To my great surprise, PCSX2 is exactly that: an excellent PlayStation 2 emulator. So far, it as worked perfectly with all my games, full screen, full FPS, with an incredible boost of visual quality compared to the original PS2. You can even plug your PS3 gamepad on a USB port, enable 5.1 sound and get a complete experience, right on your computer.

I highly recommend any game enthusiast to give this emulator a try. It was set-up on my system in less than an hour, it’s easy to use and, in my own experience, it simply just works. Here are 2 screenshots taken in Final Fantasy XII, one showing what the game looks like on a real PS2, and one showing the game running with hardware acceleration on my computer in Windows. If you maximize those screenshots on your screen, you’ll see what I’m talking about in regard to quality.

FF-XII - As seen on a PlayStation 2

FF-XII - Emulated with hardware acceleration

For more information and screenshots, visit the page dedicated to Eorzea’s Guide on this web site (yup, page browsing is free as well, fantastic isn’t it?).

Read “Concert de Final Fantasy à Los Angeles, 2004″ (french).

Cette année, j’ai fait le voyage depuis Montréal pour assister au tant attendu concert de Final Fantasy, j’ai nommé: Dear Friends, music from Final Fantasy. Ce concert est le premier en son genre en Amérique du Nord et marque le début de l’E3 2004. Peu de gens ayant la chance de faire un tel voyage, il me fera plaisir d’essayer de partager cette fabuleuse expérience avec vous par le billet de deux articles. Un grand merci a l’équipe de FFWorld pour m’avoir laissé poster ces quelques mots sur leur site!

Dear Friends marque la fin d’une tournée de concerts donnée cette année au Japon. L’occasion de pouvoir assister à ce genre d’évènement en dehors du pays des sushis est d’une telle rareté que la totalité des billets s’est envolée en seulement trois jours suivant le début de la mise en vente. La liste des pièces jouées à ce concert n’était pas connue a l’avance et différai du programme joué lors de la tournée Tour de Japon. Le concert a eu lieu le 10 Mai 2004 au tout nouveau Disney Concert Hall, nouvelle référence en la matière, situé en plein centre-ville de Los Angeles. M. Miguel Harth-Bedoya y a dirigé l’orchestre philharmonique de Los Angeles ainsi que la L.A. Master Chorale pour les back-vocaux.

Disney Concert Hall

Entrée du Concert Hall

La clé de l'entrée

Le premier stand de marchandise s’apprête à ouvrir et je me rend soudainement compte qu’à l’heure actuelle, il ne me reste pas beaucoup de temps pour manger un morceau avant la cohue. Me revoici donc une heure plus tard, le ventre rempli, et redécouvrant le Concert Hall cette fois-ci beaucoup plus animé. Des cars portant la mention Square Enix sont arrêtés devant les portes, du monde commence à affluer de partout et une nouvelle file est maintenant visible, vous l’aurez deviné, pour le stand de marchandise. Au menu du jour, 4 souvenirs: deux T-shirts (blanc et gris) portant le logo du concert, un calendrier, et le programme de la soirée. Une quinzaine de minutes m’auront suffit pour me procurer ces 4 merveilles dont voici quelques détails:

• Les T-shirts sont de très bonne qualité (surprenant pour ce genre de marchandise) et affichent fièrement Dear Friends, music from Final Fantasy, 5.10.2004. Sur une des manchettes, le beau logo de Square Enix apporte la touche finale.
• Le calendrier est constitué de 8 superbes fiches en papier glacé. De très belles illustrations y sont imprimées et les dates importantes qui ont marquées la série Final Fantasy sont indiquées. Un must pour tout collectionneur !
• Pour finir, le programme. Comment pourrais-je décrire ce magnifique artéfact sans risquer de diminuer sa beauté ? Disons simplement que le programme est grandiose et original. A peux de chose près, chaque page pourrait être extraite et transformée en poster. Sur la préface se trouve une photo de notre moustachu préféré, M. Nobuo Uematsu, souriant et plein de vie. Chaque Final Fantasy (de FF-I à FF-XII) est ensuite honoré par deux pages contenant une description du jeu, ses dates de sorties (Japon et USA), des screenshots et un splendide artwork de M. Yoshitaka Amano. Cerise sur le gâteau, au milieu du programme se trouve une reproduction des 4 peintures format géant créées par l’artiste pour marquer la sortie de Final Fantasy XI (ces peintures sont exposées a l’entrées des bureaux de Square Enix au Japon). Bref, ce programme me laisse bouche bée, et vous en retrouverez plusieurs scans dans cet article et le suivant.

