I had a problem with my Playstation 2 on my 42″ Westinghouse LCD: using the composite cables included, it looked like utter shit! …I almost broke down and hooked it back up to my 27″ CRT. fortunately, there is a (relatively) cheap and effective way to recover lost quality due to stretched resolution issues from using a big screen – component cables.

using component cables, the color reproduction is increased an (arbitrarily biggish) factor of 7. there is a small downside however, where blur was with composite cables, component now shows you crisp pixel edges often called “jaggies”. in our humble opinion, the jaggies are far less annoying (by a factor of 38) than the blur. see for yourself.

here are some shots of my TV playing Final Fantasy XII that acutely demonstrates the dramatic improvement component cables make on image quality.

(before) using composite:	(after) using component:

read on for more sample shots… no spoilers here, promise.

composite:	component:

composite:	component:

moral of the story: component cables FTW.

final fantasy three
…for DS. I’m digging it. it is a traditional an rpg as you can get and the graphics+sound are just good/bad enough to fall right in the niche – think (SNES) FF6 gameplay + (PSX) FF7 system capabilities. I’ve played about 4 hours scattered across nearly a week. the great thing about it is it is easy to pick up, fight a couple battles and put down again without fear of losing your gamestate before an area where you can save (world map) – the quicksave option is nice in case of low battery.

my biggest complaint is the load times are frequent and slightly-sluggish: between battle&worldmap, shifting between your guys and actually fighting in battle, and (most annoying of all) “party menu” get in the way a bit but what can you do, it’s not a deal breaker.

 rating so far: 4 out of 5 twinkley Nater-stars.

final fantasy twelve
takes up near all my free time off work, off gym, off watching tv while I eat, and off the phone. it is fun as hell and intricate enough to blow hours away without really progressing through the plot much – though the more time you spend preparing, leveling, gearing up the more fun your story progression is (imho.)

the story is pretty grood; while a little tedious at times, the characters generally make it worthwhile – I actually care about them! the graphics+sound are stunning for a playstation 2 title. I couldn’t be more impressed at the near lack of load times. sure, it’ll take a bit before a FMV but it’s worth it, the cutscene movies are also fantastic.

 rating so far: 4.75 out of 5 twinkley Nater-stars.

the Final Fantasy series games originally Square, and now Square-Enix (Squeenix) are loved by me immensely.

1.)
- “How ’bout a little magitek mayhem?” -Kefka
- “Uwee hee hee! Don’t tease the octopus, kids!” -Ultros
- “Mr. Thou! Mr. Thou!” -Gau
- “In this world there are many like me who have killed their emotions. Don’t forget that.” -Shadow

2.) FF VII - “My mother is Jenova. She died right after she gave birth to me. My father… ha ha ha…” -Sephiroth

3.) FF X – “Outside the dream world, life can be harsh–even cruel, but it is life.” -Auron

4.) FF IX
5.) FF XI

FF XII is fastly moving up this list though I will not place it until I finish it. I expect it to end up between 3 and 7… I doubt anything will topple the effect FF III had on me the first time I played through it, but it is too soon to call!

* Dragon Warrior 1 (2 and 3), Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross deserve honorable mentions (at the very least) while I am on the topic of Squeenix.

Blizzard (North) games:

1.)   
Diablo II (LoD) / World of Warcraft

2.) Starcraft (Brood war)
3.) Diablo I
4.) Warcraft 2
5.) Warcraft 1

this one was tough. I was obsessed with these games and owe a great deal of my years (15-25) engrossed in these extremely addictive games. WoW and D2 tied, though this may change with additional forthought. each are cause of a significant portion of joy and depression (time laden.)

WC1 outed WC3 because of the time I was in it. it was the first computer game I could really play, at school mind you, as a TA long before I had a PC of my own capable of … well, anything fun.

this list inspired by my buddy abram who’s put up his:
“My most memorable video games.”