Geoff

I'm going with "bastardisation". But that's because I'm a limey Brit.

Yeah, these deals are fairly common in the UK: a glance through the mobile phone adverts in any national newspaper will net you deals with free DSs, 360s, and PSPs.

Problem is, most of the deals come through third-party suppliers, which means you get royally screwed when it comes to your actual phone deal. Most of the time, it'd actually work out cheaper to get a phone with a decent supplier and buy a DS elsewhere.

But Orange are first-party, and one of the better ones. Zak mentioned Orange Wednesdays, which on its own is a fantastic deal. So if the deal was sound, and I wasn't already (a) a DS owner and (b) already signed up with O2, I'd consider this a decent investment.

I noticed that too - and, just like FFX, you could use your Guardian Forces to defend against incoming attacks, if you timed them right.

Speaking of VIII, and in response to the comments above about having a preference to your first ever FF game, VIII was my first, and was my favourite: there is definitely a correlation. Since then, I have gone back and played several of the earlier games (via my DS, mostly), and all of the 3D ones. Loved VI, IX and X, although none have moved me quite like VIII. Never got into VII, despite several attempts.

X was fab, and Blitzball, if you put up with the initial slog, was awesome as a minigame (still, Triple Triad takes the minigame award for me). X-2... if its battle system had been carried to a different game, it would have worked. But I hated the Gullwings - Brother in particular - and the changes to Yuna just riled me.

The shifting of the M rating to 18+ does makes sense. The UK system works well: we have U (Universal), PG (Parental Guidance), 12, 15 and 18. I think we have an X rating, but obviously you don't tend to see that in mainstream shops or cinemas.

We also have a box on our DVDs that rates each movie according to what it contains (don't know if this is in the US as well). There are four categories: Violence, Sexual Content, Language and Other, and each contains a couple of words to describe what the film contains. It takes up no more space than the rating itself. Something like this would be a fantastic tool for parents were it to appear on game boxes.

"you dicks that own the game could give us the registration code and we can all get those styli."

Truely, that is the way to get complete strangers to do you a favour. Well done.

Playing to crowd = not selling games that the Church of England disapproves of?

By that logic, shouldn't the US not get games that people such as Jack Thomson don't like? I mean, he believes himself to be in tune with the primary religious thoughts of the US. In reality, he holds as much sway over popular belief as... well, as the Church of England does in the UK.

Fact is, it's a popular game, so it makes sense to bundle it with the system.

I'm a big Dawn Of War fan, and the number of fantastic mods and maps built by the community is astounding. The Survival mod, in particular, creates a whole new style of gameplay.

I've built a couple of maps, but nothing particularly special. It's quite satisfying, if only to play on a level you made yourself.

Oh, the irony.

@elmer

Uh... you contradicted your arguement here.

If you are going on the assumption that we (I'm in the UK too) don't need a translation because the UK is English-speaking, then you can't say that "the European Market is the second largest" - it might be, but if so, then you need to account for translations into many different languages. The UK, taken on its own, is certainly not a larger market than either the US or Japan.

Also, my TV is not NTSC compatible. Sucks, but we really DON'T all have HDTV. In fact, the UK government, if you've been reading the papers, is starting to crap itself over the analogue-to-digital handover, given the news that places like Dixons are STILL selling 50Hz analogue-only TVs.

Sheppy's right, boyo.

There is certainly a lack of goods such as soundtracks, posters... and, y'know, games.

That said, I really want to spend money there, but I can't afford the FFVIII necklace (another fan here!), and I'm in the UK anyway.