Anyone that's checked sites like Gamespot recently knows that there are approximately a hojillion promising games coming out between now and the end of the year. My budget for games, especially new releases, is rather tight at the moment, so I imagine that at most, I'll be only buying one or two new releases before the holiday season. I can't really complain about this, however, as I'm still in the midst of playing Disgaea, which had largely sat on my shelf since I received it as a Christmas gift last year. I also have a recently purchased copy of Front Mission 4 waiting to be played once I'm through with Laharl and company. For these reasons, getting a new game is not my top priority.

However, that doesn't stop the fact that there are games coming out (or that have come out recently) that I've been looking forward to, and while I can dream about swimming in them ala Scrooge McDuck, I need to be realistic and decide on which titles I'm going to focus on. I can at least name titles that I have little or no interest in getting:

• Any new PC game (I just don't have the hardware.). Xbox and handheld titles are also out.
• Jak/R&C/Sly
• GTA: San Andreas
• Paper Mario 2
• Metroid Prime 2
• Sports games
• Online games

The games that I've been looking at the most that are coming out before the end of the year are:

• Star Ocean: Till the End of Time
• Silent Hill 4: The Room
• Baten Kaitos
• Street Fighter Anniversary Collection
• Metal Gear Solid 3
• Phantom Brave
• The Bard's Tale
• Mortal Kombat: Deception
• Gran Turismo 4

I can tell you right now that there is no way on God's green Earth that I'm going to be able to acquire all of the above listed games before the end of the year. At most, I can probably hope to see four or five of them, depending on how lucky I end up come Christmas time. Now I need to figure out which ones to aim for.

Remember this beast?

Well, a long while back, I actually did end up giving the game a shot with the help of a friend's copy. I posted my thoughts in another journal, and I thought I should repost them here now that Gamespot has its own journal system:

Originally posted on January 24th, 2004

I've played about three hours or so into FFX-2 so far. At this point, I can't say that my opinion of the game has been drastically altered. I don't think it's going to change, either. My thoughts at this point are a bit scattered, so I'll just write about the game as points come to mind.

First off, the way some of the FFX characters have been redone or treated in the sequel...it just feels wrong. Seeing the opening cut scene with "Yuna" in her priestess garb suddenly go into pop princess mode was not a good way to start things off.

As for the new character, Paine, well, from what I've seen, there's not much to say about her at this point. I've heard some people compare her to Squall, but at least we were privy to Squall's thoughts from the very beginning. As such, she's shown about as much personality as a brick wall, though it's a severely annoyed brick wall.

The battle system is just insane. I've played Square games with an Active Time Battle system before, but the battles in those past games were never this frantic, in my memory. I can't say I enjoy it too much because to me, the pacing just doesn't seem natural to the way the game should be. FFX had a brilliantly done turn-based system that led to a lot of depth. FFX-2's garment grid system has its share of depth as well, but what depth there is gets drowned out in the frantic pacing. There are times that I feel things are moving so fast that if I even try switching to the outfit I need a character to wear in order to take out a foe easily, I'll be hammered waiting for the transition.

That's not to say that the battle system isn't broken. It's workable, just really not to my liking. I would have probably appreciated it more had it been designed with a different game in mind because it just doesn't feel like a Final Fantasy battle system, or even a Chrono or SaGa battle system. Heck, if Square Enix had made a whole new game featuring the garment grid battle system, I would probably be enjoying this more.

However, what feels completely unnecessary is the jump/climb mechanic that was so hideously instituted into the game. All I have to do is hold down circle as I'm running along, and if there's something to jump over or climb, then Yuna will climb it automatically. There's no sense of skill or accomplishment. Just get your jumping puzzle out of my RPG.

The last thing I'll write about here is how badly I hate the silly Charlie's Angels-esque tone of the game. The dramatic impact of anything that could be taken even remotely seriously, such as trying to find Tidus, is marred by the...what should I call it? Unnecessary, out of place insanity? I think I accidentally skipped the monkey mating mission while I was in Zanarkand. I don't think I was missing anything.

If there was one, single solitary thing that I've purely enjoyed in this game, it's the opening credit sequence that plays after the game boots up. The piano music that plays over the credits is rather beautiful, but to think that the one part that I've enjoyed the most thus far is the credits, that's not really saying anything good about the game itself.

Originally posted on January 25th, 2004

I tried. I honestly tried to give this game a shot. I just can't do it. After logging about five hours on the game clock (not counting restarts from dying), I have taken FFX-2 out of my PS2, placed it back in its case, and barely have the willpower to keep myself from annihilating the damn game here and now. Ahna, you can expect the game to be returned to you tomorrow if you're on shift at AK.

