What that means is this: my blog, VideogameVagabond.com, is now the best and only place to locate my journalistic ramblings on the videogame world. I’ll get to review only what I want to review, and perhaps I can refuel my passion for videogames due to this new focus.

Now, the parting of the ways was professional if not exactly a dance through a fantasy wonderland, but contrary to fictional reports, it had nothing to do with drug rehab on anyone’s part; I’ve always lived a straight-edged life. In fact, as a newspaper journalist, I’ve covered several anti-meth presentations. The strongest thing I’ve ever imbibed is a glass of champagne… and that, only a handful of times in my entire life.

No, the truth is, after over 800 reviews over the past 9-10 years, I was just burned out by the pace I had to keep up with. Dignews is in great hands, even without my involvement. And hopefully I’ll recapture that early enthusiasm by restricting my effort to my personal blog, here.

Second or third on the list for most fans of this subgenre is Atlus/NIS America’s Disgaea, one of the companies’ early PS2 offerings. Those who felt Final Fantasy Tactics offered mad depth were blown away by the depth and complexity of Disgaea; some have even compared it’s battle system strategies to algebraic formulas, although I believe that’s taking the hype a bit far, and tends to scare off newcomers to the title.

Now, there’s a chance to reintroduce a whole new generation to the delights of Disgaea while still pleasing fans of the original with Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness for PSP. Not only is the entire original game intact for the port-down to PSP, but a complete alternate-reality adventure becomes available after you complete the game, lasting nearly as long as the 100-hour-plus original title.

In the original game, you play through as Demon Prince Laharl, who is awakened from a long nap several years after his father has died and left the throne of the kingdom of the Netherworld vacant. He is accompanied by the scheming Etna and, ultimately, the angelic assassin, Flonne, in his quest to retake his father’s throne.

The alternate reality mode allows you to experience the game if “what if,” mode, a fully developed alternate storyline in which, instead of waking Laharl up, Etna kills Laharl in his sleep and makes her own bid for the throne, redecorating the castle with all-new executive office furniture. (OK, not really.) In addition to adding value to the already long and addictive game for newcomers, this new story mode is what will make veterans of the PS2 classic willing to replay the game again on PSP. It’s definitely worth the journey.

One of the appeals of Disgaea is its incredible depth. There are many ways to progress through the game, many items to buy, many jobs to take on. There is the Dark Assembly, which can be used for everything from rising in rank to petitioning for more powerful items and additional funds. There is the item world, where you can do battle to win upgrades to your items, which level up. And there are the main mission battles, which are plentiful and can often be fought and refought multiple times to level up your party. In fact, the game is so deep, it may be necessary to have the second story mode just to explore it all completely.

The battle system will be immediately familiar to anyone who’s played other Tactics-style RPGs, and has plenty of depth to it as well, since characters gain new abilities as they progress in level. And since the game is filled with great anime-style art, fun voice-acting and an undeniable sense of energy, there’s simply every reason for both Disgaea veterans and newcomers to pick this title up; the second Disgaea title was released on PS2 back in 2006, and word on the street has it that a third Disgaea title is already in development for PlayStation 3, although it is said that the series will retain its throwback visuals even on the new, more powerful platform.

No matter what it is a person enjoys about Tactics-style RPGs, there’s plenty to love in Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness for the PSP. Heck, there’s even a multiplayer mode to further extend the replay appeal, available via Ad-Hoc mode via WiFi. Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness definitely extends Sony’s recent run of quality titles for PSP, ever since the PSP Slim relaunch.

Final Fantasy X-2 featured a very different battle system, and of all the sequels made so far from Final Fantasy VII have strayed into areas like action games, shooters and just about anything but what made the original Final Fantasy title from which they sprang so successful. In other words, not one of the sequels has been a true RPG.

Final Fantasy XII – Revenant Wings for Nintendo DS is no exception. Rather than a traditional RPG, the game, which revisits the corner of Ivalice that is home to Vaan, Panelo, Balthier and Fran, is a real-time strategy title. While the storyline is worthy of the Final Fantasy moniker, the Command-and-Conquer game play feels out of place in a world full of chocobos and red mages.

The game is divided into 10 chapters, each consisting of about five battle maps, so the Ivalice of this sequel has plenty of open, residential and commercial real estate to take place on. The maps sport a good deal of variety and graphic detail.

The real problems begin with the game camera; it’s hard to manipulate and rarely at the best angle to see everything you need to see from a strategic standpoint. Also, the game ramps up the difficulty level extremely early on, tossing a level of challenge at gamers who may not be RTS veterans into a very deep, frustrating level of challenge.

