A Review Like No Other

Just this last week Moose and I watched a new anime series. (No surprises there I am sure.) This particular series is based on a video game. It can be a real hit or miss when it comes to basing movies off of video games (as is shown in Hollywood). We haven’t played the game and yet found the series satisfactory. Moose now wants to try his hand at the game. While I was surfing the web I thought of this and decided to look up the game and see if it was even worth getting for him at some future date. There are actually three PS2 games that all kind of link together. (This isn’t just like there being 15 or so Final Fantasy games, this is in order to get the entire plot you have to play all three games and your characters develop over the course of all three games. We have another game like this and it is kind of cool.)

So as I was looking at the game I was pleased to see that the first installment is actually rated pretty good on Amazon. I just clicked on the second one and noticed the ratings were quite as good and then I came across this review (I edited out chunks).

Playing this game is like channeling saidin.
3.0 out of 5 stars
April 23, 2005
By Karrigan Ambrian
Fun: 1.0 out of 5 stars
The story is Good.
...
Now, on to Dark One's taint = the gameplay.
...
In conclusion, let me just say that I hope Episode 3 is better, or I will go insane. Or the Red Ajah will come for me in the form of Final Fantasy XII.

What a riot!

For the past two years I have been working my way through the WHEEL OF TIME series. (For those of you who don’t know, the 14th, and final, book came out on the 8th. I am about a quarter of the way through book 13 (though that isn’t counting the prequel now that I think about it). For the past two years I have always been in the middle listening to or reading one of these massive epic fantasy novels. I have enjoyed reading them, when not trying to strangle the characters through the pages. In my mind, WHEEL OF TIME is one of the biggest fantasy series to have ever been written. I have memories of my family reading the books when I was little (though they all told me to wait until the end was in sight). I remember my mother talking about the waiting list at the library to get them. And yet, I am surprised at how many readers don’t actually know them. I tell other fantasy readers I am working my way through WHEEL OF TIME and more than half give me a blank stare.
So, to come across a video game review (from seven years ago) that uses saidin as a comparison, I was impressed at the creativity though I wonder how many people who are thinking about purchasing this game actually get reference, probably more than I think.