I know, I know, I'm a dedicated gaming snob. I ignore military shooters in lieu of clever puzzlers and classic platformers. I've voted for Disgaea and Bayonetta as Games Of The Year. I've bought copies of top-shelf indie games for my friends because it genuinely bothered me that none of them were supporting them.

And yet, I love Saint's Row, the fart-laden knock-off of Grand Theft Auto. Hear me out!

I don't hate GTA as much as a lot of gaming's literati do - in fact, up until IV, I rather enjoyed the series. But GTAIV was definitely a turning point, where it became clear that Rockstar had begun believing their own hype. They were making ART now, as opposed to mere games. That's not to say that Rockstar isn't capable of art - Red Dead Redemption told a great story - but GTA probably isn't the platform to do it on. When the layman discusses GTA, it's highly unlikely they'll talk about a gripping narrative or keen insights on the world of crime. No, they'll mention running over a fat lady with a stolen golf cart, or the time they successfully landed a plane in somebody's driveway. The game became a sensation on the strength of its sandbox insanity, and IV somehow turned the franchise into a maudlin crime spree where an old wetwork guy babysits his doofus cousin. The game shifted tones so often it felt like it was five different products taped together.

Luckily for us, Saint's Row sensed an opening and made their move. Their franchise was a GTA knock-off, for sure, but here's the clever bit: it rips off the FUN parts and then turns the amplifier up to 11. GTA uses car crashes for revenge; Saint's Row has you go through all the trouble of robbing a nuclear plant just so you can tattoo a guy with toxic material. GTA has you jog to keep from getting fat; Saint's Row has you repel a zombie invasion with a sonic wave cannon under orders from Burt Reynolds. The SR people know what to do with an M-Rated sandbox.

I realize it's not to all tastes - SR3, in particular, is so off-the-wall that it defies coherence - but if you want dumb fun in an enjoyable virtual world, it's tough to beat. I love good art, but sometimes, you gotta go on Professor Genki's deranged game show and shoot some mascots in the grill.

Edit: In a weird coincedence, Saint's Row 3 is the BestBuy.com deal of the day (Tuesday)in video games at 29$. So there you go.

I got my 3DS about a week ago, but just opened it this weekend. Somewhere, my teenage self is trying to mail me a pipe bomb through a time machine for being such a boring old fart that doesn't open new goodies the second he gets them.

I have to admit; it's a beautiful device. I have the black-and-gold Zelda edition, and it's a lovely machine inside and out - good clean lines and a sensible button array. Even the dolled-up stylus suggests that you've made a noteworthy upgrade from the ol' DS.

My feelings on the 3D aspect are more mixed. It's... interesting? All I have to go by so far is Ocarina Of Time, and the 3D is used for sporadic effect in cut scenes and on certain characters or objects. Neat, I suppose, but it's hard to get worked up about it one way or the other. I can see how it makes some people dizzy, but I suspect that's because they're too close to the screen - keeping your eyeballs a foot back really does mitigate the mind-screw. (At least in my case.) Granted, I only have the 3D slider about halfway up.

I'll be cracking open Mario Land and Mario Kart 7 next week - FANBOY 4 LIFE - which will hopefully give me a better idea of how this baby really handles. So far so good, though. Nice to have a portable back in my arsenal.

Actually, just a very small part of it. But that's such a controversial title, no?

I never cared much for Spyro - a rather middling 'mascot' franchise - but I was intrigued by its recent resurrection. It had become a strange RPG game based on using real toys being placed on linked-up 'Portals Of Power.' While the Pokemon similarities are obvious, it was certainly a departure for the series, and I decided to track it to see how it did in the marketplace.

And then I saw the strangest thing: Toys For Bob was behind the project. For those who don't follow my blog with zeal, Toys For Bob are Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford, the evil geniuses behind Star Control 2. Star Control 2 is my favorite game of all time, on any platform. (Devoted fans have completely restored the game and updated it for modern computers, free of charge, as the Ur-Quan Masters - it's assuredly better than anything you're playing right now, and you can't beat the price, so go download it already.) Toys For Bob have been trapped in Disney Game Hell ever since - composing PC masterpieces is all well and good, but it doesn't pay the mortgage - and I've made peace with that. Cries for a Star Control sequel abound, but TFB don't own the Star Control name. They do own everything else in that universe, strangely - sorta like Joss Whedon's contract where he doesn't own the Buffy name or character, but he DOES own all of the sidekicks and supporting material. A Star Control 3 was made without TFB, but it's the video game equivalent of herpes and nobody considers it canon.

