Recently in Gaming Category

News you can use: How to unlock all the titles in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. With my strict gaming regimen freed up until WoW's Cataclysm expansion comes out, MW:2 has been getting a lot of run lately in Casa Berk (as have Left 4 Dead 2, NBA 2K10, the GTA IV expansions, and Batman: Arkham Asylum.) Then again, given the millions of copies sold on opening day, I guess I'm in good company.

Donnie Darko appears to be having more trouble with the timestream (at least as far as I can ascertain without sound) in the CGI-heavy full trailer for Mike Newell's The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, with Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton (late of the last Bond), Alfred Molina, and Ben Kingsley. (Does Kingsley say no to projects anymore?) Eh, it looks like The Mummy meets one of the later Pirates movies, but I guess it could be fun in a turn-your-brain-off, two hours of air conditioning kind of way.

"You know it. I know it. Worst of all, Donnie Walsh and Mike D'Antoni know it. The slogan printed on the tickets this season should be 'BIDING OUR TIME' and not whichever metropolitan polemic that the MSG public relations department dreams up. We are a team of second-string transients and, like a young girl with a year to go until she gets her braces off, we will muddle through this next year with bigger dreams of what we can be, and will be, in 2010."

The 2009-2010 NBA Season starts tonight, and, um, the Knicks don't look very good. (I've been playing them this past week in NBA 2K10, and, yeah, they're terrible -- the simulator never lies. But hope springs eternal. And, hey, maybe that new point guard Murphy can right the ship...)

"'The aim is to adapt the game, rather than a previously conceived story written within that world. "We want to be really faithful to the game,' Raimi said. 'We would have our writer, Robert Rodat, really craft an original story within that world that feels like a 'World of WarCraft' adventure. Only obviously it's very different 'cause it's expanded and translated into the world of a motion picture.'"

Sam Raimi discusses his upcoming World of Warcraft film with MTV, and discloses he's hired Saving Pvt. Ryan screenwriter Robert Rodat to pen the film. Well, if it's going to be a wipe, it'll be an A-list wipe. (Speaking of WoW, I myself quit the game pretty much cold turkey upon moving back to DC this summer, but I could see myself getting snared back in by the next expansion pack, Cataclysm, whenever it drops next year.)

Ever wonder what Shaun of the Dead would've been like if it had been an American studio film? Well, I suspect it'd have been bigger and broader in every facet of the game. It'd have more action, more violence, more bodily humor, more star wattage. And it'd probably be less droll, less unconventional, and less memorable. In short, it would probably have been much like Ruben Fleischer's well-meaning but frothy Zombieland. Don't get me wrong -- Zombieland is a decently fun Friday night, and most of the audience clearly enjoyed it more than I did. But it felt very by-the-numbers to me, and I suspect I'll remember very little about it after a few weeks, even if the dread zombie apocalypse doesn't happen between now and then.

So, what's the rumpus? Well, after a quick breakdown of the rules of surviving said zompocalypse (For example, "Rule 1: Cardio...Fatties die first"), Zombieland basically follows the travails of five of the last humans on Earth. There's:

While much of the geekglobe, including yours truly, are still happily grooving along this week to Felicia Day's elite-level earworm, "(Do You Wanna Date My) Avatar," the King of the World has upped the stakes by releasing the teaser trailer for his much-anticipated film of the same name. (Several stills have popped online too, including first looks at Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, Stephen Lang (late of Public Enemies), and Giovanni Ribisi. Notably missing: Zoe Saldana.) The Avatar trailer drops at 10am EST.

Update: Apple/Quicktime is failing at the moment, but French MSN has come to the rescue. So, wait, it's World of Warcraft Draenei replacing Dune's Fremen on the forest moon of Endor in 3D? Agh, screw it -- you had me at James Cameron.

"'At its core, Warcraft is a fantastic, action-packed story,' said Raimi. 'I am thrilled to work with such a dynamite production team to bring this project to the big screen." This is old news by this point, but just to get it down for the record: Sam Raimi is confirmed for the upcoming World of Warcraft movie. Sigh...I get out, they keep trying to pull me back in.

"When you create a person in The Sims 3, you can give them personality traits that determine their behaviour. Kev is mean-spirited, quick to anger, and inappropriate. He also dislikes children, and he's insane. He's basically the worst Dad in the world." Oh, think twice -- It's just another day for you and me in Sims paradise: By way of Web Goddess, an english game designer is chronicling the misadventures of Alice and Kev, two Sims she's created to be maladjusted and homeless. I haven't played a Sims game since the original iteration in 2000 -- sounds like it's come pretty far afield.

Let's disconnect these cables, overturn these tables, this place don't make sense to me no more... As you can see [or maybe you can't -- the "embed code" option doesn't seem to work, so I switched it out with a jpg], I've been having a little fun with this pretty spiffy Star Trek advertising toy, which is definitely worth playing around with for a few minutes. I've seen a lot of upload-your-pic widgets in the past, but I'm pretty amazed at how fast and how well this maps a pic onto a 3-D avatar. Could this Dylan-spouting Vulcan be the future of MMORPG gaming?

If you're in any way WoW-inclined, I'm sure you're already aware of this. Nevertheless, Warcraft patch 3.1 drops today, meaning (at long last) a new 14-boss raid, dual specs, more achievements, and sundry other post-WotLK content is now live. [Patch notes.] This won't mean a thing to the uninitiated, of course. But, for the 11 million or so folks out there who are of the WoW persuasion, I think I speak for us all when I say: If I never set foot in Naxxramas again, it'll be soon enough.

