#I know I haven't posted anything on GS for a while now and mainly, I've lost interest. I don't like the new format at all. I tried to adapt to the new format but I hate it. I miss unions. I hate that there are no featured blogs and the only way to get people to read them is to link them to the forums which are crawling with trolls and haters.

You're not allowed to like any game on any console anymore without someone bringing down your happiness. I ended up getting a WiiU for Christmas. Honestly I was about to make up my mind to not buy any new system this time around and just stick to my 3DS, PC and use my PS3 until support finally dropped for it. But then I got Super Mario 3D World along with some Christmas/Birthday money so I picked up the Wind Waker bundle and that's what I've been playing lately. Finished most of 3D World (at the second post game challenge world) also downloaded Earthbound and Mega Man X from the Eshop and would really like to get Rayman Legends at some point. Still playing a lot of Animal Crossing: New Leaf and trying to finish up Zelda: Link Between Worlds.

But enough about the games I'm playing, shortly before Christmas, I got major news that I was pregnant. I'm glad about this. We've been trying for almost 4 years now but this sort of thing changes one's outlook for the future. Truth be told once my baby is born, I probably won't have as much free time to game. I'm not saying I'll stop completely but I won't have the time or disposable income I enjoyed for a lot of years and mind you I'm in the situation where I can stay home and raise the baby, thanks to the new job my husband has now.

I've been here since 2007 and I think it's time to move on. Honestly I had thought about leaving GS for some time now but I mostly stuck around for the couple unions I was in but once those were gone, I found myself visiting less and less.

Oh and if you do have a WiiU and want to add me, I'm Slashingkatie.

#So we all saw this story.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/man-pays-750-for-a-piece-of-paper-he-thought-was-an-xbox-one/1100-6416572/

Now let's set aside that I personally can't understand why ANYONE, rich or poor would buy an Xbox One at launch, let alone spend more than retail price on Ebay. But I look at this guy's situation. He's 19 and has a 4 year old kid. So we already know he lacked the intelligence to use a condom when he was partying in high school. I also laughed at the claim it was for his "4 year old son." Seriously what 4 year old wanted an Xbox One. The guy is saying that as a weak attempt to get sympathy for the fact he was scammed on Ebay. But what I look at is that he's a college student with a 4 year old so unless he has rich parents, how on Earth can he afford to spend $750? The article says he "saved up" but I think by that they mean he's prepared to spend the next several months paying his credit card off.

I saw this article: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/your-brain-on-poverty-why-poor-people-seem-to-make-bad-decisions/281780/

Basically the article states that many people, despite not having a lot of money will often go out and buy things they probably can't afford because they feel like "hey, it's not like things will ever get better for me, might as well enjoy something fun." I found it amusing how so many said the Wii sold because "poor people bought it" yet a lot of the "casual" Wii owners I knew were folks who owned homes and had good paying jobs where it seemed like 360 and PS3 owners, at least early in the last cycle were the college guys living in dorms, one room apartments or with family. I have a friend who's a big hardcore gamer. He goes nuts whenever there's a Steam Sale, always buys new hardware at launch. He just bought 3 PS4s, the idea being selling 2 on Ebay to make the money to pay for the 3rd one. The thing is, his family is constantly struggling to make ends meet. His wife works at Target. He makes $10 an hour as manager at a pizza shop. They have a kid. A few years ago they were on food stamps. He constantly talks about how tight things are, yet will rush out every time Gamestop has a buy one get one half off sale. I was actually amazed that he recently bought an Xbox One but decided to sell it so he could PAY HIS RENT!! (please calm down and read the whole article before ranting in the comments)

Look I know a whole bunch of you are going to rise up and tell me how you have a great paying job and can afford to spend your money how you see fit. You're right. I totally agree, but bear in mind, there are always consequences to the actions you take. You can skip class to stay home and play Call of Duty, but don't be surprised if you fail the test. You can shell out $600 for an Xbox One on Ebay, but don't act surprised, when the end of the month comes and you can't pay your rent.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't buy video games or consoles. I'm saying don't make "stupid" decisions. Don't buy stuff you can't afford. Don't let yourself get scammed like our Xboned friend here. This coming generation is scary as we see companies like Microsoft, Activision and EA creeping in more Microtransactions and DLC. Sony's going to make us pay to play online now. Gaming is getting to be a more expensive hobby with each generation and game companies like to think we're as dumb as this guy. That we chase after new shiny things the way a cat goes after a laser dot. Let's prove them wrong.

