7:00 p.m.: What's a guy to do as keynote speaker at a gaming convention? Out himself, of course. Doesn't seem like a big stretch for Ken Levine, the creative director of last year's arty blockbuster Bioshock. Uh, he makes games. Epic games with long scripts about underwater empires and the crazed 1920s mobsters who love them. Geek? SHOCKER.

Sorry, my photos from the keynote were awful. To make up for it, here's a short video:

But like Wil Wheaton's call-to-geek-arms speech last year, Levine took today's opportunity to recount his own reluctant descent into comics, D&D, and all matter of video games. It was a late '70s story straight out of TV show Freaks & Geeks: "When my parents rolled for my character, they didn't get any 18s," he said, and the crowd roared for the D&D joke. The rest of his upbringing story was Spiderman, an Atari 2600 as a Channukah gift, salivating over comic book heroines, getting in a tizzy over Logan's Run, and publicly hiding his nerdiness for fear of retribution. It took an accidental stumble into a D&D posse for the guy to finally accept his lot ("I was worried I'd walked into some Gygax-ian gingerbread house").

It wasn't as exhilirating and shameless a speech as Wheaton's from last year, but it didn't mince words, either: "What brings us together at PAX is, we're a giant bunch of fucking nerds." This, and his series of witty in-jokes, elicited roars from the crowd. It's almost disconcerting the way the mass cheered and clapped--for a brief moment, it felt like they were a tiny pack of right-wing, gun-loving nuts trapped in San Francisco. But, to be fair, it wasn't quite that extreme. And the opportunity to let your social guard down and applaud/grin along is too thick to pass up--so what if the PAX scene was a bit jubilant? Besides, Levine's story of childhood ostracization was touching even outside the corridors of geekdom--anybody can identify with being on the outside to some extent.

Penny Arcade's creators followed this keynote with their annual Q&A session. Funny, certainly, though this is where the crowd began to fragment. No biggie for creators Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik. Like they've said all along, this is a gaming expo, not a comic strip expo. The authors are happy merely being a conduit through which their brethren may gather.

And now, for the rest of the evening, I'm off to do just that. To sit down when I see an open chair at a fighting game booth. To make friends with DS-wielding Tetris addicts. To see if somebody will teach me what the heck is new in D&D 4th Edition. And, seriously, to make a friend or two. (I'm always on the lookout for a gaming posse.) Tomorrow is a busier "official" day; lots of panels with industry folks about the modern state of games development. I look forward to reporting the heck out of that. Until then, geeks ahoy.

2:55 p.m.: A few hours in, I can already proclaim the winner of the PAX 10 indie competition: The Maw. You run around like a 3D Mario game, but the only thing you can do is use an electric leash and lug around this stupidly goofy blob-thing (or the things that you want to feed it). The joy here is in the lively main character, pumped full of quirks and personality. The total product is charming, hilarious, and pleasing to figure out as a game. And only eight people made it. That's, like, 1/50th of the people who made Halo 2.5 3. The Maw should see release on Xbox Live soon. I look forward to raving about it.

Not that the rest of the PAX 10 is a snore. Turns out the one-man team making Sushi Bar Samurai is a hometown native, and his title probably best embodies the spirit of this off-kilter competition. I love the concept--you are a sushi chef in the afterlife, and you assemble souls' "final meals." It's the perfect kind of challenge for challenge-averse gamers; you can very simply arrange sushi rolls, or you can come up with recipe combos. It starts off ridiculously simple, but the presentation lulls you into enjoying the game's virtual bonsai arrangements. Of raw fish.

Other PAX 10 dandies, my fest experience so far, and big names like Gears of War 2:

(Jump to read the entire rest of the day's coverage.)

Continue reading "PAX Day One - Megathread" »

Who says PAX isn't about politics?

I didn't have time to confirm whether Obama can use "race cards" like throwing stars or not. Will check on that one later.

Photos of proud gamers and costumed fools after the jump:

Continue reading "PAX In Photos" »

My nerd brethren, while we didn't write anything about the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) in this week's paper, that doesn't mean we completely forgot about it.

Now in its fifth year, PAX—which was spawned by a videogame blog and webcomic—has grown into the biggest goddamn video game convention on the planet, and tons of gaming companies will be at the show with shiny new toys for you to play with.Rumor has it Gears of War 2 will be playable at PAX!

There'll be plenty of games to play, but there are also a number of seminars and workshops like:

So, You Want to Pitch A Game

Writing For Video Games

and

Losing Your Virginity: A How-to For Beginners

Slog gaming wunderkind Sam Machkovech will be in attendance, posting updates whenever he can tear his sweaty palms away from Barbie's Horse Adventure 2 or whatever.

You can also check out Sam's interview with Penny Arcade's creators here.

For the past five weeks, Xbox Live's download service has pumped out a gem of a cheap video game every Wednesday, assumedly to make up for yet another half-baked retail summer. As expected, this season has seen a dump of games deemed too meager to compete during Christmas. Perfect time, then, to hip the kids to some brilliant $10 and $15 games that are fun, quick to learn, and easy to put down in case gamers actually go outside this summer.

I already reviewed the first two from this Summer of Arcade series, Geometry Wars 2 and Braid. Now that the series is complete, it's time to catch up with the rest.

Bionic Commando: Rearmed
(Xbox Live, also available on PS3/PSN and PC)

1987's Bionic Commando never quite took off in the Mario era--probably cuz the game's hero couldn't jump. (Back then, kids, virtual jumping was a technological achievement.) Instead, the guy had a grab-arm which let him swing over obstacles and chasms. Cyborg Tarzan with a bazooka... it made sense in the year of Robocop.

The unique twist of robo-swinging made the game a cult classic, which is probably why BC is being revisited as a big-budget, 3D adventure later this year. To promote that release, Capcom has given the original 2D game the spit-shine treatment. Holy crap, is it nice.

Pace yourselves; it's not an epic reimagining of the core game. Still the same series of side-scrolling levels. Still no jump button. Still a few aggravating, scream-worthy swing puzzles (devs, why not edit these so that when you fail 'em over and over, there's less time to get back into the damn game?).

But the liberties taken in this remake should shame anybody who's made a lazy, retro cash-in. Boss battles have been reimagined from the ground up, full of hulking robots that are satisfying to take down. The massive series of challenge rooms, reminiscent of Metal Gear Solid's wireframe "training" levels, are alone worth the $10 tag. Multiplayer feels like an afterthought, but allowing up to four people to robo-arm together is better than nothing. And the presentation is stunning, from the remixed '80s soundtrack and the freshly redrawn baddies to the ridiculous coat of high-def paint.

Nitpicks: no level editor? Why not let people whip up their own Bionic Commando worlds and trade them online? Also, the grab-arm controls are awkward for 2008. Capcom should've mapped the all-direction aim to the Xbox's second analog stick.

Otherwise, it's a lot of retro for $10. Assumedly, the low price is because this game is itself kind of an ad for the "new" Bionic Commando coming in October. Otherwise, there's no reason for Capcom to price so much game for so little cash.

Jump with me for takes on Galaga Legions and Castle Crashers, along with some Penny Arcade Expo banter.

Continue reading "The Sun Sets Upon the Summer of Arcade" »

Blissfully ignoring this week's politics and protests? Charging your DS and PSP batteries? Waxing your "PWNED" Washington State license plate? You must be going the same place I am on Friday.

Every day this weekend, I'll be at the convention center to cover the hell out of the Penny Arcade Expo. The big announcements, the PAX10 indie games exhibit, the industry panels, the kinda-decent concerts, the Jenga competition, the thousands of penises drawn on Pictochat--no virtual stone will go unturned at America's largest public gaming expo. There is talk that I may dress up as an underappreciated gaming icon for one of the three days.

