December 2007 Archives

My comic store's first ever Kingdom Hearts card game demo/tournament did actually happen today, and Josh and I were in attendance. We only had six people playing (including the store co-owner who was running the event), but I've been at Origins events that were far worse.

I had not played the game prior to today, but I did build a deck and read through the rulebook. It is a very simple game, with a pleasant amount of card types that are mostly all playable through some easy mathematical triggers. Like, you have to have a magic-user with a skill of 3 or greater to play a level 3 magic card, that sort of thing. Mainly, I was here for the free demo deck and promo card.

Although there are some definite theme-breakers in the card game (like keyblade cards being reduced to one-off attack bonuses, booo), one thing that the card game gets exactly right is the weird juxtaposition of Disney characters and a serious, moderated presentation. The Kingdom Hearts video games are, for me, most notable because they offer a shared-universe, philosophically-heavy, non-frivolous view of the Disney films. We're all very used to the Thanksgiving Parade version of Disney, where ridiculous costumes gad about in insulting synchronized dances designed to remind you to spend money at the Disney parks while the brain-dead co-hosts muddle through animal puns cribbed from a Dixie cup... but Kingdom Hearts reminds the player that all of this Mickey Mouse marketing avalanche was elaborated out of a pile of damn good movies. Kingdom Hearts returns you to the upstream source of what made the Disney company great. The card game designers were very cognizant of this, and it shows in the game's graphic layouts and overall design.

What is most exciting about the Kingdom Hearts TCG is that this is only the beginning. Japan has already had like seven expansion sets, so I can't wait to see what additional layers of complexity will overlay this simple debut edition. There is obviously a lot of material yet to be mined: Organization XIII, Riku and Kairi, the princesses, sequel summons like Chicken Little and Stitch, the Final Fantasy characters, and plenty of untapped movie worlds (Tron, Steamboat Willie, Pirates, Mulan, Beauty and the Beast, Winnie the Pooh, etc).

Unfortunately, I did not fare so well in the tournament...

We did three rounds and I lost each time. And I had even brought my own deck! Josh played with two demo decks mashed together, and he also scored a L-L-L.

My games were all close, with me getting my opponent down to 1 or 2 or 3 life every time... but my real excuse for losing is that we were all tripped up on a stupid vague rule, and all three of my opponents were able to take advantage of it. If I could have, I would have as well, so I don't blame them... I just think it was a bad interpretation of something the rulebook doesn't explain very well.

The situation was this: do Magic/Friend cards count as magical attacks? The ruling we played under was that they are. I did not agree with this, but I did not press the issue.

There is this big bad Heartless (the Gargoyle) who can only be killed by magic attacks... magic attacks being spell cards that require a magic-user Friend to play and then do X magic damage to the enemy. Generally speaking, if you're confronted with a Gargoyle and you don't have any magic cards in hand, you should probably just lump it and escape the battle. Magic/Friend cards, on the other had, are cards that require a magic-user to play, but then sit on the table as Friend cards that vanish at the end of the turn. Magic/Friend cards have an attack value and a magic value... but it's the ATTACK value that you add to Sora's attack, not the magic value. This says to me that, once played, Magic/Friend cards are not, in and of themselves, providing a magical attack. They could act as a magic-user and play magic cards, but if you use them personally in the battle, they boost Sora's attack, not his magic.

In every game, I dropped the Gargoyle on my opponent, and, after that initial flawed (IMO) resolution, my opponent got around the Gargoyle by having a Magic/Friend (big hitters Genie or Simba) combo with Sora's attack to kill it. I'm pretty sure I would have won some of my matches if this ruling had not gone the way it did. But the rulebook is not clear on this issue. I hated to contest the ruling because, well, it would have clearly benefitted me and I'm just not that aggressive a player with strangers. Although should Josh and I and others play this game, I'm going to argue my case and get that shit fixed.

UPDATE: I'm right. Now I'm pissed.

Here's the promo card:

Sora, in Halloween Town guise. Bizarre re-do of the card layout though... the stats are nothing like the design on a regular player card. And, hilariously, his Attack/Magic values are on the wrong colors, which could lead one to think that the numbers are reversed.

This initial set is not a very large card pool (only 60-some cards) so after one starter and twelve boosters, I am done buying cards already. I hear that the first expansion set is out early next year, so I will be watching the game's website for announcements.

Be warned, this game has one of those obnoxious deals where you're supposed to clip proof-of-purchases off your booster wrappers in the vain hope that someday the company will provide a way to redeem them for something. This only results in me keeping dictionary-definition trash in my house, and I hate that about me.

Kotaku has no idea what they're doing in their Game of the Year reader polls.

The big idiocy is that they limited it to three games per console. So there's no Metroid 3 on the Wii vote, no Locoroco on the PSN vote... and, unbelievably, no Warhawk on the PSN or the PS3! I guess Kotaku Editorial selected the three per, but that number is just way too restrictive. It's a poll, gang... you can have more than three options.

My ratio of Wiis to Friends is getting closer to 1:1.

Josh got a Wii for Christmas, bringing the number of Wiis among my friends and family to seven. Seeing as I only talk to about fifteen people a year, this is a pretty outstanding anecdotal sign of Nintendo's success.

Hal didn't kill as many Lanterns as we thought!

This has probably all been Prime-Punched out of continuity, but I thought the big point of the Hal-Goes-Parallax thing was that he killed all the Lanterns. The GL Secret Files book that just came out lists over 200 active Green Lanterns, including plenty of old ones that I assumed were part of Hal's post-Coast-toast slaughter. Even KT21 from that one-shot "Forever Blowing Bubbles" 1985 story is still around!

But even after all that, the book suggests G'Nort is presumed dead? Highly unlikely. As soon as a writer needs comic relief, he'll be back. Probably hibernating, or lost his lantern.

Why did no one tell us we get CCTV9?

This must have just been added to our cable lineup recently and we didn't notice until now. CCTV9 is China's international english language channel... which seems to run a lot of documentaries, travelogues, and news/culture programs about China and other Asian nations. We're always on the lookout for Asian shows and faces on TV (there's too few!), so this is a great addition for us. I should write my local cable office and thank them or something.

The new Warhawk dropship pretty much makes my experience perfect.

As soon as a Team Deathmatch round starts, four to six of us will run for the dropship, jump in, and head off towards the enemy base. What I love about this is that it provides a way for me to feel like part of the team even though I'm not necessarily a great Warhawk player. All I have to do hop behind my missile launcher and scan the skies while the pilot maneuvers through the madness. It becomes very much like an on-rails shooter. I racked up a five-kill streak last night, which is pretty amazing for me.

Just realized that the PS3 reads SD cards and Pro Duo cards.

Well, duh.

We've enjoyed the Wii's ability to pull photos off of an SD card for a year now, but it only just occurred to me that the PS3 does the same thing! Nintendo's clear interface and focused marketing FTW.

Head Tracking for Desktop VR Displays using the WiiRemote (YouTube)
This is so completely amazing. This guy cobbled together a VR suite out of a Wii.

Think HD-DVD Caught Up? Think Again. (Aeropause)
Could Sony actually win a format war? So far, yes.

Activision seeks money for controller compatibility. (Games Industry.biz)
Feel free to enjoy the ongoing sniping between Activision/Guitar Hero and Harmonix/Rock Band, but it's the article subtitle that I really care about: "Stand-alone Rock Band guitars available in January." HURRY.

"Futurama," "Doomsday" Blaze New Markets for Old Series (Toon Zone)
I'm very excited to hear that the Superman: Doomsday DVD did well, and that anticipation is high for New Frontier. What other DC tales could get the animated treatment: Kingdom Come? Identity Crisis? Dark Knight Returns? Killing Joke? Sinestro Corps? Zoo Crew?

Cinematic Titanic DVD is available for sale (Cinematic Titanic)
The original MST3K group (Joel, Trace, Josh) plus second-gen additions Frank and Mary Jo have launched their MST for the new millennium, Cinematic Titanic. Although I kinda blanched at the price: $16 for one DVD. Get this in iTunes for $8 and I'll bite.

Isn't it weird that this group started a new MST3K, and the Mike/Kevin/Bill faction has been doing their own MST3K projects for a bit now... there has got to be some kind of ugly feud behind the scenes.

The Original Mr. Toad's Wild Ride (Yesterland)
A brief pictorial on the Mr. Toad rides throughout the Disney parks. Toadi Acceleratio, Semper Absurda.

Where's the Council of Nicea when you need them? (Absorbascon)
Brilliant comparison of the evolution of the Bible and the flow of DC Comics continuity.

