BAMF

Well, the return box for my bricked 360 hasn’t arrived yet, which led to a fun 1-hour phone call to India Microsoft tech support. That means that I have even more time to snuggle up to my Wii while my cousin catches up on achievement points. Though I’ve got one up on him, in that I’m not getting married any decade soon, whereas he’ll be tying the noose knot in a couple of months. Then her “nice” mask is going to come off and he’ll effectively be dead to the gaming world, so I win by glorious default. Not that I needed it, but hey, I’ll take it.

• Watch This. – The trivia bit is fantastic.
• Weighted Weighted Companion Cubes – Fuck the plushies, I want one of these. If it were really my companion, it’d want to hurt people in the eyeballs with its dull edges.

  …and I want a plushie too, so hurry up and restock, Valve.

• It’s Virtual Console Monday for the Wii, so that means some new shit on which to spend your virtual dollars. This week brings us Top Hunter, Light Crusader, and a little-known title called Bubble Bobble. Spend and acquire, fellow consumer whores.

I was going to complain about still being at work on New Years Eve, but the bossman just poked his head in and told me to get the fuck out… in a good way.

Since I’ve loaned my Wii to my nephew while he’s in town visiting, and my 360 is still waiting for that Goddamned box from Microsoft that is arriving via a sled driven by a pack of snails along a salt covered highway, I’m a little more starved for gaming news than usual. Here are a few headlines that make my pants tingle in that Heather Graham in License To Drive sort of way.

• Metal Slug 3 On XBLA This Wednesday – Finally. I don’t understand why SEGA, SNK, Namco, and some of the other arcade greats aren’t spending more of their time converting more late 90’s arcade hits to the Live Arcade format. At least we’ll have Metal Slug now, and in glorious 720p hi-def glory. Nothing about online multiplayer or co-op though, but it’ll be awesome to actually finish a Metal Slug title without bringing a roll of quarters. You know… once I get my fucking 360 back.
• Super Smash Brothers Goes Gold? – My nephew has a weird Sonic the Hedgehog fetish, so this game has him crapping his underoos in anticipation. The release date for the next “it prints money” title for Nintendo has been leaping around forever, so it’s nice to know that they might actually release it sometime around the early February US release date. I think there will be some therapeutic value to stripping Samus of her Metroid armor and slapping her around with impunity.
• Lego Portal – Not much else I can say, other than awesome.
• Atari Is In Trouble – Maybe they should just start reporting when Atari isn’t in trouble to save us all some time.

By the way, for anyone who was excited for NiGHTS on the Wii… don’t bother. Sometimes cult classics should just be left the Hell alone.

I don’t really try to hide my incredible reserves of nerd lust from anyone. In fact, usually when I meet a woman that I’d like to let ruin my life for a year or two (girlfriend, in laymens terms) I try to wear whatever geek apparel I can piece together from my wardrobe, just to prepare them for whatever they’re going to nag me about in the future. That being said, I think I’m going to annoy my current gf with some of these Zelda: Phantom Hourglass Gashapon figures. For those of you who aren’t up on all things otaku, here’s a short breakdown from the Gashapon entry over at Wikipedia:

Gashapon (ガシャポン, Gashapon?) or gachapon (ガチャポン, gachapon?), also referred to as “capsule toy”, is a Japanese onomatopoeia, made up of two sounds: “gacha” for the turning of a crank on a toy vending machine, and “pon” for the sound of the toy capsule dropping into the receptacle. It is used to describe both the machines themselves, and any toy obtained from them.

Gashapon machines are similar to the coin-operated toy vending machines seen outside of grocery stores and other retailers in other countries. While American coin-operated vending toys are usually cheap, low-quality products, sold for a quarter or 50 cents, Japanese Gashapon can cost anywhere from 100 – 500 yen (Equal to $1–$5 US) and are normally a much higher quality product.

And for anyone with a tenuous grip on the English language, here’s the definition of onomatopoeia.

Back on subject, the only reason that these cute little bastards are going to annoy my object of affection is due to the sheer volume that I’m going to have to order, considering the randomness of delivery, quantity of available figures, and excellently low price. On the plus side, I know a lot of people who like Zelda for whom I purchased jack and shit for Christmas, so I’ll be able to pick through whatever I’d like and then pass along the 8 duplicate Linebeck figures.

Well, the Valve Store finally went live with their promised Portal Merchandise, namely the Weighted Companion Cube. Tragically, they are already sold out. The fuzzy dice are still available, which I’m seriously considering purchasing for my office.

And speaking of games, I downloaded the Burnout Paradise demo this weekend. I must say, I’m a tad scared for the franchise. They seem to have replaced the standard “unlock/choose a level” system with an open-world environment, where you must drive to a specific intersection to start a challenge. Considering the massive size of the map (most of which is locked in the demo) we could be up for some ridiculously long drives to different challenges, especially if they don’t give you a “Retry Event” button, which is inexplicably the case in the demo. Did we learn nothing from San Andreas, people? Also, no crash junctions confirmed and no crash events (yet) in the demo whatsoever. They will be unlocking other events in the demo shortly, so keep your fingers crossed.

There are a few good things in the demo, such as the elimination (mostly) of traffic checking, which makes the game physics far less ridiculous. Unfortunately as Bongweasel pointed out, this is negated by the near complete lack of any traffic. The multiplayer is also fairly sweet, especially if you’re playing with someone who has an Xbox Vision camera, as it takes a photo of their face at the exact moment that you perform a takedown against them. Hopefully more games take a cue on that one.

Also, here’s the Resident Evil: Degeneration trailer for good measure. I’m excited for anything that helps me achieve my impending new years resolution to murder more of the undead in 2008. Plus they’re all black, so if you’re a racist zombie-hater then its a double bonus.