Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction -- Full Tilt Boogie.

I'm roughly eighty percent through my initial playthrough of Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. The saying goes, the more things change the more they stay the same, and that couldn't be more true with Ratchet & Clank Future. As we find ourselves fully entrenched in the current generation with the Xbox 360 and its Xbox Live, and the Wii and its waggle, to the PlayStation 3 with its Home and all-encompassing media everything box, it's nice to just play something traditional. Ratchet & Clank Future offers the same traditional gameplay as the series offered on the PlayStation 2. Everything is there. The same fun action platforming. The same amazing variety of wacky weaponry to level up. The same skill point system, a precursor to achievements. The same great graphics, sound design, and voice work. The same absolutely solid control. The same charmingly funny storytelling and well realized characters. They did add some PlayStation 3 functionality to the mix however with gadgets like the Robowings and Geo-Laser and the hacking minigame, as well as a few moments in the game proper. They've made use of the Sixaxis controller's tilt capabilities. And to my great surprise, the controller handles it very well. The Sixaxis has proven itself very responsive. And Insomniac Games have come up with some genuinely fun and creative situations to make use of the Sixaxis. The hacking minigame has you tilting the controller to move the circuit board you're trying to bypass so you can move a charged ball around that allows you to bridge the gaps in the circuits so you can allow the current through the board to the goal. The Robowings allow you to fly around the levels by titling the controller to dive and gain altitude and turn left and right. And the Geo-Laser has you tilting the controller again to guide a laser as to cut through rock. I'm quite impressed by how fun these segments are and how well they control. The final opinion should be following shortly.

Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction -- Initial Impression.

I feel like some platform action so next up for me is Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. Ratchet & Clank Future is the latest title in the Ratchet & Clank series that began on the PlayStation 2 and saw four entries on that platform. Number five in the series hit the PlayStation Portable and will soon be ported over to the PlayStation 2. And that brings us to number six and the series' first entry for the PlayStation 3. Along with the Jak and Daxter series and the Sly Cooper series Ratchet & Clank were mainly responsible in allowing Sony to essentially out-Nintendo Nintendo last generation. Ratchet & Clank originally released five years ago. Six titles in five years, that's pretty hot and heavy. And the demand for them has barely waned. And that's because the series offers fun run and gun platforming action with action RPG lite leveling of weapons thrown in. And it's all wrapped up in great comic storytelling with well-written characters and great voice acting. I'm not expecting anything different this time around. In fact it appears Insomniac Games didn't set out to reinvent the wheel. They've reportedly gone back to the more simplified platform intensive action over the later entries' combat intensive action. From the time I've spent with the title, which amounts to the first couple of planets, I can tell that everything seems to be in place and the game is offering essentially more of the same. Which is just what I wanted. The classic Ratchet & Clank formula, only now on the PlayStation 3. And what's immediately apparent from playing the game is that it's just gorgeous. More of the same, only better looking. But will it last? Did they change anything? Will this be the one that tires me on the series? Will the Sixaxis control segments prove valid or are they destined for gimmickry? Can they keep the humor going this many entries into the series? We'll soon see...

Nights: Journey of Dreams -- Final Opinion.

I've completed Nights: Journey of Dreams with both characters and have gone back and earned the real 'Sweet Snow' ending. For me Nights: Journey of Dreams was a success. A worthy follow-up to Nights Into Dreams. The core gameplay is intact. It's also been streamlined and expanded upon at the same time. The main game, which constitutes the chase mission of each seven dreams, is where the game is a streamlined version of Nights Into Dreams. It's streamlined as even though you're essentially trying for the fastest possible time as in the first game but this time you're chasing enemies called Goodies who hold the key to the Nights Capture. You need the key to free Nights from the Nights Capture. Each dream's chase section has three courses through the level. You'll repeat each lap until you catch the Goodies and get the key. All the while trying to pick up blue chips to add to your score and the timer as well as trying to fly through the hoops scattered through the courses. The hoops add to your Nights Dash meter. The dash offers a burst of speed needed to gain on the Goodies. Once you've cleared all three courses for the chase mission you face off against the boss. Each dream has five missions. The first is always the chase mission, the last is always fighting the boss again, only made harder. There is what's called a link mission in each dream. In these you need to follow a non-player character as it flies through the dreams on new course leaving hoops behind. You need to link the hoops into a chain by not missing any and getting to the next one in time. You need to chain enough together to meet the goal. The other two missions per dream are all different. They're almost minigame level events. Like trying to catch gems as they erupt out of a volcano or trying to destroy mines in the water or trying to build the biggest bubble of water. It's in all these extra missions where they've really expanded on the Nights Into Dreams core gameplay. The gameplay really does feel like Nights Into Dreams in the main missions while offering a lot more than the original ever did. If you look at the parts of the whole individually you can start to pick apart the graphics and some might be annoyed by the story and the children's take on everything and the like. But the game as a whole is more than the sum of its parts for me. I enjoyed Nights: Into Dreams in much the same way. You didn't play the game for the graphics and the story, you played it for the music and the gameplay. I enjoyed Nights: Journey of Dreams in the same way. Especially the music and the gameplay. It's solid fun, and provides real challenge for those looking to earn the best possible score for each mission. And it's filled from beginning to end with great music. I'm giving Nights: Journey of Dreams an 8.

The Orange Box: Portal -- All In One.

The Orange Box is being billed as the greatest value ever put to disc. While it's not quite that, it's a great deal. Five games in one as they say. They are Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal. I'm not going to play through The Orange Box all at once. One game at a time with numerous other games in between each one is the plan. I never played Half-Life, which is what kept me from Half-Life 2, which kept me from Half-life: Episode 1 and so on. I intended to play the Dreamcast version of Half-Life but a couple months before the release of the game SEGA officially killed the Dreamcast. Valve's reaction was to not release the finished Dreamcast version of the game with the logic being their future potential sales were pulled out from under them so why even bother. The PC crowd has always clamored away saying Half-Life 2 is the greatest first person shooter ever. That's always been in the back of my head. I still never intended to buy The Orange Box. I really had no interest in Team Fortress 2, the now officially Valve produced online team versus game that started out as a modification for Half-Life. It was Portal that actually caught my eye and made me buy The Orange Box. It took me just one minute over three hours to complete the main game of Portal. The game mixes puzzles and first person action. The gimmick here is a gun that creates a portal. Portals you'll need to use in order to solve the puzzles and advance the game. Portal's portals actually offer up something new. And for that it's worth it alone. The game has just the right mix of challenge in both the action and the puzzles. And it takes both to get through the game. The action is good, the puzzles great, but the real stars of Portal are the humor and the writing. While it's essentially one joke carried over three hours, it's so very well done, and really funny. And it does culminate in one of the best boss battles I've experienced and one of the best end credit songs in history. The song is so very They Might Be Giants. I really enjoyed Portal for what it is, and as short as it is. Portal doesn't overstay its welcome. The game's length is augmented by some advanced challenges and some achievements to chase if you feel the need for more. Portal is awesome. I'm giving Portal a 9.

Nights: Journey of Dreams -- Halfway.

The credits have rolled on Will's story in Nights: Journey of Dreams. I still have Helen's story to play through. In Will's story I've managed to collect all the Dream Drops and have earned A ranks for all levels except the final one. Which I'll do before starting Helen's story tomorrow. Being halfway through the game I can comment on things like the graphics and music. The graphics are great from an art design standpoint. From a hardware perspective on the other hand the graphics are not going to impress X360 or PS3 owners in any way. The music though, now that should impress all around. The music is wonderful. A lot of people are having fits that there are voices in the game. Nights: Journey of Dreams is more story intensive than Nights into Dreams and it features full vocals for every character. I personally don't have any issues with any voices in the game. It doesn't bother me that Nights is voiced by a British chick. They've also made a huge deal over the seemingly for kids nature of the storytelling. It's entirely golly gee and innocent in a Disney-esque sort of way. If the final level of Nights: Journey of Dreams doesn't bring a smile to your face more than once then you probably have no soul. Nights hasn't been ruined in any way by the inclusion of said voices or story. There is room for this level of storytelling in games. Not everything need be epic or blood-splattered. 

Nights: Journey of Dreams -- Initial Impression.

Next up for me is Nights: Journey of Dreams on the Wii, the very long-awaited sequel to the Saturn game Nights into Dreams. It's been eleven years since the original game and in the mean time Nights fans have had to endure lots of interviews with various Sonic Team members saying how a Nights sequel was always on their minds and how much the fans are clamoring for another game and how they never really did anything about it until now. Until the Wii with its motion sensing controls would be a perfect fit for the concept of flight that makes up the original Nights into Dreams. And of course, the rather timely departure of Nights into Dreams producer Yuji Naka. Naka gave up Sonic and Nights and his other creations and left SEGA to form Prope, a new studio with as of yet no announced titles. This strikes me as the real reason we're finally seeing a Nights sequel, the Naka roadblock is out of the way. The original Nights into Dreams was unfortunately advertised as the Saturn's answer to Super Mario 64. That caused a lot of people to purchase the game expecting some platforming action and Nights of course isn't a platform game. In fact it's closest to an arcade racing game where beating your best time and score is the goal. Only instead of racing around the track you're flying around a dream world. The original Nights was a critical darling and extremely hit or miss with gamers. It's one of those you either get it or you don't kind of titles. The original game also was designed for and launched with the Saturn's 3D controller and it made a rather large impact on the game. Controlling like a dream with it, and not so well without it. Most people would play the game without it. Nights: Journey of Dreams offers just about every Wii control scenario in existence so hopefully one of them will feel just right. And hopefully the music will live up to the original game's music which is easily one of the greatest video game soundtracks ever composed. Of course there is only one way to find out if dreams come true... and I'd like them to in this case.