So yeah, it sucks that Reiche and Ford are reduced to doing Disney's Extreme Skate Adventure when they're capable of greatness, but at least Activision is keeping their lights on. I like to think of them biding their time until circumstances arise to where they can finally follow up their magnum opus. And if it's under the Activision banner (and it undoubtedly will be), I'll still be there, cash in hand. Heck, the Star Control brand is currently on lock by the French holding company Atari SA - Activision could squash them with a single day of Call Of Duty revenue. Hopefully, Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure is a big hit and Toys For Bob can convince their bosses to get their baby out of prison. Yes, Skylanders is Activision's latest, shameless cash-grab scheme to bleed money out of a soft demographic, selling cheap Spyro action figures to crazed children and their browbeaten parents... but I gotta think big picture here.

Note: alleged ports of Star Control 2 to the 360 and PSP are still in development. You know it's a funny business when fans are 10 years ahead of the suits in terms of porting progress.

I was gonna hold out for the inevitable 3DS remodel, but GameStop's Cyber Monday Web offer was too tempting.I got the smexy black Legend Of Zelda special edition model, plus the Ocarina remake and a $20 credit, all for $199 - not a bad deal at all. The $20 credit will be blown more or less immediately on Mario Land 3D. I haven't had a working portable in over a year and I miss having one in the arsenal, so I jumped the gun. Screw you, scruples! Now I get to go back and buy all of the good DS games I missed... this is gonna get expensive.

Thankfully, I've been living on the cheap as of late, and have more or less avoided the holiday blitz to buy a ton of $10 games I missed when they were hot. With one exception, of course, which you know as...

Skyward Sword: I could do without all of the bird-flying, but otherwise, it's some damn good Zelda. I actually like how dated the game looks - it feels more like a video game than an interactive movie. The art direction is gorgeous and the music is even better. The motion controls for the sword take some getting used to - frustration abounds for the first hour or two - but once you get the handle on them, you come to appreciate the depth of being able to hack a dozen different ways as opposed to spamming the attack button.

They REALLY need to get rid of the goofy noises characters make when you talk to them, though. Either go with full voice-acting or just leave them all as mutes like Link. Zelda's giggle when she talks is fine; it's the random shopkeeper who insists on shrieking "BREEEAAAPPP?" every time you visit him that drives me insane. Not a big fan of Fi, either... feels too science fiction for the LOZ series. Little Midna casts a long shadow, I guess.

Still, these are nits that I pick. It's a keeper.

Mirror's Edge:Had meant to get this game for what feels like five years. Thought it was more interesting than fun, and the story is pretty generic. Still, there was no denying the thrill of first-person platforming, and there's something to be said for a game - especially in this modern, on-rails player-friendly era - where you just jump into the unknown and hope there's a place to land. Insane leap of faith, followed by a baseball slide under some pipes and then popping up to roundhouse-kick a security goon in the face? That's worth $12. The number of people who have played the game more than once can probably be counted on two hands, though.

3D Dot Game Heroes: I loved the concept; all I heard specifically was that it was 'Zelda-like,' which was probably the understatement of the year. This game is a love poem to Zelda from Atlus, to the degree that I'm amazed it was even legal to manufacture. The game is so self-aware that it doesn't manage to capture LOZ's earnest charm, but if you have a PS3 and DON'T have a Wii, well, this is the only Zelda game you're gonna get. Also, note that it's a clone of the original 8-bit Zelda and not the new fancy ones, so the game is only for us old people.

WWE '12: Got this for half price, so I took a chance on it. The new wrestling engine is indeed a great improvement, and the game looks much better in every department. I was also excited to see a ton of old-timers as unlockables for gaming night with the guys. I also love how you can simply bypass the single-player modes and just pay .99 to unlock everything - so delightfully crass. The announcing is still horrible, but that's what digital music players are for.

Hope everyone had a good holiday!

C'mon, tell me you wouldn't pay to see that fight.

