Rogue Galaxy - hands-on

Speaking of special abilities, Rogue Galaxy has one of the weirdest leveling systems we've seen outside of Final Fantasy. You'll power up the normal way- by defeating enemies- but to unlock each character's special attacks, you'll need to tackle their "Revelation Flow." This is basically a big flowchart, with slots for rare, seemingly random items like twigs, hunks of ore and fruit; fill up all the slots in a skill box, and you'll earn a new ability and open up paths to even more hidden skills.

After graduating from college in 2000 with a BA in journalism, I worked for five years as a copy editor, page designer and videogame-review columnist at a couple of mid-sized newspapers you've never heard of. My column eventually got me a freelancing gig with GMR magazine, which folded a few months later. I was hired on full-time by GamesRadar in late 2005, and have since been paid actual money to write silly articles about lovable blobs.