Results tagged “Adventures in Canadian Gaming”

I'm beginning to regret the title of this column.  It forces me to constantly try to find angles that relate my antics to the state of Canadian gaming in general, which isn't really that different from American gaming, except for the presence of French on everything (which is less of a difference these days), the lack of availability of certain items, and the presence of crappy game companies within our country.  Ubisoft apparently has the ability to do a good job on games that they care about, but when it comes to translating games from other companies, they do kinda drop the ball sometimes.  Lunar: Dragon Song was apparently the first traditional RPG on the DS.  Ubisoft didn't have to rush their translation, considering that I'm pretty sure the next RPG on the DS was also translated by Ubisoft.  Who were they racing?  Themselves?

Next week I'll be giving this column a new name.

Twittering a gaming journal does have its downside.  If I'm playing my game and I'm not near a computer, I had better hope that I don't come up with something that I want to post, since I don't have a cell phone, and apparently my PSP doesn't like the site.

But anyway, this week I can't help but notice just how badly certain survey companies handle gaming questions.  There was one survey I took recently where they asked about games I'd heard of, then asked about games I'd personally owned copies of.  The games they listed?  "Zelda".  No individual titles, just "Zelda".  "Mario".  "Spyro".  And others.  It's clear that they were just cutting and pasting from lists they'd compiled from ten minutes of research.  There are no games that go by the one word title "Zelda".  Similarly, there are no games that go by the one word title "Spyro", unless you drop subtitles on a few games.  There was a game, apparently, that went by the one word title "Mario" on the Commodore 64, but the likelihood that anyone taking the survey would've played that one is next to nil.  They also list "Final Fantasy", which was the title of exactly one game, which has been ported to many different systems by now.

What really pissed me off was that, halfway through the survey, it blocked me from continuing because I was using FireFox, and apparently FireFox is the spawn of the devil or something, because they'd programmed their survey to only work in Internet Explorer 7.  Then it wouldn't let me back in when I tried to re-enter the survey in the proper browser.  I was not warned of the requirement before I started the survey.

At first, I wondered if Microsoft has control over some of these surveys.  I noticed that, when asked what websites I went to for gaming news, most of the ones listed were general sites, but one of them stood out: Xbox Fanboy*.  It sounds like a Microsoft fan site, doesn't it?  However, the website has little to do with the Xbox; it appears at first glance to be another general web site for gaming news.  The name is misleading, and seems like it would drive away all except those who happen to like everything that Microsoft has done.

On the About Us page, Xbox Fanboy tries to gloss over the fact that it's just an ad site, set up to encourage people to go to their partner website, shopping.com.  The way they phrase it, it makes it sound like the web site is fully automated, while pretending to be the home of a fan of the Xbox.  It's kind of a weak ploy, in my opinion, a way to try to advertise a web site while spending as little money as possible.  Not only did it make me wonder what it was doing on that survey, but it also made me reconsider my first impression.  The survey may not have originated from Microsoft, but from shopping.com.  If not, then the survey was even more poorly researched than I had first thought.

*I hope it's this website.  I'm going by memory, since I can't get back into the survey.

Video of the Week:

This is all you need to know about what the idiots at NBC tried to do.


Currently Playing: Sands of Destruction (DS)

Those of you following my Twitter account probably know what I think of this game so far.  After using such science fiction references as Soilent Green in Xenogears, it seems like the writers are using other science fiction references this time around.  I can't help but see the same race divide in this game as I do in the Moreau series by S. Andrew Swann.  In the Moreau series, however, the humans seem to have the upper hand against the various species of animal people, and in this game, the humans are the ones who are at a disadvantage.

In this game, the animal men are called "ferals", but I can't help think of them as "furries".  The words are very similar.  However, through the course of the game, you're trying to kill all the furries, among other destructive goals.  This game must've been influenced by Something Awful (and I refuse to dignify them with a link to their website).

Looking Forward To: Cautiously Optimistic About: Lunar: Silver Star Harmony (PSP)

And you probably already know my thoughts about this as well.  I'd previously been looking forward to this game, but I've downgraded my enthusiasm in light of a few things that I didn't like about the recently released demo.  I'm getting sick of point and click adventuring.  It's faster, yes, but it seems like the lazy way out of designing a world map to run around on.  For example: while the world map did kinda suck in Suikoden IV, it's no excuse to remove such a thing entirely from games like Suikoden Tierkreis.  Likewise, there is little reason to leave it out of this game.  I hope the only reason they left it out is because of lack of space on a UMD.  They did, after all, carry forward the anime FMV from the Complete PlayStation version.  But: they rewrote the lyrics to the opening FMV, and I don't like the new lyrics very much.  I shudder to think about what they might've done to my precious Boat Song...

It's happy "What the fuck?" time once again, and this time it's all Nintendo's fault.  The president of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata, has made some rather cryptic comments that pretty much amount to the announcement of another new handheld system in the works.  Honestly, what the fuck?  Is it not enough that there have been four versions of the DS since 2004?  Yes, Nintendo has had a history of creating some very good products, but they don't need to constantly be creating them!  There was nothing wrong with the original DS when it came out*, but out came the DS Lite after a couple years, and I accepted that.  Then came two versions of the DSi, both of which I felt were unnecessary, and now there's going to be another handheld?  Are they not happy?  Were the sales of the DSi LL/XL/WTF/OMG/RACECAR/BLING/BLING not good enough?

I think it's about time that Nintendo takes a step back to rest upon their laurels a little.  There's little chance for Sony's PSP system to dethrone the DS, or else it would've happened already.  It's true that the PSP is not going anywhere, but it's also not going to suddenly spike in sales.  The PSP Go was given too optimistic a name (I'm ready to start calling it the PSP Gone).  Anyone else who tried to break into the handheld gaming market were defeated pretty quickly by Nintendo.  Even Apple can't seem to make much headway, even with such exclusives as Square-Enix's Song Summoner: The Unsung Heroes (but then again, Square-Enix has demonstrated that they're willing to work with anyone, so Apple shouldn't feel special).

It's not likely that there are any target audiences left for Nintendo to go after, anyway.  The DSi was great for those who like to have a poor quality camera inside their gaming console, the DSi LL was great for those who like to be able to use their handheld console for a spare paperweight in between gaming sessions, and the DS Lite was great for those who have wrists made of paper.  Also, entire regions of the world have adopted the DS as if it was an adorable little puppy needing attention.  For example, up here in Canada, the Quebecois have supported the DS so much that Nintendo of America automatically puts French on the back of the DS cases now, even on copies being sold to the United States.  I highly doubt that anyone in Quebec would appreciate having to buy yet another Nintendo handheld just because another one emerges from the brains of their R&D department.

If a new handheld system must be released, then here's what it requires in order to have my support: a slot for GameBoy games.  I'm talking the entire line, including original, Color and Advance titles.  It also requires a slot for SD cards.  The DSi came with one, so the DS5 (or whatever they call it) should, too.  If it is to have two screens (which right now seems highly debatable), then it should also have a DS slot as well, either right next to the SD slot, or above/below it.  If Nintendo insists on putting a camera inside their device, then make it at least a 3 megapixel camera.  If not, then release a 5 megapixel camera as an add-on, attached probably through the GameBoy slot.  Everyone who wants it can have it, everyone else can ignore it.  It must also connect to the Internet as painlessly as both the Wii and the PSP does (and, I assume, the PS3 as well; I still don't have one yet or I'd know for sure).

And one last requirement for the DS5: that once it releases, Nintendo does not create any more new hardware for at least the next five years.

Video of the Week

What is your opinion of Taylor Swift?  How about Katy Perry?  Miley Cyrus?  Jason Mraz?  Yeah, didn't think you liked them either.  So how would you feel about a remix containing all of them?  Don't knock it before you try it:



And if you thought that was awesome, I'll give you 2008's mash-up as a bonus, just because it's the new year and I'm feeling generous:



All of a sudden, some of the worst singers imaginable have become listenable.  You wouldn't think that you could put Kanye West and Taylor Swift in the same song together without the one butting in and taking over so he can say that Beyonce is the better singer, but it seems to work.  I can't wait to see what DJ Earworm comes up with for 2010.

Currently Playing: Final Fantasy VII, the Remake

Mwahahahaha.  Okay, that's a little misleading.  I'll do it properly this time.

Currently Playing: Final Fantasy VII (NES)

Yes, I'm playing through the NES remake of Final Fantasy VII.  A Chinese company did it in secret, without Square-Enix's consent, and released it quietly.  Then a fan translated it into English.  But I'm giving him or her too much credit when I use the word "translated".  The script reads very similarly to the original English translation of the game, which tells me that all they did was type up the original PS1 script and insert it into the game, with a few extra translations added just so that it looks like they made a little bit of effort.  It's true that Barret didn't always talk using awful Ebonics in the original game (it wasn't even proper Ebonics, it was a rather miserable attempt at an already poor version of the English language), but I can tell when the fan actually translated stuff and when he just lifted it from the original: there are times in the NES version where Barret talks like a normal person, when he probably should've used Ebonics.

The game itself plays more like a romhack than a completely new build, right down to the recycled graphics (Midgar on the world map looks exactly like the city you started out from in the original Final Fantasy, for example, and Cloud looks like a modified Fighter sprite) and the music stolen not from VII, but from earlier titles.  The music from both Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III didn't make much of an impression on me, and I can't tell which of them were used in the game to replace VII's music.  Maybe both.