This is a discussion of the GOTY honors for the media, and not my personal choices. (I'll get to those mid-December - mark those calendars!) Skyrim and Skyward Sword have emerged as the front-runners, with SkyBatman as the dark horse candidate. Okay, he's not called SkyBatman, but we had a nice theme going there. Tragically, there were no Skies of Arcadia or Sky Kid sequels to really bring it home.

I think the safe money is on Skyrim. Zelda has the pedigree, but I think most media outlets will be reluctant to award a Wii game with the top prize for fear of alienating their core demographic of bloodthirsty young men. Skyrim falls right in that sweet spot between 'commercially viable' and 'serious business,' too.

There are a ton of other candidates, sure, but I think they've got too much against them:

Arkham City - too similar to the original, and it's a licensed product. (Albeit a great one.)

Portal 2 - came out a thousand years ago in gaming time. Too cerebral and PC gamer-y.

Catherine - weird, hormonal, ultra-challenging, and very niche.

Dark Souls - Demon's Souls was a huge upset winner here at GameSpot, and they're not likely to pull the same trick twice. Also seems to have faded from memory now that Skyrim is out.

Dragon Age 2 - LOL.

Uncharted 3 - not as good as 2, although still pretty good.

Gears Of War 3 - too unremarkable.

Modern Warfare 3/Battlefield Whatever - not even the Activision-backed press pretends these are art anymore.

Saint's Row 3 - there may be a time where a game featuring midget cops being beaten with a giant purple sex toy can be GOTY. I don't think that time is now.

Deus Ex Human Revolution - kinda rings a bell?

Super Mario 3D Land - if Mario Galaxy 2 wasn't GOTY, then this sure isn't.

L.A. Noire - LULZ.

I'm betting on Skyrim. A game I don't own. This is why I don't gamble.

I love these weekends when a big Nintendo launch is at hand. It's a great time to slap on the nostalgia goggles. Here be the Zelda series, in full. I look forward to spirited debates in the comments!

The Legend Of Zelda (NES) - Still one of my all-time favorites. As someone old enough to have played the game when it was a revelation, I have an unbreakable bond with this one. Imagine taking part in an industry where you're playing Frogger, and maybe two years later, you've got this game with a giant explorable overworld and a ton of challenging, ominous dungeons. This world has secrets, and secrets within secrets, and a super-intense 'second adventure' you unlock if you complete the original one. Without the Internet, the game's many mysteries were only answered by sporadic Nintendo Power installments, and gamer-to-gamer buzz that was usually apocryphal. It lent the game an air of magic that you can't get today, where games are hacked and deconstructed before they're even on the shelf.

I even do speed runs of this game, and that's not my thing at all.

One of the industry's very best, and the reason why the series is still SERIOUS BUSINESS 25 years later. A+

Zelda II: The Adventure Of Link (NES) - Still one of the blackest of sheep in gaming history. The Zelda-verse gets completely turned on its ear into a funky 2D action-adventure, complete with magic, NPC-packed villages, and an overworld more reminiscent of Dragon Quest than LOZ. I don't care for it much and never did, but I admire the ambition, I guess. The combat always felt sloppy and the dungeons are pretty monotonous. An intriguing experiment, but the magic ain't there. C-

Link To The Past (SNES) - Ah, now we're talkin'. The definitive 2D Zelda, even topping the vaunted original. LTTP takes the brilliant template of its ancestor and adds smarter puzzles, dazzling production values, and a genius Light World/Dark World dynamic that felt SO FREAKIN' COOL back then. It was also the first Zelda title to have a story in-game that could be comprehended by actual humans. When paired with Super Mario World and Super Metroid, it creates the ultimate edition of Nintendo's Holy Trinity that will never be topped. And THAT'S why I still have a SNES, smart guy. A+

Link's Awakening (GB) - I was never too crazy about this one. It's a solid game, and it was cool just to have Zelda on the go. All of the island-theme elements (monkeys, mermaids, savage birds, seashells, etc.) just feel kind of off... as if someone spilled some StarTropics code in there by mistake. (For you kids out there, StarTropics was a Zelda clone series... made by Nintendo. You know your franchise is awesome when your own company is ripping it off.) I haven't played it in years and don't plan to, but many people swear by the GBC remake. Some people swear AT the GBC remake, because they want the mermaid to take her top off. Those crazy kids. B-

Ocarina Of Time (N64) - Never played this one. Any good?

