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I think you could do without the Rebirth mod, its higher detail models are done in a style that i think probably a lot of people would find very at odds with the original aesthetic of the game. SHTUP is a fine mod though, it fixes a lot of misaligned textures and things like that, it has a nice look. I don't know if you looked over the posts i wrote up earlier in this thread, but the key to the game is really just to plan your build carefully. If you want to have a good experience with the game, you need to focus in on doing a few things really well, while making sure the things you can do compliment each other. For a first time through the game, you should probably put some emphasis towards hacking, maintenance, and standard weapons. (Navy builds will get you there faster, but nothing is locked out by your class selection at the start of the game.)

Oh man, Superstar Saga is ten years old. That realization hit me pretty hard.

I am totally okay with another Halo-style game on the market. It's a weird and specific kind of shooter that isn't really being done by anybody other than Bungie and now 343, so there's probably room for one to coexist alongside Halo. That is, of course, assuming that Destiny is just Halo again.

One of the things i remember really turning me off the game was just that doing anything seemed to take forever, and there were huge long stretches between save points, so you couldn't even really attack it in small chunks. It was so completely contrary to what a snappy, fast-paced game Superstar Saga was.

Minish Cap kind of emphasizing the idea that you should try to collect everything, and then being one of the few Zelda games with missables, sort of made me hate it. (That and the maze-like overworld that is a complete pain in the ass to backtrack across.)

I anticipate that a lot of people will kind of hate it. SS2 tends to make a bad first impression. I will encourage new players to look over some of the things i've written in other posts on this thread.

I actually really like the diving bits, but Rev's damned insistence on continually pulling you out of the main narrative, taking away all of your upgraded items, and making you play short stints as different characters completely sucks. As good as RE4? Hell no. Better than RE5 though, which was still a pretty good game, and i haven't played RE6, but let's say it's probably better than that too. Also, again, raid mode totally kicks ass. I would prefer if that ends up being a mini-game that sticks, i was never a big fan of mercenaries.

I ultimately decided against playing it, but NSMB2 seems to have contributed strongly to the perception that the NSMB games are the "B-team" Mario games.

Man, was Partners in Time that bad? How many people did that game ruin the series for? I just remember it being kind of boring and feeling like "Okay, alright, they ran out of steam after the first one." Is Bowser's Inside Story really that much better than Partners in Time?

Let me add to this: Resident Evil: Revelations, Kid Icarus Uprising, Super Mario 3D Land, Virtue's Last Reward, and Fire Emblem: Awakening are what i'd count as the best games right now. I think Fire Emblem: Awakening is phenomenal, it's pretty much the game on the system right now and has set the bar so high that it will likely remain so for some time. Even if you've never played this strategy RPG series before, you owe it to yourself to check this one out. (Even if you play on the permadeath-disabled casual mode.) Virtue's Last Reward is best enjoyed after playing 999 on the DS. (Also be sure to read up on the save bug affecting VLR, it's easy to avoid but quite serious.) If you enjoy 999, you'll know if you want to play VLR. Uprising has a weird control scheme that takes some time to get used to, but if a light-hearted loot-focused shooter sounds appealing, it can be a lot of fun. Revelations is just a really great RE game, better than the last few main series entries even. The bonus raid mode puts it over the top with random loot drops, remixed levels, and online co-op. (Still, don't bother with Revelations if you aren't willing to get the CPP add-on.) Super Mario 3D Land is pretty much up there with the best Mario games, it was developed by the same team as the Galaxy games. I also really like Mario Kart 7, i think it's one of the best games in the series. (Be sure to grab the patch from the eShop.) I think Code of Princess is an awesome Treasure-influenced brawler, but it seems like opinion is sharply divided on that. The Tales of the Abyss port is nice, and the Ocarina 3D remake is also nice. (Though that came with a host of new bugs that most people probably won't notice.) The Adventure Time game is a quaint, amusing Zelda II throwback. Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Legacy is quite a lot of fun, and i loved Ridge Racer 3D. Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars is a nice, ambitious turn-based strategy game from X-com's Julian Gollop, but it's so buggy that it becomes hard to recommend. There's some big games coming out in the next few weeks too, like Etrian Odyssey 4 and Mirror of Fate. (Metroidvania set in the rebooted Castlevania continuity.) ^ There's actually going to be demos for both of these, the EOIV one is already up. Be sure to check out the demos section on the eShop. Speaking of which, the eShop on the 3DS kicks ass. A lot of good platformers, i particularly like Mighty Switch Force. The Pushmo/Crashmo games seem like real favorites. The Guild 01 games were all pretty cool, but Crimson Shroud is in particular quite amazing, everybody should play it.

