PSP

Game Description: Featuring the sexy female characters from the Dead or Alive series, your two-week Vacation Mode starts at the getaway resort, New Zack Island. Select a favorite from nine playable characters and you are free to mingle, flirt, play, take snapshots and challenge them in mini-games found throughout the island. Store the snaps in your one-of-a-kind private album along with teasing "venus clips" for viewing and editing or share an intimate experience with your girls by buying gifts and having them model your favorite bathing suits. You are in full control to create your own private paradise, in the palm of your hand. It's all on-the-go. Take your girls anywhere, and play with them anytime.

Working in video game retail opens your eyes to a lot of things. You realize that you probably don't agree with a lot of corporate policies. You find that the majority of gaming consumers don't know how to put a disc back in its case. You also see that, despite its good intentions, the ESRB rating system simply does not work when it comes to trying to protect minors from controversial or explicit content. With the recent news that the Supreme Court of the United States is going to review a violent video game law in California that was struck down by the state's 9th Circuit Court, the argument about violent video games has reared its ugly head once again, and it's time for me to throw my hat in the ring on this subject.

Puzzles without Borders

HIGH The same high for all puzzle games: the "a-ha!" moment.

LOW Having to redo the first four casts the same way just so I can reattempt the fifth one again and again is tiresome.

WTF Echochrome had a delicious fast-forward button. Where'd it go?

David and Goliath: The Collectible Card Game

HIGH Overcoming (seemingly) impossible opponents with superior strategy.

LOW Rebuilding my deck from scratch to pass one particular battle.

WTF So I'm earning "earn"?

Before today, everything I knew about the infamous Cho Aniki series was gleaned either from a cursory glance at Wikipedia or this Escapist article. It's part of the kuso-ge (literally, "sh*t game") class of hyper-stylized Japanese gaming, notable only for the use of kitschy humor. These obscure 2D shooters feature every not-so-subtle homoerotic undercurrent imaginable, from characters who shoot semen-like beams from their heads to greased men wrestling and evil phallic monsters.

I know that this post's title may make it seem like I'm taking a page from Espen Aarseth's 2005 article of a similar name and Roger Travis' 2008 response to it. Trust me when I say that I'm casting my net a little wider than the design vs. scholarship vs. play disciplinary debate... not that that debate is irrelevant, but I'm simply responding to a different exigency.

The other day, the subject of BioShock 2's recent Downloadable Content (DLC) came up and spurred a lively debate between a few people and myself on Twitter. As any tweeter knows, it's difficult to carry on an in-depth conversation with a limit of 140 characters, and trying to jump back and forth between several people at the same time is an even greater challenge. As a way of continuing the chat without the technical barriers, this post.