Looking Forward To: Avernum VI (PC)

More power to Spiderweb Software for being one of the few developers who are still not only creating games for the Mac, but releasing the Mac version first before they work on the PC version.  Sadly, I have only a PC so I will have to wait until March before I would be able to try this game.  Also sadly: I have not yet played a single Avernum game, but given that I've played some of the old Exile series, I've had some experience in the world of Avernum so far.

The Avernum series is a remake of the Exile trilogy, which then continued the story in a trilogy of original games, and the prospect of playing through another critically acclaimed long series of video games just makes me tingle with joy.



*Okay, there are two major things wrong with the original DS, but I don't care about the one (from what I understood, I would have to change my router settings completely if I want to connect my DS to the Internet).  The other major problem is that the power button is located just above the direction pad.  It's entirely possible to fight a tough boss, then after a moment's break, reach for the direction pad and hit the power instead.  It's only happened to me a few times, but enough to make it an issue.  The DS Lite fixed that problem.

In playing through Dissidia, I can't help but wonder something.  In the game, it's suggested that many warriors were present in the world of Dissidia when the conflict began, but now only ten are left.  So it begs the question: who were these other warriors who have fallen, and why isn't there any real effort being made to avenge these characters?  I have to assume they are characters from other worlds, since the characters that are left aren't talking about their fallen comrades or about taking revenge for the deaths of loved ones.

But suppose these other characters were also taken from Final Fantasy games.  Heroes who fought alongside each other in their original games, now fighting alongside each other in the world of Dissidia.  I find it hard to believe that only ten of them remain.  There are plenty of characters who should still be around to fight the forces of Chaos.

First of all, the Warrior of Light, the Onion Knight, Bartz, and Firion were all from games where each character pretty much shared everything with each other and their skills were interchangeable.  If they're the only ones left from each of their games, then it's probably due to sheer luck.  They'll be the next ones to die, in this case.  A possible exception would be Galuf, since he was the only character to ever survive being reduced to 0 HP in battle without requiring a special status effect to keep him alive.

In Final Fantasy IV, Cecil is not the only character who could deal heavy damage and hold his own in battle.  Kain was a pretty decent fighter in battle... when he was on your side.  I suppose anyone who could easily be controlled by the enemy would be unreliable as an ally.  Quick to die would be the old and feeble FuSoYa and Tellah.  The spoony bard who mourned for his lost love in the twilight, Edward, would also die easily, unless he uses Hide a lot.  Then again, he would still die in areas where there are no hiding places.  On the other hand, Cid would be hard to kill.  Anyone who can survive blowing himself up could easily survive an onslaught of Chaos's minions.

In Final Fantasy VI, there were far too many characters for Square to pick just one, and the only reason Terra was present in Dissidia is because she has the most history with Kefka.  But there are a few characters who would easily hold their own even better than Terra could.  Gau grew up in the wild, and was one of the fiercest characters you could take with you on your journey.  Nature toughened him up during his years on his own.  The thief Locke also comes to mind.  He was so good a thief, he could walk away with the clothes on your back.  Shadow, Sabin, Celes... there were easily quite a few characters who would go the distance in a Dissidia setting.

You could pretty much list most of the cast of Final Fantasy VII on a list such as this.  Aeris would probably be easy to kill (sorry fans, but I'm surprised it took Sephiroth that long to take her out), and maybe Cait Sith as well, although there would be more of him built and ready to go if one of him does die, so considering him a liability would be just as much a mistake as would be considering him a good character.  Vincent and his transformations would be hard to kill, as would Tifa and Barret.  And Nanaki?  He would fight like the beast he is and take down Sephiroth himself before he would ever die.  He might even outlast Cloud.

Final Fantasy VIII had a mixture of good and bad characters.  Seifer was a bully, but he could easily hold his own against the forces of Chaos, as long as he doesn't suddenly join the sorceress.  But at least he had free will.  Rinoa has access to a bunch of sorceress powers... except, she would be a liability as well, given how easily Ultimecia could possess her.  Other than Squall, about the only ones I could see doing any kind of damage against an enemy would be Zell, with his up-close, street brawl style of combat, and Irvine, who could snipe most enemies dead (but would probably die if confronted by a party of enemies at close range).

Similarly, many characters in Final Fantasy IX would be dead before long in a world like Dissidia.  I would probably expect Freya to be the only character who could hold her own from the cast, other than Zidane.  Unfortunately, all three magic users would fall quickly (although Eiko might last a little while longer than the others), and Steiner is too much of a submissive coward to hold his own in a fight.  Freya, meanwhile, can stay in the air and rain spears down on the enemy when she goes into Trance mode, which is a pretty effective attack, probably just as effective as the Onion Knight's oh so cheap Meteor attack.

And from Final Fantasy X, I would expect Auron to survive against Chaos, as well as Kimahri.  Maybe the other characters, if they're lucky, but it depends on how quickly they can level up.  However, if Tidus, a mere dream of the Fayth can survive, then the rest of the cast should have little trouble surviving as well.

A vast number of characters have the potential to aid in the fight against Chaos, but I suppose programming them all into the game would've taken forever, so we're stuck with only one from each game.  Still, these characters showed what they could accomplish when they all teamed up in battle.  Dissidia splits up the original teams and forces each character to join forces with strangers from other lands.  Ah well, at least the battle system's awesome.

Watch for the Dissidia review to be posted soon!

Video of the Week

With all the talk about the track and field athlete from South Africa, Caster Semenya, and questions about whether she is a man or a woman, we here at Damage Control think we have the answer.

Background: apparently, if you run as fast as a Kenyan, you get deported to Kenya.  When you run faster than Kenyans, your own gender tries to disown you.

Our theory is thus: she is the long lost sister of Lady Gaga.  And to explain Lady Gaga's weirdness, look no further than this week's video of the week:

Currently Playing: Picross DS (DS)  Yes, I'm still playing it.

You know a game is good and addictive when you play it often.  I keep unlocking more stuff, so it's hard to say when it'll end.  Plus, you can go back and improve your time on puzzles you've already completed.  Some people have their Final Fantasy games.  Some people have their Soul Calibur games.  I have Picross.

And since I linked to the Wikipedia page for Picross DS last column, I'm linking to a web Picross game this time.  Enjoy!

Looking Forward To: Numb3rs, season 6

The new season starts next week, and as I do every year, I anticipate it eagerly.  Last season's Big Question will be resolved (tune in tomorrow if you live in the US or Canada to see the season finale if you missed it the first time, so you'll know what I'm talking about), thank goodness.  I've been waiting all summer to find out what the answer will be.  It sure beats last year's hastily rushed cliffhanger where Charlie lost his security clearance in a last minute rush to fit all of the relevant plot into the shortened season.  It really helps when writers don't go on strike.

Alternate title: Flipping My Lid

I used to think that the reason Amazon wasn't allowed to send certain games to Canada was because of a lack of French on the covers of the games they had in stock, and a lack of availability of a Canadian edition.  But when I got Dissidia: Final Fantasy in the mail last week, I was surprised (and downright pleased) to see absolutely no French cluttering the packaging, and upon opening the case, I found a reasonably-sized manual inside, rather than a 150 page epic, half of which would've been in a language I cannot read.  It might as well be in Japanese or Egyptian.

Interestingly, when I received the rest of my shipment the following week, most of the rest of the games were also in English only, so I would love to hear Amazon's reasons for denying me access to most of their game library.

So Dissidia (and the pre-order bonus CD) came from Amazon, and I knew I would get hours and hours of enjoyment out of the game, based on the demo I downloaded from the PlayStation Store.  And it turned out that I had a lot of fun micro-managing things between battles.  Every time I mastered a skill, I went back into the menu system, looking things over, seeing what other skills I might want to add.  Every time I finished a story, I was in the PP Catalog, eager to spend my hard-earned points.  As I spent more and more time playing, I quickly realized that only about one tenth of my time was actually spent in battles.  (A lot of it was spent waiting for stuff to load, but still.)

And then, about three hours into the game, my PSP broke.

Naturally, I was angry and frustrated at that point, but I resisted slamming the PSP against the table, which would've made the problem worse and potentially irreversible.  It is, of course, not a Nintendo product, and not indestructible.  But if I ignored it, the problem wouldn't fix itself, and the PSP's function as a game player would be severely hampered.  What happened was, the lid that keeps the UMD in place came off one of its hinges, so the first thing I tried to do was snap it back into place.  I quickly found out that, the way the hinge was designed, it should've been physically impossible to have come loose in the first place, even when the force of my knee was applied to it.  So I wiggled it this way and that, tried brute force a couple more times, and then tried unhinging the other side to see if it would come loose, and if so, try to gain some kind of insight as to how to put it back together.

At this point, I was ready to declare Hammer Time, but I didn't want to bust up my PSP further, so I resisted the urge.  It was bad enough that one entire side of the lid had come off, and the door was swinging loose.  Rather than continue to apply brute force and possibly break the lid further, I decided to look up a tutorial or two on-line and figure out how to take the device apart.  Turned out, most of the tutorials were for the 1000 series, and mine is a 2000 series.  It took some digging to find a tutorial that even mentioned the 2000 series, but I eventually found one that mentioned both the 2000 and 3000 series PSPs, both of which have more screws than the 1000 series.  So I started with step one and took out three of the screws in the back, then stared hard at the sticker that said that if I tampered with it in any way, the warranty would be voided.  I sighed, figured my problem could only be solved in this one way, and peeled enough of the sticker away to reach the fourth screw.  Once it was out, I turned to the screws on the top and bottom of the device.

