PixlBit

Thanks, Blake.

Alright guys, let's stop now. I think it's clear you don't see eye to eye and it's getting a bit out of control. It's fine to discuss religion/politics/whatever else here, but it needs to be a civilized, intelligent debate.

I'm sorry it's had to come to this, but if I see it continue any further, I'm going to have to take administrative action.

Hey Joe - I'll take a look into these issues. There is a bug that Angelo Grant found one day and I haven't been able to pinpoint what's causing the problem. I do have the text he was using, so I can do some testing with that and try to resolve the issue.

Wii U HD port and I'm all over this. I'd love to get the full roster all in one version of the game. Come on Namco!

I adore this game. It's easily one of my favorites in the series and I most definitely prefer it over the entire handheld line of Zelda games (with the exception of A Link Between Worlds).

It's stunning to see what an impact it's had on gaming and just how damn visionary it was for its time. It's basically the archetype for action-adventure games and many a game have borrowed some or all of its concepts.

If it had some better hinting to guide you, I think just about anybody could love it. If I didn't have the entire game committed to memory, I'm sure it would bother me more, but I played it so much as a kid that I discovered everything that could be found then.

Banjo-Kazooie is definitely a solid recommendation, as has been mentioned above, especially if he already likes both Mario Kart and Minecraft. Sits somewhere between those two experiences and the classic B-K platformers.

This is kind of a weird suggestion, but maybe he'd like Earth Defense Force 2017. It's a fun one for co-op and kind of adult, but pretty PG in terms of its depiction of stuff.

I love Steam and will buy games on there that are strictly digitally distributed. But for anything else, I still prefer grabbing the physical copy. Of course, I basically have a gaming shrine in my basement where all of my stuff is on display on huge shelves that line the walls.

But for anything I do buy on Steam, it needs to be extremely cheap, because I don't place much value on the digital version of these products. Maybe it's a bad mantra to have, but I guess I don't really perceive digital goods to be true products.

In the case of physical releases, I very rarely shell out the cash for just released games. Thanks to Cheap Ass Gamer I manage to get in on some ridiculous deals when games are long past their release for pennies on the dollar. At that point it's probably equivalent to the price on Steam, but like I said, I'd rather have the physical artifact, so at least in my mind, it's a superior deal.

I do expect that physical games will be largely phased out toward the end of the new generation, but I'm hoping that an option to buy at retail is always available for dinosaurs like me, even if it means paying a premium.

The big killer for me with the Vita is the storage. I mean, what a disaster that is. I still have the memory card I bought at launch (8GB, I think) and I refuse to spend a small fortune to grab a bigger one despite the fact that I absolutely need it. They really should've, for once, gone with something standard (like Micro SD) instead of pushing their shit proprietary formats.

My lack of space actively keeps me from playing crossplay titles in my library, which is a damn shame. I can't stand having to constantly "clean the fridge" and micromanage what games are on the system due to the small memory card. Even worse is the fact that I can't do the micromanagement on the device itself! I have to hook it up to my computer and back up everything there (rather than quickly deleting with the option to redownload later), just so I can preserve my save file. It's all so idiotic it makes me want to scream. I guess if I had PS+ this wouldn't be an issue, but Sony can fuck right off if that's how they choose to solve that problem.

Not to rant about Sony, but I hate how they leverage their gaming division to push proprietary formats that they hope to have adopted as standards across other mediums. It makes dealing with a lot of their products an absolute headache. The PSP is basically crippled due to this and I detest using the thing despite liking a fair number of games I have on it.

Despite all that, the Vita is a very nice piece of hardware, I really do like it a lot, but they need to start improving it fundamentally and doing something to get some support on the system. Even if they manage to get the PS4 streaming to work better, that's not the panacea the system needs right now. /rant

Nope. I think the whole Online Pass thing is history across the board at this point (seem to recall a Sony rep stating something to that effect recently).

I should have the official review for this one out the door sometime tomorrow or Friday. Just about finished the game last night (it's really good, but on the short side, and mostly like Tools of Destruction).

PS: I didn't beat it all in one night. We got a copy of the game from Sony on Friday.

The 2D Metroid games are all pretty small in scope. I think I can beat Metroid Fusion in around 4 - 5 hours at this point. To me, that's something that would be a small project, whereas something like a Metroid Prime is a huge project. Not that I'm saying I want them to do another MP (I wouldn't mind of course).

To be perfectly honest, I'd like them to make a new IP. While it's not the worst thing in the world to get more Donkey Kong Country, it just feels like an unambitious project for a highly talented team.