For those of you who have not yet heard, Cody, Guy, Adon, and Ibuki are joining the SF IV cast. I think that leaves two unannounced characters.

http://shoryuken.com/

For those who don't know, I'm a puzzle game fanatic. In fact, "Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo," originally released for the PlayStation and Saturn over a decade ago, is one of my favorite games of all time. So, I was stoked to find out that a company I greatly respect, Arc Systems Works, developers of the "Guilty Gear" and "BlazBlue" games, was developing a music-themed, competitive puzzle game.

Well, the game, "0D Beat Drop," came out approximately two weeks ago on Xbox LIVE Arcade and.....nobody is playing it. It's a pity, too. The game is pretty slick. It plays like a cross between "Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo" and "Lumines." It's not the greatest competitive puzzle game I've ever played, but it's up there and certainly worth the 800 points ($10) it costs to download. Below is a gameplay video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGkXRO8iudQ

I just completed "Dragon Age: Origins." I blew threw the main quest--doing many but not nearly all of the sidequests--in about 45 hours. I have to say that DA: O is the best RPG I've played in the last nine years (since "Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn," basically). Other than a memory leak and some minor A.I. issue, I can't think of anything really wrong with this game. I'd definitely recommend getting it (on PC, if possible). DA: O is probably my game of the year.

The new Xbox LIVE features are much better than I thought they'd be. And, by that, I mean that last.fm is a lot better than I thought it would be. I haven't messed around with the Zune Store, Twitter, or Facebook. But, last.fm has been playing almost constantly on my Xbox since the update hit. It's actually very convenient to have an endless stream of music coming through my living room surround system (which is the best sound system I own). The slide show is a nice effect, too. Last.fm looks like it's this year's Netflix--a feature that I use frequently despite having thought prior to launch that I wouldn't use it much. I've said this before, but there's a reason Xbox LIVE carries a subscription fee.

I think I'm going to put "New Super Mario Bros. Wii" on my Christmas list. I've received a Nintendo game as a gift every Christmas since the mid-1980s. Call me materialistic, but it just doesn't feel like Christmas if I don't see that big, red Nintendo logo at least once. Resisting the urge to run out and buy "New Super Mario Bros. Wii" has been rather difficult. The game looks awesome.