June Music Wrap-Up

The Music Wrap-Up is a monthly summary of my favorite and other notable new releases. The songs are for sampling purposes only and will be removed the next month. Artists or labels notify me with any complaints and I will remove the song as soon as possible. Please support these musicians as that's the reason I'm featuring them in the first place.

I couldn't find a ton to feature this month, so I dug into some bands that I had only previously dabbled in. Thats why I enjoy doing the monthly music wrap-up, because I find new bands to love that I might not have normally ever gotten too, all to find more music for you the people. As a result, June is pretty chock full, but wait until you see July. Good lord I can't wait for some of that music to be released. But let's stay on topic and get to our June music.

Elvis Costello's Secret, Profane & Sugarcane

Sulphur to Sugarcane



Hidden Shame



I'm not sure who or what first introduced me to Elvis Costello, but when I listened to Radio Radio, and heard the story of him playing that song on SNL despite the demands of the show, I was sold. He truly is a remarkable song writer. This cd has a much more country sound to it, but I enjoy it.

The Mars Volta's Octahedron

Teflon



Desperate Graves



Cotopaxi



I don't think I have to tell you that we're big fans of Mars Volta at this site, after all we all met on a TMV forum. Their music has been on and off with me, sometimes I love them and other times they kind of annoy me. This new release is sort of in between, I don't absolutely love it like I did Frances and Bedlam, but I don't hate it like I did Amputechture. It's the most run of the mill cd they've ever done, which means I'll probably grow tired of it quicker then any others, but it's still a great album.

Envy/Jesu's Split

I haven't gotten around to actually buying this cd yet, so I can't exactly feature music from it here. But the whole thing is being streamed online here. Both bands are in the same sort of ambient, transient, type genre that bands like Sigur Ros, Godspeed! You Black Emperor, and Explosions in the Sky helped create. I enjoy that kind of music at certain times, usually late at night when I'm driving around delivering papers. This is the first time I've heard Envy, who seem to interject screaming into the sound. It's interesting sounding, but I'm not sure if I'm in love with it. Be sure to listen through the first 3 songs so you can get to hear some Jesu too.

Spoon's Got Nuffin EP

Got Nuffin



Suprise! Theres a new Spoon EP, and its out in a few days. I can't help but feel like stuff like this is going to happen more and more in an attempt to battle piracy. If a band is big enough to forego the marketing phase of an album release then why not just sneak the release up on people. That way there will be so little time until release that fans might not download a leak and people might not leak it in the first place. Theres only 4 songs on here, one of them being a hidden remix of one of the other 3 songs.

Wilco's Wilco (The Album)

Wilco (The Song)



You Never Know



I'm glad I checked this out in an attempt to find more to feature this month, it's really good. Sounds a lot like Spoon, but both of those bands sort of made the indie rock sound right? I'm late to the party with both of them, my brother was the indie kid, I was the punk kid. Still, better late then never.

Moby's Wait For Me

Shot in the Back of the Head



Mistake



I don't know what I was expecting when I turned on Moby, but it wasn't this. I probably thought it would be like that video of Christopher Walken dancing around the hotel. Either way, this is is much darker, and has a brooding sort of ambience to it. It'll go great with my other late night listening.

Björk's Voltaic

Wanderlust



Declare Independence



Something always held me back from actually listening to Bjork. I know plenty of people that love her music, but I just never gave it a chance for some reason. I'm glad I finally did though, because I was blown away. I think I'm in love, you know, if she wasn't absolutely insane.

Trailer Park: July

Trailer Park is a monthly post where we feature trailers for the upcoming months movie releases.

Some good stuff coming out for the month of July. Arguably only one summer blockbuster here, Harry Potter, but there are a lot that I'm excited to see. Public Enemies, Bruno, and 500 Days of Summer all look to be great.

The 1st - 3rd

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

Heap on the sequels, the kids will keep flooding the theaters to see them. I can't wait until my daughter is old enough that I'll have to go see all of these movies.

Public Enemies

I'm very eager to see this. Can't beat a good bank robbery or prison break scene, and this movie should be chock full of them.

Other Releases:
The Girl from Monaco
I Hate Valentine's Day
Lion's Den
Local Color

The 10th

Bruno

Sorry that I had to embed this one with the stuff in front of it but they apparently want to make it as hard as possible to promote this movie by making all the trailers on youtube unembeddable except for the ones recorded off of a tv with a handheld. Either way, I can't wait for this as well.