They wouldn't budge.  I suppose I had the wrong screwdriver.  I mean, I guess it's possible to have one screwdriver for each kind of screw in existence, but only if you're so obsessed with tools that you improve things in your own home all the time and build hot rods and have a low rated home improvement show on cable, but between visits to the emergency room, and all the projects for personal and work-related use you'd be involved with, there wouldn't be time to play video games and write about them.  So I made do with what I had, and the screwdriver would've worked, if the screws hadn't been so tight.  I suppose, from playing the PSP for one and a half years, that all the sweat that had accumulated must've somehow rusted the screws in place without visibly showing any of that rust.

After two hours of struggling with the screws, and with numb thumbs, I gave up.  I tried to press the lid back in place once more and almost growled in frustration.  Getting it back into place was as physically impossible as jarring it loose in the first place, and yet it was loose, so it should've been possible to fix it again without even opening my PSP.  Yet the simple act of taking the screws out had defeated me.  So I sighed again, this time in frustration and anger, and put back in place the four screws I'd successfully removed, put the battery back in (two of the screws, including the one that voids the warranty, are behind the battery), put the battery lid back on, futilely tried to press the UMD lid back in place, and then flopped down in my chair in front of the computer.  As I was reviewing the website I'd found earlier, I absently applied just a little pressure on my PSP as if it would help to snap the lid back in place, when brute force hadn't done it.

That's when I realized that I had just snapped the lid back in place.

Video of the Week

Memo to Square's casting department: you dropped the ball with Kefka's voice.  He just doesn't sound demented enough to be the clown prince of the Gestahl Empire.  If you want to hear the voice of the person you should've hired for Dissidia, here you go:



In your next game that features characters from Final Fantasy VI, I hope you fix this unfortunate oversight.

Currently Playing: Dissidia: Final Fantasy (PSP; see above)

I just wish the game was more epic, like past Final Fantasy games.  What's really captured my attention though, is:

Currently Playing: Picross DS (DS.  Duh)

At the rate I've been playing this game, I'll end up finished in about a week or two.  Those puzzles are so damn addicting!  And yet Canadians aren't allowed to buy this game from Amazon.com unless they went through a special section of their site.  What, are Canadians going to use a game where you draw pictures with numbers to burn down the White House again?  Hell, we didn't need the help of such a device the first time, why would we need it the second time?

Looking Forward To: Ōkamiden: Chisaki Taiyou (DS)

This is a game I'm taking a lot of interest in.  I don't know if it's going to make it over to North America.  Then again, I didn't think the original game would either, but Capcom surprised me, twice.  Please, Capcom, if you're never going to make another Breath of Fire, at the very least bring Ōkamiden over so we can play it!

I am a little wary, though, since the game is starring a small, cute wolf called "Chibiterasu".  Chibi, for crying out loud.  They'd better not ruin this for me!  Can't deny it, though, she (I'm assuming it's a she?) is cute.

Bottom line: Ōkami sequel + DS = it's about damn time, doubled.  I'm looking forward to a game controlled by the touch screen that doesn't suck, and where the shapes actually mean something.  I'm sorry, Lost Magic, but you did kinda suck.  And the control scheme for the DS seems perfect for Ōkami.  I really, really, really hope this makes the trip over the Pacific.  Maybe I should learn Japanese, just to be on the safe side.

Note: next Adventures In Canadian Gaming, if current scheduling plans work out, will be posted September 17, then return to its regular once-a-week schedule.

I suppose there are times when even the most addicted gamers desire some fresh air.  Second Life and flying sims don't count.

The story of my own sudden addiction to exercise is a strange one, born of an odd mental state and suicidal birds.  Last week, I said that I was playing lots of Persona 3, yet after I posted the entry, I found myself not touching it at all.  What's wrong with me?  I'll tell you.

So I had a dream that night, the night I posted column #6, a dream about investigating a bunch of abandoned buildings that were somehow related to some people who used to run a university.  Anyway, as a part of that dream, there was a girl who was half wolf and she was coming on to me and I refused her.  That part stuck with me and I wanted to develop it into a short story.  The best way I used to find to come up with ideas for writing was to take a walk, so I went out and walked ten miles and came up with a few neat ideas for the overall story universe.  But anyway, the point was that I walked ten miles.

The very next night, I had worked a decent shift at work and was settling in to do some chatting in AIM.  Then I heard a bang and everything went dark.

When I went out to investigate, there was a bird lying fried beneath the dead transformer at the end of the back alley (don't worry, it was a Decepticon that died).  Some cat in the neighbourhood had a delicious dinner that night!  Yum...

Naturally, without power there was no Internet.  I suppose I could've picked up my DS or my PSP and played for a while until the power came back, but I was restless and I wanted to do something more than just sit around and play a game.  So I went out.  The one problem, of course, is that the later it gets, the darker it is.  This is true even in the summer when the days are long.  So when I climbed up Mount Revelstoke, I only got as far as the first checkpoint where all the trails converge, and decided to turn back.

Since then, I've gone on two more epic walks rather than waste days away playing video games.  Honestly, what kind of gamer am I, to prefer the great outdoors over the great Hyrulean outdoors?

In the same week, my sister was in town.  She brought with her a gift for me, a video game she figured I'd enjoy, given that she and her husband enjoyed it.  She phoned ahead and asked mom if I had a PSP.  That was all she bothered to find out.  So she arrived with a game and tried to give it to me.  I told her I already played it.  Then she said that now I'll have it.  So I showed her my copy of the game.  We had a good laugh about it.

It was funny, too.  I had bought it for the PSP, loved it, figured she and her husband would love it and so I asked subtle questions about whether or not they had the game already, since I knew that they had played the demo.  They didn't.  So when they were in town for Christmas, I bought them the game for their Xbox 360 and surprised them.  Then my sister tried to surprise me and failed, poor girl.  So since we didn't break a special seal on the game, she can take it back and exchange it.  Some places are cool like that.

Video of the Week



The Doctor totally got a better kiss than RTD.

Currently Playing: Real Life

I think I only played, like, one hour of Final Fantasy IV: The After Years and five minutes of Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled this week.  That's how little I gamed.  No anime, either.  The last time I sat down to watch an episode, a lot of my friends started to message me and I couldn't concentrate on both at the same time.  I suck at consuming popular media this week.  I blame all my long walks, while listening to podcasts.  Hey, there's an idea.

Currently Playing Listening To: Podcasts!

Looking Forward To: Another Three Day Long Weekend

I suppose there's nothing more to say than that.  Two days of hiking means no days of video games.  Honestly, who needs games when you feel like you could walk from here to Tacoma and back?  Then again, three days off instead of two would probably mean three days of hiking and no days of video games.  I should be careful what I wish for.

This was originally scribed in March with the intention of turning my adventures in the MMO "The Chronicles of Spellborn" into a regular feature on Damage Control.  After logging out on March 27, I have not been back since, but still look forward to going back and seeing what's new, someday.  Until then, here is the entire log of my experience with the game, slightly edited for spelling where the error is too horrible to leave in.  Note: some of this was used to create the very first Adventures in Canadian Gaming column back in April.

March 24, 2009
On the 20th, Acclaim opened the beta to North America, and so today I downloaded the installer file.  Yay, now I won't lose anything when my browser crashes!  So I activated the download... and have to wait four hours for it all to download.  Perfect, I can go play on the Wii or post to Damage Control or something.

11:15pm - I just realized it's my fault that the download is taking so long.  I'd better stop reading webcomics.

March 25, 2009
12:09am - I'm playing the first Dragon Warrior Monsters instead.  Wow, in my very first battle, my Slime was almost taken out by an Anteater, but luckily I managed to defeat it.  I needed to use an Herb, though, to heal my monster.  Gained quite a few experience points, though.  Then leveled up in my next battle, and earned a Dracky as a partner, too.  My Dracky promptly leveled up in the next fight, and is quickly leaving my Slime in the dust.  Oh, wait, my Slime just leveled up.  Now it's 3, and my Dracky is 4.  Wait, wasn't this supposed to be a Chronicles of Spellborn diary?

2:03am - The download is frozen at 78%, and I'm tired of waiting, so I'm just going to give up and sleep.  At this point in Dragon Warrior Monsters, I've beaten the first three bosses and am trying to beat the next tournament level in order to open up more portals.  The second and third bosses in this game are the dragon and golem from the original Dragon Warrior!

5:24pm - I left the download overnight, and it still didn't move.  I don't know if this is a problem with the site or with the download client, but it refuses to download any more.  So I stopped it and decided to try again tonight as soon as I got home from work.  But as before, it refuses to move, claims there's an unknown time remaining in the download, and is frozen at 78%.  I re-downloaded the download client (you know, if the client could be torrented, it would be great), and found it wasn't moving at all once more.  Whether it is moving and it just refuses to show, or whether there's a glitch, I don't know.  No one else seems to be reporting these troubles.  So I used the other downloader.  This wouldn't have been a problem if not for my ISP putting a download cap on our Internet usage (it's almost enough to make me want to switch from RCTV Online to Telus).  I had already downloaded over 2GB of data, and our usage cap is 50.

