Well, there's been a significant response to the two letters printed yesterday. Lots of contest entries, a few truly irate letters, and about six people who recognized them for that they truly are.

Frauds.

Yes dear, those letters, exactly ten paragraphs apiece, are the creations of an automatic complaint letter creator, which can be found right here, at Scott Pakin's site. Yes, you too can send a long, non-specific letter of rage and regret. Please note that I will not be printing such things again. I just thought it was a fun lark, and a good way to run a pointless, but sincere, contest (most common translation: "Dear Agent, you suck.". Oh, and if you were tricked by it, don't worry. A lot of people were. Hell, I've received real (hand-written, even) letters that sounded a lot like those.

Please note that I received upwards of forty entries into the contest, so the results will probably take a day to announce, judgement pending until I can read them all properly.

Whew. Okay, so today is Q&A Day. Some are serious, some are not, but I'll answer them all, just because I'm that kinda guy. And because that's the whole point of the bloody column. Ahem. Let's see what's what, shall we? Note: to protect the innocent, all the questions are in one, massive lump, not divided by author.

False.

No. I explicitly said otherwise. Completely changing the story would be more work than it could possibly be worth. They'll probably market it with more emphasis on action and adventure, but changing the game's story? Radically departing from the text? Not a chance in hell. If they're willing to leave in Evangelion reference in FF7, I somehow doubt they'll 180-degree their policies for FF8's release.

Are you joking? Hell no. I'd sooner saw off my own leg with a rusty straight razor than give away Super Dodgeball.

Then again, if I can find a new copy, this might make for a pretty nifty contest. Perform some yet-undecided task, and win a copy of the ass-kickingest game ever created by man or god. Hmmmmmm.

Because it's often used as a replacement for actual gameplay. This stems from such early, frightening and obnoxious FMV-heavy titles like Sewer Shark, Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, and the fear continues up to titles like FF7 and Another Mind. The worst use of FMV is having it in place of a game - simply stringing together FMV sequences with minimal interaction from the player, maybe pressing a button or moving the controller. The thinking on too many games is that FMV is so cool and so dazzling that you really don't need to have fun. You'll just be spellbound by the pretty moving pictures. Moreover, FMV takes up a lot of memory, and chews up a lot of production time and dollars, which could be spent on the game itself instead.

Myself, I think FMV is good in moderation. Some are more extreme, claiming that any game with FMV is not a true video game. But ah well.

I've given up trying to explain why it won't be ported over. It might be because the translation for FF2 US, being for Easy Type, would be of limited use for the Hard Type version in the PSX version. Maybe they live in fear of bad press. Maybe they don't think Americans deserve such a glorious game. Or maybe their pet chihuahua, Poochie, told them not to. I don't know. It could be reasons we don't know about. I give up. You want to find out why, you squeeze an explanation out of them. And here's a hint: it's not gonna be easy.

Practice.

I thought it was pretty damn mediocre. Not actively bad, but it's just so, so... I can't think of anything to recommend it for. The gameplay's okay, the graphics are okay, the music is okay, it's an okay rip-off of Mario Kart, the characters are kinda cute, yadda yadda. Get the picture? It's the ultimate C-class game. It's not offensively poor, but I'd be hard-pressed to recommend it to anyone except Chocobo-loving diehards.

I think DQ7's chances hinge very heavily on the success of Star Ocean 2, the other Enix RPG being brought over this year. If SO2 kicks booty, I suspect that Enix will look more kindly upon licensing Dragon Quest out for US release. If SO2 flops, they'll probably take that as an indication that letting their RPGs get released in the US is a waste of money, and not license DQ.

Because, very often, the track will be repeated one or twice for each track, which takes up time. And, more to the point, all the games you mentioned produce most of their music through the PSX's internal sound chip. In that format, put together, all the music in those three games might take up a single CD. On the flipside, at length, they get rather long, and hence take up more CDs than the game itself, since CD players don't have PSX sound chips in them.

Depends on how fast the cat eats the mouse. If the mouse if just finishing off the cheese when the cat nabs it, the cheese will still be in the mouse's stomach, and thus reach the taste buds of the cat. However, if there's a decent time lapse involves, the mouse will digest the cheese, and be the time the cat rips into the stomach of the mouse, it will taste only poo.

