[Editor's Note: We're not just a (rad) news site -- we also publish opinions/editorials from our community & employees like this one, though be aware it may not jive with the opinions of Destructoid as a whole, or how our moms raised us. Want to post your own article in response? Publish it now on our community blogs. Also note that this is NOT an official Destructoid review of Style Savvy. -- CTZ]

When Style Savvy was announced during Nintendo's E3 2009 presser, the Internet let out an emphatic groan. Oh boy. More pretty princess dress-me-up nonsense. Thanks for making our decision to not invite you to our next birthday even easier, Nintendo.

While the hardcore thumped their chests, I was genuinely interested. No, not because I'm a ten-year-old girl but because Style Savvy is the localized title of Wagamama Fashion: Girls Mode, the 19th best-selling game as well as the best-selling new IP of 2008 in Japan. It continued to chart well into 2009 and was last seen hovering above 800k units sold. This game came out of nowhere and struck a big chord with audiences.

Numbers aside, it's a Nintendo-published title and thus should be considered as part of the company's expanded-audience campaign. Software like Brain Age and Wii Sports demonstrate that Nintendo has knack for marrying accessibility and high quality unlike its me-too competitors. It would be unfair to lump it in the same group as Ubisoft's Imagine line without intense scrutiny.

But even if this game is successful in the West, it is directly marketed at teen and preteen females who love shopping, styling, and accessorizing. No self-conscious male gamer would ever come within spitting distance of it. Nonetheless, I'm surprised at how little attention this game is being paid anywhere. Style Savvy has been out for three weeks and there are still only two reviews on Metacritic.

Well, I went down to Target and plunked down my own cash for a copy with the aim of understanding its appeal. You probably think I'm fucking bonkers, but dammit! I feel compelled to convince you that a game can be good and not tailored to your specific interests by using the most radical example I can find! Think of it as a personal challenge. 

[Editor's Note: We're not just a (rad) news site -- we also publish opinions/editorials from our community & employees like this one, though be aware it may not jive with the opinions of Destructoid as a whole, or how our moms raised us. Want to post your own article in response? Publish it now on our community blogs.]

Ah, Thanksgiving. A time of turkey and family for many. A few days off for those in school, perhaps a full week for those in college, and at least one day for those in the working world. There’s seemingly very little about this inoffensive holiday to dislike.

Yet where there is a will, there is a way, and some among us stand at the gates of Thanksgiving with torches and pitchforks in hand, ready to burn that mother down in a fit of righteous anger. Perhaps they were sexually assaulted by a turkey as a young lad, or perhaps that one time that they burned down the neighborhood while cooking stuffing is burned into their memory. Whatever the case is, it is not up to me to judge. If Thanksgiving isn’t your thing, who I am to be insensitive toward your feelings?

What is left to play for a person with such a strong aversion to this upcoming holiday? Believe it or not, you can have a completely neutral or even anti-Thanksgiving gaming experience on your favorite home console or PC. Read on to see my top ten picks to get you through this difficult time. 

[Editor's note: Here's the sequel to Mxyzptlk and Mudkip5000's Interview with a Left 4 Dead zombie. -- CTZ]

Hey guys, this is Mudkip5000, posting on Mxyzptlk's account because his work banned Destructoid.com and our internet at home is broken. Anyway, we finished editing the Left4 Dead 2: Interview with a Zombie 2 video.

Hope you all enjoy it. Outtakes after the break!

[Editor's note: I'm promoting this one as a friendly PSA to remind you all that Goodwill and thrift stores do hold good finds every so often. -- CTZ]

[Goodwill Hunting is a possibly weekly series about my gaming adventures at local Goodwill Stores and thrift stores. Sometimes it will be interesting and sometimes it won't be. Just like Goodwill. I may occasionally hold contests for games I find and already own or don't feel like keeping, so keep your eyes open for that because everyone likes free stuff, right?! This first episode occurs over a period of about two weeks.]

It all started around Noon on a Friday. The location, a little home owned restaurant with my mother, brother, and fiancee. I had ordered the American burger special, all beef patty, cheddar cheese, onion, mayo, mustard, hold the ketchup. Soup or salad? Soup, clam chowder. 

