November 2007 Archives

96 stars. Tossed Bowser into the sun. I think that's probably a respectable finish.

There's 120 stars to find - and I'm sure something INCREDIBLE happens if you get all of them - but the last few levels I completed were so miserable that I really no longer have the taste for it.

Never did get that "big world" level. Everything was a small floating asteroid. Even the bigger asteroids were small. Although the gravity thing was fun, I really grew tired of it halfway through. Keeping your brain on straight as you keep correcting your analog stick to compensate for Mario's ever-changing heading just is not a friendly experience. I don't see how Nintendo can pitch Mario Galaxy as a new Wii Sports-style Game For Everyone when things get so dizzy. Your TV spots can show a twelve-year-old and his mom playing together, but casual gamers are not going to get past the third galaxy cluster. The last galaxies are hard and the last thirty stars are insane. This game ramps up to hardcore for the final act; this is why Nintendo's star collection system lets you stomp Bowser when in the 60 star range.

Although the final Bowser stage/fight was pretty hard, too. I appreciated having the skills buildup of 90 stars before going into that level.

I still like Sunshine a whole hell of a lot more. In my opinion, you cannot beat free-roaming.

Although I was initially pretty down on the 2P co-star mode, it did come in quite useful in the end stages. Some of those levels are so chaotic that having an extra brain around really helped. A couple times, Rhonda's quick clicking helped me save Mario's ass... particularly by using the 2P jump ability. And for the levels with Bullet Bills or scads of cannonball attacks, I can't even imagine attempting to navigate them without having her there freezing enemies.

Co-star still isn't a true multiplayer experience, but it's better than a kick in the breadtray.

BIG THANKS TO MARIO GALAXY FOR LETTING ME CONTINUE TO PLAY THE GAME AAFFTTEERR BEATING BOWSER. Seriously. I accomplished the game's final goal but not 100% of the sub-goals, and the game has no problem with me going back into the gameworld. What is so wrong about that philosophy that Legend of Zelda and Kingdom Hearts and others can't do it?

Sure, it's ironic that I don't much feel like doing it, but if I want to, I can.

I haven't looked it up yet, so I honestly do not know what happens when you get that 120th star. Here are my guesses:

• No waiting for the waggle-spin attack. Wouldn't that be cool?


• Screenshot ability in-game. That would be classic Nintendo to unlock something impossibly awesome AFTER you've drained all the fun out of the game.


• Unlock Super Mario Bros in Animal Crossing. IT'S STILL COMING, TRUE BELIEVERS!


• 2P as Luigi, onscreen with Mario. And support for two more simultaneous co-star players.


• Unlocks hidden video of Reggie demanding you buy Metroid Prime 3 or he'll kill this dog.


• Game remembers your accumulated extra lives.


• Play as Mii.


• Game now uses Forecast Channel data so Mario can explore galaxies while experiencing the local weather conditions of twelve hours ago.


• All those damn smegging tiny asteroids unwrap and join to become a solid, free-roaming level.


• User-controlled 360-degree camera.


• $5 credit on Shop Channel, but you can only use it on NES Soccer.


• Play as Wario; now invincible.


• Congratulatory star shape appears on your Mii's shirt in Mii Channel and wherever else you see your Mii.


• Star List resets! Find all 120 again!

Was putting some old comics away when I found this. I was going to scan it in myself, until I found somebody else already had done the deed.

I was there in 1979 when Marvel books ran this back cover ad, so I guess I have kind of a creeping nostalgia for it.

I realize that a lot has happened in technology and toy costs in thirty years, but doesn't $13.95 sound really expensive for that?

These days, Chiquita Banana is best known for funding South American paramilitary groups and committing human rights violations! If only the power of the Banana-Compass could help them today.

I am currently among the top 60 guitarists on "My Sharona."

Although that's probably more of a comment on the number of people who bothered to download the song than my shredding skills. And the spread between me and the top 20 scores is heartbreaking.

Happy Feet is really bad.

This movie exists just to entertain people who still enjoy watching realistic animals lip-sync to pop songs. And those who enjoy Robin Williams doing borderline racist vocal impressions.

Rhon pointed out that, by the end of the movie, the one thing that makes Mumble special - his ability to dance rather than sing - is erased when everybody else learns how to dance. So now he's back to being the jerk who can't sing. Plus, he has some kind of mutant anti-molting problem.

Twin Peaks Season Two is out on DVD.

And has been for months. In fact, they just recently re-issued a combined season one-two set.

Xavier: Renegade Angel is the best show Adult Swim has debuted since Venture Bros.

Pre-order me the boxed set. Fritatta.

Borders will not let you stack a 25% discount coupon on a "new release" book that is already 30% off.

The toad-man behind the register actually tried to charge me the 25% instead of the 30%, meaning I would have paid more for the book than somebody who didn't have a coupon in the first place.

I ordered Ouendan 2.

Finally! I also ordered Nodame Cantabile, another DS music game that I think is like Ouendan but with classical music. $60 total, plus I added a $5 toy for Clark... then used an $8 email coupon code and $6 of accumulated store credit! It's IMPORT MADNESS.

Once I receive this order and a new coupon code, I'll order the Beautiful Katamari soundtrack. I'm such a planner.

We finally know why Superboy Prime suddenly looks like SuperMAN Prime!

I mean, aside from the lawsuit. Has anybody figured out if Sinestro Corps is over before Countdown started? With the Kyle Rayner and Superman Prime appearances in Countdown, I just can't conflate the two.

Sony Bravia Bunnies (YouTube)
Great Sony Bravia commercial. Not sure what it demonstrates about LCD HDTVs, but I know I want one.

The Superest
Several artists try to out-do one another's super-hero concepts. When you go there, scroll all the way to the bottom and read up!

Quotation Mark Abuse (flickr)
A "photo" gallery "I" could really "get into."

Illegal immigrant rescues boy in desert (Yahoo News)
Young boy lost in the Arizona desert after his mother wrecks the car is found and comforted by a Mexican man on his way across the border. If this story isn't made into a movie, I'll eat my hat.

Top Five Hits & Misses of Wii's First Year (Nintendo World Report)
Very even-handed, snark-free, and mercifully brief rundown of the Wii's strengths and flaws for Year One. Note that the old "game drought" canard is never mentioned.

I've played Rock Band for the better part of the last two days. I wanted to unlock all of the songs so that when the great No Longer About Stupid Thanksgiving visits start, we have a full complement of choices. And I did buy a couple songs... Fortunate Son and My Sharona. (Both covers, although My Sharona could potentially pass for the original, in my estimation. Fortunate Son? No frigging way.) I've beaten the guitar campaigns for Easy and Medium, and started Easy drums and Easy singing.