Assassin's Creed -- Final Opinion.

I have completed Assassin's Creed and in the process unlocked every possible achievement. I have to say I really enjoyed Assassin's Creed. Although it does have a true fault. And that lies in its repetitive gameplay missions. For each of the nine story assassinations you'll do the exact same things numerous times over. You're looking at climbing six to twelve high points like towers to get a grip on your surroundings per assassination. You'll need to pick the pockets of a couple of people to further your investigation per assassination. You'll need to extract some information from someone by force per assassination. You'll need to deal with a couple of informants per assassination. And you'll need to save six to twelve innocents from harassing guards per assassination. And then of course the main story assassination takes place and you're back to the guild for the next assignment. In between all of that you have the extra activities such as collecting flags and searching out and killing the Templars. That's what you get to do, and you'll be doing it a lot. Everything else with the game is very well done. The world itself is arguably one of the most impressive and fully realized worlds from a level design perspective. The cities are amazingly and intricately designed. You'll believe them real. And you'll enjoy climbing and scouring every last back alley and rooftop. The graphics are great. It's a very pretty world. All the characters, main and non-player characters alike, have a great level of detail and animation. The sound design is equally impressive. Great music from Jesper Kyd and very good voice acting all around. Not a bad voice in the bunch. The combat is easily some of the best I've ever seen. It's just brutal, impressive, satisfying, and fun. The story of Assassin's Creed is also very well handled. I really liked the story. But I'll admit it's not for everyone. It's a whole lot of arguing of from a certain point of view. And in the end, should you reach it and unlock the secret achievement Visions of the Future, the game presents you with a myriad of very cryptic hints toward what's coming in the next two chapters of the proposed trilogy. They're going heavy with the whole DaVinci Code enigma thing.  It's not for everybody in that most people won't even understand it should they even be bothered to find it. And yes, you have to find it. And they'll be annoyed to find riddles and hints that are all over the place with no sense of closure. I was particularly impressed with the conversations had with the victims during the assassination missions. I found those to be a great story device. And I'm also impressed with the sense of history in the game. I've already covered how the controls work great in the previous entry. I really liked the game and look forward to the next installment. The repetitious nature of the gameplay being the only flaw and worth the deduction of a full point, I'm giving Assassin's Creed a 9.

Assassin's Creed -- The Controls and Combat.

I have spent a lot of time with Assassin's Creed but I'm only a third of the way through the game's story. I've been enjoying myself just collecting flags, knocking out achievements, and fully completing the free missions and full investigations before moving on to the actual assassinations. In that amount of time I've come to the conclusion that any talk of confusing or otherwise bad controls is full on rubbish. The game controls great with hardly any learning curve at all. Altair is an extremely agile character. He climbs and leaps like a monkey without any issues. The easy controls result some of the most fun combat I've ever experienced in a game. Once you've gotten hold of Altair's ability to combo kill and counter kill you'll be witness to some of the most visually stunning and viscerally satisfying combat that almost reaches the level of being balletic. And once you've gotten it down fully you'll be able to take on a hundred guards and come out the other side untouched. Altair is true video game badass. We know the controls work great and that the combat is great fun, but what of the other issues? I'll save those for next time...

Assassin's Creed -- Initial Impression.

Next up for me is the Xbox 360 version of Assassin's Creed. Assassin's Creed is supposed to be a little bit Splinter Cell, a little bit sandbox, and a little bit Prince of Persia. It's also the subject of the now infamous E3 demonstration by producer Jade Raymond. The one where the great looking and much hyped game took a serious hit when she played it live in front of the entire gaming world and her playthrough was a little beyond glitchy. So the game has had a fervor around it ever since. One going so far removed from cache problems of the demo Xbox 360 unit to it being an early build and other legitimate concerns all the way to people only wanting the game to succeed or fail because of Jade Raymond's rather pretty face. The controls and supposedly repetitive gameplay are other major topics for discussion. As are the game's not so hidden signs that things aren't what they may seem with the story. I don't have the answers to any of that as of yet. From my play time so far, which amounts to the rather cool extended tutorial and just messing around the first real mission, I can say that it seems I might have found something rather cool. There are some good signs. The initial vibe is a good one. But will it last?

Link's Crossbow Training -- Final Opinion.

The Wii Zapper does in fact add an important aspect to the gameplay of Link's Crossbow Training, and that's stability. For me anyway, it does stabilize the Wii Remote. I played the game with and without the Wii Zapper and found that I had more stable and precise control with the Wii Zapper. The Wii Zapper is also rather easy to connect to the Wii Remote and nunchuck which is a big plus. It would make you not want to play a game if the connection process were a pain in the ass. The Wii Zapper comes bundled with the great Link's Crossbow Training. A game that's just old school simple fun to play. I thoroughly enjoyed getting platinum medals for all of the levels. I'm giving Link's Crossbow Training an 8.5 and the Wii Zapper itself an 8. Now where the hell are Duck Hunt, Hogan's Alley, and Wild Gunman Nintendo?

Link's Crossbow Training -- A Real Game.

Link's Crossbow Training has three modes. Practice allows you to practice any of the game's twenty-seven individual challenges. You create a profile and your scores are recorded for each challenge. The other mode is multiplayer where you can compete on said challenges. The main mode of the game is called score attack. That's where you go through three challenges at a time spread over nine levels. Your scores on each challenge are carried over towards a goal of earning a medal for that level. Medals unlock new stages in both score attack and practice modes. You can earn medals for bronze, silver, gold, and platinum, at 20k, 40k, 60k, and 80k respectively. Accuracy is the key in chaining hits together to increase your score multiplier. Miss and the multiplier is reset to zero. The game uses the trigger mapped to the B button of the Wii Remote with the Z button on the nunchuck providing zoom. The stick on the nunchuck is used to move Link around certain stages. You can hold the trigger on the Wii Zapper to charge up a shot that will act more as an explosive. That's it as far as mechanics go. It really is a simple game. But that works in its favor. As the game allows you to concentrate on good old-fashioned target shooting like the early days of arcades and console gaming. I was expecting a simple little throwaway tech demo along the lines of Wii Sports but instead have found a genuinely fun little game. I've earned platinum medals through the five of the nine levels. All the standard variants of stationary and moving target shooting are present as well as skeet shooting. A few of the stages allow you to move through the stages controlling Link. And others still scroll you through the level as in Link's canoe from Twilight Princess. Others still have you locked in a central point and you can turn 360 degrees to defend yourself from incoming attackers. It's not a large game, but it's well varied given the theme, and it'll will provide real fun. I'm impressed with the game. The final opinion will cover the Wii Zapper's worth itself. Does it add anything to the mix?

Link's Crossbow Training -- Initial Impression.

So I'm moving on to the Wii and Link's Crossbow Training as my next game. Link's Crossbow Training comes with the Wii Zapper. The Wii Zapper being a piece of molded plastic that attaches to the Wii Remote and nunchuck to essentially form the standard light gun of old. The obvious question here is if the Wii Zapper actually improves the performance of the Wii Remote by providing more stability and therefore better control. I can say that the Wii Zapper is rather easy to attach to the Wii Remote and nunchuck. And the Wii Zapper provides a compartment hidden under a sliding clasp that hides the wiring for the nunchuck. You're able to wrap the cord around two hooks and then hide it all away. It's a very cool little system actually. The Wii Remote itself is held snugly in place. It's not going to come loose even under the wildest of movement. The Wii Zapper is made from a nice solid plastic that feels very durable. It also has a nice weight to it with the Wii Remote and nunchuck in place. The trigger seems solid and so far has been responsive. It doesn't have the snap to it I was expecting. That nice resistance. As for Link's Crossbow Training, is there something to the game or is it merely a distraction made to sell a peripheral? That'll have to wait until next time. I hope the Wii Zapper proves itself worthy especially that the Wii is going to see a flood of light gun type games over the next few months. I already have Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles and Ghost Squad and SEGA is bringing House of the Dead 2 & 3 Returns and hopefully some Virtua Cop down the line. It's like it's 1986 again and light gun games are common. It would seem what's old is new again as far as the Wii is concerned. And of course the whole quick and easy thing...

The Latest Wii Update Brings Innovative Good Cheer.

Last Monday the Nintendo Wii got its latest update in the form of Photo Channel 1.1 and Wii Gifting. I doubt too many people will give a second thought to the updated Photo Channel but Wii Gifting is a real smart bit of innovation. Wii Gifting allows you to send Virtual Console titles to anyone on your friend's list. And it's even relatively painless in execution considering Nintendo's online stumbling and friend code hell. It's actually a very cool and fun feature that the other two companies need to adopt a variation of for their respective platforms. Only now I'll actually have to start remembering birthdays and the like for the people I game online with. Already Christmas gifts have gone out and have been received. Good one Nintendo, you get points for this one. And profit, really smart from a business sense, isn't it? Great way to get the people who are already buying Virtual Console titles to buy even more.

Silent Hill: Origins -- Completion.