101 Dumbest Moments in Business - the Aqua Teen thing (Fortune)
What Fortune doesn't remember is that Cartoon Network had those Lite Brites on display in nine other cities, and had been up for weeks in Boston, without exploding, before some idiot freaked. Boston itself should have gotten the Dumbest Moment nod here, not Cartoon Network. Way to make sure you continue to look old and out-of-touch, Fortune!

One of Clark's gifts this year was a toy cash register, the kind with a fake UPC scanner. Here he sits criss-cross with his fake money.

Among the other hits this year: a doctor kit, a Craftsman light-up drill, a Thomas VTech phone, an inflatable Fantastic Four spaceship/plug-and-play video game, and a Power Ranger suit...

We had to get the suit on almost immediately. Here's the final awesome:

Being a DC Fanboy, I was most excited about the My First Batmobile...

It's very very cool. It launches a net, has plenty of lights, and sort-of turns into a jet. When you use the deluxe DC figures with it, their special hands (magnets? sensors? magic?) make it so the figures themselves turn the car's lights and sounds on by themselves. The light-up rumbly engine is especially slick.

Can you believe they put that right on the box? "Helps promote social skills"?

Here's Batman and Green Lantern enjoying a spin...

Oh, and out of the three deluxe "Connect-n-Go" figures, the Green Lantern one is the hardest to find at retail. Short-packed, I'm sure. GL probably has the coolest feature too, he comes with a green scooter (a ring construct!) that motors along smooth floors when activated. Batman (in a variant black suit) comes with a sweet batwing helicopter. Superman comes with a crane, ostensibly for picking up kryptonite rocks, but the set comes with no such rock. Clark seems to actually like the crane best, for unfathomable non-continuity kid reasons.

Later, we had to make a garage big enough to hold the Batmobile (the damn thing is wider than Clark's entire torso).

This line of toys is so freakin' great. We had that Batmobile all over the house today. They really need to do a Wonder Woman, a Robin, a Martian Manhunter, Mr. Terrific, Guy Gardner, and a two-pack of Blue Beetle and Booster Gold. Also Jonah Hex.

In Part One, I predicted four wins for Super Mario Galaxy, although I could personally only award two of those. In the second half of the Nintendo Power awards, Galaxy is barely nominated. Aside from the generic Game of the Year category, these are the equivalent of the Oscar technology awards.

On to Part Two:

Best Puzzle Game
Kororinpa: Marble Mania (Wii), Meteos: Disney Magic (DS), Nervous Brickdown (DS), Picross DS (DS), Planet Puzzle League (DS), Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (DS)
I'm surprised that Brain Age 2 doesn't show up here. Last year, the first Brain Age was nominated in the Best Alternative Game category (and won), but it seems to me that the definition of "puzzle game" could include brain training, in the lack of a specific brain category. Regardless, I don't have any of the games on this list. So I voted for Disney Meteos largely because I just saw it on sale. It's tough to predict the popular choice here, because puzzle games don't exactly engender fanboy followings, but the buzz-worthy Puzzle Quest will do in a pinch.

Best Sports/Racing Game
FIFA 08 (Wii), Madden NFL 08 (Wii), Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Wii), Mario Strikers Charged (Wii), SSX Blur (Wii), Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 (Wii)
Don't really need the "racing" option here, do they? There just isn't enough Nintendo fans who care about sports games to push Madden, FIFA or Tiger Woods to the top. SSX Blur had a good rep when it came out, but I'm sure even those who bought it have forgotten about it by now. I'm putting my support behind Mario Strikers, but I'm sure the dual fanboy forces of Mario/Sonic will give it the win. Although, jesus, mini-games.

Best Alternative Game
Cooking Mama: Cook Off (Wii), Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party (Wii), Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii), Looney Tunes: Duck Amuck (DS), Trauma Center: New Blood (Wii), WarioWare: Smooth Moves (Wii)
Last year, I owned every single game in this category. This year, only two. (And, perhaps disappointingly, two of this year's batch are just about identical games to last year: Cooking Mama and Trauma Center.) Let's go through this... Cooking Mama: Cook Off is pretty much terrible. The motion controls are floaty and inexact. DDR is probably ok. Guitar Hero is definitely a good choice, particularly for Wii-only owners. The Duck Amuck game is surprisingly good... Daffy's animation and voice work is really nice. Trauma Center is more Trauma Center, and I'm a bit south on that these days, since they didn't bother to add anything to the game's lo-fi cutscenes. But I'm going with WarioWare: Smooth Moves. It's a great example of fun, non-traditional controls, overlaid with the still-charming-after-all-these-years WarioWare brand design. However, Guitar Hero III will sweep this category, thanks to an unstoppable media buzz and an army of longtime jealous Nintendo owners who are just now getting this franchise (even after it's been outmoded.)

Although honestly, there isn't enough "alternative" in this list this year. When a particular series reaches a billion games, it's a bit off to still call it alternative. Duck Amuck is the only game there that offers something completely new, in my opinion.

Best Multiplayer
Contra 4 (DS), The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS), Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Wii), Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 (Wii), Trauma Center: New Blood (Wii), WarioWare: Smooth Moves (Wii)
Oof. I'm giving this to WarioWare and moving on. And, likewise, I expect Mario/Sonic to turn in another unjustified win.

Best Online Game
Battalion Wars 2 (Wii), Madden NFL 08 (Wii), Mario Strikers Charged (Wii), Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 (Wii), Planet Puzzle League (DS), Pokemon Diamond/Pearl (DS)
Given what actually sold in 2007, it's pretty hard to imagine Pokemon not getting this one. When Reggie wanted to crow about how Nintendo had finally beaten online, it was Pokemon that he held up as the example. Despite Reggie being crazy, the numbers of pokemon still getting traded online makes me think voters will agree with me.

Best New Character
Captain Linebeck, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Wii), Count Bleck, Super Paper Mario (Wii), Franziska von Karma, Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice For All (DS), Louie Denonno, Hotel Dusk: Room 215 (DS), Micaiah, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (Wii), Zack, Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure (Wii)
I'm torn between Linebeck and Bleck on this one. Both would be fine, but I'll say Count Bleck. And I'll guess Captain Linebeck will win the popular vote.

Best Story/Writing
Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings (DS), Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (Wii), Hotel Dusk: Room 215 (DS), Luminous Arc (DS), Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice For All (DS), Super Paper Mario (Wii)
Super Paper Mario. People would probably like to support Phoenix Wright or Hotel Dusk, but Super Paper Mario was really great. Just that level with the gaming fanboy lizard should be enough to clinch it.

Game of the Year Overall
Contra 4 (DS), Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (Wii), Hotel Dusk: Room 215 (DS), Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii), NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams (Wii), Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All (DS), Pokemon Diamond/Pearl (DS), Sonic Rush Adventure (DS), Super Mario Galaxy (Wii), Super Paper Mario (Wii), The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS), Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure (Wii)
I don't know how they chose the games for this category, but it isn't as easy as just listing all the games that Nintendo Power rated 9.0 or higher... even though it probably should be. In terms of time played, thought put into, and pure passion for the game, I stand with Pokemon Diamond/Pearl all the way. Of course, Super Mario Galaxy will win win win.

Final result: Mario Galaxy will take all five awards for which it was nominated. Metroid 3 and Phantom Hourglass will slug it out for second place (and only because Phantom Hourglass was a lesser Zelda game; any other Zelda would assassinate Metroid 3.) Metroid will not win all five of its nominations, and, even though Zelda is up for seven awards, it can't get more than four of them.br

Referencing this weblog entry from two years ago, a fellow named Nick posted this in my Shoutbox.

In the "Of Ants and People" article you said several times that Christians are not under attack. Reread this article, you personally attack them several times. Hypocritical?

That Ants thing was written during the height of the Dover School Board kerfluffle about sneaking creationism into science classes. I did a bunch of entries about that issue, seeing as Dover is part of my home county. Not sure why or how Nick found that particular one; maybe it's got an awesome Google score.

Anyway, my response was:

You make a very common mistake: the majority attacking a minority is never the same thing as the minority attacking the majority. Christians like to pretend they're "under attack" because it helps them gloss over the centuries of lies and oppression that has been committed in their name.

But since teeny little Shoutboxes really aren't suited for this sort of thing, I thought I would expound upon it here. On Christmas Eve. This is a discussion I never shy away from.

Nick asks if it is hypocritical to insult Christians mere sentences away from decrying that they are not under attack. Obviously, I never said that they weren't under attack by me, and it would be ridiculous to assume that, as a staunch atheist, I am blind to the efforts of many to expose and eradicate the Christianist agenda. Perhaps my verbiage was too simplistic; my point was that, after centuries of attempting to re-create the world in their image, modern Christians do not get to call themselves victims. Non-Christians are the victims in their every scheme, from the co-opting of the holiday we celebrate December 25th, to minimizing the advancements of science and logic because it calls their beliefs into question.