Although, as usual with me and music games, I don't much care for the song list. It took like fifteen songs on the Solo Tour Mode track before I found one I liked enough to hum it the next day. I'll be into the DLC.

Speaking of that, the PlayStation Store is just about the worst UI ever. It would be fine if they were selling five items tops, but the slow-ass navigation and ugly presentation sucks. Where's the style? I know Sony has some. Somewhere.

I do like that you can navigate from the game, through the XMB, to the store, and buy stuff all using the guitar controller. Or the drums, for that matter.

EA does not have the Rock Band social networking junk online yet. You can see leaderboards inside the game, but that's about it. What will happen eventually will be like a little MySpace for Rock Band players and bands. The core Rock Band website is up and running an interim forum... but be warned, some botard thought it would be a good idea to make the Rock Band website one of those that automatically resizes your browser window! Thanks for coming, 1999, now fuck off with that.

By the way, I registered for the forum and was handed the most incredible CAPCHA image:

Now there's a band name.

Anyway, the online stuff should be extremely cool, especially if it integrates your personal top scores and avatars and such. They already mentioned the ability to buy figures and t-shirts of your band members.

The avatars. Not as cool as I had hoped. There's not enough head types! That really wrecks it, I don't care how many awesome shirts and pants you can unlock. I do like the customization options for tattoos and guitar artwork. When you beat Easy guitar mode, you get a silver guitar for your character, which is perfect for decorating with some of the game's built-in clip art. I put a fluffy bunny on my guitar.

However, the big big problem with the avatars is that each one is locked to a specific instrument, either guitar, drums or voice. So you can't just create "you" and then use that guy for whatever position/campaign you happen to be in. How insane. I had to make three "Joe"s, each with a different name! This is already well-griped online, so maybe they can change that in some future game update. Probably $5.

Once you get over that, the background concert footage is truly amazing. I've often expressed that I'd like to turn that crap off, but what Rock Band does back there is fantastic to see. It looks like a live edit of several shaky cams... nothing mechanical about it. Very smooth, very believable. The bandmates have a wide range of animations. The leads even do a passable job of lip syncing to the actual lyrics. Weren't we promised the ability to record performances at one point? When I get a band together, and we hack out our avatars, I would love to keep a couple Greatest Hits Live recordings.

Gameplay, gameplay. It's pretty much exactly like Guitar Hero as far as the guitar is concerned. The physical Strat is much nicer... about six inches longer than the original Guitar Hero SG controller. Star Power is now called Overdrive. I really like how you can add to your overdrive meter by picking up more energy chains... I'm sure that, with proper timing, you could play some songs almost entirely in overdrive mode.

My Strat has a sensitive overdrive problem... it will trigger overdrive even if I'm standing absolutely still. The best I can figure is that I hold the neck too high and that tends to keep the motion sensor in a near-constant state of activation. Tonight I tried to keep the guitar as parallel to the floor as possible, and it didn't faux-verdrive me once. I'm not sure if this is intentional or not - don't normal human beings typically hold guitars at 45-degree angles? I'll be tracking the forum discussions on this and see if this warrants a replacement. At the least, I have a solution and I am once again in control of my star pow... OVERDRIVE! Overdrive. Gotta get used to that.

Drumming is absolutely wild. I can only handle the Easy stuff, and even a lot of that is crazy... but once you get it, you feel like a goddamn genius. My ankle hurts like hell on that foot pedal, so I'm trying to find a comfortable sitting position.

Singing seems just like a fine-tuned Karaoke Revolution (words count!) There's a lot of opportunity to add in your own ad-libs, which is fun. You need to use your Sixaxis controller to "turn on" the mic, which is not made very apparent in the manual. I guess this was cheaper than making a custom USB mic with a couple PS3 buttons on it.

I had Clark sing the "Let's Go" part of Blitzkrieg Bop. I wonder if Harmonix is considering any kid-oriented downloads? Let's get The Wiggles!

I really, really want a second guitar. As soon as EA gets those non-bundled instruments in stores, I am getting my bass. Given that lots of people are too self-conscious to sing, and that the drum kit can be pretty intimidating, you need that second guitar to keep the game approachable.

The overall feel of Rock Band is much more serious than Guitar Hero. There's none of the over-the-top showboating animations (don't miss 'em.) There's not even a plonk if you screw up a note (that I do miss.) It's a good move to differentiate the franchises, especially since Guitar Hero III went even more ridiculous with the Tetris Attack boss fights and the whole play-against-the-devil plotline.

So, being such a serious experience, you'd think the game would have a pure karaoke mode, where you can play a full song without the hassle of getting kicked out by the AI audience. There's not. I guess you're just supposed to do a multiplayer Quick Play and either make sure everyone is good or set it all to Easy. Although I haven't really investigated the Make-A-Band stuff yet, so maybe there's some other options in there.

The holidays are hereby cancelled for 2007. Stop worrying about them immediately. We have Rock Band.

The size of the box is no joke. I opened it up in the parking lot. Just to make sure everything was there.

Those are real Ludwig drumsticks. $170 for this is an insane value, especially when compared to the $90-$100 for Guitar Hero III. They know they're going to make a killing on DLC songs.

We rock hard, and I haven't even put the drums together yet. Always make sure to wear the greatest t-shirts when rocking.

So far, the big problem is that the drum kit is an active PS3 controller, so it makes menu navigation awfully difficult when Clark bangs on them for no reason.

We just did Should I Stay Or Should I Go as a family... Rhonda singing, me on guitar and Clark on drums. No, we did not finish the song. I'm really looking forward to exploring the avatar creation mode. More thoughts to come.

I just saw this on Kotaku and had to mention it.

It's an animated webcomic about Animal Crossing. Don't watch it at work. Don't watch it when you have a roomful of giddy friends hanging over your shoulder. Don't watch it if you don't have a few minutes to really absorb it.

It may help to know a little about Animal Crossing, particularly the real time clock and the way the NPCs react to you. If you're a fan of the game, you'll probably see where this is going and it will haunt you.

I realize that it could be completely fake. I hope it is genuine, because if not than I have just been manipulated in the worst way.

Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie (1997) does not contain nearly enough actual Power Rangering.

Seriously. Clark had to sit through an hour of villainous posturing and the team standing around looking frightened before they put on the damn suits and got to kicking!

