Nintendo DS

How will this week's releases fare? Kingdoms of Amalur headlines this week's slate of new releases, which is solid for a second consecutive week after a mostly dormant month of January. Early reviews have been quite positive for the game, which would be a boon to Electronic Arts. The Darkness II hits this week as well, although it seems to be flying under the radar a bit.

So, used versus new... It's a huge topic to begin with, and it's only gotten more complicated due to the various tricks made possible by online connections. Thanks to these "innovations", something that has never been black-and-white to start with is now more grey than it's ever been. That said, let me try to pick apart the various strands of the problem as I see them, one by one.

January has flown by and it's time for the first NPD predictions column of the year.

GameStop stock values are in the midst of a four-day losing streak, as shares have fallen from $25.00 on January 25th to $23.36 at the closing bell today. It's likely that any number of factors could be attributed to the slump. Maybe there's a fear that sales are weak after the holidays. Maybe there's some basic profit-taking going on. It's hard to really pinpoint anything.

2011 was a year of extremes for me, both in games and in life. I'll stick to the games here, since my personal life isn't worth wasting valuable internet real estate on. There was very little middle ground as far as my opinions went—I either loved it or hated it. Since everyone comes to me to feel good about themselves, I'm going to focus on things I actually liked.

I'm still trying to complete Yakuza 3 before anything big comes in for review, and I'm almost done. If my guess is correct, there are only one or two chapters left, so I'm hoping to wrap it up tomorrow. I've got to say, out of the three Yakuza titles I've played so far, this one has definitely been the weakest.

Another Cup of Tea, Professor... I'm Falling Asleep

HIGH Seeing more puzzles integrated into the story events.

LOW Buying all the clues to a puzzle and still not knowing how to solve it.

WTF Straightforward equations shouldn't count as puzzles.

Although there are some must-reviews coming down the pipe pretty soon, the industry is more or less in a big lull right now, and that's perfectly okay with me. I've really been enjoying knocking games out of my backlog, and the latest one up at bat is Sega's Yakuza 3. Straight up, I love Yakuza.

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?

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.