Blocks for Days

HIGH Upgrade trees with some fun choices to make.

LOW Some odd mission choices that feel like a poor attempt at palate-cleansing.

WTF We still have one-hit kill bosses instead of actual difficulty? Yeugh.

It's not a backlog title, but I managed to get a copy of Fire Emblem: Awakening for Nintendo 3DS, and I've been putting some time into it… it's not title I was eagerly anticipating, but I needed a portable title and word of mouth from people that I trust was almost universally positive.

I've learned a few things after reading about what's happened during the DICE Summit and Awards event that's taken place this past week. The industry seems to be crying out desperately for maturity. David Cage (Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls) says that games need to grow up. Warren Spector (Epic Mickey) says that games like Lollipop Chainsaw shouldn't be made. The industry wants more Journey and The Walking Dead experiences, as evidenced by these games winning 99.5% of the awards given out. The definition of "fun" is changing.

The Easy Way Out

HIGH Taking out an entire encampment of privateers at close range without being detected.

LOW The final mission in the "Buck" sideplot is just gross.

WTF Can I please face one major boss I don't kill in an apparent hallucination?

Bloodbath Island

HIGH Leaping off a zipline and driving a machete into one pirate, then slashing his friend's throat before he realizes what's happening.

LOW Being asked to make one of the stupidest endgame choices in history.

WTF Okay, that's a lot of Komodo Dragons all in one place.

Pokéwhat?

HIGH Getting another chance to use all the figures I spent a fortune on!

LOW Any section with jumping. In fact, every section with jumping.

WTF Why do fire-element creatures take damage from fire?

Meow to Tail a Story

HIGH Witty dialogue and great voice acting make the characters more personable.

LOW Getting stuck because I couldn't see the one object I needed to interact with.

WTF How every character seems to possess advanced knowledge of quantum physics.

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate hits the 3DS and WiiU in March, and I'm hoping that a lot of you out there who haven't tried the game yet will decide to jump aboard. If you do, be aware that Monster Hunter has always been utterly terrible at welcoming newcomers. Even though it eventually became one of my favorite games of all time, I fully admit that my first few experiences with the series were nothing short of awful.

I'm trying to make a serious effort towards trimming down my backlog this year, so I decided to give Bayonetta one more shot. I've started and quit the game twice before, but it comes up in conversation so often and in such positive terms that I'd feel like I wasn't doing my critical due diligence unless I gave it a least one more try.

Just like Handel, the digital craftsman Hidetaka Suehiro seems equally excited, baffled, and reluctant to continue work on his most successful game yet, Deadly Premonition—a game that, dare I say it, could be a similarly-praised work hundreds of years from now. The game is being re-released this March as a PlayStation 3-exclusive entitled Deadly Premonition: The Director's Cut. I was lucky enough to be able to sit down with the man and his producer, Tomio Kanazawa, last week to discuss the details. It was an event that was sometimes as intentionally mysterious as the goings-on in the game's fictional hamlet of Greenvale, but thrilling nonetheless.