A few weeks ago, I bought the New Super Mario Bros. game for the Wii and have been mostly satisfied with it; my only real complaints are overall short length, floaty physics, and level design that at times can make co-op play virtually impossible. That last one has ultimately led to my roommate sometimes simply pressing "A" and floating through the level while I navigate the pitfalls, platforms, and death-traps. It's kind of a difference in skill levels. I've been playing Mario games to death since about the age of six and Sonic games to double-death since about the age of ten (and don't get me started on Mega Man), so I've got something of a sixth sense for side-scrollers that lets me take some seemingly unnecessary and utterly frightening risks (I've lost track of the number of gasps and outright yelps my antics have evoked from my roommate when we play) with ease and finesse. On the other hand, my roommate doesn't tend to go for "twitch games" and is generally wired more toward RPGs, which leads me to the current situation...

When I bought New Super Mario Bros., it was on special from amazon. In exchange for the low price of about 35USD, the shipping timetable was abhorrent (it took about two weeks to get to us) and they threw in two promotional credits to lure us back. The first was a Lincoln's worth of MP3 downloads, which isn't bad (unless you're the artist, or so I'm told), and the second was 10USD off the next game purchase. With a deadline of the middle of July on the game credit, my roommate's birthday coming up on the 22nd of July, and her recent marathon play sessions of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, I thought I was being presented with the perfect opportunity to pick up Super Paper Mario for the Wii at a good price. Unfortunately, not only does the credit only apply to games that ship directly from Amazon.com (as opposed to a third-party seller), but the third-party seller in the case of Super Paper Mario has jacked up the price something awful. It's a third-party seller I've dealt with in the past, and have nothing but complete and utter disdain for, HitGaming studios (hence this entry's title). It's one matter if the game I'm looking for is relatively obscure or out-of-print (I expect to pay a little more if I go any way but the used route), but Super Paper Mario is neither out-of-print nor obscure, and barely three years old to boot. Despite this, however, $hitgaming has marked the game at over 70USD. I find this sort of business tactic utterly infuriating, and this is not the only game they've done this with. I may have seen a few games sold by them that are marked down considerably, but otherwise there's this ludicrous 20-30USD mark-up on nearly their entire inventory. I honestly wonder how these cretins sleep at night, or at least how they win such favor with Amazon that they're the primary distributor of something like Super Paper Mario.

Oh, well, it just means I have to buy the game from the local Target for the proper price. However, there is still the matter of the ten dollar credit that I'd really hate to see wasted. I've got a few games I'd like, but most of them aren't due out for some time (like Valkyria Chronicles 2 or Ys 7 for PSP, Arc Rise Fantasia or Sin and Punishment for the Wii) and others are likely to become huge time-vortexes that I just really couldn't devote myself to right now (I mean, I just downloaded Ys I & II on virtual console). Also, overall, I'd like to spend the credit on a game for my roommate (in addition to Paper Mario, which I'll just buy locally).

So, can anyone suggest any good Wii games out right now? Just give a shout-out, make a list, anything goes.

Back in the eighth grade (circa 1995), my favorite part of English class was "sensory imagery." Best described as "Tell, don't show" sensory imagery is an exercise in presenting the visceral entirely by way of text, that is embellishing the plot with all the tedious little details that actually tend to get in the way of most otherwise good reads. Being an angst-and-hormone-ridden boy of early teens, I had a rather dark imagination, and took this new section of the course as a chance to "tell all." What followed were about ten little short pieces I ended up calling "nameless beast stories." They were drivel, but they were fun to write and they always got a positive response (except from my teacher, but only after the first two). A typical structure for one of these stories is 1)present main character and describe what they're doing, 2)introduce monster and describe its physical appearance down to the points on its teeth (if it had them, that is), and 3)describe monster eating, or otherwise dispatching, aforementioned human character. This wasn't always the pattern, but it was typical. I did eventually grow tired of it, and left the concept alone for nearly four years. Then, I found myself wondering if I was afraid of "letting the humans triumph" because it would make me seem soft or gushy. It can be rather unnerving to create a character and then try to convince a classroom full of people to care about them, so killing them off always seemed like an easy way out. I decided to confront this frivolous inner demon by writing what would be, in effect, the last nameless beast story. I only ever showed the story to two people, and they both liked it. I liked it at first, but looking back at it now over ten years later just makes me cringe. Quite a few of my writings have that effect on me. Every once in a while, I find the resolve to do something about it, for better or for worse.

That story's rewrite is presented here:

The Sacrifice:

The girl saw no logic or reason in the glorification of death that had been made an integral part of her township's daily life. In the years following the war's end, the people began to doubt the very leaders they had themselves elected, leading to the spiritual guides taking the place of the previous authority. Their stories of guilt and indemnity painted the grim future that was to beset every man, woman, and child in the town unless various acts of expiation were performed. These acts took the form of human sacrifices to the priests' newfound god, a dark yet fair entity, who would spare the masses pain and punishment as reward for their noble offerings. It seemed to the girl that nearly everyone except her own family had succumbed to the propaganda concerning what an honor it was to offer a sacrifice to the god and what an even greater honor it was to actually be the sacrifice. All of her friends would not stop talking about how envious they were of those girls carted off to the shrines to be offered to the new god. She, however, did not envy them, saw no honor in these acts, and hoped her parents felt the same as she.