I've finished my first playthrough of Silent Hill: Origins. My exact play time was six hours and thirteen minutes and twenty-four seconds. I killed zero enemies by firearms, five by melee weapon, and one-hundred twenty-two by my fists. I found three-hundred forty-seven items. The game features an achievement like system called accolades. I earned the following accolades: savior, stalker, collector, explorer, and brawler. Savior is for just completing the game. Stalker is for having the flashlight off for most of the game. Collector is for the items I found. Explorer is for the distance I traveled, twenty-six kilometers by the way. And brawler for fighting with my fists for most of the game. In my subsequent playthroughs I'll need to earn the accolades for fighting with melee weapons and fighting with firearms as well as seeing a couple different endings. So what did I think of Silent Hill: Origins and what of the other questions in the previous entry? Let's answer them shall we? Firstly, yes, survival horror can work on a handheld system. The game loads up with a screen saying that Silent Hill: Origins should be played with the lights off and with headphones on. Of course survival horror isn't going to work if you're attempting to play it on the morning train to work or something along those lines. Heed the advice of the game and play in the dark with the headphones on and the volume turned up. The PSP's screen size makes you concentrate on the game more so than you would playing it on a television. The nature of the music and sound effects within headphones actually creates a very cool sense of it being in your head. The music and sound work wonderfully and with you playing in total darkness concentrating on the PSP screen survival horror has no problems getting the job done on a portable system. Graphically the game is impressive as it registers just under Silent Hill 2 in terms of graphics. The game is very clean as far as graphics go. Aesthetically the game is still very dark and dirty and rusty and ugly, just as it should be. Travis animates well as do the numerous and surprisingly creepy enemies.  As far as gameplay goes it's very much Silent Hill. Still using the classic tank like controls for the character. Melee combat is a brutal dance of timing. Getting out of the way of their attacks so you can close in and finish them off. New to the mix are items that you can pick up and throw at enemies. Items like televisions or typewriters. Heavy objects to bash their heads in with from a distance. And you'll need to make use of the distance factor this time around as a few of the enemies are quite tough to deal with. The combat is handled well given that it fully replicates the console style on a handheld. The story of Silent Hill: Origins is good. It's not great. It's good. It's a small story. You get Travis' story for the most part and then a little bit of Silent Hill. What's in the Silent Hill part doesn't mess anything up which is great. But the problem is that it also plays it a tad too safe. Nothing comes off as shocking or surprising. It more comes off as well, yeah, of course. Climax delivered a pretty good and valid game overall. I still don't know if the game needed to be made. But they didn't do any damage and they did create a game that has some Silent Hill feel to it and that's worth playing through. My only complaint with the game is in the voice acting for Lisa Garland. She couldn't decide if she was a hick country girl or not. A bit in and out. The voice work for Travis, his mother and father, Dr. Kaufman, and Dahlia Gillespie faired better. I do still have a couple playthroughs left in Silent Hill: Origins but I can say I enjoyed it and I'm going to be giving it an 8. It's better than Silent Hill: The Room, but lacks the impact of the rest of the series. But it's always good to get back home to Silent Hill every now and again, isn't it?

Silent Hill: Origins -- Initial Impression.

It's on to the PlayStation Portable with Silent Hill: Origins as my next game. There are a few questions that need to be answered with this one. Chief among them, did the game need to be made? Should Konami not have allowed United Kingdom based Climax to develop the game? How did Climax do in place of Team Silent? Can a survival horror game even work on a handheld system? Did they mess up the story of the original Silent Hill with their meddling in prequel territory? Are they going to forever change how you see key characters in the original game, and for better or worse? How is the combat? How are the puzzles? Does it feel like Silent Hill? Hopefully we'll get to the bottom of more than a few of these. I do know the answers to some of them already based on my play time thus far which puts me just through Alchemilla Hospital, but those will have to wait until next time.

The Simpsons Game -- Final Opinion.

Twenty-six hours and a one-hundred percent completion rating later and I have completed The Simpsons Game, well almost. There is one achievement I still need to earn. And that's earning a perfect score on the final boss battle. I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed The Simpsons Game. The graphics are wonderful. Bright and colorful and exactly like the series. They really nailed the visuals. The sound and music are also absolutely perfect. The voices are entirely provided by the cast from the show and in the couple of instances of celebrity cameos, the actual people provide the voices. The music is a great mix of versions of the Simpsons theme arranged to fit the situation, original music, music meant to sound like music from older video games, and a couple of really well placed licensed tracks. The game has solid controls. The camera can be problematic. But nothing beyond the standard 3D action game variety. It'll annoy you every once in a while but remains out of your way for the most part. The real stars of the game are the humor and the really smart writing. The game is equal amounts smart and funny. And it doesn't blow it's wad, essentially. It's funny and smart all throughout the game in a nonstop blitz of both. From the high concept final couple of boss battles, to the wide range of social commentary, to the nostalgia of arcade and eight and sixteen bit generation video games, all the way down to the fart jokes, it's really well done. And while I haven't played everything this year, it would take a miracle for The Simpsons Game to be upset as having the best writing in any game this year. I will say that The Simpsons Game is easily the funniest video game ever made. I've never laughed out loud from a video game as much as I have for The Simpsons Game. Other video games might have a great comic voice, but nothing kept the jokes coming as fast and as furious as I found them to be in The Simpsons Game. I'm giving The Simpsons Game for the Xbox 360 a 9. Finally we have a really good Simpsons game.

The Simpsons Game -- Springfield.

I have played through roughly fifty percent of The Simpsons game and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. The Simpsons Game employs a sandbox version of Springfield as a hub level. You're able to freely explore a rather cool version of Springfield that's been rearranged to suit the game. You're able to visit most of the regular locations of the series like the Kwik-e-Mart, Comic Book Guy's shop, Springfield Elementary School, First Church of Springfield and others. It's great just walking around the town itself as it is filled with a rather impressive amount of characters from the show. Each one voiced by the voice actors from the television show. Within the hub level large waypoint beams extend to the sky to point you in the direction of your next mission. The missions take place in more restricted and more traditionally linear platforming levels. Around the hub of Springfield there are icons to be collected for each of the four playable Simpsons characters. Duff bottle caps for Homer, twenty-five percent off sales tags for Marge, Malibu Stacy Doll logos for Lisa, and Krusty icons for Bart. There are seventy-five of each to be collected. Very much like the hidden packages in Grand Theft Auto. Only this time each character's moves come into play in collecting them. In The Simpsons Game you're playing as paired characters and you can switch between them on the fly. You can go to a bus stop to switch out characters, and also warp to any other bus stop around Springfield. Bart is able to don his Bartman costume and is able to glide with his cape as well as ride updrafts for lift. He later gets a grappling hook. Homer is able to morph into a giant ball version of himself and bounce and rocket around. He later gets the ability to float for a limited time in ball form from helium tanks scattered around town. Marge is able to influence people and gather a mob following that will clean up or build at specific points around town. She's also able to send Maggie into crawl spaces. Lisa is able to use the hand of Buddha to manipulate certain items strewn around town. She later gets the ability to flick enemies away with said hand. There is more of a puzzle element to collecting the icons for each of the characters around Springfield. You have to figure out how to get wherever the icon may be by using not only their abilities but the right combination of characters and their abilities to get you there. I'm really enjoying the collection aspect because of the more puzzle and figuring it all out approach to Springfield.

The Simpsons Game -- Initial Impression.

Up next for me is The Simpsons Game.  The Simpsons have been a long-running license in video games but unfortunately there haven't been that many good games produced. They've appeared on the NES, Genesis, GameBoy, GameBoy Advance, SEGA Master System, SNES, Commodore 64, Amiga, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Gamecube, Xbox, and arcades across a dozen or more titles with only a couple decent games to show for it. The Simpsons Game was released on pretty much every platform currently going but I'll be playing the Xbox 360 version. The Simpsons Game is a 3D action platform title that promises to poke fun at video games themselves. I've played through the first two levels of the game and from that I can tell that The Simpsons Game is going to be extremely funny. They've nailed the humor of the television show perfectly. Hopefully there's a decent game to back it up. We'll soon find out.

Mass Effect -- Final Opinion.

My first playthrough of Mass Effect took an even forty hours to complete. There will be further playthroughs of the game but not immediately. There were roughly eight to twelve months between my light and dark side playthroughs in Knights of the Old Republic and I'll follow the same pattern with Mass Effect. Mass Effect is a great game in spite of serious technical issues. What's wrong with Mass Effect? It follows the tradition of BioWare titles being about as glitchy as they come. From invisible Keepers to reloading saves into rooms you can't exit to glitched achievements among others there's surely going to be something you're going to run into. It's not a question of if, but a question of what, and how many. I was able to escape the room via the game's auto save being separate from my main save but I lost thirty minutes or so. Also on the technical side of things you'll have a horrible frame rate. It just chugs along. You'll also have textures taking a few seconds or more to draw in. And you'll have some annoying shadows that seem alive on the character's faces in cutscenes. You have the option of playing the game with motion blur and grain filters turned on. In fact, these are on by default at the start of the game. They're designed to hide most of the aforementioned issues. But they create their own issues you might not care for. You'll most likely end up turning them off. Everyone I've talked to that has been playing the game ended up turning them off. As I said before Mass Effect is a great game in spite of its technical flaws. How can that be? Because everything else it does it does right, and well enough to make the technical issues worth suffering through. Mass Effect's greatest aspect is all aspects of its story. The story itself, the characterization of the characters, and voice acting come together perfectly to make an otherwise standard science fiction story fascinating. Most impressive about the story is the detective vibe it gave me. Very much in line with games like Phantasy Star 2 and Snatcher. Where there is something dark and sinister just beneath the surface of a universe going about its daily routines and every step through the main story missions brings you closer to discovery. And said story comes to a very satisfying conclusion given it's act one of three. The game also furthers BioWare's standard deal of light and dark paths. Only this time it is a bit more fleshed out. A bit more involved. You can still walk in the light, dark, or middle of the road if you choose, but this time around non-player characters in the game will react based on your chosen history. I went with being a war hero. So for example some characters respected me and some characters resented me. And because of my history I was able to speak from the heart or commiserate with certain characters. In other words I was able to reach and get reactions from certain characters I might not have been able to otherwise. All of this comes into play. Your sex, your history, and your light or dark actions bring about potentially different reactions and prospective dialog paths for you to explore. It provides a more substantial amount of depth compared to Knights of the Old Republic. Also providing more depth is the combat system. The game's real time combat is much improved over Knights of the Old Republic as well. Again you're able to fool with the classes in the game and potential squad combinations to give you a wide variety of possible solutions out of any given situation. Want to run and gun? It's entirely possible. Want to play stop and pop? Want to snipe the guy? Want to use your biotic to throw someone into a wall? Or lift them off the ground where they're defenseless? Want to hack a robotic enemy into attacking its own allies? Are you going to use explosive rounds or freezing? Which upgrades are you going to use on your armor? Which upgrades do you want to use with the pistol? There are a lot of possibilities to be messed with allowing you to find your own style in playing the game.  I really liked Mass Effect. Its great story and characters leave me wanting more. The graphics are all over the place from glitchy to gorgeous. The sound design is great and truly varied. Big operatic film score composition in some spots, experimental and tonal in others, and goofy and fun in still others. Great voice acting all around. Fun combat and a more robust light and dark path system employed. Mass Effect really is worth suffering the technical issues. I really liked it. And I can't wait to find out what happens next. I'm giving Mass Effect a 9.

