Funny

Kotaku posted this clip today and I nearly choked to death from laughter.

I thought this game was a joke... a clever machinima movie.

Then, I found out it's an actual game, called 'Zoo Race,' made by actual good-guy developers whose purpose is to make fun games free of violence and nastiness. The game's inventiveness should become legendary.

From what I can tell, you play a human that turns into an animal and challenges other morphed humans to a race. The race begins normal enough... the animals race though a dirt course then strangely jump into a lake... they swim into what looks like a a theme park log ride... eventually the animals leave the water and climb ladders into waiting cannons (!!!??)... the animals are launched from the cannons and into a building with a skull capped doorway... the animals descend through an amusement park type haunted house ride complete with fire, balloons, a playground merry-go-round and signs warning of dangerous hydrogen... ultimately, everyone ends up in a subterranean disco. I'm serious, it's a disco. And the animals dance with each other.

Then, the animals make their way out of this weird underworld by hopping on board a freight train which busts through some rocks and takes the racers to a launch pad with multiple intercontinental ballistic missiles... each animal hops on their designated rocket and flies to the finish line.

I'm mad that I don't have an imagination like this. Watch the video. You can't even begin to comprehend this:

There is a site for the game... visit it here.

MediaFamily.org posted their annual report card on the video game industry. You can download your own copy HERE.

Besides giving a "C" letter-grade to parental involvement with gaming, a "C-" average to retailers' enforcing of the game rating system (national retailers got a "D" and rental stores got an "F"), a "C" to the game industry as a whole, the group also pointed out the 10 most avoidable games for children and teens.

Let's take a look at the list:
• Assassin’s Creed
• Call of Duty 4
• Conan
• The Darkness
• Jericho
• Kane & Lynch: Dead Men
• Manhunt 2
• Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles
• Stranglehold
• Time Shift

Doug's opinion of a glaring omission: 'Soldier of Fortune: Payback.' And what's up with 'Conan?' Did anyone even play that game?

So what are better alternatives that the report card suggests?

These:
• FIFA Soccer 08
• Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
• Hannah Montana: Spotlight World Tour
• Madden NFL 08
• Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games
• Need for Speed Pro Street
• The Sims 2: Castaway
• Super Mario Bros. 3
• Super Mario Galaxy
• Viva Piñata

Ewww, 'Hannah Montana'? That's way scarier than 'Manhunt 2!'

I've had four or five people watch the 'Marc III' video below and have no clue that all three people are Marc. Yes, that's Marc... playing drums, guitar and singing.

AND, that was the disturbing part.

I don't care... I'm headed to Blockbuster right after work...

(via Kotaku)

You may have noticed that other blogs have been posting photos of the PlayStation 3 cakes that Sony sent out to commemorate the first birthday of the console.

But none of those cowards have shown the courage to actually eat the thing.

Well, behold the sacrifices I make for my craft.

Actually, it wasn't that bad. Add some strawberries or other fruit to take the edge off the creamy frosting, and you'd have quite a treat.

Marc just got in his Fisher Price Rockin' with Sesame Street Drum Set. Looks like he havin' some fun! So dignified!

Actually he got in 'Rock Band' and he's not sharing!

Meanie!

Andrew Smith, my fellow technology reporter here at the Morning News, received a Mario lunch box this afternoon that serves as a carrying case for a DS Lite and a variety of peripherals.

Since Andrew does not own a DS (Lite or otherwise) I promptly liberated the lunch box and stuffed my DS Lite inside of it.

Behold!

King HAXr (and sometimes poster to punchbutton), Melcolm, alerted me to this astronomical waste-of-time-but-kind-of-cool Wii hack:

Somehow, former astronaut Buzz Aldrin has become the signature tour guide for whenever our pop culture icons want to explore the limits of Earth's atmosphere.

First, of course, Buzz (if that is your real name) escorted Homer J. Simpson into the great beyond to investigate whether ants can be taught to sort tiny screws in space (results: inconclusive).

Now comes word that Mr. Aldrin was able to drag Mario away from his mushroom addiction long enough to experience the stomach-churning fun of a Zero-G ride.

It's a-me, Mario! I'm-a going to be sick! BLERGH! (SOURCE: Nintendo)

Clive Thompson at Wired magazine has a genius article about the successful (deadly?) suicide technique in 'Halo 3' that lets us sucky players reap revenge from the grave.

I needed this!

Read the article (via Kotaku)

OMG! This list made me laugh out loud.

It's from Stuff Magazine and these moments are spot-on. Some old, some new... the 'Top Gun' and 'Tetris' moments are perfect!

