[From my Feature forum post.]

Had to vote for Pac-Man CE. So many of the great games are "just" straight ports with achievements (SotN), or cleverly improved over their earlier showings on other platforms (AHHD; PQ:CotW) . That's awesome, but it doesn't push XBLA as a platform for growth and opportunity. Pac-Man CE is a truly worthy sequel, and takes the best ideas of competitive individual challenge and makes it an event. With the death of brick and mortar arcades in North America, I don't think P-MCE would've ever been successful or honestly even created without XBLA.

-V-

(Also, Billy Mitchell got owned. )

Mass Effect.

LCE.

See you next year.

-V-

[edit 18-Dec: OH NOES RRoD! The inevitibility!!]
(But thank you Mr. Moore. Merry Christmas.)

Wii game cases have the best disc holders in the entire world.

I just had to say that up front. My copy of Metroid 3 finally arrived today. And I won't get any chance to play it until next week when I'm exhausted. That's the problem with working for a living... no time to appreciate a good old fashioned waste of money!

What I find notable is this is only the second Wii game I've actually purchased. Sports doesn't count as a pack-in (yay pack-ins!), and of course there's Zelda... and... where exactly did I miss out here? Games I've nearly bought include Metal Slug, WarioWare, SPMario... and... I decided to wait in line at 7am to pre-order this console precisely a year ago and I've got two games to show for it? wtf.

I caught myself thinking about this delayed-value-effect recently with all the excellent titles coming out for PSP. I absolutely want to buy a second PSP. I want to have a full-firmware PSP2K to actually buy new retail games to play. That's something I haven't felt since 2005 with Ridge Racer. Where did this renaissance come from?

This is exactly the reason I'm holding off on the PS3. More price drops are inevitable, and the amount of crap I don't give about PS2 hardware emulation could fill the Makuhari-Messe. Once there are 4 games I want to own, once I have the time to enjoy the money it will cost to get the full-meal-deal..... oh boy.

On the other side, I love my red DS Phat, yet the lure of bright and shiny new red+black is... just a luxury really. Won't improve the gameplay... but it may improve the experience..?

Just pondering which is more important to me right now...

Awh hell, just an hour of Metroid maybe.

-V-

Oh, and I Love Bioshock. A bushel and a peck... and a drill arm through the neck.