Being Monday, we had to hit you with a new episode of the podcast... but this one probably should have been left in the oven a bit longer.

Poor Pandalicious has having some serious internet issues which left Evermore with a hell of a job editing a show together, but they pulled it off pretty damn well if you ask me. In this episode of the podcast, Panda shares her top five video games of 2008 [so far] with you. There are a couple of honorable mentions and a list that I only have a single problem with. Let's see if you can guess which game gives me the heebie geebies.

Have a seat and enjoy: My Top 5: Video Games of 2008.

Finish What You Start...

Just before NinjaSistah flew out to Las Vegas for the annual Consumer Electronic Show this weekend, she and Pandalicious recorded a new podcast.

Pandalicious talks about a creepy new anime called "Ghost Hound." It doesn't contain ghosts (at least, not Casper-style ghosts) and it doesn't have any hounds, either, but Panda insists it's worth watching.

NinjaSistah discusses several topics, including last week's Xbox Live outage, some free Rock Band tracks (but Playstation players are out of luck), God of War 3 and the HD movie format wars.

And, as usual, there are plenty of rejected titles for this episode:

Three Guys, a Girl and Their Suicidal Thoughts

Anime's Psychic Friends Network

Alien Butt Babies Make You Make an Ass of Yourself

It's Like an Oreo Cookie for Your Ears

There Be Dragons in HD&D

The Farmer's Gettin' a Dell, Dude

So, while Ninja's workin' her butt off in Vegas, you can sit back and enjoy Episode 81: Can Kratos Survive a Third Daddy?

Finish What You Start...

On a recent trip to Best Buy (for The Orange Box), we picked up Tokyo Drift 2 in the $10 box. Apparently they haven't been able to sell it. It's not surprising given the linked review.


I'm particularly curious about the disparity between the editors' review and the review of the gamers. At the time of writing, they were 5.2 and 8.3, respectively — a healthy sixty percent difference. What's immediately clear is that the editors don't really have a clue what's going on. First, they say that the cars are hard to handle, but they don't phrase it that way, as such. Rather, the cars don't handle well. They also talk about a story being "nonsensical," when anyone who has familiarity with Initial D and/or haraschiya and zero-yon will tell you that it makes perfect sense.

They tell you to start with an FF (that's front-wheel-drive, front-engined). And they even offer you these cute little Daihatsu trucks and everything to do this with your initially very limited purse.

So, like anyone who learns to drive fast, you learn to drive slow first. You get to carve up mountain lines through cherry blossoms in the spring. You get to do it in the winter. You can do it in the rain. And all this teaches you how the car moves. You get a feel for the controls, which are admittedly very different from, say, Need For Speed or Project Gotham Racing, but neither of those titles quite deals with vehicle dynamics like Tokyo Drift does.

Witness: You can buy different brakes for the car, different tires, and different suspension. So if you want to stiffen up the rear end of your FF car, and put sloppy tires on it, it will hang its tail around turns like the meanest of FR (front-engine, rear-drive; think Corvette) vehicles. Of course, you have to be real careful when you do this, and every time you buy or sell parts, you lose a little money, so you gotta learn what you put on the car. This is what makes the little Daihatsu competitive on these tracks, just like the legendary Initial-D Hachi-Roku.

They then tell you to progress to an AWD car (such as the Subaru STI or Mitsubishi Evo) because, no matter what those people tell you about the cars being bad-ass, an AWD car is easy enough to drive. This also introduces you to more power, and power-sliding, as you can use the power-over (or throttle-steer) to bring the tail around, and not have to rely on suspension tricks.

Again, this is missing from the PGR/NFS franchises, and every other American car game I've played (and I mean all the way back to Spy Hunter on the 8 bit Nintendo, kiddos). It's absolutely crucial for understanding how to drive in a drift, or really, how to handle any car that's ass-over nose or vice-versa. You get the STI or the Evo in PGR and NFS, and you just go faster. They "handle" better, which means they respond better to the stick and they stick to the road better, but the dynamics of the cars don't change much at all.

In NFS:Carbon, we had the "drift" segues, and that was simply a matter of timing arrows on a course. And even then, your only technique was the power-over (and possibly also the feint).

So while the AWD cars are a little more fun because they can scoot a little faster, you still have to build up your skill, and this is where the reviewers for the magazines probably got pretty bored.

From AWD there's really only one place to go, and that's rear-wheel drive. There are basically three configurations of RWD vehicles, the MR (mid-engine, rear-drive, like an MR2 or some Ferraris), the FR, as previously mentioned, and the RR (rear-engine, rear-drive, like a Porsche; Automobile magazine once proclaimed the Porsche 911 to be the "king of oversteer," where oversteer is just a polite word for ass-over-nose, or, more currently, "drifting."). There are plenty to choose from, and we have your average Supra and so on. I don't really need to go into detail here, because we can mostly just repeat the section above about AWD.

Going faster does not mean you drift better. Having more horsepower does not make your car drift better. It's entirely about the dynamics of the vehicle while on the course. Tokyo Drift 2 forces you to focus on the course, the car, and even the car's components and more importantly what they do before you can get very far. This means there's a steep learning curve. For those willing to pay that price of admission, it's a very rewarding game.

There is one downside to the game, and that is the graphics are a little on the poor side. While it is a PS2 game, it looks almost like a ported PSX game, or even something from a Super Nintendo. It's pretty not-so-great. However, I am definitely willing to give it a huge amount of credit for the locations — more than the cars, which are pedestrian, as drifting can be done in anything, even a bicycle — all I wanted to do in this game was drive through the flurry of sakura cherry blossoms in my little Daihatsu truck. The more advanced I got in the game, the more I had to focus on the car, and the less I could pay attention to how actually beautiful the graphics are, despite the low polygon and texture count.

