PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360; £49.99; cert 16+; Square Enix

Life would be a lot simpler without expectations. Expectations lead to disappointment, disappointment leads to despair, and despair leads to you vowing never to watch an Indiana Jones film again.

This is why it was with some trepidation that I approached the task of reviewing Final Fantasy XIII, which is out next week. The series – particularly iterations seven and eight – has provided me with many of my most cherished gaming memories. The game itself, more than five years in the making, is one of the most anticipated releases of the past two or three years. How could it fail to disappoint?

The story follows fairly standard RPG conventions. You control a ragtag group of outcasts, granted special powers for mysterious reasons and charged with saving the world over 50-odd hours of battling, cutscenes and levelling up. Pretty standard stuff.

But what FF XIII achieves is to take this fairly conventional format and push it to its absolute limits. Never before has a game been so beautifully presented, a story as well structured or told, or a group of characters made so vivid and likeable.

The graphics are what immediately impress – it doesn’t take long to see that this was the game high-definition was made for. Stunning cutscene after stunning cutscene – both graphically and in terms of action direction – punctuate the intoxicating array of exotic locales you find on your journey. The colourful variety on offer, from the fluorescent blue PSICOM weapons facility to the lush greens of bucolic Pulse, is a breath of fresh air from the washed-out greys and greens that dominate the contemporary gaming palette.

The scenery and character detail in these sections is simply astounding. Never before in a game have I with such frequency stopped to swivel the camera around, simply to marvel at the landscape. Even the mercifully Leona Lewis-less soundtrack is top-notch: it’s effortlessly atmospheric and offers a number of pleasing tunes you’ll have to prevent yourself from whistling around the office.

Voice-acting and dialogue too is, on the whole, of the highest quality. The script has some lost-in-translation moments, but it’s hard to quibble with the game’s eccentricities. Sure, it’s never really explained why Sazh has a baby chocobo living in his afro, or why each character has such exquisitely coiffured hair – but little touches like these make the Final Fantasy series memorable and completely distinct from other franchises.

Most importantly, the gameplay itself is genuinely fun. The battle system – essentially a souped-up version of the turn-based system fans of the earlier games will be used to – requires both quick thinking and careful planning. It’s all well and good having a gorgeous game with cinema quality FMV, but it’s the exploring and scrapping that’ll keep you playing long into the night. I’ve voluntarily gone back to retry fights on several occasions – aside from any levelling up value, it’s just satisfying to get your tactics spot on and vanquish an opponent as quickly as possible.

FF XIII probably won’t please everybody. For starters, considerable patience and attention are required to make sense of the story and battle system in the early stages. It took me a good three to four hours just to work out the difference between a Fal’Cie and a L’Cie (god and warrior knight essentially, you’ll thank me later) let alone the uses of “Paradigm Shifts”, or the complicated weapons-upgrading system. Those looking for a quick thrill might be best off elsewhere.

What many will find hardest to accept about FF XIII, though, is its unflinching linearity. Bucking the recent vogue for sandbox games and western RPGs with multitudinous paths and endings, here you have no choice in how the story progresses. You don’t even get to choose which characters you battle with until you’re about 20 hours in.

There are (as far as I can tell) no hidden playable characters, and there’s little incentive to grind your way to the best weapons and accessories. After 30 hours or so the game does open up somewhat, allowing you to wander and battle to earn upgrades and valuable items – but this is the one area where the game feels lacking in comparison with previous efforts.

What this lack of freedom does mean, however, is that story and character are brought to the fore. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve laughed at Sazh’s asides, been gripped by the narrative’s twists and turns and moved by the foreshadowing flashbacks – the likes of Fallout 3 and GTA 4 never really achieved this level of emotional involvement. It’s not often in a game you can say you genuinely care about the characters.

Occasionally, just occasionally, things do live up to your expectations. Some things even surpass them – and, for fans of the series, Final Fantasy XIII does just that. While it may not be everyone’s cup of tea, if you can accept its minor limitations and give it a few hours to draw you in, it could well be one of the best games you’ve ever played.

Rating: 5/5

Games

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Jack Arnott

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The super-sized handheld is in shops today…

The 4.2 inch screens are a whopping 93 percent larger than those of the Nintendo DS Lite, the displays are beautifully bright and glossy and the combination of matt underside and gloss cover is a perfect marriage of style and gripping power. But will you be forking out the required £160 for a DS upgrade today?