They did not.

One fateful morning, the girl awoke to the sound of the priests rapping on her family's door. After hastily dressing and entering the main room of the house, she came upon her parents sitting at the dinner table with the priests, all smiles and laughter while the head priest told them that they would be rewarded and honored with fame and gifts beyond their wildest dreams for their "contribution," as he put it. She learned, to her horror, that they had made arrangements the previous night for her to be taken as the next offering. She begged and pleaded with her parents to reconsider their decision as she was dragged away and hoisted into a cart, urgently reaching out her hands to them. They only waved and smiled.

As the cart proceeded through the village, the girl endured the envious looks of her friends as they watched from the doorways and windows of their homes. She called out to them, imploring them to help her, only for her pleas to be answered with the same waves and smiles her parents had given her. The cart reached the shrine by midday, and the girl was taken to a small chamber beside of the main hall, where preparations would be made for the night's activities.

In the hours that passed from midday to night, the girl underwent a transformation. She had been cleansed and anointed by the shrine's priestesses. Peasant rags had been replaced with flowing white robes and brass bangles about her ankles and wrists. Lulled into a tired daze by the perfumes and various nonsensical mantras chanted by the priestesses, the girl was led into the main hall, where the head priest was reciting the final verses of the litany that signaled the start of the ritual. When finished, he turned to her and placed upon her gently bowed head a lavishly decorated tiara which seemed to glow in the light of the torches. He then looked to two priests standing at a stone slab behind the altar. He clapped his hands, his signal to them snapping the girl to attention and out of her daze. She looked up to see the slab being pushed aside with great effort and she found herself being suddenly and forcefully pushed forward into the opening behind it. Once through, the slab was replaced. She did not turn around. She only heard the grinding of stone and saw the light around her fade away, followed by silence and darkness.

She sat with her back against the stone slab, letting her eyes grow accustomed to the darkness. When the imprints of the torches finally left her sight, she rose slowly and put out her arms, feeling for a wall along which to guide herself forward, the only direction open to her now. After a few twists and turns, the girl's tiring endeavor was rewarded with a simple sensation, that of a gentle breeze on her face. She stopped for a moment, as if struck; she never thought that something as subtle and mundane as a breeze would cut through the deprivation which had been eating away at her spirit and serve as a new source of strength to keep moving despite uncertainty. Pressing onward, the girl saw a light up ahead, and ran towards it. She came at last to the end of the tunnel, which opened into a large room that appeared to be a colosseum, sunken and dilapidated. The light was coming from a small opening in the roof, from which a long length of chain reached all the way down to the colosseum's floor. The girl slowed her pace, taking in her surroundings, suddenly suspicious of this seemingly good fortune. She saw that the chain dangled over a large, circular pit covered by an iron grating. She stopped at its edge and looked down, the pit revealing nothing but absolute darkness. The bars of the grating were flat and just wide enough for her to walk along. She would have to be careful, lest she fall into that vast abyss below. Holding out her arms for balance and carefully placing one foot in front of the other, the girl began walking toward the chain that would serve as her means of escape. The iron was cold against her feet, but the girl kept the cold as far from her mind as she could, focusing only on the chain directly in front of her. Halfway across, she heard a sound that seemed to originate from the pit below. She dared not look down for fear of losing her balance, but found herself trying to decipher the noise. It sounded like wind, but seemed to have almost a rhythm to it. It reminded her of breathing.

She at last reached the chain and clasped it in relief with both hands. When she pulled herself up enough to lift her feet off the grating, there was a moment of panic as the chain gave slightly. The girl heard the clanking of metal and noticed out the corner of her eye that the grating was sliding out from over the pit. She resumed her upward climb, ignoring the goings-on beneath her. She was halfway up the chain when the grating had completely uncovered the pit and the clanking stopped. The rhythmic wind from before returned, only this time it seemed to be faster and louder than before. She would have thought it only her imagination playing upon her fear if the noise had not just then risen briefly into a piercing roar. She stopped and dared a glance downward.

The god was beneath her.

The thing was enormous enough to nearly fill the pit. Its skin was solid black, making it blend perfectly with the darkness of the pit. The only parts of its form that set it apart from the darkness were its large, purple, reptilian eyes and huge, gaping maw. She felt its hot breath against her body as it lifted its head and began to close its mouth around the chain. She froze as its teeth closed on the chain, missing her feet by inches.The creature pulled down on the chain and the girl feared it giving way completely, sending her falling into the huge mouth. Fortunately, the bite had severed the chain completely and the beast fell awkwardly onto the edge of the pit. Sense returned to the girl in this moment and she frantically made her way to the top. She pulled herself up and was just over the edge when she suddenly felt the ground beneath her rise up and send her tumbling forward. The monster had lunged upward, its snout punching through the narrow opening, again narrowly missing the girl. The snout disappeared from sight, and she could hear the beast once again falling against the edge of the pit below. As she rose to her feet, she realized the beast had taken the rest of the chain down with it, and knew it would leap again. She turned to run and saw, at the edge of the newly widened hole, a statue resembling the creature, in front of which was a heavy, wooden lever with the last few feet of the chain attached to it. She ran over to it and noticed a series of gears and pulleys behind the statue that seemed to lead down into the ground to the colosseum below. The lever was leaning forward, and she realized that, when she put her weight on the chain, it activated the mechanism which pulled away the grating. An angry roar from behind her snapped her out of her thoughts and, summoning up all her strength, the girl threw herself against the lever, pushing it back toward the statue. The gears began to turn and the pulleys paid out and pulled in lengths of chain and rope. She heard the clanking of metal, and imagined the grate should be moving back into place. The gears then stopped briefly and the sound of the grate moving was replaced with a shrill cry from the colosseum below. The gears and pulleys slowed to almost a complete stop until the cry died out and they resumed their turning. When the sound of the grate stopped, the girl cautiously walked back toward the edge of the hole and looked down into the colosseum. The grate had completely severed the beast's head from its body. Its eyes were wide open, as was the maw, suggesting the incredible pain it endured as the grating closed on it.

