#whatever the hell you created with the ancient elves tells me NOTHING about them. it tells me culturally nothing other than that you're a | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

surveysonfleek · 7 years

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350.

5000 Question Survey Pt. 3 201. Put these creatures in order from what you would least like to be reincarnated as (1), to what you would most like to be reincarnated as (10) assuming reincarnation ended up existing AND you were given a choice. caterpillar, house dog, wild dog, vulture, male human, female human, oak tree, rock, manta ray, dolphin rock, caterpillar, oak tree, vulture, wild dog, house dog, manta ray, dolphin, male human, female human. 202. What do you feel unworthy of? success. 203. Would you rather be remembered for having done something for humanity or being a really nice person? can’t i do both? 204. Which do you value more: science or intuition? intuition. 205. Your best friend and your significant other are in the hospital at the same time with the same ailment. Who do you visit first? it’s the same person.

206. Does the universe revolve around human beings? we definitely think so. 207. If you are no longer a virgin, do you wish you still were? nope. 208. Who is your favorite poet of those who are alive right now? i don’t know any poets that are alive :( 209. What is your favorite song from the 90's? ugh there’s so many. 210. If you were in alphabet soup what letter would you be? d. 211. Do you believe in fairies, ghosts, aliens, angels, dwarves, elves, etc.? haha i have no idea. 212. What makes you want to be someone’s friend? if i find some goodness in them. 213. Do you troll around the Internet harassing people anonymously for fun? hell no. i’m not 12. 214. Have you ever seen the movie A Man Who Fell to Earth? nope. 215. What is your favorite line from a movie? - 216. What's your favorite video game? the sims. 217. Have you ever taken something that wasn't yours? yeah, but nothing of sentiment or whatever. 218. What is one phrase people say that irritates you? yolo. 219. You allow strangers to read your diary, but would you let your parents read it? i don’t have a diary. 220. Hot steamy bubble bath or quick in and out shower? depends. there’s a time for both. 221. Are you allergic to anything? pollen. 222. What is your favorite Terminator movie? i don’t remember any of them. 223. What is your favorite fast food? burger king. 224. What would someone have to do to get you to never speak to him or her again? do something bad to me, my friends or family. 225. Would (or have) you ever whip someone or be whipped by someone in bed? haha no thanks. 226. Have you ever said 'I hate everyone' and really meant it literally? yes. well, people in general. 227. Why do some people want to get more money than they could ever spend? idk. greed. 228. Have you ever won a carnival fish? nope. 229. Did it live more than a week? - 230. What's the best sounding accent a person can have? spanish. 231. What's the most boring thing you've ever read? text books from uni. 232. Do you prefer buttons or touch screens? touch screens. 233. Do you think there is a lot of similarity between the Harry Potter books and the Lord of the Rings series? i didn’t follow the lord of the rings series. 234. Would you consider yourself to be naive? sometimes. 235. Which of your friends is most likely to go to jail? at this rate, phi. 236. What is the smallest amount of money that could be in a public toilet that would make you reach in and grab it? $10 lol. so gross i know, but money’s money. 237. Would you ever wear real fur? probably not. 238. Arachnophobia or Eight Legged Freaks? first one. 239. What are your feelings about police officers? i’m sure there’s good cops out there. 240. what is your favorite line from a song? idk. 241. Is fifty dollars a lot of money? yes, it can be. it can buy food for a week. 242. Do you like the band Front 242 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_242)? idk them. 243. Would you rather have fame, money, or self-satisfaction? self satisfaction. 244. What's your middle name? haha i’d rather not say. 245. What is the absolute limit, the craziest thing you would do for a million dollars? shave my head? idk. 246. Are you good, evil or neutral? i’d like to say good. 247. Should ebonics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebonics) be considered a language? hmm. idk about this one. 248. What color is your bedroom? What color would you like it to be? it’s grey and turquoise. i like it. 249. When are you planning to move to a new home? no idea, maybe when i get my life together. 250. If you added up the cost of everything in the room with you, approximately what would it come out to be? omg i have no idea. 15k? it could honestly be more or less, i’m just guessing. 