As much as I love writing, there's always been a part of me that is irrevocably and forever tied to art. Graphic design, sketching, and Photoshop have all been integral parts of my informative years, and even now, I love to draw, create and manipulate visual media.

For years, I tried to find a way to meld my love of gaming and my love of art in a way that felt meaningful and personal, but at the same time required a modicum of hard work without painful drudgery. I am a particular (and peculiar) sort, so happening upon the right project that hit all the right buttons was bound to take me years to happen upon.

Two years ago, my girlfriend at the time linked me to a fantastic blog where the author had created a collage poster that displayed the covers for every book he had ever read. It was a visual masterpiece to say the least, and something so incredibly personal, only he could have made it.

It's been a while. It's been almost a month since I rolled up my sleeves and wrote something of substance. Life has its changes and its rollercoasters, and that's when one's allegiance to gaming is really put to the test. Some ignore what's most pressing in favor of long gaming sessions, while others stop gaming altogether to get their life in order.

I've always considered myself to be neither, but rather something in the middle. Living by the motto "everything in moderation", I spent a good chunk of my formative years finding inventive ways to play games when I was busy, but it seems to get harder and harder as we get older.

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.

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.

The absolutely ludicrous title aside, I have a really hard time hating Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. Part of me wants to, not because of some nonsensical vendetta against FFIV's canon, but more as a purveyor of value and of art, and an enemy of recycled, half-assed cash-ins. Alas, I am absolutely powerless against the scourge that is FFIV: The After Years. It's simply awesome.

Set 17 years after the end of the events of Final Fantasy IV, the most interesting part of The After Years is its own development history. Developed by FFIII DS and FFIV DS veterans Matrix Software, the game was first developed for Japanese cell phones. The game was broken up into chapters, with the first being a free download, followed by subsequent chapters that were available for players to download after signing up for a subscription. For the benefit of the American audience, Matrix and Square-Enix decided to move the game, in all its parts, to the Nintendo Wii in the form of Wiiware downloads.

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.

Half of E3 has come and gone, and while there is still plenty to show off and reveal, the three biggest players have shown their cards. Microsoft kicked off the whole affair with their press conference yesterday afternoon, while Nintendo and Sony waited until today to have consecutive press conferences.

The press conferences this year were refreshingly (mostly) devoid of charts and graphs talking about how fantastic a given product was last year, and unlike years past, was chockfull of fantastic game announcements. Some were announced games with new footage, some were games that were set to release very soon, and some were completely new and shocking announcements.

HDRL cuts out the noise and delivers the goods: the biggest shockers of E3 2009.

The Electronics Entertainment Expo (the biggest gaming trade show in the US and the Tokyo Game Show's more muscular older brother) is set to rev to life in just a few minutes, beginning with the Microsoft press conference at 10:15 PDT.

For the past three years, E3 has been a mere shadow of itself, with its owners, the ESA attempting to downsize the affair to meet with exhibitor wishes to make the event more business focused, rather than feeding the circus vibe that made the whole event so popular in the late 1990's. Unfortunately, when the ESA finally unveiled what E3 would become, everyone began to realize that the same spectacle that had soured them on the summer months was the same spectacle they now missed and fondly waxed about amongst each other.

Against all odds (and apparently against all possible copyright laws), Capcom has decided that they're going to be bringing TvC to the North American shores. This breaking information comes from none other than the new Nintendo Power, care of the wonderful human beings at NeoGaf. While scans are against the rules on GAF, the following snippet was posted as proof:

There's no question that I can be somewhat melodramatic about the level of obscurity my favorite genres have to endure. I have wrote in the past many times about how much I wish adventure games would make a comeback, even though I know in my heart of hearts that the modern North American gamer has no interest (I saw North American because I know firsthand that Japanese gamers still play graphic novel adventures in droves).