xenoveritas.org

System:	Windows
Score:	3 (OK)

In The Wonderful End of the World, you play as a nameless red-haired goddess who wants to save the world. You do this by rolling things up into a giant Clump of Souls and - wait, I think I've got this story confused with another game.

Actually she does this using a "marionette" which "absorbs" items into its body as it runs around the level. If you caught the earlier reference, then yes, this game is a Katamari Damacy clone. And there's nothing wrong with that.

So Top Gear is coming to the US. Ignoring that Top Gear has already come to the US. And then left after people threw stones at them and tried to kill them.

Er, actually, the UK version of Top Gear is currently shown on BBC America at 8PM Eastern on Mondays. In the past the Discovery Channel has shown episodes.

If you haven't watched Top Gear on BBC America before, then you're missing out on what's easily the funniest show on cable.

System:	PlayStation 3
Score:	4 (Good)

Devil May Cry 4 introduces a new main character named Nero. This, of course, introduces fears of Raiden Syndrome. And Devil May Cry 4 falls prey to this: Nero isn't really an annoying character, but ultimately, he's Not Dante, and Devil May Cry 4 is not Devil May Cry 3.

This is, yet again, an attempt to write down a policy that's been in effect for quite a while.

Anonymous comments all go to moderation. Logged in users can post without waiting the week or more it takes for me to get around to approving new comments (I'll get to it - really).

All comments are subject to a "lameness filter" that will reject comments based on programmatic filters. These are basically an attempt to block spam without requiring a captcha.

However all comments are subject to deletion based on the following:

System:	Wii
Tentative Score:	3 (OK)

I haven't actually finished the game yet or bought any of the optional addons, so this review might change in the future.

In short, it's a very simple city sim in the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles setting. You play as a 10-year old king who uses the power of Architek (the magic to summon buildings) to rebuild a destroyed kingdom.

So iTunes apparently decided to crap out and destroy its own library.

What does it do? It crashes on loading its XML backup, overwrites it preventing me from reimporting it, and then proceeds to wipe my iPod clean.

Leaving me with absolutely no way to restore my playlists.

You'd think they could import the metadata from the iPod, but of course not. It just deletes everything.

Thanks a lot, Apple.

I do want to start off by saying that I'm not really saying this would be a good idea. But the idea of being able to beat the stupid out of Yoshi with Sephiroth is just too good an idea to pass up.

Descriptions after the jump.

Ubuntu 8.04 is out!

I've been using it for a while on my work Linux computer and my home Linux laptop. The work machine's been running basically flawlessly. The laptop had some issues with the wireless adapter, but thankfully that has been resolved.

On the laptop side, 3D graphics effects are now supported. I now have Compiz running on both machines, which is kind of cool. (And since I've mucked with the window closing animations, closing windows is much more exciting than it used to be. Burn and Beam Up are cool. Uh, anyway.)

You might notice that the site is green today. Well, as it turns out, this site is literally green: Dreamhost is a "green" hosting provider:

Of course, it's only "green" due to carbon offsets, which are sort of a silly thing, but for the sake of claiming to be greener than I really am I'll leave that argument for a later day.

System:	PSP
Score:	2 (Poor)
FF7 Fan Score:	4 (Good)

This game was obviously created for Final Fantasy VII fans. If you didn't obsessively follow every plot point in Final Fantasy VII the story will be confusing. If you don't remember what Jenova is or how Cloud relates to the Sephiroth clones, you might want to find a story guide before playing.

If you never played Final Fantasy VII and have no plans to, then forget it. The story will make no sense, the cutscenes that exist solely for Final Fantasy VII fans will mean nothing, and the gameplay just isn't fun enough to make up for this.