3DYES

So I've been on the fence about Nintendo's 3DS for a while now. I have a love/hate relationship with Nintendo where i love the DS but hate the Wii, so a new DS piqued my interest almost immediately. It's specs seemed impressive enough, features seemed to be heading in the right direction (although no 3G is a bummer), and Nintendo seemed to be learning from their past failures (friends codes are apparently not entirely gone, but also not spectacularly awful). The big unknown was the 3D. Is it a gimmick? Does it work?

These are all the questions I've been asking myself and I still couldn't make up my mind until I saw a video of the system in action running Super Street Fighter IV and I was almost sold. It's the real-deal-holyfield version of SSF4, on a handheld with online play. Almost there.

Then, I saw Nintendo's AR cards. I can't really describe how amazing it looks. SOLD. Just YouTube it. The archery game alone is enough.

Got mine preordered and ready to go, and I haven't seen the 3D yet.

Apparently Best Buy has their demo units in already to check out, and Gamestop should be getting theirs any day now. I suggest you check it out.

PC Nerds are the BEST!!!

Because they give me the most ammo. G4 ran a story about the possibility of a console version of Diablo 3. I fail to see why this is the end of the world, but then again my blood doesn't boil every time someone says they prefer Xbox to Alienware.

If done properly (which given that this is Blizzard it probably will be), this could be a very positive thing. Blizzard sells more copies of Diablo (to people who don't steal them rampantly at that), more people are exposed to their game, giving way to more people trying out their other, PC only titles. The upside for players is that there is no downside. People without completely amazing computers get to experience Diablo 3.

The G4 article specifically stated that this will NOT take the place of the PC version. However it also specifically stated that this "had Activision written all over it" and "takes away one of the PC's big exclusives".

To the first point I'd say that OF COURSE this won't affect the PC version. This is Blizzard, they know where their fans are, and they're not stupid. Secondly, I hate on Activision as much as the next guy who actually cares about the culture and creativity of this industry, but they've NEVER interfered with Blizzard, and I don't see them being able to start now. And third, does it really matter if Diablo releases on console? As long as it's the same as the PC version (albeit with different controls), no one loses anything. This is just elitism.

I'd also take g4 to task for publishing the article in its state. It reeked of fanboy biased and was WAY below the standard that an actual journalist should adhere to. Leave your fanboy antics at the door.

The there's the big elephant in the room, which is the real reason for this outcry. This console version MAY exist, and if it does it exists to offset the lost sales due to illegal downloads of the PC version.

So in a nutshell, the PC gaming community is mad at Blizzard for making Diablo 3 for consoles. Blizzard may be making this version to compensate for the PC version being pirated.

Like I said, gotta love the PC crowd. If you love the ridiculous.

Moviegoing

Scary movies aren't scary anymore. They're not scary because we've seen it all. The oldest movie scares were ghosts, then that bastard Casper got all cutesy and ruined that for all the perfectly malicious ghosts. Then we moved on to the traditional monsters. Dracula, Wolfman, Frankenstein's Monster. Mel Brooks made possibly one of my favorite comedies of all time, but in the process ensured that I can't help but laugh every time I look at an animated corpse with neck bolts. You can thank Twilight and True Blood for gaying up the other guys.
Zombies. Zombies are still kinda scary I suppose, but check this. Ever notice that zombie movies apparently take place in an alternate universe with no zombie movies? They have to, because I swear to hell, the first time I see someone shambling at me with a speech impediment and a skin condition; Fuck it, I'm out. Shoot for the head? You got it. My own head. I don't stand a chance in a zombie apocalypse. I'm a walking Golden Corral buffet to zombies.
So with conventional scaries not getting the job done anymore, they had to ratchet back on the supernatural (except Japan, but those guys are screwed up on a whole different level). So then serial killers and pedophiles became the new monsters. But since the evening news is loaded with that shit anyway, we even got inured to them.
Next up, disasters are the order of the day. A meteor's gonna hit the Earth! Or a volcano's going to pop up in the center of Los Angeles! Or a multinational energy conglomerate will through their own negligence and disregard for safety will cause millions of gallons of oil to flood into the waters of the gulf of mexi.... wait. That was the news too.
So it seems the magic may be gone. Perhaps we've already run through all the permutations of scary movies. There's only one option left. The only way a horror movie should scare you in this day and age would be if you sat down in the theatre with your six dollar popcorn and your smuggled bottle of pineapple soda (or a flask of grain alcohol in my case, because nothing makes bad special effects and stilted dialog tolerable like being blitzed out of your gourd).
Anyway.
You sit down and put on your 3D glasses that you paid an extra five damn dollars for for some fucking reason.
(I hate 3D movies. They can't make good 2D movies anymore. Let's focus on the dimensions we already had! Let's master that shit before we add 33% more dimensions to the equation. Actually, no, I can't wait for 4D movies because then you can watch it before you go see it and be disappointed before it has a chance to let you down. Then there's the rare case that the movie's good so you know you liked it before you spend your money to see it. Now, you may ask, if you already enjoyed it, why would you still pay to go see it? Because you have to go see it in order to have pre-enjoyed it. Future Perfect tense has a way of smacking you around like that.)
Anyway. 3D glasses are on and you finish seeing the trailers for Twilight 6: Jake and Ed's Bogus Journey and THEN Twilight 7: Werewolves Do It Doggystyle, the movie is just 147 minutes of Gary Busey having eerily tender sex with your dad in the car you rode to the theatre in while he stares into the camera and whispers your name over and over again.
You try going to sleep after that. You won't even want to leave the theatre.

And that shit will win the Oscar.

Potentially Offensive Christmas Joke

Isn't it WAY more likely that someone just slipped the "Virgin Mary" a roofie?

Look Before You Leap

Wanna have an afternoon of fun? Start acting really weird and try to convince someone that you're Scott Bakula trapped in the wrong body.

Our Shark

He doesn't have any fins!
He's got the tail fins but that's it.
That's creepy.

Way to go, Hollywood.

So here I see on IMDB that Mark Wahlberg is officially starring in the Uncharted movie. You should already know that because that says "Mark Wahlberg" and not "Nathan Fillion" this is not going to be nice.

If you've ever watched Firefly and played Uncharted, you know this would be perfect. If you haven't done either of those things, go do them both now.

Fillion is basically already Drake, and I think it's really short sighted for Sony to not at least give him a look. I really like Mark Wahlberg as an actor and I'm sure he'll do a decent enough job, but this just reeks of marketing. Wahlberg's a name and all, but that's not what this needs. We don't need to see Mark Wahlberg dressed in a Nathan Drake costume. We need to see Nathan Drake.