"It all started with a band of rebels who wanted to help a farmboy follow his dream. Three decades later, the Star Wars empire has grown into one the most fertile incubators of talent in the worlds of movies (Lucasfilm), visual effects (Industrial Light & Magic), sound (Skywalker Sound), and videogames (Lucasarts)." By way of my sis-in-law Lotta, How Star Wars Changed the World. Some of the links are tenuous (Barry Levinson?), others aren't all that flattering (Chris Columbus)...still, worth a look-see.

In the third installment of Watchmen viral fun, we get to venture into the Gunga Diner and try out an 8-bit, Veidt-manufactured Minutemen arcade game. (It's basically Double Dragon or Kung-Fu Master, except with Hollis Mason, Sally Jupiter, and Moloch.) Some nice touches in here -- note the poster for Rolf Mueller's circus show. And the date of the game -- 1977, a bit early for this sort of sidescroller -- might suggest the accelerating influence of Dr. Manhattan...

Is this a dagger which I see before me? No, actually that's a dagger rogue. A christmas present from my brother and sister-in-law which arrived just the other day, this stealthy fellow in the glass case -- a lvl 80 undead rogue, for the non-WoW inclined -- is a 3-D sculpture (or "rapid prototype," to be more exact) of my (main) World of Warcraft alter-ego, courtesy of the folks at FigurePrints. (I chose the name JackLowry from here (Jack) and here (Lowry) -- everyone on-server usually assumes it's a Bad Boys reference. Fine by me.)

Apparently, obtaining a FigurePrint is rather difficult at the moment -- due to high demand, you have to win a lottery for the privilege of buying one. I can see why. It's a pretty cool and detailed little sculpture, and it's just the perfect size to make for some tastefully nerdy desk flair in your home or office (and/or to use as a dogwhistle to smoke out your WoW-playing colleagues and co-workers.)

You can get a sense of the size of the statue from the Jack-and-Coke pic below, and, as you can see, he's already playing nice with President Obama (whom, unlike Jack here, I'll liberate from the packaging someday.)

Some fun links by way of other quality blogs:

"'Wonder Woman? That's not even Marvel,' Obama responded before storming out of the press room. 'Who are you people?'" According to the venerable newshounds of The Onion, purported fanboy Barack Obama is apparently having trouble relating to his new cabinet. [Via LinkMachineGo.] "Added the president, "For the love of Crom, am I the only one here who wants to keep the U.S. technologically competitive?'"

I found this exchange particularly funny: "Gates told reporters he may have gotten off on the wrong foot with the new president, citing an occasion when Obama asked him what he knew about 1984's Secret Wars, a 12-issue limited Marvel release. Gates then handed a visibly confused Obama 1,400 classified pages on covert CIA operations in El Salvador. Later, the defense secretary attempted to find common ground with Obama by making casual references to the comic book Spawn. But the 44th president reportedly brushed him off with an abrupt laugh, saying, 'no one in [his] administration likes Spawn.'"

Well, sorry to hear of the dilemma, Mr. President. Perhaps (*cough cough*) hiring some progressive-minded fanboys (fanboy-minded progressives?) might've alleviated the situation...

"The electronic signs, which usually warn motorists of traffic detours, instead included warnings such as 'Caution! Zombies Ahead!' and 'Nazi Zombies! Run!!!'" By way of Liam at sententiae et clamores, some enterprising Austin wags hack the local road signs in preparation for World War Z. "The signs also instructed motorists to 'run for cold climates.'" Well-played, y'all.

The clock is ticking: As expected, Fox and WB have settled their dispute over Zack Snyder's Watchmen, thus clearing the way for the March 6 release. "Fox...will emerge with an upfront cash payment that sources pegged between $5 million and $10 million...More importantly, Fox will get a gross participation in "Watchmen" that scales between 5% and 8.5%, depending on the film’s worldwide revenues. Fox also participates as a gross player in any sequels and spinoffs, sources said."

Sequels and spinoffs? I don't think so...how awful would those be? Then again, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the forthcoming prequelish Watchmen: The End is Nigh Double Dragon game and, as the graphic novel predicted, the inevitable Watchmen action figures. (Archie and Bubastis sold separately.)

How to Solve a Rubik's Cube. This is the best of the learning sites I could find while trying to pick up this skill set over the past few days. (I've fiddled with 'em a few times over the years, and seeing one in Let the Right One In recently re-piqued my interest.) Apparently, there are faster ways to go about it, and one can also speed up "solving the cross" with a good deal of practice, but I really just wanted to learn how to finish one of the durned things.

I have to admit, tho', it would be kinda cool to become as dexterous as Will Smith in the art of cubism.

A bold, uncompromising vision of the not-too-distant future, a stark exposé of the greed and corruption that ignited the credit collapse...or a weird cash-in by a director looking to pay some bills? Word is Ridley Scott will direct Monopoly for Warner Brothers, based on the ever-popular, family-destroying board game, "with an eye toward giving it a futuristic sheen along the lines of his iconic 'Blade Runner." (It's unclear as of yet what this does to Joe Haldeman's Forever War.) Um...ok.

