Except we’ve been told we have to increase our fanbase in Amsterdam.

Apparently Amsterdam would like us to play some fruity Fall Out Boy song called “Dead On Arrival.”

I mean, REALLY.

Have you peed yourself in anticipation yet, love?

TRACK ME

Raph was nice enough to give the BBC a preview. From the looks of it it’s building heavily on Raph’s personal quest of The Virtual World, except in this case there are going to be a whole BUNCH of worlds in addition to Raph’s, and WE make the content. Cuppycake, the Community Manager, tell us why we should care: apparently the Modders have all been bodily absorbed into the firmament, and thus we need to take up the reigns of design ourselves and make our OWN game worlds.

Reaction, predictably, has been mixed from both sides of the aisle. Mainly because, well…it sounds like Second Life. Granted, it appears to be a Second Life where you can play it ZOMG EVERYWHERE according to Cuppy³ up there. She says you’ll be able to play it on cell phones, blog sidebars, bars, refrigerator TVs, your iPod and your mom.

My question (and the question a lot of people have had) is “who’s responsible for the lawsuits?”

After all, the thing you’re going to run into is that some people may try and clone any number of games that already exist, and we certainly know that some companies are so anal retentive that they trademark relatively generic gaming terms and get litigious over it. Sometimes even real companies get in on the action, though when you have enough money and lawyers you can get pretty creative with your settlement terms.

I for one think it’ll be interesting, but unless it’s better-done than Second Life (which seems underdone, overhyped but with a great PR machine), I’ll be out in the cold again.

¹whether you pronounce it “air-ee-ay”, “air-ee-uh” or “air-ee-uh-ee” is up to you
²Can’t take credit for the lulz there: from f13, via Lum
³not CuppaJoe, who is totally a different CM

All-Pro Football 2k8 is a thumbs up. Nothing horribly loud or startling about it. Routinely sleeps on my chest while we play.

Gears of War is alright when he’s being held by Mommy.

Bioshock makes him very fussy. Lots of screaming, screeching, and Generally Bad Things.

On that note, I’m in love with Bioshock. Just a fantastic game. The atmosphere is unlike any other game I’ve played, and the HDTV and the surround sound certainly add to everything. Just creepy hearing a Splicer come at me from behind a split second before I rotate and blow ‘em away with the shotgun.

And on a tangent, SecuROM is NOT A FUCKING ROOTKIT. Get it straight, you idiots. 2K’s FAQ has all the information you need to shut the hell up and just enjoy what is a complete and total masterpiece.

Even if I won’t play it while the boy’s awake.

Baby

Mom and baby are great. More information later.

Shadow Effect

I’m exhausted. Mentally, physically, everything. Stress. I have agita.

The Simpsons Movie was great.

I took pictures last week. We went walking. It was fun.

…

Hey, wow that’s a BIG cricket or something on my cubicle wall. I wonder if it wants to be friends…

We doff our hat to NCSoft and NetDevil for making what was surely a difficult decision to stop hemorrhaging money.

While I enjoyed Auto Assault, it is likely to be said… well… let’s put it this way:

[Obfuscated] http://www.autoassault.com/news/
[@Mr_Poppinfresh] I’m about to click this link
[@Mr_Poppinfresh] this cannot possibly be good news
[@Mr_Poppinfresh] yep
[@Mr_Poppinfresh] not good
[@Mr_Poppinfresh] HOW CAN YOU MAKE AN EXPLODING MAD MAX CAR GAME BORING?

IGN Vault just brought Auto Assault Vault back a few weeks ago, too. Sad to hear the game didn’t succeed. It had promise, and exploding cars and motorcycles.

Que sera sera, I suppose.

Vader Helmet,
originally uploaded by RasputinAXP.

What, is this funny or something??

I had to do it. I got a second to snap a shot of our youngest cat, and it came out nice.

In other news, It Is Weekend.

Sony just announced they’re dropping the 20GB PS3. This is on the heels of the XBox 360 Elite being announced at a $479 price point. I’m the first one to admit that the Elite offers nothing that I want or need: HDMI is a moot point as I have VGA input on my Westinghouse 42″, and the bigger hard drive means nothing since I don’t download all that much stuff.

With the loss of the $499 PS3 from the lineup, it makes the 360-PS3 gap even larger. Most people don’t look at details, but for the hard-drive conscious folks, they’re going to look at 120GB on the $479Elite and wonder why they’re only getting 60 on the $599 PS3.

Have you ever even heard of the blu-ray? It’s the FUTURE!