251. Do you blow your nose in public? if i have to, yes. i’ll try do it subtly though. 252. Do you want to follow in your parent's footsteps? somewhat yes. i want their drive and motivation. 253. What is the coolest web site you know of? idk lol. 254. Which cartoon would you most like to see turned into a movie? none that i can think of. 255. Of the following, which word best describes you: enthusiastic, fair minded, generous, helpful fair minded. 256. Can you eat with chopsticks? yeah i prefer not to. 257. Could you tell real money from counterfeit? yeah, we’ve been taught how to at work. 258. What do you think about school uniforms? it’s good in a way, everyone’s seen as equal. 259. What ancient civilization would you most like to visit? medieval times. 260. What would make a great new Crayola color? i’m sure it’s already been made. 261. If an art project is created with the intent of getting rich and famous, does that cast doubt over its significance as a work of art? yeah it does, but it’s still art. 262. If you became president, whom would you invite to sing at your inauguration? beyonce. 263. Who is the greatest philosopher of your country? idk haha. 264. If all the nations in the world are in debt, where did all the money go? idk. 265. Is it as easy to make you happy now as it was when you were a child? no, i was easy to please as a kid. 266. Who knows more...you, or your parents? more about what? if life, definitely my parents. 267. What instrument would you like to be famous for playing? guitar. 268. Children fill its lungs completely with air. Adults breathe in a more shallow way, not filling their lungs completely. Why the change? i have no idea. 269. Would you have sex with a stranger for one million dollars? with protection yeah. 270. Are you completely in control of your body? Are you completely in control of your mind? yes and yes. 271. Which is more romantic: an expensive, glittering bouquet OR flowers that were hand picked as they grew beside the parkway? definitely the hand picked ones haha. 272. Do you know yourself well enough to understand why you feel the way you do? ye[. 273. Which do you do more often: let movies, songs and books put your feelings into words for you or put your feelings into words by yourself? put feelings into words myself. 274. Do you believe celebrities when they are endorsing a product? haha noooo. especially these damn instagram models and youtubers. 275. What kind of movies do you wish were made more often? idk. 276. Does fashion matter to you? yes and no. 277. Should politicians be held to the same legal standards as everyone else? of course. 278. What do you get in trouble for the most? being lazy. 279. Should parents spank their kids? i wasn’t spanked as a kid and turned out fine tbh. 280. What is your worst daily habit? smoking. 281. If you had your choice which one TV show would you have canceled? big bang theory. 282. Do you like the taste of sweet or salt? salt. 283. Are you very precise about what words you use to describe your feelings and thoughts? yeah i’d say so. 284. What do you feel the most guilty about? idk, letting myself do nothing productive for the last year. 285. Do you meditate? no. 286. Can dreams be visions, or do you feel they are always random images? random images in the subconscious. 287. Do you try to write/say what you are feeling in a true and simple way? yes. 288. The thief _______ that everyone steals. What verb would you fill in the blank with? snatches? idk. 289. What's the most incredible experience you ever had? traveling. 290. Are you ever afraid to write/say/think how you feel? not really. 291. Do you write/say/think it anyway or become intimidated and try to avoid it? idk. 292. What is one thing you can't do? a cartwheel. 293. Do you like movies starring Charleton Heston (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charleton_Heston)? idk him. 294. Are you gentle? not really. 295. When do you feel the most raw and vulnerable? when i’m naked. 296. Are you trying to find yourself? yes, definitely. 297. Where are you looking? my future i guess. 298. Are you sometimes afraid of being honest because you are afraid of hurting people's feelings? yes but there’s better ways to go about in sharing it. 299. What would make you a stronger person? having more discipline. 300. What book would you like to read sometime soon? anything. it’s been awhile.

#survey #surveys #quiz #bored #questions

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mode7rap · 7 years

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genoboost reviews the Final Fantasy VII commercial

via Game Music 4 All

I hate Final Fantasy VII.