If you haven't bought a new console yet, I ask that you sit back and really think it over. What games do you really want to play that are coming out in the next six months? Can you play any of these on something you already own and be just fine without AI fish and arm hair? What if the game you want is delayed and you're stuck with an expensive Netflix machine for the next few months?

And most importantly...is it really worth it?

Stay gaming my friends.

Greetings gamers. We at Nintendo have realized the folly of our ways. How silly we were to try to expand to people like seniors and kids with fun, simple accessable games like Wii Sports and New Super Mario Bros. Wii when we should've been listening to the hardcore gamers on the gaming forums all along. As they are right about everything all the time.

So you'll be happy to know we're totally dropping support of the WiiU and 3DS and rolling out a new all in one console based on everything we heard on the gaming forums, because you hardcore gamers are always right. It's always about who has the prettiest graphics and which multimedia device can run gray/brown FPSes at 1080p so we can get the most arm hair and AI fish physics.

Introducing the Nintendo Xgamestation Box. Everyone said that WiiU sounded too confusing so we focus tested American males ages 15-35 and along with loving Mountain Dew, Doritos, and Taco Bell, they were drawn to names with the letter X in it. As Bender the Robot from Futurama stated "X makes it sound cool."

The Nintendo Xgamestation Box has the same graphical capabilities as the PS4 and Xbox One as well as it runs everything in 1080p because we know that it doesn't matter how good the game is, but if it runs in "true HD" after all you need pretty HD visuals to cover up the fact you're playing the same generic FPS you played last gen. Don't worry we got rid of that stupid gamepad and any hint of motion controls. All Nintendo Xgamestation Boxes come with the WiiU Pro Controller, so if you have a WiiU gamepad, sorry, time to toss it out.

But you say you want an online network as good as Xbox Live? Well request granted. Nintendo Live will be the ultimate online experience. Every person you meet online will automatically be added to your friend list whether you wanted them or not. Also, don't worry about restrictions. We won't ban anyone for bad language no matter how awful it is. Freedom of speech right? Now you can finally enjoy the next Smash Bros, as you would a CoD game on Xbox Live, by that we mean listening to abnoxious 13 year olds making homophobic slurs because that's what "hardcore" gaming is all about. Now of course in order to make this a great experience, we will also have to charge a yearly fee but hey, you're used to that with Xbox Live and Sony's doing it now too so what's one more online subscription fee? Don't worry we'll offer free games each month to download and by "free" we mean, you'll be able to play them so long as you have the subscription, but you guys love downloading cheap games you never play after all. I mean look at all those Steam sale games you downloaded and never touched.

We have also heard the forums complain about our "cartoony" games like Mario and Zelda and how we need to stop making kids games. Kids are stupid after all. Why does anyone want to make things that kids enjoy? We can't understand why Disney wastes money making animated movies when they could make bloody, gory R rated movies that would be so much more enjoyable. Everyone knows the only good games are M rated ones anyway like Fifty Cent Bulletproof and Kane and Lynch. So coming exclusively to the Nintendo Xgamestation Box, we're plan to revamp our classic series to make them more "adult." First up is Mario Blood World, a dark revamp of the Mario universe where Bowser has taken over the Mushroom Kingdom and it's been embroiled in a dark war for many years and Mario, now a muscle bound, gun toting warrior leads his group of rebels against the Legion of Bowser. It's a first person shooter where you gun down koopas and goombas. It's full of blood, Mario swears and we even have a hidden Easter Egg where Mario and the Princess have sex. Also remember that tech demo of Zelda U way back? Well we decided to use that and make Link more realistic and bloody. Now you'll be able to slice off heads of Bokoblins and rip out the hearts of Octorocks. Also we're going to make our first console main Pokémon game. Pokémon Blood Red. Also in a dark distopic future, Pokémon trainers battle to the death with Pokémon. Meaning when your Pokémon loses in battle, its' dead and gone forever but not before watching it's bloody, beaten corpse take its last breath of air. Finally since fans for so long say that Nintendo games needs more story driven cutscenes we are making a follow up to Metroid Other M however instead of Team Ninja desiging it, we've hired David Cage creator of such "innovative" games like Heavy Rain and Beyond 2 Souls. Now that the Xgamestation Box has the same hardware specs as the competition, Mr. Cage was happy to have so many emotional polygons to work with so this new Metroid Adventure will be made up of cutscenes and quick time events and Samus, won't be exploring an alien world, rather dealing with the emotional turmoil of her relationship with Adam.