To get in the mood for the show, do check out my exhaustive Q&A with Penny Arcade's hometown creators, Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, over at seattleSavant.com. It has everything the other outlets didn’t dig up, including dirt on the Penny Arcade Adventures game series, the drama behind PAX07’s Halo 3 reveal, and the “fucking barbs” that fuel the duo's tension. And if you're really stoked about the show, knock yourself out with my Live-Slogging from last year's Expo.

Annie, I know that you're probably still upset over Scrabulous, but perhaps you should expand your horizons: Tor.com has announced that Dungeons and Dragons has just issued a Facebook application.

Welcome to Dungeons & Dragons: Tiny Adventures! Choose a hero to send on epic adventures. Be your hero's guide through encounters with menacing monsters and dangerous traps. Equip your hero with magical weapons and armor. Get an RPG experience on Facebook without having to play for hours at a time!

Too Human
(Xbox 360)

Two of gaming's oldest archetypes collide in Too Human: the stupidity of the Van Damme genre and the timesuck of amassing RPG crap like experience points and treasure. Not my dream blueprint for a game, but I did reserve a little hope, as TH's designers were responsible for 2002's Eternal Darkness, the first really good 3D scare game by a Western studio. (That game would throw up fake Blue Screens of Death. The hell is scarier than that?)

Sadly, the creative folks at Silicon Knights didn't know when to pull the plug on TH, finally released today after a decade of development. This game would've been a dandy on its original destination, the Playstation 1, and that's a good way to put it, because the game feels dated—as if a lost PS1 game by some forward-thinking developer was unearthed 10 years later.

Credit's due here. For starters, in the world of clichéd gaming themes, there's something, er, unique about this one: Norse mythology colliding with plasma rifles and rocket-launching robots. (Steam-narök, maybe?) Might sound cheesy, but the art team here sure ran with the idea. If the game feels old, it sure doesn't look it—while rough around the edges, TH's set designs and architecture rank up there with the immaculate God of War.

That mythology core takes its toll on the plot. TH is too full of stereotypes and one-liners to be taken as seriously as Silicon Knights so desperately wants us to (and geez, are there a lot of cut-scenes and town-crawls). At the same time, there are too many shades of gray to determine who's worth liking in this tedious story. Worst of both worlds.

The core battling has its moments. In earlier stages, your gun-n-slash hero can whip through a chain of 30 baddies at once, and maneuvering these kill-combos has a certain Viking grace. You'll slash one dude, throw another one in the air, hold that mid-air guy up with a cloud of gunfire, then “slide” with your sword in a bee-line to the next foe, only to slam your fists to the ground and fell a mass of six critters simultaneously.

Like in Diablo, this mindless baddy-genocide is fun with a friend. Loot sharing and co-op moves are well done here; certainly better than last year's Army of Two. But that mode is online-only, and without a friend to talk to and kill with, the game's shortcomings are more oppressive. Missions run in a straight line; all killing, no puzzles. Since all enemies look pretty much the same, monotony sets in quickly. The game tries to hook players with Diablo-style treasure (all the swords you could want, nerds!), but Diablo beefed up its virtual treasure hunts with winding, crazy dungeons and a ridiculous variety of creepy crawlies. Not so much here.

I could describe other issues in detail: awkward controls, wonky cameras, clumsy item management, wonky fricking cameras. Those are all annoying, if not deal breakers. But more than any of that, Silicon Knights has no clue what the word “difficulty” means. In TH, you will die. Often. Over and over. Holy crap, are you going to die. Not that it matters, though—your character comes back to life after every death in the same spot with barely any penalty for it.

I'm fine with the free revival concept, but not the execution. It's only there because TH gives players no other solid way to stay alive. New weapons and armor don't help; the enemies scale up automatically, so you rarely feel like a total badass. And healing and dodging are nerfed. Once the difficulty very suddenly ramps up, you will spend more time dying and waiting for revivals than playing the damned thing.

Again, muffle the criticisms if you've got a pal to tear through this with. Co-op doesn't so much save the game as flatten out the complaints (for one, you'll die a lot less). But that's not a ringing endorsement. Fanboys who love virtual treasure have too many hurdles between them and their gold, while if you were hoping for a great story, quality acting, or a new echelon of action gaming, better luck next time.

Soul Calibur 4
(Xbox 360)

The Xbox 360 edition of Soul Calibur 4 adds Yoda to the fighting, and the marketing tie-in seems tacky at first. Even kinda cheap--uh, you can't throw Yoda, and in Soul Calibur, that's 1/4 of the 3D battle. But I've come to appreciate the grammatically challenged half-pint.

Tiny is he. Hops around all over the place. Is weaker. Can summon the force. Why, that sure seems different for Soul Calibur, doesn't it? In a fighting game where many Euro-centric characters swing their oversized swords/hammers/axes the same way they did in 1999, Yoda forces a strategy reboot. Maybe a healthy dose of the supernatural could do this ancient series some good.

Sadly, that's as far as Soul Calibur 4 gets in upgrading a core fight that was already phenomenal in the 1999 original. Back then, it was the first good 3D fighting game with weapons. The second and third versions lost that luster by adding mere tweaks; this one sees more tweaks, HD graphics, and online play.

Continue reading "Soul Calibur 4 Review" »

You be the sun! You control planets with your massive gravitational field!

It is FUN!

Braid
(Xbox Live)

Not often do you see a video game both thank Italo Calvino in the credits and pay tribute to the author's time-toying books, but such is Braid. The chief twist in this Mario-esque side-scroller is time manipulation. At first, it's simply a convenient button-press to reverse death or a missed jump; rewind time a bit, try again. Soon, you can't get anywhere without bending time.

An example: You'll see a critter in a later level that glows green. Even when you hit the “rewind” button, this thing keeps moving forward in a backwards world, and you have to use its immunity to finish a puzzle. Later, your footsteps will make time go forward or backward, or you'll have a ghost that moves forwards while you go back in time. Stuff like that.

Each level's time twist comes with a story about memory, perspective, and broken relationships. The writing can get away from the author at times—just because it's confusing doesn't make it brilliant—but the story's mix with the gameplay has weight, adding a pleasant layer of “ohhhhhh”/closure to the puzzles' conclusion.

Braid has that going for it, along with some brilliant puzzles and great turns in both art direction (watercolors that melt with the passing of time) and music (tasteful classical and Irish folk). It's a fiercely independent game--coded almost entirely by one guy--and while that helps, the game's stumbles seem to come from a lack of group review. There's no instruction manual--seems at first like "learn by playing" design. But some of the challenge just comes from answering the question of how the game works. A basic instruction set would actually answer a few hard puzzles, and once you realize that, they're less satisfying. This isn't a dominant flaw, but since the game's short (I'll get to that), offenders stand out and feel cheap.

Also, for all this game does to blow away the Mario standard, it still adheres to it. Braid has lots—and I mean LOTS—of precise jump challenges. Personally, I think the “rewind” feature makes this okay. But if you're not a fan of pixel-perfect jumps and pogo-hops off of enemies' backs, like in super-hard NES games of old, then prepare to get needlessly pissed.

And, yeah, the price--$15 for roughly four hours of play. That's about a week and a half of a game rental, but to be fair, it's also five bucks cheaper and two hours less than the best game of 2007, Portal. Is Braid in the same league as Portal? Close. The aforementioned cheapo challenges are a drag, and the plot isn't as magically crafted as fanboys have been saying. Portal's better—more accessible, superior pacing, more emotional response with its dark humor.

But when Braid gets things right, its puzzle/plot combo delivers an intangible level of satisfaction that you don't often find in the stimulus-response world of most boring video games. At the very least, get the demo. Think about it.

Geometry Wars 2
Bizarre Creations (Xbox Live Arcade)

Lots of arcade-style games in recent years have aped Geometry Wars: Top-down, simplified design, emphasis on audio, shoot everything that moves. But in the case of GW, it's not so much the gameplay as the rush that keeps it at the top of this arcade-blaster renaissance. Your little 2D ship is trapped in a wireframe, TRON-esque space, chased endlessly by neon shapes—each class of shape having its own movement pattern. Destroying these things turns the screen into a beautiful mess of broken neon lines and dots, and the waves of baddies ramp up perfectly, culminating in your inevitable death—and your slap of the “retry” button.