Other Releases:
I Love You, Beth Cooper
Blood: The Last Vampire
Hump Day
Soul Power

The 15th - 17th

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

What number Harry Potter is this? 5? 6? I haven't seen any of them. Maybe I'll watch them someday, but probably not.

(500) Days of Summer

Other Releases:
A Woman in Berlin

The 24th

G-Force

Not really much to say about this one huh?

Other Releases:
Orphan
The Ugly Truth
The Answer Man
In The Loop
Shrink

The 29th - 31st

Funny People

Judd Apatow is back, even though his name has been slapped on just about every comedy out there since Knocked Up. By the way, if you want to get more out of this movie, don't watch all of this trailer. It's kind of like its own little movie, with a beginning, rising action, and resolution. I hope there is something else in this movie that they didn't bother spoiling in the actual marketing for it.

Other Releases:
Adam
Aliens in the Attic
The Cove
Lorna's Silence
Not Quite Hollywood
Thirst

The Mars Volta's Octahedron

The word accessible is often tossed around during record reviews, a new release always seems to be a complicated bands most accessible CD to date. Mars Volta is certainly in the group of complex bands that can be slightly inaccessible at times, but Octahedron is definitely an open door welcome into their world. Gone are the 10 plus minute songs with long interludes of ambient noise, and instead several of the songs come perilously close to having verses and choruses.

When At the Drive-In broke up, and Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez formed The Mars Volta, they said that they had grown tired of playing the same type of music all the time. What was meant to be the antidote to that problem, quickly fell into the same rut though. Sure, TMV was worlds apart from their previous band, but after Frances the Mute, their second album, they seemed to be stuck writing the same type of music. Now, its almost as if doing something more "normal" is the solution to that.

Although its not as experimental as past releases Octahedron is far from boring, they are operating at the top of their game on this CD. The lyrics and song structures are their best ever, and Cedric has never sounded better. It's a breath of fresh air for their catalogue, and a welcoming embrace for new listeners. The real question is, are they going to continue in this direction from now on, or take their music to a completely new place? I for one hope they go somewhere different, because while I enjoy this excursion into a more mainstream sound, I think it'd get boring pretty quickly.

Finding My Place in the Gaming World: Is There a Place for an Arcade Today?

This is sort of the journal entry of a soul searching individual. You see, I have no idea what I should do with the rest of my life as far as a job goes. I'm happily married, and have a beautiful daughter, but keeping the bills paid has become more and more an exercise in repetition. It's come to the point that I've decided I need to find something I enjoy doing, instead of just doing whatever comes along. My only jumping off point in this search, is my love of video games.

The world of video games is a big beast though, so where do I fit? Since I was little, I loved writing. I would create characters and tell stories of their adventures, I would even plot out and write sequels to my favorite games (not the perverted kinds). Around high school that all died down, but now I wonder if I could find a place in the struggling video game journalism field. It's the reason this whole website exists actually, so that I can get as much practice writing as possible and maybe get noticed while doing so.

Whether or not that pans out, there's another side of games that I want to explore. My family has the small business owner spark running all through it. From my fathers athletic store, to my uncles men's clothing store, to their fathers painting business, the Young's have always tried their hand at owning businesses. I definitely have that spark, and in searching for a business that I would want to run, I thought of video games.

My small town has very little to do in it, in fact most Saturday nights during high school were spent hanging out in 24 hour gas stations for my friends and I. If you weren't uncool like us though, you drank somewhere, or did worse. I would love to combine my fondness for video games, with a business that might give kids in my town a place to hangout, and an arcade is my best idea to do that. The only question is, can an arcade thrive in this day and age?

Before I got married and my income was still expendable, I got right to work achieving this dream. I hopped on eBay and before long I had a coin-op pool table and 4 arcades, Space Invaders Part II housed in a Space Invaders Deluxe machine, Captain America stuffed into a generic 2 player cabinet, a 1970's OXO pinball, and the unique but failed experiment that was Hyperball, a blend of video game and pinball that I can't get enough of.

But now I'm forced to pay bills instead of buy new machines, so the next step is a much harder one to make. I need to go back to school, as well as start searching for a better paying job that affords me some amount of extra income, and once I have that to fall back on, dive in head first by getting a loan to get a ton more machines and a building for them to go. I'm just not sure if I can take that step with the sinking feeling that it will ultimately fail.

