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That is what is truly sad. If you have ever read the history of Sega which I don't know if this link comes to the same conclusions as the one I read, which is sadly no longer available, a lot of what went wrong with Sega was a pissing contest, mixed with a big dose of "not invented here" between Sega USA and Sega Japan.

Basically Sega Japan treated Sega USA like a redheaded stepchild, and kept them so far in the dark they didn't know WTF was going on. Sega USA didn't know what was coming up, what was being supported, pretty much the poor bastards knew about as much as the average Joe on the street what was going on in Japan. That is how you got the trifecta of clusterfucks, the Sega CD, 32x, and Saturn just bing bang boom. The final (IMHO) nail in the coffin was Sega USA coming up with a kick ass design for the new Dreamcast console with a badass 3DFX GPU, only to have Sega Japan bone them by going with the PowerVR when 3DFX dared to make an announcement. The more powerful 3DFX not only could have kept them in the game, but the name alone (3DFX was the bad boy at the time) would have sold truckloads of consoles. Just stupid.

Sadly Sega didn't need Sony and Nintendo to fuck them up, they were quite adapt and doing it to themselves. That said I still have my Sega Genesis, Sega CD(one of these days I'll make a cool casemod out of them or something) and Dreamcast, which my boys still use to play Genesis and NES games. The Dreamcast homebrew scene really is top notch. It is a damned shame that Sega had to screw themselves the way they did, but time after time we have seen good companies commit suicide. As much as I am loving the new AMD I built, and my customers are quite happy with them as well, I have to wonder if buying ATI and sticking with desktops while everyone is going mobile will be the final nails in the AMD coffin. Just another example of a company that was on top of the world, only to have mismanagement and blunders bring them to their knees.

I have a 5, 3, and 11 month old. The 11 month old of course does not have the manual dexterity to play games yet, but my other two children enjoy it very much. They only play age-appropriate games. For instance, my 5yo plays Sonic games, puzzle games, Cars (the movie), Dora games, etc. My 3yo mostly plays games on his V-Smile (a learning system for kids), but there are a couple of games on Xbox Live Arcade that he plays as well.

I have been a gamer most of my life, I couldn't see it NOT being a part of my children's lives. I consider myself a pretty responsible parent when it comes to gaming. I don't even play M-Rated games in front of my children. When they are mature enough to understand what is going on, I will let them play those games. I can't stand playing M-Rated games against 12 year olds on Xbox Live. Even if they are mature enough to understand the game's content (which I highly doubt they are), it just bothers me.

http://www.2old2play.com/ FTW.

Yeah, but either way I'd wait for a review first... Games have innovated quite a bit since the Halo series started coming out. Who knows if the gameplay will have kept up with the times? If I go back and play the other 2 they seem pretty ancient compared to what you can play today...

Did you read any of the multiplayer beta reviews (for example)? Or better yet, did you participate in the beta? Halo 3 is still Halo. It looks and feels like halo (shiny metal, relatively slow movement speed, many returning weapons and vehicles you should already be familiar with, etc). It's evolutionary, not revolutionary, though I was surprised that such a minor control change (moving weapon pickup/reloading to the bumpers so you can have independent hand control) made such a big difference. Going back to Halo 2 after playing Halo 3 was quite a challenge.

On the single player side of things, Bungie generally plays those cards close to their chests. So far they've told us that we'll be able to play with up to 4-players in co-op over Live, but that's it. There might be some information leaks as we get closer to launch, but historically Bungie has been pretty good about keeping the single player campaign information hidden from prying eyes so that it's fresh when you actually play it (the Arbiter was a huge surprise in Halo 2, for example).

Will it blow away every game out there? Probably not. Will it be a fun and compelling single player campaign with a long-lasting and competitive multiplayer component? Definitely. Is it worth paying $130 for the Legendary edition with a mini helmet? Only if you're that hardcore. Is it worth paying $60 for the regular edition? If you liked Halo 1 and Halo 2, absolutely.

Love you paranoid applets. Here's the actual site address: http://www.2old2play.com/, by the way. Lytis is the company that "designed and hosts" sites, using Global Compass, Inc. servers. Lytis debuted on 8-03. Your information, while true, is irrelevant. Lytis has no connection with MS- it was hired to get the site titled "2 Old 2 Play" online. It did so. Archives for this marginal, wholly volunteer effort, go back to 3/05. On 4/6/2005, it officially announced in "News" the new 2 Old 2 Play site and there are 5 comments to the post- all spam. Your levels of paranoia are only exceeded by your levels of ignorance. This is an amateur site, hence the site development company. What is it about you applets that makes you this way?

He's a paid Microsoft shill! There's no way that it's as good as he says!

All true, and the marketer was so ashamed of what he wrote it as anonymous. Stroking the brown turd with disappearing songs, the absolute humiliation of such statements will haunt their dreams for years to come. In short, the article is one of the biggest AC trolls ever.

Reading this little review of the Wii and its games shows that the Wiimote isn't without fault either, especially when it comes to games that only got adopted to the Wii and not written from scratch and yes, that includes Zelda.

It however doesn't stop with this, its not just a problem with badly adopted games (very bad sign for multi-platform titles and thus third party support), but there is also another "problem" with the Wiimote that seems to have been largly unnoticed. Unlike early rumors have indicated the Wiimote isn't a true 3D device that can detect its position in space, instead it can only detect relative motion and tilt, just like the PS3 controller, the only different is that the Wiimote has a lightgun-like sensor that allows aiming at the TV/sensorbar. This pretty much destroys a lot of game ideas, like for example everyones favorite, the realistic sword fighting. Sure, there can still be sword games, but it won't be a 1:1 mapping from Wiimote to sword. Red Steel for example is even after the cleanup limited to basically 8 predefined sword moves.

That of course doesn't mean that the Wii will be a bad console, but after all the hype some people should better adjust their expectations to reality or they will have to deal with a huge disapointment.

It just so happens that a lot of the more mature people on Xbox Live don't tend to play as many public games, but play more with friends in private games. There are even communities of people (like 2Old2Play where you can find lots of people to add to your XBL friends list so you always have people to play with. I spend most of my online gaming time with friends instead of in public games, and I've had a ton of fun.

And all the foul-mouthed kids are driving their reputations down and having more trouble finding games to play in now. :)

There are even some games - such as Chromehounds - that you don't even have to worry about communicating with your opponents, before, during, or after the game. No chance to get verbally assaulted.

BTW, if you're in need of XBL friends to play with, there are plenty of places to find groups of people to play with - and I don't mean the masses of teenage idiots. 2Old2Play is good for the over-25 crowd, and there are actually some decent threads on the Xbox.com forums.

Heck, for that matter, toss me a FR (PMS GibGirl). I have enough people sending me FRs for various reasons that I cycle some people through quicker than I'd like, but depending on what you play, I may be able to get you into some games to meet some other people. Once you start meeting the right people on Live, your friends list will snowball and you'll have plenty to play with.

Of course, this all presupposes you have a Gold-level account. :)