When playing through any classic RPG like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy or Earthbound have you ever said to yourself "I wish I could play as the item shop vendor, that would be fun."?

If you answered "Yes." to that before I had played Recettear I'd have figured you to be some kind of mental defective, not suitable for human interaction.  Now, however, I think you might have been on to something. Though, frankly, your social skills could still use some work.

Part of the game is buying items wholesale and turning them around at your store for a profit, but the meat and potatoes of the game is when you dip into your store coffers to hire an adventurer and explore through dungeons for treasure, which you then resell for a hefty profit.  The battle system is simplistic, but it's a good time.  Money made from the sale of loot goes back into your store and to pay off your missing (probably dead) father's hefty loan balance.  Unfortunately this loan, though it suits the game inasmuch as it drives the story along, is also the game's achilles heel.  You see, most RPGs have the good sense not to start you back at the beginning when you die.  Recettear, however, shirks convention and starts the game all over if you miss a loan payment.  On the bright side, it's kind of a New Game + kind of death system where you keep all your items from when you died, but it's still a giant pain.  A blessing and a curse also comes in the fact that the game is pretty short for an RPG.  A blessing in that you won't have to replay through 40 hours if you die right at the end, but a curse because the game's main storyline is about 10 hours long.

The game really relies on its New Game +, which kicks in after the 10 or so hour long game, but perhaps it overly relies on it. I like the idea of the New Game + mode in games, but when New Game + mode is feasibly 80% of your game you are, perhaps, overutilizing it.

Despite some odd quirks in the game's design, Recettear still pleasantly surprises, delivering a shopkeeper game that feels less like Facebook game garbage and more like a novel RPG all its own. (.84)

-Christian

Skyrim is a top quality game that is the current halmark for open ended playing. Classic dragons and swords and magic type stuff. The main story itself is not very long but the reason people play Elder Scrolls games is for the huge amount of exploration available. Skyrim has beautiful locations and hundreds of hours of gameplay for the numerous quests and countless abilities to master. A few minor glitches occur rarely but for a map of this magnitude it's inconsequential and while some controls are a little iffy they're still the best of the genre. This is a winner where the graphics have finally caught up to the other qualities of the series and the amount of detail is found not just in the visuals but in the stories and character development. Currently the closest you can get to an immersive mmorpg without actually dealing with other nerds. (.98)

This game is a C+ PS2 game which is unfortunate since it's on the PS3. It only has two selling points, the art and the battle system, and both are awful. First off, don't paint "anime" style characters. It almost never works and the aesthetic is best when it is cell shaded. The art in Last Rebellion looks like it's by a middle aged American who got into anime a couple years ago and likes to paint. Secondly the battle system is painful. Every enemy has a list of limbs and targets which, through trial and error, must be hit in the right sequence to do real damage. This game is unplayable by anyone who has a life. The music is terrible, the visuals are terrible, the whole thing is a pile of weakness. It is empty, boring, lifeless, and every aspect of it, from the dialogue to the battles, takes an excrutiatingly long time. This is the very essence of wasting time. Not entertaining. I wiki'd the game after I played it and it quotes the publisher's president as saying he felt "really sorry for our customers because we released that title." I should have read that before I got it. (.40)

- J Paige

This was the first game I played in the Battlefield franchise and I have to say I was pretty impressed.  Having played the entire Call of Duty library (and feeling a litlle let down after Black Ops) it was hard not to compare Battlefield to COD.  Even though Battlefield has been living in the shadow of COD for years now, I think those days are coming to an end.  Battlefield delivers a solid storyline (although rather short) and gives you a so-so co-op experience, but what really makes this game shine is the online multiplayer.  DICE is definitely known for a killer online experience and Battlefield continues this tradition.  No other game out there (including COD) lets you wage war the way this game does.  The maps are huge.  The vehicles are a blast to mess around in.  And the ability to level a building that some opponent is camping in is surprisingly satisfying.  If you are looking for a single player game, then avoid this one.  However, if you enjoy epic battles on huge maps then this is the FPS for you.  (.86)

-Jeff

I played Batman: Arkham Asylum back in 2009 and it remains one of my favorite games that has come out in the past few years, so I was pretty excited when I heard about the sequel: Batman: Arkham City.  Akham City retains all of the stuff that made Asylum great and adds even more, which I never thought would be possible.  The story is set in Arkham City prison which is basically a section of Arkham that has been walled off and turned into a maximum security prison.  The prison is filled with thugs, weirdos, political prisoners and your classic murderous criminal masterminds.  For example, Joker has taken over the Steel Mill, Two-Face hangs out at the Court House and The Penguin has taken over the Museum.  There are even some other baddies in there too for you to discover through side missions.  The story follows Bruce Wayne after he gets thrown into Arkham City and has to figure out something simply known as "Protocol 10".  The game presents a "realistic" experience and lets you truly become Batman.  Some moments you are using your keen detective skills, other times you are pounding the snot out of bad guys and finally you have to stalk your "prey" from the shadows.  The game will keep you plenty busy after the main story is done with side missions, hundreds of collectibles, puzzles, training exercises and much more.  Arkham City truly delivers one of the best "super hero" games ever made.  Everything about this game is flawless and future games should use this game as a model.  (1.00)

-Jeff