I could bail out now and just sell Captain America on eBay and OXO to my dad (he's a nut for pinball machines of that era), and then keep the others for myself, but I'll always kick myself for not trying. So its do or die time. I don't know how it will work out, but I have to at least try. Let's just hope my town appreciates me trying to keep their kids out of trouble, and supports it.

Top 5 Most Wanted PS1 Games on PSN

With PSN getting a lot of attention lately what with Resident Evil, Final Fantasy 7, and Metal Gear Solid all right in a row, I thought I would take the time to highlight some of the PS1 games I'd like to see come to the service. My list might seem a little RPG heavy but can you really blame me? Along with the SNES, the PS1 was one of the best systems ever for RPG's.

5. Parasite Eve - While it may have been extremely short, and had an incredibly difficult final boss, there's still something about Parasite Eve that draws me in. The mix of survival horror and RPG was, and still is pretty orginal.

4. Chrono Cross - I think when I played this, I was still the snotty teenager who wrote it off because it wasn't the Chrono Trigger sequel I had wanted. As a result I never got very far in it, and then I traded it away to a friend. Nowadays I'm very curious to go back and play it and finally see what it's like.

3. The Oddworld Games - Something about these guys always fascinated me, even though I haven't ever played any of them. Something tells me that a lot of people are in the same boat as me. While critically acclaimed, the series was never a huge seller. I'd love to be able to play the first 2 games on my PSP.

2. Grandia - I had never even heard of Grandia when I unwrapped it one Christmas morning. In a rare moment of paying attention to what I liked, my mother had bought me an RPG I hadn't even asked for just because she knew I like them. I nervously thanked her as I thought of how horrible a game it probably was, she knew nothing about games so I assumed this one was probably the bottom of the barrel. Boy was I wrong, I loved this game. So much so that I've returned to it at least 4 times throughout my life. Something about the epic adventure feel of it, I just can't get enough.

1. Suikoden 2 - People are still paying almost $100 for this on Ebay! If any series needs to have as little a barrier to entry as possible, it's this one. So many people missed out on this truly amazing game, and a PSN release would be the easily accessible entry point that they need. Everyone should flood PSN and download the original Suikoden so that the sequel will be sure to get a release. If you need further enticing, read my article on the series. Trust me though, if you are a fan of RPG's in the least and haven't played Suikoden 1 and 2, you are doing a disservice to yourself. Go buy the first now! OK, rant over.

So that's my list. Anybody else have any suggestions of what they'd like to see up on PSN?

EA Sports Active: Day 30 (The Accomplished) / A Summarization

Start Weight: 248.5
End Weight: 230
Total Weight Loss: 18.5 pounds

So that's it, I've made it to the end. I must have messed up my calculations in there at some point because I thought I was at 19 pounds. It might be a little weird though because the 230 weigh in was done after being up all night working and during the week I always weighed myself in the morning. I think there's a difference in your weight when you first wake up but I don't know exactly what it is.

Now, let's break down the game with a nice, convenient list of the good and bad, because everyone loves lists.

The Good

• Takes what Wii Fit started to the next level: Wii Fit proved that people would buy fitness games, unfortunately it was extremely flawed. EA Sports Active helps take this blossoming genre the next step by fixing many of the things that Wii Fit did wrong.
• Workout is strung together: One of the most annoying things Wii Fit did was kick you back to the menu after every activity. Not only did this break up the flow of your workout but it left you to decide what to do next, and when people are given the choice they probably won't choose the tough exercises very often. Active makes up its own routine for you, which can be tweaked, so that it can concentrate on different parts of the body and keep your workout moving along and your heart rate up.
• Doesn't punish or scold you: The last thing I want my video games to do is to yell at me for being lazy when I've been too swamped to get in an exercise. Several days during my 30 day challenge we had to do hay, meaning I got plenty of workout tossing and stacking hundreds of heavy bales. When I returned to Active the next day, it was nice to see that it had simply counted my missed day as a rest day and let me get back onto my schedule without any problems.

