Sort of a boring week for discovery, but let's see what I found anyways.

Playstation 3, now slimmer, cheaper and ...sexier?

Sweet, yet another PS3 model without backwards compatibility. Look, Sony. I know you've got warehouses FULL of unsold PS2s. It's a sad state of affairs.

However, mine is broke, I'm not paying $99 to get another one, and you're not really trying very hard to convince me that I need to pick up my own Playstation 3 if 80% of the games I would play on your console are already on the Xbox 360, generally cheaper.

I swear, that is all it would take to get me to stare at the box, say "**** it" and pick one up, is if it had those beautiful little letters "Partially Compatible with Playstation 2 Software" burned into a dark corner somewhere. The best and biggest chunk of games Sony has to offer are, by and large, still only available on the Playstation 2.

I loved my PS2. I miss my PS2. If I could get my PS2 on inside my PS3, I'd be like, "This is cool. This thing officially has most of my favorite stuff ever, right here in this box." and life would be wonderful.

On the plus, though...! 34% more energy-efficient. Very impressive. I can play Mega Man 9 and Final Fantasy VII with almost 20% less guilt. It'd be more, but then I remembered I'm spending most of my PS3 time-budget watching DVDs, playing retro games and listening to music. I want my gaming machine back, you bastards.

Also, lack of polish on case is a very nice touch. Makes those "oops" scratches much less noticeable. And your friends can shut the hell up with the George Foreman wisecracks. It looks like a proper pancake griddle now.

Dissidia: Final Fantasy ...Friend or foe? Why not both?

Well, I decided it was finally time to give Dissidia (Isn't there a law about having that many I's in one word?) a shot. After downloading, and being forced to patch up my PSP before playing, I was treated to a nice bright and pretty (typical) Final Fantasy intro screen.

I pressed start. And started noticing many similarities to a fighting-type game. Difficulty. Character select. Weird, but okay! Time to get some "Dramatic Progressive Action" (Square's words, not mine) on! TONIGHT!

After about six seconds of gameplay, I paused it to google the term "dramatic progressive action" to find that those words put together were, indeed, bullshit. The term hadn't existed until Square Enix dubbed this game so. Dissidia was a glorified fighting game, plain and simple. I would have felt cheated out of my money, had I actually paid for the priviledge to play the game.

Upon further playing, I couldn't help drawing many similarities between this and Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkaichi, something I'm not terribly proud to say... but the intricacies of the game started to grow a bit on me, so I played through it a few more times.

It wasn't terribly difficult, even on the harder mode, and the learning curve felt intuitive enough, even with the controls feeling so skooshed. Dashing requires two button presses, running up walls requires one, there's no way to cancel an air-hike and hit the ground faster, but this was all minor.

My problem didn't come until about 20 minutes after playing, at which point my hands were actually screaming in pain. If nothing else, Dissidia has rekindled my extreme and utter hatred for that little nub they call an analog stick. I feel if there were a way to play this on an actual Playstation controller, I would have enjoyed it much more.

...In fact, I'll take it a step further: Dissidia should have been a PS3 title. Better graphics, cleaner controls, better multiplayer, lots of space for bonus features on that blu-ray disc. And my hands wouldn't hate me so much. I actually found myself WANTING to play the game more, but not at the cost of my thumb falling off because it hates me.

So much for that. But I will award Squeenix a full ten points for a fighting style that hasn't been done to death. And the music was a lovely stroll down Memory Lane. Hopefully the final version of Dissidia will let you switch the functions of the D-pad and Analog stick. That would rapidly fix my biggest problem with the game at the moment.

Anyways, I'm off to fire up the ol' Xbox and play Guilty Gear XX: #Reload. I have a sudden urge to indulge in some Progressive Dramatic Action. Or something.