Friday Ramblings are when I have a lot of little things to talk about all at once and i don’t feel like making three or four posts in one day. Fun, I know.

Backward Compatibility
Everybody’s up in arms about today’s Sony announcement saying they’ve dropped hardware backward compatibility in favour of software emulation. First of all, I don’t know why everyone’s shocked, it was either Phil Harrison or Kaz Hirai who made it pretty clear months before the system even launched in November that they were going to go with software emulation down the line to cut costs. This wasn’t a shocking move by any stretch of the imagination, it just came sooner than expected. What bothers me, and most people I would imagine, is this:

It also embodies a new combination of hardware and software emulation which will enable PS3 to be compatible with a broad range of original PlayStation® (PS) titles and a limited range of PlayStation®2 (PS2) titles.

Broad PSX support, limited PS2. Limited. Oh boy. While I don’t think it’ll be the cluster fuck that Microsoft’s backward compatibility effort’s been, it sure doesn’t sound good considering the PS3 currently has something like 98% compatibility with all titles through it’s hardware implementation. Good thing the PS3 is firmware upgradeable… plus, software emulation does lend itself to some nice positives like the possibility of increasing resolution, adding texture filtering, etc. Right now there’s no official list of what will work and what won’t, but right now I think the whole thing’s been blown out of proportion.

NeoGAF
GAF is so awesome. So very, very awesome. I love the community, the wide range of characters, and the fact that industry people post and contribute from time to time, especially the guys from 1up.com. Even though i’ve been banned twice for pretty stupid reasons, I don’t mind. It’s a great place to get news first and everyone is so passionate about everything, it’s really great. Best gaming forum on the net, hands down.

Final Fantasy VII
Still playing through Final Fantasy VII and still enjoying it. Graphically it still bothers the shit out of me though. I had to change the default battle camera to the more traditional style so it’s not jumping all the time and to avoid all of the blotchy closeups, and I’m starting to hate that all the environments and backgrounds are pre-rendered. It really makes walking through a town or a house a real pain in the ass because the directions get confused sometimes, you’ll be wanting to face a chest, for example, but you won’t be able to without some fiddling. Guess I can’t really explain it all too well, but I’m sure anyone who’s actually played it knows what i’m talking about.

Lumines
If Phoenix Wright is the DS’s version of crack, then Lumines is the PSP’s. This is, without question, the most addictive puzzle game i’ve played since the original Gameboy Tetris. In fact, i’ll go so far as to say that it’s better than Tetris. The music is awesome, the gameplay is seriously addictive, and there are enough modes to keep the gameplay varied. I haven’t played very many PSP games, but this is #1 in my mind so far. Just wish I could get online and find some competition, that would make the experience that much better.

And that’s it for this Friday’s ramblings, goodnight!