As promised, here's the second chapter in Josh Lesnick's Pac-Man feature.  I've also taken the liberty of working out the kinks in my God Hand review.  You never seem to notice these mistakes in your work until after you've published it, you know that?

Speaking of recently published articles, you might want to head over to 1UP for Game Breakers, my laundry list of the worst play mechanics in video games from the past and present.

HABEUS CORPSE-US: Spiteful, self-righteous attorney Jack Thompson is on the warpath yet again after finding himself in the game Mortal Kombat Armageddon. Thompson plans to sue Midway for this grave injustice, forgetting that he was only added to Armageddon by players using the game's character creation tools. · · · ENOUGH WII FOR YOU AND ME?: Nintendo's Paul Gonzales has made a stunning announcement... even during the holiday rush, there will be enough Wii systems for both customers who reserved them in advance and those who plan to pick one up on November 19th. Gonzales makes no promises about the day AFTER the official launch, however. · · · GOLDEN JOYSTICK POLISHES ROCKSTAR'S KNOB: Believe it or not, games that haven't even been released yet can win Game of the Year awards. Edge Magazine seemed perfectly content to call Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories the best handheld game of 2006, even though the game won't be released until the 30th of October. Hooray for objectivity! · · ·

Happy thoughts, Jess... happy thoughts.  All right, here's one!  I've written the first full-length game review for the Blitz in... uh, forever!  You'll find it in the usual place, next to the canned beans and Grape-Nuts.  Tomorrow, I'll publish the second page of Josh Lesnick's Pac-Man retrospective.  That ought to hold you over until Halloween, at least!

LICKED-SANG: Hong Kong importer and reliever of long European system delays Lik-Sang has been driven out of business. Sony used an avalanche of lawsuits to bankrupt the Asian retailer, preventing it from shipping Playstation 3 units to Europe months before the system's official debut in that territory. · · · BIG JACK ATTACK: Attorney and anti-fun activist Jack Thompson may ultimately be burned the most by the Hot Coffee scandal. Annoyed with Thompson's constant legal harassment, Take 2 Interactive has requested that Florida judge Ronald Friedman charge the litigious lawyer with contempt of court. Why didn't Janet Reno think of this? · · · A VERY CASTLEVANIA CHRISTMAS: If you preordered Castlevania: Portal of Ruin from GameStop or EB Games, you're in for a very pleasant surprise! Reserve copies of the eagerly anticipated DS release will include everything from a CD soundtrack to an art book filled with Ayami Kojima's gorgeous Gothic paintings. · · ·

10/24/06

I'm stunned by the fallout over Sony's legal actions against import retailer Lik-Sang.  Angry gamers have been shouting from the mountaintops that they'll boycott every Sony product that comes down the pike, whether it's the Playstation 3 or the latest Will Farrell flick. 

There's only one thing I can say in response... THIS is the last straw for you?  After everything Sony's done to make the lives of gamers miserable, from the refusal to publish 2D games to the outrageous price of the Playstation 3, you're going to stop buying Sony products because they drove a stake through the heart of an expendable and easily replaced Hong Kong importer? 

Maybe I'm just saying this because I've always preferred National Console Support, but geez people... a sense of perspective is in order here!  There are plenty of good reasons to hate Sony.  This one is pretty far down the list.

DOOOON'T YOOOOU BELIEVE IT!: If you've been hearing rumors that Zelda: Twilight Princess won't be released for the Nintendo GameCube, well, disregard them. Joystiq reported the cancellation after the game disappeared from the GameStop web site, but the truth is that the store just ran out of copies to reserve for customers. Tsk tsk, Joystiq! · · · THE EARLY BIRD CATCHES THE SPINE: Eagle-eyed Xbox 360 owners were able to download Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 nearly a week before its official release on Xbox Live Arcade. The game briefly appeared on the download service before Microsoft realized its mistake and pulled the plug. Looks like good things come to those who can't wait! · · · FIVE WAY PLAY: Good news for Playstation 3 owners with more friends than money. Sony has announced that downloaded games for the system can be shared with up to four other PS3 owners. This comes hot on the heels of the recently discovered Xbox 360 hack that lets two players split the cost of a single Xbox Live Arcade release. · · ·

10/21/06

First things first... Josh Lesnick's popular Pac-Man History page has been completely rewritten, with a better layout and even more information about Namco's insatiable sphere.  The first installment of this six part series is now available on The Gameroom Blitz, with more to come in the next few weeks.  Special thanks go to Josh for all his hard work on this outstanding feature!

So, have you heard about the recent cancellation of Computer Gaming World?  It's funny... I never read the magazine (I was more of a Compute! and Ahoy! man myself), but I still mourn its loss.  After more than twenty years of publication, the magazine will be retitled Games For Windows, effectively ending both its life and an era where games were available for other operating systems.

As hard as it may be to believe now, there was a time when there was real competition in the computer industry.  Back when Windows was just a shell for DOS, there were four or five brands of desktop computer, all very incompatible with one another and all fighting tooth and nail to become the dominant force in the market.  The first 16-bit computers had just hit store shelves, introducing concepts like multimedia, multitasking, and arcade-quality gaming which helped shape the modern computing experience.

