Hey folks - let me know what you think of this new idea - I don't think anyone has ever thought about it, because every interview I've read (of companies like EA for example) speaks to the ignorance of this cncept. But just imagine - you buy a game, install it - and BAM! You can play either online or offline without missing any of the game! YES FOLKS - a game that is complete in BOTH MODES!

AND BEST OF ALL - you won't be reminded, spammed, prodded, asked or bothered in anyway that there is another mode to play - because each mode is completely autonomous and independent of the other! WOuldn't that be the TOPS!

Imagine you are playing Need For Speed Pro Street offline, and you check the leaderboards, and there is no forced connection to the offline mode! A leaderboard actually pops up, created by the PC just for you! Imagine the same game, you want to check your stats - and your stats just come right up WITHOUT A NEED FOR ONLINE CONNECTIVITY! Wouldn't that be great! sound delicious, huh Something innovative and new, isn't it? I'm sure this idea is like money in the bank, because nobody has thought of it!

Gone are the days where the game is crippled because the company wants you to go online and pay them fees for subscriptions and content - unless that's what you want. MMOs will still be an option, and a complete game experience - they just won't be a nag factor in the SP experience! Now that's golden, huh? So when you want to go online and play, you can do so. But if you'd rather play offline, you can do that as well - WITHOUT HAVING TO EVER THINK ABOUT THE ONLINE MODE. Great idea, huh?

Well it's in the air now - lets see where it goes. Besides, with all of the ISPs limiting people's bandwidth nowadays, your going to need something that doesn't have to be hooked up to the internet to keep you occupied anyway - and it could be triple-painfule to be reminded constantly of online mode when you absolutley cannot get on because your ISP has locked you out until the end of the month!

Think about it - write about it. DO SOMETHING.

Remeber the Battlefield Bad Company Mashup "contest" that we had here at Gamespot a couple of months ago? I was just thinking about it because since then I've seen a rash of clones and it's starting to get my ire all over again.

In the Battlefield Mashup, you were "challenged" to come up with the best "commercial" built with a library of artwork / clips from the developer. Supposely, the "best" would be chosen by the company and would get this awsome prize. People could vote on their favorites (which was clearly explained had no impact) and they would get rated. There were insinuated incentives in the GUI that made you think that using the maximum amount of material would count towards getting a better chance at being picked.

So I, and others, sweated for days to create just the right mix. A focused message, the right material hare and there, editing sound just so, to get as perfect a mashup as can be. Being that I do have some filmatography background, I might have an advantage. Unfortunately, it turned out that all of our efforts were for squat.

EA made it's big splash that it had chosen a winner. When i went to see this winner, who wasn't me or any of the people who I knew did as good a job or better than I - I was blown away. The mashup they chose only used a few clips. It was incomplete. It said NOTHING. It didn't even have the GOOD CLIPS. It looked like someone was working on something, and accidently pressed the "Submit" button! It was among the WORST of all I had seen, something that a 2 year old could have made by banging it's diaper against the keyboard. I could not believe that I was looking at the one that was chosen over all of the other!

I was so angry I flew a hot email to EA AND Burger King (who of course never responded - why should they, I only own thousands of dollars worht of their products...). It was as if they purposely set out to insult the people who actually thought their efforts would count for something. Or maybe they were just lazy as hell and just chose anything! In any case, there was no regard whatsoever for the time and thought each contestant - whom 99% were better than the winner - put into the composition of their entries. It's like a person with no vocal chords winning American Idol.

Later I found out that, somewhere in the fine print we weren't allowed to see until after the "contest" for some strange reason, it was stated that it was not a contest - but rather a sweepstakes. I'd like to take the time to brow-beat Gamespot staff for helping to promote it as a contest - that's exactly what the article stated here. I don't enter sweepstakes, and if I were properly informed in advance I would not have wasted my effort. (Maybe when I move to the deep USA South and become a hick, I'll entersome sweepstakes - that seems to be a qualification for winning...). I hope in the future Gamespot will be more discriminate and not participate in or promote this kind of deceptive activity. It reflects on the site - you do not come out unscathed.