But the original GW, the surprise hit that launched Microsoft's nascent Xbox Arcade service, is broken at its very core. Once you learn the game's chase dynamic, there's only one way to play—pilot your ship in an oval around the rectangular space, and aim your shots forward and backward intermittently to blast following shapes. This isn't a chase--it's a well-lit NASCAR event. Geometry Wars 2 gets a thumbs-up from the get-go by tweaking the game to kill the Jeff Gordon approach. New rocket shapes move in static lines, and these often appear with a solid, parallel wave of their buddies. If you try the oval trick, you're apt to crash into a bright mass of death. Combine that change with other tweaks—from AI to a reward system that requires retracing your steps—and the series' gameplay reverts back to a chaotic, reactive state.

And that's just one of the six modes.

GW tried branching out last Christmas on Wii and DS with “levels,” but that attempt to stretch the game's length instead watered down the original thrill. Here, the basic experience is hard-modded to great effect. Best one's probably “King,” in which shots will only fire when your ship's in a safety bubble. Each bubble pops after two seconds, so you have to keep hopping to the next bubbles, unable to shoot while you're en route. The feeling is something else; you're stuck in a bubble, completely surrounded by creatures just waiting to get in. You have to blast your way out as if these things were zombies in a Romero flick, and then you can only hope they don't tackle and eat you by the time you reach the next safe, abandoned house.

“Pacifist” is a trip, as well, because your guns don't work. Instead, you have to lure shapes behind you, then trip the level's bomb lines that blow up everything in your vicinity. The original format—just move and kill as enemies grow crazier—returns in “Evolved” mode with the aforementioned tweaks, while “Deadline” is a three-minute version of this with unlimited lives (the rub being that your score won't be as high if you lose precious seconds coming back to life). Less fun are the “Waves” mode (those new straight-line shapes bombard you) and “Sequence” (20 pre-determined waves of enemies meant for the hardest of hardcore players), but that's just because those don't change the core play so much. Still plenty blasty -- and for the same $10 price as the first game, the price-to-fun ratio of these six modes is through the roof.

Sadly, the multiplayer modes don't transform this game so much. Keeping up with four spaceships on the busy screen at once is too much to ask of anybody with standard rods and cones (and lack of online play is sad, even if this game is too crazy-fast to work online). Still, the core mechanics, control, and (of course) rush of Geometry Wars 2 are enough. The tweaks work, and GW2 is now more about reaction speed and paddling through a bucket of technicolor vomit to make sense of the neon-loaded action. But that's not even the best part. Nothing trumps this game's high score tables. Every time you load a new game, your friends' top scores in each mode taunt you in corner-arcade fashion. Most Xbox Arcade games have scoreboards, but few thrust your friends' scores into your face so brazenly, and the effect is greater than I expected. I've spent the past four days in a back-and-forth battle with an old friend across the country, fighting for score supremacy. The learning curve is perfect for this kind of obsession—you gradually learn the ins and outs with each play, and your score ramps up accordingly, ensuring that you and your friends will progress pretty much in parallel. When I started writing this review, I was on top. By the time I got to the end, my friend had topped my every score. If this review seems to be petering out because I want so badly to return to the Xbox and put my friend in his place, then

This is not an acceptable substitute for Scrabulous. People play Scrabulous because they like Scrabble and want to be able to play it online with the same rules with their same friends over an indefinite period of time. People like to brag about scores that correspond to scores people understand from Scrabble. People like to brag about their bingos, just like those which one might achieve in a game of Scrabble. Yes, I realize this is clear copyright infringement, but I honestly don't understand why Hasbro would care. Playing Scrabble online, whether a company-approved version or no, will make people more likely to buy official dictionaries, study official word lists, purchase game sets, join Scrabble clubs, etc. It would have—and I'm sure already has—made Hasbro money. Driving them to this imitation game will do nothing of the kind.

In any case, though, people do not want to play some lame imitation word game with completely different strategic implications and an overabundance of bonus squares.

People want Scrabble. No frills, no animation, no unfamiliar colors. Just Scrabble.

(Paul, I'll assume you were referring to me, not Annie.)

Probably wouldn't be so illuminating to attend tonight's reading of Video Games & Your Kids. Let's take a look at the book's description on an anonymous Internet retailer's site:

Other [gamers] have grown so dependent on these games that they are abandoning their lives to pursue this activity, which they seem to prefer above all others. Video Games & Your Kids: How Parents Stay in Control is for parents who are worried that their children may be spending too much time playing video games.

When we get past the cloud of parents throwing their arms up and crying their eyes out--the thick cloud that apparently necessitates hundreds of pages in this book--there's an easy question that follows. How are kids and teens getting their hands on video games? Up until roughly the age of 14, the answer is almost universally that they're purchased by parents and family members--or enabled by rich parents who give ridiculous allowances. And by 15, when a kid can get his/her own job and start racking up enough to buy hundreds of dollars of games systems, parents still have a responsibility in teaching their kids to spend/save/invest wisely. I'll agree with these authors that gaming impacts kids in ways different than a lot of other habits, but that doesn't change the issue of a swingin' gate at the homestead. Parents "stay in control" by--whoa now--asserting control in the first place.

Really, the stupidity of this kind of cash-in book is most apparent when you tweak the title; try "Music & Your Kids" or "Movies & Your Kids." Those would be boring books, and for good fucking reason. But let's say the wheels have rolled off and your kid's a total 1337 asshole. Solution? Euthanasia Shut off your home Internet service. Online gaming can be so unbelievably bad for a growing kid--and don't let him/her BS you into thinking they're building teamwork skills while growing a WoW guild or leading a Capture the Flag team in Call of Duty 4. They're just learning creative ways to combine the words nigger, fag, and Jew.

Gaming has its ups and downs for kids--creative, exploratory games like Zelda that encourage map-making, puzzle-solving, and general whimsy; and adult/immature fare that encourages killing dudes in a straight line. Either way, a kid with their head screwed-on straight can usually cipher out fantasy from reality and come out as unscathed as, say, watching violence on TV. But invite that kid to persistent online games, and you've combined the visceral glee of a game with the hyperized social atmosphere of an anonymous Internet. I'm not entirely against kids socializing with strangers online--though that's hairy territory already--but insecure teens aren't doing themselves favors when their social development is hampered by hours and hours and hours with a headset and a trigger finger. Maybe they're trading slurs with the country's next generation of Neo-Nazis, or maybe they're being sucked into the mob mentality of hours-long raids in 3D dungeons every night. Sorry to sound like an old man, but the 12-16 year-old mind just isn't as good at ciphering out the crap in those socially loaded scenarios.

When you unplug the Internet, you keep the fun, simple nature of games in check--let parenting and reasonable guidance take over from that point. And really, what's the worst that'll happen? Your kid might sneak over to a friend's house to play online. At least he/she will now have to play that game with other friends face-to-face, where they can't get away with slagging each other without someone getting punched in the shoulder. It's not ideal, but if your kid's so far gone that he/she has to sneak out the window for a Counter Strike fix, your dumb parenting ass should take what it can get.

Oh, I just noticed this bit in the book description:

The authors give gaming advice on each stage of life; birth-2 years, ages 2-6, elementary school years, adolescence, and adult children still living at home.

Adults who still with their parents? It happens. But if you're a concerned parent by that stage, maybe you should look into a different kind of book.

As expected, the summer has slowed to a near-crawl for games. But that doesn't mean I'm going to go outdoors bullshit the games fans at Slog with hyped-up previews of games coming this fall, not even with Golob's nerd fatwa up in the air. Well... except for this crazy-looking demo video of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, I guess:

There's no telling whether this game will play as well as it looks. Mortal Kombat, for years, has been the sloppy, fun-to-watch stepchild of Japanese fighting games--amusing and bloody, but awkward and tiring after roughly 14 minutes. (Gaming's Jerry Springer.) But you can't say enough about the way Superman beats that dude down--the looks and sounds of it sure are satisfying. Jonah and I will run this game into the ground come November.

