Media circus

What is it that this woman does not understand? Nobody is banning you from wearing your bloody cross while on work. They are just requesting you to hide it under your garment. The problem isn't about her right to be with her religion (I say that with a shudder), but her attempt to preach:

"It is important to wear it to express my faith so that other people will know that Jesus loves them."

Like I gave a damn about whether a dead guy I never met loves me. Wear your cross all you want, but also abide by your employers' rules by wearing them inside. This whole media circus is sickening, but is partly to do with BA's hypocritical attitude as well.

Thankfully we will have another media circus to moan about. Attention seeker David Blaine is attempting to... well I can't be bothered to type it all down. David, we used to watch your street magic on the telly. If you want to continue with stunts rather than continue with magic tricks, why not do it here? Surely in merry ol' London you will have a hell a lot more media attention, what with the Londoners way of greeting the likes of you.

Technorati tags: Organised Religion David Blaine

Final Fantasy III DS remake review

Fans of old school Final Fantasy RPGs knows what to expect when they unwrap that shrinkwrap that adorns a newly purchased Final Fantasy classic - deformed characters, knights and wizards, fantasy setting, airships, kawaii protagonists etc. And lucky for many of us, Squenix did a faithful remake of a game, that has been absent from any sort of official English release for 16 years. And no, they did not replace the four orphaned characters with Cloud-like emo characters. Thankfully.

Final Fantasy III DS begins with an earthquake, which causes protagonist Luneth to fall into the Altar Cave nearby the village of Ur, where he grew up. After battling a number of burly enemies, he is summoned by the Wind Crystal, who immediately tasked him the extreme burden of saving the world. Rounding up his fellow Warriors of Light team, Luneth and his new mates set off, exploring the floating continent in which they live, and attempting to restore balance to the world.

First impressions counts and when Final Fantasy III DS is booted, a nice pre-rendered clips opens the game. FMV clips are all good but pre-rendered clips doesn't mean squat to gameplay and thankfully Square Enix decided to only limit the FMV to the intro, and instead put more effort into retooling the in-game engine. Here we have something similar to that of Final Fantasy IX - with all those cute super deformed characters. Character designs, while in 3D now, are still positively 'Famicom like'.

FF III has never been a character driven game (those are reserved for even numbered Final Fantasy games - applies only to pre-Playstation era) but for the DS remake, the developers added background stories and personalities to each of the four protagonists. You do get a surly character, but be thankful that at least he isn't an emo nut. Even then FF III DS is first and foremost a technical RPG, and not the plot driven melodramatic narrative is could have been.

The graphics here are fantastic and I am glad that Squenix has decided to retain the deformed look. Facial animations and expressions on our cute little characters are even evident during cut scenes (which uses the game engine). All characters are in full 3D and the surrounding areas are a mixture of pre-rendered sprites and polygons (with lovely textures). The developers at Matrix Software really took advantage of everything the DS has to offer. The only complaint I had was, in order to get things smoothly, top screen is switched off for most of the time. It would have been nice to have either a dungeon map/stat page on the top (like Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow).

Battle system is still old school menu driven turn based combat, which could potentially put people off (especially those introduced to the series during the PS era). Some has complained that Square Enix did not bother to update the combat system to reflect that of more modern Final Fantasy games, or that it is too difficult (mainly by western reviewers). I have to admit I was never a huge fan of menu driven combat games but with FF III and it's whole loads of customisation, I really embraced it. Battles can be hard at first (not helped by not featuring a save system in the dungeons), especially with those irksome random battles, but hei, you do need to level up. The game can also be played with either stylus or face buttons.

The job system is most impressive. Supposedly overhauled from the original 8-bit version, FF III DS features (as Squenix marketing maintained in an EGM ad I saw) 279,841 possible party configurations. As many of you know the job system debuted in FF III and I am glad that Square Enix only tinkered with it slightly, by balancing the system and adding a couple of new jobs. You do get penalties for switching jobs but only for the first few battles. It is complex and frustrating, but it is also an utterly addictive system which rewards players with results.

So is Final Fantasy III worth the 16 year wait? You bet. This is a great return to the old school fantasy pre-PlayStation RPG we all love, and a fine example of how not to screw up a remake. If Square Enix plans to remake more games (Chrono *cough* Trigger) then they should do so with the same loving care as they applied on this. Import this today.