The one thing you must remember with drifting is that it is not a sport. It is frequently not even a competition. Drifting happens all the time, people, alone, on a road, just enjoying their vehicles (recently watching the foot-dragging KTM 990 Super Duke drifting has gotten my tongue lolling). Hockey, you could say, is a sport. Drifting, as my friend Gabe likes to say, is a lot more like figure skating.

It's just there to be beautiful.

Finish What You Start...

For those of you who are tired of reading bad news about everything, today we present the first in a series of Good News/Bad News stories. For those of you who just like good news, pay attention to the left side. For bad news junkies, enjoy the right side of the page.

News item: You can't go Home -- at least not until next year. Sony announced that it's Home virtual world for the PS3 will not be available until Spring 2008. "We want this to be a worldwide service," said Sony CEO Kaz Hirai. "We want to make sure that we have a range of services which can be satisfactory to our users throughout the world... so we decided to delay the service’s launch date... Please be patient in this regard."
GOOD NEWS	BAD NEWS
It leaves more time to design Mii's on your Nintendo Wii.	It leaves more time for Sony to develop add-ons to Home, such as in-game ads, email and other things gamers don't really want.
News item: Nintendo has announced that starting with the December issue, Nintendo Power Magazine will be published by Future US, the folks behind the Official Xbox Magazine, PC Gamer, and Mac|Life.
GOOD NEWS	BAD NEWS
Future already publishes a Nintendo magazine in Britain.	Chopping down treees, turning the wood into pulp, painting the pages and shipping the results by snail mail is so 1929. Wake up, people. Magazines are dead.
News item: Kaz Hirai, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, told the assembled audience at the Tokyo Game Show that he considers the PlayStation 3 to be "a game machine."
GOOD NEWS	BAD NEWS
After a year touting the wide and varied uses of the PS3, it was refreshing to hear someone at Sony admit that the primary purpose of the PS3 should be to play games.	From Wired: But outside of announcing the DualShock 3 controller, Hirai made no announcements of new products -- certainly nothing that would by itself represent a change in PlayStation 3's fortunes in Japan, where it is being outsold about three-to-one by the Wii.
News item: It doesn't look any different, but reports say it feels heavier. What is it? Why, the new DualShock 3, a new controller for the PS3 that brings back the force-feedback "rumble" functionality left out of the original controller.
GOOD NEWS	BAD NEWS
It'll be available in the U.S. in Spring 2008, and will replace the Sixaxis controller in new PS3 boxes. The list of games that will take advantage of the new rumble features is a long one.	Ya gotta buy a new %&*$@#! controller!
News item: LucasArts has announced Krome Studios will release a Wii version of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed that will let you use the Wii-mote as a lightsaber.
GOOD NEWS	BAD NEWS
Although some bloggers originally announced that the lightsaber action was available only in duel mode, in actuality you can use the Wii-mote as a lightsaber throughout the game.	You're going to have to push buttons to work the lightsaber in the Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, PSP and Nintendo DS versions. May the Thumb Doctor Be With You.
News item: More anime is coming to Xbox Live. From Joystiq: "Beginning today (and continuing over the coming weeks) you'll be able to find titles from the Starz anime library like Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (Seasons 1 & 2), Street Fighter II V, Noein, Tokko, Virus and Astro Boy on the service."
GOOD NEWS	BAD NEWS
Starz has a tremendous catalog of anime titles.	I'm trying to code this item in a way that NinjaSistah doesn't see it. Between Xbox Live and iTunes, she won't even have to walk the three blocks to the local anime store to get her fill.
News item: The E for All Show shoots itself in the foot by moving its 2008 date from October to the same weekend in August at the very popular Penny Arcade Expo.
GOOD NEWS	BAD NEWS
This should put the final nail in the coffin of the badly managed spin-off of the old E3 Expo. It is a fitting end for E for All show host IDG, which killed the summer Mac Expo a few years ago by moving it from New York to Boston.	This is all everyone is going to want to talk about in the run-up to the 2007 E for All event in October (which Sony and Microsoft have already vacated).

Finish What You Start...

Monday has once again sneaked up on us from behind with intentions of molesting your ears with a new episode of the ESH podcast.

I don't want to ruin it for you by going into too great of detail about this show right now, but Pandalicious leads off the hour with hands on review of Mario Party 8 on the Wii, and MagicMystic steps up to the M1KT to share her thoughts on Shin Megami Tensei Persona 3. Then NinJa closes out the podcast episode talking about the anime series Moon Phase, and the new Ninja Gaiden 2 trailer.

Oh yeah, we have a candy bitch. Congrats Ariel!!

Now, I give you, the rejected podcast episode titles:

• The Monkey's Part is the Part I Remember


• It Explains Why You're Not Black Very Often


• Watching Magic's Melons Rise


• Is 1+1 a Trick Question?


• Every Girl's Gotta Have Her Bling


• The Sistahs Share Bodily Fluids With You


• It's Got Anything You Could Possibly Want


• I Haven't Been With Skeevy Perv, Doucebag


• I Hate It When Itchy & Bitchy Happen


• Grandpa's Boning the Blonde Vampire

Catch a sample of Persona here.


Then hit up this NinJa Trailer here



In any case, enjoy episode 67: When you Can Play With More Than Just Yourself.

Finish What You Start...

Who's the guy in the suuuuuuuuuuuuit? Whooooooooooooo's the guy in my WIIIIIIIII?

You guessed it! Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law is coming to the Wii [and PS2 and PSP] this November in the form of Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law™...the video game. From the fine folks that bring you the Adult Swim and the creative folks over at Capcom comes what they call a

"unique style of gameplay... players will step into the shiny wingtips of Harvey Birdman, a third-rate superhero turned third-rate defense attorney charged with exonerating parodied classic cartoon characters.

