We need to talk about the PSP Vita. It isn’t exactly lighting up the sales charts.  True, it isn’t technically out yet in the West, but if it is true that its Japanese numbers are still hovering around half a million units, then the 3DS almost matched Vita sales in its first week alone.  Unless fortunes reverse, and the Vita ends up doing gangbusters over here, I think we can agree that Sony has a problem on its hands. What frustrates me is why this is happening.  For all appearances, the handheld is a marvel of hardware design, is relatively cheap, and has strong launch titles.  So why is it that no one is going nuts over ...

I wanted to write a 2012 predictions piece about how uncertain I am about what gaming in 2012 will look like.  Unfortunately, I wasn't exactly sure how I wanted to format such an article.  By sheer coincidence, Tim Bray recently wrote a similar piece on his personal blog (albeit about topics much more serious than gaming).  I liked his approach so much that I had to unashamedly use it as a template for my own attempt.  Here then are my Bray inspired 2012 Gaming Uncertainties. Playstation Vita - Will the West embrace it as tepidly as they did the PSP?  And will it perform as well in Japan as everyone thinks (and hopes) it will? ...

Some rumblings from Valve promising that they won't charge for extra content in their future games. I'm still trying to figure out what this means, or rather, what importance this has. New maps were provided for Team Fortress Classic by Valve in the past, and Half Life Deathmatch was a gift as well. All this announcement does is confirm they're the same thing as always. Or is it? Many gamers have mocked the announcement as being a bunch of baloney, pointing out that Epic said the same thing about Gears of War before Microsoft twisted their arm to twist our arms. Maybe Valve ...

When it comes to repairing CD's and DVD's, there are a number of practices and household products which people swear can make a disc good as new. I tried several of the most well known methods in my youth, and found that none of them did a damn thing. Brasso, for instance, never managed to make a scratched disc run any better. Same with toothpaste. I even tried boiling a used copy of Devil May Cry. I ended up "fixing" it by buying another copy. Ever since these failed experiments, I wondered whether any of these methods really, truly could work.  I can report that under certain circumstances, you can fix a game by boiling it. ...

Last time I did a year end retrospective, it posted two months after the end of the year.  I won't make the same mistake twice in a row.  Here now are the highs and lows from my 2011 in games.  Note, as always, that this is not a "best games of 2011" list, nor did all of the games actually come out this year.  These are simply the best (and "worst") titles I played within the last twelve months. The Tops Async Corp I actually posted my review of Async Corp. months after the initial draft was first written. and in the intervening months, I hadn't actually played the game that much.  When I sat down to ...

I find most freeware games to be temporary distractions, but every once in a while I get hooked on one longer than usual. Such is the case with Mystic Balloon. Originally a cooperation between two Japanese developers, this puzzle game was translated a few days ago by Derrick Sobodash. Mystic Balloon's plot is simple, as are both music and graphics. But the puzzles are rightfully the heart of the game, and there are a lot of them. Our forecast for tomorrow is mostly cloudy with a chance of ice and springs. In this puzzle game, you make your way through individual 2-dimensional puzzle map-areas - similar to Lolo ...