So, here's some writing about Final Fantasy 13, inspired by Spoony's Games in a Nutshell reviews. This is the latest game in the Final Fantasy series, and so far, I'm not really impressed with anything but the graphics. Off we go! ¶ You start off seeing a train travelling through a few places. It's carrying a bunch of prisoners in cloaks, being watched by a bunch of soldiers. Two prisoners seem to be up to something. ¶ Lightning: I'm the main character. I look like Ashe and a female Cloud Strife. I'm also an ex-soldier and use a sword gunblade, though plain old guns would be a far better choice. Sazh: I'm another main character. I carry a baby chocobo in my afro, and I use two pistols. I'm here to help you, I guess? Lightning: Quiet. I have to do some eye candy fighting. ¶ Lightning proceeds to kick the crap out of the soldiers while defying gravity and physics, which frees the prisoners. You get some eye candy FMV of what looks like a city, fighter jets (dra... [check it out]

Taking a look at some of the rarest video games ever sold. I'm only going to cover games that were actually mass-produced and released (or at least intended to be), so no Earthbound prototype, no Drac's Night Out, no Star Fox 2, etc. ¶ --- ¶ Atari 2600 ¶ Air Raid (Atari 2600) - Probably the single rarest Atari title (excluding Atlantis II), Air Raid is also its strangest looking, with an odd baby blue color and a T-shaped handle on top of the cartridge. Produced by a third party company called MenAvision in extremely limited quantities, copies have been spotted selling on eBay for thousands of dollars apiece. ¶ Average price: $2000+. ¶ Atlantis II - Back in the earlier days of gaming, it was common for companies to hold high score contests for games to boost sales and maintain interest in them. Imagic held one such contest for their popular game Atlantis, with a promised prize of $10,000 for the highest scorer. However, more entrants than expected had actua... [check it out]

The logical followup to Mega Man 9's runaway success, featuring eight new robot masters, 13 new stages, multiple stage routes, an even sillier storyline, and plenty of platforming and boss fights to keep you entertained. Hardcore fans will also have a ton of new challenges to complete for bragging rights, and being able to play as Protoman right off the bat is a first for the series. I hear Bass is also coming later as downloadable content, so we'll see how that pans out. ¶ The stage design feels a bit generic this time around; with few exceptions, everything here has been done before in previous games, and the new obstacles aren't much to write home about. A stark contrast to Mega Man 9's creative obstacles, to say the least. The music also falls flat; it's not terrible, just rather low-tempo and forgettable, but that's a pretty big omission for a Mega Man title. Hell, I still have Metal Man's theme stuck in my head for at least a week every time I replay Mega Man 2. ¶... [check it out]

There's a dance party in a club behind that dollar theater. It came from 1987 and it won't leave until you get too drunk to no longer feel the groove. Also, they made the album while on LSD on a strange island off the coast of England's collection of exiled failures. [check it out]

A circus is happening in your dreams. It is haunting, unnerving, and uncomfortably comfortable. Colors flash by on the dark canvas of your mind. How did this happen? It will all be gone when you wake up. [check it out]

I wouldn't be lying if I said that TMNT: Turtles in Time on the Super Nintendo was one of the best side-scrolling brawlers ever made. Hell, it may even be #1. But somehow Ubisoft Singapore managed to throw a perfect no-hitter on everything that made the original great. Gone are the bright, colorful and cartoonish graphics, catchy tunes and bone-crunching sound effects, excellent hit detection and frenetic gameplay. Now we have an ugly, terrible-sounding, poorly controlling, sluggish mess tha... [check it out]

A shooter known for its intense action and yet heavy emphasis on planning and strategy - you'll have to rapidly swap between black and white polarities to destroy opposing ships quicker, absorb same-colored bullets, and be careful to always kill enemies of like color in groups of three to keep your chain going and your score climbing. As an added bonus, you can even upload your high scores (and demos) to the online service for others to watch and be amazed by. ¶ I can think of few better w... [check it out]

Valve has been known to do some awesome and insane things that get their fans extremely happy, angry, curious, or confused. So, here are some of their best moments doing this. There may be others that people remember, but these are the ones I remember causing the biggest reactions. Enjoy! (Edit: Spoony informed me the Backburner's lifeboost was +50, not +75. Fixed that.) ¶ Honorable Mention: The Guard Dog "Update" Valve posted a strange thank you letter on the TF2 Blog, and this lett... [check it out]

VIDEO RELAY ACTIVATED... ¶ DEFAULT VIDEO LOADED: ¶ LOUSY SMARCH WEATHER. [check it out]

