Give the gift of game

Post Date: November 30, 2009 - 6:21 PM

Trying to figure out what to get your gamer friends for Christmas this year? Or are you looking for something new to play, but missed out on picking anything up because of other commitments? Well, don’t you worry, because I’ve got just the suggestion to make your gaming holiday a happy one. A dozen suggestions, in fact.

Now, this isn’t going to be a “Top X games of 2009″ list, because there’s still one more month of games to be released this year, and because I don’t play enough new games any given year to pass a judgment like that. What it IS, however, is a set of articles on twelve games (two each for the PlayStation 3, Wii, Nintendo DS, PSP, and PC, as well as two multi-platform games) released this year in the U.S. recommended by yours truly, what they’re about, and how to obtain them (legally, of course).

Stay tuned to this blog beginning on Tuesday, Dec. 8 for the scoop.

Half-Minute Hero: Time well spent

Post Date: November 29, 2009 - 4:34 PM

What if you were only given thirty seconds to save the world? That’s the premise behind XSEED Games and Marvelous Entertainment’s latest PSP role-playing game, Half-Minute Hero, a fast-paced RPG which sports a look that harkens back to the days of the 8-bit Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior games on the NES. Click to read more…

Facebook and Twitter pages now active

Post Date: November 28, 2009 - 6:45 PM

Greetings, Facebook and Twitter users! I’ve decided to expand the reach of this blog by adding (un)official Facebook and Twitter pages for it. Granted, I’ve had my personal Facebook account for a little more than five years, and have posted lots of things on Twitter since last year, so I suppose the next part of the process is to synchronize (or synergize, if that even counts as a word; my spellchecker doesn’t believe it does) all three of them into one reasonably well-oiled machine. I’ll start this little experiment with separate pages today, and see how it picks up from there. Happy surfing!

But for me, it was Friday

Post Date: November 27, 2009 - 7:43 PM

Today is just another day where I don’t have to go to work. No, there’s nothing significant about this day on this calendar. Nope.

I’ll get back to you guys in another 27 days. Then you’ll see some hardcore spending.

Give thanks for random bits and bytes

Post Date: November 26, 2009 - 10:31 PM

Good evening, everyone. I hope all of my American readers enjoyed their Thanksgiving today (should they celebrate it). I’ll admit, I’m getting to this kind of late tonight, since I was out at my grandmother’s house enjoying the customary turkey-and-biscuit dinner, so let me try to get this out of the way before I crash out tonight.

  • Today, the Dallas Cowboys hosted their annual Thanksgiving Day game against the Oakland Raiders. Now, being an Eagles fan, I’m supposed to “not like” the Cowboys and their posturing, but the Oakland Raiders’ ineptitude at the hands of an owner who doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing irk me much more realistically, so for once in the post-Deion Sanders era, I was actually glad to see a Cowboy win today.
  • I see that the PlayStation Network trotted out its usual weekly update on Tuesday this time, presumably in anticipation for the shortened work week. Too bad I hadn’t budgeted my money properly this pay period, so I wasn’t able to try out anything new…the PSP version of LittleBigPlanet is there and available for download. Fun stuff.
  • I don’t remember Arkanoid being this hard. Maybe it’s because I’ve been out of practice of Brekaout clones over the years, but Arkanoid Plus! is currently kicking me in the nuts. No problem, though. I will get straight to work on it, and Square Enix and Taito won’t get a single Wii point from me until I figure a way to get through all 31 levels. (The add-on scenario has an extra 61 levels, including a final boss battle. I don’t remember how many stages the original Arkanoid had, though.)