August 2008 Archives

Nice deals at Target.

Unfortunately, I already own some of these, but Target has some good grabs on red tag clearance. On Wii, Bully and Metroid Prime 3 are each half-off at $25 and I heartily endorse both.

This one was dumb: Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword for DS, red tagged to $25... boy, that's some clearance price for a DS game. Although I don't have NGDS, I gather it is quite good.

I noticed Skate and Unreal Tournament fo $20 each in the PS3 section, but the real joy is the Eye of Judgment / PlayStation Eye bundle. Now down to $35, which is half the original price. Remember, Sony tries to sell the Eye alone for $30. And to make matters sweeter, I found an EoJ booster over in the $1 box!

Great podcast this week.

You may disagree, but I thought Aeropodcast #47 was pretty good. I got to do some David Duchovny jokes, we tell an inspiring tale of a local Gamestop manager, and there is a large amount of Microsoft bashing. And not even by me. The podcast will probably be up by mid-week.

EDIT: Already live. Stephen works fast.

Last Guy way too hard.

I like the concept of The Last Guy, but I'm not sure I like the gameplay. It is very unforgiving... particularly in how the Last Guy moves around the map. It is very common to think you're heading up an alleyway but you instead slightly miss the entry point and end up scooting along some other street.

The levels are all governed by an arbitrary time limit, which is something game designers do when they can't construct a legitimate scale of difficulty. I would like this game so much more if the clock ticked up instead of down, meaning your score would be determined by how fast you rescued EVERY survivor, rather than how many survivors you escort out in X minutes.

And also, there are no zombies in this game. They are in fact monsters.

Jetpacks in Warhawk are great.

A complete game-changer. I usually stick to ground warfare, bcause I am an awfully pathetic Warhawk pilot. The jetpack is a nice middle ground.

And I snagged 12% of the Warhawk trophies so far... the easy three you get for completing the all-new tutorial mode, a couple random combat related trophies, and the one you get for running a dedicated, ranked server for four hours. That one was, ahem, very easy: I went to bed.

CN ran two emotionally-manipulative Pokemon episodes last Saturday.

Perhaps a strange scheduling coincidence. The first one was the one where Jesse (of Team Rocket) makes the choice to give up her long-loved Dustox because it needs to go join its fellows for pokemon mating season or whatever. We've seen that story beat before - if you love a pokemon, set it free - but applying it to the usually buffoonish Team Rocket was surprisingly effective.

Then they ran one where Pikachu nearly dies in battle against a rival Raichu, hospital stay and all. With a nod to season one, Ash offers Pikachu a Thunderstone, so Pika can choose if he wants to trigger his own evolution into a Raichu. Of course, he doesn't, and the lesson is that you don't have to be the biggest and strongest to prevail... but for a few minutes, you have to wonder if Pikachu will make the choice and change the face of Pokemon merchandising forever.

I bought Zack & Wiki during that famous Smash Brawl sale at Toys R Us... they had a short list of games that you could buy for half-off when you bought Brawl on launch day. Zack & Wiki was far and away the best game on the list, and also the cheapest, as Z&W was already busted down to $30 only a few months after its release. $15? A no-brainer.

Nodame Cantabile was a similar deal... I picked it up as a super-cheap add-on to my $50 Ouendan 2 import through Play-Asia. Thank you, no-region-lock DS!

To quantify the system by which one cheapo game will be declared Fourhman.com's Best Cheapest Game of the 2007-2008 TV Season, I will judge each game in four key areas... awarding one to ten points based on my near-random feelings at the time. Those categories are Concept, Gameplay, Value and Timeliness.

The Concept judging area will discuss each game's genre, style, storyline, characters and methodology. Gameplay will analyze the controls, presentation and fun factor. Value will look at how great the discounted price was, in comparison to the original retail price. Timeliness will see how the game stacks up today, since discount games typically hit those prices some time after the original release, meaning that the title has to compete against an entirely different games marketplace... IE, does it still stand out? This initial round will largely judge the games on their own merits; I will switch things up for the finals as I pit the games directly against each other.

On to the first battle of Round One! Fight!

CONCEPT: Zack & Wiki arrived in October 2007 to a first-year Wii with an anemic library. Critics were thrilled with such a new, creative, exclusive IP. As a puzzle-cum-adventure game with gesture-based controls, Z&W was like nothing else on Wii. Unfortunately, the game arrived a month ahead of Super Mario Galaxy, the game for which every Wii owner in the world was saving their pennies. So no one bought it.

The basic idea is that you have to use the Wii Remote to navigate a series of closed-room puzzles (and I do not mean literal "rooms," just concrete levels with little carryover of items or skills). Somewhere in each level is a treasure and you must figure out how to get it. Much of it requires careful thought and planning, so you do a lot of scanning the map and thinking your way through obstacles.

Very original, cute character designs, a good fit for the Wii. 8 points.

Nodame Cantabile, on the other hand, is a DS rhythm game based on a 2001 mange series about a young orchestra conductor. It is very obviously a riff on Ouendan (Elite Beat Agents) but populated with midi-quality classical compositions. The manga was turned into an anime and a live-action TV series. Presumably - and you'll be hearing that a lot since I can't read Japanese - this DS game is based on the animated version.

Unlike Ouendan's bubble-beat system, Nodame Cantabile gives you your tapping cues as you watch onscreen sprites intersect. You tap precisely at the moment that the notes touch. There are a few minigames. Being an import title with almost no English option, I tried to spell J O E using Japanese characters... which means I generated a lot of screens like this one:

Yeah, I know those dames.

A music-based comic gets a music-based game, happily adapted from Ouendan's flawless formula. Nice art. 6 points.

GAMEPLAY: Zack & Wiki has a big problem. It's all trial and error, and there is a lot of erroring. It is incredibly frustrating to spend half an hour working on a puzzle, and then get randomly killed somewhere near the end. Like Chulip, there are plenty of cases where you simply do not know what will kill you until you get near it. You can't save in mid-level, and the game actively punishes you for failing by keeping meticulous track of all your failures... in addition to making Continues an item you have to buy.

I am also super-confused about the cramped menu screen, and the library of unlockables never seems to unlock anything, despite me being pretty deep into the game.

And although many of the gesture controls are fine, there are plenty that just do not work as promised. The onscreen prompts are often a mess, unhelpful and in the way.

Terrible save system, muddy menus, sort of an ambient hate coming from the game towards me. 4 points.

Nodame Cantabile is going to get unfairly knocked for lacking an English translation, but I get the feeling this sucks in Japanese as well. The problem lies in actually locating the gameplay. Unlike Ouendan, where you just click the song you want to play, watch the corresponding movie, and then get to playing... Nodame Cantabile is like that in reverse. You have to trot all over the map talking to people, advance through millions of text conversations, and then maybe you'll get to tap through the 1812 Overture.

