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'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. 

The guy who used to live in my apartment subscribed to ESPN: The Magazine. He's gone, but his subscription marches on without him.

Woot. 

It's not a bad magazine, especially when you're sitting on the toilet. Like movies on airplanes, all magazines get about 30-percent more interesting if you're sitting on a toilet at the time.

On a recent morning, during one of my porcelain epiphanies, I came across a story listing the top 10 best sports documentaries of all time.

When We Were Kings? Oh, man, absolutely. Hoop Dreams? Great fucking film.

But I was surprised to see Hands on a Hardbody on the lists, and even more surprised to find The King of Kong: Fistful of Quarters there.

I mean, I guess there's training involved. And a main event of sorts. And I loved the movie dearly. But is there really such a dearth of good sports documentaries out there that ESPN needed to reach for a videogame docu?

I've got one that you missed, ESPN: Go Tigers! is an IFC-produced movie about the Massillon Tigers high school football team. It's worthy of a spot in the top 10.

Beyond that, it got me to thinking: What are the great, must-see gaming-related movies? Is it possible to come up with 10? Five?

Once Upon Atari is also great. But are there more?

Side note: In Crispy Gamer's one and only restaurant review, Vogel and I once sampled the wings at Billy Mitchell's hot wings palace in Florida. Our stomachs haven't been the same since. The things we do for our art...

Yesterday I went to the local EB Games here in Vancouver to buy a copy of Final Fantasy XII.

In related news, pigs were seen flying over several North American cities yesterday.

When I was at the store, I saw these two games prominently displayed in the PS2 section: 

That's right: Trapt and Zathura. They sound like titles of games that someone who knows nothing about games would make up.

I can imagine my mother saying, "What are you doing in there for hours on end? Playing Zathura again or whatever the hell it's called? Why don't you go out and get a job? Why don't you have more friends? Why can't you be more like your brother!!!!!"

Ahem.

Sorry for that.

Anyway, back to Final Fantasy XII.

When John Teti and I were in Tokyo a few weeks back, the top floor of the Shinjuku Prince Hotel featured a very fine establishment called FUGA.

We would retire there in the evenings and drink extremely weak gin and tonics and hold forth on various subjects like politics, religion, sex, the "greening" of the tech industry, and Final Fantasy.

Teti and I are friends, despite our age difference. He's the oldest young man I know.

Anyway, one boozey night, in the name of cementing our friendship, after about 900,004 weak gin and tonics at FUGA, I pledged to him that I would finish ONE Final Fantasy game before I die. 

He said, "Fine, and that Final Fantasy will be Final Fantasy XII."

First impressions of the box: The box cover has all kinds of blonde people on it, trying to look like toughs, and things that look like airships. Airships! I don't see any chocobos on there, so that's good... The back of the box says DISCOVER THE SECRET THAT WILL UNRAVEL AN EMPIRE.

That does sound like fun...

Anyway, I'm a man of my word.

Check back here for my Final Fantasy XII updates as they happen.

I know what Kyle Orland is doing over the holidays this year: Teaching himself how to play a mournful rendition of "Epona's Theme" on his real-life Ocarina.

While eating a sandwich and leafing through a recent issue of Nintendo Power yesterday, I came across the following ad:

Yes, it says: DISCOVER A MAGICAL WORLD WITH YOUR OCARINA.

It features some fourth-rate Photoshopped-in magical star effects and a woman who looks like she's sad that her modeling career has taken her to a point where one-third of her head is appearing in ads in videogame magazines for Ocarinas.

If you blow into this ocarina, the only "magical world" you will likely discover is one of loneliness and alcohol and subscriptions to Cat Fancy.

Here at Crispy Gamer, we kid because we love.

And we love Ryan Kuo.

Seriously, this guy has turned out to be an integral part of Team Crispy. I personally didn't want to hire him. I know! He seemed kind of mopey during his interview. (Which I now realize is just one weapon in his toolbox of insidious charms.) And he went to Harvard, which only made me not want to hire him even more, because I think all Harvard people, once in their lifetimes, should not get at least one job they've applied for. And he didn't seem like much of a gamer. And...well, I could continue, but you get the idea.