Oh and yes, we are working on a new IP geared squarely at hardcore gamers. Sure we had plenty of new IPs like Wii Sports, Nintendogs, Rhythm Heaven, Dillion's Rolling Western even Wonderful 101 but no we realized what you meant by "New Nintendo IP" introducing Call of Battlefield: Duty of Warfare, the first true Nintendo M rated FPS. You play as rouge American troops in the not too distant future fighting off Russia only to find out that they were actually aliens in disguise and then have to travel to their alien ship. Actually the single player mode is only 2 hours long and it's all about online mode which is pretty bare bones to start but don't worry, you can get better weapons through paid DLC.

Finally we've decided that EA and Microsoft are totally correct in their business ideas. I mean why try to make good games with solid gameplay for less money, when you can dump all your money into high end visuals and Hollywood Actors? Sure you won't make back your production costs but that's what microtransactions and DLC are for. We decided that for the new Smash Bros. to embrace Microsoft's approach with Killer Instrinct and make it a free to play game. Mario will be available for everyone but you'll have to pay $5 a piece of unlock the entire roster. Oddly enough when we mentioned this, EA suddenly all on board with supporting us again. Strange isn't it?

As for the 3DS, well as the internet has stated, handheld gaming is apparently dead because everyone just uses smartphones and tablets so why should we waste time making handheld gaming devices? Sure the 3DS is selling very well but we need to put all our money into the Nintendo Xgamestation box to appease the hardcore gamers after all. Of course the high cost of making such a device for such a specific demographic may lead to us having to enforce some sort of DRM restriction in the future but we'll wait until we get a decent install base before doing that.

Once again, we at Nintendo thank the hardcore gaming forum community for showing us the error of our ways.

*and scene* Hope everyone got the joke here.

I don't know but it really seems like this recent gen the negativity and downright hateful when it comes to almost anything. Sure I mean arguing and trolling has always existed but going through the forums here, it seems like especially lately, everyone's at each other's throats. And is there any real reason for it?

What's ironic is there were two news stories on the websites. One was Sony president Yoshida saying he's glad the WiiU exisits and thinks Nintendo should focus on marketing it at families. Around the same time Microsoft congratulated Sony on a good launch of the PS4. Why is the corporate overlords are civilized towards each other than the consumers? Hell go through the comments of either news story on any game site and it's nothing but console fanboy bickering. The best is people assuming MS's congratulatory message is part of some grand scheme and not genuine. Really? Maybe they were trying to tell us something. Namely to grow the f*** up and stop acting like spoiled children.

Even the recent South Park was once again holding a mirror up to us showing how petty and stupid this was in the grand scheme of things. Of course all you heard from users was "it's totally pro Xbox One!!"

I actually dropped someone on GS who used to be a good friend here. He used to be a big Nintendo fan but decided he had enough and sold his 3DS and had no plans to get a WiiU. I don't have a problem with that but it was when he started acting like a guy who's girlfriend cheated on him and goes around on social media saying what a slut she is. OK, you don't like Nintendo anymore. Move on with your life. I really am sick of the whole butt hurt fan mentality of the "I don't like it anymore and I'll make sure no one else does." I saw this with PS2 fans when the PS3 first launched and everyone hated the high price tag and I saw it with the Xbox One's original DRM crap they were doing but once again, at least being upset at the latter had some legitimacy and MS did the 180 and all so all the crappy stuff was removed. It's one thing if the price is high or the game library is weak, it's another thing when a system restricts your rights as a consumer.

This also goes back to the lack of unions. I hated the main GS forums from the time I joined and as soon as I joined some decent unions, I rarely visited main forums. Unions allowed fans to gather together and police themselves. There were less trolls and the overall tone was just less negative. If a member was no longer a fan of whatever the union was centered around, they could leave but I don't remember nearly the amount of negativity in unions because if someone started being overly negative about something, everyone was like "if you don't like it, then leave."

