The Star Ocean series has always been a pillar, and lo, the fans rejoiced when the Star Ocean 4 title was announced for XBOX 360 instead of the PS3. When the release date finally came, I poured a mountain of kibble for my cats, updated my social networking status messages, and kissed my husband goodbye, [...]

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The Cooking Mama franchise upped their U.S. releases to four with their new Wii title, “Cooking Mama: World Kitchen.” With Majesco’s upcoming “Gardening Mama” and the startling lack of new features in “World Kitchen,” it’s obvious that the developers are fresh out of new ideas for Mama’s kitchen.
“World Kitchen” is not a bad game, but [...]

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I can’t think of any non-strategy based roleplaying games that are excellent and don’t have Square or Enix’s stamp on them. Though the “Tales” franchise from Namco is not new and I’ve played several, none of them really stood out as exceptional until now. Tales of Vesperia is the first non-Squenix RPG game to grace [...]

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I’ve been around video games for a long time, and that experience has demonstrated to me that there are really only two routes a game can take to reach great success. It can either present truly original and groundbreaking ideas, in which case its flaws can be forgiven, or it can take existing ideas and [...]

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Before I start talking about Prince of Persia, it’s only fair to mention that I am a colossal fan of the older titles. Sands of Time sits firmly in my top three Best Games Ever Made, and while Warrior Within and Two Thrones drifted away from that level of stunning achievement, they’re still good enough [...]

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The original Ninja Gaiden for the NES was the second console game I ever played. A friend of mine had it and a few times a week I’d go over to his house and we’d play all night, trading the controller back and forth as our hands got tired. We were deliriously happy if we [...]

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I’ve been a big fan of racing games for a long time. I spent many happy hours in high school running my friends into the supernaturally solid shrubs and lampposts featured in Top Gear. Indeed it was the arcade version of Race Drivin’ that taught me how to use a manual transmission, and I’ve preferred [...]

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You know that stuck-up prick who thinks that your enjoyment of the Need For Speed series makes you an uncultured asshole? The one who tries to convince you that you should play Gran Turismo, even though you don’t consider Gran Turismo a game because in your definition of game the word “fun” appears somewhere?
I’m that [...]

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I just celebrated my one year anniversary of quitting World of Warcraft by starting Age of Conan. This may not be a bad move if it were a mediocre game like Tablua Rasa, or a passing fancy like Lord of the Rings Online, but Age of Conan is none of these things. AoC is a [...]

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Grand Theft Auto is one of the biggest franchises in gaming today. The original GTA created a new genre of game almost single-handedly, and in so doing established itself as both a powerful force in gaming and a lightning rod for controversy. People like to point at GTA as representing the most antisocial aspects of [...]

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