Plus, this bear-beaver shows up every forty seconds. I speculate that he is proud of your recent accomplishments in clicking through choiceless text conversations, but I cannot be sure.

I know I'm missing 100% of the game's storyline, but shouldn't a rhythm game be more accessible than that? I laud the game for trying to create a music game with such a heavy storyline, but it is far more text adventure than music.

Since the music is all programmed (IE, not the actual "live" tracks of Ouendan), there is a neat audio trick where the song gets all wobbly and lousy-sounding as you miss your beats. That was cool.

Text, text, text, text, Rhapsody in Blue, text, text. 3 points.

VALUE: Z&W was initially a $40 release, then dropped to $30 pretty damn fast. It currently sits around $20, maybe even $15 in some quarters. Regardless, getting it at $15 way back in March 2008 was a damn fine grab. There is plenty of replay here, even if I don't much like it. 7 points.

It's a little tougher gauging Nodame Cantabile. As an import DS game, $50 is probably a fair standard price. As a slightly crappy import DS game, you should pay nowhere near that. Play-Asia currently has it for $25, and the bundle offer with Ouendan 2 is not as good as it was when I ordered (now at $70). So getting it for $10 was a decent success. 5 points.

TIMELINESS: There is still very little like Zack & Wiki. You could make a case for Strong Bad and Sam & Max being of similar ilk, but Z&W is (I think) designed to be far more difficult and challenging. There is probably zero chance of a sequel. 9 points.

Nodame Cantabile was DOA, just because it was nowhere near an acceptable rhythm game standard. With three Ouendan games (including EBA) already ranking high on the DS, poor Nodame Cantabile is relegated to a never-was. Hell, that freaky DS Guitar Hero is way better than this. You would have to be an incredible fan of the source material to really dig it. And reading Japanese would help. 3 points.

FINAL: Out of a possible 40 points, my basic arithmetic skills show 28 for Zack & Wiki and a meager 17 for Nodame Cantabile.

Zack & Wiki win and advance to Round Two!

Feist on Sesame Street (YouTube)
Boy, I have no idea where I heard the original song, as I have no idea who Feist is. Maybe this was in a car commercial? Either way, great Sesame Street parody.

Advertising Kung Fu Panda (Cartoon Brew)
A vandalism job on a Kung Fu Panda bus stop billboard so good, that you almost suspect guerilla marketers at work.

Why I Will Not Vote for John McCain (Military.com via Mark Evanier)
A veteran who was a POW with McCain offers a wider view to the McCain-as-war-hero PR.

Man uses Barbie fishing rod to make record catch (Yahoo News)
Now that's good buzz for Mattel.

It's always six o'clock (0100101110101101.org via Cartoon Brew)
Spectacular photos from an art exhibit installation that uses lots and lots of action figures and toys.

iPhone 3G - already with pictures ! (aka "iPhone Girl") (MacRumors)
I think everything we buy in the US should come with items like this... it would remind us that the toys we lust after were in fact created by actual humans, not just dropped out of the sky... it would remind us of how dependent we are on countries like China... and it would provide a neat little story for one's gadget, creating connections across the globe.

Since I do a fair amount of bargain hustling in my gaming, I thought I'd do a tournament-style shootout between all the cheap, discounted game purchases over the past year. My criteria for inclusion was that each game had to be on sale, preferably at a substantial discount from the original price. I widened the net to allow import games and downloadable games, resulting in a Olympic-level competition of fourteen games. This will likely take a week of weblog posts to soldier through. Or more. I'm tired tonight.

I randomized the matchups and here how the initial seven bouts shook out:

Critical favorite Zack & Wiki versus virtual unknown Nodame Cantabile! What a way to kick off the fight card!

The game you love to hate, Lair! And one of those damn casual Wii games, Big Brain Academy!

A match for the ages: M-rated No More Heroes against E-rated Ben 10! Who will stand as the Wii's dominant force?

The heir to a beloved PS2 game, Cookie & Cream... matched up with a self-aware cartoon mockjob, Harvey Birdman!

Single-minded indie shoot-em-up or diverse mainstream PC port? It's Everyday Shooter versus The Orange Box!

East meets slightly less East! The Nintendo first-party faceoff! Slide Adventure: Mag Kid and Link's Crossbow Training!

The most violent match of all! Everything will explode! You will not have a seat left to sit in! Blast Works in one corner, Pain in the other!

How well do you know my take on these bargain basement buys? Can you predict which game will reign supreme? What impossible-to-predict twists and turns will forge the victor? Stay tuned, America!

You know how badly I want this?

I have long complained that this should be a system-level feature, on PS3 and Wii and everything else. Even DS. And it looks like finally someone is going to grant my wish. Supposedly this will happen with the 2.5 PS3 update.

Kotaku has the rumor, circled through CVG, and it's still wholly unsubstantiated. But I need this. This will improve my life immeasurably.

No more camera-at-the-screen pictures, no more dump to iPhoto. Just save to the PS3 HD and transfer via SD.

I need this for Soulcalibur IV. I need this for GTAIV. I need this to work with PS2 games so I can revisit my abandoned Katamari Damacy card game.

This changes everything.

We've all put some substantial time in on Ben 10: Protector of Earth. The game must have a hundred levels, because we've already done nine or ten, dotted across real-life locations across the US map... and we've only travelled from the Grand Canyon to Seattle.

Here's how this game happened, by the way. Rhonda and Clark were at one of those junk thrift stores that deal in truckloads of old overstock merchandise. The shelves are seemingly completely random and as much as I despise entering such an establishment, I always always always walk out with something bizarre that caught my eye. The last time I was in one, I left with a starter box of the Pirates of the Carribbean TCG and a Beagle Boys toy car.

Anyway, at this one Rhonda found an unnamed Ben 10 game and some nearby Ben 10 cards. Turns out the cards and game were for Mattel's aborted Hyper Scan "game console." This console's gimmick being that you scan cards in as you play for powerups and whatnot... not unlike some of Nintendo's efforts with the eReader. The game was maybe $5, the card packs were a buck apiece... and the Hyper Scan itself was going for $10. I think the console alone was originally priced around $70.

Even at that fire sale discount, I could not give this a thumbs up. The Hyper Scan is junk. We know this. Although it would have been a lot of fun weblog entries for under $20.

Before they called me, Rhonda and Clark were debating the worth of the Ben 10 Hyper Scan game, and Clark said "Daddy will know." When I told him we would get a better Ben 10 game, he instantly took me at my word. I did say they could buy some of the cards though... because, hey, cards.

I recalled seeing the Ben 10 PS2 and DS games in the bargain endcaps at Target... $20 each. So I did the due diligence and found the PS2 game was also ported to Wii last fall... and although I was debating PS2 vs. Wii for a bit (by all accounts, they look identical), one Wii feature sold me: you activate Ben's wristwatch Omnitrix by smacking the Remote against your Nunchuk arm.