The game has some aggressive AI as well, so Final Fantasy XII veterans who grew accustomed to only being challenged during boss battles may not be completely at ease with how smartly opponents challenge him or her. Although released on a very mainstream platform, Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings is a hardcore gamer’s delight, something that may scare off many mainstream gamers.

Of course, the graphics are as good as one would expect from SquareEnix and make just about all other DS titles seem weak efforts by comparison; that said, the game looks only like an average PSP title.

In the final analysis, some RTS fans may dig the hardcore RTS aspects of Final Fantasy XII – Revenant Wings, but that is a small portion of the audience who fell in love with the series’ PS2 swan song title. While not a failure on the level of Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus, one can say with relative confidence that Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings for Nintendo DS is not the kind of thing most fans of the original PS2 title were expecting, nor is it a game most of them will want.

One franchise almost completely forgotten about is Dragon Quest Monsters. More of an RPG, like Pokemon, but lacking the fun CD-swapping character generation engine of Monster Rancher, Dragon Quest Monsters has always been big in Japan, but never quite caught on in the US; in fact, the last time one of the titles appeared on North American shores was six years ago on Game Boy Color.

DQM: Joker, the most recent outing, is therefore a welcome reintroduction to the series, at least among US gamers who may feel inclined to throw wedding flowers in its general direction. Or not. Either way, the game is a shot in the arm of freshness to the niche genre that’s been sadly lacking in recent Pokemon and Monster Rancher releases.

The game is decked out in its return to North American shores. It now takes place in a fully-realized 3D world, hosts over 200 unique monster designs, and, of course, a fun monster-breeding system. The real weakness is the battle system, which is a bit simplistic to hold most gamers’ attentions considering the amount of leveling and dungeon crawling the game requires.

Set on a chain of seven islands – none of them huge, but with a fair amount of exploration to be done on each – the game casts you as an aspiring monster breeder jailed for trying to get into a battle tournament without a license. Fortunately, your dad pulls the strings that got you in there, and he pulls them again to get you out, so that you can spy around the tournament on his behalf. Win, and you get your first monster, a JetSki and the game really picks up pace.

Those expecting a full-blown, epic follow up to Dragon Quest VIII: Legend of the Cursed King, this isn’t the game you’re waiting for. Level-5 is not the developer behind this title, and although a decent job was done on it, it’s not quite epic in scale. Rather than a world-saving storyline, the main push – as with most monster breeding titles – is collecting all 200 monsters.

Still, it’s quick-paced and fun and certainly deserving to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Monster Rancher and Pokemon. Considering the amount of recycled content in those two titles, Dragon Quest Monsters may, in fact, deliver a breath of fresh air for fans of this niche genre.

Anyone addicted to SOCOM games that are action based might feel like playing SOCOM: Tactical Strike is like utilizing a squad of soldiers who all have fibromyalgia. Yet the style of combat found here is nothing like Final Fantasy Tactics or Disgaea. More properly, S:TS is more on the order of a real-time military strategy game. Fortunately, as long as that’s what you’re expecting, it’s not a bad example of that genre.

The player controls a squad of four solders but never takes direct control of them. Instead, you get to issue action orders that they follow, such as shoot, snipe, move, throw grenades and so forth. Fortunately, the AI executes these commands rather effectively, so you won’t spend a lot of time wishing that game would just let you take direct control.

The main problem is that the multiplayer mode, whether online or localized, gets extremely laggy. Since snappy multiplayer play is a key strength of the series, this is a huge Achilles heel for this game. While it’s not quite bad enough to ruin the game, it does sap some energy out of the experience.

In terms of general game design, SOCOM: Tactical Strike does offer large area maps that offer flexibility when it comes to accomplishing objectives; the same goals can be reached through multiple approaches. The game plays out at a decent pace, although the storyline is nothing special or particularly interesting.

Graphically, the game offers more eye candy than one might expect, stuffing an impressive amount of detail and atmosphere onto the PSP screen. Whether it is rendering lush jungles, old churches or military bases, the areas are both massive and massively detailed. Certainly, the game measures up to the heritage of the series’ PS2-era titles and delivers an experience that is deeper than one might expect on the PSP portable platform.

SOCOM: Tactical Strike for PSP has flaws, sure; but they are not deal-breakers. The game is a fun design if you enjoy this sort of RTS genre, and graphically it deserves to be part of the series, even with the high standards set by the games that came before it. It would be more enjoyable if not for the lag issue, but all in all, fans of the SOCOM series won’t find too much to gripe about.

Back when they were first relaunching their college hoops title, the king of the hill for college basketball games was EA Sports’ March Madness series. It took several years and a lot of critic’s picks hype, but College Hoops has clearly grown to become the college basketball game of record across most console platforms.

