After more than a month of internal turmoil, I decided to quit my videogame review stint. More than 50 reviews and a year later, I’ve decided that I no longer enjoy coming home from the day job that pays the bills and realize I must keep working/playing a game.

And there are many games I’d love to go back and revisit and play more of. Now I have the chance.

I may continue to write the occasional review, but I no longer have the weight upon to me perform, even when I want to do anything else but play a game.

With most of the season’s games now on shelves, gamers shouldn’t be in any position to complain about a lack of games to play.  Of course, when spring rolls around that could be a valid complaint, as publishers love to leave that time of the year high and dry.

I’ve recently received Trauma Center: Second Opinion (Wii) and Draglade (DS).  TC:SO has been great fun and expands  a little on the gameplay of the original and provides a great challenge.  Draglade I haven’t really touched.  I also received Mass Effect (X360), however, my Xbox 360 died and I haven’t even opened the game.  =(

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The holidays were always a joy when I was growing up. Christmas music playing, tons of sugar cookies my mom would bake, and festive decorations throughout the house.

Then I moved out and most of those joys went away. The past few years I have not been terribly excited about the Christmas season.

This year I’ve actually been anticipating it since September. I’ve been desiring sugar cookies with sprinkles on them, putting up the Christmas tree and all those things. And with this year’s holiday line-up in the world of gaming, the excitement grows yet.

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So I’ve given myself a case of the warm fuzzies. I’ve decided to get the ball rolling on a donation to Child’s Play.

This past year, I’ve had several games mailed to me for review that I’ve either not had a chance to play or had a strong idea the content of the game wouldn’t appeal to my readership. I’d recently been playing with the idea of running contests to give the titles away, but someone recently reminded me of Child’s Play.

Rather than give the title away to a quite possibly healthy person, why not donate to a cause helping children that are in the hospital, quite possibly on their deathbeds. I hope one of the games I donate can bring a smile to at least one child’s face.

Last year the organization raised more than $1 million in donations. I’m hoping that I can help just a little bit to push that number higher.

So, Super Mario Bros. 3 has finally been released today on the Virtual Console for Wii. The press release claims the “greatest game ever” is now available for download. I was excited to check the list only to find out that the press release was full of lies and knives to be struck into my heart. Mario 3 was great and all, but where’s the game that gave me many hours more replay? Where is the game that lets you kill people with a dodgeball? Where is Technos’ Super Dodgeball?

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Over the years, I’ve missed out on some good games. Metal Gear Solid, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Halo and Halo 2… the list can go on. Also on the list would be Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II.

Now, I’ve seen people play the games, I’ve tried demos in various stores over the years and this year’s E3, but I’ve never played it for more than five minutes at a time, and definitely not on my own home setup. I decided it was time to rectify that. Continue reading this post…

I always tell myself that when it comes time to move I need to slim down my collection of crap. Of course, I never listen to myself.

So, I’m moving this weekend, which throws a kink into my reviews.  It really sucks, I tell you.  I have four games to play and review, but I don’t seem to have the time this week. Ack!  Clive Barker’s Jericho, Phoenix Wright III, SOCOM: Tactical Strike and Buzz the Mega Quiz.  I fear with the holiday season I may soon find myself in this position for several weeks.

In the meantime, I’ll be so much closer to work, which I’ll greatly enjoy, if only because it means I can sleep it a bit more as there should be a shorter commute.

Other than a kidney stone, looking for an apartment and a busy time at work, I’ve been playing through games, as usual. I’ve recently played Halo 3 (X360) and Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (NDS).

Not much can be said about Halo 3 that hasn’t been said elsewhere. Continue reading this post…

There hasn’t been a post in a week or so because of a kidney stone.  It’s stone No. 3 for me, and it’s still inside moving around and causing pain and discomfort.  The pain medicine is really screwing with me too.  My apologies for lack of updates.

So, unless you’re.. um.. dead, you probably know that Halo 3 comes out today.

I’ve recently played through the original Katamari Damacy for the PS2, played some Kengo for the Xbox 360 and blazed my way through the retro Final Lap Twin for the TurboGrafx-16.

Katamari was fun, and I rolled up some huge balls of junk.  My familiarity with the game prior extended to its awesome soundtrack and playing through the Beautiful Katamari (X360) demo.  At times the controls were a tad annoying, but overall it was a fantastic game.  I’m not sure how sequels play though as I can’t think of anything to add/remove to change the game dynamic.

Kengo was bad.  Let’s move on.

Final Lap 2, as it was called in arcades, was a Namco release, later ported to the TG16 as Final Lap Twin.  It sports Pole Position styled racing.  The real draw of FLT is the new Quest, or RPG, mode.  The plot is simple: Your dad has given you a car (go-cart?) for you to race with to become the world champion racer.  Travel across the continent and race others in random encounters to gain cash to upgrade your car.

I remember this game taking a good chunk of time to complete, but I was able to play through it this weekend in around three hours.  Disappointing, but the game was just as fun as I remember it being.  Random encounters consist of one-lap races that last about 30 seconds to a minute.  After each race, collect the prize money (seriously, what are kids doing with $2,400 or so in their pockets???  And why are there race tracks EVERYWHERE on this continent?) then go to a local city to purchase new parts for your car to max out its stats.

It’s a fun game as I stated, and it would be nice to see a new racing RPG in the same style as FLT.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 goes live today on Xbox Live Arcade ($5) for the Xbox 360 . It features online play in the competition mode. Conversely, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was been released on the Wii’s Virtual Console ($8) a few months ago and features absolutely no online support.

Re-read that. Do you see the issue? Consumers can choose to pay $3 less and receive more features. Why would anyone want to support the VC when you get less for your value?

The Wii version may sound like it’s the loser, but actually both of these service bend the user over.

You see, a few years ago, Sega released the Sonic Mega Collection and Sonic Gems, each collecting 6+ games each into nice little packages, neither requiring owners to install them onto their precious memory. And considering these two releases are so old, they can easily be found in discount bins and online for cheap.

The more you know.