By the way, for a solid laugh or three, check out the AICN feed about the news, where wry movie people are having good fun eviscerating the project, and imagining its competitors. I particularly liked "M. Night Shyamalan's BALDERDASH -- You'll never guess what happens!" and "David Cronenerg's DON'T BREAK THE ICE, with Christopher Walken. In 2011, the ice...is gonna break!" (Although, as someone else noted, "Mr. Potato Head" is definitely a better Cronenberg fit.)

Some news the Obama administration may want to contend with when considering any plans to boost American economic productivity right around now: Amid the slew of high-profile new games coming out of late (Fable 2, Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, Call of Duty: World at War), Blizzard's much-awaited 2nd WoW expansion, Wrath of the Lich KIng, drops tonight at midnight. In other words, that serious drag on the Internets tomorrow, as well as the frantic clicking sound you'll be hearing in offices and cubicles around the world, is eleven million people frantically trying to be the first to level from 70 to 80. (I myself plan to take a slightly more leisurely pace with WotLK, meaning I'll probably stop playing through the coming weekend for such relative luxuries as food, sleep, the monthly library book sale, and the new Bond flick.)

Update: [Note: If you're not among the WoW-inclined, just skip over this paragraph.] Ding 80, as of Sunday evening during the Obama 60 Minutes. So far, I've been extremely impressed with the art direction of Northrend, as well as the imagination put into some of the quests. (Lots of fun nods throughout too -- See, for example, the Lost hatch in Sholazar Basin, the Time Bandits quest in Zul'Drak, or the time-travel paradox from Infocom's old Sorcerer game in Dragonblight.) That being said, I am slightly afraid they've made the game too easy to allow more (re: bad) players to access end-game content. I guess we'll soon find out...

By way of a high-school friend, Palin as President. As a big fan of Sam and Max and Monkey Island-type games, I for one am ecstatic to see pixel-hunting problem-solving now being applied to our lefty agitprop. (It reminds me of this still-great Dubya Infocom adventure.)

Alas, the pride of Lordaeron has succumbed to darkness...and why do I get the sense I and 24 of my friends are going to have to do something about it? The impressive new Arthas-themed trailer for WoW: Wrath of the Lich King is now online.

I have no pride, I have no shame...and I'm not above pimping for Blizzard Entertainment every so often if the price is right. So, as my MMORPG of choice is trying to build out its network prior to the coming expansion, and are now offering various goodies to veteran and signee to do so, send me a note if anyone's thinking of taking the World of Warcraft plunge. On the upside, it's relatively cheap and addictive entertainment. On the downside, did I mention it was addictive? Don't say I didn't warn you if your life takes an Aqua Vita turn.

"'I was getting creamed, so it's probably a good thing in that respect,' he joked. 'The country is probably 10 percent more productive today.'" Maybe, but the flimsy vestiges of my social life just took a massive hit: The Facebook world mourns the death of Scrabulous. I got so depressed about it that I quickly lost 1000 worthless chips in Facebook poker.

"Spokesman Andreas Dilschneider, who is also one of the chess trainers for Berlin's chess-boxing club, says the dual sport is primed to become 'the biathlon of the 21st century.'" En garde...I'll let you try my Wu-Tang style: Time peeks into the world of chess-boxing. "The matches work like this: competitors alternate between three-minute rounds of boxing and four-minute rounds of speed chess with one-minute breaks in between to get the gloves off and hunker down at the chess table. The winner is determined by knockout, checkmate, or referee decision."

So, last night, after deciding on a whim to go catch the midnight IMAX showing of the Wachowskis' hyperkinetic, candy-coated Speed Racer, I had a bit of a Gob Bluth moment. (As in, "I've made a huge mistake.") For, after the ticket had been purchased, Metacritic informed me that Racer is currently rocking a lowly 35, and some critics are really hating on it. (See, for example, wry film-snob Anthony Lane, who calls it "pop fascism" and ridicules the anti-corporate message as "faux-leftish paranoia." And even critics I tend to agree with, like Stephanie Zacharek and David Edelstein, seem to have loathed it.) And once i got to Lincoln Square, matters looked worse: As compared to every other midnight showing I've ever been to, the crowd was sparse to the point of non-existent. Did, I wonder, the Wachowskis have a Matrix: Revolutions-level bomb on their hands?

Maybe, maybe not, but Speed Racer really doesn't merit all the contempt being heaped upon it this morning. Mind you, Racer is definitely a movie for children, but that in and of itself shouldn't argue against it. (I've sat through considerably worse kids' movies in my day.) Basically, Racer is a preteen-friendly, maybe slightly overlong, summer pop confection, and it's no better or worse, narratively-speaking, than the Spy Kids flicks (all three of which did significantly better with critics.) And, in terms of eye candy, it pushes the envelope and showed me things I'd never seen before in a film, and at breakneck speed to boot. What, exactly, were all these critics expecting? Did they miss that this movie was based on a 1960's Japanese cartoon, and that one of the characters was a chimp wearing overalls? Speaking of which, I have even less fondness for Racer as a pop-culture product than I did Iron Man -- I wasn't born when the cartoon aired, I was living overseas at the age when I would have enjoyed it, and found it kitschy, dated, and dumb when MTV brought it back in 1993. So, this isn't the "nerdstalgia" talking: If I was between the ages of 5 and 11, I'd probably think this movie was just about the coolest thing I'd seen since...well, since Iron Man, I guess, but I still would've dug it. And, as a 33-year-old, there were more enough splendidly weird wipes, flashbacks, and fades to keep me interested through the rough spots.