Nothing in my previous entry has changed in terms of my opinion. There's just too much for me to dislike. Once again, the piano music during the credits is beautiful, but once I pass the title screen and load my game...

Yeah.

OK, I actually did find one other thing to like in the game. It's a dream sequence Yuna has towards the beginning of chapter 2. It's very dramatic, and very lovely to watch. It would even be tragic, if it weren't so obvious that it was a dream, but sadly, the dream was not the game that I was playing.

At one point, I had lost a battle, and as the Game Over music began, Yuna, the last to fall, asked, "Why?"

Why indeed, Square? Why, indeed?

Outside of all forms of gaming, one of my biggest passions is fiction writing. Tonight, I started on the seventh chapter of the second draft of a novel that I've been working on for the past several years. My progress on the rough draft had been pretty slow, mostly due to the fact that I had written a significant portion of it while I was still in college, but this new draft has been developing at a fair rate. Even though its still fairly early, the pacing and flow of the book is much, much better than in the rough draft, and for that, I have given my thanks to a friend who was kind enough to do me the huge favor of reading, critiquing and partially editing the original.

Writing this new draft has been almost a completely different experience. When I composed the rough draft, I was mainly concerned with taking all of the elements of the story that had developed in my head over the years since high school and putting them down on paper. It didn't really matter if what I wrote was good or not, so long as there was hope that it was coherent and capable of being shaped into a good story through revising. Once it was finished, and once my friend helped out with her advice, I went back to the beginning and started by organizing a chapter-by-chapter outline. Even before I started the second draft, I was able to give the story a much better structure, and I was able to eliminate all of the unnecessary portions that had crept in while I was rambling my way through the rough draft.

I don't know how long it will take me to complete the second draft, but once it's finished, further revisions shouldn't be nearly as drastic. To put it in the perspective of game development, if the rough draft were to be considered the alpha build, I suppose that the second draft could be considered the beta, and all revisions beyond that will probably be comparable to play testing and bug squashing. I'm hopeful that people will be able to read the complete work one day, but right now, I'm just happy to be as far along on the project as I am.

One of my hobbies aside from video games is playing pen & paper RPGs. I started playing them seriously as a freshman in college, and have since then jumped from game to game, mostly with the same core group of players. Some of the games I've played were Mekton Z and Big Eyes Small Mouth (both anime-influenced games), the swashbuckling game 7th Sea, and Shadowrun.

A few months ago, my pen and paper gaming hit an unfortunate brick wall. In the group I was playing with, we were alternating between two games every Friday. One week, one of the others, Bjorn, would run his Godlike game. (For those of you that don't know, Godlike is essentially what WWII would have been like had people with superpowers existed). The other weeks, we played the El-Hazard game, which was a specific game based on the same system as BESM. As a first time GM, I was especially happy with the way things were going.

Unfortunately, only a session or two before I could bring the campaign to its end, I was expelled from the group. One of the others had apparently been holding a grudge against me for some time, and like a bad reality show, he convinced the others to essentially vote me out. Not that I really minded in the long run. The Godlike game had been going nowhere for two months, as our characters were still in basic training, and remained that way for a whole further month after I left the game. One of the other players, Max, left the Friday sessions after becoming fed up with the snail's pace of Godlike, as well as with the way the game that replaced my El-Hazard campaign went. The guy that led the effort to get me kicked out? Well, apparently he began running a super hero game with a ruleset of his own design. The only problem was that he's a reactive GM (i.e.: He won't do anything until the players take the initiative to look for trouble) playing with reactive players (i.e.: They won't do anything unless the GM gives them something to do).

So after Max left, he got the urge to start running a D&D campaign, and I was one of the first to sign up. After a few months of his preparations, planning, and the recruiting of three other players (none of whom came from the previous group), we finally got started on this past Sunday afternoon. The game world is essentially what one might call a mixture of D&D and Final Fantasy, with a small bit of Morrowind thrown in. My character is a human crystal hunter (a class Max designed specifically for this campaign), sort of an Indiana Jones of the D&D world. We spent most of the night getting acquainted with the game world and going on our first small quest, slaughtering an entire camp of goblins (Hey, we're third level at most. Goblins are about all we can kill right now). We all had a lot of fun and plan to get together next Saturday night for our next session, where there will be even more goblin slaughtering, treasure hoarding and worship of the great and mighty Portable Ham (One session, and we already have a running joke).

