October 2004 Archives

Yesterday morning was the annual video game / pinball auction at Timonium Fairgrounds, which has become a Fourhman Family field trip. We show up early, Dad gets a bidder card (just in case) and we all wander around rows and rows of video games and pinball machines. Most are set to free play - if you can plug them in - so it is a crazy mad coin-op buffet. No Mappys to be seen this year. Regular visitors bring their own orange power cables.

Since most of the video games are classics (which are readily available to play these days anyway), I find myself playing more pinballs than anything else. The thing about pinball is that it sucks: there are times when there is simply nothing you can do when a ball heads down the out ramp and is lost. When you're blowing quarters on cosmic chance like that, I hate it. But when the machines are on free play, I'm happily checking out every interesting-looking model. I love the modern electronic versions, with the LCD displays, complicated goals, and prop-centric tracks. Dad is more of a classic pinball fan (he owns an Aztec and a Flip-A-Card.)

But for all the fun of stress-free pinball play, nothing beats walking around trying to identify nearby games solely on snippets of audio. "Whoop, somebody just died in Donkey Kong. Sounds like the opening to Time Pilot. Is that Mr. Do?! I got nexts!"

One year I bid on a 4P Sunset Riders machine, but I bailed when it went over $200. Chicken. Plus, I'm not sure we have a door in the house wide enough to get her inside.

The auction always has a crazy room with gumball machines, bar game units, slots, drink dispensers, and other bizarre big items. This year they had something I've never heard of, a giant Dancing Pikachu.

The text was entirely Japanese, so I'm guessing that, at the cost of 100 yen, you would press buttons to make the two-foot high robot Pika dance. It also dispenses Pokemon sticker(?) sheets. I don't know if there was an actual game involved (press the buttons as they light?) or if you just are meant to enjoy controlling the bionic rat. We could not plug it in... and I bet it wasn't set to free play anyway. A posted sign send it was "extremely rare" and a "distributor's model" and originally sold for over $3800. That probably placed it out of my buying range, but you never can tell at an auction, especially a blowout like this where everything is sold no matter how low. I really wanted to see how much it would go for, but the auction ran into some nasty slowdown over in the slot machines and was taking forever to wind around the room. If you're serious about bidding at this show, you need to reserve the entire day to it.

So Dancing Pikachu did not come home with me. It would have been one hell of a collectible.

What did come home with me is 14 CreepyFreaks boosters, bargain-priced at 50 cents apiece. Random, but appreciated. I think the game is dead now, but still cute.

Somehow, Toys R Us managed to get GTA: San Andreas on the racks before their Buy 2 Get 1 Free sale ended. The local game stores all had lines out the door for GTA purchases last night; we strolled into TRU tonight and they had plenty on hand. So I am back in the familiar GTA setting well ahead of schedule! And yeah, we took advantage of the sale and picked up Silent Hill 4 and Karaoke Revolution 2.

Last weekend I impulse shopped X-Men: Legends... even though I knew San Andreas was coming, I'm only 2/3 through Sly Cooper 2 and Burnout 3, 4 badges into Pokemon LeafGreen, one level in Pikmin 2, and haven't even booted Paper Mario. I don't know why I do these things. It's a large To Do pile right now. I won't get to the unstarted games until next year... which begs the question as to why I bought them already. Well, I like helping to support Opening Day sales, all right? Without me, those 114,000 sales of Pikmin 2 during the first week of release would have only been 113,999.

So, first impressions of San Andreas. This game isn't afraid to throw around the F-word and the N-word, I'll tell you that much. As the story begins, you (CJ) are returning home to the state of San Andreas after living in Liberty City for 5 years... your mother is dead, your old crew is scattered, and some corrupt police are looking to frame you for a cop killing. You reunite with your brother Sweet and what few pals are left. They start off hating on you, but quickly reintegrate you into the gang after a few tutorial missions.

One of which requires you to run to the store and buy some clothes in the gang's chosen color, green.

This is me, and that is a picture of a cat in the back.

I went with a Mike Nesmith Does Paintball sort of look. Even this early in the game, you stumble into a ton of customization options... haircut, clothes, tattoos. Plus the all new stat-building subtext. Continued driving makes you a better driver. Exercise at the gym increases your health and keeps you from getting fat. One message I triggered tonight said "bike riding increase - you will fall off the motorcycle less often."

Pickups are much less garish than the neon pink floaters of Vice City, which is nice. However, San Andreas tries too hard on realistic night and day cycles... during sunrise and sunset it becomes terribly difficult to see what's onscreen. That Olde English font that they use everywhere sucks ass. Most letters are illegible, especially when the font gets rastery. It sucked when Toonami used it, and it sucks here. I can see using it for the game logo, print pieces, and some larger designs, but I can't believe Rockstar looked at the small font that pops up to tell you the name of the area you're in and said "yeah, that looks fine." I still haven't deciphered the name of my hometown area. Tanton? Ganton? Haunton?

