And by “mailbag” I mean, “my e-mail account.”

Steve Taylor writes to ask: “What PS2 or PS3 game would you recommend for those of us who LOVE Ratchet & Clank? I don’t know of anything like it.”

Well, let’s assume you own all the Insomniac-developed Ratchet games. (No? Here are Amazon links to Ratchet 1, 2, 3, Deadlocked, and Ratchet Future 1 and 2.) My next recommendation would be the Jak and Daxter series. The first is my favorite by far, followed by the third, then the second. There’s also a pretty solid racing game.

Also within the same basic genre (and most certainly within the same level of quality) is the Sly Cooper Series.

Beyond these, the Big Three of PlayStation platformers, you may enjoy Psychonauts and Klonoa 2: Lunatea’s Veil. Aaaand that’s where my recommendation engine stalls out, because I honestly can’t think of any other really good games that are remotely similar.

Anyone else have any suggestions?

Why, of course I’d add two posts merely days after announcing I won’t be updating for awhile longer, why do you ask?

This is just to say that Green Pixels recently put up a couple more reviews of mine, for Guitar Hero Smash Hits and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 (the Wii version, with the fancy-schmancy new Wii MotionPlus pack-in). They’re both good! Go find out why.

It has recently come to my attention that I have been blatantly disregarding one of the key Commandments of Blogging:

Thou shalt post pictures of thy cats.

Clearly this is a profoundly impactful omission, which must be rectified immediately. And so, I give you: Fiona.

Now don’t we all feel better? Oh, fine, here’s one more to ensure that balance in the universe is maintained.

Continue reading “Crisis Averted!” »

Sorry for the major lapse in updates over here. I’m in the middle of a very big, very brain-melting project that I’m hoping to have wrapped up within the next couple of weeks. No, I can’t tell you about it yet, but it’s something I’m pretty excited to share when the time comes.

OK, I’ll give you a hint: It has something to do with plastic. And that’s all you’re getting.

Anyway, please bear with the lack of updates here for a little while longer, OK?

OK, I don’t mean literally, in person. But I’ll be writing previews all week (and possibly next week) for G4TV.com. None are up right now, but I expect them to start popping up regularly within the next 12 hours or so. Come on over and say hello, won’t you?

[Update: Fixed link to reflect where the stories are actually posting. Come leave a comment!]

In preparation for E3, I needed to pick up a new laptop to replace the old Vaio that had served me so well for lo these six (!!) years. So I turned to my friend Brad Linder, who runs Liliputing, the leading netbook site on this whole wide interweb, for some advice. And then some more advice. And then just a little more. (Sorry, Brad.) Once I’d made my decision, he asked if I’d like to write up early impressions and a full review for the site. I happily agreed.

So head on over to Liliputing for early impressions of my brand-spankin’-new Acer Aspire One D250. And I should have a full review up sometime the week after E3.

I hate when blogs go dormant. So just to make sure no one thinks this one has suffered such a fate, I’m still alive! It’s just that I’ve found myself rather suddenly going to E3 (that would be the big game show in LA, for those of you outside the industry), and having to do a bit of scrambling to ensure I’m ready.

So please forgive me if this place goes dark for a bit. I expect to be back in the regular swing of things by mid-June.

Well, as regular as it gets around here.

Today a bunch of my friends and former coworkers launched (okay, prelaunched) a new social-focused games site called Bitmob. One of the first bits of content is this interview with David Jaffe (creator of the God of War series) that pisses me off for two reasons:

One: The “random facts” interview theme is something I’d been wanting to pitch to some outlet for awhile but hadn’t gotten around to yet, and now it’d look like I’m ganking their idea. Jerks.

And two: Jaffe relates this little vignette that would make such an awesome premise for a story that it makes me angry I didn’t think of it:

I once called my childhood phone number — about five years ago — just to see what would happen. The phone picked up — no one said hello — and on the other end I heard two little kids playing and calling each other Philip (my brother’s name) and David (me, duh). Did I call the past? I still wonder. And no, you can’t take the idea and use it for a movie or book. It’s mine! Mine I tell you!

Isn’t that great? Check out the whole article, it’s a fun read.

I’m kind of slow sometimes.

People often ask me for recommendations for things like games and books and music and other things we humans need to survive. So a couple weeks back, I spent an afternoon putting together a huge collection of lists of my favorite games, music, movies, books, and even food…and then promptly forgot to mention it here on the main page.

So, hey, lookie there in the left-hand sidebar! It’s a Favorites page! It has all sorts of recommendations of stuff I happen to enjoy a whole lot. I hope you’ll find them useful. If not, feel free to leave a comment on that page. As long as you’re okay with me telling you how wrong you are.

1UP has just put up two new previews of mine. One is for the gritty super-slash-antihero game InFamous from Sly Cooper developers Sucker Punch. And the other is the 256-player (!!) first-person shooter MAG, from SOCOM devs Zipper. Both games look great. Check out the previews and see if you don’t agree.