Oh, the Youtube App for Vita is Good Now

So, waaaaaaay back at the end of June, the Vita saw the release of a Youtube App that I was initially hopeful for.  It was released in a sorry state, with no subscription support (or Channels, but those came into the prominence they're in currently later on), a shoddy Search function and overall, it just wasn't a way to enjoy Youtube unless you had access to a computer to double-check your favorite Youtubers.  Still, I hoped, but never suspected some update that would add in those features.  Then, a (little over a) month later I kind of went over the Apps downfalls again now that they had become ingrained and it seemed fairly obvious that the App was in the state that it would remain in.  I was a little bitter about that since, well, it was a half-done app and it seemed it would remain that way, meaning it was not a true way to enjoy what Youtube has to offer off of a computer which is very important to me.  Because my computer sucks - I don't think I've really hammered on that point lately.  Still, I've been using it since, well, I can at least keep up with a few Youtubers using the "Recommended" (which was basically your Sub Feed, but not as good) list and the search (if I knew exactly what was out there already) and I'd more or less become complacent with its short-comings.

Imagine my immense surprise, then, when I opened the Youtube app today and the little orange "Update" icon appeared next to the usual three and, upon touching said button, it prominently displayed "Subscription and Channel support" as one of the many Bullet Points on its little changelog.  I was ecstatic yet also cautious, as Youtube usually never takes a step forward without two backwards.  It's unfortunately not a thing that is done, and, much like the App, I've more or less become used to that as well.  So I updated.  I waited anxiously in the quite short update, installed it and launched it to the brand new state it was in.  And I am happy to say that it's like a brand new world.  The image above was the one to greet me (well, not -exactly- that one as it was earlier today, but still) and it's as goddamn intuitive as it looks.  Touch one of the channels on the left side to open their feed which actually can filter by playlists too which blows my damn mind and everything is there.  (At least, I haven't dug too deep, but it looks like it at least.  I mean, there's playlists.  And Uploaded videos as a category.)

Here's a full changelog from the Playstation Blog post about the update:

• Subscriptions and channels: Now you can view and manage your subscriptions (including your subscription to the PlayStation YouTube channel), browse all videos on a specific channel and check out detailed information in the “About this channel” menu option.
• Improved controls: We’ve added new functions on controls including Next/Previous buttons, a loop video option and the ability to browse videos while another is playing, making it easy to select preferred videos without interrupting playback.
• Playlist settings: You can now create playlists and add videos to your playlists, including your Favorites or Watch Later lists.
• Closed captions: Captions help deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers enjoy YouTube videos, and they’re also useful if you forgot your headphones and want to watch videos in a loud (or quiet) setting while on-the-go. Now you can display closed captions when playing videos. Look for the captions icon on the video thumbnail. You can even change the language of captions in the options menu.
• Continuous playback: In the settings menu, you can now enable continuous playback, so your next video selection will start to play automatically.
• PS Vita buttons: You now have the option to use the PS Vita buttons to control playback and menus, which can be enabled in the Settings > System menu.
• Share: Show that you’re tuned in—Tweet, Email or group message your friends the name and URL to the latest video. You can also invite people to check out any channel on YouTube — like the the PlayStation YouTube channel — via group message, so they don’t miss a beat.
• Improved search: You can now use search filters — sorting by upload date or duration, for example — making it easier than ever to find your favorite videos.

Look at that.  Look at that.  Bask in that shit, for that is something worth basking in.  Because, quite simply, that is Youtube when it works and that's a rare sight indeed.

There's now five sections of the App (previously four) with the first being the Subscription section, which is fairly obvious from the screenshot above.  Suggestions, the next one, now functions as it -would-, taking what you've watched and generating a list of things that you might also be interested in for whatever reason.  The Search function has indeed been improved with a wealth of filtering options more than the two stated in the changelog - it's actually useful now.  History is the same and the last section, previously your Favorites list is now your Playlists sections which, for me just has favorites and Watch Later as you can see.  (Don't judge me.)  The Windowed Mode of watching videos is much the same as well, however the Like and Dislike buttons are in a different place and you'll notice the Uploader's little button thing is there.  This is so that you can go to their channel and subscribe to them if you so desire or unsubscribe if that's what you wanna do too.  Or if you just want to watch their other videos.  Which, well, this is kind of a Youtube necessity.  Full screen mode is largely the same with the addition of a Repeat button and a new button on the title row that, when pressed, shows you the playlist you accessed the video from while the video continues to play.  So, if you're marathoning something, well, there you go, it is that much easier now.

The good thing about all of it is, obviously, that it's a full-featured App now and, from my limited exposure to it, it's stable.  Knock on wood for that, however since, again it's -Youtube-, but it's been working fine for me so far.  The bad thing about it is that it took five extra months to get to this point when, by all means, it should have been like this when it first came out.  Honestly, there was no excuse for the state it was in when it came out originally.  Still, I can't be too mad anymore as I have what appears to be Youtube in its near-entirety (the part I care about at least) and I don't have to worry about juggling my Recommended list from "Subscriptions" to "the point in which it's actually Recommended videos which means I have to search now".  If I want to keep up with AvidyaZen's three different Feed the Beast series, hey, I can do that from his channel.  It's almost like this, as a concept, is very obvious to understand and has been at work elsewhere for months upon months.  Sarcastic italics.  Still - even though there's no more urgency, I am quite invested in these videos as well as my usual LPers like the oft-mentioned Helloween4545, my buddy Kaseius and everybody's favorite German, Klyka1.  The neat thing is now you can just look them up on the App and check out their stuff without any hassle!