Skipping nap to attend an Adoption Celebration event is cool. Expecting to go to the mall afterwards on the weekend before Black Friday is not.

We lasted through about fifteen minutes of stifling crowds and fussy Clark before we bailed.

If you have thin vertical bars inching up your TV screen, you might have a ground loop problem.

This has been driving me crazy for weeks, and it's the PS3's fault. The solution, however, is dastardly simple. Change the PS3 power cord from a three-prong to a two-prong. Instant clear picture.

The new Pirates Pirates set is finally out.

Disney and WizKids combine for Pirates of the Caribbean. Compared to previous Pirates Of The XXXXXX sets, it's a bit vanilla, but it makes up for that with having actual movie photos, I guess.

The Killing Joke wasn't supposed to happen!

Maybe this explains why Black Canary has been such a non-entity over in Justice League?

I need surround sound.

After we moved, I avoided plugging the surround sound junk back in because the extra remote sucks and the wires are such a mess. But I just can't handle the staticky speakers on our TV. So back up it went.

Chicken Little was not half bad.

Relatedly, this was the event that prompted me to fix my ground loop and re-install my surround sound.

Smash Brawl is about to become my favorite TV show.

I can totally see myself turning on the Wii and watching random online Smash Brawl bouts for hours. Hours.

The countdown to Rock Band is on.

I imagine I'll be picking this up over lunch break Tuesday. So will the ceremonial unboxing then have to take place in the office? I don't think I'll be able to wait until I get home. For about two weeks now, Clark has been asking when we're buying "drums."

Last week I checked my fourhman.com stats and was surprised to see November 2007 pageviews tracking to best October 2007 by a wide margin, and the month was only half over. I had over 130,000 views in October and as of last week, November had already posted over 100,000. It's always fun to see your pageviews jump like that, but you kinda want to know why.

Unfortunately, my DreamHost stats' section on referring URLs gets too bogged down with Google image results to be of much use (for years I was the top hit for an image search on "waffles") so until today when I checked my Technorati links, I had no idea where all the traffic was headed. And it seems to be all coming mostly from Game|Life's quickie on Fatal Frame: the Card Game. It's interesting, because it's not like Fatal Frame: the Card Game is a new thing... it just somehow popped up on the radar and enjoyed a week of getting passed around.

Here's some grabs from the sites I discovered through Technorati, and some happy-to-do-it links back.

11/05/07 - Between the Bits, John Hummel's weblog. You know, I would consider a trip to PAX if I knew there was some kind of Fatal Frame card game thing going on. If anybody wants to see the game in action at next year's Origins, let me know.

11/06/07 - Game|Life, You know, Wired's gaming weblog? I've made Kotaku and GameSetWatch and other weblogs before, but landing Wired is pretty damn cool. Of course, I'm humilated that they used a graphic of one of my cards without the proper font... I'm still pissed about that. What kind of free font lets you use it everywhere but not embed it in a PDF?

11/07/07 - polygamia, a Polish gaming website. Look at the cool custom card fan image they made!

11/12/07 - Random Linkage, a weblog devoted to nothing but daily website recommendations.

11/13/07 - blog.skagirlie.net, Maire Kruppa's weblog.

This just makes me want to work on the 15-card expansion set more. So far, my favorite new card is "Disorienting Shadows," an action card that effectively blocks an exterior location for the rest of the game. Although the big question mark is "Chitose's Bell," an Item that I'm trying to shoehorn into the game as a counterspell. The problem is philosophical; "Chitose's Bell" would be the only thing in the game that you "do" when it isn't your turn and I'm not sure if I like that.

Maybe it's because I am not of the Old School Nintendo world, having never owned an NES or SNES, but I think Mario Sunshine is better than Mario Galaxy.

Yes, Galaxy looks better... yes, Galaxy is a lot of fun... yes, Galaxy is clever and cute and challenging. But every time I play it - and I'm eight hours and 44 stars in at this point - I have this nagging feeling that I would rather be playing Sunshine.

What really blew me away about Sunshine, what made Sunshine feel "next gen" to me, simply is not present in Galaxy. Sunshine made me feel like I was transported to a living, cohesive corner of the Mario Universe. Galaxy, perhaps ironically, feels like tons of separate little linear levels that I am asked to play through only because they exist. Sunshine was more of an adventure through Mario's world; Galaxy is an arcade collection.

I think it was the first level in Sunshine... after warping to the area, you trot up a little green hill, bopping a couple of Goombas. Nothing revolutionary yet. But in short order you crest that hill and the vista opens up to reveal a small clay-and-plaster village, a wide lake on the right, a forested area dotted with trees and enemies. You can see a cave across the lake. You can see tightropes connecting the rooftops. Far off you can see coins of various colors that you know you will have to collect. It does not look like a video game level, but you know that somehow it will be a video game level. In fact, this area masks several such levels... and every "world" in Mario Sunshine does the same. It may look like a village or a seaside resort or a waterfront amusement park but it is actually packed with interconnected paths and hidden routes. This, to me, was the genius of Mario Sunshine, and I do not get that same feeling from Galaxy.

Galaxy is more like SMB3 (I have the GBA version). Most of the levels in Galaxy are straight shot paths with one way forward. Many times you'll reach a portion of the level that blocks you from going back, in case you think you missed a pickup or whatever. It's a small thing, but that really bothers me.

I also hate that you don't have full control over the camera. So many times I have wanted to just rotate around and check out the view... or tweak the angle just enough to get a better look at something up ahead. And you can't. What meager camera options are available in Galaxy are almost useless. (Which is not to say that the AI-controlled camera does a bad job. It actually does a great job of keeping your view on the action... better than Sunshine's automatic camera. I just expect the option for a personal touch.)

2P Co-Star mode is a bit of a bust. First of all, Rhonda was disappointed to learn she was nothing but a on-screen cursor. I'm surprised they didn't represent the second player with the little Luma dude that Mario absorbs about ten minutes in. I mean, really. How hard would that have been, and how much more immersive!

And at the end of it all, there just isn't a whole lot for 2P to do to feel like they're actually accomplishing anything. In Double Dash, the second player had to stay focused, had to be a part of game, even though he or she wasn't driving the kart. In Galaxy, 2P's attention can drift. We have had a couple points where the second cursor was absolutely invaluable - freezing Chain Chomps, for example - but most of the time, 2P kinda feels like the last picked dodgeball kid.

Co-Star mode is a nice inclusion, but it's clearly nothing that the game was designed around.