Gamestop had the Wii version brand new for $20. Clark was very excited.

The game is a walk-and-punch brawler, mixed up with some basic platforming, puzzle areas where you need character X to proceed, and boss fights ripped from God of War. It has drop-in, drop-out 2-player co-op... which simply results in the unexplained paradox of two onscreen Bens. When you're playing with a three-year-old, the drop-out becomes absolutely necessary. As we get further and further in the game, I find I have to drop Clark out about two or three times a level, so I can make it through a jumping area that is too difficult for him.

There's glitches. Every now and then, Clark and I will get too far apart - usually because I'm trying to climb to the next part and Clark is not - and the game will let one of us fall behind the level. Then the camera refocuses on whoever is invisible, which is a mess. The solution is to drop-out, and I can deal with that... but this screen drives me batshit:

We get this every time we start a game, or drop a player back in. It's the game freaking out because it thinks the Remote is too far away. Which is stupid. I've seen this before... I want to say in Metroid Prime 3, but I could be wrong on that. It's especially obnoxious for Ben 10 because you rarely use the Remote as a pointer. Our couch is a fairly normal distance from the TV, nine feet. So we have to hold our arms out as far as we can (which, for Clark, doesn't amount to much) to get past this screen, and then we can play normally.

That's some hilarious wording too, considering we're talking about the dangerous, TV-killing Wii Remotes here. "Not a safe distance?" If anything, we're safer.

Clark is still working on his eye-hand coordination. He's great at punching, and he has memorized a couple of the special moves. Walking largely eludes him, however. The Nunchuk is actually worse for his little hand than the PS3 DualShock, because he wants to hold it in a natural cradling position... and that means his thumb can't quite maneuver the analog stick, whereas the DualShock he can hold a little easier because the object is already braced by two hands. So he ends up jamming the Nunchuk's stick in a permanent lower-left lock unless he's really concentrating on what he's doing. I often look over and see him with the Nunchuk thrust out to his right, as if that will make Ben 10 move to the right.

He is, however, aces at activating the Omnitrix. And this requires quite a few complicated actions! First you tap left and right on the Remote d-pad to choose which alien you want - and you select based on the character's silhouette, so you need to be a Ben 10 insider here. Then you hold the C button on the Nunchuk and slam the Remote onto your left wrist. Now that's immersion! His favorite character is Heatblast. His favorite move is d-pad-down + A, which makes Heatblast exhale a plume of fire.

This is one of those Let's Zoom In on the Character and Pretend That's Actually What Happens in the Game screenshots.

The game looks like a PS2 game, albeit a late-period PS2 game. The cel-shading and bright environments certainly help. As far as licensed kids games go, it's one of the good ones. There's enough combo moves and interesting character powers to keep me interested in otherwise mindless battle scenes, and a couple of the boss fights we've seen are suitably epic (thanks to the God of War theft I mentioned earlier... it's the bits where the game animates a crazy boss takedown and you have to hit the correct button sequence shown or else the entire scene fails. In Ben 10 Wii's case, you instead have to direct a Remote cursor to certain onscreen icons... yes, this is the only part where you need to be pointing at the TV.)

And I was pleased to note that the game supported an HD display.

For Clark's part, he likes that he gets to choose which alien he wants to be, and he enjoys the overall suspense of things. "How we going to get this guy, Daddy!" He has to watch all the cutscenes, even the ones he has already seen. He is truly my son.

The entire cartoon voice cast is present. Tonight we figured out that Grandpa Max is Metal Gear's Colonel Campbell. And he's doing more or less the same voice. I can't believe I didn't notice this earlier, because is it now completely stunning.

I do have to wonder about the game's huge list of unlockables. We have barely unlocked a thing, and not a single item on the Enemy Viewer menu. Which, in other games, is usually the kind of junk you get just by seeing an enemy. So I don't know what fabulous arcane unlocking key we're missing there. Maybe it's because we're only playing on Easy.

All in all, a fine purchase. Quite a bit better than the last few $20 games I've been through, I'll say that.

The old Popeye cartoons did the dialogue AFTER the animation.

This seems obvious in retrospect. Mark Evanier noted this last week... in a switch from the way cartoons are usually produced, those old Popeyes did the animation first and then had the voice cast do the dialogue. This allowed for ad-libbing, creating that now-classic effect of Popeye mumbling under his breath.

LEGO Batman preordered.

The latest villain reveals include Had Matter, Man-Bat and... Killer Moth! Fan service in the extreme! I'd like to see them sneak a new Question or Spectre in there.

If you preorder at Gamestop, you can get one of four LEGO Batman keychains: Batman, Robin, Joker or Catwoman. I asked the clerk and it's first-come, first-served. So this may be another day off work thing.

The Last Guy hurts my eyes.

I really like this PSN game, where you have to guide panicky civilians through Google Maps and avoid baddies. But the teeny tiny characters put you in a perpetual squint. The $10 full version drops this week.

Force Unleashed demo better than expected.

I was all set to not care about this, because I've officially hit my limit on non-canon Expanded Universe Star Wars garbage. But the demo was really nice.

Maybe I've been away from Star Wars game for too long, but everything was new to me. You Force-push doors open with a mighty warping slam, you can levitate anything that isn't nailed down, your light saber leaves convincing scorch marks on the walls, and you have that ridiculous Jedi jump where the guy goes twenty feet straight up.

You can see the line being tip-toed. They want to do a super-serious Bad Guy-driven Star Wars game, but they still want to keep it bloodless so kids can play. For example, you can saber poor innocent droids in half, but hacking at Stormtroopers just knocks them over.

Ben 10 better than expected.

We picked up Ben 10: Protector of Earth for Wii, and it is entirely serviceable. Clark loves it. Gives one hope for licensed games. More about this later.

Aeropodcast #46

On this week's episode, there's a special guest and a full house of participants. For my part...
- I say a lot of what you just read. :(
- The guest participant (a games blogger you may know) points out that some of Nintendo Power's Animal Crossing news was revealed weeks ago at E3... but I'll be damned if anybody out there covered it. Thanks, Wii Music!

Family Guy - Over (YouTube)
Easily one of my favorite Family Guy bits. Fuck you, Hulu, if you ever pull this from YouTube.

Making Sense of Cars (Cartoon Brew)
Gross fleshy cutaway of Cars' Lightning McQueen.

Skeleton show (Michael Sporn via 2719 Hyperion)
And along those lines, here's some BUH-RILLIANT skeleton models of Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck and other cartoon characters.

Nintendo Power reveals more about Animal Crossing: City Folk; teases DLC (Aeropause)
Some great news and some bad news about Animal Crossing Wii. Yeah, I wrote it.

