Hector

I wouldn't say so. There are plenty of games that people play for a while, but put down for one reason or another. I remember playing a lot of Sim City (original) and a fair amount of Sim City 2000--but haven't touched the series for roughly a decade. With any long-lived series their will be some people who enjoyed the older versions, missed out for a while, and are willing to consider newer versions.

I think its actually a very positive thing that Sonic and the Secret Rings is the best Sonic since SAI. With respect to the control scheme, all of the previous 3d sonics have been following the same model with increasing refinements. But that model, as has been repeatedly pointed out, had some fundemental problems. Now they've managed to find a new control scheme and pulled off a respectable game. Now all they have to do is refine that control scheme and improve their level design--which were the weaknesses of the latest Sonic (according to reviewers). In short, now 3d Sonic has a good framework on which to base its games rather than the one that has lead them to failure time and again.

Lets not joke too much about a Nintendo-phone yet. Though not expected from Nintendo, it would be a very smart move in the near future. Cell phones are already merging with a wide variety of other portably technologies (even credit cards), especially in Nintendo's native Japan. Most likely Nintendo is debating about when it would be the ideal time rather than if they should do it (kind of like their online plan). Also, it would be a great way to prop up the GBA brand if they base it off of that--though the GBA slots would be rather bulky for a cell and the cell-phone market is based off of downloadable content. If Nintendo launched it at this juncture, it would most likely a Nintendo-phone would evolve as an extension of the Wii, being able to download games from the wii-console to play on the way. Of course, there is also the chance that Nintendo would half-ass it and sell the license to another company to produce. Which would likely result in it being swept under the carpet.

Ouch, I didn't think mingling Miis could be that dangerous. My theory was that if I set a Mii on a friend's Wii to mingle, there'd be a fair chance that my Mii was conveniently available if I chose to play with someone else's Wii.

One of the best pieces I've heard in a while.

Street Fighter as a series has missed the bandwagon where suddenly jumping into 3d is appeciated. Certainly they could make a 3d Street Fighter IV, but it will be far more of an uphill battle to get it accepted. Street Fighter should stick to its number-one advantage, and that is love of the 2d series. Hell, I'm of the opinion that Capcom should name it Street Fighter 2 regardless of how new or altered it is.

Every fighter game breaks a little bit when it gets to the elite tournament level.

I remember hearing pretty good stuff about the Sonic title for the DS. That's gotta count for something.

I liked dark Aether. One of my disapointments with MPI was that there was never any point where you had to dash through the magmore caverns before getting the thermal suit. The nerve-racking feel of steadily being killed while frantically searching for something is just what Metroid needed, and Dark Aether develivered on that without being too lethal (I tried dashing through Magmoor and it was too painful without the thermal suit).

Thanks for the help. The community pack worked.

I've got a 512mb, Win-XP laptop with roughly 2ghertz but I've been having trouble with playing a matroska file. My computer has the correct filters and in the past I have been able to watch videos in the format, but recently I came across a few files that my computer simply seems insufficient to play ("Le Chevelier d'Eon" to be exact). I've tried both WMP and VLC; the former attempts to keep sound and video insync and so lets the sound skip (which is simply intolerable), while the latter preserves sound-quality but fails to keep the picture updating. I'm not all that familiar with VLC, so I was wondering if their were any easy ways to correct the problem their. Also, it would be helpful if there were any non-obvious ways of increasing my computers performance to allow it to play these files. I've been considering converting them to a more amenable format, but I would prefer to exercize other options first. Thanks.

There's a very good reason I remain skeptical, and that is that I don't feel any push to use something other than XP. I know the way it works and it satisfactorily meets all my present needs. In short, I don't see why I should ever bother spending money to upgrade my operating system unless I am also getting a new computer (in which case it would be rather strange to ask for a dumbed down version). Its not like a new console release where the previous-generation quickly pales in comparison to the new console. As Microsoft said with reference to their operating system, their biggest competitor is themselves (sorry Apple & Linux fans, maybe in four more years).

For Pyraser, just pour oil on it (I used oil bombs) and spam it with firaga. Also, use a bubble-good shield-lure combo to handle his damage (I recommend a pre-buffed party). (this is the giant T-Rex, right?) For the Behemoth King, I recommend warp spells to take care of the preconditions for the fight. After that its just a matter of how good your healing gambits are and whether you are capable of dealing damage by both magic and physical. I relied on glacial staffs and blizzaga for magic damage (I find high-powered spells wasteful); and a hasted, berserked, genji-wearing, masamune wielding Vaan for physical. And to maintain your spellcaster's mana, I recommend using the Syphon spell on party-members. I actually found the Behemoth King much easier than Fafnir.

Perhaps this question has been answered earlier, but are the downloads regionlocked? Some games I've no interest in getting yet another copy, but I would be interested in getting a Japanese copy.

Are you forgetting about Sandstorm? everytime it was cast, the game halt action for a few seconds so that the spell could go off. Even attacks were delayed.