I would have added: "Beating the Rob & Big Pro-Challenge in 'Skate'!" It took me four hours!

Article from Stuff

Johnathan Mac has a 12" TV and can't stay awake more than 8 hours a day; but, MAN, does he make good game... like 'Everyday Shooter' on the PS3.

Here's his recent, and disturbing, blog entry on the PlayStation official blog: read it here

Cross-posted from our airline blog:

Southwest might be a few months late to the my-Wii-broke-my-plasma meme, but a worthy entry in the "Wanna get away?" campaign nonetheless.

Microsoft and Nintendo will each be sponsoring cars in the the NASCAR Dover 400 on September 23rd.

Kevin Sherry, my Nintendo PR guy, was brave enough to send along a prediction for the race:

The Halo car starts out OK, but that’s only because it has a head start. The only people cheering for it are pasty teens who don’t get out much. With the support of men, women, kids and grandparents, the Wii car comes on strong, shows off some cool new moves and easily overtakes its rival, which quickly overheats and is left stalled on the track with two red rings in its headlights.

Pasty teens! The gauntlet has been thrown down!

Are the 'Halo' 360's supposedly limited editions? Are they supposedly hard to get? There were hundreds at my local big-box electronic store.

I still want one.

That's me (in a pic from the iPhone of fellow tech blogger Jim Rossman) holding the contents of a box of Halo 3 swag sent to me today by 7-Eleven.

Behold the Halo 3 Slurpee cups, the can of Halo 3 Mountain Dew, the bag of Halo 3 Doritos, and the Halo 3 Mountain Dew t-shirt.

Not pictured: the Halo 3 notebook and Halo 3 codpiece (I'm kidding about one of those).

Watermelons are this generation's lens flare.

Somehow, this seedy fruit has become the must-have background element for every hot action game.

I noticed during the slum level in the singleplayer demo of Call of Duty 4 that I tested that you can shoot apart a watermelon sitting in the sink of a house.

The just-released shooter Stranglehold has more watermelons than Farmer's Market, and the upcoming Heavenly Sword also has piles of the mean, green fruit for you to upend.

What's the deal? Frankly, I don't know, but it's a little odd that three big-time titles all being released about the same time all have graphical flourishes that involve watermelons.

First developer to use a honey dew wins a prize!

'Tekken 6' is releasing later this year on the PS3; and like all 'Tekken' titles we can expect some unusual fighters to join the mix.

In the last few days the message boards are buzzing about one of the recently revealed new characters: a chunky dude named Bob.

At first I thought, "yeah, OK...," but after diving in to some fan-boy message boards I've learned that Bob seems to be causing a minor firestorm of controversy. Some find Bob offensive.

Here's the text describing Bob from a Japanese magazine:

Known as a martial arts genius, with his toned body and handsome face he was very popular. However when he was unable to beat opponents who were larger than he was, Bob became determined to engineer his body to increase power and weight while maintaining speed. For this reason, Bob disappears from the fighting world.

A few years later after completing his body engineering… Everyone around him is shocked at his appearance! Although people are not taking Bob seriously anymore, he is confident about his new found strength. To test his new found power he enters The King of Iron Fist Tournament 6.

I think the gaming community hub-bub is kinda humorous and much-ado-about-nothing. Certainly 'Tekken' characters of the past are just as unusual... I mean, c'mon, former incarnations brought us a log and panda.

Info and photos on Bob

Bob-talk on IGN's boards

Here's a nice time-waster article about a lot of games you probably don't play anymore... or own anymore. But it's great reading, at least for the nostalgia value.

I remember a lot of these tricks (WARNING: there's some adult stuff here)... The 99 Most Killer Video Game Secrets

I delete a few thousand SPAM comments from this blog every month. Here's one from today that made me giggle:

Hello peoples from punchbutton.beloblog.com !!!

I shall buy tomorrow notebook. What there to install? Win or Linux?
What is exact assembly? Advise pls, tnx

HMMM. How will we advise?! Someone please help this desperate person.

VICTOR: At least he's a polite spammer.

Here's a giggle... the handhelds that no one loved.

Actually I loved 5 of these enough to buy them. Can you guess which ones?

Read the list here (via GamePro).

Hey, where's WonderSwan on this list? Yeah, I had it too.

Oh, and VirtualBoy?

...but this is pretty funny.

And I have to say, it shouldn't be that hard for Sony fans to come up with a red ring of death song.

