April 2006 Archives

OK, OK, it's the Wii.

That's the name of the new Nintendo system, formerly known as the Revolution.

I'm not going to do much to defend it. In fact, that seems to be Nintendo's raison d'etre: do whatever it takes to make it impossible for fans to defend them. "Gamers don't want online play." "It will be a third pillar for our company." "We're calling it the Wii." "We think our relationship with [Squaresoft/Rareware/Silicon Knights/pick any third party developer] has reached its limit and we're parting ways."

But before we forget, just about every video game system ever made has had a terrible name. Can you think of a single system that didn't make you twitch when you first heard the name? Granted, there hasn't been a name as pretentious as Wii since perhaps the Genesis... but then again, at least Genesis is a word. Technically, I guess Wii is a word, "we," but that's not going to do much once you step out of Perrin Kaplan's Reality Distortion Field. (The whole thing is veeeery Apple, isn't it?) But look at what history shows us:

Dreamcast. Come on. You can't sit there and pretend that you didn't think that was super-gay when you first heard it. Dude, when you bandy about the word "dream" to kids, it means girlie stuff. Barbie Dream Car. Care Bears. Whatever cloying, sugary message Disney is using at any given moment. I don't even know what to say about stapling it to "cast."

Game Boy. That name has been awful for over fifteen years now. A classic example of something just not translating quite right to the global audience.

PlayStation. "Play"? Who wants the word "play" in their system name? It's almost as bad as using the word "game." It reminds me of that George Carlin bit where he compares the manly words used in football to the sissy words used in baseball. ("In football, you wear a helmet! And in baseball, you wear a cap.") Oh, and don't forget that mid-90's standard: the middle capital!

Xbox. Actually a codename, but stuck when Microsoft couldn't imagine anything better. The use of the letter X was already several years overplayed before this hulk of a system dropped into aisles. Simply embarrassing. Not helped when fanboys worldwide disagree on how to spell it. xBox. XBOX. X-Box. XBox.

GameCube. Tragically disappointing. It's a cube that plays games, duh. Coloring it purple did not help butch it up one bit. To this day, I'm surprised that we all glommed onto "Wavebird" so readily.

Xbox 360. Oh my god, marketroids in action. Even after they realized that 360 simply turns one around to the very same location, it still stayed on. Commits the horrible flaw of making the sub-brand ("360") more mnemonically powerful than the main brand. No one even calls this thing an Xbox anymore. That sound you hear is the word Xbox being dropped from your vocabulary.

Nintendo 64. What does "64" even mean? Go ahead, scoff and say "64 bit system." Now I'll ask you WTF does "64 bit system" mean? To most consumers, the 64 just seemed like a random number tacked on to sound like it is 64 times better than your older system.

But yet, how many of those systems achieved unprecedented success (in some measure, at least), despite the name? How long did it take before you used "Dreamcast" in a sentence without feeling like Strawberry Shortcake? Maybe we'll all be saying Wii like it's our own name in a year.

I'll tell you this: I'm still goddamn buying one, no matter what they call it.

Had you asked me for a prediction before the Wii announcement, I would have guessed that the Revolution would be re-christened Nintendo HS. Or CS. Or WS. Or some other combination of letters... first, because the Nintendo DS is a raging hit that nobody expected and Nintendo needs to ride that wave for a bit. And secondly, because that's what cars do and whatever cars do is cool now and forever. You make the letters vague enough to stand for whatever your press release demands, and you get to keep the Nintendo name front and center. Sony lost to PlayStation right out of the gate, and Xbox is swiftly falling before 360 (and they didn't even attempt to brand it with Microsoft, since everybody associates that name with shit.)

But no, Nintendo just dropped their own name from their big new project that they've already promised will save gaming as we know it.

Unless you happen to be a conspiracy theorist and suspect that Nintendo is just - in the words of Keita Takahashi - messing with us. Release a fake name just before E3, get a ton of free press, whip up fanboys on both sides of the fence, then announce the real name during the big E3 conference. Drop the Bob-Bomb, indeed.

That would be fun.

So the Flower Fest was a complete bust.

Let me give you two truths about Animal Crossing: Wild World.

1.) If it involves tools, it sucks.

2.) If it involves a holiday, it sucks.

The Flower Fest involves both, so it doubly sucks. I planted a million flowers around my mansion, organized by species so as to promote natural hybriding. I used my Golden Watering Can every day.

I lost to Queenie, who had eight flowers, no hybrids, and considered moving out of the village mid-week. So no Flower Trophy for me. And when's the next time I can get a Flower Trophy? At next year's Flower Fest. And what did the game teach me about growing a better garden? Absolutely nothing.