They’ve been on top, depending on who you talk to, for a couple-three seasons now, and the real challenge for them has become staying on the cutting edge and innovating enough that March Madness or some other title doesn’t come ‘round and overtake them again.

This year, 2K Sports put more time into revitalizing and refreshing the Legacy mode, which has been stagnant for the past couple outings as the developer focused on graphics improvements to bring the franchise into the next-gen era. That mostly accomplished, Legacy mode was overdue for a makeover and this year’s edition has received some much-needed attention.

Consider this, from a game play perspective, to be College Hoops’ real next-gen coming out party, and you can get the invites to the debutant bash from the same place you receive the first communion invitations. If you thought building a winning franchise was tough before, prepare for the next generation of legacy-building.

In the game, Legacy mode is still offered in two flavors. Open flavor will appeal to folks who just want to coach their favorite college team and nothing else; it allows you to take over any program you desire, often with the real-life coaches currently at those schools. Yes, that means Tubby Smith is now at Minnesota, rather than Kentucky, sports fans!

The other flavor of Legacy mode is Career, in which you start out as a young, inexperienced, less-skilled coach and your only option is to take on a bottom-rung school at an obscure conference where only by winning the conference tournament are you guaranteed a spot in the NCAA March Madness event, because your conference is so small that no other team, no matter their win-loss record, is going to get respect from the NCAA Selection Committee. As one remakes the fortunes of these obscure programs, other schools start taking notice.

After a minimum two-year stint at each stop along the way, you get a chance at the end of the season to take part in the coaching carousel. The better your teams finish each year, the more likely you’ll be invited to take over the program at a school in a more high-profile conference. Of course, it’s not always best to move up fast, since an optional game feature allows your coach to be fired for poor team performance, so if you move into a Big 10 or ACC job too soon, you might not be ready for the challenge and could get busted back down to the obscure ranks once again. Some folks may prefer to stay for a longer stretch at a smaller program where winning the NCAA March Madness tournament isn’t a yearly expectation, but perhaps only making the tournament is.

As always, scouting and recruiting are at the heart of this game, and that is where a large part of the redesign effort has been focused. Puffing out recruiting and scouting is a new mode, the ABL season. A real-life summer league made up of high school all-stars, in the game there are more than 100 ABL teams spread out across the nation and as a coach you can either sim past all this, attend the games, or even play them out.

The advantage to playing them out is that you earn extra points for recruiting functions once recruiting season starts, so there’s a real advantage to at least playing out some of these games, especially if you’re coach of a small school with a thin scouting budget to begin with.

Throughout the ABL season, you can choose to attend or play out as many or as few games as you wish, and target players. Based on your coaching skills after playing out each game, you’ll start to see some of the ratings for those players revealed; skilled coaches will see all the ratings revealed in fewer games; less skilled coaches will need more games to make those assessments.

About the only disappointment here is that once those skills are revealed, those are that player’s real, hard-coded stats. Unlike Wolverine Sports’ Draft Day Sports: College Basketball for PC, the stats are accurate, rather than skewed to the coach’s perspective. Seeing less-experienced coaches by a little off on their skills assessment of players, as in DDS:CB, would add a bit more realism to College Hoops 2K8.

There are many ways to utilize the ABL season, but for smaller school coaches especially, it’s usually best to focus on the ABL teams that are closer to their college; after all, how often is a player from Los Angeles going to take seriously a scholarship offer from Maine, if he’s drawing interest from UCLA, Kentucky and Duke? Not often.

Still, with this simple but depth-adding feature, 2K Sports has innovated in the area of college recruiting in a college basketball game, in a way that no other game has anticipated or pioneered before them. That’s how a top game in its category, like College Hoops 2K8, manages to stay on top.

On the PlayStation 3, the graphics are sharp as ever, though it’s clear that the team focused on game play this year, rather than graphics improvements. That works fine, though, since game play improvements were clearly the bigger area of need. This may be the last edition of the game in which the SixAxis controller is utilized exclusively, since Sony plans to launch the DualShock 3, with both rumble and six-axis motion sensitivity, early in 2008. That alone, if fully utilized in College Hoops 2K9, could make next year’s edition even better for controls. The utilization of motion-sensitivity remains scant and optional this season, just as it was last season.

The online mode is robust and friendly, making it easy to find game opponents, even though Sony’s network is still not as robust with traffic as Xbox Live; the delay of Sony’s Home interface may have something to do with that.

In the end, the improvements made to the Legacy mode transform that part of the game into an area of renewed interest, which is good since the Legacy mode is the heart of any offline play experience with the game. The result is that College Hoops 2K8 remains ahead of the injured and “headed for IR” March Madness franchise by a good distance, for now.