PixlBit

Sure did. More ostentatious gaming-related crap. Yay!

Did you mean The Evil Within, which is Shinji Mikami's game that's going to be published by Bethesda? I'm interested in that one. I'm a huge fan of the former Clover/Platinum team. I think The Killer Within was an episode of The Walking Dead.

Liking the new A Link to the Past - the original is my favorite Zelda game other than Twilight Princess. I do wish it were being made for the Wii U instead of the 3DS, or being made for both systems.

My biggest game of the year, now that I have Ni no Kuni and Bioshock Infinite, is Tales of Xillia. I preordered the collectors' edition. Thankfully it wasn't exclusive to Namco's online store, after the Ni no Kuni fiasco (I did get the hardbound strategy guide for free though, so that worked out okay), and I could preorder it through Gamestop.

My dad felt the same way as you in 1971. He'd been in the Navy since 1957, and they sent him on four tours of Vietnam. He didn't get to see my sister until she was about a year old because he was stuck in Vietnam, and he decided he couldn't take it anymore. Make good use of your GI Bill and Veterans' Preference if you decide not to re-up!

The Japan hate kind of pisses me off, too. Yeah, people like different stuff, but it seems like folks in gaming forums go out of their way to be nasty about Japanese video games, and the people who enjoy them. No other country gets picked on this much, although I think some of these gamers think of Canada, Poland, the UK, and other places in North America and Europe as a bunch of "America Juniors" when discussing "Western games".

Many of my favorite games in this generation, like Valkyria Chronicles, Ni no Kuni, Bayonetta, Yakuza, and Nintendo's stuff, are fine examples of Japanese game design in the HD era. I also own a lot of very fine games on the DS and PSP, On the other hand, I've also enjoyed Fallout 3, New Vegas, XCOM, Mortal Kombat and Bioshock Infinite - all made with pride in the USA - very much. There's been more content from the US in my gaming library than at any time since the early 90's, when games like the Ultima series and SimCity reigned supreme for me outside of the arcades, and there will continue to be room for both East and West on my gaming shelves.

As far as sexuality in Japanese games goes - how about all those ass-shots of Miranda and her body-paint uniform in Mass Effect, yeah? How about all the fan-made nude/sex mods for every PC game under the sun?

Liquid snake... wouldn't you drink that rather than eat that?

I think you have to be the biggest Metal Gear fan on the planet. You deserve to get to meet Hideo Kojima in person and tell him you're his number 1 fan.

My only "for sure" game right now is Tales of Xillia, but I've heard rumors Bayonetta 2 will be out on Wii U by year's end, and if that's true, I'm there.

Here's hoping the next Atelier game shows up as well, and also that either Tecmo Koei America will handle it better or give it back to NISA to publish.

Disagree that the backlash against EA is simple "we hate change." People like good change. DRM that treats paying customers like criminals, EULAs that really require you to bring your lawyer to Gamestop to read them, forced multiplayer (along with all the other incredibly shitty design decisions that plagued SimCity 2013), and pushing a microtransaction-based model (which, admittedly, was largely spread to the West by Zynga, but EA is still pushing it) that should have been left to fester in South Korea and China are in no way positive changes, and they're needless when other companies don't push these things and are actually profitable. EA's problem is that it's a very badly managed, bloat-ridden company, and they're passing the costs of their expensive mistakes on to their customers.

No, EA isn't the worst company in America. Technically speaking, only companies manufacturing WMDs should make that list (not even Bank of America really deserves it compared to that metric). People need to realize that the Consumerist poll is not about sheer human misery so much as it is about which companies have the worst customer service records according to their consumers, regardless of whether they make thimbles or GMO food - and EA is therefore a legitimate contender for the Golden Poo Award.   Yes, gaming is a hobby. That doesn't mean that people are passionate about this hobby shouldn't be angry when their hobby's enjoyment is being worsened by the practices of a company such as EA whose influence extends far beyond game boxes with the EA label on them. I'm personally tired f people who speak up against EA and other companies being shouted down as "entitled." This isn't a slap at you, Julian, but it is a general observation of the resurgence of Gilded Age attitudes regarding corporations, workers, and consumers that has reared its ugly head in recent years.

Dragon's Dogma is a good game, and it's better than most "true" WRPGs made this generation. It might not have sold 10 million copies, but apparently Capcom is happy enough with it to make it a long-running franchise.

Nintendo's reliving of its glory days is obvious only because of how long the company has been in the gaming business. Every company does it nowadays. Microsoft is pretty much reduced to wash, rinse, and repeat on Halo, Gears, Fable, and Forza, aside from publishing a few outside companies' games on XBLA. Sony changes things up every generation - Naughty Dog did Crash on PS1, Jak on PS2, and Uncharted on PS3 - but I'm not sure that strategy has worked out very well for them commercially. And even EA largely banks on franchises that are now over 20 years old.

I'm glad I picked up some of the rarer PS1 and PS2 games brand-new back in the day. However, when I have the disposable income, I don't mind splurging on some of the rarer gaming treasures. I scored Panzer Dragoon Saga for $150 on Amazon. Only had I picked it up for 40 bucks at Electronics Boutique back in 1998. Oh, well.