And bonus: Tortimer stood outside the town hall all bloody week. This means you get NO wandering visitors. No Saharah. No Shrunk. No Gracie (although I still haven't figured out what her game is). Not even Joan will show up on Sunday mornings if Tortimer is outside counting his toes and horf-horf-horfing. The only visitor exempt from this rule is Redd. Somehow Redd trumps everyone. Other than him, here's an entire week where you can't score rare items or buy turnips.

And to make matters worse, I managed to trigger the freaking Katie/Kaitlyn sequence both the week before and the week after. So I had to go through almost three solid weeks of having no special villagers. How does Nintendo expect you to get anything accomplished in this game. Things already happen at a glacial pace... and then they toss in ways to make it go even slower. The presence of Tortimer, Redd, Joan, K.K., Lyle and Katie/Kaitlyn should not preclude any of the other travellers from showing up.

And seriously, the usage of tools in Animal Crossing totally sucks. They take up precious inventory slots, so you're never going to carry all six of them at once and they get in the way of your fruit harvesting and furniture moving. And they're a pain in the ass to get to if you need one in a hurry.

You see a balloon in the sky, but by the time you equip your slingshot and give chase, it's floated out-of-bounds. You shake a spider out of a tree, but one missed swipe with the net and it disappears forever. You see a fish in the river, but as soon as you cast your fishing line, it drifts away from your reach. Tools suck.

Tools should be a separate inventory screen, instantly selectable... either you rotate through all of them by cycling with a shoulder button, or you map them one at a time, Pokemon-Select style. Having to jump to the inventory window and click-drag icons around is old-school terrible.

But today I am able to definitively answer one Player's Guide whitewash issue: emotions. You are capped at four emotions. Fin. If Dr. Shrunk shows up after you have four, he demands you replace one of the old ones. So far, I've seen him six times. My current emotional plate has joy (flowers radiate from head), thinking (a "..." word balloon), anger (stamp foot and erupt negative energy) and desperation (nervous tiptoeing and sweat pouring from head).

JSA Classified #11 I like Vandal Savage.

I'm a fan of the contemporary version that shows him as a giant beast of a man barely contained inside his suit, yet always poised and controlled. He's like the Mr. Hyde to Lex Luthor's Dr. Jekyll, if both Jekyll and Hyde were utter bastards with great tailors.

I mean, this guy is the world's first murderer. He's an immortal caveman who has been killing and conniving for centuries. He has seen the whole history of humankind (and he's probably the first guy Mr. Terrific should go talk to). He's got a great origin, and a name that sounds like it comes from the Awful Early '90s but actually first appeared in 1943.

But he is rarely done well. I guess his rather narrow villainous focus makes him too predictable to write. That final Flash storyline with Savage running a super-powered orphanage of brainwashed Stepford kids was terrible. At least he fares better than the Ultra-Humanite.

This JSA Classified storyline is a great idea, and touches on all the little things that make Vandal Savage sort of a one-man Ra's al Ghul. What happens when you take everything away from the man who has it all.

But boy, I cannot stand Paul Gulacy's artwork here.

Infinite Crisis Secret Files 2006 One of the big criticisms levelled at Infinite Crisis is the "artist jam" problem that plagues each issue. I've read DC repeatedly try to whitewash it, but it seems obvious that multiple coordination problems led them to hire multiple artists and inkers to complete books that one core team couldn't have finished in time. It is disconcerting to read a book where the artist changes every five pages, even if they are all trying to play it safe and maintain a similar art style.

This is one of the worst offenders, although they tried to divide the artists (different pencillers finishing Dan Jurgens' layouts) into different chapters precisely so it wouldn't get annoying. Unfortunately, the chapters are not visually distinct at all, all featuring the same characters in the same settings, so it still reads like one single story with a handful of artists.

It's unfortunate, because a story as interesting and controversial as Infinite Crisis doesn't need to get broadsided with management issues and all the fanboy complaints that arise from that. Nevertheless, the artist switching in this story even confuses which Superman is in any given panel... and when the reader has trouble telling apart Superman-1 vs. Superman-2 vs. Superboy-Prime, you've got a mess.

Anyway. I liked the revelation of the Alex / Darkseid connection, even though I'm not sure it makes much sense if you think about it. Naked Alex was creepy, however.

