Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not neccessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. Blink and you may miss everything. Don't say I didn't warn you. :)

Today's column is rather brief, and for that you have my apologies. I've alot to attend to today, but brief is better than nada. Won't happen again.

While Allan was using a public bathroom, a large man in a Xenogears shirt sidled up next to him. Accusing Allan of trying to keep Xenogears from being released in the first place and seeing to it that it got a shoddy translation, the man threatened Allan's life if Chrono Cross wasn't created and released in America. Being without his shotgun that day, Allan had no choice but to send one of his minions down to Square HQ and give them the go ahead.

Oh, I don't know. I suppose some people had problems trying to line up jumps with the unusual camera angles. Or maybe some people kept falling thanks to the ever-helpful five seconds prior to battle in which you can move but can no longer jump. Or maybe some people got tired of fighting boring, uninspired foes every three steps. It's hard to say.

Okay, so I'm still bitter about the hours I spent plummeting to the bottom of that damned tower, I admit it.

Seeing as AK, our lead programmer and web dude, is barely keeping his head above water in his Calc II class, it's hard to say. We're shooting for August.

As far as a know, what instrumentation and sound sets Nobuo chooses to go with are entirely up to him. Why does he not go with some better sounding stuff? Why not even redbook audio? I don't know. I suppose redbook would be tough to fit into a reasonable number of discs with all the FMV Square packs into the Final Fantasies, but beyond that I guess the only person who knows for sure is Nobuo himself.

Naturally we'll be covering the RPGs and Adventure games that make their way to the Dreamcast, but don't get too excited. Chances are good we're still going to be buying the percetage of them like everybody else.

But we're devoted to providing top-notch coverage, and we won't give the Dreamcast the cold shoulder. In fact, most of the staff is looking forward to purchasing one of the newfangled little devices. I'm sure our Sega loving readers will be glad to hear this. Both of them.

And conversely...

I posted these two letters to see what kind of response I get from you readers who have tried these handy little devices. To be honest, I've never tried one myself nor seen one in action. I know that they do allow you to play imports and back ups (read copies), but I'm not exactly sure how well they work, and these are both excellent questions.

So I ask those of you out there who have tried out a Pro Action Replay or something like it what you think about these queries. I'm looking into getting one for myself so I'd love to get the facts from those of you who have used them yourself.

Selling out

Sure, PE did well on both sides of the Pacific. However, it only did well here because of that ad campaign featuring all thecool CG FMVs and nifty advertising slogans. They were too powerful for theaverage gamer to resist. Square was trying to appeal to the average gamer with Parasite Eve, as shownby the modification to the ATS. Unforunately, they misspent a good book inthe process. Oh, well. Maybe the sequel will be better. -The Professor

Seeing as the plotline of Parasite Eve barely even touched that of the book, Square can still do pretty much whatever they want with the series. Parasite Eve was a fun game in its own right, maybe not a member of the upper echolon of gamedom, but not bad. It's just more proof that an effective ad campaign still holds a lot of sway.