Why can't we just all coexist and play what we like? PS4, Xbox One, WiiU, 3DS, Vita, Mobile, PC. All these things have their pros and cons and everyone should play what they like and realize that having a lot of gaming platforms is good for business because it encourages companies to innovate to compete, it keeps one from having a monopoly where they could price gouge us and there really is something for everyone.

I have a feeling what I just said in that last paragraph will be how part II of South Park's Black Friday episode will end given they usually go for "balance" as the moral of the story and no, that's not a bad thing.

Now watch as the comments to this prove my point about negativity on the forums.

Maybe once again this is a sign I'm getting old, but remember the console war of the 90s?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7nsBoqJ6s8

I looked back at the SNES/Genesis back and forth and talking with friends from that gen. What were the arguments regarding those consoles in which was bette?.

Well the obvious one was Sonic vs. Mario. Sonic's game had a hip, edginess to them, where Mario was easy going and candy colored but at the same time Sonic's games were shorter and Super Mario World was a massive adventure full of secrets.

The SNES Mortal Kombat looked and sounded better but the Genesis version had all the bloody, gory finishing moves that hyper 12 year olds love and parents were outraged over.

The Genesis was better for sports games where the SNES had better RPGs (sadly in a time before JRPGs were mainstream).

Most interesting, these arguments all revolved around GAMES as opposed to now where we're bickering over which console runs the same generic shooter in 1080p so we can see the arm hair better. Or worse arguing over non gaming bells and whistles, that, let's face it, we're not going to bother with after the first couple weeks or so.

I think a lot of this comes from the sheer fact that consoles are no longer made by game makers rather the gaming divisions of giant multinational corporations and with Microsoft, they don't even have a sole gaming division anymore, rather the video games got lumped into their "entertainment" division but that was pretty obvious when the Xbox One reveal focused more on watching TV than playing games.

That's the saddest thing I noticed in this "console war" across the forums. No one has mentioned one thing about what games are worth playing rather it's 60fps this and 1080p that. See when I buy a console I really don't give a rat's ass about all the technical beeps and boops that nerds seem to lose their mind over.

Graphics: good graphical power means nothing if the game plays like crap. See Lair, Too Human, etc. And most regular folks don't see the huge graphic jump like we did when we went from PS1 to PS2. If you have to point out little details like shadows, then it's not that big a jump.

Online play: Now this does matter to a lot of folks, however I'm not one of them. The reason we got rid of our 360 was not only because it died on us three times but we rarely played online enough to justify paying $60 a year for that privilege plus a lot of the games I liked to play online either didn't have it or as was the case, if you didn't have a ton of friends, you were stuck playing with the garbage and filth that made up a lot of random online communities. Also I hated seeing games ditch local multiplayer assuming no one had human friends that came over to visit. It sucks that I couldn't play a co-op mode with my husband for Spec Ops: The Line.

Video streaming and sharing. Ok, how self absorbed and insecure are you that you need to post everything you do to Youtube and Facebook? I already roll my eyes at people who feel the need to post their food and every aspect of their life on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Let me give you a crushing reality check: You're not as important as you think you are. The people actually making a difference in the world and doing worthwhile things aren't Tweeting it every five minutes. GS has that Raptr thing that shows off users's achievements and trophies. Does anyone here bother looking at that? Didn't think so.

Watching TV/Movies: I will agree that a lot of console owners did use Netflix and maybe MS mistook that as "people want to watch TV on their game console!" But honestly does anyone plan to use those Smart TV features that MS keeps pushing? Look you can play Madden, while watching the NFL and uploading your Fantasy Football stats. And we wonder why we have ADD. Some of us probably used the PS3 for Blu Ray movies but I don't know of a single person who bought it solely because of that.

See this is how I buy console. I don't buy it on "future potential." I know folks who bought PS3's at launch on Ebay for $800 then had a fit when they found out stuff like Devil May Cry 4 and Final Fantasy XIII weren't exclusive. That's stupid. Hell I remember when my husband got a 360 and I was looking forward to see what great stuff Rare would make....talk about disappointment. Basically once it gets a few games I want to play, then it's worth the purchase for me. As much as I love my Nintendo franchises, I didn't get a 3DS until it got Super Mario 3D Land, Kid Icarus Uprising and Mario Kart 7 and now I get a fairly steady stream of games on it I like. Same with the WiiU. I didn't get it at launch because aside from NSMBU, there wasn't a ton I was interested in but now when I do get one I'll have Super Mario 3D World, Wind Waker HD, Earthbound (eshop), Sonic Lost World, Rayman Legends (I could get it for my PS3 but I'd rather play it on what it was originally intended for) and those will keep me busy until 2014 when we get new MK and Smash Bros. As a bonus I can still play my old Wii games like Mario Galaxy, DKCR, Sonic Colors, Rayman Origins and some ones I like to revisit.