I LOVED the continued exploration into DC's post-Crisis history. The idea that all of DC's retcons and revamps and rebirths were caused by Superboy Prime punching his way through the dimensional barriers is like a validation. It makes me feel good that I was there with DC through all that crap. I was there when Dr. Magnus was turned into a Metal Man. I was there when Atom-Smasher pulled his murderous switch on Extant. I was there when Superman went electric blue. I was there when Donna Troy was a Darkstar. I was there during Tim Truman's Hawkworld revamp, the all-grim Challengers of the Unknown miniseries, and when Jonah Hex was sent into the future. It's just nuts to see DC referencing all of that, and yet keeping it far enough in the background that it really wouldn't put off anybody who hasn't been reading DC books for the last 20 years.

One of the surprises of Infinite Crisis is Alex Luthor. Back in COIE, he was mainly a wide-eyed kid who happened to be a conduit of incredible power. He was born in that series specifically to save the day. Turns out, after all these years, he is a Luthor. There is a page where crazy Superboy Prime goes for Alex's neck... and Alex just looks down his nose at the fiery young hero without betraying fear or submission or any loss of control. That boy is a Luthor. I think that has been a great, unexpected story tool for Infinite Crisis.

Fantastic Four: First Family #2 Around the time of the FF movie last summer, we saw a bunch of quick cash-in FF books. That is to be expected... and I can't think of many characters who deserve additional shelf space more than the Fantastic Four. This 6 issue miniseries is the series that should have been out a year ago, because it is a superb "first look" at the team.

Yes, it's another origin story. But what makes this different is that this series takes place inbetween the pages of the original Stan Lee/Jack Kirby Fantastic Four Issue Number Freaking One. It's not just a quick revisit of the spaceship and cosmic rays and the all-for-one handshake. It manages to be both a modern reworking of the myth and a legitimate add-on to the original storytelling.

Once this series completes, I plan to read it in chronological sequence with the Lee/Kirby issues. Which, not coincidentally, I just picked up in Marvel's Essential Fantastic Four trade paperback.

By the way kids, Free Comic Book Day is coming up fast. Once again, this Saturday, you'll be able to walk into your local comic store and walk out with at least one free book (titles offered off a specific list, it's not Shoplift A Comic Day). It's a broad selection of genres and titles, which is actually pretty typical of FCBD. DC is cheaping out and doing reprints again - JLU #1 and Superman/Batman #1. But I will give them credit for doing two books, one that could be construed as kiddie and one that is mainstream DCU.

Marvel is offering a sampler of all-new material, which is a happy change from all the Ultimate [Noun] books they've done in past years. Their book headlines with a new 11 page X-Men/Runaways story... I quite liked the first collection of Runaways, but I'm far too separated from the characters to know what's going on currently. There's also a Franklin Richards bit, a Mighty Avengers preview and some kind of Ultimate Spidey plot recap (?). It would have been really easy for Marvel to reprint any recent X-Men book just to synergize with the X3 movie release, but they provided some all-new stuff and totally outclassed DC in the process.

I'll also be getting the Donald Duck reprint book (Don Rosa!) and the Wizard Special look at the top 100 trades of all time (Wizard blows, but I'd like to see their list.) And the Archie 65th Anniversary issue, just out of pure train wreck fascination. There's also some licensed stuff - Star Wars, Transformers, The Simpsons and lots and lots of independent books (which is where all the surprising stuff is found).

There is some debate as to who Free Comic Book Day actually benefits. Because, by and large, the only people who know about it are comic book fans. I mean, I'm all excited about it, and I'm already at the store dropping $20 a week. The idea is to get potential new readers (perhaps specifically kids) and abandoned old readers into the store for a free taste. I'm sure every year the event gets some minor media play in local newspapers with a blank inch in their Local Weekend section... but it's not like they do TV ads or billboards or anything. It's pretty much word-of-mouth from dedicated fans to new blood.

Consider yourself mouthed.

Everybody is linking to this right now, so I figured I may as well weigh in too.

Keita Takahashi, he of the world-famous Katamari series, had some off-the-cuff remarks about the new Nintendo remote-olution controller. First, he says he's "not interested in it," and then:

"I see what [Nintendo is] trying to do, but they're putting such emphasis on the controller; 'Woah, this controller lets you do this!' and I'm thinking - are you messing with us?"

Takahashi is already taking a lot of flak about this comment... but I say that's exactly what we all thought when we first saw the magic white wand. In fact, most of us that aren't game designers with dev kits are probably still thinking it right now.

I love that quote because it is bold-faced honest. Every other major game house in the world is declaring support, promising launch titles, and adding their nouns into Nintendo-forged press releases. This guy just doesn't get it. Has he seen it in action? Maybe, maybe not. But he still doesn't dig on it.

