I've been chipping away at Final Fantasy XII over the past 10 days or so. And, to my surprise, I'm actually getting into it. I find myself looking forward to the little theme song that plays when the game first loads up. Doot, doot. Doot, doot. Doot, doot, etc.

One thing I've been having to learn how to deal with is the inherent ambiguity of the genre. I can't stand ambiguity. I need the world, and my books, and my movies, and my games--especially my games--to make perfect sense. (Music, less so.) I have a friend in Boston who made a baby about a year ago, and since his gaming time is severely limited now, he refuses to play anything but Rock Band. His reasoning: There is absolutely nothing about Rock Band that is ambiguous.

But FF XII throws a bunch of stuff at me--armlets and wolf pelts and fancy leather wear and various types of stones--and basically says, "Here. You figure out what to do with all of this shit."

Each time I collected something new for my inventory, a little bit more panic accrued in my panic tank.

And, in the vernacular of Gus Mastrapa, I had the unnerving, futile feeling that I was doing it wrong.

So I went on a real world question over the weekend, to Brooklyn, to seek the counsel of Old Man John Teti. (I also went out there to see the new cats, and his new apartment, and his lovely wife, AND his mom, who was in town for the weekend. But also to seek counsel regarding FF XII.)

While his wife and mom were busy doing other stuff, Teti and I had a private moment. I told him that I was going out into this desert area, and there were some hyenas, and I killed them, and some annoying bunny things (killed them), and some strange bipedal owl-like creatures (killed them; but sometimes they killed me). Penelo and I would kill as many of these things as we could, collect our XP, and then we'd limp back to the nearest Save Stone, and rejuvenate our health. Then, it was back to the desert to basically do the same thing. Then, some werewolves killed me and Penelo, and I remembered that an NPC had previously told me to STAY AWAY FROM THE WEREWOLVES, but I didn't heed said advice.

After an hour or so of this, as I explained to Teti, I began to wonder: Am I doing it wrong?

And this bit of anxiety gave rise to other bits of anxiety. Did I have the right equipment, you know, equipped? Was I on some advanced quest that I shouldn't even be on? Should I travel to the far side of the map and look for the zebra-unicorn thing that w1ndstorm suggested I look for?

Teti said: "You're fine."

Then he explained that one of the great pleasures of the game, and the FF series in general, comes from figuring out how to play the game. "Nothing is ever explained," he said. "Just stay with it, and you'll figure it out. No matter what you're doing, you're not doing it wrong."

In other words: the answers will reveal themselves eventually.

Later that night, back in Queens, I purchased a couple of +15 Broadswords for Penelo and myself. "We've really earned it," I reasoned. "Look at all the Hyena Bs and Hyena Cs we've slaughtered!" But when I went to equip them, the game had the Broadswords grayed out in my inventory. I cursed a blue streak.

Then, just as Teti has promised, the answer revealed itself to me. 

Duh, I thought. I don't have the proper LICENSE to wield these swords.

Back into the license menu I went. Proper licenses were acquired for both of us. And the two of us went back into the desert, leaving a trail of perpetually vanishing Hyena corpses behind us. My AT Rating (Ambiguity Tolerance): +2. 

Swag Tester is like backwards American Idol. We do the results first, and then we ask the contestants to perform. Yet it works. So first things first: Here are the results from the last Swag Tester. Randomly selected Killstring walks away with a Dark Void travel bag. And This_is_suicide gets a runner-up swag gift, grabbed haphazardly off my desk, because s/he came right out and begged for some swag. Note: That trick will only work once. (Also, This_is_suicide, see the note at the bottom of this post.)

Here's the thing about the good folks at PopCap. They make excellent games—generally well-loved in the Crispy offices, even if Jones turns his nose up at Peggle—but the above-and-beyond part is that their swag is pretty good, too. It seems they put as much creative energy into coming up with swag as they put into the actual software.

I've gathered up all my PopCap treasures, mostly PvZ stuff with a little Bejeweled thrown in. One of you will be gifted with the whole shebang, seen here as photographed in our conference room, also known as The Hall of Inconsistent Lighting.

Clockwise from left:
- PvZ "Ask Me About Moustache Mode" T-shirt
- Bejeweled Twist kaleidoscope
- Real-life Bejeweled jewel
- PvZ Brain Ooze energy drink
- PvZ zombie and sunflower masks
- PvZ "no zombies" sticker
- PC/Mac boxed copy of PvZ
- Plants vs. Zombie Bedtime mini-comic

Here are close-ups of a couple especially choice items:

Moustache T-shirt.

Bejeweled jewel, shaped like a huge cut diamond. Much cooler in person.

