Very last post ever with what is the very best video ever.

Dernier

What I'm saying above should be obvious, if you know what the title means and/or watched the video. But it is probably not, so what I am saying is that this is the final post.

• Please don't devote coverage to this--focus on any of the plethora of more important things such as QoL issues.
  
• Industryites, bad QoL situations will not get better by telling no one about them.
• What was the point of this blog? Force folks to pay attention to important things going on in the real world and encourage them to become activists for social and political progress. I probably failed miserably, but at least I tried.
• You cannot honestly be surprised that Doom 4 was announced, can you? I'm guessing you are the kind that will be shocked when things like Call of Duty 6, Diablo III, Hitman 5, Onimusha 5, Max Payne 3, the non-wagglefest starring those Rabbids, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 3, Sniper Studios' Capcom title, Dynasty Warriors 8, NBA Street 5 and Turok 2 are announced.
• Yeah, Boom Blox is one of the best games to hit a Nintendo platform in years and some folks at NoE/NoA lotcheck think so too.
  

Anything else? Shoot a message.

Hmm...

I was looking through Hilary Goldstein's previous reviews and couldn't help but notice a pattern.

The Armadillo Cowboy Club Review
This is the cowboy's dream.
by Hilary Goldstein

November 25, 2001 - Coyotes are an ugly, cowardly lot more worthy of pity and disdain than admiration. This is what you'll learn playing through the single-player campaign in Wild Heart Ranch's The Armadillo Cowboy Club. The series cheered (and criticized) for glorifying nonviolence has taken an unexpected turn: it's gone legit. Oh sure, you'll still capture criminal coyotes, fire slingshots laden with bees, send lassos soaring, engage in street shootouts and saloon fights and do many, many other good deeds, affirming main character Sam the Rattler's beliefs. The Armadillo Cowboy Club gives us characters and a world with a level of depth previously unseen in gaming and elevates its story from a mere slapstick western to an Oscar-caliber drama. Every facet of Wild Heart Ranch's new masterpiece is worthy of applause. Without question, The Armadillo Cowboy Club is the best game since Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

*NSYNC Get to the Show Review
This is the pop dream.
by Hilary Goldstein

December 5, 2001 - Pop stars are an fantastic, beautiful lot more worthy of admiration than pity and disdain. This is what you'll learn playing through the single-player campaign in Infogrames's *NSYNC Get to the Show. The series cheered (and criticized) for glorifying the musical superstar's rider has taken an unexpected turn: it's gone legit. Oh sure, you'll still play hackey sack, run the band's errands, cook burgers, assist Lance and JC and do many, many other crazy deeds, with a reward to putting together a hot *NSYNC concert complete with cool dance moves, sensational lighting and life-affirming music. *NSYNC Get to the Show gives us characters and a world with a level of depth previously unseen in gaming and elevates its songs from a raucous community theater production to an Tony-caliber musical. Every facet of Infogrames's new masterpiece is worthy of applause. Without question, *NSYNC Get to the Show is the best game since Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Fascinating.

Well come on, well come on

1) Propaganda Games' forthcoming PCS360 action-RPG is due out in 2010, "an original open world title" and I hear Oblivion is the game to beat/inspiration/reference/party hat supplier.
2) A few folks where wondering what exactly the connection between High Impact Games and Bionic Games is. For starters, the two devs share senior folk such as Roberto Rodriguez and Mike Haller. In addition, the Bionic's Lankershim office is where High Impact was originally located.
3) Fun fact: Ico was the game to beat/inspiration/reference/party hat supplier for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, pretty much everyone on that team played through Ico. From what I hear, Okami is the game to beat/inspiration/reference/party hat supplier for the forthcoming Prince of Persia.
4) If a quite reliable Parisian and a couple other Frenchmen are to be believed, Microsoft is attempting to get exclusivity rights to a Le Petit Prince (or, in English, The Little Prince) game.
5) Double Helix is working on a "high profile comic book title" that will see release next year.



UPDATE: Number four is not cryptic code to say that Microsoft is trying to buy exclusivity to the new Prince of Persia game. According to a couple of Frenchmen, Microsoft is in negotiations with MKO Games to get exclusivity rights for their game based off The Little Prince.

Moments ago, Senator George Voinovich (R-OH) proposed legislation that would allow global warming pollution to increase for decades.

If you genuinely hate America and the rest of the world, this is your bill.

Email your Senators today to oppose Senator Voinovich's sham global warming proposal.

The Senate has scheduled time the first week of June to debate and vote on global warming legislation, and this proposal may be debated then.

We need the Senate to seize this opportunity to cap and reduce America's global warming pollution with a meaningful bill, not waste precious time on delaying and denying the reality of global warming.

The Voinovich bill is dressed up as a way to take action, but in fact is a detailed prescription for doing nothing.

It would postpone meaningful action on global warming pollution for at least twenty years. It calls for weak, non-binding emissions reduction benchmarks – current levels in 2020 and 1990 levels in 2030 – while providing taxpayer-funded subsidies for favored technologies.

The Environmental Protection Agency could establish a cap and trade system to reduce emissions – but it could be suspended the cap on a whim, and it would come with an astonishingly low $5 per ton "safety valve" – an artificial price control on emissions reductions.

