The most pretentious announcement in the universe.
07/12/2009 Comments (8)No, it’s not the second coming of Christ, but from the looks of this video you could be forgiven for not seeing the difference.
Apparently Square-Enix are very excited about releasing their new game. <Cough-inAmericaandEurope – Cough>.
I’m sure we’re all jumping up and down in our seats with joy induced seizures, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s take a look at what the video actually tells us about the new game!
1. You won’t hate the characters any more than that presenter.
This guy:
I call him Señor Tossbag.
And what he does best is reading his pretentious script with his best impression of a smug bastard while staring at the camera with the dead-eyed expression of a man who knows exactly what he’s doing and just wants it to be over. Smoothly talking about how these games are the greatest thing since the invention of sex back in 1785. Every word that spews out of this guys’ mouth will make you want to punch the screen.
2. The characters will have even more stupid names than ever before.
Lightning, Snow, Vanille, Hope… I just don’t understand why they have a character named after the most boring flavour of Ice-Cream. My first thought was ‘At least they’re not as bad as the ones in Eternal Sonata.’ Then I remembered that having gangrene in my genitals would be better than Eternal Sonata.
.
3. The developers have designed the battle system with ‘Paradigm shift’…
I don’t think even they know what that means.
4. The theme tune will be sung by…
Leona Lewis.
In the most out-of-left-field thing to say about the game, Leona Lewis will be singing the theme songs for the game. So our turn based fighty angst will be accompanied with ‘bleeding love’… This could actually work depending on how the song is and how the game uses it. But it still seems a bit weird to me.
5. In-Game footage:
‘An exclusive never before seen look at Final fantasy XIII’ which consists of about seven seconds of incomprehensible footage of androgynous protagonists hitting monsters and numbers floating in the air… This makes just as much sense whether you’ve played the games before or not. We learn that a) There is fighting and b) You get to ride a chicken… whoop de do!
6. Yes, but when’s it out?
In an infuriatingly condescending twist, Señor Tossbag pretends not to know the release date, the one real announcement of the video and the only reason you’ve watched the last five minutes of this dross… As the camera pulls out and you start to reach for your favourite hitting stick to deliver retribution for this deception, the scenery becomes the release date. So this way you get to feel like you’ve been lied to and insulted without having anything to actually be angry about!
Am I looking forward to this game? I would be if I had any indication that the game wasn’t going to be anywhere near as conceited as this video.
The problem is that this video perfectly encapsulates how many people actually feel about these games. But the developers shouldn’t believe their own bullshit, there’s something about hearing ludicrous claims and hype around a product that makes you immediately hate the finished article when it inevitably fails to live up to it.
Just look at the upcoming ‘Ferngully with Aliens’ movie that the Titanic guy won’t stop banging on about!
"The greatest movie of the Decade..." with extra blue Cat-People!
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8 Responses to “The most pretentious announcement in the universe.
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When Jack's not running the site, he's writing articles and reviews for your enjoyment. He studied English and Creative Writing at Portsmouth University. 
That Announcement trailer was fucking BORING! all I wanted to see was the actual game – and they told you nothing about it to make you excited. Instead, you got five minutes of subtitled talking heads, and then a minute of nothing!
And as for Avatar – I do quite want to see it, but I am expecting to be disappointed. However, any movie that has a trailer for it’s own trailer, is possibly, ever so slightly, wanking off it’s own ego.
James Cameron is a terrible, terrible man. He makes good movies, but the more I hear about him the more I want this movie to fail. There’s a reason that people in the film industry wear ‘You don’t scare me, I’ve worked with James Cameron!’ T-Shirts.
The film industry is full of people who wank off their own ego’s, James Cameron rapes people with his.
I’d agree more with you, but Terminator 2 is my favourite movie ever and it was directed by him, as was Aliens, the best ‘Alien’ franchise movie. So, he is capable of doing good movies, and not just making toss.
Of course – they’re movies, and that doesn’t stop the fact that he might be an absolute tosspiece. His movies being good are an altogether different thing.
That is very true. He does make good movies, and in Hollywood, if your films are good it won’t matter what your personality is like.
One of the worst things people say about Cameron (Apart from him hitting a woman on the set of Titanic) is that he is so ruthlessly demanding and dictatorial about his ‘vision’ of how the film should be…
In a way, his douchbaggery is his superpower.
Y’know… I’ve never played one of these games. But as a gamer girl, I’m finding it very weird that I want to describe this thing as ‘pussy’. (Can I say pussy on your site?) I am generally keen on character development and so on. Mass Effect for instance, you can get the idea of characters and their relationships but I’m just not sure I want to be involved in something that has a sensitive boy called Hope and a vulnerable girl called Vanille. Seriously??
I really like the way you’ve taken the thing to pieces. But you’re wrong. FernGully VS ‘The hot Aussie guy from Terminator’ is going to be amazing! Come with me on this one!! He can tap dance!! Come on!
You can say Pussy all you want on this site… We’re british after all!
You were talking about cats right?
If I hadn’t seen this video, I’d have been a whole lot more excited about the whole thing. If they just gave me the date and said ‘It’s the next Final Fantasy game, and it’s quite pretty’ then I’d at least have felt they were being honest.
As for the pussiness, I didn’t really get that feeling when I saw this. Maybe I’m just desensitized after Eternal Sonata. That game makes My Little Pony look like 300!
Paradigm shift -
isn’t a paradigm shift a group change in beliefs and ideas? if it is then i get the impression from the trailer that thats exactly what happens. When “aggression” was selected. Although they could’ve thought up a better name for it.
I’m still looking forward to it but the video was pretty pointless, if anything more harm than good.
p.s how’s FFXII going? you done rathwall’s tomb yet? where i manageed to get to before the big memory card delete of ‘07.
I haven’t played any more FFXII yet, but I’ll let you know when I do. (How’s Lapland? have you told any of the kiddies that Santa’s dead?)
The thing about the whole ‘Paradigm Shift’ is that it’s just the name of an ability or a mechanic, they don’t say what it actually is. It wouldn’t annoy me so much if it weren’t for the fact the guy looked so pleased with himself when he said it, like it was some kind of revelation.