I've found three playable arcade games - there's a game console in your first save house and two coin-ops in the bar down the street. The games are nothing special, but it's some nice extra immersion to be able to play what was just a render prop in previous games. I also played pool against a local shark (lost $50) and visited the off-track betting establishment and played the ponies (won $25).

You get a camera right from the start, along with the option to take pictures and save them in a gallery. Awesome. One of the sidebar missions requires you to spray paint your gang's logo over 100 enemy gang logos... and you can also use the spray can in a fight. Rival gangbangers hate getting that in their eyes. I also found a shovel, baseball bat, the usual guns... and you can walk off with the pool cue after playing a game. Whack!

My stomach is growling, so I guess I should go grab a bite to eat at the good ol' sexual innuendo restaurants that are always all over these games.

I scammed my way through the Erika fight, playing the odds that my lv30+ guys would deliver one-hit kills so I wouldn't have to worry much about her sleep heavy team. And now that it's over, her Gym's badge has brought everybody back in line, so no more mis-cues in battle.

Somewhere along the line, I received the Fly HM, but I haven't bothered teaching it to anyone yet. Haven't settled on who my big flier is going to be. I've used Pidgeot, Tropius, and Swellow in previous games. Maybe something unusual like that Farfetch'd? Regardless, it's too soon to bother with Fly; there's still a lot of walk/run/biking to do for exploratory purposes.

Caught a Snorlax. I've always been a Snorlax fan, so I'm probably going to put some training time into this one. His attacks aren't that great - half his move list is taken up by the slow-acting combo of Yawn and Snore - but his 150+ HP makes him a huge staller.

I wandered south to Fuchsia City, home to the Safari Zone. I don't have Surf yet, so much of the Safari is off limits, but it's still worth the $500 to visit at this early stage. Warden Slowpoke (employee nickname) is running a contest to reward anyone who can make it to the farthest corner of the Zone within the usual time limits. I'm not ready to consider that sub-quest yet. I caught a Rhyhorn, NidoranF, and two Nidorinas (didn't somebody back a ways want to trade one of those?)

I don't remember this from Red/Blue/Yellow: the Safari Zone zoo. Outside the gates are some enclosed areas with pokemon inside. It's cute, even though the cages look depressingly bare. Reading the posted signs even add the zoo tenants to your "seen" Pokedex, so you can see a Chansey, Lapras, Kangaskhan, Kabuto, among others.

Time: 17:50
Badges: 4
Pokedex: 43 (Seen: 98)
Party: Snorlax lv33, Gengar lv35, Katamari (Meowth) lv32, Wartortle lv35, Primeape lv28, Raticate lv32

Mark Evanier on his blog over at newsfromme.com has some great links up to some political articles. Actually, lately he always has great links up, but these two are above and beyond good reading. I hope he doesn't mind that I'm duping his links here.

One is a gigantic 10-page NY Times article discussing Bush's reliance on faith when making decisions, which, some people seem to indicate, is bordering on dementia. Including allegedly telling a group of Amish in Lancaster County PA (a mere hour east of where I live) that "I trust God speaks through me." One of the most telling quotes is from Bush media advisor Mark McKinnon where he explains that Bush's appeal to middle America works because he's just as stupid as they are. That's my interpretation of his quote, but I'm not far off in terms of tone and language...

He [McKinnon] started by challenging me [author Ron Suskind]. ''You think he's an idiot, don't you?'' I said, no, I didn't. ''No, you do, all of you do, up and down the West Coast, the East Coast, a few blocks in southern Manhattan called Wall Street. Let me clue you in. We don't care. You see, you're outnumbered 2 to 1 by folks in the big, wide middle of America, busy working people who don't read The New York Times or Washington Post or The L.A. Times. And you know what they like? They like the way he walks and the way he points, the way he exudes confidence. They have faith in him. And when you attack him for his malaprops, his jumbled syntax, it's good for us. Because you know what those folks don't like? They don't like you!''

Here's something from that article I didn't know about George W. Bush, which is all the more pointed given the constant attacks on Kerry's "undistinguished record." Bush wandered aimlessly for years, in and out of positions largely arranged by friends of the family. His entry into politics was the governorship of Texas, and six years later he was elected president. Does this mean he only had six years of political experience before landing the most important job in the land?

The second article is beautiful. From the editorial section of the Tampa Tribune, it explains why they cannot endorse Bush nor Kerry. Note that the Tampa Tribune is a historically conservative newspaper, having endorsed every other Republican candidate since Ike (with one exception, Barry Goldwater). This viewpoint colors their take on Bush, and it very closely matches my own as a disappointed Republican voter.

