Top Ten Reasons the Nintendo Wii is NOT the Greatest

If you have followed my writing over the past few years, you wouldn’t be surprised to find out that I’m not the biggest Nintendo Wii fan on the planet. When I hear people talking about how it’s the greatest console ever, I just find it extremely difficult to understand how they could possibly think this. Nintendo fanboys sometimes remind me of women with battered person syndrome. The Wii is basically like a busted crack head who beats his wife (the Nintendo Wii fanboy) yet she still loves him for some reason. It simply does not make the least bit of sense. Don’t take my post too personal. I still enjoy certain aspects of the Wii. I just find that it’s a highly flawed system that receives far more kudos than it should have.

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‘Time Stand Still’ Dares You Not to Have Fun

We don’t know about you, but whenever a press release touts that their new game “contains no violence or foul language” and “no action sequences or timed puzzles,” our attention for it wavers more than a bit. Merscom’s Time Stand Still hopes to attract your attention regardless.

The game is completely mouse driven and features a story about an English girl, twenty-something, living in Sweden who takes on “cases.” Yes, the press release doesn’t go into any more detail than that.

Does it sound like a game you guys would play knowing that it keeps it G-rated and full of talkative, non-action bits? If it does, it’s now available for “as low as $6.99 with Game Club” here.

Via Press Release

Harry Potter Naked In Vogue (WTF)

I’m not sure what the hell is wrong with the editors of Vogue magazine, but they now have an issue out with Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) posing buck naked with a horse. This isn’t the first time Radcliffe posed naked with animals and we’re honestly tired of it and think this whole naked with animals thing needs to come to a swift end. To make things even worse, this article in the magazine was written to help promote a play in which the actor simulates sexual ecstasy while riding a horse naked. So basically we have a 17 year-old (borderline child porn) in a play that involves animal love or “bestiality” as the pervs like to call it and somehow this is “ok” with everyone. Even though he’s probably too old at this point, I’d rather see Radcliffe to go back to doing Harry Potter or some non-zoophilic role that isn’t so disturbing.

What are your thoughts on the topic? Leave a comment below…

Here’s the image via Perez Hilton’s blog:

Word of the Day: “Dap”

Dap is one of those interesting words with numerous meanings. We have yet to find a real reason to use the first meaning in the online environment, but we’ll eventually find the reason. Dap is basically a fist-on-fist greeting used to show respect. Back in the 1990s, we’d say “give me some dap” all the time, but the word eventually faded from common use. The online meaning for dap or d.a.p. happens to be “dumb ass person”, which is probably the form of the word we could still use on a daily basis. For example, “Jack Thompson is a d.a.p.”. The above image shows the future President of the United States giving his wife some dap. Sorry McCain, but we already know you lost. We’re really not sorry, but it sounded like the right thing to say.

The definition of “dap” according to The Free DIctionary obviously has nothing to do with the urban slang form of the word we use. It’s just simply a cool word and we’d like to bring it back.

dap (dp)

intr.v. dapped, dap·ping, daps

1. To fish by letting a baited hook fall gently onto the water.

2. To dip lightly or quickly into water, as a bird does.

3. To skip or bounce, especially over the surface of water.

‘Table Football’ Screens (Nintendo Wii)

European gamers will get the chance to check out ‘Table Football’ on the Wii tomorrow when it’s released. It’s a shame there’s no North American release scheduled at this time. Table football or foosball as we call it in the states is probably one of the greatest social games ever invented next to beer pong.

Sessler’s Soapbox: Diablo III’s Flaming Fanboys

Sessler is back with another interesting edition of Sessler’s Soapbox. This time he’s talking about Diablo III’s flaming fanboys. I agree with him that many gamers have narrow minded views about how games are supposed to be. I agree that the creators of Diablo III have the right to change the game. It does have better graphics and better animation. Adam also mentioned that we’ve only seen about 20 minutes of footage, so we really don’t know how good or bad the title will be at this point. Are people afraid of change like Adam says?

CGS Pro-Am Division Registration Open (Video Games)

The Championship Gaming Series (CGS), the only sanctioned worldwide professional gaming league, opened free registration for the inaugural CGS Pro-Am Division, greatly expanding the opportunity for aspiring professional gamers to take on the CGS pros. I can’t even count how many people I know who claim they are just as good as the pros, but they always have some excuse. Now it’s time for the bitchassness to end because the CGS is giving all of us a chance to show what we’re made of.

Full Press Release with registration follows:

LOS ANGELES – August 12, 2008 –

Championship Gaming SeriesTM (CGS), the only worldwide professional gaming league, opened free registration for the inaugural CGS Pro-Am Division, greatly expanding the opportunity for aspiring professional gamers to take on the CGS pros and see if they have what it takes to compete alongside the best of CGS, perhaps winning some cold hard cash in the process.

