Akting Out

I got into the Star Ocean franchise at The Second Story for the original Playstation. I still consider it the second greatest RPG of all time (Final Fantasy VII being the first). I thought the story was phenomenal, very well-paced, and moved along by one of the best soundtracks I’ve ever heard in a video game.

What I really enjoyed was the characters and the relationships you could build with them. Nothing felt forced, how you got along with your party was completely up to you. I loved how your party members split off from you when you entered a town and did their own thing. I loved the aspect of building skills, and I found a lot of replay value in the amount of endings you could unlock.

So when I had the chance to pick up SO4, flush with the memories of my previous outing in this universe, I didn’t hesitate.
Sixty hours later, I find myself disappointed–without regretting the purchase.

The Last Hope is not a bad game, not by any standards, but there were a lot of areas where it fell unbelievably short. I have to start with the music, which just isn’t that good. You hear some classics later in the game, but there’s no sense of epic in the audio. In fact, it’s almost bad. The quality of the music and sound effects are fine, what you’d expect on the 360, but the selection is poor.

And the game is looooong-winded. Oh my God, this game has a lot to say. It could be something lost in translation, but the script feels high-handed and trite in a lot of places–and the voice acting feels forced, especially on the part of Edge Maverick (Edge Maverick. We’ll get to him, believe that.). Blessedly, you have the option of foregoing some cutscenes. SO4 comes off as preachy and heavy-handed. In some cases, it’s just plain boring. Bioware does a much better job telling their stories.

I enjoyed the characters, even if they take a long time to make their point. I don’t understand the point of naming your character for the sake of the subtitles, especially if your name change isn’t going to be reflected in speech. The ending is very, very satisfying, and there are a couple of twists I genuinely didn’t see coming. The characters have good chemistry and work well together, but I was disappointed to find that you could no longer pair two character together at the game’s ending. Rather, Square-Enix decided to show you individual character endings based on who you spent the most time with, and who you developed the best relationships with. Nice, but I can’t see investing another sixty hours into this game just to learn what happened to the others. This, to me, was the biggest letdown.

Edge Maverick. I have never wanted to slap a main character like I have this guy. First, they named him Edge Maverick. Forgivable, but you expect someone with that kind of name to have a pair. Not so much. Half the game, this guy is whining and the other, he’s screaming. I don’t think it was the actor’s fault; he may have done the best he could. Edge’s script just isn’t that good, and his character, well…his character is poorly conceived.

Well, I’ve spent about five hundred words tearing this game apart, and I told you that I didn’t regret the purchase. So you may be wondering why I recommend this game in a recession.

The battle system is awesome. Extensive character customization means you can have a four-man army on the field. Put two melee characters together and you can set up super combos a la Shenmue; timing the button presses right. Perfect combos can result in over seventy thousand points of damage.

The game is gorgeous; Sqaure Enix did wonders with the 360′s graphics processor. I would’ve liked to see lip-synching, but it’s not that big a deal. I’m always impressed when the change from real-time to prerendered is almost imperceptible.

There’s loads to do. Sixty hours is how long it may take to cover the basics of this game, but if you were to go through and try to unlock everything (and I will, eventually) then you’re probably looking at eighty hours of gameplay.

The story is good. It may be long-winded, but it isn’t bad, and quite a few moments stay with you throughout. The climax is heart-wrenching, even if you saw it coming.

I think Star Ocean 4 is a great way to close the series. I would recommend purchasing it used (or at a discount price) unless the slow, deliberate pacing of Sqaure-Enix is your thing. Overall, it’s a good, but not a great, game.

(c) Avery K. Tingle for Akting Out LLC

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Two Days Ago.

Hell of a way to spend an Easter.
My hands are on my knees. I’m trying to control my breathing, and sweat is running down my forehead, into my eyes. The muscles in my arms feel like worn-out rubber bands; if I throw one more punch, they’ll snap and go lifeless.

But this choice is not mine. The woman I have knocked down twice now trots out to the center of the ring for the third and final round. She moves quickly, a spring in her step, as though I have not spent the past six-some-odd minutes turning her face into spaghetti sauce. Disgustingly, there’s not a mark on her.

I’ve fought ten straight; all victories, all by knockout, none going very far into the second round. No one has challenged me until now. But this woman, Sheila, she’s come out and absorbed everything I could throw out her. She then repaid my first knockdown by using a jab-cross-uppercut combo to send me promptly to the canvas. I had never been knocked down before.

But I got back up. We traded more punches, both nearing exhaustion, when we were saved by the bell. Check that; she was saved by the bell. I would’ve thrown punches till the end of time if it would’ve put her on her back.

But the third round is about to start. My shoulders ache and throb as I raise my hands to my face. The announcer starts the fight and I’m immediately on the defensive. Rules don’t seem to apply; I protect my face and she still slips that damn jab through. I try to sway and dodge and she stops me by sending a cannonball into my ribs. I feel it. I did not get enough of a reprieve in between rounds.

