I've never played VI. It has been sitting in my games pile for a long time. I have about a 100 games to play... Xenon being one of them.

Does anyone know the Tales series?

same for me as well

i have played III, IV and V

all good

You're in luck, because this Friday the culmination of a community project to update the original Half Life to a modern graphic engine hits Steam (just need to have a free account and download the necessary files).

It won't contain the entire game yet but from what I've read it covers the entire Black Mesa facility and they estimated a good 8-10 hours of play. It definitely does not have Xen though. Either way I'll be getting it this weekend.

As for the Final Fantasy talk I've always split the games into two camps with 1-6 and 7-infinity. On the old side I'm torn between 4 and 6, essentially better story or better game mechanics. On the new side I'm all about 12, I know a lot of people who call 10 the pinnacle and I tried it but it just didn't do it for me, I just stopped caring to play once I ended up in that dungeon where I had to run around to find all my companions again.

and the Tales series, I only played partway through Tales of Symphonia but it was freaking awesome. Totally different fighting system than any other console RPG I've ever seen and it was handled incredibly well.

XIII was a pile of crap, really - at least XII had some improvement in the combat mechanics

never bothered with XIII X2

I was a big fan of Symphonia, joined the forums at the peak of its popularity, somehow signed a contract with Namco, and moderated it. One of the perks was being sent a whole bunch of other Tales games for free.

Seriously this series has almost as many releases as FF in Japan, and is an inch behind its high profile.

There are several new releases on PS3/Wii I need to check out. See if they've advanced it any further.

Combat system for an RPG is unmatched btw.

I really loved Tales of Symphonia but I don't know if I could revisit it very successfully for two reasons: it was so freakin' long (think my save file had over 70 hours on it when I finished) and the voice acting/dialogue would be harder to stomach at this age.

Wow, I'll be checking that Half Life update out as well.

I like XII quite a bit as well...I think it helps a bit if you've tried XI since it was kind of the jumping off point, though I'm sure most people didn't bother. Storywise, it was another VI-based type deal with an oppressive Empire and whatnot. The only thing that got to me was eventually it became difficult for me to set up gambits that actually worked. In the end, I just wanted to finish the damn story and kept getting really tired of trying to figure out the best ways for my guys to act. So I got really close to the end but never finished it. One day I will, I'm sure...that's how it goes for the FF series for me.

I thought XIII was excellent. I'm surprised you didn't like it if you liked X so much...it's basically the same setup. They give you a straight path to run down and the story advances in much the same way. Graphics-wise, it's freaking gorgeous to look at. I'm running through XIII-2 right now and I'm finding it a little hard to get into. The concept is cool, but I need a large character base to work with so that if one starts annoying me, I can focus on the others. 2 main characters just does not fly for an FF game. The same thing happened to me with X-2.

I think the best games of all time are the ones you are good at and to that end (Only having a gamecube and PS2) I would say the first 3 Crash Bandicoot games on PS1 and the masterful Metal Gear Solid PS1 are still immensely playable and inventive.

I love Mario Kart Double Dash too but I AM NOT A GAMER, so just carry on as you will!

my favorite childhood games would have to be resident evil 2, resident evil remake, super mario 64, mario kart, super smash bros., mortal kombat 2,3, and dont forget about golden eye. Raised by the big 64 console.

it's too bloody "linear"

given the new advacements, they could at least have tried a freer movement thing

i didn't like the combat much, back to turn-based, at least XII had a semblance of "real time"

i mean with stuff like "Skyrim" around why do I even want to bother with FF anymore?