Underwear Drawer I always thought that would make a great name for a song.
Speaking of songs, I got back into The Melvins this week. They've got this incredible 35-minute song called "They All Must Be Slaughtered" that kicks total ass when you're playing Shinobi for the PS2. It's ambient as hell and you won't regret tracking it down. How about here?
Hilden and I went out and bought a couple hundred dollars worth of booze today. A few years back I went to Europe with a group of friends and classmates from college. We traveled through Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic for three weeks and had just an amazing time. As you can imagine, much alcohol was consumed. I was never much of a beer drinker before my trip there, but when in Germany do as Germans do. It wasn't until we hit Salzburg that I fell in love with beer. It was a beer called Stiegl that did it to me. We spent a good four days in Salzburg consuming gallons of the stuff. They even served it in the lobby at the hostel in which we were staying.
Upon my return to the states, I vowed to find this beer no matter what the cost. My friends, it's taken me four years, but today I finally found it hidden in the back corner of a liquor store a few miles from my house. I bought out their entire inventory and tonight I will drink their entire inventory and dream of beautiful Salzburg, Austria. Check out the Stiegl website and dream with me.
Oh to live on Sugar Mountain with the Barkers and the color blue.
If you haven't yet signed up for our MechAssault Sunday, get your ass in gear and send us your name and Gamertag. We'll see you online tomorrow night at 8pm EST.
Touched by an Idiot The amount of BS young gamers are going to have to endure after their naive parents sit through their weekly dose of Touched by an Angel this Friday will be huge. Here's the synopsis:
Fourteen-year old Josh and his older cousin, Victor, are so obsessed with a violent video game that the lines between reality and fantasy have become blurred for them. In fact, reality is so blurred for Victor that he is now on trial for running over a young woman with Josh in his parent’s car while emulating the video game. The Angels must now try to reach Josh before he lies on the stand to cover up the crime and show him that violence is not the answer.
Check out the website. They even have a video preview!
Listen up, Junior. If you value your sanity, make your parents take you to Chuck E. Cheese's on Friday.
Tube Slider I've done some checking around at various online retailers and apparently Tube Slider is scheduled for a March 25th release at some and a mid-April release at others. It seems that for some insane reason, NEC may be slipping this one in quietly along with the most anticipated GameCube release of the year. Well, this is the same company behind the death of the Turbografx.
Oh well, I still preordered mine, so perhaps I'll be pleasantly surprised right in the middle of my jaunt with the Wind Waker. Either way, GWX will have the full review.
Manhunt Because our resident "News Chief" is a lazy punk, not worth his weight in puke, myself and other members of the GWX Staff often have to pick up the slack and post a few news articles each day as important bits come up. I often find it amusing how in the press releases gaming companies send us, they feel it necessary to have some overenthusiastic quote from a senior executive from the company who probably has never played a game in his/her life.
Senior VP of Finance and Accounting, Donnie Stuffedinsuit says, "We are very excited to deliver the action-packed excitement that [insert name of game here] provides to our hard-core gaming fans. This product only further proves that [insert name of company here] is once again ahead of the game."
The corporate world is so amusing.
So to get geared up for the pending release of Amplitude, I decided to pop Frequency in my PS2 and have a go at it. And because I was getting the "spend some time with me" routine from Christine, I offered to play some two-player with her.
Short lived, my friends. Thirty seconds into the first tune I could tell that this was not her cup of tea. Sure enough, after the first round the look on her face was not that of satisfaction. First of all, the girl's got no rhythm. Second of all, the concept of a music game to a non-gaming girl seems to be completely foreign. "What do I do? Hit the button on the beat? How is that fun?"
Ah well. I try.
We're tooling around with a lot of different ideas here at GWX and would very much like to hear your input. Later this week, look for an article from Brendon in which he'll ask for specific comments and suggestions from you, our loyal readers. I can't really offer you any sort of incentive for taking a moment to critique the site and offer up comments other than telling you that we pretty much do what you want us to. We're not like those other evil sites that never listen to the suggestions of readers. If there's something you'd like to see here on GWX - whether it be a topic you'd like covered or a new feature - chances are we'll give it a shot.
So be sure to read Brendon's piece on Thursday evening and in the meantime, write in to our mailbag feature X-Communication.
