Lusipurr - 21:10 GMT

No currents this week, so the letter supply is small. Oliver Motok's illness is having a negative effect on the column. I may have to cure him with a procedure of my own devising. It calls for the application of a topical solution followed by blunt force. If nothing else, following his treatment, I can guarantee he will never develop any illnesses ever again.

Send me your letters.

I will now address your tiresome and annoying questions.

I have never actually thought about it. Rinoa had a pet dog, I recall, which she used in combat. In MMORPGs, as you have duly said, the pets are just an automatic weapon system; a portable platform for assailing one's foes.

Where are all the video game pets? The most developed pets I can think of are the pixls from Super Paper Mario, but I expect that conclusion hinges on what one is willing to call a 'pet'.

Perhaps we must accept that, in video games, people do not take their pets adventuring with them. Of course, adventurers are often called on to find lost pets in exchange for some item or other.

What about you, dear readers? Can you think of games with pets as developed characters? Send me your letters.

That is a hard question because I am only on the second disc. If I had to change anything, I would change the menu system slightly and would install a feature allowing me to instantly equip my characters from shops (such as in Final Fantasy XII). That is really my only complaint, and it is quite minor.

I am glad to hear you are enjoying Lost Odyssey. This really is the sort of game that comes along but rarely, and I cannot impress enough upon my readers the value of playing it. If you love RPGs, you owe it to yourself to play this game.

Agree? Disagree? Send me your letters.

Take a look at the dates on the updates. You will see that they were not updated after February 2006 until a year and a half went by. The next single update came in September 2007, and then nothing until 2008. Since the beginning of the year, there have been five updates--I am not entirely sure why, possibly to do with Matt's SOCK contest. At any rate, I think it is pretty much dead, regardless of whether or not there has been some recent, short-term updating. If it continues to be updated, I may well put it back.

Readers are still, of course, encouraged to write in and to tell me the origin of the quote of the week. If they include a question with it, all the better. Maybe I could make a contest out of it. If you send in a question with your quote, and if your question makes the column, I can give you one point. At the end of six months, I will tally it up and the person with the most points will get a free RPG for the console of their choice.

How about that for an incentive? Do you want a free game? Send me your letters.

This week's column is short. I would like to expand it to five letters or more, but I need more letters to do that. Now, there is even a contest cracking along. Everyone likes free games, right? I know I certainly do.

RPGamer's Grand New Feature is finishing up its initial workings. Mycroft, my doughty aid, has proven invaluable in assembling the various parts of the whole. I can now reveal that the new feature will involve the appearance of me in video format for all the world to see. What will I be doing? Where will I be? Will I fall down a lot? These are the sort of questions which you must wait to see answered. Or, you could write me a letter and ask. If I am in the giving mood, I might answer you.

Or, I might not.

Until next week, pip pip!

p.s. Send me your letters.