So from now on, I've learned that if there is no fine print, do not participate - and if there is, read it. since everyone's out for the scam - even big companies like EA, you've got to be triple careful these days...

There's this almost elderly couple (mid 60's) that I frequently do computer work for, and the husband is really enamoured with the whole internet thing (the wife could care less). Anyways, she wanted to get him a laptop - probably because it's cool to say "I have a laptop"... so today I get a call from them. They are at Best Buy, and are about to purchase a laptop for $499.00 - you know, one of them "bargain" laptops that you kow they are wishing you would buy all the upgrades so you can wlak out of there spending twice as much as you intended...

But that tactic wasn't going to work on my friends - because they don't need a lot of power and don't know what all the extras are anyway. Hey - I still haven't convinved him to move away from 56K - even though I showed him cheaper comparisons than AOL...

Anywho - they call me and he goes on to tell me abouot the laptop, and about how the Geek Squad wants to charge him $129.00 for "services". After trying to get my friend to explain to me what these "services" were, to no avail, I told him to let me speak to the Geek Squad guy. This fool tries to run circles arouond my head, but he's not dealing with a hardware dummy - I build / optimize / configure systems, ETCETERA. He starts with his "we provide services for the optimization of the PC" and some bull-stuff about "Anti-virus and how it's very important, blah, blah ,blah...". I basically, and rudely had to stop him and ask him point blank - "LOOK - what are you actually charging for - what are you doing that actually costs $129.00 for Anti-virus protection, and another $49.00 for 'services'"??? I had to break it down and get him to answer specifically what they are doing - because Trend Micro doesn't cost $129.00, and i don'tknow what "services" you need on a PC - it should be set to go, at some level, when you leave the store.

His answer: We install Trend Micro Anti-Virus, and our services are... get this: UNINSTALL DEMO/TRIAL SOFTWARE (that's what he called "optimizing" - geting rid of trial software... What kind of scam is that??? Any idiot can install an application, and any idiots fool brother can uninstall an application - even so, it shouldn't cost $178.00+tax to install anti-virus and uninstall demos! what a freakin' rip-off! Is that what the Geek Squad is all about? Are people actually paying them to do menial tasks like that? If so - I need to sign up for a position TODAY! Oh, forget that, I'm going rogue and keeping the profits Best Buy is skimming off for myself. That is ridijculous! I told my friend to buy the laptop, sans "services" and I'll see him in the morning to fix him up...

Besides - AOL gives antivirus away for free (another thing I'm sure the Geek Squad knows - but that oh mighty dollar keeps calling...

The moral of the story is - don't get into something you don't know about, unless you have a friend that does to save your sorry butt...

I was looking for a better cpu for my PC today - I have a socket 478 motherboard, so the best I can do is a P4 3.4 ghz. right now I have a 3.2 ghz. I don't need it necessarily for the unnoticable speed bump, but just to satisfy game requirements, basically. What I have found is that although the chips are supposedly "old technology", we are being charged "new prices"! I could not believe that these cpus are being sold - at retail, for twice as much as some of the newer chips! Even on ebay, these things are going for an asking price in the low $200.00 range. My question, with the hard sell of Quad Core, Dual COre, x64 systems - is why are they cahrging so much if P4 x32 is supposed to be "slower" "older" and inferior to the "new" chips???

Maybe because these new chips aren't really performing that well? Or is it a tactic to get us all to buy new hardware? What about people who just aren't in a position to purchase a complete new system - I guess they are just "collateral damage" in this mission. I find it nauseating that everywhere you turn there's pressure to "upgrade" - yet the former systems are priced as if they are worth more than the so-called "new gen" technologies.

Is my 1996 car worth more than my 2008 car? Is a tape player worth more than an HDDVD player? Is a 10" black and white TV being sold for more than a 47" Plasma??? If the new CPU's are worth more, and are better - then what gives here? Why is the old CPU that I need priced so much higher?

