So I never played the parasite eve games; what does this game (or rather, entire storyline) have to offer besides a half naked blonde with a gun?

Sorry to nit-pick something so minor but the plot is heavily science fiction based in both of the previous games.. with "horror" elements.  You can be sci-fi and horror at the same time. (The movie Alien comes to mind)  The notion that our mitochondria can evolve and take over our bodies is based in factual science.  Mitochondria, has its own independent Genome and is what controls the growth of cells.  The idea of it acting on its own to kill or mutate its host is taking scienctific fact and stretching it into fiction...sci-fi.  So technically I'm right in calling it Sci-fi based.  I was sorta wrong saying that the 3rd Birthday isn't at all.  It is.  Time-travel and altering history is definitely in the realm of Sci-fi...but the reason I'm saying its more fantasy based is due to the craptastic ending.  I can't give away details cause I'm sure many people haven't played it all the way yet.  Also...In the previous games anything magical in nature was explained by the science elements...in this game its not at all, and it really bugs me because its just too far detatched from series. I had just finished it and was pretty dissappointed with it, to the point that I had to put my gripes out there.  I think if it was released as a game on its own with out reference to Parasite Eve I would have enjoyed it much better.  Again sorry about the nit-picking in the begining of this rant.  I just felt the games had enough sci-fi elements for me to classify it as such.  (I realize game genre-wise they are typically classified as horror/survival)

I'm still reeling at how bad this game is. Seriously, the story is absolute GARBAGE. Taken as a part of the PE series it's just plain offensive. Aya's character is utterly destroyed for no good reason and when Maeda shows up I wanted to teleport to Tokyo just so I could pummel that talentless hack Toriyama. Even on its own merits the story is still terrible due to gigantic plotholes, bad dialogue, and poor storytelling (yeah, the datalog from FFXIII shows back up; y'know what that means!). The ending alone is a glorious example of every bad adjective you could associate with Square's writing. The worst thing about it is that if you think about it for five minutes using the series' logic the twist at the end CAN'T JUSTIFY ITS OWN EXISTENCE. All in all this the Bionic Commando 2009 of Square: a game that is bland but inoffensive in gameplay, but is downright atrocious and insulting in story and respect to the source material. Don't even  get me started on the stupid fanservice clothes-tearing. That's just getting into the realm of the creepy

I understand your point of view and it's a valid one, but the reason why the first two games are qualified as horror, especially the first one, is that the concept is taken from the novel of Hideaki Sena which is parts both horror and Sci-fi.

True, the fact of mitochondria evolving in such a fashion is purely fiction, but everything else depicted in the game has some scientific truth behind it.

Of course, it's pretty impossible for the kind of mutations depicted to happen, but mitochondria are proven to relay the prime signals to cell deterioration and can cause fast acting mutators, such as superoxide agents, if their ATP output is severely increased (producing massive amounts of oxidized NADH and FADH2 which is then used in the oxygen transport chain). Even the spontaneous combustion, in theory, could be a viable scenario, if all the mitochondria in the body started started passing through a byproduct reaction called mitochondrial uncoupling, in which excess protons can reenter the mitochondrial matrix without contributing to the synthesis of ATP, producing a massive amount of heat. Thankfully that could never happen, given all the cellular and tissue homeostatic controls.

Bad plot, bad dialogue, bad characters, and bad story-telling. It's an unintentional tutorial in how NOT to write a story. It's confusing, the characters are bland at best and annoying at worst, and TONS of important info is relegated to a datalog so you're going to be confused as HELL or bringing the action to a grinding halt in order to read it.

Gametrailers review is up: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/review-the-3rd/712467

I agree with a lot of their criticism; there are no spoilers if anyone is wondering.

yeesh, that was no review, that was an indictment. It's pretty bad when GT says T3B's story might be the worst ever written by Square (and they usually don't engage in hyperbole)

lol, if they think thats bad i'm betting FF13-2 will be worst - i'm not supprised, i've come to expect this from Toryiama and Kitase. but what is the gameplay like - are the shooting mechanics good, or as bad as Durge of Cerberus.

Edit: lol @cringeworthy dialogue - i reported this about FF13.

They're functional at best and frustrating at worst. There are a LOT of bad design decisions and cheap fights. The camera is also REALLY bad. Someone on the Gamefaqs boards actually scrounged up all of Toriyama's gaming credits and another one that he was a writer on was Front Mission Evolved which also had a TERRIBLE story and writing. The thing is Toriyama has also gotten increasingly WORSE at writing it seems.

Imo i think its unfair to blame just one man for all the problems. yes hes responsible - but so is Kitase imho.

and i know some people are not happy with the reboot of Parasite Eve, because some people loved the originals. but i'm partly glad its turned out this way - the PSP is not a difficult platform to develop for - theres no where near the amount of problems they had for FF13.

theres simply no excuse this time. and Wada can now make a well informed decision on how to proceed with FF15. which hopefully after this, FF13 and the upcoming FF13-2 they will not be allowed to work on.