Time for another retrospective from the lazy ass gamer. I haven’t done one of these in awhile so I’ll drop a couple in here that I haven’t so much been trying to beat, but just enjoy. First off, DiRT probably will be one of my favorite racing games ever. I can’t remember an off road racer in the past few years that really made you feel like your tires were fighting against the terrain like this. The more I play it, the more I gain an appreciation and respect for true off road/rally racers out there. The buggy and uphill races are among my favorites. Buggies are so damn fun because of the physics engine reacting so freaking realistically. Landing jumps has never been so much fun. The other game I’ve been running through is Baten Kaitos, a JRPG from Tri-Crescendo on the Gamecube. From the gate, the voice acting and story is horrible. I knew this before though getting about 15 hours of play time prior to starting a new game. What keeps me playing though is the battle system. In similar Tri-Crescendo fashion, they have a battle system that they don’t want the user to get too tied up into while playing, but has some reasonable depth to it. You have a deck of cards that increases with your level and class. While in battle, your cards are randomly put in a hand that you draw from. The key is to create chains of numerical value (same number or ascending/descending order) and use cards that play to the enemies weakness. Each card has some kind of physical or magical property which efficiency is determined at the end of each turn. This takes place on offensive and defensive turns. This might sound daunting, but to any of you that are interested out there I do recommend it wholeheartedly. It is very easy to get the hang of and diverse enough to keep you interested during battles. That’s it for this little nugget of an update, holla at you on the next one.