Dragons and Dragoons are not the same thing. A Dragon is a large, mythical, scaly creature that tend to hoard treasure and be slain by heroes who never need to pee. A Dragoon is, alternately, a cavalryman, or a term for coercing or forcing someone to do something. The former definition is more germane to the subject - cavalrymen in the middle ages would use lances, something no one else could make any use of at all. Final Fantasy Dragoons use lances, so I guess that's where they got the name. Hence, becoming a Lancer/Dragoon isn't that difficult a proposition. Just don't ask me where the jumping schtick came from, because I haven't the faintest idea.

Seventeen shades for each sense I have, one pair of fuzzy dice, I travel only with my masseuse, Hildago, my mistress, Rebecca the Whip, and Josef Stalin's embalmed head. And three. Everyone knows that.

In some parts of the world, in some circumstances, they do just that. I know that, in some parts of Britain, exams are marked on such a system. As for the US/Canadian system, it's a matter of policy from way back. I suspect it stems from the ideals of American culture - success is prized and categorized. If you fail a task, there's no consolation prize or division. You can win in all sorts of ways, but if you fail, you're nothing.

Anyone who knows the historical context of this is free to tell me, since it's out of my realm of knowledge.

Clinton would spank the other five of us like newborn babies. All GIA staffers are pretty messed up, and lord knows that Adams and Weird Al have extra-flaky crust, but when it comes to bullshit, no one can beat a President. They're the pinnacle of lying prowess on this little planet of ours.

The airships are protected by the mystical power of the Speed Force, a giant field of invisible energy that surrounds fast-moving, fictional people and creations, and keeps them free from friction or pressure from wind or small particles that whisk by. Think of it as a giant, impenetrable condom for fast-moving objects. Everything just slides off.

Probably not. At best, we'll see a very short "best of" collection, a la FF7 Reunion Tracks, which included three orchestrated tracks, and the rest were picks from the FF7 OSV.

The answer to life, the Universe, and everything, as we all know, is 42. What is the question to the answer?

I hate to break this to you, though you might already know, though it totally contridicts what you have said in the past, but Final Fantasy VIII has come in second as highest selling game in Japan. Do you know what is out doing it? Collections. Thats right, Collections. You know, the RERELEASES? The games that "Traditionally don't sell as well as new games"!!? Well they're outdoing VIII right now. Ooh, it must hurt to be you, losing your dignity and credibility. I don't have the source name of where I got the information (I had actually forgotten it in a fit of laughter of how I was going to write this to you, but It'll come back to me. Either that, or Jonathan Weng 'll tell me), but I'll send it to you as soon as I do, you betcha. How does it feel to be proven WRONG?!?!?!?!?! ha ha ha ha ha.

So (and I know you're tired of hearing this, but we're tired of not knowing,) when, in the bleak future are we going to see the missing staff mug shots?

Are you a god? Let me reword that. Are you some sort of omnipotant being just posing as a totally negative letter answering double agent, who seems to have a thing for socks lit Vestal has for asian women, for the fun of watching us toil in our little computer worlds while we try to get you to answer our questions, namely those about how we can pitch our own game ideas to a company, or are you just that way because you have a really bad attitude towards those as strange as thou art hither?

in decimal ratio form, what is a snowballs chance in hell?

If you have a fetish with socks, Vestal has a fetish with Asian women, and Kaufmann has a fetish with REM, what does Andrea H. have a fetish with?

What would you say to a bi-weekly Larissa and Kelvin comic?

What is the Square root of cheese?

How is my driving ?

on a scale of 1 to 3.76, how do you rate that old coaster of a game, Lagoon?

Why are we only now seeing that you can use WWW.the gia.com to get to the GIA, when its been working now for well over a month and a half?

Why can't we call you Al, Al? I mean, that would only lead us to call you Weird Al at some point. Does that bother you?

Okay, you've rated the games at which you see as the best, the games at which you've seen as medioore, now it's time for the biggie: name for us, the wondering public that hails you as the greatest living being ever (Ha ha I say, as I fall from my chair to the floor), the top ten games that you see best fit to be coasters (not limited to CD's)

Question:(Why are parenthesis looked down upon (I mean, they can be used to make sense of a sentance without ending it ( Yeah what he said (actually it should say wrote( but it doesn't ( but it should)))))?)?

Do you think you can out strange THE Sultan of Strange? If so, I challenge you to a duel to a death of insanity (that is ,if you're not already there. If so to sanity then!)!