Ryan has turned out to be awesome to work with. He puts on his headphones and slouches in his office chair and just makes shit happen. Sometimes he leaves the office and never tells us where he goes. But he always comes back. Always. Sometimes carrying a sandwich from a sandwich shop none of us have ever heard of before. He originally was Vogel's sidekick/henchman, but he quickly outgrew that role and came into his own as a gamer, as an editor, and as a writer. No one gets more excited about obscure iPhone games than Ryan does. NO ONE. Follow him on Twitter; you'll see. (@twerkface)

The guy is passionate. No joke. Which brings me to my "we kid because we love" sentiment. There are a couple of running jokes about Ryan in the office. (FYI: If we don't have any running jokes about you, it probably means we don't like you.) One running joke is that Ryan is a sucker for any indie-scented, indie-flavored game. One time we caught him in the office playing Blueberry Garden. Blueberry Garden! "I have to play this for a review, guys," he said while clicking away at his mouse. One other time we caught him playing something so obscure, none of us had even heard of the game he was playing.

Running joke number two is that Ryan loves all games for the first five minutes. Seriously. Pick any game, put the controller in his hand, and boom, watch that smile come out of his typically somber face like the sun on a cloudy day.

It's beautiful.

So when Teti and I were in Tokyo a few weeks back, staying at the minus-two-star-rated, nicotine-soaked Shinjuku Prince Hotel, I noticed the incredibly lengthy hallways outside our doors and snapped a picture. Teti and I agreed that the photo looked a lot like a screenshot for an indie game that Ryan would enjoy playing.

Our plan was to mock up the photo, pixellate it a bit, and then tell Ryan about this cool new indie game we saw at the Tokyo Game Show called "The Hallway." 

But the more we thought about it, the more we decided that April 1st was too far off for us to get away with this, and that this joke might be too cruel, even by our normally cruel standards.

For once in our lives, Teti and I rose above our petty urges.

Instead, I have decided to turn "The Hallway" into a loving tribute to the wonderful Ryan Kuo.

Ryan: Keep on making our world go around, sir. And don't go back to med school. Don't even think about it.

Because between all the kidding and loving (and kidding) that we do, I'm pretty sure that Crispy Gamer would not be "Crispy Gamer" anymore without you.

This is my third year attending the Tokyo Game Show, and while I'll no doubt come back to the extremely lovely country of Japan, despite the rather large spiders that live here, I doubt I'll come back to TGS again.

Did I really have to travel to the opposite side of the globe to learn that THE PS3 VERSION OF BAYONETTA DOES NOT RUN AS WELL AS THE XBOX 360 VERSION DOES?

No joke, that was the extent of the big news and gossip here.

During a year in which E3 made its semi-glorious return to old form, when GDC San Francisco continues to grow like one of those magic sponge toys that you can soak in water overnight only to wake up to find a MUCH LARGER sponge toy in the same water glass the next morning; during an era when GamesCon in Europe retooled itself even though it really didn't have to retool itself and PAX announced an East Coast version of its nerdy gathering, it's hard to explain what went wrong with TGS this year.

But I'll try.

Exhibit A: Actual photo taken from the show floor on Thursday at 3:39 PM: 

I've spoken with some of my colleagues about this. Some ideas as to what went wrong: The economy is bad here. Japanese developers, who once represented the cutting edge in the medium, have gotten in the habit of making the same game again and again. And there also seems to be a greater homogenization between the East and West now. You used to be able to come to TGS to find all kinds of crazy, nutty games that we knew would never see the light of day in the States. You used to be able to come to Tokyo to buy the latest hardware and software months, or sometimes years, before it ever reached U.S. store shelves.

Neither phenomenon holds true anymore. In fact, many of the games on the show floor are already out in the States.