Moreover, when Christians control the US government, when Christians control the entertainment media, when Christians have factionalized meetingplaces every few blocks... what's a non-Christian supposed to do? Throughout history, we've been killed. We've been marginalized. We've been made silent. Striking down the 2005 Dover School Board's petty proclamations, getting Ten Commandments sculptures out of public offices, letting co-workers and elected officials and family members know that "Christian" is not the default state of all of humanity... that's all more about equalizing than attacking.

Sure, I can see how a Christian, inside the mighty fortress, watching an atheist work to get "under God" removed from the Pledge of Allegiance, could see that as an attack. That Christian should get out from under the veil and see how things have looked to us for centuries.

When suffragettes marched on Washington DC, they were mocked and barricaded by the men who disagreed with them, including the local police. Today we consider it an inborn given that women have the right to vote, and any history to the contrary is embarrassing and backward. Modern Christians getting all whiny about the "War on Christmas," for example, is no different than the way those men acted towards the marching women in March 1913. It is the majority oppressing, subjugating, intimidating and/or dehumanizing the minority... who are merely calling out for equality and fair representation.

The habit of referring to all pro-atheist movements (or any non-Christian action) as a "war" or an "attack" is a semantic play to obscure the real issue. Despite having been told for years that we're going to Hell, that our voices don't count, that we're neither citizens nor patriots, we acknowledge that this country protects all beliefs (and non-beliefs) and should therefore provide equality to all. Our goal is to remove the legacy laws and social structures that place Christianity above all else. It is not to kill all Christians and burn down the churches... which, history shows, is a far better deal then most non-Christians received at the hands of Christians in less enlightened times.

However, that is a long way off. The reality is that Christianity still holds the reins of our entire society. Even the atheists' best efforts just bounce off. I find it difficult to consider our legal rows and political skirmishes an "attack" of any strength on that unassailable hull.

I mean, seriously. We're out there trying to defend the scientific method and getting treated like loons... and the opposing team is giving PR jerks headaches because Wal-Mart says "Happy Holidays" for a month instead of "Merry Christmas."

Enjoy Saturnalia.

The Ghostbusters smoke like they're on fire.

We watched Ghostbusters for the first time in forever this week, and I was surprised to see how many scenes show the guys smoking. In today's enlightened society where we treat smokers like the second-class inconsiderate assholes that they are, this really stands out and dates the movie in a bad way.

New wave of DC Super Friends sneaking into retail.

I spotted the My First Batwing today, which is part of the wave that includes figures of must-get Hawkman and Cyborg. Clark is getting the My First Batmobile for Christmas. Don't tell him.

Also, we saw a great playset for the Marvel Super-Hero Squad line... it's a building and garage with plenty of moving parts, and it comes with Doctor Octopus and your six hundredth Spider-Man figure. Birthday.

Kingdom Hearts TCG demo planned.

My comic store is trying to round up support for a demo of the new Kingdom Hearts card game. If the demo decks and giveaway cards show up, it will happen next Sunday. Into that!

I looked up how Ice came back to life.

I was there when she kicked it (over ten years ago in Justice League), and seeing as I still get Justice League and Green Lantern, I thought it was weird that I had missed her resurrection. Turns out it happened in Birds of Prey, one of the corners of the DCU that I don't pick up. Seems like a good choice though. I'm happy she's back; probably the only happy nod that DC has given the Giffen League in years.

Held items are a great idea.

A newish addition to the Pokemon TCG, some pokemon come with a Berry or Stone built in to the card. It's not a poke-body or a poke-power, so I have no idea if there's any way to combat these new abilities... I haven't seen a rulebook in a while, so I'm not sure.

I bring this up because I bought a bundle pack today with a promo lv.13 Pikachu in it. This Pikachu's built in Oran Berry lets you remove a damage counter at the end of your turn. Awesome. Also, his attack seems to do 10 damage to his opponent, plus an additional 10 each to two benched pokemon, all for only 1 yellow and 1 colorless. Am I reading that right, because that's crazy good.

The Harmonix/MTV/EA conglomerate finally debuted the Rock Band community site this week, although I could swear we were promised all sorts of things that haven't appeared yet... Where's the customizable t-shirts and bumper stickers? Figurines of your band? Where's the actual in-game avatars and band logos on the community pages? Did I imagine all of that? (I didn't.) The good news is that if you go directly to the social, you can avoid the awful awful Let's Resize Your Browser Window Bullshit that you get if you go to Rock Band proper.

So you can check out my Rocker profile here. That page lists all the avatars on my system, a few score-related items (should be more!), and plenty of personal musical factoids. My new multi-Joe names are evident there: Joe on guitar, Joe X on drums ('cause the X looks like crossed sticks), and Joe! for singing (the ! sort of resembles a mic).

Syncing up my Rock Band account with my PSN account was super-easy. It's listed as two steps on the sign-up page: 1. Know your PSN name. 2. Find your secret website code in Rock Band. Then you put those two into a form and you're done. (Although the code font's 9 looks like a g.) The 360 pairing reads like stereo instructions, including a bit where you have to make sure you are logged OUT of Xbox Live before you continue. That's just about par, isn't it?

You also get instant websites for your bands: witness my two, Unrepentant Athiests and The Do Mores. Note those URLs; I'm pleased to see that both are totally unique band names in the Rock Band universe. The RB website updates almost instantly while you're playing. After noticing that some of my bandmates had not capitalized their names, I went in and changed that on the PS3 (shit, I am so OCD) and the websites reflected that small alteration right away. And when you're playing, your scores will change after every successful song.

At the moment, band logos are not appearing on the band pages. I would hope that changes soon, like when they add the ability to order tour t-shirts. There seems to be a space reserved for it on the page layout.

Rock Band's logo editor is actually really damn cool, with just enough Photoshoppy tools (layers, most notably) to let you craft something personal. Since the logos aren't live, I snapped some pictures and posted them here. The Unrepentant Athiests' logo is top (band motto: "We know. We don't care.") and the Do Mores' is right here. The UA design puts a flaming brain on a blood-red upside-down cross (symbolism ought to be obvious there), while the Do Mores just expresses our regular distaste for the office's Windows-based non-linear editor Avid system. At one point, the Avid company's logo was "Do More," and thanks to the hellish nonsense that our Avids generate, our natural response to that was "When you used to do less." So now you get our name and slogan.

I am now up to six DLC songs. In addition to getting "Fortunate Son" and "My Sharona" a few weeks ago, last night I bought "Bang A Gong," "Buddy Holly," The Clash's "I Fought the Law" (of course, I prefer the Bobby Fuller original), and "Brass in Pocket" (yeah, I didn't know what the hell "Brass in Pocket" was either, until I heard it.) Again I have to say that the PlayStation Store is just a miserable navigation experience. Sony needs to clean that up, because it sucks to find anything older than two weeks. It's like somebody's first stab at turning a boring DOS directory structure into something graphical; you're severely limited in how you can browse from location to location because the file logic is too in-line. And the "Prev" button makes me want to kill things.

A happy thought for anyone still grimacing at the $2 price tag on the songs... not only are you getting support for four instruments at multiple difficulty levels, but you also get some very subtle music video editing moments for the background display. What I mean by that is that Rock Band allows for some very specific effects and edits for each song, so that the accompanying music video - which is more or less generated live as you play - actually feels appropriate to the song. For example, there's a rather famous section in "I Fought the Law" where the song mentions a six-gun and all instrumentation stops except for six drumbeats. Every time you play that song in Rock Band, you'll get six quick cuts of your animated band timed to those gunshots. It's a very nice touch. And once you become familiar with the songs, you'll notice more and more special enhancements like that. So, being that you get that even on the non-built-in song tracks, I'd call that a pleasant bonus for your two bucks.

Bugs Bunny in Christmas (YouTube)
This is about as holiday as I'm going to get for you: a horrid minute of a bootleg Bugs Bunny doing a motion capture seizure to Christmas music. Enjoy.

Clause and Effect (NYTimes via Daring Fireball)
Fascinating look at how a misplaced trust in 18th century commas is messing up the way we interpret the Second Amendment.

Peter Jackson making TWO Hobbit movies. (The One Ring.net)
Hard to believe the litigants got their heads out of their asses for this one. I'm already predicting that the second movie (covering the WTF period between "The Hobbit" and "The Fellowship of the Ring"... what, three hours of Bilbo making tea?) won't actually happen. Looks like it's time to start visiting TheOneRing.net again; haven't been there in five years.