What bothers us is that the president says that even knowing what he knows now, he still would have invaded Iraq because Saddam had the "intent'' to make nuclear weapons and was a ruthless dictator who killed his own people. [...]

Still, we are troubled by Bush's talk about a broad "forward strategy of freedom'' to "transform'' the Middle East. We believe it unwise to use our military to impose democracy on Arab countries, which would rather determine their own future. We fear this model of forced democracy will only fuel recruiting campaigns for terrorism.

And how about Iran and North Korea, who have considerably more advanced nuclear capabilities than Iraq ever had? Are we going to brashly send our overstretched military to war there too? [...]

The Iraq war came about because of a profound failure of intelligence that went unchecked and unquestioned by the president, who shows no sign of having second doubts.

I know, the party line is that you can't lead our armed forces if you send them out and then pull them back because you're unsure of the proper path. Bush repeated that several times during the debates. It's one of the talking points filed under his "firm resolve" heading. But it's an excuse, a poor excuse that makes him look like he doesn't want to lose face in front of the troops. Some things are more important than keeping your approval rating up among soldiers... and I suspect many of them would prefer that we do the right thing in the end anyway. We pulled out of Vietnam, we can pull out of Iraq. Our foreign policy is being reduced to the size of Bush's wang.

While I'm talking about Vietnam, what is up with the sudden whitewashing of what went on during that war? Hey, we did commit atrocities. So did they. Why are both Dems and Republicans trying to make us think that something honorable happened over there? Kerry wants us to respect his service record, and the Bushies want us to think he sold out our troops by pointing out said atrocities. Napalming the enemy's children during a war is/was/will be wrong. If we're doing the wrong thing, we need to end it, and not keep on plugging away just so the hawks can keep their egos up.

Here's a bumper sticker for you: Just because you serve(d) in America's armed forces, that doesn't make you right. There is no room is this world for blind devotion to anything.

Then there's the deficit, something Bush supporters have completely erased from public discussion. When I've mentioned the deficit to dedicated Bush voters, they're either convinced it is irrelevant, have never heard of it, or simply don't care because they personally received a tax cut.

However, although the numbers from recent months are more promising, the tax cuts did not spur the expected job growth. The nation has lost jobs during the Bush presidency, the first administration since Herbert Hoover's to oversee a net loss of jobs.

But while the recession, 9/11 and profligate spending by Congress have grown the deficit, two-thirds can be traced back to the president's tax cuts, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

Bush's mistake was failing to couple tax cuts with reduced spending. Instead of asking some sacrifice from the public, he allowed Congress to keep spending, including a giveaway program of farm subsidies.

Bush has yet to veto a single spending bill. Even Franklin Roosevelt scaled back New Deal programs after Pearl Harbor.

The result: Bush has turned the $150 billion surplus he inherited into a $450 billion deficit.

This article echoes the faith points from the first one, hovering around the suggestion that this guy listens to no one and expects the entire country to trust his gut.

This president doesn't try to hear from people who disagree, choosing instead to keep the counsel of staunch supporters. He disdains news conferences and brags that he doesn't read the newspapers. He counts on his core group of insiders to tell him what he needs to know.

When asked if he consulted his father, the only other president to have waged war against Iraq, Bush unabashedly said that he spoke to a "higher father.'' Presidential decisions about sending men and women to war should be based on fact, not prayer.

Still, the president seems like a nice guy. He is plain-spoken and says what he means. People who've met him come away impressed. If he were a drinking man, they say, they would enjoy having a beer with him. But we're not electing Mr. Congeniality. We're electing the leader of the free world and should set a higher standard than likability.

I like that "if he were a drinking man" line. It underlines his arrogant Born Again Evangelical lifestyle, which should (but doesn't) insult every man, woman and child in the country. Mr. President, those of who made and continue to make smart choices concerning alcohol, religion and relationships are not at all impressed by your magical mystical middle age turnaround instigated by your rich daddy's partisan friendship with Billy Fucking Graham. Unfortunately, we're the minority and the nation is filled with pleasant, affable know-nothings who think the world is clear-cut black and white. Bush's plan in the Middle East has been fed to the American public like a Bruce Willis movie: Iraq deserved being flattened because they're evil and we'll emerge the victor 90 minutes later. Well, the credits have already rolled and no one has won anything.

Kerry takes his lumps too in the Tampa Tribune editorial, and they're mostly entirely fair. His "I have a plan" refrain hasn't convinced anyone, and, like any politician who has worked for more than six years, his voting record encompasses a bundle of contradictions. But, after watching the debates, at least we know he's heard of "The Sopranos" and he knows there's only one internet. And then there's his one big advantage... he's not Bush.

