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.

I think it may be time for me to buy new glasses. I’ve had these for 4 years. They are in excellent shape, but I’ve noticed recently that I have been having rather sore eyes. At first I thought it was a cat allergy, but it’s continuing to happen even when the cat isn’t in my room, and we’ve had cats in the house for years. I have been spending long hours on the computer and PS3 recently, but not that much more than normal.

I had to think more about the economics that the E for everyone except me article. What is he suggesting that we do? His complaint is that the market can’t support AAA titles outside of a few genres, but it seems that the real reason he’s complaining is that AAA games in genres that he doesn’t like make games in genres that he does like look worse by comparison. Given this, what does he suggest be done about it?

Awhile back I played a game called Last Rebellion. It was from a small developer who had almost entirely worked on handheld games prior, as well as being a Niche developer even in their native Japan. The game wasn’t great, but it had some interesting ideas and was enjoyable at its $40 price. What struck me about the game was the reviews it got. Nearly every one trashed the game about its graphics.

I keep wondering when I make my little tiny video reviews if I should have a rating system for things. Something subjective like Howard Tayler’s movie rating system (Number of times he will go to the theater to see it.) But I’m far less picky about watching things, and I almost never go to the theater. So maybe I should come up with one that better fits my utter lack of discretion when leaping into watching a new series or video.

(Link Dead) Listen about 7:24 or so. That’s the interference from a GSM type phone, like most of the world has standardized on. Annoying isn’t it?