Viewtiful Joe crossed with elements of God Hand, Ninja Gaiden, Super Mario Galaxy and even a few classic arcade games to create one gigantic package of awesome. ¶ Well what do you know, they finally did it. They finally cast aside all the things that dragged the action genre down over the years - cameras that always seem to fix at the least convenient angles, awful controls, invisible barriers blocking off places that should be wide open, lack of any real strategy outside of mashing a sing... [check it out]

holy cow we have a... :bomb:TEAM FORTRESS 2 SERVER:bomb: let's play tf2! Did you know we have our own Team Fortress 2 server? We do, and its better than any other one you can probably name. While mostly inactive during the day we can sometimes be found kicking each others asses on it late in to the night whenever the hell we feel like it, and you are cordially invited to come get your ass kicked, too! CONNECTION INSTRUCTIONS: look for "RAD! | LardPirates.com School of Hard Rawks" OR type "conn... [check it out]

A twisted comic I made in Garry's Mod a long time ago. [check it out]

League of Legends is a real-time strategy/RPG/battle arena game. You pick a character (aka champion), then help your teammates fight against the enemy team. The objective is to destroy the enemy's nexus in their base, and also defend your own. The nexus constantly spawns minions, little demon dudes that help rip up enemy defenses and act as meatshields. ¶ Pros - Free to play. - Over 40 champions to choose from, so you'll more than likely find one that suits your playstyle. More are be... [check it out]

One of the best RPGs on the original Playstation, and it's available for dirt cheap. What more do I need to tell you? Buy it! Download it to your PSP or PS3! Play it! You shall not regret it. [check it out]

I can probably think of a lot more than this, but just so that we're not here all day, I've trimmed it down to just ten of my personal picks with an honorable mention for good measure. Let's dig it. ¶ Honorable Mention: Knuckles Chaotix - While certainly not the best Sonic title, it is among the most obscure, having been released on the short-lived 32X platform and never seeing release on any sort of compilation since; in fact, the only recent attention it's received is being playable on t... [check it out]

#10: A realization! ¶ The plot isn't a thinly-veiled "hurg blargh organized religion is evil" rant. In fact, that fad seems to have finally gone the way of FMV games and been cast aside as a dark page in gaming's history. I'm impressed; it's almost as if people have finally realized that thinking that way (and trying to shoehorn your views into every work you create) doesn't automatically make you "smarter" and more "enlightened" than everyone who has ever lived! Besides, you're a straig... [check it out]

I've played a lot of RPGs, as you can probably gather from my various rants and reviews about them on my site and on Lardpirates, and I'm pretty particular about what I like in them and what I don't. I'm always fond of mixing things up a bit with puzzles and minigames, having a memorable cast of characters, having to employ a bit of strategy in battles (and no, spamming normal attacks and Limit Breaks in every fight doesn't count), and doing something new and uncoventional to the genre (provide... [check it out]

Sakaguchi's departure and Final Fantasy X-2's subsequent release (and inexplicable commercial success) got the ball rolling on Square's campaign to churn out endless waves of terrible sequels, prequels and remakes to games that stood up perfectly well on their own merits. Thanks guys! ¶ The setting is a city named "Edge" on the outskirts of Midgar, where Cloud and Tifa apparently now live. Whey they choose to live in a depressing barren landscape next to the burned out ruins of a giant sl... [check it out]

Yeah, I'm doing another game I actually like; the first RPG I ever played and completed, in fact. Because Phantasy Star II deserves some company in the Nutshell section that isn't ass on toast. ¶ King of Alefgard: Descendant of Erdrick, thou art the only one that can defeat the Dragonlord. Now go forth! Hero: I'd love to, but I'm kind of trapped in this room by a magic door. Come to think of it, so are you. How did I even get in here? King of Alefgard: Take my treasure chests so that... [check it out]

I didn't even play the game; all I saw was a video of them turning Yuna and Rikku into the fucking Spice Girls and decided "that's it, I'm not even going to waste my time with this bullshit". But on the plus side, it does give me a good trump card in arguments with Square fantards. ¶ "Square sucks now, dude. They've made maybe two decent games in the last 10 years." "NO WAY FUCK YOU THEY ARE THE BEST COMPANY AND WILL ALWAYS BE THEY HAVE THE BEST STORIES EVER WRITTEN AND PIONEERED SO MANY... [check it out]

George Lucas can rest assured he's no longer the only person to ruin a classic piece of popular culture by doing everything wrong in the sequel. Hell, Square's topped his failure at least five times over by now! ¶ Serge: I have an exciting and wonderful life in this fishing village, and I prove it by fighting the same two monsters over and over for days on end! Leena: I'm here to partake in idle chatter, which unknown to you will affect whether or not you get an important item later in th... [check it out]

VIDEO RELAY ACTIVATED... DEFAULT VIDEO LOADED: DON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN! [check it out]

VIDEO RELAY ACTIVATED... DEFAULT VIDEO LOADED: BUT NOT QUITE. [check it out]