With the dawn of the new generation of consoles, prices for full-price, retail videogames shot up from the previous $50 average price point to a $60 price point, which is, for the mathematically lazy, a 20% increase. Around this same time period, a number of studios began developing and releasing an increased number of high-budget, single-player only action games. Many games in this style provide players with about 12 hours of total playtime, which is incredibly long compared to the average film, but incredibly short when compared to the number of hours that people might spend in the multiplayer modes of games like Halo 3, Left 4 Dead, or (if you really hate fun) The Darkness.

Take "This American Life," replace Ira Glass with a more witty, tech-savvy host with the voice of a stoner, and make each show somehow related to gaming (or other geek culture). You now have "A Life Well Wasted," the new monthly podcast by Robert Ashley (formerly of GFW Radio fame). 

The first episode of ALWW takes place on the roof of the 1UP offices during a get-together commemorating the death of one of the gaming industry's most important magazines, EGM. Ashley, with his instantly-recognizable, likable voice, interviews key figures from EGM's history, resulting in some conversations that are strictly humorous, and some that make listeners truly recognize the level of impact that the magazine had on the history of gaming.

Not to stir up too much controversy, but I find it hard to believe that there hasn't been more outcry about the price of Xbox 360 hard drives. If you're an Amazon shopper like myself, you will find that you can get a 120 GB 360 hard drive for about $150 bucks, (source) OR you can get a regular 1TB USB hard drive for $115 dead presidents (source). So in other words, when you pay for a decently-sized 360 hard drive, you're paying 1.3 times the price for 1/8 of the hard drive space. So for a much higher price (assuming that the average song is 4MB), I could store 30,000 songs with that 360 hard drive, or I could store 250,000 songs with that massive USB hard drive.

Why is no one reviewing XNA Community Games? Since September 19, 2008, there have been over 200 games released for the service. No one is providing critical analysis for them, so there is tons of confusion about what is good and what isn't on the service.

There once were three kids who lived in the same town. Despite numerous child-labor laws, all of the children worked at different locations in the local mall. Mike worked at a smoothie place, Sonny worked at a coffee shop, and Nina ran an ice cream stand. Mike, Sonny, and Nina didn't really have any major problems with each other, despite the fact that they were, in a way, competition. (Nina wasn't really considered a competitor by Mike and Sonny, since ice cream is a totally different type of product, so they didn't mind that she got the largest number of customers out of the three).

For some reason, there were some people who only liked going to the coffee shop, and there were some people who only liked going to the smoothie place. There were a metric buttload of old people and little kids who loved going to the ice cream stand, and a lot of them just enjoyed sticking to their ice cream, as well.

Basically, I was going to make this post myself, but as it turns out, CommonCraft did it already, and with much more efficiency than I ever could. So check this out! (This is in response to the poll that I posted earlier this week)This is EXTREMELY useful if you want to follow a lot of gaming-related blogs. Enjoy!

This article was written by Ryan Rigney. If you want to get in stay in touch with all of his latest happenings, check out his Twitter feed, located at http://twitter.com/RKRigney

Before I begin, I must warn you that the argument I present in this article will be a rather one-sided one, as I refuse to play devils advocate for a position that is filled by too many already. With that in mind, try to have an open mind about the subject at hand.

Star Ocean: The Last Hope, which is a prequel to the other three SO games, gives absolutely terrible first impressions. When first popping in disk one (there are three in all), I was treated to an absolutely epic, movie quality cut scene detailing the events of a not-so-far-into-the-future World War III. Beautifully rendered cities and stunning explosions complimented by a fantastic score immediately drew me in to this story. As soon as the intro movie ended, however, I was thrust into a bland looking start screen that could have come straight from the Super Nintendo era, complete with a 16 bit-esque hand as the menu selection tool and a stunningly ancient bleeping sound that played when I selected "New Game."