I could list lots of reasons to watch but to get to the point of how this relates to video games is that it’s highly likely that Patton and Brian are bigger nerds than you are. They regularly have their geek out sessions when the new comic books come out each week, and Brian has a room like this:

When they’re in Portland and run across Ground Kontrol (retro gaming galore), Brian is in heaven:

I point this out because it’s nice to see some of our people on TV, who do other stuff (stand-up comedy) and still like video games. No replacing letters with numbers in speech within a hundred miles. Highly recommended.

Towards this end I’ve started a Celebrity Gamers List that I’m going to try to keep updated. I’d appreciate any contributions. This info just might be useful to future generations.

• Dungeons and Dragons Online comes out tomorrow, for all five of you who aren’t playing World of Warcraft and aren’t satisified with your meatspace d20 experience. The New York Times has an article on the thinking behind the game and reminds everyone that Vin Diesel is a big nerd.
• Nich Maragos drops numbers left and right like he’s Walmart and talks about supporting the market in the the latest entry in the latest entry in 1UP’s Speaking Up series, Xbox 360 vs. the Public Good. I think there’s no denying that Microsoft placed a higher priority on getting out of the gates before anyone else than on getting all their ducks lined up in a row, but it will allow them to get a strong foothold in the market with a decent library of games by the time the PS3 comes out. People hated Sony during the PS2 shortages but the PS2 seems to be doing okay now!
• I would put a link to the video showing the horrendous load time for Smackdown vs. Raw 2006 on the PSP but it no longer seems to be available on Google Video or Youtube. Wouldn’t be surprising in the least if Sony or THQ made them take it down. It seems to be in vogue to pile on the PSP and give all praise to the DS but if the load times are like those shown in the video then I’d be tempted to chuck the thing out the window.
• Any color you like, as long as it’s white: Lik-sang passes along word from Nintendo that only white DS Lites will be available on the 2nd in Japan, no ice blues or enamel navies until the 11th. Importers like Lik-sang are definitely doing big business with this so it’s clear that there’s a huge demand in the States, so hopefully Nintendo gets with it and brings it over here proper soon. (from Slashdot Games)
• Some recent reviews on other sites:
  • Sonic Riders for PS2 @ Gamespot: “There are times where you’ll find yourself enjoying how blazingly fast the game can go, and others where you’ll be frustrated beyond belief by the very same thing. And that’s all within a single race.”
  • Super Princess Peach for DS @ Gamespot: “Except for your final encounter with Bowser, the game is too easy and too forgiving for its own good.”
  • MX vs. ATV Unleashed for PSP @ IGN: “While the series’ transition to PSP isn’t quite as perfect as we’d have hoped, it’s a damn good game that should please not only the motocross and ATV fans out there, but most any PSP owner.”

• First annual video games and sex conference scheduled for June, allows concerned citizens to be more efficient and protest two heinous corrupters of children for the price of one.
• Video of the day: The Adventures of Vernon. Bored college students recreate Zelda and finally do something about Navi once and for all. (”Hey!” “Hey!” “Hey!” “Hey!”)

On Google Video there’s a video of a cast of World of Warcraft characters performing the song “The Internet Is For Porn” from the musical Avenue Q. They’ve done a great job of syncing the movements to the words and it’s funny stuff, so find out once and for all what the Internet is good for anyway.

GameScience reports that Mario Party 7 was the top seller in Japan for the week of November 7-13, almost twice as much as second place, Shinobido Imashime. I had no idea these things sold so well but it certainly explains why they keep pumping them out with minimal effort. C’mon, Japan, let’s demand something new. For our children’s sake if nothing else, to prevent them from buying Mario Party 15 and wondering why nothing has changed from Mario Parties 12, 13, and 14. We have to stop the madness now before it’s too late.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Rapper 50 Cent, once shot nine times on the street in a gang incident, said on Tuesday parents should buy their children his new video game, rated ‘mature’ for blood, gore and sexual themes, and use it as a teaching tool.

…

“Just because it is rated mature doesn’t mean you shouldn’t buy it for your kids,” the rapper, whose given name is Curtis Jackson, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday. “Play the game and explain to them what they are playing.”

I agree with Mr. Cent. Research the games you buy for your kids. Some you may want to hold off on till they’re older, others you can play with them and discuss what’s going on and make sure they understand the difference between games and real life.

Still, you may want to choose something other than 50 Cent: Bulletproof, if IGN’s review is anything to go by.

One of the rumors floating around is that backwards compatibility will only work with a hard drive, which would have left Core systems out in the cold. As it turns out, that’s only partially true. In many cases, the hard drive will indeed be necessary because you’ll need an Xbox emulator file to sit on the hard drive (it’s still unconfirmed whether this emulator comes pre-shipped on 360 hard drives but it is highly likely the case) and make your Xbox games 360-friendly. However, our understanding is that this isn’t perfectly foolproof, and that it may not work in every single case.

She goes on to report that some games being released already have 360 emulation code on them but this requires help from Microsoft and thus only the big names get this treatment. No names but you can probably make educated guesses. I don’t think the lack of PlayStation-level backwards compatibility will be a major drawback for most people but it is for me, owning only the red-headed stepchild of the current generation. If I can put together enough disposable scratch for the PS3 or 360 I’ll be rocking all night long to games you forgot about years ago. Years!

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GameStop bundles range from $699.91 all the way to the “seventeen cents shy of $1200″ pièce de résistance pictured above. In case you were wondering, the HD experience is only included with the $799.90 bundle and you’ll still have to shell out more bucks for the premium Xbox Live service unless you move up to the $899.88 “Gold Bundle”. Something is very wrong here. It’s like Microsoft wants to pave the way for Sony to come in like a knight in silvery-plastic armor to give us a $350 non-bastardized package. It’s still up to the retailers to not be total jerkwads with the forced shoveling of substandard launch games which I suppose is being overly optimistic.

It’s revolutionary in the same two senses that controller rumble is/was revolutionary: first, it’s kind of actually not a huge deal, but controllers will eventually all have it because it is pretty neat; and second, it involves revolving. Simply, the Revolution controller will provide resistance to being tilted. No doubt this is done by some application of a tilt sensor such as the one in WarioWare: Twisted combined with rumble technology.

Gyroscopes are the wave of the future. Impress your friends as you balance your controller on the head of a pin. Spin the controller around like a top and scratch up your furniture. Nintendo’s profits may wobble but their controllers won’t fall down.

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