Well, I love Final Fantasy VII, but don't tell Final Fantasy VII I said that. FFVII doesn't deserve my love, but I often find myself thinking about all the good times we had together. We laughed, we cried, we bitched about Cait Sith. Those were the days. But it was such a toxic relationship. I can never go back.

It's going to take a few more therapy sessions before I'm comfortable digging deeper into that. Today, I simply want to discuss a small portion of the very rich meal that is Final Fantasy VII. There are a lot of layers to this RPG onion, and I want to focus solely on the dry, dusty, useless onion skin, slowly rotting beneath the produce section lights. I'll be dissecting Square's game changing game commercial which appeared on US television ahead of the games stateside release. That's not a joke.

How did we all think Final Fantasy VII was so great? Clearly opinions have splintered in the 20 years since the game's release. It's hard to stay unbiased after many years worth of extraneous FFVII games, movies, and more games, and anime shorts. It's now pretty hazy just exactly what convinced me to love this game so much in the first place. Then I saw the original commercial again. My very sudden and brand new hypothesis is that the marketing blitz put on by Sony and Square (now Square-Enix) made sure we thought this game was going to kick every ass. It did. The commercials that aired constantly on cable television also made sure that viewers had no idea what the 'game' part of this game was.

So it's time to dissect a thirty second long and twenty year old commercial. This advertisement was the first glimpse of Final Fantasy for much of the US, except for nerds like me that is. That glimpse made Final Fantasy VII look like one bad ass mother fucker of an action movie, er, action game. It's a game. You can play on the "Play Station." Somehow.

What do you even do in this game? It would appear to be some sort of motorcycle riding, helicopter chasing, explosion causing and/or preventing type action game. Maybe you get to play as an ass kicking, motorcycle riding protagonist that is also a soldier of fortune, as mentioned in the commercial! Mystery solved.

I don't know what's happening here, but it doesn't matter because I'm dead now.

Actually, I think the Soldier of fortune is the only thing this commercial gets right about Final Fantasy VII. But only if I'm being generous and assume when the voice over said "soldier" he meant SOLDIER.

It's hard to think back to a time where we didn't know about sephiroth, JENOVA, and Cloud, the only three characters that very briefly appear in the commercial. Each with a haircut sillier than the last. None of these highly integral characters are established in any way. It's just some insane fever dream. Was that a monster? Did it explode? Does CG hair have to look this ridiculous?

Absolutely.

I know I come hard at Final Fantasy VII like the old, jaded gamer I am, but back in '97 I was just as enamored by it as any other kid that got their kicks from playing Chrono Trigger and FFIII, I mean VI, I mean, ah fuck it. Square knew exactly what a young American gamer wanted to see. Explosions, revenge, motorcycles, soldiers of fortune, more revenge, another explosion, and another explosion and revenge, plus it's a video game!

This isn't a commercial for a hundred hour, story driven RPG from Japan (this is, and it gets me pretty damn hyped). This is a commercial for a high budget Hollywood action movie. It has more in common with trailers for Men in Black and The Fifth Element, the latest sci-fi blockbusters circa '97. This was long before Lord of the Rings made everyone very very familiar with the Fantasy genre. Back in 1997, no one in the US cared about grass or trees or magic or elves or none of that shit. Those were good times. Anyway, the folks behind advertising Final Fantasy VII knew what's up. They showed off nothing but the heavily industrial, very metallic side of Final Fantasy VII. Cannons, helicopters, motorcycles. This was some epic futuristic realism here. No magic airships, no swords, no riding on big dumb chickens! 'Wark' your ass on out of here you stupid chocobo, or is it 'kweh' now? Go 'kweh' yourself!

"Did you unlock the motorcycle?"

"Not Quite."

Give Square some credit where it's due though, twenty years later, every major game release is marketed this way. Only cut scenes, no game play footage, and only the vaguest half paragraph outline of the plot. Makes me nostalgic for the storyline to Bosconian. Make sure your way dope commercial includes anything that would be cool to own or pilot, as long as it's a machine and not an animal, such as a very large, very colorful, very inbred bird.