Speaking of redundant fighting games, Soul Calibur 4 launches this week for PS3 and Xbox 360. Attempts to flag down a review copy haven't gone well, but I'm not too sad about that. This series was already perfect on the Dreamcast in 1999; the original still looks and plays smoothly, and it was the first big fighting game to make the whole attack/reversal shtick really accessible. But sequels never added to the formula, simply throwing more stupid characters into the Tekken-with-swords mix (and the new one makes a big deal about featuring Darth Vader on one console, Yoda on the other, so methinks Namco is sticking to the trend).

Not sure why the fighting genre is so scared to try anything new. Strangely, Ultimate Fighting Championship had the right idea back in 2000, marrying the then-nascent hetero love-fest with the feeling of a true fight--awkward, careful, and hinging almost entirely on breaks in momentum. Much like a bar fight, that game was all clumsy grappling, duos tangled up for seconds at a time to push, pummel, and find a rare break in defense. And that was before game controllers generally employed two thumbsticks. When's a game going to use the dual-stick setup as a pair of fists (or legs) and make a game that feels as realistic as it looks? It's 2008; if I can't have my hover-skateboard, at least give me my bizarrely authentic bar-fighting sim, complete with broken bottle clip-on for my Wii remote. (Full disclosure: the first UFC video game since the '00 version will be out this Christmas season, but sadly, it appears to have eschewed the chess-like give-and-take of its original version; dumbed down for the league's rising TV audiences.)

Better "coming soon" news--the Xbox Live Arcade is going bonkers for the next 30 days, unleashing cheap delights like Geometry Wars R.E. 2, Bionic Commando Rearmed, and Castle Crashers every Wednesday until the end of August. Roughly $10 a pop, though not all game prices have been announced yet. No lifechangers in this batch of games--they're shameless throwbacks to '80s arcade classics--but these three are easily the most action-packed multiplayer onslaughts of Live's Arcade catalog in recent memory. In particular, the four-player Castle Crashers (from the dudes who made Alien Hominid years ago) will repaint your fondest Golden Axe memories in bloody technicolor. I'll probably hop on tomorrow to gush about Geometry Wars 2.

If I can be pulled away from my DS, anyway. Good stuff on the portable system this week... in Japan. Now there's a KORG-licensed synthesizer program (see above), which not only saves up to six compositions but allows multiple DSes to link up and perform together in sync. The results range from impressive to... Jesus, already? The sound of this thing is a bit too compressed for my tastes, but it sure beats DJ'ing with an iPod.

Since I'm clueless about KORG synths, I've spent more time with Rhythm Tengoku Gold this week. I've previously written about Rhythm Tengoku, Nintendo's marriage of Wario Ware and Parappa the Rapper, and its DS sequel adds touch control to the series' cheeky J-pop mini-games. This recent demo clip shows the basics--either flick or press/release on the screen to match the percussion of a particular challenge. Fortunately, Nintendo is bringing this one stateside, supposedly by the end of 2008, though the Japanese version isn't hard to figure out if you're as impatient as me. (The Korg DS-10 is also set for American release, though its Japanese version is already completely in English.)

Obligatory Penny Arcade news update: the Penny Arcade Expo's pre-registration discount period ends Thursday. If you have any interest in attending the Expo this August 29-31, buy a ticket now and save five bucks. How else are you and I going to play Calling All Cars in a Washington State Convention Center meeting room?

And in Wii news... nothing. If you were dumb enough to pay higher than retail cost for a Wii, don't be dumb enough to look at the system's Christmas release schedule. The "innovative" system's catalog looks like a 3rd grader's Scholastic book sales pamphlet--all cheap cash-ins and sequels to Carnival Games. The future of gaming is throwing more tennis balls at towers of milk bottles? Holy moly. I'd rather go outdoors.

MSNBC has the pitiful story. You can still play Scrabulous for the time being at the Scrabulous site, apparently. But all my hard-earned statistics are no more. Why did I join Facebook again? Sure wasn't cause I wanted to receive pictures of eggs that would eventually turn into pictures of animals that don't grow in eggs.

And don't even bother with the official Scrabble app on Facebook. You could pack up a board and a dictionary and head to a friend's house in the time it takes to load that stupid thing.

Nintendo didn't trot out any tired, rehash games at their Electronic Entertainment Expo press conference today. That should be good news -- enough of the old Mario/Zelda/Donkey Kong guard. Let's try something new with the Wii already. But then this happened:

Thanks to screwattack.com for the video, titled on their site "The Worst Moment in Nintendo History." And sure enough, Wii Music's public debut landed this morning with a poopy squish. Wii Music is described as a music game designed for people who don't like challenge. Sounds like a decent idea in theory, compared to the sometimes-intimidating play of Guitar Hero. But from the look of this game, people are tapping a single button and moving their arms to the rhythm to play dinky-sounding MIDI tracks. If you're under five, this could somehow be awesome. Then again, if you're under five, you like The Wiggles and climbing into boxes.

Seriously, look at those dorks swaying in the video! And Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto's on the right, too, hopping around and reinforcing all stereotypes about Asians and their rhythm. Damned shame.

The little bit of good news: There's another Wii Sports game coming next year, this time with a "summer resort" theme. It'll be powered with that WiiMotion dongle announced yesterday, meaning the game will recognize many more realistic gestures--wasn't that the point of the Wii in the first place?--but Nintendo was mum on most of the game's content (though it will have sword fights, so if this Christmas' Star Wars light saber game sucks, there's still hope for nerds). Grand Theft Auto will come out on the DS "this winter" (read: probably March 2009) with a "Chinatown Wars" theme. And Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party is a rare high point for the Wii, mixing the Wii Fit balance board with a bunch of silly mini-games.

Otherwise, there's a ton of crappy family games coming, just like last Christmas. The "new" Animal Crossing game (think The Sims gone cute) doesn't look any more interesting than the DS version from a few years ago. Unless Nintendo's hiding a whopper of an announcement, they're putting all their chips on Wii Music until the end of this year. Considering that the music game genre is already flooded with fare for both adults and kids, Nintendo better hope their brand name is enough to sell this mess of a title.

Sony coasted through their conference with few big surprises (but nothing as bad as Nintendo, either). This fall's Resistance 2 looks like a fine first-person shooter, and it'll probably sell well, but that doesn't make it seem like a worthwhile break from decades of the same kind of shooting game. And other than Little Big Planet, which has been showcased for nearly two years now, I wasn't thrilled by any of their showcased stuff--even their media center announcements paled compared to the Xbox/Netflix deal from yesterday. A lot of the titles announced won't be out for at least a year, so it's hard to get stoked for those (though Infamous looks like an even crazier version of the Xbox 360's Crackdown, and that kind of open-world game always catches my eye). Price drop coming in a few months, though. Those are always fun.

Microsoft has tried for decades to take over the living room, starting with the turd known as WebTV. Result? Four thousand grandmas are still using the thing to forward Christian redemption chain e-mails. Nice work, MS. They've done better as video game makers, at least in the States, but their secondary goal of hawking movies and TV shows--a huge part of the Xbox 360--has been somewhat muted. TV episodes at $2 a pop? No thanks, and movie rentals, while comparably priced with PPV, are difficult to navigate with the 360's clumsy interface.

If Microsoft wants to outdo the Wii, it shouldn't try with weird games with add-ons (like You're In The Movies [requires a camera] and Lips [requires a microphone], both announced today at their Electronic Entertainment Expo press conference). The novelty of gizmo-games like Wii Sports and Guitar Hero must wane at some point, so it's good to see Microsoft try a parallel route--make the Xbox a dominant digital media center before anybody else gets there. Say hello to the first great blows in that direction: Starting this fall, NetFlix users will stream movies off their Xboxes, done with a new interface that will make navigating long lists of TV shows and movies much simpler. Seems fair to expect a neutered NetFlix film selection on the game console--much like the selection you can currently stream to a laptop--but it's a huge step in the right direction, and it's Xbox-exclusive. Sony can tout Blu-ray high-def movies on its systems, but if digital distribution is the future, Microsoft has just taken the lead.

