During the Q&A session following the Level-5 game design panel, someone asked president Akihiro Hino if we would see all six "Professor Layton" games released in North America and Europe. He said that he'd like all the games to come out in those territories, and that the company is working on the localizing the second title in the series, "Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box," which he hopes it will be out in six months.

On Wednesday I …

• Experienced something extraordinary. I was playing “Professor Layton” on the subway. I had just finished the main storyline (people who felt the end of "Uncharted" was anti-climactic  would hate the shockingly uninvolved almost-auto-pilot handling of "Layton"'s last hour). I was on my subway ride home, trying out some of the bonus puzzles I unlocked.

Halfway home, I noticed that the person sitting next to me was playing a DS. Mine was black. Hers was white. And on her screen…. she was also playing "Professor Layton"! This has never happened to me before. Another person, an Asian woman with dyed red hair, was playing the same game, right next to me. I tilted my DS toward her and said, "same game." She chuckled and went back to playing.

Then I began feeling weird. I wasn’t interested in solving these final "Layton" puzzles. They were harder variations of puzzles I had already solved. Figuring them out would require some tedious trial and error. I could pass. But, of all moments in my "Layton"-playing, I wasn't sure I could quit. Not with someone next to me playing the same game. Would she see me quit and think me a quitter? Would she not know that I had only cheated once in the game, that I was brainy enough to solve 120 puzzles all by myself? But why did this matter? Why should I force myself to keep playing -- just for pride?

Mild mental torment gave way to sanity. I turned off "Layton," probably forever. I inserted "Ninja Gaiden DS" and tried to figure my way out of a dead end in Chapter Four.

• At home, I played the disappointing fifth mission in "Universe At War" and then a really challenging, climactic one -- the sixth Novus mission. In this mission I use my Anime-inspired Novus robot warriors (who beam around the map on power lines!) to defend part of earth against two giant, walking mobile battle stations. The walkers are  kicking my butt. But tonight I hope to kick theirs.

Next: Butt-kicking. As mentioned.

On Tuesday I …

• Played some "Professor Layton." Almost finished it. Got angry with the "3333" puzzle. That is all. I said I would be busy. What a boring entry. So be it. I was busy.

This is as close to having a non-gaming day as I tend to have. Is that normal? Do other people manage even a tiny bit of gaming like this every 24 hours? Or am I the weirdo?

Next: On Wednesday I will probably finish "Layton" and have to decide whether to go back to "Ninja Gaiden" or to switch to PSP and play "God of War" or "Final Fantasy." Decisions, decisions. 

On Monday I …

• Was reminded just how special it can feel to play an Xbox 360 game that others aren't playing. None of my Xbox Live friends were playing "Universe At War" last night, but some of them saw that I was. So they asked me about it.

Messages started coming in. "How is that game?" I was asked. Pretty good, I replied. Better than I expected, especially for a console real-time-strategy game. I played one mission and then wrapped it up for the night. But it got me thinking about what else I should play on the 360, just to get a reaction. The 360 has made us all ambassadors of our tastes -- unpaid viral marketers, as it were.

• Inched toward the end of "Professor Layton, with just 20 puzzles to go, I think.

• Read the three most recent issues of "100 Bullets." But that's not a video game. It was going to be, but…

Next: Tuesdays are my busiest days. Just "Layton" today, I think. Though with my PSP back from Chile I will soon be back to "God of War." 

Over the weekend I …• Played the first four levels of "Kane & Lynch"…and liked it??? Gotta re-read that Gerstmann review.

• Tackled 11 more puzzles in "Professor Layton," approaching the conclusion.

• Collected 20 or so more stars in "Super Mario Galaxy" and reached the first part of the game that I disliked: Freezeflame Galaxy. Also discovered a great new enemy-based power-up, the Boo Bomb. Proof that Nintendo's Tokyo development team plays "God of War"? Maybe. Mario can spin explosive ghosts by their tongues, mace-like, until the boo bombs hit something and explode. It's Kratos-esque and a lot of fun.

• Played one level of "Turning Point: Fall of Liberty" and was intrigued by the concept of defending New York City from Nazis. But even my game-filled life is too short to play what feels like an average entry in a genre so rich with sterling greats. One level is all I can give this game.