I buy a video game console to play games. Not to watch DVDs, or TV or surf the web or post videos. I think Yahtzee made the point in a video he did about the next gen. "This is our console. It plays these games." "I want to play those games so I'll buy that system."

Actually in our house both my husband and I decided that instead of a PS4 or Xbox One, we're just going to stick to our PC. It's backwards compatable, we get lots of cheap games without paying a monthly fee (yeah Steam) and we get the fancy graphics of the consoles. And no I'm not going to say "PC master race" but at this point the consoles with their day one updates and patches, are pretty much computers so what's the difference.

So the reviews for the PS4 launch exclusive Knack are out and they're not good. Man, I thought Sonic Lost World's reviews were depressing. But Sonic's disappointment for me came after having 2 fairly good, fairly solid console outings (Colors, Generations).

I got behind Knack because I'm always happy to see a new IP that isn't another grim and gritty action game. Sony in fairness has at least been making an effort to reach out to younger gamers during the PS3's life with stuff like Ratchet and Clank, Little Big Planet, Sly Cooper 4 and Puppeteer and Knack seemed to be continuing that trend. Seriously Xbox, where's your attempt to make something worthwhile for kids? Oh right, you let Rare wither away and die. Never mind.

From what I can tell suffers from the same problem a LOT of launch games suffer from. Namely trying to get out in time for launch. There's potential for something that could've truly been unique. But for a launch game, a lot of freedom and exploration appears to have been sacrificed in order for this to show off the PS4's graphical power.

Hallway game: What's a hallway game you ask? Well a perfect example is God of War. It's a game where you have little to no exploration or freedom. The levels consist of you running down a corridor, beating up baddies, maybe having the occasional jumping or puzzle solving sequence but for the most part, you're running down a hall to the next cutscene. Developers love this because it's easy and a good way to keep their narrative from going off track. Metroid Other M did this hence why all the solitude and exploration was replaced with cut scenes where Samus whined for hours on end. The worst part of hallway games is they limit the potential of what the player could do with their character. Knack has the cool ability to grown and shrink and change elements. He belongs in a huge Super Mario 64 open world environment to explore his full potential. But the reason this is restricted to a hallway, because it's harder to see any graphical flaws. They want those bushes and trees to look perfect from a particular angle. This would make sense except that the Pixar-esque design isn't super realistic so why be so restrictive?

Limited Brawler: At least Kratos and Sonic's God awful werehog form, you could play around with a variety of attacks and upgrade special moves. Knack doesn't appear to even have that. All reviews have said, he just gets a few punches and special attacks. There's a million things you could do with a robotic creature made of little pieces but it doesn't get explored.

For kids? Some argue that the simplistic gameplay is for kids and I don't buy that. Just because the game is geared at kids, is not an excuse to water it down. When we were kids, we played NES game with no saves and no in game hits where you could die very quickly. There's a stark difference between "pick up and play" and "watered down" and developers seem to have trouble with this. To make a good game for kids, it should be "easy to learn, hard to master." Some of the best and most popular board games work on this premise, hence why it's easier to get friends together to play Monopoly than Warhammer.

In the end, Sony fanboys and early PS4 adopters will throw a fit over the reviews namely because they don't want to think they'll blowing $400 on a library that is mostly made up of prettier versions of current gen games and hey there's parents who probably will buy a PS4 for themselves and need something for their little ones, it will suffice but I feel like kids deserve something better.

So I've been moved into our new place for over a month now. The town's nice, not that similar from my old hometown and the apartment we got is great but as many who have moved to a new town, it can be lonely moving away from friends and family.