9/10

Buy now from Play-Asia or Amazon UK

Update: Check out this chibi Final Fantasy III toys!

Stanmer Down bike ride again + Casino Royale thingy

Went to Ditchling Beacon again today. Great weather (up till mid afternoon). There was also a cycling competition down at Stanmer Park through the hilly hills - using road bikes with knobbly tires. Weird. I am glad that there were many other ordinary MTBers out today as well.







Met Marcus and Sybille at the Beacon. They biked from Lewes. Marcus has a fab new bike, a Canyon (Internet only German frame builder) Nerve XC full-susser. Looks fantastic and the kits that came with it were pretty decent. Highlights includes Manitou branded front and rear fork, Shimano XT rear and front mech, Deore shifters and cranks etc. You can't find sub £1000 FS bikes in the UK with that sort of components. Doesn't change that my dream bike is still either a Kona Kula Primo or Specialized Stuntjumper Pro though. ;)

Also watched Casino Royale. Summary: Above average film (though a bit too long) but a bad Bond film nonetheless. Okay, the film is supposed to explore the origins of James Bond. But somehow Daniel Craig's edgy version of James Bond came out as unlikeable thug. And the villains were such whimps - lame! Bring back Pierce is all I can say. Savvy, cool, smooth, clever and a gentleman were all I ever associate with the modern Bond. Now I have to include thuggish, smug, prat, childish etc. to it while deleting many of the many positive aspects usually associated with Britain's top fictional spy.

Go Happy Feet.

Technorati tags: Stanmer Brighton Ditchling Beacon MTB Bike Ride James Bond Casino Royale

Nintendo Wii first impressions

Tried the Wii out today with four games - The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, WarioWare, Wii Sports and Wii Play. The new Zelda looked amazing and despite rendering only in 576p, looked 'next-gen' to me. Not as great as those high-res PC games but still looked amazing.

From what I noticed I think Nintendo is on a win here. Most of those who crowded around to give the Wii a shot were parents with young kids. Never have I seen parents actually sit down and play video games with their children. And all of them were loving it, so it seems Nintendo's strategy of targeting adults and 'casual gamers' are working. The 'hardcore gamers' were crowding the Zelda set, but they were also having fun with Wii Sport (free in the UK) and Wii Play.

The WiiMote is amazingly small, yet heavy enough to be comfortable. If Ninty plays their cards right, they can actually win this 'casual gamers' argument and take the next gen crown. The Wii deserves nothing less.

Technorati tags: Nintendo Wii Zelda Twilight Princess

Tabloid style ranting

Good to know that the Church of England is still capable of making pointless and crazy statements. I thought with the liberal Rowan Williams they have become fairly rational and maybe capable of leaving us non-believers alone. Not so thanks to Dr John Sentamu, the archbishop of York, who thinks he can wade in and put his 2 penny piece of trash talk - first by attacking seculars and then chipping in his opinion that Muslim women should not wear veil. Actually it was something I agree with, but for a different reasons to his. He is an anglican archbishop, so his views are already biased anyway. It's not like people are clamoring for the banning of crosses, dog collars, jewish skull caps (and side burns), catholic nun uniforms, buddhists robes etc. are they now?

And please please stop the attack on TV and the BBC. The BBC is the only network who continues broadcasting live religious sermons from churches on Sundays and is where most of us see the inside of a church - like ever.

I see that Mayor Ken is planning to kill of Chelsea tractors by charging residents 25 quid a day on congestion charge. Wonderful. It is about time somebody took action against these practically useless vehicles. I have never seen why many Londoners would even need a 4x4 (just like I can't see the point of owning a 4"-6" full sussers as a commuting bike - but at least they don't pollute) when most of them are owned by "soccer mums" for the purpose of school runs. 4x4 has its uses - in the countryside! But not in the city.

Games Games Games

I am going to blog about games today.

I can never understand why people bother to play FPS games on consoles. F.E.A.R. was just released on the 360 and why ruin the experience with a bog-standard pad, when you can get the PC version (now cheap) and run it down with a good old WASD+mouse combo. I did give the N64's Goldeneye a go before and it was an okay game (flame me) - but even with its then-revolutionary analog stick, the N64 pad was not cut it for FPS games. It is like trying to play Quake on an IBM laptop with its nipple mouse.

