kosayn

'Sonic Galaxy' looks surprisingly not terrible. Weird to see them pimping that up front.

Layton Azran Legacy's winter setting, it set off some nostalgia for the opening of FF Tactics Advance for me. Weird.

RECCA... should be on a TV. Shooters in general should, but especially difficult ones. Still cool that they are exploring niche parts of Nintendo history.

In general, even though I don't have a Wii U and may not for a while... I'm starting to get a bit contrarian to popular opinion about how they're doing. This seems like plenty of Nintendo stuff to me. All that's really significantly absent is a US release of Mother 3.

I still think their Miiverse community is smart, and adding Animal Crossing to that after its success is also smart, and in general that fits Nintendo's plans to slowly cut out the middleman. The only innovation that I like as much from the other next gen consoles is the integrated streaming stuff.

It's funny how, looking at that gif after a few days playing the game, it doesn't look as hard as it used to.

Don't get me wrong, I still haven't seen a level as bad as that, but once you know that all the spikes, pendulums, and disappearing platforms are timed to the optimal time to go, it doesn't seem as crazy. It's the parts where you have to stop and wait that kill you.

I chanced to play some Knytt Underground soon after this - not really the same sort of game, but it served to illustrate just how great the control in Cloudberry Kingdom is. I can't think of another platformer where it would be so easy to correct your fall onto a tiny space beside a spike.

Playing on PS3. It's pretty great. If you follow the fast path as indicated by the gems, it's more sort of tempo-based and intuitive. If you get off the path, it's more measured and careful, but you can still find different ways around the obstacles.

Even if I have missed a gem and won't perfect the level, sometimes I get back on the gem path just because it feels great to be somehow dodging so much death at high speed.

If you like Meat Boy and the harder parts of Mario 1, well, that is this game.

If you go on the internet, you will eventually find the person whose attempts to be cool and funny enrage you.

Humor by definition involves mocking someone or something. That's why your critics and 'annoyed' personalities tend to have a knack for it. If you do it successfully you get a moment of glory when your target is made to seem ridiculous. Game Cop. Foreign candy sure is not like ours. The Eshop is unaware of sexual double entendres. Isn't that funny guys? Someone doesn't get it.

I find Giant Bomb's output hilarious. But why is it funny to me, and this 'Blowfish' rant isn't? I'm sure many do find him funny, and I might as well, on his best material, I don't know. But anyway both Giant Bomb and this rant are doing exactly what I described above. One might seem more quick-witted, one target may seem more deserving of mockery than another, and people have different thresholds for what politeness is in humor. It's really all taste and no facts at that point.

It comes down to, who's cool, and when someone whose style is way different from yours criticizes you, what are you going to do about it?

If you're not prepared to outwit them with something classier... then I think it's better to pick your battles. Blowing up doesn't get you much.

RIP... he will be missed by so many.

Some may see this as doom and gloom, going into a new gen without solving the used games problem. But I really don't think publishers need help from Microsoft in making more money from bad games.

What they need is help working more efficiently in the infrastructure to make good games, and I see positive efforts towards that both in Sony's easier path to publication for indies, and Microsoft's cloud server plans, and in the free advertising that integrated streaming will bring for both. Competition has resulted in a better situation for all involved.

And you know what, I actually liked Mass Effect 3 multiplayer more than the single player. I thought the Assassin's Creed Brotherhood multi was really creative. Titanfall is doing some different stuff that looks interesting with the extraction idea. Skyrim sold like mad with no multiplayer whatsoever, and with a single player formula that took since the early 1990s to catch on with the general audience. I love Demon's Souls and Journey for changing what multiplayer EVEN MEANS. So the next generation doesn't have to be about shitty customer traps and nickel and diming. It could be about craftsmanship instead.

It could be about developers who don't have any new ideas, and publishers who don't work with any innovative developers, closing up shop. Plenty of new teams would be happy to step into the spotlight.

Now that they've choked on these policies, it seems so crazy that they were ever proposed in the first place. The problem with people in the military using them... the problem with killing secondary markets... so many other problems.

I understand the promise of always-on. Diablo 3's multiplayer in the initial months, when the servers were up, was great. Tons of my friends available to play with all the time thanks to the customer base they had built on battle.net before that.

But I think the always on decision has to remain at the per game level, especially for consoles. People expect different things from consoles than they do from a PC, even those who don't have back woods internet.

I'd still be team PS4 regardless, but I tend not to buy any new technology for at least three months after launch.

Having to switch discs... that most taxing of first world gamer problems.

I wonder if we will see a multi blu ray game at any point. It seems like their huge capacity plus the ability to download large patches has eliminated the possibility.

I may not back it; I don't always like absolutely everything from Double Fine. That's the gamble they take by not waiting to show some gameplay or more assets, and I'm sure they've considered that. Certainly the concept and the genre are exciting to me.

That aside, some of these comments... guys, it's totally okay for Giant Bomb to report on this. In Patrick's opinion this kickstarter is newsworthy enough to mention. If you think that there's some ulterior motive besides actual interest in Double Fine's output, then I don't know what to tell you. The staff around here certainly seem pretty candid about what they think. Next we'll be questioning whether the typical home and garden banter at the beginning of Bombcasts is being sponsored by the Home Depot.

Saying all kickstarters should have equal, impartial news treatment to avoid helping to back them, rather than making a judgment call about their actual relevance as news, is lunacy.

Next Gen will be okay. This decline in game sales represents consumers not being stupid for once. When new consoles hit, they will be major expenses for many gamers, and all the old stuff goes on clearance. $60 is a ridiculous amount to pay for any video game right now. That's why they always try to keep new consoles quiet till the last possible moment. Knowing new, exciting stuff is coming cannibalizes sales.

I mean, despite the general problems, Sony is making money this year. And PS4's looking promising. I've never bought a console day 1, but this time I'm considering it.

Microsoft still sells a ridiculous amount of 360s, considering how weak their first party stuff and XBLA has become. They can obviously market - the Kinect has had about as many good games associated with it as the Power Glove, and it didn't matter.

Nintendo have money to burn. And tell me people won't buy the shit out of some HD Mario and Zelda after waiting so long. They've been training new long-term fans from each generation of kid more consistently than their two opponents - for twice as long. They should have waited and gotten closer to hardware parity with WiiU, but I really doubt they're done selling toys to kids at Christmas.

So some 3rd party publishers are folding, so what? Nobody really cared about Acclaim or Atari dying during the PS2/Xbox transition, because they weren't selling competitive, modern games on the hardware anymore. New publishers and new developers will turn up.

Steam and smartphone gaming is slowly growing, but I don't see any new thing about to arrive that would make them suddenly take over. Both of those services are more about maintenance.