Oh, and LOL @ everyone who is criticizing the list for being "a joke". Well, the joke's on you. Cracked is a comedy website. One that has... well... you know... jokes. Which is why I said "joke's on you" because... well, you get it, right...? ah nevermind.

But seriously, where is the innovation? And I don't mean gimmicky gameplay mechanics like Battle of the Bands for Wii. If we're really going to progress in the genre I think we need to change how we interact with the instruments rather than just hit the right colored circle at the right time. I was really hoping Guitar Hero IV would have stuck with the guitar only - but dug deeper into the technical guitar playing mechanic so that it was actually more like playing the real thing. Instead, we get the same experience but with drums and vocals added to the mix (a year late to the party, mind you).

I'd love to see a game devoted to the keyboard. It doesn't have to be overly complicated like the real thing if execs want it to appeal to the masses (heck, just give it one or two octaves of keys, dumb it down or whatever). At least that would be different. And it'd be much easier to make your own music that way through create a song.

I bet retailers are concerned about this too, particularly smaller shops like Gamestop. How in the world are they going to have the floor space for a third oversized music game bundle?

The region 1 Resident Evil 4 cover art springs to mind. Not that it was terrible or anything, but the PAL version was ten times cooler. Here in the states we got an "Americanized" version. Check out the PAL cover.

[www.sofacinema.co.uk]

Someone already mentioned Ico. That's another example of bastardized cover art.

Not only does the animation and fluidity of movement and combat look a LOT better, but the sheer size and scope of that battlefield is impressive. This level alone (only in the first act, mind you) dwarfs any of the set pieces Gears 1 threw at us.

Oh, and it's still an early build of the game. That too. So relax people.

Downloaded games (such as VC games) have a much lower completion rate. Usually they're impulse buys when I'm bored that entertain me for a few minutes before I never access them again.

A few examples of my reasons for not completing some games:

Final Fantasy V - save file was corrupted around 20 hours. Didn't want to retread old ground.
Final Fantasy XII - I had over 90 hours logged and was right before the end of the game. All I had to do was to take the ship or whatever to the last dungeon and defeat the final bosses. Yet the characters and storyline were so inconsequential that I did not care to finish the game.
Killer 7 - the game just freaked me out. Could not continue to play it.
Super Mario Galaxy - I dunno. I stopped at 50 stars. Seemed like a good number. Guess I lost interest?

Super. Smash. Bros. Brawl. All weekend and all week. I took next week off from work (used vacation time) just for this game.

Someone posts a comment on how their Wii is collecting dust or they're not playing it anymore (good for you, and thanks for sharing) and things get all riled up. Now you've got a war of snarky "I never play it" posts and those self-righteous ones where people defend the thing like it's their job.

I'm not saying I'm on some high pedestal, and I've engaged in a few embarrasing fanboy debates of my own, but seriously, people, enough with the "I don't play it anymore" posts.

Here's a solution: Why not have Kotaku create a master list: "Sign here if you don't play your Wii anymore." Then everyone can post their name and we can move on with our lives instead of carrying out these trivial arguments in a friggin' firmware update aside on the main age.

Careful, though, once posted your name can't be removed. 'Cause after Smash Bros. comes out next month and you're in love with the Wii again, you'll all want to change your position.

DLC for Smash Bros? The game's finished and it's staying that way. Once we get our hands on the game I'm sure we'll all agree it's perfect like we knew it would be, anyway.

Yeah, I'd like a character like Mega Man to be in, I would. But I also agree with Random J up there. After a point with third-part characters it get too diluted and it ends up being a Jump Superstars mash-up.

But this... $50?!! I guess I saved more than a little. Do they expect people to pay it because it says Rock Band on it? Wow...

@Gunhaver: I agree. Pokemon to me became a series of ever-increasingly complexity that really, in the end, boiled down to math. If you want to be competitive at this game there's simply so much to know. That's the main reason I gave up playing it years ago.

There used to be a pretty sweet game called Exodus for the NES that was Christian themed. I'm pretty sure it was a re-skinned clone of a lode-runner type game, but I remember sinking plenty of hours into it when I was a little kid.

