Crikey! We’ve found a rare Mercenarius Americanus! Gorgeous! Now watch as I jam me thumb up his butthole.

Now that I’ve gotten my WoW character mostly caught up with everyone else, it’s time to knock some Winter Games off my list. Even though I’m very close to the end of Grim Fandango, I’m in no big rush to finish it. I could probably knock it out in a night, but it’s easy to play it for short bursts so I’ll spread it out and instead devote the large chunks of time to the titles that demand them. Moving down the list, the one I’ve invested the most time with so far is Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, and so last night I returned to the soft-soled shoes of everybody’s favorite techno-ninja for the first time in nearly 7 months.
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It sure as hell beats asking this guy.

I think we’re more or less in agreement here, as indicated both by past conversations and current Winter Games lists, that there’s nothing quite like a good adventure game. Whether it’s solving well-thought out puzzles, following an intriguing storyline, or laughing at the hilarious dialogue (Lucasarts, where have you gone?), nearly everyone can find something to like about this genre. However, unlike other game types whose difficulty is based on button-tapping skills, when an adventure game gets hard it’s usually all mental. No matter how furiously you can click that mouse or pound those keys, no amount of dexterity in the world will help you if you can’t figure out in what order to pull the levers or if you still don’t know how to solve the 342nd in-game implementation of the Tower of Hanoi in disguise. The Catch 22 is that it’s traditionally very difficult to look up help without giving away the answer to the puzzle, which is the equivalent of playing through an FPS in God mode with infinite ammo…sure you can enjoy the story and the scenery, but where’s the fun? Where’s the challenge?

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Eat My Bomb rockin’ the Arctic

You might not realize it, but we really go out of our way to not post about World of Warcraft. Not everybody who contributes to the site plays the game. Not everybody who reads the site plays the game. Those of you to whom the last 2 statements apply probably aren’t aware of what not posting about it entails, since those of us who play regularly easily commit upwards of 20 hours a week to this single game. It takes something special to warrant subjecting you to more tales of WoW, and I can only hope that this qualifies.
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Two will enter, one will leave

Oh joyous day.

Last weekend, I got the new Xbox360 Controller for Windows. The Thrustmaster Dual Power 2, having served me well for years, was starting to show its age in both form and function. Since it came out controllers have slimmed down, trimmed up, and become drastically more responsive. When Microsoft came out with the Controller S, they corrected every blunder that plagued the original basketball they packed in with the system. The next evolution has arrived with an even more contoured, comfortable feel and better placement of the ancillary buttons (black, white, select, and start). The Windows version is the exact same thing as the wired unit for the 360, but packed with a driver disc. After spending the better part of Sunday afternoon putting it through its paces, I believe this is the last PC controller I will ever need. I just can’t imagine it getting much better or more authentic than this.

What does all this rambling signify? Warrior Within, Psychonauts, The Two Thrones, GTA: San Andreas, and the Soul Reaver series have all just gotten a major bump on my list of priorities.

Game on.

I’ll hold him you grab his wallet, dawg!!

This past weekend, on a break from a self-imposed “24″ marathon, my girlfriend and I decided to fire up a game. This left the eternal question, “What to play?”. Do we go back to the old standby of World of Warcraft? Lots of fun for each of us but not really a “together” experience…not while we’re separated by 16 levels, anyways. How about a little Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory co-op? Certainly fun and challenging, but just a little too slow-paced and methodical…not what we were in the mood for. Hmmmmm….Fast-paced action in a co-op title with an easy enough learning curve that we’d be having fun within 5 minutes?

Enter Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks.
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Paradise in a box

It seems to be something fundamentally interwined with males on a cellular or perhaps even genetic level. Some mutation in our DNA that has arisen in the past 30 or 40 years. Every guy, big or small, short or tall, wants to have an arcade cabinet or pinball machine of their very own. No matter how powerful the home consoles get, no matter how far they surpass the arcade machines in graphics, story, style, and control, no matter how much emulation can be found and downloaded, every man wants his own quarter-muncher (set to Free Play, of course). Lately, this dream is becoming more of a practical reality than ever.
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Something’s….different about you

So how do you take a system that is on the cusp of being phased out and breathe fresh new life into it for less than the cost of a single game?

Several weeks ago, I finally got around to modding my Xbox and opening up a whole new world of entertainment. Streaming videos directly from the PC with digital audio, enough previous-gen emulation to make a man cry, and the ability to “rent” titles before you buy them has always been a no-brainer of a decision. The only obstacle to doing this sooner has been the reluctance to make a potentially devastating alteration to my one and only console. Oh, what a fool I’ve been…the solderless adapter for the modchip makes installation a breeze (not to mention entirely reversible). Every instruction you need can be found at Xbox-Scene as long as you’re willing to do the legwork yourself. There is very little handholding in this endeavor, but I give you every assurance that it is worth it.