Adobe Easter Eggs (TrainStation)
A pile of hidden secrets found in recent Adobe releases... apparently the Adobe Space Monkey graphic will also show up if you've screwed up your install, as a punishment for tinkering where you shouldn't (and perhaps trying to do something illicit.)

"Anime: Drawing a Revolution" is Garbage (Toon Zone)
Fun review trashing a slapdash documentary on anime.

The fact that this documentary is only interested in examining anime as it can be appropriated by American culture is also revealed by the fact that there are exactly two Japanese speakers in the entire movie, both of whom are given the same amount of screen time as actor Michael Madsen expressing genuine surprise that a cartoon could have real emotional impact

Iron Man in LEGO (Brickshelf via Gizmodo)
Honestly, I could link out to various creations on Brickshelf every day of the week, but this Iron Man sculpture is exceptionally amazing.

Silent Night, Hungry Night PDF (Pinnacle Games)
A Deadlands RPG one-sheet adventure that sets up A Very Doomtown Christmas Special.

Futurama: The Geekiest Show on TV (Wired)
From the article:

Cohen refers to a One Percent Rule that guided the writing on Futurama. When they were scripting the episode "Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch," a character claims that he painstakingly programmed a holographic simulation using "4 million lines of BASIC." One writer pointed out that 99 percent of the audience wouldn't get the reference to an old programming language. Producer-writer Eric Kaplan responded, "Fuck them!"

That reminds me of Joel Hodgson's inspirational methodology when he was writing MST3K: "The right people will get this."

Not a big deal, but this past weekend's sudden ice storm uprooted some trees in the ditch that runs by our house.

That ditch collects all the water runoff from this section of the neighborhood and funnels it out under the street into the drainage system. So the combination of heavy ice on the top of the trees and wet mud at the base brought them down.

No damage at all. The trees stopped just short of the porch. And that's actually the one point where the ditch is closest to the house. As you can see, these trees (overgrown briars, more like) aren't even that big around, so I wouldn't expect much more than cosmetic damage even if they would swipe the house.

So I guess I have to find a way to cut these up now.

Last year, the Nintendo Power Awards were all about Twilight Princess. This year, Super Mario Galaxy is sure to sweep. Since Nintendo Power was handed over to new owners, I'm not sure if I will renew my subscription. As of yet, the magazine is entirely unchanged under the new management... but the renewal process completely sucks compared to the FREE GIFT heaven that Nintendo ran. In the Nintendo days, I could choose from a pile of free strategy guides, t-shirts, or occasionally other collectibles like the Wii Remote keychain or the GBASP headphones. The new guys have exactly one renewal bonus, a mini-guide to Phantom Hourglass. Suck that.

Although here's an upgrade: the Awards voting is now done online, on a freakin' Wordpress URL. Really? You losers couldn't spring for a custom domain name for this? Couldn't get the form under the nintendopower.com URL that you already own? Poor show, New Guys. Way to look bush.

I guess this means that ANYBODY can vote in the Awards this year; previous voting was always down via postcard inserts in the magazine. Maybe, once the word gets out, this year we'll see a far greater spread in the results than the fanboy insta-vote for whatever was Nintendo's biggest first-party game. I kinda doubt it.

So here's Part One of my picks:

Game of the Year - Wii
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Paper Mario, Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure
OK, NiGHTS is barely out, so there's no chance there. Nobody bought Fire Emblem or Zack & Wiki, so scratch them off as well. Super Paper Mario was not even as good as the previous Paper Mario games, so no. That leaves Metroid 3 and Galaxy. This is a very tough call for me, because I thought Metroid 3 had just the right length and difficulty, while Galaxy drags on to 240 stars and punishes you with too much of a perfection requirement. And on the other hand, Metroid 3 lives off of shunting you around to the same locations over and over while Galaxy is constantly dumping you inside something completely new and fresh. In the end, I have to vote for Metroid 3. Perhaps mainly because I still preferred Sunshine to Galaxy. There is no way in hell that Galaxy won't win this, however.

Game of the Year - DS
Contra 4, Hotel Dusk: Room 215, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All, Pokemon Diamond/Pearl, Sonic Rush Adventure
Pokemon. Complete blowout all around.

Best Wii Graphics
Guilty Gear XX Accent Core, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Paper Mario, Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure
That's cute how they keep putting in games that nobody played. This one goes to Galaxy, and deservedly so. The fans will agree with me.

Best DS Graphics
Brothers in Arms DS, Contra 4, Dementium: The Ward, Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, Hotel Dusk: Room 215, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
One thing that this list should be noted for, is the wild diversity of games listed. WWII shooter, horror FPS, 2D sidescroller, point-and-click adventure, blue sky 3D adventure, and a Final Fantasy game. It's pretty amazing how the DS has leapt to serve. I go for Phantom Hourglass, and I think the voters will do the same based on brand name alone. Although the adherence to the world of the Gamecube's excellent Wind Waker is why I'm there.

Best Music
Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings (DS), Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (Wii), The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS), Luminous Arc (DS), NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams (Wii), Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
You know, I'm sure Mario Galaxy had great music, but I'll be damned if I can remember any of it. Again, thanks to the inspiration of Wind Waker, I vote for Phantom Hourglass. But I call this another category swept by Galaxy anyway.

Best Sound/Voice Acting
The Godfather: Blackhand Edition (Wii), The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night (Wii), Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii), Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 (Wii), The Simpsons Game (Wii), Transformers: The Game (Wii)
Here's the category where Nintendo pretends to give a shit about third parties. This one goes to The Simpsons Game, in the only conceivable category that game could win, unless NP would create an award for Worst Adherence To License And Also Terrible Camera. I could see Godfather sneaking this one, simply due to the "Oscar-caliber" actors involved, but I bet Simpsons wins it anyway. Sequel confirmed!

Best Adventure Game
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 (DS), The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS), Lunar Knights (DS), Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All (DS), Super Paper Mario (Wii), Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure (Wii)
Funny story: In the blurb for this award, the editors suggest voting for something besides Phantom Hourglass since you've most likely "already voted for Link's latest as game of the year for the DS." How's that for delicate. As for me, if I played Zack & Wiki, I probably would have voted for it rather than my choice, Super Paper Mario. And despite the magazine's pleas, Zelda is going to carry this one.

Best RPG/Strategy Game
Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker (DS), Final Fantasy VI Advance (GBA), Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings (DS), Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (Wii), Luminous Arc (DS), Pokemon Diamond/Pearl (DS)
Interesting to note: in the artwork that accompanies this spread in the mag, there is NO Pokemon related art, aside from a single screenshot back under DS Game of the Year. Meanwhile, clip art abounds of Mario, Samus, Link, even the docs from Trauma Center. So the game that has sold more copies than every other game on all categories combined, gets treated like some third party pity nom. What the hell. Pokemon smokes every game in this category. You might get some support for Final Fantasy, but the GBA and DS editions will split the vote... and Pokemon will trounce.

Best Platformer
Dewy's Adventure (Wii), DK Jungle Climber (DS), Drawn to Life (DS), Sonic and the Secret Rings (Wii), Sonic Rush Adventure (DS), Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
Ha ha, Drawn to Life. Good one. They could have slipped Manhunt 2 into this category and no one would have noticed. Galaxy has my vote and will win hands down. Another mark on Mario's belt.

Best Shooter/Action Game
Bleach: The Blade of Fate (DS), Contra 4 (DS), Mega Man ZX Advent (DS), Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii), NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams (Wii), Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles (Wii)
Gah, quit with the NiGHTS already! No one even has it yet! This one is between Metroid and Resident Evil, and I'm siding with Samus. I'm going to count on N fanboyism to agree with me, although a win for Umbrella Chronicles sure would be nice for the third parties.

I'll cut it off there. Feel free to go vote for your favorites, and then meet me back here to Part Two in a few days, when we get to the really meaty stuff, like Best Puzzle Game.

This has got to be one of the biggest advertising mis-steps this decade:

Dale Earnhart Jr.'s new candy bar. So the sport with probably the highest percentage of homophobes gets a candy bar named "Big Mo"? Now, I suppose the "Mo" could be for "Motherfucker" or even "Mormon"... but I've always understand it as frathouse shorthand for "Homo."

The ads running in this month's comics say that the "Mo" stands for his hometown. Good try.

