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I like to collect things. Lots of things. Video games are at the top of that list, and Achievement points are a solid second. However, for the past 21 weeks or so, that list has been a bit flip-flopped - clouded by my anticipation for "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" (which, coincidently, has a ton of things to collect in it).

This past week I collected another 1,415 achievement points, which, put me past my secondary target goal of 20,000 points before February 11 - "Smash Bros.'" second pre-delay release date. I've now collected a total of 20,595 points since mid-September, and am well on pace to hit 25,000 points by March 9. I've been furiously obsessing over Xbox 360 titles for almost six months now, but, as some of you readers have pointed out, at what cost to my other game systems?

Great games on other systems have come and gone since I started, and I have barely touched them. I've been too busy playing games like "Open Season," "Cars," and this week's 1,000 point-getter "NHL 2K6." I haven’t stopped collecting games, filling in my back catalog of titles that I missed when they were first released. In an attempt to demonstrate just how much I am actually missing out on, I now present a list of games that I have added to my collection since I started this quest back in September.

Atari 2600
"Spider-Man"

Famicom
"Kirby's Adventure"
"Pac-Man 2"

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There really is no better way to spend a Saturday night in the city than dragging my girlfriend around New York's Lower East Side looking for video game toys.

While she may have gotten little out of the experience, I was able to find this great little collection of "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess" action figures. I try my best to stay up on Japanese gaming toys as they are released, at least for import, but I hadn't seen these come up at all, so I had to make them mine.

My haul included four 4" posable figures: Link, Princess Zelda, the Usurper King Zant and a Wolf Link/ Midna combo. The set ran me $30 at J1toys.com (the store's name is actually a web address - it's so late 90's). While, they might not the highest quality, they are all really well done. They appear to be officially licensed from Nintendo by Yujin, and are part of the SR Series (the rest of the little booklet that came with the set is in Japanese). As an added bonus, the Link figure can hold his sword and shield in either hand, and you can have the figure represent your preferred version of the game.

They have a high level of detail for all of the characters will look great collecting dust on my shelf with my multitude of other game-related toys and tchotchkes, only to be taken down and played with when I feel like acting out the final GameCube "Zelda" game.

Hit the jump for a full gallery of images of the figures.

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A lot of people see the beginning of a new year as a chance to start over, make themselves better, and resolve to do certain things throughout the new year. One might call these plans "resolutions" if people could actually stick to them.

One group of people that might do well by setting forth some resolutions for the new year is the video game industry. There are a small handful of things that the industry as a whole could really benefit from leaving in 2007, making 2008 really live up to the hype. Let's take a look at the list.

The Phrase "Next-Gen"
Ladies and gentlemen, "next-gen" is now. Everyone from PR firms to development studios are still using this phrase. Please, I beg of you, stop using "next-gen" until the PS4, Xbox 4000, and the Nintendo Super Wii are slated for release. Those consoles will officially be "next-gen." The PS3, Wii, and 360 are the current generation of games. Now is the time to accept it.

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Big money deals are in the gaming news. I find that fitting now that I'm publishing a piece about "Freshly Picked: Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland," a most unusual game for the Nintendo DS that, at its core, makes money the root of everything.

Money = Life. That's the gameplay philosophy of "Tingle." It makes for a game that is novel, warped and punishing in a way I've never experienced before, a game that I think has broken me.

Like the headline suggests, the whole thing has led me to view "Tingle" as the meanest game Nintendo has ever made.

"Tingle" came out in Japan in September of 2006, and a little over a year later was released in Europe. It's never been announced for the U.S. release, possibly because it's star, the fey map-seller from some of the more recent "Zelda" games is not too popular with some of the more macho gamers in the States. Not so in Europe, I guess, where the back of his game box proclaims in green, yellow, teal and pink text that "Still single at 35, Tingle sets off on a search for happiness." (They never quite say he's gay, but they don't do much to make you think otherwise.)

I was fascinated by this game from the minute I heard about it. I was curious what kind of game Nintendo might make about a character the company must know is hated by some, and even by his supporters probably considered lame or, at best, a goof.

I imported the European version of the game in late September and spent the next month juggling it with the DS' "The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass." Where I found "Phantom Hourglass" a little too reminiscent of previous "Zelda" games, I found "Tingle" refreshing. Nintendo and obscure Japanese development studio Vanpool produced an adventure title that plays like one long joke on "Zelda." It's a tweak of conventional dungeon-puzzling and overworld-adventuring. Some of the "Tingle" game's music and sound effects are ripped right from the "Zelda" titles, as are the names of some locations.

But where Link is heroic, Tingle is, well, pathetic.

To the extent that the game got any attention among U.S. gaming bloggers it was because of Tingle's oddness as a leading man. But what makes this game looniest is how it handles money.

This game appears to be a radical experiment in video game world economics. And it seriously stressed me out.

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