As relief washed over her in a warm wave, the girl slumped to the floor, breathing heavily. She looked down at her hands, which lay limp with exhaustion in her lap, still adorned with the brass bangles. She lifted her hands to get a better look at their curious designs and realized that, in spite of all that happened, the tiara the priest had given her was still on her head. She removed the tiara and looked at it. She had not been able to examine it before, and only now noticed that, like the statue, it had been made in the image of the god, complete with two purple gems for its eyes. She stood up, holding the tiara in both hands. She looked down into the colosseum at the head of the fallen god and threw the tiara down into the hole.She watched it fall through the grating and into the abyss below.

:The End

(c)1998, 2010

Today marks the 5th working day of my new job. My roommate's happy I'm finally employed after a full year since (A certain cellular provider I won't name out loud) let me go for being a "thoroughly average" customer service rep, but she's a little distressed by the lack of time we spend together, especially since she's spending all of her free time away from her MMOs and more time with New Super Mario Bros. Wii. I have to say, I had my doubts; from the store demos, I found the controls a bit tedious (and I'd been playing Mario 3 and Super Mario World on Virtual Console the past two weeks) with their combining of motion controls and standard button-presses. I also found the "physics" a bit floaty, bordering on laggy. While it's good that everything in the game has a presence and weight, the idea that you can be bumping butts and stomping heads when you're supposed to be getting to the next platform is a bit irritating.

My roommate just asked me which was my favorite Mario game overall. Sadly, it's not this one, but only because the game feels so much like a highly-polished version of Super Mario World, which was not my favorite (remember, I had a Genesis, and I was even one of those blast-processing fiends who thought Super Mario World was slow and boring by comparison to Sonic). At least, it wasn't my favorite at the time of release. When I bought my SuperNES in 1999 (50 bucks at the Target where I worked), I did learn to appreciate Super Mario World, if only a little bit. In the end, Super Mario 3 for the NES stands up very well to the test of time and is not only a favorite game, but a large part of my life and childhood. When I got the Nintendo Power strategy guide, complete with full bestiary, I turned the chalkboard in our basement into a massive tableau of each and every denizen in a single, epic level; we did not touch that chalkboard for months. I might also have a slight bias because I was also one of those lucky little boys that had actually seen The Wizard in theaters. I mean, that may not seem like a big deal, but think about it: you're watching footage from a video game on a movie theater screen.It's rather surreal, if you think about it.

Okay, I'm rambling somewhat...

New Super Mario Bros Wii is exactly what a decent sequel should be, a furthering of the original concept, polished to perfection by years of development, play-testing, and player feedback. It has everything we expect from side-scrollers, and they're all executed splendidly. I do have to shun the graphics a little; apart from the motion controls, there's no reason we couldn't have seen this game on the Gamecube, or any side-scrolling Mario for that matter. I mean, yes, 3D is a quick and easily-impressive way to show off your console's technical capabilities, but it's no reason to throw out the tried-and-true. It's like with my N-Gage; Sure, it was impressive to see Tony Hawk's Pro Skater in full 3D on a cell phone, but that does not make for a fulfilling gameplay experience any more than something like Puyo Pop or Sonic N or Pocket Kingdom.

Next entry I feel like revisiting a short story I wrote some time ago. I got in the mood for it after watching the last volume of the Ys anime series, which I wholeheartedly recommend if you're at all an anime fan or an Ys fan.

