I almost bought a PlayStation 3 this week.

There aren't any PlayStation 3 games currently available that I want--and the PlayStation 3 games I do want won't be available for a few months--but I haven't purchased a new video game in almost two months and it doesn't look like there will be another game I will want for a few more months.

Whenever this happens I get the desire to buy a new game console.

I didn't buy a PlayStation 3. Common sense didn't set in; an oversight in an Internet retailer's checkout system prevented me from purchasing one. I received a $100 American Express gift card, which is treated as a credit card, over the holidays. I was going to use this card as part of my payment, but the checkout system allowed only one credit card per purchase.

Pointless, expensive purchase averted.

For now. The desire to purchase something expensive for no reason is still there, and I have two potential excuses to purchase something expensive for no reason.

LensCrafters sent me a catalog in the mail that shows a pair of glasses I really, really like. I got a new pair of glasses in October, so my current pair still looks trendy, but it hasn't prevented me from lusting for another.

And Banana Republic, a luxury clothing chain, is having a sale. I can always find lots and lots of clothing there that I want. (More on this later.)

The last time this happened was last summer. I hadn't purchased a new game in months, and there wouldn't be a new game I would want until September, so I desired an Xbox 360, despite that Oblivion was the only Xbox 360 game I wanted to play.

Spending enough money on clothing at Banana Republic (over a few months) to pay for a PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii combined and then some ended my desire to get an Xbox 360.

Years ago, now soon to be former GameSpot editor-in-chief Greg Kasavin reviewed Chess for this site.

He didn't like it.

The pacing was slow. There was only one gameplay mode and one map, which was too small and lacked detail. Multiplayer was limited to two players. The story was minimal. Characters were the same on both sides and their initial placements were always the same. The too few characters had bland names and appearances, no personalities and differed from their rivals only in color--and because muliplayer was limited to two, there were only two sides. Character movement was arbitrary and limited. A token effort to attract female players by allowing "Queen," the only female character, the greatest freedom of movement was insulting. Worst of all, because new resources could not be acquired, most matches ended in stalemates.

Chess did not compare well to other strategy games, like Command and Conquer: Red Alert.

The next year, Greg Kasavin previewed Chess II for GameSpot.

The sequel addressed some, but not all, of the complaints players had regarding the original Chess. The map was larger. The story was detailed. The characters had backgrounds, personalities, distinct appearances and were not the same on both sides--and there were more of them. There were multiple campaigns, many with multiple objectives. New resources could be purchased, and were sometimes necessary to complete future objectives. Rules for online games were set by players. A scenario editor allowed for player-made campaigns, with new characters and terrains, and thus infinite replay value. And of course cut-scenes advanced the story.

The additions in Chess II turned a dull game into an exciting game.

Alas, Chess II was never released. It wasn't real. GameSpot's preview was an April Fool's joke. (And GameSpot's Chess review was an earlier April Fool's joke.)

But sometimes jokes turn into reality.

Online Chess Kingdoms, a PSP game from Konami, attempts to improve upon Chess by adding a real time mode, a story and multiple sets of detailed pieces.

It doesn't work. The appeal of Chess is its simplicity. Adding or changing anything removes that appeal. Online Chess Kingdoms, fortunately, lets you play Chess the old-fashioned way, so it isn't a complete bust.

All of which is pointed out in GameSpot's review.

Which is written by Greg Kasavin.

If this is his final review, it is an interesting exit.

An updated Windows XP driver for the wired Xbox 360 Controller was made available via Microsoft Update recently.

Does this new driver offer configuration options in Game Controllers in the Windows Control Panel? Make the Xbox Guide button do something when pressed? Allow the shoulder triggers to be used as buttons? Create dead spots in the controller's thumbsticks and shoulder triggers?

If they're there, they're hidden.

All this update appears to do is make the player 1 quarter of the Xbox 360 controller's circle of light light up. (Presumably if there are multiple wired Xbox 360 controllers connected to one computer, a different quarter will light up on each controller.)

