I was finally able to track down a copy of Fire Emblem Awakening and I am completely, totally, hopelessly hooked on it.

I’ve really been dying for a good 3DS game to sink my teeth into, especially after getting my XL a few months ago and not really playing much on it. Kid Icarus was a disappointment, Kingdom Hearts didn’t stick and Paper Mario was an exceptionally hollow experience. I wanted something meaty, something that was going to have me gripping that handheld for dear life. I finally found it.

My past experiences with Fire Emblem games are not noteworthy. I bought Path of Radiance because it was hard to find and I wanted to try the series but only got a few hours in. I got Radiant Dawn as a gift and started it twice before putting it aside for other games. Sacred Stones gave me heart palpitations. Despite the series and I never hitting it off properly, I downloaded the Awakening demo the day it went up and knew I had found my game within five minutes of starting it up.

If you ask me, Nintendo has really dropped the ball with this generation of Pokémon games.

According to Nintendo Life, Game Freak director Junichi Masuda hinted to watch the upcoming episode of Pokémon Smash, a Sunday evening Pokémon television program in Japan, when asked about sequels to Black and White. There have been plenty of announcements for Pokémon games since Black and White launched last year and each one has disappointed me more than the last.

One thing I can safely assume about anyone who reads my blog is that they like video games. That’s rad, I like video games too. Common ground!

Over on the forum we’ve gotten together to play games from time to time, but right now two games are really at the forefront of our minds: Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 for PlayStation 3 and Mario Kart 7 for Nintendo 3DS. Because we’re enjoying them so much, I decided to add some structure to the fun and introduce Thursday Night Throwdown and Fast & Furious Friday Nights.

Starting this week we’ll be getting together to play once a week (well, twice a week if you want to play both games) and have a good time. This won’t be a super-hardcore tournament atmosphere, just dudes playing games for fun.

If you’re interested we already have threads on the forums started by Megafan and Eric for Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 and Mario Kart 7 that I’ve turned into official threads for both themed nights. We’d love to have you! (Just remember before registering for the forums to read this splash page!)

There’s been three big games released recently, and I’m a lazy good-for-nothing so I haven’t written about them yet. Let me rectify that, as a Christmas gift to you, my handful of loyal readers.

I haven’t written much lately. Looking at this front page, I’ve hardly written anything of substance in the past month! Sorry about that. That’s just like me, saying I’m not going to stop writing and then doing exactly that. In my defense Christina and I have been very busy, she’s been sick and those Blogimations that no one watches are a LOT of work.

Rather than spend another day doing nothing and complaining that I don’t know what to write about, here’s a few quick thoughts on what I’ve been up to.

Okay guys, it is ALL ABOUT Skylanders now.

I’ve been following the development of Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure for a while now, because I thought the idea of collecting toys that would then work with a video game was an awesome idea. I’d been dying to play it, and the other night Christina and I picked up the Xbox 360 starter set along with a couple of extra figures.

Since then, we’ve been back to the store twice to buy more. I’d say it’s working.

Hey, Nintendo. Please put Pokémon Red and Blue on the 3DS Virtual Console. Then, add Pokémon Stadium to the Wii’s Virtual Console, and let us link them up just like we were using the Transfer Pak back on the Nintendo 64.

I have extremely fond memories of both games and I’m willing to throw money at you to relive them again.

Your pal, Joe

With Nintendo being the big man on campus for so long, it’s really weird to see them in panic mode.

As you are no doubt aware, Nintendo is cutting the price of the 3DS from $249.99 to $169.99 on August 12, not even five months after its North American release (with similar price slashes occurring across all regions). Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has announced that he is taking responsibility for the lukewarm sales of the 3DS by cutting his salary by 50%, with other Nintendo executives taking similar, yet smaller, cuts.

It goes without saying that this isn’t the same Nintendo that we’ve grown accustomed to the past few years, who would dedicate a good chunk of their E3 presentations to showing off their astronomical sales numbers while so-called “hardcore” gamers pouted in the corner. They had confidence, they had swagger. Now they’re flailing, and it’s really, really weird to see.

(Note: I originally published this article on Bits ‘n’ Bytes Gaming on March 1, 2011 – Well before the Nintendo 3DS came out!)

I’m like a little kid when it comes to impending releases for things I’m excited for. I lay in bed thinking about them, counting the days until I can finally play with them. When it comes to games, it’s even worse, because I can’t bring myself to play anything else! Nothing is appealing and I just get bored right away. It’s like being given a Jolly Rancher when you’re starving to death.

(Potent imagery, isn’t it?)

Being the huge Nintendo fan that I am (when I worked at GameStop, I was given the moniker “Captain Nintendo” by my manager), I’ve been hungrily pawing at all of the information that’s been coming out since the 3DS went on sale in Japan a few days ago. New hardware hype is something I savor, like a juicy orange on a warm day. It only comes around every five years or so, and it gives me an opportunity to drive my wife crazy with my childlike insistence on sharing every bit of new information, whether she wants to hear it or not.

(She’s a gamer too, so me being capable of driving HER insane with game chatter is an even more impressive feat than you may think.)

Since we’re about three weeks away (give or take) from the North American and European launches of Nintendo’s latest handheld revolution, I wanted to write a bit about the five things that have me the most excited, not counting the games themselves. Let’s all take this journey together.

(Note: I originally published this article on Bits ‘n’ Bytes Gaming on April 7, 2011)

Nintendogs + Cats is a tough game to review, because there’s not much “game” here at all: there’re no goals, you can’t win (or lose), and there’s not much challenge to be found. However, as a piece of software designed solely to entertain, Nintendogs + Cats succeeds.

Nintendogs was one of the original Nintendo DS’s biggest sellers despite being released very early on in the system’s life cycle, so revisiting it to launch the DS’s successor was a no-brainer. Little has changed since then: you still take care of your virtual dog by feeding him, grooming him, taking him on walks and taking part in various competitions.