The Bad

• Janky Wii controls: You can't really fault the games very much for this type of stuff on the Wii. It can still be frustrating when the game has to stop you if it didn't read that you had lifted your arm because the Wiimote or Nunchuk were facing the wrong way, or you moved it too fast. Perhaps Motion Plus will fix issues like this in the future.
• Poor quality equipment: The pack-in accessories for this game are some of the worst I've ever seen. My leg strap ripped in the first few days and only held together because of the edging, and reports are rampant of broken resistance bands. Even if the resistance band doesn't rip, its the flimsiest thing I've ever seen and provides almost no actual resistance without folding it over a ton to try to make it shorter.
• Could make better use of the balance board: The balance board seems tacked on. I imagine they were trying to separate their game from Wii Fit in consumers minds so that people wouldn't think they needed a balance board to play it. Still, the activities that actually allow the board offer little to no extra benefit from using it.

I hope that the fitness genre keeps improving. Active comes much closer to my ideal fitness game, but it could do so much more. I want a game that not only caters to already fitness conscious people, but to those who haven't exercised in years. You could allow the game to offer up advice on eating habits, calorie intake, stretches, and a slew of other things so that those who know nothing about being active can have help getting into a healthy lifestyle.

It was daunting for me to adjust my eating habits as I didn't have any experience with dieting. I wasn't a fat kid, I have just gained weight slowly over the last 8 or 9 years since I quit cross country after my freshman year of high school. It would have been a much easier transition if Active was the trainer to help me through it.

Like I said though, EA Sports Active is a huge step in the direction of how I want to see fitness games go, and given that its only the second major release in the genre (unless you count that EyeToy fitness game) that's impressive. It has been the first step on my way to getting back in shape, I now have the confidence to get outside for morning runs which I will probably do from now on instead of playing the game. Still, it's nice to have around in case there's a rainy or muggy day and I want to stay inside to exercise. Instead of doing it on a boring, monotonous machine I can play Active. So while I may have sounded harsh against it sometimes, I do think it's the best game out there right now for getting into shape, and would recommend it to anyone who's looking to do that.

Retroactively Follow my Saga:

• The Intent
• Daily Twitter Updates
• Day 1
• Day 5
• Day 10
• Day 15
• Day 20
• Day 25

Batman Was Silly Part 15: The Batman Puppet!

This weeks cover we yet again realize the importance of thought bubbles. Without it we would all just think that Batman was painting himself without his mask, but was disgusted with how it was turning out. I dig the abstract background he decided to paint behind him. I'd like to know how this whole painting session was set up. I never imagined Batman as a painter. I figured more of a sculptor.

"Let's give this happy face a happy nose. It also needs two friends. Let's give him to friendly eyes to see with. Isn't that beautiful?"

How To Introduce Your Significant Other to Games

Yes, that's my wife in that picture from many years ago, sharing an extremely nerdy gaming moment with me. I've heard the subject brought up thousands of times on gaming sites and podcasts, what's the gateway game to get my girlfriend/fiancee/wife into gaming? Well, I've learned many lessons while trying to introduce my wife to things I enjoy, and I thought I might impart some of my wisdom.

You see, that term gateway game is a myth. The gateway game doesn't exist, it's entirely up to the person playing. Just because they haven't played a lot of games doesn't mean they won't have their own tasted in games. An example of some of the games my wife enjoys now, Animal Crossing, The Sims, Harvest Moon, any sort of dungeon hack (Diablo, Untold Legends), RTS's (I'm not a big RTS player so she only plays the ones I have like Age of Empires and Starcraft), Castlevania. You might have noticed that I dipped into some pretty hardcore game genres when listing the games she likes. Don't be afraid to experiment with what you introduce. Early in our relationship I burned her copies of Diablo and Age of Empires, not being a big PC gamer its all I had that we could get online to play together. She very quickly took to those and has probably logged tons more time with them then I have.

Once you have an idea of what tastes they have and you know what you want to try to introduce to them, the next step is to not act superior about it. I made the mistake once of watching my wife fail to achieve 100% on a Guitar Hero song set to easy, so I went back and played it on medium and got 100%. It didn't go over very well. They don't care how good you are at a game, if you go waltzing in there and crush them and then laugh about how bad they are, they probably won't come back again. If they are doing something wrong, suggest other ways for them to do it by saying things like "I usually find it easier to do this..." or "You should try this...". Don't tell them they are doing it wrong.

