer App" for both Xbox systems. Your alter ego in this game is a tin can. But this character goes by the much cooler name, "Master Chief". Oh but wait, it gets better. Who is the main villain in the series? A round 3' X 3' spherical robot with no mouth, nose or body, just a single eye and is called "Guilty Spark". For a series with a main character sooo cool, interesting, animated, you name it, so cool in fact that he's not just "Chief" but Master Chief, Bungie certainly picked a lame final boss/villain and made the bad guy even less menacing by calling it "Spark". So many options Bungie had to fix this in Halo 3, ie: Gravemind. But instead, they just plug Guilty Spark back in the game as the final villain. Booorrring.
But if you couldn't detect my sarcasm before, Master Chief is a pretty uninteresting and boring character. He has no outstanding traits that make the gamer really give a shit about the character. His name basically sums up what Bungie did when developing the character. His name, just like his creative design, lacks creativity and shows the developer's poor attempt at making the character a badass, outstanding or interesting. Two things the game has going for it: the multiplayer and the online play. Can't get enough of it. For most, thats probably the only reason they buy these games.
And there you have it. Why every other game sucks when compared to Final Fantasy Tactics. Granted I didn't cover every game. But if these games, the so called pinnacle of video games couldn't cut it, I doubt a game like Banjo Kazooie could.
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