Here's the hilarious About page on the BigMo website, which contains the following vapid, insulting text:

What is Big Mo'? Sure, it's a candy bar, but it's also everything that Dale Jr. loves - including chocolate, peanut butter and caramel. Big Mo' is racing. The way you need it like oxygen, because it's in your DNA and if you're not around it, you can't keep going. Big Mo' is your buddies. Hanging out 'til all hours of the night crackin' jokes, playing pool and just kicking back and having a good time like you always do. Big Mo' is being true to yourself. When you get right down to it, that's the only thing that matters - doing what you love because you love it and not needing any other reason.

Yeah, "all hours of the night crackin' jokes." Boy, do they know us! Though I must quibble, I'm usually found "playin'" pool, not merely "playing" it.

I swear, the whole thing looks like a Something Awful joke.

The Wii Attitude is heating up.

For the second year, retail clerks across the country are snippy and short with holiday shoppers desperate to find a Wii. While I was picking up a Dragon Ball Z game (see below) and some Eye of Judgment boosters, some shlub came at the Target electronics clerk with the question "Do you have any Wiis?" Without even looking up from scanning my clearance DBZ game, the clerk tersely replied "No." "Do you know when you will get some in?" "Nope," with an edge to it.

I know it's annoying to have people constantly asking for stuff that isn't on the racks, particularly in the casual sector. (I've seen NO WIIs signs posted on some storefronts.) But your minimum wage still earns these folks a full sentence response without attitude.

Pokemon Snap is just as good as I remember.

I was moderately worried that my glowing memories of Snap were rose-colored, being one of my first N64 games and a release right at the peak of Poke-mania. But after a week of taking pictures and unlocking most of the tracks, I'm happy to see that the game remains a unique, thoroughly enjoyable experience. I'm sad that my recollection of the game is sharp enough that I still know most of the secret snaps; I envy those discovering this hidden gem for the first time.

Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 2 for Wii on EXTREME CLEARANCE at Target for $7.48.

This game received some surprisingly good reviews a year ago, so it's got to be worth $7.50, right? It purports to cover the entirety of the DGZ storylines, even the prequel and sequel series. Of course, I can't beat freaking Raditz, so I'm obviously missing something about the bizarrely complex early-Wii control scheme.

Sprout is one of the best ideas on cable.

A 24-hour preschool network, powered by the last decade's worth of PBS Kids shows. I remain confused as to why PBS exists at all, but a cable channel for preschoolers is wonderfully useful. We were out quite late Saturday night, and watched an hour of Sprout to get Clark keyed down for bedtime. 24-hour channels, stores and restaurants acknowledge that our society no longer needs to stick to the draconian lifestyle rules (Bedtime at sundown! No shopping on Sunday! Breakfast foods only in the morning!) of two hundred years ago.

Great week for DC.

Another superb issue of Booster Gold (is this series a total master of the last-page-splash-tease or what!) Countdown: Arena, Salvation Run, plus the finale and epilogue to the Sinestro Corps War! Not to mention a crazy ending to the Zoo Crew mini that raises some serious questions about Earth-C.

And big props to my wife, she picked up this week's books for me while she was out shopping today... it was a big week but she came home with everything I wanted.

Burnout Paradise, PS3.

I forget why I got into Burnout 3, since I rarely touch driving games... but I'm terribly confident that Burnout Paradise just leaped into the Buy It pile. Particularly if GTAIV gets delayed again.

Burnout Paradise lets you use your PlayStation Eye(Toy) throughout the demo... you can pose for your license, which is hilarious. Of course, being a demo, none of this is saved, but I would imagine the full game lets you constantly check your license for stats and unlockables.

During online multiplayer - which was a hoot, even in the confines of a demo - the game briefly activates the camera to snap a picture of yourself whenever your car gets killed by an opponent. That picture is then flashed to the opponent as some kind of crazy look-at-my-penis-fool reward. In the online matches I played last night, I was the only guy with a camera... so I can't say I enjoyed any photos of random people flipping me off after I smashed their car. After a couple silly poses and shots of the cat, I parked my cam on the latest issue of Nintendo Power. Fanboyism FTW.

Another great feature about the online multiplayer: it was completely seamless. There's no "MULTIPLAYER" menu, you just tap right a couple of times on the d-pad and you're in. No re-loading. No dropping you into a new world. It just syncs up your game with three other players, and the four of you then race around the town looking for challenges to win or just wrecking into each other. Should the host bail, you're just back to playing by yourself again, with no break in the action. Hot shit, that.

Think these CompUSA billboards will be in the final game? They just announced the complete shuttering of all their retail stores. One less place that pretends to know half a bean about what they're selling, in my opinion. Radio Shack, your crown is safe.

I liked that. When you reach a road that would extend beyond the demo, there's a construction sign promising the road will re-open in January 2008, the month of the game's release. Clever.

Great demo. Looking forward to hearing more about Paradise. I hope you'll be able to play your own music inside the game, rather than EA's typically awful Radio BIG crap.

We picked up Spider-Man 3 on a half-off sale at Toys R Us; $10 is a pretty fair price for a poorly written action-musical. And Clark loves most of it... he likes "Sand Guy," he always points out when Spidey needs "his hoodie up," and we talk about how the Venom suit makes Peter become a bad friend. But this one particular scene has made him double over in laughter on every viewing...

That clip was the third time he had watched that scene, so you can tell he is now anticipating the big laughs when JJJ's desk vibrates.

Potty Training - anime (YouTube)
This is what you get when you have a culture that isn't so hung up about honest poop talk. A pleasant, cute cartoon about a little tiger boy who is becoming aware of when he needs to go to the bathroom. The trials of Shimajima have become a central point in our efforts to get Clark potty-trained.

American Civil War II (Only in Japan) (GameSetWatch)
Count the amount of times your jaws hits the floor during this sentence: Metal Wolf Chaos is an Xbox game where you play the President of the United States in a mecha who rampages through various US landmarks and the game only came out in Japan with full English voice acting. This is kind of off-the-wall content that Microsoft needs to get me interested in their shitty product.

Waluigi assist trophy in Smash Melee (Smash Bros Dojo)
I am completely crushed that Waluigi will not be a playable character in Smash Melee. What's up with that?

Cloned cats that glow in the dark (USA Today)
If these kitties have any kind of normal lifespan, they are worth their weight in gold. I need a bumper sticker: "My Next Cat Will Glow In The Dark."

Atheist Protests Location Of Tree (Hartford Courant)
Somebody put up a Christmas tree so that it blocks a nearby atheism display. Great quote from local Christian yokel who is pissed that the atheists got to put up a display in the first place:

"This [atheist] group, they're out to force their will upon other people at the wrong time of the year," he said.

Yeah. That "wrong time" being the month+ that belongs to Christians, when they get to force their will upon other people. Delicious hypocrisy from the people that invented it. I'm sure that local Christians will be more than happy to discuss fair representation of other beliefs and non-beliefs in, say, March, right? ... What? They got something going on in March too? Shit!

First of all, I had to find out what music was used, because I really dig the ending bit. My research shows that the techno in the middle is "Race War" from the movie album More Fast and the Furious, which seems like a shame, doesn't it? Unfortunately - because I paid $1 on iTunes for it - "Race War" is not the supacool ending bit, where the music really starts sounding awesome. "Race War" is merely the repetitive bed in the middle. The ending is, some say, an altered version of "Superfabulous," also in iTunes. Both of the songs are by electronic artist BT. He must have a fan in the Wachowskis.

This is so F-Zero. This could be a hellishly cool racing game if somebody decent is behind it. Get the Burnout team off of doing more damn Burnout games and onto this.

I also like the visual trick of making it look like Japanese characters are zooming past and forming the English logo. At least, it looks like Japanese writing to my gaijin eye:

It's more obvious in motion.

But the hair! If this movie is getting anything right, it's the hair. Check out Speed's classic anime bouffant:

And here's those thugs I mentioned a couple of days ago:

See what I mean? Straight out of the show. Sunken dark eyes, thin lank hair, ridiculous loud clothing. These guys are going to say the word "boss" a lot.

But this is probably the surprise of the year... no CG monkey.

How predictable would it have been to do some kind of half-real, half-cartoon pile of ugly like Scooby-Doo. The Wachowskis should get some kind of special effects Oscar for not using a special effect here.

One thing, poor John Goodman just sounds like John Goodman. He's clearly capable of doing something that doesn't sound like Dan Conner, but he's not doing it here. Yet another role that would have gone to John Belushi if the jerk hadn't died.

I'm also happy that they didn't go for the obvious hi-tech remake Speed Racer theme song, just a tasteful little opener from the original. It was really, really annoying how the 1960s Spider-Man cartoon song (which suck(s/ed)) was shoehorned into all the Spider-Man movies. Like anybody under 40 gave two shits about that song. Pretty classy move to not go with the Go Speed Racer Go thing straight out with Trailer One.