Also, don't forget about the MechAssault Sunday party we're having this Sunday at 8pm. So far the response has been fairly low, so don't be shy. We know you guys are reading this and at least a percentage of you have Xbox Live, so write in with your name and Gamertag. We'll try to make it worth your while.
Now, I'm not passing this link on to serve as some political statement or whatever. If you think that's my agenda, shut up and read three entries down. I'm passing this link on because I'm a Beastie Boys fan to some extent. It's a free song available for download. Yes, it's very anti war, but again, that's not my agenda here. Just enjoy the tune.
KOS-MOS I'm sure by now you've heard about Xenosaga and its ungodly length. I've only been at it for around four hours, and to be honest, so far it plays like a slightly interactive Anime. However, I'm surprised to find myself throroughly enjoying it. Perhaps it's because I've come to terms with the fact that I'm doing more watching than playing and it doesn't really bother me. The story, though a bit convoluted, is engaging. And don't be fooled by what some other people may tell you, the presentation is very well done; voice acting included. The only bothersome aspect is that there tends to be a bit of delay between lines and scenes which can disturb the flow of things somewhat. However, the music and atmosphere is pulled off well and really ramps up the tension factor.
And that KOS-MOS. Good by Lara. See ya later Samus. We're talking one bad ass cybergenetic war machine chick.
It appears that lately I'm a bit of a gaming anomaly in that I'm engaged by Xenosaga and am bored to tears by Dark Cloud 2. I guess it goes to show that reviews don't blanket the tastes of everyone. Not even those at GamingWorld X. But that'll be our little secret.
Sand Castles The more Ubi Soft tells us about the new Prince of Persia game, the more jacked I get about it. This probably comes as a surprise to no one, but I got my first taste or PoP on the Turbo Duo. It was a great game, although incredibly difficult, and way ahead of its time in terms of character physics. Many games - Flashpoint comes to mind - imitated its style with varying degrees of success. I never had the chance to putz with the Dreamcast game, but I hear it was a real stinker.
Regardless, if the quality that Ubi Soft has displayed in the last year serves as any indicator, this title could surely be something to look forward to.
I've been contemplating the purchase of a Pocket PC lately, although I can't think of a single reason to own one. Sure, it would come in handy on trips to E3, Classic Gaming Expo, and the like, but other than that, I'm clueless as to how this cool little gadget will benefit my life. The one that's been catching my eye is the new Toshiba Pocket PC e755. The whole selling point to me is the WIFI feature, along with the character recognizer. Man, if I could just hand write all these entries and upload them to the site, life would surely be wondrous.
Or hell, I could even say what I want to write. Check out the amazing features for Transcriber! Just looking at that spec sheet makes me feel like James Bond. And isn't that what being a man is all about?
And I have to admit that the whole eBooks thing really appeals to me. I mean, I could log into Amazon, purchase an eBook for around $5, and read the whole damn thing on my Pocket PC.
Ok, now I'm starting to talk myself into this whole deal. If any of you could share any insight for me, I'd greatly appreciate it. Feel free to tell me why I should or shouldn't buy one of these little gizmos.
[Let me preface this long, drawn out entry by saying that I realize it is both rambling and practically incoherent. Those with short attention spans or those looking for some sort of content may want to come back tomorrow.]
Did you ever just have one of those days where you felt run down and sick to death of all the crap that's going on around you? Of course you have. You're human. It seems that in the current situation all anyone does is sit around and argue with one another without really listening. I guess the whole Iraq thing is bringing me down. No, I'm not going to start spewing some right or left wing political propaganda upon you, so it's safe to keep reading.
Anyway, you hear Hollywood celebrities knocking Bush each and every day in one ear, and you hear talk show hosts calling people bleeding heart liberal pussies in the other. I guess it all came to a head when I got this link passed on to me today and had it described as "the funniest thing ever." It's just not funny to me. Call me naive if you want, but I don't really believe Bush is a bloodthirsty war monger. Or maybe he is. Who the hell knows? That's not the point.
My point is, as was the point of my bumper sticker rant earlier, I just don't want to hear about it anymore. We're going to go to war, guys. Whether you skip class, run around naked, or form a half-hearted human shield, we're going to war. I don't like it, you don't like it, and as hard as it is to believe, I'm guessing the Bush administration probably isn't jumping up and down with glee either.