There isn't a single company fool enough to include actual gameplay in the commercial for said game. Some commercials these days don't include any images from the game at all. Even Nintendo themselves cut that shit out a few console generations ago. Well, Nintendo still tries to shove a little gameplay footage in at the end of their commercials. Unfortunately, Nintendo's stubborn respect for consumers makes for terrible marketing. Not to mention the incredible difficulty in conveying fun game play to a passive audience. Just make some jokes, or throw some babes at me, and/or a few explosions and I'm in! Buy me Bonestorm or go to hell!

Square-Enix has made a ton of missteps since the release of FFVII, which lead to the name Square-Enix itself, and my endless confusion on whether to call them Square, or Square-Enix when referring to the company when it was called Square, or was it Square LTD, I don't think it was Square EA yet, or was it EA Square in the US and Square EA in Japan… Ah fuck that too.

Actually (fixes glasses) the full name is…

As I was saying, Square whatever has had some misfires in their long and expensive history, but damn were they on the cutting edge of logically baffling but ridiculously effective commercials.

If I'm generous, I could understand that there could be some difficulty in explaining a 70 hour epic within a 30 second teaser. Ungenerously, since this is a commercial after all. Please be skeptical of anyone selling you anything. Please? This is 30 seconds of random images and blatant lies created solely in an effort to take your money. Square got my money. Don't let them get to you too!

I'm not sure if this is the first RPG to be marketed to popcorn shoveling mongrels and not the elite console gamer class that knew what a JRPG was, or, as we called them at the time. RPGs. We didn't need more specific definitions because all console RPGs came from Japan. American companies made Bass Fishing and Bubsy, and a game starring the fucking president's cat. Who cares! Until FPS games gained some traction, US game developers would do their best to serve up nice bland plates of whatever Japan created first.

Despite Square's best efforts, and explosions, the most insane thing about this commercial was the ending.

:Record scratch

Appearing in the final moments of the commercial was the title "Final Fantasy VII." Wait a minute! I know what Final Fantasy is! I know exactly what Final Fantasy is! Hold on, where did four, five, and six go!?

I had already played Final Fantasy VI, although we called it Final Fantasy III back in my day. Whatever this commercial was that my eyeballs were subjected to was certainly unlike any previous Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy is about wizards and spell casting and swords and a bunch of numbers going up, sometimes down. You collect money, which you can use to buy new weapons, and you can find treasure, which is hopefully new weapons. There's just loads of text and menus. Honestly, it's all just text and menus. The point being, that there ain't none of that in this commercial, and we all know damn well there is plenty of that shit in the game. Conversely, I think every exploding building, crashing meteor, or giant energy weapon in the game is shown off in this commercial.

Before I watched this commercial several dozen times in order to form this deep and absolutely necessary analysis, I decided to make a list of a few words and phrases that come to mind when I think about Final Fantasy VII. Play along at home. Just close your eyes and think of some of your most cherished memories with this very ridiculous game.

Giant Swords

Armageddon

Bigger swords

Corporate greed

This guy are sick

Leveling Up

Great Music

Unlikable characters

Huge world

Huge monsters

Double crossing

Ancient stuff

Fancy wigs and dresses

Cait Sith… Fuck you Cait Sith! I never wanted you on my team in the first place you traitorous, plot advancing piece of-

Okay, I should stop there, but I think that's a good synopsis of FFVII to be honest.

Now time to live blog this ephemeral seizure of a commercial.

There's an evil empire.

So evil it's a whole evil planet?

Giant cannon!

Modern day helicopters

Modern day motorcycle, is this Terminator?

The world is in danger! So it might be Terminator!

To Aerith: "Come with me if you want to live." No wait!

More cannons! These cannons shoot lasers!

It can shoot in this single direction though.

Was that a monster?

Quiet down in there!… You!

Everything is so shiny

At least this evil empire has some showmanship.

