I’ve been toying with what iPhone commercials refer to as the ‘kinda-sorta’ Internet, testing out the browsers on both my new Pantech phone and PSP. I’m fairly content to say that 3/2’s actual blog updates display pretty well on the phone, even though it pretty much parses everything to plain text. It loads faster and reads easier than pretty much everything else I frequent (displaying Gamespite for some reason forces me to scroll past a huge, empty box.) One thing that irks me is the device’s refusal to display nearly any images- while nice for speed concerns, it leaves you pretty effed in the absence of alt tags. At any rate, even if I am pretty late to the party, being able to change my ringtone to the Goldion Hammer theme from GaoGaiGar or putting Gunbuster wallpapers on the thing is pretty sweet.

Couple articles coming soon. Poking away at the Year in Review thing a bit at a time, and I think I’ll be doing a rare ‘Analog Gaming’ review on Heroscape; I’ve gotten to play with friends a few times now and it seems to be catching on. Spread the joy, and all. Last night playing against classmate and frequent warez hookup Jake, it dawned on me that there were in fact, actual tactics at play and I could pinpoint the exact turn I boned myself in.

With the onslaught of games that came out at October’s end, I haven’t really had time to review (or really start, in the case of Front Mission) any of the titles I was worked up about. I’m in the thick of Mega Man ZX Advent, and I have to say the tweaks added are giving me a love/hate thing for the game. While it is cool to shapeshift into bosses, most of the Repliroid forms are redundant at best and downright crippling at their worst (Chronoforce’s time slower is nice and all, but he plain CAN’T move on land, instead lurching slightly and making a pathetic grunting sound, for example.) I find myself using the more traditional “Model” forms a lot more. I think i prefer ZX’s idea to remove speech entirely to either version’s voiceover tracks- though hearing Ashe’s English voice yell “It’s over!” every time you use a charge shot easily pushes the local edition a few more feet past the line. That and the random, nonsensical name changes. At this point I think Capcom’s just addicted to them.

Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations is… more Phoenix Wright goodness. If you don’t ‘get it’ yet, you’re probably not going to, and I pity you. Probably the best installment of the three, including the odd, out of place 300 reference. Features a woman who is such a total bitch, she doesn’t even let dying get in the way of further bitchitude.

Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness is a solid, more or less direct port of the original, though I wish some of the later Nippon Ichi game elements had been incorporated into it (healers gaining EXP for healing being a big one) They added a recordkeeper to track what percentage of items you’ve collected thus far, among other things, and ways to change the theme music to Item World. Multiplayer has also been added though I’ve yet to try it. The biggest new addition by far is Etna Mode, an extra scenario that shows what would have happened if, at the game’s beginning, Etna went ahead and shot the Prince in the head. It’s quite a bit shorter than the main game, but pretty funny stuff.