BY JOHN KANE IIIStaff Writer

Harvest Moon: Save The HomelandPublisher: NatsumePS2$39.99ESRB: E(Everyone)

Every weekend across the country college students are going to parties, getting drunk, and having a good time with their friends. Except me. My weekends are almost always the same, I buy a game on Friday (I refuse to rent, when I make a commitment to a game I go all the way) play it for an average of eight hours on Saturday, play it some more for an average of three and a half hours on Sunday, then write about 900 words on how I feel about the game. I don’t really think of what I write as reviews. Like a wine taster, I cannot give you the intricate technical details that went into the Merlot’s creation but I can tell you how it affects my palate.

I do not write long, drawn-out analyses of story lines or psychoanalyze characters. I write this more as a general discussion on what sticks in my mind the most about the game, whether it be the story, the characters, the battle mechanics, or some joke from the third disc (remember when role-playing games had four discs and the end of the first disc was always some kind of fake-out ending? Those were the good ole days). I do not assume to be an infallible expert on video games, but I just so happen to know more and play more than you.

Remember, that as a member of The Mass Media editorial board I get no compensation for my writing. I do not do this for the money (I get none for it). I do not do this for the power (there is none of that either) and I do not do this for the women (sigh). I do this for the dedicated few. Now that I have completely wasted five minutes of your lives that you will never get back, I’ll talk about this week’s game.

Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland sucks. It is the anatomical taint of the series, Harvest Moon’s grundel. It is a waste of time, money, and effort. All the other Harvest Moons I’ve played are awesome. You’d never expect a series of RPG and Sim hybrids based on farming to be good but they are! Except this one. The plot is the town your grandfather’s old farm is in will be destroyed to make way for a theme park. So it’s up to you to make friends with the townspeople. Help them solve their problems, and save the village from becoming another Disney World. Oh yeah, and your supposed to farm while you’re at it. The makers have removed almost all freedom from the game. There is no free reign over what your farm looks like or what you can do with it. We all know nature abhors a vacuum, and this game sucks.

John Kane III is the Photography Editor of The Mass Media. All opinions expressed in this column are his own, he can be reached at [email protected]. I play more video games after 3 a.m. than you do all day.