If you've never finished this game, and don't want the game spoiled, don't press play. You've been warned :)

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Well, I found a Japanese program that lets me rip the movies and audio from PlayStation discs. I'm not sure of the legality behind this, but I'll be ripping the opening and ending movies from all of my PS1 games.

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Not a game I expected to review, or like. Here it is.
 

I couldn't decide on a new theme for my page here, so the banner is from Fire Emblem , the "user photo" and my forum signature are from Disaster: Day of Crisis and the little user icon deal is from
Chibi-Robo: Park Patrol. I didn't mean for my Nintendo fanmaninsm to show so much, but a friend sent me his copy of Nintendo's E3 press kit, and the images are so well done that I couldn't resist.

Playing Tales of Symphonia pretty much exclusively this week, and I'm really impressed with the quality of the production and voice acting, although I still yell "Titans Go!" sometimes when Lloyd speaks. Scott Menville who plays Lloyd also plays Robin in the awesome, but now cancelled cartoon Teen Titans.

Still have reviews on backburner, so much else going on in "real life"...

Got some impressions though...

And 1 Streetball is terrible. If you like NBA Street, or basketball games in general, steer clear at all costs.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories is still GTA under the bad graphics, and it's still fun. Well worth the $20.

Big Brain Academy is fun a few times, but the games really feel shallow and it's not as fun to come back to as Brain Age.

This guy _Margulis_ totally hijacked my little Harvest Moon GBC avatar dude. I realize most people just use a stock image and don't really care, but I was a little disasppointed to see it nonetheless.

Guess it's time for a theme change. Probably Suikoden inspired. I picked up Suikoden Tactics and I'm in love with it. Plus I'm still reading through V, and plan to track down III. The used PS2 stuff just keeps getting cheaper. Found Tales of Symphonia for $7 CDN!!! Now I can see what all the fuss is about since I'm totally into RPG's now. I actually had it, and sold it before. Still not too sure about the Real-Time combat system. Seemskind of hectic to me.

Big purchase week for me actually. But this is it for the month. Totally went over budget. MasterCard loves me.

Got some art 2D done for my DS project, but my real job is keeping me away from polishing off anything sizeable. Still coding in my extra free time (The time not playing games and being a loving husband).

I have a few reviews half done, should be up towards the end of the week. Might cheat, and get my wife the journalist to finish them off for me.

USED
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Suikoden Tactics (PS2)
Tales of Symphonia (GCN)
God of War (PS2)

NEW
----------
GTA: LCS (PS2)
MLB Slugfest (PS2)
And1 Streetball (PS2)
Magnetica (NDS)
Big Brain Academy (NDS)
Stacked (XBOX)

...jeez, look at all those casual type titles.

...that means how old is your brain in french.

I imported the European version of Brain Age. It's called "Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain?" over there. I got it because my wife is a native french speaker, and so are her parents. I thought I'd be able to switch between languages, but it's limited to one language for all 4 people on the cart. Too bad really. It would have been nice for us, and I'm sure alot of other Canadian/European households that have people who speak more than one language.

I decided to start playing in French, cause I haven't really practiced speaking or reading French since high school. It's funny, because the voice recognition forces you to speak proper French/Spanish etc. As in rolling "R's" and such. I'm thinking, since I can pull off the same scores I was getting in English, my brain is getting twice the benefit because I have to translate everything in my head first. We're gonna try Spanish and Italian too. Talk about replay value :P

German and Dutch are more intimidating.

...on my PS2, as an almost 4 year old used title with no box or manual.

boo to that crap, but yay to finally finding it, and for $15. That's like $13.50 American.

now I need some ink for my printer to make a homebrew cover. I hate printers. Always have. Just like the guys from Office Space.

The Venture Brothers came out on DVD this week, and I had no idea. It's the best thing to come out of Adult Swim in a while.
i'm picking it up ASAP. It's less than $30.

Started into Suikoden V for PS2, and it's great. It took me 6 hours just to get to the world map, but the storytelling in this game is fantastic! I'm reading all of the text. Even the NPC's named "Townsman". For some reason it reminds me of Fire Emblem , but with totally crappy battles. Well not crappy, but they take a bit to load and the graphics aren't so hot. Must be the writing and art style. Man, I hope they have Fire Emblem close to Wii's launch. C'mon pre-order!!!

Watching my The Complete Box Set of Astro Boy (1980). The Japanese music is so different than the non-Japanese music. DVDs, and about to start into Volume 2 of Garfield and Friends
Lovin' the nostalgia train...

Collectors For The Win!

Haven't got totally through the game yet. I'm at 10 hours or about 40% into it. Not enough to write a real review, but I have an opinion, and may not follow through on finishing it.

