The Greatest Things Ever

WARNING: Once again, tons of pics ahead, sorry 56k.

- Yesterday, before class, I got a surprise visit from Farel. He’s in town for a friend’s wedding, and was on his way to Jim Hanley’s Universe for the Bizarro Wold book signing, but had some time to stop and chat for a few, and that really made my day. Farel is a truly awesome guy and some of my best times here in NYC have been with him, simply because (and maybe more so than any other friend) he knows how to have a good time. Hence why I can forgive him for dissing Black Belt Jones in favor of Viva Knievel (I really hope MK made it to the signing and was able to give him a hard time about it).

- As for class, everything went smoothly even though I forgot to bring some 2600 roms and a controller. So when I went over the golden age of gaming, I simply concentrated on arcade classics, and I don’t think the students had too much of a problem with using just a keyboard. Plus, during my overview of Atari, when I brought up the Cosmos, this current auction came in very handy.

- For those who are curious, I had a lovely Valentine’s Day with MK (the first time ever, actually). And thankfully, when I got so pissed at the retard waiter at the restaurant to the point that it looked like I wanted to seriously punch him in the throat (along with some jack-off who was carrying his dumb kid around in his arms but wasn’t paying attention and I got hit in the back of the head with his little snotty spawn), MK found it humorous and not mortifyingly embarrassing. Plus, I have a great little story about some crack-head lady who took a monster piss right in front of me that night, but I think I’ll pass it along later.

- I forget if this was mentioned before, but the original plan was for me to go to San Fran with MK for APE, but due to a variety of reasons, those plans have been cancelled. One was that I wanted to have a comic, which I was originally going to do for True Porn 2, available for sale, but now I doubt that I would be able to make even an April deadline. Another reason was a conflict with another possible speaking engagement. And that possible has turned into concrete; once again, I will be talking at ICON. Be sure to check out the news sections for more info as it comes.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world of video games…

- Remember that Kamari hat that was on eBay not too long ago? Well the girl in the picture is actually the creator, and it was so popular that she’s decided to make a business out of it…

- Meanwhile, if you live in Japan, you can get a Katamari hand puppet via Sony’s PlayStation 5th Anniversary celebration…

- And from Tecmo, you can get this awesome Kasumi mousepad…

… I guess it’s a bit “been there” considering how sexy mousepads have been around for a while now, though it should prove popular with those who really wanted the Kasmui pillow.

- Back to the subject of Valentine’s, here’s a story of some guy who proposed to his loved one via Animal Crossing. Awww….

- So Ubi Soft, which many will recall was in the process of a possible hostile take-over by EA (and was doing their best to fight it) is now talking with them regarding a possible merger. France cannot be happy with this, especially since they actually fund game development, and I believe gave Ubi some money not too long ago (plus they hate American business, and with shit like this it’s not hard to see why).

I just hope all this happens after Ubi releases Lumines in the states; knowing EA, if they had it their way, all the music would be replaced with that EA Trax bullshit. Though Ubi’s doing a good enough job by themselves with fucking the game up; just compare the simply beautiful original to the brand new god-awful offering…

- Anyone familiar with the burgeoning Korean gaming scene can tell you that a majority of the stuff coming out from there is either a blatant rip-off of an established game or a MMOPGP. Well here’s some screenshots of something that’s both…

- Neo202046, a great source of info on the GAF (he was the one who broke news about the Korean faux-Wind Waker) also mentioned of a rumor from Japan about a possible Mario Kart arcade game being developed by Namco (who recently did the recent Starfox Assault and Donky Konga). The game, if it indeed exists (seems pretty plausible to me), will be unveiled at AOU 2005 tomorrow.

- Also on the GAF, someone posted a screenshot from Tattoo Assassin. I didn’t pay much attention to the blatant Mortal Kombat rip-off when screens first surfaced, but after seeing this…

… I now must play this game if I wish to die happy.

The screenshot btw comes from this awesome site which, as far as I can tell, is the only source for Tattoo Assassin. Though after seeing this for the first time in ages, I do recall Prizm looking pretty fucking hot even back then.

- And one last GAF related thing: my copy of Mr Driller Drill Land finally arrived (which Andrew, everyone’s best friend over at insert credit, hooked me up with).

Too bad I can’t seem to find my FreeLoader anywhere.

- Speaking of insert credit, someone at the forum has brought to attention Senko No Ronde, which is…. get this…. a shooter/fighter hybrid. Holy fucking shit indeed.

You can check out videos of it in action here (btw, Click-Stick is an awesome site, if only for providing the direct game music from Rez, but it also has a bunch of other cool stuff).

The game is from G. Rev and it’s last game was Border Down, which is widely regarded as the best shooter for the Dreamcast (yes, people are still making games for that system), and which I sadly missed out on (its super rare as hell), so I don’t intend on missing out on this one. As I’ve said before, it’s sorta funny that in this day and age (especially with the PSP and others systems just around the corner) I’m still hunting down games for the Saturn and Dreamcast.

- Also on the IC boards, you will find this picture…

… along with many other example of bizarre Mario renderings here.

- From Segagaga Domain comes Retro Core, an online retro video game show that features classic games, mostly from Japanese systems. I haven’t had the chance to see it yet, but it already sounds awesome. I’ll probably check these out tonight, though I should probably check out Consolevania as soon as possible as well, considering that they’ve been on my hard drive for months, untouched.

- Meanwhile, back in the “real” world, and I know this must be old news by now but, Warner Bros. is doing an “EXTREME!!! update to Bugs Bunny & pals which can be accurately described as one of the dumbest things ever. Here’s a look at Bugs…

- At the Cryptic Press/Yaytime! forum, Dave passed along what might be the greatest comic I have every laid eyes on. Seriously. Shit like this is I’ve been so lazy about doing my own stuff; because people are beating me to it.

- And Finally, Jason sent me this link, and you forget what I said about Chengwin being the new Kaiju, cuz Kami-Robo is the true successor.

I just gotta get my hands on that DVD…. a DVD with just some guy playing with wrestling toys. Genius!