While I work away in my office, I almost always have the television on as a bit of background noise, usually tuned to The History Channel or Discovery Channel. While I was chugging away on a project today, slightly irritated at a commercial break, when I heard the words 'video game companies' calmly mentioned and my ears perk up. "What's a low-rent, infomercial-esque ad like this have to do with video games?" I wondered.

Ahh, Brain Age...

I guess I got bit by the Oblivion bug, just like everyone else and have been, on the side, writing my own little diary about my dinosaur: Terrifying Lizard(!!): Super King Awesome and his quest for honor, redemptiom, and dino-prostitutes.

Come along with me as I discover The Elder Scrolls for the first time:

http://obliviondino.blogspot.com

I spent a bit of time with Black this past week and, while I wasn't terribly enamored with the game itself, I was surprised to see something I haven't noticed in quite some time:

None of the cut-scenes are pre-rendered CGI clips, nor do they utilize the in-game engine. Black uses live-action footage in full motion video for its cut-scenes.

If you forget about games adapted from films/television shows, and if you ignore games that incorporate pre-rendered full-motion video into the gameplay (i.e. FMV games), then you're left with very, very, very few games where the developer actually spent the time to have hire actors, light the scene, film the scene, process it, edit it and insert it into the game. Mr. LeFeuvre and I tried to come up with a list of titles that fit that criteria and we couldn't come up with any that weren't Myst-like (for example, Zork: Grand Inquisitor).

Those crazy cats at Kidrobot are at it again. To complement their infamous, newly re-stocked Super Mario magnets (don't forget series two!) and their still-available Super Mario Stage and Super Mario keyrings, you can now pick up a Nintendo Controller keyring featuring either original Mario or Super Mario.

The icing on the cake? Embedded sound effects in the controller. Is it just me or does that Famicom look just never goes out of style.

As some of you may know, I was greatly anticipating Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence, not because of the new camera (so far, I actually find it a bit disorienting) or the online gameplay (I have yet to play a match but, thanks to Mr. LeFeuvre, I could if I wanted to!) but because of the third disc, available only in the limited edition of the game. This third disc, Existence, compiles all of the cut-scenes from the game and weaves a film from of the scripted content. It sounded like a bold experiment and I was terribly interested to see how it would play out.

I placed my pre-order for the limited edition about two or three weeks prior to the game's release at my local Gamestop, even calling ahead to make sure that they were still taking pre-orders, since a number of big online sites had ceased taking pre-orders. However, when I arrived and plunked down my $5 advance, they couldn't find the limited edition in the computer system. Nonetheless, I was assured that there would be a copy waiting for me upon release.

Of course that's when I turned to Unitdaisy and told her 'I know I'm gonna get screwed by this.'...

Oh how time flies. It seems like just last week I was attending the Data Destruction Tour, thrilling to the live Game Boy-generated sounds of Nullsleep, Bit Shifter, Covox and Bud Melvin. Well, Bit Shifter and Nullsleep are at it again - they're cozying on up for an international tour this time around, a tour so enthralling it can only be described as the International Chiptune Resistance...

I'm not sure if people have noticed but I've been ignoring my beloved TNG Journal. Hell, I've been pretty scant around the site in general.

Well, there's a pretty damn good reason: I just moved to LA for a new job!

Roger Ibars loves joysticks and he loves creating works exploring the facets of control, so he merged the two into a body of work called Hard-Wired Devices. Starkly beautifully and functionally perverse, it's an intriguing collection that's well worth your time...

It's been a while since Chicago has had a bit of chip-fun in the live music department, but that drought is finally over!

At least, that's according to the waitress of Darwin's Bar & Grill. In Chicagoist's recent article concerning the pub, they state that an NES, a long-time fixture there, was removed by the new owners because it was considered 'bad for business'. I'm not exactly sure what that entails, whether they mean that patrons had something other than their drinks and the wall to stare at so they drank less, or whether the NES attracted riffraff and scared away more affluent locals, but apparently it really brought the place down.

That's a shame, because it's tough finding public places embracing games in Chicago, even if it's just on an NES. Sure, there's the landmark Dennis' Place arcade (where you can game, but can't drink or eat), or if you want to head downtown, Dave & Busters (where you can drink and eat, but have to put up with too many three year olds). Hell, back in the day when unitdaisy and myself organized club events we always managed to drag out a Dreamcast and a video projector, just so those who weren't so into the music could bask in big-screen Crazy Taxi or Soul Calibur goodness.

It's possible the NES didn't necessarily work into Darwin's evolutionary motif, but that's what additional consoles and televisions are for! They could have a mini-Game On, right in the pub! If so, I'd certainly make the effort to add it to our routine pub list (along with the Riverview Tavern, Duke of Perth and early morning football/soccer at Ginger's Ale House). Oh well, there must be another local pub out there that has something other than Golden Tee on the gaming tap, right? Right?

Yes, we've been quieter than normal over the past week but that was not our intention. The Friday before last, our Movable Type install started causing serious problems, yet again, forcing us to basically shut down our backend. We then had the following options:

1) Shell out a few hundred dollars, resentfully upgrade to Movable Type 3.x, and still feel restricted with what we can do as long

or

2) Bite the bullet and migrate everything to a different content management system.

I decided on the later, and immediately commenced work on moving over to Drupal. I'll save you the long story, but after much hair-pulling and swearing, just about everything has been moved over. Sadly, it did take longer than expected (I hoped to have things up and running on Friday, and instead spent all weekend working on the darn thing), but I think it has been worth it.

Retroblast notes that StarROMs, the pioneering company who brought legal arcade ROMs to the general public, has shut down their site. If you head there now, all you get is the following message: Since October 2003, StarROMs has provided a...

So some of you know may know that I'm a bit of LEGO fan.

Fanitic.

Whatever.

And obviously, I dig video games as well. And I've been known in the past to enjoy combining them. And so it has happened again, although this time with more retro!

This time it's not just me! No no, I've conned three more into playing with the devilish plastic bricks: the newest members of Brick Flick: Jason Dunn (who posts here as Otherland), Jason Wilson and Mike Yang!

Negative Juan?! Unfortunately, this quirky rat does not live in my town. Over the weekend I visited a friend's place to trade fossils and items (although my quest to finish my Parasaur seems doomed) and I met this fine...

$5 off a future Lik-sang purchase that is! I have a $5 coupon off of any Lik-sang order $40 or greater, and I don't have anything to import at the moment so I figured someone else may be able to...