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.

Freshly-Picked: Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland -- Final Opinion.

The credits have rolled on the import only Freshly-Picked: Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland and despite one glaring design flaw the game is good fun. The adventure part of the game is fabulous. The world is broken into three continents with multiple areas each. Each area is a different geographical type and contains its own set of creatures and puzzles and challenges. The bulk of Tingle's gameplay is adventure puzzle as the combat is secondary. You need to solve or figure out almost everything in the world. The game provides numerous and often subtle hints on just about everything. The puzzles are pretty evenly spread through the overworld and dungeons. The story is minimalist but full of charm and character.  The graphics are well drawn and clean. It's a colorful world.  The music is great when used. It's mainly an ambient soundtrack. The boss battles are fun and surprisingly impressive given the touch aspect to almost all of them. And arcade Punch-Out!! fans will have a bittersweet reaction to the fact that Nintendo hasn't entirely forgotten about the series with its homage to the game in the second boss battle. Tingle would be an amazing game if it were not for the fact that Nintendo handled the barter system as they did. It remains one of the worst design choices I've seen and for some could genuinely be considered a game breaking fatal flaw. If you're willing to overlook said flaw, a great game can be found in Freshly-Picked: Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland. I'm giving it an 8.