One of the biggest stories in the States this weekend was the soccer referee who died after a kid punched him for giving him a yellow card. There has been plenty of blame bandied about, but none directed to sport in the same way gaming as a whole gets blamed for similar incidents.

Pandora's Tower--if I don't spend all my time watching Steins;Gate.

I hope the US gets some special editions (which I imagine will happen if Ubisoft likes money); I'll need some actual gameplay previews, but this is the type of game that if it's worth getting immediately, it will be worth getting more than just the basic game. Otherwise I can wait until it's cheaper, or I can borrow it from a friend, or my backlog is too long and I just don't care anymore...

I'm still on Lego City Undercover. For a while my completion percentage was always about the same as hours play, but I've finally gotten most of the upgrades and can now collect more per hour. I'm trying to play as quickly as possible so when Pandora's Tower arrives I can start as soon as possible.

@Peach64

It is a pet peeve of mine when people try to correct people, but are incorrect. The phrase is "could care less." Why? Because that's what people say. It is an idiom, and idioms can't be analyzed; like words, you just have to know what they mean, even if it is the opposite of what they would mean if you took them apart. And, like words, using them simply means using a part of the lexicon; it doesn't mean not knowing what you are saying. Besides, there's no such thing as everybody using a word (or idiom) wrong. If everybody says it one way, that's what it means. What it used to mean makes no difference. 

Also, when mentioning words or phrases, one must set them apart, as with italics, or quotation marks. You should have written:

The phrase is "could not care less"

because what you wrote has the same syntax as

Peach64 is could not be more wrong

which is clearly wrong. (Grammar-wise, that is.) If you're going to write long, impassioned pleas about how you're right, and everybody else just doesn't get it, try not to demonstrate that you don't get it either.

I am seriously considering upping my pledge and getting 8 bits of myself in the game. How awesome would it be to get to be one of the Order of No Quarter unmasked? I'd want to be Plague Knight.

@CountEkkiM

If you want to troll, don't make yourself a liar as well and say you hate to say something you obviously enjoy. Something feeling forced to confront a truth would write slowly enough to spell. Or would know how to spell in the first place.

I started watching Siskel and Ebert at about the time I started playing my 2600. I will miss him.

It won't sell systems but I could see some people getting a system sooner rather than later. I need a Wii U for Zelda and Mario Kart, but I bought when I did instead of waiting so I could wander about Lego City (which is ridiculously fun, by the way).

Developers are going to pay for the attitude that graphics are supreme--literally. Development costs that make use of the increased power of PS4 (and 720, but I don't have one of those) will go up exponentially, but the improvement in graphics won't go up at the same rate. They'll be much more modest compared to PS3 than it was to PS2, or that to PS1. Consequently I don't see people adopting the next-gen all that quickly (after great launches to the core) and when development time goes up as well, leading to a post-launch drought like Wii U has now, adoption will stay slow. The current level of graphical fidelity will be good enough for most people until costs go down and libraries are built up.

I'm looking forward to reading my lavishly-illustrated physical instruction manual and listening to the soundtrack while waiting for my copy to download. It will make it the most exciting download I've ever done.

The teaser has worked...I'm excited to think we might get an E3 reveal of NMH3.

I was just thinking it's a bit ironic that I'm looking forward to virtual fishing, while right now my dad and brother are for-real fishing. I like my hobby more, but theirs is much more delicious.

You know Luigi is the better brother when Daisy lets Peach keep Mario.

I've come to loathe virtual buttons, and any game that uses them. There are plenty of games that work on touchscreens, but platformers aren't among them.

I'm glad to see coverage of this game continue and help it get funded. It makes me wonder, though, how many games are going unfunded for lack of getting lucky to catch someone's eye who can get the word out.

If this game ever comes out, I'll head to the store and buy a second copy of Metroid Prime 3.

I'm still playing ZombiU, but just bought Lego City, so I'm sure I'll at least try it out. On my 3DS I will finish the original Zelda second quest and then get Luigi's Mansion. And on my phone I'll try to get the last 12 stars in They Need To Be Fed.

Has anybody seen any images teased of half-genies, that had a low pixel count and looked about 11 years old?

I'll Kickstart if they give the option of an eShop download for the reward. I'm even considering some of the higher levels for the bonuses--but I figure the more the pledge the less I should eventually have to buy a copy to play. I'd like to think they're talking to Nintendo about generating and distributing download codes for potential backers like me.

If an eShop download were a possible reward I'd have already backed this. But I don't have a PC, and I'm just selfish enough to refuse to back a game I might never be able to play.

When I find myself obsessing over a review score, invariably it's because of something external to the game; perhaps I want validation of an opinion, or I take umbrage that someone else disagrees with me, or something. For instance, I'm still pissed at Nintendo Power (R.I.P.) for giving Fragile Dreams a 5.5. Which is ridiculous, but less so than remembering what the score was in the first place. When I need a review to inform a purchase, I'll read entire reviews and use that as my primary guide; I'll consider the score, but I try always to do so relative to other factors. I love turn-based JRPGs, but a reviewer might not. New Super Mario is fun, but is often more-of-the-same, so might get lower scores. There are plenty of 6's I'd rather play than 9's; it's just a matter knowing when that will be true.

