I’m sure you’ve all been there before at some point in your life:  playing a friendly game of Monopoly, enjoying the zesty give-and-take of shifting the same pile of money back and forth between players, when suddenly you notice that the banker took $300 when he paid himself for passing Go instead of the mandated $200.  Perhaps it was an accident, you think to yourself – it would be easy to be distracted by the pure fun of Monopoly and make such a mistake.  And yet, on the next go-round the board, you see him do it again.  That’s when you realize: you’re dealing with a cheater.  You respond the only way you know how; driving the Thimble playing piece into his eyeball while screaming about the “integrity of the game.”

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I’ve only spent a few short hours with it so far, but Empire:  Total War has taught me that, no matter how convinced you are it’s a good idea, don’t isolate a line of your musketmen at the top of an overlooking hill when you don’t know what lurks on the other side.  My train-commuting game for this week remains Fire Emblem, and though I still stick by my general desire to keep all units in my army alive, this game seems to throw so many of them at you, and all with no personality or story, that I’m tempted just to say to hell with it and let a few of them eat it.  The further information leaking out from Atlus this week about Dark Spire seems to call out to me, singing a siren song that I will spending a lot of time with… My dramatic retooling of tactics in Fantasy General seems to have paid off for the moment, and I’m actually further in the game than I have ever managed to get before; the imposing fortress at the end of the jungle island lay before, but I am confident my cavalry forces will seize the day.  And finally, in the few spare minutes in between everything else, I started up a game of Master of Magic because, well, that game still kicks ass.

-Joel Haddock

I was entirely tempted to just write Street Fighter IV five times and call this update done, but my “journalistic integrity” is compelling me to actually say something about the game.  While on normal mode the game contains the now-fighter-standard completely cheap final boss, the game in and of itself is incredibly fun.  I’ve almost got all of the characters unlocked (still going for Gouken and Seth), and so far I’ve had the most fun playing as Chun-Li and Rose…Rose herself is beautifully animated, and the visual effects for her attacks are top-notch.  In other news, I snagged Soldner X: Himmelsturmer and have been playing the crap out of it’s pure, shmup-y goodness…look for a review in the near future, as soon as I can actually finish the damn thing.  It’s my goal to have Persona 4 finally finished in this next week, and assuming SF4 doesn’t keep eating up 100% of my free time, that goal could actually get accomplished!

-Jeff Feeser

So far this week I’ve managed to play through the first two islands of Fantasy General about 5 times; this is because I keep getting to the third island and deciding I’ve got the complete wrong army.  It’s been a good learning experience, and I’ve been branching out into trying some different strategies than the ones I’ve doggedly stuck to for the last ten years.  I’ve also been keeping my eyes on the daily trickly of information on the next TF2 class update for the Scout, which is, unfortunately, my absolute worst class in that game – I shall continue to wait patiently for the Engy update. Received Lost Odyssey from Gamefly the other day, but haven’t had a chance to crack it open yet, and I’ve got the new Fire Emblem for the DS en route as we speak, so next week should be chock full of new gaming stories.  Also been working on a redesign for the site, so keep your eyes peeled for that in the upcoming weeks!

-Joel Haddock