Phantasy Star Universe

In the week since our last article, another cool event has occurred: PSU launched in Japan. Unfortunately, it's proven to be a rocky start, as the servers developed data corruption errors a mere day after launch. Sonic Team has taken them down to try to find the cause, and at this point they're still offline. They're going to have to roll back the data a bit, leading to losses in player progress. Launching new online games is always a tricky proposition, but we're just glad this happened now and not during the game's American launch. Our gratitude goes to Japanese players for being our unwitting beta testers.

Above: Images taken from the 360 version.

This wraps up our current round of PSU coverage, though you can bet we'll have more on the game as its late-October American launch approaches. So far we're happy with what we've seen. The single-player storyline isn't riveting, but it's definitely a good introduction to PSU's vastly altered gameplay and settings - an online primer of sorts. We can't wait to get into the real adventure online, and maybe we'll see you there too. Happy (starship) trails.

Above: Images taken from the 360 version.

This wraps up our current round of PSU coverage, though you can bet we'll have more on the game as its late-October American launch approaches. So far we're happy with what we've seen. The single-player storyline isn't riveting, but it's definitely a good introduction to PSU's vastly altered gameplay and settings - an online primer of sorts. We can't wait to get into the real adventure online, and maybe we'll see you there too. Happy (starship) trails.