Things We Learned Last Week

OK, so there's at least three PS2 games that I want.

Not that I've touched a PS2 game since beating Okami over a year-and-a-half ago, but I'm up to three that I feel are missing from my collection. Rule of Rose, Raw Danger (which was effectively Disaster Report 2), and that new Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. Yes, this is why I am a year behind in my Farewell to the PS2 article series.

No, those are not cow penises.

Lately Clark has been asking about the butcher section of the grocery store. We're not being super-militant about being vegetarian, but we do tell him that those are animal parts and that some people eat those. The giant sacks of beef soaking in pools of blood are pretty gross no matter where you stand on the issue. Now he wants to know what animals those cuts used to be, so I've been telling him which are cow, pig and fish. The other week - and he's now done this a few other times since then - he stopped at the sausages and asked if those were cow penises.

Rhythm game dealz.

Spotted at Walmart: a double pack with Guitar Hero III and Guitar Hero Aerosmith (Wii version.) Sells for $50 even as the separate editions of both games lurk on the same rack for $50 each. I guess this double pack is for anybody who only has Guitar Hero World Tour.

Separately, I've noticed that the bottom has entirely dropped out of the Guitar Hero market. Piles of Aerosmith for all platforms are priced down to $20. Even Rocks the 80s is finally at $20. And at every Big Box we go, forts of World Tour boxes take up enough space that could legitimately be considered an entire electronics section at smaller retailers. This is why, suddenly, World Tour deals are everywhere. Activision completely overestimated the sellthrough on this.

Also, Target has Rock Band Track Pack Volume 2 (PS3) for $20, which is ten off the normal price. Volume 2 lets you transfer the songs directly into RB by giving you download credit for the 20 songs on the pack. So 20 songs for $20 is pretty cool. Unfortunately, I already own about five of them, or I would have jumped on the deal.

Perhaps because Final Crisis or Trinity would require a full five pages of text recap.

I don't agree with him, but I sure did laugh. At NY Comic Con, Dan Didio referred to Marvel's single-page recaps as "lazy tools." Haw! He said "they" should concentrate on better storytelling. That is some epic snark right there.

I actually like the recap pages, especially for books with monthly (or less) schedules. I don't like when they take up the entire first page, because that's kind of a crappy first impression when you crack open a book. For a while, DC's own Flash (Didio must have hated that) would drop a recap page about four pages in, akin to what would be the first commercial break in a TV show.

Bad 2.0.

I am not into the new YouTube revamp that places the clip title and star rating on top of the thumbnail image. It looks cheesy.

Heroes with a Half-Assed Trailer.

Welp, one trailer and I am officially off the bus for the new Ninja Turtles game. It will suck.

Depressingly amateur logo, no actual game footage, pathetic use of "smash" and "brawl" in text as if taunting Smash Bros. In fact, even the game's subtitle "Smash Up" sounds like a cheeky middle finger towards the unseatable king of Wii games. And it's not even a Wii exclusive!

Oh, and quit saying that this game "follows no licensed iteration" of the characters. Bullshit. Those character models are straight out of the CG movie. And anything with four separately colored bandannas is based at least partially on the original animated series.

A very good deal on FusionFall.

Now's the time to buy into FusionFall. Target has the retail Victory Pack for $15 (usually $20). That includes four months of free play, which is about $6 a month. Here's your math: $24 is greater than $15. I'm thinking of buying the Pack again, and I haven't even activated my playcode yet! It's a very nice game. There's a TON of stuff to do for free, so you have hours to decide if it's worth paying for.

Another toy disappointment for Clark.

The booster packs for the Ben 10 TCG (hint: it ain't much of a TCG) have a mail-in offer where six wrappers gets you some lame Ben 10 figure. The plastic figure is only 1.5 inches tall, and is completely transparent. But it glows in the dark. Anyway, Clark wanted it - and it was a neat lesson in saving stuff for free rewards. IE, learning patience. However, and you can guess where this is going, to receive the toy, you needed to include a SASE along with your six wrappers. What kind of toy will fit inside a SASE, covered under normal US first class postage? Only a very flat one.

Turns out, nothing will. Not only did our SASE carry a Postage Due notice, but it was also completely demolished by the post office, and the toy was long gone. The end of the envelope looked like somebody had fired a miniature cannon from the inside out. And that's probably exactly what happened. The postal morons sent the envelope through the sorter, which squeezed the toy out the other end like the amazing Rocketship Phoenix.

Can't entirely blame the US Postal Service, though. Because that is an exceptionally stupid (and cheap) way for a toyco to send little trinkets in the mail. Next time, Bandai, go ahead and cop for postage and a perhaps even a little box.