If you've never seen the cartoon before, the gist is this: Boy drives fast, family applauds, monkey does something funny.

Oh, you want more? Ok, well, Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch, eventually), the second son of a car-crazy family (conveniently named the Racers), spends his school hours day-dreaming of the track and hanging with his pixie-cute (girl)friend, Trixie. (Christina Ricci, eventually.) But Speed's life takes a tragic and Kennedyesque turn when his older brother Rex (Scott Porter) is vaporized in an ugly car accident, some time after he'd left home angry with Pops (John Goodman) and Mom (Susan Sarandon). As such, Speed grows up to inherit the family racing mantle instead, and, as it turns out, he's pretty darn good at it, so much so that the ruthless head of an obviously evil corporate conglomerate (Roger Allam of V for Vendetta, still looking exactly like Chris Hitchens) wants Speed to race for his well-funded team. But, when Speed decides to stick with the mom-and-pop outfit instead, he incurs the wrath of the insidious Bad Guys, who now set out to destroy him. But, with the help of the mysterious Racer X (Matthew Fox...I think that's his jawline), the racing scion Taejo Togokhan (Korean pop star Rain...shouldn't this be Stephen Colbert?), and, of course, his loving family (also including little brother Spritle, handyman Sparky, and monkey Chim-Chim), Speed sets out to beat the odds regardless. And, hey, maybe he'll learn a few things about racing -- and life -- in the process.

And that's about it, folks...Like, I said, it's a kids' film. (And while maybe Speed Racer and his friends versus the Big Bad Oligarchy isn't nuanced enough for the likes of Anthony Lane, I'm guessing it'll resonate well enough for eight-year-olds.) Helping things along are a bevy of solid performances: Hirsch is a bit of a cipher as Speed, but it's hard to see how it could've been otherwise. Better are John Goodman and Susan Sarandon as the Racers. Both are excellent actors in their own right, of course, but it's good to see neither suffer from the Portmanitis that has afflicted other otherwise-respectable thespians in heavy-green-screen productions. And then there's Matthew Fox as Racer X, which is funny for several reasons. Not only is it absurdly perfect casting -- Fox looks and sounds exactly like the cartoon character -- but the sight of Fox intoning blandly (and occasionally bringing the kung-fu) in his leather Racer X outfit almost seems like it has to be a self-deprecating knock by the Wachowskis on their earlier franchise. (Well, at least I hope they're in on the joke. The Neo-isms of the final act are way over the top, and a lot of the secondary performances, from Speed's teacher to the goons dressed like From Hell extras to the fellow playing Inspector Detector, often seem like Eurotrash rejects from the heady days of Zion raving too.)

All that being said, you're not going to walk out of Speed Racer talking about the performances. The real star of the show is the hypersaturated, zippity-quick look of the whole enterprise. And, while I easily see how people could feel overstimulated to the point of nausea by it (or that it might very well be less captivating on a non-IMAX-sized screen), I was consistently diverted by the look of Speed Racer, and particularly when the brothers Wachowski experiment with some all-new tricks. The cartoonishly-integrated flashback wipes, while perhaps overused, are definitely a neat effect, as are the squiggly-enhanced kung-fu/romance scenes and the "radio" zooms. And the whole movie just has a bizarre wonder to it: Note the sequence just before the start of the desert race, for example -- It's like something out of a fever dream, The Sheltering Sky by way of mescaline-laced Skittles.

So, after all this, am I recommending the film? Well, it really depends on how much you [a] prize visual invention over everything else and [b] can hang with a story pretty clearly pitched at pre-teens. (Having played and enjoyed F-Zero, Wipeout, or SSX will help too, I'd wager.) As I said above, however cotton-candy-thin and dumbed down the plot, I'd never seen a movie that looked like Speed Racer before, and that counts for something in my book. Whatever its faults as a film, I feel I saw something...quite new...last night, and as such I'm willing to forgive Speed Racer probably having too many notes. In any case, it's definitely not as uniformly terrible as the press is making it out to be.

Her 41 supermarket moment? As if I needed another reason not to vote Clinton: Though she may knock back boilermakers like us regular joes, the Senator has in fact never heard of Red Bull, the fantabulously addictive breakfast beverage which more often than not constitutes the best moment of my day. (This also means Clinton has lost another excuse for voicing her obliteration-happy nuclear ambitions last week...It wasn't the taurine talking.)

In other key findings: "Her fantasy date would be with President Abraham Lincoln [to which Sybil says back off!] She refused to choose between comedians Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, said she likes both wine and beer, and wouldn't select either 'American Idol' or 'Dancing With the Stars'; she said her mother -- who lives with the Clintons -- keeps her up to speed on both programs." (The answers, as everyone not running for office knows, is Fey, beer, and neither -- both are garbage, not that I'd expect someone who prefers Grey's Anatomy to The Wire (as per Obama) and spends her free time trying to ban Grand Theft Auto to pick up on that.)

It's the Burning Legion vs. the forces of Tempest Keep, with the U.S. of A. caught in the middle, in the full trailer for Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Looks like a healthy dollop of summer fun, if nothing else.

