The World Ends With You

Now that Crisis Core is completed and I am not 100% completely addicted to it, I can move on to the next exciting game I have been planning on playing; The World Ends with You. Quite frankly, though it doesn't seem to happen very often, I love it when multiple games come out in a row that catch my attention and hold it so thoroughly. I'll save the Crisis Core review for later, when I do it up properly, but needless to say I loved it completely and have actually been seriously considering digging out Final Fantasy VII to give it another run through.

Or at least I would be digging out Final fantasy VII except that I am now completely hooked on The World ends with you. When I first fired it up I loved the visual style and music (oh man, the music!!) but the gameplay didn't immediately hook me. It actually took around an hour or so of gameplay before it really grabbed me and hasn't let go.

The thing about this game is that there is a lot going on at once and you are constantly being bombarded with new features to add to the gameplay. At first it feels a little overwhelming. I had a really hard time at first controlling battles on both the touch screen and the top screen. However, after an hour or so of battling, it becomes second nature and, quite frankly, a lot of fun.

Somewhere within all of the learning and soaking of the game's style, I have suddenly found myself hooked on the story as well. I have no idea where it is going and I am having a hard time following the incredibly Japanese names but I am into it and loving it.

It's rare to see Square Enix trying out a new property but, like my favorite game of all time Xenogears, when they put some effort into it Square Enix usually manages to come up with something special. Cheers to my latest addiction, I'll keep an update on how it is coming but I can say with some certainty that it is definitely worth looking into.

Comments (56) | Permalink | Lee Babin | 4.30.2008

Final Fantasy VI Advance

Well, I didn't mean for it to happen, I really did intend to keep up with my blogging after the little one was born but I would be lying if I told you that having a child isn't something of a lifestyle change. And, in that regard, I mean I went from having absolutely no free time to now having ABSOLUTELY no free time. I find it amusing that just when you think you are busy, you find out that you can always be more busy.

In any case, between all of the busy work and taking care of my absolutely adorable son (really, I am sure every father thinks his son is amazing, but I truly feel Haiden is the most amazing) I still have my solid buddy, the Nintendo DS at my side. What does that mean? Why, tons of portable gaming to be sure!

Lately, between a pretty nice selection of recent portable releases I have found myself once again addicted to Final Fantasy VI. I played the living crap out of this game on the Super NES (can you say every single character to level 99? Yes, I am a dork) and still find it to be an amazing game. Everything about this game screams quality, I still say it is the best Final Fantasy ever made for its respective generation. Don't get me wrong, Final Fantasy XII is amazing but for the time, nothing looked and played better than Final Fantasy VI.

The game holds up remarkably well. The graphics are the best example of sprite work I think I have ever seen, it is amazing the level of detail they squeezed out of the tiny Super NEW processor. The music rocks, the story is good and I love the characters. While most will say that FF VII was the turning point where Final Fantasy games REALLY began to show off, I say it started with VI. To find a game that is this engrossing while being as old as it is really shows the quality level.

Surprisingly, it does not seem as though Nintendo is really hyping this one. While FF V had all sorts of advertising and even a Nintendo produced strategy guide, I had a super hard time tracking down FF VI. I looked everywhere and managed to luck out and grab one just as EB got in a new shipment. What's up with that? I consider this game to be the best of the Super NES Final Fantasies, why no love Nintendo?

Anyway, I am not yet far enough to access any of the new content but you can bet I am awaiting it with a complete lack of patience. Those who have played it, know that this version does the game much justice (unlike the PSX version) and those who have not played it need to pick it up to see what they missed. Great game, I'll let you know how the bonus content is!

Comments (279) | Permalink | Lee Babin | 3.20.2007

Haiden's Birth Story

Well, as many of you have probably guessed by now, my wife and I have (finally) had our child. The pregnancy seemed to go by at a very steady pace despite our complete impatience near the end. The actual birth went perfect in my opinion merely because in the end I have a healthy wife and a healthy child. It was certainly not without its hiccups however. They say it is good to write down your entire birth story so that one day you can tell your kids about it and, if you have any lingering issues with the process, it helps you to work through it. While my wife and I are rather fine now that the beautiful little boy is here, I figure that it is sort of a posterity thing. So, without further ado...

This story begins the morning of November 22nd. Our due date was November 29th, but in the last month before the birth, the doctor wants to see you every week. So it was that we woke up early and made the long drive in to Dianne's family doctor. We weren't really expecting anything, Dianne had yet to experience any real contractions, but we found ourselves joking in the car. "What if they tell us the baby is ready to come?", we laughed, not really expecting much. However, at that point in the pregnancy, you start to get really anxious for any news of the child coming.

We made it into the office and Dianne's doctor did the usual examinations revealing a very healthy (and rather large) baby. Just for the fun of it (even though the process isn't much fun), we asked the doctor to check Dianne to see if there was any progress. The doctor had a look and said, "Oh, looks like you are about 3 centimeters dilated!". Both me and Dianne responded with a resounding "What!!??". The doctor said not to worry, that didn't mean that anything was necessarily going to happen soon, but it did mean that when something did happen, it may happen faster. She asked if we wanted her to thin out the cervix a bit while she was down there. We said sure, why not? We left the doctor's office a little more excited, even though according to the doctor it could still be weeks before we would have the baby. It did not take that long.

