Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. I really like this Car Talk radio show. Don't say we didn't warn you.

Time once more for me to start ranting about something of absolutely no interest except to myself - that's right, it's time for another installment of What Chris Is Listening To!

In this episode, we'll be examining Mark Knopfler's new album, "Sailing to Philadelphia". Knopfler, as some of you may know, was the lead guitarist and singer for the late 70's/early 80's rock band Dire Straits, but since then he's stuck more to scoring obscure movies and putting out the occasional solo rock/country/bluegrass record. StP is no exception, full of moody character study songs that are interesting on an intellectual level, if not a musical one. Let me repeat that for emphasis - there's nothing here that would interest 99.999% of this columns' readers, based on the musical tastes I've seen thus far. It's simply not that good.

Still, there are two or three standout tracks that are interesting to me - the opening song, "What it is" makes great music for long distance driving (a frequently underappreciated genre, I've found) as does "Speedway at Nazareth", an odd little rock song about a NASCAR driver with faint gospel undertones. And then there's the title track, "Sailing to Philadelphia", about Jeremiah Dixon and Charles Mason's journey to chart their famous line in the 18th century. I'm a little curious if this song was inspired by Thomas Pynchon's recent novel "Mason & Dixon", which dealt with the same subject. In fact, that curiosity was what prompted me to come up with Pynchon from out of nowhere yesterday.

So to recap, strange little CD, but with a few listenable bits that served to fill up this introduction, if nothing else.

Onward.

I can relate to this - while the GIA does not have any kind of demographic research on its readers, I suspect I'm very much in the same group as the abovementioned magazines and programs. I write this column with older gamers in mind - college students who have been playing for years, not to mention the occasional adult who might have a spouse, kids, a job and a mortgage, and yet still enjoys the occasional Square game. If high schoolers can get into it too, more power to them, but should I not even talk about Fear Effect because a few of my readers might be 12 year olds? Hell no, sez I, and if developers want to market their games in the most direct way possible - that is, by advertising on the shows that game players actually watch - then I say more power to them.

Slight quibble - the Dreamcast will almost certainly get some kind of sales boost from the lack of PS2s this holiday season. Will that be enough to "save" the system? I don't know, but it can't hurt.

But the fact is, I'm not making any kind of long term statements about the survival of the Dreamcast. I'm not challenging the sacred conventional wisdom that Sega will be squashed like the main character in Frogger, lo those many years ago, and I'm not denying that Sony as a whole has done spectacular things with the PS2. But from a personal standpoint, I'm very happy with the Dreamcast, and believe I'll be even happier in the months to come. If they never produced another DC game after Dec. 31, I'd still think I'd gotten more than $200 worth of enjoyment out of my little square box. In contrast, I personally look at the PS2, at the games it has out in Japan already and the upcoming lineup, and I realize that I have absolutely no interest in the PS2 as it currently stands. If you want to get a PS2, more power to you, but surely I'm entitled to my opinion in the meantime, eh?

Ok. I'll keep that in mind... but I still think I'm gonna give this one a miss, thanks all the same.

I love The Simpsons. I think it's the greatest comedy in the history of humanity, and even though these past few seasons have fallen a bit in quality, I still watch it religiously. It is a smart show - any given 8 minutes has more brains than every live action sitcom ever combined. But it is a kid's show - look at the demographic reports on how many 9 year olds watch this thing (and remember, it's been on the air for longer than they've been alive) and tell me it's not. Heck, I started watching it when I was in 7th grade myself. However, the fact that it's a kid's show doesn't also mean that it's not also for adults, everybody from bus drivers to triple PhDs. It just means that if you advertise something on The Simpsons, you will hit nearly every target demographic you can imagine, including kids.

Right, except I'd still argue that design goal or not, the even/odd system has not panned out in hardly any of the recent FFs. As you say, FF7 was supposed to be a balance, and since I see about equal parts praise for the plot and bitching about the Materia system, I'm inclined to believe it. FF8, on the other hand, was at least as system oriented as it was plot oriented, if not much more so. Admittedly much of the system work involved getting rid of some system mainstays (armor, traditional experience and cash systems, MP) but still, it was a very experimental game in the system sense. I haven't played FF9 yet, but what I've read has suggested that getting back to the storytelling roots of the series was the driving force behind the game, not experimenting with new battle techniques. I'll take actual evidence over stated intentions every time.

And besides, Castlevania aside, most of the NES incarnations of series like SMB, Mega Man, and Ninja Gaiden did not follow the standard/experimental/showpiece pattern, especially when you look at the actual SMB2 rather than what the US got.

The good news is, even if you do buy a PS2 for FF, the price will have gone down some and you won't be shelling out $300 for a fancy DVD player. In a way it's like my experience with the original PSX - I didn't get one until the day I picked up FF7, and don't particularly regret it since all the games I've wanted to play have been released after that date.

And impulse purchases rock, no question. There's nothing like walking into a store, realizing something incredibly cool is on their shelves and dropping a load of cash to possess it ASAP. I only wish I had more disposable income so I could indulge in the practice more often.

Right... except who's to say that you wouldn't find a zombie decapitations amusing if you hadn't been marketed to your whole life? Riddle me that, Batman.

In the interests of beating a perfectly ok one-line joke into the ground, I have to admit I was thinking of something a little different - Ash as the bored yuppie trainer who was dissatisfied with his complete pre-pakaged collection of Ikea Pokemon, and Pikachu as the skuzzy Tyler Durden charater. Misty could be Marla, and Brock could be... I dunno, the blonde guy or something. I like your take on things, but I better stop obsessing on it lest I end up writing some comically inept fanfic on the idea.

Setting aside completely who said what, let's think about this rationally for a second. On the one hand, we have MGS2 in development, which is a completely 3D title built for a next gen system. And as numerous high quality ports have already shown, it's not terribly difficult to port a 3D game from one system to another, provided the hardware's powerful enough to take an emulation hit. Both the X-Box and PS2 certainly are.

On the other hand, we have Kojima, who's so protective of his games that he refused to have a Snatcher PSX translation made unless he was part of the team, which he couldn't be because of time constraints. Now, I can't see a straight X-Box port of MGS 1 selling unless it had significant extras, and I can't see Kojima taking time out to help remake a game when he's designing the sequel. So what are the chances that MGSX is anything other than a port of MGS2? I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

This is kind of an odd take on things, from my perspective. It's like saying, "well, they're only beating you up and taking your money, it's not like they're stealing your girlfriend and shooting you in the face." Certainly it's a relief that I'm not being shot and that the arcades are still open, but that's not an excuse for the government to even start thinking about censorship.

Jeez, Jemmy, you're so melodramatic. "The darkside," hah. The way you talk, you'd think this nifty mechanical hand I just got was a symbol of evil or something...

Case in point, I don't remember that there were such drastic cuts in the number of units shipped in Japan during the launch over there - far from it, Sony shipped a record number of consoles opening day, and yet we're being provided with half as many boxes for a much larger and far more spread out population. It is true that anyone who was serious about getting one opening day should have preordered in March or April, I can't argue that. But when you consider that people who preordered over the summer were being told they might not get one until March 2001, and that that was before the ship estimate fell from 1 million to 500,000 units, I personally stop wondering if the system is overhyped and start taking it as gospel truth.

And besides, if the system is really cool right out of the box, I'll just swallow my principles and whine and plead to go over to a friend's house and play it there. I'm not proud.

Closing Comments:

It's the weekend, which means freedom for me and letters for AK. I'll return Monday, so flee whilst you still can. Later folks.

-Chris Jones, "Come on Jemmy, just let me play one round of Tekken! Please?"