Other announcements: Xbox 360 is gonna get the next Final Fantasy game, an announcement nobody predicted--and I could care less. Look at the title of the game: Final Fantasy 13. Thirteen? What else can the game do that it hasn't done 12 times before? I know, people in Japan go ape for anything with an "FF" attached, and Microsoft could use a sales boost there (Sony's had the lock on that series for years), but Final Fantasy games represent everything I get tired of as a grown-ass gamer: long grinds of quests, dialogue that is "good enough," melodrama, birds that are ridden as horses, etc etc. Every time fanboys go on about how games are maturing and becoming art, I point at this series' human characters with cat-ears and make a fart noise.

Speaking of gizmo-games, Nintendo's announced a Wii add-on for motion control. Say what? This Wii MotionPlus add-on will apparently improve the motion sensing--or, I should say, make the Wii Remote actually work for anything other than Wii Bowling. You ever play a game other than Wii Sports and been asked to "turn a key" or something? The key will never turn. Nintendo will announce tomorrow what new games this gizmo will support. I'm crossing my fingers for Punch-Out Wii, but it'll probably just be Brain Training Wii with support for scratching your forehead.

Oh, and let's earn that "Nerd" tag:

(PS: Xbox players might've heard that a demo for the long-awaited Too Human is now online. I played two minutes of it and turned it off. Talk about an ugly, hard-to-control, harder-to-see game. Should've held off on releasing that demo, MS.)

Have you played Space Invaders Extreme yet? Possibly not, since summer's a good time for nerd detox. Months past Grand Theft Auto 4, months before the Christmas rush of big games, months during which the sun stays out until 10 p.m. But this new Space Invaders is something else. Something worth returning to the dark corridors in which you can actually see a Nintendo DS screen.

The old Space Invaders was a slow one, and various remakes have stuck pretty close to the formula; aliens descend slooowly, and you attack them by shooting behind shields. This one, a 30th anniversary edition, takes away the shields and the slow. Now, it's a snappy shooting game that does a great job letting people play as they please. Memorize waves of enemies and make the most of the game's new combo system, which has you kill critters of the same color or shape for bonuses. Or, mindlessly shoot everything with a perfect difficulty curve that'll keep casual, bus-DS folks as entertained as the hardcore crowd. The art direction reeks of Lumines in all of the right ways--pictures and sounds match up in psych-disco fashion, and every time you shoot something, the sound fits into the music's rhythm. And in the online mode, you and an opponent tear through your own single-player games, and the better you do, the more you muck up your foe's game (and vice versa).

For way too much blather about other recent games (Boom Blox, LOL, Ninja Gaiden II, Diablo II, and more), let's play catch-up after the jump. But really, Space Invaders Extreme, in spite of the stupid title, is where it's at.

Continue reading "Games Catchup" »

I walked through the University of Washington campus on Saturday--past sunbathing co-eds, shirtless Frisbee boys, and a wedding procession--to get to Kane Hall. It was dark upon entry; some sunlight, but otherwise, the rods and cones had to swap. A few guys smacked packs of cigarettes against their palms as I climbed some stairs. A whiteboard ahead listed rules for a tournament. And when I finally reached the Walker-Ames room, I noticed a slight breeze coming from a door to the outside world. But it wasn't enough to keep the current winner of a King of Fighters '98 match cool. He turned when I approached, almost whipping me with the sweat streaking his already-thinning head of chin-length hair, and asked if I want next.

This is not the way people are supposed to spend a beautiful Saturday afternoon. But my Street Fighter hankering had grown like crazy since I'd raved about the good ol' days of corner arcades, so I couldn't help but accept an invite to check out the Pacific Northwest Majors gaming tourney. Dozens of people with the same fighting-game jones as me? Social gaming? Awesome.

Er, sorta. There were bursts of my favorite arcade days, when a particularly good match drew a crowd to cheer on the fighters. But most of the time, everybody--mostly UW students, though out-of-towners from as far as Portland registered--was face-deep in a TV set, staring silently, hammering away at customized, arcade-quality controllers. I was only there for an hour or so, so maybe the social element exploded once I left, but there was little in the way of even a "good game" statement when I got my ass handed to me a number of times. Of course, this was an extreme slice of the gaming pie, a bunch of guys (all male, shocker) who troll Internet forums to talk strategies for E. Honda or M. Bison this many years after 1992.

My favorite of these hardcore players was a dude with a thick, curly mohawk, like Tunde Adebimpe from TV On The Radio, tearing people apart in Marvel Vs Capcom 2. He'd have his trio of fighters team up over and over, creating a seizure-worthy overload of lasers and explosions, to destroy his every foe. He got up a little later to jabber on the Bluetooth headset on his ear, and that's when I saw his outfit--marijuana leaf proudly sewn into his jeans, and a long, drooping tee on which Super Mario was dressed to look ghetto-fab. Hate to break it to you, Marvel Vs. Capcom champ, but Mario will never look cool.

Admittedly, the only thing consistent with my nostalgia was the smell: nothing reeks like an arcade. In spite of that slight breeze, the air was stagnant, heavy with the odors of nicotine and Sun Chips. But mocking gaming addicts is easy, and in all honesty, the event was still pretty worthwhile. I'm all for open, public gaming exhibitions--even on nice days--and I'm surprised someone at UW hasn't taken the initiative to get a monthly shindig going. Free play, a few competitions, some kiosks open with easier games for outsiders to get into... if this exists, someone please tip me.

Last week, the folks at Capcom sent along a downloadable copy of Commando 3, the never-awaited sequel to their '80s top-down arcade shooter (think Ikari Warriors or Smash TV). For $10, you get roughly an hour and a half of mindless dudes to shoot guns at. The demo got me excited, but the full game loses steam really quickly.

So why mention it? The game also includes a preview bonus for the online Street Fighter II remake coming later this year. That bonus was unlocked this morning, and since I'm a goddamned Street Fighter freak, I've since wasted a sunny Seattle morning getting beaten down by fireball-throwing 12-year-olds.

Previews for this game have emphasized the HD part of the game's stupidly long title ("Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix," choke). The whole game's been redrawn to fill every overpriced dot on a 1080p display, and apparently, those new pixels are dedicated to man-muscle:

Giambi Fighter? Grody. But the exaggerated style works in motion, and SSF2THDR (sheez) winds up looking and playing fluidly, especially compared to preview versions that looked herky-jerky. An even bigger deal is that this is the smoothest online fighting game I've ever played. Weird that it's taken 'til 2008 to get this right, but fighting games can't get away with the online tricks that World of Warcraft or even online shooters can. Nuts and bolts: Most other games guess what you're doing between the milliseconds that go by with natural Internet latency. Fighting games are too twitchy for that, which means they often freeze to allow catch-up. Not here. I had nobody to blame but myself when I got my ass handed to me five times in a row this morning. For a "beta" test version of the game, this already runs quite well.

Also cool is the game's online matchmaking. You typically land in a mini-lobby where two people are already playing, and a few contenders line up behind them. Everyone can hear each other's microphone chatter. The winner of a given match then sticks around to take on the folks in line. It's this sensation that got me antsy to write about the game. Just add the heavy aroma of greasy pizza, and you've got the corner-shop arcade experience that made Street Fighter II such a social gaming phenomenon in the '90s--stacking quarters on the cabinet to wait your turn, cheering on the kid who was the corner shop's champ, rooting for the eventual underdog victory. Arcades are a dying breed, so even though the base game is ancient, the authenticity makes this a worthy retread.

