Christophero Sly

I've had that feeling before. Your mind won't let go of it. It feels like you're still playing the game.

I'm amused by the fact that Major Nelson feels the moniker is disrespectful. I'll tell you what's disrespectful Mr. Nelson--being purposefully and shamelessly obfuscatory when questioned about the true, anti-consumer, nature of your upcoming product, constantly regurgitating the same meaningless PR-goobledygook over and over while wearing the thin and disingenuous smile of a huckster, ever failing to give a straight answer to a simple question.

In that case, I'll wait for this one to go on sale. And no music in the classic game!? That's an incomprehensible omission.

I suspect that my fears(read: expectations) for this one have been confirmed because the critics are hammering it (49 metacritc), but I place no trust in "professionals", and a few gamers, at least, have given the game positive reviews. Any here who picked this up care to share their opinion?

World Driver Championship and F-1 World Grand Prix are the best racers on the N64.

One of my Super Nintendos has this same problem. It flickers between B&W and color when displaying S-Video, but works fine with AV cables.

I think a $399 kinect-less unit is right around the corner.

I Am Alive (360) I Am Alive received very mixed reviews, with some outlets, like IGN, dismissing the game outright. Based on those reviews, I thought I was taking a big chance on I Am Alive. I wasn't. I Am Alive is outstanding. It's a compact masterpiece of brooding atmosphere and unrivaled tension, and its innovative mechanics redefine acrobatic platforming and close quarter conflict. I Am Alive requires the kind of strategy, awareness, planning, and execution that makes Brain-dead spectacles like Uncharted feel downright lame in comparison. I Am Alive isn't a difficult game, but it doesn't hold your hand, it doesn't play itself for you, and it absolutely doesn't reward failure. I could nitpick some technical and design shortcomings, but nothing that would diminish the core experience. Easy A

ZeniMax

Producing them or publishing them?

Alan Wake's American Nightmare (360) I'm a huge fan of the original Alan Wake; I consider it to be one of the best games I've ever played. Alan Wake's American Nightmare is a completely disappointing sequel. Evidently, the developers of AWAN had no understanding of what made the original game a success. The writing is marginal at best, the story is impenetrably convoluted, the level design is simply a recycling of the same three areas over and over, and the voice acting made me wince on multiple occasions. Though to be fair, there probably isn't much an actor can do when reading from such a lousy script. Most inexcusable, however, is the fact that AWAN jettisons the wonderful atmosphere of genuine suspense that characterized the original game and replaces it with over-the-top gunplay. Armed with combat shotguns and submachine guns, and with ammunition dumps and weapon lockers littering the repetitive levels, Alan Wake is transformed into some kind of paranormal Rambo. Generic and predictable third-person shooting and repetitive fetch-quests are about the only things AWAN has to offer. As such, AWAN probably qualifies as an average experience, but I don't really care whether the game is good or bad. I simply can't make peace with what I see as a complete misappropriation of the original game's assets. C-

System Shock 2 (Mac) It's hard to fairly evaluate SS2. At the time of its release many elements of its gameplay were novel and pioneering in an FPS, no doubt. Fifteen years on, however, many of those elements, or at least their implementations, feel downright archaic. Then or now, it's hard to characterize the combat in this game as anything other than awful. Enemy AI is dreadful. The mechanics of melee combat are laughably clunky and combat with projectile weapons is the most simplistic I've ever experienced in an FPS. The cybernetic upgrades and psi powers add some depth to the game, but ultimately that depth is illusory because there's only a single linear path through the game. The game's attempts at puzzle-platforming are horrendous. Thankfully these instances are few and far between. The plot is interesting in its premise, but the writing, script, and voice acting are all mediocre. Progression through the game is built upon the often wearisome framework of "encounter blocked path, traverse level(s) to find "key" that unblocks this path, backtrack to blocked path and open". For the most part, this works fine, but there are a few examples in the game where the required backtracking is simply tedium, serving no real purpose. By and large, SS2 is a game of atmosphere and immersion, with the principal draw being a sense of exploration and discovery. That's a big hook for me, and the fact that the game mostly gets this element right helps it to overcome many of its flaws. The game is probably best played on the higher difficulties, were a sense of resource constraint adds a sense of meaningful tension to the experience. My experience with SS2 was also colored by the fact that I had previously played Bioshock. I nearly quit playing SS2 about three hours in out of a sense of deja-vu. It's not enough to say that Bioshock is the "spiritual successor" to System Shock 2. Bioshock is System Shock 2 re-imaged. The details are altered, but the plot structure and gameplay are virtually identical. Keeping in mind that had I played SS2 fifteen years ago its impact upon me would have been greater, I give the game a B.

That gets messy in a hurry though. I hope that's not the extent of inventory management.

Dragon Age: Origins is great. If you like KOTOR, I can't imagine you not liking DA:O. Dragon Age 2 does some things well, but the things it does wrong nearly kill the game.