As we were both rather starving, we headed to a nearby Vietnamese restaurant that we both enjoy. On the way, Dianne was starting to get some weird feelings she had not felt in the rest of her pregnancy. I didn't really know what they were and neither did she. They were pretty infrequent and not really painful so we continued to the restaurant. While eating, she started to get the feelings more consistently and with more frequency. We began to assume that they were contractions but we didn't really think much of them as my brother's sister (almost the same point in her pregnancy) had been having contractions for months with no baby. We figured we would go back home, buy a birthing ball and a watch (to time contractions) and relax at home. Our pregnancy classes taught us that the initial points of labor for most women's first child can take quite a while and there is no point in going into the hospital too early.

So it was that we found ourselves walking around the Wal-Mart close to our house. We bought the ball and the watch and checked out. We stopped on the way home to pick up one of the apple ciders from Starbucks as they are delicious. Snow was starting to fall and the contractions were coming more frequently. By the time we got home, Dianne's contractions were easily 5 minutes apart and had been coming for about an hour and a half. On top of that, they were getting quite strong and Dianne wasn't comfortable with them anymore. We walked in the door and I quickly called the hospital for an opinion. While I was on the phone, Dianne rolled around on the birthing ball which seemed to intensify the contractions even more. The hospital sounded slightly skeptical about us coming in even though the contractions had been steady for an hour and a half at 5 minutes apart. They said we "could" come in if we wanted, but we would likely be sent home. Just to be sure, we waited another 30 minutes, during which time the contractions got stronger and held steady at 5 minutes. Since the snow was falling and we had about an hour drive to the hospital, I said screw it to the nurse's advice and decided to head into the hospital.

It didn't take long into the drive to confirm my decision was a good one. The contractions were beginning to get really, really strong and I could actually tell Dianne when they were going to come according to the watch, they were so steady. On route we wrote down phone numbers to call and I called our families to tell them we were on our way to the hospital. The drive in went smooth as the roads were fine (despite the snow) and traffic was clear as it was only about 2:30pm. I had always imagined a mad dash to the hospital full of speeding and weaving through traffic. The actual drive there was quite relaxed and I just tried my best to comfort Dianne through her contractions. The drive went off without a hitch and we arrived at Foothills Hospital around 3:15 pm.

I dropped Dianne off at the front and went to quickly park the car. I jogged back to the hospital from my stupidly far away parking spot to find her having a contraction in the lobby. Luckily, she was fine and a doctor had stopped to make sure she was ok. We boarded the elevator to go up to the 5th floor. In the elevator Dianne had another really strong contraction and everyone in the elevator sort of looked at us funny. I announced that a baby was on the way and was greeted by a ton of well wishing and excitement. Everyone loves a new baby, and the crew we rode the elevator with was no exception. We arrived at our stop and quickly made our way to the check in.

Since we had been at the hospital twice before (for false alarm symptoms), we knew exactly where to go and we already had our blue hospital card. They immediately brought us into a room and, as luck would have it, our doctor was the one on duty that day. She quickly got there and, since she had just seen us that morning, she wasn't really expecting to keep us there. We explained that we were now going on about 3 hours of 5 minute contractions. She did a check on Dianne and quickly found out that she had already progressed to about 6 centimeters dilation. That was that, we were staying to have our baby! While they moved Dianne to her room, I was sent downstairs to finalize Dianne's check-in. I don't know if I have ever been so excited walking through a hallway ever. I finished the paper work as fast as my slightly shaking hand would go.

When I got into the birthing room, I was quite impressed by how large it was. There was room for walking around, operating, birthing and even had a bathroom with a shower. We were introduced to our nurse, who happened to be a nurse finalizing her training. I wasn't particularly thrilled with that idea, but she had a more experienced nurse watching over her and she was a really nice lady so I figured it would be fine. Dianne made herself busy on the birthing ball while I quickly got on the phone to call her mother to come into the hospital because she wanted to help with the birth. After some trying, I got a hold of her and she was on her way. It was time to help Dianne work through the contractions.

At this time, it was about 4:00pm. Dianne loves the birthing ball and so I gave her back rubs while she worked through the steady contractions. We tried different positions on the ball and Dianne even tried out the shower for a while to see if that would help. As it turns out, she quite enjoyed the shower and she stayed in there for a half an hour or so.

At around 5:00pm, Dianne's mother arrived and she quickly got in there to help comfort and encourage Dianne through her contractions. I helped out as best as I could by bringing ice chips, juice and back rubs as much as possible. Dianne was getting some really strong contractions but she was really doing an incredible job of working through them. She was offered all sorts of drugs multiple times but continued to turn them down.