Mass Effect -- A Universe of Information.

I am twenty-four hours into Mass Effect. I have spent most of that time doing side quests. I've completed thirty or so side quests. I've only done two of the story missions beyond the Citadel. I've been trying to do every side quest possible before being forced into a story mission. That's how much fun I'm having merely existing in and exploring the universe of Mass Effect. At first I was a bit saddened to hear the game was a fifteen to twenty hour affair. It's been great to find out that those people are rushing through the storyline and not much more. And that they're on crack. Because what's there in the universe and story of Mass Effect is something I'm enjoying immensely. I've been savoring it and taking my time. Mass Effect's story is really standard sci-fi fare, it's just exceptionally handled and well written. The best part about it for me is early on the game sets up a wonderful sort of detective vibe and it hasn't abandoned it. Mass Effect's universe is a little on the dark side which only adds to the tech-noir in space feeling for me. Little bits of insight into the overall story come from everywhere in the game. They're there for you to find or not. The more thorough out there will be rewarded with a richer story. And the depth of story is amazing. There is a large amount of lore fleshing out the background for the universe of Mass Effect. There is a ton of detail to be had on the history and the technology and the species and worlds of Mass Effect if you want it. I'm personally enthralled with all the detail involved. Someone else on the other hand would probably find the abundance of information a nuisance. Luckily for me I'm finding the story itself and the universe of Mass Effect to be downright fascinating.

Mass Effect -- Initial Impression.

We're moving on to another of the major releases this holiday season with Mass Effect for the Xbox 360. Mass Effect is the next game from BioWare, makers of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights, and Baldur's Gate among others. Mass Effect is a science fiction theme action role-playing game. If you were to boil it down, Mass Effect is supposed to carry over everything from Knights of the Old Republic as far as character interaction and freedom in character upgradability are concerned while adding in a truer action based combat. You know, being able to walk a good, bad, or indifferent path while picking only the skills you want for each of the characters under your command so you can pretend you're having it your way. Only this time actually having to aim those shots in the combat this time around. BioWare is famous for making glitchy but good games with deep storylines and character. Based on my time spent playing the game it seems like there is great potential for good characters and a deep story. But it also seems they're still not making the most stable of console titles. Nothing fatal so far, just characters getting themselves stuck and being unable to regroup. The combat seems like it's going to be more enjoyable than the combat in Knights of the Old Republic with its illusion of action based battles. But just how deep is this combat going to be? And how deep are the characters and story going to get? Mass Effect is the first entry in a supposed trilogy of games. Hopefully the first entry leaves me wanting more. Only one way to know for sure, as always...

Phantasy Star Universe: Ambition of the Illuminus -- The Expansion Arrives.

The expansion to Phantasy Star Universe has arrived. We're playing on the Xbox 360 version of the game and the expansion itself came without a hitch for us. The download arrived on Xbox Live Marketplace exactly when it was supposed to as did the title update that allows you to access the new content. And SEGA had the servers back up from the maintenance when they said they would. I'm typing this during an unscheduled maintenance though as it seems the PSU players who didn't get the expansion have been locked out of the X360 servers. So they've shut down the servers to fix the problem and allow them back in. The expansion adds a ton of new content. Most importantly new missions with new creatures and bosses and also rare weapons and armor and units and character classes. We've all spent the first day fiddling around with altering our characters and our rooms. Some of us are testing out new classes and weapon types. I've found or purchased some new synthesizing boards and have managed to create a bunch of new weapons. I've even found a new armor type. All of this new content is just great, but SEGA didn't just add new things to the game. They've seemingly fixed every issue people had with the game and a bunch of things we didn't even know needed improving. The stuff like moving to lobbies previously visited is great, but the stuff like warping to the lobby from block three of a mission instead of to block one is even better. Just about every system has been overhauled for the better. Nothing seems left untouched. And it all seems to be improved upon. I felt a palpable sense of the collective being impressed with the expansion thus far. Everything just seems groovy. Hopefully SEGA fixes the issues for the cheap bastards who didn't buy the expansion so the rest of us can get back to playing.

Super Mario Galaxy -- Final Opinion.

I have completed Super Mario Galaxy with one-hundred and twenty stars and have seen the true ending along with unlocking Luigi as a playable character. Super Mario Galaxy does a lot of things right. One thing I noticed while playing the game is the format of going from planet to planet has cut out the filler, and that's a great thing. You move from one planet to the next. From one challenge or puzzle to the next challenge or puzzle. You stay focused the entire time. The level designs are brilliant. Another area where the game excels is in the boss battles. They're great fun to play and surprisingly varied. Each and every one of them. The only complaint you can level at some of them is they're too easy and over too soon as you'd like them to last as they're that much fun. The graphics in the game are a mixed bag. The art direction is top notch. The worlds look amazing and have the classic Nintendo look to them while remaining fresh and interesting. No complaints about the aesthetics here. However the HDTV and Wii factor comes into play again. You can see the seems in places. The edges of characters and such suffer from jagged lines. It's especially noticeable in the cinema sections of the game. I do understand this fault lies with the Wii itself and that I should get over it because it's going to happen for the rest of the console's life but it still annoys me and most likely will continue to do so. The music is awesome. A wonderful mix of great new themes and arrangements of classic Mario music. It's great to hear selections from Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, and Super Mario World. The sound effects are perfectly fitting and also classic Mario. The overall game really is Super Mario 64 part two with heavy influence of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World. It's like they took the best from each of them in creating Super Mario Galaxy. They fixed most of the flaws found in Super Mario 64. The camera has been fixed. The camera is never an issue. The only real issue in the game is later on during some of the tougher stages where the playfield changes its orientation the controls sometimes lag behind or otherwise get mixed up causing deaths.  It causes some level of frustration that detracts from an otherwise perfect game. I'm thoroughly impressed with Super Mario Galaxy and most importantly it fully recaptures the feeling of charm and wonder and joy present in old school Nintendo games. The Wii has its true feeling Mario game, something I can't say for the Gamecube. Welcome back, Mario. I'm giving Super Mario Galaxy for the Nintendo Wii a 9.5.

Phantasy Star Universe -- The 1-Up Cup: Wrap-Up.

We've reached the end of the 1-Up Cup within Phantasy Star Universe. The month has been good to us overall. There were some frustrations at not being able to get everything. Mostly rare items like the Blackbull dropped from the final set of boxes in the EX missions. S-ranking them proved harder than anticipated. We come away from the event in rather good positions going into the expansion come Tuesday. We're all at the level cap. The event allowed Riddel and Neo to catch Magus and myself. They wouldn't have likely been able to do so without it. Most of us are in S-rank armor and we've got some S-rank weaponry. Stuff available before the event but stuff remaining out of our reach previously. We're also all considerably more wealthy then we were before the event. I came away with eleven million Meseta. We've all got boards for armor and weapons waiting to be synthesized. We're awaiting the bonuses awarded to us based on our communal point total. We got further than expected in that regard with over four-million points. We unlocked all but the final bonus. We've got our unique event rewards like clothing and special weapons and armor as well. I would call the 1-Up Cup a great success. In the four days we have before the expansion we'll be taking it easy and just messing around with our alternate classes and counting the days.

Super Mario Galaxy -- Controls That Are Just...Super.