I’ve been playing on my Japanese DSi XL for a week or so, and it is a subtly enhanced experience. With the larger screen, I’m finding some elements of hectic action titles like GTA Chinatown Wars and Space Invaders Extreme 2 a little easier. Indeed, any action that requires pixel perfect precision is going to become a teeny bit less challenging with the XL’s larger display, though, of course, there’s no change in screen resolution (not that most gamers will notice). Space Invaders really benefits from the added visual impact, its psychedelic onslaught proving rather mind-blowing at 1am in the morning with your bedroom lights off.

It’s noticeably heavier than the previous iterations – 100g heavier to be precise, but what I really noticed is the change in balance, the upper screen weight slightly toppling the displays away from you if you have the hinges open as far as possible. But then, I like that solidity, and it also feels really comfortable to hold – plus, the fact that the buttons retain their size means there’s more space for big, clumsy banger-like fingers.

That’s partly the point of the machine, obviously. It’s not really meant as an essential step up for cool kids who carry a DSi around in their jeans pocket while riding a skateboard. Everything, from the wider viewing angles to the mature colour schemes hints at a product aimed at non-gamers. Families can gather around the screen and share games, while businessmen might feel a bit less self-conscious pulling a wine red or dark brown device from their briefcases rather than, say, a bright pink DSi with Hello Kitty emblazoned on the top.

Onboard, you’ll find A Little Bit of…Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training: Arts Edition and Dictionary 6 in 1 with Camera Function, as well as a browser, which will naturally benefit from the larger displays too.

So really, are you after a more impactful experience, with a grown-up sheen, or are you still happy nonchalantly jamming that cute little DSi into your coat pocket?

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Handheld

Keith Stuart

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Has Final Fantasy XIII emerged a failed experiment, or does it represent a bold new direction for Japanese RPGs? Find out in the official GameTrailers review of Final Fantasy XIII. Slim PS3 is updated regularly each day with the latest console news, reviews and features.

Jennifer Allen of TheGameReviews gives her verdict on the likelihood of the new Zelda title hitting Wiis this year, a new Epic game being unveiled at this year’s E3 conference, and whether or not NeoGeo games are coming to the PlayStation Network. Slim-PS3.com is updated regularly per day with the latest console news and reviews.

Statistics can prove everything, that’s the wonderful thing about them.  If research from MyVoucherCodes is led to be believed than Final Fantasy XIII on the Xbox 360 will outsell the PS3 version by a ratio of two to one.

Basing their judgement on searches through the month of February, the website registered 250,000 unique searches for the Xbox 360 version, compared with a mere 120,000 for the PS3 title.

Now we don’t need to point out the fact that this isn’t exactly the be all and end all, and hardly quantifies itself as a fair and exact experiement; however, MyVoucherCodes Mark Pearson, managing director had the following warning for Sony execs:

“The Final Fantasy series has always been a huge draw for Sony, since its debut on the PlayStation in the form of Final Fantasy VII.

“For Microsoft to now be sharing and in fact beating the interest for the PS3 version must be worrying Sony chiefs, who must be wondering just how to steal the march back, if it is at all possible. Our Christmas sales data showed that Xbox 360s were outselling PlayStation 3s three to one in the holiday period, a fact which seems to be presenting itself here as consumers show more interest in the Xbox 360 title.”

TVG will be bringing you its opinion on Square-Enix’s latest on March 5th when the embargo lifts – for the record, we’ve got the Xbox 360 version.

This blog is updated regularly each day with the latest Free Slim PS3 news.

We never thought that we’d be using the phrase ‘Y2K-esque’, and yet here we are doing precisely that. How else would you describe a bug that nails the PS3’s clock back to January 1st 2000 and stops players from accessing PSN or even offline games?

At this point, the 8001050F error appears to be limited to ‘Fat’ PS3 models (Slim models remain unaffected). If triggered, the bug effectively locks players out of PSN when they attempt to sign-in. Some reports are even alleging that the error has been thrown-up while remaining offline, setting the console’s clock back to the start of the last decade and affecting the PS3’s DRM system in the process.

Sony’s official line on the outage is as follows: “We have found out that some users are experiencing a network connection failure when signing on to PlayStation Network. We are currently looking into the issue to identify the cause of this network connection failure and will update further information as necessary (on the Blog or official website). We appreciate your understanding and continued support.”

However, judging by the some of the news we’ve picked up today, we’d strongly advise gamers not to turn on their ‘Fat’ PS3’s if they’ve been powered down over the last 24-48 hours. In some cases, the bug appears to be affecting consoles that were on standby or even unconnected at the mains when the bug hit, so it’s perhaps best to keep your consoles turned off until more information is available (that’s certainly what we’re going to be doing).