So I've Been Thinking About That MoveShock

Of course, I mean the split controller idea I mentioned yesterday and before you ask, that is my word.  Mine.  I've been looking around and unsurprisingly people are coming out of the woodwork to ridicule this thing that might not ever see the light of day for reasons that....well, are certainly internet reasons.  Perhaps I've over-thought this a bit as I tend to do, but I feel like people would be a lot more welcoming of this idea if it were an idea presented as anything -more- than an idea, if that makes sense.  As I tried to do, introduce it with some functionality, something to give a little taste of it, to push people beyond the initial difference of it.  Of course, that would require actually naming it as a thing that exists which is something that is likely a year off or so, if ever (basically my thinking is that it's going to be the PS4 controller or nothing at all), so for now it honestly really just has to stay a patent and a concept.  And it will unfortunately be judged a little prematurely and a little immaturely, but I really hope people remember that nobody thought the Wii was going to be a thing, and if the Nintendo apologists out there have been saying anything in terms of 'teh hardcorez gaming' as it were, Motion Controls are a thing that can work.

What's important to remember, to reiterate over and over again is that this generation's concept of Motion Controllers have been a game of sacrifice.  We actively lost input methods in the form of buttons, in the form of movement, and in the form of 'choice' for the sake of a new input that, for the reasons mentioned, wasn't implemented properly.  The Wiimote's actual motion sensing wasn't up to par to be used extensively, so much so that it required Motion+ to upgrade it, and then Nintendo never capitalized because they won't 'force' consumers to have a better product.  (Except for, well, Skyward Sword)  The Move's piecemeal sale method did the exact same thing, as most games would only 'require' that you have the wand, and not a Nav Wand (or a Dualshock 3, despite being stated as a method for input for moving around and such, basically only Sorcery capitalized if I'm remembering right) and the overall negative opinion of the thing, despite it being something seen as a positive for Nintendo, precluded it from a lot of use.  Basically, in every case save a few, it was 'assumed' that you don't have the full range of input, thus nothing used everything, leaving it all to be seen as a sort of after-thought.

So imagine motion gaming if it weren't like that, if it were directly in your hands by standard, so it could be treated as a full suite out of the box.  Imagine that you can have motion as an input without losing any other input because it's all right there in your hands anyway.  You have to imagine it because it's a first, because to this point we have not had the full range of buttons and motion controls at the same time - we just haven't.  Despite Sony's efforts, despite Nintendo's efforts, we've lost things along the way regardless, and that is the differentiating point between what we've had and what this idea can offer and that is what I am trying to hammer in because it's clear that it's something that has completely and totally gone over the heads of just about everyone that comments on a website that features this.  Which is not to say that I'm some genius who sees the potential or anything, I'm just somebody who has given it a modicum of thought without knee-jerking which is, frankly, something the internet could stand to see a whole lot more of.  You can't disagree with that, I'm sure.

Anyways, take the above Gladiator example from Sports Champions into mind for a moment, if you would.  This is sort of something that leverages the Skyrim idea I had in the last post since, if you use two Move Wands while playing that game, you're allowed input of both hands, and it's something that works quite well, according to seemingly everyone who's attempted it.  You have that much more control over where your sword goes, over where your shield goes and it opens the door for more precision in what you're actually playing.  I dare not use the dreaded 'immersion' word, but I'm sure you'll agree there's a difference between hitting square and swinging a sword that just happens to hurt a dude and swinging an object that directly damages a dude's arm.  There's a difference between pressing L1 to block and pressing a stick to stagger your foe and raising your left hand to move your shield in the path of an attack, adding a little flick that pushes your enemy off-balance.  I don't think anyone can say with a straight face after the Wii, that motion controls cannot add something to an experience that you wouldn't have otherwise, but at the same time, it's hard to imagine a scenario where it's effectively been done that way in the myriad of games where your sole motion input is aiming.

The limitation of the above example with Gladiator is that, if you're using two Move Wands, you have absolutely no movement input beyond your arms.  The Move Wands have the Move Button, Triangle, Circle, Cross and Square, and Start and Select buttons, but no D-Pad, no Analog stick.  Your movement comes in with the Nav wand which, as stated, nobody 'assumed' you had (nor were willing to use a Dualshock 3 to emulate this effect) and if you were using two Move Wands, you can't use anyway.  This is precisely the case of losing a lot to gain a little, but the important fact is that there is something gained.  Even with the Wiimote, all you have is a D-Pad and not a very good one at that, so two of those aren't exactly viable either.  But if you have everything that a DualShock has to offer between two Move Wands, you have the full suite of what you need and -that- is what makes it a forward step.  That's what pulls it out of the relative stagnation it went through with Wii and Move games, since it basically went from Wii Sports functions to cutting stuff ala Red Steel, to First Person Shooter to being a flashlight in Silent Hill:  Shattered Memories and your wand in Sorcery.  There was not a whole lot of progress, if we're being honest.

Here, you have your cake and you can eat it too.  You can use two inputs for both arms of your Gladiator while still being able to move him around as you want.  Walk him back and use the shield arm to deflect while your opponent is on the offensive and surge forward, swinging when you see an opening.  That's not where it stops, either.  Take a game where dual pistols is not uncommon like Max Payne 3.  You enter a room and crouch in front of the first thing you can, sizing up the room.  Then you vault and kick in the slow motion as you would normally.  But now that you have two inputs for aiming, a left and a right for a left and right gun, you take aim at a thug on the left side of the room and one at the right side.  You fire and they both go down and as Max is flying in slow-motion you slowly bring your hands back together, firing as you do to clear the room.  You land, turn Max towards the remainders and unload on them two at a time.  You're not limited by where you can aim and where you can move because you have the reticule trained with your sights, you have movement with your left stick and you have camera control with your right.

Take Metal Gear Rising:  REVENGEANCE and imagine you've built up your Zan-Datsu meter or however they're going to handle that and it's time to use it on some poor fodder.  You activate it by pulling your controller apart which prompts Raiden to pull out another blade (because you know dude's got more than just the one sword) and you're free to slice freely because, well, that's the point.  Instead of using analog sticks to determine the angle you cut how you want.  With left hand and right hand you make two parallel slices under his shoulders and above his waist.  You bring them back around and cut in an 'X' to impress yourself if nobody else with your precision and then you swing wildly to reduce what's left to itty-bitty bits before Zan-Datsu is finally finished.  Or imagine that you're in a fight where you specifically need to cut off an arm because it holds a rocket launcher or something.  If Zan-Datsu can be entered and left freely, then bam, hop in, pull it apart and slice off the arm with speed and ease, then exit the mode and fight like normally because, well, you still have all the normal controls.

