Because releasing at $500 worked so well for the PS3, let's do it again!  (Note: before you start correcting me, there were two models of PS3, one for $500 and one for $600.)

Either way, neither console really started to sell well until they hit $300, so the Xbox has multiple price drops to accomplish that.  Bundling Kinect with everything probably jacks the price up $100, and frankly the microphone (cheap) seems to be the most appealing part of it.

On the flip side, the more powerful the console, the more future-proof it is.  Under the old 5-year-cycle, we'd be a year and a half away from the PS5/Xbox Zero, and I'm still pretty satisfied with the PS3/360.

Definitely better than last year's MS conference, but then again the last year or two set the bar really low. They cut down the really forced segments, but they still had some ("oh my god I am having SO MUCH FUN destroying this castle!").

Halo 4 actually looked good. Splinter Cell, well it looked good but that was never a franchise that I played. Tomb Raider seems to be leaning towards what Uncharted does, but that's not exactly a bad thing - it looks great. CoD looked like CoD - you know what you're getting by now.

Forza Horizon looks maybe good. I mean I still didn't see any gameplay. Still, showing an Evo and a Quattro on an unpaved road pretty much addresses one of the few things I think Forza itself is missing. Seems a combination of Forza's cars and engine, Motorstorm's festival atmosphere (or at least Dirt 2's), and NFS Hot Pursuit's openness.

I find it hilarious that if you yell at the FIFA ref and call him a cheating MFer, he'll yellow card you. That's awesome. Not enough to actually get me to buy a sports game, but still awesome.

The "Better with Kinect" thing that every game seems to be emphasizing is essentially "we added about six voice commands". Which, you know, could also be programmed using any headset and has been done for years. Actual motion-sensing still seems absolutely absent in core games.

Hrm, Halo 4 actually looks good.

Got all the monsters, which wasn't all that difficult really, if you know where some of them spawn.

So that pretty much leaves the slot machines for the platinum, for the most part. And man this is even more dull than chocobo racing.

Well I did get the collector catalog from racing. Upgrade it, and I now have an accessory that greatly increases item and gil drop rates, and makes rare items drop more frequently.

Man, chocobo racing is kinda dull.

Technically there are two pairs of weapons better than the Chaos weapons, but you gotta farm some pretty mean boss-like enemies to get some rare components (basically all the Big Game enemies in the Steppe, with like 5% drop rates).

Anyway, I'm down to needing four fragments. I need to buy two in Serendipity (easy), get the slot machine one, and of course fight every monster.

That monster one can be annoying. For example, there are three enemies that only appear right before the final battle, they only appear once, and you either get two of them or the one other one. So you need to close the gate, go through all of the final area over again (man platforming shouldn't be a part of FF, but I do like the music there), and then hope that you actually get the monster you need. If not, open the gate, close the gate, then do the entire level yet again. Fun!

The wound spell can really get you through some tough situations. It's not a spell that really comes into play, at least in your arsenal, for most of the game. But the few situations you may use it can make some tough fights rather easy, if not a bit time consuming.

Took me a little while to get to XIII-2 since I was doing the Tomb Raider Anniversary time trial runs. But now that I started, oh man, it owns. I'm in the middle of episode 4 now.

First, I loved the FF13 battle system. The problem is, well, they didn't really give you any freedom until 30 hours into the game. Once you got to Chapter 11, things just owned. The only chapter with open areas, with side quests, etc. Good stuff.

The good thing this time around is that you have pretty much the full control right from the start. You can paradigm shift within the first couple of fights (in FF13 you could only use Attack and Potion for the first couple of hours), and episode 1 pretty much eases you into things. At the start of episode 2 (the demo), you get the monsters to add to your party. While this can make things a little more annoying (levelling up all those monsters, really being limited to three classes for the third party member), it can make things more fun too. What owns more than having a Behemoth as a party member? Having a Behemoth wearing a hat that looks like it came out of 1700s France as a party member.

The game is a lot more wide open, which can hurt the story at times, but that's the tradeoff against going with a linear game. So many people immediately dismiss linear games as inferior versus open worlds, but it all depends on how a game goes about its strength. In a very linear JRPG, games tend to stand up on its story. So many people complained that FF13 was just a straight path... yet they loved FF10 which is also a straight path. Its all about the quality of the story and, perhaps more importantly, the pacing. Going through 2 chapters without any classes, without gaining any experience, is just way too long. Similarly, Uncharted games are linear and yet people love them, and that has a lot to do with pacing. The fact that FF13-2 has a clear-cut villian instead of the more nebulous goal in FF13, at least until a good way through the story, helps too.

The characters are kinda meh in FF13-2, which is just magnified by there only being two of them. Noel's getting better, but Serah is pretty mediocre at best. Also it doesn't help when Mog speaks. But on the bright side, you can throw him as he squirms around in terror. Being able to throw a frightened moogle automatically wins a few points.

I don't quite get the complaints everywhere that the game is "only" 25 hours long for the main story path. People complained that FF13 was too long. And what's the right length anyway? People regard Chrono Trigger as a sacred cow, and rightfully so. But I'm pretty sure I can beat the game in 25 hours. And not just the main story path either, I mean everything. Yet no one seems to bash it for that. And in FF13-2's case the side stuff will take much longer, and unlike FF13 it's available spread throughout the story instead of it all being in one giant lump at the end.

And then there's the whole JPRG paradox. FF13-2 is the lowest scoring main non-MMO FF game, if you count the "-2" games as main games. And it's certainly far from being the worst. The thing is that I'm not sure what the non-hardcore JRPG fans know what they want. A lot of JRPG series have simply disappeared or slowed to a trickle over here (Suikoden, Tales, etc.) in part because they feel "dated" and "stale". There's no change and evolution, so they're being passed up by Western games. But FF games seem to be the only major JRPG series that is actually changing and evolving, and people in general are complaining that they're not like games from previous ganerations. You know, like the games from other series that no one wants to play anymore because the formula is so tired. So what do people want, really? Were gambits such a horrible change, when for 90% of all battles in previous games you just mash the X button to select "Attack" over and over? Having the battles take place seemlessly in the area itself, with essentially the same battle system, is such a horrible radical change? Auto-select takes the options out of the players' hands, when in fact its the timely paradigm selections that's the real strategy?

Whatever. If you managed to make it to Chapter 11 of FF13 and enjoyed it, you'll certainly enjoy FF13-2. The gameplay is pretty much that one chapter, right from the start. I still can't say exactly how the pacing and story stacks up, and the characters so far are just adequate, but the gameplay and sidequesting is making it a great deal of fun regardless. The only real complaint I have is that the sidequesting is so much fun that I'm just mowing through the story content at this point due to my characters' power. Oh well.

I finished the first seven chapters earlier today. Slowish start, actually not all that much shooting in the game so far but I'm sure that will change before long. The puzzles actually have you think for a change.

Is it known what the Zonda Cinque costs and if it is locked to start? Also, is the Huayra in the game? After playing the demo, I'm not really missing Porsche all that much anymore, as I have a new, more Italian obsession.foxhound_fox

Cinque costs 1.5m. However, it's one of your four options for your free level 41 car (along with the Joss, Mosler, and Gumpert). I also don't see the Huayra on the list, but there is a Zonda R.