Between a Rock Man and a hard place

My tepid review of Mega Man 9 is up now at thephoenix.com. Frankly, it may be less interesting than my first blog post about the game, but it's more of a traditional review so perhaps you will get some value from that. Or not! At the very least, clicking through helps to ensure that I will continue to have a job.

I am hoping to show this game to some other old-school Mega Man fans and get their take on it. My guess is that they will be more positive than I was. Then again, most people probably don't allow video games to plunge them into existential crises.

Break like the wind

My review of LostWinds is up now at thephoenix.com. Consider me not blown away -- this really is half a game, at best. If I'd known going in that it was intended to be episodic, my reaction might have been different.

I've read that one of the guys at Frontier thinks LostWinds' length compares favorably to bigger titles on a dollars-to-length ratio, and he may be correct on that math. But think about all the cheap casual games you can download with endless replay value, like puzzle games, and suddenly it's a less tempting proposition. No matter what I pay for a game, I want it to be a complete and fulfilling experience. While I'm not sorry that I spent ten bucks on this game, I wouldn't necessarily recommend that others do the same.