If you want to watch the trailer, check it out here, where you can get a really nice high quality QuickTime of it. Fuck any trailer that you can't frame-by-frame, I say.

Smash Bros Brawl was supposed to be out this week, before the release was pushed to next February. By pure happenstance, I was off of work anyway. I would have definitely taken off work for a Smash Bros celebration; instead, I was off work and not playing Smash Bros.

I strung up the outdoor Christmas lights, but if you wanted to hear about boring-ass slice-of-life e/n crap, you're at the wrong weblog. Once the decorating was complete, I spent the afternoon/evening playing Rock Band and Pokemon Snap. Being home alone is a golden opportunity to play drums and really turn up the volume. I played through about 2/3rds of the Easy solo campaign. I'm getting high-90s every time, but then, again, it's Easy.

Then on to Snap, which I dutifully downloaded Monday night. I also grabbed the Photo Channel 1.1 update because I wanted to have one of my photos as the channel icon. I know there was a lot of teeth-gnashing about 1.1 removing the Photo Channel's ability to play MP3s (replacing with AAC files), but who the hell cares about the ability to play MP3s in the Photo Channel? And guess what, I changed my iTunes over to AAC as the default format long ago.

Got my PKMN Photographer card. I promise to not lose it.

By the way, John O'Hurley from Seinfeld, Family Feud and Dancing With The Stars is so completely Professor Oak. They even talk the same.

How much longer do we have to wait before unjustified nostalgia sets in and we get a kickass live-action/CG Pokemon movie like Transformers or Speed Racer?

So the big enhancement for this Wii VC edition of Pokemon Snap is the ability to save your photos to the Wii, to be mailed out for your friends. Presumably to limit friends spamming friends, you can only save one such photo per day. That pretty much sucks. Although I think I see their point; I probably would have sent out a dozen photos to everyone I know by now otherwise.

It would have been great if Nintendo had re-jiggered Snap to use the Remote as your camera control. Seems like a natural fit. Hopefully a million billion Wii owners will download Snap and Nintendo will get off their money-butt and craft a proper sequel for Wii.

I have some kind of sick determination to see how close I can get to an Electrode. I can't not take photos like this.

And of course, a Meowth getting its criminal ass kicked by a pair of Pidgeys.

After I unlocked the ability to throw apples, I put Clark in charge of tossing food to the pokemon. He really enjoyed it and proceeded to chuck them in every direction, often knocking various critters on the head. Of course, the showstopper as far as apple-throwing goes is the Charmander plateau in the volcano level. That right there is constant entertainment. I'm sure I'll post more Snap pics soon.

This is what you get when you have a national mag with nobody covering the "video game beat": faux articles that get everything wrong, as if somebody read the company press release and then just imagined what all the hype-talk might mean.

At work, I get a magazine called KidScreen, which covers the kids TV business around the world. I always enjoy leafing through it, because you see what kind of kids shows are popping up all over the world (I saw full-page ads for Boo-Bah and The Wiggles inside KidScreen years before those shows appeared in the States.) But the latest issue has an unexpected blurb about the DS game Drawn to Life that manages to get it almost completely wrong. And the wrongness is the most dangerous kind of misleading dialogue, because it extrapolates on the phonied-up press release and makes the game out to be something it is decidedly not.

Since I know you don't get this magazine, you can read the original article here, but I've duplicated it in its entirety here so we can tick off all the parts that are incorrect.

Customization in video games definitely isn't a new concept - but choosing hair colors and T-shirt styles is destined for obsolescence now that Drawn to Life is on the market. THQ's first original property for the Nintendo DS platform takes the Wii's popular Mii avatars to the next level, letting users draw their own characters and game environments from scratch with the DS stylus.

WTF does the Wii have to do with it, aside from name-checking the most popular gaming option for the last two holiday shopping seasons?

"From scratch"? Nuh-uh. In Drawn to Life, you have some very specific templates that you must fill. You always have a bounding box for your design, sometimes just a simple rectangle but often a pre-designated shape that you color, not draw on your own.

And "game environments" is an awfully big phrase for "sometimes you have to draw a moving platform."

The app offers an endless array of colors, brush types, guides and stamps so gamers can tailor-make an avatar in their own image, or plumb the depths of their imaginations to play as human-like fantastical creatures and beasties.

Insta-wrong! That "endless array of colors" means about 25 at any one time. I see a very strong end to 25 colors. Although amateur 2D sprite designers should be all over a game of this type, they will be sorely disappointed when their designs can't even match a decent SNES sprite.

And as a character moves through the game to save a village from being overrun by evil forces, the stylus becomes a valuable tool for shifting the outcome of the story.

I was going to let this sentence go until I noticed the phrase "shifting the outcome." Let me tell you something about Drawn to Life. If you opt to NOT draw the fucking moving platform shape, you're going to fall into the fucking death pit, bokay? This is a pedantically linear game. You are not shifting any outcome, you're just doing what the game tells you or else you won't be playing it for very long.

For instance, a player can draw a bubble helmet around their hero's head so he won't drown, or scribble moving platforms in the sky so he won't fall to his death.

Wrong again! This makes it sound like you get to draw as you go, or that you can quickdraw something at the last second to save your guy. You can't. On the levels that are underwater, you must draw a diver's helmet before you even step into the water. And if you have to draw a platform, you are asked to do so at the beginning of the level, and that image is then duplicated throughout the game.

Developed by 5th Cell, Drawn to Life, which hit retail in the fall, also offers multicard play with the Nintendo DS Wi-Fi connection, so gamers can swap drawings and trade heroes with friends.

Interestingly, the Drawn to Life manual says absolutely nothing about multicard play, but the game does have it. So since I'll never meet anybody else who owns this game, I'll never know precisely what it does. The game calls it "trade" mode, so I'll assume it is limited to exchanging creations back and forth.

However, I'll tell you this: it sure as shit does not use the Nintendo DS Wi-Fi Connection. Because, dear reader, the Wi-Fi Connection refers to online play, not a simple DS-to-DS local network.

This article was clearly written by someone who never touched the game. Not that they intended it to serve as a review - it's obviously just a Hey-Can-You-Believe-This-Trendsetting-Technology kind of piece - but if any readers actually act on that information, they're going to walk away with the all-too-familiar impression that video games talk big but don't measure up unless you're in the second grade. It's a shame, really.

The gang at THQ must be pretty pleased with the kiss-fest though.

I'll still get into a good old-fashioned internet fist fight if the mood suits me.

Check out this article about how the PC gaming market is not dying. The author claims that PC gaming offers more variety and innovation and then lists a bunch of samey shooters and RPGs. In comments, I tried to argue that, although the PC gaming market excels in many areas, it is not the home for the broadest range of gaming experiences. I pissed him off.

Red Dwarf VIII is better than I remember.

Once you get past the drudgery of the three-part "Back in the Red," this final season is pretty good. "Cassandra" seems filled with the kind of writing that seasons 1 through 4 were famous for, and "Krytie TV" has probably the best payoff of any episode in the show's run.

The Speed Racer trailer is really freakin' good.

I think my favorite shot in the trailer is when you see the thugs with machine guns. Those guys look exactly like the long-haired, derby hatted, plaid suit-wearing criminals that always showed up in early anime like Speed Racer and Lupin the Third. Dead on. I love it.

Kingdom Hearts card game is finally out.

Yeah, sure, a game that debuts with a focus on the first PS2 game comes out over a year after the second PS2 game. I like some of the mathematical tricks that are deployed to determine the playability of baddies, but the overall gameplay seems simplistic and the endgame is not in theme (you win when you play 13 points of World cards? That's it?)

The Simpsons Game really, really, really sucks.

Anybody who gave these game anything higher than a 4 out of 10 needs to come to my house and play the game for me. It is so very awful.

One of the greatest things about finding a game you really enjoy is putting serious thought towards how it sucks. This sets you up for the inevitable sequel that fails to live up to expectations, but also provides a teeny tiny tinty window that, if the sequel actually hits on one your requests, makes you feel like a genius. Thus the cycle of internet commentary is complete. So here's my list for Rock Band, with each concern labelled as either a Patch It! fix, a Sequel It! fix, or a plain old Sell It! fix. IE, something they could tackle with a patch on the original game, or something that might have to wait for the sequel. Or lastly, something that Harmonix just isn't selling at the moment and should be.

