PSP

Contrary to popular rumor, the Best of Community feature I've been plinking away at is still alive and kicking. I had to shelve it for a little while for various reasons, but I have two reviews that need to be posted tonight, and once those are in the can then I'm going to focus my full attention on getting the first installment of Best of Community up and running.

In other news, I never saw this one coming but the PlayStation Portable's Phantasy Star Portable has been getting the majority of my playtime lately.

One reason is that I've been on the go much more than usual lately, so the "portable" aspect has a lot to do with it. That aside, it's been a while since I played a good level-grinding loot-fest, so this one is fitting the bill. It's not one of the genre's best and it's certainly not as good as it could be, but it definitely has a certain charm.

I needed something to play on the PlayStation Portable since I knew I'd have some time to kill. Scanning the shelves of used titles (and trying not to imagine a future where this is no longer a reality) I found myself strangely attracted to Phantasy Star Portable.

Although I enjoyed a couple of the original Phantasy Star games back on the Genesis and spent some time with Phantasy Star Online, I can't really claim to be a huge fan of the series in its various incarnations. The more recent titles have been especially lacking in my opinion, and although Phantasy Star sorta paved the way for online console MMOing, the developers don't really seem able to keep pace with current trends for various reasons.

I'm completely behind schedule in terms of reviews which is a little embarrassing since I pride myself on being an industrious, high-output kind of guy, but I'm making the effort and slowly getting back up to speed. At the moment I'm still chugging through Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood on PlayStation 3.

Yes.

No.

Not even the Wii Vitality Sensor could measure the explosive force of our E3 episode. Press conferences! Motion control! Overpriced handhelds! And of course, games, games, games. It's the Internet's only source for E3 analysis, so of course you won't want to miss it. Featuring "Big Daddy" Brad Gallaway, "Horror Geek" Mike Bracken, "Canucklehead" David Stone, and "Nicknameless" Tim Spaeth.

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Highly polished... and hard to find

HIGH A notable level of design and polish make it go down smooth like butter.

LOW A lot of grinding is required to ensure progress.

WTF Spending points to "reveal" abilities, then spending more to earn them.

Microsoft.

Nintendo.

Sony.

None of the above.

Unsure.

This magical week of E3 goodness is drawing to a close (which is sad…), but that doesn't mean I have nothing left to show you before normal life resumes its relentless attempts to crush your very soul.

For example, here's Tecmo's new PSP title, Undead Knights. One common refrain over the years from gamers has been "hey, why can't we play games as the bad guy?" No one ever gives  a satisfactory answer for why this is (and to be fair, there have been some recent games where you can play as the villain), and now gamers who want to explore their dark side will have another opportunity to do it when this game eventually hits shelves.