PixlBit

I was also very dissapointed with Munch's Oddysee, and my dissapointment was even worse because I had been waiting to play it for years.  The original Oddworld game was one of the two games that made me buy a playstation (the other being Tony Hawk). I never bought an X-Box, and besides KOTOR the only thing that ever made me regret that decision was that the Oddworld series continued on the X-Box instead of on the playstation.When it (and Stranger's Wrath) finally became available on the PSN last year I eagerly bought them, but was dissapointed with both.  I still played through and finished Stranger's Wrath, but after several levels I just kind of stopped playing Munch's Oddysee and sort of forgot about it.  Like you said, it wasn't that it was a bad game.  It was just kind of boring.

I enjoyed the wii and have at least a couple dozen games for it.  I also get annoyed when people dismiss it just because of the great many casual games that were created for it.  But even so, there is no denying that a great many wiis were bought for or by people that never played anything other than wii sports and maybe one other game.  My parents were one.  My girlfriend's mom and two sisters all had one, with the only games any of them had were Wii Spors and Dance Revolution.  But again, who cares.  There's no denying that is was succesful.  And only a naive person would claim that there were not a lot of great games on it for everyone, no matter what type of gamer they are.

I'd highly recommend getting one. I got one not too long before Christmas, and I've already bought over 15 physical games for it (I never had a DS, so since it's backwards compatable some of the games are regular DS games).  There are still so many that I want, but even if I stopped now I'd have enough to last me well into next year.

There's so many great, and diverse, games to play:  Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Super Mario 3D Land, NSMB2, Professor Layton, Phoenix Wright, Shin Megami Tensei IV (and several other Shin Megami Tensei games), Etrian Odyssey, Fire Eblem, Mario & Luigi, Luigi's Mansion...

In addition to all the current games, last weekend I dropped over $100 on Virtual Console games.  It's nice to be able quickly boot up Ninja Gaiden, play for a few minutes while I'm waiting on something, create a restore point, and then close it for later.

It takes alot of the elements of the console versions, but it is more similar to old-school metroidvania. The map is 3D, but the action plays out as a 2D side-scroller. (You can be walking from east to west and then enter a vent in the background, and the map will rotate and you'll be crawling through it to the north.)

There are still all the gadgets from the console games and the fighting still uses the familiar timing based button mashing.  When you find the gadgets you can go back to earlier places you have been to open up new areas, similar to suit upgrades in metroid.

If you have a Vita (I think it's on the 3DS also) and like metroidvania games I'd say it's worth a shot, especially if you also like the console Batman games.  I had alot of fun with it.

I've loved games like this for a long time.  My favorite is probably Super Metroid.  The most recent ones I've played are Batman Arkham Origins:Blackgates (Vita) and Guacamelee.  I thought both were excellent games.  Dark Souls was also a great game and I'm looking forward to the second one.

FYI-Jeremey Parish (formerly of 1up) keeps a couple lists of metroidvania-type games.  I doubt he would mind me linking to them here:

http://www.metroidvania.com/

http://www.gamespite.net/toastywiki/index.php/Games/Metroidvania

That's good news.  I've never completely understood the constant bashing those games get when there are so many other games that do the same thing, but they have become pretty stale.

 I have to admit when I first got COD4:Modern Warfare I had a blast with it.  It probably helped that besides the occasional Team Fortress on my friend's computer, I had never really played an on-line FPS.  I spent a great many hours on it.  When the second one came out I still enjoyed it, but probably spent less than half the time with it as I did the first.  I also got the 3rd one, but spent only a handful of hours with it before I got bored. I don't really have a desire to play another one unless they change something fundamental about it.

I'm a fan of the autoplay.  If I don't want to watch the next episode of something then I'm already either planning on turning it off or changing it to something else, so I already have the remote handy.  If I want to keep watching, it's nice that I don't have to go find the remote every time an episode is over (since I'm usually doing multiple other things when watching shows on netflix).

Cool.  Thanks for posting that.  I'll have to check it out tonight.  

I love Persona 4 (and am currently in the middle of watching the animated series).  I still like Persona 3 better though (although that's not the common opinion), probably just because I played it first.

Did you actually read somewhere that Kanji's sexuality was dictated by how Americans would view him?  It is my understanding that homosexual opinions in Japan are kind of similar to those in America-a growing number of people are becoming accepting of it, while the public at large either frowns on it or at least doesn't want to talk about it, with the split being mostly young vs old people.

Regardless, I had a similar reaction as you did.  At first I was like what he hell, why are they acting like he's not gay now.  But then I started thinking it was a postive message anyways.  Although he's not gay, he enjoyed things that might be considered so but hated that part of himself, so he had to overcome his homophobia and just accept himself as he was.

Also, I'm curious about what you mean by Americans ruining Earthbound.

I love point-and-click adventure games-but as an old-school fan I'll always consider them "graphic adventure" games.  I can't help it, it's just what I always call them in my head. I know the label doesn't really make sense anymore in modern times, but I fell in love with them before you could even point and click.  

I didn't realize there were many on the Wii.  I love Zack and Wiki.  I didn't know that a Runaway game was on the Wii, I might see if I can find it somewhere.  I played one of them on my PC and enjoyed it.