_{[This Week in the Community is your weekly look at some of the best Community related work that has come from the Community Blogs and Forums.]}

Anthony Burch, in a Phallus Knife Fight production: The Chocolate Taco. This video is based on a joke from one of the HAWPcast episodes which I have no idea if it's really funny because I haven't listened to it and may never will because ANTHONY BURCH IS A JERKFACE!

Togail draws, megaStryke guest starred on a Internet Web series, the C blogs have new features, Funktastic has over 1,000 games now and plenty more happened in the community over the past two weeks.

It's no secret that Destructoid seems to attract talented artists from all walks of life. Still, it's always exciting seeing the art you guys and gals put out over on the Community blogs and Forums. Forza 3 released not too long ago and players can pimp out their rides with custom created artwork. 

Dtoiders exodus1925, Jon B and Ocified-Xboxer all had the same idea and designed some Dtoid themed cars in Forza 3 which can get for yourself from their storefronts. Who else has created some custom art for Forza 3? Show us in the comments or over on the Forum thread!

_{[Community blogger megaStryke likes to play old games that ripped off other games for his Off Brand Games feature. -- CTZ]}

It wasn't that long ago when just about every item on store shelves came packed with some cheap promotional crapware. Every box of cereal, every magazine, every pack of Maxi pads had a CD or DVD stuffed in a flimsy plastic sleeve or an offer to obtain one in exchange for an obscene amount of UPC labels. On those discs were cheap-o edutainment shareware, PlayStation demos, or a couple of episodes of some underperforming children's show. And let's not forget all those bullshit AOL trial CDs which were only ever useful as wheels for my mousetrap car in my 9th grade engineering class.

Rarely would any of these wastes of pressed plastic entertain a child for more than five minutes. What can you offer for the rock-bottom price of free without severely cutting into any profit you'd hope to see from selling an extra box or two of Cheerios? The only things that grab kids' attention anyway are big licenses like SpongeBob SquarePants or soulless, effects-driven cinema pap, and those never come cheap.

There must have been some allure to this marketing madness. Whoever pioneered it must have scored so big that other companies couldn't wait to jump on the fadwagon.

In 1996, General Mills wanted to make sure children the world over couldn't start the day without a truckload of Chex cereal funneled down their throats. They needed some way to convince kids that Chex was rad and that it totally did not taste like cardboard. Kids love them some videogames, especially that there DOOM business. How can we combine the wholesome morals of DOOM with the nutritional value of Chex? 

_{[Editor's Note: We're not just a (rad) news site -- we also publish opinions/editorials from our community & employees like this one, though be aware it may not jive with the opinions of Destructoid as a whole, or how our moms raised us. Want to post your own article in response? Publish it now on our community blogs.]}

This post may contain spoilers of spoilers and nautical navigation.

Gamers are like horseflies. They’re drawn to sh*t. Just as the horsefly seeks out the stinkiest, most putrid piles of crap in which to lay their eggs, gamers seek out the most ridiculous, embarrassing topics to roll around in like a proverbial pile of mind feces, diving in headfirst as if they’re Scrooge McDuck going for an afternoon swim in his money bin.

This is nothing new to the sane gamers here, but there’s still one thing that has the power to get nearly all of us riled. It’s not dedicated servers or any other recent debate, sane or not. It’s something far more Keyser Soze, if you’ll allow me the indulgence of using a proper noun as an adjective.

It’s the plague of the spoilers, which seem to be coming like a swarm of locusts lately, filling your favorite social network with angry posts and warnings not to watch videos or use any of those Internets. But are spoilers really that bad, and why do they seem like a far more troubling problem in games than any other storytelling medium? It’s because we’re too damn neurotic. If you want to sail the seas, but you don’t want to get wet, you’d better learn the fine art of staying below the poop deck. 

_{[Community member Anus Mcphanus recounts his adventures at Eurogamer Expo with DtoidUK. -- CTZ]}

Last weekend was the second Eurogamer expo held in the United Kingdom. This was also one of the best weekends in my recent memory and perhaps my whole life EVER and not just because of the expo.

