The once and future king

Woke up this morning to find that my throat had closed over almost entirely, leaving my voice sounding like one of the uber-butch marines from Gears of War. So once again, I'm not at work. It's hard to provide customers with the help they so dearly need when everything you say sounds like "Get to the chopper!"

So I'm at home, reading. This, specifically. One of the big problems that the 360 launch caused was that releases for the original Xbox dried up. Not so with the PS2. Partly, and this is shown by the article, this is because of the higher proportion of Japanese games, which tend to have longer development cycle. But to a certain extent, it's because Sony hasn't abandoned the PS2 in the same way Microsoft did the Xbox.

The strange thing is, I find myself playing on the PS2 more than any other consoles at the moment. This certainly has not been the case for the majority of it's ugly, squalid lifespan, but I now realise it was squalid and ugly because it was a pupal stage, one that has now burst forth to reveal irridiscent wings. Long story short, Okami's out now, and Final Fantasy 12 will be on friday. They're the wings. It's a metaphor. Sorry.

There aren't many games on that list that I'm not interested in, mainly because I have a burgeoning interest in Japanese RPGs. I may need to stop going to work altogether if that's something I can easily support. I remember playing Red Star a few years ago, on Xbox I think. I distinctly remember enjoying it's old school beat 'em up/shoot 'em up hybrid shenanigans. I'd even consider Yakuza 2, as long as it doesn't have the crude stealth sections of the original. Persona 3 looks particualrly interesting, though it does have the greatest potential for fanfic yaoi. I shudder at the thought.

In other news, food for gamers? Because we need to be ghettoised further. I want it on the record that I do not trust any food that lists amongst it's ingredients 'toffee bits'.