These are two of the three GBC games I most want to play. And I'm still waiting for WayForward to give us the third.

This will get pushed back a bit for me, as I just got the ZombiU Wii U bundle, and Lego City Undercover is next; and that's just on the console side. I made sure to preorder each of the Operation Rainfall titles, both because they all looked like great games--and I thought The Last Story and especially Xenoblade were--and because I hope it never becomes necessary to form Uperation Rainfall.

After finishing off Ico (I'm at the final save point) I'm going to fire up my brand new Wii U/ZombiU bundle. For 3DS I'm going to wander around Hyrule looking for the 4th dungeon (original game, 2nd quest), which I can't find and refuse to look up. Might play a bit of Mega Man as well, but not seriously; more of a warm-up for getting serious later.

I hope that Wii U becomes as indie-friendly as Mr. Byers believes it can. I have a definite preference for console over PC, and I don't believe that mobile is a viable long-term option for serious gaming. I especially like his comment that there is a wall between developers and Apple. First with music and the iPod, and now with gaming and iPhone/iPad, Apple has proven quite adept at disrupting an industry to their great profit, with absolutely no concern for the industry as a whole.

I understand disagreeing, or looking forward to another title more, but I think it's funny how many people seem to be taking the developer supporting their game personally. It's almost like there's a fanboy schism into subfanboy cliques. I was always going to get a Wii U, no later than Watch(_)Dogs or Mario Kart, whichever came first, but this is the game that got me to get mine now, rather than waiting, so whoever said that this game wouldn't move systems (I don't even care enough to scroll up and look) has at least one counterexample to his (or her) claim.

Sim games are rarely my thing, but I played Little King's Story for months and Uematsu is always a plus, so I'll keep my eyes on this on.

I'd be playing right now if not for a) clearly commenting instead of playing anything, and b) Gamestop frakked up my pre-order in the stupidest, let's-make-sure-our-staff-fits-the-worst-stereotypes manner possible, so I get to head back there tomorrow. I hope Casual mode in successful in drawing people in; I won't use it in turn-based RPGs, but I use it in enough other games (see: anything from Treasure) that I understand its appeal.

Personally, I don't get IAP for stuff you can play the game to get; it seems like cheating at solitaire. I don't care about this right now, because I don't buy games that either force or officially encourage players to spend extra money. I will care if that becomes the dominant model. And I will blame the millions of players who made it profitable as much as I blame EA.

I won't boycott EA games because I don't like their business model--but I will avoid buying games with negative features, which now seems to describe every upcoming EA game. Of course, what they'll lose from me will undoubtedly be made up for many times over, so I'm not surprised.

I don't believe they don't know how they're going to use it. I think they just want to keep some things about the game secret for the time being.

I have a bad feeling Ubisoft owns BGE and wouldn't let Ancel take it with him. Maybe he can freelance with them until BGE 2 is done, like the rumors of the Ueda/The Last Guardian situation.

The fact that Ubisoft says gameplay will be equivalent across platforms is consistent with what I believe will be true this upcoming generation, that we're quickly getting to the point that increased power will not improve gameplay, because the people playing won't be able to make use of it. The draw distance in racing games, for instance, is already further away than players need. Current machines can handle the number of enemies that players can deal with in shooters. The PS4 will be prettier; but the Wii U will be able to handle any actual gameplay the PS4 will use.

Incidentally, in the Old English grammar I have the author mentions that he standardized to a West Saxon orthography; apparently spelling varied five centuries before the language crossed the Atlantic.

I can't see how better graphics will improve the gameplay, but I can certainly see how the gamepad would. And from what I saw of the PS4 conference the graphical leap is, unsurprisingly, diminishing. I don't see lamenting the graphical difference this upcoming generation as much as I did this last.

This will go a long way towards restoring Ubisoft's image with Nintendo fans. Not as long as Beyond Good and Evil 2 would...

I suspect, and certainly hope, that this will become more common as people realize the limitations of smartphone gaming. Some genres work very well, like point-and-click adventures and non-action puzzlers (think sokoban, not Tetris), and there are some fantastic games like Cut the Rope which were clearly designed for what a smartphone can provide. But otherwise most games suffer by not being on a dedicated game system, and I'm glad to see the market sending that message, and not that it's content to accept a lesser product simply because it's more convenient.

If this is true, then I for one will forgive Ubisoft for the Rayman debacle. The only way Watch Dogs is not a preorder for me is if it doesn't come to Wii U, and gets released for a no-longer-hypothetical PS4 instead of PS3.

This weekend I will be helping Solange defeat Distille in Code of Princess, escorting Yorda through a castle in Ico, and (since for me game time and anime time are one and the same) watching Lain navigate the Wired in Serial Experiments Lain.

Monolith gets me excited. The trees don't--but since a giant talking tree didn't hurt Ocarina I can't really claim them to be a negative.

I've got this preordered and no space on my SD card, so it looks like I'll just have to wait a few weeks.