This week a relatively brief currently playing segment gives way to a retrospective at the past 10 years of Final Fantasy titles and some brief speculation about the upcoming Final Fantasy XIII. And yeah, we talk about Mass Effect 2 some more.

Download	Name	Play	Size	Length
	XSSP-088 - The Final Fantasy (X-strike Studios)		48.3 MB	105:25 min

Part 4 of the 6-part Wasteland Survival Guide mini-series has gone live!  Sam and Pete discover when life gives you lemons, find the schematic for a lemon-powered flame thrower.

That is quite succinctly my hope for Transformers: War for Cybertron from High Moon Studios. That’s it. At the absolute minimum I would be perfectly content with nothing more than a Gears of War clone with my favorite robots in disguise. At best I could hope that War for Cybertron is the ‘Arkham Asylum’ for Transformers games, a game that breaks the glass ceiling of licensed-game crap, and manages to be a great game on its own merits with a broad appeal among gamers and fans alike.

This is the first article in a series that I hope is an interesting look at how habits and tendencies of gamers affect their own person, and how our actions in day-to-day life affect our gaming.  To kick it off, I pose a question I've been asking for years, and attempt to determine how this relates to different sects of gamer behavior:

How many hours do you play in a week?

Nowadays, I think it’s more telling than ever how long different types of gamers spend in front of their televisions. It is interesting to me to find out whether some people organize their life around their gaming time, or whether they are switching on their console during free time worked into a very busy daily routine. This mostly applies to the demographic of Young (Heavy) Hardcore Gamers, whom at around 22% are actually are a smaller fraction of gamers in the market.

Currently playing takes a final (?) look at Mass Effect 2, a first look at Heavy Rain, and a brief look at the Starcraft II beta. Then we launch into a heady sort of video game related conversation about the morality of where we buy our games.

Download	Name	Play	Size	Length
	XSSP-087 - The Game Stop's Here (X-strike Studios)		53.3 MB	116:17 min

Bioshock was one of my favorite gaming experiences of the last few years, so it stands to reason that I should be quivering in pants-soaking excitement at the opportunity to return to the cold, soggy city of Rapture. A great deal of anticipation has built in the fan community since the announcement that I would be playing as one of the fearsome juggernauts known as a Big Daddy. Not just any Big Daddy, THE FIRST Big Daddy. Having spent the better part of my weekend immolating unsuspecting splicers before skewering them against the wall with my spear gun, I have to confess my greatest fear about the much anticipated Bioshock sequel has come true: Playing as a Big Daddy just feels weird.

Today's video offering is a trailer/preview for a series you can see this summer here at X-strike Studios. Written, directed and just about everything else by Darrin DeMarco, The Crossing is the story of a young man named Alex and his desperate attempts to survive a nightmarish summer camp. Look for episodes to start hitting in June.