shahir29

I'd like to draw your attention to shahir29, an active member of the GameFAQs community, and architect of some very nice roster updates for NHL 07 on PSP; you can find his work here, and I must say that I'm pretty impressed with it so far. My current lines on the Leafs are as follows: Ponikarovsky-Stajan-Antropov, Blake-Moore-Stempniak, Hagman-Mitchell-Mayers, Kulemuin-Grabovski-Hollweg, Kaberle-Kubina, Van Ryn-Schenn, and Frogren-White... I've got to do some shuffling with the second and fourth forward lines, but it's nice to be away from the likes of Allison, O'Neil, and Lindros ;) The time it takes to navigate the start-up screens and menus is still painful and half of the soundtrack just plain sucks, but this'll tide me over for a while yet.

Moving on, I traded-in my second copy of PaRappa The Rapper for PSX (at a profit), Jak II for PS2 (Greatest Hits edition), as well as Mercenaries and NHL 2K7 for XBOX, and got Gunstar Heroes for Genesis (complete with case and manual; all in great condition).

Now then, I remember wanting to talk more about Crisis Core, but since the dust has settled, I realise that I've already said just about all there is to say. It is worth noting, however, that the grinding in this game goes far beyond reason. Well before I was halfway through the story, I was nearing the halfway mark of the side missions; that means that my item and materia selections were pretty impressive, and thus the results of my materia fusion experiments were powerful, to say the least. By the time I was halfway through the main plot, my basic attacks were inflicting close to 9999 damage points, and boss fights were over after just a few button presses... The thing is, I didn't spend inordinate amounts of time grinding through the side missions; I'd just play though all the ones I could handle at my level and then move on with the plot when things got too tough. While it was kinda nice to be all-powerful for the second half of the game, it definitely took something away from the experience. The really scary thing is that there was still a whole lot more to acheive and unlock! I guess that's good for replay value, or completists, or MMO players who want to grind on the go... But I think I'm done. So it's a gorgeous game with a silly plot (could've been really good, but cultural differences got in the way and things got convoluted), some balance issues, and plenty to do... Definitely worth your time.