PixlBit

Kirby's Epic Yarn is an interesting beast.

I really, really enjoyed playing it in spite of the game's extreme ease. In many games, the rewarding part is success, but in KEY, the reward was the voyage. Each level is playful and simple, offering elements of discovery and plenty of little things to do.

My biggest complaint was the co-op, which felt forced in a few levels. Chessa and I found out quickly that some levels just weren't made for it, and we'd have to take turns backing out of the game to complete those levels free of frustration.

This same issue manifested far worse in DKCR, which didn't seem cut out for co-op in the least.

Although I was far more excited for DKCR than KEY coming out of E3, I think I enjoyed the contents of KEY quite a bit more at the end of it all.

Sweet Jesus, I want this thing. Must add more coins...

Hopefully these guys are acquitted and can return back to normal life soon. If Sony sold them the system, these guys own the property they purchased.

People hacking the machine is inevitable, so it's always better to turn a blind eye to it and let this subculture exist. Nintendo seemed to figure this out and have just tried their best to thwart the hackers with a variety of system updates (to no avail, of course).

Honestly, Sony is to blame for all of this hacking anyway. Does anyone think it's a coincidence that the PS3 started being hacked shortly after people were forced to remove Linux from their machines due to a certain update?

The bottom line is this: only a small percentage of system owners will hack their machines to play stolen games and perform unscrupulous acts. More often than not, they are doing it just because they can and would've never materialized to true sales anyway. Heck, Sony probably sells a few extra systems because of it and in the end I'm sure it all works out to be a wash.

So do we hilariously attach this article to LittleBigPlanet 2?

I remember when LBP2 was announced, I immediately searched the site for this article because I could've sworn someone at Media Molecule said they would never do a sequel.

There's no way they weren't working on or at least talking about this sequel at the time of this statement. There must've been rumors of a sequel floating around at the time and this producer went the exact opposite direction on the question to really shoot down any speculation.

This game sounds super awesome to me, I'm going to have to check it out. As usual, I think I have enough on my plate for right now to even consider grabbing it, but I'm adding it to my Wish List (in my PixlBit game collection!) right now.

This looks pretty awesome. I sure hope it doesn't get put off again and never sees the light of day. Based on what's been shown here, that doesn't seem likely, but you never know.

I see the potential of the back touchpad, but I'm guessing it's not going to be used for much more than extra buttons in most cases. A few developers will probably do something cool, but like most of these gimmicky features, the majority of devs will either ignore them or just do something silly.

As for the system overall, I can't say I'm all that impressed. I don't really want another PSP - by that I mean, I don't want another system that's essentially a home console made portable. Handheld games have always had a distinct flavor and the PSP definitely lacked that, and I think this may have the same issue. We'll see when the games come out what's being offered, but for Sony's sake I hope it has some stuff that's not home console-like in design.

$999.99 better be a placeholder price, that's a crazy amount for anything. I'm guessing a more accurate final price will be around $350 - $400.

I do have a bit of an issue with the growing price of handheld devices. I understand that the tech has improved dramatically, but I'm not sure we need such advancement for our handhelds. I hope this market plateaus much like home consoles seem to have at this point.

I haven't had the chance to say it, but a big thanks to the whole PixlBit staff in producing these awards. I sprung it on everyone that we were going to be doing them, and everyone voted and produced their write-ups ridiculously fast.

It took me a while to get everything together due to some stuff going on currently in my personal life, so sorry about that. I'll be making an announcement pretty soon letting everyone know exactly what was holding things up on my end.

Also, if anyone has any input for changes for next year's awards, feel free to let us know here or shoot us an email.

I still haven't played Homecoming or Shattered Memories, but I'm hopeful that this is going to be a decent game. I think Silent Hill does a great job of creating a creepy atmosphere, but the actual gameplay has always been pretty questionable. Nevertheless, I remain hopeful.