I don't play many computer games. Sitting hunched over a computer desk for hours at a time is not my idea of fun. I am willing to do it for adventure games and Solitaire, but not anything else. And with adventure games like Shadow of Destiny (Shadow of Memories), Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon, Indigo Prophecy (Fahrenheit), and Dreamfall proving the genre can be done on consoles without compromises, I have fewer reasons to use my computer for games.

But it's also why I have a wired Xbox 360 controller connected to my computer. I don't buy every game console, and not every adventure game on consoles is on a console I own, but they're all available for Windows. Because these games are designed with consoles in mind, they're designed with gamepads in mind, and are often painful to play with a mouse and/or keyboard.

After reading many on the Internet declare the Xbox 360 Controller the best game controller ever, and thinking that the left thumbstick rather than the directional pad in the primary position makes more sense for contemporary games, I decided early this year to choose it over a competing computer gamepad from, say, Logitech or Saitek.

The Xbox 360 Controller might be the best game controller for consoles, but for computers it borders on unusable.

The lack of configuration options in Windows for the Xbox 360 Controller limits the controller's usefulness. Console game developers can assume they know what kind of game controller their users are using. Computer game developers don't know which gamepads their users have, how many buttons their users' gamepads have and where those varying number of buttons are placed, or even assume their users have gamepads, so gamepad support in computer games is often token or non-existent..

Some computer games will allow you to configure every button as you please, but many have fixed gamepad controls--which is awkward if the game you're playing is designed for a gamepad with a different button configuration--or no gamepad controls, including some games originally designed for consoles. Other computer gamepads account for these problems by allowing users to configure buttons on a per-game basis within Game Controllers in the Windows Control Panel and/or emulate a keyboard and/or mouse, but not the Xbox 360 Controller. If you have an wired Xbox 360 Controller and you play a computer game with weak or no gamepad support, you have to live with weak or no gamepad support.

But even if the wired Xbox 360 controller's Windows driver had button configuration options, the controller would still be short two buttons. The Windows driver does not see the controller's shoulder triggers as buttons, and thus the shoulder triggers cannot be used as buttons in computer games. With many games in the past decade designed with eight primary buttons in mind (usually four face buttons and four shoulder buttons), this is a problem.

Technically the wired Xbox 360 controller is short only one button, but that additional button, the Xbox Guide button, cannot be used in Windows XP. The instruction manual mentions that this button does nothing in Windows XP, but who reads instruction manuals? Windows Vista will make this button do something (albeit it won't be used for gameplay), but until the vast majority of Windows users upgrade to Windows Vista (not for years), this button will be the subject of many tech support calls to Microsoft.

Finally, the lack of dead spots in the thumbsticks and shoulder triggers makes the the Xbox 360 controller almost broken in Windows. Thumbsticks and triggers (on any game controller) do not return to the exact same positions every time they are let go. Because the Xbox 360 Controller does not give these parts dead spots, every position is active and games sometimes act as if they are pressed when they are not.

Is Nintendo aware that its DS system is portable?

And that people tend to play portable games for a few minutes at a time, and batteries that power portable game systems do not last forever?

If New Super Mario Bros. is any indication, the answer to both questions is no.

I'm attempting to get all three star coins in every level of New Super Mario Bros., but because the game allows saving only at specific points, and only once at each point, I'm not saving until I'm ready to stop playing.

I defeat Bowser Jr. in a tower, but before the game can ask if I want to save (which happens automatically after finishing a tower or castle), the battery in my DS Lite dies.

I lose everything I have accumulated. I have to play every level I have just played and attempt to get every star coin again.

If New Super Mario Bros. were not New Super Mario Bros., I would give up in frustration after this incident. (New Super Mario Bros. is that good.)

This would not happen if the New Super Mario Bros. save system were designed with portable play in mind: automatically saving after finishing any level (no matter how many times you play any individual level). I would have replay that tower, but everything else would still be there.