Logo Study: JUSTICE LEAGUE (Todd's Blog)
Great multipart epic covering every single Justice League logo across the concept's forty-odd year run, written by one of the latter-day logo designers. I'm linking you to the August archive page because there doesn't seem to be any tag or keyword linking all six League logo posts.

COMIC BOOK URBAN LEGENDS REVEALED #169 (CBR)
First, a recap of Marvel's dark days, when the company was bankrupted and almost completely lost. Then, a hilarious-but-sad look at Peter David's run on Aquaman and his problems with DC editorial.

This is all very exciting.

I only need 19 more pokemon before I have officially caught them all. And amazingly, I've already been through all the truly hard or impossible ones.

My big concerns were the Gold/Silver starters, a few scattered legendaries like Lugia and Raikou, and the handful of crappo types that you can only get by plugging in Game Boy games that I don't have. Well, thanks to poke-pals like Ben, David and Alex... I was able to cross all the toughies off my list.

And when I needed extra Fire and Dawn Stones, my sister Marci came to the rescue, donating the items and sitting through a lot of trade evolutions.

Now, it's almost a certainty that a selection of the pokemon who passed through my DS were cheats. It's the Pokemon Gray Market. Nobody freakin' played Pokemon XD: Gale of Boredom, but yet everybody has plenty of Lugias to pass around. So somewhere along the line, probably well before any of my trading partners got involved, Lugia and Chikorita and other hard-to-get types were hacked out of Action Replays and then set loose in the wild.

It's an ethical puzzle, and it necessarily taints my accomplishments. But Pokemon is as much about trading as battling and collecting, so I find it a fair piece removed from, say, time travelling in Animal Crossing.

Speaking of AC, I'm going to resurrect some old images from the article where I got all pissy about my missing furniture as I list out what pokemon I still need to locate. The AC image indicates my level of irritation with the species or evolution method.

Breeding
Teh easiest. Not even an issue, really. Just a time investment. I have a designated Ditto and I can only assume it enjoys its job. I'll be breeding a Staryu (I know I could fish for one of these, but I hate fishing) and a Beldum. And I think I need to breed another Lickitung, because the one I got on the Global Trade Station was level 34, and I need one at level 33 so I can teach him Rollout and trigger his evolution into Lickilicky.

GTS
My favorite way to find stuff. You just need to have seen the type, and then you can ask the world to deliver it to you. Over the last few weeks, I've picked up a Stantler, Granbull, Vibrava and a level 100 Porygon2... all traded for Piplips and Chimchars. I still need a Tauros and Seadra, both of which could be caught via other means, but this way is just too easy. I currently have a request in for an Ekans, so I can evolve one up into an Arbok. After that, I need to beg for a Pineco, so I can get a Forretress.

Leveling Up
See, I just find this tedious, but at least it gives me something to do while waiting for pokemon to breed or eggs to hatch. I do almost all of my random battling up on Route 228, north of the Resort Area. All the wild pokemon are 50+, so it's a decent EP hunting ground. The types I need to evolve up in this fashion are Bayleef, Meganium, Typhlosion, Croconaw, Feraligatr, Jumpluff, Combusken, Blaziken, Metang.

Item-based
Most of the item evolutions are no problem, but I seem to be lacking a Sun Stone, which is required to evolve my Sunkern into Sunflora. I need to look up the location of the damn Sun Stone. Also, I need to give my Razor Fang to Gligar so he can evolve into Gliscar, I just haven't gotten around to that yet.

Radar
I hate the Pokeradar. It's supposed to rustle up rare types, but it's still random... so you have to go through a lot of wasted radar scans and random battles before you find something cool. This is why I'm trading for a Tauros, not using the radar to find one on Route 209. The only radar-exclusive type I need is Smeargle. So at some point I'm going to kill an hour hanging out on the Hearthome side of Route 212. Sigh.

Dual-Slot, Mass Outbreak
I'm only including these because I like the "suicidal" graphic so much, as these are all achieved. Not owning Pokemon Emerald or FireRed makes their associated Dual-Slot hidden types impossible to find, so I had to go find somebody who owns those carts.

The Mass Outbreak is another classic unrewarding Nintendo moment... every day you have to talk to a specific little girl, who will randomly name a type that is experiencing an OUTBREAK somewhere in the world. Then you have to go to the outbreak site and start searching. I needed a Smoochum and it took at least two weeks of asking her before I randomly got her to do it. The important bit is that it's all behind me now.

So really, most of my list is just get-to-work leveling up time. Which is all very doable.

And yes, I know the game will do nothing special once I hit this milestone. But I will have done it. And that will have to be thanks enough.

Also, I have to think that this will help me in the next Pokemon generation.

TIME	BADGES	POKEDEX SEEN
MONEY	SCORE	POKEDEX OWN

Sometime after Bully was released on PS2, I stopped posting "formal" game reviews here at fourhman.com. I was just tired of it, and the self-imposed stress of shooting for one a month just wasn't worth it. Especially since I do very little but whine and rant about video games anyway.

But since taking on a post at Aeropause, I've been getting back into it. So far, I've reviewed Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit and Soulcalibur IV... and more will come. Both of those arrived to Aeropause via a third party marketing firm, who sends out retail copies on behalf of whatever company has hired them to do so. My point being that because I get these games for free, I feel more compelled to write a review than I did when it was at my own cost. I like getting the games for nothing, so I see the review as my actual payment.

Aeropause uses a 1 to 5 review system, with half points allowed... essentially a ten point scale. Eleven if you include a zero rating. So I've been thinking lately about how to quantify those numbers, so I get my own internal consistency in my reviews. I know the trend in game reviews is to drop the number, and there's some very good rationale behind that. But flawed as it is, it's still an easy way to describe a game, one that a lot of gamers rely on... if only more reviewers would be willing to give scores below 8-out-of-10, we'd probably see more value in it (as consumers; as game companies, that's another story).

So here's what I came up with.

FIVE out of five
I don't believe in reserving this for a "perfect" game, mainly because I've never played such a thing. Invariably, even the best games end in me wishing they'd done X differently or avoided Y altogether. A five game is one that is as good as it gets. If there's a storyline, I probably want to keep playing even after it's over.

AWESOME: My examples of five-rank games: GTAIV, MGS4, Smash Brawl, Fatal Frame 2.

AMAZING, 4.5: Games will lose half a point if there's merely one critical item that seems to be holding back Ultimate Greatness. IE, the general unfinished feel to No More Heroes.

FOUR out of five
If a game seems to have a couple of those critical failings, like Soulcalibur IV still lacking a decent replay mode and screwing up the stat-keeping... then we're in four territory. Still obviously a great game, but somewhat tarnished by several factors.

GREAT: My examples of four-rank games: Ratchet & Clank Future, Professor Layton, Mario Kart Wii, Rock Band.

