Sometime about the start of October I'll be putting up a small list of games I'll be giving away similar to back in the spring. First come, first serve, friends can choose 1 of the games in the list and I'll send it off to them. In return they just have to be sure to post a review of the game once they've had time to play it.

So this is the advanced warning I said I'd give last time around, so that anyone that still hasn't had a chance to post a review can try to take the time to do so. Those that still haven't posted their previous reviews, naturally, won't be able to pick from the new list. (Which of course will include everything that didn't get picked last time plus a couple more that I found doubles of, or just picked up extras of since they were being sold super cheap. >_>)

If anyone has any questions about how this little process works, ask away.

*update*

Since I have a few anime and manga things I was going to pawn off to clear room in the apartment, I'll be adding those things to the list as well.

The disadvantage of cataloging your video game collection with a site like Backloggery is that it catalogs your video game collection. That is to say it makes it easy, with a single glance, to see how freaking large your collection is becoming.

I find daily solace in that most of the guys on Atari Age have game collections that make mine look tiny. Heck, some of them make Kane's collection look tiny.

But the other problem with this is that the desire to have nice even numbers start to kick in. Right now I'm at 398. The temptation to get two more games is ever so strong. >_>

And that's why I've already technically bought some! But they're with a person through Atari Age so it'll be arriving in the mail later next month. ;)

Thanks to their insistance on gutting their only copy of Disgaea Infinite to put on the shelf. At $19.99, even though it's essentially just a visual novel of sorts, it was cheap enough for me to want to buy it. So I went up to the counter and asked if they had a sealed copy. The clerk checked it out and informed me that it was their only copy.

He was going to call their other store in town to see if they had any unmangled product but I told him that was fine - I didn't have time to run across town. And it's true, I was on my way to work which is the only reason I was in that store. (Waiting for the bus.) I'm going to leave for work early today and go take a run up around the other store in town that will most likely have a copy. Last time this happened, with Mimana, they not only had an unmangled copy of the product, they were selling it 10 dollars cheaper. That was another reason why I didn't let the clerk call the other store. I didn't want to feel obligated to go buy it from the other store if I can potentially find it cheaper elsewhere.

I should start a counter on how much money ebgames/gamestop has lost due to their insistance on mangling product and calling it still new. With just these two games alone, that total is now up to $69.98. (49.99 and 19.99)

Normally they sell for about 40-50 bucks around here locally. So it wasn't that hard for me to decide to buy the last two batteries at Zellers the other day that they were selling for 20 each. One of them was a Stamina battery (2200mAh) while the other was one of the older standard batteries (1800mAh). With this, I can feel a bit more at ease with the PSP. Odds are the PSP itself will die before I run out of functional batteries.... which means I should see about getting a second PSP in the future!

I don't particularly like rechargeables since eventually you know it's going to die. This is one plus I had for the PSP (non-Go variants) since it has an easily replaceable battery. Sony would probably get me on the PS3 train a little easier if they had controllers that had easily replaceable batteries. (As it is, your PS3 controller is fit for the garbage when it's rechargeable battery no longer holds a charge. The instructions given for removal of the battery in the instruction manuals is for the purpose of recycling, not replacement. Essentially you're not likely, or expected, to get the controller back together afterwards.)

Saturday/Tomorrow I'm going to go checking around at the stores. I have been waiting for a while now for "Sakura Wars: So Long My Love" to be released on the PS2/Wii. In particular I'm planning on getting the PS2 version since I hear it will have dual-audio and whatnot. According to Kotaku, it was released on Tuesday but I didn't see it at ebgames. I'll check the other stores to see if any others have copies. Gamezilla is the most likely bet I suppose.

Additionally on the PSP there's Mimana Iyar Chronicles. Seems somewhat interesting for a rpg so if I don't find Sakura Wars but find that one, I'll pick it up.

*update*

Found neither. I did however pick up a used copy of NanoBreaker for 4 bucks, and a copy of Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey new. (But I should be more careful buying those things in the future. I'll never get either the price tag or the ugly inventory control tag off without ruining the box. It was sealed, like I demand my games to be, but not shrinkwrapped since I guess they expect people to throw these boxes in the garbage just because there's a normal case inside. Oh well.

This is an article by Stan (A person who happens to post at Atari Age as well) taking a closer look at downloadable content for consoles that brings up the question as to whether or not it's really good for the video game industry overall. In particular, the views he tackles in particular are from the collector/gamer approach than the pure gamer approach.

I tend to agree with what he says, since I love having an actual physical collection. Proof of my purchase, and a far more solid reassurance that the games are actually there rather than on some corrupted hard drive/flash disk/etc.

One thing he didn't deal with however is that DLC is a bit more insidious than simply not being able to even get a game (secondhand or firsthand) 10 years down the road if you didn't buy it when it was first released. Sure you can back stuff up in some cases, but that's not always perfect either.

Consider Heavy Rain. A game that, unlike the DL-only Mega Man 10, has a physical disc that you buy. So for collectors, excellent! You can keep it! Display it! And 10 years later you can play it just the same as now right?!

Right?!

But Heavy Rain, like what seems to be an increasing number of modern games, has a lot of bugs in it. Enough so that on zero-day there was already a large enough patch to download and install that they packed in some origami for players to play with while waiting for it to download and install.