Take Star Wars:  The Force Unleashed 2 and pretend it doesn't suck.  I know, that's asking for a lot, but just do it for me, alright?  Imagine it doesn't suck and that it actually matters where your lightsabers go.  Imagine that you can cut off parts of scenery or otherwise destroy it with your lightsabers (because I'm pretty sure you can), so you use your left stick (in the left controller half in your left hand) to move, jump with X as usual (with the right half, etc. etc.) and slice off a tank at the top with a motion, and then fall and slice it off at the bottom.  Imagine then that you can press one of your buttons while aiming at it to Force Grab it and flick it in a direction while letting go to use it as a projectile instead of flicking the analog sticks.  Imagine that you can grab a platform that somebody is standing on with the force and rend it apart, dropping them to their doom.  Hell, just imagine that you can grab two soldiers at the same time and use them to clean house by throwing them both at a group at the same time.

The important thing is that, with a split controller design that is literally a split controller, I can see this being a reality.  Or rather, I can't see why it -can't- be a reality, since I'm assuming the theory behind it takes in account the technical aspect of it.  If nothing else, I see this concept as the next evolution, the progression, of what we were offered in Motion Gaming this generation.  I mean, that's the point of leaping generations, right?  To refine the latter generation and update it with more ideas.  It's how we went from a controller with four buttons to controllers with eight or more without making them cumbersome.  Each generation is supposed to let you do things that you just couldn't do in the previous one.  This certainly counts as that, and as a prospect, it's exciting to me at the very least.  Nintendo has already cast their die and it rolled away from what they brought to the table, and being that this is Sony's patent, I'm hoping they actually step to the plate with it, provided it is what the tech states it will be.  Putting an analog stick on a Move Wand to let you use two probably won't be enough, it has to be standard, and that's what I fear the most, that this is just going to be an alternative that, by virtue of that, will never get used.  Done properly, it's just going to compliment what we're used to and integrate itself in comfortably, and for the sake of how much I've gone and worked myself up with ideas, I'm pulling for it.

This Isn't Dumb, Trust Me

Hey, don't give me that look.

No, seriously.  Stop it. 

Just....just hear me out on this one.

So, alright.  I've been feeling kind of bad because the last two posts in a row were me just whining and grumbling about things instead of being enthusiastic and/or excited about something.  Or just interested in something.  Or just being positive whatsoever about something.  All that negativity isn't good, it's not healthy nor is it fun and personally I like fun.  So I was trying to find something out there on the interwebs that made me feel a pang of interest, of hopefulness, or -something- positive that I could work off of, and honestly nothing really came up initially.  I doubled back to Joystiq for the fourth time in hopes that I had missed something, or there'd be some late, great piece of news and eventually came across the image you see above and the post associated with it.  To be honest, I took a look at it and didn't really know what to think, so I did what I always do when I come to that cross-roads which is absolutely 100% not the smart thing to do - I read the comments.

All in all, it's about a 50/50 split between people saying 'it looks fucking stupid' and 'it's copying the Wii' which are both amazingly hilarious when you put them together and, as usual, it made me sigh and rub my head a little bit.  There was, however, a little useful tidbit to be gleaned from the mess, and it is the fact that the image, while indeed a patent image, is a tech patent and not a design one.  So take the look, whether you think it's stupid or simply a little strange and don't worry about it because that's not the actual design of anything.  It's a technological theory conveyed in an image in the easiest way to understand.  That's pretty much exactly what a tech patent is, since its whole goal is to give you something to wrap your mind around and the theory that this idea invokes is a rather fantastic one to me and it is the only reason why I dare speak of it in a positive light.

If you look at the two split controller designs we have now, the Wiimote/Nunchuck combo and the Move/Nav combo, you can see two attempts at a theory with their own faults and their own good points.  Nintendo's minimalist design is accessible, the accelerometer in the nunchuck makes it a viable motion tool, the actual motion control (with Motion+) is serviceable and it can technically be used multi-functionally (Not just a pointer, basically, but I refer to New Super Mario Bros.' twist controller to spin jump mechanic).  On the downside, however, being that Motion+ was an add-on that was barely imple it saw limited usage, it still wasn't totally precise and the overall lack of buttons hampered more 'advanced' ideas.  Sony's more ergonomic design was more comfortable and placed more buttons in the right areas, had the benefit of better tracking overall and had more potential from the thought-out tech.  It suffered from the poor choice in not putting an accelerometer in the Nav controller, offering less buttons overall than a controller, thus limiting its conformity and barely saw and proper implementation.

The issue both controllers suffered from was the fact that they were both not full controllers in their own right.  One analog stick per pair (while motion control all but replaced the need for a second stick, this did not factor in for usage of the second stick as a button, as some games use) less triggers (as standard seems to be two bumpers, two triggers now) and neither option offered you the ability to have a full experience without both 'component' controllers.  Essentially, neither option could offer you a full controller experience because both options are hampered by their own 'sub' controllers if you will.  (The Nunchuck and the Nav)  This, this is where the beauty of the idea, the theory, the image indicates comes in.  Imagine a Dualshock controller.  Now cut it in half.  Now imagine both halves are motion controllers.  Now imagine that you can take it apart/put it back together at your leisure because it serves as a regular controller and a motion controller at the same time.

That right there is the elegance and the actual smart area of the design.  It's forward progress in the space where nobody has been -able- to make it and it's the best of both worlds.  Let me spell it out in terms of an actual game application, though, instead of just saying "trust me, it's smart" because, well, that works better.  Let's use Skyrim as a reference despite the hilarious ineptitude Bethesda has displayed with the game and the add-on content of it, because I'm just using the core mechanics.  The 'big thing' in Skyrim is the ability, nay, the impetus to dual-wield things to destroy your enemies.  Any combination of weapons, spells or shields can be wielded together to whatever effect and the key ideal is that you are using both hands to their best effects. 