Sunshine and Galaxy come from two very different approaches, but both end up at the same goal. Galaxy just seems more on-model to me, and that model ceased being intriguing in the SNES days. I'm still playing the hell out of Galaxy. It just lacks that GTA-style free-roaming that I enjoyed in Sunshine.

I imagine there are a lot of Wii owners out there who never played Sunshine... hell, who never owned a GameCube. I encourage you lot to ignore the drooling "It's SOOOO much better than Mario Sunshine... what was that water spray crap?" that's out there and pull Sunshine out of the bargain bin. Of course, you'll also need a GameCube memory card and a GameCube controller... but with Smash Bros coming out, you may want some GameCube controllers around anyway.

Two more complaints: what the heck is up with letting you Wii-mail your Star List to friends, but nothing else? How about screenshots of the game in action, Nintendo?

And why does the game default to four lives no matter how many you have collected before the save-and-quit? That really torks me off. I've had 20+ extra lives, quit for the night, and then restored to see them all gone.

Rising Zan: Samurai Gunman Intro (YouTube)
I am absolutely dying to get this song in my iPod. Somebody send me the MP3!

Hillary Clinton's "Chinese" Clapping (Angry Asian Man)
MSNBC's Chris Matthews keeps referring to Hillary Clinton's clapping habit as "Chinese." The hell? Is he trying to invent a stereotype?

Super Powers: Wave Four & Beyond (Toy Otter)
Fantastic pic collection of pitch materials for some never-produced expansions to the 1980s DC Super Powers toy line. The Green Lantern Oa playset is completely sweet.

Email about the WGA strike (Mark Evanier)
In the second part, Evanier directly refutes the commonly heard sour grapes complaint that "writers already make so much money and most of America works harder for less." This later entry discusses the corporate bullshit about "no money on the internet." I've said it before and I'll say it again: Mark Evanier consistently provides one of the finest weblogs out there.

Video of the Japanese Vending Machine Dress (Gizmodo)
Disguise yourself as a soda machine to blend in with the Tokyo urban landscape. Probably more social commentary and/or arthouse kitsch than a genuine personal security concept.

Impromptu Game Night 2!! (The Tauz Blaug)
Unfortunate proof that I played Killer Bunnies and touched an Xbox.

Your Creation Museum Report (John Scalzi)
Hopefully this will be as close as you will ever get to this monument to idiocy. (Gamers may remember Scalzi from his Official PlayStation Magazine column.)

A Pirate's (After) Life For Me (Mice Age)
Great piece about people spreading the ashes of loved ones around Disneyland. Spoiler: the ashes get thrown out.

The Aberrant Gamer: Flower Girl (GameSetWatch)
The darker side of cosplay... and the long-reaching effects of Aeris Gainsborough.

Having some actual PS3 games to play - and since The Simpsons Game Demo was so terrible - I haven't grabbed many PS3 demos lately. But here's a little about some that I did.

Timeshift: The opening movie is actually really damn cool and made me think of what a perfect Flash game could be like. In fact, somebody should get working on a mod for that right away... skin the lead in red-and-yellow and drop all the gun stuff.

I didn't think the demo explained the time controls very well, or at least I never grokked them enough to know when to utilize them. Until the exploding corridor scene (where you are expected to rewind time so that the corridor fixes itself and you can run through safely), I barely activated my Amazing Time Powers.

Being able to pause, slow down or rewind time is quite a heady suite of options. They are so fundamentally mind-blowing that I rather expect the game to never use them properly. I'm the kind of player who would want to play to the end of the level and then rewind all the way back, just to watch it un-happen. I doubt that feature will be implemented. The demo does not do a fantastic job of expressing this one way or the other.

Definitely interesting. Just doesn't seem interesting enough.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune: I am a font snob, and when I see professional grade products using off-the-rack fonts, it galls me. Sony's Uncharted uses the font BASE 01, which is freely available just about anywhere! Here's a quickie comparison... at the top is me typing straight into Photoshop using BASE 01 (and adding a drop shadow), below that is the actual Uncharted logo.

Sure, some designer muddied it up a bit, added plenty of scratches and wear... but that is BASE 01. Although the original font lacks the detail in the game logo, all of the major tear spots are present: the angled cut in the first stroke of the N, the damage to the top of the E, the missing piece in the T, the inside of the R, etc. Geez guys, do a little work and make something your own.

I also hate when people use a font and pretend its handwriting. I think there was an attempt to make the text "Drake's Fortune" look less like a mechanical font, but it's not good enough. The R's are identical and the E's not quite differentiated enough. The kerning does not look like natural handwriting... come on, look at the gap between the F and the O. Who writes like that?

So that all said "cheap" to me. Which is crazy, I know. But's that how I look at things. Happily, the actual game is not cheap. In fact, it's the first time I've played something that I felt actually looked like a next-generation game.

I think the main thing is that the demo shows off a very convincing jungle. It's one thing to construct your levels out of colorless, bombed-out buildings; it's something else entirely to do hills and trees and plants and waterfalls. It really is quite impressive.

I'm still kinda wishy-washy about the cutscenes. On one hand, the physical acting and facial features were convincing... the physical being more so than the faces. Definitely some very nice realistic CG heads. But on the other hand, the script was crap. All the usual action movie silliness, like when the guy is trying to maintain control of his flaming airplane, his partner straps on a parachute and asks "are you coming?" And he goes "Kinda busy right now!" Blah. I suspect that the game really won't graduate to much more than that.

The gameplay did not strike me as anything special. Run around, shoot enemies, climb hillocks and ancient ruins, occasionally find an excuse to shovel in motion controls. It just looked damned great doing all of the that. Best New Feature Of This Generation: characters actually speaking their lines when audio clips play during the game. Uncharted does it and Ratchet Future does it. We're knocking down the immersion-breakers one little step at a time.

Unlike most PS3 demos I've wandered into, I do definitely want to play Uncharted more than once. Font notwithstanding.

BONUS CONTENT: Here's a little about Beautiful Katamari, which I got to briefly enjoy last Friday.

The one sentence review is: They didn't fix a goddamned thing.

The obnoxious :30 klaxon is still there. The King's head still completely covers your view. The camera still can swing behind walls and get lost. And, most egregiously, there are still loading breaks. In fact, in one early level that I played, I did not go outside of the room I was in because I could see that nothing was out there... but in actuality, that doorway was a pause-and-load spot and the game does not draw in the outside clutter until you roll through the door. That's just plain horseshit.

That said, when the next Katamari game comes out for Wii or PS3, I'll get it. Even if I might as well just play the second one again. Having new music and environments is probably enough. I'm eager to see the sales figures for the 360 "exclusive." Probably won't even sell as many copies as Conker Live.