I played Bioshock a month or two ago. I'm playing System Shock 2 at the moment. They are, in essence, the same game. The details vary, but the underlying framework appears to be identical. I'm still in the early stages of System Shock 2, but I'm quickly losing interest because it feels like a slavish repeat of the experience I had with Bioshock. I can't help but foreshadow major elements of System Shock 2's plot, seemingly spoiling them, because the plot of Bioshock is, by all appearances, a complete facsimile. If System Shock 2 doesn't offer me a unique experience, then I will stop playing it and move on to something else. However, as I said, I'm still in the early stages of System Shock 2, so I realize that the conclusion I'm drawing from my early impressions may be premature. In any case, I've reached the Rubicon. So my question to those of you who have played both games is--do the plots of System Shock 2 and Bioshock diverge in any significiant way?

Beyond Oasis (Genesis/360) A good game, but lacking something essential that I can't quite put my finger on. I have no major complaints about the visual presentation. In fact, the graphics are terrific, with outstanding art-direction, huge sprites, quality animations, and skillful usage of the Genesis' relatively limited color palettes. Nevertheless, in a sort of cascading fashion, the threadbare story, the uninspiring level designs, the underwhelming soundtrack, the lackluster puzzles, the linear progression, and the mediocre boss-fights all serve to undermine the experience in a way that makes Beyond Oasis feel like something less than the sum of it's parts. B-

That happened much sooner than I expected it to. I suspect JamesD is right. Had to be a case of leave or be fired. I wouldn't be surprised if this is prelude to MS essentially re-launching the Xbone in the coming months.

PGA Tour Golf III (Genesis) The graphics are noticeably improved, but somehow the wind is even more erratic than it was in PGA Tour Golf II. If the in-game weather conditions call for blustery winds, I recommend restarting the game until you get more moderate conditions. If you can work around the erratic wind, then this might stand as the greatest golf game ever made. A Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition (Genesis) Suffers a bit in its conversion to the Genesis hardware, but this is still one of the best games ever made. My biggest complaint is the sloppy genesis D-pad. I prefer the SNES version of the game primarily for that reason. A-

Final bump.

Great buyer!

Great buyer!

I'm afraid we may have jumped the gun. The source for that information appears to be an anonymous pastebin.

Wow! What a revelation! And here I thought the publishers had balked over this issue. Turns out that the "10-person share plan" was just a stupid marketing ploy. Thanks, but I can download my own demos, guys. Truly pathetic that Microsoft never articulated, to the point of obfuscation, the true nature of this feature.

This is a problem!? I don't even see it as an inconvenience. What a blatantly fallacious line of reasoning. Yes, I'm certain a publisher-controlled hub would have been an infinitely superior alternative to the unfettered free-markets we are currently stuck with. Of course they could(read: would). That's the whole point of this scheme, isn't it--to steal the trade-in value of new games from consumers and keep it for themselves? I get that part. Now explain to me and my wallet why we should be sad that this isn't happening. So why is it that publishers are, at this very minute, charging me the same price for a digital copy of a game as they do for a physical one? Maybe what you're suggesting will only come to pass when physical media has been completely eliminated and publishers have secured a complete monopoly on digital distribution? Obviously, then, without any competition, publishers will finally have an incentive to treat customers in the benevolent manner you suggest. After all, history is littered with examples of corporations practicing such benevolence when in possession of total monopolies. In other words, the difference between the price of a used game and a new game would be negligible, ultimately causing one or the other to disappear(guess which one). And please explain to me exactly how a digital license becomes "used". I mean, what is the nature of that transformation such that it alters the product into something tangibly "used"? When it comes to a digital product, can you even draw a distinction between "new" and "used" in any way that is not simply semantic hogwash? I hate to disappoint you, son, but we were never going to get a "10-person share plan" in the first place. Pure snake oil. Your beloved publishers would have never allowed it. Yeah, because why would anyone hassle with such a convoluted work-around when the "10-person share plan" makes it so much easier for us to "game" the system? Amirite?

Actually, it sounds to me as if we are in almost complete agreement on these points. Why what? I don't understand. Are you suggesting that Sony's past blunders somehow prohibit me from objecting to Microsoft's present misdeeds? No one is ignorant of Sony's past missteps, least of all Sony. The approach they've taken with the PS4 demonstrates a keen awareness of their past slip-ups. Sony wouldn't have fallen from the dominate position in this industry to an also-ran if gamers hadn't been judging their policies and products accordingly. I expect the same fate to befall Microsoft. Nontheless, now that MS has removed its draconian impediments to consumer freedom, I suspect that many people will be willing to purchase an Xbone. However, I don't see how that could be considered "caving". Quite the opposite, actually, because isn't in MS that has "caved" here? I agree, but it seems to me that the underlying principal loses quite a bit of its luster when you finally do the former only after having spent a month vigorously attempting the later. The fact that they haven't passed the buck or stuck their head in the sand in no way ameliorates MS's transgressions. Cloud sharing was simply that, a proposal. It was never going to happen. It was a disengenous PR-fantasy. The 10-pak "family" share plan was a pipe-dream that publishers were never going to support. Microsoft would have had to kill that feature independent of the DRM and used game controversies. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that a recognition of this fact is what ultimately triggered the decision to reverse course. Faced with the reality that all the major players in publishing were going to opt-out of the only Xbone feature that could be touted as a positive, MS was left with no more room to maneuver.