Game developers need to understand that people do not use portables the same way they use consoles. It's okay for a console game to have limited save points; people are likely to play console games for an hour or more at a time and (usually) don't have to worry about losing power. Portable games tend to be played when people have a few minutes of unexpected free time, and the hardware that powers their games runs on batteries. so people do have to worry about losing power and, by extension, everything they have accomplished.

And people complain about PSP developers not understanding how people use portable game systems.

I'm watching World News Asia--why is it called World News Asia when it isn't any more focused on Asia than World News Europe?--on CNN this morning, and what would normally be the half-way point of the program turns out to be the end.

Co-anchor Anjali Rao tells viewers Talk Asia with guest Shigeru Miyamoto; creator of Nintendo's Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda, Pikmin and Nintendogs; is next.

Normally hearing Talk Asia and next would get me to stop watching CNN. Talk Asia is a soft interview show. I have little interest in soft news and talk. But I continue watching CNN on the off chance that Miyamoto might reveal something interesting about Nintendo.

He didn't. I wasn't expecting him to. Talk Asia isn't meant for tough interviews. The only thing close to tough was Anjali Rao--the same Anjali Rao from World News Asia--telling Miyamoto she was disappointed that Nintendo's Game & Watch handhelds were no more because she missed seeing stick figures move across their screens.

Still, I was disappointed. I could have used this half hour for something useful. Like getting ready for the day.

To be fair, the Miyamoto interview would have been interesting, or at least informative, to those who don't regularly visit Web sites like GameSpot. Those people would have learned why Mario looks the way he looks, why the Revolution was renamed Wii, just at whom Nintendo is aiming the DS and Wii and why, why Nintendo has decided to go with alternative control schemes with its recent hardware, why he and Nintendo as a whole do not produce excessively violent games, and other tidbits about Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo.

But for those of us who do regularly visit sites like this one, it was old news.

We all love the freedom of going wireless. No longer tethered, we can move around wherever we want and place our objects anywhere.

But going wireless comes at a price: batteries.

I have made compromises in the name of battery life. I wanted Audible support in my portable music player, but I couldn't find one with adequate battery life so I purchased one without. There are thinner, lighter mobile phones than mine, but few (if any) come close to the 12.5 hours of talk time per charge I get from my thicker, heavier mobile phone.

But game controllers were-note the past tense-one area where one could go wireless without worrying about battery life. PlayStation 2 and GameCube wireless controllers from Logitech, Hori and Nintendo could be used for hundreds of hours before their batteries needed to be replaced.

You won't get 50 hours of battery life out of a PlayStation 3, Wii or Xbox 360 wireless controller.

With the new generation of game consoles, you have to more often replace or recharge game controller batteries. The former gets expensive over time, and requires one to keep a stash of batteries if one wishes to play with minimal interruption. The latter frequently turns a wireless controller into a wired controller, and with it a regular loss of freedom of movement and placement.

And both of those make life just a little more frustrating. Perhaps a lot more frustrating, considering you have to deal with not one, but as many as seven regularly dying wireless game controllers per console.

Originally planned as a June theatrical release tie-in, Electronic Arts' Superman Returns: The Videogame was delayed until this week to coincide with the home video release.

And it's terrible.

"We're going to get a better game this fall than we would have with the movie release," Frank Gibeau, Electronic Arts executive vice president and general manager of North American publishing, told investors in May.

What Electronic Arts released a few days ago surely was not what it wanted. But if the publisher had delayed the game beyond the movie's home video release there would have been nothing for it to play off, thus little interest and few copies of Superman Returns: The Videogame sold.

It begs the question, if this is 'a better game,' how bad was this game in June?

Or perhaps, what did the development team do with its additional 5 months?

The consequences of Superman Returns: The Videogame being a bad video game will be more than disappointed Superman fans and possibly lower sales for this particular game. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, licensor for all Time Warner-owned video game properties, might charge Electronic Arts higher royalties as punishment for releasing the game in a barely playable state and hurting the Superman brand.

