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I know the box says "nameplate" in huge letters printed overtop of what itself is a sort of nameplate. It even has some kinda holes in the corners to make it look more platey. I get it, this product is about the nameplate! But do you see up there in the upper right corner of the box, how it says "candy," which you can read because you are an expert at Japanese culture and language, and candy is a big part of it?

Monster Hunter Tri turned me into an instant fan of the series, a series I hadn't even heard of prior to its Wii iteration. Since its release, I've played quite a bit of Monster Hunter. It's one of three games I play online (the other two being Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart 7), and I still hop on like clockwork every Friday to shoot the breeze with friends and battle a few mega beasties.

As if the Rule 34 crowd needed ammo, Nintendo saw fit to sully the dignity of Samus Aran by afflicting her with the cat suit Zero Suit in Metroid: Zero Mission. Then our own Brandon has to go and show off his very own just-released fetish idol from Other M. To try and counter the wretched atrocity that is the Zero Suit, I offer up my own Samus figurine for viewing.

As I drag my zoom lens over poor Samus' Zero Suit-clad plasticine body I feel sorta like one of the dirty old men at Tokyo Game Show trying to snap upskirt shots of the cosplay girls. Only this girl doesn't have a skirt to get up the skirt of, exactly, and she's Samus. Samus! Perhaps traditionally the Most Clad video game superhero in history, and here she is with legs over nine feet long.

Probably all of you have played Kirby's Adventure for your Nintendo-brand Entertainment System, which means you've seen the cute introduction that plays the moment you power it on! First you draw a circle, then you dot the eyes. Add a great big smile, and presto, it's Kirby! Or, for our Japanese readers, まるかいて　おまめがふたつ　おむすびひとつ　あっというまに. (Draw a circle, two beans, and a rice ball. Just like that!) Yes, Kirby's Adventure makes it easy for anyone to draw Kirby.

The JRPG, formerly known more broadly as the console RPG, is a genre suffering from stagnation—or so I've been told. It's a statement often bandied about, but how true is it, really? I recently started what promises to be a bit of an RPG binge with Xenoblade Chronicles, and now find myself deep into a replay of Breath of Fire III. When it comes to game mechanics, these two RPGs could not play more differently.

If your childhood was anything like mine, you were rarely a stranger to a variety of bizarre schoolyard ramblings and rumors when it came to Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! I remember hearing that Mike Tyson was literally unbeatable, that some boxers could get knocked out of the ring completely if you used the star punch at the right time, and that pressing certain sequences of buttons could charge up your health even after you'd already used the select button trick between rounds.

I am no fan of horror or thrillers. It was years before I could sit through Jaws and I've never watched more than an isolated chunk of any of the Alien movies. And yet, I do love the adrenaline rush brought on by the imminent peril I feel in certain video games, knowing that something unstoppable is on my tail. My favorite part of Metroid Fusion was the SA-X, its relentless search for Samus, and how much tension would build up when it entered the room I was desperately hiding in.

As I desperately scramble to acquire as much Famicom stuff as is humanly possible before I eventually leave the land of sushi-go-rounds and AKB48, I sometimes come across something that is weird enough to defy satisfying explanation. One of my recent acquisitions in that department was this strange Super Star Force cartridge. Clocking in at double the height of a normal Famicom game, this thing also bears a lot of other weirdness that caused me to pick it up for the relatively low price the seller was asking.

Sometimes when I'm barely even thinking about it, I remember the way this factory smelled, sounded, one I worked at as a college student left to fiddle about on his own for the summer. It'll come when I'm just walking to the store, some driver that revs up his motor with an aggressive gas pedal stomp, that particular blend of car exhaust and rubber. Or maybe when I'm sitting next to a guy on the train, cooling himself with a handheld paper fan, and some of it blows my way, or I hear a worker jack-hammering a sidewalk into dust, these little sounds and smells, human rhythms.