No, Really. Is It?

Is this a joke?

Mazal Tov!

My new favorite cewebrity(TM) is Jessie the Bat Mitzvah girl. Check out her music video here. Her simcha is on my birthday!

Yeah, Right

No more booth babes at E3? That's what the ESA says, anyway.

More Spore

Everyone is excited about Will Wright's upcoming game Spore, and EA's official site is worth checking out.

Mmmm...MMOB

Massively Multiplayer Online Brains can be consumed when playing Urban Dead, a multiplayer browser-based online game!

Trapped in the Theater

If you're near Austin, TX, you may want to attend this!

Beat It

Remember that time that Michael Jackson beat up all your favorite characters from the NES? No? Well, this might refresh your memory.

(Is it a subtle commentary about the brief period of time that the SEGA Genesis dominated the console market, or just a crazy batshit fan film from Japan? You decide!)

Counterpoint

Curmudgeon Gamer responds to GameDaily's review of GameTap.

GameDaily on GameTap

GameDaily offers their take on GameTap.

Oy, Guv!

A sequel/prequel/sidestory to Dragon Quest VIII, tentatively titled Dragon Quest Yangus will follow the titular exploits of a young Yangus before he appeared in DQ VIII. Cor Blimey!

Long Time No Post

Man, December knocked me out. I was sick for like two weeks, and the holidays, and the so-on-and-so-on. But I did get out to see some movies and managed to play some games. Well, one game in particular: Dragon Quest VIII. Man, that game is just awesome. I've put 45+ hours into it and I think I'm only about halfway through. I'll have to write more when I have the time.

Here are the other things floating my proverbial boat:

- King Kong: Great movie, but too long. Why does everything have to be over three hours? Is that what makes something "epic"? No, it is often what makes something "padded".
- Munich: The rare "movie for grown-ups" that thrills, engages and makes one think. And it's not about some boring topic like an obscure gay poet in prison or whatever.
- Brokeback Mountain: Speaking of gay...this movie was a letdown. Great acting, but the story was a whole lot of nothing, in my opinion, and ended with a whimper.
- Smartbomb: A cool collection of spotlight articles about the various people and organizations that work behind-the-scenes of the videogame industry. Not very in-depth, but entertaining and well-written.
- Art Brut: My friends in New York (who are much cooler than I am) recommended this UK band to me. With lyrics like "I want to write the song that makes Israel and Palestine get along" you know that these guys are much cooler than you, too.
- Dragon Quest VIII: Didn't I already mention that this Japanese RPG ROOLZ? And that they are making a sequel/prequel? And Jessica's boobs defy gravity!
- The 4400: A sci-fi show on USA that has low production values and budget acting (Peter Coyote?) but great stories and an even better premise. Worth a look.

OK, bye!

What About Tony Stark?

According to Forbes, here are the 15 richest fictional characters:

1 Claus, Santa (∞)
2 Warbucks, Oliver "Daddy" ($27.3 billion)
3 Rich, Richie ($17 billion)
4 Luthor, Lex ($10.1 billion)
5 Burns, Charles Montgomery ($8.4 billion)
6 McDuck, Scrooge ($8.2 billion)
7 Clampett, Jed ($6.6 billion)
8 Wayne, Bruce ($6.5 billion)
9 Howell, Thurston III ($5.7 billion)
10 Wonka, Willy ($2.3 billion)
11 Bach, Arthur ($2 billion)
12 Scrooge, Ebenezer ($1.7 billion)
13 Croft, Lara ($1 billion)
14 De Vil, Cruella ($1 billion)
15 Malfoy, Lucius ($900 million)

Weird Reads

Check out Odd Books Online if you like Art Deco or are interested in a tome about chewing gum.

Weird Game

If you want a refreshing break from the same old games, try "Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space".

My boss brought this game to my attention, and when he showed it me I cannot say that I was too impressed. It took me weeks to load it up, and when I finally played it this afternoon, I was pleasantly surprised. Perhaps this was due to my lowered expectations, but after tinkering with the game for a while tonight, it's obvious that the game is a solid title in its own right.

Funny, but Weird Worlds contains many elements that I usually don't like: confusing space maps, lots of text, strategy-lite gameplay, resources to worry about. But here's the deal: the maps are not confusing (they just look confusing), the text is entertaining (and pretty clever), the strategy parts are fun (if a bit unbalanced) and the resource management is super simplified (no credits to worry about). The drag-and-drop interface is really intuitive and easy to use, and best of all, you can play a session in about a half hour and walk away satisfied.