The full version doesn't have a set release date; "before 2009" is the current claim. There's also a 3D Street Fighter IV in the works, which is supposed to be a simple, "back to the roots" game with its own multiplayer modes, so I'm not sure why this one's coming out, too. (Perhaps they felt like Street Fighter fans didn't have enough options?) Still, for what this beta test gets right, I say bring on the ethnic stereotype fighting bonanza.

I just got back from a beautiful road trip down the Oregon coast and all the way into the Redwood National Forest in northern CA. First thing I do when I load the computer on my return? No, not load the zillions of amazing dune/forest/coast photos into Flickr. Didn't answer a bunch of e-mails, either. Instead, I had to design critters on my computer.

This little dude is my first creation in the Spore Character Creator--note the spiky balls. You might've heard of Spore--the "Sims meets evolution" game from Sims creator Will Wright, set for release in September, that has been as hyped as it's been lamented. You follow a creature's entire existence--from its cellular stage all the way to where it, ahem, hops in a UFO and dominates the galaxy. I think. Still trying to make sense of the thing. Some worry that the game's evolution concept won't sell the way The Sims' dollhouse play did; I was in that camp as well, but this teaser Character Creator thing has been amusing enough. Think digital Play-Doh that animates with realistic skeletal physics.

Whether or not this tinkering will amount to a great game is anybody's guess. In the meantime, the free teaser is undoubtedly recommended. Snakes with feet? Blue monkeys with eight arms and no legs? Go to town by downloading the demo here. To unlock more creature "parts," you can pony up $10, but I managed to create genitalia with the free version, so I'm gonna save my cash. Now it's time to work up Spiky's poor, poor mating partner.

To get everyone in the mood for tonight's Slog Happy at pinball bar Shorty's, here's video of other people playing pinball last week at the NW Pinball Show. And Steve Wiebe.

Thanks to Kelly O for filming and posting this.

Let's compare examples of fandom in downtown Seattle from Saturday. If you walked by the Paramount in the afternoon, you would have passed a line of maybe 25 people--mostly teen girls with too much makeup--staking their claim on the front row for that night's Panic at the Disco concert. If you'd happened upon Neumo's at 9 a.m., you would've seen a line over 70 deep. So what band was getting more people riled up so early in the morning? A band of warriors and thieves.

The Dungeons and Dragons Fourth Edition launch party saw about 500 visitors on Saturday, according to reps from game makers Wizards of the Coast. From the look of it, they didn't expect nearly that many; the round tables on Neumo's floor were crammed full of DMs and players, and the wait to join a game ran up to an hour. What's interesting is how little the event fueled a reason to show up. No huge giveaways, unless you count a shit-ton of free Doritos baggies (which I guess work like gold or mana for D&D addicts). And D&D4E technically launched the day before (according to Wizards, Amazon.com has sold their entire allocation of the release's first editions). So why the crowd? There's something to be said about the game's makers hanging out and running fans old and new through zillions of rule changes. There's also something to be said for nerd sanctuary.

I'm not a D&D guy, and I regret not making more time to hang out at Neumo's on Saturday to learn the new system, so I can't exactly pass judgment. Still, I talked to a few people who expressed a unified D&D4E sentiment--it's fun, it's faster, it's more streamlined... but "it's not D&D." One person compared it to World of Warcraft, another to Final Fantasy Tactics--funny that D&D, whose every bit and detail was mimicked in the original video game RPGs, is now accused of turning the tables. I'm hoping to get some time with the system in coming weeks and talk about it; at the very least, I created a character on Saturday: an ice-breathing dragon-man. The dude needs to freeze a dwarf or something.

The main reason I didn't stick around wasn't the same as Paul's geekphobia (since when is D&D too nerdy for a book addict, anyway?). It was the utter opposite: I had to feed my arcade jones and attend the Northwest Pinball and Gameroom Show. These two events weren't really that different, celebrating archaic forms of gaming that are nowhere near the Xboxen and Wiis of the world, yet still draw crowds of hundreds that wait in lines to play. Highlights from the show were a Guns 'N Roses table (complete with half-naked groupies drawn on the table) and a bizarre thing called Hyperball, in which you shoot pinballs out of turrets to spell words... but it looks like it's from Blade Runner, so it doesn't feel educational. I'd babble more about awesome tables--and even an Asteroids cabinet that entranced me somehow--but I may as well shut up and wait for Kelly O's video of the day to go online in the next week or so.

Also in attendance was Steve Wiebe, the Redmond native from the documentary King of Kong, who did an hour-long Q&A session. Though he seemed bewildered that so many people were interested in his quest for the Donkey Kong world record (and no, he's currently #2), he was pretty gracious and humble about the attention. I don't think there's an unlikeable bone in that guy's body. What was weird was that his wife (featured in the flick as well) sat at the very front corner of the room on a table, almost as if she were on display. I couldn't help but glance at her emotionless face as her husband answered endless gaming questions--particularly his affirmative answer when asked if Billy Mitchell, the crazy pro gamer he has competed against, was one of the best things to ever happen to him. From the look on her face, it's almost as if she had to freeze her every muscle so she wouldn't shake her head in response, grab a mallet, and obliterate the marriage-decimating Donkey Kong cabinet that stood to Wiebe's left.

Ever wanted to get obliterated by Guitar Hero addicts for a good cause? 826 Seattle hosts an all-ages charity GH tournament this Sunday afternoon at its Greenwood Space Travel Supply Co location. [Address is 8414 Greenwood Ave N; go here for directions.] Show up around 1 p.m. to register, hang out, and maybe practice before the competition starts at 2. (There might be a Rock Band setup as well, Jonah.) Entry fee is $5 for under 13, $10 for over, and the proceeds all go toward 826's zillions of free programs for helping Seattle students. Prizes will be given to winners and runners-up from folks like VAIN, The Sneakery, The Vera Project, Archie McPhee, and Everyday Music.

Unlike GH nights at bars, this one should be all about the insane talent of young people who wield plastic guitars. I've already resigned myself to not winning this, but if I have any shot, it'll only be because the competition is separated into under-13 and over-13 camps:

See you there.

Will a video game co-created by a Supreme Court Justice win over the kids? You might think edutainment died with the Oregon Trail, but even if next year's Our Courts bombs, there's something to be said about an influential person giving games the benefit of the doubt--and passively-aggressively bashing Bush's educational policies in the process.

O'Connor said that the No Child Left Behind act of 2001 has "effectively squeezed out civics education" from public schools. "We can't forget that the primary purpose of public schools in America is to produce citizens who have the skills and knowledge to sustain our form of government," she said. "Public education is the only longterm solution to preserving an independent judiciary and constitutional democracy."

A good place to start is to let kids digitally re-enact court cases... which sounds LAME (wha, no shotguns to pwn n00b judge5?), until you see that the game's cases revolve around teens and their rights as students. If the Wired story is correct, Our Courts will take on the "Bong Hits For Jesus" case, which should make computer lab class a little more awesome for every tie-dyed T-shirt wearing pre-teen in suburbia.

I'm all for games with a social conscience, though they're a tough sell in a GTA world. From this writeup, it looks like O'Connor is at least smart enough to market this one directly to schools and classrooms--kids will play anything as long as it gets them out of doing real classwork--but wake me up when Gears of War sets up camp in, say, northern Uganda.

My buddy has a theory that there are two kinds of people in this world: those who play pinball by hitting both flippers at a time, and those who only hit the one their ball is actually headed for. I offered that there is a third kind of person who doesn't play pinball at all, but she poo-pooed me, saying that she would rather not acknowledge that possibility.

This weekend the NW Pinball and Gameroom Show hits town (Seattle Center, June 6-8). Entry buys you free play on a hundred games. There is also a tournament taking place, and several speakers, including the dude from King of Kong.

Oh, and you might want to bring some ear plugs. I've never heard 100 pinball machines going at once, but I imagine it's pretty intense.