Great graphics!

...for the time.

There's seven of these!?

Another record scratch

This is a video game!?!?

and it's on the playstation!?

Whaaaaa…

As you can see, a few major elements of Final Fantasy VII seem to be lacking in the commercial. In a game with nine different playable characters, each with plenty of backstory, we see Cloud's dumb hair for a second, and Sephiroth staring down a robot. I remember staring at the print ad of this scene and having not a single clue what I was even looking at. Did you notice any swords in this commercial? Catch someone using a spear or inaccurately enormous shuriken shaped boomerang? There wasn't even magic. No magic in a game called Final FANTASY. No feathers, and not a single blade of grass.

If this commercial is to be believed (and who am I to not believe the very people who are trying to take my money) then this is pretty much James Bond, Blade Runner, and Armageddon, but playable. I wouldn't be shocked if this blonde haired soldier of fortune was voiced by Bruce Willis himself. Yippee ki yay Sephiroth. It's time to save the world from lasers and cannons and meteors and all kinds of other crazy crap.

Somehow…

Oh, I almost forgot, this game commercial doesn't feature any game play. Maybe it was an oversight. It's certainly not necessary to include gameplay footage. Why, Square gave us all the information we need to understand the gameplay, right in this very commercial, if you just look closely enough!

I can easily imagine the control scheme for this wild ride.

X = Motorcycle

Triangle = Revenge

Square = Explosions

Circle = Explosion based Revenge

L1+R1 = Run Away

This lack of gameplay footage is what changed video game commercials forever (except Nintendo). Nintendo was trying their hardest to show off some quality games back in the mid 90's, but that integrity lost them valuable MTV commercial real estate. Square and Sony on the other hand, began to create commercials that were more like existential references to the games in the PlayStation library, rather than provide actual details or information about why you should purchase the product featured. Nintendo clearly wanted to emulate these highly effective commercials, all while still conveying the inherent fun of Nintendo games. This meant that Nintendo became stranded in some horrible middle ground. Wanting edgy commercials with a bunch of crazy crap happening, while still conveying the style and quality of the gameplay. Don't forget to wedge some game footage in there somehow.

As reference, here is a 1996 Nintendo commercial. Coincidentally, I chose the commercial for Super Mario RPG, the final Square produced game for a Nintendo system for nearly a decade.

Dammit Nintendo, it's like the head of your PR department is my mom. SO LAME. This commercial needs it's own analysis. I'm a life long Nintendo supporter through and through, but I have made no bones about their inability to create engaging commercials. Nintendo has been getting their asses kicked in the marketing department ever since Sega said 'Nintendon't.' Luckily Nintendo's games often speak for themselves in terms of quality game play. Of course, you would have to purchase the game to know that. Oh the irony! Every Nintendo commercial feels like the boxart to Phalanx. Baffling and unintuitive.

In fact, here's another one from 2005!

Even after many years in this brave new world of logic free commercials, Nintendo still slides in that gameplay footage. Will they never learn?

Conclusion

Hey Square, I love all the convoluted stories, convoluted hair, and pompous cut scenes, but I also like the part where I rummage through menus to equip insane materia combinations, or just simply stealing from as many different enemies as possible. This commercial, and the frenzy for Final Fantasy VII upon launch reinforced those former attributes, sending Square into an anti-gameplay spiral that we've only begun to unravel. In the immediate aftermath of FFVII, Square gave us both the amazing 'cinematic RPG' Parasite Eve, as well as the bankruptcy inducing Final Fantasy The Spirits Within.

Now they go by Square Enix, a little wiser, and a little less bold. They still waver between quality game play and an overzealous cut scenes, second only to the Metal Gear series (which also made Konami hemorrhage money, hmm).

Next FFVII anniversary, I'm going to review the Knight of the Round (AKA the longest fucking thing in video games ever) in the same amount of time that the animation of Knight of the Round takes to play out.

Thanks for reading! Support my work by subscribing to me on Patreon and follow me on Twitter @genoboost!

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