Defender of the iPhone

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“Surprised, but nonetheless excited” is probably the best way to describe my reaction the other day when I got a random email from Cinemaware stating that “they were back!” and also that they were released a new port of my old Amiga favorite, Defender of the Crown for the iPhone. Having really been getting into playing the classic version of Final Fantasy on my iPhone lately, I’m always up for another dose of nostalgia!

That said, after actually playing the ported game, I guess I’m somewhat less excited.

The problem is basically that this is a very lazy port – they literally didn’t change any of the controls, despite moving from a 14″ screen with a mouse and keyboard to a 3″ screen with neither. The worst is the cursor control itself – as opposed to being able to touch and select menu items, your finger just moves the mouse cursor just like it did on the Amiga version back in 1986. I mean, this is very literally an exact port from the Amiga version, whereas a couple of minor modernization tweaks would’ve done wonders for the gameplay.

The other thing that stuck me as odd was the sizable Amiga emulator banner along the bottom of the screen – you can unfortunately see it quite prominently in each and every one of the screen grabs below, and frankly, there’s just too little screen space to begin with on a mobile device to be giving anything up to advertisements or whatever. It’s the same reason that I paid the couple of bucks for Words with Friends – I just don’t want to trip over that kind of stuff when I’m gaming on a mobile phone.

Oh yeah, and also unlike how Final Fantasy made a major change to their save system to allow the ability to basically pause anywhere, not so much with Defender of the Crown – exiting the game at any point means you’re starting over from the beginning, introductory text that you’re unable to speed through and all…

It’s too bad, really – I used to love this game and it could’ve been a neat, nostalgic little port from 25 years ago, but instead its painfully obvious that this was a bare-bones, shortest route to the iTunes store project that’ll be happy with the $2.99 from anyone who they’re able to trick into downloading this based on great memories. The game still looks great for its age, but it’s just not really playable in its new format, which is an absolute shame because they could’ve done something really special with this timeless classic instead of just taking the easy way to a few quick bucks.

The Fraggle Light Warriors level up a notch…

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I always loved this part in particular – the class change always felt like such a big accomplishment, like becoming a man … at least in Final Fantasy terms. I kind of like the updated graphics that they did for this scene, too – feels straight out of Final Fantasy 2 (IV), with the exception that you don’t actually have to fight Bahamut this time to prove your valor…

That’ll be Sir Gobo from now on!

Kary, errr, Marilith falls?

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This fiend put up a little more of a fight, but honestly not really much – mainly because she actually had attacks that hit the entire party, whiereas the wuss that is Lich was only making a single attack on a single party member each turn.

I’m really starting to pick up on a lot of the changes from the NES original as I get deeper into the game, though – as I mentioned last time, the difficulty settings seem to be completely different – I don’t know if I broke 20th level until the very end of the game with the original, and yet my party is rapidly approaching 30 in this version. I also can’t help but notice that the hit points are a lot higher now then they used to be (i.e. Kary had 600 HP on the NES, now 1200 HP on the iPhone version). That said, it can probably simply be chalked up to the more is better factor, along with a healthy helping of trying to keep the series somewhat in sync – the damage and levels are more in range with the rest of the series just like a Life potion is now called a Phoenix Down, even though those weren’t introduced until FF3 (VI)…

A lot of the names of things have been changed, both items and monsters, which can get a little confusing for some of us purists (i.e. I actually prefer Fire1/Fire2/Fire3 vs. Fira/Firaga/Firaja), and it’s kind of weird seeing a main boss like Kary, the Fiend of Fire, here, renamed to something entirely different!

One change that I absolutely do like, however, is the concept of magic points (MP) instead of only being able to cast a set number of spells for each level at a time. That was always such a pain in the butt to manage that often times I never used my magic for fear that I was “wasting it,” plus now you can just pop an Ether to regain MP, which is actually pretty affordable at my current level.

Also something that I mentioned before, but I really like the ability to save basically anywhere, too, simply because I can get in a quick five minutes here and there, whereas 20 years ago this was one of those classic “Just five more minutes – I’ve gotta save it!” games when you were only allowed to save at an Inn (not even on the world map, like I misspoke earlier – that didn’t come until later games!).

One thing I’ll be curious to explore more later – shortly after my battle here with Kary/Marilith, in searching for the Ice Cave I accidentally stumbled upon what is apparently one of the new challenge dungeons that was added with the remake. I guess they’re supposed to be super-hard and feature bosses from some of the other Final Fantasy games, so it should be interesting to see what comes of those … will I just get absolutely slaughtered, or will these actually prove to just be more of a challenge now that the game itself seems a little easier than it was before?

But more on that later – I’ve got a class change to earn!

How long should a car last?

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I know I’ve ranted about auto repairs in the past, so just bear with me on this one…

I just picked my car up from the shop about an hour ago – they were doing an “estimate” for my little squeaky air conditioner folley that first began to rear its ugly head last month, and unfortunately I was already expecting a hefty toll for that … and yet instead I came back with a whole laundry list of crap to be done:

  • sqeaky AC (replace compressor) – $760
  • replace front brakes (pads & rotors) – $296
  • replace rear brakes (pads only) – $160
  • replace front & rear shocks & struts – $965
  • replace tires – $416
  • flush random stuff – $275
  • GRAND TOTAL – $3,400 (after tax)

Surprisingly enough, I don’t exactly have over three grand just laying around, so I guess I’m going to have to just pick away at the list a little at a time, with a safety-based priority … which sucks because I live in Florida and AC is not an option, it’s a necessity! I know, technically so is being able to stop the car, and the AC is still working now – it just makes some ugly noises, although I asked what the worst that could happen if I just let the noises go and the shop’s response was, “I don’t know – it could just kill your AC, or it could kill your alternator, too.”

