markweiner

This is sad, that a guy can get fired for reviewing a game honestly. Damn. I'm always surprised how often Nintendo Power will give a bad review to a big Nintendo game, seeing as the parent company wants good PR for their games.

isn't this just the video game/virtual equivalent of an STD?

shadow of the colossus raised the bar for what it means to be a good videogame, as far as i'm concerned, much like final fantasy vii, mgs 2 or super mario 64 did for me. every game i play now just pales in comparison... i want the enemies to move organically, i want the music to pick up and make my heart pound, but it never does. even god of war, a supposedly great game, just seems like a prettier pa rappa the rapper next to SoC... so pick it up numbskulls, you won't return it after a rental I bet.

mario world on the gba has been hard to find lately... i agree they came out a little late on this one... this makes sense from their viewpoint though- i mean, they have the games and the console base is still selling. so of course they're going to profit here.

I have a friend who won't leave the house unless he's poked or prodded because of WoW, and the game has even bled into real life. For instance, when he went camping, he didn't bring food, apparently because in a video game you find your own food easily in a video game or just "restart." He also has problems switching from in-game insulting, which is part of the competition, to real-life healthy conversation. For instance, you'll gently rib him about something and he'll fly off the handle and say "jmn" or some other initialism.

I know it's not serious and it's not the video game's fault, but I've heard of other people who sink themselves into their video game personas, a la the book "Snow Crash." So while the idea of a Dutch call center may be slightly laughable, the notion that the word addiction will be used in relation to video games isn't unreasonable.

Oh and I don't know if the Japanese are any more "into" this stuff, it's probably just a little more accepted in the culture to be into cutesy things. They also have a concept of the uncanny valley and know that games that look like a wax museum turn off a lot of gamers... hence Miyamoto's stance on the Wii

There's a simple answer for this one... Nature had an article up about "A Scanner Darkly" where they said that cartoons stimulate your brain in the same region that lights up when you feel rewarded. There are a billion different ways you can take this information, but the bottom line is that cartoons make us feel some sort of joy.

hmmmmmmm fan and freakhead like it.... sounds like ea damage control to me, the game looks like a joke