This weekend I purchased what I expect will be my Final Memory Cards for this generation, a GameCube 1019 and a PS2 8mb two-pack (one of which Mike wanted.) I've always been terrible at memory card management. I now have 5 PS2 8 meggers and 6 Nintendo cards of various sizes (1 1019, 2 251s, and 3 59s - one that came with Animal Crossing and one from Pokemon Box.) I can't stand to delete old saves - and I refuse to buy the cheaper third party cards - so the whole thing is ugly expensive by now.

Memory cards are a fading technology, as any Xbox fan will be happy to tell you. (Just don't let them get too smug on you, since no one is telling if Xbox2 will have a hard drive or not.) I like memory cards. I would like them more if they stored more and cost less... that would certainly take the bite out of using them. The price factor is always trumpeted by the pro-HD crowd, and it's a good example of Sony/Nintendo holding you by the balls. You want to save that game, laddie? Then you'll be buying our unique-format cards.

That Nintendo 1019 card goes for $30 and the PS2 two-pack was $40. Ugh.

A memory card's big advantage over an HD is that it is portable. If I take a new game down to show off at Mike's - and that happens quite a bit - I can bring my own card along so we can pick up my saved games on his PS2. You can't do that with an Xbox unless you drag along the whole Xbox. Or unless you have an Xbox memory card, which lives on the shelves as sort of a bastard child of Xbox accessories... and can't even help you in all cases.

And you know, hard drives are flaky. I like that my PS2/GameCube saves are safe on non-spinning, damn-near-industructible, backupable media. Here's hoping we can feel that secure about whatever comes next.

I, for one, will not mind at all if memory cards stick around for the PS3 and Nintendo 2600. They've treated me well so far. I haven't been able to clog them up with my own MP3s, or download new levels and patches... but I haven't been overly compelled on that front yet anyway.

Not that I'm going to support mem cards forever; there are as-yet-unimagined ways to combine the best features of both. An online storage option, for one... although that leaves your all-important saves in the hands of somebody else's hardware, which I don't like. Maybe just as a backup, where you could store a duplicate file, which could then be re-downloaded to any system you happen to be on... and yet that could get messy as well, forcing you to track the modification dates of formerly identical saves.

Or make the entire HD portable like a USB thumb drive. That would combine the size of an HD with the swap-and-go mentality of a memory card... but likely be buttload pricy. How about making the entire future game system small? The GameCube is a great size for carrying around, but I would love to see it get even smaller. If the PS3 comes out a large as a paperback book, they can keep the CD/DVD game sizing, make it easy to move around like a memory card, plus it becomes a great plug-and-play multiplayer LAN system to boot. That would be optimum. The original version PS2 is largely empty space anyway - which is emphasized by the entirely backward design of the PStwo - so it seems possible to make the base unit smaller than it currently is. I'm no electrical engineer, but I'd bet you could smash the next wave of systems into a very small case.

And wireless. All future controllers must be wireless. I don't care if they run on batteries (as long as we get notification of low power). I don't care if we (temporarily) lose vibration effects. I don't care if you can't use them within 50 feet of somebody with a pacemaker. The next generation must be wireless.

And 4-player. The Sony Multi-Tap must die.

Since the greatest GL of all, Hal Jordan, is retuning to the DCU in upcoming issues of Green Lantern, I took the time to go back and re-read selected bits from the various Hal's fall-from-grace storylines of ten years ago. I was among those against the switch from Hal to Kyle Raynor, although I ended up becoming a fan of Kyle... and anyway the GL mythos prepares you to be a fan of the ring, not particularly who is under the mask.

Then again, the character of Hal Jordan is so powerful in DC lore that he never really went away. After renouncing his GL-ship, he spent a brief time as a hokey supervillain, redeemed himself in a very appropriate fashion, then turned supernatural as the new Spectre. As much as I miss having a guy with white age-streaks in his hair leading the Justice League, I really liked how it all ended. "Final Night" was fitting, and it was just plan cool to recycle the character as the new Spectre. Athough, I would not have use that as an excuse for a new "Spectre" series. I would have preferred keeping him in the shadows with rare guest appearances. Bringing him back as a GL will take the emotional punch out of all that... but that's pretty much how comics work. We have short memories. Even those of us who lived by stringent post-Crisis continuity back in the 80s and 90s are today suckered by a great story, no matter how it relates to what has gone before.

