Role-Playing

For those of you who don't feel like reading the whole thing: it's awesome.

HIGH Wonderful narrative from beginning to end.

LOW Inventory management.

WTF Twenty minutes into the game where I accidentally chose the dialog option to punch out a hapless NPC.

A good pout will get you anywhere

HIGH Clever writing and meta commentary on RPGs.

LOW Shallow, repetitive game design that grows stale almost immediately.

WTF Most of the game has been cannibalized from Master of the Monster Lair.

Bringing the fight to a much colder, less radioactive wasteland

HIGH It's more Fallout, for players like me who couldn't get enough.

LOW Getting warped out of an area before I was done searching.

WTF The battle near the end could have been a bit more epic.

Do you like to shoot things? We do! This week the crew engages in vigorous debate over two new run-and-gun games: Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ and Weapon of Choice. Find out if 2D shooters still have a place in a 3D world.

Plus, the premiere of our new segment "What Do You Think?" (complete with swanky echo effect) where YOU tell US what you think of Fallout 3: Operation Anchorage, and that...unique...control scheme in the Resident Evil 5 demo.

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Please send mailbag questions to podcast (at) gamecritics (dot) com.

When will Final Fantasy XIII ever be released?

It's not a good sign when a 2008 release date, slips to 2009 and now 2010. Making things worse is the exclusivity deal Square-Enix struck with Microsoft—FFXIII would be released simultaneously on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 outside of Japan—Square-Enix has announced that development wouldn't even begin on the 360 version until the PS3 version was finished. How much does that add to development time?

2010 sounds optimistic.

Please post your thoughts and impressions on the DLC for Fallout 3: Operation Anchorage here and we will discuss your comments in our podcast. Thanks!

In Sexuality and Homophobia in Persona 4 from Gamasutra, Samantha Xu examines the tension between Persona 4's "rough-and-tumble teen" Kanji Tatsumi and his flamboyant alter-ego:

Kanji is feared by the locals and maintains a confrontational machismo toward the other characters throughout the game. He is a loyal son and employee at his family's textile shop, and it's not until the debut of his alter-ego Shadow Kanji that we are made aware of his inner sexual turmoil.

Xu looks at how homosexuality is viewed in Japanese culture and interviews people at Atlus USA who worked on Persona 4, game journalists and Sex in Video Games author Brenda Brathwaite. Brenda likes many things about Kanji's portrayal, but one thing she dislikes is "the game's juvenile nature in dealing with his sexuality."