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. Who's Nozomi? Don't say we didn't warn you.

I really wasn't going to buy Shenmue, just because I've seen so many conflicting opinions on the game. But I now have to say that Sega's cunning marketing may have sucked me in, and Shenmue may even be higher on my to-buy list than Skies of Arcadia at this point. Why, you ask? Because of that damn commercial for the game that played during King of the Hill last night.

I won't spoil it for those of you who haven't seen it, and heck, I'm not even gonna argue that it's one of the all time great commercials in television history. It just cracked me up when I saw it, and even now it brings a smile to my face. Typically lowbrow irreverent Sega, to be sure, and I love them for it. Great stuff.

Onward.

Admit it, AWJ, you're not sorry you made me look foolish. You live for it, don't you? Don't you? LIVE FOR IT I SAY!!!!

Er, anyway. Yes, you are in fact correct. Ever since 1991, way back when I noticed that you could open up an item menu when standing in front of poor, petrified Palom and Porom, I'd assumed that there must be a way to free them, either via an item I hadn't discovered yet, or an item that simply wasn't available because of cuts in the US version. Now these many years later I actually research the topic and find out that there is in fact no way to bring them back until they're resurrected during the course of the story. Wild, man, you learn something new every day.

But hey, at least I know that General Leo can't be brought back, so that should count for something... right?

Just to be completely anal about it, I think Mr. Woolsey also translated Final Fantasy Legend III. Hopefully this ends biography week on obscure translators, and we can move on now.

Wow, that's weird... especially since I'd have thought the mechanism for displaying Japanese text would have been removed during the translation process. Interesting stuff... anybody else have a similar experience to report?

Not quite sure I understand your logic here, Jemmy... are you implying that the rest of us are somehow less than l33t because we rush to purchase a new FF the minute it comes out, rather than waiting on a more obscure but potentially more thematically interesting title?

If so, good for you! You're correct, we're all mindless drones dancing to Square's tune, and eternity spent playing FFMQ would be too good for us. Your childish whining has opened my eyes to my own inadequacy... excuse me, I must now go study super ninja death style kung fu in a far off monastery in Albuquerque.

Nothing would happen - see, essentially you've created a useless variable that a good compiler would simply optimize away, such that it never existed in the first place. That's why you don't remember finding that magic wishing ring in the first place... the event now exists only in debugging traces. Sad, really.

It's not just you - I haven't seen hardly anything on the game, even the letters in the column have been light on the subject. It's understandable, with the PS2 and Zelda providing some stiff competition, and you're probably right that the advertising blitz will be heaviest over the holidays. Still, I have to wonder if Square's as well prepared for this launch as they should be. Today I was having a conversation with a friend who remarked that he didn't care for Zelda, Dreamcast, PS2, he was just waiting for the next FF and wondered when it would be coming out. Needless to say he was taken aback when I pointed out that it was out tomorrow. Of course, he's a grad student who hasn't seen the light of day in years, but still...

And just for the record, not everybody has to apologize for writing long letters, ok?

I noticed that too, but haven't seen a lot of disk scratches as a result. You're not putting jacks or razor blades inside the cases as well, are you?

And fear not, I'm sure that once Square switches to DVD style cases for their PS2 games, the problem will no longer arise... for a while. We'll have a few months of security until someone realizes they can save a few pennies per copy by shipping in regular jewel cases, at which point it'll be back to rattling multi-CD cases. And won't that be fun?

Closing Comments:

Never doubt the wisdom of Homer Simpson, for his bizarre snippet of dialog above combined with Jemmy's ranting this weekend on vocabulary have seeded my feeble mind with the topic for tomorrow's column.

The question is, to what extent does love, romance, etc. work for you in a game? Since nearly every RPG ever made has the standard story of "boy meets girl, rescues girl, saves world (including girl) and lives happily ever after", are you getting tired of the same old same old, or is it like dragons and swords and castles, something you never get tired of? Have you ever seen a relationship on your PSX that might have been believable in the real world, or would that even work in a game? Enlighten me with your letters, and I'll see you tomorrow.

-Chris Jones, driving as far as he can on an eighth of a tank of gas