Naturally, the second downloader chooses to start from the very beginning and is only a third as fast as the other downloader was, which means I've wasted quite a bit of my monthly bandwidth on a useless attempt to download the game (and I'll waste nine more hours waiting for this one to finish, which means I can't actually do anything for another night).  The argument is that no one except pirates need more than 50 (they'll probably say 25) gigabytes of bandwidth a month.  Bullshit.  The size of legitimately acquired files is growing to the point where, if you choose to download them from their publishers, games like Chronicles of Spellborn require many gigabytes of bandwidth.  In the case of Spellborn, over 3GB is being transferred from them to you.  Compare that to a music pirate's bandwidth: a CD can only hold 700MB at most, and most CDs run only a fraction of that.  I would estimate the average pop album, given how short they've been these days (damn you, RIAA!) contains around 350-400MB of data.  Do the math: to legitimately download the beta for this game, you're using up the same amount of bandwidth that illegally downloading about 7-9 CDs would use up.

I started trying to download this on the 24th, and from the looks of things, I won't even get to try this game until the 26th.  If this is what it's like trying to play an Acclaim game... oh, wait, the downloader just sped up.  Apparently, the nine hours has been chopped down to seven and a half.  I hope it continues to go down.  In the meantime, I guess I'd better keep doing what I'd been doing otherwise.  Dragon Warrior Monsters is such a good game, and doesn't require you to download something for nine hours.  Also, food.

10:10pm - The download only took a little under five hours, and actually finished this time.  Installation looks to be simple, and I hope it will be.  If I can just peel myself away from Dragon Quest Monsters for a moment.  I've been doing a lot of leveling and it's quite fun seeing what random stuff will come up in the dungeons.  Random dungeons rarely make any sense, but if the game is good enough, I'm willing to let them slide.  Of course, they can cause your character to become overpowered very quickly (as was the case in Disgaea 2 when I was able to receive some very good equipment from a random Item Dungeon), or they can become the bane of your existence (pretty much any "Mysterious Dungeon" game).

10:43pm - "Software from this Site is subject to United States export controls. Thus, no software from this Site may be downloaded, exported or re-exported (a) into (or to a national or resident of) Cuba, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Iran, Syria, or any other country to which the United States has embargoed goods; or (b) to anyone on the U.S. Treasury Department's list of Specially Designated Nationals or the U.S. Commerce Department's Table of Deny Orders. By downloading any software, you represent and warrant that you are not located in, under the control of, or a national or resident of, any such country or on any such list."  In other words, if you happen to have had the misfortune of being born in any one of those countries, even if you don't agree with what's going on there and wish you could leave, you're not allowed in Acclaim's sandbox.  I know this kind of thing is present in many agreements such as this, and not just from Acclaim, but from other companies as well, but I still think it sucks.  I mean, it makes it sound like an exclusive club and certain undesirable people aren't allowed.  I wonder how the Cubans or Iraqi people would feel if they knew they were on the list of undesirable people who Acclaim doesn't want to have playing their games.

I wish I could come up with a list of undesirables for Daamage Control.  Articles from this Site are subject to Joseph's export controls.  Thus, no articles from this Site may be downloaded, exported or re-exported (a) into the home of someone who feels they are entitled to whatever they want in a retail outlet, no matter what their policies are; or (b) to anyone who tries to return a non-returnable piece of merchandise to such a retail outlet.  This means you, people who try to return PC games to a store after opening them.

11:12pm - And it's finished installing!  I'll go as far as I can in Dragon Warrior Monsters before saving, then I'm going to try this game and see what happens...

11:54pm - "Game Guard Engine"?  Do all MMOs do this?  How naive I must sound!  ...and the first problem encountered.  Right at the title screen, before it could do anything, it crashed.  And again when I tried again.  I'll just restart the computer and see what happens then.

March 26 2009

12:20am - Looks like it worked.  And I have to accept the agreement again?  At least it looks prettier.

Logging in, I'm given the option of playing Player vs. Player, or Player vs. ... I'm guessing the E stands for Enemy (at least, I hope it doesn't mean Everyone).  I really need to learn more about MMO terminology.  I don't feel adventurous enough to join the Deiquonril server, so I'll settle for the PvE server Dorzhan.

12:45am - I'm going to be so annoyed if my character creation has all been lost.  I supposedly lost connection to the server right when I finished.  Restarting... and no dice.  Acclaim, your game sucks!

1:16am - I'm glad I'm not the only one who runs into this problem.  Apparently, it's happening to other people, too.  Well, I'm going to give up for tonight and see what they say in the morning.

5:39pm - It looks like, from what I've seen on the forums, that they've tried resetting the servers to get rid of a bunch of errors, including the errors in character creation.  I've decided to try again, and if not, I'll post on their forums and then play more DWM for the rest of the evening.

It's at this point that I'm going to clarify a few things.  The game is still in beta, so problems like these will still exist and are unavoidable for some.  Chances are, if you sign up for the game, you'll encounter many of the glitches that are being widely reported, but as the game continues to be tested, errors will become fewer and fewer.

Now that is not to say that an error like being unable to complete character creation should persist, since North America isn't the only place that a beta has taken place.  Europe got the beta before we did, so this kind of error not only royally sucks, but shouldn't have happened in the first place.  Still, beta is as good a place as any to test these things out.

Here's something that I don't get: there's already a payment system in place.  The game is free to play for some stuff, but there is premium content available as well.  I don't know if this is audacious of Acclaim to have their users pay to be a beta tester of the premium content, or if this is par for the course for MMOs.  It seems audacious to me: you're using software that is still full of bugs and is evolving with feedback gained from users.  Usually, software testers get paid to look for bugs.  But not so anymore, we are now in the era where it's far cheaper for a company to call out for beta testers among gamers, and they come running to try out a brand new game before anyone else gets to.  Of course, this means they'll have to do for free what people used to do as a paying job, and in the case of Spellborn, some people are willing to pay to beta test.  I bet I'll see Tom Sawyer's name somewhere on the Acclaim staff page.

From what I can see, the payment system is in place if you want to level any higher than 7.9, which is a rather low level and doesn't allow you to beta test much of the game, given how high you can reportedly go.  I can't remember ever seeing any option on the website about paying for a subscription until after the beta was open to North America.  I suspect there was a bait and switch in there somewhere.

Oh, and now there's people bitching and complaining about losing levels due to glitches... and I think that sucks.  It's not Acclaim's problem, guys, to reimburse you for the levels that you've lost when you're supposed to be beta testing the game.  You're told to expect glitches, and the loss of a level or three would count as a glitch.  You're not paying for a finished product and you're not in a race to level higher than anyone else, people.  It's not as if your E-penis is going to get any larger by having those three levels back.

Also, here's another thing I'm curious about: beta testing is supposed to be about trying your hardest to break the game and then letting the company know how the game got broken so that they can prevent such breakage in the future.  But apparently you can be banned for stuff already, which I would assume means that if you try to break the game, you'll get banned, and not be allowed in Acclaim's sandbox any more.  I would love to know if this is true, but I doubt I'll get much of a response.

6:18pm - Naturally I have to recreate my entire character from scratch due to the server problems from yesterday.

6:30pm - Success!  My journey into the world of The Chronicles of Spellborn begins... and oh shit, I don't know any of the keyboard functions.  This is going to be fun.

And... oh, hey, a tutorial!

6:38pm - It seems that, after a tutorial on how to move, the practice quest involves killing... anthropomorphic hay?  That's a new one that I bet not even the furry fandom has come up with yet.  And I know that you can have a "roll in the hay", but I don't think I've ever seen a "roll with the hay" before.  Come on, furries, rule 34 this one.  I dare you.

8:05pm - I just lost the Internet, and just when my first real quest was starting.  I was one bear away from leveling up, and my Internet died.  That sucks.  Not Acclaim's fault, though.

The game starts out with a bunch of helpless people asking you to do stuff for them (and I guess that's true with many PC games such as this, especially MMOs).  Their excuses are the usual: overworked, underpaid, understaffed, etc, and it's up to you the player to help them out.  My first quest after the tutorial quests had to do with killing a bunch of young bears.  The bears are actually pretty tough, but not something that's too hard to kill.  Come to think of it, when I was disconnected, I was approaching a bear.  I'd better not have lost all my experience from the kills I made.

March 27

1:29am - I logged back in around ten, and had a good three and a half hours of killing things.  That's really what an MMO is about, killing things.  Anyway, I had to bring some booze to a tavern, kill some pigs, kill some bears, gather up some overdue reports from a bunch of guards and deliver them... you know, the economy must be so bad that even in video games, there aren't enough people to do the work that needs to be done!  Honestly, I did the work of five men today.  I also reached level five... and there are actually two level systems.  One of them raises your Fame level, which is the level that really matters in the game, and as far as I know, gives you permanent experience.  Then there is your Pep level, which is not permanent: when you die, you lose one level of Pep.  Fame gives you permanent stat boosts, but Pep gives you boosts to your stat as long as you have your levels.  Lose one, and I think you might lose the stat.  I don't know, and I don't intend to find out.

Also, when I logged out, I received this error:

No Label

OS: Windows NT 6.0 (Build: 6000)
CPU: AuthenticAMD P4 class processor @ 4010 MHz with 2045MB RAM
Video: NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT (6369)

UObject::ConditionalDestroy <- (Game_EquippedAppearance None.None.Game_EquippedAppearance418) <- DispatchDestroy <- (73543: Game_EquippedAppearance None.None.Game_EquippedAppearance418 Class SBGame.Game_EquippedAppearance) <- DispatchDestroys <- UObject::PurgeGarbage <- UObject::CollectGarbage <- UBase_GameClient::ReInit

Also, I got an R6025 error, "pure vital function call".  I'll have to let them know.