Maybe someday we'll get a good game that explores faith or religion without being a "Bible Adventures" type game. But imagine the controversy. It's the reason why the friggin' hospitals in the USA version of EarthBound had the "+" sign removed because it resembled a cross (even though it was just a regular hospital sign) and NOA thought that something that resembled a cross might offend someone.

For example, when drumming in the game, each of the four pads and the bass pedal are separated into different audio tracks. This allows the player to hear the cymbal even if they miss the bass drum that goes along with it. (This is a reason why some songs are covers - most likely when the masters were recorded, the drums were filtered into one channel, which means Harmonix has to re-do the drums with recording into separate channels. It's why Number of the Beast is a master in GH3 and a cover in RB.) Now, how the heck would users throw an MP3 into the game and have it accomplish this feat?

That's taking it a step too far maybe. Forget the drums, look at the bigger picture - how would any such engine even be "smart" enough to distinguish between the lead guitar, bass, drums, and vocals, and then separate and make charts for each one? What about songs that don't even have a guitar? What about songs with no drums? Acoustics? A capella? Rap? Hip hop? Songs with more than one singer? What about classical? Instrumental? Or would the game only recognize "rock" songs? And how would it determine which song is a "rock" song, anyway?

Overdrive charting would be an issue as well. It's a headache to even think about how such an engine would handle that.

Also, bitrate quality would be all over the map. Nothing like rocking out to some 64kbps tunes - blech.

Explicit lyrics to consider, too. Nothing like a nice content re-rating after a product's been on the shelf.

"Interpreting MP3 data into Rock Band note charts is something we'd definitely be interested in."

Interested in, yes. They're also probably interested in taking a space ship to the moon.

Some things just won't happen. This is one of them.

Yeah, you can walk into Circuit City or whatever and spend $25-$35 on a Blu-Ray disc. Shop around, people. Amazon has tons of BOGO offers like someone already mentioned, too.

I seriously had vacation planned for the week that this game was released. If they change it...

Once again I'd like to thank each and every one of you for your patience and understanding. I'm sure you all understand how busy and trying a time the holidays can be, especially in this business.

Well, I promised you a free Xbox Live Arcade game, and I intend to deliver on that promise. We are pleased to announce alongside our partners at Toyota (R) that their new racing game Yaris (TM) is available free for download as a token of our appreciation. Make your way over to the "Games" section of our downloads to receive your free gift.

Sincerely,

Marc Whitten
General Manager, Xbox LIVE"

Your "favorite" games and games you think are "the best" can be two different things, you know.

Excuse me?

Don't get me wrong; I owned and beat Crackdown (got every last friggen' achievement, ugh) and I had a good deal of fun (and also a good deal of frustration), but it's nowhere near "top ten" material. It certainly had some good ideas (I liked the carrot-and-stick mentality of upgrading your character) but the game felt lacking in almost every regard. It's hard to put my finger on it, but as large as the city was and as many people that were in it, the game felt... strangely... empty. Hollow.

In regards to Portal: I question the list not as to whether Portal was a great game, but I ask: when is time taken into consideration here? But how long did it take to play through Portal? A few hours? Three or four maybe? Compare it to BioShock and Mario Galaxy. BioShock took at least twelve hours if I remember correctly, and Mario Galaxy stretched far beyond that for most myself and I'm sure really others. I think if you are to really look at games objectively you have to look at the other factors.

For example, I really like Uncharted, but I breezed through it in eight hours. Those eight hours may have been more entertaining than eight hours spent playing Super Mario Galaxy, but I consider Galaxy a better title because it surpasses Uncharted in overall entertainment value.

Don't get me wrong, I think that patches, bug fixes, etc. are a great asset to developers, but it certainly seems like the mentality the updates create might edge a title to release sooner than its ready. That's why I'm glad that, in spite of how much I wanted it this year, Nintendo delayed Smash Bros. so they could add those extra layers of polish.

So next time someone says "LOL WTF y are you playin the gaem??! Play the reel thing DUH" I can be like "Actually, I do..."

The Kuribo's Shoe is definitely my fave power-up too. I would have killed to have that thing in Galaxy. We need a Smash Bros. item or something!

And if it was bait, you sure went for it.