I'm just over one-third of the way through Super Mario Galaxy with forty-one collected stars. Mario has always been rather agile since Super Mario 64 and he remains ever more so with Super Mario Galaxy. All of his Super Mario 64 moves return in Super Mario Galaxy. You get his jump, triple jump, backwards somersault, side somersault, long jump, wall jump, and ground pound. They're essentially done the exact same way as in Super Mario 64 which is most likely the reason that Super Mario Galaxy is so pick up and play friendly right off the bat. You've been there and are comfortable with the controls instantly. The very first thing I did initially in the first level was run straight through all the moves listed above and they were executed flawlessly the first time and all within seconds of starting the game. Everything just felt so right. Not everything is as it was in Super Mario 64. There are some new additions to Super Mario Galaxy that of course change things around. The introduction of the spin attack as Mario's primary attack over the ground pound makes things new and interesting. The ground pound definitely has its uses like getting coins out of an enemy to refill some health but it's now the second string attack. The spin attack with enemies will result in causing them to give up Star Bits. The purpose of the Star Bits is as currency to be used at purchase points to further open up new areas in the game beyond those accessed by the stars earned from levels. The spin attack is done by waggling either the Wii Remote or the Nunchuck. Just a little shake. There is a lot of subtle context sensitive waggle in Super Mario Galaxy. Nothing too precise with the waggle, and that's why it works flawlessly. The controls are masterful for the most part. Every now and again because of the spherical nature of some of the platforms you can switch your direction unintentionally. It's relatively rare and truly a minor flaw. Super Mario Galaxy is another Wii game you can put in the controls great category alongside Zelda: Twilight Princess. The controls are tight and responsive and Nintendo of old feeling.

Super Mario Galaxy -- Initial Impression.

Next up for me is Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii. This is normally the Thanksgiving game, for us adults and teenagers anyway. It's the Christmas game for the kids. You know the one, the biggest Nintendo release of the year. The one normally launched the week of Thanksgiving has come a week early. I have played the game through the first four stars. That's through the first story based training star and the three main stars of the Good Egg Galaxy within the Terrace section of the Observatory. What have I learned so far? I've learned that I'm going to end up hating the SDTV aspect of the Wii and how that plays out via HDTV. Scratch that, I already despise it. But that really doesn't matter at the moment because of what else I've discovered so far. I've discovered that Mario is back. Already I can tell just from the little bit of the game I've played. All of the charm and wonder and excitement and joy of first playing Mario 64 is present in Super Mario Galaxy. Everything that was sorely lacking in Super Mario Sunshine is once again there. It's good to feel this from a Nintendo game again. That old magic. That old charm. At least initially. Let's hope it remains throughout the full game. As always, there is only one way to find out...

Final Fantasy 12 -- Final Opinion.

Roughly one-hundred and ten hours later the final credits have rolled on Final Fantasy 12. I went ahead and just ended the game leaving a lot of what I wanted to do undone. The game is all around exceptional. It is without question the best Final Fantasy title since Final Fantasy 6. It pretty much does everything right while avoiding what's been wrong with Final Fantasy seven through ten. The story of Final Fantasy 12 is on the surface a story of politics and the behind the scenes positioning and maneuvering of the key characters involved. But in actuality Final Fantasy 12 is yet another tale of the crystals. There has been a lot of complaints that the story of Final Fantasy 12 doesn't feel like a Final Fantasy by so-called fans of the series. After having played the game I can say that those people are insane. Final Fantasy 12 retains the classic feel of Final Fantasy throughout. In fact, it's the game in the series most aware of itself in that regard. There are countless nods to every single aspect of the series and even other specific games. The characters in Final Fantasy 12 might be the issue here. They're actually great. They are however, not whining teenagers bemoaning the existential why of it all. They're predominantly adults who are entirely sure of who they are and what they have to do. And I couldn't welcome that more. The script is great. It's written in an almost Shakespearean level of flowery English speech. But it's not pretentious in any way. It's a smart script that moves along assured of itself and is always to the point. The only aspect that might take from the story is in that the game is so full of extra stuff for you to do that you can sometimes step away from the story in the game for ten to twenty hours or so. It might not be a constant in the game depending on how you end up playing it. The battle engine and all of the related systems are the best in the series. Everything works perfectly and has depth and remains fun throughout. The graphics are as good as the PlayStation 2 is ever going to produce. The sound is very well done. All of the classic Final Fantasy sounds are in place. The music is very well done and Sakimoto wisely avoided trying to mimic Uematsu's style. The score fits the differences present in this Final Fantasy quite well. A couple of classic Uematsu tracks like the end of battle fanfare work their way into the game of course and he did compose the ending theme. The voice acting is exceptionally well done. Each of the characters are unique and the voices fit. My only complaints with the game are minor at best. There are an awful lot of palette-swapped monsters in the game. Not the RPG standard of three or four, but each of the monsters might show up as ten or more variations. I thoroughly enjoyed Final Fantasy 12 and even after a hundred and ten hours I still want to go back and finish everything off. That speaks volumes as to how well I liked the game in my opinion. I would have done so, but bad timing and all that. I'm giving Final Fantasy 12 a 9.5.

Final Fantasy 12 -- A General Update.

I'm one-hundred hours into Final Fantasy 12 and am up to searching out the Ridorana Cataract. I've been spending my time earning license points and filling in the bestiary and doing the hunts. I have a couple of characters fully completed on the licensing board. I've earned the title of Knight of the Round in hunting and only have a few more hunts left to complete. I regret starting Final Fantasy 12 when I did. If I had started it in summer it would have been the ideal time. I could have taken my time and fully completed it as I wish to do. I wasn't expecting to take to it like I have. But I didn't start it in summer, I started it in the middle of the holiday season. And now I'm torn between shortchanging the game to get it out of the way of everything else begging to be played this season. I'm just going to have to get it done before Super Mario Galaxy arrives on Tuesday. I'm high enough level to finish the game up now, so it won't really be an issue. I just sort of feel bad about having to do it...

Phantasy Star Universe -- The 1-Up Cup: Week 4.

We're entering the fourth and final week of the 1-Up Cup in Phantasy Star Universe. We were able to once again earn all of the points across each of the difficulties. We were rewarded with ninety Rappy Feathers, a unique weapon in the Song For Death, and the long sought after Rappy Suit. We spent our feathers on various reward items available in the trade mission. The Colony EX missions were a bit tougher than we were expecting. We weren't able to S-rank either of them, although we did manage just a few rare drops. Again mostly for Riddel. On the bright side everyone is now at the level cap of level one-hundred. The final week of the cup brings with it the previous missions with an extra EX mission for each. They're offering new creature sets with new rare drops. And we'll be able to go back and farm for rares we missed originally. It should prove a good distraction for a week. Then the torture of awaiting the expansion for a few days begins.

Virtua Fighter 5 Online -- Initial Impression.

I've started messing around with Virtua Fighter 5 Online for the Xbox 360. Magus and I spent some time knocking each other around in online versus battles. Right off the most obvious thing comes with the game's title. Virtua Fighter 5 Online is just that, it offers Virtua Fighter 5 with online matches. I'm not going to double-dip for a lot of games. In fact it's very rare for me to do so. I've done it here. I own the PlayStation 3 version of Virtua Fighter 5 and I've bought Virtua Fighter 5 Online. The online aspect is just that big. Another thing that's immediately apparent with the time I've spent with the game is that it's absolutely gorgeous. It's an amazing looking game. Both in the character models and the background stages. The game is just filled with little touches and graphic special effects like the puddle you're fighting in splashing water off of the fighters whenever they're doing any moves or the snow deforming based on where the fighters move. The game also has a booming soundtrack. The game's score and hit sounds and character voices all burst from the speakers loudly. As all fighters should. The goofy character phrases return showing that Virtua Fighter might be the best fighter ever made but they still have a sense of humor. They do the combat in such exquisite exacting detail but have fun with absolutely everything else. From our initial session Magus and I both didn't notice any lag and we had fun knocking each other around. It's safe to say we both came away impressed. I'm rusty beyond belief though. Virtua Fighter is one of those games you have to learn over again each time a new iteration comes around. At least for me, as I don't constantly play. It's definitely a use it or lose it skill set.  I'm looking forward to getting back to fighting shape.

Phantasy Star Universe -- The 1-Up Cup: Week 3.

We're entering the third week of the 1-Up Cup in Phantasy Star Universe. We were able to earn the ten points for the Neudaiz mission on each of the three difficulties. That leaves the final ten points on all three difficulties for the Colony mission that happened to go up today. Once we've done that a bunch of rewards will be open for us. We're looking at a unique weapon, clothes and parts, and a whole lot of Rappy Feathers. We're also slowly but surely moving along in the communal points where we'll be given bonuses like unique weapons, clothing shop discounts, and boosted weapon and armor synthesizing rates should we be able to earn the needed points to unlock them. The Colony mission brings with it a bunch of new rares that will drop in both creature and box drops. We'll be hunting those. Hopefully we'll be as lucky as Riddel was with Neudaiz, she got just about everything she wanted, save one item. Magus and I will be building skills and bullets while Neo and Riddel chase the level cap. They'll more than likely reach it this week. The 1-Up cup is still a smashing success. We have one more week after this one and then about four days off before the expansion Ambition of the Illuminus arrives. Can't wait.

Final Fantasy 12 -- Ivalice.

I am seventy-three hours into Final Fantasy 12 in the imperial city of Archades with my primary party members at level fifty. The world of Ivalice is lush. It's far more full than any other Final Fantasy before it. There is a great amount of lore to be found that expands on the history and cultures and creatures of Ivalice. You can get this information from the non-player characters roaming the villages and cities as well as filling out the bestiary. When you fight a new creature it is entered into the bestiary along with a needed number. This number refers to how many creatures you'll need to kill of that specific type to earn some extra lore that will reveal some more information about Ivalice. It's good stuff that just adds a better understanding of the world in which the game takes place. It also helps that Ivalice is a world spanning many games with numerous races and classes with a far more interesting dynamic than previous Final Fantasy worlds. It's a far more colorful palette at their disposal used to paint the story of Final Fantasy 12. Next time should cover the story and characters of Final Fantasy 12...

Phantasy Star Universe: The 1-Up Cup: Week 2.

