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cdon.com said they put a parcel in the mail today, so it should arrive on release day tomorrow. No tracking number though, so I can't see it's still in Jönköping.

Earlier today I saw the end credits of Final Fantasy XII, after 138 hours of saved game time. Then I reloaded from the last save at 136 hours to keep on finishing some side quests, which will probably take a while.

Incredibly huge game, that. Also the first FF series game that I've actually played all the way to end credits.

Hmm... exactly 7 months after I got it.

Yesterday I spent almost 12 hours straight playing FFXII, before settling down at a calm save point after realizing what time it was, cursing the fact I had to be at work today. After work today I picked it up again, and shortly after ran into one of those love-to-hate-FF-for - an order of magnitude more impossible to beat than the previous - boss monsters; at which I failed and failed and failed again. Just like real life.

The Thinkgeek WiiHelm has to be the strangest bit of gaming hardware, ever. (Vtabevat gur boivbhf. Unvy Revf!)

Woot! I got FFXII in the mail today. Stunningly great first impressions.

A bag full of book 3 + swag from little gamers was found on the door mat when I got home. Not even the tiniest bit cat gnawed.

I got a strong buying impulse today when I found the superb PS2 steering wheel kit at a discounted price at PC CITY in the local Mammonian Temple Town, so tonight I've improved lap times and race positions in Gran Turismo®4. The 900° steering precision makes all the difference, almost more of a difference than the step from the Dualshock®2 to the old 180° wheel. Which I already knew, but I'd decided to wait for the Pro version to drop below 1 kSEK before shelling out for the upgrade.

There is a EARTHWORM JIM on DVD Petition to sign, and maybe they'll listen and make a DVD release.

I found a PSP downloadable demo of LocoRoco when I browsed the PSP web portal looking for substance to the rumours I'd seen about Sony starting to do downloadable game demos.

Play the world where the Loco Rocos live, and try to save them from harm by tilting the landscape, bouncing, splitting and joining the cute little happily singing gelatinous critters.

A bit chaotic check-in as it should. Nothing much happened besides checking in and grabbing this year's edition of the LinCon swag.

For some insane reason the schedule begins at 9:00 each morning, meaning I must be at the GM briefing at 8:30 and leave home before 8:00. This will suck badly, considering I'm awake right now.

Oooh! There is an Elite clone for MacOS X and Linux, Oolite. Shiny!

I wonder how much trouble there will be to get this running under Linux emulation on my FreeBSD laptop. It's even in FreeBSD ports, so it should just be a portinstall away from play. That's after I get the hardware assisted OpenGL rendering working again, since the latest X.org upgrade seems to have busted my previous success.

I got to see the epilogue and end credits for Fahrenheit (aka Indigo Prophecy in the US). Hm, that was the first time in a while I actually played a game all the way to the THE END, because usually there is something that makes me lose patience somewhere along the way.

A bit short storyline perhaps, but nicely played and superb character animation down to the last facial expression. The soundtrack isn't bad either. And all the main characters actually have lives for the game plot to interfere with, that makes you actually care about the characters besides finishing the next sequence in the game. I guess it's more of an interactive action thriller movie than a game, really.

Apparently the two sex scenes in the game are censored from the US version. When I found myself playing the first one I was surprised that Atari dared have actual sex in a videogame, with the hot coffee still being at least lukewarm and all at the time the game was released. But alas, in the land of the free they didn't.

There's a flash (I know, 3vi1) version of Katamari Damacy 2 on the web.

Got a copy of Midway Arcade Treasures: Extended Play for my PSP in the mail today, so now I've played Gauntlet until my poor broken fingers started complaining too loudly. Had a quick look at Marble Madness and Spy Hunter also, but Gauntlet was the big trip to nostalgia land.

Eighteen more arcade conversions to try, some other day.

Now I have one. Just have to wait for the battery to charge.

I finally got around to playing Final Fantasy X-2. Oh dear, it's mind-numbingly cute, but in a good way. Twisted but good. And cute, did I mention it's cute? The in-game animation technique has indeed come a long way since the blocky characters of FFVII on the PS1, and the cut-scenes such as the opening movie are just stunning, although obviously pre-rendered MPEG2 video. Let's just hope the gameplay isn't as railroadedly boring as FFX.

I don't like release date slippage. Went into the local GAME store to buy a PSP+GTA:LCS to have a +1D10 SAN toolkit with me on my business trip next week. I thought I knew that it would be released early November. Apparently the release date has slipped one month, from November 4th to December 2nd. But on the other hand, I'll probably get the whole kit if I place a preorder via some webshop, for the same money as the Pretty Shiny Precious hardware alone in any local store.

Today is the release day for the PSP, and I wont be able to use one for a long time. But I guess I'm lucky that I resisted the urge to place a pre-order. That would've been horrible, to actually have a new shiny precious and not have the hands to play with it.

On the other hand, I can't play much any PS2 games either which is kind of depressing. Unless I plug in the one-hand controller that was bundled with FFVIII at the time, and try to finish off FFVII, FFVIII and FFIX. This might well be the time for that.

Picked up a copy of Deus Ex for my PS2 at the local game shop for SEK 99. So far it's very a good near future nanotech enhanced special agent sneak about conspiracy game.

I'm also getting a huge urge to place a pre-order for a PSP and it didn't get any smaller with all the promotion in the shop.