Wonderful – that one wasn’t even on the list yet!

Anyways, the actual point of this whole rant wasn’t so much to complain about the bill itself, but more so the need for all of these repairs in the first place. My car is a 2006 Chrysler Sebring, which I bought in 2007. I’ve only had the thing for four years and I’ve still got over a year of payments left to make on it, so I just can’t help but wonder how long should a vehicle actually last when you’re dropping tens of thousands of dollars on it?! I mean, I already had a nightmare with Chrysler about this car not long after I bought it because they refused to honor the warranty when the AC was leaking all over the floor and ruined the carpet on the passenger side, but frankly, it doesn’t really make a very convincing argument for buying American if this crap isn’t even going to last until we’re done paying the thing off!!!

Of course, it doesn’t help that this whole avalanche is all coming down at once – just the AC alone would’ve hurt us for about a month or so, but that whole list is going to set us back for the rest of the year easily, all the while keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn’t have any more problems on top of these in the near future. Maybe I just don’t have reasonable expectations – the car has 80,000 miles on it right now, so I don’t expect it to be pristine five years after leaving the factory, but honestly, I’ve already put a couple of thousand into this thing for repairs even before this – did I just get stuck with a lemon?

Not that Chrysler will even be around when I go to buy my next car anyways, but I’m definitely going to have to consider my other options when it comes time to replace this one in a few years … if it even makes it that long.

an old muppet look, and a new muppet critique…

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So I found this really old clip of Jim Henson (and a few friends!) appearing on Arsenio Hall after wandering away from listening to previews of The Green Album* earlier today, and the whole clip is just a lot of fun! This would’ve been circa 1990, so it’s literally one of the last appearances he did before passing away that spring.

I thought it was kind of neat to see that although the camera man did a very good job of keeping the camera zoomed in on Kermit when he was speaking, every once in a while he would pan in and you’d catch a glimpse of Jim talking under his breath, and up until now I’m not sure I can remember ever seeing the two on camera at the same time!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1-PwZltH8E&feature=player_embedded

*P.S. As for The Green Album, I listened to a few previews and so far … not really impressed. Mind you, this is mainly based on Ok Go’s weird version of the theme song, Amy Lee’s Halfway Down the Stairs, Sondre Lerche’s Mr. Bassman, and Rachael Yamagata’s rendition of I’m Going to Go Back There Some Day (one of my favorite Muppet songs of all-time) – all in all, there are a dozen tracks on the album, so maybe I need to check out the others still, but so far I just didn’t like where it was heading – too much adaptation on what are truly classic songs in my eyes.

Maybe if I get a chance, I’ll download the full album and do a better review next week, but in the meantime I’m just hoping that this isn’t an early warning of what to expect out of the new movie itself…

LEGOs on display

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I have too many LEGOs.

Well, not too many – you can never really have too many LEGOs, but I guess too many for the space that I have might be a better way to phrase it! Maybe not quite as many as I had growing up (yet), but upon receiving yet another new set for my birthday, I can’t help but notice that I’m starting to amass quite a number of big sets that just require a lot of shelf space upon completion, which unfortunately is something that right now in my current office I just don’t have…

Currently I have everything just scattered anywhere I can find room – some have their own dedicated book shelves, others (like the extraordinarily dusty Batmobile) share a squeezed space with books and random trinkets, and my collectible minifigs, you can see, have taken up residence on a stray corner of my desk. I’m not really sure what I want to do, but I almost feel like I need some shelves dedicated to LEGOs at this point – at the same time I’m trying to avoid my office feeling super cluttered, which it has a tendency to do so as I’ve found over the years!

Growing up I had a series of maybe four or five long shelves mounted over my bed … I remember this because in my later years, I occasionally hit my head on them from time to time! They were pretty good at keeping my sets intact, however – maybe not as viewable displays, but at the time at least it was an alternative to taking them back apart. I had a monorail, space stations, trains, castles…

As it stands today, I have probably half a dozen different sets or “displays,” with the notable exception that I actually do care more about the display factor because I don’t exactly “play” with them like I used to! One option I’ve thought about is a long shelf that circles the room just above eye-height – the only problem is, I do have some book shelves and pictures on the walls that would conflict with this. I don’t really have room for an entire dedicated bookcase … unless I just ditch a lot of books altogether! … but maybe some smaller, randomly placed shelves would do.

Unless I can find wall real estate elsewhere in the house, which unfortunately where we live today is already in high demand, I either need to figure out something in my own office or stop buying LEGOs altogether for a while, and since the latter of the two definitely isn’t going to happen, well, let’s just say that I’m open to suggestions at this point!

Are you an adult LEGO collector? How do you display your collection???

Happy Birthday to Me!

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Needless to say, between last weekend’s trip to Disney, the amazing peanut butter cake (below) crafted lovingly by my wife, and handfuls of LEGOs spread all around my office (and some still in boxes waiting to be assembled), 31 turned out to be a pretty good birthday. Here’s to hoping that the rest of my 30s treat me half as well as the first two years have thus far…

Lich defeated!

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In the past I always hated fighting this guy, probably because he’s the first real boss that you fight in the game … and also a little bit just because it takes soooo looooong to get through this first part of the game, whereas for some reason it really starts to pick up after this one and soon enough we’ll be re-igniting orbs left and right! Still, I don’t know if it’s just the experience of being 30 instead of 12 this time around, but the fight seemed a lot easier than it was before.

I know that they made some significant changes to the difficulty levels, which I’ll talk about more in a separate post, but in the meantime it does make me wonder – is level 20+ in this new system just way too tough for Lich to handle, or has the Fiend of Earth gone a little soft in his old age???