Superstar Saga remains one of the best times i've ever had with a JRPG, but i found Partners in Time so boring that i never ended up playing Bowser's Inside Story. (Though i've been informed by multiple sources that Bowser's Inside Story is actually pretty awesome, and that Partners in Time is just a very slow burn.) Still, with that all said, i thought the Dream Team trailer was the highlight of that last Nintendo Direct, it looks pretty great.

Another spotpass update was just pushed out for the game, this one has the first of many additional story "paralogues" that will show up towards the end of the game once enabled, and they apparently have additional story characters to recruit. (There's also more legacy characters to battle and recruit, this time from Path of Radiance.) The spotpass updates, unlike the DLC chapters, are free. If you have spotpass for the game enabled, it should download automatically, otherwise i think you can still download it manually from the wireless menu on the campaign map. (The same thing you'd do to enable it if it downloaded via spotpass.)

By all accounts, the new Animal Crossing is quite a significantly different game from the relatively iterative past outings. Also, M&L4 surprised me, that looks awesome. (Not that i would have expected it to be bad or anything.)

Looks like there might be a bit of a fight brewing over who's actually at fault for Aliens: Colonial Marines, with "primary development" of the game having at some point been outsourced to TimeGate Studios. I mean, but ultimately, Gearbox has to be held as the responsible party, right?

Fire Emblem Awakening has been eating up my free time, but i intend to catch back up on this before next week. I believe i need to do last week's and this week's. Also, there's a rumor going around now that Last Guardian has been delayed to the PS4.

I'm not saying it's acceptable, it's definitely a topic that needs more awareness, but the way the conversation is being raised with regards to ACM is highly misleading. For the other thing, let me see if i can dig up some good examples of what I'm talking about. Edit: I'm having trouble digging up anything that clearly illustrates it, grainy youtube videos aren't cutting it. (The game still looks so good that i feel like i would be pointing out blurry individual pixels to try and make my case.) The general gist is that there's some texture pop-in and some seriously harsh detail scaling going on at distances, none of which is present in the promo material surrounding the game. The trailers and official demos all suggest a totally pristine, perfect game. I mean, and nobody ever calls out publishers and developers on this stuff when it's a game that people mostly like. That probably shouldn't be the case, it probably shouldn't be something we're always so willing to let slide. (I didn't mean to imply that there was some controversy surrounding Halo 4 bullshots. I mentioned it specifically because there wasn't when there are, what i find to be, noticeable differences between the pre-release materials and the released game.)

Why are people so shocked and horrified that a preview build that was probably running on PC hardware looked a tiny bit better than the optimized and released version? This happens literally all the time, and has happened much more egregiously too. (Halo 4 is a pretty recent example. That is a beautiful game, but those promo shots do not reflect what that game actually looks like, not in the slightest.) Sorry, but that one is just dumb. That's the hate train taking on a life of its own. That Polygon review that was linked a page back or so, that was seriously dumb too. It's a conversation to have, but this wasn't the game to have it around, it's a broader topic that doesn't deserve to be lost amongst all the things evidently wrong with ACM.

Fantastic!

I'm sitting on a pile of like eight half-finished RPG's that i haven't quite given up on yet.

Let me go way back and throw another one in here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bonai7PXfUM I don't think any other games in that series ever nailed the atmosphere as well as MW2 did.

I really, really don't like Twilight's soundtrack. Skyward Sword and Wind Waker's are both really great, i feel.

Regarding the spoiled ending of Aliens: Colonial Marines: Don't forget that Gearbox did three separate add-ons for the original Half-Life. (At least one of which is genuinely fantastic.) I think AvP 2010 is a hell of a lot better than it gets credit for being, it's a beautiful game with a really nuanced melee system that seems to have flown way over most people's heads. There were definitely a lot of reviews making factually incorrect statements about how shit in that game works, and citing those misunderstandings as marks against the game. It is definitely not a great game, but it's better than its reputation makes it out to be. (It was best in multiplayer, to be clear. Most of the AvP games actually have really, really great multiplayer.)

Has anybody mentioned Homeworld yet? Homeworld. Now it's been mentioned. The entire campaign of that game, from the opening cinematic to the final credits, it just works splendidly as this one contiguous, enveloping ride. I cannot think of a single other RTS that has made me feel as invested in its story as Homeworld did.

I would say that I have been a pretty big fan of the various AvP FPS's* and I definitely have a lot of love for what Gearbox does, so I think I'm probably pretty much the intended market for this game, but I could not be less excited for this game. Everything I've seen just looks busted and ugly. (* = For the record, Monolith's game is the best one by a significant margin. I don't think Rebellion gets enough credit for what they've done with that series though, and i think 2010 was a terribly misunderstood game.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYISuoBXmg4 There's some seriously great music in Awakening. I think it's awesome how the game cuts seamlessly between two different versions of each song as the gameplay shifts between the strategy view and the battle scenes.