Zachary Lewis - 12:47 PDT

IT SURE HAS BEEN A very long time since I did a Q&A column. In fact... I think I might have even been the Points of View curator more recently, and that was well over a year ago. In case you don't know who I am, I go by the IRC nickname 'ASV' and I'm RPGamer's Business Manager. That basically means that I try and help us make money so we can pay for contests and site improvements, and so we don't have to overload you with ads and try to cadge you over PayPal any more than we absolutely have to.

In any event, Andrew has taken ill this evening and I will be covering his @$$ for him. So, to quote from StarCraft, "You called down the thunder, now reap the whirlwind!"

Heigh-ho Andrewino,

Having recently bumped off an elderly relative...err...legitimately come into some money, I've been thinking of buying a DS. However, I am now plagued with the all-important question—what color? My Gamecube and SP are silver, so I could match, but the will-never-get-stolen pearl pink edition is looking strangely attractive.

Importing (DSs are region-free) makes it even more hard to choose. Black? Red? White? How do you choose between console colors?

-zoey

P.S. Have you seen the video for The Rumple Strips' Motorcycle? It's pretty spiffy.

My general scheme of choice is to go with the static neutrals: white, black, and grey. But if you're more into the fancy schmancy stuff I'm all about blue... And maybe yellow, but that'd be hard on a person's eyes if they had to stare at it for hours on end. Also, I regret to inform you, but I have not seen the video in question, so I'll have to take your word about its spiffiness.

Hi Andrew long time no read.

I wish I could see snow, in fact it snowed for the first time in my 20 years of life this year although none reached the earth itself. Instead i've got heat and flies. Yay!

I am quite angry at my local "Brand name" store as they can't seem to get Mario Kart DS in. Well actually they have it, just you have to buy a DS to get it which does not help those of us who already own a DS. But they actually got Pokemon DS 5 days earlier then schedualed. Bah, so, angry!

Anyway what is your opinion on a Zelda movie. Could it be as bad as the cartoon? or even worse, the Mario Bros. movie. Anyway still crossing my fingers that M K DS will be in on monday, and maybe even Fire Emblem if i'm lucky. Or I could pay $20 in fuel and go to an actual game store. We'll see.

~Bainick

I have had some bad gaming retail experiences myself, but seeing as I work as party to the damned a lowly consumer associate myself, I'm able to forgive a lot. In any event, I must put forth the notion that Zelda is sacred and that should anyone ever even think about moviefying it there will be a bloody penance to pay. I do regret to inform you that I rather liked the Super Mario Bros. movie, but I suspect that stems from having seen it in the theater and because I tend to be able to find the good in most cinema... Heck, I even think there's a redeeming quality or two in Plan Nine From Outerspace.

Okay, so basically what with finals coming up, and me pretty much done with most of my assignments, I've been left with not much to do except work on a few RPGs here and there (Super Robot Wars Alpha 3 if you've ever played it, would rival Disgaea in tactical excellence IMO).

So anyway, I was thinking about what else to do, and it dawned on me that I haven't watched any good movies in a long time. By good movies, I mean Epic stuff, not necessarily LOTR quality per se, but Epic as in RPG, know what I'm saying? You know of any good RPG-esque movies past and present that might be worth watching? Dragon-Slayer comes to mind, as well as Excalibur, but I'm not sure if they're good flicks to watch.

Any suggestions would be most helpful.

~Blade

I haven't played any of the Robot Wars titles, although I've heard almost nothing but good things about them. For movies, you happen to be in luck! The first Chronicles of Narnia movie is out in less than a month and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is out right now. I can also suggest The Last Unicorn, Princess Mononoke, Legend (I don't really condone this one), The NeverEnding Story (part one ONLY), The Princess Bride, Labyrinth, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Goonies, Harry Potter, and many many more that I can't rightly think of offhand. I hope that helps.

Hey Andrew,

I am a longtime reader of the column and up until now I had not really had a reason to write in, but this caught my eye and annoyed me yesterday:

"It's completely the opposite! The battles in Star Ocean was always fun! ( well except maybe for the gamecube version I don't have that) but the story was medicore at best! While the Final Fantasy have a good story, but the battle system is kind of boring,"

Now, I was just curious, where is this gamecube version of Star Ocean because I cannot seem to recall seeing it anywhere :P Anyhow, this amused me greatly so I felt the need to comment.

Oh, and a question, what are your thoughts on the upcoming Magna Carta game?

thanks,

Will

If my guess is correct then this letter is actually referring to the column written on November 4th. Granted this answer isn't from Andrew and is very late, but things happen I guess. I am unaware of the existence of a Star Ocean game on the GameCube in part because Square Enix (and hence tri-Ace) have had little to do with the console. As for Magna Carta (which isn't so much upcoming now...), I think it's quite awesome, and the art style is fantastic.

Thanks for sticking with the Q and A job. It has got to be tough when some upstart, named matthew, comes in and removes most of the questioners. I had a chance to try out that demo of Final Fantasy XII and I think that it might not suck quite as much as I had feared. It actually was kind of fun not to see the screen shatter and move to a static field for combat. What do you think?

The other thing that I have been thinking about is that Sony rootkit nonsense. I read somewhere that Sony was going to put a gizmo in the PS3 that would make the original purchaser the only one who could play a game. Is this true?

Have a great day!

Angus Creighton

The technology exists, and Sony is well versed in the combat of piracy, but I personally think that should they make such a move it would spell almost certain doom the PlayStation 3 in North America. Why? If that technology were invoked it would prevent the reselling of games, the purchase of used games, being able to rent games, being able to demo a game at the store, and even other things I'm probably not evil and business-like enough to have thought of. So, I'm going to guess that although they very well could do such a thing, they're unlikely to actually do so... I've been wrong before, though.

Hopefully tomorrow will unveil the return of or the covering of by someone eminently more qualified to do these columns than myself. In any event I bid thee adieu!.. And click on those ads people!

Zachary Lewis wants to see Harry Potter.

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