GOOD, 3.5: If an otherwise great game starts seeming not-fun due to those failings, then it gets dropped half a point. Like - wait for it - the don't-choose-your-own-pathiness of Super Linear Galaxy.

THREE out of five
These may be some of the most interesting titles, because, to me, three out of five means there's some serious issues but the game should totally be played anyway. It's probably fun and interesting in spite of itself. It's recommendable to others... but definitely not playing in the same league as the fours and fives.

Things start getting complicated here, because while top games and bottom games are usually obvious to all, determining the middle of the pack is wildly subjective. Games here may be stupidly difficult (or stupidly easy), be too high maintenance, contain insipid writing/acting, or simply be for fanboys only... and that's all valid discourse for the review.

ACCEPTABLE: My examples of three-rank games: Chulip, Disaster Report, Beyond Good & Evil, Eye of Judgment.

OK, 2.5: I'll drop a game half a point here, if there's just too much wrong from top to bottom. Like the recycled animation, weird presentation and low character count in Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit.

TWO out of five
We're finally into games that, generally speaking, aren't worth playing. Except now the delineation is reversed: now I'm looking for the few redeeming qualities that keep it from truly pro-grade sucking. There is still the possibility here that, for some extreme niche audience, the game is more or less fine.

LOUSY: My examples of two-rank games: Blast Works, Endless Ocean, Drawn to Life, Disgaea.

BAD, 1.5: What differentiates a 1.5 game from a 1? Probably me liking the license, as in Zatch Bell: Mamodo Fury.

ONE out of five
There is almost nothing good to say about the game. A vast array of technical errors will certainly catapult a game into this zone, but the key issue is that it is largely tedious, unplayable bullshit. The purchase is regretted almost immediately.

AWFUL: Examples of one-rank games: Lair, Cooking Mama: Cook Off, Lost in Blue, Sea Trader: Rise of Taipei.

TERRIBLE, MONSTROUS: I can't imagine a game worthy of a .5 or 0. It's just getting mean-spirited at that point. There's not a pressing need to go any lower than 1, because it's already a loss on the record anyway. I guess a game would have to not even boot up for me to award a zero, and I don't run Vista, so there's little chance of that happening.

Clearly a highly personal structure, but that's the way reviews work. I also think it's vital to keep the game bracketed in its own contemporary timeframe (unless the review is intended to explore how Game X holds up today, months or years after it was first released). Odds are, the next Grand Theft Auto will top GTAIV, but we can't give it six out of five just so it ranks higher. Of course, this sucks for just that reason... this allows games that arrive ahead of their time but then become outmoded to remain numerically competitive forever (seriously, is Ocarina that good today?), but that's why we put timestamps on our pages.

Watched most of the Metal Gear 4 bonus disk.

There's about 40 minutes of behind-the-scenes stuff at Kojima Productions, including some subtitled arguments between Hideo Kojima and his weary staff. Then an extensive series of documentaries. But the interesting bit is the full, uncut opening to MGS4... all those bizarre TV shows (mostly live action) that are intended to give the player a unique view on the world that Metal Gear inhabits.

I give. No more talk about Siren.

Last week's news of a blu-ray release for Siren: Blood Curse was apparently for the European market. Even setting aside the common lying tactics that game companies implement when discussing and not discussing upcoming releases, I think I'm giving Siren a pass. It's not going to be re-playable enough to warrant the 8 gig install, and I'm not likely to throw it away once I'm done with it. So if they get around to a disk release for the US, I'll think about it then. Or once I see the Japanese version on sale for import. (Play-Asia currently shows it as backordered, which indicates a lot of US gamers have chosen the disk option.)

Now, PSN Burnout Paradise on the other hand, now there's a game that can eaisly justify an 8 gig install, because that's the kind of game I could see coming back to over and over again. Especially once the thankless task of swapping disks is eliminated.

Warhawk 1.5 coming.

Is ANY game out there tossing out as much free (and paid) content as Warhawk? Sony is really dedicated to keeping Warhawk alive. 1.5 will allow custom soundtracks (via the XMB) and the long awaited training modes... which I'm hoping amount to a kind of single player experience. Oh, and trophies!

Bought my first ZiT.

The ZiT feature in GTA4 is really cool. Hear a song on the radio, dial ZiT, and then receive a text msg with the song/artist name... plus an Amazon link in your email and Rockstar Games Social Club account.

I bought "Arm in Arm (Shy Child Mix)," because it's the song featured in the coolest of the early pre-release trailers. Although I bought it through iTunes, not Amazon. Whoops!

Unlocked Baby Luigi.

Got back into Mario Kart Wii this week, as we had some houseguests who were super into it. Seeing those ? on the character select screen is like acid in my eye, so I started working on the time trial mode to unlock some of them. Got Baby Luigi.

There's still a handful of unlockables remaining, all revolving around beating even more time trials and getting star ranks on the various Grand Prix races.

Now we're into Ben 10.

Clark's current fascination is Ben 10, and we like to encourage these sorts of things. This weekend we bought him one of the Omnitrix wrist toys, which allows him to turn the dial and slam the button just like Ben 10 does in the cartoon. Between his light-up Omnitrix, light-up Batman sword, and light-up Clone Wars lightsaber, we put on quite a backyard show at sundown.

As far as Cartoon Network's original productions go, it's quite good. Most of their action-oriented shows are/were pretty crappy (Megas XLR? Storm Hawks?), but this one deserves its success.

Hey, you know what CN original I miss? Time Squad. I totally have some preliminary card game ideas for that one.

I know this came out late last year and everybody else has probably already noticed this, but the logo work on the 20th Anniversary DVD of The Princess Bride is nothing short of astounding.

It's "Princess Bride" written so it can be read both normally and upside down. And it is completely legible! There are no shortcuts; no tricks. The font work is identical on both halves. To make these images, I simply rotated the original in Photoshop. The worst you can say is that the "br" is slightly open and weak. But that's being picky.

As I'm sure everybody does, I stood at the Target endcap today and marveled at this, turning the DVD over and over again.

Whoever designed that should be given a Pulitzer. In fact, take a Pulitzer away from someone else and give it to that person.

My Time With You - David Choi/Kina Grannis (YouTube via Angry Asian Man)
Super cute song from two YouTube-based celebs, funded by a suddenly savvy JC Penney's. Shame about all the intrusive JC Penney's popups, but when you're a YouTube celeb, you'll take what you can get.

Cop-Confiscated PS3 Replaced with 360 (Kotaku)
Not only that, but I think Microsoft got to count that as a Vista sale.

Aeropodcast #44: Walkin' The Streets of Redwood City (Aeropause)
Haygood and I discuss the whole "kids claiming games as excuse for illegal acts" thing, and I think we solve it. Somebody should stick a tape of this one in the Smithsonian.

