So IGN published their Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles review, a full week before its release. They were not pleased. And while the 7.6 out of 10 mark isn’t a terrible score I would remind you that the only two categories that earned a score higher than 7 were Graphics and Sound, not the more important Gameplay or Lasting Appeal. So what all does this mean? At this point, it just means that Gamespot might feel the pressure and post their review this coming week as opposed to the day before launch. Still I think anyone who has any interest in this title has to be at least a bit off-put by this. IGN is normally a point or two higher than Gamespot and so you can normally assume that the average would be a more precise score. If the trend were to continue Gamespot will chime in somewhere around 5.5 and that would truly suck.

By now you should know that I disapprove of R. Kelly. But even I thought this story is hilarious. Also it's nice to see that Kelly is still pending trial and had not just escaped justice as I had previously surmised. The coup de grace is the quote by Kelly's lawyer, it's so puerile; oh yeah? Well he didn't want to see Michael any way! =P

Seriously though, what's this Judge thinking? He had to stop a child molesters’ summit from tarnishing the glamorous Grammys? Although come to think of it, wasn't Pete Townsend also arrested for something similar?

His wife is 33? *shakes head*

Anyone remember the Dead Milkmen?

I found the Ludonauts' piece on the definition of a minigame interesting reading. As you may note, I also chimed in the discussion with a comment of my own, a smirking gangle of vowels and consonants pertaining to Basketball and midgets, my two chief entertainment concerns.

As for me, I’m inclined to agree with the author’s definition. The important thing is to look at the game mechanics, if the physics and surrounding of the game world change and your character begins to interact with the world around him in a different way, more than likely, you’re in a minigame. One thing I would dissent on would be his (the author, again) insistence that mingames be repeatable. If you were never allowed to play Blitzball after tournament in Luca, I don’t think you can say that it wasn’t a minigame. And actually after reviewing the article I see now that he (the author, sheesh) didn’t say that it wouldn’t have been. There are two definitions, for two different subsets of minigames. I assume that the distinction is a foreground for further discourse.

I just finished watching the complete Firefly series on DVD and I'm glad to report that I wasn't wrong the first time around. Pretty much every episode of the way too short lived TV series is excellent. It's a damn shame no network picked it up but Fox only has four hour-long dramas in its whole week-long schedule and UPN has like one. So I guess there was just no room for Joss Whedon's brilliant piece of Dramedy in this reality-infatuated modern world of ours. Still with all the damn cable networks out there you'd think someone could've made our day and ordered another season. What's USA got besides Monk (which I've seen a bit of and enjoyed, but don't want to start in the middle of)? And since it takes 8 months or more between seasons of Sopranos or Six Feet Under, HBO could've used a new show. But I guess it's thinking that this that's got me working this busted keyboard in my bedroom and not in a fancy network-executive cubicle.

I'm not the alone on this, Gabe from Penny Arcade wrote almost exactly the same thing earlier today.

IGN reported that they have received a copy of Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles yesterday. This appears to be a complete and final version, meaning that the game is either on or ahead of schedule. The only disappointing part of this is their mention of a de-emphasis on story. While this is not unexpected, I had still held out hope for the best.

More to come on this, I'm sure. Now to work on my Best of 2003 article for Pajamo.

Bandai announced a Cowboy Bebop game in their upcoming titles for 2004! This is great news to all us CB fans. I’m especially hyped because I had just watched the movie again last week. No real info on what the game will be like at this point. I just hope Bandai does the series justice, reports are they PSX CB game (Japan only) was a big disappointment.

Yeah, except I’m totally serious, the construction effort has had the troubling side effect of heating my room way too up (the angle I took the shot in makes it look over 80, it isn't, it's merely 80 on the dot). Still, I’m dealing, I just liked the post title I came up with and a chance to take a picture of my boss copy of the San Guo.

I’ve been getting into the Romance of the Three Kingdoms period again lately, playing my old copy of Destiny of an Emperor and reading history articles I find on the web. I love finding out new bits of information about the real characters in the book or how they have been referred to over the years. I’m still trying to figure out if the phrase “Speak of the devil, and the devil appears” is an adaptation of the Chinese phrase “Say 'Cao Cao' and Cao Cao is at the gates" or vice versa or maybe the idea of being able to summon a great evil by just speaking its name is a universal one.

I guess it was my attempt at doing something studieous to prepare for my first day of schooling in 3 years. Which went as blandly as you might suspect, but thanks for asking.

There’s this new 27 minute trailer for “Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes” out there and I’ve got to tell you it’s, quite possibly, the greatest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire, whole, life. It manages to show how the Silicon Knights have lovingly given one of the greatest games of all time a facelift while still preserving the spirit of the original. Those who have never had the pleasure of playing the original (Metal Gear Solid, for PSX) should be warned, this trailer is not for you. It would spoil many of the surprises that await. Still I think that this was the right way to generate hype for the game as most of the target audience has played the original and will get a kick out of seeing it being redone. I was also happy to see that besides just making the game look better and adding a couple of gameplay features, they also seem to have added a couple of new scenes.

Inspired by Bravo’s new hit show “Celebrity Poker Showdown” we decided to get a poker night set up at John’s house. It came as a shock to all when we arrived at a head count of 16.

Koei has announced that they will be releasing a sequel to Crimson Sea at the end of March. But what makes this bit of news fit to print is the system on which they'll be releasing it; Crimson Sea was an Xbox exclusive game, but Crimson Sea 2 will be PS2 exclusive. As noted in Koei's announcement, they are "making the experience available to a wider audience."

Perhaps Microsoft helped fund the first game in an attempt to bring more exclusive titles to their system and didn't offer to fund the sequel? For my part I would have rather Koei stayed with the big X on this one, its more robust hardware allowed them to throw a hell of a melee with what seemed like hundreds of monsters on the screen at once. On the PS2 I predict it won't seem as impressive.

Gamespot jefe, Greg Kasavin has used his weekly editorial to bring more attention to Fire Emblem, which I’ve been enthralled with for the last few days. His write-up is just a review really, but be warned it does contain some things I had wished I didn’t know. I won’t call them spoilers because they really don’t spoil any part of the plot. Still he mentioned a couple of things that I think I would have considered neat surprises had I not read about them.

The game itself is very good. It’s very focused on telling you its story and from what I’ve seen so far, said story is very tight. I’m already formulating a glowing review in between playing times. And since you can’t make a tactical RPG without me drawing comparison to the king of them all, Final Fantasy Tactics, I must also tell you that Fire Emblem reminds me of FFT. It’s the sort of game I wished Final Fantasy Tactics Advance to be.