AndrewTS

Anya: the FFX ladies are on board--you must get this game. That's not a flattering pic of Burress, though.

I'm surprised there's no thread for this yet... Anyway, we've still got some time to go, but with all the major characters' US voices finally revealed (many of them no-brainers, though), figured I'd post them: http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3147824 Depp seems either no or unknown, though. Too bad, since he'd be voicing two characters in here. But screw him--CHRISTOPHER ****ING LEE is in there!

It seems the Brits have a lot of awesome (yet violent) video game commercials. http://www.youtube.com/w/Prince-of-Persia-...prince%20persia

The whole "pissing on his grave" idea sounds too mundane for WWE creative. My prediction: Orton uses stock footage of Eddie to interview him in hell. The fx guys can matte in some nice flame effects on old footage, and Eddie can end up wearing a different shirt in each piece of footage. High-larious, no?

It's early in Q1, near the end of a console gen. The biggies that will send out this era with a bang (KH2, FFXII, LoZTP, TRL, etc) aren't coming out until Marchish-Aprilish. The only major console release due out soon is Black.

Nintendo *hearts* Apple. http://toastyfrog.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId...cUserId=5379721

I like Land a hell of a lot more these days since I picked up the DVD. Although I like Dawn and Day quite a lot, Night has aged horribly. The rules it layed out, the imitators and sequels it spawned are hard to separate from the film itself. I watched the Land commentary, and Hopper brought a lot of great ideas to his character. The scene where Chulo offers him a drink (and he then ignores it and pours his own), as well as when he is trying to make his escape and warns that guy to GET DOWN (before shooting him in the head) were Hopper's little contributions. When I first saw it the symbolism seemed beat-you-over-the-head annoying. Now it doesn't seem quite so much, although it has a few groan-worthy moments.

Hell no. Dennis Hopper + Eugene Clark as Big Daddy + Dead Reckoning + some great makeup and gore + a machete-wielding zombie Savini made it well worth it.

The division is really bad right now, but a couple black eyes stick out that I thought were far worse. - Gayda's debut. A total disaster in just about every way. She didn't get much better, either--seeing her screw up something as simple as a clothesline sell when she got back made me groan. - Stacy as She-Diesel. For about a 2-3 week period they had her throw on a pair of leather pants and pretend to actually be a competitive wrestler. A powerbomb would have done wonders, cuz she didn't even have that. Just slaps and foot chokes. - Torrie challenging for the women's title: Shortly after the split Molly was on both shows defending the title. The main competition SD offered was Torrie. So there were at least about 2 matches where Molly bumped her ass off for Torrie's lousy offense, which never got more thrilling than a body slam. Ashley's pretty lousy, but not much worse than Lita was when she'd be constantly blowing poor spots with little ability to cover it up. Mickie's had little one-on-one time, so can't say too much about her work jumps out at me, good or bad. Torrie's fine in her current role--getting her ass kicked, rarely talking, and no longer being the most overexposed and irritating female face since Sable.

E-mails/online screen names are sometimes the shameful tattoos of the online world. It beats having something like Sephiroth1985 or Vegetar0xx0rs99, though. Hurray for my bland initials-based SN. Saturn's US launch is perhaps the winner. A launch that resulted in a stillborn console and virtually handed the entire company's marketshare over to Sony? Far worse than a bunch of defective systems or a fart-in-a-windstorm launch for a console that never had much potential in the first place (i.e. N-Gage, Jag). Although many would beg to differ: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22wo...G=Google+Search

Chris: I'm sure you could write like a dozen columns on excellent Adventure games, since I know you're a huge fan of the genre. Another Neverhood project--Skullmonkeys, is also heralded as an unsung classic. I had it but never quite got the fascination, though.

Excellent taste, SK. I remember when I got my original Playstation, and I played the JF! demo a lot. I eventually purchased both JF!1 and JF!2--and I even played the original last week. It seems likely Retro Studios (of Metroid Prime fame) dug the game, because the MP games have a similar feel. JF! was basically the first game to do jumping in a First Person perspective right. I had Robbit as an MSN avatar recently, as well. Shadowrun being mentioned reminded me that I've been looking for that game forever--and I just lucked out and found it on half.com for 10 bucks + shipping. http://search.half.ebay.com/shadowgate-64_W0QQ I also often see it at EB/Gamestop for $4.99. However, many reviews I've seen remark that the original Shadowgate (an NES game) is better. Suikoden II isn't obscure (the Suikodens are outrageously overrated, even in they are good. How outrageous is it that you can't buy a used copy for less than 40 bucks at the usual places?!). Valkyrie Profile is fairly obscure--I've never seen the game at a retail location, ever.

I beg to differ. It has been several years and a company ago since Kidman had connected with the audience to any extent. Even so, it was fleeting and due to a big push.

Contractual obligations prevented it. EA had Shaq locked up--hence his crappy fighter and appearances in the NBA Live series. MJ's separate license agreements meant he *could* be used in video games if the company wanted to fork out a buttload to Nike or whoever. It's not that clear, though--EA somehow was able to get MJ to star in a crappy platformer but he wasn't in their B-Ball games until NBA Live 2000.