The general idea is: you are a captain of a space vessel. You travel from planet to planet, gathering weapons and items, meeting strange alien races, upgrading your technology, enlisting new allies and blowing the crap out of hostiles. Every time you play, the map generates randomly, so there's a lot of replay value. Plus, it seems that your missions and goals change as you play, although I have not gotten far enough to determine what the pattern is.

Interestingly, the game is an independent release, so it probably gets no mention in the mainstream press and certainly no shelf space in the mass retail outlets. How a game like this survives is beyond me, but I guess word of mouth (like this post) helps. I hope some gamers read this and decide to give it a try. It would be nice to see more games like Weird Worlds break out of obscurity and carve out a little niche for themsleves amidst the landscape of sequels and big-budget titles. There's room for all kinds of cuisine in the gamer's daily diet.

You know, like giant space snails.

Slimes Have Appeared!

OK, so like I've never been into RPGs or anything. But I just finished playing the Dragon Quest VIII demo disc and, boy, was I impressed! Great! I've often said that "Dragon Warrior" (for the NES) was the last proper RPG I can remember playing, and that was a looong time ago. So it seems appropriate that Dragon Quest VIII (as the series has always been called in Japan) would be the game that would make me sit up and take notice. The reviews have been calling it "old school RPG gaming at its finest" and so on and so on. Whatever it is, it sure is fun!

The demo took almost two hours to complete, which was quite a meaty demo, as far as I'm concerned. The monsters are hilarious.

Note that the commercial version of Dragon Quest VIII also contains a playable demo of Final Fantasy XII, if you care about that sort of thing.

Choose Wisely

This is hilarious.

Absolutely Fantastic

A black tie event attended by Mike Tyson ended in an all-out brawl. Unbelievable! This guy could spark a fistfight in a kindergarten.

Strike a Phoon

Come on...you know you want to.

Far Cry from Great

I'm playing Far Cry Instincts for the Xbox right now. The game had a lot of great buzz when it was released for the PC, and got some good reviews. Here's my take: Far Cry is a curious combination of Awesome and Not Awesome, so ultimately it's a wash. Which is a disappointment, considering how great the game starts out.

You land on a lush tropical island (gorgeous graphics!) with no weapons and very little understanding of the environment around you. The levels are huge, which gives you lots of of options. You can crawl through the jungle if you want, which is very dense and gives you a great feeling of protection. But at the same time, you don't know where your enemies are and it's diffucult to see, so you also feel vulnerable. The first third of the game requires a lot of sneaking and careful progression to stay alive, which was totally fun. I had a great time with this and really felt like I was "immersed" in the role of the character.

Then you gain animal powers, and the game's vibe does a shift. Suddenly, you're a lot more powerful, so you can run into most situations with guns and claws blazing. The difficulty level takes a sharp dive, and actually, it's for the better. Because it's suddenly so much easier to take out your enemies, you really feel the power of your new abilities. I thought this was really cool and subtle, but whether it was intentional is questionable. Because as you gain more powers, the game fails to keep up and starts using some really cheap tactics.

By the end of the game, Far Cry Instincts is suddenly not much fun. The bad guys become supremely powerful and pick you off instantly if you're not careful. The environments become dark and murky, a cheap ploy to force you to use your "feral vision". Even the jungles, once lush and protective, become a nuisance. The level design gets sloppy and in the last few stages on the island it becomes very easy to get lost or run up against the edge of the world. Not to mention the introduction of the worst kind of enemy: suicide bombers. You know, the ones that make a beeline for you and explode. Arrgh. I know the game's balancing act is shoddy, because suddenly armor pickups and first aid kits are everywhere. It's like the game starts to expect you to fail. I'm at the final boss fight right now, and I don't even know if I have the stomach to complete it.

In the end, Far Cry serves up some amazing fire fights, some cool action sequences and really gorgeous graphics (for the most part). There's also some fun to be had with weapons and options for how you want to tackle the missions. (Take the jet ski and deal with floating mines, or swim underwater and sneak up on the baddies with your silenced pistol.) I hope it gets a sequel, and that they put a little more care into the enemies and game balance.

Arj and Poopy

A funny cartoon for you to try.