It's a very pleasant game, with nice characters. So far, it's pretty light-hearted, and has a sense of humour. The art style is reminicent of the Fire Emblem games, with static manga-type characterizations during dialogue. The core graphics are very PS1 feeling, but they're hand-drawn and everything is very clean and crisp looking. Alot of the games like this (La Pucielle Tactics, Makai Kingdom, Disgaea) tend to suffer from a "blurry" look. The font in the menus and such seems a little too small for me. really my only graphical complaint.

The music in this game is a real highlight to me. Although it's all MIDI, it's suprisingly good. Again, I'd have to call the music "clean" sounding from a production standpoint. Almost like the weather channel :)

Each individual area has a different theme, so the music doesn't get repetitive either. The voice acting is right on par with the other Nippon-Ichi games like Disgaea. It's pretty good, but kind of inconsistant. Definately not annoying though. There's also been a few fully animated cut-scenes so far, that are quite well drawn and animated. All in all, for a game that's 2D and not technically superior in any way, it really does have good production values, and comes off as an attractive package.

So far sounds pretty good on paper. The actual gameplay is where Atelier Iris 2 starts to fall apart. You play as 2 characters in this game. One warrior type, and his sister, the Alchemist. The characters are actually in sperate "worlds", but can share items and communicate with each other through a magic ring. Wonder Twin powers activate!!!

If you're under 25 I'll forgive you for not getting that reference.

Anyways, here's a typical scenario. Felt (Warrior) and his party are  battling their way through an area, and gets to a door he can't open without a certain item. Said item is always in the "other world" occupied by Viese (Alchemist), who then has to go and find yet another item or 2 in order to make the item Felt needed in the first place. Rinse and repeat.

Basically the game is an item fetch quest. I've even nicknamed the game "Item Quest" when I tell my wife what I'll be playing. This aspect really comes off as shallow. The game's battles are extemely easy as well, and shouldn't pose a problem at all. The battle system is basically turn-based, and very simple to both pick up and master. Unfortunately, this one got really boring really fast for me. As stated earlier however, Atelier Iris 2 is a pleasant, light-hearted experience with a decent enough story and plenty of charm. I don't imagine it taking memore than 20-25 hours to finish the game outright, so it's hard to recommend as a purchase, especially considering the $50 price tag. I was lucky, and scored this one for free through a contest. Pick it up as a rental if you're a fan of NIS' other titles.

...jeez, that was kinda long. guess I'll paste it as a review too :P

The sun has finally blessed the capital of the great white north. It's nice to get outside without 9 layers of clothing on.

I finally finished Dragon Quest VIII, and it is officially the best game I've played on a PS2. The artwork, story and voice acting will stand out in my memory for years to come. I did every sidequest, made every rare item, defeated every monster, and it took me 100 hours and 9 minutes. One and a half months in real time. There's still a bonus dungeon and alternate ending to do, but I'm saving it for later. Time to move on, although I'm actually finding it hard to find another game to play . I know that any RPG I step into right now will seem short, easy, and ultimately disappointing. Tales of Legendia is the only title I'm after right now to fill my RPG void. It's actually a tough game to find in my neck 'o the woods.

Played through New Super Mario Bros. and I loved it. Not as much as Super Mario World, but enough that I'll play it every year or two, just like all the other Mario classics. I just wish I could play it on my TV. Hopefully, Wii will be able to do just that. Knowing Nintendo, it will.

How about Nintendo totally stealing e3, too? Wish I coulda made it this year, but my own project, Phil and the Reliving, and interactive graphic novel for Nintendo DS is freaking way more hard work than I thought it would be. I was "virtually there" as you can see from my cool new emblems, but would have loved to get my hands on the Wii stuff.

I was really hoping to hear a date and price, because I'm going to Pre-order a console for the first time in my life. It helps that my wife loves the DS, and is one of "the casuals" that really sees where Nintendo's going with this whole "We" thing. Plus, she pays the bills, heh.

Pretty impressed my Microshaft's showing too. I still think the 360 will go the way of the Dreamcast, but I really want to play Blue Dragon, and a few other titles in their pipeline.

I'm not even considering a PS3 untill Dragon Quest IX is announced. Even then, it'll be a tough sell. I really don't like Sony's approach this time around, especially the rumour about not having used PS3 games available.

Recent additions to my collection I need to get around to playing:

Atelier Iris 2 (RPG, PS2)
Radirgy Precious (SHMUP, PS2) (JPN IMPORT)
Touch Panic (Puzzle, DS) (JPN IMPORT) (Wi-Fi)

Daisenryaku DS (Turn Based Strategy, DS) (JPN IMPORT)

...so I finally got around to entering the rest of mt old NES, SNES, GB, and GBC titles. Still got my Genesis, and a few TG-16 and oddball titles to add.

...also looking forward to LostMagic on DS this week. More Wi-Fi :) Also looking forward to Rampage despite crappy reviews, and I'm torn between the two Atlus RPGs on PS2.