Those were exciting times.  The limited technology of the mid 1980's made every advance a monumental achievement, and each user had a distinct identity due to the wide selection of competing products available.  Today, nobody pays much attention to brand names, but twenty years ago, the model of computer you purchased made a big difference in the way you worked and played.  After you adapted to the unique quirks of your own machine's interface, anything else seemed foreign and backward to you.  This bred a fierce loyalty to home computers that makes today's gaming fanboys seem utterly indifferent by comparison.  After all, you didn't just own a computer... you owned a Commodore, or an Apple, or an Atari.

All that ended ten years ago, when IBM compatibles had saturated the market and Windows 95 became the operating system of choice for a new, less geeky generation of home computer users.  It's anyone's guess why it took so long for Computer Gaming World to reflect this paradigm shift.  Perhaps the editorial staff was reluctant to let go of the time when diversity in the computer market was commonplace.  If you'd like to relive the days before Microsoft monopolized the industry, you can download back issues of Computer Gaming World from this archive.

10/18/06

Well, this ought to kill any enthusiasm that may have remained for Lumines.  Bandai's got a lot of nerve forcing the player make not one, not two, but FOUR seperate purchases before they can have the entire game!  By the time Bandai is done shaking you for loose change, you'll have paid nearly forty dollars for Lumines Live.  That's just too much for an Xbox Live Arcade release and way too much for a simple puzzle game, even if it does feature Madonna shaking her saggy booty in the background.

Let's face it, folks.  Microsoft's support of Xbox Live Arcade has been, to put it politely, sad sack.  They've been missing deadlines left and right, and when they do finally release the games they promised over a month ago, they're underwhelming and overpriced.  They could afford to phone it in for the past year, but now that they actually HAVE competition, Microsoft will need to step up their game.  No more weekly offerings, if they feel like it.  No more charging five dollars for games we've already purchased on a half-dozen different platforms.  Finally, no more gouging customers for the few titles that actually ARE worth the download.

If Microsoft settles for business as usual, they won't stand a chance against Sony's high-quality original offerings and Nintendo's enormous back catalog of classics.  Both the Playstation 3 and the Wii are playing to win... will the Xbox 360?

CLOCKED OUT: Overclocked, the tongue-in-cheek emulation news site by David Lloyd, is no more. The site, best known for its reviews which took a decidedly MST3K-ish look at lame video games, mysteriously vanished from the Internet, along with a number of sites hosted on the Overclocked server. · · · WII ARE NOT AMUSED!: There's evidence that Nintendo may have broken another of the promises it made about the Wii. On the GameStop web site, titles like Super Smash Bros. Brawl are being advertised for sixty dollars, ten dollars higher than the maximum price Nintendo had set for its games. · · · CLOVER IS SO OVER: Okami producer Clover Studios will be shut down by Capcom next March, due to tepid sales of the subsidiary's games. Rumor has it that there's another motive for the decision... Clover's best designers are leaving Capcom to form a truly independent game design team. · · ·

It's a new era for The Gameroom Blitz!  After being hosted on Overclocked for five years, the site has packed up its bags and headed for Lakupo.com.

In celebration of the move, I've redesigned the front page, giving it all the functionality of the previous index with a lot more style.  I was nostalgic for the old days of the Blitz, with its banners which paid tribute to the great video games of the past.  Now that the site has gotten a fresh start, I hope to recapture that wide-eyed admiration for the hobby that's been missing from the Blitz for the past three years.

I've also taken this opportunity to trim some of the fat from the site.  It's gotten rather bloated over the past ten years, bursting at the seams with graphics and other files that haven't been used for years.  All of this debris has been swept away, along with a couple of pages which I felt should be left in the past.  I will bring back the Sega Saturn reviews that are currently absent from the new site, but first I'll need to decide whether to integrate them into the blue page design or just leave them the way they were on Overclocked.

There's one other thing missing from the site which you probably won't miss at all... advertising!  You shouldn't find any of that nonsense on the Blitz while it's hosted here at Lakupo; a sharp contrast to the mountain of pop-ups that covered the site back at its old home.  To those offers of homemade cigarettes and herbal Viagra, I give a hearty and heartfelt goodbye... and good riddance!

One last thing before I go... I'd like to thank Lakupo for the server space, and my buddy Freakservo for pointing me in his general direction.  Kudos to you both!  Now, without further ado, let the games begin!

BOLL BEATS TROLL: There is no joy in Goonville, for the mighty Kyanka was knocked out. The Something Awful editor was clobbered by awful movie director Uwe Boll in a boxing match sponsored by online casino Golden Palace. After the assault, Rich Kyanka angrily accused Boll of deception, claiming he was promised a clean fight before being thoroughly tenderized by Boll's fists of film-challenged fury. · · · KONAMI WAITS TO WHIP IT OUT: Dracula's greatest fear is not garlic, wooden stakes, or even the vampire-hunting Belmonts, but Final Fantasy III. That's probably why the release date of Castlevania: Portal of Ruin has been moved from November 14th to the beginning of December, weeks after the Square-Enix RPG hits store shelves. Both games will debut at $39.99. · · · SCAN-A-RAMA: What do you get when you cross a Dreamcast with the express lane at your local supermarket? Why, Mattel's Hyper Scan game console, of course! The recently released system reads lets players select their characters by passing special cards over a barcode reader built into the unit. It's like the Nintendo e-card reader, but with even less software support! · · ·