Once upon a time, there was a little game called Marathon. It was a first-person shooter available for the Apple Macintosh, of all things. I absolutely adored it, mostly because Vectorman on the Genesis can only entertain for so long and I'd played through Myst about three times. By the time Marathon 2 came out, though, I was beginning to get a little weary of the FPS to the point that I stopped playing them until Maken X came out for Dreamcast. I was, however, intrigued when Bungie first started showing off stuff from Halo, but when they announced that Halo was going to be an XBox/PC exclusive, I was one of those arrogant little jerks who cried, "Traitor!" and swore off all things Bungie for the next several years. So, I never gave Halo a chance, even after I bought a PC in 2005. In fact, what drew me to Red vs. Blue was that it poked fun at the game (and I couldn't tell you for the life of me why I bought the Halo Graphic Novel). I didn't actually play Halo until about 2008, when a friend gave me his old XBox so I could show Fable to my roommate. As it turned out, I couldn't really get into the first game, but I loved Halo 2, albeit I've still never really gotten back my taste for first-person shooters. On the whole, though, I'm only a Halo fan in a vicarious manner. The "canon proper" as it might be called (what's in the games) is virtually inconsequential to me, but its ancillary items of lore (Red Vs. Blue, the comics, art books, marketing websites) I find myself hopelessly drawn to, almost to the point of compulsive hoarding. That's not to say all these items are good; if anything, I actually feel kind of bad for Halo fans that they have to settle for such mediocre merchandise. I've got drafts of a review for some of the Halo comics in the works, namely the original Graphic Novel anthology and Uprising by Bendis and Maleev, but for now I'm going to be focusing on the recent DVD release Halo Legends. I was initially reluctant to pick it up because I was first going to rent it from Red Box, but found out that Warner Bros. was boycotting Red Box because, according to them, overly-convenience rental options like Red Box are hurting their DVD sales.

Granted, I was going to probably buy it anyway, but if there's one thing I truly hate, it's being played. Of course, it's not fair to take out my frustrations on a movie because the studio backing it is run by howler monkeys with brain damage (seriously, that's like blaming Hertz for GM's current financial state), so I relented, but I'd still really love to see the proof Time Warner can offer proving that rentals hurt sales. Anyway...

Legends completes a kind of unofficial trilogy of Warner-produced anthologies of animated shorts based on major franchises. It began with The Animatrix back in 2003 and Batman: Gotham Knight in 2008. They're worth checking out, but ultimately suffer the same basic problem that all anthologies do, which is the simple fact that "you can't please everyone all the time."

In other words, there are some shorts you're going to love:
Beyond (Animatrix)
Working Through Pain (Batman: Gotham Knight)

others, you'll think are rather good:
Detective Story (Matrix)
World Record (Matrix)
Field Test (Batman)
Have I Got A Story for You (Batman)

and others, well, you'll hate:
Matriculated (Ani)

Origins IBatman: Gotham Knight never really had an "origin" piece (unless you count Working Through Pain) because that part of his story is not only well-known, but infinitely interpretable. That is, his origin has been told and re-told so many times that putting forth that kind of exposition would be pointless. For The Matrix, however, the backstory was only vaguely hinted at in the first film, so there were still quite a few gaps to fill in, hence Second Renaissance. For Halo, the backstory is fully fleshed-out, but not actually that well-known to people who haven't played through the games. Over 100 hours of gameplay, across 3 main titles and a handful of spin-offs get condensed into two pithy chapters. Helmed by the same crew that put together Second Renaissance for The Animatrix, fans of that little collection will feel a distinct sensation of deja vu, right down to the fact that the story is being told by an intelligent computer program. In this case, it's the ever-lovely Cortana who fills us in on the epic mystery of the Forerunners and the events that led them to the construction of the Halo ringworlds. The visual ****is patterned after the story "Second Sunrise Over New Mombasa" from the Halo Graphic Novel, illustrated by the iconic sci-fi artist Moebius. In my draft of the review of the Halo Graphic Novel, I make the statement that the only people I feel more sorry for in terms of product quality than Halo fans are Moebius fans. I mean, everyone keeps going on and on about what a great artist Jean Giraud is, but when I look over his work, there's a lot to be disappointment to be found (the manga Icaro and the game Samurai 20XX, for starters). These two shorts I find almost beyond criticism; they're equally competent in their premise, direction, and execution. They ultimately serve more as primers than standalone pieces meant to be appreciated on the same level as the subsequent stories in the anthology. That said, this is ultimately the stronger of the two (by a small margin, both earn serious kudos with me for prominently featuring the wonderful aforementioned Cortana) with its striking art ****

Origins IICopy and Paste previous, minus all that stuff about Moebius. The art direction takes a turn for the less stylized and goes for a more realistic ****and focuses on the progression of humanity in the Halo Universe instead of focusing on the Forerunners and their battle with the parasitic Flood. Did I mention I've got a major geek-crush on Cortana?

HomecomingI'm not going to rank these shorts or anything like that, but while this one may not be my favorite, it's practically a close second. Sadly, this one doesn't seem to get the appreciation it deserves, mostly because a lot of the hardcore Halo fans have deemed it the metaphorical "Castration" of the Halo franchise, as evidenced by their summary of the piece as "the lame-ass one with the f***ing teddy bears." The reality is that the teddy bear is featured only once or twice and is hardly central to the plot, as you might be otherwise led to believe. Furthermore, the bear stands as a great counterpoint to the surprisingly dark and ominous tone that underpins the whole work. The story centers around the Spartan super-soldier program's more dubious protocols, chiefly the kidnapping of six year-old children from their homes who are then hastily replaced with "flash clones," duplicates in every way like their natural-born counterparts, save for a weaker constitution and ultimately shorter lifespan (hence answering the question, "why don't they just send the clones into battle?").