Super Mario Galaxy hit most retailers today, and since most people like to think that Mario Sunshine never existed, this is considered the first true Mario game since 1977. Man, what is up with the Fashionable-to-Hate-Sunshine thing? I thought it fantastic and, in fact, the only part that I distinctly hated was the only part that the anti-Sunshine crowd liked... those awful, non-themed, fall-into-darkness pure platformer levels. I've mentioned this before, I'm sure.

Anyway, Tony and I planned a Mario Galaxy jaunt for today, so as to be sure not to miss Toys R Us's free $25 gift card offer. That really is an insanely great bonus. We figured on driving out to TRU over lunch.

So, because I've been burned by these situations before, at 11am I called. I was very specific in my language so as not to mislead: "Are you selling Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii yet?"

"No. That's not in yet."

I met that with complete and purposefully awkward silence. The speaker continued...

"I mean, it's supposed to be in today and it will be in today, we just don't have the shipment yet."

Bullshit. That truck was there, the box is on the dock, you just haven't gotten somebody's lazy ass to open it. I promise to call back.

Tony does the second call, around 12:30. I guess we would have continued alternating calls every hour or so until we heard what we wanted to hear... but the news is good. "I just opened that box ten minutes ago," the voice chirrups. And so we are off.

Tony drives and we forge the direct path (through the city) to the store. Within striking distance we get behind this guy, an old man in possession of a land yacht that cruises more than drives:

But his aimless drifting does not hinder our mission for long, and we're at the store... which was recently rebuilt but nevertheless lacks the newer, more compact and playful TRU logo.

On the car trip, I busied myself getting all of our paperwork in order. This is a very complicated purchase and I cannot leave anything to chance. This is called The Proof:

We both hold pre-order slips, so we both should get the coin. I have the sales flyer that mentions this, as well as the unexpected free Remote Glove offer. I also have the second sales flyer that has the $25 gift card. I mentally prepare myself for any resistance, imagining myself as Phoenix Wright presenting crucial evidence. "HOLD IT," I'll scream.

To complicate matters further, I have a coupon to instantly save $10 off any $100 spent. If we combine our games, this will save us another $5 each. However, the question looms: will we be allowed to use this coupon in conjunction with our already extravagant offer(s)? Tony suspects we should have brought a video camera.

But I am happy to report that the venture was 110% successful. We selected our gloves right away (a blue one for me and a black one for Tony; the stock was ample... I did not know Nintendo was making gloves with characters on them these days, although the art is too small to mean much), and the clerk knew exactly what we were talking about. He assembled the coins and the gift cards with no prompting. He did mention that he just got in 15 minutes ago, implying that we would not have been able to buy the game before that. WTF? Why is shelf stock determined by a shift change? That's fine if we're talking about Petz 2, but a big game with big offers behind it needs to be stocked at fucking daybreak.

The $10 coupon was accepted without incident. The only surprise was that the $25 gift card has to be used by year's end. I'm figuring on turning it into a $20 Wii Points cards and $5 on Smash Bros.

Then it was back to the office, to fill time until Galaxy. I browsed the manual and noticed a meager WiFi component: emailing a screenshot of your collection screen, so as to show off your progress to other Wii owners. If you can email a stupid inventory checklist, you better damn well be able to email actual in-game awesome photos. I'm sure I'll find out soon enough...

The Wal-Mart and Target holiday catalogs arrived at fourhman.home 2.0 this week, and the PS3 is nowhere to be seen. No new $399 model. No big spread on Ratchet / Uncharted / Rock Band / Haze. I suppose Sony could have done this on purpose, ordering these retail giants to focus on the PS2, but that seems totally crazy. The PS3 bungle keeps throwing its net wider and wider.

Here's the Wal-Mart center page on video games (all of these scans will boldly embiggen if you click them.)

 

Wii, DS, 360, PS2. As if the PS3 doesn't even exist. Is there any planet where this wouldn't be a colossal mistake?

Speaking of mistakes, Wal-Mart still hasn't forwarded the memo that Smash Bros was delayed. "Available 12/3," right right.

And wasn't the Wii version of Guitar Hero III supposed to be cheaper than the 360/PS3 version?

Rock Band 360 doesn't even have a price listed. It's like they printed this material back in August.

I was going to praise Buzz (PS2) and Scene It (360) for having the chutzpah to bring something different to the racks, what with the custom game show style controllers... but then I remembered that these were both announced AFTER the Wii was proven to be a blockbuster. These are "mad scramble to counteract the competition" games. $40 is a pretty sweet price for Buzz; I bet the game is absolutely horrid, although I must confess some fleeting interest in the concept. Where's Nintendo's version? I already have the controllers, after all.

There's that ridiculous Xbox 360 Arcade edition, a hard drive-less mistake masquerading as an actual useable 360. Fooled ya, Grandma.

And Halo 3 doesn't exist either.

Target is running three and a half pages for holiday gaming, starting with a mis-priced 360 Rock Band:

$200? "Special Edition"? At least Target has the sense to push a real 360, not the hobbled Arcade.

Not even a fine print "also available on playstation3."

I like how Target shows the 360 Rock Band USB hub... necessary since the 360 only has two USB ports. PS3 FTW.

The half page that I didn't scan shows a pyramid of 360 games. Excuse me, "software." Some wordsmith at Target decided that all video games are to be titled software. Just as with Wal-Mart, you'll find no M-rated games listed in the ad. We'll see if their desire for family friendliness will conflict with their lust for money once GTA4 and Metal Gear 4 come out, sometime in 2011.

 

The Nintendo page comes to us from a land before time, when New Super Mario Bros was hot. Seriously, how about some new games in there? Metroid Prime 3? Zack & Wiki? Super Mario Galaxy? At least Target isn't offering up some fictional Smash-Bros-In-December; but that probably just means they haven't even heard of it.

And bringing up the rear, the once-mighty PS2. How sad that in the year 2007 we have to witness a holiday catalog still shilling memory cards. (And overpriced just like they've always been!)

Singstar is a nice surprise. Buzz again. That two guitar Guitar Hero III bundle is damn nice. Only $110 for two guitars? At this point I'm sure this applies to no one, but if you don't already have Guitar Hero and you do have a PS2, this is the one to get. Assuming you don't care about DLC and don't mind both of your guitars being wired.

What's up with the Simpsons Game PS2 box art? Is Ralph Wiggum chewing on Homer's shoulder? Every time I turn around I find a new reason to forget about that game.