Perhaps THIS is the case - my 1996 DODGE isn't worth more than my 2008 Toyota... but my 1969 Corvette is... My tape player isn't worht more than my HDDVD player - but a fully functional 8-track player from 1972 might be, even a classic turntable...My 10" B/W TV from Radioshack isn't worth more than a Plasma - but a 1950's era cabinet TV might net me some antiquitish cash from a collector.... What does this all mean? There may be more to the P4 than meets the eye - maybe it IS better than the others. Maybe there is some flaw in the multicores whereby they don't always perform at a multiple of thier combined core speed. Maybe the software just isn't being written to take advantage of the "multiple processing power" of the multi-cores...

And maybe we just aren't being told what the problem is.

Suffice it to say, I'm still running 3.2 - no way I'm getting raped for a processor that's actually on the the way out the door.

I just can't get enough of complaining about Square...

I'll try to keep this short.

When is Square going to stop screwing around, experimenting, and just release some solid games? If you put the work they went into the products made to revisit FFVII, for example - they could have just made a FFVII sequel (ON A CONSOLE) instead of wasting resources on movies, PSP games, spin-off Action-RPG (Dirge of Cerabus, which didn't do well) and the like. Are they oblivious to the fact that they are a game company? Why are they making movies and teasing us with hopes that we can one day dig into the materia system?

The childish FFX, the unwanted FFX-2, the boring FFXVIII, the questionable FFXII, ignoring market to make FFXI and addons, the FF:Crystal Chronicles gameboy maketing scam; the mis-understood FFIX; movie flops; products nobody wants; gere games that you have no business making; the LIE that was supposed to be a sequel to Chrono Trigger but was actually a remake of another game... what is your problem, Square????

And what about FFXIII? It LOOKS like another Action-RPG - who asked for that? The data isn't in yet, but that's what it looks like. And while we will all probably play it anyway, that won't stop us from wishing that they just made another party-based game. What are they smoking up there???

Look at what happened to Dragon Quest IX. They scrapped release because they want to release games to the PS3 instead (it was originally for the PS2). Did they forget that the PS2 was still in operation in hundreds of millions of homes? Did they forget that because of the lack of new games on the PS2 that any new game would have sold like wildfire??? What is wrong with them. I knew that a Square -Enix merger was not going to go well. just look at how Suqare has fouled up it's own games - now they get to foul up Enix gallery of games too.

In FFXX Square tried to get rid of the Summons monsters - then they had the audacity to make a sequel based on one of the most hated games in the series FFX-2 - with barbie doll dresses as the main feature. Just because 5 girls in the known world play Final Fantasy doesn't mean you turn your back on the 80 million young males that make up your core audience! And how much did this fiasco cost you, Square... how much return did you make on THAT investment??? The marketing department is permanently out to lunch.

It's becoming tiresome to wait for Square to "wake up" and start making games we want to play. There are open wallets waiting for a TRUE sequel to Chrono Trigger, for a REAL console version Final Fantasy; for a quality and respectful remake / upgrade title of... well just about every Final Fantasy title that you have decided to cheaply "port" to the PS2. We even welcome additions, remakes, sequels to games like Illusion of Gaia - but you guys just keep doing "whatever Square wants to do" and ignoring your market desires completely.

One good move you did was to harness Enix. Enix has been making the kinds of games we want for years - but not releasing them abroad. As soon as they announced thier intention to start exporting thier games you were smart enough to "merge with them" - and now we see you degenerating Enix titlles too. Evidently you want to be the king of crappy games, and are making efforts to shut down anyone who poses a quality threat to your cause. So for now you can continue to release dribble without fear of cometition. Where is Breath of Fire 6 when you really need it???

Hey I said I'll TRY to keep it short - that wasn't a promise!

Ok, Square-Enix. you don't have many chances left. I swear if you don't get your act together I'll just stick to my PC RPG's until the smelling salts take effect. I can play Morrowind, Oblivion, Two Worlds, The Witcher, Stalker, even Gothic FOREVER. I still am not finished with Morrowind! You don't have the corner you think you have - and your not DEFINING the genre, your just introducing crappy games into it and making people look elsewhere for entertainment. Go ahead - release FFXIII as an ACTION- RPG and see what happens. it's a move you will live to regret.