Première page du programme

Dernière page du programme

Stand de marchandises

Ever since I was a little kid, I listened to different kinds of music that originated in the States ? rock n’ roll, soul, jazz, and Hollywood film scores. I especially loved pop music, and every week I remember looking forward to Billboard’s top charts. Now it’s my turn to give back. Through this concert, I hope that I can show you the result of my many American influences. Music is such a wonderful, universal thing. Wheter you’re from the States or not, you laugh and cry to the same tunes or melodies. The appreciation of music is not limited or defined by what country you are from, what race you are, or what language you speak. Music makes everyone equal ? fame, social standings, material possessions, age, and gender do not matter. I am blessed to have such a wonderful job.

More information about the features offered by Eorzea’s Guide can be found here on this site. If you own a BlackBerry and play Final Fantasy XIV, just search for “Eorzea” in your app store and give it a try. It’s entirely free :).

Eorzea’s Guide is an app for Final Fantasy XIV players and adventurers. Like so many other apps available nowadays, this program does not intend to blow your brain out. Instead, Eorzea’s Guide intends to make itself useful while you’re playing, and while you’re away from your computer. The application has both online and offline features: for example, you can use it as a recipe book when playing the game and read the latest Final Fantasy news when you’re in the subway.

Eorzea’s Guide is entirely free to use and redistribute, made by a Final Fantasy fan, for Final Fantasy fans. After all, it’s not everyday you get the chance to contribute in one of the things you like the most. The idea to create this program came to me in September 2010, when I received my copy of FF14. I was already searching for a reason to start developing on mobiles and this game gave me the perfect excuse when I realized I had no way to access my recipes while in-game. It took more time than I had expected to complete the first public version of the app (I had another job to do after all…) but I’ve finally managed to put the finishing touches on it and send it to the BlackBerry store.

Eorzea’s Guide is compatible with any BlackBerry device running OS versions 5, 6 and 7  (Curve, Bold, Style, Pearl, Torch, Tour, Storm, …). Both touch-screen and non-touch-screen devices are supported and the application adapts its layout to landscape and portrait orientations (when you tilt your BlackBerry). No other phone is supported at the moment but I am planning to work on an Android version depending on the feedback I get. Current languages supported are English, French, and German with work in progress for Japanese (translator needed!).

This app consist in 3 main sections: News, Synthesis and World Status.

News Section

The News section requires a data connection and displays the latest information posted by Square Enix on The Lodestone web site. News from all 6 available categories are displayed: Topics, Important Notices, Server Maintenance, General, Updates, and Status Changes. If you’re not interested in seeing all of those, you can filter the list to include only your chosen categories and/or only news articles which title contains a specific word.

Every article is processed server side and a custom look, derived from the original style displayed on The Lodestone, is used for better viewing on a mobile phone.

Every picture is compressed and resized when needed for optimal speed, visibility, and bandwidth management.

The actual content of each news post is downloaded only once, when first accessed, and stored in a temporary directory on your phone for faster future access.

Synthesis Section

The Synthesis section does not require any external connection and only uses local resources available on your phone. This is why the initial download of the Eorzea’s Guide application is larger than many other apps: more than a thousand different pictures are stored in its resources for all the recipe materials displayed in this section. Final Fantasy XIV recipes can be displayed by craft, or all at once if preferred. One interesting feature of Eorzea’s Guide is the different ways you can search for specific recipes and materials matching your needs.

More than 2,100 official recipes are currently available, with more added regularly with each update.

Filter recipes by name or by specifying material you have in your possession to easily find synthesis you can do.

Each recipe comes packed with every possible detail, from classification to required skills, facilities and training.

Materials are all linked to each other. You can go from Canvas Chest Guard, to Iron Buckle to Iron Square to Iron Nugget in no time to complete the synthesis you’re really interested in.

Similar recipes are grouped together to improve navigation. Each variant can be displayed in the recipe’s details.

World Status Section

Information regarding Eorzea and its servers can also be found in the app.

The current time, date and year in the world are displayed in real time.

The proper moon calendar is shown along with the date.

The status of each individual game server is displayed, with speed of response (ping).

Get it now, it’s free!

Software development is a passion of mine. Eorzea’s Guide is my current pet project and it is available entirely free of charge on BlackBerry, in every country and on all carriers. Just search for “Eorzea” in your app store and give it a try :-). Feedback and comments are always welcomed.

Coming soon

My character is in Bodhum so if you find me, come and say hi! I’ll be cooking and picking up flowers in the forest for the next couple of days. Exciting stuff, I tell you…

I have to admit the system is very well made. The hardware is sleek and the user interface is very extensive. I think I still prefer the organisation of the new Xbox interface (looks more “entertaining”) but still, the PlayStation 3 has lots of options and can do a lot of stuff. I spent half an hour in their virtual world “Hom” and except for the never ending “downloading” and “loading” breaks, the idea is pretty cool. Now, all I need for some serious time wasting is the new FF. In the meantime, I’ll just have to finish KH Chain of Memories :-).