3DS

There have been a lot of advancements and positives for console gaming over the course of this console generation. Many games sport high-definition graphics and top-notch sound. Online play gives players the option to be social with friends all over the globe, if they so choose. The rapid rise of social media has put the industry and its fans closer together than ever before. Gradually, though, this generation's negatives and general anti-consumer trends have wiped out a lot of of those positives for me.

Take a super-cute armadillo and combine its rolling mechanics with spherical worlds similar to the recent Super Mario Galaxy games, and that's a recipe for fun.

The third day of PAX was a lot more casual than the first two. I didn't have any appointments, so all of my time on the convention floor was dedicated to wandering around aimlessly and sampling what the convention had to offer.

To be perfectly honest, I wasn't quite sure what to make of Dragon's Dogma. Visually, it's reminiscent of a cross between Monster Hunter and Demon's Souls, but it doesn't play like either one.

Day Two was pretty heavy on appointments. I had a ton of scheduled meetings (i.e., I followed Brad around a lot) and saw some cool stuff, and some stuff I thought wasn't as cool.

The GameCritics crew were all big fans of the original Monday Night Combat on XBLA, and this sequel only looks better. The graphics have been tweaked, the gameplay has been tweaked, there are three brand-new classes (Gunslinger, Veteran, and Combat Girl, pictured above) and it's now following a more iterative lifecycle. For the initial PC release (XBLA to follow later) the game will be free-to-play and feature microtransactions for those who choose to partake.

It's been a long day and tomorrow is going to be even longer, so I'm going to cut right to the chase here. No fancy opening, I'm just getting to it.

This explains where Mario got the super human strength that he has possessed since Super Mario 64. We all thought it odd that Mario could all of a sudden pick up a giant monster like King Bowser and toss him around like a sack of mushrooms. That could only result from hours spent in the gyms building his lats and such dedication would only stem from a humiliation like this one.

Today was my first real gaming convention. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a little overwhelming at first, but after a while I got used to the big crowds and managed to take in some of the sights and sounds. Obviously I didn't get to see everything I wanted, but I did get to spend quite a bit of time with some of my most anticipated games, and even discovered some gems that I hadn't heard of.

Really, who didn't see this coming? Ubisoft has a richly-deserved reputation for hating on the PC, and From Dust's DRM and terrible port can hardly be a surprise in light of the company's past actions. Ubisoft's upcoming Driver: San Francisco will probably also have this asinine DRM—Ubisoft claims it will not, but a similar claim was made for From Dust.