Summary in one word:

D'oh... B-. Come on Nintendo you came out strong then flopped over and died

Summary in many words:

Miyamoto has Pikmin in his dressing room, discussion about Wii U's philosphy, reveal of Pikmin 3, guided tour of the Gamepad, discussion of Miiverse, New Super Mario Bros U, Batman Arkham City, Scribblenauts Unlimited, Darksiders 2, Mass Effect 3, Tanks!, Tekken TT 2, Trine 2, Ninja Gaiden 3, Aliens, Wii Fit U, SiNG, time for 3DS news, New Super Mario Bros 2, Paper Mario Sticker Star, Luigi's Mansion 2, Lego City, Just Dance 4, ZombiU, Ubisoft game montage, NintendoLand,

Most interesting things:

Those are some pretty sweet graphics on those Wii U games.

Summary in one word:

Ehh... B-. At least the God of War Ascension and Playstation All-Stars previews looked good.

Summary in many words:

Game preview montage, Beyond, Playstation All-Stars with cross platform play, Vita can become a PS3 controller, bunch of gloating about the PSN service and PS Plus, Call of Duty on Vita, Assasins Creed Vita announced in a white Vita bundle with 4GB memory card, Assasins Creed 3, Farcry 3, mentions of Day One DLC for previewed games, trying to hype the Move, Wonderbook... literally WTF?!, first Wonderbook title involves Potter and work by JK Rowling- I think I fell asleep during the conference for 20 minutes, Playstation Suite for Android, partnership with HTC for wait Playstation Mobile stuff to be the first playstation certified phone, God of War Ascension, Last of Us preview... the next brown shooter where they say F*** all the time, and thats all.

Most interesting things: Sony has a strong list of exclusive games lined up, still only Playstation Battle Royal interested me.

Summar in one word?

Meh... give it a C

Summary in many words?

Halo 4, Kinect, Fable, Kinect, Shooter, Kinect, Gears, Kinect, Sports Games, Kinect, add more sports shows, Kinect, catch up to iTunes, Kinect, catch up to device integration with Smart Glass, Kinect, Internet Explorer on Xbox, Kinect, Windows 8 integration with Xbox, Kinect, Tomb Raider reboot, some game about dudes in armor making blood explode from skeletons, a motorcycle, Matter vs Kinect, Resident Evil 6 with already stated DLC, Wrecketeer with Kinect, South Park, Dance Central 3 accompanied by live performance, Kinect, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 with guns that can somehow shoot through solid objects.

Most interesting things: the indie / downloadable titles shown.

Okay I know Skyrim isnt multiplayer as badass as that could be if done right.

Im trying to not build up the hype for myself since with not-as-high expectations the game will be more enjoyable. Skyrim will rock regardless though, if loosing almost 150 hours to Oblivion is any indication Skyrim will be no different.

So see you guys after the mandatory solitary confinement to dedicate to playing ;)

I'll be sure to give a thorough review too. Informed opinions is how us gamers help each other.

Gaming is no longer what it once was. Gaming is declining in sales, and quality. Why? The whole ideology that we have to screw over the consumer.

Want a quality game? Only after you pay for all that extra download content making the game a complete package like it wasnt released as. There is never enough money for us. We are good at leaving out stuff, charging you 60$ for about half the actual game, then releasing the rest in 10$-each packages. We are so smart!

Want a game with actual depth, as in longer than 5 hours of enjoyment? Nope, cant have that because we spent so long pushing polygons we forgot to add in the gameplay. We offer multiplayer, and since we believe that is all people want, we turn most of our focus to that anyway.

Who wants creative thought and new ideas when the same thing released year after year with a new suffix title or number on the end sells so much? New ideas scare us because we dont know if it will grow into a healthy horse that we can beat to death with the sequel numbering stamps.

We had a board meeting and decided that instead of trying to protect the consumers by enhancing our security systems, we are mad and our going to enhance security, but on the consumer end. Like require a constant internet connection to play a single player game! I mean who doesnt have internet these days right?

Screw you secondary market!! We found it easier rather than setup our own stores based on secondary sales where we make all the profits, we will just make used buyers pay 10$ to unlock the online of a given game! I mean, no other industry fights used sales! We are starting a new battle here, the best battle ever!

We are xenophobic and dont like people using other devices for their entertainment, so we are going to add to our consoles the ability to do what you can do on any computer with a browser to our machine, but make it part of the premium paid service!