Now apply the split controller, the literal split motion controller to the idea.  You have the left portion of the Dualshock in your left hand that has you moving around, you have the right portion for menu controls like normal and when combat comes in, you can either attack as normal or you can use the motion controllers as intended and control things like that.  Prepare two different spells and fire at two different enemies at the same time because you just have to point and attack.  Bring the controllers together to merge the magic for the stronger cast while aiming at whatever it is.  Or bring up the menu with the buttons, switch to two swords or what have you and just swing and bash at whatever's near while using the analog stick to still move around as normal.  All this without a technical loss of functionality because you still have all the standard controls right there.

That, my friends, is an exciting prospect.  Unfortunately, its entire usefulness rests in whether or not Sony will adopt it as the 'standard' controller since, as both the Move and Nintendo themselves proved, providing something as an add-on or an accessory means you cannot count on it being actually used, thus defeating its entire purpose.  If, like Sixaxis, this functionality was built into the controller from the start, then it's there for developers to use as they would desire.  Yes, some will shoe-horn it in, and some will ignore it completely in lieu of going "Well, it's a normal controller", but the people that truly use it will prove that it is something of actual value.  This generation was a proof-of-concept and going forward with this idea would be a true statement of going 'next gen', since it would be a natural refinement.  We'll just have to see if they run with it, and I genuinely hope they will.  If nothing else, that is your PS4 hook right there, and if the PS4 will need anything, it will definitely be a hook.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 is Also Dumb

Ever since I popped XIII-2 in after beating XIII and subsequently reviewing it, I have been trying so very hard to like it.  Because it's apparently good!  I mean, that's all I've heard about it since it came out at the start of this year and, after what was considered a 'bad game' like Final Fantasy XIII, the idea that the sequel was, then, good seemed like it had to have a -lot- done right to earn such praise.  In most cases, even when you don't particularly like a game that is praised as 'good' by the collective known as 'the internet', you can at least see why they judged such as they did, so at the very least, even if XIII is 'bad' and XIII-2 is 'decent' if not great, then hey, you've upgraded in any case, right?  So everything's sugar and rainbows no matter what, because at least, at least you're getting Final Fantasy XIII 'if it were good'.  Surely, I'm not really hammering in this point for any reason in particular.

So, before I address what is perhaps the least subtle thing I've said in the entirety of writing this blog, I would like to once again direct your attention to a recent post titled "How Final Fantasy XIII Could Have Been Better" because I pointed out three specific areas in which FFXIII came up short - Linearity, Poor Balance in terms of the Skill System and General lack of Focus with the story and elements as a whole.  I have stated, as well, in the past that the Battle System is an unusually good aspect of the game, that the Crystarium was not wholly bad and was, in fact, close to being good and that the characters, if nothing else, were fantastically established and grown throughout Final Fantasy XIII.  For XIII-2 to be praised so highly, you would think that it would at least fix a couple of the issues while strengthening the good parts, because that's generally how things work - a clear improvement gets a cheering.  And it is because of all that, that I think Final Fantasy XIII-2 is an amazing game, because it manages to take everything I just said, good and bad, and make it worse.  Frankly, I am fucking baffled and amazed at just how the hell that works.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 is a game that knows even less about what the hell it wants to do than its predecessor and that is saying something.  Being that it's a time travel story (spoiler:  FFXIII-2 has a Time Travel story), you go into it knowing that by the end of it, absolutely goddamn nothing will make sense because nobody knows how to write a competent time travel story that isn't Chrono Trigger, and I'm sure people will argue on that one too.  That, however, doesn't excuse the absolute laziness that goes through the rest of it, hitting on the parts that aren't even directly affected by time travel dickery.  For example, and this is pretty much the biggest example and the one I've been gritting my teeth against for the entirety of today in which I put many, many hours into the game, let me tell you about Lightning.  And when I say let me tell you about Lightning, I mean I am going to openly spoil Final Fantasy XIII so if you don't want to know anything, please move on to another post, sorry for the inconvenience.  I can't very well explain the laziness in the story without explaining the story, unfortunately, and I imagine most of the folks who want to play it, really want to play it, have already and know this anyway.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 begins with Lightning in a strange land that is quickly identified as 'Valhalla' where she and Odin are fighting some dude and it's all very epic I assure you and stuff is going on.  Then one of our protagonists, Noel, is introduced and speaks to Lightning who gives him a magical moogle (I am serious) and tells him to go find Serah on the other end of a time gate.  This is important.  So, blah blah blah, Noel finds Serah and they become TIME TRAVEL BUDDIES and BLAH BLAH BLAH, none of this is actually important, really except that the gist of it is Serah says "I had a dream that Lightning was in Valhalla, so I know she's alive" and Noel says "Yeah, I was there, she is" and Serah is genuinely fucking surprised by this.  They go on to meet old friends, discuss the situation and find more evidence that lends credence to the story of the guy who literally brought a fucking magical transforming Moogle that can talk and mentions Lightning through a time gate saying he saw Lightning.  And every.  single.  time. they 'realize', with great shock that Lightning 'might' be alive in Valhalla and that maybe they can get to her through a time gate.

I wish I was kidding.  I honestly do, because this shit is offensively stupid and it detracts from the overall experience which isn't too high to begin with.  Because the game can branch, in that you can go off and dick around in many time periods at once, I assume -some- of it can be contributed to the overlap in ensuring you establish a story no matter where the player goes, but after a certain point, you're literally somewhere you can only get after Point A and Point A included a portion where this whole Lightning bullshit was talked about already, and regardless, you have to play through everything eventually, so maybe you just need to manage it a little tighter in the narrative, which, after FFXIII is a fucking -riot- to say. 