I'm starting to hear a sucking sound - in the shape of a square...

What the heck happened here? I didn't think it could get any worse than Most Wanted, but EA has found a spot below the bottom of the barrel with ProStreet. I played the PC version - virtually unplayable. Then i tried the console version - WORHTLESS. The venerable, reliable driving system is GONE here. Just like every other racer on the market, the driving is loopy and uncontrollable. The greatest advantage the NFS series had over all of the other racers was how well the cars handled - and that is LOST in ProStreet.

Also gone are any racing locations of interest. You get to race around in boring, monotonous "tracks". Lots of mind-nubing lap racing... wow, loads of fun EA... loads of fun.

There is no story - at least Most Wanted had a story. This is just mindless racing with no real purpose. And coupled with the control isues, this game is completely broken. Even the music sucked booty - still no option to eplace it with your own - and what happened to the Hip Hop tracks? What a sucky, waste of time and shelf space. Most Wanted was good for the trash can - but ProStreet was fit to be run over by the TRASH TRUCK - the trash can is too good for this screw-up.

Did EA change teams on us? What made them think we wanted to go from Underground to either of these two titles? Did they for get how successful Underground was? That underground was so good that they had to make an Underground 2??? what were they smoking? Even Most Wanted could have been slavaged - if they only got rid of the "rubberband AI". they didn't need to change the whole game concept, just allow us to get out in front AND STAY THERE! Everythiing else was great about Most Wanted, it was just the rubberband AI that screwed it up. Nobody complained about the story, the cars (well we could all use more customization, but), the missions, the mini-games or anything else - JUST THE STUPID RUBBERBAND AI! EA could have just fixed that - and at least on the PC STILL CAN - and that would have been fine.

But what do they do instead - make a complete "underhaul", and throw in some stupid graphic effects that even the console couldn't handle! Who cares about "blooming"??? Bloom what? Bloom a bland, lifeless, boring game that nobody cares about. Please EA - get back to what you did with Uderground 1 and 2, or just FIX Most Wanted (get rid of the rubberband AI) so we can once again enjoy the best racer ever - oh yeah, and no more floating cars, if you please...

You know, I've played just about all of the FF games, most of them completely and more than once, one or to just about to the end; and I've just got to say that times are looking bleak for the series. They seem to be getting farther and farther away from what the series was meant to be in the first place. It isn't predictably progressive, there have been ups and downs in various places - but overall, I find that I have a hard time staying until the end with the latest games in the series.

I tried FFI, but that was so late in the game that I just couldn't go through with it (like two years ago).

FFII, I completed about three times. A very touching story and compelling characters to boot.

One of my all time favorites (with Chrono Trigger being THE favorite, of course) was FFIII. The amazingly varied cast, the innovations, surprises and introduction of many FF standards made this one of the most important games in the series. To date, not a game in the series has been able to duplicate the perfection that this one had.

FFIV, magical story, nice twists and semi-deep storyline.

FFV introduced the venerable job system, which made this game one hell of a ride, and very re-playable. Unfortunately we wouldn't see this system for a very long time after - except in the Tactics series (and I can't stand tactics games - sorry!).

FFVI - as far as I know this was skipped and we went right to FFVII - correct me if I am wrong...

FFVII: next to FFIII, this is hands down the best in the entire series. The only criticism people have of it is the "blocky characters". SO WHAT, all of the characters in games were blocky back then! And they weren't THAT blocky anyway, for people to dismiss the fact that this game had an amazing story, great system (Materia), a few secrets, good infusion of mini-games, and memorable characters! This is the best of any FF game that has come since, and at this point we are at FFXII.

FFXIII: talk about ugly characters... oh gawd, the pasty-face crew is in full effect here. The main character, Leon was a dull, lifeless, Michael Jackson dressing wannabe (he even wears MJ's band uniform in one segment) who is in dire need of Prozac. Everybody is a reject from the slo-mo academy in this game. They are all ugly and pale as all hell. The mini-game (Triple Triad) took a great toll on my patience, slow loading and not very rewarding. I liked the variety of summons, but good gawd, how long do we have to wait each time we call one? And the "boost" was just not worth it. I got to about 99% of completion and completely lost interest... booooooooooring!

