You're probably thinking, "What does this have to do with Final Fantasy VIII?" My answer to this is - not a damn thing, but it's just plain cool nevertheless. Today was an awesome and monumental day for me. I got Final Fantasy VIII and a Next Generation Console system all in a 24 hour period.

My quest for the Dreamcast was a kind of a drag. It started okay, but went kind of sour when I got to the store. Babbages had left a message on the answering machine a few days earlier that I would be able to pick up my preordered Dreamcast at 12 midnight on September 9. They were opening the store especially for Dreamcast Purchasers at that late hour. So at about 5 minutes to 12 I departed from home and soon arrived at the Mall where I just purchased Final Fantasy VIII just hours earlier. I quickly learned what a big mistake it was to arrive at 12 o'clock midnight.

When I arrrived there were absolutely no cars in the parking lot but then as I turned around JCPenny's I discovered a region of numerous parked cars located nearest the door that went to the corridor near Babbages. I just couldn't believe that there were THAT MANY people inside the mall at this late hour. Unfortunately as I approached Babbabes (sigh) there were THAT MANY. About 150 people stood before me waiting in some kind of mass, not necessarily much of a line that streched past 7 stores! Yikes! All the other stores were shut down, and there were security guards supervising this motley crew of video game junkies bent on getting their next big hit no matter what the cost and wait. And that's just what I did, waited...and waited...and waited some more.

Just for the occasion, Babbages had dry flavorless cookies with orange Dreamcast swirls on them and bland coffee for everyone to enjoy while they contemplated 128 bit graphics and Sonic Adventures. All the waiting gave me a good chance to talk with other teenagers about games, and my websites. We discussed Final Fantasy VIII, Dreamcast, and the Playstation 2, all agreeing that it was all pretty cool. The general concensus between people I talked to was (Other than the line moving like mollasses in January) that games were getting way better. The dude in front of me in Line had a Banjo-Kazooie hat on, man what a die-hard, I thought. A really big fat unshaven Generation Xer was wearing a Star Wars T-Shirt and his buddies kind of resembled Bill Gates on a bad hair day. (Since when has he ever had a good hair day) Yes these were the die-hards, willing to come out in the dead of night just for a game system, and of course Video Gamer X was there for the show.

I don't know what was up with the dudes working in the store, but I swear it took about between 3 and 5 minutes to check out EACH CUSTOMER! They only had ONE register working and 6 employees. My forward progression toward the entrance of the store amounted to about six feet per 10 minutes. After about 3 hours I was finally at the entrance. After presenting my credit card and my preorder slip, Dreamcast was finally mine. But I didn't just get the Dreamcast. I got a game called Soul Caliber, an Extra Controller, and a memory card. So there I was with a Next Generation Console System. I was anxious to see what the Dreamcast could do so I hurried home with anticipation of playing my brand new system.

Taking the system out of the box, I discovered that it came with a modem and phone cord as well as some kind Dreamcast Web Browser. After hooking up my Dreamcast, I decided I would boot up Soul Caliber before the Demo Disc since it was my only complete game. After watching the cool opening sequence which I assumed was a cinema, but wasn't actually, I selected a fighter, Mitsurugi, and pressed the red A button. When I realized that what I was seeing upon my screen wasn't a cinema, I said, "No F^&%$g way!" (Images of Spock's eyebrow raising, and saying "Facinating" come to mind) All I have to say is it's good to be a gamer. I just let the other guy kick my ass while I stared in amazement at the visual banquet before me. The graphics are without a doubt the most awesome 3-D game graphics Video Gamer X has EVER seen. THIS WAS NO CINEMA! I will tell you this, every strand of hair is rendered, every finger, every sinew, every piece of fabric, wind ripples through hair and clothing and background objects, characters' breath can be seen on cold stages, the Japanese Characters are completely visable and clearly readable on one of Misurugi's outfits, and I see absolutly NO POLYGONS ANYWHERE! Shadows are realistically rendered, heck, even the little pieces of DEBRIS that fall on some stages HAVE SHADOWS. The Stages are absolutely immaculate with effects like wind and rain present and even RATS crawling around on the ground! The physics and realism of the game is flawless. The game just emphatically screams PLAY ME NOW! If it was just the graphics alone, I would have been won over, but couple kick ass graphics with kick ass epic collossal music (reminds me of epic fantasy stories I used to write) and you've got yourself the best fighting genre game ever made. It's even a blast to play! Accustomed to fighting games and the style of controller movements required to perform skills I trashed quite a few opponents. I just can't wait to get one of my friends who are insane enough to challenge me and have a real human challenger to wollup into a pile on the ground. Really folks, if you don't own a Dreamcast, go and buy it for this game just to bask in the spiritual radience it's sheer perfection. I give this one an emphatic 10 - worth every penny I spent on it. Namco has really outdone itself with this god of fighting games masterpiece. These CONSOLE GENERATED graphics are just about 1 notch below Final Fantasy's cinemas. This game has to be clipping along about 45 to 60 frames per second. It just amazes me how clear and smooth everything is without a single polygon pop up. I was playing Driver and Zelda just the other day and I was looking at all the polygons tearing and cracking and thinking - when will they fix this stuff? Well seeing Soul Caliber affirmed my wish. Remarkable, utterly remarkable... What amazes me is that the Dreamcast is only pushing 4 million polys per second...and the Playstation 2 is planned to do 75 MILLION. 75 Million...? It's just starting to get scary what can be done nowadays. When I was a little boy and played Nintendo then Sega Genesis, I invisioned realistic gaming where everything was in 3-D, and I always knew that some day it would be true, and that day is at hand! In my mind's eye I crafted worlds, games, characters, and today I see those things becoming REAL! Truly I say to you, It's just awesome to be alive today! Enjoy the ride folks because a revolution is in progress and we're at the crest of it's sweeping change.

If you don't mind I'm going to return to drooling over Soul Caliber some more. Don't worry I'll get back to Final Fantasy soon.