But I can't really say too much of the story or the narrative overall just yet since I haven't beaten the game.  I imagine that when I do, I'll have an entirely larger post devoted to picking it apart completely and totally because I am very annoyed.  I guess the thing that's the problem is that I just really saw potential with FFXIII and with the assurance that XIII-2 was a good game, it had earned that by capitalizing on what was good about the original.  Instead, I am greeted with something that is praised for reasons I honestly, truly cannot comprehend on any level.  I am not having fun playing the game as I was with XIII towards the middle of it.  Maybe that will change later on, as I am probably still early on in it, but I really don't know.  I know that I'm very, very over-leveled for the area I'm in, so I'm absolutely steam-rolling everything which, honestly, kind of takes away from the fun too.  Odd as that might be, being able to stomp everything, including bosses, in your path isn't even fun in XIII-2.  Perhaps not yet, but certainly not now at the very least.

The Mini Wii is Dumb

I wish we lived in a world where I could sit down and say "The Mini Wii is dumb" and list off its features and have the collective read it and go "Oh yeah, that is kind of dumb" without going into detail.  Because it would be so easy and this really doesn't need the kind of elaboration that I'll have to put into this post.  It is honestly baffling that this thing exists and I really don't think there's a way to actually hand-wave it whatsoever.  Don't get me wrong, it -will- be, and when pressed, such arguments will go nowhere and fast, but the important thing to realize is that there is really just no leg here to stand on.  Even from an unbiased stance, which I am clearly not unbiased, but I can see things as such, there are some major issues here and it's less about what it is than what it honestly could mean, or be implied.  If taken as a statement, which everything that isn't Nintendo yet is released to people who play games is apparently a statement of intent, then this is just yet another moment of Nintendo waving their arms frantically with no clear direction.

The easiest place to start is with the feature list of the Mini Wii so that whatever I say afterwards is in context and not me just blah blahing about how terrible shit is.  (Shit is terrible.)  As you can tell, the Mini Wii is...well, smaller.  The exact size, I don't know, but the already smaller Wii (at least, I think the latest Non-BC models were smaller) is now even smaller and I can't help but look at the picture above and suspect it's around the size of a PS3 Game Case, though perhaps a little thicker.  I'm probably way off, but the Wii is already small, so imagine that smaller and you're good to go.  Everything else, aside, it -does- look pretty neat, but I'm a sucker for Black and Red, so that would be the reason why for that.  It seems like the power and eject(?) buttons are the only buttons it has and I can't help but think that it opens from the top.  I could look it up, but honestly, it doesn't matter a whit, as that's all purely cosmetic and that really doesn't determine whether a thing is dumb or not.

Now, being as small as it is, you're probably wondering how it has the stuff that the Wii itself has, like USB Ports, a Wi-Fi receiver (but no ethernet port because whyyyyyyy), storage and the like, and if you weren't, you probably are now.  It's a valid thing to wonder about, and absolutely none of that is known to the public because why would we need to know that when it comes out in two weeks, except the whole Wi-Fi situation.  You see, the Mini Wii cannot connect to the internet.  At all.  For any reason.  Reasons that are emblazoned on Nintendo's Official Wii Page.  Reasons like....online multi-player (like with Animal Crossing:  City Folk that came bundled with Wii Speak so you could talk to your friends while you played Animal Crossing online) or watching Netflix or similar services (which is currently being touted....what, everywhere?) or even buying/downloading Virtual Console games.  You know, the games from the past that are apparently the golden days of gaming and everything was sugar and rainbows and Nintendo games were so good we have so much nostalgia for them to this day?  The games people got really excited to be able to play again in an entirely legal way?  Yeah.  Those games.  Not on the Mini Wii.

So, alright, that's....that's fine, I guess, because it's probably really cheap, right?  Right?  Well, yes and no.  Yes, because the Wii is pretty cheap already so long as you're not buying all sorts of goddamn accessories for it that are vital for only one game here and there, but no, because it's $99.  Now, I was under the impression that the Wii itself, like the (new) basic one that you can go out anywhere and buy one of because everybody wanted one for a while there but not so much anymore, was selling for $99.  I was....not wrong, but the thing is, you cannot find just a Wii by itself for sale first-hand.  Every Wii for sale out there is bundled with at least a game for around $120-$130.  So take out the cost of the game, and you're basically looking at $99 for the starter kit for the Wii which is exactly what's bundled with the Mini Wii.  A Sensor Bar (which isn't optional), a Wiimote Plus (as in a Wii Remote that has Motion+ built into it already for all of five games that support it without paying the extra $20) and a Nunchuck, plus the cables that are standard which you kind of have to include unless it's the 3DS XL in places that aren't America which means that I guess they are not standard to Nintendo.

Oh, and it can't play GameCube games.  But that's not new.  You....you knew about that, right?  That Wiis made in the last year or so don't have GC backwards compatibility.  Because they don't.  I wasn't sure if you heard.  BC is kind of a sticky point for people in other cases.  Apparently not with Nintendo, I guess, but I suppose this is just me being petty at this point.

If, for whatever reason, you really really want a Mini Wii because you hate Online things and don't currently own a Wii or something, then you'll have to wait until December 7th when it launches exclusively in Canada.  Oh, I didn't mention that?  Yeah, it's Canada exclusive through the 'holiday season', so you can't buy it anywhere else.  If you'd even want to.  I mean, personally, I think you'd be better off buying a Wii that is the same cost and has a game and can connect to the internet, or even a Wii U that plays Virtual Console games and won't upscale Wii games at all or anything and you still have to play them with the Wiimote, and possibly not play them online either?  Okay, so maybe you're just better off buying a regular Wii.  If you really really want to play Wii games with the firm knowledge that you can play it online if the game supports it (protip:  it probably won't), or you just want to jump on the Virtual Console and don't want to shell out for a Wii U, then there you go.  But I guess if you want to support Nintendo completely and totally giving the finger to Online after just releasing a system that is supposed to be super-duper online friendly and don't worry that that's really conflicting signals at all then, hey.  Go for it.