Oh how the champaign glasses rang after our montion controllers released. We were sleeping on your money. We forgot to continue to release games for them, but that is okay! We will integrate the motion controls into future hot titles, but just make it a very minor gimmick. People love seeing extra colors on their game boxes that arent normally there!

So now with Generation 8 starting with the 3DS, PSVita this holiday, and Wii U next year which systems do you see yourself getting?

3DS- I already own. Given the DS's great library I cant wait for the good stuff coming in the future. Plus it plays DS games.

Wii U- A given purchase when next Smash Bros releases. Hopefully there will be a StarFox title too.

PSVita- Waiting to see if it's game library will be more than PS3 ports. Given the PSP's lackluster library overall, plus it has no way to play PSP disc games - not sure if the downloaded PSP games work - make it a hard sell for me at this point.

Playstation 4- Many years down the road until this sees the light of day according to Sony. Too early to say.

Xbox Next- Given Microsoft's lame focus on games recently and how they seem to only care about adding more multimedia support to the system that I dont need or will use, the new Xbox will be a hard sell for me. Plus Kinect seems to be flopping already. They spent billions and treated it like a new console launch, but were are all the games? The purple box section at game stores is still incredibly small.

I finally finally got a copy of Jurrassic Park Operation Genesis (had it at release and regret trading it in). Gamestop was nice enough to have it shipped from another location about 40 miles away for 5$ fee. Yet I get it home, then later when I was going to play it, I realize it's a PAL disk! PS2 said no to try to playing that, nor am I gonna mod the system to do so.

Oh well, guess I'm taking it back for a refund. Either giving up on owning the game again or getting it on amazon for more than I want to pay for.

But the main question is, who trades in a PAL copy of a game in the NTSC region, and why would a place accept it? Since it wont play on the consoles unless you modchip them. I suppose its an easy oversight to make when the trade is without box or manual, and only that black square on the disc surface tell's you what console can use it.

Having next to no games coming out this year that i want has it's good and bad.

Good is that I will finally sit down and work on all those old games i still need to play and review, since after more than 100 reviews I feel like somewhat of a critic. Last year I purchased around thirty games that released in 2010, not including those that released before that year. This year only eight games have been added so far. With only four others im even thinking about for the rest of the year as of this writing.

Bad is that, to me, the industry has long passed the point of stagnation. EA and Activision continue to milk their franchises into the ground, yet they sell tens of millions. As Ive said before, this comes from a general lack of good RPG games both J and W. I realize that Dragon Age 2 and Two Worlds 2 have come and gone, but neither of them caught my eye.

I want new things, not endless sequels and ripoffs. Companies are afraid to try new things, but it's this very reason why things are going the way they are. We have dozens of- to quote Yahtzee- "utterly generic brown FPS that any compitent developer could have farted out in a year or so." the last several GameInformers have shown almost nothing but these endless games with guns. And it is only because a subcription comes with the Gamestop Rewards Card that I havent cancelled already.

Anyway, if anyone does pay attention to my blog, these are mostly the same sentiments about the industry ive had for a couple years now. It's getting harder and harder to impress me, relatively few RPG games in a sea of brown FPS games, and a general lack of innovation.

I bought a Kinect last year and had good fun with Kinectimals and Adrenalin Misfits (though both were not critically successful), and just barely bought the third game with a purple box. Microsoft marketed this thing like another console, now where are the games to back it up? Dont get me started on the Move. It's a wii remote with a glowing ball on top. Move Heroes looked like the game to finally make me get the glowing wand, but it's just a minigame collection and an insult to the first party characters starring in it.

The 3DS was impressive to me when i tried a floor model, but where are the games that are not sequels or remakes with 3D tacked on?

So this became a bigger ranty post than I wanted. Back to enjoying the games I need to play!

Gamespot will have much more robust GOTY material this year than my personal list because there hasnt been as much this year i have purchased compared to previous years. But here we go!

XBOX 360

Genre- Puzzle. PVZ features more content for 15$ than most 60$ new releases do. 50 offline stages not including all the puzzles, survival, and other special modes. Co-op offline play is also available. This game is a very fun and accessible tower defense game anyone could get into given its (almost too) gentle difficulty curve. PVZ is also available on many other platorms.

XBOX 360 Kinect

Genre- Virtual Life. Kinectimals is the premier Kinect title and holds one of the highest aggregate review score out of the device's launch lineup. While simple, this game really shows what the device is capable of; with smooth controls that work. it is mostly a collection of mini games that involve various interactions with your ultra cute kitty, but it is one of those games that have so much charm, one can easily forgive it's shortcomings. If you have or are thinking of getting a Kinect, you cant go wrong with Kinectimals.

