Post everytime that you buy a new game...

[Matisfaction]

Bioshock Infinite: Premium Edition (PS3) £20.00

[DaMadFiddler]

iPhone App Store sale. Knights of the Old Republic ($5), Bit.Trip Run ($2), Deus Ex ($1), MvC2 ($1).

Also, for anyone who doesn't have them yet, the Christian Whitehead Sonic remakes are currently discounted to $1 each. If you have an iSomething, you'd be a fool to pass that up.

[not just souLLy now]

Games I got for Christmas this year:

Cave Story 3D (3DS)
Virtue's Last Reward (3DS)
Uncharted 3 (PS3)
Super Mario 3D World (Wii U)
Game & Wario (Wii U)

Only played Cave Story and Mario so far, wasn't sure what to expect with Cave Story, but it seems like a fairly straightforward platformer with an intriguing story, like it.

[Specially Cork]

I'll be interested to hear your views on Uncharted 3. 1 was a good start, and 2 is one of my favourite games ever, but 3 just didn't do it for me. Apparently all the key people were already off working on The Last of Us at that point, which makes sense.

[not just souLLy now]

This is my first Uncharted game so I wouldn't really be able to say how it measures up to the previous games, but I've heard lots of good things about the series. I picked it up in the probably vain hope that it might scratch my TLOU itch.

[DaMadFiddler]

Christmas acquisitions:
- Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus
- New Super Luigi U
- Super Mario 3D World
- Ni No Kuni
- a couple of these amazing little things:



Since the Wii U doesn't have GameCube ports, you can use this to plug the GameCube controller into the Wiimote and use it as a Classic Controller. It works exactly as you'd expect, and Smash Bros. finally feels right again.

[Skynet]

That is actually really good!

[Specially Cork]

Final Fantasy XIV.

...so much for my year of the backlog

[Specially Cork]

Just finished Broken Age Act 1.

Fantastic presentation and a wonderful world with a story that has potential, but it all felt a bit too easy and obvious for a point-and-click adventure game. I guess part of it is that I've just grown up a lot since I last properly played an adventure game, but I was definitely expecting more puzzles.

EDIT: That's a load of bollocks. Just remembered I played Machinarium a year ago and that was much more challenging.

[Nico0020]

Picked up Shantae GBC on the 3DS Virtual console. I remember seeing my best friend play this game back in JHS/HS so I always wanted to give it a shot . The DSiWare sequel looks interesting too.

[Specially Cork]

Tales of Symphonia HD - one of my favourite JRPGs of all time

And then in 18 days...

Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD - my favourite JRPG of all time, and another one of my favourite JRPGs of all time.

Funny month.

[DaMadFiddler]

A few over the last month:

- AGB-001 GBA with SP backlit screen installed (this marks my second one of these; also have an unmodified unit and an actual SP, to make a "complete" set of 4 for those crazy GameCube games)
- Final Fantasy 9 (PSX; V'day gift for Eva; it's her favorite Final Fantasy)
- Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures (GameCube; hence the GBA)
- Mega Man ZX (DS)
- Okamiden (DS)
- Sonic: Lost World (Wii U & 3DS; It's okay... I would like it a lot more if it didn't feel like there lots of frustrating ways to die--not in a "Nintendo hard" way, more in a "we didn't really think through this enemy design/placement" way. I feel like the 3DS version is slightly better than the Wii U version in this regard)
- Super Mario Bros. Deluxe (GBC; came with GBA)
- Super Mario RPG (SNES; from a friend who was selling his SNES collection)

Ever since the Wii U launched, and especially now that the PS4/Xbox One are out, retailers have gone into "clear out the older-gen stuff" mode, which means I've been filling the holes in the library.

I'm kinda getting down to the hen's teeth of game collecting, though.

My systems include GBA, DS, 3DS, NES, SNES, X'Eye (Genesis/SEGA CD combo), N64, Dreamcast, GameCube, Wii, Wii U, and PS3 (the backwards-compatible model). I'd like to add a Saturn to that lineup, but everything Saturn-related is pretty pricey. I don't have any particular plans to get a Master System (too few worthwhile games, and most of the ones that are worth playing are somewhat hard to find) or a TG-16, and anything pre-NES is a little too primitive for my taste.

I've got just about everything I want for NES, N64, GameCube, GBA, DS, Wii, PS2, and PS3. There are still a few Genesis games I'd like to get (and it'd be nice to get more clamshells; most of my games are cart-only), and there are a few scattered Game Boy games I wouldn't mind picking up. And I'm still waiting for price drops on a few recent PS3 games.

