The Damned

The GTS/PokéBank name censor is bullshit. I have a Flygon, level 100, that I bred and trained from my Sapphire game. It's been brought forward all the way up to Black. I go to put it in Bank, and the game says one of my pokémon has a name that isn't allowed, and it will be changed. No warning of which one. That needs to be fixed. I think I would rather have left him on Black for now than have his awesome name gone forever. It's still intact (minus its held item, which is another bullshit issue... I highly doubt that the extra two bytes of data is enough to somehow pose a problem), but the whole point of naming them is to make them special.

Agreed. Still have my original PX100s, over ten years old, carted around backpacks and boxes, survived multiple moves and even a few international flights.

Borderlands 2 (Steam, PC) Although it was released in September 2012, Borderlands 2 has been something I've thoroughly enjoyed last year. I got it during the Steam Winter Sale after it came out, but only got around to playing it during the next spring. Almost 700 hours later, I've: gotten most of the legendary guns and gear looted and been rewarded billions in cash hit the level 50 cap hit the level 61 cap hit the level 72 cap completed the Over Power missions (effectively level 80) incinerated, corroded, electrocuted, exploded, punctured, slashed and smashed thousands of skags, robots and pyschos shoot that bastard Handsome Jack in the face with more bullets and rockets than some small nations attended Tiny Tina's tea party enough time to know the dialog by heart watched the sun rise and set over The Dust's rocky horizons a dozen times each watched the old characters Roland, Lilith, Brick and Mordecai suffer and fight back along with me rescue and be rescued by... I don't even know how many teammates. Hundreds? laughed at the stupidest things, cry a bit inside at the worst things, and pushed on through the crappiest of them and still managed to find time to see the sights and meet the locals, only 21% of which ended up being shot by me and/or my teammates (you may be asking, "which were you shooting, the sights or the locals?" Answer: yes!) My time on Pandora this year has been pretty good. The small amount of shitty players ruining the fun and fuck ups from Steam being down/computer needing a new video card have been such a minority, I can honestly say it's been pretty much all good. I have good hopes for Borderlands 3, if it ever comes out. The Walking Dead, Season 2 (Steam, PC) Clementine is the only fictional child I have ever cared about. Period. And the shit she has to go through in Season 2 makes all the shit from Season 1 seem like a cakewalk. I have actually cringed over some the things that have happened to her so far. I mean, that whole stitching her own arm scene. Fuck. Every stifled scream and moan of pain was almost enough to make me pause the game. I felt bad for making her do it, even though she doesn't actually exist. The empathy I have for that character is probably more than I have for some actual people. FTL (Steam, PC) It's FLT. Come on, what else is there to say? Shields, boarding parties, the fucking random bullshit that makes and then breaks your best plans. Would buy an Android version for my tablet. To The Moon (Steam, PC) Short, sweet, a little sad. A throwback to the old SNES games, but with far more story and less game. Maybe one of the few "indie" style games I liked enough to play to the end. Link's Awakening DX (GameBoy, 3DS) This one is kind of cheating, seeing how I play it pretty much one a year, but I still love it.

So, are Bank and Transporter out yet or what?

Do you know what would happen if someone gave me a Mudkip? I found a Treecko at a second-hand store once. I spent twenty minutes throwing it at people while yelling "TREECKO! Use Tackle!" (despite the fact that Treecko doesn't learn Tackle) until they told me to either buy it and leave, or be escorted out by security (which I doubt they had, because it was a second-hand store). Treecko sits on my shelf with the others now. If I had a Mudkip, I would end up having to explain why some special needs kid was caught humping things and how the fire alarm went off to the police. Probably not worth it.

Secret Santa gift was finally picked up and opened! It turned out to be... a plush Pokémon doll! Oh, no. Wait. It's Vaporeon. That's technically better. The best kind of better. Here she is in all her glory. Majestic as fuck.

As this is a new game with massive character and plot reveals, be warned: SPOILERS AHEAD It came out a few days ago, so some of us must have played it by now. The first part, "All That Remains," starts with Clementine, the secondary character from the first game. Suffice to say, Telltale Games sucker punches the fuck out of you with the first scene. God damn, you, TT Games. There were two scenes that genuinely made me feel bad. The first one involved that dog you encounter near the river. I realize now that no matter what choice you make, that dog is going to attack you. What does matter is how you deal with the dog after it attacks you. I had to pause the game to figure it out. I finally choose to put the dog out of its suffering. It may have been an unprovoked attack, but not even that dog deserved to suffer. Fucking brutal. The second is a required action, so there's no illusion of choice. You have to do it. Clicking on the action to have Clem clean and stitch her own wound was nearly unbearable. I know she had to do it, and I know she's a fictional character, but fuck me, I cringed at each stitch she pushed through her own skin. When she almost passed out from pouring the hydrogen peroxide on the dog, I was about ready to quit. That's just wrong. Not to mention the assholes she ends up meeting, how they treat her, how they lock her up in a shed, only to force her to break out, steal medical supplies, treat herself, and still manage to fend off a walker by herself. These people are almost entirely assholes and I'm hoping at least four of them die horribly. I even started to make Clem tell them off after that whole shed ordeal. Ask the pregnant woman how the father really is. Tell the guy with the rifle he's a fucking idiot. Tell the doctor he's a jackass. Snarky, yes. Safe, no. Justified. You're damn right. And that's just the first of five episodes for this game. Four more, and then we might have a third season. Telltale is becoming one of my favorite companies. They've brought back the old point-and-click games, and made them varied and interesting. How about you guys? What choices did you make? Who did you go to help in the end? And most important of all... what are you expecting in the next episode?

