Andrew:
Well, first off, I'm not in the habit of shooting people just because they're biased against Square. Personally, I tend to disagree that Square is all that bad, although I'm by no means apologizing for some of its recent titles - the past couple of years have seen a steady succession of stinkers and cash cows, after all. What I've played of FFX so far, though, has me hoping that maybe, just maybe, gameplay is becoming more of a focus again, which is what made Square's earlier titles the classics they're generally regarded as.

Square's own tactical RPG, FFT, was by no means an easy game, at least in the early stages, although I'm judging that by the standards of RPGs on the whole, and not those of a tactical RPG. Hardcore fans of tactical RPGs will probably be hard-pressed to name an easier title, but from my standpoint as an occasional gamer in the genre, Square showed admirable resistance to the graphics whores and softcore newbie gamers with FFT; in fact, the translation, graphics and gameplay of FFT were probably the best anethema they could have dreamed up for those two groups. Add to that the fact that a few people from the original Quest team will probably survive being swallowed whole, and I think you'll end up with at least a few people who want to make games that do more than just look good. Then again, Square is notorious for making easy games, so don't put away your suicide note just yet :)

Incidentally, if you really wanna get shot, I recommend a musket or a blunderbuss. Either one will open the door to a wide array of corny Bill Cosby comedy routines which continue to be shamelessly ripped off by no-talent hacks to this day.

Andrew:
Well if regular dolls like that are legal, I don't see why ones based on characters wouldn't be, assuming Square licensed them somewhere along the way. That's a big if though. Still, I guess if you build it, they will come, even if it's not entirely legal, so your search may yet turn up results. Personally, I'd do myself a favour and steer clear of them. Would you really want to have to explain that sort of thing to anyone? Ever?

Andrew:
Look at it this way. You can pick up a Dreamcast at a fraction of the cost of a GameCube, the system which both titles you mentioned will be appearing on, and the software prices for the DC have probably dropped a bit too. Since SoA and PSO will probably look comparable, at least, to the GCN version, the worst thing that could happen to you is that you run out of people online to play PSO with. If that's a concern, go with the GameCube, since that has the additional advantage of not being a dead system. The GCN version of PSO also has a few extra features and will probably have better online support once Nintendo gets off its behind and releases a broadband adaptor. Otherwise, I'd say you're better off getting a DC. There's a number of other good games you can find for it as well, such as Shenmue, Grandia II(which my friend, who owns it, swears looks much better than the PS2 version), and Jet Grind Radio. In the end, though, it comes down to how long you're willing to wait to get a GameCube, PS2 or an Xbox. If you can drop the necessary funds on a DC and still come up with enough for one of those systems in a few months, then it's definitely worthwhile. Otherwise, you might want to consider whether five or six admittedly good games is worth shutting yourself out of the current generation of consoles for another few months.

Then again, as far as I can see, there's nothing particularly good on the horizon until Christmas anyway, so you're not really losing anything.

Andrew:
And now, an answer, brought to you by the letters C, P, and the number Ctrl: Codec stands for COder/DECoder. It is a small piece of software that allows you to make/play movie/audio compressed in a certain format. MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX ... are all codecs. AVI, ASF, WMV are not codecs, but file formats. AVI is also a container format (see below for more information), meaning it can be made using many different codecs.

*eyes unglaze* So anyway kids, remember: eat your wheaties, and for heaven's sake, play nice with the FFXI video.

Andrew:
Well, first you're gonna need a broadband adaptor for the DSL connection, which will run you $39.99 MSRP. You'll also have to pick up the PS2 hard drive and keyboard, which will set you back another $150.00 and approximately $32.00, respectively.Then there's the cost of the game itself, which is roughly $59.99 in Japan. There's also the monthly fee for PlayOnline service, $10.00 US a month, and if you want to have more than one character, that costs 78 cents per extra character, per month. So, to sum up, that's $281.98 to start with, followed by $10.00 a month, minimum. Happy wandering...and heaven help you the first time you run into l33t~35PhiR0thx0rzzz (yeah, I know... my l337sp33k sucks.) Personally, I'm hoping to avoid all these expenses, as well as that unpleasant eventuality, through the simple expedient of not buying the game.

Andrew:
I'm fairly certain that playing FF ANYTHING while eating Mr. Christie Vegetable Thins for 18 hours straight would harm you. Heck, doing anything while eating crackers for that long would be seriously damaging. Think of how many boxes you could go through...

Andrew:
Probably not, but that doesn't mean it's not fun. Nearly everyone I've spoken to who's had a chance to play it has said it's right up there with Diablo, so I'd certainly give it a try. Which doesn't really explain why I haven't yet. Oh, right. I'm broke. How silly of me.

Andrew:
Nope, but it must be pretty good, since I get an email requesting I post a petition to bring Earthbound 64 or something to North America every other week or so. For the truly curious: No, we don't post petitions. Others have said it before, and I'll say it again: it doesn't accomplish anything, and if I post one for you, I have to post one for everybody else, which means I'd never get any real news done.

Andrew:
Damn. This was bound to happen when I asked my friend to send me a letter, any letter, when I thought I was low on letters. Now I'm obliged to post this part too, and he goes and exposes my shabby pastime. You'd think I'd at least use it as an excuse to rant about annoying customers, like the old lady who came in today at the crack of closing and proceeded to keep me there a half hour late with her insistence that she'd asked us a question five times (that she'd never asked) and that we're lying crooks (which is only partially true), and then she ripped up her paperwork and threw it on the desk and stormed out in a huff with her daughter, who was wearing overalls and not much else, right nearby, mmm... Oh, wait. I used the excuse after all. Well, we really shouldn't let this happen. If I get sidetracked, I'll never finish up here.