This weekend I finally broke down and picked up La Pucelle Tactics. It is a “tactics” game in the spirit of Final Fantasy Tactics, one of my all-time favorite video games. In the tradition of tactical RPGs, you effectively are managing an army of heroes and monsters as they track down and do battle with a horrible menace that would otherwise destroy the world. Invariably, this menace is a corrupt church. La Pucelle Tactics is no exception.

The nominal main character is a headstrong, brash, somewhat obnoxious young woman named Priel. If she reminds you of Tomo from Azumanga Daioh, you aren’t alone. As the story progresses, you have the option to forgo attacking a foe in order to try to “purify” it into joining your group. This, along with the ability to replay scenarios that you’re already defeated, allows you to customize your fighting force to a great degree.

So far I have about six hours of gameplay in, and so far it looks great. This isn’t one to buy if you can’t handle super-deformed sprite animation. If you absolutely must have bump-mapping, cell-shading, and crazy particle effects to have a good time, then save your money. If you like games that force you to think, pick it up.

It looks like the folks at Mozilla have done it again. Thunderbird 0.6 has been released with some degree of fanfare in late April. It has improved junkmail filtering and a swizzy new logo. Please note that if you’re using a theme that was created for older versions of this product, you may need to update it. The installer apparently doesn’t know this, so you may lose some functionality unless you switch back to the default theme. Enjoy!

Recently while playing FFXI I decided to put away my axes and spear and spend some quality time as a spellcaster. To see how the other side lives. To give back some of the spell-hurling love to the community that has given me so much. Unfortunately, I did this right as the Playstation2 release hit the streets. Now I know how many of the japanese players must have felt when the north americans showed up last fall. Hint to all players with low-level jobs, new or otherwise: please don’t ever say that something is the case because your strategy guide or some website said so. Such resources are no substitue for experience. When I tell you a “bogy” is going to kick your sorry lvl16 butt, believe me. I’ve seen it happen more often than you might think.