The DuelAs much as I'm an odd one out (no pun intended) amongst Halo fans for not avidly following the games as much as the comics and various videos, I seem equally alienated by fans of Halo Legends because I seem to dislike all the shorts on this collection that others absolutely adore. Many reviews have cited this as being the strongest piece, mostly for its unusual art ****and unique approach to the inner workings of an alien society. The art direction claims to be based on that of Japanese inkwash paintings, though I'd seriously contest that it looks more like gouache or wet-on-wet acrylic or at least watercolor more than sumi-e. At least, it doesn't look like any inkwash paintings I've ever seen. On the whole, there's not much to say about this one apart from that it's a Japanese animation studio reinterpreting an American science fiction franchise as a Japanese legend, and it works about as well as you might imagine.

Odd One Outjust as Odd One Out goes off on a tangent from proper Halo continuity, I'm going to go on a tangent to talk about Dragonball for a bit, to help clear up any confusion regarding my stance on all things Toriyama. The fact is, he's got a solid design philosophy and I do like his work. Back in teh day, I even followed DBZ, but I'm not going to pretend every second was pure gold. DBZ had a lot of issues as a television series, namely in the pacing and length departments. Officially, Toriyama is not involved with Halo Legends, but Daisuke Nishio is, and between him and Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru, it's the next best thing. Nishio is a known pacifist and has very strong feelings against guns (yet strangely has no problem with people beating the tar out of each other), so space marines might not seem like a great subject for him to tackle, so he doesn't. Instead of focusing on the UNSC's war with the Covenant, his story centers on a small family of orphans descended from the survivors of a ship crash. For an off-canon story meant to explore the bounds of just what will and won't fly in the Halo universe, it's strangely respectful to the franchise. If there's ever a second volume of Halo Legends, I'd really like Frank O'Connor (project supervisor and the man with the final word on all that has to do with Halo) to go forth with his idea to expand on the daily life and history of this family that has managed to fight off everything from bird-headed space pirates to a genetically-enhanced Brute.

The Babysitterthis story centers around the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, stars of the recent Halo 3: ODST game for the XBox 360 and the Helljumper comic by Peter David and Eric Nguyen. The ODST game has gotten quite a bit of buzz from both ends of the spectrum, though with most of the criticism centering on the game's release and marketing than the content itself. Along with Homecoming, this is the most visually straightforward with traditional, hand-drawn 2D animation only barely supplemented by CGI, mostly for the vehicles and a few of the backgrounds. The story revolves around a young Helljumper named O'Brien, who's just been demoted to "back-up" on a sniper mission. The task of pulling the trigger is given to a Spartan, who ends up saving his bacon at least twice on the mission, much to his chagrin. It's a bit predictable, but overall one of the strongest chapters in the collection.

The Prototypeor, as I like to call it and to crib a phrase from The Simpsons,Battling Seizure Robots. There are two very important words to bear in mind before you go watching this: Muzzle Flash. There are honestly times when I had to look away because I thought I was going to be sick, and I'm not even epileptic. Strobe lights notwithstanding, this really is the weakest short of the bunch, not as much for what it is or even what it lacks as much as what it fails to do, which is let its own premise breathe. The dialogue is simple and straightforward (as is the premise), but repeated ad nauseum, pounding the premise into our heads, as though we'll lose sight of the theme amidst all the gunfire, explosions, and flickering computer displays. This could have been a brilliant one, maybe even my favorite, but it just fails on so many levels.

The PackageI really cannot understand why they couldn't get Steve Downes in to voice Master Chief in this or Odd One Out. It doesn't help matters that the voice-over work in this piece is the weakest by leaps and bounds. It's as if no one in the cast (or the ADR director, for that matter) could make up their minds as to whether these characters should be portrayed as cold, calculating marines or as real, relatable people and then phoned the whole thing in at the last minute. As for the animation ****(and the short, in general), I'm totally on the fence about it. I neither love it nor totally despise it. If I hate anything about it, I hate what it represents. It's got what I hate most about CGI in spades: the overdone fluidity and weightlessness of movements and objects. It's got what nearly everyone hates about modern action films in equal spades: shaky camera work and staccato editing. In short, imagine if George Lucas let Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay handle the opening sequence to Revenge of the Sith.

So, I've been alternating gaming sessions between Dead Space: Extraction and Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon. In short: they're both awesome.

Audiologs:

In Extraction, audiologs come through the Wii Remote's speaker, which is a really cool idea. Unfortunately, there's no real way to play back ones you've received after the initial listen. Also, the game doesn't pause for the playback, which can make things a little harrowing. Luckily, the logs don't offer any particularly integral information, and so far are more like "tips" than anything else. Still, it's a nice little touch.

Fragile Dreams: FROTM, by comparison, is audiolog heaven... or hell, as there is the risk of saturation. The Wii remote's speaker is used, but not for the "memories," but chatter from your NPC companions (namely PF, voiced by the lovely Wendee Lee). Along your journey through a strangely peaceful post-apocalyptic world, you'll gather and pick up various mystery items, ranging from a deflated balloon to a cellular telephone. When you take these items back to your campfire, you'll get the option "read memory," which leads to a monologue by the item's former owner. These are a bit of a mixed bag, some weird and overly-poetic, others just right, like the cell phone recording.