How Final Fantasy XIII Could Have Been Better

So yes, I know this is one of those hokey things that people with a little too much self-importance does or whatever you might think, and I don't generally like doing it, but I liked Final Fantasy XIII enough that I've actually put thought into considering how it would have been better received.  Not only by the general audience who seem to regard it mostly with disdain for reasons that are fairly obvious, but by myself, who will openly admit that I like it in spite of it.  I am in the odd position in thinking that Final Fantasy XIII does a lot of -good-, but it simply does not capitalize on that, make that shine, and instead you're left with flashes of things that are good, but are so quickly done, you can't even get a good approximation of them on a glance.  Instead, it's obsessed with doing precisely everything counter to that which, as I stated in my review, oftentimes leads to a dissonance on a level that you just cannot even plan.  I mean, when you have basically the same story done twice in your game, yet it works completely differently in both cases?  You have done something wrong.

Regardless, it's not simply enough to say "Those good things, do those more", because, as I said, a lot of players might not have gotten to said parts, or because they went so fast, it's hard to say they were even good to the people who, at the point they were in, might've just glossed over them in a race to the end of the game.  And it's hard to say that if they ran with what was good that it would've been a good game because, from what a lot of people are saying, XIII-2 does that and while I don't see that (Aside from having bigger, non-linear-ish areas), I'm....not really having a whole lot of fun with XIII-2 yet.  I'm not even in the double-digits as far as hours played yet, I don't think, so I don't have a full approximation of the game (will get to this point some other night having played more), but I can tell you that I'm longing for much of what XIII had to offer, which I'm sure comes as a strange statement to many.  Still, I feel like I can put down a few key examples of things and posit as to how changing them around would've made the game stronger overall.

Yes, yes, linearity.

That is basically -the- complaint to have about XIII and it varies from talking about the whole game, to the map design and such.  While exaggerated as these things tend to get through the internet filter, it's not false in so many words, since, well, there is almost -never- any reason to go any direction but forward.  Oftentimes, there's also no real ability to move in any direction but forward.  The only occasion where you will find yourself allowed to revisit locations you've been to in the game once already comes at the very tail-end of it in a way that feels....well, tacked on as a sort of "Okay, people probably didn't do everything in the one open-area in the game, so let's give them a way back" way.  I'll spoil it now, I guess since it doesn't really matter, but in the actual Gods-Honest end area, literally steps before you fight the final boss, you can go back to Gran Pulse if you want to run around the wilds and be free, or do some more Ci'eth Stone missions because there's goddamn 64 of them and you aren't going to be able to do them all when you get there because it launches some fuck-off hard monsters at you in some of them.

It's worth noting that when you beat the game, you can load your clear data to be dropped into this very same spot with the option of going back to a (presumably middle-of-being-destroyed) Cocoon (spoiler alert) or the aforementioned Gran Pulse through means of the same "Hey they just magically appeared" portals, thus giving you the barest hint of 'Post-game'.  You also have the highest-tier of the Crystarium unlocked when you beat it (yes, you read that right), giving you something to aspire to in terms of a system for advancement as well, which gives you a purpose beyond the Cie'th Stone missions for continuing to play.  But for pretty much every point in the game before Gran Pulse, you're technically supposed to go one way and you're kind of stuck doing it because there is literally no way to go the -other- way, as in the one you just came from.  And even after the big open Gran Pulse area, it bottles back up until you get to end-game where, as stated, you can go back to the playground if it's really that important to you to do so.

The issue with Gran Pulse itself is that it is massive, indeed, but it's pretty much only massive in comparison and that size isn't really used well at all.  As stated, there are Cie'th Stones dotting the landscape and, should you choose to undertake the missions that are offered therein, then congratulations, you get to run around for extended periods of time to the other end of the map or to a different section of it entirely or something.  Just....running the whole way there.  Eventually, you can unlock Chocobos that makes the travel time easier, but that's after you've run around for at least a dozen missions and at that point it hardly seems like an 'upgrade' in the sense that it's almost a necessity for some missions and it's actually a necessity for a few.  Regardless, it's just a large area for the sake of being large and, in the grand scheme of things, that makes it a little less large in fact, since there's whole swaths of area you don't need to, nor will you, frequent after perhaps going there once.  In all honesty, you're tossed from the 'corridor' that people make the bulk of the game out to be into a medium-sized room with landscape painted on the walls to make it seem bigger than it is.

Crystarium Overhaul

The Crystarium is, if you don't know already, the big mechanic in FFXIII through which you buy your abilities and grow your characters when you shake your fist hard enough at the screen to earn CP to spend.  Which is, of course, just me over-exaggerating how difficult it is to get CP early on, since, well, that's when you want CP.  It's a big, flashy thing to be sure, and is quite pretty to look at, though at its core it's basically just discs with bubbles on them that are connected by lines and those lines are the funnels through which you spend CP from one bubble to the next.  Yes, they're 'crystals', but the bulk of them look like bubbles, so that's what I called them.  It's a system that's built purely on its layout and that is, of course, inherently where the problem lies because it just wasn't laid out well at all.  The starting points, which is to say, the only points you get to use at all for half of the game, are designed in a way, in conjunction with the rest of the completely micro-managed game design prominent in the first half of the game, to ensure you have only x abilities, y stats, and z skills.  There is no way to 'game' the system, since all you can do is unlock what's there and then sit on an ever-growing mountain of CP until you advance the story enough (i.e. fight the next boss, or the boss after next in some cases) to open a new disc or two of the Crystarium.

In a lot of ways, the Crystarium can be likened to the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy X in that it's divided in a way that gives everyone a little something unique to start with, but eventually allows everyone to pick from any class (or 'build' in FFX's case).  This seems like it can't go wrong in theory because how hard is it to take something and repurpose it in a way that's good?  Not hard at all.  (Wait for it.....wait forrrr iiiiiit...)  Unless you're Squeenix who, if you haven't paid attention, are just not good at doing the same thing twice or doing something again well.  Taking something that's supposed to promote versatility and then tailor-making each one in a way that literally prevents everyone from being versatile is literally the only way to mess it up so guess what Squeenix did!  I'm sure it's not obvious from the subtle context clues, so I'll just spell it out in the broadest, easiest terms here.  The Crystarium, at its fully unlocked potential, is made to allow your characters to be great in three classes and such so badly in the other three that it's not even an option and is, in fact, a waste of CP.