By way of Bitten Tongue, the Peanuts characters take on the mantles of Watchmen. Charlie Brown with the power of Dr. Manhattan is a bit unnerving, and Linus seems like more of a Nite Owl-type, but Lucy as Silk Spectre and Schroeder as Ozy make perfect sense...and Rorschach is really just one bad day away from Joe Cool.

Also, via Quiddity and in keeping with the GitM theme, the plight of Pac Man gets reconfigured as a Tale of the Black Freighter. Game over, yellow fella.

"The cultural and behavioral norms of virtual worlds and gaming are generally unstudied. Therefore, Reynard will seek to identify the emerging social, behavioral and cultural norms in virtual worlds and gaming environments. The project would then apply the lessons learned to determine the feasibility of automatically detecting suspicious behavior and actions in the virtual world." The Director of National Intelligence announces a project to uncover terrorists in World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs. It seems the US government has finally awakened to the catastrophic dangers posed by Bin Laden's vast army of h4x0rs and ninjas. (Via Yglesias, where the game-savvy commenters are already having a good deal of fun with it.)

"Link describes Obama as a 'calculating' cardplayer, avoiding long-shot draws and patiently waiting for strong starting hands. 'When Barack stayed in, you pretty much figured he’s got a good hand,' former Senator Larry Walsh once told a reporter, neglecting to note that maintaining that sort of rock-solid image made it easier for Obama to bluff." Poker writer James McManus reports on Barack Obama's card style, and gives a brief overview of presidential card-playing.

"When she saw William playing a game after lunch at Sandringham she thought the Nintendo looked tremendous fun and begged to join in. She played a simple ten-pin bowling game and by all accounts was a natural." Hey, Helen Mirren, how much ya bowl? By way of Web Goddess, it seems Queen Elizabeth has taken to the Wii. "Although she is 81 the Queen's hand-eye co-ordination was as good as somebody half her age...She showed all the signs of becoming a Nintendo addict."

Just in case you were lacking for things to do this New Years' Eve, two rather addictive online games: First up, Desktop Tower Defense, which my family spent a good deal of time on over the Christmas break. Second, Travelpod's Traveler IQ Challenge, a test your geography knowledge sorta thing. So long, Spider Solitaire.

"And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you -- all of you on the good Earth." Happy holidays to everyone out there. Berk and I are currently at the family homestead, where I'm enjoying home cooking, catching up on work and -- true to form -- checking out some of the better video games of the year: Call of Duty 4, Portal, Rock Band (I'm the frontman.) Hope your own holidays are equally fun and relaxing.

Whoosh! That giant sucking sound you'll hear in a few months is the free time, productivity, and normal sleep cycles of 9 million people around the world suddenly being consumed within the vortex of another ten-level grind...Blizzard announces Wrath of the Lich King, a forthcoming second expansion pack (a la Burning Crusades) to their popular and addictive MMORPG. [If you're not a WoW player, just skip over the rest of this entry -- it won't make any sense.] Right now, my guild is done with Kara, has SSC essentially on farm, and is now plugging through the Eye (Void Reaver on farm, Al'ar recently down, Solarian and Kael'thas to come.) (As for my own character, I'm pretty well-geared these days -- all of Tier 4, starting Tier 5 -- and still reference EJ's handy rogue spreadsheet whenever a possible upgrade falls.) So I expect we'll be getting bored with Mt. Hyjal and the Black Temple at right around the time the new continent of Northrend drops. Well-played, Blizzard.

Several trailers of note over the past week: Aragorn continues his History of Violence and returns to the unsettling world of Cronenberg in the new trailer for Eastern Promises, also with Naomi Watts, Vincent Cassel, and Armin Mueller-Stahl. Shopgirl Natalie Portman looks adorable facing up against stiff-suit Jason Bateman in the otherwise cloying trailer for Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, also with Dustin Hoffman as Willy Wonka, uh, Magorium. Nicole Kidman tries to stop her sister (Jennifer Jason-Leigh) from marrying Jack Black in this look at Noah Baumbach's Margot at the Wedding. (Not usually my bag, and Jason-Leigh can be a huge red flag, but Baumbach has earned a look after Squid & the Whale.) A bit-player in the Russian mob and a recent emigre to Liberty City (you) tries to move up the ranks of his organization in two new trailers for Rockstar's eagerly-awaited Grand Theft Auto IV. (I may have to break down and get a 360, just for this game.) And, finally, a Kramerfied, really poor quality version of may very well be the teaser for Chris Nolan's The Dark Knight has emerged online. (I'll reserve judgment until a higher quality version emerges, but for now I like the laugh.)

One of the classic computer gaming timesucks prepares for its 2007 revamp: Starcraft 2. I fondly remember the original Starcraft consuming pretty much every single non-working hour of January 1999, soon after I'd moved into the second floor of a group house in Washington DC. Who knows how much trouble this one will cause? In any event, I expect there'll be some zerging in my future.

"Worse, today's progressives fail to tap into America's collective unconscious through spectacle, which Duncombe defines as 'a way of making an argument...through story and myth, fears and desire, imagination and fantasy.' Republican Party leaders don't hesitate to derive inspiration from Madison Avenue and Hollywood. George W. Bush's 'Mission Accomplished' photo-op may have backfired, but it demonstrated an impressive commitment to spectacle. In this way, Republicans are actually far more populist than the New Democrats." World of Demcraft? In a review of Stephen Duncombe's intriguing new Dream,
Slate's Joshua Glenn argues that progressives need to liven up their image, perhaps by taking a cue from games like Grand Theft Auto: "'If a game offers power, excitement, and the room to explore, people will play evening after evening after evening, almost regardless of the results,' he writes. 'Perhaps the problem is not that people don't want to get involved in politics, but rather that they don't want to take part in a professionalized politics so interested in efficiency that there is no space for them, or they don't want to spend time in a political world so cramped that there's no freedom to explore and discover, to know or master.'"