FFIX: I played this once and said to myself... "Is this it?" Short and feeling like something was missing, I did some research and found that in order to fully enjoy it - YOU MUST STEAL EVERYTHING FROM EVERY ENEMY! If you can't steal - reload and try again! You will need everything you can steal to completely enjoy this game and finish it in a way that it needs to be finished. After I played through it again with that mindset, I had a blast - it became one of my favs right behind FFVII. I can say that they could have been a little more serious with the characters - but over all they did a great job.

FFX: FFX was an okay game up until the part where you get "stuck" in Sin and are forced to go to the end. I searched and searched for a way out, to make sure I completed everything, to no avail - you are stuck and that's it. The really bad part - finding out that once you are in Sin, the game holds your hand and "upgrades you" to the point that you wonder why you had to go through the rest of the story anyway! You can go into Sin at level three and by the time you reach the end be at level 99 - it really doesn't matter. This game was severely dumbed down, probably so it could appeal to people who never played Final Fantasy before. The only thing hard about it was the silly weapon unlocking mini-games. I have to admit I gave up on the Thunder Plains and the Butterfly mini-games - I had serious patience issues and camera problems, respectively, with those two mini-games, and got very tired of them both. It didn't matter anyway - because Sin took care of all that for me when it upgraded my crew to the max. What a kindergarten experience.

FFX-2: Let's not even go there... just walk away, nothing to see here...

FFXI: FFXI, and all of its online expansions has never caught my attention - I was mad that FFXII, XIII and XIV were delayed because square wanted to play online games, though. Putting it's built in fan base on hold was not nice - not nice at all.

FFXII; A tolerable game, not what I wanted - but expected from a producer that formerly specialized in the tactics series. Some irritations include a "secret" weapon that wasn't revealed until the game was already out (Zodiac Spear); some of the hardest bosses ever seen in the FF series (you need to take a day or two off to beat the King of Dragons, Yiamat); the miniaturization of the summon creatures - and the fact that you have to "upgrade" them - which I think is totally stupid; the dragons in the game all look alike - they all look like the Fire Demon from Lord of the Rings (The Two Towers?) except they are all quadruped - why did they make them all look the same? Where is the creativity here? C'mon, Square, you can do better. It's made more like an Action-Rpg, but I do like the way you can customize commands for the characters - although it needs a little tweaking if you ask me, but it's mostly workable. The Mob hunts were my favorite part of the game - but those end quickly - too they didn't expand that part of the game. And worst of all - the maps were exceedingly cryptic - useless, as a matter of fact. I am in the temple where you can fight Yiamat - and that's where I left off. I'll get back to it - but I don't have a clue as to where I am at by way of the provided map. I downloaded some maps from the internet - but they weren't too much help either. It's very easy to get lost, and there's no good reason for that. Maybe I'm just a moron... The reason I stopped, however, is not because I got lost - but rather that I am at the point where I can fight Yiamat and I just haven't found the moment of time where I have that kind of patience... and it's been almost a year now...

FF: Crisis Core: I'm playing that right now - and it's a bright light in the bleak pool of weak offerings of late. I am disappointed that I haven't heard any news of a full blown sequel to FFVII, but this is a viable distraction. I hope that I will be able to play a FF with the materia system on my TV. I'm settling with this, but I am crazy about the missions! Is it what I want? NO. But is it okay, yeah - for now. I want a party based OFFLINE RPG sequel to FFVII that I play on a console, on my TV - not a tiny handheld. But this is the best I'm gonna get so far, so be it.

FFXIII: Hasn't come out yet, and although I look forward to ANY FF title, unless Sony has some sort of spiritual epiphany and decides to lower the price of the PS3 to human levels (or should I say "humane" levels) I might not be playing this for a long, long time anyway. From what I see, though, it looks like an action-rpg rather than party based. Oh joy. I won't pass judgment until I find out more - but from what I see so far it may be a big flopola. Time will tell.