At around 6:00pm, they checked Dianne again and found that she had progressed to 7 centimeters dilation and still no broken water. The contractions were getting pretty brutal and so she was using laughing gas sparingly to help with the pain a bit. Our doctor came in again and decided it would be best to break Dianne's water. She did so and they decided to hook up a monitor on the baby's head to monitor his heart beat. Heart beat was fine but Dianne's contractions began to get incredibly painful and were coming at an insane pace. At this point she was offered an epidural and, after fighting through a particularly brutal set of contractions (3 sets in about 7 minutes); she decided to go for it.

The anesthesiologist came in and explained the risks and procedures for an epidural. While it sounded pretty scary, a large amount of women take it every year and it seemed to have a decent track record. Sadly, it took the doctor 3 attempts to get the needle into the spine of the back. I held Dianne while the doctor yelled at her to stick out her back while she experienced one insane contraction after the other. When he started to miss so many times and I could see how much pain Dianne was in, I started to feel a bit woozy. I guess the nurses must have noticed that I was about two seconds from blacking out as they brought me some juice and said it would help. I fought through the wooziness and the additional juice helped my head clear a bit. About that time, the doctor finally got the needle in properly and Dianne laid down a bit.

Now, at this point (6:45pm'ish), things started to get scary. Our regular nurse went on break and a new (far more experienced) nurse took over. This new nurse went in to check Dianne and found her to be about 9 1/2 centimeters dilated. Almost time to push. She also noticed something a little scary. Dianne was leaking rather large blood clots. While blood is expected, blood clots are not. The nurse was pretty sure that the placenta was probably pulling away from the uterine wall and the only way to cure that was for the baby to be born. She recommended Dianne push on the next contraction and immediately called in our doctor.

When our doctor got there (wearing her street clothes, she had been right about to leave), Dianne had already pushed through two contractions and the baby was coming FAST. Unfortunately, every time Dianne pushed, the baby's heart rate went down. Our doctor immediately took charge. She yelled into the intercom for two more obstetricians, two pediatricians and a gaggle of nurses. She also ordered the vacuum. When no one showed up 20 seconds later, she repeated her order in a very demanding tone for them to come immediately. Within 10 seconds about 10 people came charging into the room, they had the vacuum setup and they were screaming at Dianne to push.

Poor Dianne was pushing as hard as she possibly could. The epidural did not have time to kick in so she was in massive amounts of pain. She was crying, screaming a bit and pushing as hard as she could. The doctor's were yelling at her to stop screaming and JUST PUSH! It was a very tense and rather scary moment in time. Luckily, Dianne was moving that baby like a freaking rocket and we both soon heard the sound of a baby crying. One more push yielded the head popping out. One more push after that and the rest of our little Haiden's body fell out and was caught by the doctor. I asked if I could cut the cord, but the doctor's suggested against it as they wanted to make sure he was ok after such a traumatic birth. From the point of when Dianne started pushing to the point when Haiden was born took about 4 minutes.

Haiden Ly Lawrence Babin was both at 7:14pm on November 22nd, 2006. He weighed 7 pounds, 3 ounces and was a whopping 21 inches long. It was love at first sight for me. The nurse cleaned him off a bit and did a few tests then gave him to me. Since I have never really held a baby, I was worried I wouldn't know what to do, but my fatherly instincts kicked in immediately. The bad part was that the super fast delivery had left Dianne pretty hurt with third degree tears. I brought Haiden over to see her while she was being stitched up. She looked tired, in pain and yet relieved that everybody was doing fine. The placenta was delivered almost immediately after Haiden which was a good thing. The blood clots also immediately stopped. Baby and mom were in perfect health.

Thankfully, there weren't that many births that day and so we ended up with a private room at the hospital. That was nice as it gave us some time to get our thoughts in order after the ordeal. I busied myself with calling family and friends with the good news and, before I knew it, I was driving Dianne's mom home. I picked up some food at my in-law's house and brought it back to Dianne. I wasn't allowed to stay the night so I went over to my brother's house to stay over (since he lives much closer to the hospital than I do).

The next day I was at the hospital by about 7:30am and we were released from the hospital at 5:00pm and our adventure in parenting began. The whole process was a little stressful, but ultimately very nice. It went quickly and we ended up with the best possible outcome; healthy mom and baby. Haiden is a pleasure to behold, he rarely cries and he sleeps really well. I am sure every father says this, but I am convinced I have the most beautiful child on earth. I have even more respect for Dianne than I originally did (if that is possible) and I am trying my hardest to make sure she eats and sleeps well and gets plenty of rest. I am a very happy daddy and hope to perhaps go through this routine once more.

One more interesting note on everything is the day that Haiden was born. 13 years earlier, on the exact same day (Nov 22nd), my father passed away. My family and I really think that our little Haiden is a true blessing and that my father was truly involved in his safe and timely delivery. I cannot think of a more fitting or moving time for my child to be born and I know my father would be just as proud of little Haiden as I am.

For more pictures and videos, click the links below. I will be updating those pages as Haiden's adventure in life continues.

Pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/lbabin/Haiden
Videos: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=D07F93B54652341B

Comments (167) | Permalink | Lee Babin | 12.7.2006

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