Don’t you hate it when one simple design choice ruins an entire game?

As a 3DS Ambassador, I got 10 free Game Boy Advance games via download, including Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. I haven’t played much Fire Emblem despite owning both Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, but James, editor at Nintendo Life, asked me if I’d review it as my first Nintendo Life assignment. I agreed.

I’m not super into strategy RPGs, but I do love me some Shining Force and Final Fantasy Tactics, and I’d always wanted to really get into Fire Emblem. I liked the look of it and the “rock-paper-scissors” weapon balance was super fun. The writing was good and I loved the character designs. Things were looking good!

(Note: I originally published this article on Bits ‘n’ Bytes Gaming on February 8, 2011.)

One of my weird gaming quirks is that I am inexplicably drawn to interesting title screens. Like a moth to a flame, if you show me a cool title screen, I’m more than likely to play your game. That’s part of how I pick which “unknown” games to play on Virtual Console, since all you really get to see are the title screens!

One of the first games I downloaded for the Virtual Console was Neutopia for the Turbografx-16, and I selected it solely based on how amazing the title screen was. Awesome 16-bit graphics, hero in a heroic pose, colorful landscape, it had all I was looking for. I bought it without even knowing what kind of game it was, I just knew I wanted in.

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

Before the Wii was released to the public, one of the most talked-about features was the Virtual Console. Some people cried foul, claiming Nintendo was simply trying to milk more money out of people who had already bought some of those games several times before. I, however, saw a lot of potential in the service, not just for me to “digitize” my collection of old games or play some old gems I missed, but as a way for a new generation of gamers to experience key points in gaming history.

There are all kinds of people who have either been reintroduced to videogames due to the Wii, or are taking a step into the gaming world for the very first time. These people may think that The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is pretty great, but did they ever take notes on how to navigate through the Lost Woods? They might have really enjoyed Metroid Prime 3, but do they know the name Justin Bailey? While a lot of people may have picked up the Wii simply to play Wii Sports, there are plenty who were enticed by what it brought to the table as an entertainment device and began to genuinely like videogames, and will use the Virtual Console service as a way to explore the path that led to the games they are playing today.

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!)

(I originally posted this article on Bits ‘n’ Bytes Gaming on February 1, 2011)

You can tell a game is going to kick your ass when the MAIN MENU MUSIC is more intense than the final boss music in most other games.

I, being a longtime Treasure fan (having spent a large portion of my youth playing Gunstar Heroes and Dynamite Headdy on my Sega Genesis, which to this day are two of my favorite games) was overjoyed when the Japan-only Nintendo 64 game Sin & Punishment was finally made available to a North American audience via the Wii’s Virtual Console. It was really campy (naturally) and amazingly hard, but I loved it all the same.

Then Nintendo released Sin & Punishment: Star Successor for the Wii, which I consider one of the most dangerous games ever released. This game not only throws an incredible difficulty level at you, but it’s also designed in such a way as to make you feel worse about yourself every time you screw up.

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.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with what I do for my day job, I work in the administration department of a natural and organic grocery store chain. My job entails counting cash and working with store financial reports, so as a result I have an office that has no windows and requires a key code to get into. My job is one that must literally be done every day, and as such I have a backup who works on weekends while I’m doing cool things like saving the world and winning NBA championships.

A while back Christina and I were at our local Newbury Comics and they had some of the American Legend of Zelda gashapon figures. They were less than $5 so we bought a few. We got a Darknut, Tetra and two Links. I took the spare Link to work, where I set him up on my computer so he could protect me from Keese and Stalfos.

Last week, I came into work on Monday after a weekend of bench pressing Buicks and tempering swords to find my Link figure broken. The figure ITSELF wasn’t broken, but the peg that connected him to his base had snapped. There was no note and no email. There aren’t a lot of people who have access to my office, so I figured it was either my backup or my store team leader. No big deal. I’d just take him home, glue him back together and set him back up.

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.

I’m going to be topical today! How quaint.

Dragon Quest X was re-announced last night, much to the joy of every single citizen of Japan ever. I say re-announced because it was originally announced back at the same time as IX, but never mentioned again.

Dragon Quest, Square-Enix’s OTHER beloved long-running RPG series is a national treasure in Japan. The Japanese government had to ask Square-Enix (then just Enix) not to release Dragon Quest games during the week because too many people would stay home from work and school. This isn’t a law, like people believe, but this is the internet so trying to convince people that a rumor is inaccurate is like trying to yell at the ocean to stop being so wet all the time.