Wil Shipley (of Delicious Monster) has made a habit of purchasing a comic strip at the Child's Play Dinner each year, and with the next dinner hot on our heels he suggested that we complete the last one he bought before he committed to another one. That seemed fair. This is the only time we accept suggestions on strip content, because, well, this is why.
- I love reading reviews for The Last Remnant, because unlike most "big titles" there's no established Narrative. Everyone approaches the product in their own way, which makes the resultant dialogue actually resemble what the medium deserves. I tend to resonate closely with Gametrailers reviews, even though their authorship is never established. The entity behind them has a well of forgiveness for games that have great ideas but sometimes obscure them, which perfectly describes their assessment of The Last Remnant. For dark, muttering ruminations on the same topic, let me direct you toward the 1up review. We need both of these perspectives, desperately, and we rarely get them. As for me, my well of forgiveness is not quite as deep as that of Mr. Gametrailers. I'll play broken games, I'll play games the community has to fix itself, I'll play "games that don't really exist in the product as such but are instead interpretations of oddities in the lore or mechanics," but I won't endure a game that runs like this. I'm still going to play it, though: the Unreal Engine that gave SquareEnix so much trouble on the Xbox allows them to deliver it on the PC, and at a time less crowded than this grim and unrelenting season.
- In a comment to MTV Multiplayer, a 7-Eleven representative said they'd be cracking down on early sales. Even though they didn't before. And even though publishers haven't taken them to ground for it. Uh huh.
- Assaulting the tracklist of a game that has weekly content drops was not, perhaps, my wisest maneuver as a gaming pundit. Even so, I'd been mystified by their choices for so many weeks that the sensible, strategic choices of Rock Band's sworn enemy seemed to toll a grisly knell. Anyway, back to me being wrong: this week's songs describe a sublime arc. There's something for everybody. For many, I imagine there are several such somethings.
(CW)TB out.