Last week, MTV’s Multiplayer blog posted a game reviewer’s bill of rights. It coincided with some recent, “exclusive” game reviews that had gone up days before the competition, which were either rushed reviews or done with early, unfinished product. Movie critics don’t review partial edits, and music critics don’t tackle unmastered records, so I agree that it’s dumb for games sites to get stoked about claiming first dibs. Other than that, do readers really need to be hit over the head with the fact that some reviews aren’t up to snuff? Have these people never picked up SPIN or seen a movie review on Good Morning America?

But if I’d gotten the idea to write a game review bill of rights, it’d have one rule: Games that are frustratingly, yell-at-your-TV difficult on the “easiest” setting should go straight into the toilet. That rule is brought to you by Ninja Gaiden 2, which hits stores tomorrow; I’m only six or seven hours into the game on its easiest difficulty, so don’t call this a review. I’d be further in the game, but I got sick of playing it.

This is not the Contra-meets-throwing-stars of Ninja Gaiden from the ‘80s. The series came back years ago in 3D as a Devil May Cry-style slasher; run around and kill beasties with swords. Unlike many button-mashers, you’ll die if you don’t block, but otherwise, you’re still pretty much slapping buttons as you tear through dozens of creatures at a time. NG2 is more expansion than sequel, because it plays almost exactly the same as the last one. More weapons, that’s about it. Still, if you’re a glutton for silly violence, NG2 works harder than its bloody precursor. Since each of the eight weapons has its own huge (and impressive-looking) set of kill moves, you have to wonder what sick sonuvabitch was hired to motion-capture zillions of death shots. And there’s no question whether or not your enemies are actually dead: cut limbs off of aliens Black Knight-style, then finish them by crushing your foot on one half of their body and your sword on the other. Also, in the so-stupid-it’s-awesome category, I’ve already had to fight a dog with knives attached to its legs and a sword gripped between its teeth. Man is no longer the deadliest game.

But I can’t see what’s happening half of the time. If the game tore buildings’ roofs off and held the camera birds-eye style (like God of War), I might know what’s attacking me from all directions. As it stands, NG2 has a thing for tight corridors, which means this game’s difficulty often comes from manually adjusting the camera and wondering who’s hitting me from where. Stupid. You’re asking us to not question why we’re playing a barely updated sequel; obscuring my view with bad camera angles doesn’t help your cause.

On the easiest difficulty, most of the fights are tolerably challenging--an improvement over the last one’s punishment (now you auto-heal between fights, for example, which is welcome). But this morning, I spent nearly an hour fighting a boss over and over and over; not because figuring out how to kill the thing was hard, but because it would mow me down with instant-kill moves all of the time, which I might’ve avoided if, again, I could see what was going on. This kind of “challenge” is not worth $60. To be fair, there's a gaming core that loves this sort of violent, difficult, done-to-death material, and I don't think camera issues will kill it for them. Me, I still prefer God of War's mix of shameless violence, high production values, well-scaled challenge, and decent attempts at plot. I’ll soldier on and post updated NG2 impressions next week--does the challenge eventually even out? Does the dumbass plot, complete with an androgynous Edward Scissorhands who likes to stroke the Statue of Liberty, become less dumbass? My guesses so far: No, no.

I'd been planning to write up the DS games I've been playing lately, but in light of today's Tecmo Bowl DS unveil, they all seem moot.

Come September, virtual pigskin addicts will get their fix again via Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff, and in spite of the dumb name, I'm already excited. The original Tecmo Bowl is pretty much the only sports game I can play with my friends, and not just because they're suckers for the late '80s era of Bo Jackson and Joe Montana. The series is still marked by many as the pinnacle of video football--simple yet fluid and fast. Only reason Tecmo didn't keep making TB games was because early '90s versions for the Genesis became complicated to keep up with Madden's popularity--dumb move, and the series vanished as a result. This long-awaited return was announced a month or so ago (will also release on the Wii by 2009), but I waited for footage before getting my hopes up. Looks good--as in, butt-ugly, simple, and old-school. Sucks that I have to wait until next year for a non-portable version; Tecmo Bowl is meant for the living room, not the palm of your hand. Still, it's got online play and editable rosters, which means Bo Jackson will run again! 'Snough for me.

Other stuff on the DS lately that has proven interesting:

Crosswords DS: Not sure why it took Nintendo this long to make a crossword puzzle game, since the DS is tailor-made for it. You can write on the touchscreen to enter letters; you can save progress on long puzzles in case you have to get off the bus midway through. The same things worked for the New York Times Crossword game from last year, but that one was abusingly hard and all kinds of ugly (not to mention that it retreaded puzzles from 2003-05, so if you're a Times puzzle addict, fuhgeddaboutit). Crosswords DS starts right with a clean interface and simpler entry-level puzzles. Trouble is, you have to complete one hundred super-easy puzzles ("medium" my ass) before you can even begin to try puzzles with words longer than seven letters (and still averaging at three-to-five until then). The bonus anagram and wordsearch modes don't help; unless you're younger than 14, stick to getting ink stains all over your hands.

glitchDS: Don't look for this homebrew release at stores; to play glitchDS, you'll need a flash cart (essentially, a memory card that plugs into the DS to run custom programs). Well, not exactly "play." It's a program, not a game, specifically an audio sequencer. Other homebrew music synthesizers and sequencers have come out before for portable systems, most of which are watered-down versions of computer sound-loopers like FruityLoops. But this one's a trip because it plays sound effects according to a cellular automation system. The top screen shows this animation, which can be changed if you add or delete "cells," drawing them on the touchscreen. You then load sound effects onto a second touchscreen grid, and when the animation steps over that grid's sound pad, it plays the according sound. The result looks and sounds a little like this:

It's not quite chiptune material, as glitchDS relies on your own sound effects rather than an ancient, chirping sound processor, but it doesn't make the thing any less fun to play with. And this is by no means a reliable instrument, but it is interesting to see how cellular automation translates into sonic loops with very little effort (not to mention how well it responds to on-the-fly manipulation). If you have a DS flash card, download glitchDS here. If not, you can always seek out Nintendo's noise-toy for the DS, Electroplankton (though I don't recommend it, since the rare game costs over $60 on eBay).

Next week: Does anybody still care about Wii Fit? If so, I'll sum up my three-week trial of the thing. Elsewise, I'll need to steal a Playstation 3 so that I can play that new Metal Gear game.

The best and worst thing about the first Penny Arcade video game is its humor. Not because it's an "acquired taste," though that's a fair worry--PA, the web comic, prides itself on in-jokes and up-to-the-minute game satires. PA, the video game, eschews much of that, instead taking place in an alternate 1920s America where the Industrial Revolution has loosed an army of cultish mimes and fruit-raping robots. It's bizarre, but it's that sort of universal bizarre that'll leave fans and outsiders cracking up in equal measure. You don’t need to be a fan of the comic to be both amused and confused by this; the first episode of Penny Arcade Adventures mines humorous juxtaposition to great effect, marrying a love for over-literate exposition (and satire of said love) with a rich, creamy gravy of stupid. You know, the kind of giddy stupid that thinks "shit poop!" is a good exclamation.

Trouble is, in game form, the funny tends to whiz by--especially in an "episodic" game that tops out at maybe five hours of play. After clicking through so many funny conversations (no speech, just text), I found myself wanting to rewind and savor the wit again and again. (Tough not to reprint so much oddball material, by the way, but rest assured that bums, mimes, piss-obsessed scientists, early 20th century novelists, and Zoltar all get theirs.)

So how do these Bellevue-based game critics translate as game makers? At first glance, PAA’s central gameplay suffers by bowing down to the dialogue rather than pushing for unique twists. Surely, PA’s hyper-critical leads would notice that, aside from the humor, they’ve played this traditional RPG before: run around towns, click random things on the screen to find items, deliver stuff to people for more items, get into turn-based battles. (Reminds me of a grown-up Earthbound.) If there is a twist, it’s that battles are a weird mix of simple (auto-healing, free items) and complex (no pausing to plan moves, surprisingly deep strategy); by splitting the difference, they wind up being pretty engaging. The devs could’ve made fight menus a lot easier to read, I guess; no deal-breaker. But the game only has three “towns” to run around in, so its already-brief length is padded with things like clicking on zillions of items on the ground and enduring a few too many fights.

