PSP

Once more, with Feeling

HIGH Lots of the classic Disgaea LOL humor fans love.

LOW Watching and re-watching the same scenes looking for the hotspot.

WTF "Your big boobs are giving me a headache."

Game Description: Disgaea Infinite is a single player game set in the Digaea universe in which players must travel through time to catch a suspect in a potentially heinous crime. Unlike earlier Digaea games, Disgaea Infinite is not a strategic RPG, instead it is created as a "visual novel," in which players have full control of the story, taking full control of characters, choosing how they will act in order to get to the bottom of the mystery at hand.

Prepare Yourself for the Rubberband Man

HIGH Fulfilling all the conditions to earn all of a track's prizes and skidding across the finish line in first.

LOW Fulfilling all the conditions to earn all of a track's prizes and getting dropped from first to sixth by attacks within sight of the finish line.

WTF Why did they include this dull story (announcers, skits, etc.) in career mode?

For me, the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is a giant, growling contradiction in terms.

Every year I attend the behemoth celebration of digital entertainment and culture, and I just can't process the massive, public scale of this thing. The towering screens and throngs of people tell me that this is a business like any other—one that's loved by millions of people, and one that makes millions of dollars. Games are more popular and more prevalent than ever—without question. If that's the case, and it is, then it's ironic that it's always felt like such a solo endeavor for me over the years.

Yes, gaming is social and I've spent countless hours playing and discussing it with my friends and colleagues, but at the end of the day, games remain a lovely pastime that's processed by yours truly as the quest of a man alone. It's time spent by myself. If you rearrange the letters of "Quality Time" (and delete a few) you get "Quiet"... So, the loud, flashy marketing blitz that is the Electronics Entertainment Expo stands in the face of my lifetime of experience.

So, with these overwhelming feelings running through my head as a counterpoint to the throbbing crowds and masses of fans eager for their electrons, I submerge into the depths of E3 to bring you my news and impressions; the halting, limited coverage of a solo gamer set adrift on the convention center floor.

Enjoy.

That elusive, Sasquatch-like gargantuan has slipped into the woods once more. Yes, despite its immense size and broad scope, all three days of E3 managed to disappear without warning. Somehow, somehow, the darn beast got away from me with some of its treasures locked away; with some of its stones left unturned... Ah well, now that it's over, I've something to look forward to—next year's show.

No one wants to be outdone in life, so it would seem that keeping up with the Joneses will never go out of style.  A perfect example? The PlayStation Move. Since its announcement, the Move has never seemed more than a "me too" device to compete with Nintendo's massive Wii marketshare.  The official word, of course, has always been "Just you wait, Joe Gamer."  Well, now's its time to shine­—it’s time to put it all out on the line.

So, E3 2010's in full swing. It's been a pretty busy week so far and I haven't had time to watch the full press conferences given by the big three, but I hardly feel like I need to. With as much information coming down the twitter feed, I'm already perilously close to overload. I'm not going to comment too much since we are going to be recording a podcast this weekend focusing solely on the convention, but I did want to call out one thing: PlayStation Plus.

Every year I attend the behemoth celebration of digital entertainment and culture, and I just can't process the massive, public scale of this thing. The towering screens and throngs of people tell me that this is a business like any other—one that's loved by millions of people, and one that makes millions of dollars. Games are more popular and more prevalent than ever—without question. If that's the case, and it is, then it's ironic that it's always felt like such a solo endeavor for me over the years.