For anyone who missed it, my Solstice, like many other Solstices, was a lemon.  But not to worry, General Motors repurchased it and I didn't lose a cent.  Here is its replacement, the infinitely superior Corvette:

As easy as this game is to make fun of, when you cut through all the weirdness, it does have some great parts.  I'll give you a mild spoiler (which should really not be a surprise if you played the original) and say that this has one of the most heart-wrenching moments of a Final Fantasy game.  Probably the most, since it somehow manages to encompass all of the tragedy in the original FFVII in the same fell swoop without seeming tacked-on.  However it's prefaced by a lot of nonsensical jibba-jabba about goddesses and honor and lifestreams and so forth, and is accompanied by an amazingly innappropriate j-pop song.  My brain has somehow come to terms with this, and I will probably be able to enjoy Final Fantasy-like games for many years to come, but it sure as heck

I wrote the following as an homage to the latest Final Fantasy game.  It works not only as bad poetry, but as an example of the kind of dialogue you can expect in the game:

~SOLDIER Honor~

What is in the dreams of Angels?
To destroy that which causes suffering?
.....
An Angel is nothing
but a Monster that wishes to be human.

True, the plot of this game barely makes any sense.  And it features an awful lot of girly-looking guys playfully swinging giant, throbbing swords at one another...

I say this in all seriousness:  I, Thomas J. Happ, have found the cure for cancer.  Or at least an exact copy of me did.

Edit 6/10/08 - This links to a satirical article at Destructoid.  The journalist wrote it to poke fun at bloggers and press who portray(ed) EA as the root of all evil, as it were.   The article was published at a time when EA made the heroic move of standing up to Fox News for slandering its critically acclaimed game, Mass Effect, and in doing so standing up for all games maligned by mainstream media.  We had also slid to #2 developer so the portrayal as industry tyrant was now shifted to Activision.  So at that time, the article's satire contrasting EA's reputation among detractors with the much more benevolent reality was a lot more obvious.  When read today it may look like the journalist is criticizing EA, but in actuality he's doing the opposite.  And now for the original post:

Finally someone decided to poke fun at the ridiculous fan/press hatred of EA, which I've found to be one of the nicer game companies.  This article from Destructoid had me laughing out loud:

http://www.destructoid.com/15-reasons-why-ea-is-pure-evil-66852.phtml

...then again this turnaround happened in the same year that we slid from #1 to #2 third-party game developer.  Coincidence?

Lately I've been seeing more than a few news and blog stories about game reviews and what they should or shouldn't say.

From answers.com:

n.

1. A marked innate ability, as for artistic accomplishment. See synonyms at ability.
2. 1. Natural endowment or ability of a superior quality.
   2. A person or group of people having such ability: The company makes good use of its talent.
3. A variable unit of weight and money used in ancient Greece, Rome, and the Middle East.

I have decided that the word "talent" is only good for insecure people who believe that their endowment with it makes them better than others, or for lazy people who use the lack thereof as an excuse not to apply themselves.

I guess people got tired of saying that game developers work too hard, and now it's cooler to say they don't work hard enough.

The Grand Canyon pics (from April!) are in the Image Gallery now.  As always these are reduced quality so as to fit on the server  . . .

It's available in stores now and it's getting good reviews.  It's basically the best golf video game.  Plus I helped make it.  What more do you need to know?  Buy now, please.