I don't consider myself a social butterfly with tons of friends but I did have a nice group of buddies to give me something resembling a social life. But my husband was offered a really good job with great pay and we'd be stupid to turn it down. This of course though leaves me alone all day with nothing to do. I go to the gym. Play video games (almost finished Ni No Kuni with all this free time) Do job hunting and explore the area to find my way around but it's tough being in a new place and not knowing anyone. It's also a lot harder as an adult. As a kid and through college, they encourage a social atompshere with events and get to know you excercises but as an adult, you have to make friends on your own. I did join and church and a gym but once again, it's not like school, adults have their own things to do. Work and kids and many simply don't have time or interest in socializing. Sadly I haven't found a job yet which makes my days really dull. Even with the games I have to occupy myself, I can only sit and play for a couple hours before I want to move on to something else.

I also really don't like the new GS format. I used to get tons of blog traffic. Now I'm lucky to get any comments. Plus the removal of unions means my online circles are gone. I don't like everyone using the public forums. Unions were the reason I stuck around as long as I did, plus unions allowed users to traffic themselves, removing trolls and haters. I hate going to a Nintendo forum where every other comment is some doom and gloom trolling over the WiiU's poor sales. I miss the Sonicspot union where we could discuss the state of Sonic Lost World.

I've really been considering ending my GS account all together. I've been here since 2007 and maybe it's time to move on. While I will get a WiiU soon for my Mario and Zelda, neither my husband or myself are rushing out to get a next gen system. I think we're going to be a WiiU/PC house given that the PS4 and Xbox One are pretty much almost PCs at this point. Also I don't like where gaming is going. I don't want an all digital future where I can't buy a physical disc and give it to my nephew as a gift or loan it to a friend if I want. I dread Nintendo departing the console market and seeing Mario's and Link's quality decline Sonic Style. Some will call it an old gamer with nostalgia goggles but looking back at 90s gaming, was it that bad? Online networks gave way to homophobic racist brats screaming in headsets. You pay for online multiplayer and still get bombarded with ads. Buy a used game and you're punished with an online code. Try to enjoy an update of a classic title and get nickeled and dimed with microtransactions. For all the good modern gaming tries to do, it's over bloated greedy business practices make it less appealing and yet we move forward wanting bigger, bloated, fancier games that cost more to make leading to more nickel and diming and soon it will all collaspse.

Me personally, I'm going to grab a WiiU then sit back and watch the whole industry, Nintendo and all come crashing down. Then hopefully be reborn again like it was after the Atari crash.

Some of us do want to watch the world burn. But because it means washing away the scum and starting anew.

For those who don't know, I'm 32 years old. To some, that's considered old for a gamer. It's odd. As you grow up, you see friends of yours who used to be into games grow out of it and I always found it weird that I was still very much into it. It's hard to say why. It depends on factors like kids, job, outside obligations. I get why some folks stop gaming or downgrade to just playing cellphone and browser games. I still game a lot. Well right now moving to a new town and still looking for work I have a lot more time on my hands to game but that could easily change. But this is what I've noticed as I got older.

More income. Less time: My younger nephews see a lot of games they like but at the same time $60 or even $40 for a 3DS game is a lot. Now they do know the value of hard work to get what they want. My mother in law told me about my 8 year old nephew running around the house finding chores he could do because he wanted Mario and Luigi Dream Team so badly. Me, right now if there's a game I want, I can get it but it's a matter of having the TIME to play it. For one, I'm not the kind who can sit for 8 hours straight or play through an entire weekend. After a couple hours, I have to break and do something else. It's the same way when I read a book. I'll read a couple chapters but then I want to get up, take a walk, do some housework or something. At the same time, I do have a life outside of gaming. I spent time with my husband. I go to the gym. I have errands to run. I visit with friends and family. I got trolled on some forum about how the WiiU games I was interested in: Sonic Lost World, Super Mario 3D World, Earthbound and Wind Waker HD would be enough for me for a few months. Someone trolled me saying "Don't you want more than a few weeks enjoyment?" For me. These are more than enough to tide me over until 2014 with MK8, Smash 4, etc. Not to mention I still have my 3DS, PC and PS3 games I'm playing. So yeah for me, 3 or 4 games like this is more than enough to keep me busy outside my own non-gaming life. As I said, I'm not one who buys a new game then locks herself up all weekend doing nothing but playing that and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Which brings me to...