So, anybody still considering a PS3 gift this year? You'd never know it to look at these catalogs.

You've seen these. Repackaged boxes of card boosters, no doubt cobbled together from overstock suppliers. Always with ugly, un-licensed artwork and generally a little tricksy on the actual card game side, preferring to puff up the bundle with non-game card packs. Like, the $20 Pokemon box will have a TCG starter, perhaps two TCG boosters, and then a handful of packs from the collector card series of Pokemon: The First Movie, those silly lenticular sticker sets, or even simply a pack of Digimon cards.

I've seen Yu-Gi-Oh sets, Pokemon sets, "anime" sets, Neopets sets, Harry Potter sets. Usually the value comes from you paying for the real stuff (the TCG stuff) and just accepting the crap stickers and movie cards as free. This, however, is the first time I have seen one for super heroes...

Let's pick this apart. 50 card sleeves, 4 packs, 1 starter. Originally $5, now $3. $3 is pretty much the going rate for a single booster pack, so this already ranks as one of the best bundle deals ever.

Through the window, you can see the starter is fairly hot... it's the Fantastic Four Vs. System starter, released as a stand-alone learn-to-play set (you get an FF mini-deck and a Doom mini-deck) during the summer the first Fantastic Four movie came out. Most of the cards are exclusive to this starter, so any serious Vs. player already has it. Some of the cards are watered-down versions of characters found in the regular Vs. set, but most of the artwork is better so it's not a bad get. This was also one of the last times Vs. System even HAD a starter deck, making this one of the last times you got an actual rulebook with the game. I hate that. This would have originally sold for $10 to $12.

Bottom right is another Vs. find, a First Edition pack of DC Origins, the first DC set. This would have been around $3 when it was first released, although I would not be surprised to see an unopened First Edition pack selling for more on the aftermarket. (Is there a Vs. aftermarket?)

Now things get weird. Although honestly, at three freakin' dollars, we're already in the plus side, and that includes the karmic punishment from having to look at the My First Super Hero Drawings on the boxfront.

Bottom left is a pack of movie cards from Superman Returns. Out of the seven cards inside, not a single goddamned one had Superman on it. Two featured Teenage Mom Lois and one card spotlighted the blonde PR woman who was on the spaceplane flight!

Clark was supremely disappointed.

Top right: a vintage pack from Batman Returns! 1995! What garbage! Four of these cards were publicity shots of Chris O'Donnell. Unbelievably, Clark picked him out as Robin right away... that domino mask could be on a horse and Clark would call it Robin.

Top left: OVERPOWER. And not just any OverPower set, this is the very very very first set, the unnamed initial Marvel release. Also circa 1995. And also terrible.

But inside is a surprise! An unexpected fifth pack, from the colossal fumble, Marvel ReCharge (2001). ReCharge was the game that tried to make a name by declaring itself the only collectible card game that was "fully playable with only one booster pack!" Yes, they were serious. They thought fans would appreciate a game that you can play with only six cards. It's one of the worst card games ever made. I'll assume that no editorial comment is intended by including an unmentioned "bonus" pack of ReCharge. Anyone trying to sell ReCharge packs today probably qualifies for a tax credit.

Total original cost of these items... $10 Vs. starter, $3 Vs. booster, the Superman cards would have probably been $2, the Batman Returns pack maybe 75 cents in 1995 dollars, OverPower boosters were $1.50 (I think) and ReCharge was $1. And the 50-pack of gold card sleeves is, what, $4?

Yep, that matches up with Green Laser Batman's claim of "over $16 value." Would buy again, A++++++.

Collection of Freakies commercials (YouTube)
Freakies cereal (1973-1975) was well loved in our house, perhaps more accurately the in-box toys were well loved. I don't actually recall eating much of it because I was, like, one, but my folks liked it and kept the toys around. It was resurrected in the '80s as a marshmellow cereal and that sucked.

CNN using commercial countdown clocks (Lost Remote)
I find this to be a really amusing idea, counting down through the commercials... but do people still watch news on TV?

Biggest BSOD of All Time? (Gizmodo)
Hilarious photo of a gigantic outdoor billboard that went blue screen.

Rock Band DLC News Nothing Short Of Pants Explosion (Kotaku)
Looks like all the stuff I like is coming down as DLC. Time to get with the spendin'.

I always take those gaming surveys when they crop up. Nintendo is always sending them out, occasionally making them a requisite to receiving some cool freebie. (Hey Nintendo, when you suggest that supplies are limited for your feather-pen stylus or whatever, that makes me do the survey immediately... which means that your questions about What Did You Like/Not Like About the Game? are completely blown because I have barely played it.)

This was a Sony survey, sent out to PlayStation Underground members. It was one of those really obnoxious types, where you have this huge list of possible marketing avenues and you have to declare which ones would likely first alert you to a game's existence, then which would first provide further info about a game, then which ones you would personally turn to for more information about a game, and then which ones you would look to when actually purchasing a game. Nuts. It went on forever, but now I'm registered to win three free PS3 games, so there you are.

Anyway, here's the highlights:

Oh yes, Sony. No matter how much. I'm sure Sony would dearly love to sneak $70 in as the new PS3 game price point.

Note the question below that one and my response.

The reliability of game store staff came up a dozen times. I gave them low marks every time.

I thought this was a rather interesting question. Basically, it's asking you to list some personal system-selling games. Although I didn't really have any specific games in mind when I bought my GameCube or my Wii, I did very pointedly buy those four systems listed for particular games.

Of course, I bought my PS3 back when we all thought GTA IV was coming out in October, ha ha.

After trying out the Pokemon card game, I wanted Pokemon Yellow. Until that purchase, I only had two super-old classic Game Boys and an unused Game Boy Pocket... so Pokemon truly did bring me back into the Nintendo fold. Naturally, I got the Game Boy Yellow bundle, with the sweet Pokemon-themed GBC.

Shortly thereafter, I wanted a big-screen Pokemon game, so off we went for the N64. Got the Ocarina of Time bundle at Sam's Club and drove across the street to EB for a copy of Snap. As soon as they release Snap to the VC, I'm going to gift it to everyone I know.*

*Not really.

Perhaps the most surprising one is the last one. I did not have a PS1 until I watched some college pals playing an NHL game on it, of all things. I'm going to place that seminal event in the fall of 1997, I think. The PS1 was bought in early 1998. Before that, I had an old Genesis and, get this, I was one of those guys who thought that PC games were the shiz-nit and consoles were for kiddies! Hilarious! We all go through those phases, don't we.