As for the rest, Crystal Chronicles and the handhelds, well I could really care less about them (Crystal Chronicles was a complete sham of a rip-off, going so low as to try and FORCE players into buying Gameboys in order to play the ONLY title ever made for the Gamecube... for shame. And the handhelds - yeah I'm sure people liked them - but I feel that there goes effort and money into something that should have been a full blown console game. So shove off with that.

You can see how the games have progressively deteriorated over the years - and how they have morphed into something that most people don't even want. But like its namesake, Square can sometimes be very block-headed about producing what it wants - despite what the market craves...

So I'm playing Final Fantasy: Crisis Core on my PSP now - and i's very nice, although it doesn't satisfy my want of a full blown sequel. I have becaome a "mission addict" with this game in the series. My main distraction is the missions, and any time I see that a mision is set to "normal" or "easy" I plod right in head-first! (I tried going into a mission on "hard" and believe me, they aren't kidding when they say hard...). As much as I would have liked to be playing a full blown party RPG FFVII sequel, on my TV, not the baby screen, this game is nonetheless very likeable and enjoyable. I don't even think I have completed 10% of the story - but I have done about 26% of the missions already. My next story based assignment is the infiltration mission, and I'm not going there until the game stops giving me easy and normal missions to do. The infiltration mission is tricky - but with a little help from a couple youtube videos I have confidence that I can complete it without to many restarts (hopefully none).

The other welcome return is my favorite system - the materia system. some of you love it, some of you hate it. I'm of the former group. Ever since FFVII I have craved for a more robust version, and FF:CC delivers that, somewhat. I like the finding, mixing and matching of the different Materia - only thing is that I think the item slots are a bit paltry, but then I don't have all items yet, so we shall see. It would have been nice to be able to create items as well as Materia too, but it isn't so bad that it hurts the game any. The spinning, out-of-your-control DMV is kind of stupid, I would have liked control over that (sort of like expanded summoning to me) but it isn't a game-breaker - as long as it doesn't do something dumb like call Ifrit (fire) to attack a fire-absorbing monster...

Oh, yeah, that being said - I LOVE the fact that the old summons monsters (Guardian Forces, Ancients, Espers, whatever) are in the game! It really sucked that Square tried to do away with them in FFX! Note to Square - WE LIKE SUMMONS MONSTERS, DONT YOU DARE TAKE THEM AWAY FROM US! Yes, we complain about how long the animations take (FFVIII), we don't like the stupid "boost" commands (FFVIII, again), but we do love the summons. Just give us an animation override and let us be on our way! And NO we don't appreciate you "minimizing" the summons monsters like you did in FFXII; make them grandiose and over-the-top like they are in most of the series - we love that!

Being a FFVII nut, the one thing that's sad about this game is knowing what Zack's eventual fate is going to be. Your playing with a character who has no future, basically, beyond this game. Too bad they didn't just create some other character so it wasn't locked into his dreadful fate. As good as you make him, he can never be as powerful as Sephiroth or Cloud, because Sephiroth kills him (easily) and Cloud kills Sephiroth... so that's a little fact that nags me the whole time I'll playing it.

Nevertherless, it's a good game and very addictive. i recommend anyone who likes Action/RPGs or has played FFVII to go ahead and try it out. After all, it may be a preview of the gameplay in FFXIII - has anyone seen any "party characters" in FFXIII YET?

I've asked a lot of tech, salespeople, gurus and hardware manufacturers this - where is the PC controller that is actually MADE for the PC??? Logitach didn't answer me yet, and it's been about thre weeks. PC games typically have at least 21 commands. There is not a single controller that handles that amount. The closest I ever got was a Gravis Eliminator, which had 21 - but it could have had more if it would let you use all of the buttons at once (you had to choose between D-Pad or Analog Stick). The only reason I don't have it now is because I accidently spliced the cord and since then have not been able to find another one.