Japanese developers also seem to be making conscious efforts to appeal more to U.S. gamers. Instead of these intense, nonsensical, but bizarrely gorgeous in their own way games that Japan is famous for, we're seeing Japanese developers borrowing heavily from Western games. Exhibit B: Quantum Space, a Gears of War rip-off from Tecmo. (See for yourself.) What kind of nutty, upside-down, backwards-ass world are we living in where Japanese developers are lifting ideas from Cliffy B.? Are pigs flying? Are yellow demons rotating on the tops of buildings?

Beyond that, look at the groundswell of Japanese publishers who are hiring North American developers to develop their games for them. Exhibit C: Capcom has hired Blue Castle Games in Vancouver to develop Dead Rising 2. Heck, Nintendo has been using Western developers for years, most recently, Next Level Games, who developed Punch-Out!! for the Wii.

Speaking of Nintendo, as usual, they were nowhere to be found at TGS. They never come to TGS, but I feel their absence was more pronounced this year than in previous years.

When arguably the most inherently Japanese of the Big Three console makers decides year after year that a convention in their own backyard isn't worth their while, that's says something. In a loud voice. One inch away from your ear.

Yesterday Teti and I decided to go to the 24-hour McDonald's across from our hotel.

As usual, I managed to communicate with the Japanese-speaking counter girl by pointing at pictures on the menu and making eating and drinking motions with my hands. I always feel like a chimp in a Jane Goodall study in these moments.

I noticed a tall, cardboard cut-out of an extremely nerdy looking man, complete with the cliche dark eyeglasses, the over-combed hair, and the shirt tucked into his hiked-up pants.

Here, take a look.

Teti leans over my shoulder as I complete my arm-waving transaction with the counter-girl. He points at the cardboard cut-out and whispers, "THEY THINK THAT'S YOU."

He wasn't kidding. This guy is actually a mascot for the controversial Nippon All-Stars campaign here in Japan. The mascot's name is "Mr. James," and apparently he appears in McDonald's commercials talking about how much he loves the Japanese version of McDonald's food.

I did some reasearch and found that there's been a pretty severe backlash against McDonald's and Mr. James.

One backlash leader writes: "To illustrate the issue more clearly, would McDonald’s USA (or McDonald’s in any other country, for that matter) choose to promote, for example, a new rice dish with a ching-chong Chinaman saying, 'Me likee McFlied Lice!?'  Of course not." (You can read the rest of his post here.)

Teti and I took our trays of food upstairs and found seats. He had a normal sandwich on his tray, but he also had a small paper bag. I asked him what was in the bag. He was flustered. "I don't know what the hell I ordered," he said. Inside the bag he found a patty of fried chicken. We both started laughing. The directions on the bag showed you how to pour in a topping--in Teti's case, it was a cheese-flavored topping--then close the bag and shake it vigorously, then open and enjoy your cheese-covered patty. But his bag was all destroyed already. So he poured a little cheese on the edge of his patty and began eating it, and the two of us sat there, feeling very much like a pair of Mr. Jameses.

Yesterday we went to an afternoon baseball game at the Tokyo Dome. Teti got us tickets through some shifty journalist named Wayne who I made the mistake of calling "Wade," and once I realized how irritated Teti was by my mistake, I decided to go ahead and refer to the guy as "Wade" for the rest of the day. Getting Teti all red-assed about something is SO FUN. 

We watched the Yomiuri Giants beat the Chunichi Dragons 5 to 3 in the quickest nine innings of baseball I have ever seen.

More importantly, whenever the game got boring, we could watch the cute vending girls who were dressed in brightly colored shorts climb the Dome's vertigo-inducing incline with LITTLE KEGS OF BEER strapped to their backs.

It's settled: I now know what I want my future wife to wear on our wedding night. 

JONES FANTASY #004: My wife, who will bear more than a passing resemblance to Cheryl Tiegs, will say, "Let me slip into somethng more comfortable." And she would disappear into the bathroom of our expensive hotel room. The bed would be covered with rose petals VOTED MOST ROMANTIC GESTURE EVER 2008 AND 2009. I would put some Bryan Adams songs on the radio.

And then a few minutes later, the door would open and I would see this: