Geek on Stun

Triple X Throwdown

This week was really weird because I turned old. Adult age. But you know what was great about that? My girlfriend made me a Shinobi birthday cake. It was one of those moments when I felt an intensely calm geekiness wash over me.

You know what else was weird about this week? All this crazy stuff started showing up:

• Grand Theft Auto III on your NES: It's fucking coming!


• Zionist conspiracy or shitty console? Phantom is phinanced by "the Jews"!


• "I don't believe it! Nintendo! Look! Nintendo!!!" Video prince Jason Bateman and then prospective princess Alyssa Milano ring in the Super Mario Ice Capades. Pain!


• Touch Kirby! I realized I'm going to purchase my first Kirby game next year. I'll be quietly sobbing through the rest of this update.


• Grand Theft Auto + Willy Wheaton = Something probably better than that episode with The Traveler. I'm glad Wil's getting work outside of the occasional Tech TV guest hosting gig.


• Creepiest Game Cover Ever? I keep thinking this is some child molestation sim. Thankfully it led me to this fun snap.

Full Spectrum Hipster

Look everyone! Synergy! From the press release: "Enyce is an originator in the urban fashion sector, and Nintendo is an originator in the gaming world," says Enyce co-founder Tony Shellman. "It feels very natural for our brands to be collaborating."

Oh, TOTALLY! I mean, check out that Donkey Kong shirt!

If you'd like to learn more about faux-cool marketing, check out The Urbz Comix as created by James Kochalka, Peter Bagge, Evan Dorkin and many more, or visit your local library.

Best Slime Controller EVER

Dragon Quest (Dragon Warrior in the US of A) is huge in Japan. The story goes that so many students and salarymen played hooky to pick up the game, the Japanese government was forced to pass a bill enforcing that DQ games could only be released on Sundays or holidays. Now, thanks to third-party controller gods Hori, our eastern friends will be able to get their Dragon Quest on with the new blue slime controller!

Awesome!!!

Synergism!

When you walk around Tokyo, Boston, LA or New York City, you'll notice that Japanese kids can pull off some amazing shit, fashion-wise, that Westerners just cannot. Maybe we're just too fat. Maybe it's all the dull Gap-wear. I'm not trying to stereotype too hard here, but when a Harajuku kid can find Lolita-goth-in-Wonderland fashion harmony within and we struggle to wear sunglasses with a sweater, you can only come to one conclusion: we suck at synergism. By that I mean we fail to acheive a total effect greater than the sum of the individual effects.

Here's another example: this Tokyo Game Show Rumble Roses trailer features a bunch of dreck I wouldn't normally find appealing, like gratuitous T&A, ultra-stacked women in latex devil outfits, high energy house music with cheese-shred metal guitar solos, nurses in monokinis, and girls transforming themselves into logs mid-suplex. Hey, it just works.

If you don't know anything about Rumble Roses, it's Konami's foray into sexy wrestling. It looks to feature tons of tastefully erotic gameplay like letting your wrestler roll around on the beach in heels as well as a deep wrestling or punching something-or-other. I don't know. It has lots of boobs, lots of hot pants, meaning lots of opportunities to hit the pause button mid-roundhouse. Maybe if I were a more intellectual gamer, I might draw some sort of correlation between a game like this and the need for people to write whitepapers about the role of women in gaming (and stuff), but that's just not my style. I just want some clearly overt, unnecessary sexual content draped over my professional wrestling games.

Sadly, Rumble Roses is due to ship the same day as Halo 2, so this niche spank-fodder might fall through the cracks. Still, one can hope that this naughty hybridization of ladies, bathing suits, mud, stripper poles, body slamming and school girl outfits is that rare combination of seemingly tame little bits that come together to make something magical.

Link Shaped Scars

I fell in love all over again today. With the internet.