Perhaps worse for Electronic Arts, it was hoping Superman Returns: The Videogame would be only the first of many of its games to use the Superman property. Sales of future Electronic Arts-branded Superman games will be hurt by weak impressions of the first.

That's assuming Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment allows Electronic Arts to touch Superman, and perhaps other Time Warner properties again. Harry Potter has usually been good for everyone involved, but the less said about Batman Begins, Catwoman and Looney Tunes: Back in Action, the better.

If you turn on your DS on your birthday, it plays the startup chime at a higher pitch.

I have nothing else to write about this. I just needed to get this out of my head, so thanks for humoring me.

Innovative video games appear from time to time, but most video games take concepts from older ones and attempt to improve upon them.

The result is new games constantly making older games, games once considered the best in their genres, unplayable by comparison.

Take, for example, Devil May Cry. It redefined the traditional action game, but Devil May Cry 3 has since taken what once made the original Devil May Cry the greatest action game ever and improved upon it.

After you play Devil May Cry 3, you will not want to go back to Devil May Cry 1. The third makes the first feel dated.

Despite Devil May Cry 3's superiority over its predecessor, GameSpot gave the original a higher score (9.1) than its sequel (8.6). And the updated, more superior Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition received a still lower score (8.2).

Why? Video games are an evolution. By nature, the new ones will often be better than the old ones. If every new, improved game gets a higher score than the ones that came before it, eventually every game deserves a perfect 10. And that would make game review scores useless.

The standards get higher as time passes. Games like Ninja Gaiden, released a year prior to Devil May Cry 3, and God of War, released shortly after Devil May Cry 3, also improved upon concepts first seen in the original Devil May Cry and arguably did them better than Devil May Cry 3.

It isn't enough for a video game to slightly improve upon past games to get a higher score. It has to be significantly improved to deserve that higher score. A slightly improved more of the same will appeal to hardcore fans, but it isn't enough to justify purchases by more casual fans who bought the older game.

The same applies to when a previously released game is re-released on another platform. The new version might be superior, but unless it's a big improvement over the version already available on another platform, the new one still deserves a lower score. People who own both platforms and have played the older version need to know if the game is worth playing again.

Which is why it's important to read reviews, not just look at their scores.

I get Sega Genesis Collection in the mail, and do I first play Ecco the Dolphin or Phantasy Star IV, the only two (of 33) included games I feel are still worth playing in this day and age?

No, I unlock everything that can be unlocked: old Sega arcade games, interviews, trailers and a cheats list.

Not one of the arcade games has aged well. The trailers and cheats can be seen, without spending time unlocking anything, on this Web site. Interviews are nice, but I will never view one a second time.

In short, I unlocked everything in Sega Genesis Collection for the sake of unlocking everything in Sega Genesis Collection. A waste of time.

Why? I'm not sure. I guess it bothered me that things were there but I couldn't access them.

At least, unlike most classic game collections, what is hidden in Sega Genesis Collection and the ways to unlock them are described in its Extras menu, and are easy to accomplish. Most require only entering a game. The few that require effort require little effort.

This isn't the first time I have unlocked things in a classic game collection for the sake of unlocking them. Last year I spent literally days gaining access to everything hidden in Sonic Gems Collection despite that Sonic CD--available from the start--was the only thing in the collection about which I cared, and I got blisters on my left thumb enabling the two hidden games in Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary even though Ms. Pac-Man--also available from the start--was the only game in it I wanted to play.

Go back a few years and there were countless hours wasted unlocking useless to me items in Activision Anthology, Atari Anthology, Mega Man Anniversary Collection, Sonic Mega Collection, Sonic Adventure DX--was that one ever painful--and probably several additional game collections I've played but can't remember playing at the moment.

All because I wanted access to everything even though everything--well, almost everything; someone decided to make Sonic 3 & Knuckles one of the unlockable games in Sonic Mega Collection--I would use was available immediately.

I'm beginning to understand how people become addicted to Xbox Achievements.