Editor's note: I started cheating early, with an InvisiClues hint book for the original Zork. (The cheats were written in invisible ink!) And I don't regret it, because I don't think I would have gotten past the Cyclops without it. Ultimately, I went on to actually write a few strategy guides for Prima, so I never quite left cheating behind. But it's interesting to hear about the self-imposed rules gamers create for themselves, and the guilt associated with breaking them. -Demian

Let me clear something up right away: I'm fairly anti-guide. When I'm stuck in the Water Temple in Zelda or I can't figure out how the hell anyone is supposed to beat Call of Duty on veteran, I don't check gamefaqs and I don't rush out and buy a guide. When I heard about some people looking up ways to solve Braid -- a game that is predicated on its mind-bending puzzles and the sensational feeling of solving a tricky one for yourself -- I was appalled. (That is, of course, unless they were using the fantastic official guide.) I never use cheats in a game to further the story and I figure things out for myself because there's a certain pride that comes along with crossing the finish line knowing nobody held your hand. My friends, more or less, share the same beliefs.

So when I broke out the (extremely awesome) Mass Effect Wiki the other day to get some help, my roommate gave me crap. For those who haven't played Mass Effect, quite a few quests have you scouring largely deserted, bland, rocky planets for a staggering amount of hidden artifacts and resources, which require aimless driving around until a marker appears on your mini-map. They're fetch-quests, in the purest form, and they suck. Don't get me wrong, Mass Effect is a tremendous game and I am loving it, but these quests, while optional, severely hamper the pace of a game. So, in an effort to both satisfy my insistent completionist impulse and to hurry things up so that I could get back to the good stuff, I used a guide.

Great -- another totally exciting planet to explore!

This reasoning wasn't really enough to convince my roommate (although it's likely he just enjoys crap-giving), so it made me consider if and when "cheating" (loosely defined here as either using cheats or a guide) is ever acceptable in gaming culture. Never? It seems to me that the black and white approach of never or always here is as hard-headed as the stubborn husband who won't stop and ask for directions. You might argue it's a matter of pride, but let's be honest with ourselves here -- it'd be a lot less painful to just stop, ask for a bit of help, and start having fun with the road trip or the videogame.

As your average gamer, I have a shameful backlog of games I need to play.  In a desperate attempt to both polish off some of these games and write reviews, I combine the two and write reviews several months or years after games come out.   It's intended less as a review for the consumer and more for the casual reader.  Today I review Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon for the Nintendo DS - my first Fire Emblem game.  Enjoy!

After an eternity's worth of rumors and teasing, Rare finally made an official reveal at E3 that yes - Perfect Dark XBLA is in development and will hit the online service sometime this winter.  Perfect Dark was easily the game I played the most on my cherished N64 console, and I can guarantee that it'll be in my download queue on day 1 of its release.  Some have expressed concern that the game might be outdated, and that returning to a 9 year old game will only be met with disappointment.  I couldn't disagree more, because to be honest, PD only had a few faults and this XBLA release serves to correct them all.  Here are some reasons you should be as pumped as me:

Editor's Note: I feel your pain, Garret. I love RPGs, and I hate that more haven't found their way to the HD consoles. Garret writes about how he's dying for traditional Japanese RPGs, where's he's found them, and what he sees as the RPG trend of this generation. -Jason

It seems to me that the classic Japanese role-playing game has taken a detour this generation. The rise of casual games on the Wii has nearly extinguished what's a smoldering but dying fire -- Fire Emblem and the Tales series still find refuge on Nintendo's age-friendly system, but Nintendo consoles have been pretty quiet when it comes to RPGs since the Super Nintendo. The Xbox 360 and PS3 are often touted as platforms dedicated to the hardcore gamer, but given the content put out for these systems, all that the core gamer is apparently interested in are adventure games, shooters, and sandboxes that involve adventuring and shooting.

Yeah, that's an overstatement, but as a generalization it's true enough. It feels like the 360 and PS3 are trying to compete with a platform that isn't even considered in the race anymore -- the PC. Fallout 3 and Mass Effect are both tremendous games (or so I've heard; I've only just begun playing Mass Effect, but I love it so far), but they're both Western RPGs and games that you would find only on the PC not too long ago. I want some good old-fashioned turn-based Japanese RPGs with spiky-hair dudes and characters with big eyes. Where are they?

I'm always torn, on my first post at a site like this (I've had a few blogs in my life, all of which were equally pointless and, eventually, time consuming).  I don't know if I should introduce myself, or jump right into content.  I'll settle for both...