Thanks to Waxylinks and this geeky NewYorkish brain-scrambler I now know that people get excellent Legend of Zelda tattoos while some opt for horrible Legend of Zelda tattoos. I know that farming-RPG dudes are fucking hardcore and that a Metroid tattoo and little noodle arms just don't mix, buddy (and get rid of that soul patch). I'll sleep better with the knowledge that some dude out there is rocking NES light guns like "POW! POW!" and that I'm surprisingly turned on/bewildered by Galaga ink (but I'm not budging on that love handle thing).

Crap! Now I have to get that Princess Tomato neck piece done.

Out Of The Office 11/15-11/19

I don't know if you heard, but Half-Life 2 went gold. It will be released November 16. Of this year. That's 2004. That means the the following games come out within three days of each other:

• World of Warcraft
• Everquest 2
• Half-Life 2
• Metroid Prime 2
• Need For Speed Underground 2
• Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

It's not like I'm getting all of those games or anything, but good God.

Also, please note that Childs Play for the holidays 2004 is open for bidness. Word.

$150 Lighter

They got me. I'm a convert (or a sucker, depending on your point of view). The only console pre-order I've placed since my Dreamcast in 1999 is for the Nintendo DS. I'll admit it; I'm psyched. I might even be wicked psyched. Here's why:

1. Super Mario 64 DS - Yes, it's a remake, but a remake of an undeniably awesome game. New additions, including 4 playable characters, 36 new mini-games and a number of new levels that currently escapes me, mean I'll be butt-slamming my damn face off this Thanksgiving.
2. Advance Wars DS - Advance Wars 2 was about as close to perfect as games get. How could you make the best turn-based strategy game better? You add a second screen so you can have air- and land-based battles happening at the same time. Intelligent Systems? More like Genius Systems! Ha ha ha ha ha! Wait. Shouldn't this be called DS Wars? Whatever, it looks damn good.
3. Animal Crossing DS - This was a game that I never really had time to play on the Gamecube, and I'm looking forward to many long train rides filled with digital tree planting, furniture buying, and bill paying.
4. Yoshi's Touch & Go - I'll admit it. I just can't get enough of that dumbass dragon Yoshi and his gay red boots! What's better than crapping out eggs? Nothing! Nothing except Mario in a diaper! Seriously... I'm really getting this.
5. All sorts of other things coming down the pike - Jam With The Band, Metroid Hunters, and Feel the Magic that have me cautiously excited.
6. Backlighting - Finally! Hey, this means I can stop using my girly pink GBA, too!
7. Wireless Communication - Will I ever use it? Who knows? But, I'm starting to love the potential concepts.

Gah! Is it November yet?!

It Is Getting Kind of Warm, Now That You Mention It

Hey it's no "Tip Drill", but you'll still see plenty of ass and hear plenty of Nelly in this stunning video. Uh!

Let's Swim Meet!

I believe it was the sage R. Kelly who once said "I don't see nothin' wrong with a little bump and grind".

Of course, R. Kelly is a creepy alleged child pornographer, so his perception on bumping and grinding is maybe slightly skewed. But I'm gonna back Mr. Kelly on this and not only say that there is absolutely nothin' wrong with a little bump and grind, but there is nothin' wrong with a giant thermometer masturbation session; there is nothin' wrong with straddling a giant tube and wacking another girl with plastic swords; there is nothin' wrong with two nubile bikini clad girls ramming each other in the ass; and there is certainly nothin' wrong with spraying a helpless girl with a hose just to see some hyper-gelatanous breast tissue physics.

I mean, if you watch this Ladies Swim Meet Simple 2000 preview video, I'm sure you'll agree with me.

Sufficiently creeped out yet? If not, be sure to carefully watch the stomach-turning, slimy boob physics from Love Mahjong 2 Simple 2000 during the aptly titled "Service Time" portions.

Ace

There's just something sweet about this Japanese Ace Combat 5 commercial. I love it.