In the game, players must guide Harvey through a series of oddball cases. In order to prove his client’s innocence, Harvey must peruse the scene of the crime, gather evidence, talk with other cartoon characters, occasionally have drinks with opposing council, and of course, tear holes – no matter how ridiculous – in the testimony provided by the witness for the prosecution.

What sounds cool about the game is that all of the original voice talent is on board including Peter MacNicol and Gary Cole, so I'm a happy chiquitita.

So, LOOK OUT!

Finish What You Start...

At the end of September last year, ElectricSistaHood published a post asking the big question of the day: Will the PS3 cause Sony to go broke?

The story was a massive hit. More than 55,000 people read the story the first day. That's more people than read a front page story of many mid-market daily newspapers. Since publishing the story, it's received 87,595 page views through yesterday.

Last week the story started getting attention from a new source: the forums at eu.playstation.com, the European Playstation site. Then, suddenly, the attention stopped. After a little investigation, we discovered the horrid truth: The Sony fanboys are censoring themselves!

Before I continue, a few caveats are in order. First, the folks at ElectricSistaHood aren't Microsoft fanboys. I personally own five machines with Apple computers inside (three Powerbooks, an Intel iMac and an AppleTV). We have two iPhones. We're not Microsoft haters, either. We have one Vista laptop, but we didn't have to pay for that. We own a couple of copies of Microsoft Office for the Mac. We own a copy of Windows XP that we run on the Mac in Parallels. We own an Xbox and an Xbox 360 -- and the 360 recently spent about a month or so in the shop. We have a Nintendo Wii with four controllers and a DS Lite.

And we own our good share of Sony stuff -- a couple of PS2's, a 20-gig PS3 and a PSP. The only trouble we've had with any of them is that the first PS2 had difficulty playing some CD's when it was standing on its side. We use the PS3 mostly for its Blu-Ray movie-playing capability, but we find it a good, solid platform for playing games.

When I wrote the story last September about Sony going broke, it was well researched and fully documented. And I wasn't the only one having severe questions about the company. The very same day I wrote about Sony, the Wall Street Journal published a similar article.

In the story, I posited that under the circumstances, if the stars fell into a certain alignment, there could be the possibility that (a) Sony could find itself in a position to ditch the gaming division and (b) Microsoft could find itself in a position to purchase the Sony gaming division. It's not an impossible notion. Who would have thought a few years ago that Daimler would suddenly toss Chrysler into the dust bin?

Besides, at the time ElectricSistaHood was barely attracting 300 people a day to the site.

How did a little blog like ElectricSistaHood get such a big response? We were Slashdotted. If you're unaware of what that means, we were mentioned in a blog post on the website Slashdot.org. In addition, we were Dugg -- mentioned in a post on the website digg.com.

As a result of those two mentions, blogs and websites all over the world found out about the story and linked to our post. That post single-handedly put ElectricSistaHood on the map. Today we attract more than 60,000 unique visitors a month and we're aiming for 100,000 by the end of the year.

My story got kudos from some and flames from others. My head didn't swell from the kudos and I didn't cry myself to sleep from the flames. I just liked being able to get so many people involved in that important topic.

Since September, interest in the story has continued. We generally get a few dozen pageviews of the story every day, and people still comment on occasion -- usually with harsh opinions on one side or another.

Then on Friday, the page got hit with a few hundred readers. Comments heavily weighed toward Sony's side of things. What had suddenly made people so excited about a story that was written almost a year ago?

To find the answer to that question, I searched through the server logs of electricsistahood.com and discovered hundreds of people coming to the site from a forum at eu.playstation.com -- the European Playstation website. I tried clicking into the page from which they came, but the page -- http://community.eu.playstation.com/showthread.php?t=124977 (Click here to try it yourself) -- was no longer there.

Someone had removed the page. Was Sony censoring its fanboys? What could they have been saying on the forum?

I did some more digging. I knew that the words "Sony" and "broke" would have to be on the page, so I did a Google search on "site:eu.playstation.com" and "sony" and "broke". The search found the pages, but clicking on them resulted in the same error page -- the comments were simply gone.

Of course, the nice part about looking up stuff on Google is that it also caches the pages as it crawls them. All the original forum pages were still there and available by clicking the "Cached" link on Google.

So I read through the postings. It was the usual mix of Sony fanboys and Microsoft fanboys trading shots with each other. There wasn't anything controversial there. Nobody threatened to do bodily harm to anyone. No reason for Sony to pull down the pages.

Then, near the end of the posts, the Sony fanboys started getting cold feet about the whole thing. There just weren't very many people coming to the defense of the topic, which was called "Microsoft to buy Sony? ha".

About a day after making his first post on the topic at the eu.playstation.com forums, MPower wrote, "Ok, I only posted this to show how absurd the article was. So if anyone thinks I took it seriously hence the 'has anyone got a gun' [comment]. Anyway, this topic is really irrelevant and ANOTHER bloody flamewar is starting so lets move on shall we ladies and gents?"

The next poster, Rider2006, agreed, writing, "This thread should be deleted as it's off topic." After a couple of more posts, the topic was deleted from the website in the early hours today (Sunday, Aug. 12).

I think this is what happened:

MPower learned of a story proclaiming the possibility that Microsoft was going to grab Sony's gaming division. He saw that the story was on a girl-gaming website, which he must have thought was particularly funny. He probably thought, what could girls possibly know about gaming?

After a few congratulatory posts from his Sony fanboy friends, others started making disturbing comments about the realities of PS3 sales vs. the sales of the 360 and the Wii. Then the discussion degenerated into unrelated asides about sales of Sony TVs and Walkmans.