My final suggestion was learned from my complete failure to get my wife into any of my music. If they suggest a game they want to play, do not under any circumstance say how terrible a game it is. Too many times of me telling my wife that music she thinks is good is actually terrible has completely shut her off from even attempting to like my music. I had already learned this lesson by the time Wii Music had come out, my wife thought the commercials looked like a lot of fun and suggested we buy it. Instead of telling her straight out what a shitty game it was and leaving it at that, I instead explained to her why it wasn't worth our money. I politely brought up how its more of a toy for kids, and that you don't really have much control over what you are playing, you just move the wiimote in the right motion and music plays. If you explain to them why they won't like it it will go over much better then if you just say it sucks. That's something I'm still struggling with every time she sees Carnival Games in the store and says we should get it since I know nothing about it except that it most likely sucks.

Now, I'm by no means an expert, but these are the lessons I've learned from my wife. Maybe one day you'll have a significant other who's hounding you to go buy Punch Out and Rock Band but you keep telling them you have to save money. Give it a try, and let me know how it works out. I really should go buy Punch Out and Rock Band though.

EA Sports Active: Day 25 (The Undeterred)

It was another disappointing weigh in today, I've only lost 1 more pound. It's still a total of 17 though, so I'm unfazed. Hopefully I'll have a bigger loss for my next and last update of the 30 day challenge. For now, I've got some points to clear up.

EA contacted Dan Hsu over at BitMob about my inline skating gripes. Their suggestion? Make sure to jump while on the ramp and not before it. I've sort of solved the whole situation, as I mentioned on my Twitter, and the solution wasn't as simple as that. You see, its a two-fold problem, 1. If I'm going too fast, then my jumps don't register until I'm already over the ramp, and 2. The jump doesn't actually seem to register right at the beginning, more toward the middle of the actual jump. So I usually just stand up more to slow down before the ramp so I can be sure not to miss it, and then I've found it still doesn't register sometimes unless I'm jumping right at the end of the ramp (on the green part). They said that it seems to be a common problem, I'm not sure if that means it popped up during focus group tests or if they are just hearing about it now. It could probably be fixed by making the ramps longer so hopefully they will some sort of tweak in future editions.

A couple updates ago I mentioned how the game seemed to be under the impression that I was halfway through the 30 days well before my count. It told me I should rest every 2 to 3 days when I turned it on on Day 3, so I rested. Then I decided I would go 2 days, rest, then 3 days, and so on. I think that what the game is doing, is basing what day you are on by if you rest after every 2 days. So when I do a 3rd day it is speeding up my 30 days. Basically this means I will be done much sooner in the game world, but I'll keep doing it until I'm at my count of 30 days.

There seem to be some misconceptions out there about Active's use of the balance board. I've seen lots of comments about getting the game because of wanting something else to use the board with. It does use it, but barely. Every activity that uses the balance board can be done without it, and it doesn't even really seem to add much when you use it. For example, in basketball you are tasked with moving both arms to the side to pick up a ball, then thrusting your arms toward a target. If it includes the balance board, that means that you have to step off the board as your thrusting your arms, which doesn't really make much of a difference at all. So don't think that it is a necessary accessory to playing Active, because its most definitely not.

I moved up to the high intensity workouts. The first day doing so was like Day 1 all over again. The medium intensity had become much easier then when I had started, so I'm glad I moved up. I kind of wish the game encouraged you to move up if you have been on a lower intensity for awhile, it certainly helped me. Only 5 days left. We'll see what weight I can end on.

• Follow My Saga
• The Intent
• Twitter Updates
• Day 1
• Day 5
• Day 10
• Day 15
• Day 20

Building a Better Controller

On an episode of the radio show This American Life entitled "Building a Better Mousetrap", they talked about the old saying of doing just that. Countless inventors have made it their goal, but ultimately it always ends in failure. The old board, spring, and metal bar mouse trap that we are accustomed to is simple yet effective enough that there just doesn't seem to be much need to improve upon it.

From the beginning of the home console, we have always had attempts made at redefining the video game controller. The Atari 2600 had a number of spin offs from their normal joystick controller, the NES had the Power Pad, Power Glove, Zapper, and even R.O.B. Controller experimentation was rampant, and no one wanted to settle on just one.

Even so, the main idea of the controller kept evolving as well. The perfectly rectangular NES controller got curves on the SNES. The Genesis took those curves even further to the point where they were almost handles. Then the Playstation came along, and brought with it what was to become the template for the ideal controller. From then on all controllers were essentially the same type of design with only small iterations on the formula (possibly barring the bloated original xbox model).