CS:S and the DS

Valve finally farted out a not-quite-beta version of Counter Strike: Source this week and, against my half-hearted philosophy of buying games only with hard copies of the data, I bought the damn thing. I've logged maybe eight hours with it so far, and I must say it's damn impressive. Not a finished product by any means, but impressive. Okay, impressive to a die hard Counter Strike non-clan player.

Since I have completely given up on the idea of writing any sort of regular reviews, I'll give a very short one. The game gets three fucking awesomes out of four fucking awesomes. The maps are beautiful but decidedly strange choices. The biggest oversights I see are the exclusion of Nuke and Inferno and the inclusion of the where-the-hell-am-I map of all time, Piranesi. Valve also gets a slight ratings dock for failing to ship me a new video card to replace my GeForce 3.

Only one skin is available per team, as in the beta, but this may wind up being a good thing (I've had a decent amount of difficulty distinguishing players from environments in some maps). Glancing through the console log will show you a littany of "missing file" errors and a complete lack of ambient noise on some maps makes them feel unfinished.

But it's Counter Strike and very little has changed. The game does look a hell of a lot better and some of the weapons feel slightly different, but if you don't "get" the appeal of CS, you probably won't find it here.

One other thing I realized this week was that I'm going to buy a Nintendo DS, probably on or around the launch date. The problem is, I'm only somewhat interested in a single launch game: Sega's bizarro devotion game with the worst fucking title ever, Feel The Magic: XY/XX. That's the one with the black people (no, it's okay) and the induced vomiting and the wiping off of the scorpions. You know that one?

My only reservation about that is the voice recognition "features". Smooth talk with the digital girlfriend and blowing into the microphone on the train is something I might not have the current level of balls for.

Why do I want a DS anyway? It's the prospects mostly. Advance Wars and Animal Crossing are two staples that will suck up my commuting hour, and the wireless play potential of titles like Yoshi's Touch & Go and Jam With The Band (a multiplayer rhythm game -- think Guitar Freaks + Drum Mania + Keyboard Mania) honestly does have me fascinated.

Maybe Satoru Iwata was right about this thing. Maybe it's not just gimmick software.

Terrorists Win

Looks go a long way for me. I love new gameplay concepts, especially when it's based on a simple ruleset that has been so well conceived that the layers of depth continue to peel back weeks or months after first play. But sometimes great gameplay, control, and just general polish don't matter to me at all as long as the visual design is there. And I'm not talking about graphics. I'm talking about design.

And that dude from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade is one hell of a design. People at Namco and Capcom are employed with the sole purpose of creating new character designs but they often fail miserably. This guy's got killing on his mind all day long and still manages to get his scary motherfucker costume down perfect.

On the Subject of Pac Pix

Namco of Japan recently published the Pac Pix and Mr. Driller DS Web sites.

Seriously, Namco? That's really all there is to Pac Pix? I realize this is a core franchise from 1980 that was a killer concept when we had nothing else to play. But, this doesn't look like actual fun, it looks like a demo of an annoyance simulator. Unless I'm missing something, the entire game consists of drawing a loose Pac Man over and over and watching him move in one direction. Oh wait, I can draw lines perpendicular to his direction so he turns 90 degrees? Yeah, I don't know, guys.

This isn't the level of innovation I expect from the house that is bringing us Tekken 5 and Ace Combat 5 and probably another Ridge Racer. Pac Man Vs. was essentially a free game and that was inspired. Are you really planning on charging people for this? Maybe I'm wrong, but this and Mr. Driller DS aren't motivating me to make any purchases.

Okami

Can you spare a few minutes out of your day to enjoy some seriously beautiful shit? The studio that put together the wonderful Viewtiful Joe has something else potentially amazing coming down the line in the form of Okami (meaning "one who is higher").

Look at the screenshots. Watch the trailer. Wonder about the release date.

Damn. Now that's some good mystical Japanese wolf adventuring.