I think the Sony fanboys started realizing that it wasn't the year 2003 anymore. The Playstation 3 is not the PS2. There aren't any substantial games for it yet, and with the absence of Grand Theft Auto IV this Christmas, it will be mid-2008 before a marquee game arrives for the platform. Even then, they will have to share the stage with Microsoft, which will have the game for the Xbox 360 at the same time.

The discussion got irrelevant all right. But it was the Sony fanboys who made the discussion irrelevant. Nintendo sells every Wii it makes and PS3 boxes are stacked to the rafters at Best Buy -- even after a $100 price break. There's no defense to that little argument, and the Sony fanboys know it.

That's why they halted the discussion and made it unavailable for anyone else to read it. They simply couldn't face the truth anymore.

Want to read the posts the Sony fanboys don't want you to read? Click here for a PDF version of the entire banned forum topic!

Finish What You Start...

Here is the horrible, horrible truth: Stay away from the new PS3. The old PS3 out there, the one languishing on the shelves of Wal-Mart and Circuit City, the one you don't have to stand in line for, the one you don't have to wait by your mailbox for, well, it's, uh, better.

That's right. The 60-gig PS3, the one that's been around since November, the one that they just reduced in price by $100, the one that... oh, stop it. The word from E3 is that the older, 60-gig PS3 is better than the new 80-gig model. In fact, if you still play some PS2 games, you should positively stay away from the 80-gig PS3 model.

Why? Emulation. The original PS3 also contains the PS2 Emotion chip to help it play PS2 games. Now that the Sony folks have come up with a way to emulate PS2 capability in software on the PS3, they have dropped the Emotion chip from the new machine.

And we all know what happens when you emulate a chip in software, don't we? Incompatibilities. That game you've been playing for years suddenly doesn't work anymore. The disc spins and spins, but doesn't go anywhere. You're left with unexpected crashes -- or eerie silence.

So here's the warning: If you've got several PS2 games you intend on playing on the 80-gig PS3, test them out on the machine before buying one. Better yet, stick with the original PS3. We suspect the 60-gig model isn't even being built anymore (they've got a few million on hand gathering dust at places like Amazon.com and GameStop), so when they're gone, they're gone.

Finish What You Start...

Sony Playstation 3 owners are going to have their hands full in the next few days, downloading software and updating their systems. What will it mean for gamers? Pretty much nothing.

The updates aren't for gamers. You can see that right here. They're for people who want to watch a slightly better picture when they're using the PS3 to show DVD movies. They're for people who want to see bigger renditions of pictures they've got saved to their Playstation Portables. They're for people who... uh... well, that's about it.

If you're a gamer waiting for a reason to use the PS3, you'll just have to keep waiting. Sure, it can upscale PSOne and PS2 games, but from what I've seen thus far, those games simply play better on their original systems -- and the PS2 is still beating the PS3 in sales, six months after the introduction of the PS3.

Of course, you could treat the installation of the new PS3 firmware as a game itself. Score 10 points for yourself when you get the thing downloaded. Subtract a point for every hour it takes to download it properly. Score 10 points for yourself when the firmware update is installed and running. Subtract a point for every hour it takes to get the thing working right. If you're lucky, your score will still be a positive number in the end.

Then add it to your gamerscore and... oh, yeah, the PS3 doesn't have a gamerscore.

Do ya think Sony cares about gamers anymore?

Finish What You Start...

News item: Ken Kutaragi, creator of the PlayStation console, will retire from his post as Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.'s chairman and group CEO, effective June 19, Sony Corp. said.

Do you know how you can tell Kutaragi chose to retire?

By the splinters underneath his fingernails!

Finish What You Start...

I have to hand it to TechRepublic, their side by side hardware comparison of the PS3 and PS2 hardware is pretty sweet, and a tad eye opening.

I've never had the balls to crack open my PS3 case. In all honesty, after the green screen freeze of last week during DVD playback I've been weary of touching that thing at all. But the courageous folks over there at Tech Republic have broken down how the guts of the PS3 compare to those of the PS2, and they've done it all with pictures... good looking, non-grainy pics no less!

It's when you get to this picture that the fun really starts, at least from my point of view. You can see that the internal parts main layout is similar on both systems, the only difference is that you can fit the entirety of the the PS2 components on the left side of the PS3 and still have some wiggle room. Hell, the PS2 is the size of the damned Blu-Ray drive! Oh, we can't forget that cooling fan either. You see this? See how large that PS3 fan is? Makes that poor lil PS2 fan have an inferiority complex. At least it would, if the PS3 didn't run warmer than all get out. I have to keep mine on a level all by itself in my AV rack so it can get enough air circulating in order to keep it happy.

And the award for best image in the whole gallery goes to: the PS2 mainboard vs. Blu-Ray Drive. Sure, it's probably a tad bit unfair to compare a redesigned to be compact generation 2 PS2 to a first one out the gate in a hurry generation 1 PS3, but who in life said things had to be fair? The fact is, the system is bloated... but many gen 1 systems are. After looking at all the innards of the box, it's obvious that Sony has done their best to make use of every square inch of space that the PS3 encompasses, my question is when will the slimline PS3 be available?

We know that Sony is hard at work trying to iron out the kinks in the backwards compatibility between the Cell Processor and previous PS titles so they will not have to include the PS2 hardware in the system. That will be a huge step towards reducing the physical size [and weight] of the PS3, but what about the size of the Blu-Ray drive? Will there ever be a reduction in it's size to allow the PS3 to get down to the size of the original PS2? [Give or take an inch or two] I think if they can get these issues addressed by next Holiday, the PS3 will be able to cut into the next-gen console war lead that Nintendo and Microsoft have on them.

