It's easy to figure out why gamers lusted after this thing when developer Capcom released it back in late 2002: It's the mech equivalent of a racing game's steering wheel—on steroids—complete with the foot pedals and about a bazillion other useless doodads.

Who are you?
My name is Albert Hidding. I'm a 25 year old Film Studies student. I adore culture and especially film, games, music and theatre.

Where are you?
I live in Utrecht, a city in the middle of The Netherlands. But I actually travel a lot, since my University and my girlfriend are each located in a different town. In November I will also be doing an internship for a film festival in yet another city. Fortunately The Netherlands is really small and Dutch students receive free travel with public transport.

Games about Giant Robots Should be Fun, Right?

HIGH The opening video is gorgeous.

LOW Combat is simpler and more boring than it first appears.

WTF Yay! New chapter! Wait…I have to go back and do extra quests just to unlock the next part of the story?

Talk about Ending with a Bang...

HIGH The beautifully blasted, teetering architectural remnants.

LOW The difficulty level is significantly increased.

WTF The creatures in Courier's Mile can survive a direct nuke hit?

Have you always wanted to take Ninja Gaiden's Ryu through the worlds of Super Mario Bros.? Wait, really? You have? Or how about playing as Link from The Legend of Zelda? You've wanted to do that too? Okay, well, now you can... online.

Not Much Under that 'Do-rag

HIGH The Cole Train runs on whole grain!!

LOW Marcus's uber-meathead actions at game's end.

WTF So many unanswered questions from so many angles.

Software sales were the highlight of November's NPD report. Strong Year Over Year (YOY) comparisons were the result of one of the strongest months of software releases in recent memory.

So for the last couple of months (and especially over the last few days) there's been a resurgence of "no one should ever write for free, ever, never never" among freelance games writers and paid career professionals. As someone who takes games writing very seriously and who's also worked as a mostly-unpaid-but-not-always reviewer for the last twelve years, I wanted to take a few minutes and share my thoughts on the subject.

After a weekend rife with rumors and denials, eyes should be on THQ this week to see whether any fallout results from the currently unsubstantiated turmoil.