I chose the zombie mask for experimentation in the Swag Tester labs. Here are the results:

If you want this hulking pile of swag, leave a comment in the thread below answering this question: What was the best game-related Halloween costume you made/wore/saw this year? And if you didn't see any game-related Halloween costumes, just make something up. This ain't The McNeil-Lehrer News Hour here.

One eligible commenter will be chosen at random to get the PopCap stuff, and another commenter who makes me laugh might get a different crazy prize from the Great Stack of Swag on my desk. I'll toss in some Crispy hats, too, because we have thousands of them in the back room. And we don't even have a back room! You see the problem, then.

Important boring note that I have to put here mostly because of the crazy Facebook Connect stuff that I don't understand: If you don't have a valid email address in your Crispy profile (a group that apparently includes everyone who registered on Crispy through Facebook), we can't contact you if you win! Please email prizes at crispygamer.com if there's any doubt. And This_is_suicide, I don't know if you're a Facebook guy or not, but in any case, we couldn't reach you, so email us. That way, we can send you free stuff.

Final boring note: We can only ship prizes within North America.

Inspiring call to action, so that we don't end on tedious logistical stuff: Let the repartee commence, readers!

1."Now who the hell is this guy?"

2. "Battle legs? I have to put my 'battle legs' on? These ARE my fucking legs!"

3. "Where should I go? Queens Harbor or Container Terminal 3?"

4. "Ooof, that Hillary Clinton clone snuck up on me."

5. "Hello infamous panty-flash juggle."

6. "He's a big one; I'm going to get a lot of chicken from him! And money!"

7. "Shit, I should have opened those crates. Shit, man!"

8. "Man, why not just MAP IT TO THE RIGHT STICK?"

9. "I need to get my eggs over here."

10. "It's funny. No, wait; it's stupid."

So it looks like I'm really going to go through with this whole FF XII thing. I kind of can't believe it. I'm not having a terrible time so far. Which is more than I can say for most games. The dialogue is uneven, but actually pretty good in spots. Though I do wonder at times why all the citizens, even the elderly ones, are wearing half shirts and tiny, sleeveless vests.

I care a little bit about Vaan and Kytes and Penelo. They're street urchins who are always scheming. They are the Little Rascals of Rabanastre. Most recently, Vaan is scheming to find a way into the Palace; and Old Dalan might have a crystal that can help him accomplish this.

I also defeated the Rogue Tomato this morning. He was a total push-over. He was a tiny dude who only came up to about my knees, with a large, red tomato on his head. I don't really even know what he was, technically speaking. He didn't seem too viscious. He was barely aggressive at all. I slapped him around, until he fell over and his corpse vanished and I was awarded some serious XP-age.

I also killed some orange wolves and some cute anthropomorphic cacti for the XP-age. (One cactus was actually sleeping! I killed him anyway. F*** him. I need XP-age! I need to be a Level Four!)

After the Rogue Tomato was dead and gone, I spotted a very large T-Rex skulking in the distance. I thought, Man, I'm only Level Three, I can't deal with that! So I ran back to the town. Later on, I told Teti about the dinosaur, and he said, "Oh yeah. That dinosaur would have torn you to pieces!"

I took this as a sign that perhaps my RPG instincts are starting to come in finally. They're still just little buds, but maybe with proper care and feeding, they can actually continue to grow, and maybe even flourish.

OH, and Vayne made his first appearance this morning. Which Vaan was very, very interested in. 

So I knew the opening cutscene would be long, and lavish, with lots of action and characters staring up at the sky with their blonde hair waving in their faces.

But man! This one was REALLY LONG. It was kind of exciting for awhile. Some airships flew over and everyone stared up at them. And then there was a war sequence which was very exciting and made me REALLY LUST FOR COMBAT. And then some Chocobos were running around, but these Chocobos looked kind of menacing, so I was OK with them.(I'm Chocobo-Averse. It says so in my eHarmony profile.)

The game opens with a slow-paced tutorial, which I appreciated, since I'm not a FF expert, or an RPG expert. It was so slow that I'm sure anyone who is either of those two things would be horribly annoyed by it. It's RPG 101 stuff. Again, I didn't mind.

The combat system is kind of cool. I open the menu, select ATTACK, then move Reks, whose wedding was interrupted by the Archadian Empire's invasion (I'm already talking in FF Speak!), next to one of the bad guys and he just goes to town on him.

Then Reks is killed.

:(

Then I'm playing as Vaan, who Teti told me later on, is Reks' little brother.

I admittedly did fall asleep once in my chair, controller in hand, during one of the extended words-on-screen digressions about the history of Rabanastre and Nabradia and well, I don't remember what else, because I was enjoying a nice dream about Cheryl Tiegs no doubt.

