"I reviewed King's Field 2 for the PS2 in Next Gen magazine." Speaking of dork cred. That was an excellent magazine. Respect.

Pretty much. If the game feels worthy of a full-length review, then it usually gets one, regardless of price. I thought this was a pretty interesting game, so I gave it the decadent luxury of our full 400-word format.

Props for the King's Field mention. I've brought that game up a few times with friends while talking about Demon's Souls, and it always gets me a blank look. One nitpick: it was a release title for the PS1. Yes, it was that long ago.

Yeah, I am. That was a bit of an omission. Ah well. We do have a review scheduled, of course.

I couldn't find even an approximate release date for DQ9 aside from a general "2010." (Maybe I missed something?) It is certainly anticipated, not least by me (and I would assume by David), but I don't expect it before July. Prove me wrong, Square Enix. Prove me wrong.

I've played all the Final Fantasy games, and I was disappointed by 9 because I felt like I had done it all before. I know that was the idea, but that didn't make the resulting boredom any less of a letdown. Cheers to your spirited defense of 9 down below, though, SL.

I had to write a thing about Chrono Cross this weekend for a book I'm contributing to, and in reacquainting myself with the lore, I recalled that the name of the supercomputer trying to shape Serge's destiny was called FATE. So, yeah, JRPGs are not so good with the subtlety and whatnot.

What galls me about the console exclusives is the lame post-hoc justifications for exclusivity that the developers slip in. For example, Heavy Rain occasionally uses Sixaxis controls, just so that the producers can say "We could ONLY do this on PlayStation!" at trade shows with a straight face.

I think you might be taking the tongue-in-cheek item headings a bit too seriously. But really I wanted to comment because I wholeheartedly agree with your take on MM9, and I'm surprised people complain about the difficulty so much. The tricky parts seem super-difficult at first blush but gave way with a bit of…

I realize that the game is intentionally over-the-top, and I think it would be hard not to "get" that it's often played for humor. It's not really about getting something so elusive or misreading intentions here. Sarkazein, your reading of the game is an intelligent and defensible one (and thanks for writing it up).…

It's definitely cheating, but I only found out about the Euros chicanery once the writeup was already turned in, so at that point, it seemed a little silly to say "no."

Games-of-the-year list is coming; we (i.e., the games writers) put it together a couple weeks ago. I'm not sure when it'll be published.

Ha, the Icarus one is so good that I was surprised no sci-fi author (at least none that I could remember) had thought of it. But apparently, astronomers have:

Program Note
There will be no Sawbuck Gamer on Dec. 7 because the production team will be a bit short-staffed. Sawbuck will return on the next regularly scheduled day, Dec. 21 (as far as I know — it may be earlier or later depending on the holiday schedule).

Thanks again! Fixed again!

Thanks! Fixed.

mad, thanks for liking the review! And for your polite criticisms, which I take to heart. I just wanted to make clear that I wouldn't try to troll the readers — that's not even remotely in my interests. There's a difference between having a strong opinion and being purposely inflammatory. If people get upset by a…

GhaleonQ: I made a comment in the games of the decade thread about how Final Fantasy players always have wildly differing opinions about which one is best, and how I think that means the series appeals to players in many different ways. To a lesser degree, that might be a virtue of the Mario games, too. In talking…

The key word is "storytelling." We felt that Vice City was where Rockstar's narrative development really kicked into gear. The storytelling in GTA3 was still pretty thin.

The Myst reference is just a little lighthearted hyperbole, although I do enjoy the fact that you skipped "it was a joke" on the list of rationales and went straight to "he's sitting at his desk trying to figure out the most diabolical ways to piss off the readers!!!!!!!!!!!!"