@DiExMachina: It's there! It's just... hidden. He pulls it out of nowhere when the script calls for it.

@Rob Orr: Lives mean nothing in the 3D Mario games anyway. In worlds without checkpoints, and saving after each completed star, all you risked was getting tossed out of the level and having to hop back into the painting/pipe/whatever. In SMG you at least got to make use of checkpoints in some level (as far as I…

@darqv: It's nice that Windows Vista cares so much about my security, but the default setting of double-checking and asking for confirmation on EVERY program that wants to do ANYTHING is also annoying.

Ah, nostalgia. Back in the day, you had to compose tunes that would sound good even when played through horrible speakers. Well, "had to" is probably wrong... Man, some of those old PC games got away with horrible or downright nonexisting soundtracks. Not so with Monkey Island, though. That tune rocks even on internal…

@Xeo: Any serious fighting game fan gets the game for the console where he/she has the most friends, and then gets a joystick for it. Doesn't matter if it's 360 or PS3.

@ShaughnTr0n: What the other said, plus: Chun-Li's Super in SF3:3S has a whole lotta weird timings for all those hits. You can't just mash the stick forwards either... They all have to be timed right.

Here's a possibly odd-sounding question: Is the camera as flippy-swervy-crazy as in Prince of Persia 2008? As someone who suffers from motion/simulation sickness when playing certain games, most notably some FPS games like the Metroid Prime series, I couldn't play PoP2008 for any kind of long stretch. The camera's…

So why do developers only let you do one save, anyway? This game's not the only one to do it... These days, it should at least be mandatory for games to keep one backup save file, right? It can't be THAT hard to implement?

Taking what's usually a minor thing in your average game and making it the focus of a game can work, too. Old Namco games used to have old-school games during their load screens to pass the time before you got to play Ridge Racer. The PS1 Ridge Racers are now far less interesting than Space Invaders Extreme.

@Shiryu: Final Fantasy X Blitzball. Damn, I got bored with that. The matches are how long?

My reason was probably not the most common one: I wanted a next-gen system, and buying one in the US while I was vacationing there was cheaper than getting one in Norway.

@NakedEskimo: Eh, I dunno. It's a bit of a grey area. I mean, I've bought at least two different versions of Chrono Trigger. Is it wrong of me to also play the game via SNES emulation on my PSP?

The king of all gayness-in-games incidents shall always be the wrestling tournament in Shadow Hearts 2. Always.

@amarney: That was what I was referring to :) It's called, yes, Aria of Sorrow.

@Sqwerell: You missed my point... The Zelda games are in a timeline. Yes, Ganon returns. But inbetween, the old Zelda and the old Link both die, and new ones (ancestors) take their place.

@Sqwerell: If Ganon counts, then Link and Zelda count, too. The Ganon/Link/Zelda relationship is a lot like the Dracula/Belmont family relationship in that respect. Dracula and Ganon always comes back, and a Link or Belmont's always there to stop'em.

@mrpibb79: Ah, damn, I forgot that one. Yeah, that's a pretty big example.

What're you talking about? Video games have been coming-back-from-the-dead stories since before the 8-bit age! X-men might return from the dead more than Jesus, but they don't hold a candle to Mario's constant cycle of death and resurrection. And don't get me started on Phoenix Downs or Life spells.

@Belabras: The posing's not so bad. The problem is that the lighting makes it look like Mario's got his rapeface on.

@battra92: And then they went and made the yoshis barf juice all over the place. YGLGLGLGLGL!