Final Fantasy VI had cutscenes, ditto Chrono Trigger They just weren't CG movies. Non-interactive narrative segments powered by the game engine, even if it's a 2-D sprite-based engine, still count as cutscenes.
Dragon's Dogma was made in-house. It was produced by Capcom staff that had worked on the Japanese DMC games, Monster Hunter, and the Breath of Fire series.
Whatever they're drinking at those corporate meetings, I want some of it, because it's apparently good stuff. They expected Dragon's Dogma to sell 10 million copies. The only RPGs in history that have achieved that lofty level of sales are Final Fantasy VII, Skyrim, World of Warcraft, and several Pokemon games. I love Dragon Dogma, but no way in hell was it going to sell 10 million units. There was also no way in hell DmC was going to sell 3 million units.
I can agree with that idea. I'd like to see more developers set aside the fetishism and cosplay bait.
Sure did. More ostentatious gaming-related crap. Yay! 
Did you mean The Evil Within, which is Shinji Mikami's game that's going to be published by Bethesda? I'm interested in that one. I'm a huge fan of the former Clover/Platinum team. I think The Killer Within was an episode of The Walking Dead.
Liking the new A Link to the Past - the original is my favorite Zelda game other than Twilight Princess. I do wish it were being made for the Wii U instead of the 3DS, or being made for both systems.
My biggest game of the year, now that I have Ni no Kuni and Bioshock Infinite, is Tales of Xillia. I preordered the collectors' edition. Thankfully it wasn't exclusive to Namco's online store, after the Ni no Kuni fiasco (I did get the hardbound strategy guide for free though, so that worked out okay), and I could preorder it through Gamestop.
My dad felt the same way as you in 1971. He'd been in the Navy since 1957, and they sent him on four tours of Vietnam. He didn't get to see my sister until she was about a year old because he was stuck in Vietnam, and he decided he couldn't take it anymore. Make good use of your GI Bill and Veterans' Preference if you decide not to re-up!
The Japan hate kind of pisses me off, too. Yeah, people like different stuff, but it seems like folks in gaming forums go out of their way to be nasty about Japanese video games, and the people who enjoy them. No other country gets picked on this much, although I think some of these gamers think of Canada, Poland, the UK, and other places in North America and Europe as a bunch of "America Juniors" when discussing "Western games".
Many of my favorite games in this generation, like Valkyria Chronicles, Ni no Kuni, Bayonetta, Yakuza, and Nintendo's stuff, are fine examples of Japanese game design in the HD era. I also own a lot of very fine games on the DS and PSP, On the other hand, I've also enjoyed Fallout 3, New Vegas, XCOM, Mortal Kombat and Bioshock Infinite - all made with pride in the USA - very much. There's been more content from the US in my gaming library than at any time since the early 90's, when games like the Ultima series and SimCity reigned supreme for me outside of the arcades, and there will continue to be room for both East and West on my gaming shelves.
As far as sexuality in Japanese games goes - how about all those ass-shots of Miranda and her body-paint uniform in Mass Effect, yeah? How about all the fan-made nude/sex mods for every PC game under the sun?
Liquid snake... wouldn't you drink that rather than eat that?
I think you have to be the biggest Metal Gear fan on the planet. You deserve to get to meet Hideo Kojima in person and tell him you're his number 1 fan.
My only "for sure" game right now is Tales of Xillia, but I've heard rumors Bayonetta 2 will be out on Wii U by year's end, and if that's true, I'm there.
Here's hoping the next Atelier game shows up as well, and also that either Tecmo Koei America will handle it better or give it back to NISA to publish.