I have decided that I will be a Skinshifter Rogue.  I will be able to pass through groups of enemies without them mauling me to death, it'll be great.

Just a little Crowning Moment of Awesome for you guys: In Dragon Warrior Monsters, which I played during my lunch hour at work, I decided to level up Kess, my Florajay that I had just hatched, and so I took her into the most advanced dungeon I already had experience in.  I took her with my Dracky named Tawn and my Anteater named Tara, and we encountered a cobra and rooster monster.  I made short work of them, and the only time they actually got off an attack (I like Sleep spells), they swung at Tawn and missed.  I gained about 47 experience points, I am pretty sure, and since little Kessie only needed 2 experience to get to the second level, she leveled quite a bit from that fight, and doubled all her stats except for attack.  A level 5 Kessie then leveled again in her second, third, and fourth fights, reaching level 8.  Her stats were growing quite a bit, too (all except for attack), which was unexpected, but awesome.

I felt confident enough to pit her and the rest of my party against another trainer's party.  ...until I noticed the metal slime present.  So I focused and got ready for a good fight.  A lucky strike by the metal slime took out Tara, and naturally, in a game like this, losing one of your party in such a fight usually means all of your party is going down.  And in the next turn, the metal slime went berserk again and crippled his snake teammate.

Wait, what?  That had been unexpected, but was a boon to my team.  I made short work of the crippled snake, then in the next turn, took out the blizzard enemy with a lucky critical.  The metal slime died a few turns later, and I gained over two thousand experience points.  Tawn leveled up.  And then Kess leveled up.  And leveled up.  And leveled up.  And leveled up...

My level 8 Kess doubled both her level and her stats (all except attack), and then the trainer even healed my party, as he agreed to do at the start of the fight, and so I had, in my possession, a supremely leveled Level 16 Florajay at full strength.  All of this within 20 minutes of gameplay.  Honestly, some of the level ups gave her 10 of everything except MP and attack.  At this point, she's got so much defense that nothing will be able to hit her except magic spells.

And here is where the log ends.  Having found that I was writing more about my adventures in Dragon Warrior Monsters, and having found myself occupied by other things, I ended my adventures, with the promise that I would return to them again someday.  I never did let post ont he boards about my error, nor have I done much in Monsters since then, so I guess I'm a poor excuse for a beta tester, whose attention span is also severely limited.  Where's my Ritalin?

Currently Playing: Dragon Quest V (SNES)

Having finally reviewed the first four Dragon Warrior games, I realized I needed to get back into the series or else I wouldn't be able to continue my series of reviews.  I wish I could say more about what I'm currently doing in the game, but it would involve major spoilers for one of the most amazing games I have ever played.  Well, the battle system isn't anything special, but the story is told very well.  The one unfortunate in this experience (well, one of two) is that the translation is a fan translation, and it kinda sucks.  The other is that the Vivify spell is still almost entirely useless.  I don't see why anyone can get away with coming up with a revival spell that doesn't work most of the time and ends up just draining your MP so that you have to go back to town if one of your character dies.  The Vivify Spell is the only revival spell in gaming history that acts like its own Luck Based Mission, and it sucks.

But the game does more good than it does bad, and for that I am grateful.  I imagine my review of Dragon Quest V is going to be a favourable one, and I look forward to VI already.  Speaking of...

Looking Forward To: Dragon Quest VI (SNES) & Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride (DS)

I have given myself a goal to play the Dragon Quest main series in order from first to last, and am including the DS remakes in my list, given that IX is going to be on the DS.  And given what I've played of V so far, I look forward to seeing what's been changed and improved in the DS remake.  I hope I get to have four party members again, because three, while it seems to be enough, doesn't give me enough choice.  I miss having my kitty pet in my party...

Also, I've seen the opening of the original version of VI and it makes me wonder what's going to happen in the game.  I'm trying to keep away from spoilers, but it's difficult, sicne I have to stay away from most Dragon Quest forums and articles.

And just as a side note: in my first four reviews, I alternate between using the names Dragon Warrior and Dragon Quest.  For the titles of I, II, III, IV, and VII, as well as Monsters and Monsters II, I use the North American name Dragon Warrior, since they were released under that name here.  For V and VI and Monsters: Caravan Heart, since they weren't released over here in their original forms, I use the Japanese name Dragon Quest.  Starting with VIII, the series was able to be called Dragon Quest in North America, so VIII, Monsters: Joker, Swords, IX, etc. can be referred to using their original names.

Oh yeah, and here you go, you get the column early this week just because I feel like it.

Another national holiday has come and gone, the most important national holiday on the calendar, for it represents the day when a country stood up, proclaimed themselves a new and fantastic entity, a force to be reckoned with in the world.

I am, of course, talking about Canada Day.

Now, Canada and the United States haven't always gotten along so well.  Our citizens have no problem with each other, for the most part (although there are exceptions, but very few of them; a quick Google search didn't pick up very much hate for the True North, Strong And Free).  But in our history sharing a border with our neighbours to the south, we've certainly come up against their government a fair number of times.  Examples include:

-the Buy American policy
The Buy American Policy everyone refers to today is actually a smaller portion of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.  It's not to be confused with the Buy American Act passed in 1933.  The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is basically another way to throw money at a problem.  The theory is that if you throw enough money at your problems, they go away, right?  Not always so.  The entire act was written as a means to protect the American people and help them keep their jobs and their financial security.  Instead, as usual, the rest of the world seems like it's going to reap the detriments.  Unfortunately, it seems that unlike Canadians, who consider even a little bit of Canadian influence as enough to justify a Canadian Content label to be slapped on something, Americans seem to think that even 99% American isn't good enough.  If there's even a small hint of Russian or Chinese or any other foreign influence, it's polluted and therefore un-American.  Even the President has to be 100% American, or else he's ineligible.  Well guess what, guys?  Your very first Presidents started out as British citizens.  Sure, they fought and gained their independence, but by today's rules, their British heritage would make them ineligible for the Presidency.  Chew on that for a while.

-the softwood lumber dispute
This is still a sore spot amongst many Canadians who live in British Columbia and work, used to work or are related to someone who works (or used to work) in the forestry industry.  What happened was, the United States government decided that Canadian wood couldn't possibly be so superior to their own, especially at so low a price.  To them, it would've been like walking into a dollar store and finding a cheap pen there that is far better than an expensive fountain pen that they can order directly from its supplier.  So the natural conclusion was that there was unfair subsidization in place by the Canadian government to keep our lumber prices low, and so the United States tried to impose a duty tariff on our wood.  Three lumber disputes passed without much incident until 2001, when the United States went on the attack and didn't let up (despite losing many rulings during the dispute) until a deal was reached that would only see the return of a portion of tariff money collected and a permanent increase in price of our lumber.  In the meantime, a large number of sawmills in Canada went under, costing jobs and severely hurting the forestry industry.  It was a scary time to be a sawmill worker in Canada.

-the War of 1812
This is probably one of the few instances where Canadians were able to successfully fight back.  Consider this: a country tries to invade you while you're still a colony belonging to an overseas country.  Naturally you're going to get your asses kicked, right?  Wrong.  Not only did the British colonists defend themselves, they fought the Americans all the way back to Washington and set the White House on fire, burning it to the ground and causing damage to the city in general.  Unfortunately, neither side could gain a significant advantage over the other (our parliamentary building was razed first), and so after a couple years of fighting, they both gave up, sighed a piece of paper, and went home.

And the list goes on.  What the majority of Canadians don't understand, though, is that these disputes were started by governments, not ordinary people.  And so when I hear someone say that they hate America, I want to slap them upside the head and tell them that they don't hate America, just the American government.  I don't think it'll help, though.

Still, as long as relations between Canadian and American citizens continue to be civil, there's hope for our collective futures.  And hey, we might even find an ally in our hatred of those damn Frenchies, especially since the province of Quebec has seen fit to ram their language down the throats of Americans now.

But until then, beware our geese!

Currently Playing Reading: "Forests of the Night" by S. Andrew Swann

This is the first in a series of books about a futuristic world where genetically engineered anthropomorphic animals named moreaus (named after the obvious) are given the same rights and freedoms that gay people currently receive from Republicans.  The book follows a tiger named Nohar Rajasthan (remember to pronounce it correctly) as he finds himself hired to investigate the murder of a human, despite his twin policies of never involving himself in a murder and never involving himself in the affairs of humans.  At its core, the novel is a combination of a noir detective novel and a science fiction romp around a rapidly decaying Earth.  Since I'm not too familiar with either kind of story, the best comparison I can come up with is if you combine something like My Favourite Brunette with Mad Max, you'd get Forests of the Night.

The main character is likeable (at least, I find him likeable), and the character of Angel is an excellent foil for Nohar, especially since she is a reminder of his old days as part of a street gang.  He used to be like her, after all.  Plus, Angel has her own book too, so I'm looking forward to reading that as well.

If I had to cast someone in the role of Nohar, I'd probably consider Ron Perlman, whose biggest claim to fame has been the ability to wear a costume and a lot of make up in order to play his roles.  If he can play a red demon with horns, I don't think it's that much of a stretch that he could play a tiger.  Plus, both Nohar and the film version of Hellboy have pet cats!  It's like the novel was writtten especially for him!  (Okay, I know it wasn't.  The novel was written in the early 90's, and the Hellboy films didn't come out until 2004.)

