Actually, even if you don't... you'll still love it because Pete stammers and I glamours.

Wait what?

Episode 138 is uploaded (check your Zune/iTunes/RSS feeds) along with a belated Trilobyte. I intended to upload it last week but things got a little busy and I, well, just didn't upload it. But I did yesterday. So enjoy that. Have fun, be young, drink Poopsi. And all that.

My review for Holy Invasion Of Privacy Badman! What Did I Do To Deserve This? will be in progress shortly. I just have to play through it a little more and see if there's anything else I can uncover about it. The short, non-final verdict is that it's, "Eh." It's still a little awkward to do what you want--and by that, I don't mean "win," but just do basic things. Look at it this way: In Rise of Nations, when you click on a Barracks, then click on Train Soldier, you train a damn soldier. In HIOPBWDIDTDT, when you want to raise a certain monster, sometimes your slimes will put enough nutrients in a block, and sometimes they won't. Sometimes they'll even suck it up for themselves. When they die, sometimes they'll leave behind enough nutrients for you to raise a monster, but then, sometimes they won't. I guess the game is banking on its zany sense of humor, and it does have quite a bit of it. But... eh. We'll see if anything changes during my last handful of hours with it.

Oh yeah. The podcast has a mailbag, so fill it up:

MAILBAG (at!) TRIGAMES (dot!) NET !!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111one (or you can use our immature mailing form here... be sure to select the radio button for "Mailbag")

Monster Hunter Freedom Unite is like some other games I've reviewed for Gamespot in that there's something that draws me to it, but I can't fairly review it with high praise. The best example I have from my past work is Shiren: The Wanderer, a dungeon-hack type game that I was feverishly addicted to, yet whose problems were easily recognizable and were only overlooked after some real determination and the realization that I had a job to do. "Why such a low score if you ended up really enjoying the game?" Again, sometimes it's too much to ask of the general audience that might be interested in such a game to put up with frustrating design choices. Sometimes it's a case of, "They do what they chose to do very well, but what they chose to do isn't necessarily a good thing in the first place; it just happened to tickle my personal fancy."

In MHFU's case, the camera is really, really inexcusable in my eyes. Some people may be able to get used to it, but I'm sorry--this is the third Monster Hunter game in the PSP series and the fifth one overall (if you count the Japan-only Monster Hunter 2 on PS2). For people who don't have friends who are both into Monster Hunter and own PSPs, the single-player combat experience manages to be extremely frustrating and boring at the same time. Since the game is heavily based on combat, it's been really hard to overlook these issues, even with the awesome scads of content like farming and fishing and bug catching and item crafting and cooking.

On a personal level, it's as if MHFU looked at me in the face every day and said this:

"I really want you to enjoy what I have to offer, but at the same time, I don't."

I don't think the game should be made "easier to beat" but "easier to play." There's a huge difference. Of course I'm withholding my final score and full review until it goes up either tonight or tomorrow or whenever (besides, none of this should be news given my previous complaints), but my main gripe is simply this: Capcom has made the game difficult to play--difficult to use--as a product. I know there are tons of hardcore fans out there who will likely skewer my evaluation because "We know how to play the game right." Well, buddy, I played the game right because obviously I didn't give up after half an hour. I learned to cope with it just like every fan would have. I still find it unacceptable to demand that everyone should do insane things like curl their hands up to reach the L trigger (reset camera), D-pad (pan camera left/right/up/down) and analog nub (character movement) at the same time, especially because there's such rich content to be had underneath.

My point is this: Not every game should be watered down to satisfy "dumb" players, but it should be made usable as a product to players who would enjoy its content but are otherwise frustrated by the awkward controls. Why should this game be relegated solely to those who are dedicated enough to put up with usability issues? If players still find the game too legitimately difficult (Ninja Gaiden, Ikaruga), then that's fine--at least the player had the opportunity to try the game's content and its design and not be flustered by technical foibles.

I'll say this much: I'm now that much more interested in Monster Hunter titles. I thoroughly enjoyed the sense of satisfaction from finally downing huge monsters and feeding my urge to create new weapons and armor with the monster parts I gathered. I just don't want to have to deal with technical frustrations anymore, and it's a shame because otherwise I'd have easily poured 150 hours into MHFU. Here's to hoping that Monster Hunters Tri for Wii fixes the camera and adds some type of lock-on or pin-point aiming.

I came home with The Conduit today, and after spamming a bunch of Gathering missions in Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, I decided to give this much bally-hooed Wii first-person shooter a whirl. Quick, bulleted impressions:

+ Great control options. This is pretty much a known quantity going in, what with all the previews talking about High Voltage Software's dedication to customization. I like this because I always tweak my settings on PC first-person shooters just the way I like it, and I like being able to do it here. Some people say, "Shouldn't they just get it right?" No, getting it right is allowing me to tweak it. The way I see it, for a first-person shooter, there is no "right" set of settings. Not allowing us to tweak is "getting it wrong" every which way you look at it.

- The framerate, while mostly consistent so far, is nowhere near as silky smooth as that of Metroid Prime 3 or Medal of Honor: Heroes 2. This goes a long way in making shooting with the Wii-mote feel good. In terms of responsiveness, it's at about the same sensitivity as Call of Duty 3 on Wii, which wasn't bad, but wasn't entirely great either. A 60 frames-per-second framerate would have been much appreciated.

+ On the flip-side, it's easy to see why the framerate had to be "locked" at 30. The enemy models, while not entirely varied, have great lighting and detail to them. You're not going to mistake this for an Xbox 360 game after you stare at it for a few seconds, but it's very, very high quality and at first you might do a double take. It's certainly a level of detail we've not seen on Wii before. Faux depth-of-field blur while reloading is cool, too. Some environment textures are nice, too.

- However, much of the environment seems flat. It doesn't help that the jaggies come out to play. Oh how I wish we had some sort of anti-aliasing. The environments just aren't entirely interesting yet, either. I'm on the third "level" so to speak and I haven't seen anything exciting.

+ Lots of fun, cathartic run-and-gun action.

- But as a result, lots of "killroom -- clear a space out, go to next" or "corridor shooter -- let's play whack-a-mole with soldiers popping out of doorways and from under cover" gameplay. Oh, and don't forget the exploding fuel tanks It depends on what you're looking for, but if it's the old-school linear heart-racing type of shooting you want, it's very hard to top Half Life 2.

+ Then again, Half Life 2 isn't on Wii, and perhaps this is The Conduit's saving grace: If you only own a Wii or want to shoot stuff with the Wii-mote, this definitely beats dual analog control (but then again, you know how I feel about dual analog...blech) and is certainly a fine option...

- ...as long as you haven't been spoiled by Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 or Metroid Prime 3's smooth control.

Quick preview evaluation would be one thumb up, but not two.