I confess, I'm getting glimpses of the appeal here. I've hung around a tavern where I received my first quest to find and kill a demonic creature that the locals refer to as THE ROGUE TOMATO. And I visited a weapons shop. I think it's the job of any reviewer worth his salt to occasionally step out of his comfort zone, to play games in genres that he is less familiar with, to try to understand the appeal. So far, I think I see it. Way off in the distance. Just over that next hill (or maybe it's the hill after that).

For now, I'm off to kill the Rogue Tomato. Only about 59 hours of gameplay to go... I'd better pack a lunch.

I had to stop working to think about life and death today. Many of us did.

They often say that our business is a business of youth.

But you never expect those who are young to leave, to go, to die.

Rannie Yoo was a public relations person par excellence. Like many of the public relations pros with which we writers deal, she was a sweetheart, funny, thoughtful, giving. She certainly always went the extra mile for me whenever I had a request.

Rannie just died of a rare form of cancer. Few of us knew of her condition until she posted “25 Things About My Cancer” on Facebook a week or so ago. Bravely, she wrote, “I have to sleep with my head elevated every night, because of the swelling on my face and neck due to radiation. My jaw tends to drop open in this position, causing my mouth and throat to become PAINFULLY dry. I've been tucking teddy bears under my chin which keeps my mouth closed most of the time. I call this "teddy bear therapy." Max, my friend's Zak's teddy bear, is in charge with David's childhood bear working as the head nurse. “

It blindsided us, and the many “Get Well Soon” postings on her Wall were indications of how liked she was. Rannie was just in her 30s, and she had that childlike sense of wonder that all of us who love video games and the people who make them hold onto so dearly.

I can’t imagine the courage she mustered and the pain she endured.

So forget Master Chief and Mario for a while today.

Take a moment, be silent, say a prayer if you do that, for Rannie Yoo.

I'm back in New York for the first time in a couple months. Back in my old bed, back in my old desk chair, back in my neighborhood of many years.

It's strange being here. I find myself looking at my old things like an anthropologist, wondering: Who this person was who lived here? What were his values? How did he live? Did he enjoy his life at all?

Clearly this person wasn't terribly organized (note: laundry discovered in closet that has been sitting there for several months). He seemed to enjoy pornography and dry roasted peanuts and string cheese. The kitchen drawers are stuffed with old soy sauce packets and chopsticks; he must have had at least seven thousand dollars worth of Chinese food delivered over the years.

And clearly this person played a lot of games. Bad games, mostly.

I am astonished, and more than a little embarrassed, by the mass quantities of terrible games I'm still harboring.

True Crime: Streets of LA (Xbox). The Matrix: Path of Neo (Xbox). Driver: Parallel Lines (Xbox). MVP Baseball '05 (Xbox), a series that has been defunct for several years now. Something called Spartan: Total Warrior (Xbox). Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance (Xbox). True Crime: Streets of NY (Xbox). That's just a swatch of the larger fabric, too.

Added together, the total value of these games is probably -$6.04.

You cannot give these games away. Literally. And I feel strange putting them in the garbage. Somebody, somewhere worked on these games. (I've been to dev offices; I've seen how hard these people work. They bust ass.) Somebody put in long hours. Somebody--at least one member of the dev team--put a little bit of heart and maybe even a bit of soul into these virtual worlds. Whenever I stare at my shelves of bad games, I inevitably think, Well, maybe some day I'll get around to finishing Black, or 007 Everything Or Nothing, or Destroy All Humans. Maybe I'll take a good, hard look at those games, and I'll finally find something to love about them, something to appreciate.

And thus: Here they sit, lost in a kind of collector's limbo.

I've made it my mission to cull the stacks this week. To thin the herd. Anything that's even marginal has got to go. I'm traveling light from now on. It's Jones 2.0. No! It's Jones 2.1!

I'll keep you posted on Project What To Keep What To Toss 2009 this week.

Send me strength, oh mighty gods of gaming.

Meanwhile, here's a question (and be honest here): What's the most embarrassing bit of gaming effluvia you are harboring in your collection?

Let's hear it.

I'm heading for the airport shortly, boarding an Air Canada flight, then beginning the long journey back to Crispy Central in New York City.

I actually fly into Newark.

#$@*&!.

For those of you who don't know, Crispy Gamer is rare in that it's one of the few gaming-centric publications unique enough, or crazy enough, to set up shop in New York City.

The orange-painted office--that shade of orange has been known to drive lesser men insane--is located in a no-man's-land part of town that probably resembles Grand Theft Auto's Liberty City more than it does the rest of New York. Downstairs from our building, there are many suspicious clothing shops (which are no doubt fronts for other activities) and places to buy chicken (which are also no doubt fronts for other activities). It seems like everything is being torn down and/or built up around us; huge pieces of yellow-colored construction equipment rumble along the street. (Or at least they did a few months ago, last time I was there.)