• Became transfixed by "Universe At War," the first real-time strategy game with readable text that I've played on a console since I completed one of my all-time favorites, 2004's "Pikmin 2." I'm four missions into the campaign and am having a fun time controlling the first of the game's three distinct, warring alien races. But reviews I've read about this game claim the campaign is lackluster. Am I settling? I'll continue to play "Universe At War" until someone can convince me there's a better RTS for me on the 360. I wonder…

Next: Monday will likely bring more "Universe At War," or more "Mario." That is, if my wife and I don't spend the evening continuing to try to catch up on "In Treatment."

On Thursday I…

• Got stuck in "Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword," even though I interviewed the game's producer in the middle of the day and got a tip from him. When I talked Yosuke Hayashi I was not yet stuck, but he still spontaneously offered me the tip to daze the floating eyeball enemies in the game by blowing into the DS mic. We laughed about how embarrassing this would be for me on the subway. Then, during my ride home, I got stuck. I'm in Chapter 4 and don't know where to go. So what did I do? I went into each of four or five rooms that I keep wandering through and tried blowing into the mic. Now this was embarrassing, because it was futile. So, since I am stuck, I went back to…

• One puzzle played in "Professor Layton," right before the end of my ride home. As I predicted earlier in the week, I would be returning to Layton and sticking with it to the end. Only 35 or so puzzles to go, I think.

• Found a famous Nintendo character in "Super Mario Galaxy" while hunting down another yellow star. This character now hangs out in the hub area, offering me tips about stars that I missed. But the tips are so vague as to not be helpful. So I missed a star in the Good Egg Galaxy, but in which part? Am I the only person who gets really stressed by games that indicate when you miss things but don't then guide you to the right places to search? I know questing is supposed to be fun, but I need a map of some sort.

• Ended my day playing games I can't talk about in a diary that might be read by the public -- though later this afternoon, my lips will be unsealed.

Next: I hope my weekend is filled with "Mario." It will also feature me trying to see if "Universe At War" is finally an RTS that actually displays okay on my standard definition set. I'm holding out hope, even though all others have failed this generation...

On Tuesday I…

• Turned my back on “Professor Layton.” Didn't play it all, because I was….

• Swept away by "Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword," my new subway obsession. I try to play one portable and one console game at a time. So I know I need to return to "Layton" and finish it. But I have a developer interview with a "Ninja Gaiden" developer on Thursday and need to binge. It's not a bad binge, at that. While I haven't been able to get into the recent console games in the series, the DS one is hitting me just right. Graphics are detailed, combat is smooth, and, best of all, the controls are fun.

A promise of the DS was that the banality of pressing buttons could be at least partially displaced with the enjoyable flourishes of penmanship. We gamers could go from being telephone operators to orchestra conductors, from launchers of nuclear missiles to swashbuckling swordsmen. But how many DS games accomplished that? "Dragon Sword" makes it fun to fight like a ninja. Slash, slash, slash, like I'm a celebrity signing an autograph. The down-up-up pen-stroke to perform an Izuna Drop physically feels good to perform. A thing of beauty. I logged 50 minutes of the game, completing two chapters.

• Fetched one more star in "Super Mario Galaxy," the lone yellow star in the Buoy Base Galaxy, to be precise. Best level of the game so far, a wonderful mixture of deap-diving and tower-climbing, literally topped with a floating, swimmable, spherical pool of water.

Next: More "Dragon Sword" for Wednesday, I'm sure. And maybe more "Mario"?

On Monday I…

• Zipped through six more “Professor Layton” puzzles on the subway ride to work once I was able to sit down and play the game. It's often a problem on the New York City subways to get portable gaming in. You either need to find a door to lean against or a spot on the benches to sit on. Otherwise, you need to use a hand to hold on to something to keep your balance, and most portable games can't be played just with your remaining free hand. "Phoenix Wright" games can, because they only require tapping on the touch-screen. I cradle the DS with three fingers and use my thumb and forefinger to manipulate the stylus. It feels weird, but it works. For a lot of its puzzles "Layton" requires a two-handed set-up, hence the mere six puzzles in the morning.