Ok with shorter games. I get that when you spend $60 on a game, you don't want some 5 hour adventure with no replay value but honestly I actually agree with (some of) Warren Spector's comments at D.I.C.E. about him being ok with a shorter experience. As a Sonic fan, I would much rather play shorter adventures like Colors or Generations instead of the Adventure titles that, to me, feel very bloated and padded. Sorry SA fans, Big's fishing and Knuckles's Emerald collecting are just boring where as not only could I finish Colors and Generations in a short amount of time, but I can go back anytime and replay those stages and have more fun. Right now I'm playing Ni No Kuni and, don't get me wrong, it's amazing but at the same time, it's a really long game and really involved especially because I'm the type to do sidequests to get XP and items but at the same time I want to move forward on my quest. I used to be the type to try to get 100% completion but more and more I find that I'd rather just beat the boss and move on to another game. I don't even bother trying to get all the trophies/achievements. It's one thing to try getting all 100 Mario Stars, but it's another thing to try getting all the Okami beads.

Ok with Easy mode: I like being challenged and I grew up in the age when games were "Nintendo Hard" but I don't care if a game is easy as long as it's fun and sometimes I find myself just wanting to get on to the next area. True story: the final boss of Mario and Luigi Dream Teamis annoyingly long and can heal itself. Now I prided myself at not resorting to switching to easy mode when I died though it's not like an overly hard game but the last boss fight was just annoyingly long thanks to the healing power (which I won't spoil). After 20 min of being able to dodge all the attacks at this point, I finally let him kill me just so I could restart in easy mode and be done with it. Yes, it's probably cheating but is it really that different than looking up cheat codes on Gamefaqs? At least you guys have the internet now. Back in the day you either had to buy a magazine or call the helpline for $1.99/min.

Being spoiled by modern mechanics: OMG how did I play stuff before autosaving? I forgot how in Zelda 1 and 2, Link always went back to the starting point even when you saved. While modern gaming has given us some terrible business practices like microtransactions, DRM and companies nickel and diming you for anything they can. When you look back at a lot of old NES games, you realize that yes Metroid needs a map in game. Super Mario 3 could really use a save feature and it would be nice if I knew where the hell to go in Legend of Zelda. So I have no problem with rereleases fixing old school problems. For instance the XBL rerelease of Banjo Kazooie fixing to where if you died or left the area you didn't have to recollect Jinjos and Notes. Some say this makes it "too short" but honestly it's nice to know when you got eaten by the Shark trying to get that one Jinjo in the beach level, you don't have to waste lives trying to get him and get out of the water in time.

Slower reflexes: For reasons that I can't explain other than slowing down is that when I do visit an old game I played all the time, I die more often, miss jumps I know by heart, etc. A friend of mine showed me an article titled "it's all downhill from here" or something like that basically talks about how you get older, your reflexes slow. It has nothing to do with playing games, it just happens with age. Even now I find I have pain in my wrists and elbows that flares up. I went to the doctor and told her I do like playing video games though she said that the pains were more likely a product of me trying to lift too much at the gym. Oddly enough neither my eye doctor or regular doctor saw any health issues from me playing games especially since I do try to exercise though my eye doctor warns about being too close to a computer screen for a long time so you PC gamers might want to think about sitting back a little or taking breaks between matches to let your eyes rest.

I'd still like to keep playing games. I do wonder what it will be like when I have a baby and I also think about what will happen to those in my age group, if they get bad arthritis in their fingers and hands. Then again, by that time we might all be playing games with our minds through holodeck technology. Hey we can dream right?

So reviews for Sonic Lost World are out and well they're pretty medicore. Now most of us take our game reviews with a grain of salt particularly with Gamespot who complains about challenging games but gushes over David Cage's latest interactive movie. But so far Gametrailers is the highest I've seen with a 7.5.

As a Sonic fan, you'd think I'd be used to this. Many of us who aren't the insane fringe who thought Sonic Next Gen was brilliant and thinks all game critics are biased against Sonic. But the last couple years really saw Sega trying their hardest to make Sonic good again and they were getting a lot of stuff right. They stopped trying to crank out 4 or 5 medicore games in a year and switched to making 1 or 2 good games with more effort. Taking a cue from Mario, they stopped trying to have bad anime furry melodrama and focused on a more, lighthearted feel and simpler stories. They ditched the mindless fluff and filler like hub world questing, forced playable friends and fetch quests and focused on straight up platforming.

And that's the thing, Sega really seems to be trying hard to not make this series suck or be the butt of jokes on game forums anymore. It wouldn't bother me if this was like the PS2/XB/GC era games that really did feel like cash grabs where they even admitted that they were just making something for kids to buy. What happened?