I kid, I kid. Often considered the apex of the series, and the chief combatant (with Final Fantasy VII) as the greatest game ever made. This opinion, of course, is generally the province of people younger than I who grew up on these games, much like I grew up on the original. To them, the original is a sad little pixellated mess that Grandpa likes. And that's cool. Some M.U.L.E. fanatic undoubtedly thinks I'm a doofus for playing the first LOZ, as it was nothin' but flash and razzle-dazzle. That's the circle of geek.

Ocarina did a ton of things well. Zelda (the character)finally became interesting. You got to ride a horse. Shooting a bow was 1,000 times more awesome in 3D. And so on. It is undeniably a spectacular game. I actually remember the circumstances around it vividly, as I got my copy during college midterms. OOT came THIS close to sabotaging my education and rewriting my future as a penniless cad in my parents' basement. How many games can alter timelines like that?

So I totally get why people think OOT is the greatest story ever told, and I ain't gonna hate. Being wrong isn't a crime! A

Majora's Mask (N64) - I... um... oh hell, I dunno. I go Jekyll and Hyde on this one. Sometimes I think it's genius, sometimes I think it was some weird fan hack of OOT brought to life. I blame the moon - that thing was so creepy. I just hate time limits, I guess, even with simple reset buttons. Especially in Zelda, where it's almost exploring a beautiful world of danger and magic. I respect the art, but not the execution, I guess. C+

Oracle Of Ages/Seasons (GBC) - More like ORACLE OF BUY TWO COPIES, AM I RIGHT? None of my friends portable game, so I never got in on this. I liked the box art!

Wind Waker (GC) - I like this game more than most did. (It actually won GOTY here, in one of those 'well, SOMEONE has to win!' years.) It should be noted that I'm a boating fanatic, so this game hit me right in the sweet spot. I loved the art style and playful charm, too. Tetra is also my favorite version of Zelda, as the super-princessy ones always seemed too generic. The only drag is the later portions where you're running money for Tingle, the most insufferable character this franchise has ever produced. I'd have paid $10 for DLC where you simply shot him in the yam bag with the ship's cannon. A-

Four Swords Adventures (GC) - Fun for a few hours, I guess. I'll stick with Mario Kart, I think, for shameless party-game pandering. C-

Minish Cap (GBA) - Jaw-droppingly good stuff from Capcom. (Yes, Nintendo let Capcom into their special toy chest!) While not quite as good as LTTP, I think it's in the same league, and that's high praise right there. The whole 'shrinking' mechanic is played to perfection, and reinvigorates the franchise. A lowly Octorok becomes a mega-boss, for example, by mere virtue of you being shrunk down into Mini-Link - very cool. I was in love with this game for months, and it's still my favorite portable Zelda by a country mile. A

Twilight Princess (Wii) - Better than OOT. Yeah. I said it. They'll get the same score because I grade on time of release, but it's the better game. Midna is the best character the series has produced, hands-down, and Werewolf Link actually makes our little green hero seem butch for a change. Zelda Noir: I likes it!

Would you rather have your life narrated by Midna, or Navi? Exactly. A

Phantom Hourglass (DS) - A solid Wind Waker sequel undone by the inexplicable design decision of making you replay the same stupid dungeon a dozen times, with a few new levels each trek. I mean, padding is one thing, but at least try to hide it or make it interesting. Minish Cap, for example, used a cute medal-pairing system you could use to earn silly little figurines and bonus items. I can live with that.

Played it once, was mildly entertained. Yay! C

Spirit Tracks (DS) - I do like Zelda, in the rain. I like it much less on a train.

Actually, the train stuff was really cute fun for a while. And then it wasn't. People hated all the sailing in Wind Waker, but at least it was pretty freeform. Trains, alas, run on tracks... long, confining tracks. A lot of train-driving here, is what I'm driving at. And certain copies of the game generated trade items in abdundance, but stymied you on others, in order to force inter-player trading. Good grief. Don't gimme no hassle, Nintendo. I've sunk like six trillion dollars down you. C-

Skyward Sword (Wii) - 7.5.

Oh yeah, YOU SAW WHAT I DID THERE.