Playstation 3

Genre- Role Playing. 3D Dot Heroes is a blast of nostalgia hailing back to the NES/SNES days of graphics and sound. Everything about the world is made of squares, with the resulting characters looking like something from an 8 bit game. The music also is simple MIDI tracks that pay homage to the old school days. This game also pulls very strongly from the old Zelda games in how it is played. Everything fits together so well, that rather than calling it a rip-off, I call it a tribute.

Playstation Store

Rocket Knight and Hoard. this might seem biased, as these are the only two PSN titles I have purchased this year but I feel that both are deserving of some praise. RK is a bit steep in price for 15$ being only a three to four hour game, however it has excellent platforming. There are also several unlockables to obtain and score leaderboards. Hoard gets a nomination from its uniqueness; you fly around as a dragon and do what dragons do best- burn, pillage, loot, and take princesses. At the same time this game also has a strong multiplayer component to it and is in fact enjoyed more with friends than alone.

Wii

Genre- Action. Monster Hunter 3 is by far the most solid online Wii experience. While the game follows the series' formula of grind, harvest, gear up, rinse and repeat; it is more accessible than ever for new players to get into. this does not mean though that the harder quests are not without challenge, far from it. Boasting some of the Wii's best graphics and online multiplayer, anyone wanting a good challenge, a game that you can sink hundreds of hours into, and to play online with friends need to look no further than this. MH3 is also one of the few games I have given a score of 9.5 to.

PC

Genre- MMORPG. Again a biased choice being the exclusive PC purchase of 2010. Cataclysm makes WoW practically a all-new game with almost all of the old world revamped in content, landscape, or both. Two new races bring the total to 12, six per side. And ups the graphics capabilities of the game- though it still holds a blocky cartoony look- considerably. Though some might already be past their time with this MMO, for new players, there has never been a better time to give it a shot.

PSP and DS coming soon!

Gaming seems to be moving into a trend where as consumers the companies are trying to milk us out of as much money as possible; we have day-one DLC, so much extra DLC that to buy it all it would be the cost of the game over again on top of the original purchase, and general price ripping off and jacking up costs for no reason for that extra content.

Another thing Im seeing is the lack of originality of the overall games available. They are all ripping off each other in some form without thought to how us, the players feel about it. And why the hell is almost every GameInformer these days full of nothing but shooter previews. Honestly how many more dang games where you hold a gun, point at something and shoot it do we need?

I dont mind the occasional shooter, but seeing this huge pile of gun-games makes me wonder what his happening to the industry. My overall dissatisfaction with gaming this gen can be stemmed from the fact that THERE ARE NEXT TO NO GOOD RPGS. Of course if things were reversed and we were having mountains of role-playing games come out the people who arent really into them would be sharing these sentiments.

Almost nothing new is coming out either, we continue to be force-fed these yearly sequels, rehashes, re-releases, remakes, ports, ripoffs and what is worse is PEOPLE KEEP BUYING THEM. We cant expect the companies to change and stop releasing half-baked games that took them all of a month to make unless more people start voting with their wallets. Most people dont see a game that you can only get 5-8 hours out of (unless you go for multiplayer) for 60$ a ripoff it seems. And before you flame me keep in mind that if sequels were made every 2-3 years it wouldnt be a bad thing. It's this endless stream of rehashing the same game every year that makes me scratch my head.

And when something relatively new comes out, it does poor commercially compared to the millions of sales anything with 'Call of Duty' in the name will do regardless of how much crap Activision packs into the game box.

Kotick and his army I predict will bring about the video game crash of 201X. 60$ isnt enough for games, 10$ isnt enough for DLC. Three Call of Duty games a year isnt enough. Then all these analysts come along and whine and gasp and wonder why game sales are tanking into the negative double digits. Honestly it doesnt take a rocket scientist to see that more people are being conservative with their money. hopefully more people will get sick of the current state things are going.

Realism seems to be the only thing that matters anymore too. The majority of games of this gen are so concerned with trying to push as many polygons as possible that the quality of gameplay suffers. I dont care about how realistic a game looks. I want art, I want quality gameplay, I want a game you can get more than 8 hours of enjoyment from. If I want realism I will turn my head to look at the bedroom or out the window to see it. When I game I want to be blasted with art and color, with feeling, with emotion from a good story. Not this endless brown most games employ. If I wanted that I would wipe mud over the TV screen.