In the meantime, the proposal would diminish the Constitution by taking away state authority – confirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. EPA – to control global warming pollution. Dozens of states across the country, including California, Florida, and the Northeast members of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, have set ambitious emissions reduction targets.

We need to do everything we can to defeat Senator Voinovich's sham bill.

Take action today: Email your Senators to urge them to oppose the Voinovich proposal.

The news has been full of stories recently about the rising cost of food. But when it comes to most meat, milk, and eggs sold in the United States, consumers have paid more for years—they just didn’t know it.

According to a new Union of Concerned Scientists report, the true cost of meat and milk produced in massive CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations) includes billions in unaccounted-for taxpayer dollars that pay for the economic, health, and environmental problems CAFOs create.

CAFOs are supported by misguided government policies. Meanwhile, modern, alternatives are already in practice today that can produce the quantity of food we need, often without government subsidies. These alternatives can safeguard our health while protecting the foundations of our food supply—like healthy soil and fresh water. Please ask the secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to end policies that give an unfair advantage to the polluting CAFO industry and to support modern alternatives instead.

Ask Surfer Girl XII

1) What are some queries that lead peeps to yer weblog?
According to statcounter, "massage parlor review," "random hot surfer girls," "how to know if a girl is coming on to you," "retro star wars t -shirt," "blogspot girls face," "compare the crucible with agamemnon," and "go girl enterprises."
2) What do you think of Duke Nukem Forever?
Chauvinist content that was outmoded in 1998 dressed in some obscure, grody fashion from 2004. I do not think folks who insist that an American Indian character being named "Tommy Hawk" is core to the creative vision of the game deserve your money this fall. If you want your hard earned crash to regress the medium, kudos to you, but I like progression and I hope you do too. In other words, Duke Nukem Forever is outmoded in the same way George's mullet is.
3) What is the best thing you have read today?
"The Billy Letters"

In the late '90s, pop-culture historian Bill Geerhart had a little too much time on his hands and a surfeit of stamps. So, for his own entertainment, the then-unemployed thirtysomething launched a letter-writing campaign to some of the most powerful and infamous figures in the country [such as Dick Cheeney, Charles Manson, Alan Greenspan, Ted Kaczynski, and Larry Flynt] posing as a curious 10-year-old named Billy.

...unless it has to with games, then the prize goes to Tom Chick's "Matt Damon, you big fat jerk!".
4) Where would I send my inquiry for an interview?
To the email address at the bottom of the page? That's my suggestion.
5) What is the deal with Monaco's Leading Otolaryngologist Analyzes 1978 Detroit Phone Directory's Artistic Merit? Did you just want people to type that?
As repeatedly mentioned, it is "something never quite so defined." No, that is a ridiculous idea. I'm appeasing the demand of the masses who want to see Monaco's leading otolaryngologist analyze the artistic merit of the Detroit phone directory of 1978.
6) What do you make of 50 Cent: Blood in the Sand?
Second best Sierra game coming out this fall, right after the greatest game ever. Hopefully, we'll get a new FAQ from VampireHorde, whose FAQ of 50 Cent: Bulletproof (strong language warning) is the greatest entry I have ever read on GameFAQs.
7) Michael Bay or Brett Ratner?
Could I just choose Speed Racer shot in the style of Cloverfield instead?
8) Tell me something I do not know.
Nintendo will not approve promotional material that shows interaction with the Wiimote if said promotional material does not have the Wiimote jackets, there has been a couple of instances where folks have had to completely redo promotional materials because they had no Wiimote jackets. Nintendo is way stringent when it comes to the content in promotional materials of products for their systems.

UPDATE: A commenter points out a post on their blog about how they had to tell a production house to reshoot footage of actors playing the Wii because of the reason in number eight. Very interesting new blog from "a former video games journalist who now works in another area of the video game industry" and yet another RSS feed for me to enjoy. I also recommend his post on Nintendo and quality control (spoiler warning: it's far more lax than that of Microsoft and Sony).

Sandblasted

I thought I might add a bit more to the Gamasutra story about layoffs at Sandblast and Rainbow.

Yesterday, Jack Sorenson, THQ head of worldwide studios, announced that Sandblast Games (former known as Cranky Pants Games) will be going through "massive layoffs" with the most likely outcome being the closure of Sandblast. The layoffs will be "phased" to allow the studio to finish Destroy All Humans 3, and there is a small possibility that the studio will be kept open to work on ports.

Several artists were let go yesterday and the design team has been left essentially nonexistent; the majority of the remaining staff are being informed today of their layoff day.

However, there has been nothing suggested to me that Rainbow is in danger of closing.

UPDATE: An interesting comment from the Gamasutra story:

I used to work at Cranky Pants (renamed to Sandblast to disassociate) and this shutdown is long overdue. The studio was run by a total incompetent who was a jerk to the crew and his inability to manage a project led to numerous delays, bugs, and a staff that turned over every few months. Sad to see it go, because you could pick up trained people very quickly who would gain quick experience, polish their skills and then get out. Bout time. This has nothing to do with overseas studios. Maybe ThQ should change their focus from mediocre games to good ones and demand execs who can actually run a company.