So, Skyward Sword got a 7.5 from GameSpot. Even though said score classifies the game as 'good' under the ranking system - hardly a bitter insult - it's still a notably low score for such a beloved series. This is doubly truein the Four-Point Scale Era, where a AAA title getting less than 8.0 is mildly shocking unless it's a total Duke Nukem Forever job. For comparison, the game's MetaCritic score is around 95%, meaning just about every other review was high praise.

And this is ZELDA we're talking about. The LOZ franchise is second only to Super Mario Bros. in the gilded pantheon. This is an outrage, right?

Maybe, maybe not. I'm gonna carry GameSpot's water on this one, for the sake of argument.

I haven't played the game, of course. It'll be arriving next week, and I'm almost certain I'll love it. I've been playing Zelda games for longer than half the people on my friends list have been alive. We go back, Link and I. The sound of the 'item discovery' jingle obliterates all bad feelings in my heart. I am utterly biased towards Zelda down to my very bones. And yet, I'm a big boy, and can be totally honest: Zelda is, by and large, strictly formula. An absolutely AMAZING formula, yes, but does Nintendo deserve near-perfect scores for every time they turn the crank?

This has always been atricky issue for me personally. I gave Super Mario Galaxy 2 a rare 10.0, for example, because the game is just perfect. The design, the sheer joy, the music, the Yoshi... it was the most fun I had playing a game all year. How could I possibly knock points off because of all of the familiar elements? A game's job, at the end of the day, is to captivate me and bring me enjoyment. If it can do so without reinventing the wheel, why should I care? If anything, my internalized love of all things Mario was a benefit, not a drawback.

But I think reasonable people can disagree on this sort of thing. The Modern Warfare series, for instance, bores me to tears. I can't tell any of those games apart. Clearly, millions of people feel much differently, and wonder why people like me keep buying the same 'Mario saves the princess' game every three years. Everyone's got their own perspective. Notably, the two Mario games that catch the most flak - Super Mario Bros. 2 and Sunshine - are the two that deviate most from the beaten path. (In fairness, SMB2 is a Mario-fied version of an unrelated Japanese game that was pawned off on clueless Americans.) I replay all of the Mario games from time to time, but Sunshine is forever collecting dust in my attic somewhere. It got an 8.0 here (I think?) and that, too, was scandalous at the time, but if anything, that score was a mite generous; an olive branch to a legend who had a bad night.

Point is, nobody is entitled to a parade of perfect or near-perfect scores. Every time the community loses their heads over a single review, the press gets gunshy about being critical. GameSpot needs to be a place where a writer can say: "solid game, not terribly innovative, some good boss fights though!" and slap a 7.0 on it, without fear of blowback. 9.0+ should be pretty sacred territory... a game in those reaches should make most people go 'holy crap!' when they play it. Uncharted 3 is a good game, but it's not really in 2's league and the press doesn't have to say it is just because of the name on the box.

Remember: 7 is GOOD. There are TEN POINTS IN THE GORRAMN SCALE! 1-4? For broken, offensive, or plain old awful crap. 5-6? That's for the mediocre or the buggy. 7-8? Good, solid games. I enjoyed BioShock 2 but it's a stinkin' 7 and I'll gladly argue the point. It shouldn't be graded on a curve because of its ancestry.

I'll concede that I'm as guilty as the next person when it comes to internalizing the Four-Point Scale. But it's time to widen our nets. Good and great aren't the same thing, and when it comes down to somebody's cash money, they should know the difference. Bayonetta shouldn't have to work so damn hard for the 9.0 that the latest Modern Warfare gets for merely existing.

Who knows? Maybe I'll play Skyward Sword, fall in love, and think the 7.5 review was off-base. But another person's opinion needs to be fair game. Otherwise, why even bother with reviews? Nobody, not even Miyamoto or Iwata, should get a lifetime pass.

I readily concede that by GameSpot terms, I am very old. So when I bought Rayman: Origins along with Saints Row 3, I wasn't entirely surprised by this exchange with the cashier:

"One for you and one for the kids, eh?"

"Uh, no. Rayman is for me. Saints Row is for my brother."

AND I AM NOT ASHAMED.

I'm not gonna buy Modern Warfare or Battlefield. I'll get Revelations eventually, but not at full price. Skyrim can wait. But I WILL HAVE MY RAYMAN. It's 2D, and adorable,and it's good simple fun to play. And my wife can play with me by dropping in or out whenever she feels like it, and so can my buddies whenever they come over. By sitting next to each other on a couch. 'Cause I'm OLD and I like sitting on nice furniture when I play my video games.