Okay, so I'm not going to bother looking over my past entries to see if I'd posted this already, and proceed with giving the potentially long-overdue update that I've abandoned my marathon session of Final Fantasy X for reasons I went over in detail previously. In the meantime, I've actually been playing Wind Waker, and will probably continue to do so until my tax return arrives and then I can get those three Wii games I've had my eye on (Dead Space: Extraction, Rune Factory: Frontier, and Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon). Actually, I might be putting Wind Waker down even sooner than that at this rate.

Here's what I mean. I'm at the point in the game where I've already taken down the big, bad bird that took my sister, Ganon's shown his ugly mug, and Tetra has been revealed as Princess Zelda (who does not have an ugly mug, but a very cute and adorable one, instead). Anyway, this is the part of the game where I've hit my lull. It's that classic example of that "Where do I go and what do I do now?" situation that plagues nearly all adventure games. It certainly seems to happen in most Zelda games I've played. I know I'm supposed to go to the temples to find the sages, and I know where the temples are, but between the obstacles in the way (windy torrent, giant multi-eyed squid, et al) and Red Lion King's vague advice (which I thought I'd followed perfectly, talking to everyone on Windfall Island and even trying to possibly squeeze a conversation out of the bait merchants), I'm at a complete loss. Although, looking at it now, I probably just need to talk to more fish and get my map filled out more.

Sure, there's always the strategy guide (which I've somewhat done in the case of getting the 60 arrow quiver and the bigger bomb bag from the two fairies), but my thought is, "how else would I know to do that?" which is another situation that plagues most adventure games. In the case of Wind Waker, it's all the worse because there really aren't enough side quests for me to tool around with wherein I might stumble upon that next hot tip for what to do or where to go next. To top it off, what side quests there are either can't be completed (because I'm missing that certain special item I won't get until later), or are just plain boring (seriously, the most interesting side quest has been the one where I catch the pauper girl in the act of safecracking on Windfall).

My roommate insists on watching me play, and she's a little bit of a "backseat gamer." We're just two very different types of gamer; she's an intense and number-crunching PC gamer (MMOs) and I'm a more slow-paced and slow-burning console gamer (traditional RPGs). In short, I like to take my time with games I'm playing, and she's utterly impatient about it. I don't mind the sailing of Wind Waker, she keeps begging me to warp.

At the time of this writing, a curious phenomenon on the 1Up.com video page is occurring. If you enter "audiologs" as a search term, you'll find four videos (and only four) all made by me in which I created faux audiologs about the crewman of a doomed spaceship (They've also been uploaded to Gamespot, and a host of other video hosting sites). Despite the popularity of the gameplay mechanic itself in games like ODST, Dead Space, and Bioshock, no one has uploaded any gameplay or walkthrough footage to 1Up.com about any of these games. At least, if they have, they haven't given it the proper tags.

Also, these videos have gotten rather popular (compared to most videos I've made), and they've gotten popular very quickly. Within one hour of being uploaded, each video racked up over 200 views. Granted, they've sloped off since that initial 24-48 hour window with Part 3 at approximately 358 views.

I can't help but wonder though, if I'm being misleading. I mean, are people searching for audiologs in the video section hoping to find walkthroughs for real games and just stumbling across mine? I mean, it's rather obvious they're not real audiologs; they're called "audiolog tributes" and the descriptive text refers to them as "bogus audiologs for a game that never was." Still, though, do they feel misled or disappointed?

Just a quick update on Final Fantasy X... (possible spoilers follow, but, if you haven't played X by now, I'll repeat the now-sage advice given me by a friend: If you haven't played X yet, just go ahead and play XII):

After enduring the botched Al Bhed/Crusaders collaboration to defeat Sin, we're treated to what is, so far, the coolest prerendered cinematic in the game (and I'm not just saying that because it's the first time we see Lulu in full CG), wherein Seymour shows Zanarkand in its prime to your party, punctuating the event with his proposal to Yuna. After all that and when I hit the Thunder Plains, my entire party got creamed in the first battle and I got a Game Over screen. The problem is that my last save was back at the hotel just outside Seymour's manor house, before the flashback, marriage proposal, and trip to the Farplane. In other words, 50 minutes of story has to be repeated for me to get to where I was because of one little mistake in my party formation.

What this has taught me: Rikku is borderline worthless in battle. The problem is that she joins your party way too late; by the time she arrives, her below-400HP is utterly dwarfed by everyone else's 4-figure standings. This leads into a slight problem I have with the Sphere Grid system (I say "slight" for reasons I'll qualify in a moment):

The Sphere Grid works a little like this: Picture a game board, where your movements are determined by your performance in battle. When you move onto a blank sphere space, you'll have a chance to place an appropriate sphere (earned during battle, among other places) in that hole. Certain spheres fit in certain spaces, some relating to abilities while others relating to status. The issue I take with this system is that, while it would be a great way to learn abilities and attacks, I don't see it as a great way to level up your characters. Normally, in an RPG, when you battle monsters, you earn experience points. Earn enough points, and your level increases, granting you more hit points and a greater capacity for using magic. In short, the more you battle, the stronger your character gets, and in relative proportion to your performance in battle. In other words, if you just fight small and relatively weak enemies, you'll earn fewer points as opposed to a long and drawn out boss battle with a powerful monster.