We've already seen the asswipes at Microsoft and the molerats at Sony take potshots at Nintendo's Revolution. That is to be expected. But when Mr. Katamari serves up a Meh, that's genuine.

Still, it's not like Takahashi is a gaming god by any means. He has exactly one title under his name, which is nowhere near enough to be considered a major player or a wise sage in the industry. He's mouthy. He gives great soundbites. He bites the hand that feeds him. Who doesn't like that? He has one great game and a willingness to toss live grenades into an interview (like when he said he'd rather design playgrounds than video games), and that's what makes him fun to watch.

And besides, Katamari is such a great game - such a disruptive force in the usual gaming business - that anything even distantly attached to it will get press coverage. You can bake Katamari muffins and they will get mob-blogged somewhere, believe it.

By the way, there was widespread internet panic when Namco of Japan pulled the entire original Katamari Damacy website. Well, much of the wacky content thought lost forever can be found at the US site, including most of the wallpapers and that great 8-bit flash game. I'm surprised more game rags didn't pick up on this.

So the ol' iMac isn't looking so good. The clicky noise that has been going on for months seems to have finally hit the limit... the iMac is not definitely no longer accepting CDs and/or DVDs. And last weekend, it refused to boot up.

A hardware failure is a hardware failure, and an awesome OS can't do a thing about that. It is struggling mightily, however. It's on right now, despite being declared dead by the Apple Store Jerk Bar this afternoon.

I've backed up most of the important stuff, but I don't really know what to do with iTunes. I guess I should copy off the entire library... and work out the authorization later. The complete iPhoto library has already been duped on Rhonda's iBook. Email is a wash, again, because the iBook is on Panther, and Panther isn't about to open up Tiger mailboxes.

Since I am always brutally honest about my Apple experiences, I have to bitch about how lackluster the support has been for me lately. When I dragged the iMac down to the store (an hour drive south, by the way), they were mysteriously unable to find a problem. So I've been living with clicky noises and waiting for the final shoe to drop. Today, the guy runs Disk Utility once and then books his plane flight to Hawaii. Gone, daddy, gone. I guess no other diagnostic tool on the planet could tell him anything more substantial than "this drive is fried."

I repeatedly told him that I could still boot in target mode (where the Mac is fooled into thinking it is a dumb external firewire drive), so the data is perfectly okay. That didn't matter; I was still read the riot act on backing up data and handed several business cards for pro data recovery services.

To his credit, he quoted me $300 for an HD swap, but then pulled a Progressive and said I could probably get a larger HD installed cheaper if I went to a non-Apple tech shop. Although at this point, I don't think I want to bother, since I doubt a new HD will solve the part where the iMac refuses to see CDs/DVDs.

I bought this iMac in May of 2002, which makes it my least functional Apple product ever. I could probably still fire up my Performa 430 if I wanted to. And I know my PowerMac 7600 still works. Maybe that's why Apple abandoned the lamp design so quickly.

So something new is about to happen. I'm just not sure what yet.

Can you believe there are still tools like this out there? PC guys who are still writing angry, toothless articles making fun of Macs. Didn't this kind of argumentation die out sometime in 1999?

Andrew Kantor's tech article in USA Today just took Apple's Boot Camp to task. His column is embarrassingly called "CyberSpeak," which neatly nails two computing cliches: the use of the word "cyber" and having a gestalt title with a capital letter in the middle. How out-of-touch can you get.

Anyway, here's what he gets wrong:

The Mini will set you back about $1100 for a machine with 512 MB of RAM and a 60-GB hard drive � that's when you add in a keyboard, mouse, midrange monitor ($150), and a full copy of Windows XP.

The iMac is about $1600 (with 512 MB RAM, a 160-GB hard drive, and Windows). The MacBook Pro, with an 80-GB hard drive, is about $2000 with Windows. (All these prices come from the Apple Store. I mention the hard drive sizes in particular because you'd need the space to load two operating systems and two sets of software.)

In contrast, a 3 GHz Gateway DX210 PC with 1 GB of RAM, a 160 GB hard drive, and the same monitor I suggested for the Mac Mini � that'll be only $900.

If you own a business, it's a pretty easy choice.

I'm not going to debate the poor-boy numbers he quotes, so I'll assume they're true. But as usual, the PC guy comes to the comparison chart dishonestly... and this time, the disparity is blatantly obvious. That $900 Gateway can't run OSX. Is there no value to OSX or all the pre-installed software (and built-in iSight webcam on the iMac model) that comes with it? How much would it cost me to take a $900 Gateway and run iLife + OSX on it? Oh that's right, it's impossible.