I'm very close to done on SNES; the only remaining titles are some of the more rare/valuable ones (most notably Mega Man X3 and some RPGs). There are also some PSX games I wouldn't mind getting, but they're a lower priority, and the price seems to be going up on those as well.

I'm not too excited about anything on the Xbox One or PS4 at this point, so aside from Nintendo titles, I'm not sure I'll be buying many new games for a while. Which is just fine, because I've got plenty of backlog to work through

[BlueCrab]

Tales of Symphonia Chronicles Collector's Edition (PS3) - $99.99

Yep, preordered it two different places, only kept one. Guess I made some person happy to be able to buy it at retail price at a Gamestop store (as I canceled the preorder I had there the day before it came out).

Tales of Symphonia HD - one of my favourite JRPGs of all time

Agreed. Definitely one of my top 3 JRPGs of all time.

[Specially Cork]

Tales of Symphonia Chronicles Collector's Edition (PS3) - $99.99

Yep, preordered it two different places, only kept one. Guess I made some person happy to be able to buy it at retail price at a Gamestop store (as I canceled the preorder I had there the day before it came out).

Tales of Symphonia HD - one of my favourite JRPGs of all time

Agreed. Definitely one of my top 3 JRPGs of all time.

Loving playing through this again. After Vesperia, Graces F, and Xillia though going back to this battle system is really jarring. Such an overlooked series. Every game is cheesy and cheap around the edges, but you can't knock that gameplay at all.

[DaMadFiddler]

My fiance loves Tales of Symphonia (we have the GameCube version), but bears an undying hatred for the sequel.

Why?

Toward the end of college, she scrounged up the money and bought Dawn of the New World for Wii. Spent the next week powering through it. In the lead-up to the final boss, she went to save her game at the very last checkpoint. At that moment, the Wii froze.

Then this happened:



The game has sat on the shelf collecting dust ever since.

[BlueCrab]

My fiance loves Tales of Symphonia (we have the GameCube version), but bears an undying hatred for the sequel.

Why?

Toward the end of college, she scrounged up the money and bought Dawn of the New World for Wii. Spent the next week powering through it. In the lead-up to the final boss, she went to save her game at the very last checkpoint. At that moment, the Wii froze.

Then this happened:



The game has sat on the shelf collecting dust ever since.

Ouch.

I've never actually played more than a few hours worth of the sequel, myself. That was due to various issues with a roommate at the time, and I just never got around to getting back to it. I figure that maybe I'll play it now that I have it for the PS3...

Of course, I also Tales of Graces F and Tales of Xillia to play at some point, so maybe they'll come first.

[Specially Cork]

I never bothered with the sequel back in the day because I had so much crap about it.

Luckily, they're selling the games separate on PSN so I just went with the original.

Graces F and Xillia are both worth a shot. Graces F is a quick port of a fairly slapped together Wii game and it shows in the presentation, but it has one of the best iterations of the battle system and the story builds up to something quite decent. Xillia on the other hand is easily the grandest Tales game they've ever done with some fairly large environments to explore. The battle system is awesome again, but the story was a little weaker.

[not just souLLy now]

I'm still delaying a PS4 purchase since there's nothing I'm super excited about yet, so I've been playing PS3 stuff I've been meaning to play for a while.

- I've had the Ico/Shadow of the Colossus HD set for a while. Finally played both, either I'm missing something key or they haven't aged well.
- Started Heavy Rain, shit acting, graphics and endless QTE drudgery killed this pretty quickly for me. Again must be missing something here.
- Uncharted 3 is the only Uncharted I've played, I liked it, it's polished, it's fun to play and you can finish it in about 10 hours (that's a good thing for me nowadays). The story was pretty bad but I could live with it. Tempted to pick up 2 since that's the one everyone loves.
- I picked up the Tomb Raider reboot last week and got some time over the weekend to play it. I'd heard some muted praise about it but it's actually way better than I expected. Pick this up if you've been on the fence like me.

[DaMadFiddler]

Well, today is our 6-year anniversary, and Eva got me a copy of A Link Between Worlds. I know what I'll be doing for the next week or so... especially since I'm getting to the end of Donkey Kong Country.

[Specially Cork]

I picked up the Tomb Raider reboot last week and got some time over the weekend to play it. I'd heard some muted praise about it but it's actually way better than I expected. Pick this up if you've been on the fence like me.

Muted praise? It was Runner Up in BoneyCork's GOTY Awards 2013!