I've been happy to note lately that there's been a sharp decline in a trend that had disturbed me for years — removing all references to Japan from Japanese import items. As a fan of animé, and an artist of "manga" style myself, very little used to annoy me more than going into a store and scoping out the latest games, only to be faced with ugly, boring, uninspired box art that had little or no relation to the game. I mean, Enix's "Dragon Warrior IV" for the NES had the misfortune of having a lovely, functional Toriyama Akira picture of the eight heroes replaced with a black background and a (hideous) "realistic" painting of the Zenithian Sword... ( Read More )

It's an inevitable consequence of any role-playing game that someone, somewhere will eventually die. I mean, monsters do it all the time. This causes a problem when it's another player who dies.

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Online Gamers Anonymous - is something like this so far off? In today’s gaming community everything is online capable. Buy one game you like enough and infinite gameplay is possible, challenging or cooperating with people from all over the world. At first glance this is great. You don’t have to call all your friends and have them come over your house to play a game and all your favorite single player games turn into multiplayer frenzies. But with a never ending line-up of opponents and a new goal to achieve every moment, why bother to stop? As our data transferring technology gets better and better you have to ask yourself -- Is this a blessing or a curse? ( Read More )

The letters RPG stand for "Role Playing Game" – hopefully this much is obvious. But what, exactly, is a "role-playing game"? The easiest definition is any game that lets you take on the role of someone other than yourself. This differentiates D&D from, say, poker. But apply this to modern-day video games... ( Read More )

So, just what does constitute cheating in video games? Most purists would tell you that it's cheating to use so-called game enhancers to "beat the system" into giving you things you shouldn't have. Some people say that even using a strategy guide, FAQ, or Walkthrough is cheating...

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