From: kendrick@nospam.io   
      
   In case you've just joined us, Sega made the Phantasy Star Universe demo   
   available on Xbox Live. Only Gold users are allowed to play, but so far it   
   looks like every function of the game is available for testing. The server   
   goes up and down without warning, but you can generally interact, fight,   
   and level up at will.   
      
   So far, very beta. For combat lot of the old PSO mechanisms are still in   
   place (left button centers the camera, select button calls up a chat   
   keyboard, right trigger calls up a weapon select) and the fighting is very   
   nice. On the other hand, the network lag is such that every action taken   
   and item touched has to be validated by the server. This is nice in theory   
   to prevent cheating. But in practice what you have is a situation where a   
   saber hit on a monster doesn't register damage later. PSO used to handle   
   all the combat math locally and then sync up at the server later on, which   
   is a better experience for single players.   
      
   The newly expanded lobby area is very impressive looking, but not very   
   inviting. It's like a giant shopping mall, where you have escalators   
   separating floors for shopping, getting missions, and special events. If   
   you can't figure out how to get into the mission portion of the beta, look   
   for a door on the fourth floor of the station called 'Linear Line.'   
      
   That's all for now. So far, my impression is that the Xbox Live overhead   
   adds so much extra baggage that I'm better served by the PS2 version.   
   We'll see if this ends up being worth ten bucks a month   
      
   -KKC, doing fun things with laundry.   
   --   
   --From the top ten reasons to end war in the Middle East:  | kendrick @   
   9) No more awkwardness buying the good olive oil in the    |   io.com   
   Lebanese restaurant. 6) Cool new "A-Team" TV show based    |   
   on modern special ops soldiers. 2) Sexy archaeology under Babylon, baby.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)