At night, it's not uncommon to see ladies with love for sale patroling our block.

During the day, it's not uncommon for the building's heat not to function. (Note to self: Pack old-man cardigans.)

The office is a dirty, beautiful place. There are notes tacked above the toilets which describe the proper way to flush. There is an elevator that eeriely opens and closes of its own volition. There is a tiny IKEA couch that I'm pretty sure more than one person in the office (was it you?) has spent the night on. There is the smell of old food in the afternoons. There is the smell of old food farts in the evenings.

Ah, Crispy.

Anyway, here are the 10 things I'm most looking forward to in NYC.

1. Hugging Elise.

2. Have a pint at Keens across the street.

3. Organizing the game room and being tempted once again to borrow the office copy of Ninja Blade. (NO!)

4. Trying to decipher the half-erased messages on the office white board. (Wait... Is that the words "Get rid of Jones" I see? NO!)

5. Waiting patiently for the elevator with the Fed-Ex guy.

6. Having Teti declare that my salad from Pax "smells like ass."

7. Listening to Elise giggle uncontrollably each time she receives an IM from Dave Thomas and/or Gus Mastrapa and/or Tom Chick.

8. Trying to keep names of the new interns (plural) straight. (Note to self: Buy name-tags.)

9. Standing in front of the open fridge and wondering why we have a million Diet Dr. Peppers.

10. Wondering how on earth someone got a NERF dart stuck way up in there.

Leave the porch light on for me.

Daddy's coming home. 

I had an interesting conversation with a colleague (who I won't mention out of respect) this evening about game reviews and how much a reviewer has to play what they perceive as a bad game before they throw in the towel and write a review. To my way of thinking you should try, to the best of your ability, to play that game as far as you can, barring a show stopping bug or design flaw that prevents you from continuing.

So if a game is awful, are reviewers allowed to say at some point "hey I wouldn't play this game anymore than I have to and you shouldn't either" or should they do the heavy lifting and play it to the end? My thought on doing that is that it is wrong and it makes it difficult for an editor to know whether that person was truly playing an awful game or was just being lazy.

As much as I loathe playing crappy games, I take the responsibility of reviewing any game very seriously. After all, times are hard right now and wasting your money on anything sucks, let alone on some middling, crappy piece of software. On the other hand, there are men and women that pour their hearts and souls into developing these games and we have an obligation to  give them a fair and honest critique of their work.

I know where I stand, but what do you think as a fellow reviewer or as a consumer?

Image Credit: pbase.com

Enough of this transpacific travel and caption-contest folderol. We must return now to the serious business of Swag Tester, which in our last episode, granted commenter Confessor the coveted prize of a Modern Warfare 2 pen set and a Crispy cap.

But hey, posting the funny comments on the caption contest was fun, right? So, if you want to be humorous in the Swag Tester comments, let's do that. The winner will still be picked at random, but in the meantime we'll have some laffs.

The prize this time is a "Tesla Air" travel set to promote the game Dark Void. It's coming out in January from Capcom, and I wasn't aware of it until I got this package, so it was pretty effective swag, I guess.

This is also the most useful piece of swag I've ever received. We all were marveling in the Crispy office about the attention to detail on display. It really is quite a good little pack for the plane. Here's a picture:

Clockwise from left: Shoulder bag, blanket, TSA-approved liquid containers, inflatable neck pillow, "hanging toiletry tote bag" (according to the label).

I gave the neck pillow an honest-to-goodness test during my Japan trip, because my old inflatable pillow sprung a leak, and it worked like a champ. But honest-to-goodness tests are not the way we do things here at Swag Tester, so I conducted the REAL test by seeing if my brother's cat Zissou would find the bag an acceptable cat bed.

Yes, I'm becoming a cat person. Blame Jones. Anyway, your Tesla Air pack will be a fresh one, no neck sweat or cat hair on any of the items. And you can acquire it by answering the following question in the comments: "Is there a Dark Void in your gaming life? What is it, and how could it be filled?" Please restrict yourself to responses that do not run astray of any local or federal statutes.

A winner will be chosen at random from commenters who answer the question. (Note: We can only ship prizes within North America, alas.) Will there be a secret bonus surprise gift if I find a response especially clever? I don't know, maybe!

(By the way, if you registered through Facebook, that is super, but it also means we don't have an email address on file for you in case you win. So drop a line to prizes [at] crispygamer.com if there's any doubt that we have your email address. We won't use this address for anything except contacting you if you get a prize.)