In the usual Christmas rush of big flashy action sequels, UBI Soft has thrown us old timers (and the young 'uns)a bone by releasing a very well-made 2D platformer. At least Nintendo fans have Zelda and Mario to cling to; the HD twins have just about nothing for the nostalgic. So here's a toast to UBI Soft and the Rayman crew: thanks for not forgetting about us. I had a Donkey Kong Country Returns-sized hole in my heart, and this will fill it nicely. I don't want the market to return to 1988, but the occasional time warp feels nice.

This blog will contain massive spoilers for all of BioShock 1, but very mild spoilers for the first third of BioShock 2. If you haven't played the original BioShock yet and have somehow remained spoiler-free for the Citizen Kane of video games, stop reading this stupid blog and go buy the game already.

Actually, the title is a bit misleading: I DID play BioShock when it first came out on the PC, and adored it thoroughly. However, after finally getting around to buying BioShock 2 for the 360 (currently about $9 new on Amazon), I figured I should replay the original to get the mythos fresh in my mind. This proved to be both a blessing and a curse, as I will soon explain. So I bought the original for 360 as well - I don't mind repurchasing a great game, even with the tacky Greatest Hits packaging - and prepared to trundle back into Rapture.

I'd love to see the pitch meeting for the original BioShock:

"It'll be like System Shock, of course, except under the ocean and set in the fifties."

"Interesting."

"You'll get cool plasmid powers that you can use to set a guy on fire, then electrocute him when he goes to put the fire out in a pool of water."

"LOVE IT."

"It will also be a thorough deconstruction of Ayn Rand and the philosophy of Objectivism."

"Wait, what?"

"Uh, never mind that. Did we mention the part where you shoot swarms of bees from your hands?"

"Here's five million dollars to get you started!"

I always expected BioShock's Rand-bashing to catch more flak from the American press. Our media here is pretty conservative and in some quarters, Rand is still a high prophet. For once, video gaming's ghetto probably saved BioShock some wrath. Since most people feel that the hobby is nothing but Pac-Man and murder simulators, any attempts to portray political and sociological themes are rendered invisible to the majority. To them, a video game trying to make a philosophical point is like a fish trying to operate a helicopter.

Humorously, all of the ire would end up at the feet of Mass Effect instead, because of the inclusion of a few basic cable sex scenes. The whole thing somehow ballooned into the game being portrayed as an intergalactic pornography simulator. Don't get me wrong; I love BioShock and think the violence and gore serves the atmosphere, but our media is a puzzling beast. To put it succinctly:t wo people enjoying a moment of physical and emotional gratification via sex? Filth. A shattered dystopia full of diced-up bodies where you run around setting mutants on fire? It's all good. You can have Andrew Ryan clubbing his mistress to death with a pipe because she had the temerity to get pregnant, but hey, don't show a woman having sexual pleasure... that's just WRONG.

Anyhow.

Replaying BioShock was an interesting experience. On the one hand, I knew all the twists and turns, so that spark was gone. On the other hand, I got to appreciate the game more on the meta scale. One of the game's big hooks - the deconstruction of false 'player choice' in modern video gaming - is even more satisfying once you know that you're Fontaine's unwitting slave for the majority of the adventure. Every time I heard "would you kindly," a smile crossed my face. Even the gold sparkle around interactive objects took on a new wrinkle, as I imagined that's how they really looked to Jack with Fontaine twisting his brain.

Nothing beats the art design, though. I've always been keen on art deco, but the way BioShock chucks it in a hellish blender results in absolute, twisted beauty. BioShock looked great on my 19 inch monitor back in the day, but it soars on my gigantic living room television, even with whatever concessions it had to make for the 360's hardware. It was easy to understand why Rapture's survivors still want control of the place, even with half of it in tatters. It really drives home what a beautiful idea it was on paper, much like the Objectivist philosophy that built it. And Andrew Ryan makes a great figurehead - even though he prostituted his ideals once Rapture began leaving his control, he never truly forgets them. Even as you pummel him to death with a golf club, he defiantly screams "A man chooses! A slave obeys!" between beatings. It's an amazing scene, only slightly tarnished by Fontaine's over-the-top cackle as he pulls back the curtain afterwards. A guy who covertly captures his rival's offspring in its fetal state to program him as a future sleeper agent should know a thing or two about subtle.

