The Daily Sync for January 15th, 2010

 

Today was a blah day in news, in my opinion.  But that's all right.  I suppose if everyday had some major game detail reveal, then those days would feel like blah days until we upped the ante somehow.  But that's not to say there wasn't anything worth mentioning.

Assassin's Creed 2, a bit more Final Fantasy XIII, and a study on the parental adherence to ESRB ratings.

Final Fantasy XIII Demo Bus "Materia"lizes in San Fran

See what I did there?  No, there's no Materia in XIII, but it has it's own version called "Crystarium."  Anyway, if you can't tell, I am super excited about FF XIII, and am super jealous that San Francisco gets to taste it early.  IGN gave a report of their experience and the highlights of actually being able to play the thing.

I guess XII was popular enough that the good pieces of it's battle system stuck around, and the horrible ones were hopefully tossed into a flaming heap of old ... I don't know, bad stuff.  An upcoming post will reveal my attitude towards XII, so instead, IGN said the battle system is pretty dang good, albeit overwhelming to begin with.  The amount of strategy that will be involved is apparent in the "Paradigm Shift" option during a battle, where your party of three can switch it's function (say, changing from an offensive tactic to a more defensive or healing one), because you don't control each character like in the good old days.  Plus, with the Crystarium element, it seems that RPG enthusiasts will get their individual choices out of a criticized linear game.  I will miss dungeon scouring.

What's the countdown now?  53 days?  So close!

[photo and another demo bus story are found at 1Up.]

Assassin's Creed: ODST?

Ubisoft talked to CVG about this new Assassin's Creed 2 stuff.  CVG took a wild chance at naming it Assassin's Creed 3, but I'm with Joystiq on this one.  I think Ubisoft is making their own Halo 3: ODST mainly because it continues Ezio's story, or is at least related to it, has multiplayer, and will cost the same as a full game (replace the name "Ezio" above with "New Mombasa" and you've got Assassin's Creed: ODST).  Anyway, at least we know just a little more.  Someday I'll play AC2, when I'm in the mood to track down a billion flags, or the like, again.






82% of gamer parents know games' ratings, not necessarily follow

It's 70% that "pay close attention," further reports Joystiq.  It doesn't really surprise me.  It's all to often I hear a pre-pubescent, or current-pubescent, voice rattle off some stupid vulgarity ("but it's cool!") when they just won a round of Team Deathmatch in Modern Warfare 2 (also not admitting the fact that they awesomely acquired 4 kills and 17 deaths).  I'll admit, I clandestinely played some Mature rated games in my youth, and we all have to answer to God, but my mom would never allow the more restricted games.  Of course, this article isn't lambasting underage M-rated gameplaying, but discusses ratings adherence as a whole.  I just always wonder what parents are thinking when their children are playing video games, aside from they should probably finish they're homework instead.

On the other hand, 82 and 70 percent are still high numbers, so at least it's not terrible.  But then again, read this article and pay attention to about the tenth paragraph where the analyst talks about Mature games in 2009.  Interesting.


Worthy Mentions

- I don't know a whole lot about Project Natal, and I don't know if the mainstream public does either.  IGN hopes to clear everything up!

- I don't like digital copies of my media.  CD's need their lyrics and art books.  Novels need actual covers.  Looks like most people agree, with games at least.