Green Lantern: Emerald Twlight (GL #48-50, January-March 1994). I had trouble recalling why I was so against losing Hal back in the day. This awful story reminded me. While this was supposed to illustrate his descent into madness, sparked by the loss of Coast City, it just sucks. Most of the tale is an unbelievable slugfest where Hal takes down the entire Green Lantern Corps, none of whom think to wield anything yellow against him. (Or had the Guardians removed that weakness by this story? I forget.) Anyway, I never really bought into the whole "Coast City Madness" concept. It was too quick, too pat. Granted, I've only been following the modern GL series (since 1990), but I don't recall any strong emphasis on Hal's connection with Coast City. I mean, he wandered for years, he lived with the JLA for years; his childhood home was never played up to the extent that Smallville is in Superman's life. I can totally see Superman going apeshit if Smallville is destroyed. I don't see it for Hal Jordan.

Then there's the silly fight with Sinestro. Although I like the storytelling trick of the unnamed narrator that turns out to be Sinestro, trotting him out for the big final fight with crazy Hal is just pandering. The whole thing reeks of stunt, and it isn't helped by mediocre art and a lack of dramatic layout. I had forgotten that the first time we see Kyle Raynor, he's lounging half naked on a beach at night with his impossibly hot girlfriend. No wonder we all hated him.

Zero Hour #4-0, September 1994. I remember eating this one up, but it doesn't stand the test of time because it illustrates just too well what is wrong with the traditional Comics Event. First of all, it's impossible to read today unless you dig out all the supplementary crossover books. The core series doesn't make much sense without them, there's too many loose ends and diverging B-stories. And it's far too obvious that the end goal is not to tell a great story, but to introduce new characters, all of whom are launched into a new series shortly afterward. (And generally die a short death right after that.) At best, it's simple marketing... but at worst, it's insulting. Manhunter? Primal Force?

Then there's the problem that almost the entire storyline has been negated since then. Zero Hour was intended to retire most of the Golden Age characters (like the original Flash and Green Lantern), ostensibly to winnow out some of the older characters to keep the modern ones from getting lost in their continuity. (You do realize that some day we're going to see a retcon that places these former-WWII era heroes firmly inside the Gulf War, don't you? Maybe Hussein's mythical weapons of mass destruction include the Spear of Destiny?) Since Zero Hour, they have all returned to active duty in the JSA.

The new Zero Hour character changes have all disappeared or reverted back to pre-ZH forms, like Fate and Warrior. And does anybody still include the Zero Hour-spawned notion that Triumph was in fact a founding member of the Justice League? Not in any Year One stories I've read lately.

Not that Zero Hour doesn't have its bright spots. The whole series uses layouts reminiscent of comics legend George Perez, a decision that had to be purposeful on artist Dan Jurgens' part, given the story's connections to Perez's masterpiece, Crisis on Infinite Earths. And plot-wise, Waverider discovering the "true story" behind Crisis still gives me chills, as does Hal's ominous rumination when re-making the universe: "Maybe one world won't be enough."

Oh yeah, that's who were talking about here, Hal. This is where, after destroying the Guardians, he reveals himself as Parallax, your new ultra-powerful super villain du jour. The series starts off with Armageddon 2001 reject villain Hawk/Monarch/Extant, but he's a red herring being manipulated by Hal. And while it looks like Hal's plan is to restore Coast City (there's that chestnut again), any old time comics fan can see what he's doing: he wants to restore the entire Multiverse. Earth-1, Earth-2, Earth-Kamandi, Earth-Evil, everything. (I certainly wouldn't have minded him bringing back Earth-C, home to the Zoo Crew.) That was really the nicest bit to the final act of Zero Hour: it pitted the old comics fans against the new generation. Yet there is no doubt which side the boys in marketing will have win.

One recurring facet to the "new" Hal is him blaming the Guardians for everything. He talks an awful lot about being their tool. I suspect this will come up again during the upcoming rebirth, especially given the Spectre's role has always been explained as a servant of God's will.

In the end, Hal/Parallax dies one of those terrible ineffectual deaths that everyone knows doesn't count. It's handled very well; old friend Green Arrow delivers the final blow. (There's another guy who has recently died and come back, and the two characters fondly traded jibes on that in Identity Crisis.) Nevertheless, it is not long before Hal shows up again, probably chiefly to calm reader outrage over turning Hal into a cheesy villain. "Parallax"? Come on.

The Final Night #1-4, November 1996. They should have titled this one "Sorry about ruining Hal, hope this makes up for it." It's another world-ending, multi-issue crossover, but at least this time you can read the core series and follow what's going on. The idea is that the Sun is going to be destroyed, therefore killing on life on Earth. The assembled heroes spend a lot of time trying to fix the problem (including a nice rivalry between Lex Luthor and the Legion's Brainiac 5) but they end up getting Hal to help them.

