>Turned on the Wii last night only to be warmly greeted by a black screen and the following curt, clipped sentences: “THE SYSTEM FILES ARE CORRUPTED. PLEASE REFER TO THE WII OPERATIONS MANUAL FOR HELP TROUBLSHOOTING.”As if simply telling me that my Wii is fucked was not enough, the nice person in charge of creating this screen–yes, someone has to create these types of screens; paging Dr. Kafka–also saw fit to render the two sentences in some of jarbled-up, broken-assed font.I was oddly calm during this moment. I didn’t start sweating, or turning over furniture. I didn’t pour myself a…
>So I’ve had my iPad for nearly a month now. Each day I carry it to the office in the morning, where it usually sits in my duffel bag for eight hours. Each night, I carry it home. I recharge it. I might get in a quick bout of Angry Birds before bed, or check on my crops–usually rotten crops with the sad face floating above them–in We Rule.This has not turned out to be the love story I hoped it might be.It’s not the iPad’s fault. It does everything it promised it would do. It lights up. It looks…
>I never quite got around to polishing off the desktop version of Plants Vs. Zombies. So, when the game appeared in the iPhone App store for the wallet-friendly price of three dollars, I downloaded it and set to work righting that wrong.Now I’m regretting doing so.Plants Vs. Zombies is not a great tower defense game, especially when compared with far superior offerings like Fieldrunners or geoDefense Swarm. But what it has going for it is how all of these subtle elements like the catchy UFO-like sound that indicates that a zombie is approaching and the sauce pot that Dave the…
>I watched the Super Bowl yesterday with a friend of mine who works as a game developer here in Vancouver.One of the many benefits of living in Vancouver, besides near constant rain and high taxes and all the natural beauty your eyes can take: Becoming friends with developers.A couple of things about watching the Super Bowl in Canada:1. The commercials are completely different here and, for the most part, lame. (I had to watch all the “real” commercials online after the fact, including the Dante’s Inferno commercial.)2. It’s very difficult to find anyone who genuinely gives a rat’s ass about…
>Started playing Dante’s Inferno this week. The game, despite high production values and highbrow source material, isn’t all that surprising or exciting. (More on the game itself when the review airs in a couple weeks.)A few things that occurred to me while playing:1. Will future lazy college students play this game instead of reading the Cliffs Notes of The Divine Comedy?2. Will you be interested in purchasing the Poet Costume when the DLC becomes available in February? No? Then how about you, sir? No again?3. I understand that games, like this one, are expensive to make, and that DLC can…
>When the Reviews on the Run crew came to pick me up for our shoot yesterday afternoon, I opened the door to the ROTR mobile and was greeted by the sounds of laughter. What’s so funny? I wondered.Vic, who was sitting up front, said, “You are not going to believe this, but we are dressed exactly alike.”Now, Victor has accused me of dressing like him before. And I have accused him of dressing like me. We’ve never determined exactly who the guilty party is here.I assumed he was making a bigger deal out of it than was necessary…until we parked…
>Man, I don’t know about you but I’m so fucking weary of Firefox users proselytizing all the time about Firefox. I’m weary of the slack-jawed, eyeballs-rolling-into-the-backs-of-their-heads reactions I get whenever a Firefoxer notices that I’m using Safari. They act as if they’ve just learned that I have a metal plate installed in my head. Then they proceed to tell me all about the marvel that is Firefox in the same manner that one might inform me that I have a second arm and HOW COULD I NOT BE USING MY SECOND ARM???!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUUUUUCCCCKKKKKKKKKKK!Did it ever occur to you that I might…
>The latest installments of Internet’s Fastest Game Reviews are posted.Wheelman.The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena.So. Woot.
>Today on Internet’s Fastest Videogame Reviews, I take a look at Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Slayer.An extremely brief look.[Rated P.N. for Partial Nudity.]
Flew down to Florida last Friday. My mother picked me up at the Sarasota airport. It was late in the day, nearly dinner time. “What are we having tonight?” I asked. “L.O.’s,” my mother said, pulling away from the curb. “What?” “Leftovers.” My mother’s car had been broken into the two nights before. As we drove down I-4, she launched into an agonizingly detailed rendition of the event. “I thought you lived in a nice neighborhood?” I asked. “We do live in a nice neighborhood,” she said. “That’s what the sherriff told us. ‘Criminals don’t rob the bad neighborhoods.’ What’s…