Come on. Focus. Think.
She makes a classic mistake and sends her jab too wide.I slip beneath it and send my own into the side of her face. She took it! She’s stunned!
I capitalize, following through with a cross. Another jab, and another, and another. Hard cross. She can’t keep up. Time to make my point. I send body blows crashing into her with such force that her hips appear to be dislocated. When she looks as though she will block low, I begin to pepper her face with jab-cross combos again. She’s against the ropes; she has no idea what to do.
Heavy body blow, heavy body blow, uppercut to the body, colossal uppercut to the chin. I put everything I have into the punch because I have nothing left.

Blessedly, she flops to the canvas. As she’s counted out, I try not to rest my hands on my legs. Part of me wants her to get up. The wiser part of me hopes she stays down.
The count reaches ten without her showing any signs of life, and I feel like Rocky Balboa after the last fight with Clubber Lang.

This was not a day in the street; I haven’t gone back to fighting. This was Wii Sports. Boxing, to be specific

Two days later, my entire body still aches as though I had the fight of my life. My blood sugar has noticeably dropped. I didn’t do anything but play a video game.

I’ve been playing video games for over twenty years, and I have never seen anything like this.
It hits me; Sony and Microsoft will never catch up. I wonder if they both know that; they’re fighting for second place, and maybe that’s why they felt the need to make their consoles total entertainment packages instead of dedicated gaming machines.

I won’t lie; I have never been Nintendo’s biggest fan, mostly because the family-friendly games that made up a lot of their library didn’t appeal to me, and the few MA games they had, well, they weren’t good (SNES Mortal Kombat, anyone?). When the wars were going on, I was one of Sega’s loyalists.

But as I have gotten older, although I never foresaw myself owning a Nintendo console, I have learned to respect Nintendo more and more. They do one thing; they do games, and they do it better than anyone else out there.

Not that I don’t love my 360, I do. But coming home to pad-gaming after literally punching my way to victory on the wii is one hell of a reality check. The way of the pad has begun its epilogue. Now, sure, we’ve had the Sega Activator and even the (ugh) Virtual Boy, but this is the first time we’ve ever had true, motion-sensing control as a mainstream method of interaction on a gaming console.

For Sony and Microsoft, it gets way worse, too; you can actually get into shape using the Wii! Screw a gym membership; pay roughly $350 for a console and a couple of boxing games, and it’s better than a morning run. I’m still bloody sore, for crying out loud.

Oh, that $350? That’ll buy you a new Wii and a couple of games. That will not get you a new PS3.

I love gaming, I love the culture, and I love waiting to see what happens next. I’d love to see how Sony and MS plan to keep up, because they have their work cut out for them.

For now, this is clearly Nintendo’s house.

(c) Avery K. Tingle for Akting Out LLC

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No one asked me for this advice. But I hope, if you’re reading this, and you find yourself in a similar situation, you take it to heart.

It’s almost public knowledge that I am not that close to my family. Reasons are pretty well-known. That’s not what this blog is about.

In the course of life, children grow up, and they realize that their parents are not always right. They realize that their parents do not, in fact, know everything. This can be a harsh transition phase for everyone involved, but most people weather it pretty well. It just happens; children outgrow their parents. It’s not the end of the relationship, but as children get older, they form their own views and opinions of the world, based on their experiences. As parents, our job is to give them a decent first impression, and back them up when they need the support. That’s what we do.

It doesn’t always go down this way, does it? Some of us know that all too well.
It’s a devastating reality check when you realize that one (or both) of your parents may not necessarily have your best interests at heart. It’s even worse when you learn to block out the opinion of those who’re supposed to be closer to you than anyone else.

That being said, most of you reading know the story of me and my father. I wasn’t the easiest child to raise. I don’t think I deserved everything I went through, but at the same time, I know I brought some of it on myself.

When you block out your own parents, you give up an important part of yourself, I realize. If you can’t trust your parents, then who the hell do you trust?

You learn to trust yourself.
When you come to realize that you are your own best resource, eventually you begin to shut the world out. you become a quick thinker and a great survivalist, but it is a lonely existence, and trust me, there are times when you would kill for a little human contact.

So many parent-child relationships are destroyed due to a simple lack of communication. You have two parties that speak entirely different languages, neither of them willing to sacrifice anything and simply meet in the fucking middle. I think it’s funny that a lot of us hope our children will end up just like us, and only when we’re angry with each other, do we realize that they have.

If you have a damaged relationship with your mother and father that can be saved by capitulating a little bit, then dammit, do it. Swallow the pride, because in the end, it doesn’t mean a damn thing. No matter your beliefs, you have this life, and in this life you have one set of people who raised you and did the best they could by you. Whatever has happened, is it so bad that you can’t remember how much you loved each other when you were all younger?

If you let things escalate to the point where neither of you wish to speak to each other, and you allow months to go by without contact…if you learn to block out your own family, you may regret it for the rest of your life.

Of course, they have to be willing to meet you halfway. That’s the point of a compromise; all parties involved have to admit that they don’t have all the answers.

If you can have a good relationship with your parents, then do it.
Sadly, this won’t apply to everybody.

But if you think it applies you to, then it probably does. Pick up the phone. Write a letter. Send an email. Use a fucking pigeon carrier if you have to. Do what you have to do.

You may not like the alternative. The dead cannot reciprocate an apology.

(c) Avery K. Tingle for Akting Out LLC

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The Known Universe, Volume 1, Issue 1.

(c) Avery K. Tingle for Akting Out LLC

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