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. I am the man found dead at the bottom of Shamu's tank. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Well, this is it. Allan's had to take his leave so that he can readjust to college life and living independently. He should be back to host weekends once things settle down, so you're not forever without his own special brand of wit.

Now begins my reign... or something. I've had my practice, and I think I'm good and ready to take whatever the life of the daily letters columnist can throw at me. So bring it on. Is that the best you can do?

To be serious for just a moment, something I generally try to avoid doing, I'm going to do my best to not only keep the column as fresh and humorous as it was before, but hopefully make it even a little better. I look forward to hearing from you readers, and I think we're going to get along just fine. Sound good? Good, then let's get this crap in gear.

Yes, I do know as a matter of fact. It was Mister Mitsuda who wrote that fine little ditty. Reading this letter reminds me that I have to update the nickname creator. I'll work on that sometime this upcoming week. Then you can waste more of your time repeatedly clicking a button to generate barely-coherent nicknames too long to be spouted out in a single breath. I know I'm looking forward to it.

My basic sentiment is that if the voice acting is good, it only adds to the game, just as good music adds to a game. Bad voice acting certainly doesn't help, but if the rest of the game makes up for it, it can usually be overlooked. An excellent example would be Resident Evil, the benchmark for crappy voice acting.

However, I'm not sure I could handle an entire 40 hour RPG if the voice acting totally blew. I'm afraid to come near Star Ocean 2, I might have to eject it from my Playstation and throw it into oncoming traffic after five hours of that horrid post-battle commentary. However, if the voice acting was done well, it could certainly make the experience more immersive and cinematic in presentation. You may or may not agree with me on this one, but personally I thought FFVII's ending would have been all that much better with a little verbalization. The whole movie-like presentation with nothing but background music thing just didn't do it for me.

Hey, to each his own I guess. If you really think the game sucks that much, I can't imagine sticking it out for the duration just because you like the music, especially when you already own the soundtrack, but that's just me. Further proving that everybody has their opinion, a lot of people felt the 16-bit sounding musical scores were one of FFVII's low points.

Oh, and there's no way in Hell I'm going to touch your comments regarding FFVII. That's one argument I'd like to see chained to a Kia and tossed to the bottom of the ocean.

Personally, I think the N64 has enough games to make it worth keeping around. And hey, you made the mistake of asking me for my opinion, so now you're just going to have to hear it. The RPG line up is pretty much nonexistent, but with upcoming games like Zelda Gaiden and Ogre Battle (assuming Nintendo decides to brings it stateside), there's going to be some good stuff coming out in the near future. Me, I'm just praying for Earthbound 64, baby. What other series lets you beat the hell out of little piles of space vomit with baseball bats and frying pans while trying to save the world from your next-door neighbor? Gotta love it.

That's a really tough one to call. There's a pretty decent sized lineup of RPGs slated for Sega's upcoming system, but the quality remains to be seen. I'm not saying the games for it will inherintly suck, I'm just saying that it's simply too early to call. Shen Mue should be excellent, and the Phantasy Star team is already working on their own little project currently known as Project Ares, so there should be some quality games to fiddle with.

Sega has a year head-start, we'll just have to wait to see if all the pieces fall into place. I'd hate to see a company that's been around cranking out consoles for so long totally bite the dust after such a valiant effort, but that's the way the industry is.

General rule of life: People love to bitch. Seriously. About anything. The world could suddenly be transformed into a beautiful paradise, and somebody would bitch that the rdiant sunshine was making their skin itch. Since etiquette prevents people from allowing the animal within to take over and go around growling and snapping at one another's necks, we allow it to manifests itself as an insatiable urge to bitch.

That's the spirit! After years of moaning and groaning that our beloved Chrono Trigger would never get the sequel it so deserved, when news of a sequel is finally revealed everybody's instinct is to cynically cry out, "It's gonna suck, dude!". When you start to play a game scrutinizing it down to the very minutiae, just because you're so sure it's going to suck, how the hell can you expect to enjoy it? Did you start playing the original Chrono Trigger thinking to yourself, "Jeez, after FFVI, everything Square does will be a letdown. I think I'll try and point out every minor detail that can be seen as sucking".

Don't get me wrong, square ain't exactly lilly white, but if you play a game intent on finding reasons why it sucks, you better believe you're not going to enjoy it.

Assuming the Pocketstation makes it to America, it would only be about 30 bucks. And yeah, from what I hear they suck on battery life. To be honest, I doubt it would enjoy the success here that it has in Japan, though. But then, I swear the Japanese will buy any piece of plastic that has a microchip inside, no matter what it does.

All the more reason it should rot in the darkest corners of Hell.

See my reply to your 4th comment.

Nope. We at The GIA thank you for the submission of your editorial. We will pass it through our panel of reviewers, and we will notified you of your status by mail within 6 to 8 weeks. Thank you for entering.

Sounds good. Personally, as well as the backdrop for an RPG is well crafted I'm not a stickler for the feel to it. I liked FFVII's futuristic feel, mainly Midgar, I liked Zelda's medieval setting, and I even liked Earthbound's more down to earth locales (and that rank pun was not intended, I assure you). Why limit yourself to enjoying only one or two types of settings? As long as a game's world is detailed and well-designed so as to draw you further into the game, a few castles or automobiles shouldn't be a deciding factor as to whether or not you enjoy it.

Jeez, I'm pretty damn Zen-like and non-offensive today. What's up with that?

As the first person to send me an entirely assinine and startlingly odd attempt at humor as Double Agent, I award you Drew's Sexalicious Award. May you print this page and make a little pin out of it to show off to all of your friends and family with pride. Despite the fact that it will be rather small once printed out, everyone you meet will be filled with desire and lust whenever you are in their presence. Use its powers only for good, or else I'll have no choice but to send an armada of heat seeking tornadoes, vicious dogs, breakdancers, and guys humping pogo sticks after you next time you're on your paper delivery route. When everyone realizes that you are incapable of weilding the awesome powers of the Sexalicious Award, they'll paint their houses red and discontinue their pre-paid subscriptions, despite being only midway through them. I know that neither of us really wants that.

Thanks Josh. Not only are my columns a bunch of cynical viewpoints and random thoughts formed into nearly-coherent sentences on my part, they're also learning experiences. Stay tuned next week when I teach you how to hate a videogame before even playing it backwards on a snowboard in only your boxer shorts all while slamming a Dew.

Well, guess what? It's in 3D! Although he finally agreed to the creation of a Chrono Trigger sequel, Allan excerted his ungodly control over Square and insisted the game be entirely 3D to piss of 2D purists and people incapable of accepting change the world over. Allan always gets the last laugh. Before taking his leave of absence from DA, he had sex with all of your girlfriends just to show you.

I only hope I can fill such shoes.

Closing Comments

So get this. In order to prove to us Americans that they really aren't a bunch of corporate tight asses with no grounds in reality nor their Western consumer base, Square has decided to host their own little ESPN2 "extreme" event. That's a swell idea! Everybody knows the best way to win over Americans is to sponsor an event featuring such "extreme" sports as skateboarding, bicycling and rollerblading, all of which have been played out by every other corporate empire looking to prove how hip they are to the extent that they're about as out-there as needle point.

Square reminds me of the nerdy kid in school who always looked down his nose at everyone until he realized he was pissing people off and hosted a tea party to win back favor, only to look all the more the condesending ass. What, you mean there wasn't one of those kids at every elementary school?

And thus ends today's column. I have to save some of these outstated opinions for later columns, with an entire week to fill I can't spread my cynicism too thin.

-Drew Cosner, your long lost uncle