We're entering the second week of the 1-Up Cup in Phantasy Star Universe. Week one was a smashing success. We were able to earn the perfect score of ten points on the two missions available in the first week on each of the three difficulty levels. We're halfway to our Platinum Perfect rewards for each of the difficulties. We were able to mostly find each of the available rare drops we were looking for off the monsters in the extra missions both one and two for Parum and Moatoob. We need some work on getting a score of S-rank in the extra missions as to get access to the final set of boss boxes where some of the best drops happen. We're on the edge of being close for a couple of them. Fortunately we're getting insane experience points from these missions and the extra levels should enable us to pull it off when all the missions are unlocked in the final week of the event. We've all managed to gain four or five levels in the week. I've reached level ninety-nine with level one-hundred being the level cap. Magus and Neo are assured to reach the level cap before this event ends. Riddel will most likely, bah, I'm not going to think about that right now. There is some wager going on.  Week two removes the Parum and Moatoob missions and opens up Neudaiz. So we've got a new level to learn, then to get the ten points across the three difficulties and some rare mining to do from the extra missions. The 1-Up Cup has been a great success thus far. Great fun. And it has enabled us to start shifting over to S rank weapons from A-rank. All of us have S-rank boards at the least and Riddel and I have managed to successfully make our first S-rank weapons. Riddel has also managed to get her alternative character's partner machinery to maximum in the armor section. So we've got a means to make our S-rank armor when the time comes.

Final Fantasy 12: Of Espers and Quickenings.

I'm fifty hours into Final Fantasy 12 and I'm traveling through the Paramina Rift on the way to Mount Bur-Omisace. The final aspects of Final Fantasy 12's battle system are the Espers and Quickenings. Espers are the summons of Final Fantasies past with a slight change. They're no longer the powerful cinematic attacks they used to be. Instead of being summoned, showing up and dealing damage via a cinematic sequence, they now replace two of your active party members and actually fight and take damage alongside the character who called them. They can also be healed and have status boosting spells cast on them. They can be defeated. You can't call them again until you've filled up another mist charge in the magic points meter. Most of the Espers deal in elemental properties so you'll want to match the best element against whatever you're fighting. A couple of the Espers are introduced via the story but most of them remain optional boss battles to be fought. You gain an Esper by defeating it in battle. Espers can only be called by one character, the character who bought them off the license board. Quickenings are the last bit of what's new in the Final Fantasy 12 battle system. They're the game's special moves, or limit breaks. They're earned off the license board and again only one character can claim one. There are enough for each character to earn three Quickenings. Just like the Espers you need to build up the mist charge within the magic points meter to be able to use them. Selecting a quickening during combat brings up a screen with a meter at the bottom where you're able to shuffle the options around with the L2 button to bring up button presses that will allow you to chain moves together. The more you can pull off the more hits the quickening will have. You're even able to string them together across multiple Quickenings from multiple characters to combine into a massively powerful attack. That's a lot easier said than done though. I'm not sure if it's because I'm playing on the PlayStation 3 with its controller having an analog L2 button but I find successfully chaining Quickenings together to be a pain in the ass. More trouble than it's worth at this point.  Final Fantasy 12's battle system is easily the most complex of the entire series. But I'm finding it to be wonderfully deep and very fun and rewarding. Next time should cover the world of Ivalice.

Phantasy Star Universe: Halloween Brings the 1-Up Cup.

Phantasy Star Universe continually rolls along. We finally get Halloween. We missed it last October. They skipped over it in favor of letting people get used to the game itself in its initial month. The lobbies are decorated with the adorable Halloween decorations while the funky special Halloween music fills the speakers. PSU's version of the Hallow Rappy, the Rappy Lantan haunts the Gurhal System offering up their special seasonal drops. Special weapons and room decorations and the much coveted Rappy Feathers for use in the 1-Up Cup. The 1-Up Cup is our version of the Famitsu Cup. It's PSU's version of PSO's Maximum Attack events. The 1-Up Cup consists of five missions over three weeks. These missions offer two-hundred percent experience. If you're able to earn enough points you're granted access to an extra mission where the drop rate is raised to five-hundred percent. These extra missions are very much like PSO's Endless Nightmare missions where you're locked in a room where enemy after enemy spawns. The enemies have twenty-five percent of their standard health and experience values. But that's irrelevant as with their drop rate at five-hundred percent of normal it's essentially rare city. This is easily your best shot at some truly valuable rares any Phantasy Star title has ever offered up. It's brilliant fun. The Japanese version was over five weeks with each of the four missions taking place in their own week and the final week offering them all at once. Our version has been condensed to three weeks. Two missions the first week, two the second, and then all of them for a week. You're scored over each mission and rank. Earning the maximum ten points for each of the four missions on a given rank will reward you with what's called Platinum Perfect and you'll be rewarded with thirty Rappy Feathers. Rappy Feathers are then traded for other rare items, many only available through this event. Earning Platinum Perfect over the three ranks will insure you'll have enough Rappy Feathers to get all you want from the event. So far we've been pretty lucky. We've found boards for S rank armor and weapons as well as some other rare weapons and we're cleaning up on rare materials. The cup has brought us our first S rank weapon in the form of Riddel's Halarod. We're also raking in the Meseta and experience. This event really makes PSU feel like PSO. I for one really like it. It's great that PSU is still going strongfor us a year later, and we're all excited about the soon to be released expansion that just might take us through another year. Fun.

Final Fantasy 12 -- Gambling with Gambits.

I'm roughly thirty-six hours into Final Fantasy 12 and I've entered the Ozmone Plains in search of the village of Jahara. The game's license system is only one-third of the story of what's new in Final Fantasy 12's battle system. Another new aspect is called the gambit system. Gambits are specific commands that can be set to each of the characters. Each gambit has two aspects. The first aspect is target. This determines the who of things. The other aspect is action. This determines the what of things. So for example if you're controlling Vaan and have Fran and Penelo in your active party and you don't want to have to deal with healing because you're too busy attacking you can set up a gambit to cover things. So you'd go to the gambit menu and set it up for Fran that "1 Any Ally: HP <50% - Cure" and "2 Foe: Leader's Target - Attack," and she'll heal when those conditions arise while continuing to attack the targets you're attacking. Gambit slots are unlocked via the license board. You have to spend license points to give the characters more slots which in turn allow you to get more and more specific with your instructions therefore making your party perform better and better. They're numbered in priority with one being most important. That way they know not to do something stupid over something smart in most scenarios. The gambits also cover an amazing array of possibilities allowing you to really fine tune your party. You can have them know to cast Fire on flying enemies, or to cast Raise on anyone who has died, or to use an Ether when someone is out of magic points, or to even use a Golden Needle when someone has been hit with Stone. But this isn't all available at the start. Gambits must be bought in shops or found in treasure chests around the world of Ivalice. The more thorough you are the more likely you'll have a better behaved party. When I originally heard of the gambit system I thought them a stupid idea. They made the game seem like it would be played on autopilot. The game would play itself. Given this and the trend of less than challenging dungeon design showcased by the pitiful Final Fantasy 10 I was expecting the worst going into Final Fantasy 12. I have to say I'm more than pleasantly surprised by how much I actually enjoy the gambit system in practice. It's fresh and fun. It really does breathe new life into the previously stagnant Final Fantasy formula. Next time shouldcover the remaining aspects of the battle system...

Final Fantasy 12 -- Licensed to Kill.

I am about twenty-four hours into Final Fantasy 12. I'm currently saved just before the Tomb of Raithwall with my main party characters all roughly level twenty-one. To say that the battle and class systems of Final Fantasy 12 are a radical departure would be an understatement. I'm using the word class here referring to how your character develops their skills. In Final Fantasy 3 and five you had the job system. Six had Espers and seven had Materia while eight had drawing. Final Fantasy 12 uses a variation on ten's board. Each character has their own specific board with slightly randomized item locations. No two boards are identical but they all follow the basic pattern. Magic flows from the middle to the upper left quadrant on all of them for example. As you defeat creatures you earn license points. These points are spent on the license board to unlock new skills and abilities. As you purchase licenses new ones open off the square you've purchased. In other words, you have to chain the squares together to advance around the board. You can't just select a square at the far edge from the starting middle. You can't just jump to the good stuff. Everything you do in the world of Ivalice is licensed. To be able to use potions or equip a certain type of weapon or armor or use a spell, you must first be licensed to do so. And this is how you turn one character into a tank and another into an extraordinary wizard or what have you. There are levels to everything. So buying heavy armor 1 allows you to use specific armors while heavy armor 2 furthers that along. And just because you buy time magic 8 it doesn't mean you're able to run right out and use whatever spells you've just unlocked. It means you're able to use them, when you eventually find them for purchase. You'll only have to purchase them once. One you have Esuna for example, you have it. Everyone who is licensed to use it can now use it. Those who aren't licensed to use it obviously can't use it. The license board system works wonderfully in my opinion. It allows you to build each character however you want them to be. Be it very specific specialists or a Jack-of-all-trades character. If you put in the time, you can have it all. I'm liking this system a lot. Even more than five's job system. It's fun and rewarding. Next time will cover the battle system and gambits.

Final Fantasy 12 -- Initial Impression and Series History.

