PixlBit

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.

We're getting ready to have an epic lightning storm in my neck of the woods.

Ni no Kuni is my second favorite game of the generation, after Valkyria Chronicles, and I haven't enjoyed a "traditional" (non-strategy) RPG this much since Final Fantasy XII.

I'm enjoying Bioshock Infinite, but I didn't like the first two Bioshock games all that much.

The only other game coming out this year that I'm definitely getting is Tales of Xillia. I sprung for the Collectors' Edition of that game.

I think that mostly what I hate from modern gaming is the DRM, DLC, and other superfluous crap, although I do admit that I use my PS3 and Wii U to watch Netflix when I don't want to game. I also wish a few of my favorite developers of the past were more active.

On the other hand, I've gotten to play awesome games like Valkyria Chronicles and Ni no Kuni on my PS3. I've also enjoyed playing fighting games online.

Dissidia is a good game. I just wish they'd do a HD remaster of it for PS3. But then, the PSP does have quite a few nice games on it. My favorite PSP game is Valkyria Chronicles 2. It's not as awesome as the PS3 original, but it's still a fine game and worth checking out if you want a taste of the PS3's best game.

Oh, man. I remember Tai-Pan. I played it on our old TRS-80 computer, and I wrote a version of it for the Atari 130XE in BASIC. I play the browser-based version every once in awhile. The game still hold up, for what it is. It'd be interesting for someone to do a modern graphical update of the game and release it via Steam/PSN/XBLA/Nintendo eShop (the Wii U gamepad would work well with it.)

This CE looks good enough that I'm okay with the $100 asking price. My only qualm is that it will get mishandled the way the Ni no Kuni Wizards' Edition did, although I did score the hardcover guide for free from that. However, since it's available at retail rather than through Digital River, hopefully the $25 I put down at Gamestop will keep mine safe from Canadian scalpers.

Unlike a lot of old-media companies like Warner Bros Interactive, Fox Interactive, or Disney Interactive, which were just there to cash in on their IPs in the video game realm, LucasArts was a genuinely good game-maker once upon a time. I remember their games from the 1980s, when they were known as Lucasfilm Games. Koronis Rift, The Eidolon, BallBlazer, and Rescue on Fractalus were some of the most technologically advanced games of the time, That was also the time they started their adventure games. My favorite LucasArts game is Zombies Ate My Neighbors. But by the end of the 90s they were little more than a Star Wars licensing vehicle.

Maverick Hunter would have ended up like Bomberman: Act Zero on 360. It looked like a shameless attempt to pander to the American "dudebro" audience that would probably have ignored it and gone back to Halo 4.