You know a book is good when it can distract you from your gaming all week, especially from a game you fought hard to purchase.  I'm close to the end, so I hope to return to Black Sigil soon.  Unless I start the second book, that is...

Looking Forward To: Final Fantasy IV: The After Years (WiiWare)

After the downright slagging I gave the first quarter of the game, why would I even consider spending more of my points on the next chapters?  Wouldn't I have learned my lesson and moved on?  Tried something else?  Spent points on worthwhile games, like the Zelda games that have so far appeared on the VC?

Maybe it's because I like the battle system so much.  Consider this: the only thing that Final Fantasy V had in common with Final Fantasy IV was the battle system.  Battles progressed in exactly the same manner as they did in the previous game, but everything else was rebuilt from the ground up.  A new job system, a new story and setting, everything was fresh.  But the tried and true battle system remained.  The same with Final Fantasy VI.  New setting, new Magicite system, same battle system.  In fact, the battle system would continue to remain unchanged except for slight modifications (summons and drawing in VIII, for example) until the tenth iteration, when they switched to a different system, and then the sequel to X, where they upgraded the tried and true battle system completely thanks to the power of the PlayStation 2.

So even though FF4-2 contains nearly nothing new, there is one thing that I enjoy about the game.  The battle system has been suitably upgraded within the confines of a game engine that looks and feels like the original FF4 engine.  And with the promise of a story that tries to be new (but kinda failed in that department; I still can't figure out if it's supposed to be an homage or a rom hack), I will give FF4-2 a second, third, and fourth chance before I give it a final review and decide whether or not the experience was worth it.

The second part is now available for purchase, and the only person keeping me from downloading it is S. Andrew Swann.  Damn you, why do you have to write so well?

Last week I mentioned salvaging content that I'd previously written but not posted.  What follows is taken from a column I had written nearly two months ago, and then was too lazy to post.  I've edited it a little to bring it up to date, of course, and chopped the ending because it sucked.  New content to follow afterward.

These days, it seems that us Canadians are too busy telling our neighbours to the south that their politicians are full of shit to even have time for something like video games.  It doesn't help that our own politicians come to town every so often without warning, so we don't have time to come up with any interesting signs ("ARE YOU SOBER, CAMPBELL???????" read the sign I saw across the street from where I work, two doors down from where Gordon Campbell's bus parked.  I wish I had come up with that one.  In fact, if I had, I bet they'd still try to paint it as a dirty NDP trick).

Speaking of waste products, it seems that comparing feces and compressed carbon in video game reviews isn't just my thing any more.  I wonder if sometime within the next few weeks, Yahtzee will have a review that discusses F cup princesses.  Side note: the video I stole the images from for my Bad Dudes II prank was the one for "Mosh" by Eminem.  I can't believe I hadn't said that until now.  [Note: this is especially troubling since I'd written this so long ago, and so I had intended to say this back in April.  But didn't.]

An annoyance of living in a small city that can't even support a full fledged comic book store is that it's entirely possible that the new issue of a comic book will be out before we get the previous issue.  It doesn't really matter, though, since we get them eventually.  When we received a recent issue of Sonic The Hedgehog (#198), I naturally was quick to buy it.  Unfortunately, I had a couple issues with this issue.  First of all, it seems like the only good reason that the Freedom Fighters ever go and try to end their fight with Robotnik once and for all is whenever a milestone issue is coming up.  Oh look, here comes #200.  Let's try to defeat Robotnik again.  Just once, I'd like to see a major bad guy in a series meet their end on an episode or in an issue number that has no direct meaning to the series.  Have the readers think, "Oh, it's only issue 61.  They're not going to kill off the evil Dr. Toiletmaster.  Wait a second... they just did.  Wow.  Well, I bet he'll be back in the next issue.  Wait, the next issue starts a brand new storyline.  Wow."  I realize this would cause a dangerous void for the series in that there would be no reason to continue it if the conflict is over, but just introduce another storyline, or feature smaller conflicts that will slowly build up to a new one.  I'm sure the writers can come up with a new villain for the series.

Of course, the fact that Robotnik is usually in the Sonic video games just means that they'll have to keep him in the series one way or another.  Any other character that hasn't appeared in the games yet seems to be fair game to be killed permanently, like many of the secondary villains that have appeared in the series (not-really-a-spoiler: if they're not an alternate universe's version of Sonic or Robotnik or in the core group of Freedom Fighters, they're probably gonna die, with few exceptions).  It looks like something interesting is being done with Snively's character, but I'll wait and see what they do.  Maybe he'll be the new villain if they kill Robotnik off again (fun fact: they managed to kill Robotnik off as early as issue 21, but they always have ways of bringing back their villains.  He's died on other occasions as well in the series).

Second of all, and this is my main problem with the issue, it seems they stole a scene from a Japanese animated movie.  In one scene in the comic, Sonic and the core Freedom Fighters (although Nicole isn't with them, which disappointed me) are trying to defeat a new invention Robotnik came up with to destroy them.  The Phoenix seems more powerful than anything he's thrown at them before (aren't they all?), and they get this idea to make the Phoenix fly straight up as high as it can go so that it'll stall and fall down to Mobius.  They use its moments of immobility to complete their plan to destroy it, and in the end, they've saved the day again (and Robotnik ejects before it explodes, of course).  And naturally, they make Robotnik fly up by sending Sonic flying high in the sky.  Various Freedom Fighters who have natural flying ability toss him upwards to an ever increasing altitude one after another, higher and higher.  Kinda sounds like a scene in a certain movie, doesn't it?

Now, it's possible that the issue was written without the writers realizing that it's already been done.  But given the title of the comic, I'd say it was a blatant rip off.

"Phoenix Down".

I rest my case.

---

After writing that, issues #199, #200, and #201 have come out.  I haven't read #200 yet, as I need to catch up on old issues first, so that I can get the full impact from the issue.  Silly, aren't I?

Keep Being Awesome!
June 2009

I didn't think that the world could get any more awesome, but it did.  Every month from now on, I'll pick the most awesome thing to come out of the month, and highlight it here.  But this month is tough.  So much good stuff went on that I have a runner up, too.

Runner Up: Pixar

As if their movies weren't enough.  Heck, one could declare them awesome just from the movies they make.  If recent hits such as Cars, Ratatouille, WALL-E and Up are anything to go on, this company has a bright future ahead of it.  I just hope they don't turn into Disney, who suddenly started milking their hits for all they're worth by creating sequel after sequel, and who went in a downhill slide after Pocahontas.  Some declare Pocahontas to be where they start going downhill, but you get the picture.  The early to mid 90s were the good years, and then everything ended by the end of the 90s.  Their upcoming The Princess And The Frog might be a return to earlier times of success, but I'm not holding my breath.

Meanwhile, Pixar has yet to disappoint me, although their next to films are indeed sequels and so I'm kinda cringing yet holding onto hope, since Pixar so far has not come up with a horrible sequel.  And if Cars 2 is horrible, you could probably let it slide, since cast members from the original movie are literally dropping like flies (not in the recent string of celebrity deaths, fortunately, but still, three cast members from the original Cars are dead now).

Not only does Pixar believe in their movies, they will walk to the ends of the earth for their fans, and for that, I almost gave them this month's Awesome award.  Instead, this month goes to...

Winner: Twitter (and to a lesser extent, Facebook and other media and social networking sites)

As much as I make fun of Facebook to my friends and have declared that I will never join the site unless circumstances require such, I will be the first second to point out when they've done something awesome.  What did they do this month?  Simply existed.  This past month in Iran, after all the reporters were kicked out and/or arrested, the social networking site Facebook was one of the key sites helping news emerge from the country, where civil unrest has erupted over an election that may or may not have been rigged.  Facebook was second to one in the desperate struggle to broadcast the plight of the Iranian people to the rest of the world.  When it came to live updates within Iran, Twitter was king.  The citizens flocked to Twitter like college students to pizza.

But Twitter wins the title this month by going above and beyond even what Facebook did.  Twitter had scheduled an update to their servers, an update which would've provided a necessary update to their system, but would've required some downtime on their part.  The US State Department contacted them and asked them to consider delaying the update, due to the events in Iran.  Twitter could've said no, they can't make an exception for users in one country, when the update can benefit users in all countries.  But they didn't.  Instead, Twitter rescheduled their update to when most people in Iran would be asleep, and kept their servers up and available when they were needed the most.

So Twitter: Keep Being Awesome!

Currently Playing: Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled (DS)

You are no doubt aware of my plight trying to purchase this game, which I posted about last week.  I went through something similar, a long wait to receive another GBA game that I'd been looking forward to, a few years ago.  During that time, I began to see some bad news about the game emerge after the release, and wondered if it was indeed going to be worth it.  Then I received it and played it...

When I began to see negative reactions to this game, too, I thought the worst.  What if this game turns out like that other game?  And it's not even a Japanese game.  Can't anyone make a game anymore that lives up to its hype?

Then I received the game and tried it out and it's awesome so far.  It has a relaxed feel to it, the kind of game that you can just lay in a hammock and play without worrying about zooming here and there as quickly as you can in a rush to finish it so that you can find out what happens.  This game is a journey that you take so that you can enjoy the journey.

I would tell you where I am right now, but I am loathe to give out spoilers, so let's just say that where I am now came out of left field.  If you must be spoiled, I'll just say that it reminds me of one of the plot points from Dragon Warrior VII and Final Fantasy III.