One other thing you forgot... that business that bought the $900 Gateway also needs to buy a $50,000/year IT professional to service it.

By the way, I certainly hope you haven't bought into the argument "graphics are better on the Mac." Yeah, in 1992. Go to a bookstore and grab a book on using Photoshop; you'll see that the Mac and Windows versions are identical. In fact, Photoshop isn't yet optimized to take advantage of the Mac's Intel processors.

He's right about the Intel thing, but that will happen soon enough. But look at his careful word choice: "Go to a bookstore" and compare Photoshop on Mac and Windows. Here's my suggestion: "Go to some fucking computers" and compare Photoshop on Mac and Windows. There's more to using Photoshop than just identical toolbars. There's how Photoshop interfaces with the OS, and, speaking as somebody who has to use Photoshop on both platforms, the experience is not identical.

Oh, and the whole "no viruses on the Mac" business? Besides the fact that it's no longer true, you can get this neat stuff called anti-virus software.

WHOA. Where's your proof that "it's no longer true"? The two theoretical exploits (not viruses) that have shown up in, like, five years of OSX? As compared to the Critical Windows Security Updates that come every week? And the world-crushing mega-virus alert that shows up every other month?

Anti-virus software. There's typical PC thinking for you. Like that's any kind of solution when some new killer virus shows up. You know how it goes. Some stupid virus appears, wipes out a couple businesses before the anti-virus companies catch up to it... and then you still have to rely on your company IT staff or your smart nephew to make sure your Windows is all patched up against it.

A guy at work allowed a virus to mess up his PC when he mistakenly clicked an unfamiliar link in an IM. He knew right away he fucked up, and he's been through hell trying to repair the damage. And you know what, it's still fucked up. How's anti-virus software helping there?

Boot Camp doesn't allow quick switching between OS X and Windows. You have to reboot:

"John, can you get me that info from the accounting system?"

"Sure, but hang on a few minutes while I reboot into Windows."

Ha ha, the old fake-conversation-to-prove-a-point bit. Dude, Boot Camp is BETA software. It sucks. Beta software sucks. At least Apple has the decency to label it beta software, instead of just pushing shit out the door and telling users it will be patched later, like most PC software companies.

Maybe at some point, Boot Camp will work better and have a less stupid name. Will your opinion of it change once you can share data between the two partitions? Or once you can run the two simultaneously on one machine? Or are you so eager to keep justifying that Calvin-Pissing-On-An-Apple sticker that it doesn't matter what comes out of Apple, it's awful?

Further, your IT department now has to support two operating systems, which � given that the majority of IT pros aren't Mac people � means hiring or training. But let's say you're blessed with a staff that already knows both. You're still faced with two OSs, two sets of problems, and double the headache. Oh, joy.

Oh, so IT people are the one group of employees on the planet whose jobs get to become easier as technology progresses? Sorry fuckers, but if The Company wants to introduce an OS that is virus-free, easier to use and maintain, and preferred by some employees, you whiny shits are going to have to learn how to integrate it.

I know that if you have a ton of people, there are a ton of problems no matter what system you prefer - because stupid people will always screw stuff up... but ask any small business that runs an all-Mac shop. They probably don't even have IT personnel. If my office was allowed to go all-Mac, I'd never see my IT staff again.

So there's the true scare: it's job security as long as Windows remains a half-assed, contradictory, befuddled mess of an OS where the average user can't even find a printer on their network.

So if Boot Camp isn't going to convince legions of Windows users to join the Cult of Mac, what's the point? After all, Steve Jobs (praise be unto him) wouldn't introduce a product without a plan.

AHAHHaHAHaa STEVE JOBS IS TEH JESUS LOLOLLLLLOL

Seriously. Are you phoning in your jokes from 1997? I guess I should revert back to calling the competition Windoze or M$. I'm trying to avoid getting personal here, but you are a complete fucktard.

But the notion put forward by some Mac folks � that Boot Camp will improve the Mac's position in the business and gaming marketplace � is backward. Instead, it's more likely to convince Mac users to switch to Windows once they've used it long enough to be deprogrammed.

That's the most ludicrous statement yet, even after the random virus comments. You go find me any Mac user who uses Windows and then decides to switch to it fulltime. You think we've never touched a Windows machine before? You think seeing the majesty of XP for a week is going to convince us that it's a better operating system?

Dude, unless we're really lucky, we're in Windows all the goddamn time. It's unavoidable, thanks to FUD'ers such as yourself who have convinced upper management that we should all stick with the virus magnets and just learn to manage it better. Thanks to bargain basement bundles that sell unsuspecting relatives super-cheap PCs that crash on a pindrop. We're always forced to use a Windows machine for something, and it's always a miserable experience.