Burnout Paradise - coming to PSN (PlayStation.blog)
I'm going to need to hear a file size before I get onboard, but I like the idea... the entire Burnout Paradise, complete with all the upgrades and add-ons and more, $30 on PSN.

Warhawk v1.5 Update "Free Never Gets Old!" (PlayStation.blog)
But this one I'll be in... the trophy+jetpacks+training mode free update. Nice.

Comic Book Resources posted a nice Wonder Woman animated movie article, including a new trailer. This un-subtitled movie is the fourth in WB's "Let's Show Up Marvel's Animation Division" series, following Superman: Doomsday, DC: The Last Frontier, and Batman: Gotham Knight. Speaking in Trinity terms, it is entirely appropriate that Wonder Woman get a new animated feature, although the character is kind of a hard sell on her own and they can't expect this to sell like Gotham Knight. Still, she has persevered, being one of only a trio of comics characters in continuous publication for over sixty years (guess the other two.) Perhaps we can take this as a screen test of sorts, and if sales are brisk, WB will be emboldened to dig into the rest of DC's underutilized stable.

Getting dressed. Not the greatest way to kick off a trailer, because it's been done to death. Kinda cheesecakey, but I think this film will take to higher ground for a single simple reason that I'll explain in a bit.

Viewed at real speed, that looks like a ball kick.

I'm seeing a lot of Aeon Flux in WW's design, and that's not a bad thing.

PG-13 rating confirmed! Although you can't tell that dude took an arrow in the noggin when it's playing live.

See? Aeon Flux.

The trailer is way loaded with action bits, which makes sense since it's being pitched at comics fans... this is not the girl-focused, ill-fated 1980s Wonder Woman and the Star Riders.

Much of this seems to show WW waling on Ares, but I bet there's more fanboy-baiting to be had than that guy. Dr. Psycho? Cheetah? Justice League formation cameo at the end? I would request no invisible jet, though.

I don't know when DC started doing this, but I really like the modern take on the character that she enjoys the battle. Not violence, not "fighting," but the battle. Compared to Superman and Batman, who do their duty because they feel it needs to be done, this helps her stand out.

Here's why I anticipate a classy take. In this shot, there's no under-breast line... which, if there was a few semi-circles there in the red, would indicate the typical heavy, ponderous breasts that are pretty much de rigeur in comics. I realize that I'm making an assumption based on one scene from a trailer, but it's still nice.

Hey, now that's an early 1990s logo. I much prefer the current version, which debuted in 2006.

Looks cool. We're in. On blu-ray. For bonus materials, I'd like two Wonder Woman-centered episodes of Justice League and two episodes of the Lynda Carter TV series. Two good ones.

It's always nonsense to weep and wail and shake your fist at the universe when something horrible happens, because that's life and it sucks. You double the nonsense quotient when you delude yourself into thinking that your pristine existence is somehow better than everywhere else and nothing terrible ever happens within your part of the world.

An Arkansas politician was murdered today, by a nutcase who stormed into Democratic party headquarters, announced he was recently unemployed, and started shooting. The victim - and it seems like a random selection, excepting that the deceased was in politics - was former State Senator Bill Gwatney.

Which is a terrible thing. But then there's this:

State Rep. Janet Johnson started to cry when she talked about Gwatney.

"This is like something you would see in New York or Pennsylvania or California, but not here," Johnson said.

What? Pennsylvania? Pennsylvania gets lumped in with NY and California? Of course NY and CA will have to take the hit, because we're talking from an Arkansas perspective here. But Pennsylvania? Amish Country? The Snack Food Capital of the Eastern Seaboard? Chocolatetown, USA? Was Janet Johnson on a weekend visit to the Reading Outlets and held up by a Mennonite? Is she still holding the Battle of Gettysburg against us?

Hey, here's a list that Pennsylvania isn't on: the 2008 15 Most Dangerous States. But look who is...

That's right. Sorry about your dead Hillary Superdelegate, Ms. Johnson, but your state sucks ass.

Take a look at my first attempts to fabricate awesome in Soulcalibur IV.

Probably going to see a lot of sexy pirate girls online. I named her Silver for no real reason, since I liked the overall green color scheme. You can always change names later.

Her fighting style is Mitsurugi's, which has a very un-ladylike stance, so I may change that. I just wanted some kind of vague swashbuckler gal look.

Clark designed this one, or rather, he agreed to everything I pointed out to him. That's what it's like when you're three.

"Do you like this pirate hat or this bandanna or this feather beret"?
"Yes!"

The fighting style is Hilde, just so Clark's character can hold that cool flag spear. Not that it matters; Clark only plays Darth Vader anyway.

I named this one Terrorbird. How droll. Terrible / Terrorbird, get it?

Fighting style is Yun-Seong, and the bird has a huge meat cleaver weapon. Yun-Seong's post-battle poses do not really suit this oversized parakeet's inherent grandeur though.

Sexy 'gator girl! Which was almost her name, but I went with Undertow instead. I was trying to find a word that indicated underwater badassery, and that particular G.I.Joe codename sprang to mind.

The sucky thing about the animal heads is that they do not have any kind of articulation. They're just masks. Still, it's a pretty neat looking character.

Her fighting style is Setsuka, solely for the lizard head umbrella weapon, which looks really cool when she opens it the whole way. Undertow will probably be introduced into official continuity as Lizardman's mate at some point.

I hate him, but I want him.

As I said before, the Star Wars bits in Soulcalibur IV are entirely non-confrontational. However, if you want to unlock the SEEEEECREEEET APPRENTIIIIIIIICCCCEEE, you have to beat Arcade Mode with Darth Vader. Which is super hard. I can beat Arcade Mode (which is 8 matches; Secret Apprentice is #7) with Talim because I fucking rock faces with Talim. But that gets me naught but another 10,000 gold to go spend on in-game panties. Darth Vader is a pile of slow-moving suck.

Although Vader in SCIV did inspire Clark to want a lightsaber. So we got him the current Clone Wars Build Your Own Lightsaber kit, which was on sale for $25 at Target. It comes with a dozen parts that you screw together to create your own lightsaber handle design. The coolest bit is that you have to insert special plastic crystals in the hilt to determine the saber's color and sound! Clark prefers a blue lightsaber.

Final Crisis totally making sense.

We've had two issues of setup, and #3 started paying off on that. It is highly obvious now that Darkseid's group is somehow switching bodies, and have infiltrated the heroes (and villains) at the highest levels. Traditionally, the Justice League et. al. is a reactive group, but this attack is so finely orchestrated that they have no idea what to react to. So they're totally at a loss, the major players have been swept off the table, and they really haven't be able to do a thing about it. Those marketing lines about "the day evil won" were not the usual advertising hype.

Siren is probably coming to US blu-ray anyway.

Forget about importing AND downloading. Siren will likely see a US blu-ray release, with extra content to make it worth the assumed $60 price tag.