Developers try to compensate with the lack of precision with built-in auto lock, but in my experience it is usually hit and miss. So far nothing I have tried - PS pad, Dreamcast, GameCube etc. has changed my mind on joypads. They work well on third person mode (eg. Resident Evil 4), 2D and racing games. I think I would prefer to keep my PC just a bit longer for that odd shooter - at least until competent shooters arrive on the Wii platform.

I have serious game withdrawal now, having completed Gyakuten Saiban 2, and getting stuck in Seiken Densetsu: Children of Mana. Speaking of DS games, the new NFS: Carbon is much better than the two previous and rather dreadful DS build. Not something I would plok down £30, or even £20 for, but at least it is a vast improvement. I still won't be getting it. I don't 'get' all the drifting culture and I absolutely hate the soundtrack. I guess the last true NFS game I truly enjoyed was NFS: Porsche Unleased before they started concentrating on all the Underground crap.

I was also down at HMV Haymarket the other day. They have serious issues when it comes to ripping people off. An example would be £30 they were asking for Brain Training. Other stores, and indeed other HMVs are selling them for the recommended £20 (which is still a rip-off when you can import it for less).

Stanmer Down trail map

Having a blogger's block, so I thought of a way to keep my blog updated without resorting to some sort of diatribe. Haha.



Here is a map of a loop that we love to ride during weekends when we are too lazy to go somewhere else but just want to get on the saddle. We usually ride the extra 3.5 miles from Jenni's place to the starting point outside University of Sussex, but it is also accessible by train (Falmer Station). If you are driving, there are car parks at Stanmer Park and Ditchling Beacon (top right corner).


Screenshots based on maps reproduced from Ordnance Survey 1: 25,000 mapping © Crown copyright. All rights reserved.

The track, at nine miles, is fairly short and simple - though there are plenty of ascents and scenic views over the Weald to look forward to. If this isn't enough, you can always continue westwards of Ditchling Beacon towards Devil's Dyke and do another loop there. ;)



In other news, a mate lent me Feels by Animal Collective. I copied the tracks to my portable DAP but soon forgot about it. I was listening to the Gyakuten Saiban Orchestra album yesterday and dozed off midway (I was in a coach). It reached the end and started playing the first folder it found, which was Animal Collective. I woke up and found tracks after tracks simply amazing. Not sure how to describe it so I thought I would pinch some of Amazon UK's review: "Feels is a big, daring collection with recurring themes of psychedelia, folk-rock, prog-rock, jazz, and modern classical composition." This is just fantastic stuff.

Technorati tags: MTB Mountain Biking Bike Trail South Downs South Downs Way Stanmer Down Falmer Ditchling Beacon Animal Collective

MTB Bike Ride: Cuckoo Trail

Went down to Polegate today with Jenni and Tony and did the Cuckoo Trail. The trail begins at Polegate and passes through Hailsham, Hellingly, Horam and Heathfield and is built on the original Cuckoo Line (opened in 1880) Polegate to Eridge railway track. Shared by walkers and horseriders, the Cuckoo Trail is now also part of the National Cycle Network 21 and takes you from East Sussex to the Weald.

The trail is about 11 miles each way and there are plenty of benches around as well as wood carvings based on local wildlife. The route is pretty easy as the trail is mainly flat and mostly tarmacked, and for much part, riders are protected from the hailing wind due to the surrounding Wealden trees. There is a slight ascent when riding north towards Heathfield. Generally we found the route much easier when cycling southwards back towards Polegate - but maybe that's because we had lunch at the local pub in Heathfield. The weather was lovely today as the Northern wind did not arrive until much later. But I do need to get a pair of full finger winter mitts. We love the trail, it is fairly easy and therefore a perfect trail to speed through. We would definitely do again - probably in Spring when the birds are migrating.

The trail itself is signposted throughout but if you want to explore the surrounding area you would need either an Ordnance Survey Explorer 123 or Landranger 199 map.

Total: 26 miles (22 miles Cuckoo Trail, 4 miles in Brighton, Polegate and Heathfield)

An abandoned former railway station:





A former rail platform now makes up part of the Cuckoo Trail:





















Technorati tags: Cuckoo Trail Wealden Weald Polegate Bike Ride Cycling Bike Trail