I'm still disappointed that I couldn't finish the El-Hazard game. It felt sort of like having a favorite TV show pulled off the air before the final episode. However, I think that the D&D game will more than make up for it, especially since it won't involve the majority of the participants (the only holdover is Max, and he only played in the Godlike game). What we've done so far is very promising, especially with the amount of fun we had.

First off, I'd like to start by saying that the film is easily better than the first movie, although that's not a difficult compliment. According to the IMDb, Apocalypse was the first feature film directed by Alexander Witt, but the first film's writer and director, Paul W.S. Anderson (Mortal Kombat Alien Vs. Predator) did return to pen the sequel.

For those of you that saw the first Resident Evil, you'll probably remember how much the film grossly lacked any sort of coherent backstory or dialogue. The main character's name, Alice, wasn't even mentioned in any fashion until the end credits. At the end of the first movie, the other central character, Matt, was dragged off to be put in the Nemesis project, and Alice woke in an Umbrella research facility while Racoon City was under attack.

Of all the complaints I had about the first Resident Evil, it's that it didn't include any of the characters from the games. Instead, the plot took place prior to the first game. Apocalypse changes all of that, as it includes several of the actual game characters from Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, specifically Jill Valentine and Carlos Olivera. If the film had concentrated on Jill's story and made her the central character, I believe that, at the very least, Apocalypse wouldn't have turned out as bad as it did. The actress that plays her is a dead ringer for Jill's RE3 appearance, and the actor playing Carlos looked and performed just as well. I'm happy to note that Nemesis looks just like he should, and yes, he does say "S.T.A.R.S.!"

Unfortunately, all of the game characters are shoved to the side whenever Alice appears on screen. Experimented on, she's become superhuman and is capable of performing stunts that are much more akin to the Tomb Raider games than Resident Evil. She and Jill first meet through the convenience of a literal deus ex machina (Alice saves the day by bursting onto the scene riding a motorcyle). All that was missing was her singing the refrain of the Mighty Mouse theme. ("Here I come to save the daaaaaaay!")

The inclusion of Alice only illustrates the fact that the scripting is terrible. No explanation of Jill's participation in the events of the first Resident Evil game are given. As a matter of fact, there's a rather massive plot hole. According to the movie, the reopening of the Hive laboratory from the first film, leading to the mass infection, and the events of Apocalypse, which occur during the time period of the second and third RE games, happen on the same day. This leaves absolutely no room for the events of either the first Resident Evil game or the prequel, Resident Evil 0.

The act of centering the plot on Alice rather than the game characters hits its ultimate low towards the end of the film, as both Jill and Carlos are actively kept on the sidelines while Umbrella orchestrates a one-on-one battle to the death between Alice and Nemesis that looks more like a fighting game than survival horror.

Don't even get me started on the scene where Alice runs down the side of a building.

"But wait!" you're probably saying, "Didn't you say this movie was better than the first?"

It doesn't really say much about the first film, does it?

Anyway, I will be fair in saying that Apocalypse does have its good points. As I said before, the game characters that are included are depicted well, even if backstory elements were sacrificed. When scenes focus on Jill rather than Alice, it tends to feel more like Resident Evil than Tomb Raider.

The dialogue, or what there is of it, is better than that of the first film, if only for the fact that characters take the time to say each other's names. There's a greater level of coherency than there was in the first film, but the plot still takes a backseat to the action. There's a scene in a graveyard (Imagine that!) where, as soon as the necessary expository dialogue is completed, zombies burst out of their graves and jump out of nowhere, ready to start the next fight scene. Thanks for waiting, guys.

The camerawork in the film is spotty, at best, but it does deliver some good shots here and there that resemble the games. Unlike the first film, which took place almost entirely in the underground laboratory, there are scenes in a variety of locations, ranging from the previously mentioned graveyard to a private school. There are also plenty of visual references to the games, for those that can catch them.

I could go on and on, but I'll end the review here. To cut things short, I'll say once again that the movie is bad, so watch it at your own risk, but if you were able to tolerate the first movie, you should be able to take in the sequel. If you're a fan of the games, there will be things about the movie that you will like and things you are going to loathe. However, the biggest key to enjoying the film at all is to turn your brain off before entering the theater. Resident Evil: Apocalypse does not stand up against rational thought. If you want to see it, I recommend to either catch a matinee or wait for the DVD release.

So yeah, I guess this is my new journal on the Gamespot forums.