That game has an odd history. It's based on a Konami arcade B-Ball title called Run n' Gun (which was unlicensed). There was a 3DO title that was a virtual clone called Slam n' Jam. Shortly after, Konami released NBA Give 'n Go on SNES. Konami decided to be a wet blanket, and released their 32-bit follow ups to Give 'n Go as "NBA In the Zone." Just about all of them are decent to good, though: tight arcade-style gameplay and an excellent game perspective. Since the GBA NBA Jam sucked, Konami should make, like, "NBA Jive 'n Drive" for it. EDIT: Damn, I think the GBA NBA Jam 2002 is the only basketball game on the system.

Famitu RAGES AGAINST THE MACHINE by giving Dirge of Cerberus...an above-average score. http://1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3147827 Most import reviews indicates that the gameplay is a pretty lousy, but the game is purty. Oh, next Famitsu is supposed to have info on a PSP Tekken.

Titus and MwC are actually funny, though. And KotH is good, but totally wore out its welcome on me about 100 episodes ago. kkk and I are both in the W. PA area, and I can attest to that. At last count: UPN, WB, FX, WNPA and I guess now CMT have all been showing it recently.

It would have to be compressed to an animated gif. Some people just leech clips they found elsewhere, but some people probably have video editor programs to make them. I'd PM Downhome or someone else who you see with them in their sigs a lot. They might be able to make one for you if you ask them. However, after that you'd likely need to upload it to a website. Something like geocities or something like that may not let you do it--posting an image on a non-native server uses bandwidth, so most free servers make the pictures only display on their sites.

"I regret trying to manufacture controversy in order to get people interested in my web log." Yeah, right. "But the recent SmackDown episode did not honor his legacy, it exploited his death. I hope it will end, and the sooner the better." And in the end, we get a toothless wish. It happened well before it was announced that he'd be back on TV to take part in an angle. Of course, it wouldn't be the first time Foley actively bitched about the direction of WWE and then showed up to collect a paycheck regardless.

Discovered a budget game that is shockingly good? A lost old classic that never got much props? Post it here. I'll kick things off (an obvious one at first): Shantae (GBC) (cover art: http://www.vgmuseum.com/scans/gbc/gbcscans12/shantae.jpg) I've mentioned this title many times in the past--and it got some props in the recent Handheld Heroes 1up article. It's an excellent platformer with tons of RPG elements, great level design, stunning visuals (while on GBC, it looks as good or better than many similar GBA/SNES titles). It's quite a bit like Zelda 2 without the overworld, instead giving you a "loop" world (you can always get where you're going by traveling either left or right, although warps become available over time). A sequel for GBA was in development, but it hasn't been heard from in over a year and sadly may have been cancelled. Silent Bomber (PS1) Strikes against the game that led to its unknown status: The rather poor cover art: http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B0000...02.MZZZZZZZ.jpg Generic CGIish anime look. *yawn* A title that is also rather generic, and depending on how you hear it, flatulant. Plus, it was published by Bandai, who has quite the rep for horrible titles. It was developed, oddly, by the folks responsible for the less-obscure Tron-Bonne-ish Tail Concerto, who would later bring us the .hack games. Anyway, while the visuals are fine (the perspective is much like Loaded, so your main character doesn't need a lot of detail on him anyway), the gameplay is what makes it worthy. By tapping a button, you can lay a bomb. By holding the button, you get an aiming reticle that lets you toss your bomb ahead of you and either attach to an enemy, or lay it a short distance away. Rapid taps after laying the first bomb will lay multiple ones; you can increase the capacity of the bombs you lay further into the game. After laying the number of bombs you want, or running out of bombs, you can hit the detonator to blow them up. Although you can only lay a set number of bombs at once, you have an infinite supply of them. You also have limiited subweapons that can only be laid instead of directed--such as napalm burst, a gravity burst (that sucks enemies into a tiny black hole), and so on. There's some limited platforming, but mostly you'll need to bomb, stay alive, and weave your way through enemy shots (much like Cannon Spike).

Have Trish beat jobber "local" women every other week on TV, then once in a while have a 1/2 month agreement to bring in another female wrestler worth a damn for a feud. Hood: --kind of what you probably were thinking. Bull's retired.

Any Nintendo games on the Gamecube at this point would be nice. As it is, it's just totally a lame duck until Twilight Princess... Well, Chibi Robo looks good for a quirky game that casual gamers won't give a damn about, but what else is left? That and CURIOUS GEORGE are about the only new releases lately.

Well, they could be a tag team, but they'd occasionally try to kill each other, then laugh it off and have a drink. "I'm totally dead tired after these past three nights." "Eh, lay down for a bit here, I could get a substitute for our tag match tonight." *tries to encourage partner to lay down on a bed with a guillotine at the top. He starts to lay down...the blade slams down before he does* "THE HELL? Heheheh, you *ALMOST* got me..." Maybe that's why Tim can't kill himself.

Shane/Shawn would be much more watchable...are they going to do that at NWO and and Shawn/VM at WM? I don't know if NWO is a Raw PPV or not this year, however.

At this point isn't Foley averaging more matches per year than Taker? At the very least televised?