AndrewTS

Thumbs up on Slam Masters and Yoshi's Island. I also still dig Raw. Wrestlemania: TAG was a pretty awful port, though. Also, my digital camera really, really sucks.

Australia gets the PS3 40 GB 10/11: http://kotaku.com/gaming/confirmed/40gb-ps...r-11-307794.php

Sucks, sucks, sucks. Neo games on American VC at last. Good Neo games on American VC--still to come.

Doesn't play PS2 games at all? Take that Europe! The 60 GB with software emulation is still available and has been price-dropped, though. We still have the 60 GB with hardware emulation...for now. On paper, this is somewhat parallel with 360 Core (soon to be Arcade Pack model), which has no xbox 1 game compatibility. However, the 360 has a stronger library in the first place, and the 360 core can be made a full-featured 360 with a hard drive. All you need to obtain BC on 360 is add a hard drive; this gimptard PS3 cannot claim similar upgrade capabilities.

Buy a 360. It has Hyper Fighting online, and will have Super Turbo HD Remix online soon. Plus it has TMNT arcade, Streets of Rage 2, Double Dragon all with online co-op gameplay. And the (arcade) Contra with Co-op. Nintendo so freakin' dropped the ball with VC's utter lack of online enhancements.

40 GB confirmed for Europe. + It's cheaper. - Doesn't play PS2 games. At all. But, hey, the PS3's software lineup is strong enough at this point to do without it, right? (Don't laugh. That's the official company line about it!) I predict another brief sputter in sales before things settle down. Then Sony announces the new 15 GB model, which doesn't support hi-def, wi-fi, uses only wired controllers, and has to be manually cranked each time you want to turn it on. Only $349!

Nintendo doesn't have to do anything Nintendo is too cheap to bother with. Momz don't need online multiplayer and leaderboards. Reggie is an ignorant ape man who thinks Crackdown is a FPS and that Bioshock's appeal is heavily entrenched in multiplayer. That's bad when you *know* Iwata, Miyamoto, etc. aren't concerned about it. 3rd parties will probably be the ones dragging Nintendo kicking and screaming to embrace it more, because Nintendo doesn't care. However, N's own success with what they're doing now seems to tell them that their consumers--the existing ones and those grossly-exaggerated legions of "casual gamers", will buy, play, and love Nintendo games even with little or no online features. ...with the likely exception of Smash. Nintendo is stubborn and a bit arrogant, but they're not stupid.

I don't have a PS3 because I'm too lazy to work two jobs.

I played it last night. The skills are cool, the QTE isn't *quite* so bad because the buttons correspond to the part of the screen you need to press (Up down, left, or right), but it was annoying in GodOW and pretty much sucked there. My biggest annoyance with the game is that the AI was kind of lame. Bioshock had that problem too, but at least splicers used guns and BDs were a nice change. In Jericho I'm fighting kamikaze zombies all the time. I also downloaded the demo for TimeShift, which I hadn't heard of before, and I was digging the core gameplay mechanics/gimmick (time manipulation), even if the art design made it look like a *shameless* ripoff of Half-Life 2. Apparently it used to be a really bad Xbox and PC game that was completely redone, but I had a lot of fun with it and will probably at least rent it to go through campaign.

All PS3s are equipped with b/g wi-fi compatibility *except* the now-defunct 20GB units.

That just doesn't hold true for Halo, but games that bit the shield. However, in Halo 1 you had a life bar + the shield, and then on you had just the shield in 2 and 3. I think most people would agree with that. There's plenty of legit complaints to make against the Halo games. I mean, this guy makes more and he's just ranting for the sake of ranting/entertainment: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/v...ctuation-Halo-3 . I know it's probably a priority to make enemy A.I. good, but ally A.I., when it's bad, can really hurt enjoyment of a game. Although it seems like even A-grade titles have problems with them. So many games w/ ai partners turn into escort missions. Dead Rising allies are borderline brain-dead ( I hand you a gun and you ****ING SHOOT ME IN THE FACE ONE SECOND LATER!?! *RRRRRRRRRRRRRR--*). In Gears, you've got your allies barreling-ass in when you're up against a troika, and while you're popping a sniper and going for a better position, you have to step over 3 wounded because you can't risk healing them. In Halo 3 though, at least your partner who isn't cannon fodder (Arbiter) seems to be damn invincible. Also, after playing the Marathon Durandal demo...this is one the amazing, fantastigoric, astounding titles that were "dumbed down" to make Halo? I'll take Halo until they modernize it, kthanx. I'm convinced some of the hate comes from bitter Apple fanboys, though.

I'm slowly but surely filling in gaps in my maps, limited only by how much the DSL battery holds out. Argh. I can't believe I forgot to charge it overnight. At any rate, the control scheme works really well. At first the boomerang was iffy, but I discovered that holding down to the L button lets you switch to your equipped item as long as you hold it (thanks to a NPC tip), making it much more useful than I imagined in combat. Plus, when you've purchased the shield, you automatically block small projectiles coming at you from the front.

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller...? I just finished God of War 2. After the demo left a bad taste in my mouth I passed on it, but after getting it for 20 bucks I have to say it's amazing how much the overall feel and basic mechanics of the game has seemed to improve. There's more solid platforming, combat isn't so much of a chore, and naturally there's no Hades section. I tire of the QTE stuff, but, eh, it's not that common.

No wind changing. Drawing notes on maps. Grabbing and throwing a bomb with two quick taps of the screen. Really digging this.

Finished my first real dungeon. Feels very old school, although using the boomerang in the heat of battle requires you to act very, VERY fast a lot of times.

Yup, which is why Majora Link was a kid.

Yeah, but no VC games support the nunchuck or the Wiimote pointer, so until that happens, I'm going to keep my expectations down to earth.

That's far more modern Sonic games than you should ever admit to owning, Alex. Come on, Shadow?!

Good as bought, because I don't plan on hooking up my n64 again for a while. Your next assignment, Nintendo--Goldeneye with dual analog support on the classic controller.

n64 did, sometimes

My collection rotates a lot because of buying/reselling and trading in games I beat but didn't like enough to keep. I'm hesitant to call it a "collection", more like "games I have right now." I'll try to get my digital camera working to at least get a few snapshots of what I got at the moment, though. I'd have to lay out all of my N64 stuff, due to having few boxes. I guess that's why the AVGN bitches about lack of end labels so much. YNA-- curious--how long you had the River City Ransom? Finding a cart of it in the wild has been nearly impossible. I want to see Anya's collection.

Video reviews of crappy pirate/cheap ripoff game consoles: http://www.youtube.com/user/ashens Gamestation: "I give it a 7/10, the least you can give a game before a publisher pulls their advertising." POPstation: Neo Double Games: "Ryu and Ken don't live here."

Was the recharging shield in any console FPS before Halo? Any FPS?

Well, it was two Marines, who don't use each other's names, and it sounded RvB-ish. I wasn't sure if that was it or if that was something else they did, and they had another sequence. Why does everyone seem to think I'm a smartass? I finished campaign last night. At first, I had a hard time on the last level, because I handled it like I handle any Flood level...beat feet and and try to get the hell where I need to go. That failed...again and again. Then I got pissed and decided to annihilate every damn one of them. That worked.

They did just release the Mid 2007 iMacs...they want to sell a lot of those so if those people want Leopard they gotta buy it extra.