We already know that Windows is awful. We've already made the decision. Boot Camp isn't targeted at existing Mac users... except for the adventurous few who want to get into gaming or some other app that was never ported to OSX.

Boot Camp - when (and if) it is finally massaged into something that isn't beta - is going to help average Windows users who already own a heap of software (and are fed up with all the terrible terrible bullshit that comes along with running Windows) change their workspace into a Mac. Maybe they bought an iPod and they want to see how it runs on native soil. Maybe they want a computer that is virus-free. Maybe they just like This Year's Hardware Design. Whatever the reason, they're interested in switching... but they're not interested in having to buy Office again.

This is exactly the conversation I had with a pal who was considering buying a Mac to replace his aging Windows box. It was the software issue that killed it for him, because he would have to buy Office all over again... not to mention the currents Windows apps he likes for which he would need to find suitable replacements (if any even exist).

In that situation, you're obviously interested in having the Mac take over all of the everyday tasks - email, web browsing, instant messaging. Step one, that's where you start. Step two, you start to tinker with Apple's home media stuff, the iPhotos, iTunes, iMovie, etc. By that point, having abandoned IE and Outlook and that absurdly arcane way you have to burn data CDs in XP, you're probably pretty happy with the switch. But you have the Windows partition as your failsafe, until you decide to buy Photoshop or Office for OSX, you jump to OpenOffice or some other such suite... or, Apple reinvents iWork as something that doesn't suck. (Pages is terrible.)

Mr. Kantor is simply flaming, and, even better, he's ignoring the well-informed public response showing up on his own website, most of which is far more reasoned and measured than my posting here.

OMAC Project Special This was a nice little spin-off book. It's a total sidebar story, following up on a detail of Infinite Crisis #6. If you just read IC, you see the Brother Eye satellite explode and that is fine. If you pay out the $5 for this special one-shot, you see that the satellite needs additional pounding in order to stay dead. That's a fair trade.

Couple of major purposes here: a return of focus on Sasha, arguably the main character of the original OMAC Project miniseries... and the re-establishment of Checkmate. Yes, a new Checkmate series is coming, but I'm here to tell you that it won't last, as usual. DC keeps trying to make Checkmate more than just a pleasantly interesting shadow organization, and it never works. You might as well try to make a series out of S.T.A.R. Labs or Cadmus. It's great as occasional background material - a la Bones and Chase and the DEO - but as an ongoing series, forget it.

We can only hope that this book was the sole purpose behind Sasha's hideous OMAC-makeover: a convenient plan to remove it and get her back to normal.

Jonah Hex #6 I'm actually starting to worry a little about this one. It is admirable to keep doing self-contained, single-issue Western vignettes, but the pattern is becoming far too obvious far too quickly. Hex rides into town, someone innocent is killed or is about to be killed, Hex goes badass, justice is served. In any other comic series, any given storyline of this book would be strung out over at least three issues... which sort of deadens the time the reader has to realize the pattern. I mean, the typical Justice League format is villain threatens world, league confused and scattered, league unites and goes badass, justice is served. But there, the pattern is stretched out enough to include B stories, characterization, and continuity nods from other series.

Jonah Hex is a weekly TV show in comic book form. This is DC's ongoing pitch for a big Hex cable series, believe it. I just wonder how much longer sales can justify the book's existence.

Marvel Zombies #5 Wow, what a sucky ending.

#4 and #5 are the proof, I think, that this was a good concept that nobody knew what to do with. For something like this to be really great, it has to take characters we know by heart and twist them. I want to believe that these guys have become flesh-eating monsters horrified by their actions and yet unstoppably driven to keep doing them. And I never do. It's more like a bunch of zombies who just happen to be wearing recognizable costumes.

And what's with Giant Man being turned into a Born Leader? In the whole history of comics, no one has ever ever cared about Hank Pym. This is a character that Marvel had to randomly turn into a wifebeater to make him interesting. Yet in this mini, he's the smartest guy around, the only one with a plan, and, I think, more dialogue than any other far-more-interesting character.

Maybe I'm just bitter because I refuse to believe Dr. Doom would fall so easily.

Infinite Crisis #6 I just love this series. It's full of great character moments interspersed with high stakes action. Seriously. To wit:

The born-again multiverse, giving DC a chance to show off for the fanboys. I love that the Tangent Universe has been designated Earth-97.

The magic cast summoning up Spectre again, who promptly ignores them.