So this either means that DLC Siren sold so well that Sony doesn't mind bringing this up, or that DLC Siren sold so poorly that Sony thinks they need a disk release.

Blast Works kinda sucks.

I picked up Blast Works this weekend, on the basis that it always comes up in the lists of Awesome Third Party Wii Games That No One Is Buying. It was marked down to $20 at Toys R Us.

Turns out, it's pretty lame. It's a shmup, a side-scrolling shooter with exactly one clever gimmick: killed enemies attach to your ship, creating this hilarious malformed spaceship. If you're good, you can make your ship as big as the screen. Or bigger. On one level, I actually filled the board with my gestalt ship, to the point where I was killing baddies totally offscreen.

But even with all that, it's still just an average space shooter, and I'm just not that interested. You're supposed to be able to build your own ships and levels and enemies, but the editing tools are typically cumbersome and do not seem to be worth the effort. Plus, the download station website (blastworksdepot.com) has been a total disaster for me, refusing to let me log in.

Pixel Junk Eden Level:4 (YouTube)
I love the music. I love the look. I love that you can upload gameplay videos direct to YouTube. But I haven't bought it yet because I just didn't love the controls in the demo. I am pained over this.

Apple Patent: Stream Your Entire iTunes Library From Anywhere (Gizmodo)
Oooooooo. An Apple patent reveals a plan to access your music library from anywhere... you'd never have to worry about syncing your iPod, and your iPod/iPhone's storage space would no longer been an issue. Not to mention popping up your MacBook at a friend's to show off some new video you have back at home.

From Tiny Toons to Brave & Bold: Toon Zone Interviews Voice Director Andrea Romano (Toon Zone)
If you've watched cartoons in the last 15 years, you should recognize her name. This is a great, detailed interview with Andrea Romano... where she talks about voice-casting Batman for the umpteenth time, how the voice directing process works, and why it's important to cast ethnic actors in ethnic roles.

Toon Disney to Become Disney XD in February 2009 to Snare Boys 6-14 (Toon Zone)
This is going to sound dumb, but I am all for this rebranding if it drops the prefabricated word "toon" from the Disney lexicon.

ABBA make history with "Gold" album (Yahoo News UK)
Their Greatest Hits is the oldest album to reach number one. I've had my copy since college, so I'm no bandwagon jumper!

Ambush Bug: Year None Annotations: Part One (Funnybook Babylon)
Very nice leafthrough of Year None #1 for newbs. Although one mistake... the guy mis-identifies the Swamp Thing cameo.

WB releases those Watchmen posters (Newsarama via Kalinara)
Holy shit. These Watchmen movie posters are pixel for pixel recreations of house ads that DC ran back in 1985. These guys are going a long way to convince comic fans that they haven't ruined Watchmen.

Additionally, movie Bubastis!

DC originally solicited a DC Special: Ambush Bug book, timed to arrive alongside the second issue of Year None... but now I'm hearing reports that the book was cancelled. Meaning we won't see this great Ryan Sook cover:

Whoo! Great image. For several reasons... first, since this Special was intended to collect "his top stories from the 1980s, torn from the pages of SUPERGIRL #16, ACTION COMICS #560, 563 and 565 and DC COMICS PRESENTS #81," the costume shown here has all the little electronic bits that have long since vanished as the character developed. Initially, the Bug being a teleporter was a big deal, and his supposedly high-tech suit was how he did that. Giffen later changed that/stopped caring about that, take your pick. Note that the cloud behind him indicates a teleport in progress, a la Nightcrawler... although I don't recall that visual ever being used in an Ambush Bug story.

The second reason for greatness is more subtle. Ambush Bug's pose seems to carry him out of the "panel" behind him... which is totally evocative of the character breaking the fourth wall, as AB was rather famous for being aware that he was in a comic. Years before John Byrne dabbled in that during his She-Hulk run.

The good news is that DC has apparently replaced the Special with an all-inclusive Showcase volume, which Amazon lists with a January release. Of course, the Showcase books are all black and white, which sucks. I'd rather have a high quality color reprint (like the Special) since those 1980s comics were all on such shitty paper with lousy color reproduction.

I won't get too excited. DC adds and subtracts Showcase releases as if it were a sport. Where's that Captain Carrot Showcase? Nobody bought Final Ark, that's where. I guess the first issue of Year None sold well enough that DC shifted their strategy from a $4 Special to a $17 Showcase.

Hell, I would have bought both, DC.

I like Soulcalibur. More specifically, I liked Soulcalibur 2 on GameCube, which is not quite the same thing as Soulcalibur 4 on PS3. I've found that I have to retrain my fingers as I become reacquainted with Talim and her super-awesome life-restoring dual blade stick things.

Xianghua, Seung Mi-na, Talim

Overall, it seems slower than I remember? I'm not really sure; it's been a while since I seriously played SCII for any length of time. Talim just seems a tad off, but I love her so much that I could be enhancing her memory in my mind. As I recall, she could kill with a wink and pull twenty dollar bills out of thin air, she was so awesome.

One of the neat features in SCIV is that you can knock off your opponent's armor. I get so pissed when somebody kicks off Talim's hat!

Darth Vader is in it. You know. His presence isn't totally obnoxious. I'd rather play as him than as anything Todd McFarlane ever designed, that's for goddamned sure. Vader shows up all cool in the intro movie, but if you want, you can view a slightly redited version of the movie that features your custom-created character!

Namco Bandai has denied that 360-exclusive Yoda will be eventually be unlocked as PS3 DLC, and vice versa for Vader. But come on. Why wouldn't they do that? It's an almost guaranteed $5 for them, to unlock something that is likely already on the $60 disk anyway. I watched the entire SCIV ending credits, looking for any slips like "Yoda Voice By," but found none. The only evidence that Yoda is coming is on the character select screen... right by Vader is two empty boxes, one for the THE SECRET APPRENTICE whom I could care less about and have no idea how to unlock anyway, so what's the other one for?

We're not stupid, Namco. So make the announcement already. It's not like anybody is making their 360 vs. PS3 console purchasing decision based on Soulcalibur IV bonus fighters. It's purely a marketing bullet point. You're going to make a ton of additional money by letting us unlock Yoda and Vader, so let's stop lying to each other and make it happen.

Oh, SCIV has some terrible DLC already up... $1.50 for some additional create-a-character gear (like, hats) which isn't too bad... but the stinker is $15 worth of music tracks from the first Soulcalibur. Yeah. My nostalgia doesn't extend that far.

For me, the bigger story is the five bonus characters that nobody's talking about, the five designed by various manga artists... including one by Mine Yoshizaki, the creator of the Sgt. Frog manga. In fact, his character - Angol Fear - appears to be part of the Sgt. Frog universe, a close cousin to Angol Moa. Angol Fear's story mode finale has a shot of a very modern looking city, and Soulcalibur takes place in the 1500s, so once again trying to make any sense of the Soulcalibur storyline is a fool's errand.

