Neo Geo Pocket Color For those of you who missed out on the greatness of this little handheld, Electronics Boutique is running a promotion in which they are selling a NGPC unit and six games. The games are:
*Pac-Man *Turf Masters *King of Fighters R2 *Samurai Shodown 2 *Metal Slug: First Mission *Fatal Fury: F-Contact
All of this for $79.99! I know, I sound like I work for EB here, but this is a damn good deal. Check it out here.
They're also selling a NGPC 4-Pack for $39.99, which includes:
*Puzzle Bobble *Last Blade *Sonic the Hedgehog *SNK vs. Capcom
How sweet is that? It's a great deal that I highly recommend taking advantage of. Check that deal out here.
XIII Just a quick note to let you know that the XIII demo is available for download here.
I came away from E3 most impressed with not Microsoft, Nintendo, or Sony, but Ubi Soft. They had the most polished and impressive games running at the show, and not only were they pretty to look at, but also extremely fun to play. What a concept, I know! I had a round of deathmatch XIII with one of the Ubi reps, and while he soundly kicked my ass, it was truly a great time. The visual appeal alone was enough to sell me on it, but it also appears to have a very impressive and well thought out single player mode. The story is cool, having been based on the French comic book.
Anyway, check out the demo and let me know what you think.
Push, Push Nintendo's really got me intrigued with their yet-to-be-announced mystery device. But then again, I'm a sucker for speculation. Give me a topic and I could sit around and pontificate about it all day long.
They said it was going to be "surprising". For all I know, that could simply mean that it's something that's not going to look like a Duplo block for a change. I'll leave my speculation to next week's Editor's Roundtable, as the staff has already begun scratching their heads over Nintendo's non-announcement.
I've got a bachelor party coming up in a week.
I'm scared.
Honestly, I've got some of the most insane friends you'd ever care to meet. There's one who tends to do some very strange things when he's drunk, like mistake a cooler for a toilet or lock himself in bathrooms, take off all his clothes, and pass out on the shitter...after using it, of course. And this doesn't even take my dad into consideration, who gets a few drinks in him and all of a sudden thinks he's 21 again.
I don't really have much of an idea of what the plans are for the party, but I believe a quarter barrel has been ordered.
I'm in big trouble.
So don't forget about the latest CWJ Contest. I'm giving away Sakura Wars The Movie on DVD and all you have to do is write in with whatever you want. Simple, eh?
I'm not sure what to think of this California mess. What are there, like 200 candidates for governor now? But let me give the people of California a bit of advice: just because the person is a celebrity or a "non-politician" doesn't necessarily mean he's a good candidate to run the state. Trust me. I'm from Minnesota. You know, the same state that voted Jesse "The Body" Ventura for governor. The guy who while in office became a commentator for the XFL, a guest referee for the WWE, a guest star on The Young and the Restless, said, "I want to be reincarnated as a womans bra", and also said, "Until you've hunted man, you haven't hunted yet." Keep in mind, he did all of this while his state went down the toilet.
So trust me, give your vote a bit of thought before you chose one of the many contestants in your freakshow race.
CWJ Contest #5! First of all, I want to know which one of you assholes voted for Dat Phan. Come on. Fess up! This guy is about as funny as a rug burn on your wiener. But yet his "hey look at me, I'm the male Margaret Cho" schtick wins him the contest.
Stupid, stupid people.
Ok, so onto the reason that you clicked in. (Greedy bastards). This time around, I'm giving away an advance copy of Sakura Wars on DVD, courtesy of Pioneer Animation. In case you don't know, Sakura is a Sega property, and a hugely popular anime. The movie isn't due out in stores until September 9th, so once again, you'll get to be the cool kid on the block.
Here's the synopsis: The Imperial Fighting Troupe is called again to defend Tokyo against the demons. However, this time, the Douglas-Stewart Company is selling a superior fighting machine that will revolutionize Japan's defense and make the Flower Division obsolete. However, the girls suspect something ....
Ooohhhh...sounds intriguing, doesn't it?
So what do you have to do this time? Well, since I'm not feeling all that creative today, I'm leaving it up to you. Write in with whatever you want. The most creative or unusual letter will be the winner.
Apathetic and a Bit Horny Ok, so the horny part was just a shameless ploy to get you to click into the column. But let's face it, if that's what prompted you to check out Cooking with John, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, not me.
I am feeling a bit apathetic, however. I've got a personal catalog of over 400 games and I can't choose a single one to sit down with and play. I get about three minutes into one and boredom forces me to quit. Not even a round of MechAssault appeals to me today. And that's damn frightening.
The fact of the matter is that there hasn't been a damn thing going on in the video game world lately. It's a struggle just for us to find news stories to post and our inboxes are nearly void of any substantial press releases. Of course, me being the fickle bastard that I am, I'm sure come October I'll be bitching that there are too many games and too much work to do around GWX.
