Game: Mass Effect Series

Great game series, better than any I've played in a long time. Great story, and as I see it, an incredible ending. Apparently the ending made some people angry, I don't really get it. You play the game as an invincible super-soldier, but you aren't a god. The enemy of the series really is presented as something unfathomably powerful, and defeating it takes a huge sacrifice. I thought it was a brave ending, very satisfying.

Overall great series: A+!

Game : Final Fantasy XII (the first ten hours)

As far as the first ten hours go, this is the best final fantasy game I have played in many years. I mean, I don't think the real plot has even started yet, people keep entering my party and leaving it, and I have a couple of monsters I need to track down and kill for cash. Sweet.

Recommend? Final Fantasy made by the Final Fantasy Tactics people! Rule!

Game : Final Fantasy IV Advance

"You spoony bard!" Tellah shouts.

Recommend? Yes, all the content that was removed when it was II has been restored, and now it's portable. Heck, it's just about reason enough to buy a gameboy if you don't have one.

Game: New! Super Mario Bros.

We've been waiting since 1985 for a mushroom a size or two bigger than the plain old super mushroom. It's here, and you can bust the hell out of pipes when you're on it.

Recommend? Yes. It's like old Super Mario Bros., except it is new. I still lament the lack of Tanuki Mario, but so shall we all, till the end of time.

Video Game : Tomb Raider: Legend

After a crappy day at work I came home, went to a party, scaled a building, and then killed an entire Yakuza organization. All while wearing a skimpy, torn cocktail dress and shooting two pistols at once.

Recommend? Yeah, good graphics, lots of jumping and shooting. It's like playing Indiana Jones mixed with James bond. With less clothes.

RPG : Dragon Quest VIII - Journey of the Cursed King

Dragon Quest VIII is doing everything right. And Old-School. It's the best RPG I've played in a long time. Much better than, say, Final Fantays X-2, which wasn't very good at all. And Final Fantasy X, which was okay but not good enough to bother finishing. Or Morrowind, which was not much to my taste. It's the best RPG since consoles were 32-bits, that's for sure. This, of course, is excluding games I haven't played. Maybe there were some fine RPGs I missed. If this is the case, I am sorry. I will make it up to you by not playing them and continuing to play the crap out of Dragon Quest VIII. I mean, I've gotta catch that rascally Dhoulmagus. And I need to find more alchemy recipes. And I gotta work on my party's skills.

Recommend? Yes, the story line is simplistic(thus followable and engaging), the graphics look like a cartoon, and the world is huge. And you get to fight slimes, and metal slimes, and healslimes and...

Video Games: Civilization IV

The other night I wiped out the American's with Iroquis, using my superior riflemen and tanks to wipe out their musketeers and cannons. There is something beautiful in crushing the Spanish with the Aztecs or Egypt with the Malinese. There's also something eerie and fun about conquering the world as Russia or Germany. There's something ironic about converting your nation to Buddhism and then going on a nuclear rampage that leaves the world desolate and uninhabitable.

And its extremely addictive to do so, to discover all the beautiful perversions of the world's history that can be created. I've already spent immense amounts of time clicking at the computer, squashing cities and annihilating the wolves and bears that now populate the landscape. You never stop saying, "well I'll quite just after I build the Taj Mahal." There's always something to keep you playing just another turn, infinite excuses to shut down that part of your brain that manages your time and tells you that you need to sleep whether it be waiting to get that crucial technology or building some of the units and wonders you get from that technology or using those units or wonders to obliterate one of your opponents.

Recommend: If you like games that you play until you realize it is light outside.

Games: Cell Phone Games

It's as if they were releasing new games for eight bit systems, only it's also as if eight bit systems had the capacity a reasonable spectrum of colors. Each game is as beautifully pointless and repetetive as the last, the only variations deriving from assigned titles and minor changes in the graphics. Side scroller after identical sidescroller. RPG's with characters that are little more than blobs. The ones whose characters actually resemble the human form are advertised for their graphics. Great sound means at least four different beeping sounds make up the theme music and death sounds.

Recommend: Don't pigs not fly sailing through the moonlight and the clouds, only to spiral higher into the sky until they vanish betwixt the stars leaving little but a trail of glowing dust and a sad feeling of loss in the seat of mankind's belly?

PC Game : Half Life 2

Ohhh sweet Mama robot mouth...

Recommend? YES! See review above.

(If your computer can't play this game, quickly sell your semen and/or eggs and build a new computer.)

Video Game : The Legend of Zelda : The Minish Cap

The Minish Cap is a pretty fun game for the Gameboy Advance, but you have to bomb EVERYWHERE, and I can't beat the end boss yet. But I guess that is the point of an end boss...you know, to be really tough.

Recommend? SURE, but I can't vouch for the ending.