The old used games debate is back again with a vengeance.http://www.bitmob.com/articles/why-used-games-are-nothing-at-all-like-piracy-even-for-developers In any case, I guess it’s time to reiterate my normal position on this. I normally buy new games when given the choice because it’s usually not a huge drain on the budget to do so. Buying new injects more copies into the used stream anyway. I’m not really doing this because it’s piracy or anything, but instead I’m trying to support the developers in making more games that I enjoy.

There has been a debate recently about a ground zero mosque. They certainly have the right to build it, but I believe that tolerance runs both ways and we must not let their intolerance become our intolerance just because we tolerate their right to build on their property. Thus, one idea I had was that someone should build a restaurant that serves many things including pork products. But in the name of accepting the new neighbors in town, I figured there could be a new combination platter.

Books: I started reading the Odyssey collection from Keith Laumer, but then a chapter in I realized that I had read this book before… I realy need to shell out for a few more e-books! Games: 14: Gurumin: A Monstrous Tale. Fun game, a bit of an action rpg. Platforming elements are tough though, it’s not very forgiving. Camera is dreadful on the final boss, but the game in general is pretty fun.

I think I’m shelving Crimson Gem Saga again. I just can’t get back into the game after all this time… I can’t find a single thing the game does superbly. Everything is either moderately bad or moderately good. But I also looked into all of the other things I currently have for my PSP and found that I didn’t really feel like playing any of them at the moment. Maybe I need to just go ahead and grab Persona 1 at the $30 price on download even though I usually set my limit at $20 for a single game on download.

A week or two ago I heard that Gamestop was doing a promotion where you go to their store between a certain time frame and get a quest map for your DQ9 game. The only problem being that they had no stores within 200 miles of me that had the map. I briefly debated driving all that way, but spending $50 on gas seemed a bit excessive. Now I find out that Best Buy is doing a similar promotion, likely with a different map entirely, and they had a list of stores that were participating.

My last 2 weeks have been utterly consumed by DQ9. I completely forgot about all other games for the entire time since that has been released. Forgot about blogging too… Of course, Sam and Max 304 came out today, which punctured by DQ9 balloon slightly. I’ve already finished the episode though, so I’ll probably go back to DQ9 soon. I figured though… While I was at it I should take a small break from DQ9 and try something else different.

Layton puzzle 076 I ended up having to resort to looking at this to solve it because I found a solution even lower, and had to figure out which one they had decided to use of the higher ones. The lower method? Stack 4 tiles as they show, then hold another one perpendicular to the rest, giving you a 12x12 square… Maybe they forgot to say that all of the tiles must be oriented in the same way…

Blizzard had this bright idea recently to make it so everyone exposed their real names when posting on forums and talking across world boundaries. People were predictably upset at this. I think that the perfect time to implement this would be right around September 22nd. That way all the disaffected WoW players will go pick up Final Fantasy 14… Kidding aside, the real question is both why Blizzard didn’t see this coming, and the other is why people are so upset about this, and what alternatives are there?

Books: 9. Temple of the Winds. I read through this mainly because someone on IRC kept preaching about how bad the series was, and trying to pull out the absolute worst parts out of context to prove his point. I’ve read the first 3, so I figured I would give the 4th one the benefit of the doubt. I actually enjoyed this one more than the 3rd one. Games: I can’t believe how many I finished this month… But many of them were really short.

I’ve finally finished this game at 51 hours. Here’s a little mini review. It’s a rather traditional RPG in the Suikoden vein with a huge number of collectible characters. More characters than you could possibly use in fact. I think the biggest battle in the game only uses about 24 out of the 90 some characters that are playable. You actually need to collect 108 characters to get the best ending in traditional Suikoden fashion.