I meant to post these last night but I didn't get around to doing it.

First off, I saw the news on Mikko's journal. My favorite MMORPG, Guild Wars, is about to be released (April 28, 2005) finally. Guild Wars has no monthly charge, but you have to own an original copy of the game to play, as the copies include a key with which to log in. Each key is only good for one account, and each account is only good for one character. So if you want more characters, you need to buy more copies of the game. I think it's a fair trade, considering there's no monthly charges. Considering how much I've spent on the weekly charges when I used to play pRO... Wow that was a lot. Anyway, knowing how much original CDs cost in the Philippines, we expect Guild Wars to be something like P2000, but if it's more than P4000 I'm not buying it. I think I'll have trouble enough getting only P2000 (a lot of begging, maybe having to work a bit).

Another MMORPG that we're looking forward to is Granado Espada. It looks very promising, and the screenshots so far are beautiful. It has a unique battle system too, featuring stances etc, for a customized combat experience. Not much is known yet though, because it's so early into the development. It's in a closed beta phase as of now, and it's only in Korean. They're clearly going to release this in English as well, though, so we'll keep watching the website.

Next, today is Tuesday! Animax is starting its new lineup of shows. Two shows in particular that I'm interested in are Angel Links and Samurai 7. They just look good, but I don't know anything much about either of them, by choice, so everything is news to me as I watch them. I just know they got some good reviews so I'm looking forward to them. I'm just hoping that since these are the late night shows (11 PM onwards), they didn't dub them and left them subtitled instead. They left shows like GTO and Dr. Dokkiri subtitled.

Finally, RPGamer.com came up with results for their long awaited awards for 2004. The award honors the best games for various platforms and in various categories for the year. I'll post a list of some of the games that won.

GBA
Final Fantasy 1 & 2: Dawn of Souls (both reader and staff choice)

PS2
Star Ocean: Till The End Of Time (reader's choice)
Shadow Hearts: Covenant (staff choice)

PC
Worlds of Warcraft (reader's choice)
City of Heroes (staff choice)

Best Graphics
Star Ocean: Till The End Of Time (reader's choice)
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (staff choice)

Best Storyline
Tales of Symphonia (reader's choice)
La Pucelle Tactics (staff choice)

Best Battles
Tales of Symphonia (reader's choice)
Phantom Brave (staff choice)

Best Soundtrack
Star Ocean: Till The End Of Time (reader's choice)
Baten Kaitos: The Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean (staff choice)

Best Gameplay
Tales of Symphonia (reader's choice)
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (staff choice)

Biggest Letdown
Fable (both reader and staff choice)

Best Overall!
Tales of Symphonia (reader's choice)
Shadow Hearts: Covenant (staff choice)

Interesting choices really. I should make my own awards for games. Hmm. o_o