The last thing I or my dissertation needs right now is another MMORPG. Nevertheless, as my sis-in-law points out, the free stress test for Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar is this weekend, if anyone out there is so inclined. (Right on top of Comic-Con? Boo hiss.)

Hey all. So, quiet around GitM of late, sorry about that. Chalk it up to dissertation fellowship deadline season, that insomnia-in-a-box known as Burning Crusades (ding 70), wintertime anomie, or any or all of the above. But hopefully I'll be better about posting around here this month. I'll try, in any case.

A pause for breath: One short week before The Burning Crusade starts consuming my non-dissertating/blogging moments and late-night hours anew, I've made it to level 60 on the ridiculously addictive World of Warcraft (with an undead rogue by the name of JackLowry, in case you were interested.) I tried Second Life around the same time back in November and didn't really get into it, but, oh my, WoW is gaming crack, the most virulent stuff I've experienced since Civ4. If you haven't tried it, be warned.

"To put it simply, create an account, join a league, draft a team of real U.S. Members of Congress and have fun as you compete to score as many points as possible. As the Members of Congress you drafted put real legislation through the lawmaking process they will score points for your team." Fantasy Congress (by way of Triptych Cryptic.) I've shied away from Fantasy Basketball, just because [a] I see it becoming all-consuming and [b] I figure I'll end up rooting for players to put up great numbers rather than for actual teams to win...but this might be fun.

"Teamwork and competition do make the game much more fun, but everybody's stuck in the same grind. With little at stake, your quests feel less like Frodo and Sam's trip to Mordor than a night shift at Hardee's. Every new level brings more of the same, and fatigue sets in the 10th time you've run through the same high-level dungeon, or when you're trying to crack level 38 but can't bring yourself to kill another goddamn swamp jaguar." Also in Slate, Chris Dahlen calls out World of Warcraft (while, unlike too many contrarian Slate pieces, offering valuable suggestions for improvement.) I only recently tried out (re: binged on) WoW for the first time -- I'm at Level 29 and climbing -- and he's got a point. The game is good, addictive fun, but I do wish there was more Infocom-style problem solving involved and less repetitive point-and-click pixel-bashing.

"In the early years of the microcomputer, a special kind of game was being played....in the early 1980s, an entire industry rose over the telling of tales, the solving of intricate puzzles and the art of writing. Like living books, these games described fantastic worlds to their readers, and then invited them to live within them." Found via Genehack and Recursive Bee, a filmmaker by the name of Jason Scott is prepping Get Lamp, a documentary on the Golden Age of text adventures. I've said this several times here in this space, but I'd pay top-money for a new Infocom game any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

By way of my sister and much like the M&Ms horror film game blogged a few weeks ago, test your skill at deciphering Viking Stationery Movies. So far, I've got 18-20...missing the markers in the road and the paperclip fellow getting run over.

And, while I'm snarfing links from other blogs, two choice entries from PlasticBag: (1) A rather lame "amateur" anti-Gore YouTube video turns out to be the work of GOP agit-prop artists, likely at the behest of Exxon; and (2) to keep up with the times, everyone's favorite real estate robber baron simulation, Monopoly, is forsaking the multicolored cash for debit cards. "It is inserted into an electronic machine where the banker taps in cardholders' earnings and payments."

"Blinky: The most cunning and most dangerous: Fast and trying to corner you with direction changes. When he's after you run quick and run twisty through lots of corners to shake (as with all others, cornering successive turn is most likely to lose the ghost)...Blinky owns and patrols the top right hand corner of the maze." Having trouble with Ghosts in the Machine? DYFL points the way to a handy primer on how to excel at Pac-Man.

Also via Blivet (as well as Webgoddess), and in a great blow for those of us inclined toward the crossword side of things, this helpful site offers a foolproof, grind-it-out method of beating any Sudoku puzzle out there (provided you have a pencil and eraser.) Well, that's not much fun, is it?

With the bill's foremost opponent -- "Casino Jack" Abramoff -- now sidelined in disgrace, the House votes 317-93 to crack down on Internet gambling. "The biggest losers could be the estimated 23 million Americans who play poker over the Internet. 'This bill would needlessly make outlaws of the millions of adult Americans who enjoy online poker, and is the latest example of how our representatives in Congress are ignoring real issues facing our country,' warned the grass-roots Poker Players Alliance, in an alert to its more than 25,000 members."

In today's trailer bin, nebbishy Paul Giamatti confronts water pixies and werewolves in the new trailer for M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water (after making two stinkers in a row, you'd think he take his name off the title card), over-the-hill Sylvester Stallone walks...very...slowly to the ring in a new clip from Rocky Balboa, a.k.a. Rocky VI (Note Paulie & hat), Pixar contributes further to our national oil dependency with another new trailer for Cars (ho-hum), and crossword puzzlers get their day in the sun in this first look from the documentary Word Play. (So that's Will Shortz.)