PAA’s first episode could’ve distilled its five hours to two or three in terms of actual, hard content, making the $20 price point a bit of a stretch. Could’ve added an extra half-hour to the thing just by giving completists a bonus “read the dialogue again” mode; no such luck this time. Still, the comic’s creators win out by expanding their humorous reach beyond their usual niche (cuz if there’s ever a class of people who’ve been left out of gaming for too long, it’s the “shit poop” crowd). Combine that with solid fights, likeable music and equally funny art direction, and you’ve got a worthwhile first effort for these critical game-makers--along with obvious room for improvement for Episode Two.

Worth buying? You’re possibly overpaying at $20 for the full thing, but the free demo’s a no-brainer. Xbox 360 owners can download that demo by digging through the 360's “new arrivals” list, and PC/Mac/Linux users can download their own demo here.

One week into Wii Fit, I had gained nearly four pounds. Didn’t matter that I’d logged five-and-a-half hours on the game’s timer (average of 46 minutes per day); that I’d enjoyed walks, bike rides and a long basketball game through the week; that I’d even avoided eating out, snacking late and drinking much. Wii Fit, in spite of its encouragement and games, stresses weight above all, and by day seven, I found myself obsessing over its most glaring metric.

Ah, day seven. I woke up, stepped on the weight-sensitive Wii Balance Board, and found out I was nearly three pounds heavier than the day before, I waited a few hours, stripped down to my skivvies and re-measured. MUST. GET. HIGH. SCORE.

The girlfriend caught me, but she didn’t bust me for being naked. She went the other route: “Tell me you didn’t just go to the bathroom before weighing yourself.” I sheepishly turned my head away.

Wii Lunge, Meet Wii Big Ass

Wii Fit gets a few things right. I’ve become more sedentary since losing my last office job, so having a new source of cardiovascular activity a few steps from the desk has sent my daily average through the roof. The game’s exercise modes mostly push me in new ways--stretching the spine, holding yoga poses and pulling off smooth, controlled leg lifts, all of which tell me how balanced I am mid-exercise thanks to this Wii Board. Direct, immediate feedback without the cost or pushiness of a trainer? I’m all for it.

Clearly, the three fitness modes (yoga, strength training, aerobics) are not fun. Sweat- and soreness-inducing, sure. Fulfilling, probably. But let’s not confuse the tree pose or a 60-second plank ab flex with Call of Duty 4. I’m glad there’s a “game” mode, though--pretend the balance board is an analog joystick, then lean in every direction to aim a skier, a hamster ball, a rolling marble board, and so on. If you only have a few minutes or don’t want to break a sweat, these games can at least boost the heartrate for 10 or 15 minutes, and, yeah, they’re fun.

In many other respects, Wii Fit holds up. The virtual trainers have soothing voices and relatively helpful advice as you do each exercise. The interface is clean. Its exercise selection is pretty diverse. But too much contributed to my seventh day freak-out.

After a few days of play, you’ll unlock the full series of over 40 exercises. Do each of them at a high rep count, and you’ll rack up over an hour and a half of work, which is unfeasible for a daily workout. Begs questions: Would it be best to start my workout with yoga? Or aerobics? Should I just focus on one type of exercise or do a spread of all three? Maybe I should focus on separate body parts every day? How should I mix my routine up over time?

Wii Fit doesn’t answer any of these. You’re thrown in to work out however you see fit, which is weird for a game that logs your every action--not a single recommendation, huh? Wii Fit also doesn’t answer or advise much with a lot of yoga poses. When I first did the tree pose, my girlfriend saw me struggling and suggested I lower my raised foot closer to my knee. This worked perfectly, as did all of her other suggestions (none of which were given by the Wii’s virtual trainers). Too bad every copy of Wii Fit doesn’t come with a yoga-wise friend.

Worst of all is Wii Fit’s obsession with weight. It wasn’t until day seven that I cracked open my instruction booklet and saw that its BMI (body mass index) scores should actually scale for users with more muscle mass. This text is in fine print, as is a warning that users under the age of 20 shouldn’t rely on BMI readings. Would be nice, then, if the game didn’t declare my 16-year-old alter-ego “overweight” with absolutely no asterisk. (There’s also the legit tale of a 10-year-old whose Wii deemed her overweight. What fun.) And if your weight spikes on a given day, Wii Fit will demand an explanation. Seriously--jump two pounds or more, and you are forced to explain yourself with one of eight choices: “Ate too late,” “Indigestion,” etc. Sadly, the thing lacks choices such as, “I’m going through my period, you heartless piece of plastic.”

(Though I'm already running too long here, God, I have to point one little thing out, mostly cuz it drove Golob nuts during his test run. When you step on the Wii Balance Board, a little girl's voice usually exclaims, "Oh!" I think it sounds like a little girl being stepped upon; someone else said it sounds like "a nine-year-old who's just been fingered by an older man." Either way, creeeeeeeeeepy.)

Wii Fit’s hype has resonated with plenty of weight-conscious folks--here’s a convenient, fun device that can finally motivate you to get to it, tubby! But if Nintendo wants to sell this as a complete training solution, education is crucial. Wii Fit offers no true fat measurement, little info about weight fluctuation (it’s there, buried under demanding weight-spike questions), and no smart recommendations based on the data it saves. If you know what you’re doing--been through the gym circuit, have a grasp on yoga, know that a scale is hardly indicative of true fitness--then Wii Fit is a solid tool to fill the gaps in your schedule and keep you active when you’re at home. I like its yoga poses, its dynamic measurements, and its easy access.

But I hate that it’s made me a slave to its scale. The little information that Wii Fit offers is drowned out by the fact that it turns your weight into a score, greeting you in the form of a glaring, daily chart. Welcome to disorder city; don’t forget to take a dump before you hit the power button.

From Germany, a new way to remind drunks that they're drunk:

So how to capture the attention of any potential drunk drivers? Well, where do most people go when they’re drunk? (Apart from the bar, that is. Or maybe a kebab.) They go to the toilet. As such, we thought the urinal would be the perfect medium to reach our target audience in a fresh, surprising way.

h/t Metafilter.

Footnote: The Piss Screen game was invented by British advertising firm Saatchi & Saatchi, whose first p.r. coup was this billboard campaign, which helped Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative party take over in the UK general election of 1979:

I wish I had much to say about Sony's coming-someday MMO, The Agency, after attending their online division's reveal party last night in Bellevue. That won't happen. My e-mail invite said the game would be demoed, but the only thing that was shown was a months-old video clip of incomplete gameplay. When I asked someone where new game footage was, a woman in attendance stared me down like I'd asked her why the sky is blue. She exclaimed that the game was nowhere near ready to play, but, oh, hey, there's some exclusive art over there, seen it yet?

And I wish the developers had much to say, but while replaying the months-old video, The Agency's head designer kept pausing in his narration to say that he wasn't allowed to reveal certain details yet. By "certain," he meant "most." Not sure if SOE thought their "open house" party would be reason enough to come out, complete with fancy catering, ice blocks shaped like guns, booze ahoy, and chicks in Tank Girl-styled outfits... you can guess where this is going:

So, sure, I could rehash the game's few deets-so-far. As in, this is an MMO that splits the difference between Goldeneye and World of Warcraft, and so far, it doesn't appear to have a clear target audience or cohesive artistic core. But it's hard to judge something that's still quite unfinished. Nobody was saying how soon The Agency will come out, how it might change while still in development, or how the heck Sony will convince console gamers to cough up MMO-style fees, so last night, the only solid things in their corner were booth babes and dorks. Still, I'll always hold out hope for a game with some Goldeneye flavor, so I'm lo