At least that was the case for 2/3rds of the industry. Nintendo took their controller alternatives to the forefront with the Wii, abandoning the traditional controller type and instead focusing on a motion controller in the shape of a remote and a slew of attachables. Some said they were revolutionizing the play control of our games, and paving a way for the future. It didn't take long for the core gamer audience to wane from it though. While the masses who weren't normally avid gamers piled on the bandwagon, they quickly realized that, while an interesting idea, it was little more then a very well supported controller alternative.

With most alternative attempts at game controllers before, there were very few games that actually used them. They used them to great effect, and were very fun, but you wouldn't want to have to shoehorn every game onto it. That's whats become of the Wiimote. Developers have continued to make the same games as always, but have had to find ways to make them work on the Wii. Instead of being a really fun alternative controller with which to play a handful of games, they had made it the only controller. It soon become like playing a shooter with your dance pad, and it just wasn't working out.

So, failed attempt? Unfortunately not. E3 2009 has shown us that Nintendos success with the casual audience has gotten the other companies excited. Microsoft unveiled Project Natal, a camera that senses your movements in 3d space and responds in the game world, and Sony showed off their own motion controller sort of similar to the wiimote but with much greater precision. I plead with both of these companies to not dive in all the way like Nintendo did. These controllers are not the future, they are really fun alternative controllers for a handful of games.

Now, I'm not condemning Nintendo mind you. They have made an extremely friendly controller to help bring new people to gaming, but these people might not stick around for long. If they do, they won't play games nearly as much as a normal game consumer. The Wii is a great system that most people buy for when people come over. The new audience that Nintendo has obtained, is for the most part happy with a handful of games, which is ultimately how many games should have used this controller. None of these people are going to sit down and play through a Zelda, much less the more mature games released on the system. We the core gamers are the ones that have to deal with controls shoehorned onto the wiimotes, the casual just plays the games made for the controller.

Going all out was probably the only way Nintendo could have had this success though. If the Wiimote had been an alternative controller, people might not have leaped to buy the system. So its perfectly fine that they did it, but Microsoft and Sony are in for a tough sell if they hope to take some of that audience away from Nintendo. The people Nintendo has convinced to play games, have done so because the entire system was built with that easier controller in mind. They won't buy another system just because it has a similar controller when they don't even understand what games will use it. So don't go all out Sony or Microsoft, these new controllers might sell well, but you will never have the same reaction the Wii has gotten. So be sure to keep making games for the core, on the controllers we love, because we will always stick by you.

EA Sports Active: Day 20 (The Unsupported Customer)

The slump seems to be over. I'm down another 4 and a half pounds now. What's with all the half pounds? My scale seems to always say .5 but never .2 or .4 or .7. Either way that puts me at a total weight loss of 16 pounds. I'm 33.5 pounds away from my end goal. I might be able to finish this sometime in July at this rate, as long as the leg strap and resistance band hold out for that long.

I pulled out the instruction book for the game this morning and went looking for the warranty information. Upon reading it through I realized that unless I sent them the defective item as well as my reciept of purchase, I wouldn't be able to get replacements. So EA has decided to bundle their game with the thinnest resistance band I've ever seen thats prone to snap randomely, and a leg strap that rips apart at the seams when you put it around your leg, and then not provide an easy way to replace them. It's understandable for them to want proof, but I want to be able to continue playing their game, not wait for replacements for their defective equipment. Not to mention that hardly anybody saves their reciept, though I think I did I just can't find it.

I guess if the leg strap finishes ripping in half I'll just have to find a way to repair it myself or buy my own replacement. I'll probably already be purchasing a new resistance band, one that is not meant to be bundled with a video game. Maybe they will fix this problem and provide better quality equipment in the future.

Follow my Saga:
The Intent
Daily Twitter Updates
Day 1
Day 5
Day 10
Day 15

Batman Was Silly Part 14: Owlman!

This weeks cover shows us, again, how important thought bubbles are. I find it more funny to read what the man driving is saying first, then "Owlman's" thought bubble. The story card says that Robin was involved in some strange experiment which aged him. Hmmm..... I think Robin is spending too much time with his long pal Manny Ramirez now that Ramirez has some time away from baseball.

(Click image for full size)

"They also don't know I'm a closet homosexual!"