If you'll allow me to use Lightning as an example, then I'll say that of the six classes (which are Commando, Ravager, Sentinel, Synergist, Saboteur and Medic), Lightning is only proficient in Commando, Ravager and Medic.  What this means is that, when you get the ability to actually buy into the Synergist, Saboteur and Sentinel trees, you're use to spending around 3,000 to 6,000 CP for a modest increase to your stats and a higher-end ability which eventually goes up to 12,000 CP, but they're on rather large discs, so the spread goes over-time.  When you look at the first disc for, say, Sentinel, it's no surprise that it starts off as a tiny disk as you're probably use to in starting off.  What -is- surprising, is that the four or five bubbles on that disk, for like HP+15, Magic +3, etc. cost the same 3,000-6,000 you're used to spending for three times that benefit.  And those small discs?  That's all there is.  To the very top of the tree.  You learn maybe a third of the skills that someone who is proficient in the class will learn and the attribute bonuses never get good.  For exorbitant CP costs all the while.

Beyond it just working out that some characters are just awful at some classes by design, the other problem with the Crystarium is that it's wholly and completely limited.  The Crystarium 'unlocks' at like four different points in the game, through which you get to go up a couple disks, to getting the 'other' primary classes, to eventually being able to go into any tree, as mentioned, to having full access to the whole of it in post-game.  Two completely arbitrary limits on a system that, again, is based on a system built around versatility is missing the entire point and is, in fact, -counter- to the point, and just shows that it wasn't thought-out well in terms of its own design.  It was thought out in terms of the 'narrative', which is what governs the first half of the game unquestionably.  There's many ways that it could've been done better without simply copying the Sphere Grid, like just....making sure everybody gets the same, but cramming it all into the post-game update if that was even necessary or something, and Squeenix just didn't think of any while the game was being made and it showed in a rather unfortunate way.

Pick a Focus (hurr hurr) and Stick With It

This, for all my praise of FFXIII's narrative and story (so, like, the Nautilus part basically) is the single-most frustrating part of the game simply because it had the chance to be the best -part- of the game and utterly and completely wasted it.  You see, Final Fantasy XIII is like a bad novel in that you don't even have to worry about the plot holes or anything, because they writers completely and totally failed to keep consistency in the important bits, the things you'll notice, that anyone with a brain will notice, and they introduce a lot of things at the start that seem cool and interesting, but are relegated to fluff because they're completely and totally overlooked and -gone- by the second half of it all.  What remains, even, is something that lacks exposition of any kind and is just....well, not good.  By and large because at that point, you simply have accepted that what is is because simply that's what it is, since the game refuses to expose any of its intimate details unto you within its own narrative.  (By the by, anything that's explained in the datalog can go fuck itself.  TALK ABOUT IT IN THE GAME.)

The most irksome thing is pretty much what the entire foundation of the game itself rests on:  the Fal'Cie and their relationship with humans.  The Fal'Cie are pretty much the primary focus of the game in a very, very roundabout what and the telling part of just how much they're not explained is that I played the entire game and I cannot tell you what a fucking Fal'Cie is.  They're 'Gods' of some sort, apparently, I got that much, but you're given no explanation into their existence other than "The Maker made them", and there's very little there to allow you to understand why the do what they do.  And what they do is turn human beings into l'Cie which are, basically slaves, for a single purpose - a 'Focus'.  Only that 'Focus' is apparently only given to l'Cie in a hazy, hard-to-remember dream that they have to then remember and then carry out.  Needless to say, a lot of l'Cie are created and few succeed in their task.  'So what happens when they fail?', I hear you ask, since there are a lot of failures.  Simple answer?  I don't fucking know.

At the start, the game sits you down and tells you that l'Cie have one of two things to look forward to:  either they complete their Focus and are granted eternal life within crystal, or they fail to complete their Focus in the time they have and they turn into monsters known as Cie'th.  Now, at this point, you probably recognize the term Cie'th because there are Cie'th stones on Pulse.  Apparently, these Cie'th stones are people who were Cie'th so long that instead of getting killed by the wildlife there that exists solely to murder you, they became stones that forever agonized their inability to complete their Focus, and that single-mindedness can be heard by other l'Cie who are close enough, which translates into you completing their Focus for them which does nothing.  They don't un-stone, they don't un-crystal, they simply float there forever and offer you the chance to re-murder the unique entity that they were supposed to kill and failed to do.  Some of them allow you to teleport to other Cie'th stones.  I don't even know what the fuck.

So, I mean, I guess l'Cie become Cie'th and then die or not die for long enough to become stones that float around for eternity.  I don't know.  I don't really even care anymore, since I am so let down by what the perception of what Fal'Cie and l'Cie were when the game started explaining them.  You see, with the way the game was describing Fal'Cie, I was expecting these all-powerful humans that could enthrall Humans, binding them with magic to a task, something like a Vampire and their ghouls.  And you know what?  Blah blah, nobody likes Vampires, but that would've been cool.  So when the game was like "Hey, we're about to go meet a Fal'Cie" I was so very, very excited.  I was wondering just what one looked like, and wondered if it would end up being the main antagonist of the game, or would be like a mid-boss or something like that.  I was incredibly curious about it, is the point, so I rushed forward to take a gander, expecting something really cool.

It was not cool.

What I ended up running into was a giant machine that I beat mercilessly to no avail because after the fight, in a cutscene, it sort of kind of transformed into something and used giant energy tentacles to brand the party and blah blah blah.  It sucked.  It was completely uninspired, and in no way, shape or form was I ready to expect a machine, and I -guess- that's a plot twist maybe or something, it still sucked.  The worst part of it?  You never see that Fal'Cie again.  In the entire game.  That's just one example of how completely and totally flubbed the whole Fal'Cie thing was in the entire game, and believe me, there are plenty, plenty more of them.  I'm sure you don't doubt that whatsoever.  And that's how just about every important plot point is handled, in that you get the barest hints of what's going on and absolutely nothing else, so that you can't even really figure out what's going on.  Not to mention that some of the things the game -does- tell you with a level of certainty are, sometimes, completely and totally circumvented by things that happen later on.  It doesn't know where it stands, so you have that much less chance of knowing that very fact yourself, and that's just poor all around.