Super fast notes suck. Now, I haven't played Guitar Hero III, but most things I've read suggest that GHIII's hard is more about making the fret patterns difficult for game reasons and Rock Band's hard is about being more accurate to the music (and neither choice is inherently better than the other, by the way.) I can't really comment on the verisimilitude of that assertion, but it seems like a reasonable way to distinguish between the two, and it matches with each game's overall presentation.

Unfortunately, having the notes become more like the music means that a lot of hard songs (and upper difficulty medium songs) rely on a ton of super fast note strings. I don't know from music, but I guess these are sixteenth notes? This is where everybody realized that their Strats were busted. Rock Band needs to cool it on this tact. Compared to some of the other hard sections, I think Harmonix actually thought these sixteenth note riffs would be easier, but jamming on the guitar hardware just makes you feel like you're breaking it inside.

I don't know if my hands just don't work right, but when these sections show up, I have to switch my position to more of a bass player-esque style and grip the top of the guitar with my palm, so I can use the additional leverage to get my fingers on the strum bar fast enough.

So, either do something to make the guitars repond to all of these quick notes... or just have future DLC songs not lean on them so heavily. I vote for the latter and that's why I say PATCH IT!

New songs not coming fast enough. OK, this is a little whiny, but we've only had, what, three new songs each week? And those were all from the same artist per week, so if you ain't into Sabbath, you're out of luck.

New songs need to be coming a lot faster - and with more variety - than that. An entire album a week, plus a three-pack from a different artist and a handful of random singles... that would be stellar. People are going to spend another $100 on just DLC songs, especially if Harmonix can get the catalog to show enough depth. When your absolute favorite band shows up, you're going to spend the money.

If they announced Fleetwood Mac: Greatest Hits, Daft Punk: Discovery, The Monkees: Best of, Pet Shop Boys: Discography, Rolling Stones: Hot Rocks, or absolutely anything from They Might Be Giants... well, then Harmonix will be added as an approved withdrawl from my bank account. SELL IT!

Where's the keyboard? The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" has this ridiculously long break where no one is singing, no one is playing guitar and, unbelievably, no one is drumming. As a singer, this is where I take the opportunity to introduce my bandmates.

But what's really happening in the song is a major synthesizer solo, in a virtual band that doesn't even animate a synth player. Seems like we need some kind of organ instrument!

I envision a full-standing pseudo-synth, kind of like the drum kit. Maybe ten keys on it (heavy emphasis on using both hands), plus the now-expected audio warping options. I would even assign it the songs that need a horn section, since who the hell wants to make an instrument that requires players to put it near their mouths.

I highly doubt this is a patchable upgrade to Rock Band 1. I'm sure it's technically possible to USB in a synth kit, but they're going to need something big to pitch Rock Band 2. Adding a keyboard is inevitable. SEQUEL IT!

Will our DLC songs for Rock Band 1 work for Rock Band 2? Here is a classic opportunity to make or break your relationship with your fans.

When RB2 comes out (I would guess fall 2009 at the earliest), will we be able to use our purchased-and-downloaded tracks in the new game right off the bat? Guitar Hero used the lack of downloadableness to screw over Xbox owners and make them pay stupid rates to get the old songs in the newer game. Now that Rock Band has, from jump street, allowed for DLC... they almost have to provide for the playability of those songs in the sequel. If not, there will be outraged screaming.

If they want to really make love to the fanbase, not only will they let you use your previous purchases but also let you download the complete built-in RB1 song list for use in RB2 (or offer it under a nominal fee) with proof that you already own the first Rock Band.

That would be a very aggressive move; I'd be happy with just a simple guarantee that the stuff I'm buying now (and downloading separate from the RB disk) will be playable in the sequel. PATCH IT!

Where's my bass? Sell me my freakin' bass.

Yeah, sure, I could grab the Guitar Hero III set for a bass... but why would I shell out the dough for an expensive game that I likely will play nowhere near as often, get stuck having to choose where I spend my DLC money, and then have a guitar that lacks those coolass extra frets and whammy warper?

Harmonix, I have money ready for you. Please contrive to accept it at your earliest convenience. SELL IT!

Rock Band does not have the best Freezepop song.

Guitar Hero III does. SELL IT!

Your avatars are stuck to one instrument. I can't believe this problem even made it out of the testing phase. I mean, we've all had a year - a year - to fully buy into Nintendo's Mii concept, where you have a silly avatar that looks like you that shows up in just about every game you play. We've all played MMORPGs and RPGs and online games where your entire gaming identity is attached to one particular character. Whether you upgrade through skill trees or micropayments or quests, whatever you do is done to enhance and dress up your character. Your avatar is you.

And then these numbnuts force your Rock Band character to be locked into one single instrument, either guitar, drum or microphone. So your one guy isn't You, it's just You On Guitar... and if You want to play drums, You have to make a You On Drums... and then spend more in-game money to make the clothing match your other You.

This is so colossally obnoxious and non-intuitive that it really ought to be priority fucking one over at Harmonix. PATCH IT! Immediately. Although, quite frankly, it's probably too late.

Speaking of the avatars, there's not enough face options. They really should have gone the Mii route and allowed for customizable faces, Mr. Potato Head style. (And by the way, it is completely frigtarded that Guitar Hero III on Wii does not import your Miis.) There are just not enough face shapes to make you feel like you're making you.

Unfortunately, I don't see this as a patchable issue. Although it sounds easy to offer a $5 Rocker Face Upgrade pack, there's no way to reconcile an online match between one person who bought the new heads and one who didn't. This is why you'll never see a Mii Channel upgrade, unless Nintendo pushes it through as 100% mandatory for all Wii owners. You would have to have the non-upgraded game figure out a way to default the upgraded info, resulting in who-the-hell-knows for how the upgraded face would appear on the old gamer's system. Not worth the mess it causes. This is officially a bullet point on the back of the Rock Band 2 box. (And Guitar Hero IV, if they're smart.) SEQUEL IT!

The RARE Korean "Engine Roll Call" Song (YouTube)
The signature Thomas tune, sung in Korean. Although, why label the video "RARE" as if it's some kind of lost eBay treasure? It ain't rare in Korea, I'll wager.

Uncle Sam and the runaway photocopier (Matching Dragoons)
It really is disgusting that DC would let an artist get away with photocopying 75% of his book. Duping your panels can be an effective dramatic storytelling technique, but this idiot is just plain lazy.

Eighty-Five Ways to Decorate your house with Christmas lights (Cockeyed.com)
From "Two-stories with no ladder" to "One Lassoed Bush."

Passage (via Kotaku)
Great little five minute game. Go download it and play it - and think about it - before you read any commentary on it. My high score is 834, but I didn't really explore all that much. (Is that telling?)

Gametap: Disappearance of over 70 games on December 11th (via GameSetWatch)
They just hit 1000 games on the subscription service, and then had to yank 70 of them due to contract renegotiations. This is why I'll never buy into an all-or-nothing rental service.

And shit, only 1000 games? Hell, I already own about 500. You mean to tell me that Gametap can only barely double my collection and I have to pay for it to infinity? And games can disappear at any time with a spare week's notice?

Maybe He Just Hates Champagne Glasses? (Post Modern Barney)
Batman as "gay-baiting asshole." Hilarious scans... I wonder if this story is still in continuity?

Mall shooter hid assault rifle in sweatshirt (Yahoo News)
Just one of many stories that neglect to mention the ethnicity/race of the shooter. But if he was black or Korean or Muslim or from the Middle East, you can bet that little detail would be in Paragraph One of every story. Great country, innit?

Finished up Drawn to Life tonight, the DS game that asks you to draw your own sprites and then gives you shitty tools to do such. I'm terribly glad this game is over; the final boss fight was complete suckage.

One little bit of amazement: the game ends with an unexpected love song duet.

Really? How random is that.

The song is "The End" by Hayley Chipman and David J. Franco, for those of you just Googling in.

Those flashbacks are more or less a recap of the entire game, minus the thing about the dark shadow jerk who intends to destroy the world. That bit isn't that important.

Were this Metal Gear Solid 2, the internet would be alive with a chorus of complaints about the love story intruding on the stealth action gameplay.

Unbelievably, I made an appointment to watch TV this week.

"Tin Man," on SciFi. It's a six hour miniseries that reimagines The Wizard of Oz, where "reimagines" means "craps on."

I'm an Oz fan. I've read all the original Baum books, and followed quite a few Oz-inspired revamps. As I understand it, with the Oz works long in the public domain, any old Winkie can publish their own variant. I've seen good adaptations and bad adaptations, and SciFi's Tin Man is definitely on the bad side. The Deadly Desert side.

