So I bought Lost Odyssey last week. I haven't really played a turn-based RPG since the heady days of Final Fantasy VII, and I decided I wanted to try delving back into it again. So I bought the game, and took a look in the case.

4 discs. Oh my... In the first disc goes...

Let me tell you, I have never had so much fun and been so impressed with a game within the first 10 minutes. I was hooked right from the start.

The visuals are lush, well presented and really look incredible. I was stunned with just how good this game looks. Character designs are very nice, with distinct appearances between the two races in the opening battle (the Khents and the Uhrans). FMVs are polished to perfection, looking incredible with some very stylish and nicely-placed box-in-box video sequences that show various character's reactions. Very nice.

The gameplay is fairly standard fare, not to say that's a bad thing. It's turn based, so you issue commands to your party members: wind 'em up, and watch 'em go! WHEEEE! Battle animations are nice though, with the camera following your characters as they charge at the enemy with a nice 'shaky' feel, really sinks you into the game. You can assemble 'rings', that essentially enhance attacks from characters. You have to time the pressing of the RB button to add additional damage or elemental effect to your attack. Nice. But what I really like is the guard condition, or 'Wall' effect. Essentially, the 'wall' is an invisible barrier that protects your magic casters in the back row, reducing any damage they take. This wall is as strong as your forward characters, and essentially represents your combat characters in the front row defending and blocking those in the back. Nice touch.

There isn't much in the way of 'grinding' to do, which is the one thing that worried me. I got tired in FFVII of running into a monster every 2 steps. They are better spaced out in Lost Odyssey, so you can actually make some progress on the map before going into a fight. Nicely spaced out, but not so far that you get bored or have to wander aimlessly to level up. The levelling works well too, and you tend to level at about the right rate for the area you are in. You'll never find yourself underpowered in a particular area (well, I did once, but that's because I went somewhere I wasn't meant to...).

Level design is nice, and some of the views and scenery is stuningly gorgeous. At one point you are walking across the ridge of a mountain, looking out across a deep valley to the peaks far across on the other side. Then you stare out across the ocean and vast tracts of land towards a giant magical tower. Great stuff.

The music is stunningly excellent. Battle themes are nice and pacey, with good rhythms and they for the most part sound fully orchestrated. They perfectly match the action on screen, and there are a couple of pieces that are really heart wrenching. One piece is bloody creepy too!

No game on the 360 has kept me so hooked as Lost Odyssey. I even tried playign Eternal Sonata and Enchanted Arms, so desperate I was to find more RPGs, but they pale in comparison to the awesome genius that is Lost Odyssey.

Highly recommended. 9/10

So. Yes. I had a job interview with O2 today. I went in, met the manager, and the interview seemd to go ok.

Just got a call ten minutes ago. I now have a part-time job at the O2 store in Crewe. Yay!

...well, not bad, I guess.

The pay isn't bad ( around £6 an hour, I believe), the company contribute 15% towards pension (most only do 10%), I get a 25% bonus every 3 months, 'spirit points' each month based on the number of handsets or contracts or even overtime hours I work that convert into vouchers to use in the highstreet (Tax free), and a discount on my monthly phone bill! Woohoo!

So, yeah, not bad conditions to work in really :3. Except....FORMAL WEAR! NOOOOOOO! ;o; Every job I've had before this has been casual attire. DAMN!

I r in the FOP crew!
Lapse of Memory: The Sonic the Hedgehog rp board. LOVE IT!
yummmmm!

I was tagged by the fiendishly evil . I SHALL HAVE REVENGE!

I have to write 6 weird habits/facts/dislikes about myself...
Ummmmmmm

1) I'm actually only half Welsh. *gasp* Yes, yes, I know. I was born in Wales, and have Welsh blood on my father's side, but my mother is English. YES. I AM HALF CASTE. Please don't shun me.

2) Though my teeth may not be perfectly (or...particularly...) straight, I did go through 3 years of using braces. Ew. But they didn't work 100%. Sucks to be me, now I'm stuck with bad teeth.

3) I am the sexiest bitch this side of Liverpool. That makes me an uber-sexy hawtness of lava-proportions. All my lady-friends agree with this.

4) I quite frequently have a sore back. For whatever reason, I can;t sit staright at a desk/computer for more than half an hour before my back starts killing me, and I have to slump!

5) I have lost almost all of my Welsh language. I wish I had it back.

6) I'm slightly paranoid. I always worry that people don't like me, or that I just plain irritate them. It scares me.

I r in the FOP crew!
Lapse of Memory: The Sonic the Hedgehog rp board. LOVE IT!
yummmmm!

Just realised that my last update here was....holy crap, nearly 3 months ago! WOW! So, what's been going on in my life to date? Let's see... well, I can;t be bothered to type it all up, so I'll just copy/paste the highlights from my Sheezy journals.

