Role-Playing

The news about Ridge Racer for the PlayStation Vita and its dearth of content in favor of downloadable content (DLC) reignites the discussion about how DLC affects retail games. Issues with weak content versus numerous DLC offerings is nothing new for Namco.

So, Skyrim. Everybody's heard of it, everybody's playing it, and it's getting stellar reviews. Clearly this game is the jam for a whole lot of people right now, and that's pretty cool. Seriously, no hate coming from me towards those of you who dig it, at all. For me, though... I have to say I'm just not feeling it.

Not everybody's thankful for Skyrim this week, but most of us are. We explore this latest epic entry in The Elder Scrolls quintology. Plus, what the heck is Ubisoft doing with Assassin's Creed? (Beats us.) And is it ever OK to ignore multiplayer modes when reviewing games? We think so, and we'll tell you why. Many thanks to our very special guest, the brilliant Rhea Monique! With Chi Kong Lui, Mike Bracken, Richard "Bob Dylan" Naik, Tim Spaeth, and Tim Spaeth again as the mysterious and enigmatic J. Bradford Gallaway IV.

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The inescapable reality is that Bethesda makes precisely the sorts of games I love, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim may be their best, even if buying the game on release day is akin to paying $60 for access to a public beta test.

In honor of the launch of what is probably the last must-have Nintendo Wii title we'll ever see, and is surely the final Legend of Zelda game to launch on a Wii—The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword—here is a Zelda cosplayer that is hard to beat.

Breakout Success

HIGH Every drop of programming love on-display here made had me constantly contented.

LOW The impenetrable Stage 4-5 had me frazzled for a couple of days.

WTF Why isn't this a proper XBLA title?!

Two Worlds II... and a Half!

HIGH A huge amount of content for a game that deserved it.

LOW The chuggy combat and large number of fetchquests.

WTF Undead strip clubs. Transgender elves. Saltpetre.

Playing video games can be a very expensive hobby and even more so for those of us who consider ourselves not only gamers, but also video game collectors who maintain a library of artistically interesting and historically noteworthy games. With limited disposable income, the average gamer can only purchase so many titles at full price per year. So with that in mind, this is a blog feature devoted to finding the best deals on gaming essentials for would be collectors and anyone looking to play a good game at an affordable price.

Demon's over Dark

HIGH Being reunited with my old comrade, the Halberd.

LOW Anor Londo catwalks, Curse status, being lost, and THE ENDING.

WTF The frequent attack lag really passed QA?

I have more to say about Final Fantasy XIII, but that post is so depressing to write I thought I'd hold off for now and elaborate on a point I made in my post discussing its combat mechanics. Role-playing games tend to get broadly divided into "turn-based" and "action" categories, distinctions that are not particularly informative, often get used inaccurately, and don't usefully elaborate the relationship between the player and the system.