Ten years from now are those bug patches going to be (LEGALLY) available? It's not enough to say "I'm sure they'll do something to ensure gamers aren't affected when the time comes." Because that's nothing more than hopeful guessing. Unless you have some inside knowledge to the contrary, it's far safer to assume that players will be SOL since by then they already have your money.

So 10 years later you have your physical copy of the game and you go to reinstall it to play through it a few more times. At best, you have nothing more than a bug ridden game to enjoy. At worse, the PS3 might refuse to play it at all until you download the by then nonexistent bug patches...

I'm the type of gamer that:

1. Will go back years later and play through a game I've enjoyed in the past.

and

2. Buys so many games at times that it takes years before I even get around to PLAY it for the first time.

Seriously. I have about 20 games from as far back as 2008 that are still factory sealed. And many others before that which I opened and maybe played an hour of before getting distracted by the Next Big Thing that I was more interested in. (I do plan on getting back to Doom 3 at some point for instance.)

So what does this mean for me? It means I spend less money on current gen games ... period. Last thing I want to do is buy a game that I won't have time for for a year or three (but have to buy NOW since it likely won't be easily available by then) and by the time I finally get around to playing it, I find out there are massive game wrecking bugs in it and quite likely by the time I first try to play it the patches will no longer be available.

This is why I'm interested in knowing, in particular, whether there are bugs in modern games. I need it to determine if I will be buying a game or not. Minor bugs such as Cool Ass Weapon never actually dropping from a monster you defeat I can probably live with unless you need Cool Ass Weapon in order to complete the game. Game breaking bugs and annoyances however I plan on avoiding like the plague if possible. If I accidentally buy one with a massive bug patch, I'll probably play through it once then trade it in to go buy something else. Ideally tho I'd prefer to avoid purchasing it altogether.

Both finished, and I'm surprised how fast they went overall. Granted I kept a faq handy for when I got stuck. Normally it would be some super obvious thing I overlooked or simply assumed I couldn't do. Overall, I don't think I used them TOO much.

I can't say I ran into any of the buggy shit in my play through of Soul Reaver 2, although I kept a couple save games handy just in case. Well, there was ONE instance where I had killed a thrall that had one of those shield keys in the air forge. Problem is, I killed him against the wall and the shield wasn't dropped. Or rather, I have a sneaky feeling it did drop - inside the wall. Either way I had to reload my last save to give it another go, and from that point on I was careful to kill those critters away from the walls.

I think the faq mentions various bugs and game freezing issues as being related to using reaver codes to gain skills and stuff before the story assumes you get it - something I didn't do.

Oh well, those games are down. Before I pop in Blood Omen 2 I'll take a break and work on some other games. Next on the list, as my backloggery currently indicates, will be a run through the first .hack game series. There may be a couple other games to go before Blood Omen 2 as well, like Crystalis or another grandia game, but we'll see how things go and how long it takes me to go through .hack.

Yes, in an effort to stay awake I am updating the backloggery listing. As predicted, the Unfinished meter ran up so fast I apologize if anyone got whiplash watching it.

*update*

And I think I'm tapped out for the night, or at least for now. Still a lot to add - barely touched the more retro stuff and there's still more PS2 and GC to add. I guess this shows how much gaming I still have to do. ;) I better get Ar Tonelico cleared out this week!

Still working on Ar Tonelico 2 some. The misc stuff and whatnot that aren't required to beat the boss. Getting all the IPD's caught and healed for instance, trying to get as many conversation topics as possible, etc. I know I can't get all the topics with Luca or Cloche without restarting but I did manage to finish off the topics with Mir/Jacqli.

Right now trying to beat that bugged boss, Raki, in the optional fights but... well, that game-freezing bug in the NA release that I have to put up with is a pain. Especially since her attacks otherwise don't hurt me much. I beat her twice already in optional fights at this point. When you beat the Child of Light in Ar Tonelico 1 5 times, she became one of your song magics. It'd be kind of interesting for that to be the case here as well, but I dunno if it will since I haven't bothered reading FAQs for the game. :P

I finished with creating all the various items as well and there should only be like 11 or so more IPDs to catch. Right now they don't seem to be anywhere so I'll just keep fighting regular monsters and doing random synthes until they pop up or something.

Otherwise, I hooked up my genesis and found that it's RF switch seems to have died. Got no picture at all just about but if I plugged in my headphones to it (it's a model 1) then I could hear the music fine. I bought a 3rd party switch today which is better... but still a lot of static on the screen. For this it could be the TV itself rather than the switch. I noticed that most of the consoles I have to plug in this way are fuzzy on the screen so... I might look around for a small 13" tv for these older consoles.

Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying the game a lot. However I've been noticing that this game lacked a proper review of it's translated script with human eyes. Every so often there's an error that's so obvious that it trips you up as you read it. Granted it's easy to understand what they WANTED to say and continue, but still... the major attraction of Ar Tonelico is the conversations and story. It's the last thing you should let slip in quality.

Essentially, it looks like they cut costs by putting all of the text through a spellchecker. Every error that I've seen would not have been caught by a spellchecker, as the words are always spelled right. They just aren't the proper tense, or out of order, or sometimes a word is missing.

I don't recall seeing that happen in the first Ar Tonelico, but it's been a fairly long time since I've seriously played through it as well. It might have been that they were rushing to get this out at the last minute.

Ah well. I still think it's worth picking up for those who enjoy this kind of game. :)