Thanks for the very nice companion review! I've been debating between this and Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon as my Gamefly rent for the week, and you may have just tipped it towards Fragile Dreams.

Why, yes you can. With a goddess this time.

Pretty much. Like when Prince of Persia: Warrior Within decided that having a likable, awesome, but still flawed protagonist was just too much of a pussy move, so they made him into a dark, unlikable asshole. Game still played well (and, in many ways, better than PoP: Sands of Time), but the story suffered.

I've never been able to get into God of War
For the very reason you point out, Russ. Kratos's vengeance never resonated with me because he comes across as a nihilistic psychopath instead of a betrayed husband/father. So in the end, he's just killing the gods out of lust for violence rather than for any kind of…

I give your firstie a C+. I give the comment itself a D-. Grades are fun!

This game just had such a great concept
The idea of a more survival-horror oriented post-apocalypse is such a good idea, but from every review I've read, the combat can just kill the atmosphere in just how broken it is. But at least they took a risk, and I'm still interested enough to give it a rent.

Well, they approach it from the view of an education grade. A C- in school is usually a 70-73 range, but if you understand the way the AV Club approaches reviews, you understand that a C- isn't quite that generous.

Well, if you'll recall, the original design of the Pokemon Jinx was essentially done in the blatantly offensive "mammy" style, to the point that they were forced to change its appearance in all future games.

I'm at hour 38, and yeah, I'm just trudging along. It's not bad enough for me to quit playing entirely, but I didn't play at all this weekend and spent the time killing people in Bad Company 2 and getting naked at a party. So I think my time was better spent.

@andrew ryans caddy - First off, great name. More to the point, Crispin Freeman makes everything he's in better, so Xenosaga still doesn't get a pass for having one great voice actor (okay, Xenosaga 1 and 3 weren't awful, but 2 nearly made me quit playing RPGs entirely…)

And Japan has a certain notoriety for xenophobic and racist tendencies.

@Rosy Jack World - That's good news then, because right before the playoffs, I somehow unloaded Dan Uggla to the Rangers for Neftali Feliz and Ian Kinsler, which is awesome, but completely unrealistic.

Bears with guns!?! Gotta love video games.

Improved on MLB 09: The Show, but…
There are still a myriad of little glitches and annoyances that show up enough to hurt the overall experience. When the Yankees trade Derek Jeter in the first month of a franchise mode, and Albert Pujols is in AAA, you know the AI has major simulation issues. And it's hard to…

I still hold Yoshi's Island as my favorite game ever, so yeah. It was the first game I ever replayed over and over again, and it was the first game to really open me up to the beauty of art and music in a game.

The consoles finally get another true cooperative shooter
And I hope people will buy and support it more than the 360 version of TF2 via The Orange Box.

Needs more objection!

It just depends on how much you expect video games to always be interactive. Some of us don't mind being told a story in between our gameplay segments, even if the story is pretty ridiculous. Others can't stand not being in control of their character even in story-related scenes. Honestly, if you weren't getting…

@urgh Don't really take that example to be the best of your influence on Heavy Rain's story. It was just the quickest example I could think of at the time. The further you go into the game, the more the QTEs tend to affect the direction of the story. But yeah, anybody who comes in thinking that this is analogous to…

Apollo Justice just showed that this series really can't go much farther without changing some of the core mechanics. The characters (GODOT!!!) are awesome, and the trials are incredibly entertaining, even if perjury doesn't seem to exist in the games' universe, but it's beginning to get repetitive. I was (and still…