Journey’s End

Despite all of this we loved the game, and I think there was more to this adoration than just being able to call one of your warriors Arsebum. The very fact the pace of the game was so slow allowed Tony, my brother and myself to play it together. We gave our characters personalities, argued over the way to go, shouted at the TV in unified anger when we had tripped over an invisible bit of stone in the maze losing 5 strength points, laughed at each other’s jokes during the dull slog looking for the Bridge across the river and cheered when we found the castle. We may have never actually reached the End but the Journey was fun in itself.

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Advanced Dungeons and Dragons

Your journey begins on a sprawling map screen complete with mountain ranges, walls, forests, and your final destination: Cloudy Mountain. It looks like something from Lord of the Rings! As you traverse the wilderness you’ll stumble into a series of monster-infested dungeons. These caverns are randomly generated and contain oddly-shaped rooms – something you don’t see in old games. I love how the dungeons “draw in” as you roam, auto-mapping your progress. While searching for key items, you’ll encounter bats, spiders, rats, snakes, blobs, demons, and dragons.

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Free to Play. If You’re Going to Fail, Get Better At Failing.

It seems much more frequently nowadays that many MMORPG companies have been accepting their losses and got off their high horses to adopt the Free to Play model. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Does it really help them bring in a larger player base? It certainly seems to be working for many of these companies but will it be accepted wife spread for future games?

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The Interview: Steve Gray

Ha. The stories I have to share involve other Square employees, cute Japanese girls at various locations in Tokyo at night. They are not fit for public consumption… so I’ll let you guys imagine some of the trouble we got into.

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