EA Sports Active: Day 15 (The Reassured)

I've reached the halfway point of my journey. Oddly though, Bob Greene appeared on my TV to congratulate me on that 2 days ago, maybe he's done some drugs in his day. If I seem much more upbeat in this post then I did 5 days ago it's because there was actually some weight loss this time. I am down to 237 pounds. That's 6 and a half pounds lighter then the last update and 11 and a half pounds lighter then my starting weight. I feel like Active has talked me down from the ledge and reassured me that it is going to work.

I'm not sure what else to talk about in this update so it'll probably be a short one. My resistance band started to rip at the handle so I had to shorten it up a bit, I'll have to get around to actually calling customer support about their junky stuff soon. Also, I feel like a broken record but the inline skating game is the most broken thing I've ever played. I took the nunchuk out of the leg strap and tried multiple ways to get it to read my jumps. I held it flat and then jerked it up and straight as if I was jumping and nothing. I can't even attempt to play that one because it only maybe reads one of my jumps and then my trainer proceeds to tell me how terrible I was at it and that we'll have to revisit it again. If anything makes you want to throw a controller its something like that.

I've started doing daily Twitter updates with the game so be sure to check those out. With all the fitness games shown at E3 I'm curious how Active will hold up. It's obviously working for me but a lot of that might be my diet. My wife really wants Your Shape so maybe I'll be doing another 30 day blog series with that game when it comes out. I hope by that point I'll have reached my goal though.

Follow my Saga:
The Intent
Twitter Updates
Day 1
Day 5
Day 10

Next Team ICO Game gets an E3 Facelift

Soon after the footage of Team ICO's next game leaked online, it became abundantly clear that it was the proof of concept video they showed to Sony more then a year ago. Maybe that forced their hand a little bit though, because out of E3 comes an announcement of the game and newly polished video for it. Obviously they didn't want that old dusty video to be what people think of when they hear about the game.

No longer do we have to refer to the game as Trico. Its newly given name is 'The Last Guardian'. I'm curious how this might play into the world they've created for their games. Is the griffin thing the last guardian or the little boy? Is it set before Shadow of the Colossus or after? We'll have to wait and see.

Nintendo Re-Embraces the Hardcore

It was only last year that we watched a bunch of adults make fools out of themselves by miming instruments with their Wiimotes. Slowly we realized that day, that Nintendo didn't give a crap about the core gamers anymore. The casual audience was their obvious focus with Wii Fit, Wii Music, Wii Sports Resort and the slew of games that had come before it, and we were left in the dust.

But GASP! They've turned the car around! They are coming back to get us! That's right, as if to say they were sorry, Nintendos press conference this year was filled with games for the hardcore. Whether it be a third Mario & Luigi RPG and new Golden Sun for DS, or the sequel to Mario Galaxy and New Super Mario Bros. for Wii, they seem to be acting like they love us again.

The most interesting conference announcement was a new Metroid for Wii designed by Team Ninja. It remains to be seen fully what this game will be like but a Metroid that plays like Ninja Gaiden is something I'd be onboard with. I never played the Metroid Prime games as I'm not a big first person game fan, but a third person action game is right up my alley.

As for the future, Miyamoto brought up that work on a new Wii Zelda is being done during his Q&A. The best part about that announcement was that he mentioned trying to find ways to help evolve the series. While there hasn't been a bad Zelda game, a new one that's exactly like all the old ones wouldn't have excited me much. It's good to hear that they recognize that the series is getting a little stagnant.

Can Nintendo keep up this momentum though? Obviously they will actually show the new Zelda at next years E3 as Miyamoto says he hopes to have it out next year, but will that be all they have? If everything after this rush of quality games is more Wii Music type junk then they'll easily fall right back into gamers bad graces. It will be nice to use my Wii to play some games other than party games when people are over.

Batman Was Silly Part 13: Batman's Identity Revealed

This weeks cover is a doosie! Forget all of the evil villains who try with grand schemes to uncover who that Batman is. All it takes is Bruce Wayne's aunt Agatha to finally reveal who Batman is. No grand scheme here. Just a simple old woman trying to figure out who this crazy costumed person who was hitting these poor young theifs is. Now my question is that if his identity becomes revealed so early on, why is it such a mystery throughout all of the Batman series? I'm thinking he breaks his code of conduct and kills aunt Agatha and the two robbers. Anything to save his identity.

(Click image for full size)

Notice Bruce Wayne's fist cocked and ready to fly at her face.