Two decently amusing fanimation links courtesy of Ed Rants (who, it should be noted, has had a really lousy week): Stick Figure Dragon's Lair and Raiders of the Lost Ark in GIF form. Enjoy.

"You are in an open field west of a big white house with a boarded
front door. There is a small mailbox here." PHP Zork. (Via Must See HTTP://)

Capitalizing on the computer world they live in (and life in general), Depeche Mode recut their latest single, "Suffer Well," in Simslish for The Sims 2: Open For Business.

Before links, there was Link. Happy 20, Zelda. (Via Ed Rants)

In keeping with LEGO's recent renaissance as an font of funny memes (this link via pretty much everywhere), check out these LEGO'd video game screens (by way of Lotta.)

"> EXAMINE CHAIRS

They are two several chairs arranged around the center of the room, along with two couches. Under one couch you find Clinton's shoes.

> FILL SHOES

You are unable to fill Clinton's shoes."

This may be the funniest political Internet post I've seen since the Cheney poker game: By way of WebGoddess and from the brain of Defective Yeti, it's the George W. Bush text adventure. Beware of lurking grues, special prosecutors, and that goshdarned Constitution.

"Every time I think I'm going to wake up back in the jungle..." The strange teaser for Mel Gibson's Mayan epic Apocalypto is now online. Looks intriguing, although to be honest -- with the Will Durant quote, Chichen Itza, rainforest scouting, and the panther attack -- I had a hard time watching this and not thinking of Civ 4. Update: Look for the subliminal Mel...bizarre.

"'We're like a stock exchange. You can buy and sell with us,' says Alan Qiu, a founder of the Shanghai-based Ucdao.com. 'We farm out the different jobs. Some people say, "I want to get from Level 1 to 60," so we find someone to do that.'" Via a friend in the program, the NYT examines Chinese online gaming factories. "Most of the players here actually make less than a quarter an hour, but they often get room, board and free computer game play in these 'virtual sweatshops.'"

Via Cliopatria, Inside Higher Ed looks at increased use of Civilization III in college history courses. Um, yes, I've been playing Civ 4 in almost all of my spare moments of late solely for pedagogical purposes. Seriously, notwithstanding my own inveterate Civ addiction, I can't see how the game would be in any way useful in teaching history, and particularly at the college level. And if you're going to use games for elementary, middle, or even high school courses, I think you'd do better with a game grounded in specific history, such as old-timey classics The Oregon Trail or Seven Cities of Gold.

The World of Fellowship of the Ringcraft, a.k.a. Tolkien meets Worlds of Warcraft. I haven't played WoW or any other MMORPG myself, but this is still pretty funny if you've done any sort of online gaming. (Via Triptych Cryptic.)

Joyous news for both my dissertation research and my circadian rhythms (but ill tidings for Abe Lincoln of Minas Tirith): I picked up Civilization IV yesterday, but it has an as-yet-unfixed conflict with ATI video cards and won't run on my PC. So the unhealthy 36-hour gaming-binges that usually accompany a new Civ-iteration will have to wait another week or two. Speaking of which, I haven't written up a game update here in awhile. So, in brief:

"The enemy? His sense of duty was no less than yours, I deem. You wonder what his name is...where he came from. And if he was really evil at heart. What lies and threats led him on his long march from home. If he would not rather have stayed there...in peace. War will make corpses of us all." Alas, as Faramir predicted, Battle for Middle Earth (which I borrowed from my sister at the end of summer) is somewhat disappointing. A Warcraft-style strategy game based on Tolkien lore, it makes great use of Howard Shore's score, and admittedly there's something viscerally satisfying about watching your own contingent of Rohirrim cavalry cut a swath through some lowly orc footsoldiers. But, frankly, too much of the game is a grind. Most of the levels very quickly turn into wars of attrition, where you're just building units to send them to oblivion, over and over again, until you slowly but surely conquer the map. There's very little strategy involved, and, as such, even despite the fidelity to Tolkien (by way of PJ), I lost interest in the game relatively early on. Then again, Boromir was always the soldier.

F.E.A.R., recommended by my brother, is basically a Half-Life 2-ish FPS that's taken its cue from the recent wave of Japanese horror: The Big Bad is a ghostly little girl that for all intent and purposes could have materialized right out of The Ring. To its credit, F.E.A.R. displays impressive A.I. and includes a really fun slow-mo option for Matrixy melees. That being said, much of the (relatively easy) single-player game is standard FPS, whereby you face identical squads of enemies several times over. Frankly, F.E.A.R. could have used more Splinter Cell-type stealth missions or, better yet, some Infocom problem-solving and "lurking grue" caprice. The game starts out frightening, but pretty soon one figures out the only way to die is the usual manner: health to zero. And, ultimately, even despite the supernatural backdrop, that's rather mundane.

NBA 2K6 is the latest installment in the 2K sports series, which, to my mind, eclipsed the more popular EA NBA Live line several years ago in terms of gameplay and simulation. This one's a definite improvement over last year's ESPN 2K5, most notably in handle and free-throw shooting -- both are much more intuitive, and now, 85% free-throw shooters can actually hit 85% of the time, rather than 33% as before. If you're into building out your crib a la NFL2K5, as some friends of mine are, that's now an option here as well. And, whatever happens to the Knickerbockers this year, I gotta say, they turned out to be an offensively-lethal video game team -- Stephon has put up career numbers (although waiving Allan Houston has killed my 3-ball percentage.)