That's right... if you want to see the excitement, the intensity, the sword of the hot new Sonic game, Sonic Kills Evil King Arthur... look no further than Brawl, THE Wii game and totally better than Mario Galaxy.

Look at those moves! Look at those environments! Look at that sword! You're in for a treat, Sonic fan!

No items. Fox only. Final Destination.

Now you're playing with power.

There's a very nice story told on the faces of angry grabbing Sonic and fearful grabbed Popo.

Staryu is so pissed.

Wolf lets it fly in outer space.

Latias is such a perv.

LEGO-da Jones.

A demo for LEGO Indiana Jones showed up on PSN this week, so I grabbed it as a high-def warmup for the main event, LEGO Batman.

I'm disgusted to see that they did not fix ANY of the problems of LEGO Star Wars. Player 1 can still drag Player 2 around the board. Characters can still warp back from a fall into infinite spirals of death. Players are still randomly turned off and on under certain conditions. Unbelievable.

That said, Clark was digging it. With some coaching, he was able to jump to a vine and swing himself to a higher platform all by himself. And he liked Indy's whip. Rhonda and I enjoyed his truncation of the series's name, LEGO-da Jones.

All of Siren available already.

So, like, what's the point of episodic DLC that arrives all at once? All three parts of Siren are posted for purchase, comprising twelve episodes. I don't mind the bundling, but if you're going to carve up a dramatic, story-heavy game into prorated chunks, wouldn't it make more sense to post the segments over the course of a few weeks or months? You know, like episodes of a television series? Build anticipation, keep people talking about the game, create suspense?

The pricing works out to $40 for the entire 8gigs of game... or $60 for the blu-ray import. I still haven't decided what I want to do yet. One or the other will go on sale at some point.

On this week's Aeropodcast, I...

• ...posit the existence of a PS1 curse.


• ...offer up Katamari, Ratchet & Clank, and Guitar Hero as franchises that have lost their way.


• ...graciously remain silent when George calls the DC heroes boring.


• ...vow to never again play Lair.


• ...use the word "scumbags" when referring to third-party peripheral manufacturers.

Watchmen Motion Comic makes critical fail.

By having a single narrator "do voices."

Don't about a million books on tape just let the reader read, without having to put on a one-man show? It comes off really amateurish, which is a shame because the motion comic part is actually pretty neat. It's panel-for-panel from the book, which I like.

But as soon as the male narrator affects a high-pitched falsetto for Laurie's lines, it's over. Can't wait to hear his Old Lady voice for Sally Jupiter.

I wonder how long the Kart tourneys will last?

Nintendo is still running two tournaments a month, ranging from boss fights to backwards laps. The newest one takes you through N64 Jungle Parkway, but with DK and Diddy just ahead of you littering banana peels all over the track.

Since nobody ever talks about this, I don't think anybody has ever figured out if this is the kind of thing that Nintendo can keep doing forever... or if it's a Professor Layton kind of thing where once Nintendo exhausts the secret supply of hidden tourneys, it's over. (Unless they simply start over from the beginning.)

Very cool feature. Seems criminally undiscussed.

Penny Arcade's stupid-titled game coming to PSN.

Probably definitely a purchase. Although I hate their tendency for self-indulgent digression, I love their art, honesty and voice.

We're no longer a household without Clue.

For whatever reason, we've never owned Clue, even though it is easily my favorite "classic" board game. (Surprise, surprise, it tells a story.)

Target had a recent edition on sale for $3.57, which is insane. That's on par with a single comic or a single booster pack. I haven't opened it up yet, but I think the sculpted pawns are close to scale with the zombies from Zombies. Now I'm trying to come up with rules for a Clue/Zombies mashup.

Hey Panera Bread, order more fucking bread bowls.

I swear, one out of every four times we go there, they're out of bread bowls. And I don't mean one specific Panera, I'm including every one we frequent. I know it's August and I guess people don't buy as much soup in the summer, but running out by 6pm on a Saturday night is completely fucking unacceptable.

Let me tell you about the bread bowls. I need the bread bowl. The cup of soup and withered baguette is not even close to a real supper for me. The bread bowl turns their combo from a snack to a meal. At least come up with a Plan B where you sell me a comparable amount of dipping bread or something.

Response to apexisfree (YouTube via Dubious Quality)
NCAA Football 09 is apparently chock full of glitches, and people are throwing the vids up for all to see. Lots of the evidence revolves around AI players who refuse to tackle (hey, it is only college ball!), but this video is particularly special thanks to one disgusted gamer's hilarious narration.

PAX East Coast: 2010 (Penny Arcade)
Oh ho! Now that is good news. I hope it's somewhere within my striking distance.

SECRET TO OVERWORKED ASIANS REVEALED! (8Asians)
Great story... everybody was in awe of a Chinese couple who operated a restaurant from 6am to closing time at 3am, day in and day out. And then it comes out that the place is actually run by two couples, who just happen to be two sets of identical twins married to each other.

A Midsummer Harvest of Bogus Trend Stories (Slate)
More reasons to avoid local newspapers/news shows... the pretend trend angle.

IT'S LOVELY! I'LL TAKE IT! (lovelylisting.blogspot.com)
Rhon found this one: a weblog making fun of lousy real estate listing pictures.

Finally got around to exporting some recent Ranch snapshots. As much as I like the photography thing, Ranch photos definitely get very samey very quickly. Pokemon, white fence, mountains. Check.

The one of Clark I sized up specifically to use as a PS3 background! Haven't tried it out yet.

If you know anybody with Pokemon Ranch, you'll occasionally be visited by their Mii and asked if you want to travel to their ranch. If you do, the game warps you to them... although in real-world terms, it's actually the game warping a non-real-time dupe of their entire ranch to your Wii's temporary game memory. Like these few examples from Ben's Pokemon Ranch. But you still get to see their entire collection, which is nice.

Like Ben's sweet green Espeon!

Ben stuck a Dialgia and Palkia in his ranch.

And he has a Shaymin, the dirty cheater!

There's my sister and her Eevee in my ranch. You can transfer pokemon from several DS games; it doesn't have to be linked to just one DS/Pokemon combo.

And there's the snowman item freezing Rhonda.

Gastlys are always menacing like that.

That thing with the Pichu is a sparring partner, and if a pokemon successfully scores a hit on it, it vomits piles of LSD-laced sugar cubes.

The microphone is really cool. When a pokemon gets close to it and makes a sound, you hear it out of the Wii Remote's speaker. Of course, the sound is still limited to all those crappy Game Boy era white noise SFX, but Nintendo has ignored my pleas for real pokemon voice acting for about ten years now.

And that's all we have time for today!