The thing about “rogue-likes” is, they aren’t for everyone. Let’s face it — you will probably never, ever win a real rogue-like, no matter how long you play. The only question is, how far will you get before you die, lose everything, and have to start over from the very beginning? It’s about the heroic struggle, not the happy ending.

This was once the most popular video game among all college campuses. Yes, really.

Rogue-like games are (brief recap, here) games based on the original Rogue, a game written in 1980 where you explore a dungeon that grows more treacherous faster than you get stronger. You can see where that leads. This article about ROG-O-MATIC, one of the first ever “bot” programs, explains Rogue (and its strategies), in better detail.

Shiren the Wanderer is a Rogue-like in the grand tradition of Rogue-likes. You adventure. You get stronger. You learn about the world around you and how to live in peace and harmony with other creatures. And then you die.

Out for the Nintendo DS currently, the next version is coming out, Amazon reminded me tonight, next Spring, which sets a date for the next time I will turn on the Wii ;)

JC Fletcher at Joystiq writes about Shiren 3:

It’s basically Shiren or any other roguelike, which means that it’s a totally turn-based experience: monsters move or perform actions only as you do, attacking after you attack, and if you freeze, nothing will happen. Other signature elements are here:huge, multi-level dungeons, random item drops, items that require identification (which could reveal them as super-powerful or even cursed), near-total loss of progress upon death, and, uh, extraordinarily frequent death.

Okay, I’m sold :)

Seems weird to be writing about the Xbox New Xbox Experience because, after all, I don’t have an Xbox… but my son does :) And when he returned home from college last night for Thanksgiving, he came toting his 360. And so I got my first look at the NXE.

First off — he complained that he couldn’t find ANYTHING any more. We eventually got the thing hooked up to the home network again, but what once was a simple switch between wired and wireless was something that he instead struggled with for an hour — before it suddenly started working. No idea why.

His avatar was… well, I could never have picked him out of the crowd just going by his avatar. I had to help him redesign it because he didn’t know how he looked. It might be impossible for someone to do their own avatar. Andy doesn’t realize how SKINNY he is, and though he has tight, curly hair, the buzz cut is NOT the closest analogue to it. Plus, he didn’t want to add glasses like he actually wears, but glasses like he would like to wear.

Whatever, his avatar, after all.

We tried out the Nex Xbox Netflix Experience (NXNE), as I’m a Netflix subscriber. Having to add things to the “watch it now” queue on the laptop and then see them pop onto the screen on the Xbox was kinda weird. Movie browsing should be integrated into the Xbox, imo.

So quick review from my son: He hates the NXE, liked it back when everything was simple. I think he may grow to tolerate it. He called the NXE avatars total ripoffs of the Wii’s Miis, and of course, everyone is saying that and he is totally right about that. We couldn’t believe how Mii-like the avatars were.

Also, the clothing and color choices really suck. As an attempt to make an avatar that looks at all like you and wears clothes you might wear, it’s kind of a fail.