"Looking for treasure... just like the Goonies."

In any given RPG, the wooden sword and cardboard shield you start with aren’t going to be the ones you keep forever. Usually you get rid of them by the time you hit your first town. But when you buy that new set of gear and equip it, only to find your character has only changed in numbers and not in appearance, it is a bit of a letdown.

If you are talking about old school sprite based games, I will concede that it was more trouble than it was probably worth to put visible loot into a game. Re-drawing that many sprites would be time consuming and prohibitively costly. Where 3D character models are involved, there aren’t a lot of excuses left when you are dealing with stat driven games and RPG mechanics.

There is nothing quite as addictive to me as a progressive, well thought out loot system that is reflected on your character.

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On a very special fifty-third episode of “Barrel Roll! A Video Game Podcast”, we gather around the campfire while being serenaded by our own Wesley “Ukulele Master” Johnson.

This week, there are a lot of things discussed when talking about what we’ve been playing. Of note is Jesse’s completion of No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle on the Wii, Wes’s acquisition of a Wii and his playing of various Zelda related titles as well as Muramasa, and Jonah’s noticeable lack of Wii playing.

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"Archive Footage"

2009 was a busy year for me. I had just started a new job, I launched WingDamage with my bro and suckered a few friends into writing for us. A ton of amazing games came out. Here I present to you my personal favorites. This is my top ten, and it doesn’t quite line up with the majority of other people’s that I have found online. That’s just fine with me.

Some releases, while I liked what I played, I just didn’t have enough time to get a good enough impressions to rank them one way or the other. That said, I give you my top ten games of the year.

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Reflecting back on 2009, we found that it was a really great year for gaming. Not only did we see the return of beloved franchises and a resurgence in classic gameplay styles, but some games we originally hadn’t been following or maybe just didn’t hear much about ended up being amazing.

So take a look at our biggest surprises of 2009 and let us know in the comments what yours were.

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"No Photoshopping Required"

On a very special forty-forth episode of “Barrel Roll! A Video Game Podcast”, the announcement that Mega Man 10 will be coming out this March is discussed, much to the joy of one Jesse “writes for the Mega Man Network” Gregory.

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"And don't mind the tumbleweeds"

Hey everybody.

You may have noticed that this week we have been uncharacteristically light on the updates. The long weekend threw off our schedule pretty badly. We now know that long weekends lead to not wanting to be productive on the site.

You may have also noticed that Jesse has made some changes to the site, most notably the new featured articles bar at the top of the page. This will be a great resource for us to highlight those articles we are really proud of, reviews of the hottest new joints, giveaways, etc.

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"Fat Stacks (of games)"

Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year, has now come and gone. Its follow-up, the invented by online retailers Cyber Monday is officially over.

While I didn’t brave the big box retailers, I did take advantage of many online deals. I ended up picking up Borderlands, Left 4 Dead, and Lucidity from Steam, and Mass Effect from Direct2Drive. I even snagged a copy of Resident Evil 5 from the very limited supply Amazon posted up on Monday.

Now I have lots of stuff to get through and hopefully get some reviews up in the next few weeks. But what I really want to know it, how about you? What deals did you take advantage of, game related or otherwise?

"Just like this!"

On a very special forty-second episode of “Barrel Roll! A Video Game Podcast”, we avoid the use of any Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy references.

Then, after the princess is captured for the fifteen-thousand, three-hundred, seventy-sixth time, it is up to the Super Gregorio Bros. to successfully get through an entire episode of the podcast without the help of their regular co-hosts.

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It’s that time of year again! The fourth quarter of 2009 is already upon us and we at WingDamage are here to keep you in the loop about some of the notable games coming out for each platform. Below you’ll find some of our most anticipated titles for the Xbox 360. Multi-platform titles have also been re-posted here for your convenience.

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It’s that time of year again! The fourth quarter of 2009 is already upon us and we at WingDamage are here to keep you in the loop about some of the notable games coming out for each platform. Below you’ll find some of our most anticipated titles for the Playstation 3. Multi-platform titles have also been reposted here for your convenience.

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