First announced earlier this summer, amateur and professional gamers from North America will have the chance to showcase their talent against CGS’ most elite gaming stars for a share of a prize purse totaling US$40,000 during the Pro-Am division’s inaugural season.

The CGS Pro-Am division features one official PC league title – Valve’s Counter-Strike®: Source® (CS:S), along with two other popular Valve games, Counter-Strike®: 1.6 and Team Fortress 2 (TF2). CS:S, CS 1.6 and TF2 represent three of the most popular and successful eSports PC titles of all time and now gamers throughout North America can step up to prove they have what it takes to challenge the CGS pros.

Xbox 360 gamers will also have a chance to compete against CGS stars on Xbox LIVE via the league’s official Xbox titles, Tecmo’s Dead or Alive® 4 and Forza Motorsport® 2 from Microsoft Game Studios, as well as on other popular Xbox 360 games that will be featured in upcoming Xbox LIVE matches. Competitions will take place every other Friday featuring CGS pros, kicking off this Friday, August 15, when Xbox LIVE gamers from around the globe can take on Dallas Venom players Michelle “Phoenix” Pleet and Manny “Master” Rodriguez in DOA4. For more info, visit http://www.xbox.com/en-US/community/calendar/playthepros/2008/0815-dallasvenom.htm

PC gamers interested in testing their skills against the pros should register at http://pro-am.thecgs.com/ now through September 3, 2008. The first season of the Pro-Am Division kicks off September 10.

Movie Watch: The American Mall Review

MTV’s The American Mall is out this week and proves that even though it’s a musical from the giant that popularized music videos, it doesn’t mean they can produce a great movie. TAM revolves around a couple of aspiring songwriters who happen to live out their lives in a mall, fully going after the upper-teen crowd.

The problem is that even their focus group might be put off by this shoddy production with talented (albeit unknown) actors, ridiculous sayings, and forgettable songs. It tries to feed off of the popularity of Disney’s High School Musical, but is sub par in comparison.

An average mall as the main, and only, setting further cements its inferiority to Disney’s for-kids musical. It could’ve been an interesting setting, but it becomes tiresome to see store after store that only serve to market different products (i.e. Rock Band) and bolster brand identity (cough, Sears, cough). A mash up reminiscent of Kiss meeting Six Flags, but to worse results.

Besides the generic setting, unlike a good musical, the story bits and musical performances in TAM are integrated poorly, one cuts into the other abruptly every time; seamless transitions were clearly not the goal for The American Mall.

From what it seems, in-sync choreography was not a central focus of the film either as the timing is clearly off every time a song is performed. The actors look dazed and confused while they prance around for every song break, indicating that little time and effort went into rehearsing for the final cut.

Poor choreography might have deserved a pass if the songs were good but, besides the few that standout, prove to be forgettable titles. “Dreaming Wide Awake,” “New You,” and “Sorry’s Not Enough,” are about the only redeemable songs from The American Mall. So much so, that the first song mentioned is actually performed three times during the film.

It’s a shame that the most important part of the film, music, is botched because the actors actually pull off strong performances regardless of the tepid story. TAM is full of sexy, energetic leads that would’ve worked wonders if they had better source material.

RANDOM MOVIE COUNTS:

• “Backspace” Annoyingly Used as a Word: 2

• Shameless “Rock Band,” the game, Plugs: 6

• Signs of the Declining State of Sears: 3

• iPod Worthy Songs: 3 out of 10 Mediocre “Songs”

Nina Dobrev, as Ally, puts on a charismatic performance that brings light to every interaction she has with the rest of the cast. The movie shows glimmers of hope every time she’s confronted with the mall owner’s fiery redhead daughter, Madison, as their arguments are rightly heated and believable.

While the movie’s titular “American mall” might bring in the teenage girl in all of us to watch, the single setting actually becomes one of its biggest crutches being that there’s no variety and all the backgrounds look the same. There are a few good scenes and a couple of great songs littered throughout (sometimes times three), but are scatter shot and not enough to carry an otherwise typical musical about people trying to “make it.” If you missed the premiere presentation on MTV and want to see it, don’t bother looking for it on DVD…this reeks of “Generic Brand.”

DVD Release: August 12, 2008

[Editor’s Note: Walking down the aisles of your favorite retailer you’ll see movies that you’ve never heard of. Even if you’d like to know how they fare no one cares enough to review them! That’s where “Movie Watch” comes in…oh, and we’ll try to cover movies on Xbox Live from time to time. Because if you’re gonna spend those confusing Microsoft points on something other than games, it better be worth it, right?]

More Movie Watch:
Starship Troopers 3: Marauder
Batman - Gotham Knight
Like a Dragon (Ryu Ga Gotoku)
Raising Jeffrey Dahmer

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