It's mean, but it's funny (Via Gizmodo and SarcasticGamer.com):

From the new 'Simpsons' Movie:

Now available on Threadless.com:

So Sony just couldn't quite make it through the week without sticking its foot in its mouth, ramming the shoe down its throat, and watching it emerge from the other end of its corporate intestinal tract.

Basically, Sony Europe said that the 60-gig PS3 in the U.S. -- you know, the one that just got the price cut from $599 to $499 -- is a clearance model. When current supplies run out, no more will be made.

Sony America's PR office quickly responded with an emphatic "nuh-uh," said that there are plenty of 60-gig PS3s to go around and will be until the heat death of the universe, and everyone should just shut up. Also, your mom is fat.

But, apparently unbeknownst to the PR office, Kaz Hirai, the global head of Sony Computer Entertainment, gave an interview with a Scandinavian Web site where he said the following:

"[We do not] have a 2 SKU strategy in the US, we learned very quickly customers respond better to having one SKU than two. We dropped the price on the 60GB model, as you know that model is no longer in production, once it's no longer on store shelves it will just be the $600 SKU."

So basically, the head of Sony Europe was correct, Sony America PR tried to cover up the truth with a lie, and the lie was accidentally exposed by the head of the entire PlayStation division.

Those corporate teamwork sessions are really paying off, guys!

More seriously, a lot of gamers are wondering what the heck is going on with the PS3's price.

When the 60-gig PS3's stock does run out, will the 80-gig drop in price to $499?

It would seem only logical, but note that Kaz says specifically than when the 60-gig model dries up, "it will just be the $600 SKU" on store shelves.

So does that mean that the price will remain $600?

Who knows?!?!

And who's running the ship over at Sony? Don't all these executives ever get together to get their stories straight before mouthing off to the press?

Not that this is a regular feature, but let's do it anyway:

The American Medical Association is classifying video game "addiction" as a mental disorder.

They also suggest limiting game playing to less than two hours a day.

I spend three hours a day commuting to and from work. Does that make me a driving addict or a commutaholic?

Read the report from CNN.

When you finish laughing, you can comment below...

If it was the begging of April I might have discounted this story. But what's up with Konami?

In October, Konami plans to sell a DS piece of software that will be...

giving beauty tips based on users' basal body temperature and hormone balance.

Can we expect Wii-based nail clippers soon?

Read the gory details here

Update: It's titled 'Dream Skincare'

Weirdness.

If you've been designing decals in 'Forza 2' then you know what a massive pain in the bootay it is to create something cool with 4000 layers of primitives.

Well, people are makin' it work... look at the ridiculous results HERE

Some people just can't keep their hand out of the cookie jar.

Leave it to Halo-nerds to hack the current 'Halo 3' beta and reveal what we all should be patiently waiting for come September... SPOIL IT HERE

I did a double take with this article... read here.

It took me a minute to grasp what I was reading.

There's nothing quite like a meticulously assembled and overwhelmingly complete video game library for sale on eBay.

This guy's collection of PSone hardware and software is up for grabs for a mere $30,000.

Someday, when my lottery number finally turns up, I plan to build a house with a separate wing for a video game museum, with each console lined up in chronological order, accompanied by shelves of games and accessories. Perhaps I'll include a little description of the system and a list of notable innovations and games. Someday.

In the meantime, I'm surprised none of the big three hardware companies have come up with a lifetime subscription plan, say $10,000 a year or whatever, where you'd automatically get every console, peripheral and game released that year delivered to your door a day or two before the official retail release.

Sure, you'd only have a handful of celebrities and Arab oil sheiks and so forth who could afford it, but it would be an awesome prestige service, kind of like the American Express Black Card .

And the rest of us plebian gamers would all have something to dream about.

Doug note: that kinda looks like my house...

808Mel's comment led me to find these:

Stop it, all of you!

Check out this bulletproof Lambo from 'Forza 2':

Dear Sony,

Press releases should never need to include the following phrase:

"We recognise that the use of a dead goat was in poor taste and fell below the high standards of conduct we set ourselves."

In the future, marketing events should include fewer semi-decapitated farm animals.

That is all.

Here's an interesting graphic comparison between the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of 'Splinter Cell: Double Agent.'

HMMM, which looks better: the answer here

This person has created a 'Half Life 2' mod that's a startlingly accurate trip through the 'Twilight Zone: Tower of Terror' ride at Disney World in Florida.

It's cool. I combines two of my favorite things (games and rides). It's a complete waste of time.

Awesome.

Invading Dallas

Last year, I posted a photo I took of a Space Invaders mosaic affixed to a column in a parking garage near my office.