Hopefully the survey was so long and obnoxious (it was) that I'll stand a good chance of winning the free PS3 games... but then again I'm sure the free games will be Madden 07, Madden 08 and Madden 09.

Just this past weekend I was wondering about the status of my five free Blu-Ray movies offer, figuring that I'd never see those movies and that yet another reason for buying a PS3 so early was dashed upon the fjords of futility.

And then they showed up today.

Bonus... the five movies came with a note that one of my selections was unavailable, so they swapped it with Happy Feet. The movie I did not receive was Babel, or maybe Italian Job. I forget. Happy Feet is probably far better. At the least it's another kid-friendly pick, coming from an original list that was anything but. Can you imagine if Sony had swapped my missing Babel Blu-Ray for something like Devil's Rejects? It's bad enough that I now own a high-def copy of Resident Evil: Apocalypse.

Of course, since I sent in for that underwhelming offer, Sony opened up a second one... this one with a few exponentially better choices like Pirates of the Caribbean, Full Metal Jacket and Superman 1978.

Now I need a new TV.

At least we know Guitar Hero 3 won't be the worst guitar game under trees this Christmas.

Oh calm down. I kid, I kid.

Yes, just what the kids of today want: ventriloquist dummies from three generations ago.

Possibly the most realistic military toy playset on the market! Kick back with a newspaper in the burned out home of the family you just killed!

Giant inflatable katamari? DO WANT.

What's worse than the actual CG Shrek character designs? The flat-fied cutesy versions.

It's 75 degrees outside. Time to wear your halter top and miniskirt!

Will look great on the shelf next to your neon Miller Lite sign... and you can fap to it!

Not only are these poor kids trying to play their ugly-ass Xbox with PS2 Dual Shock controllers, but they have no less than three copies of Star Wars: Starfighter. Christmas can't come soon enough.

This kid totally pwns u. He's playing his Xbox with his PSP. (See if you can spot the Photoshopping!)

Happy Holidays!

The following article can be read in its original form on Yahoo News. I have duplicated it below in blockquotes and inserted my commentary.

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 1 (Reuters) - A fox-like alien and his robot sidekick on a mission to save the galaxy could also help save sales of Sony's PlayStation 3, which has struggled to find a game so good that it gives people reason to buy the pricey console.

Microsoft's Xbox 360 has had several, including this year's "Halo 3," but Sony is still trying to find a megahit of its own as games like "Heavenly Sword" and "Folklore" have failed to make the kind of splash needed to convince holdouts.

Number of paragraphs until Microsoft gets mentioned in an article that isn't about Microsoft at all: 1

I call "several" a generous term. Halo 3 and Bioshock. As far as console exclusives go, that's it.

And Folklore sucks, by the way.

Now comes "Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction," a beautifully crafted game that is being compared to Pixar animated films and touted as a must-have for Sony fans.

"We're using lots of the same techniques that would be used in a Pixar film," said Brian Allgeier, creative director on the "Ratchet" titles at developer Insomniac Games.

Seasoned video game fans can be forgiven for rolling their eyes -- claims by industry executives over the years that their games are "Pixar quality" have turned out to be just so much marketing bluster.

But the "Ratchet & Clank" that hit stores last week comes closest to delivering on that promise.

Yes, I did roll my eyes. "Lots of the same techniques"... what, like computers?

"The new 'Ratchet' is a watershed for gaming because it provides the first interactive entertainment experience that truly feels like inhabiting a world-class animated film," the New York Times gushed this week.

Yeah, I trust the New York Times to be up on the latest in video gaming. Their pull quote on the back of the box means a lot to me.

I just don't get the need to liken a video game to an animated movie. It seems obvious to me that they're talking about the graphics - which, don't get me wrong, look great - but playing a game and watching a movie are two totally different things. The magic of the modern 3D video game is that you get to push through the fourth wall, not sit passively as the film unloops in one rigid narrative.

The game is also evidence that Sony's bet on its powerful new Cell processor is starting to pay off as developers get the hang of tapping its capabilities.

"We never could have had this level of action on the screen before," Allgeier said in praise of the PS3 hardware.

That whole Cell processor thing is nonsense. The CPUs are faster this generation. They're always faster in the new generation. That's why PS3 games look better than PS2 games. This is astonishing news, I know.

Metacritic.com, which combines ratings from review sites and magazines, has given the new "Ratchet" a score of 90, the highest so far for any game exclusive to the PS3.

"'Tools of Destruction' is an amazing PS3 game that fully leverages the power of the console. It sets the bar high for not only the series but for all PS3 games to come. It is, without a doubt, reason enough to buy the system," GamePro.com said in its review.

GamePro.com said in its review, which was carefully filtered through PR flaks so as to ensure GamePro.com continues to receive the benefits of Sony's kind hand. Look, you can either write creatively about how good/bad a game is, or you can spew out bankrupt drag-and-drop phrases that become website wallpaper.

And if R&CF, a first year PS3 does "fully leverage the power of the console," than Sony truly is borked.

Sony badly needs a hit for the PS3, which has lagged the Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii. By the end of September, the PS3 had sold about 5.6 million units, compared to more than 13 million each for the Xbox 360 and Wii.

Number of paragraphs until Nintendo gets mentioned in an article that isn't about Nintendo at all: 11

Nobody wants to mention that the 360 has been out for an entire year more than the Wii or the PS3 and maybe that's a shining good reason why it had a bunch of "system selling" games this year. And it's also a giant black eye as to why it has sold just as many units as the Wii. (Fewer, I'm sure. Microsoft never reports units sold, merely units shipped... so that stack of 360s at Best Buy counts as part of that 13 million.)

Clearly, when it comes to "system selling" games, fucking Wii Sports trumps Halo 3, hands down. And yet, mainstream media never wants to talk about Nintendo, unless it's parleyed in some kind of oddball "Can you believe THIS is selling?!" pseudo-shock, just like how they talk about Apple products.

The game, the seventh for the franchise since 2002, stars the fox-like Ratchet and his robot sidekick Clank as they try to defeat the evil Emperor Tachyon. Their adventures lead through 15 locations and involve space combat, skydiving and railgrinding sequences.

Only if you count a crapped-out cell phone game. Come on now. I don't even want to count Deadlocked.

Additionally, I'm about 3/4 through those 15 locations and I think I've had two scenes of space combat, two skydiving jumps, and 1.5 grinding sequences. The hype machine is on the case, kicking bottom.

Perhaps the biggest gameplay enhancement found in R&CF, the Clank-driven minilevels where you get an unlimited ability to slow down time, seems to be barely used. Again, I believe I've had to do that twice thus far.

