My worst bug was the most recent time I played Fallout 2. I was in the ghouls vs. vault dwellers area and I did the quest to repair their nuclear reactor. So selfless of me! Unfortunately, I saved right after repairing the reactor (and, yes, I know it's my own damn fault for only having one primary save file while…

It's so interesting! I'm over ten hours in, and I couldn't tell you who the ULTIMATE EVIL THREAT that WILL DESTROY ALL EXISTENCE if not defeated in a BIG FINAL BOSS FIGHT is. Instead, I've got a community with issues that evolve over time, and an ensemble cast who are growing together as the years slip by.

I got DAII by having my girlfriend own it for XBox360: she bought the whole series after preordering Inquisition and then hearing that it's the kind of series that you should play in full. So it's been sitting around for a few months while she slogged through Origins.

The thing that gets me (well, one of the things that gets me) is that the battle system in DAII just seems obviously superior to me. Watching my girlfriend play the first game, it seemed that the outcomes of battles varied wildly with no change in tactics on her part (second last attempt at the last boss she ran out…

If you like tactical RPGs, try Fire Emblem: Awakening.

Fortunately, no! But that was a real thing that happened to the DAII writer. Angry nerds were furious that the combat system was changed from DA:O (why, I'm not sure, since the combat sucked in DA:O) and went looking for a scapegoat.

Happy birthday, Snazzy!

Kirby and the Rainbow Curse and Dragon Age II for me. Metroid Prime Trilogy hit the backburner for now so I can do a parallel DAII playthrough with milady.

I imagine he must have made pretty major contributions to Genesis, since the script is by Terry Nation but the serial is fantastic.

I was daydreaming the other day about a concept for a Dark Soulsesque hack-and-slash game where, as you stride towards each enemy prepared to clash swords, they throw down their weapons and cower in fear. The variations between the grunts would be the things they cry out as you bear down on them: "Nononononononono"…

Milady opted to dress Justice in really badass looking black armor and a cool helmet. Then, awesomely, some sort of glitch appeared in his tactics where he doesn't turn off Air of Insolence when battles end. SO every now and then, she'll be walking up to an NPC or considering a puzzle, and suddenly we notice that…

It really was a transitional time. Like when movies first got sound. Incredibly exciting to creators and the public, but the new technology is so primitive that it actually drags the artform as a whole back while everyone gets a handle on the new toys.

My guess for why Conker was so well-received: Toilet humor is the kind of thing that makes a 13-year old think that a game is "Mature." Platformers are seen as "Kiddie." A lot of gamers, and the gaming press, tend to really, really want things to be "Mature" instead of "Kiddie." Whether it was a good game or not (I…

No Majora's Mask for me yet. That's my reward when I finish this chapter I'm supposed to be writing for my research team's book.

It's gorgeous on the GamePad, too, if not quite the HD wonder that your co-op partners get to enjoy up on the big screen!

There are a LOT of bonus levels!

The seams of emotional manipulation, I should note, were much more apparent to me when I watched my girlfriend play while not enjoying herself at all (which I still think was a silly thing to do, but I guess I'm too mature to keep bringing it up to her until she admits I'm right). I was definitely quite affected when…

I hope it picks up for you as (if?) you carry on… there's a ton of content, and the levels keep getting more creative as you go.

I don't share your preference for NSMBU over SM3DW, but I definitely think it's an excellent game in a way that the other three in the NSMB series weren't (because they were merely very good, which makes them seem like crap because Mario is supposed to be more than just "very good").

And also, the cutscenes never add up to anything that anyone would consider to be worthwhile cinema.