The E3 Soup - What Will Joel McHale Say?

John’s at E3 right now. I’m not. He promised to text me when anything exciting happens, but we all know that’s not going to happen. No, instead I get to sit here at my desk working on other things and imagining what kind of wacky shenanigans are going down in LA.

To make matters worse, Ubisoft announced last week that comedian Joel McHale of E!’s The Soup fame would be hosting their E3 press conference. My mind has been atwitter with anticipation ever since. What celebrities will be unfairly mocked in association with what games? The only problem is we still don’t know much about what Ubisoft will be showing this year. Assassin’s Creed 2, for sure. Rabbids Go Home, definitely. Red Steel 2, most likely. No More Heroes 2, possibly? Um… Petz? Shaun White World Tour? Ah, damn you Ubisoft for giving me so little fodder for Soup-style celebrity ridicule.

As long as I’m imagining it all anyway, let’s pretend McHale is hosting EA’s press conference, okay? Much better. Here’s what I think the Soup star would have to say about some of EA’s big properties, given the opportunity: Continue reading »

Chiptune Friday: The Mega Man 9 Mixtape

Wow, we’re just on a Mega Man streak right now, aren’t we? Far be it from me to break up a good thing.

Regular readers may remember back in April when I posted the mashup of Memphis Black’s “Like That” with Mega Man 4’s Skullman theme off of Tae K’s impressive Mega Man mixtape. Well less than a month later Tae K came back with a new mixtape using samples from Mega Man 9 and the results were more often than not fantastic.

I had a hard time trying to figure out which track to feature here; the opening theme with Lupe Fiasco, Hornetman with Eminem, Splashwoman with Q-Tip, or Jewelman with Kanye? Hitting an impass with this decision, I’ve decided to post the whole damn mixtape instead. Enjoy! Continue reading »

Yahtzee Reminds Us To Always Bet On Duke - There’s A Dice Joke In Here Somewhere

Remember Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw? His brand of monotone sarcastic animated game reviews dripping with visual puns and wit were all the rage on the internet over a year ago. Yahtzee has of course begun to suffer the fate of all internet celebrities in that people stopped being so charmed by his ire, and regardless of whether the blame lies with the audience for growing bored or with Yahtzee for growing boring, people have stopped watching. It’s a bit of a shame, too, because this week’s review would be deemed “classic” if the world of internet video reviews permitted such a term.

A remarkable change of pace, Yahtzee chose this week to review Duke Nukem Forever, a game which he loved sincerely and sings the praises of its designers for waitaminute… Duke Nukem Forever? Continue reading »

Screen Test: Ni no Kuni: The Another World

Level-5 and Studio Ghibli are making a DS RPG together. This is kind of a big deal.

Level-5 developed the Dark Cloud and Rouge Galaxy games, as well as the past two Dragon Quests, soccer RPG Inazuma Eleven and the beloved Professor Layton series. Studio Ghibli are the animation studio behind anime classics My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle (as well as my personal favorite, Porco Rosso). Their first (of hopefully many) project together is the DS RPG Ni no Kuni: The Another World. Continue reading »

Braid Comes to Mac, I Officially Have No Reason Not To Play It

The indie games scene has rather exploded in the past few years, and it has been easily the best explosion I’ve witnessed since that one guy lost a hand under the boardwalk on the fourth of July when I was seven. Still, though, with the swarms of amazing indie games like Gravity Bone, Pandaland, and Dino Run, precious few have crossed over into the realm of legendary AAA-quality games. In fact, the only two I can think of off the top of my head are Daisuke Amaya’s Cave Story and Jonathan Blow’s Braid. I’ve only recently been able to play Cave Story by giving in and installing Windows on my Mac (for some reason the Mac port always crashes on me). The Windows Braid demo I downloaded was less cooperative, and as I don’t have an XBox 360 of my own, I have not yet experienced the renowned bliss that is Braid.

Until this week, that is, as the Mac port of Braid is finally available. Continue reading »

PlayStation Eye Support in echochrome: Lousy Idea, or the Lousiest Idea?

echochrome holds a special place on my Playstation 3, the only game in my trophy collection to have 0% of the trophies collected. It’s not that I don’t like the game, I really do, I just apparently haven’t succeeded in it enough to warrant any of the meaningless iconic awards. The quicky art-puzzler does, though, succinctly sum up everything I love about the Playstation in one frustratingly challenging piece of beauty that would likely never have been published anywhere else.

Word broke today of an impending update to the downloadable game, one that brings support for cloud sharing of user-created stages, weekly corridor challenges, the curious sounding invisible quiz mode and Playstation Eye support.

Wait, what was that last part? Continue reading »

Trailer Review: Critter Crunch on PSN

Developer Capy already had a hit on their hands with unique puzzler Critter Crunch, the award-winning mobile phone game ported to the iPhone for the App Store’s launch nearly a year ago. If Lumines and Tetris have taught us anything, though, it’s that addictive portable puzzle games are still awesome on a big screen at home, and so we have this trailer for Critter Crunch’s hi-def debut on Playstation Network. Continue reading »

Chiptune Friday: Starting Over with Chipzel

I’ve already accepted the fact that I’m enjoying the work of actors, directors, artists, writers, and musicians younger than me. It’s a terrifying transitional phase wherein one realizes that they are getting old. If I need to be out of my prime and no longer on the cutting edge, though, at least Chipzel will soothe me through this distress with her smooth Game Boy beats.

Chipzel, aka Niamh Houston from Northern Ireland, is seventeen years old. She just put out her first EP. It’s sweet. Continue reading »

Spyborgs: You Know, For Kids!

It was almost a year ago when Nintendo and Capcom fanboys all across the internet cried out in protest against the announcement of Spyborgs, a Wii exclusive multiplayer action brawler with an emphasis on cartoon humor. I acknowledged the unfairness of the fans’ complaints while making them myself. Generally, people were not vibing with the artistic direction and narrative voice in the announcement trailer, and it was clear that Capcom were reacting to those concerns as the game disappeared for the better part of a year.

Earlier this week I sat down with Daryl Allison, a senior producer at Capcom, to play a bit of the most recent build and talk about the various changes it’s been through. Continue reading »

Where Is L.A. Noire?

Rockstar Games, home to all games controversial and critically-acclaimed, have seriously started promoting their wild west sequel Red Dead Redemption. During my weekly Hulu fix the other day I was offered completely commercial-free viewing if I watched the Red Dead Redemption trailer once. The same trailer took the place of an entire commercial break during the premiere of last night’s new Breaking Bad (a program which I am quite familiar with). It’s refreshing to see a game get this sort of mainstream push so early, especially in a franchise that precious few people are familiar with, and the trailer never once drops the words “Grand Theft Auto”. Still, watching the CG spaghetti western teasefest unfold, I couldn’t help feeling like I was forgetting something. Oh, that’s right, L.A. Noire!

Continue reading »