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Few days on the game, and i'm enjoying my time with it. I've always found it amusing how DOTA is like the entire RPG experience in a weird competitive microcosm, but i never really understood how much that is true until spending some time with it over the last weekend. The crafting system and grinding neutral mobs for gold and all that. What a weird thing, what a bizarre, nested, outgrowth of different genres to end up becoming the most popular competitive Video game in the world. I always expected that i wouldn't like it, neither isometric RPG's or Blizzard-influenced strategy games were something i really ever enjoyed spending a lot of time with, but I think this game appeals to the part of my brain that likes fighting games. It's so much about playing the matchups, knowing the abilities that will be used against you and how to respond, looking for that opening and trying to emphasize your character's strengths while downplaying your weaknesses. I guess Dota 2's pretty alright, it turns out.

Viewed from the perspective of people who play a lot of games, the Wii will never be regarded as one of Nintendo's stronger platforms, but there's still some really incredible standout games that are absolutely worth playing. (Hey, and you can play them on the Wii U, since that system is fully backwards compatible.)

Skulls of the Shogun seemed like a victim of really being dicked around by its publisher, Microsoft in this case, with added demands of the product causing delay upon delay. When it finally came out, all the excitement people had for it had mostly evaporated. Microsoft's been particularly horrible to indies in the last few years, it's quite a hard swing from how they were earlier on in the generation.

Me as well, and up until the way things went at E3 this year, i was almost certain i would have gotten the next X-box first. Now I'm mostly excited to see more of Monolith's after Xenoblade, which ended up becoming probably one of my favorite RPG's. You know, it's not like Galaxy was a bad game. Did you play it?

In addition to things already mentioned, both of the Mighty Switch Force games are really fantastic. Tokyo Crash Mobs is a goofy, dumb thing that i really love. Also, one of the other Guild games, Starship Damrey, is well worth playing. (Just a really neat first-person adventure game.)

I was really annoyed that the dialogue scenes were unskippable, it's really bothersome if you want to replay the game more than once. (Which, as it's a relatively short and fast-paced action game, you kind of would.) Otherwise, definitely one of the Guild games that is worth playing.

Yeah! Just shove that thing into a PC and drag and drop the contents from the old card to the bigger one. Make sure the new card isn't formatted weirdly, make sure you don't disrupt the folder structure, and then it'll be fine. (Probably. Nintendo hardware has been reported to be a bit finicky about the kinds of SD cards it will work smoothly with, mainly causing slower than expected load times. Generally stick to around 32GBs or 64GBs as your upper end and it'll likely be totally fine.)

Ghost Trick is the best. Everybody, please play this game.

I just started playing Dota2. Feels weird, after resisting it for so long. I'm also terrible, and people enjoy making me feel bad about that.

If the PS3 gets one, the 360 should too. So yeah, exclusives that are available nowhere else. Probably not as many notable exclusives overall, Microsoft has never has as strong of a first-party presence as Sony does on their hardware. ... So, you guys like Halo? Still, even aside from the obvious ones, there are a fair number of oddball exclusives that are quite good. I'm curious to see what others have to say, but i'll probably jump in with a few of my personal favorites at a later point.

I want to bump this thread back up to talk about a game i really like, but was a game that had slipped my mind until just now. Guilty Gear 2 Overture came out in 2008 and is an RTS game that leans fairly distinctly towards being a Lords Management, but retains having an army to control and puts you in direct third-person control of your hero. It's kind of clunky and ugly, but i love it. It was a game that mostly everybody kind of dismissed out of hand when it came out. It's easy to understand why, it's an incredibly strange thing. Guilty Gear fans didn't want it because it wasn't a fighting game, and because it was branded under the umbrella of a fighting game franchise, strategy fans were never going to even look at it. (Additionally, because the third-person action is built around a fairly complex combo-oriented fighting system, it's a game that's really only accessible to a narrow slice of gamers who enjoy both genres.) Probably not a great game, but one i played a lot with friends and always really enjoyed spending time with.