I still can't find another damn Wii for Pandalicious or another damn Wiimote. Can you?

Finish What You Start...

With box art this sexy the game has to be good right? Well, after the last 4 hours of playing I'm going to have to say no.

I got my hands on a copy of Yakuza today from Gamefly and I have to say that I'm kinda disappointed. Originally I was really looking forward to playing this game because the voice talent behind it was impressive. Michael Madsen, Mark Hamill, Rachel Leigh Cook, Michael Rosenbaum, and Eliza Dushku make up an ensemble cast that many producers would give their right [and/or left] testicle for, so when the dialog falls flat, and you find yourself wishing the post office was still open so you could send this title back to the Gamefly from which it came, it makes you wonder what the hell has gone wrong.

Yakuza shouldn't suck. It's made by Sega, it's a brawler [usually right up this ninja's alley] and is based on the Japanese mob so there is plenty of reason for violence, conflict, treachery, debauchery to take place. But in actually playing the game, you find things are very formulaic in that point "A" leads to point "B" and that there is no way to get to point "C" without first going through points "A" and "B." Within launching the title you immediately notice that this game is not for the kid-lings. Yakuza has more drops of the F-bomb [I'm talking fuck not fack] then a hooker with tourettes syndrome. Foul language doesn't offend me, it really doesn't... but when you use a curse word too often you take the edge off it. Fuck is one of those words whose edge should never be softened. In Yakuza at least one third of the dialogue exchanges that pops up contain some use of the word fuck, and for no apparent fucking reason either. Lame.

As I reached hour one of gameplay I found myself comparing Yakuza to Shenmue, another game made by Sega. Both games feature a young man, in love with a girl, battling gangs/mobs throughout town to try and piece together how his lady has ended up missing. In Shenmue you play the character of Ryu, and end up traveling all around town finding clues, working jobs, and occasionally fighting the odd bad dude on the quest to save your fair lady. In Yakuza you play Kazuma, and after some shizzole goes down you get stuck in the joint for a 10 year bid. While you are in jail you find out that your honey dip Yumi done lost her marbles and has disappeared. Once you get out, you set out to find her and figure out what the hell happened all those years ago.

Initial comparison aside, I expected the same level of detail in Yakuza that Shenmue had. Imagine my surprise when I started up the game and there were more artifacts on screen than in an ancient Egyptian tomb! Even pre-rendered video's seem to suffer from and infestation of jaggies. At times it is difficult to get the main character to stay focused on target and you wind up punching at air while a group of baddies stand behind you and try to hit you. Lame again. But I soldier on because I think that the story is going to get deep. It's obvious to me that there are going to be some twists and turns coming down the line and I want to see them. But the formula kicks in again... cut scene, cut scene, 5 person lame fight, cut scene, wander around to find the pink spot on the map, count the times the word "fuck" gets dropped. Yippie!

Now, there is supposed to be a film adaptation of this game and there was a sequel to the game released in December, but for now I'm going to give Yakuza a 2.5 out of 5.

Maybe if I get deeper into the game, the redeeming qualities that others have found in it will reveal themselves to me. But for now, I'm just going to go and play the Crackdown demo again and return Yakuza to GameFly

Finish What You Start...

Months and months after moving into my new digs I have finally reassembled my tower of power is back in business.

I speak, of course, of my gaming rig... the center of my entertainment world is whole once more. It's taken me months to find all of my cables, power cords, power bricks, games, and then the time to put the sonofabitch together. I put the most important systems on the TV to start [being the next-gen boxes] but the PS2, Xbox, and PSP sort of kinda languished in a box over in the corner of the room. A dimly lit corner of the room to make it even more pathetic. I would have had a GameCube in the tower as well but it was given to Pandalicious in hopes that it might lure her away from WoW. It did not.

So what's in my gaming rig you might ask? Well, in what has now become the "Tower of Older Power" we have the Xbox with slight modification, a PS2, PSP, Gameboy SP, 6-input S-Video switch, XB360 quick-charge stand, digital cable box, and games awaiting a trip to the local Gamestop for trade in.

In the main arena I have my PS3, XB360, and Nintendo Wii tucked away under my 42" TV from LCD Olevia Yes, the NinJa is back in action people. Now some of you may have noticed that I mentioned a bunch of consoles that have online gameplayability, [hehe, I made a new word] but didn't mention how I have them networked... it's because I don't yet. Right now, the Wii connects to my existing wireless network and my XB360 and PS3 are share a connection from an Apple Airport Express. Until I decided on a good ethernet switch for these guys to share it will stay that way.

Now all I need is enough furniture so that the gaming parties can begin. What about you guys? What do your rigs look like? What would you like to add? Wanna send us a picture? I'm putting some larger images of my rig in the gallery, so check it out.

Finish What You Start...

It’s a new year people! Resolutions have been made (and probably broken already). As far as the gaming industry is concerned, there will definitely be new and exciting things coming our way. What are you looking forward to the most?

I’m sure a lot of people would name Halo 3 the most anticipated game of 2007. I’ve had mine reserved for the past month and will be standing outside of Gamestop if they have another midnight release. Even though I’m excited about that title, and can’t wait to put Master Chief back into the fight for mankind’s survival, it’s not at the top of my list.

One of the games of 2007 that has me sitting at the edge of my seat is Mass Effect for the Xbox 360. It’s an action rpg from the developers of Jade Empire and Knights of the Old Republic, both of which are awesome games. In both "JE" and "KOTOR", as they’re called, a lot of the plot twists and the outcome of the game depend on the choices you make. Your decisions may also effect the way your party members feel about you and whether they choose to join you at all. The same concepts have been added into Mass Effect and amped up a bit. All of this plus unbelievable graphics is enough to make my mouth water.