I have a couple weeks before the next big game of the season arrives so I figured I'd attempt to knock off another one of the major titles clogging up the backlog. I'm going to just bite the bullet and jump back into the currently less than appealing waters of the Japanese RPG with Final Fantasy 12 for the PlayStation 2 via the PlayStation 3. I'm going to be playing the game making use of the PlayStation 3's emulation enhancements. Meaning I'll be playing with the upscailing set to full screen and the smoothing turned on and that's going to impact my impressions of the graphics and the like. Final Fantasy 12's development is famous at this point. It spent more than its share of time in development hell. Development began in 2001 with Yasumi Matsuno of Final Fantasy Tactics fame as producer and director. Early on he was forced to step down in both roles with the reason given as poor health. It's widely believed he essentially had a nervous breakdown. A new producer and director were assigned and the game resumed development and the game was eventually released in Japan in 2006 after many course changes during development. The game took double the standard three-year development cycle. One of the game's largest critics is none other than series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi who has gone on to state that he finds himself unable to finish the game and he regrets the loss of Matsuno. Final Fantasy 12 has seemingly split the Final Fantasy fanbase like no other title before it. It's way too early for me to see on which side I'm going to land with the supposedly radically different Final Fantasy experiment. But I can give you some perspective with a rundown of my opinions of each of the games in the long-running series. Final Fantasy for the NES is a good enough beginning. I've played through it roughly three times in various forms over the years. It wouldn't rank in my top five 8-bit RPGs though. I first attempted to play the disastrous Final Fantasy 2 with its initial western release on the PlayStation. The game features one of the more stupid design choices with its unconventional experience system that uses a trade-off system based on weapons, armor, and spells used rather than traditional experience. It's a truly annoying and game breaking system in my view. Just like Final Fantasy 2, I didn't really play through Final Fantasy 3 until its initial western release last year on the Nintendo DS. This faithful remake updates the graphics and translation while remaining true to the plot and events of the original. The ugliness of the 3D of the NDS and the decidedly old-school play mechanics made playing through Final Fantasy 3 more of a chore than a fun and rewarding experience. Time had just moved on too much for Final Fantasy 3. Final Fantasy 4 wasn't my first RPG by any means. So I don't look back upon it with undying love and devotion the way too many fans do. It's a good game, not a great one. Solid story and decent early SNES graphics and a long quest make it good. Just like Final Fantasy 2 and 3 I didn't get around to truly playing Final Fantasy 5 until its initial western release on the PlayStation. Final Fantasy 5 is a really good game featuring a much expanded and superior version of Final Fantasy 3's job system. The story here is decent, but it takes a back-seat to the job system. Strange thing about Final Fantasy 5 was how import snobs referred to it as the greatest thing ever when it was a Japanese exclusive. Strange how it became something much less than that once anyone with a PlayStation and now Game Boy Advance could experience it. Final Fantasy 6 on the Super Nintendo represents the absolute pinnacle of the Final Fantasy series. It's nearly perfection. Amazing graphics and sound with characters to actually care about and a classic mad clown villain and a lengthy quest with more than a few hidden surprises. Final Fantasy doesn't come better than part six. Final Fantasy 7 is another case of Final Fantasy 4 syndrome. Again it's hardly my first RPG so I'm not looking back on it with the undying love and devotion. This is one of those games that was good at the time but I've sort of come to despise because of the idiotic fanbase that adores it. Most of them too stupid to even comprehend the story. Final Fantasy 8 was another decent game from a the system point of view. The battle system with the drawing of skills was worth the effort. Final Fantasy 8 unfortunately furthered the trend begun with Final Fantasy 7 of Square heroes being whiny pussies too concerned with the existential why of it all instead of just being a man and getting the job done. Final Fantasy 9 was an all around good game with a return to classic Final Fantasy. So much so most so called series fans missed the connections to the original game entirely. Final Fantasy 10 bored the hell out of me. I put in roughly forty hours before abandoning the game a boss or twobefore the final boss. I just couldn't will myself to complete it. I couldn't deal with the most irrelevant characters I've ever seen in an RPG any more. I had no interest in Final Fantasy 11 not being a fan of the massively multiplayer online role-playing genre and all. Apparently that's for the best as Final Fantasy 11 is considered one of more exclusive of the genre. Meaning it's extraordinarily difficult to jump in and get started with a community of high level snobs with zero interest in helping you along. That brings us back to Final Fantasy 12. Hopefully it's a return to the good Final Fantasy. We shall see...

Halo 3 -- Final Opinion.

I've played enough of Halo 3 to consider the fight finished. Halo 3 is not just more Halo, it's a lot more Halo. We might as well start with the story. Halo 2's now infamous ending caused vocal gamers on the Internet to scream en masse like idiots. They called it a non-ending and ranked it among the worst ever seen in gaming. It was the classic cliffhanger ending of the adventure serials of the 1930s and 1940s. It was well known that Halo 2 was the middle chapter of a trilogy at the time and they still went apeshit over it. I personally loved the ending to Halo 2 and it made me really want to play Halo 3 right then and there to find out what happened next. Halo 3 begins with Master Chief separating with the ship he had leapt to over Earth at the end of Halo 2 as it burns up from entering the atmosphere. With a little luck he survives the crash and is found by a group of soldiers on the way to engage the enemy and off you go. The game's story plays out to a satisfying conclusion. Along the way Cortana is saved and the Flood are dealt with and the conflict between humans and the Covenant is resolved. Most of the questions are answered and a few are brought up with the teasing of the planet Onyx at the end of the legendary difficulty ending. Nobody can accuse Bungie of not finishing this off this time around. The campaign is made more impressive by the fact that you can play the entire thing cooperatively with two to four players. And it performs admirably well, respawn choices aside. It's fun to boot. The campaign is furthered still by the meta-game that's enabled with the finding of the hidden skulls. In this mode you turn on a scoring system that rewards you with points for every kill you make. More points for headshots and grenade sticks than normal shots to the legs or arms for example. Reaching a set point value unlocks an achievement for the level. The more skulls you find, the more you can turn on, making it harder of course but also adding more point multipliers to the scoring system. Thereby making it more likely you'll reach the point total and unlock the achievement. And again, the meta-game campaign mode can be played in co-op. That's a lot of value squeezed out of the campaign mode. That's before you even get to Halo's bread and butter of online multiplayer. Where you'll likely to spend the bulk of your time fragging your friends and total strangers. And Halo 3 multiplayer is still love it or hate it Halo multiplayer. It's still wicked fun coupled with frustrations of a couple broken weapons. They've added new weapons and tools and vehicles to the Halo catalog. These weapons like the Gravity Hammer and tools like the Bubble Shield and vehicles like the Covenant Chopper have added a great amount of strategy to the multiplayer. More options, more potential, the tricker and craftier people become, the more fun the game becomes. On top of this you have Halo's insanely customizable multiplayer gameplay. There are tons of options for you to play with in creating new and interesting rounds of multiplayer mayhem. It goes further with Forge. Allowing you to distribute weapons and vehicles and alter their field positions and the like. And the icing on the Halo cake, the saved films. Allowing you to review any match from campaign to multiplayer. Being able to make movie clips and take screenshots and upload them in game and to bungie.net is just brilliant. It's one of those industry changing designs. The future. All of this is done with pretty graphics in campaign. Great voice acting and exceptional music. Tight, perfect, Halo control. We've spent a lot of time with Halo 3 and it's safe to say we got our money's worth. We've still got a lot of multiplayer left in us. I enjoyed Halo 3. In the end it satisfied and finished the fight well. I'm giving Halo 3 for the Xbox 360 a 9.5.

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass -- Final Opinion.

I have completed The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for the Nintendo DS. There was a lot of talk about how Phantom Hourglass was the game that was going to make Zelda seem fresh again. Make it all new. The game that was going to reawaken your love for the series. Well, my love for the series never waned. I technically enjoyed Phantom Hourglass, but it's also the most frustrating and least rewarding Zelda title I've ever played. Let's start with the positives. The story while shallow even by Zelda standards is new. It may be the direct sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker but it continues the tradition of the paired games going off somewhere else. Just as Link's Awakening did for A Link to the Past and Majora's Mask did for Ocarina of Time. It's not set in Hyrule and there is no Ganon, and there are no goddesses and the creation legend we get time and again. The story is almost entirely for laughs. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Now for the mixed bag stuff, the puzzles and dungeons. They're all over the place. Some great, some bad, and a lot of too easy. Especially with the touch gimmick of writing on the maps. The game will present you with the answer. Have you write it on the map using the touch screen so you'll have it once you discover where to use it. There are a few standout top-of-the-line Zelda dungeons in the game. But most of them are a tad too easy. The music and sound is another mixed bag. Some of the remixes of classic Zelda themes sound great coming from the NDS speakers, and others don't. The game reuses too much music from Wind Waker. It would have been a little better getting more original tracks in the game. The sound effects sound good and crisp coming from the NDS speakers. Now on to the bad, like the graphics. The game is ugly. I know Nintendo wants to push the 3D aspects of the NDS but I think that approach does a great disservice to the Zelda series. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. The game would have been better served with a more stylized 2D graphic style closer to that of A Link to the Past mixed with Wind Waker aesthetics. Trying to stay close to Wind Waker in 3D results in a PlayStation era early 3D level mess. This is especially true in the cutscenes with Link's broken face taking center stage. Another bad aspect for me is the dungeon of the Temple of the Ocean King. The one you have to go through five or six time over during the course of the game withevery time having to redo the same exact puzzles and avoid the same monsters. It's a shame really, because if you had to of dealt with the dungeon in a single go, it would have resulted in one of the greatest Zelda dungeons ever created. I'm not impressed with the NDS gimmickry. I hate having to yell into the microphone in the system. I hate having to blow out candles. I never find it cute or charming. And I've done everything already in other games. Sure the "stamp" puzzle would be innovative, if I hadn't already dealt with it in Trace Memory and Hotel Dusk. In fact most of everything presented in Phantom Hourglass I've already experienced in the first NDS game I've ever played, SEGA's Feel The Magic, which just threw in every gimmick the system offered. I don't find it innovative having these gimmicks applied to every series that hits the system. Overall this Zelda is a real mixed bag. You'll have your moments of Zelda quality and charm that you've come to expect from the series. Depending on your view of the NDS' gimmickry, you'll find yourself annoyed at the controls and devices in the game or wowed by the supposed freshness of it all. I wasn't wowed, I lean towards annoyed. Something about this Zelda just made me want to see it through fast. I wanted it to end. I just wanted to get it done. Something that I haven't experienced in any other Zelda title before, including Wind Waker. Unlike Twilight Princess for example, which I didn't want to end. There's just something off about Phantom Hourglass. I'm giving The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for the Nintendo DS a 7.5.

