PixlBit

Just to put a final note on this whole 3DS Ambassador thing - it's just bad business. Nintendo tried to scalp their customers on price and did. Then shortly thereafter when people didn't adopt the system they cut the price to avoid digging themselves a hole. My whole point is that the Ambassador games come at no cost to Nintendo and it's a weasel way to "show they're sorry."

I just want it to be known that just because you dropped 20 games on me, it doesn't make up for the price drop. Rather than encourage this behavior, I want it to be known that they should put some serious thought into what they price their system and not be greedy. I also want Nintendo to know that they've hurt my consumer confidence and I won't be as quick to adopt new systems in the future.

I think that too many people are giving Nintendo a pass on the 3DS price drop because of the Ambassador program and that's crap. Sure, games drop in price - and any smart consumers know that if you are patient and wait a month, you'll get a price drop. This was an unprecedented move in hardward, especially for a company like Nintendo, and I feel as if I was swindled. I felt similarly when Dead Rising came out (my first $60 game purchase) and it so quickly dropped in price.

This industry is bad enough about pricing products to meet consumer demand and I refuse to give Nintendo any credit for their actions. In the case of Twisted Metal, I was unaware that it was only in first run copies. My plan was predicated on the fact that I would be picking the game up at a later date with the bonus. If that's not the case, then I agree, the bonus is a bit lame and is more of a bait to spend more money on the game up front. Chances are you'll be able to buy Black on PSN at a later date for around $10, which means you could wait for a price drop, but Black on PSN, and still get everything for much cheaper than adopting on day one.

Part of what makes the whole Twisted Metal thing better is that you know the full scope of the situation up front. If I choose to adopt, I know the risk I take. If Nintendo told me on day one that a price drop was imminent and their way of making it up to me was 20 free games, I would've waited for the price drop (assuming I wasn't running a game site and had no obligation to buy the system). It's all about awareness in this case.

I'm excited to see what comes of this. Guess we'll know in about 7 hours...

O snap. How could I forget Eternal Darkness. Forget RE4, go play ED first.

Resident Evil 4 is a good one to start with. It's got a bit of creep factor, but it's a lot less startling than others in the series. It's also just a great game in general that everyone should play.

Good stuff. Glad to see Nintendo actually trying this time around. Seems like they are finally getting some indication of what people want, though they still have some ground to cover.

Just to give a bit of incite into the conversation Jesse and I had regarding RPGs, here's how it went:

I had recently read an interesting article on the difference between a feature and a platform in regards to just general electronics and software. For instance - a calculator was once a platform, but today it's just a feature. Sure, standalone calculators exist, but what you'll see most often today is a calculator as a feature. Your cell phone or computer stands in its place, because it's a platform.

We were discussing a bit about the bleeding of genres and how tough that made it to vote for GOTY awards (is Deus Ex an RPG, is it a Shooter, is it an Action/Adventure?). That's when I proposed that RPGs were once a platform, but are today more of a feature. They were and still are a standalone genre, but like the calculator, it's more or less been consumed by other platforms. Most every game seems to introduce RPG concepts these days (experience points, leveling up, stat-based gameplay) to help give the experience more depth.

The RPG still exists in its most pure form in many of the JRPGs still being made today, but its most important features have been lifted and integrating in unique ways into other genres. You could probably argue the same thing of the beat-'em-up genre, which has mostly been integrated into general "action" games or other titles with melee combat.

tl;dr version - Yes, the RPG genre still does exist, but it's definitely not the platform it once was.

Only one word for this news: AWESOME.

No online co-op? Seriously? What were they thinking? That's a serious misstep in this day and age. Sounds like a game I might consider if the setting is right, but these days, it just doesn't happen like it did back in the day when I was a kid.

Yes! Finally, someone who agrees with me on Bastion. It's not a bad game, but it's not a game that I found to be particularly gripping. It's deserving of praise for some of its unique ideas and the chutzpah to actually try them, but beyond that it's mostly a slightly above average hack 'n' slash adventure. 

What Jesse said. Also, I won't buy Twisted Metal up front. I'll wait for a price drop and then get a digital copy of a game for free. It's win-win.