I'd like it if you could take a moment to click on this link. It's a GameCube fansite run by one of our readers, and I think he's done a hell of a job with it so far. Granted, it is a bit early and not yet overflowing with content, but he's clearly got a great sense of humor and sure as hell makes for an entertaining read.
I wonder if you've read the latest Editor's Roundtable. I wonder if you enjoyed it. It was actually a load of fun to do and something I hope we can take a stab at again sometime. I was actually feeling pretty good about my PSP design until Rod had to go and show me up by having actual skill. Honestly, though, I think Kris's design is the most badass of them all, if only for the "Voip!" bit. That's freaking hilarious.
If any of you have your own ideas of what the PSP might look like, I encourage you to take a few moments, make a quick doodle, and send it off to me. I'll be sure to post them.
By the way, stay tuned for the next CWJ contest. I'll post it with my next entry.
There Are Times... When I think I'm a total idiot.
"The most compelling feature of the game is the music. The music in Otogi is some of the most original and compelling I have ever heard in a video game."
That's like saying, "One thing I like to do is poop." And then saying, "Pooping is a thing I like to do."
Thank you for humoring my sometimes incoherent and idiotic blabber. Perhaps I should learn how to proofread.
Mojo Hojo I love ninjas. I love Japan. I love Sega. Sure, Otogi doesn't necessarily feature a ninja, per se. But what it does feature is some of the most kick ass, feudal Japan, sword fighting shit since Shinobi. I played the demo fairly extensively at E3 (oh LA Convention Center, how I miss you), but as you may or may not know, E3 isn't really the ideal setting to play a game. So I came away from the demo slightly impressed, but not enough for the game to actually have left an impression on me. Sitting down with the same E3 demo in the privacy of my gaming room today, with the music pumping through my speakers, and nothing else to interfere with my attention, the beauty of the game really struck me.
The most compelling feature of the game is the music. The music in Otogi is some of the most original and compelling I have ever heard in a video game. It's the sort of dissonant, distinctly eastern character that's not often found in video games. It's the kind that I wish Sega would have used in Virtua Fighter 4, rather than the wanky guitar cock-rock.
The demo is available just about everywhere, if you look hard enough, and I recommend you check it out before it's release later this month.
I picked up an amazing "graphic novel" today called "Blankets", by a guy named Craig Thompson. The thing clocks in at nearly 600 pages and has an extremely thoughtful and moving storyline. However, what drew me to the book was not its storyline, nor was it the art within. Apparently, this Thompson guy grew up in Central Wisconsin. Therefore, he shared the same unfortunate geographical upbringing as I did. The fact that somebody can be raised in the armpit of the world and come out of it by achieving something so un-Central-Wisconsin-like is truly inspiring.
Love, Lust, and Poop Don't ask me what the hell that title means. I just couldn't think of anything better to say.
Mkistler80 wants to get on in on the Gigli conversation from last week:
Here's two reviewers that just despised this movie. As an added point, this movie was do to be released about a year ago, but tested so bad that the studio canned it and reshot a bunch of scenes to make it better, which, not surprisingly, made it worse.
And shouldn't that be, "Its tuna time. Lick it up." or in keeping with the turkey theme, "Spread my legs and make a wish." or "How'd you like to stuff my turkey?" Maybe I shouldn't go there.
No, maybe we shouldn't. Damn, Kistler, can't you see we're trying to run a respectable operation here? We can't just have obscene little punks like you writing in talking about stuffing turkey and licking tuna. That's just not right.
Of course not...
The potentially tragic thing about Gigli is what the bad publicity could do to Kevin Smith's already made film, Jersey Girl. I'm sure it's going to be a great flick, as are all of Smith's movies, but the whole Ben and J-Lo schtick may run its course and spread itself a bit too thin by the time the movie is set to debut in early 2004.
This weekend I skipped the fiasco that is Gigli and saw a late night screening of American Wedding instead. I know they're juvenile and crass (hey, so am I), but I love the American Pie movies. They're good for a quite a few unadulterated laughs, and that alone makes them more than worth the price of admission. This latest entry left out a few characters, like the one's played by Mena Suvari (Heather), Tara Reid (Vicky), and Chris Klein (Oz), and tended to focus a bit more on the marraige of Jim and Michelle and the hideous but hilarious personality of Stifler. I wholeheartedly recommend the movie just for the adolescent humor alone. There were a few truly gut-busting scenes, and that's enough for me.
We're trying out a new feature called "GWX This Week". It's sort of like the anti-Week in Review in that its purpose is to give you a heads-up on what games are being released both domestically and internationally, as well as pointing out a few highlights on DVD and in record stores. If you have any suggestions on how to make the feature better or more useful to you, by all means send them in. Hopefully you'll find it to be a handy tool to keep you up to date on what's happening, as well as tuning you into some titles you may not otherwise have considered.
And finally, why God why?!?! Haven't the memories of my youth been blaphemed enough?