Long live XP.

Zero_Infiniti, I just want to clarify one thing about why I think using the GBA slot would be important; its not so much containing for holding space but for design limitations. I don't think the DS is designed to allow you to remove a cartridge that is being played while the system remains on. I have my DS setup to skip the loading screen and go straight to the DS cart (GBA cart has second priority). For a while I was playing a GBA game but had a DS cartridge in; so I'd quickly eject the game while turning the system on (you have a second after you hit power to do this). One time I was a tad late popping out the DS cartridge and my system did not appreciate it. The type of memory used for RAM typically cannot hold any information when a device is turned off (there are exceptions depending on the hardware used). And even then, I'd question if the system's loading a game wouldn't overright the save file.

As to the canopic jar, it increases the chances of finding arcana from nonexistent to frequent (they're kind of like pebbles) As to Tales, the only problem I had with the characters was that they could have tried for somewhat more mature themes. As to using Elixers, try fighting the Seer. I only used elixers three times, once in the beginning of the game and twice in the final battle for fun (I decided to hit the final boss with Zodiak and Quickenings to kill him in a few minutes). But the magic jars, dealing with them took six or more. And if anyone can actually kill a magic jar, I'll be thoroughly impressed. I've done every hunt except the final level eight one and have every summon, but the magic jar seems invincible (I think Zodiark might be able to kill it, but I haven't tried yet).

I'll just make this one point, and that is that space and hardware capability are not a problem. FFVII was four cds, each cd is roughly 700mb so that is 2.8gb (roughly) that needs to be handled at the worst. Admittedly, the two cart sizes for the DS are 512mb and 1,024mb; but let us not forget the GBA slot. The problem with a multi-cartridge games has to do mostly with saves, so long as certain information is contained on a GBA game, information will not be a problem. And then there is the simple fact that more efficient coding can greatly reduce the space of the game. Square has had quite a few years to refine its techniques and so should be able to drastically reduce the size of a game like FFVII. But now lets go back to the problems, a game that takes up 2-3 cartridges plus a GBA slot will be expensive and the graphical leap from upgrading to the DS from the PS will not be quite as great as many fans might wish for (FFIII had better graphics than FFVII, but not drastically better). In truth, I'd prefer a console remake. I may not have enjoyed Advent Children much as a complete movie, but after seeing what they did for Aerith and Tifa, I don't think I'd settle for anything less.

Disappointed with the redeads? The latest ones scared the shit out of me. Certainly its not entirely bad when you handle them from a distance with bomb arrows, but that's a paltry blessing when they've already got you. Try going through the cave of ordeals in the desert, jumping straight into the center of each level. Eventually you jump straight into the center of 5-6 redeads and discover just how vicious they are compared to the previous titles.

As far as timelines go, I'm not quite certain to what degree they can make one work. Otherwise, Ganon would show a bit more prescience as to what is going on when someone is foiling him. He sees a boy in a green suit for the umpteenth time, that boy has acquired a magic sword or the master sword, he is going around to various dungeons to acquire an item or various items of power. Only in two games does he show any sign of knowing what is going on: OoT and WW. You'd think at some point ganon would start rounding up everyone that dares to wear green and have them summilarily executed. But did anyone else find a few things missing from the game? I wanted a proper archery range, like those found in OoT and Majora's mask. The hookshot challenge was fun, but a proper archery range is still a must (and that one in the starting village does not count).

I think part of the problem might actually be that they are worried about legal restrictions in other countries. If game A has something that makes country B have reason to object to it (to give an old example, Chrono was localized to chug soda instead of bear in the US version), the company would be worried for their reputation regarding imports (though with regards to Pokemon, I've no idea what that could be). Then there's the matter of price. Europeans tend to be charged more so that imported games can compete with localized games to some degree. Then of course, there's the third problem that everyone has already mentioned.

A couple of days ago, my computer simply became unable to play any sort of sound file with any quality (even midi files). The change took place while watching an old naruto epsisode, and all of a sudden the sound got all strange. I've tried restarting, adjusting equilizer settings in winamp and volume control but to little avail. Everything my computer tries to play seems dropped a fair number of notes, and loud or particularly high/low notes are all garbled. The problem exists for both headphones and the computer's speaker so I'm quite sure the problem is not with those devices. I was wondering if there were some software setting that could correct the problem, or if I'd have to do something more extreme such as re-installing the driver (I lack the driver CD at college so doing so is difficult) or investing in a new sound card. Thanks.

Load times are vital for gamer survival. Gamers would starve to death playing videogames continueously if Sony were not wise enough to introduce load-times long enough to butter toast. Sony could certainly go the extra mile and reduce load-times on their systems, but Sony actualy care's about their gamers so they do not. But seriously, a little load time isn't all that bad.

Lets not generalize particulars too much. I visited a store in my area with two Wiis for sale and not a single PS3. Markets are uneven, burps happen, and E-bay oftentimes sells to the people in the worst local markets (i.e., no systems free till March).