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass -- The Hourglass Gimmick.

Every new Zelda adds something to the basic Zelda formula to change things up and provide a little dash of originality. Majora's Mask had Link stuck in a time loop for example, and Twilight Princess had Link transforming into a wolf. Beyond the whole touch control aspect, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass has the Phantom Hourglass and the Temple of the Ocean King. The Temple of the Ocean King is the game's central dungeon, which in itself is an original concept for Zelda. What do I mean by central dungeon? It's a dungeon that you have to repeatedly visit. You're only able to get so far each visit, mainly due to the tools at Link's disposal. After completing the regular dungeons around the game's world you'll normally have to return to the Temple of the Ocean King to progress a little further and open the way for the story to grant you access further into game. The problem is that the Temple of the Ocean King is cursed by the game's villain and it slowly drains the life of whoever enters it. The temple is broken into safe zones and hot spots. Anything hot and your life drains. Most of the temple will be considered hot. The safe zones will stop your life from draining and keep the temple's enemies, called phantoms, from hurting you. You can't hurt phantoms. So it's a very stealthy and timed experience. The Phantom Hourglass allows you to enter the hot spots in the dungeon and not have the temple drain your life. But each second spent in the hot spots causes sand to drain in the hourglass. Once the sands of the hourglass run out, you'll have no protection and your life will drain. Being attacked by the phantoms will not only cause you physical damage but also take time from your hourglass thus giving you less time to complete the dungeon. And the game is already cutting it close for you as it is. In theory the Temple of the Ocean King is great and provides some of the best dungeon puzzles ever experienced in the Zelda series. But the fact that you have to repeatedly visit the dungeon and complete the same exact puzzles and floors over and over again each time visit really puts a damper on the execution. You're either going to really love the Temple of the Ocean King or you're going to dread and despise it. I'm sort leaning toward the later at this stage of things...

Halo 3 -- More Bang for your Buck.

We're over the hump in Halo 3. I've earned all the achievements that can be earned in campaign and team multiplayer. I only have those left for solo matchmaking. Doing so required going through the campaign numerous times and a hundred or so rounds of team slayer in matchmaking. I had only completed the campaign mode of Halo and Halo 2 the original time. And I went into matchmaking in Halo 2 all of two or three times. Halo 3 has proven itself to offer far more basic value than the other games in the series. This is before I've even started messing around in Forge, the game's basic level editor. We still have hundreds of custom multiplayer rounds left in us at this point. Before the new map download content arrives that will spark a few hundred more. The best little extra that wasn't in Halo or Halo 2 would have to be saved films and the further integration of Bungie.net. You're able to watch your last twenty or so rounds in their entirety. You have basic control over the video. You can fast forward, freeze frame, and move the camera all around independently, or watch the game from another player in the round. You can remove the game's HUD for a clear view and take screenshots and or cut out a clip. You can upload these clips in your file sharing within the game. Allowing anyone else to download and view them. You're also able to share your custom game modes in the file sharing this way. At Bungie.net you're able to track just about every statistic you could imagine. It's an amazingly thorough system and an awesome little bonus outside the game. We're still learning at this point. We're still finding out little tidbits about the levels and weapons. That you can shoot one of the tools to cause damage to an enemy using it. How the levels flow and where the confrontations most commonly take place. Where Magus likes to hide. Where Neo will run for specific weapons. And as always cutting Riddel off from access to any vehicles. And we're developing strategies to deal with and exploit the traits of our fellow players. And of course we'll have to come up with an answer for their inevitable answer to our actions. We've still got a way to go with Halo 3. We won't go as far as we did with Halo 2 though, and that's mainly because of the rest of the season being filled with online titles like Virtua Fighter 5 and Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Phantasy Star Universe: Ambition of the Illuminus. Next time should be a final opinion on Halo 3.

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass -- The Controls.

I am roughly about to enter the third dungeon in Phantom Hourglass and I've spent enough time running around and exploring to feel confident in commenting on the controls. As mentioned in the previous entry The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass on the Nintendo DS controls entirely with the stylus. You point where you want Link to go and he follows along as if he were a dog on a leash. Essentially bringing PC point and click style control to the series. Link is still able to do everything he always did so nothing has been technically sacrificed in going with touch controls. Link still automatically jumps where appropriate. He still cuts grass and attacks poor defenseless signs with sword slashes. Only now they're done with a slash of the stylus to anything that's within range. The slash does need to be at the correct angle to register. It becomes quite intuitive to get the correct angle. Link is still able to do the sword spin. Only this time you quickly circle Link with the stylus to initiate the move. Combat is handled by merely tapping an enemy and Link will perform a lunging attack. The shield automatically works depending if you have it equipped and the level of the enemy attack. Link still has all his standard tools such as bombs and a shovel and the boomerang. You need to hit the item button on the lower right and then select whatever tool to equip. The tool icon will show up in the top left-hand corner and it shows the currently equipped tool. There two ways to access it. You can tap the tool icon itself or you can hold either the L or R button. I prefer the button method. Holding R with the bombs equipped makes Link hold the bomb over his head. You just tap where you want him to throw it and he throws it. Holding the button with the shovel equipped readies the shovel and you just tap the screen where you want Link to dig and he digs. Holding the button with the boomerang equipped allows you to actually draw out the flight path and then lifting the stylus from the screen sends the boomerang on its way. Link is able to creep, walk, or run depending on how far you point in front of him. To make Link roll you'll need to have him at a full run and on the far edge of the screen in whichever direction he's running you'll need to quickly draw a circle and he'll roll. The last one is pretty much the only one that's a tad iffy. Otherwise the controls work. And I guess one could make a claim that they're simplified and more inviting to the casual Nintendo DS owner who normally stays away from real games and is off playing Nintendogs and Brain Age. But I don't actually care if Nintendo needs to sell games to grandmas the world over. I only care about the game I'm playing for me. And I have to say while the controls technically work I do find myself wishing for a traditional configuration because as they are now it sort of feels like you're playing Zelda for Dummies.

Halo 3 -- Skullduggery.

We've been through the campaign mode of Halo 3 a few times. To play the game of course and see the story. We did our initial run through on Heroic. We went back through to unlock the achievement for completing the game on the Legendary difficulty. And we've been through a few of the levels numerous times in search of achievements for the hidden skulls and Marathon Man. We happened to stumble on a few of the skulls such as the silver skull in the first level and the gold skull in the last level. We managed to find the bulk of the remaining skulls by careful and determined searching. The final skull however would have remained forever beyond us had we not looked it up. The process for finding the skull is close to obscene. As I understand it, supposedly a musical cue that relates back to a series of games from Bungie called Marathon that shares much of the same lore as Halo is the initial clue to finding the skull. If you're able to write music then you're able to convert this from musical notes to numbers. These numbers provide the order in which you'll have to then jump through the seven holograms of the Halo rings that are found before the confrontation with the Prophet of Truth. After jumping around like a trained monkey in a circus for a while in the correct order, the skull will then spawn in the level. It even spawns behind you, back towards where you confront Truth, furthering your odds of missing it. Bungie apparently wanted this skull to stay hidden a long time. Fortunately for the rest of us, someone was able to figure it out. As for the terminals, we were actually able to discover all of them. Problem is we didn't actually turn them on. So we had to go back through again to do that correctly. This one involves everyone in the party having to gather around the terminal so someone can hit the right bumper to initiate the sequence allowing everyone to then witness it. We never all gathered around it correctly. We still have to go back for them one more time so that everyone has the achievement. I for one appreciate hidden things in games. Most of the skulls and the terminals all fall within the description of fair. The one skull however, doesn't. That one just strikes me as more than a little unfair.

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass -- Initial Impression.

From Freshly-Picked: Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland on the Nintendo DS I'm going right into The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. Same system, same genre. From a bizarre take on the formula for a series offshoot to a reworking of the classic formula for a new system. Phantom Hourglass marks the debut of The Legend of Zelda on the Nintendo DS. The series' producer, Eiji Aonuma, has felt the need to full make use of all the new features enabled by the Nintendo DS hardware. As a result we have a Zelda game that's one-hundred percent touch controlled. And truth be told, I'm not too excited about that prospect. I have concerns of sacrificed controls and challenge. I'm also worried about the 3D graphic capabilities of the Nintendo DS. Will the system be able to handle the Wind Waker art style and deliver a world that's texturally rich or are we going to be looking at something far more sparse? And as the game is a direct sequel to Wind Waker, which is generally considered the weakest 3D Zelda title, will they be carrying over some of the mistakes present in that title? Such as the overused and less than exciting sailing aspects? I'm going in to Phantom Hourglass with more reservations than I normally would ever have regarding a Zelda game. I've spent just a little time with the game so far and I'll need a lot more time to see how my concerns pan out. Hopefully Phantom Hourglass lives up to its lineage.