This year will undoubtedly bring new and exciting releases for all systems. What titles have you running to your local game store to place on reserve status? I’ll get the ball rolling since most of you are still probably recovering for your New Year’s celebration.

(Some of the these titles are coming out on multiple systems but I’ve listed the system I plan on playing them on.)

Mass Effect – Xbox 360
Assassin’s Creed – Xbox 360
World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade - PC
Tabula Rasa – PC
Halo 3 – Xbox 360
Wii Play – Nintendo Wii
Crackdown – Xbox 360
Rogue Galaxy – PS2

There’s plenty more but I’ll stop here because I have to go look for a second job to pay for the rest of the stuff that’s going to come out this year. I’ll turn the keyboard over to you. What’s your 2007’s Most Wanted?

Finish What You Start...

Soul Calibur 3 Review by Geek Woman

Soul Calibur 3 is a fighting game that is an exclusive on the PS2. That was a big disappointment for many people. On the whole it is a truly great fighter. There are some problems with it, as there are with any game. It is a quality offering considering that we are in the twilight days of the reign of the PS2.

Games that are vast and that have achieved a level of praise from gamers on previous installments, have a rough time of it when something like a third sequel is finally rolled out. That can go several ways. The game could just be terrible for many reasons. Sometimes a sequel isn't finished, and it doesn't have the depth that early versions of game had when the developers were trying to curry favor. This is not the case with SC3. It is almost too vast this time. It falls into that trap of trying to be the "everything for everybody" game. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, because it means they are trying to give you more stuff for your money. The good intentions don't always translate well. The addition of a real time strategy (RTS) game into the mix largely failed.

Not all game play modes are available from the start of the game. Many of the characters move lists have been changed which apparently has p'oed the hardcore fans to no end. Why would the developers of a much loved franchise do something like switch up the moves? It would seem that since the game is exclusively for PS2, that it was directed mainly at an existing fan base. Why mess with them?

OK counter to most reviews that you read which tell you the good stuff first, we've gotten the only two bad points about this game out of the way. First of all there is tons of content. Some of it is lousy granted, but still you won't run out of things to do. There are several new characters. Three of them are introduced right off. Access to the other new characters is gradual. There is new game-play, and the new modes too. If you have played Soul Calibur before you won't really be disappointed. If you haven't played any Soul Calibur games yet, get it or rent it.

Soul Calibur 3 has some of the most fun and interesting female characters in gaming today. Each one has a complete move-list. They have a selection of weapons that upgrade. You can buy more weapons, and armor. There are several costumes for each avatar.

Best of all is the character creation feature. You can design an avatar that suits you perfectly. There are endless combinations of clothing, armor and accessories. You chose a profession, appearance and even the voice of your character. That seems to be the most fair way to settle the issue with nudity in avatars. If you want to wear "barbarian underwear" to fight in - you can. If you want to cover up - you can. There are hoods and headscarves, your character could be clothed from head to toe and layers of armor can be piled on. The character creation capability gives a range of options that not only enhance the looks of your character, but it adds a new component to the game. You get to create your own ultimate fighter.

Game-play
There are about 18 different modes in the game. If you want to be hardcore and get all the unlockables, you would have to beat all of the modes to get absolutely everything. There are many surprising features in this game. Bottom line is it is the best 2 person fighting game out there. Still in all, you can win with button mashing. It's a fighter plain and simple, in spite of all the fancy window dressing. The AI is pretty predictable which can be good or bad depending on how you like to play. They seem to try to push your character into a wall or a corner. If you like a big challenge it is there. If you like to take it easy and see the whole game, you can do that too. Like many games, I can analyze what the game "punishes" you for. If you don't get the opening move right, it is likely that you will loose. If you turn your back to your enemy, or if your attacks fall short you loose. The timid are not rewarded in gaming.

There are around 30 characters to play with in the game as well as a strange random character generator which is fun. Two of the new characters are female. Tira, is a girl fighter who uses a razor sharp hoola hoop as a weapon. Setsuka is a Japanese geisha with a parasol and a sword. Someone must be hearing us. The fighting engine was revamped and improved. The weird Chronicles of the Sword mode enables you to take your new custom players onto a map, where you need to occupy enemy forts by beating them in battles. That was done better in SC2. The Arcade mode is called "Quick Play". The Tournament mode puts you in fictional competition. What is that about? There is no online play for this game which is a terrible shame. I have to say that SC3 beat the pants of Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks - which I was looking forward to more, but MK Deception has online mulitiplayer.

Graphics
The environments in this game are stunning. There are gorgeous landscapes. Marvelous temples, over flowing water falls and Ivy's over decorated mansion. The camera pans quickly over pink hued clouds in the background, water effects shimmer with some of best eye candy you can see. For a fighting game SC3 has the best looks going. And I am including DOA when I say it is the best looking fighter out there. There is no lack of colors. It is bright, bold and conspicuous.

Sound
The sound is a disappointment. There could have been better music for this game. I would have saved the space on the disk that was wasted on the RTS mode for better music. The voice acting is still very poor, and amusing because of it. The voices and the sound effects have not changed or been upgraded. While other games are integrating song lists and even iPod interfaces into games, SC3's lack there of is a letdown. I guess the developers missed the bit that Morgan Webb did on Xplay where they dubbed the weird grunts and groans from SC2 into suggestive parody skits.

Despite the superfluous extra features the game still is the top of the line fighter for PS2 beating out Tekken 4 with style. Soul Calibur 3 has a lot to offer girl games that like to kick butt. They built this one for us. (Yeah, I know they built it for guys that like to play with sexy female avatars.) I give Soul Calibur 3 a 4.5

Finish What You Start...