I haven't played Lost World myself so I can't comment. While some gripes in the reviews seem petty like the whole borrowing from Mario Galaxy or silly story, I hear mostly the same problem that plagued a lot of Sonic games, bad controls. After Generations seemed to nail down 3D Sonic, Sega ditched that system in favor of the Parkour type gameplay. I'm all for companies trying new things but this seems to be a case of "if it ain't broke. Don't fix it." Maybe Sonic's trying too hard to be like Mario.

Of course Nintendo haters will say "well this game would've been good on the 360/PS3!!" And some of the more delusional Sonic fans are claiming Nintendo is ruining Sonic but making him more "cartoony." Guys, you are aware this is a blue, anthropomorphic hedgehog who runs fast and fights an egg shaped evil scientist. If you think that Sonic was meant to be "mature" you've been reading too much bad internet fanfiction. Also I love that when a third party game is bad on a Nintendo platform, it's somehow Nintendo's fault but if it was bad on the 360/PS3, no one blames Sony or MS.

Also for those who keep going on about how Nintendo needs to go third party and make Mario and Zelda for other platforms. Yeah....you guys are seeing what Sonic has become and how much the series has struggled after the Dreamcast. Do you really want that to happen to Mario and Link? Do you really think Nintendo 1st party games will still maintain that high quality when they don't have to worry about selling hardware?

Even more so I wish the Sonicspot Union was still around so I could talk to my fellow fans. Thanks for nothing, Gamespot.

So this bit of news came out.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/rayman-legends-and-splinter-cell-blacklist-sales-lower-than-anticipated/1100-6415600/

To pretty much no one's surprise, poor Rayman Legends didn't sell as well as Ubisoft hoped along with Splinter Cell Blacklist and this led many to believe this might be why Watch Dogs got pushed to 2014.

I really can't speak for Splinter Cell Blacklist. Though it didn't seem to get as hyped as that sort of game usually does. I do remember seeing tons of ads for it and Gamestops preorder commercial but perhaps Splinter Cell is one of those series that people have just lost interest in. If any of you have theories on that one, feel free to discuss in the comments.

However with poor Rayman Legends it's pretty obvious. Had the WiiU game released in March like it was planned, it might have done well. There were no major releases to compete with and the WiiU's library was barren and screaming for a game like Legends. Hell I was really close to buying a WiiU when Legends was released in March, but we all know that just weeks before release, the suits at Ubisoft delayed the game for a multiplatform release. Now the guys at Brainscratch made the point. Third party publishers don't care about selling consoles. They want to sell games. The last few years, third party exclusives are far and few between. We all remember all the once Playstation exclusives that jumped ship when the PS3's early sales sucked. But many couldn't grasp why Ubisoft couldn't just release the nearly finished WiiU version of Legends then release the others later on. Well we can blame Microsoft for that. They somehow weaseled publishers into a deal that if a multiplatform game comes out, it has to come on the 360 first. Everyone knows my hatred for Microsoft and the Xbox runs red like a ring of death. Whether it was charging people to play online AND filling dashboard with ads or watching Rare's slow painful decline so this was just another thing to ad to my list.

It does amaze me how the last few years most publishers avoid releasing anything during the same time as the next Call of Duty and yet how was it smarter to release something the same month as both GTAV and Pokémon X/Y? If you all recall Rayman Origins was released the same time as the latest Call of Duty game as well and it was a miracle that one went on to sell well, mainly only after a price drop and word got around of how good it was.

At times I feel like Ubisoft doesn't want Rayman to succeed. We all know the original Raymans were not massively popular to the level or a Mario or Sonic or even a Ratchet and then Rayman was upstaged by the Raving Rabbids, who have a show on Nickelodeon now (and it's as stupid as you think). Origins was going to be an episodic download game but something happened and Ubisoft made it a full disc release which was nice because then it wasn't limited to just PSN and XBLA. But Origins being released alongside CoD and Legends being released alongside GTAV and Pokémon, seriously Ubisoft, you can't complain about your game not selling well when you purposely release it alongside stuff you know everyone is going to buy. People only have so much disposable income and many can't afford 2 $60 games in the same month.

And this also goes back to the fact that so many big games get released in the holiday season, while summer's almost always a drought despite more kids being off from school and having time to play. I wonder if the game industry will ever get this right.