Hal's powers as Parallax seem to be infinite, which is always lame. Furthermore, it's impossible to care about, since it gives Hal's appearance a complete deus ex machina feel. After some soul searching (in the one truly relevant sidebar book, Parallax: Emerald Night), Hal agrees to jump-start the sun, kill the malevolent beastie threatening it, and wipe away all the snow currently on Earth so there's no flooding.

What's nice about this scene is that he recites his old Green Lantern oath while doing all this, which is a complete tear-jerker as far as I'm concerned. Again, we're lead to believe he is dead after having accomplished these mighty tasks, but, as the old rule goes: no body, no death. When he restores the sun, it comes back green for a time, which I always thought was a nice touch. Had they actually kept Hal dead, it would have been even greater if, every time the Sun appeared in a DC comics, they would have put a thin green border around it. That would have been a great nod to his memory.

I don't actually recall where and when they turned Hal into the new Spectre. I looked through some JSAs circa 2000 and the three Green Lantern Secret Files I have, and I can't find it. I liked that in concept, and I liked seeing them give the Spectre a pseudo-dual personality. During that Injustice Gang saga in JSA, Spectre would loom over everyone with all his vengeance talk, and then shrink down for a private moment as Hal. Part of the fun of getting Hal back will be divorcing him from Spectre. And what about Kyle? He's come a long way and I think he's earned his place in the pantheon. They had some golden opportunities to get rid of him lately (during that tedious space story after he left Earth, and then again when he came back and found nothing remained of the life he abandoned) but only now are we confronting the Hal issue. I sort of thought Kyle would willingly step down, but the finale of issue #181 - where he finally goes after that smug ass Major Force - left Kyle more in charge of himself than ever. Will both Hal and Kyle stay on as Green Lanterns? If the Corps comes back, that could be a possibility...

Oh, and I really liked having Jade as a GL. Sidenote.

The first Superman movie was a major milestone in comics' long road towards social legitimacy, a road that remains to be completely travelled. Sure, it's cyclical - ten years prior to "Superman" we had the purposefully terrible Batman TV show, which raised comics' Q at the cost of future credibility - but I don't think anyone would argue against that film being a major tick mark on the door frame measuring height milestones for the comic book industry.

So, Christopher Reeve, I'm sorry to see you go. Somebody in Hollywood said "Let's make a superhero movie that doesn't suck and treats the genre with respect" and Somebody Else said "A fine idea, but who the hell is going to buy some guy in tights and a cape." Mr. Reeve was the answer to that question.

I have read all the ongoing Superman titles for a decade now, and I certainly knew the character well enough even before that. I've been through his entire publishing history, from 1938 onward. I've seen hundreds of different artistic takes on him, both in art and in writing. And when I look back at pictures from that movie, I'm still astonished at how well Christopher Reeve looks the part. The squinty eyes, the massive jawline, the perfect hair, the height, the muscular-but-not-too-muscular build. He nails it before he even opens his mouth. And then he gets that right too.

Superman was to be His Role, the one. Hell, even with that juggernaut of a stereotype, he remained largely an undistinguished actor. It was almost as if he was meant to be Superman and any other roles were just favors we would occasionally grant him.

It was a shame that his Superman movies got progressively worse, dulling the pop cultural relevance of the first one. It was probably a personal curse that he could never do anything else again without being labelled "Superman." And it was an irony as large as the universe that he, of all people, would snap his spine falling off a horse.

Someday they'll figure out a way to fix a broken spinal cord. Maybe his continued presence after the accident, wheelchair and all, will have played a role in that. If you want to help, in Christopher Reeve's memory or otherwise here's where you can donate.

I have two points to give to Official PlayStation Magazine #86. First, they did an awesome avant garde cover that no one is going to like. Second, the demo disk is one of the best they've ever done. Let's get right to the sequel parade.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Is "Snake Eater" a dopey subtitle? Probably. Was "Pandora Tomorrow" a million times worse? Absolutely.

The playable(!) demo shows off some of MGS3's new features... the jungle environs, the camoflage percentage rating, and the ability to turn local wildlife into little boxes of processed food with your tranq gun. I suspect I'll be spending a lot of time trying to catch every possible animal in the game, because that just screams 100% minigame to me. The underlying point is to stockpile them to eat when your stamina meter runs down. There's even a veg option of eating mushrooms and fruit... but the game is set in the '60s; we probably don't need Snake being labelled any more of a peacenik than he already is, the anti-war hippie.

Although this likely isn't Snake, but instead his genetic clone-father Big Boss. The difference is irrelevant right now.