• Played just about none of "Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword" after work, on my way down the C subway line from 42nd Street to 14th Street, about a six minute ride. This brought to mind a simple question: How little time is too little to play a game? From the 42nd to 34th Street stops I had enough time to wake my DS up from sleep, quit a puzzle in "Layton," save out, and replace the "Layton" cartridge with the "Ninja" one. From 34th to 23rd Street I had enough time to switch "Ninja Gaiden" to left-handed mode and start tapping through the opening story scenes. From 23rd to 14th I finally got in control of my character (a female ninja in white? Huh?), and was able to make her run one screen length down a path. Then I got to my stop and had to walk over to a dinner. I wonder if I shouldn't have even started playing. Do games really fit into the six-minute windows of our lives?

Next: "Layton" and "Ninja Gaiden" will battle for my soul, the allure of getting my mind challenged vs. the allure of slaying ninjas. We'll see what wins my Tuesday attentions.

From Friday through Sunday night I…

• Batted through 18 more "Professor Layton" puzzles and suffered a crushing psychological blow. I got stumped on puzzle #67 even after unlocking all three of the puzzle's hints. I pondered asking anyone else who had played the game for help. I thought that would be a purer way to retain a genuine intelligence-attesting total puzzle score.

But, dear diary, I cheated. I went to GameFAQs and got the answer there. Words can't express the stress I felt at not being able to solve this one puzzle.

I went through the Nine Stages Of Being Stuck In A Game:

1) Trying a solution, failing
2) Trying a second solution, failing
3) Trying the first solution again, convinced that the game just didn't register it
4) Blaming the game
5) Blaming the designers
6) Convincing myself I ran into a bug
7) Attempting to will myself into not thinking about the part I was stuck at, assuming that, like lost keys, a solution would only present itself when I wasn't trying to find it -- and failing to accomplish such mental self-trickery
8 ) Going onto GameFAQs
9) Feeling like a chump for having tried Everything But The Solution Mentioned In The GameFAQs Walkthrough

So be it. I am 94 puzzles in, with 94 puzzles solved, one of which I needed to cheat on. "Needed" to cheat? Well, that's debatable.

Read more...

On Thursday, I…

• Conquered nine more puzzles in “Professor Layton.” But my DS beat me. I saw it coming. On my subway ride I got the low-power red light. I thought I'd been smart. Before I left home I had grabbed my DS charge wire, which I usually just keep in my bag. I thought I would charge the system at work. But I forgot. So while I was waiting for the C train to arrive on my way home, I turned on my DS and remembered that, oh yeah, this thing is about to die. What followed was a train ride of compulsive DS game-saving. I tried a puzzle, solved it, then saved. Tried another, solved it, saved again. I pondered sleeping the system while I was working through some of the brain teasers in my head. I was doing a series of chess-based teasers, most of which were pretty easy. Then the game offered its toughest chess puzzle. I just finished reading the rules for it when my DS blacked out. Done. No more playing. I took out my iPod and listened to Lorne Lanning tell the 1UpYours crew how screwed up the gaming industry is for the rest of the ride.

• At home I played PS3 until my wife came home and it was time to watch "Lost" (on DVR delay). Now that I am caught up with disc games I can enjoy some of titles in my PSN backlog. A year ago I had become smitten by "Everyday Shooter," then loved playing it on my PS3 debug, then enjoyed the finished version on my retail PS3. But I had never played the game long enough to get really good at it, and I had refused to use the unlock codes on the debug version, even though a friend told me the optional visualizer modes are spectacular. When I played the game Thursday night it I was reminded how tough the eyeball level is. On my fifth try, I finally got past it. I got to the birds-and-plane level, which looks lovely and is very hard. Having just finished "Uncharted," which is well-tuned to dual-analog play, it felt strange to play "Everyday Shooter," which is designed for d-pad and face buttons. I had asked the game's creator, Jonathan Mak about that control decision a few months ago and he said that he was an eight-directional d-pad purist, because eight-direction control gives the player genuine one-to-one control -- what they physically do is exactly what happens. Interesting idea. I kept it in mind while I was playing. I think it helped me a little

Next entry: I suspect I will finally return to "Super Mario Galaxy" after a three month hiatus.