If, on the other hand, you’ve experienced the error code already, then things aren’t looking too good at the moment. The error not only locks players out of PSN, but can essentially void items purchased over PSN or stop retail copies of games from working offline.

The reason for this is that the PS3’s DRM system (which authenticates purchased items over PSN) does not recognise the purchased content when the clock is set back to the year 2000. Additionally, any games that automatically synchronise Trophies when the game is first booted-up will not work with the faulty clock.

Update: Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has provided some clarity on the issue, stating that it hopes to have the problem fixed within the next 24 hours. The statement also advises PS3 ‘Fat’ users not to use their system until further notice but clarifies that PS3 Slim models have not been affected by the error.

As detailed above, the bug is affecting games that attempt to install trophies when they’re booted-up, while Sony has also stated that users may not be able to playback videos that have been rented from the PlayStation Store.

Thanks, Digital Foundry & VG247

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The latest gaming news: No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle is the realization of worried mothers’ fears about games rotting young brains. If any game could be called pure sex, drugs and rock & roll, Desperate Struggle would be it. It is made by the wildly bizarre developers at Grasshopper Manufacture, lead by the charismatic Suda51, who is quoted as saying, “Being alone is very important. I go to the bathroom, I try to poop and then I will come up with a [videogame] idea.” Past titles from Grasshopper include the strange Killer7 on the Nintendo GameCube and Flower, Sun and Rain, the Groundhog’s Day of gaming on the PS2 and DS. They have a history of eschewing normal conventions of game design and trading them in for unique traits that make games memorable. Desperate Struggle keeps with that tradition.

The main character in Desperate Struggle, Travis Touchdown, is a brash, cocky frat boy that loves to shove his talent of killing people down his opponents’ throats. He has no remorse for slaying people where they stand and is as unlikeable as they come. The world he lives in, Santa Destroy, is a cold city where safety and peace are as fictional as green eggs and ham. In the beginning of the game, the only reason he is motivated to enter into another assassination tournament like the first game is because he wants to spend a night hanging from the chandeliers with the United Association of Assassins agent Silvia Christel, and not because his life was in danger or because it was the right thing to do, like many modern altruistic videogame heroes. If Travis were labeled in real-world context, he’d be a horny, 16 year-old boy Nerd Raging on Xbox Live. This site is updated several times each day with all latest Free Slim PS3 news and reviews.

For this week’s week-ending game ending, I thought I would go with an old favorite, and a true classic…

Direct Link

With any luck, this game will someday find its way on to the Wii’s Virtual Console. And with better luck, maybe Capcom of Japan will finally wise up and put the remake, Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X, on downloadable services such as Xbox LIVE Arcade and the PlayStation Network (and WiiWare, if it would fit), so a wider audience can play and appreciate it, hopefully paving the way for a sequel.

Have a great weekend, everyone! Slim-PS3 is updated several times per day with the latest Free Slim PS3 news and console reviews.

Nintendo has announced that it will be publishing the DS exclusive Dragon Quest IX in Europe this summer. This follows a similar announcement yesterday for the US market.

It seems the much delayed Square Enix title will eventually find its way to Western shores, albeit a year after Japan where it sold by the bucket loads last July.

Our last Dragon Quest IX news article, from way back in November 2008, speculated that gamers would be playing the new DS (i.e. the DSi) by the time the game eventually reached Europe. With the DSi launch now long gone, Dragon Quest IX is set to arrive after the DSi XL launch in the West next month.

What have we learnt? You’re better off waiting for a new DS console than you are a Dragon Quest Western release…

Source: VG247

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Alpha Protocol has been delayed for so long that its original near-future storyline has since become the near-past. Nonetheless, we’re sure that a QA tester somewhere in a dark corner of Obsidian’s studio is hurriedly changing any of the game’s references to the year 2009 (its original setting) with 2010, thereby retaining its near-future credentials.

Whatever the case, SEGA has just confirmed a European release date of May 28th for the espionage infiltrated RPG, which essentially marks the game’s second big delay on its tumultuous path to release. Originally scheduled for an early 2009 release, Alpha Protocol was then pushed to October 2009, and then spring 2010.

“Alpha Protocol offers a new take on the RPG genre giving players the chance to immerse themselves in the world of modern day espionage,” said Gary Knight, European Marketing Director of SEGA Europe. “Being the first ever RPG in this setting, Obsidian has written a truly immersive storyline with a cast of characters everyone will remember.”

Slim-PS3.com is updated regularly per day with the latest games console news.