We weren't playing the same games. That's everyone else' fault, clearly.

Well it's not my fault everyone else is screwing things up, now is it? Also, checking on my 3DS friends list, about 25 of you have yet to click the accept button for me. That makes me sad pangoro.

I actually thought that it was a trailer for Mario Kart 8 as well. I was surprised to see that Kirby would be in it, but not surprised that Rosalina would. I mean, she's already in Mario Kart 7. Then it turned out to be a teaser for Smash Bros. Yeah, cool.. but I was let down by the whole "not really Kirby in Mario Kart" thing.

From what I've found so far on my game: Arek is Grass Dhsu is Psychic Doulifée is Fire Dusk is Dragon (With Gabite, Dragonair and Druddigon) jmr is Water unstablehamster is Ghost wildfire is Rock ocre is Grass bleck is WaterMalakhim is Water Species is Fairy chthonic is Flying But with the exception of Dusk, everyone only has t2o pokémon, which seems to indicate they haven't beat the Elite 4 yet. Maybe they need to be updated? But I've had wifi going most of the time, so they should all be up-to-date by now.

To my secret santa: the package has been delivered... but I haven't gone to get it yet. It will likely be opened this weekend. Or next. Or next year. One of those things.

Any one that has used my Friend Safari... what is it? What's in it? It is cool and awesome, or kind of lame and there's nothing worth catching? Also, maybe we could make a list of what each of our Friend Safaris are and add it to the front page. On related news, did you guys hear about the Celebi event for downloading PokéBank?

Steam is now letting me send games to my secret santa. Expect a minor flood of games on Steam to appear today. This should basically decimate your wishlist. No, the other decimate. The one that takes a lot, not leaves a lot.

Well, thanks to Steam giving me the dreaded code 118, my Secret Santa recipient will no be getting his twelve days of games-mas. I had the song written out and everything. So until Steam resolves the issue on its own (I've tried all the suggested fixes to no avail), I'll just have to sit on the remaining 10 games going towards him. Sorry, you know who. Steam doesn't want to cooperate with me today.

It better be. Rule number 1: Never change the deal. EDIT: I don't think anyone mentioned this yet, but there is a new patch for Pokémon X and Y. It fixes some minor things but mostly, it negates Battle Analyzer and Instacheck, so cheating in on-line battles is harder. Well, for now, at least. QR codes for those that don't want to hunt it down themselves on eShop.

OK, we know that Bank will cost $5 a year, but is there a price for Transporter? I haven't heard one way or the other yet.

The effect? No, it continues to work indefinitely. The novelty of it? Yeah, that's measured in minutes. Oh, just updated the list of Friend Codes, and organized them a bit better. Should make finding people a lot easier now.

I have that book. It's probably one of the best art books there is. Tons of concept art, original designs, sketches, watercolor art, ink art, everything. Plus lots of background stuff on the characters and stories of all the games, even if a few titles are a bit skimpy on details (anything portable). You scored there.

Fuck. I want one. Is it too late to change my list?

Oh my god. Seriously, people? We all know the right answer. If it helps, imagine it in .

There are those handy EV removing berries. Unless they got rid of them in gen 6, which seems unlikely.

EV training only benefits the individual pokémon, and has no effect on breeding.

1. 25 remixes is doable, but I'm willing to sacrifice tracks that aren't done by the last cut-off point . It's better to release the best of what we have then put out a mix of quality. It's not fair to everyone, especially the listeners. 2. April is a target to strive for, but without knowing what kind of release schedule OCR has until then... Worst case scenario, the album gets released independently. But I doubt it would be that bad. OCR has a good history with releases and making them work. 3. I'm still willing to help when I can, but this last year was brutal for free time. This winter I have more (and since it's cold outside, I plan to be indoors by a computer more, so I should be around more until the end. 4. I do appreciate that WillRock took over and even managed to keep it going. I will send him a robotic hand-job machine for his efforts. (Not a valid offer, see details below*) 5. I also am glad that despite the activity of the people in charge, most of you still put the time and effort in. Thank you, especially for being patient. No robotic anythings for any one, though. I'm not made of money or robot stuff. *Offer not valid at all, in any way. Attempts to make your own robotic hand-job machine can, and likely will, result in severe injury. Do not try this, for the love of god. If you do, I'm not responsible for anything that happens. Unless it works out great, then I get some credit. Maybe a percentage of all sales. But if not, then I don't want anything to do with this matter.