Speaking of Platinum games, Anarchy Reigns also came out this year and was absolutely a ton of fun online. A weird over-the-shoulder brawler in the spirit of something like Mad World or God Hand, but with a deeper combo system and an emphasis on multiplayer taking place in huge Power Stone-esque arenas. Didn't stick with it for terribly long, but i definitely appreciate the month or so i got out of it. Can't imagine it's the type of game that retained a community for long, but maybe it has. (Aside from online play, there wasn't much. A junky solo mode and some reasonably competent bots.)

Loads of great music in the first few Unreal games, it was the same guys who did the OST for Deus Ex. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7f-g5dWfGk The EVE post reminded me of this, probably the most memorable piece of music from any of the Mass Effect games.

I was already sold on it just with the idea of Remedy bringing their narrative sensibilities to an X-Files/Fringe-style piece of genre fiction. It definitely seems very overtly influenced by Fringe, in particular. It's also interesting to see a more elaborate take on time manipulation from the studio that introduced bullet-time to Video games. Probably the most exciting exclusive the XBO has right now, but i say that as a big fan of Remedy and with an expectation that it'll probably show up on the PC a year or two afterwards.

Whenever the topic of holiday-themed/relevant Video games is raised, this is never not the first thing that pops into my head; i kind of hate it.

It seems to me that the tablet is just so integrated into Nintendo's plans for that system, while the stereoscopy on the 3DS was something they excised with relatively little impact. I suppose a cheap tablet-less Wii U could trojan horse that thing into homes, where people would then realize that they still really need to go out and buy that tablet peripheral too. That would actually be pretty much be in line with how Nintendo made bank on the Wii. So many dumb peripherals. (In the drawer where i keep my Wii stuff: Wii remotes, motionplus dongles, nunchuks, classic pads, and a classic pro pad.)

I do not own a Vita, but i am jealous of the Vita-exclusive Ys game that just came out. (Which is apparently very good.)

When my niece was young, i used to play Earth Defense Force 2017 with her. So whenever i had to babysit, we'd play the "giant ant game" together co-op. The game is not excessively violent, the controls and mechanics are simple enough, and the lower levels of difficulty are approachable enough that it ended up being an alright game for a younger kid. Kirby's Epic Yarn was also a big giant hit.

Kohler's piece doesn't really have much to say about the quality of Nintendo's games, it's more or less about the stumbles Nintendo's had with the Wii U and it's pretty hard to argue against any of those points. The thought of Nintendo putting out a 200 dollar version of the Wii U minus the tablet is an interesting one, and something that probably would actually pay off for Nintendo. Price point is still a massive driving force in these console wars. Nintendo would never do it though, and from a selfish standpoint, i'm glad they wouldn't. It would completely undermine the tablet as the primary distinguishing element of the Wii U, games couldn't be designed around an expectation that it was there. Regarding Mario, it seems clear that Super Mario 3D World is struggling because the hardware it was released on is struggling. Super Mario 3D Land, for comparison, has sold 8.3 million copies so far. (Relative to system sales of around 35 million, while the Wii U has sold less than four million systems to date.) Though I do agree that Nintendo has probably been leaning on Mario too hard in the last few years, and they do need to slow it down. A Nintendo that fatigues and devalues Mario is a Nintendo that is in incredible trouble.

Pile rushers are just why you always needed a good defensive contingent protecting the base.

I might be wrong, but i think it's one of the few 360 games that runs in true 1080p. Its environments were very sparse, but the hounds themselves and the various visual effects were all very nice. Night battles, in particular, were quite impressive to behold. Especially if your hound gets destroyed and you're forced to wander the field as a helpless infantryman, viewing the battle from a new perspective and seeing distant muzzle flashes light up the night sky.

One of the smallest, most important things they did is having Alan turn his head to look towards the nearest offscreen enemy. You probably responded to this new diegetic radar without even realizing it. (Actually, did the PC version of the first game have that too? The original 360 game definitely didn't.)