Like any good demo, you're given way more weapons than you should have. Once you get through the harrowing "go find your backpack" mission, you have access to half a dozen weapons and a full slate of gadgets that probably didn't exist in 1964. They did downgrade Snake's everpresent CODEC tech: it's now a visible earpiece with a chest mounted on/off switch. No "it directly stimulates the bones of your inner ear" crap. But - and MGS-haters can rally around this one - the CODEC conversation screens are still interminably long-winded. Some things never change. One time-honored facet of the conversation could be gone, however: Snake's hilarious habit of incredulously repeating whatever was just said to him. I don't recall a single instance of that in the demo, compared to nearly every conversation in Twin Snakes. "Nearly every conversation?!?"

Here's a silly over-weaponed example. I tranqed a guard too close to a second guard, so Mr. Man #2 turned on Alert Mode. At first I ran backwards, but that was where the reinforcements were pouring from, so I ran ahead and hid in some tall grass just behind an old brick wall. (Camo rating: 95%. Damn near invisible.) When the guard team stalked past the wall, I switched to the shotgun - which you plainly should not have - and unloaded into all three of them at once. Zero Shot! Triple Takedown! Shine Get! That makes for a fun demo. "A fun demo?!?"

Watch the pause menu. If you leave it in untouched pause for too long (maybe a minute?) the game auto-exits to the main demo disk screen. "Untouched pause?!?"

Ratchet & Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal. How's that subtitle grab you? The developers of the 1999 PS1 game "Tiny Tank: Up Your Arsenal" certainly liked it. It's only a British pun anyway. No one in the US will notice.

Another great demo. Although, with the exception of the side-scrolling Quark level, they might as well have said "You want a demo of R&C3? Go play R&C2 again. There's your demo." It's really hard to find anything wrong with the Ratchet & Clank series, so that is no bad thing. You know, speaking as a Ratchet fan, it feels good to be heading back into that universe. These are fine, fine games and everyone expects R&C3 to live up to the legacy,

3 adds online multiplayer (with voice chat!) and the demo has a short movie showing it off. It doesn't reveal much. Online multiplayer looks an awful lot like offline singleplayer, duh.

One of Ratchet's new weapons is a flaming holo-whip, which can strike down swarms of little baddies in one swing. And if I know my R&C, there will be plenty of swarms of little baddies. The demo also lets you use a viral gun that forces enemies to turn on each other, which is a friggin' hoot. This game is a Day One purchase, despite a release date hidden in the shadow of GTA: San Andreas. That's a long shadow.

The demo for Silent Hill 4: The Room surprised me, as I've pretty much given up on that series. It just seemed to me like the franchise was doing whatever it could to gross you out, instead of doing whatever it could to scare you. So I switched over to Fatal Frame and never looked back. The Room makes me want to look back.

The trademark horrors of Silent Hill are in force: twitchy pulpy beasts and dark side/light side environments. But I like the psychological tact I saw in the demo. As it begins, you're stuck in your apartment with no way out... well, the rusted metal evil version of your apartment. A baddie climbs out of the wall to kill you, and you wake up. Whew! It was a dream! You walk around your normal apartment (this part is all in first person, by the way... the controls are awkward but you do get a pleasant adventure/exploration game vibe out of it) and find that you can't get out of this one either! The door is chained shut from the inside.

Not long after, you find a hole in your bathroom wall to climb through, which appears to take you inside somebody else's dream. Weird. I actually couldn't figure out what to do much beyond that. The bits like that one, being outside your apartment, are regular third person action, with you clubbing fleshy skin-dogs to death with a baseball bat.

One thing I really liked was looking out your apartment window. You can see people inside their homes across the way, or just watch the nearby traffic intersection. I could sit on that for hours. There's also a neat scene through your apartment door's peephole.

So congratulations Silent Hill 4: The Room. You're on my list.

Whoops! You don't get the Silph Scope in Saffron City. Silph Co.'s headquarters is in Saffron, but the Scope comes from beating Giovanni deep in Team Rocket's underground base, right here in Celadon. Judging from the Rocket presence and the new casino, Celadon appears to be a city decaying from the inside.

So here's the chain of events: you press the button behind the R poster in the game corner so you can sneak into the Rocket hideaway. You beat Giovanni to get the Silph Scope. You need to Scope to uncover the restless spirit guarding the final floor of Lavender Tower. You need to beat that guy - the uncatchable ghost of a dead Marowak, by the way - to meet up with Mr. Fuji at the Tower top. You need to "free" Fuji (three boring Rocket grunt battles) to get the Poke Flute. You need to use the Poke Flute to wake up the Snorlax so you can open up the next couple paths. Whew.

I actually haven't bothered the Snorlax yet, because I have plenty to do otherwise. Celadon is the home of Erika, Gym Leader #4. I think I did the Rocket base and Lavender Town sub-quest out of order, because now I have some pokemon with a level beyond that which I can control.