The last portion of the game - assembling a Big Daddy suit to access Fontaine's lair - does feel a bit like padding, but the final fight is pretty damn epic. I mean, if you're playing Screw Ayn Rand: The Video Game, you gotta tussle with Atlas at the end. The ending is a bit short, but that's okay: this is one of those 'about the journey' deals.

Now that I'm playing BioShock 2, I'm realizing that I probably should've waited a bit longer. Playing it right after the first one expands the game's already-familiar feeling into full-blown redundancy. The art direction has also regressed - undoubtedly a side effect of a much shorter development cycle - and a game that is allegedly about the freedom of choice still boils down to doing what people on the radio tell you to do. And while Andrew Ryan made for a great central figure - clearly demented, but with what he thought was good intent, like your weird conservative uncle - Sofia Lamb is pure cult leader from the second she opens her mouth. (It also creates the usual continuity issues when Lamb was allegedly a major muckraker during Ryan's reign, but you didn't hear a peep about her in the original BioShock.)

And yet, the game is solid. The underwater portions (however brief) are gorgeous, the combat and hacking elements are refined and improved, and the Big Sisters are legitimately intimidating. (The poor Big Daddies become glorified ATMs about a third of the way through the original.) And playing as a Big Daddy is great fun, especially when you thrust that jacked-up drill through a crowd of deranged splicers. Hey, that's kinda phallic... somebody call FOX News and get 'em on the case!

Original: A

Sequel: TBD

I finished Uncharted 3 on the daunting Crushing difficulty, and it wasn't nearly as tough as 2 was. Or maybe I've just played so much Uncharted that I can coast through these games by mere muscle memory. Who knows?

I wasn't nuts about the ending. The core concept of the game is the proxy father/son relationship between Sully and Drake, and how both men have been extraordinarily bad influences on the other, despite the best intentions. Sully caught a young Drake at the crossroads and encouraged him to become a globe-trotting, treasure-seeking rogue, and Drake continues to drag the aging Sully on adventures that seem more and more likely to get him killed. It's actually a rather unique and intriguing story hook, and I was looking forward to the resolution. Sadly, that thread seems to get dropped just as Elena points this out to Drake (he's generally too busy escaping imminent death to consider the big picture), and the final portion of the game is, understandably, devoted entirely to battling evil and punching British people in the face. The actual ending shows Nathan and Elena reconciling their lapsed marriage,with Sully gently playing the 'honorary Dad' card - which is more or less how Uncharted 2 ended, except with rings. (The ring symbolism WAS a nice touch, I'll grant you.)

So, are the Drakes (or whatever Nathan's real last name is) retired? Is Sully done? Is he one of those "the only life I know!" types that wants to die on the job? Who knows. That's the problem with franchises with no known end date - closure is a real sequel-killer.

Oh, and Kate Marlowe's death was a real cop-out. Talbot's only role seemed to be as her stand-in so that Drake could beat up somebody that wasn't a woman north of 50. But screw that: Marlowe was a child-beating menace and deserved to get her teeth punched in. If they didn't want to use Drake (for obvious reasons), Elena would've been perfect. I don't advocate violence against women, but at some point, female villains need to stop having convenient karmic deaths involving quicksand, ledges, or brain overloads. Or developers could make actual female protagonists to go with the female villains - that would be kinda novel.

With that in mind, if they absolutely must do a sequel, I wouldn't mind seeing Chloe and Cutter play the leads while the Drakes go honeymooning. Chloe's role in this game was microscopic, and Claudia Black is one of the best voices in the business. Plus, the Chloe character has always been a shade darker than her friends, so the series could get a little edge back in the process.

An excellent game, with three or four unforgettable sequences, but it's time for Naughty Dog to shake things up or justtry something new altogether. And this has to be the most negative-sounding blog I've ever done about a game I'd give a 9.0 or so - the curse of the fanboy. Also, this will be my last Uncharted 3 blog, which will probably be a relief for everyone here. (Although my next one will be about the BioShock games, which are ancient history by Internet standards, so don't get your hopes too high.)