Not only that, but I'm enjoying the music so far, and the graphics are pretty good.  There are supposedly glitches, but I've not run into any so far that break the game.  The only things I've noticed so far are asthetic only, not affecting game play like some have said.  On that note, fandom sucks.  Maybe I'll elaborate in an upcoming week, but don't count on it.

Looking Forward To: Pier Solar And The Great Architects (Genesis), & The Wotch: My Sister, Myself (DS)

Classic gaming is certainly alive and well.  Not only that, but I predict that within a couple years, there will be more independent studios creating and releasing classic-style games for consoles like the DS, the Wii's WiiWare system, and others.  Black Sigil has already paved the way for more indie titles to emerge, so I'd love to see what other people can come up with.  Now that Black Sigil is out, I can turn my attention to other independently produced games that are still in development, like The Wotch: My Sister, Myself for the DS, an independently produced game based on a web comic (Penny Arcade has proven that it can be done), which has an old school Zelda type feel to it, from the videos and screen shots released so far.  Even though the website's not been updated in one and a half years, there are updates being released on the comic's forum, to prove the project is still alive.

Then there's this little known title that is set to release hopefully this year.  If the screen shots of Pier Solar are any indication of what the final game is going to be like, it looks like it'll be well worth finally buying a Genesis.  They've even released a demo, which I will get around to trying just as soon as I've finished Black Sigil.  There's no solid release date yet, but when there is, I'll immediately rush right out and-

Okay, now you're all looking at me funny.  What, was the Genesis discontinued or something?  It was?  It couldn't have been, there's still games in development for it.  God, it's like the PS2 all over again.  Except at least Sony's still making PS2s.

I could lie and say that my pile of unfinished games is the reason why I was suddenly absent from the blog for a few months, but I won't.  I haven't even touched The Chronicles of Spellborn since writing about it.

There can be disadvantages to procrastination, and that is that your opinions tend to become outdated rather quickly.  I'll see if I can recycle stuff from a column I wrote (and then didn't post) about a month or so ago, and post that next week.  I guess I didn't care enough about how out of touch Nintendo can be with the used items market to make my opinions known in a timely manner.

But if there's something I do care about, it's the acquisition of certain games that I've been looking forward to for months (and in some cases, years).  True, some of these games can turn out to be outright disasters, but for the most part, I'm usually pretty good at sniffing out quality.  If anyone wants to look for a copy of Brave Story: New Traveler for the PSP, you won't be disappointed when you do buy it.

But be careful of who you buy it from, or you may not be allowed to purchase it.  Especially if you live in Canada.  The unfortunate thing in the gaming industry is that there are less options for purchasing games that are available to you as time goes on.  As gaming retailers merge and/or buy out one another, the consumer gradually finds themselves having to buy from the same company, no matter where they go.  I was dismayed to find that if I want to buy games from EB Games here in Canada, I have to deal with GameStop in the US.  It doesn't matter that you're going through a Canadian site that says EB Games on it, these days it feels like it's just a mask; if you approached someone with a horse mask on, it doesn't make them a horse.

Also, giant gaming retailers can be as cruel to the customer as they want, since they all know they're pretty much the only game in town anymore.  When you swear one off because of a bad customer service experience, it's like deciding you won't eat at a restaurant with the letter E in its name (and yes, that includes places who use the word "restaurant" in their name).  You are left with hardly any choices afterward.  But now that I've mentioned it, EB Games (and GameStop, since you own EB now and have for quite a long time), tell me this: if the country my credit card was issued from has to match the country I want the game shipped to in order to get you to not cancel my pre-orders, how then does "CANADA" not match "CANADA"?

So after I found out the hard way that EB Games GameStop didn't want my money last November, presumably because I'm Canadian, I've been left with few other options to purchase the kinds of games I want.  Some publishers have set up their own on-line stores to help with the demand for their titles, and they're to be commended, especially since publishers see no problem with shipping their product across the 49th parallel.  But when it came time to find someone willing to sell me the new Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled game for the DS, I ran into a few rather annoying problems.  First of all, the game was developed independently, and therefore is too far under the radar for certain gaming markets to bring in.  Second of all, they had to take the time after it was released to print French instruction manuals for their game, so they could sell it in Canada.  Instead of waiting a few weeks for the Canadian market to finally acquire it (I put the blame entirely on the whiny French), I naturally took the plunge and tried out what Wikipedia calls America's largest on-line retailer, Amazon.com.

I've already purchased from them before; when my mother received a gift certificate for the site, she purchased an item and I added a few as well, so that we could save on shipping costs.  It was my credit card we were using in the first place, to cover the difference in the item that mom was purchasing, so it wasn't a problem that I wanted to buy a few things as well.  The transaction went smoothly, and at the time I had no idea that the only reason I didn't have a problem was that I was buying books and music, two items that can usually pass unrestricted across the Canada/US border.

While Amazon.com has shown that they're pretty reliable when it comes to printed and musical materials, electronics are another matter.  I admit that I don't quite understand the law as it pertains to electronics and electronic media, but it seems like there's a few things here that doesn't make sense.  Bear with me as I ramble.

As I've stated in the past, I work in an electronics retail store, a store that also happens to sell video games and music.  We're a small store, so we don't have access to as large a library of games as an EB Games or a GameStop.  Still, we seem to have access to whatever title our suppliers can get their hands on, and they're only restricted by whatever titles they're willing to risk carrying.  Games like Super Mario Galaxy and Final Fantasy XII obviously seem like sure hits, and they can afford to buy many lots of them (I don't know how many games are in a lot, I assume each lot is equal to 500 or 1000 or some other high amount of games that's easy to track by the publisher).  Games like the aforementioned Black Sigil are more risky, and so they may only choose to buy one lot, or even no lots at all.  Also, near the end of the life of a console, a supplier might choose to discontinue carrying games for that console, even if there are more games still on the way.  At least one of our suppliers has already discontinued their support of the PS2, despite the long list of upcoming PS2 games, but that's a story (and a rant) for another time.

Usually, I don't mind waiting for a game to arrive locally, but I was unwilling to wait a few weeks to see if I could get the game through my usual sources, especially since there was a chance that I couldn't.  With EB GameStop already out of the picture, I turned to the Amazon to see if they had the game.  And they did!  Naturally, I was happy to give them my business and go on my merry way.

But there's a certain wisdom you acquire when you live in a small city, and that is, if you're going to bring something in from out of town, you might as well bring a lot of that something in and save on shipping.  It's a true enough adage.  Most retail stores in town will only order from certain suppliers once or twice a year in order to lower the overall cost of bringing their merchandise in.  I found that out the hard way when I tried to order a shirt I liked through a local clothing store many years ago (this was before I had a credit card, and was therefore unable to buy from most on-line retailers).  And so after finding Black Sigil on Amazon's website, I browsed their site for other games they might have.

This is where I began to run into problems.  Apparently, not all video games are available to be purchased if you just happen to live outside of the United States, and the site can be very tight-lipped about which games can and can't be imported, especially when you're a first time buyer.  What does this mean for Canadians?  Well, there's always the Amazon.ca site.

Or not.  Valhalla Knights, for example, is available for purchase directly from the US site, as long as you live in the US, but on the Canadian site, there are only third-party copies available, and a limited quantity of them.

But that's alright, I can deal with that, since I can't afford to buy all the games I want, not yet.  So I selected a few that claimed they were available to me and went to check out.  That's when Amazon decided to change its mind on what it could and couldn't sell me.

It doesn't help that some of their shipping policies are vague and improperly explained.  Oh, I understand the pages that say "Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses." quite clearly.  But there are certain pages that say "This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.".  Okay, which countries?  Their help section gives the list as "Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Portugal, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom"  I note that the fourth name on the list is Canada.

Apparently, not everything that can be shipped internationally is allowed to be shipped internationally.  Case in point: Picross DS.  Notice a lack of sign posts saying Canadian Dogs Not Allowed on the page.  But when I went to the check-out page, I came across an error trying to get it, and all the other games sent to my post office box.  It's rare that a company is unwilling to accept a post office box as a mailing address, but so be it.  I added my home address even though I would probably be at work when the package arrives.  No dice for Picross: although three of my six games were suddenly allowed, this time a more succinct No Game For You message appeared beneath the other three.  The help section offered no advice for me, and short of shipping to one of my American friends and expecting them to forward the package to me, I was stuck with no other option than to cancel three of the six games in my order.  I'm not about to start treating my friends as middlemen in all my on-line transactions, just so that I can add to my unfinished games pile.

As it turned out later, there is something called Amazon Global, which claims it "takes the guesswork and heavy lifting out of international shipping."  There is also a category you can search called Video Games Available for International Shipping.  And quel suprise, Picross DS is available.  I feel like I've been given a separate water fountain to drink at, because of who I am and where I was born.  It makes no sense that you have to go to a separate page in order to purchase a game, and it does nothing but discourage me from doing business with them.

Oh, and to top it all off, now that I'm registered with them and they have my address on record, there is a handy little message that comes up and says "We are not able to ship this item to your default shipping address." when I go back to the first Picross page.  I would've liked to have had that notice before, thank you very much.  And what of the Canadian version of Amazon?  It's pretty piss poor.