Holiday Hardware Guide by Geek Woman

If you are looking for some shopping advice on game hardware for the female, or male, gamer on your list then hopefully this article will help you understand it all. The location that is preferred for a game environment is an important choice to be aware of if you are shopping for games and accessories for your gamer. Games come in three basic types which are the PC, Console or Handheld. I'm going to try and give you the keys to the kingdom of the consoles.

First of all "What is a game console?" These are a box like machine that you attach to a TV set. Games are played with a controller that is held in the hands and effects the action on the screen. These have indeed been around since Pong and Pac Man, and if that is where you left the game trail, then you might be glad to know that those old school or retro games are still offered, in game packs and collections. Sometimes they have been updated and upgraded. If you want to pick up something like that for a gift you need to know the brand name and the model of the console or game device that your gamer has. Write it down and take it with you when you go shopping.

Some people opt for playing games on their PC rather than on the television. It seems that older people and women are the dominant demographic that enjoy using the PC for gaming. PC game - play are very popular for playing the massively multiplayer online games or MMOG's. Games such as World of Warcraft or Guild Wars are played on a PC with a keyboard and mouse. These games enable the player to interact with thousands of other players. Some of them also include the ability to talk to the other people while you are playing with them. Thought those features have been developing more slowly on PC. If your friend is playing an MMO there aren't many additional accessories for those. If they are a Guild Wars Player they may not have the new chapter called Nightfall which is a great game to add to the original Guild Wars or to buy it as a stand alone game. There are the Limited Edition Keyboards that are available for the MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing) games that are good looking and work well which are sold by a company called Zboard. Zboards

Perhaps the best way to determine what console to buy is to go by the age of the person who will be playing it. Right now there are three "next gen" consoles. Last year in November Microsoft upgraded their hardware and it is called the Xbox 360. It has mid - range graphics. There are over 100 games available for it at this time. The games are mainly of the first person shooter type or FPS and sports games. If you have heard of Halo 2 and Gears of War, or Oblivion those are titles for the Xbox 360. These games are for a mature crowd. The action is fast paced and bloody. Often the most popular games for the "360" carry a "T" for Teen or an "M" for Mature rating. Those ESRB ratings mean that Teens of 17 and 18 years old and above are the recommended age limit. These ratings can mean that there could be language or behaviors that some people would consider too crude for younger kids. It is no joke either. If you have a mix of older and younger kids in the house, the choice of games is crucial and requires your attention as much as monitoring what movies on DVD or cable that your younger kids could get into.

With Xbox the online aspect is called Xbox Live. A paid subscription is required for this additional service. With the online feature more games and demos are available to download directly into the console. The console can be bought with one of a few choices of hard drive size for saving downloadable games and other functions. Xbox Live gives players access to playing with many other players at the same time. It isn't 'massively' multiplayer as it is with with PC. Although large groups of strangers can interact with each other in an open ended party - line conversation. There are over 4 million users on Xbox Live. Xbox Live has something of a reputation for "Trash -Talking" which in short, means that a player that is wearing the headphones is opening themselves up to the possibility of hearing unkind and curse word laced tirades about the flaws in their game from other players. There is no one monitoring these conversations and there is no one censoring what the others could be saying. Because of this tendency, I would not recommend the Xbox 360 for little girls or young women under 18.

Costs for the annual subscription is approximately $50 US, its called Xbox Live Gold which includes voice chat, and Xbox Marketplace for gamers to buy and sell content. Sometimes original games, and old school arcade titles are downloadable. Xbox 360 works on HD TVs. They claim to have 250 old Xbox or "original Xbox" games that will play on the new console. Be careful to look up a list online for games that are called "backwards compatible" prior to inserting an old Xbox game into the Xbox 360. The digital media that it plays are DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 CD, JPEG Photo CD.

Microsoft has two variations of Xbox 360 available for sale. One has the Xbox 360 faceplate, and a Silver Xbox Live package, $300 known as a core package, that comes with one wired controller, standard A/V cable, and the console. The Gold package is required to actually play online games. There is a $400 system with a 20 GB hard drive, Xbox 360 Remote Controller, High Definition TV component cables, Xbox 360 headset and a wireless controller.

Next the Playstation 3 was released last week the manufacturer's suggested retail price is between $600 and $700 dollars US. It has been in the news and has gotten some bad press. Most of the incidents involved mismanagement of the long lines of people who were camping out to be able to get the very low quantity of these premium machines that were produced. One Massachusetts man was shot in a hold up of a line of customers waiting outside a store in Putnam Connecticut. The gunmen were attempting a hold up when this man refused to pay them. Because Sony was not able to make enough of these complicated advanced machines to fulfill the demands for them, it created chaos in several ways.

In the past Playstation 2 has been the most popular gaming console in the US with the most millions sold. Perhaps Sony should have waited to launch the sale until they had more of them ready. The PS3 Platform plays a few more accessories peripherals than the 360. It also boasts to be the most graphically advanced system. The new Blu-Ray Disc™ is a type of High Definition disk for playing movies that is supposed to be the future of disk published media. The way that DVD's replaced VHS a few years ago. The PS3 has what is called a SIXAXIS™ wireless controller that interacts with the screen in a close to 3D experience. You can use your Playstation 3 with High-Definition displays as well as conventional or standard TVs. It comes with either a 20GB or 60GB removable hard disk drive (HDD). The thousands of PS One® and PS2 PlayStation®2 games as well as CDs and DVDs are useable on the PLAYSTATION®3. The thing supposedly plays just about everything including some digital photo cards.

The PS3 has online capabilities including multiplayer gaming, text and video messaging, voice chat, downloading content and browsing the web. Even though the PS3 has impressive technical specifications, you may not be able to get one for the December holidays. It could be a moot point until sometime next Spring. There are over inflated PS3 prices on ebay, and buying those is not only exorbitantly expensive, but could be risky as well.