The team going after Alex's spire is Superboy, Wonder Girl and Nightwing. That's a nice junior trinity.

Green Arrow: "What about me? Why the hell'd you call a guy who can shoot trick arrows?"
Batman: "Just to see if you'd show."

Mr. Terrific and Black Lightning discussing African American heroes. (Probably my favorite couple of panels in the whole book.)

Black Adam vs. Psycho-Pirate. Shunkkch. Note that the mask survived intact.

Brother Eye referring to Nightwing as "Your [Batman's] Favorite."

The fact that it's Hal Jordan who pulls Batman out of the exploding satellite at the last second. I really dig the "Batman hates Green Lanterns" meme, and even though Bruce and Hal made up recently, I hope the slight distrust continues.

Alex Luthor finding Earth-Prime.

And finally, about Superboy's death... my feeling here is that DC has, quite simply, done all they can with this character. So when the Infinite Crisis plotting began, he was probably a very early name on the Okay To Kill List (along with Risk and Pantha!) This Superboy was literally born during the Death of Superman cresendo... when he first showed up as a wise-cracking, cocky teen with lots of early Spider-Man bravado. Initially, he's a young clone of Superman created at Cadmus, just trying to carve out a place in this wacky world. Then he leads his own team of who-cares for a while (the Ravers, for fuck's sake), then he slums with Young Justice, then he finds out he can never age, then it turns out half of his DNA came from Lex Luthor (oh noes! the inner conflict!), then he slums with the Titans, then he goes goth introvert slacker. There's only so many "Waahhh, I'm just a clone" stories you can do, I guess. And he has matured considerably since his first appearance, so at some point, calling him SuperBOY just gets stupider than it was in the first place.

Back during those four months when the Dreamcast was popular, I wanted this game. Space Channel 5 was the kind of oddball title that seemed to represent Gaming In The New Century. Even though I never owned a Dreamcast - and never played this game - I had some Space Channel 5 magnets on our fridge for years.

So I was pretty excited when this PS2 Special Edition came out, compiling the original game and the never-released-in-the-US sequel. I knew going in that the graphics would be crappy, but I still wanted to pay homage to a brief envy of years past.

Turns out, it's not that great a game. Almost every other rhythm music game out there is better than Space Channel 5, including the PaRappa / UmJammer PS1 games that preceded it. I'll agree that the style is fun - sort of an Austin Powers meets Star Trek on the Laugh-In set vibe - and that the characters are cool... but the gameplay itself is weak. I played it, but I never really enjoyed it.

Memory Score: Space Michael!

Remember the Two Towers game? Add new levels, 2P co-op, and online play.

The 2P stuff was absolutely necessary, and that proved to be the only reason to play it. Mike and I played it all night once and maxed out most of the characters. Since the combat is just X X X triangle over and over again, the game became background noise to a leisurely conversation.

For movie fans (like me!), this game included some stuff that was cut from the theatrical release - like the Mouth of Sauron, whom you get to X X X X over and over again. And again, lots of unlockable interviews and galleries, which was insanely cool back when these movies were new and hot.

Memory Score: Was Gollum playable? I think he's about the only dude left in Middle Earth who wasn't.

We had a coupon.

I figured this would be a cutesy happy kids game, diverting enough for a quick playthrough and a cheap price.

But it was really stupidly hard.

Rhonda did a good portion of the game, I did some sections, but it was obvious early on that the weirdass underwater controls and non-intuitive instructions were not helping us enjoy it. Jesus, I've played Classic Game Boy shovelware licensed titles that were more fun than this.

We gave up at some point, when the tedium of moving colored pebbles around the sea floor for the millionth time finally got to us. I don't even remember where that was in the plot. It was after the turtle bit, I know that much.

Memory Score: Honestly. Coupon.

Next time: a new Bemani Revolution begins, an anime game that I'm quite sure no one but me has ever played, and a game that I would marry!

Chibi Robo is Nintendo's Grand Theft Auto.

That's a bold statement, and I don't want you to make any great leaps of comparison here, so I'll spell it out.

It's not that Chibi Robo is destined to be as successful or as deep or as groundbreaking or as genre-defining as GTA. I'm talking about gameplay. Chibi Robo is Nintendo's happy, family-friendly sandbox game. Wind Waker and Mario Sunshine have similar GTA parallels (among others, I'm sure), but their emphasis on linear levels (Zelda's dungeons and Mario's platformer worlds) breaks the pattern. Chibi Robo seems to be the closest Nintendo-exclusive, non-violent GTA-clone I've yet played.