"All along we've gone in more of a shooter direction and we've decided to go back to our roots with a platformer, with more exploration, more adventure," Allgeier said.

The game levels are stitched together with short animated clips that elaborate on the story and amount to about half the length of a feature film. With an industry rating of E 10+, the game should be suitable for everyone but small children.

"This is one of the few epic adventure games this holiday that will make people laugh," Allgeier said. "It's kind of a bright spot amid a lot of darker-themed games."

Anyone who is being honest about Ratchet & Clank Future will tell you that the game is exactly what you did in the first three R&C games, just far prettier. It's the same dopey story (miniature evil guy wants to control the cosmos!), the same lame characterizations (Qwark is still not funny!), and the same not-changed-since-2002 art direction. I know, I know, R&CF tells the SECRET STORY OF THE LOMBAXES.

It's a solid, fun title. It's not innovating anything; it's not pushing the potential of the PS3. If the PS3 wasn't such a lead weight, we probably would have got it at the $50 price point - a more appropriate price - rather than the $60 that Sony so desperately needs (remember all the previous PS2 R&C games debuted at $40.)

Real Life Forum Discussion (YouTube)
This is both really funny and deadly accurate.

Top Five Republican Gay Sex Scandals (Badmouth)
...in the last twelve months. Hypocrites.

Internet People - Who Are They? (Rumors Daily)
This is a very nice rundown of all of the viral videos featured in that "Internet People" YouTube hit.

Doktor A - Spit & Polish Custom Toy Extravaganza (Urban Retro Lifestyle)
Contains an absolutely gorgeous faux-1880s Pac-Man coin-op.

Kettle Chips Peoples' Choice IV
Kettle Chips is again offering their special mail-order taste-testing pack. I need to do that one of these years.

Got me the Leopard and it is full of great stuff.

There was a time when iChat fell distinctly into the category of Why Did They Bother, because, even on Macs, AIM was king. You had to be a total Apple loyalist to use old, featureless iChat. Those days are dead and buried.

As soon as iChat added folder hierarchy - which for quite some time was the killer feature that kept it under AIM, in my opinion - I dumped AIM and never looked back. The leap to iChat AV and easy-as-pie video or audio chatting seemed like the pinnacle for the concept. But the new Leopard iChat turns the formerly frill-less mini-app into something much grander.

The silly bit of the new iChat is the crowd-pleasing background feature. While live chatting, you can put yourself over some ridiculous pre-built background (like a serene waterfall or a shot of the Eiffel Tower). You can also drop in any image of your own, and yes that includes your own movie files. Here's Tony and me testing it out.

The look is okay, considering. It ain't your local newscast's chroma-key wall, but it does the trick. And anyway, it can only get better and iChat continues to develop. To achieve the effect, iChat tells you to "step out of the frame", at which time it memorizes whatever is behind you. When you return, it assumes that anything that is old pixels (IE, anything not you) can be dropped out in favor of the video loop. As you can see, it's spotty.

The best bit is that the "step out of the frame" demand always inspires you to dive like a madman for the floor.

But that's fluff. The real awesome in iChat is the screen-sharing and file-sharing abilities. Screen-sharing lets your chat partner move your mouse and use your computer. Computer screens have been a single-person, boxed-world experience for so long that when you try this out you can hardly believe it's happening. During the thirty seconds that I let Tony share my desktop, he dumped my web browser to another Space, tossed all my windows offscreen, and IMed Josh using my account.

The new file sharing feature lets your chat buddies view just about any file you have. I made Tony read the Kingdom Hearts Card Game manual PDF, view a plain text file of my Animal Crossing friend codes, and watch whatever movie files I had laying around. You just drag the file onto your chat window. Yes, previously you could send somebody a file through IM. Or you could drop a picture into the IM window. But being able to click through pages of a PDF in a chat? Well, we're officially beyond calling this a simple "chat." This is a goddamn tool now. Between screen-sharing and file-sharing, I'm not sure I even need to come in to the office anymore.

There's a lot of stink-talk about the new look for the Dock. It's sort of 3D now, with a gratuitous reflection on it. I will agree that it is weird to position 2D icons on a 3D space, but I don't really have a negative opinion on it. Eh. Did I prefer the previous, flat look? Yes. Am I more annoyed by the newly transparent menu bar at the top of the screen? Absolutely. At least the dock goes away 99% of the time.

One teeny thing that I do hate about the dock is the blue LED light thing that the Dock uses to show which applications are open.

I really like the way Docked folders open up into a big icon-based grid, especially now that icons tend to always be a live preview of the actual document, instead of some stupid generic app logo.

Spaces seems like a really smart way to organize stuff, particularly for folks like me who tend to leave a half dozen things running at the same time. I need to commit some time to creating my personal Spaces. Spaces, like Expose, is the kind of feature that a Windows user never gets, because it treats the apps and windows like actual physical objects, rather than just pixels painted onto a flat wall.

I should also seriously look into Time Machine. It sounds like the best backup tool ever made, but you need a redundant drive to use it. I will need to buy that extra drive.

QuickLook is instantly useful. It's in my default window view and probably already been used a couple dozen times. Between that and the new smart icons, you'll never have to boot a file to find out what's actually in it. QuickLook even runs the movie without opening up QuickTime.

The new Front Row is nice, although I do miss the "there goes my desktoooooooooop" effect when it starts up.

Safari lost all of my favicons. That sucked, because my bookmark icons all defaulted to that blue globe. Staring at the sea of Earths, I realized just how much I relied on the favicons to instantly locate specific bookmarks. So I've had to re-establish the icons as I go, but I have grabbed the opportunity to prune out old websites that I haven't visited in years.

Safari's new WebClip thing is supremely cool. I've already made Dashboard widgets of my webcam, Clark photo, and random photo... so it's like going to fourhman.com without actually doing it.

Mail finally looks like an Apple product! Hoorah! (Of course, I couldn't care less about the dopey email themes they added.)

There's the usual X.X screensaver additions... Word of the Day does what you would expect although Arabesque does not. The photo-based screensavers got one hell of an upgrade... first, there's a gorgeous collage option, where your photo collection falls onto the screen in a pleasing pile of Polaroids.

But then there's the truly amazing mosaic option, which literally creates those fancy million-pictures-make-one-picture out of your own iPhoto library. It starts with one fullscreen photo and then slowly zooms out until it makes another one, a cycle which then repeats while you pick your jaw up off the floor.

So, yeah, wow.