I've never had this happen before, so I find it pretty amusing now. Misty's badge (#2) guarantees that pokemon up to level 30 will obey you in battle. As you gain badges, you get access to higher and higher levels. It's a smart way to keep folks from trading over a lv100 asskicker from an old game and romping through the quest in 30 minutes. So tonight, once my Gengar (she of the famous Toys R Us trade session) started disobeying me.

She'll be fine for a couple attacks, and then you start getting messages like "Gengar is loafing around!" instead of her attacking. My favorite is when she ignores the attack move I chose and instead carries out another one. Once I score Erika's badge, pokemon up to level 50 will obey me, so Gengar will be snapped back to attention. Remember in the cartoon when Ash's Charmander evolved too fast and became a sullen, worthless Charizard? That's me right now.

Celadon's "Game Corner" casino is the usual crappy slot machine stuff. Annoying. Celadon's few remaining upstanding citizens hate the place. If you win enough credits, you can buy some exclusive TMs and even a couple rarish pokemon. Instead of playing for credits, I just bought some... enough to claim an Abra. Sure, you can catch them in the wild, but why bother. The feral ones teleport out of battle more often than not anyway.

But here's what's cute about the Game Corner, something that US audiences probably don't notice. You ever wonder why you have to walk to the building next door to the casino to get your prizes? Oddly inconvenient, right? Well, there's a distinct cultural reason why the two buildings are set up that way. Gambling is illegal in Japan, so pachinko parlors (think slot machines) can't offer simple cash rewards for winning like you would get in Vegas. Instead, you trade in your credit for some piece of junk toy. Then you leave the game hall, because right next door to the parlor is a wholly separate establishment, sort of a pawn shop, that will buy your junk toy for cash. An obvious loophole, and one that has been more or less ignored by Japanese law enforcement for years... because of tradition and because there's more important crap to do than bust up gambling halls.

That's enough education for you for now! I have to go battle Erika.

Time: 15:37
Badges: 3
Pokedex: 38 (Seen: 83)
Party: Graveler lv28, Gengar lv32, Katamari (Meowth) lv30, Wartortle lv33, Mankey lv27, Raticate lv29

Although I doubted it, I did make the cut for the T-Mobile's Big F'ed Up Hiptop Exchange 2004. Given how lo-fi the whole experience was, I resolved not to care about the delivery date or tracking numbers. So I was pleasantly surprised when it appeared in the mailbox a week later.

Comparing the old and new units is like comparing Mac hardware to Windows hardware; they both do the same thing, but one does it with so much more class. The Hiptop2 has twice as many face buttons, with several discretely hidden in the rubber bumper guards! The lighted scroll wheel is no more, replaced by a utilitarian scrolly bit flanked by dedicated Call Off and Call On buttons.... and though they look prone to accidental presses, they are not. For those who would miss the circus atmosphere of the lights, they have been reincarnated under a d-pad on the left hand side, which also doubles as the phone speaker!

The camera, once an obnoxious plug-in, is now built into the back of the 2. While the res isn't anything worth publishing, you still get fair enough 640x480 shots out of it.

Sidetalkin' the cat!

The trademark flip screen is actually a bit dodgy this time around. Because it now fits flush with the rest of the unit, the screen has to shift upward and out. This is nowhere near as smooth as the first model, where the screen rested more or less above the bulk. But even though the movement is awkward, the start and final positions are much sleeker.

Upgrading from 1 to 2 was easy, just had to pop in the old SIM card. I liked not having to visit a T-Mobile Store and risk them fucking up my current phone plan. The new v2 OS means more downloadable app options, mostly $3 to $5 games. I'm trying not to buy all of them right away.

The color screen is fabulous. Since my old Hiptop was a G1 black & white model, I can't say if this is better than the G1.5 color edition. All I know is this one looks great.

So no disappointment at all. I want a new case though, because the one supplied with the 2 is too tight and stiff.

Keeping the gadgetry talk rolling, we got Mike's PS2 online this week. Of course he had to buy a complete wi-fi setup to do so. This is the one thing that the Xbox has completely right, because it is silly to have to manage separate online accounts over different games. I was about to call Xbox Live the system's defining feature, but then I remembered the low percentage of Xbox owners that use the service. Ha!

Anyway, getting his PS2 online was far too easy (the tough part was the stupid wireless router, but then again I wasted a lot of time trying a second-hand router that I knew to be fried.) Then we played ESPN NHL 2K5. Worked well enough. The voice chat carried a delay echo, and we had a lot of game pauses when things fell out of sync. So, eh. We won, Pens 7, Caps 1.

We're currently scouting for additional online titles, but the list of non-sports co-op games with voice chat is short. We'd probably dig Monster Hunter, but it doesn't have that all important voice chat. I hope Ratchet & Clank 3 has it, or else we're stuck with hockey and maybe Return of the King.