• You explore a big environment at your own pace, with almost the entire map open to you within the first hour of play.
• There's user-selectable missions, handed out by NPCs that change and develop as the plotline progresses.
• There's a fair amount of sidebar tasks, mini-games and collectibles.
• There's definite day and night cycles with different events in each.
• And you can spend untold hours just screwing around, not doing much of anything.

That last one is the one that gets me. I've sat down to play and burned an hour just goofing off, and not accomplished much of anything to advance the plot.

Which, I've come to learn, is something I really enjoy in my video games. Just livin' in the world.

Of course, that's not exactly what I want to be doing right now - because I have Metal Gear Subsistence and Kingdom Hearts II ready to go, not to mention Odama shipping this week - but it's still a nice, relaxing place to be.

If only you could speed up the dialogue. That's the one fault, all the slow slow chatter to read.

By the way, I considered getting the new Tomb Raider game, until I played the PS2 demo. It looks great - she looks great - but the control is floaty and touchy. I'm all for those jerks making a good Tomb Raider game again, because I really liked the first two (maybe even the third one, I forget). But this one, Tomb Raider Legend, isn't there yet. It seems to me that they should decide whether it's a fast-action shooter or a slow-action exploration game, because the controls are split between the two yet serve neither adequately.

Today's edition of Stupid Panels of the Silver Age comes to us from DC Comics' "Justice League of America" #2, December 1960, "Secret of the Sinister Sorcerers!"

This sort of thing used to happen all the time: Justice Leaguers invited to attend gala luncheons thrown by piles of rich old white men.

Hey, Green Lantern... can we get you focused on the problem at hand here? We invite you over for an evening of magic. We even deign to explain the trick to you, since you're such an idiot. And now all you can do is screw with a light switch?

When GL is busy trying to click the lights on and off, you know you're reading Stupid Panels of the Silver Age!

Here's your warning. And who would know better than Space Pirates?

This just says to me that both franchises are officially dead.

Here's a Proud-To-Be-A-Dad moment.

This is kind of nonsense that you get when you buy Avid. "Delete Status = Show the Status of Deletion."

Your president is a complete moron when he has to defend himself.

I usually find time for a little AC:WW every weekday morning around 9am. On a few mornings, I've noticed a small flock of white birds that takes to the sky as soon as my character steps outside the door. This adds to the Goofy vs. Pluto puzzle begun in the first Animal Crossing: we have animals that are "people" and animals that are animals.

The most blatant example was the frog. You can catch "animal" frogs in the ponds, yet you can have "people" frogs living in your town. Then there's the birdcage item, but I always saw the bird inside as a toy, not an actual bird. But this flock of doves heralding the dawn makes me wonder.

The Flower Fest is on now, where you're supposed to grow a magnificent garden by week's end. Then Tortimer judges which villager has the best garden and hands out a flower trophy. You'd think Nook would jack up the price of seeds this week.

Here's something that pissed me off. Check out the promise in this email I received from Nintendo: "Gardening tips galore in the official player's guide!"

Well folks, I took the liberty of scanning in every single section of the guide that references flowers. Please click them for the zoom-in.

Or just let me summarize these great "tips":

• You should plant flowers.
• You should water flowers.
• You should not run through flowers.
• You should remove weeds.
• Flowers that cannot be found at Nook's will grow in the wild.
• You should include rare flowers in your Fest garden.

No discussion on how to get those rare flowers through hybriding (I love how the Flower Fest section references the Outdoor Plantlife section to "find rare flowers to grow," and then the Outdoor Plantlife section just says they "grow in the wild.") No discussion on what Tortimer actually likes, in terms of colors or patterns or monetary value. No discussion on what (if any) difference the Golden Watering Can makes. No discussion on whether non-flowers like dandelions and clover and jacob's ladder count. If I get Gold Roses, is that a shoe-in?

So my plan is to plant a mad amount of flowers around my house, and then secretly trample everyone else's gardens. Or steal their flowers and re-plant them in my yard. I'll be interested to see if the game picks up on that.

Thanks for the tips, Nintendo.

I finally hit the last house expansion and the 900,000 bell debt that comes along with it. I'm thinking of making it a storage room (which is kinda what my main room is now) and turning the main room into a Nintendo / Mario theme. I'm counting on Nintendo trickling out more exclusive Nintendo items soon... but then again, we're still waiting for SMB, LoZ and Punch-Out on the GameCube, aren't we?

Changing the clocks twice a year totally sucks. I hated the inconvenience of it before, but now with Clark's baby body schedule it's even more annoying. Knock it off and let's just pick one and stick with it.

Links: End Daylight Saving Time, Criticism of DST (Wikipedia)