I don't pretend to understand the circumstances surrounding my occasional interest in RPG's. Like Tycho said it hits about every three years or so and when it does I usually pick up two or three titles. Then I inevitably get to points in the games that remind me why I hate RPG's so much and that usually snaps me out of it. Then I can go back to playing something fun like Soccer Slam or REZ.

The second (and final) portion of The Cycle can be found in your grocer's freezer. Barring that, we've also made it available on the site.

I want Scott Kurtz to have my baby. This quote of his from the Comicon thread regarding his latest strips sums up my feelings pretty well:

I couldn't be happier.

Real quick, I thought it was too good to be true, and it is too good, but it's still true. As hinted at in the ending of the International FFX, we'll soon see a bit of troubling continuity in Final Fantasy. Not that these are true sequels, mind you, there's just more story to tell. I'm glad we'll be given the opportunity to continue, as I was despondent by the end of FFX. I really wasn't done playing.

Jesus.

Well until Hunter came out I could honestly say there was no reason for me to own an X-Box. If it was just Hunter I would probably be happy playing it on Tycho's. After seeing Panzer Dragoon and Psychonauts in action though I know I need one of my very own. I have not actually purchased it yet, but I am planning on renting out the apartment next door so that I have some place to keep it.

Things were difficult enough for him when there was just the KOTOR issue to deal with. It might as well be said: like the God issue, and at least as important, the Xbox is one of the few things he and I can still argue about. But Sega's apparent dedication to the Xbox was going to reel him in sooner or later, as it did me - it was just a matter of which title was going to do it. Seeing his dragon's bug-wings iridescent in the rain was probably too much for the poor child, and flying down through columns of devastating, beautiful airships probably didn't help matters any.

Though this term accurately represents my sleep schedule, I'm actually referring to a game I saw last week.

Like Tycho I have also been getting quite a bit of mail asking for my opinions on Game "X". I honestly never even saw many of the games that people want me to comment on. That isn't to say they weren't there. A quick look at Gamespot reveals a whole host of titles that escaped my detection on the show floor. Like Tycho said, we go down there as gamers not journalists. My goal isn't to see every title on the floor or even every title in a booth. I see something cool in the distance and I wander over to it, then I see something else cool and I go over there. In fact even in our little group we all ended up splitting up. The crew broke down into Batjew, Kiko and I. We went off to look at all the action and fighting games. Tycho, Monkey and Pork wanted to see all the Strategy shit. They don't care that King of Fighters on the GBA is fucking great and I don't care that Dynasty Tactics is apparently the shit. If you want detailed coverage of all the games at the show go to Gamespy or Gamespot. If you want to hear about the stuff I liked keep reading.

• Planetside Shit: I never did get in to see the game I was most excited about, but a couple guys from Planetside Center hooked me up with what they saw. They put up some good stuff on their site as well, and everybody can have some.

• C&C Generals Stuff: This is a great description of the Generals demo that was shown at E3, and I trust Warrior to tell the story. A couple E3's ago, he and I were lamenting the lack of properly modeled supressive fire in squad-based first person shooters, and it was then that I decided to keep an eye out for his opinions on things.

• Jon Katz Review of Dogtown and Z-Boys: I started caring about pop-culture documentaries when they started talking about my culture. This one joins Scratch and Bang the Machine in a recent spate of gleeful examinations.

• Silent Hill 3: I already talked about it a little bit, but I need to explicitly establish that I think Silent Hill is the best franchise in gaming. This IGN Article claims that the story contains all new characters, which is fine, but a little disappointing - from the vague dialogue present in the trailer, I'd let myself hope that the new, female protagonist was connected to the first game. I won't say how, because I'm nice. Whatever anyone says, until I have more information, I choose to believe that Konami's gone for a bit of continuity in number three.

• GameSpot's Shenmue II Coverage: There was a button on the controller you could manipulate to change the look of the game at any time - the basic one with a light glow around all characters, a black and white filter, and a red/orange filter. It doesn't really look as good as I was hoping it might, but it's not done yet, and no matter how it turns out it'll at least load faster than the DC version. Sheesh.

• Mashimaro: Think "Marshmallow." Think of an insane nation that lets creatures like this run free.

Today's strip goes out to Rosario and Matt, who stood behind Gabe in the Bruce Campbell line - since they sat there for nearly three hours, they had a chance to get acquainted. Today's comic isn't our story, so much as it is their story, which I will now relate.

But some accessories are really cool, like one that would let me make pasta or perhaps control sea life. And don't even get me started on peripherals.

I'm typing because my voice doesn't work anymore.

Each day at the Nintendo booth they do a little game show sort of thing were you could win a Wave Bird. I woke up this morning and I told everyone that today I was going to win one. They all laughed at me but I knew it was the truth. I was like Babe Ruth calling his shot. I pointed to the Nintendo booth and said today a wireless controller will be mine. After two hours in line with Porkfry we had finally worked our way to the front. That is When Monkey showed up and slipped into line with us. Along with about eight other people we took our places around the prize wheel. The prizes started spinning as we all clapped and banged on the counter top. As the wheel slowed I noticed the little cardboard cut out of a Wave Bird moving closer and closer. It stopped right between me, and the guy to my left. We both looked at it and then looked at each other. As I sized him up a large man in a Nintendo shirt put his hand on my shoulder and said “you’re a winner, stay seated.” I did as I was told and looked across the table to see that Monkey to was still seated as well. We both glanced over to see that a girl and her boyfriend where also still with us. I shot monkey a look that said, “we must destroy these people”. The four of us were then led to a big screen TV and a row of movie style seats located high above the Nintendo booth. Each seat had a Wave Bird resting next to it and Mario Party 4 was on the TV. We took our seats and a woman explained that we would play seven party games. For each victory you would receive a point. As we came to the last game Monkey and I both had two points, the guy had one and the girl had one. Each character now had a stamp and the goal was to bounce around a giant piece of paper. The player who was able to cover the most surface area by the end of the game would be the winner. The match started and we were off, each of us stamping like mad. I looked over and noticed that monkey was actually just following along behind the other guy. He was actually stamping over every square of color this poor bastard put down. It was a brilliant strategy and I immediately put it into effect against his girlfriend. Getting teamed up on in such a way must have been extremely frustrating for both of them. Or at least I like to imagine it was. The game ended and when the stamps were added up Yoshi was the winner. I got the last point of the game and as I walked off a woman congratulated me and handed me a small velvet bag with the words Wave Bird stitched into it. I was a winner.

There was a strange moment where we were talking to humans from LucasArts, and they said that they were big fans, and we said that we were the Goddamn fans around here, and it nearly came to blows with us trying to determine who respected the other more. More surreality from the E3.