No, this was the first time Dtoid UK arranged to meet up and be sexy with each other. 

_{[Editor's Note: We're not just a (rad) news site -- we also publish opinions/editorials from our community & employees like this one, though be aware it may not jive the opinions of Destructoid as a whole, or how our moms raised us. Want to post your own article in response? Publish it now on our community blogs.]}

There’s a very obvious divide in the way that people, even on this “hardcore gamer’s Web site,” approach videogaming. To some, it is their lifeblood -- a thing of utter divinity that cannot be trifled with by anyone. To others, it is the silly, nerdy hobby that you’re still secretly embarrassed about participating in. Others enjoy it as a passion, and still others use it to provide their livelihood. We’re all slightly different in our judgments of gaming.

Yet some still don’t seem to know how to feel about gaming. They make arguments like “it’s only a videogame,” while arguing with someone else who maintains that a game shouldn’t be made unless it’s art. The seriousness of gaming is called into question, and our weaponry consists of empty statements such as “gaming is serious business.” We join sides and create silly wars, attacking some for being overcritical of a game, and attack others for not being critical enough.

The problem is that we’re not taking gaming seriously on the right level. It’s not completely serious, and it’s not completely frivolous, and any argument made to the contrary is utter nonsense.

_{[This Week in the Community is your weekly look at some of the best Community related work that has come from the Community Blogs and Forums.]}

Cataract has once again taken charge and is holding an unofficial Destructoid Secret Santa. Hit up Cataract with your details if you'd like to give a Dtoider a little Christmas gift this year. You can get more details over on Cataract's blog.

DtoidUK visited Eurogamer, Destructoid community discusses returned, check out some of the Halloween costumes Dtoiders wore, IRC is full of love and much more happened this past week in the Community.

_{[Editor's note: We're not just a (rad) news site -- we also publish opinions/editorials from our community & employees like this one, though be aware it may not jive with the opinions of Destructoid as a whole, or how our moms raised us. Want to post your own article in response? Publish it now on our community blogs.]}

Scandal! A short while ago it was revealed to us Metroid is undeniably the same as Citizen Kane. But that, my friends, is just the tip of the iceberg. Through extensive research and wild stretches of the imagination I have made the shocking discovery that the plots of all our favourite games have been blatantly copied right out of other forms of media! Years of boredom and paranoia pay off as I connect the dots and cast aside the facade that has blinded us for years. Join me now as I uncover the truth behind this conspiracy that will surely rock the games industry to its very core.

I suggest you put on a hat, ‘cause I’m about to blow your mind.

As the site continues to grow, we continue to see the amount of great write ups increase that you all provide over on the Community Blogs. Anyone and everyone is welcome to write a blog. The good ones will get fapped and highlighted on the weekly Community Highlights feature. The best blogs will get promoted to the front page. The point of blogging is to put yourself out there and we do our best to make sure you get noticed by all on Destructoid when you deserve it.

I took a break from recapping last months promoted blogs (read: forgot) so here we are with a double feature of everything that was promoted since September. Nearly 50 blogs, both Monthly Musing and general awesomenss were promoted.

For September's Monthly Musing theme, we wanted to hear about old games that you think people needed to be made aware of again. We also saw a handful of other blogs promoted including ScottyG's epic PAX community mosaic project.

October's Monthly Musing theme was "Nothing is sacred" and we wanted to hear about standard design concepts that are overdone to death. October also saw other non-Musing write ups such as Scary Womanizing Pig Mask's huge examination of Giygas from Earthbound. Plus, there were a couple of art blogs that got promoted such as SiK99's Mr. Destructoid in LEGO form.

Hit the break for the full breakdown of promoted blogs.

[This Week in the Community is your weekly look at some of the best Community related work that has come from the Community Blogs and Forums.]

This week's setup belongs to mrberns. He somehow got a 56 inch 1080p TV for free, a bunch of consoles and a copy of Ratchet & Clank Future signed by the entire team at Insomniac. Check out the rest of mrberns's setup over on his blog.

Anthony Burch hates you, Knives uploaded the entire PAX 09 panel, everyone is still Double Downing, Japanator has C Blogs and more stuff happened over the last two weeks in the Community.