Hilariously, I stand by my assertion that there -is- a good game within Final Fantasy XIII, but as you can see, it's buried under a mess of trouble and poor craftsmanship.  For that reason, there's just no way it can be expected to shine, and that's a real shame.  There are even a couple of other points I probably could've gone on at length over, and may yet some other night, but I think this is enough elaboration for now, since these are, in no uncertain terms, very big issues in themselves.  I suppose my only defense in stating that I liked FFXIII is that the verve I speak about the game, and the clear amount of thought I've put into it suggests that I feel deeply for it and because I can't love it for its faults, I can hate it for what it could've been but wasn't.  The funny thing is that, these issues here that I have, the vast majority of the internet (I think) will tell you have been fixed in Final Fantasy XIII-2 and that XIII-2 is fun, where XIII was not.  And it seems easy to consider, right?  I mean, they couldn't get it more wrong a second time, right?

If you said "right", then you haven't been paying attention.  But that?  That is a topic for another night.

Let's Chat About the PASBR Roster

So, I still really like PASBR and I'm quite a few characters in now, precisely ten stories down if I'm being direct and having that realization made it quite easy to figure out something else to speak on concerning the game.  One of the biggest bones of contention a lot of people are taking with the game is the roster which is all at once understandable, yet at the same time, I personally think it's fine for a first effort.  You're not going to please everybody, so your main goal is just to please -enough- people and the blend of old and new that Sony managed to pull off with PASBR is very, very good at doing just that since I don't think you can honestly show the roster to somebody who has played a lot of Playstation without them favoring at least one character, much less multiples.  PaRappa the Rapper, Sir Daniel Fortesque and Spike are really there for the old faithful at least, and then you have the new kids on the block like Nathan Drake and Cole to represent the new generation.  It does a really good job of it in my opinion, but a lot of people don't agree with me and I have to sort of wonder at the why, since some of it is more understandable than others.

The bulk of the complaints seem to be directed at Fat Princess who is certainly an outlier in the line-up compared to the rest.  At the same time, however, the game is all about honoring characters that have had a big deal with Playstation one way or another and there's no denying that for any of the other characters.  The thing with Fat Princess however is that the game -was- a big deal....when it came out in 2009 to the entirely too small audience that the PS3 had in the Digital-Onlly Scene in comparison to XBLA.  Basically back then, it was 'the' game to get since it was the new original game for PSN, only for PSN that joined a whole roster of titles that numbered in the teens, probably.  So unless you were 'there' and you got it 'then', then yes, I can understand why it's significance is lost on you, and I am really trying to not sound like a hipster, but I am failing miserably at it so just try and think of that in terms that aren't horribly condescending.  It helps that the game was pretty damn good too.  I'll need to make a mental note to do something with it in the future since I imagine a lot of people haven't experienced it.

The other real outlier here, to me, is Big Daddy since Bioshock....well, it's not a Playstation-exclusive, nor has it been entirely too Playstation-friendly, really.  I mean, yeah, it's improved some with Irrational Games buddying up with Sony for some bare-bones extra Infinite stuff (I think it supports Move?  Maybe?) plus a Bioshock Vita game that we better get, Levine, but the original Bioshock was released for PS3 a year late with a not-perfect port and Bioshock 2 was just lucky to have a simultaneous release.  Still, I guess it was a big deal when Bioshock was announced for PS3, and Big Daddy is by and large the most iconic figure from the series I would assume, even if all three games are in different times/eras or something, I honestly really haven't played a lot of Bioshock because I don't like it.  (Don't hurt me, Chance)  So he works, but he's definitely on the shakiest ice out of everybody in my opinion.  I wouldn't be too surprised if, in the case that there's a sequel (there better be) Big Daddy didn't make the roster for that one.  But that's a year or so in the future at least, so no need to think on it too much now.

So, if you're not complaining about who is on the roster, you're likely complaining about just who isn't and that's entirely fair.  There's some glaring oversights here and I'm sure we can all attribute that directly to the respective IP holders being gigantic assholes.  After all, Sony has no rights over any of the big-name Third-party characters you expect, even if their origins were on the original Playstation and helped bring the system to prominence.  Indeed, the two companies that really hold all the power here are Squeenix and Activision, neither of whom are really....known for playing nice without tons of money being involved or, in Squeenix's case, if they're really really desperate because of poor decisions in the past.  Lara Croft, every Final Fantasy character you love or hate, and possibly even Gex (you remember Gex, right?  No?  err...) are under the umbrella of Squeenix whereas Activision has their claws into Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon and are doing absolute dick with both of them.  Shut up about Skylanders, you don't even main as Spyro, he's just fodder in the game.

A theory that makes a whole hell of a lot of sense that's floating around there is that both companies were waiting for the Paid DLC portion of the post-release, since profits are much more generous for DLC than they would be for an inclusion in the base game.  I don't know if that's actually true, but look at the two companies, look at that reason, and see if you're not tempted to believe that shit at face value.  Because I am.  I am running with that and I am not stopping until someone points out conclusive proof that points to otherwise.  Or....we don't see Cloud/Squall/Lightning/Lara/Crash/Spyro/Someone show up as paid DLC.  But even then, we can just assume talks fell through and the companies just resumed being gigantic assholes.  Because they totally are.  Still, it's clear that there's going to be quite a bit of DLC for the game which I welcome whole-heartedly, and it's going to begin with Free DLC that brings Kat from Gravity Rush and Emmett Graves from Starhawk, who is also known as "That dude from Starhawk", into the fray.  Beyond that, extra costumes, stages, unlockables and the like are all expected and they'll most likely be a blend of free and paid.  I'll have a hard time resisting throwing money at whatever comes for PASBR, because I really do like it that much and I want more of it.  Looking forward to it!