While this is still, mostly, the case with FFX, your level doesn't go up in a traditional way. It's got more in common with the heart containers in Legend of Zelda. You don't level up along the lines of some preset algorithm, but instead simply reach a specified tier in your development. All the sphere-slots on the grid are interconnected; to get to a sphere-slot related to HP, you have to get past sphere-slots related to other attributes. In other words, your character may not be able to increase their HP until you get enough AP (movement points) to reach that part of the sphere grid. Instead of gradually building up your HP, you just get 200 extra points when you reach that section of the sphere grid, which is laid out well in advance. This can be a huge problem if you tend to lean on certain characters for their strengths than others (such as Lulu's black magic) to give yourself an edge in battle.

That's something else, as well; Battles, at times, can feel more like puzzles than tests of skill and strategy. Well, strategy is a factor, but it's incredibly elementary. For example, you'll encounter a certain monster that has a very tough outer skin. Tidus' sword, which normally can cause at least 200 points of damage, all but bounces off its hide and is lucky to render double-digits at best. Sir Auron, however, can take them down in one blow, even if he hasn't progressed very far in his development. It's one thing to encounter this kind of balance issue when dealing with magic, because that's expected; a fire spell against a Snow Flan is going to deal far more damage than simple melee attacks or magic attacks built around non-opposing elements, but that's a far cry from a monster that's only vulnerable to a certain type of attack from a specific character.

This, combined with the way the sphere grid bears more similarities to Zelda, and also the Cloister trials (moving block and key puzzles) inside the temples, causes me to re-evaluate just what kind of RPG FFX is. In fact, I'm more inclined to call it an Action RPG, a Dungeon Crawler, or even a Rogue-like than a typical turn-based number-crunching RPG like previous entries in Final Fantasy, or similar series like Phantasy Star. Characters don't gradually develop, but instead reach predetermined levels of strength and certain characters are better against certain types of enemies in melee attacks, regardless of level. The former statement is reminiscent of an Action RPG, and the latter makes the game sound like an MMO, with tanks and DPS (and all those other pieces of MMO nomenclature I don't know).

Anyway, my problem with Rikku being so far behind meant that, even if I did some good old-fashioned grinding, she'd never really reach an equal level with everyone else because they'd earn the same amount of AP as she in each battle. In other words, she'd always be behind. Now, if there were a way for characters to share AP, that would solve this problem, and allow everyone to reach a level playing field.

This makes me think of something that I said about Super Smash Bros Brawl (which I kind of cribbed from the Zero Punctuation review of Fable II): As a fighting game, it's terrible. As a party game, it's pretty damn good.

So, as an RPG, FFX is seriously lackluster if not fundamentally flawed. As an Action/RPG, it's pretty damn good. And now, I've had a massive setback, and yet have to keep my spirits up in light of the game being just "pretty damn good." (sigh)

Well, sometime recently, everyone's favorite FFVIII-basher The Spoony One made a return to form with the first installment of his review of Final Fantasy X.

Now, here's my take on the Final Fantasy series: Absolutely no interest on the NES, and not only was mine a Sega household, but I still didn't have any interest in RPGs to make me jealous or even curious about Final Fantasy III (or six, to be precise). Fast-forward to 1997, where I'm bored to tears with my Genesis, meddling in Mac gaming with Marathon 2, and actually giving serious consideration to buying a Saturn. Of course, it was well-known by now that the Saturn was essentially dead in the water, but I had this plan to buy one and a list of about ten games or so (the exact contents of which I don't remember past Enemy Zero in the top slot), the idea being that even if the Saturn failed, I'd still have ten games to occupy my time for the next good and long while.

That's when I saw the commercial for Final Fantasy VII, and in the span of that 30-second TV Spot, I'd completely and utterly abandoned my plans for a Sega-style "bomb shelter library." I loved VII, but never got past the first disc. It was all right, everyone had spoiled the game for me by then, and I didn't care enough to keep playing in spite of that. VIII held my interest for about the length of the demo, and I ended up only buying the full game itself out of habit. It sat unplayed in my chest for about the next four years, when I would sort of "fall in love with the game" for a time (for the record, as much as I love the game, I watched each and every episode of Spoony's FFVIII review, and I agree with at least 99% of everything he said, like how the card game is an atrocious mess and Quistis is not only hot, but a far better match for Squall than Rinoa). I do remember really getting into IX when it came out, but by then, I'd gotten my Dreamcast and was pouring all my time into that little wonder. I maintain that the Dreamcast is the greatest game console ever made and I still mourn its passing.

Anyway, I'd never played X. Didn't buy it, either. In fact, I wanted absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with that game from the word go. The reason for this is rather petty, and even a little silly, but I do still stand by it to an extent: I didn't like the idea of the characters being voiced. I was a film major and my favorite area of interest was the silent era. Don't get me wrong, I still like voiceovers in games, but not in Final Fantasy. It just seemed wrong, somehow. In any case, IX was the last new installment I'd bought, though I did play a little of X-2, but let's not talk about that, it's too painful.

