Now here’s a real divider of a game. Breath of Fire III causes half the RPG fandom to frantically make the sign of the Cross while the other half strips naked and carves slices of flesh in devotion for Ryu, Nina and Garr. I’m kind of in the latter category. I can assure you that the cast of Breath of Fire III has made some delicious Nadia-bacon with what I’ve given them. And it’s kosher. I’ve always been a bit of a fan of the Breath of Fire series, so I really enjoyed myself with III. Now, it had its flaws. Oh boy, did it ever have its flaws, but I could overlook them. There were random battles—still a mainstay at that point in RPG history—but there was no mandatory shift to a boring pre-rendered background.... [Read more]

In college, I had a professor who was a twat and destroyed whatever feeble love I had left for education. I also had Mega Man IV for the Game Boy. (Thanks, uh…do those energy tanks spell “Jew?”) Canada is prone to massive snowstorms, which I’m sure shocks you. We had a wretched snowstorm in my first semester that kept all the sane students home, but everyone in my programme feared Professor Twat so much that we all waded through the snow to come to his class. Of course, Professor Twat didn’t show up. But we were too scared to leave in case he did. So I played some Mega Man 4 on my Game Boy and one classmate said, “Oh, let ME play!” and he promptly ran to the front of the lecture hall with my system.... [Read more]

If you ever come to my house (and you’re welcome any time–I have lemonade), you’ll notice from the stench that I don’t tend to get rid of things. Nope, I keeps ‘em around. That means I have a lot of games just sitting here and collecting spider webs. I never returned games I didn’t like—well, back when we were allowed to return games we didn’t like. Only once have I ever tried to get my money back for a game I detested, and that was Final Fantasy VIII. [Read more] [Read more]

Over at my other house, I dropped a, like, world-ending bombshell: Come November 1st, I won’t be with PSMonger or Handheld Age anymore. I am sad. See, here’s my frowny face and everything. :( So, while I slowly breathe in the carbon monoxide, I thought I’d talk a little bit about good times with video games. Today, specifically, I’ll talk about my time with Super Mario Land for the original Game Boy. [Read more] [Read more]

Hello friends. And what the heck, hello enemies (I know you’re out there)! Make a circle on the carpet and join me for an announcement. Come November 1st 2008 in this Year of Our Lord, I will be handing the reins for Playstation Monger to someone else. “Who(m?)” is undecided at this point, but I’m sure they’ll be fabulous. That means our time together is limited–unless you catch me on one of the other thousand million Internet corners I hang out in–so I thought I’d do something special to wind down the clock. I thought I’d just kick off my shoes, forgo stuffy news posts and just talk about my favourite Playstation memories. [Read more] [Read more]