That's really all I want to say about it. You see, as much as I like to spout off my random opinions, for the most part the subjects are trivial and aren't charged with heated rhetoric. I mean, are my rantings on N'Sync really all that significant in the grand scheme of life? Hell no. It certainly isn't the sort of thing that could morally offend someone or start a holy war. And I'm not about to start now. So while I dearly appreciate all of you that write in with your thoughts and opinions and pass on the occassional link from time to time, I simply cannot post any sort of political, religious, or moral overtones. Feel free to send them to me. I'll read them and perhaps even respond to one or two, as I feel appropriate. But I'm just a gaming geek, guys. I'm not qualified to spout off my thoughts and opinions on those types of subjects in a public forum, nor do I wish to. Much like bumper stickers, I prefer to keep that sort of thing to myself.
I hope you understand.
So I found this band called The Ataris. I know, I know, you've been listening to them for years. Anyway, I don't really care for their music all that much, but what caught my eye when I was given an advance copy of their new CD was its name: So Long Astoria. In case you don't know, Astoria is a picturesque little town in northern Oregon which rests on a hillside by the coast. It's also the town in which movies like Short Circuit, Free Willy, and most importantly, The Goonies was filmed. That movie was a huge part of my growing up, so when I had a chance to drive through Astoria, I jumped at it. One winter break during college, my dad and I took a trip out to the west coast to visit Seattle and Portland and wound up heading through Astoria. Yeah, I even got my picture taken in front of the Goonie house. Anyway, I fell in love with the town. It had some sort of Norman Rockwell, seaside, idealism that appealed to me. I mean, just look at the town's newspaper.
So when I saw that CD by The Ataris and read all the songs that the singer had written about his childhood in Astoria, it really touched a nerve with me. Anyway, I know pop/punk is all the rage now, so go ahead and give their album a listen.
I'm done for now. I'll lighten things up a bit tomorrow. I promise.
Kick it Root Down I've decided that gaming is best done in the wee small hours of the morning, between the hours of midnight and four o'clock. That seems to be the time when your mind is focused only on the task at hand. Not taking the dog out, not cooking your fiancee dinner, not shoveling the sidewalk or watching the latest idiotic reality TV show. Nope, the only thing that matters is what's going on right in front of you.
Hilden and I had a gaming marathon yesterday evening that can only be described as colossal in magnitude. Our journey took us through Halo co-op mode; Contra, TMNT: The Arcade Game, and Double Dragon 2 for the NES; and Xenosaga, Contra: Shattered Soldier, Frequency, Amplitude, and Robotech: Battlecry. The high point of the evening came when we took Contra: Shattered Soldier, a game that had made both of us its b*tches over the last several months, and made it our b*tch. The game is genuinely fantastic in its design, and the further we progressed through it, the more we came to appreciate its greatness.
Can gaming be a zen-like experience? As corny as it may be to ask such a question - believe me, I realize how much of a damn geek that question makes me sound like - I think it can be. I suppose any activity that engages the participant can be. Hell, knitting or whittling a piece of wood can be almost spiritual experience, I suppose.
Boy oh boy. Three paragraphs, no point. Beautiful. Are you still with me?
Here's something with a point. I hate bumperstickers with a passion. I don't want to see them, I don't want to read them, keep them out of my freaking face. At 4:30 in the afternoon, I'm just trying to get home. I don't want to hear your thoughts on politics, abortion, religion, or anything other sort of B.S. propaganda that you feel like shoving down my throat as I sit on the crosstown waiting for you to move your crappy little Toyota Camry out of my way.
So, dear readers, if you find yourself passionate about an issue, and feel the need to share your opinion with others, might I suggest you wait until someone asks for it before you go putting it into a nice little catch phrase on the back of your car. I'd appreciate it, and so will the rest of the people simply wishing to mind their own business on the way home from work.
Let's open the mailbag:
Brother I hear you about Dark Cloud 2.
This is a fabulously produced game - so what's the problem?
If I can quote contemporary wise-man Larry David, "Meh - It's a little Saucy."
I hear you, man. I just don't get what the huge draw is to DC2. I gave it over to Hilden to see if he could play it and explain its wonders to me, since I'm obviously not in tune with it.