I think there's more success than failure in the world of Oz cloning, but maybe I'm just a fanboy. For all of its flaws, the 1939 Judy Garland film does not do a terrible job at a surface-level Oz movie, although it left no opening for the larger world of the Oz books. Disney's Return to Oz is similarly not-terrible, and loops in some of Baum's best second-string characters. DC Comics' Zoo Crew did a very nice Oz storyline.

The comic book Oz Squad (a child and victim of the comic book industry's black & white explosion) is absolutely fantastic, precisely the kind of reimagining I enjoy: something that could potentially fit inside the existing canon but develops the world into something more. Oz Squad turns an adult Dorothy Gale into the leader of a security detail that guards and polices the border between our world and Oz. The first issue revealed that mechanical man Tik-Tok has a hidden interior Morality spring that had unwound, so Tik-Tok goes batshit and starts throwing babies off a building. I've probably mentioned Oz Squad before. Check it out.

And, you know, the novel Wicked is pretty damn cool for just that same reason. The continuity thing, not the Tik-Tok / babies thing.

But on to complaining!

"Tin Man" is a complete reboot. D.G. is a starry-eyed post-teen with dreams bigger than her rural town. She falls into "the O.Z." when the evil queen sends a kill squad through the rift after her. Naturally, she first meets Munchkins (now human Ewoks), then the Scarecrow equivalent (not an actual scarecrow, but a guy with half his brain removed)... whom this iteration annoyingly renames "Glitch." Because his brain doesn't quite work right, ha ha. Alan Cumming plays Glitch and although he's one of those actors who is good in anything, he has a lot of awful to slog through.

The Tin Woodsman is a former city cop who dresses like a cowboy. Not a robot or a cyborg or even a guy in armor. The "tin" refers to a sheriff's star. I have no idea why the entire miniseries is named after him. When we first meet up with him, he is imprisoned in a diving suit, mourning the death of his wife and child. He is cold and bent on revenge. A man without a heart, you see.

The Cowardly Lion is from a race of furry psychics who possess the ability to read minds and then project those images into mirrors. Yeah, things start sucking pretty soon. Whenever the lion-guys (there's a couple of them) have to do their thing, it's like the characters are being forced to watch their own sucky movie.

Their quest takes them through loads of Lord of the Rings-style scenes as they evade the wicked queen and uncover D.G.'s secret past. And tons of obvious, barely tolerable dialogue.

One of the very first scenes has grumpy, fiesty D.G. half-listening to her hayseed father go on about the simple life he enjoyed as a child. "Aw, Daaaaad." You could write this movie.

And even if you acquire a taste for the cliches, you still have to stumble through the weak CG, inconsistent character skills, and the ham-handed references to the 1939 movie. (Yes, they ref Lions, Tigers and Bears. >sigh<)

About halfway through the third hour, I started feeling really bad for the actors. You can feel them trying so damn hard (particularly Alan Cumming) to make the script work, but it's just crappy. I was there because I dig Oz stuff.

Perhaps the biggest flaw is that "Tin Man" instantly limits itself by sticking with only elements from the Judy Garland movie. Baum's books are filled with memorable characters, from the Hungry Tiger to Jack Pumpkinhead to the Nome King. Aside from a couple fanciful elements and a Harry Potter-esque attitude of "Let's talk a lot about magic but never really do much of it," this is just a bunch of LARPers at Mardi Gras.

SciFi jammed this six-hour miniseries into three nights, and not even during the sweep. That tells me that they did not have a lot of faith in this production.

For a certain age, "Tin Man" is probably rollicking good entertainment. But, given SciFi's usual demographic, it seems like a wide miss.

The Batman TV show DVD set is lost to lawyering.

A big studio rights argument means no release for this show. That Clark and I are DYING to see.

Lousy clan controls provide another way for Microsoft to lie about Xbox Live accounts.

Penny Arcade mentioned this the other day. Setting up a dummy Live account is a relatively easy way to manage a clan. So when Microsoft trots out their 60 gazillion Live users bullshit again and everybody in the Moron Press falls for it, just remember... that number in no way reflects the actual number of current Xbox Live users.

Zoo Crew trade paperback collection cancelled/postponed/not coming out.

I was tracking this for a while and then forgot about it. Turns out DC did the same thing.

Eye of Judgment is actually completely decent.

It would be really easy for this game to be lousy, but it's not. Definitely more interesting than the last five CCGs I've tried out.

EoJ is a proof-of-concept game. Now that we know it works, can we maybe branch out to a genre beyond Generic Angry Fantasy World?

The PS3 ruled this weekend.

We had Mike and Noelle in town for Rock Band, Warhawk, Eye of Judgment, High Stakes Poker, LocoRoco, and even flOw. Just six months ago, the notion of PS3-centric gametime would have been ludicrous.

Last Friday we took a family trip to the Day Out with Thomas event at our local antique train station. (What, you don't have one?)

Basically, three or four times a year, a life size Thomas shows up to keep tourist attractions like this one in financial solvency. I mean, I was at the Strasburg Railroad in the pre-Thomas days and it was a dive. You could feel the sightseeing inertia, the sense of impotent desperation as another weekend clicked by with no guests and no money and the grand old steam engines rusting in the shed.

You no longer get that feeling. At least, not on the Thomas weekends.

Since Thomas is actually there, the other trains of Sodor are relegated to photo-op posters.

Perhaps the greatest part of tourist stops like this is the underlying battle between the old-style Coney Island play-at-your-own-risk atmosphere and the modern DisneyWorld everything-is-cushioned-and-stanchioned-for-your-protection lawsuit-safe outlook. Strasburg, even on a Thomas day, errs toward the former.

We were able to clamber up inside the top of that caboose for a short ride down the tracks. There is barely a guard rail, only one step to climb six feet up, and no one is there to watch you or catch you.

And yeah, I realize that a five minute jaunt in the cupola of a caboose isn't that dangerous, but note the complete lack of fencing around the tracks. If you want to decapitate yourself, there is nothing that will stop you. There's always a couple staff members around to run the train, but they can't watch everything... plus there's a ton of people milling about and you've got as many angles as you need to get a limb onto those rails. Suicide on!

It's actually pretty refreshing and helps maintain that Depression-era wariness.

Here's the Very Useful Engine His Bad Self, huge and grinning. There is no shortage of opportunity to see this guy travel the tracks, because his path is the very center of the festivities. Every twenty minutes he either departs or returns, and every child in view will stop and watch Thomas go by.

During the ten minutes when he is stopped for loading, the staff does their best to herd people through for pictures.

Thomas pulls a line of classic Strasburg Railroad cars, and this is the "Day Out" portion of your trip. They pipe in Thomas music as you carve your way through Amish Country. What they must think of this.

There's a security feature for you: a sign straight out of the Cheers bar decor.

My camera battery died so I had to switch to the phone camera. Here Clark meets the authoritarian major domo of the railyard, Sir Topham Hatt. If you watch the show, this is the guy who is always threatening to scrap one train or another. And even though any one of them could run Hatt over in a blink, they live in fear and darkness. Personally, I think they deserve it since they are constantly crashing into walls and oil drums and whatnot.

I wasn't sure Clark was old enough for this ride, a do-it-yourself trek in a wide oval. On his first pass, an older child pretty much pushed Clark through, but he caught on and was able to hand-crank at quite a clip.

If you're thinking about going, don't get scared of the ticket price... it may sound like you're paying for just a single train ride through some fields, but you get all of the other smaller rides in the bargain. It definitely turns into a very fulfilling day for Thomas fans.

Of course, it's the souvenirs and photography that gets you.

Nick at Nite Promos 1988 (YouTube)
The two My Three Sons ads are just great.

Strike Stuff (Mark Evanier)
Another great WGA strike update from Mark Evanier, this time answering some viewer mail (like, should I buy DVD sets now, or wait until a new deal struck... answer: it likely won't matter), and including this nugget about the Tonight Show:

In case you haven't noticed, they're running old Jay Leno shows from when Branford Marsalis was his bandleader, Helen Kushnick was the producer and Jay's hair was mostly one color. ... Makes you think someone at the network was thinking, "Hey, maybe we can embarrass Leno into coming back and doing new shows."

Best of the West (Japanmanship)
An interesting look at the short list of non-Japan games that have sold well in Japan.

Dr. Seuss Gets 'Tude. Big Budgets for Small Budget Thinking (John K.)
John K. skewers the modern CG movie. Again! Then he softens a tad on the new Horton Hears A Who trailer.

Pokemon Snap Coming to VC (Kotaku)
Only announced for Japan, but seems like a lock for every Pokemon-loving region. Rumors suggest you'll be able to send your snaps to friends, making this the first retro game to score a major enhancement for Wii! Very, very excited about this.