Googleshng:
There are a number of reasons why the US gets RPGs a good deal ahead of Europe. First there's the fact that there's an awful lot of people here who all speak the same language. That gives the US some justified priority. Then there's the fact that you have PAL TVs. That throws in the occassional technical issue. That last one most likely doesn't account for much porting time, and the others I can think of don't really hold water, but it still stands that releasing a game in North America gets you more money back on your dollar than releasing a game in Europe does. So, we get games first sometimes, and we get games you don't get others. It's a bit of a shame, but if it makes you feel any better, you can always grab the European release of Shenmue 2 and wave it around US gamers in a taunting fashion. Terranigma works too.

Googleshng:
Well, movies are made into games because movies produce merchandise. That's a law of the universe. As for games emulating movies, well, that started out as a series of benchmarks to prove games' capacity for artistic presentation. Fun with camera angles, presentation, and all that. At this point though, giving a game a "cinematic feel" really isn't impressive at all. Especially when they have the capacity to do so many things that movies can't, or at least can't without a huge budget. It's one of those things that's a proven success though, like doing all the music in a horror film with a violin. Don't expect it to stop any time soon.

Googleshng:
Ah, Kingdom Hearts. While there is little doubt in my mind that by any standard criteria, it will be a terrible excuse for an RPG, thanks mostly to the target age group for Disney related things, it has a certain bizarre appeal to it by virtue of being so insane.

Googleshng:
They don't look like Disney characters really, at least not Link, and at least half of that clip looked like actual gameplay. Zelda isn't exactly big on cut scenes even these days. As for what I think of the visual style, well, it grew on me real quick, but then, I've always been a sucker for shock value.

Googleshng:
It's very simple. Let's say you're Sega. Despite the fact that there's still a number of first rate games due out for your system, the media has already tagged it's proverbial toe. Not enough people own the system for you to turn a substancial profit on said first rate games, and they sure as heck aren't going to buy them now. Then some company offers you a huge ammount of money for the US publishing rights to this game. You get a lot of money, you don't have to take the risk of producing a bunch of discs that probably won't sell too well. Since you're already swallowing your pride and leaving the console game, chances are you aren't really considering any principals, and would happily accept a large amount of money over taking a risky gamble without much reward.

Now let's say you're Microsoft. You just obtained the publishing rights to a pretty well anticipated game, and you're about to launch a console whose odds of survival suck since it's more expensive and has FAR less noteworthy exclusive games on it. So, despite and in fact BECAUSE there being a good number of Dreamcast users who have been eagerly antipating the game, you kick them in the teeth and release it only on your new system, giving you one more noteworthy exclusive game which even has a huge amount of media and fan hype built around it.

While this sort of business tactic may shock a good number of gamers, it is actually one of the least cruel things Microsoft has done, even in terms of games. Take for example when they bought out FASA and scrapped a pending Shadowrun PC RPG to focus on the Mech Warrior series.

Googleshng:
While I know enough Japanese to gripe about errors made in anime subtitles, I'm basically illiterate. As if learning a new alphabet wasn't hard enough, there's also kanji to deal with, and even a lot of people in Japan have trouble with that. I can still play import games and enjoy them though if I'm not in it for the plot, or they have spoken dialog.

Googleshng:
I haven't seen the PE movie, no do I particularly wish to. Live action gooey transformations aren't my thing. As for scary pics, it's just more WRONG if you like the characters, and WRONG is good.

Googleshng:
You know, I actually DO read nearly every story posted on RPGamer, and I have a good enough memory to recall incendental facts I glanced at a year ago (it sucks really, every bad movie trailer I've ever seen in my life is still in my head and will be until I die). The fact still remains though that out of the many people I know who have played FFA on the PS2, not one has complained about it being buggy. So, while I may have READ about a bug a long time ago, from a list of potentially buggy games, I have never HEARD about one, as I said yesterday, which seems to indicate that it does not in fact exist, at least not everyhere. So to all the people who pointed this story out, let me just say 8P

Googleshng:
I would seriously like to know how it is that I am a magnet for letters from Brazil some day. Anyway though, you have a hard time finding this? http://www.rpgamer.com/links/link2rpgamer.html That's odd. All you have to do is click our easy to overlook Feedback link, then the extremely hard to find FAQ link from there, and then root around for a link to that! It's sim- no wait, it's needlessly complicated.