There have been pockets of controversy and argumentative discussion over the last couple days between myself and a number of friends, family, and colleagues. Pretty much every discussion has been about the final announcement and confirmation of Nintendo's 'help' feature, and its inclusion in New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

Now, things are still rather hazy concerning what this feature exactly is. USA Today's Game Hunters described it as something called 'demo play,' where when a player encounters a difficult portion of the level, they can pause the game, and have the CPU take over for a short time to continue the level, flawlessly surmounting every obstacle until the end of the level. If the player decides they wish to wrestle control back from the AI, they can press a button, and resume play from the point the the computer stopped. This point specifically is hazy based on this specific article.

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A long time ago, when I was in high school, I got into some pretty big trouble. I had to pay a lot of money back for reasons I will not go into, but what is important is that I didn't have the job to pay back this money.

Even at that time, I was a pretty big game collector, but dabbled mostly in PC games (an addiction that began largely in middle school). In possibly the worst string of decisions I've ever made in my life, I sold a large portion of my PC gaming collection to deliver on my promise. For all I knew, the best parts of my PC gaming collection acquired before 1997 was in shambles, irreversibly broken apart, and largely worth forgetting.

When I was in college, I began collecting games of multiple platforms, vowing never to sell a game I loved ever again. I knew what kind of effect this would have on my life from a practical viewpoint, but I never wanted to repeat the same mistakes I had made in the past. Most of my collection focused on console gaming by this point, but I picked up the odd PC game now and then.

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Despite Square Enix's constant delays when it comes to the release of Final Fantasy XIII in both Japan and North America, there was no trepidaton at Sony's press conference two days ago when Jack Tretton announced Final Fantasy XIV, much to the surprise of fans all over.

Ostensibly a sequel to the massively multiplayer online title Final Fantasy XI, Final Fantasy XIV is looking to be the second MMORPG in the series, but not more of the same. During the untelevised Q&A session that took place yesterday, Square Enix attendees made sure to point out that the title would be a step in a different directon from Final Fantasy XI.

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