I had no idea where it came from, but thought it was cool. Today, Kotaku posted a find of a similar mosaic in Amsterdam, and noted casually that "everyone is probably familiar" with this series of mosaics. Well, no. I'm as a big gamer nerd as there is, but I'd never heard of this.

Turns out, it's actually part of an effort by a French graffiti artist named Invader to plaster the vintage video game franchise across cityscapes around the world.

Good to know!

Here's a fun game.

Come up with the most cliched, absurd video game title ever:

My attempt:

John Madden Presents: Tom Clancy's Age of War: The Tony Hawk Chronicles VII: Sword of Destiny 200X: The Final Battle - Gold Edition starring Kirby and Kratos, with access to online beta test of Ultra-Super Mario 97 Kart Racing: Toadstools from Hell: Aqua Maroon Edition - Revenge of the Army Men.

Here's a cool site to test how fast you can click on your mouse when a green light comes on the screen.

According to Gizmodo:

The average reaction time between eyes and fingers is between .200 and .270 seconds, but athletes and maybe a few gaming geeks can shave that time down to .150 seconds.

My best average time: 0.19 seconds.

Can you beat that?

Doug's results: Wow, I must be some sort of savant:

Fig. 1: Doug's Results

Victor: No cheating! You can't just sit there constantly clicking on the button. You have to wait until it turns green, and then click. Or maybe you're a cyborg from the future sent to kill us all!!!!

Here's an interesting article about the need for funding to track asteroids that could potentially hit the earth and obliterate all life.

That's not the funny part.

The funny part is this quote at the end of the article:

John Logsdon, space policy director at George Washington University, said a stepped-up search for such asteroids is needed.

"You can't deflect them if you can't find them," Logsdon said. "And we can't find things that can cause massive damage."

Massive damage!!!!

This guy must be a gamer.

"From a first-party point of view, it’s not just about E-rated games, it’s going to be about the experience that, quite frankly, Nintendo has done a tremendous job in capturing, in bringing back fun—if you will—to the gaming platforms." - Peter Moore, Feb. 22, 2007 interview with Game Informer

FROM: Peter Moore
TO: Xbox 360 game developers
RE: Pain

Hey guys!

I know all you developers are hard at work right now, but I just wanted to update everyone on our "turn our customers into sad, miserable bastards" strategy.

As you know, three years ago we adopted a platform-wide strategy to deliver the most boring, excruciating, nauseating and physically and psychologically painful software the world has ever seen. Extensive research indicated that a resentul customer was a loyal customer, and gamers in particular were gluttons for punishment.

Incessant hardware crashes were part of the first phase of that strategy, while well-crafted games like Bomberman: Act Zero ensured a software/hardware synergy of unmitigated torture. Strong stuff, team!

But while execution across the board has been nearly flawless -- CliffyB, baby, why you got to be so difficult? -- it seems we may have hit a snag.

Those loathsome vermin at Nintendo have stumbled onto a new theory. Call it bringing back fun, if you will. Which I won't! Cause Nintendo sucks! LOL! Am I right?! Anyway, it seems gamers like to have fun, the ungrateful little pukes.

While you know and I know that what most gamers really want is a steady stream of beatings and whippings, followed by some afternoon floggings and a good kick in the head, those namby-pamby treehuggers at Nintendo have decided to make games about petting puppies. Personally, I would have suggested a game where you kick puppies.

Anywho, since I know everyone wants to get back to work, let me sum up.

Old strategy: Iron boot to the face of the gamer.
New strategy: Same as the Old, but with a softer boot.

Thanks everyone! If you need me, I'll be down at the Ferrari dealership.

-Peter

Sounds pretty cool, huh?

Unfathomably, instead of just adapting a classic game and upgrading the graphics to HD, EA saw fit to revamp the whole concept and will soon be unleashing this abomination.

It's next-gen Asteroids! Sigh.

Microsoft offers THIS for you (and me).

Thank goodness someone has found a way to make money off my defeciency: MiiStation.com

Just send in a photo of the person you want to Mii-create (and $5) and, bingo, a custom made Mii!

I gotta get in on this! Who's up for a badly designed Mii for $3?

Victor update: I actually came up with a pretty good Mii of John Goodman's character, Walter Sobchak, from The Big Lebowski. I use him when I bowl (except on shomer shabbos). I'll take a photo tonight and post it.

Office Mii's

In Japan, they still can't find DS's: SEE

This video will turn that frown upside down!

It's over a month old, but I thought this was cool.

Turn your Wii-mote into a drum machine:

A very cool Advent Calendar game from Nintendo, PLAY HERE