The story doesn't end there, with the placement of my order.  It usually takes a couple days to process it and get it sent.  If you pay them even more money, they'll put your order to the head of the line and process it within a day or two.  Never mind the fact that they're pretty fast about shipping anyway, so you're wasting money if you want it any faster.  Also, if you don't mind receiving your order later, you can select free shipping (although France seems to hate such a policy, and calls it anti-competitive, and even fined Amazon.com a thousand euros a day over such a policy... overkill, if you ask me).

About a day after I placed the order, they randomly shipped me three of the books, but none of the games or music I ordered.  After a week of waiting for the rest of the shipment to be sent, I investigated and found on one of the items I ordered, there was another message they hadn't shown me before, and only shows up if you're already registered with them: "Shipping this item to your default address may require an additional 1 to 3 weeks to process."  So I canceled the item and they shipped the rest of my order the very next day.  Such a message probably would've been seen if I'd have already been registered, but there's no way a first time buyer will see it unless they register first before they know whether or not they'll want to use Amazon's services.  It's almost like Amazon is discouraging first time customers from even trying their service, especially if they don't live in the US.

After all that, I have to conclude that with the random way they jerked me around regarding their merchandise, Amazon.com doesn't want my money any more than GameStop does.  And with the United States government encouraging a Buy American policy, it discourages me from buying anything from an American company ever again.  A Buy Canadian policy suddenly looks like a good idea, except as I've found out on many such occasions, it's very difficult to Buy Canadian when something just isn't available in Canada, and it's not like video games are a Canadian product anyway.  Well, other than the rubbish that Ubisoft spews forth, but I've already said enough about them.


Currently Playing: Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars & Shining in the Darkness (Wii Virtual Console)

Unlike Amazon.com, the Shop Channel on the Wii is easy to use, and if a game is available to the United States, it's available to Canada as well.  Plus, it only takes a few minutes to download a game, so by the time it's released, you can practically already play it.  No shipping, no "one to three extra weeks to process" crap, etc.  Once you download it, it's ready to go.

Actually, I finished Super Mario RPG this morning.  That's how good the game is.  It felt like a longer game, despite being only about twenty hours (I beat it in twenty two), and in the end, I was satisfied.  Remember when games didn't have to stretch for fifty, sixty hours?  Yeah, this was one of them that didn't.  I'll try to have a review up soon, but no promises.  It is a rather old game, so it's not high on my list of priorities.

I originally intended to use Super Mario RPG to tide me over until the second part of Final Fantasy IV: The After Years was made available, but finished it in about a week, so I might as well give other games a try in the meantime.

While acquiring games via download has its own risks (will the download service be around forever?  Will the medium you've used to store it last forever?  Can the company suddenly decide that you no longer have the right to play it?), it is a convenient and fast way to buy and receive games you might want to only play once.  Myself, I prefer to own a physical copy of a game, but I'd be willing to go digital if given the right incentive.  It helps that it's a lot faster to download a game than it is to purchase a physical copy.

For instance, I timed how long it would take me to walk away from the computer, turn on my Wii, add Points to my account, and download Shining in the Darkness.  I was playing the game after just ten minutes.  You don't even need a Points card, you can just use a credit card to add Points to your account.  For those who prefer an instant gaming fix, downloadable content is definitely the way to go.


Looking Forward To: Lunar: Harmony of the Silver Star (PSP)

When this was first announced, I was talking to Angela about it and I stated that if anyone but Ubisoft was going to localize it, I would buy it in an instant, but if it was Ubisoft, I might skip over this game.  My rationale was that other companies had done much better jobs of games that Working Designs might've worked on if they were still around.  Square-Enix were the ones who picked up the Grandia series, for example.  NIS America could've used it to turn their reputation back around, since lately it's been slipping.  And Atlas has been localizing games like there's no tomorrow.  I totally didn't expect to hear about XSEED picking it up, and I'm kind of excited about it.  They're the ones who brought Brave Story: New Traveler over, and for that, they've earned a high spot on my list of publishers I pay attention to.

Given that I don't own a single copy of the game in its past incarnations, this is a release that I'm closely following.  I may or may not go through Amazon again, depending on if they'll randomly decide that Canadians are allowed to play the game or not.  If not, I may have to look for other means of acquiring the game.  Somewhere out there is someone who is willing to take my money.

Well, I know all five of you who read this are waiting with bated breath to find out whether my review of the video game Bad Dudes II is legit, and as the clock ticks down on April 2nd, the chance that it's real increases with my silence.  My silence is now broken: yes, my review was completely made up.  You won't find a listing for the game anywhere on allgame.com, which usually means the game doesn't exist... but then again you also won't find a listing on the site for the DS game New Super Mario Bros., and that game's been out since May 15, 2006.  allgame.com, you officially suck.

[Edit: apparently allgame.com works differently when you're connecting from your home computer.  At work, the site refused to acknowledge the existence of New Super Mario Bros.  Now, that I'm home, it took me all of five seconds to find its listing.  I don't know if this is a case of the site sucking, but curiously, you still can't find the game if you do a search for "super mario", but you can if you do a search for "new super mario".]

I work in an electronics and gaming retail store in Canada.  My name is Joseph.  Hello.  Angela's going to have a bio up for me by the end of the week (but I have to write it first).  You probably have seen one of my sporadic reviews, maybe for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, or La Pucelle: Tactics, or the couple paragraphs I wrote for Chrono Trigger.  Well, thanks to Angela's insistence, I plan on being more of a regular face around here.  You know the kind: he's first one in and last one out, mostly because he has no life outside of work, so he plays video games all day when he's not watching anime or Numb3rs.

We get a lot of interesting things coming through our store.  We didn't get the Wii version of Okami that had the IGN logo on the cover (talk about your unintentional advertising), but we did receive, today, the latest Final Fantasy game.  Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time contains a major flaw in the packaging, but it's only available to Canadians.  You see, in Canada, some companies, like Square Enix, like to place both a French and an English manual in their games, since we are a bilingual country, and everything is in both English and French so that most of us have a good shot at understanding what's going on in a video game (even if the game is only in English).  But as their manuals get bulkier and bulkier, they can't fit them inside such a dinky DS case.  So the French manuals are shrink wrapped on the outside of the case.  This means that the art on the back of the insert has to be reproduced on the back of the French manual, otherwise you won't know what the game's about when you're trying to buy it in a store.

The flaw is thus: the English description of the game on the back of the French manual has been replaced by a bunch of squares and rectangles with question marks inside them, and the French description has turned the same shade of white as the background, which renders it illegible as well.  I can't help but think that someone was asleep when they laid out the back cover.  I mean, wouldn't it just be a simple job of copying the image from the insert and pasting it?  I don't know what the process is so I may be wrong, but it seems to me that it would be less work to make sure that the back of the French manual isn't borked, than it would be to translate the rest of the manual into another language entirely.  I can't even accuse them of being rotten Francophones since they did it to both languages of text.

If that's not enough, they also used pixellated images on the back of the manual, instead of the crisp images on the back of the insert.  Again, what happened to copy/paste?  Someone screwed up at Square-Enix, and screwed up big.  Once I have the art scanned in, I'll post them.

In other news, Acclaim has opened up their Chronicles of Spellborn beta to North Americans.  It was going rather rough for them, at first.  When I tried to join up, I got all the way through character creation, only to find that the game refused to connect me to the server, which meant that my character could not be saved.  In the end, I lost my character and had to start all over again.  What happened was, they had somehow caused their servers not to perform its auto-save, which should've been happening every five minutes, and needed to take them down for maintenance to fix the problem.  For some reason, character creation was also affected.  You can imagine what happened after they brought the servers back up: beta testers suddenly found themselves having to redo a few days worth of the game, which in one person's case meant that their character had lost three levels.  The common sense reaction would've been to realize that they're supposed to be testing the game and they're not just playing it ahead of everyone else, and so they shouldn't complain.  But I guess the words "open beta" must translate in their heads as "you can play now", because the next thing I knew, the forums were filled with vitriolic posts about how they should be given their levels and experience back and how they shouldn't have to redo three levels, and they'll cancel their subscription, blah blah blah.

Get a life.  Honestly, guys, it's a beta test.  There will be issues, and they have to be solved.  If this was the final release, then yes, Acclaim would owe you and owe you big.  Be glad they're letting you beta test.  It used to be that only a few people would be hired to beta test a game and you'd couldn't just walk in from the street and expect to have a job.  Now, any idiot can be on a beta team if it's an open test of a new MMO.  Sure, you don't get paid, but at least you get to see what the game's like and make suggestions for how the game could be improved.  Also, you could report bugs to the company in case you find them.  So you lost... what, three levels?  Cry.  Just go sit in the corner and cry about it so we don't have to listen to your whining.  Okay, so you're paying for the game and you want your money back?  First, Acclaim shouldn't have introduced a pay system when the game isn't even ready to be marketed, but they did.  That still doesn't mean that it's not a beta test, and that stuff can't go wrong.  But I suppose stuff is allowed to go wrong as long as it goes wrong to someone else and not you.  Going to quit the game?  Good.  Everyone else would rather help Acclaim out by submitting bugs, they don't want to see you bitching and complaining about three levels and disrupting the forums in the first place.  Waaaaaaaaah, waaaaaah, I wan my fee lef-ls!  I wan my fee lef-ls!

Finally, I thought I'd post a picture of my pile of games that I mentioned in my Bad Dudes II review.  I also tried to get pictures of the Echoes of Time insert and manual, but since my camera isn't the best, the only picture I have to show you is my unfinished games pile.


I'd better get started on them.