My roommate, I learned, couldn't get past the first 30 minutes of X, but still held onto her copy, which has been kept in surprisingly good condition, given the state of most of her other games. It's not her fault, mind you, she had an irresponsible ex-husband who was of that archaic belief that CDs were indestructible. Where I'm going with this is: I've been playing X for the past two days, 10 total hours of gameplay so far, and all I can say is: there's a lot to hate about this game. The only thing positive I have to say about the game is that Lulu is hot, and Kimahri is a badass. After that, garbage. The only reason I'm really playing is to sort of half keep up with Spoony so I'll be a little more informed when part 2 comes out.

So, there you have it, I've given in and played the most mainstream and mediocre Final Fantasy game (apart from X-2).

I hear XII is really good, and I've always been curious about XI... but, we'll see.

I have my PSP.

I still have my PS2.

There's also my roommate's Gamecube and the XBox a friend of mine gave me.

The only next-gen console I have is my roommate's Wii, to which I've contributed over half the games.

Suffice to say, I'm a little behind.

Don't get me wrong, I like the Wii, but I'm not totally in love with the motion control scheme (though I can't wait to play Dead Space: Extraction). At the end of the day, I'm all about kicking back on the couch with a controller in my lap, an experience the Wii makes me feel guilty for indulging in, especially considering most of the games I play the most on it are available for other consoles like the XBox360.

My present financial situation prevents me from buying an XBox360 (The only thing that makes me interested in the PS3 are Linger in Shadow, The Last Guardian, and Valkyria Chronicles... and that last one's getting a sequel for PSP anyway). There's a shortlist of games I'd want for 360, but the more I find out about them, the less inclined I am to make that wanting justify indulging myself. It's not that I find the games disappointing (not in each case, at least) but I definitely look upon this new generation of game consoles and think, "what am I really missing out on?"

The worst part of the answer I get, really, is that what I'm missing out on isn't even all that innovative. In fact, it's incredibly primitive to such a point that I've experienced them before in PC games, Myst and Marathon to be precise. To be more precise, the "missing element" I'm referring to are audiologs. In Myst, they took the form of little holograms or pieces of correspondence left on desks or bookshelves. In Marathon, they took the form of the on-screen text of the computer terminals scattered throughout each level. Similarly, Final Fantasy X-2 had you gathering spheres, which showed little video clips of bygone times and places. Metal Gear Solid had Snake's video briefings (which made me fall in love with static and grainy video images in a way I didn't think was possible). Metroid Prime 2: Echoes has you cataloging various alien species you encounter and collecting logbooks and journals from past explorers long since passed on, survived only by their... er, echoes.

Some time ago, on The Escapist, I thought I'd started the perfect forum thread: "What was your first gadget?" I shared my first gadget to get the ball rolling, an RCA microcassette recorder. I did all the typical things that kids do with tape recorders: sing silly songs, do interviews or impressions, divulge thoughts and rants, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't start at least one recording with "Captain's log, stardate..." and so on. Anyway, time went on, my little handheld studio faded from memory, and I ended up giving it to my parents to help them get some recordings for a little legal trouble they were having. Suddenly, a few years ago, I was in a computer store when I suddenly started to miss my little RCA and found myself buying a Sony IC Recorder (ICD-P320). Now, I've got a small collection of digital voice recorders, at least five. I keep them scattered about and in different pockets of different jackets. I use them for everything and anything imaginable from grocery lists to driving directions to rough drafts of stories that float around in my head.

More recently, after the release of Bioshock, and all its subsequent discussions and reminisces of System Shock, made me aware of these funny little things called Audiologs. I'd never heard this term before, even though the items themselves have existed since the beginning of gaming, right down to the books on library shelves in any a number of RPGs. At first, I thought it was just referring to audio recordings. Under that narrow definition, the only past-gen experience I'd had with the things were the various audio cassettes scattered about the house in Fatal Frame. Of course, now I've learned that audiolog need not refer specifically to audio recordings, though those do seem the most interesting, the most recent to fully develop, and, in a way, the easiest to produce. Obviously, written text is the easiest in technical terms, but given that CD-ROM technology got its start back in the early 1990s, it's surprising that only a scant few games released in that era (namely System Shock) employed audio recordings as part of the game's atmosphere. Sure, Myst had sound-based puzzles, but they didn't aid the narrative backstory in any way.

Audiologs also seem like they'd just be flat out fun to make. They don't need to be long, they can be fragmented, and they needn't even be of the highest fidelity as, even in the far future, crackly static gives that extra added layer of authenticity to the game's atmosphere.

Although my forum thread didn't get many replies, The Escapist did lead me to an article written by Graeme Virtue, who I found out is the author (and principal actor) of a series of "sketches" for the One Life Left podcast, entitled "Science Officer Logs." Taking a cue from Dave Hollins, Space Cadet (the Son of Cliche radio sketches by Red Dwarf's Rob Grant and Doug Naylor), the Science Officer's Logs parody not only the concept of an audiolog, but also several gaming conventions, from ice and lava levels, to even damned escort missions. They can be found here.

In addition to that, I've just spent the past few minutes watching YouTube videos of people collecting the audiologs from Halo: ODST. I stopped out of guilt, thinking, "No, no, I should play the game, or at least own it before I go cheating like this."

So, here I am, an audiolog junky with no real way to satisfy my habit. I really hope I can afford an XBox 360 soon.