The PLAYSTATION®3 is available in two configurations with either the 20GB hard disk drive or the 60GB HDD. Some PlayStation 2 or PlayStation format software titles may perform differently on the system than they do on the native systems for example the PS3 doesn't support a vibration controller.

Then last Sunday the offering of the first Nintendo Wii consoles' launch was a 1960's "Love In" where the people in lines waiting were exchanging free hugs, ordering lunch for each other and playing games together. Something can be said about the two different types of people that were attending these launch parties. For the most part the Nintendo Wii draws a younger crowd and is most popular with younger kids and people that enjoy Nintendo's cute and quirky games.

There are approximately 50 games for the Wii, and we are told that there will be enough of the consoles to go around. Nintendo and developers seem to be in a rush to create new games for this innovative new product. Nintendo wanted to bring gaming to everyone, and has many titles that are rated for all ages and for kids. They went one more step and made a controller that is supposed to be easier to pick up and play since it is designed to resemble a television remote controller. You play with two hands and the actions resemble the actual movements of slashing a sword or driving. The remote is used as a handheld pointing device and can detect motion and rotation in three dimensions . The controller set called the "nun-chucks and wii-mote" interact with a sensor strip that you placer near your TV for a realistic complete 3D experience. A one-handed controller that uses a combination of accelerometers and infrared detection in conjunction with the sensor bar to sense its position in 3D space. Some people have found the workout to be a bit strenuous

The Nintendo Wii is not all things to all people the way that the other two consoles are attempting to be an all around media hub that takes the place of all the other components in your home entertainment center. What the Wii does do is add another level of fun and mirthfulness back into games. The unique controller has been a big hit so far and has gotten high marks from every reviewer. It is rare for something so gimmicky and unusual to get such a unanimous welcome from the jaded and snarky gaming community. People that have the 360 are getting the Wii too because it is like the apples and oranges in the PC world yet again.

The Wii is an ideal choice for a household with older and younger kids, seniors, and for the homes that do not have a High Definition TV set. Those aren't interested in the more mature titles, and those chat capabilities that are for adults or older kids can have a fairly safe online experience with the privacy and Friend policies from Nintendo. The console also features its own online service WiiConnect24 , which enables it to receive messages and updates over the Internet. The Wii console won the Game Critics Awards for Best of Show and Best Hardware. The console has a few kid safety features such as parental controls to prohibit younger kids from playing the wrong games. It reads the content rating and won't play games that are not set to the right age level.

The number of Wii consoles that will be available in the Americas during the launch rollout are expected to meet demand and sales of 4 million consoles worldwide by the end of 2006 are anticipated. The company affirmed that they "are working to ensure a plentiful supply and a consistent flow."

The launch Wii package includes the console, a stand to allow the console to be placed vertically, a circular clear stabilizer for the main stand, one Wii Remote, one Nunchuk attachment, one Sensor Bar, a removable stand for the sensor bar, one external main power adapter, AV cables (component video and other type of cables will be available separately), and a copy of Wii Sports in the US and Canada. The Wii console is the smallest home console unit of the three contenders and the least expensive at $250. US. The front of the console features a slot-loading media drive lit up by a by distinct blue light and it accepts both Wii software and discs from Nintendo's prior console, the Game-Cube. They are telling us that it is fully backwards compatible with all the Previous Game Cube games.

Additionally the interface for the console is designed around the concept of television channels, with a Wii Menu. Nintendo will not charge fees for playing games from the service. Channels are graphically displayed, and are navigated using the point of the Wii Remote. They are the Disc Channel, Mii Channel, News Channel, Forecast Channel, Photo Channel, Wii Shop Channel, Internet Channel. The Virtual Console Channel is basically an “online service, similar to Xbox Live Arcade. The Nintendo DS will be able to play game demos downloaded from the Wii console which gamers would receive from Nintendo, similar to a DS Download Station. Gamers can download retro games not only for the NES, Super NES, and Nintendo 64, but also Sega’s Genesis, NEC’s TurboGrafx-16 and others. The Wii has average graphics and only a 512 MB built-in flash memory, expansion is available via SD card memory, up to 2 GB max. It will take Game-Cube Memory Cards for saving GCN games only.

In addition to the larger game consoles or PC games that you find at home, mobile games have become very popular. The Nintendo DS is a hand held, rechargeable dual screen portable game system. It comes in a variety of colors and it is pocket sized. It is the most popular handheld game console, which easily buried the competition, which were the Sony PSP and the N-Gage. it has continued to hold the record for the most units sold just as the Game Boy has for years. It comes in two sizes. The original unit that made its debut last year, is referred to as the 'NDS' and it can play both the library of Game Boy Advance games as well as games for the DS. The DS Lite is a smaller sleeker version of the same DS machine, but it smaller and does not have the additional slot for the GBA games. You can find several reviews and editorials about the DS right on this website. Nintendo DS and the Wii are expected to have a type of connectivity to use functions like the Nintendo DS's microphone and touch-screen as inputs for Wii games like Pokémon Battle Revolution. It is expected that all of Nintendo's huge repertoire of well known game franchises, such as Zelda, Metroid, Mario, Animal Crossing, and Pokémon will come to the Wii in some form.

For very tiny kids and toddlers Leapster has the education interactive toys for under $100 Leapster

For an easy comparison chart you can check out Gamefly. They have a chart showing the three consoles. The Nintendo Wii, the Xbox 360, and the Playstation 3. Renting games or giving a Gamefly subscription is a good gift idea.

For a stocking stuffer I recommend Geek Woman's Game Guide 2006