I’m a Monster Hunter. No, it’s okay, I’m not going to try to evangelize you; I just want to talk. When I tell people of my love of Monster Hunter, they usually reply with “I tried that but I didn’t get it because of the lack of targeting,” or “I couldn’t get used to the camera” but is it really that simple? I rarely like to admit that a game can be made better by simply adding familiar mechanics from another game – if that were the case “Gears of War Clone” or “God of War Knockoff” would have a much more positive connotation. So what if Monster Hunter had a targeting system? Would it catch on in the US? I’m going to hazard a guess and say “no.” There is a lot more about Monster Hunter that keeps Westerners at an arm’s length.
No Motivation

Americans play a lot of Loot-Grabs, that is to say...

Phantasy Star Portable hits stores today, and it should be no surprise to regular readers that there is a copy waiting patiently for me at GameStop. I've had this abusive relationship with the series for almost a decade now, and although I do love PSPortable, I recognize that the series has a lot to overcome if Sega wants to make it relevant again.

Believe it or not, I have an active PSU account. I bought it a few months back when I got my laptop and picked up a cheap $5 copy of Ambition of the Illuminus. The game is basically a ghost town now with only 1 server populated at a constant 1.5 stars out of 6 (Server 2 Caelum - side note, it hit 2 stars for the first time since I started back up in February). On the other hand, I played PSO Blue Burst, the free-to-download PC version of the original PSO, on a private...

With all the new releases and video game news happening stateside, you might have missed that the Ryu Ga Gotoku 3 (or "Yakuza 3" to us Yankees) is coming out in Japan this Thursday. It probably also escaped that the demo was made available on the Japanese PlayStation Store last week. Fear not, fellow CAGs! I visited the land of the rising DLC and gave the demo it's fair shake.

The demo starts you off in front of Stardust (a familiar location to Yakuza veterans). Kazuma saunters inside to see his buddies Yuya and Kazuki once again getting hit up by the mob for protection money. Needless to say, Kazuma Kiryu won't stand for that! In true Yakuza fashion, a fight breaks out and you're tasked to defend Stardust from a squad of unruly gangsters. After the fight, you can explore the streets of Tokyo. It actually tells you to head north on your radar, but the police have blocked...

I'm not really what you would call a "hardware kinda guy." I've never built my own computer (although I understand how to do it in theory), I don't follow which processor is better than the other and the most complicated crack-my-computer-open procedure I've ever done is adding RAM to my girlfriend's laptop. So when people kept telling me how easy it was to swap out the PS3 harddrive, I was skeptical.

The way I saw it, if it is really as easy as everyone says, then wouldn't Sony sell a cheap 20GB system with instructions on how to switch out a new harddrive? Wouldn't they partner with Seagate and slap stickers on 2.5" drives that say "works with all PS3's" and convince GameStop to sell them in their stores? Surely, if it were that easy to switch out, Sony would be smart like that.

Well, I filled up my 40GB drive and cautiously purchased a new 320GB, 7200RPM harddrive...

The last time I played a game from Insomniac, it was Spyro 2 for the PSX. I loved the Spyro games, but more than that, I loved that my mom loved the Spyro games. I actually bought all three Spryo games for her when I was in high school/college because she asked for them for Christmas! Dispite the fact that the same team moved on to make the Ratchet and Clank series, I never really gave them a second thought, since I rolled my eyes at the millennial flood of platformers on the PS2 and GameCube. However, for some strange reason, I felt compelled to purchase and play both Resistance 2 and Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty in the same weekend...and here are my first impressions of both:

Ratchet & Clank
I downloaded Quest for Booty, because I had heard that it was short and frankly, I didn't want to spend $60 and a whole lot of time on a game I wasn't sure I would enjoy...

So the XBOX360 dropped the price of the Arcade to $199.99, and it seems to have paid off. Good for them. Before I get started, I want to say that this isn't going to be PS3 fanboyism, it just chaps my hide that Sony isn't arguing value over sticker price. I have heard dozens in the past month say "the PS3 needs to figure out a way to drop their price because the 360 is sooooo much cheaper" but it really isn't true. In fact, I was in the market for a 360, until I realized that the PS3 was a better value, so I picked that up first. And it's true: even if you discount the BluRay drive or the built-in router (a $230 value on their own) and ignore the 360 failure rate, the 80GB PS3 is STILL a better value. So my question is why doesn't Sony try to advertise that? If Sally Homemaker sees a big sign that says "the 360 will cost more than you are paying right now" she might at least LOOK...