I now have a Logitech Dual Action controller; but like the Gravis was disappointed to find that it makes you disable the D-Pad. Even so, it still is paltry in the amount of button inputs. It doesn't work in Windows For Games either, which means either use the keyboard + mouse or get robbed for $64.00 for an Xbox360 controller - what a rip. What we need is a cross between the Sega controller and the Gamecube Wavebird. It needs Six-buttons, the Z-trigger, Dual Left and right front triggers, a D-Pad, two analog sticks, and menu buttons in the middle. Actually - it can throw in Xbox style buttons on the lower left and right as well. I guess that's actually a cross between the Sega, The Nintendo Wavebird, The PS2 controller AND the Xbox controller. Most important - they ALL SHOULD WORK AT ALL TIMES.

In this vein, I have taken it upon myself to design a controller for the PC, and here it is:

This is a rough and quick conception - but what's different about it is that all inputs work SIMULTANEOUSLY (somebody learn that word to Logitech, please), plus the triggers and sticks are all pressure sensitive. That means it has a total of 51 commands (8 axis on each stick and the d-pad) not including combined key presses. That would let you play all PC games without going to the keyboard. In all seriousness, PC gamers really need this controller problem addressed - and while my concept isn't all that "cute" it's premise is that it will address the number one problem, not enough inputs to prevent a player from going to the keyboard. This controller scheme should also actually work with Games For Windows, and cost half as much as the Xbox360 controller.

I propose this, but I have no confidence that anyone but a start-up company will ever address this issue - because I thouroughly believe that the lack of such a controller is part of the plan to push games off of the PC and onto consoles (so they can stop trying to make cheap but powerful system to appease gamers, and make expensive but weak ones instead). If we had a decent controller years ago, it would have made no sense to about 60% of us to buy a console in the first place - some people have one specifically for the simplicity of play. In any case, I'm pipe-dreaming that something will break and we will get some attention here... Will it ever happen? Probably not - but we can dream, can't we???

So I'm playing Dawn of Mana for about 20 hours - and the screen comes up "Final Chapter...". WTFITAA?!?!? It is the shortest, most unsatisfying "Action-Adventure" game (don't EVEN call it an RPG, it's more like Ratchet & Clank on government assistance... without Clank) I have ever played! I played about half of the Final Chapter and got bored to tears from the monotony, frustrating enemies, and goofy movement. I have to do that part over again, and I just don't know if I want to. I made the mistake of buying it without researching it, and now I am sorry.

Is Keldy blind? You target an enemy, and he doesn't "stick" to it during an attack. I guess targeting is only for throwing pebbles, because he just swings wildly and I have to constantly correct his position as he goes swinging in any direction EXCEPT where he is targeted. I guess he has amnesia too, because every chapter starts you off at level 1 with your items. I like games that allow you to progress and level up as you go along; starting from scratch is just stupid and boring to me. It's actually the same as the "enemies level up as you level up" feature in final Fantasy 8 - except it's inverted, where you "level down" and have to grind your way back in each chapter. Lots of fun, Square-Enix, lots of fun... And Keldy must be lame too - because he just can't stand still - especially upon landing from a jump. The only thing that saved it in that respect is that I couldn't find a place that he would die from falling - maybe they were aware of his "restless leg syndrome" and opted not to include death falls. Whenever I tried to do a solid landing, Keldy would take one more mini-hop. There's nothing cute about it, because it becomes frustrating to have to do it over and over. You just want to get through it!

Despite all that, I persevered and tried to go ahead and finish it - not because it was that good, but rather because I just haven't finished a game in a long time... but when I saw the early "Final Chapter" I just lost all interest. The game is way too short, even with its shortcomings - that was just the booger on the already nasty birthday cake. Not to mention the fact that the whole Mana game series was scrapped for this POS. I like the geoforming, terraforming or whatever of the old games. I like the ability to create items from found and acquired objects. I liked the "open" story that allowed you to choose to go here and there, or go back if you prefer. This game threw all of that away for some hokey action-adventure with a substandard storyline and engine. Very sad.

It makes me wonder if this is a disappointing preview of what's to come in Final Fantasy XIII... yuck.