Posted Jul 9th 2007, 9:33PM
Well, technically, I'm returning to the same job I did last year. Working on a maze. WOO. I'm the only one from last year's maze team who is returning for this year's opening. Heh.

So, we have Tim, the manager. Then there's David, Nicola, and me, the grunts. But yeah, though I have the most experience, I have a boss. Oh well.

So today, I arrived at work at 9am. Started attaching the side rails and beams to one of the bridges. Did a lot of that. Went for lunch at 1, came back at 2. Sorted out the kickboards (we have two types: thick plank and thin plank. Thin plank goes on the far bridge only) with David, briefly talked with Nicola about painting a mini-skirt on Barny the Dinosaur to make him a transvestite. Then went to the far bridge to attach the kickboards with David. Talked about Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil 4.

Oh, yeah, one other thing. I spent the entire day working in a muddy field. And it kept RAINING. FUCKING RAIN. It's July, dammit! WHERE'S THE SUN?

Posted Aug 14th 2007, 9:47PM

Ok, so last week, I moved house. Well, my family. Me, my sister, and my parents. We now live in a bigger house. It's so beautiful. It's....stunningly beautiful. Serioudly, you need to see it for yourselves. It's 2 stories, with exposed oak beams in the ceilings. The ceiling upstairs is all exposed wood beams, with high peak ceiling. So amazing. Also, 2 living/sitting rooms. 2. One upstairs, one downstairs.

We have a big garden. 5 acres. 5. ACRES. You don't know how big that is? Let me give you an idea: the drive from the start of the garden leading up to the house is quarter of a mile long. Yeah. I can walk to the gate and back, and I'll have done a half mile. So next time you complain about taking out the garbage, you just think how far I have to take it, you lazy bastards! [XD]

Also. I have my own private fishing lake. Of my own. Yes. Yes I do. Stocked with carp and tench, apparently. Oh yes. I like this new house.

Only problem is, broadband is late coming, so it will be a couple days before i get it. Until then, I am on a 28.8k dial-up connection.

FUX.

Posted Aug 19th 2007, 5:21PM
Mood: Angry Music: Guild Wars Nightfall Soundtrack

I GOT FUCKING ROBBED!

Well, my work did. But they might as well have robbed me. Let me explain. I work at the Reaseheath College Maize Maze. Every year, for two months, we open to the public, over the summer. I worked there last year, and we did well. I work there again this year, and me and my workmates managed to get the place looking better than it has in the last 3 years. We were so proud of what we'd managed to achieve.

So today, I come in to work. I meet up with Dave, one of my workmates and the one scheduled to work with me today, and we started opening up the gates leading down to the maze entrance. Sam, the farm manager, pulls up next to us in his tractor and tells us the maze truck has been stolen. Fuck. So me and Dave go down to the maze, and lo and behold, our big red, illegal-to-drive-on-roads truck has gone. But we got very, very angry at what we saw next.

The cabin door had been broken open with a crow bar. The entire door handle and locking mechanism had been torn off the door, wrenched off with impressive force. We get inside the cabin, and we see that the till has been torn apart. Till rolls lay scattered around, bits of plastic shattered, and the money draw is upended on the table. But the jokes on them: we don't leave the money in the cabin overnight. We lock it up in the safe on the college campus. So what did the fuckers do?

They stole the ice cream freezer. A £400 ($800) freezer, filled with almost £200 ($400) worth of ice cream. Gone. They had loaded it onto the back of our own truck, and taken it. Oh, but the truck keys were still there. They'd fucking hot wired our truck.

We go around the back to check the giant metal container. The padlock has been cut off with boltcutters. £400 ($800) worth of refreshment stock has been taken: all the cola, fanta, diet coke....everything. Gone. Along with some tins of paint, and possibly the circular saw.

Me and Dave got very, very pissed off, and started shout, swearing, and desperately wanting to beat seven shades of shit out of the guys who did this. We were forced to close for the day, but that's not what got us pissed off. It's the fact that we have worked so damn hard on this, making it ready for the public, and making it look proffesional. We worked so hard, and some little bastard, some wanker, some absolute arse-faced fucker comes along and steals from us.

We called the police, who came down to investigate the scene. Dave and I went up onto the college campus to talk to the warden, Will. We helped him go through the CCTV fooage of the previous night, but the bastards had come in through the tractor lane. They'd broken down the gate blocking it off, and no CCTV covers it. BAH. Absolute wankers, the lot of them.

Not the best day, really.

I r in the FOP crew!
Lapse of Memory: The Sonic the Hedgehog rp board. LOVE IT!
yummmmm!

So yeah, I've got my Ancient Comedy exam in 1 hour. And it will last for 3 hours.

Woopee doo.

See you later, kids.

I r in the FOP crew!
Lapse of Memory: The Sonic the Hedgehog rp board. LOVE IT!
yummmmm!