To EA's credit, tho', I'm not usually one for car-racing games -- They're often boring, repetitive, and nothing like driving, IMHO -- but Burnout 3 and now Burnout: Revenge are far and away the best racing games I've ever played (well, aside from the broader-themed Grand Thefts Auto.) True, most of the angst-rock, punk-lite soundtrack gets irritating after only a few minutes, Franz Ferdinand notwithstanding. But, aside from that, both Burnouts have a sense of speed and a visceral crunch to 'em that you don't find in a lot of Pole Position's descendants. Burnout 3, only $20 these days, is worth checking out if you're of the XBox nation.

LotR masterminds Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh announce they'll be executive producing the film version of Halo, with WETA in charge of the FX. "'As a gaming fan, I'm excited to bring Halo's premise, action and settings to the screen with all the specificity and reality today's technology can provide,' said Jackson." Halo? I dunno...even as just a production credit, I think it's a bizarre choice for Wingnut Films, particularly as a follow-up to the Rings trilogy and Kong.

Also (finally) emerging this evening: The very long-awaited Day of Defeat Source. I haven't played much in the past year or so, but if DoD-S has managed to merge 1.0's already-excellent WWII FPS gameplay with HL2's immersive physics and graphics engine as rumored, this could get real ugly. So, DSSG'ers, other long-time DoD'ers, and Robin Williams, best keep an eye out for the return of Liberty Lad, a freeborn man of the USA.

Some trailers for movies I doubt I'll see: Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni keep up with the Joneses via armed robbery in Fun with Dick and Jane, Eomer and The Rock wield BFGs in the totally unnecessary film version of Doom, and suburban housewife Julianne Moore pens her way to big bucks (much to the chagrin of man-of-the-house Woody Harrelson) in The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio. Ho-hum. Also in film news, Ellen Page is Kitty Pryde in X3, which sits better with me than the idea of Eli of Freaks & Geeks as Angel.

"The disturbing material in Grand Theft Auto and other games like it is stealing the innocence of our children and it's making the difficult job of being a parent even harder." It's Dem Mods v. dem mods as Senators Hillary Clinton and (surprise, surprise) Joe Lieberman decide to sic the FTC on Rockstar Games for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, namely for the "Hot Coffee" PC mod which may or may not have been included in the original source code. (FYI, you can see the controversial game-clip here -- It's not safe for work, but it's basically two pixellated characters having explicit sex in various positions, a la the puppets in Team America.)

As with most PMRC, V-Chip, and/or anti-Hollywood-style scapegoating for easy moderate bonus points, I don't particularly think this type of sophomoric tomfoolery in an M-rated (17 and over) game is the central reason for the Decline and Fall of America's Wayward Children. (And several wry Slashdotters have already pointed out the ridiculousness of the argument being made about GTA here: "I don't care if my child carjacks a senior...[or] if he takes a golf club and starts clubbing to death pedestrians. But he may never, over my dead body, have adult on adult, consensual sex!") But Sen. Clinton's proposed remedy -- adding teeth to the ratings system by potentially fining stores who sell M or AO-games to minors -- doesn't sound like the end of the world either. Update: Rockstar fesses up. Update 2: "Maybe she'd be wiser to focus on issues that matter to these people -- say, the fighting and dying in Iraq -- than on the fighting and the dying in the fake, fun world of 'Grand Theft Auto.'" Slate's Farhad Manjoo calls out Clinton.

"'I like Kobe, O.K.?,' Albert Arce said, referring to Kobe Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers star. 'But I like to play him because I can make him pass to the other guys. When I see him on TV, it's like he doesn't know how to pass.'" The NYT wonders if sports video games are eclipsing the real product. (As someone who enjoys both, I wouldn't really think so.)

"I like the act of writing on a newspaper. There's something transgressive about scrawling on the page -- right beneath Michiko Kakutani's turf. Also, I solve in pen (because I'm a badass), and the blue ink really pops from the dull gray newsprint. I find calming beauty in the look of a finished grid." In an article on the burgeoning sudoku phenomenon among gamers, Seth Stevenson comes clean about his crossword addiction. I'm with you, brother.

Two links of note courtesy of other fine blogs: LinkMachineGo points the way to online scans of Dave Sim's Cerebus notebooks, and Fresh Hell discovers Lost reconceived as an Infocom game. I only caught the first episode, but perhaps the mystery creature is a lurking grue...?

"The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities, some considered to be...unnatural." Along those lines, Darth Vader has an uncanny knack for reading minds (with the aid of the Burger Moff) in this decent online version of Twenty Questions. (Via Tessa.)

Uh oh...At E3, Firaxis starts talking up Civilization 4, offering both screenshots and a preview to the IGN gang. The game's a complete redesign from the ground up, including new culture, religion, tech-tree, government, and battling systems (and you don't have to sit through the AI's unit moves anymore.) If this game is even half the gamer-crack that any of the previous Civs are, my productivity around here is going to be in deep, deep trouble come 4Q 2005.

Behold the future: At E3, Microsoft unveils the XBox 360, and Sony shows off the Playstation 3. On one hand, the 360 will "automatically connect and stream digital media -- including video and digital pictures -- stored on any PC running Windows XP." On the other, "the PlayStation 3 boasts an engine 35 times more powerful than the PlayStation 2." Either way, the next GTA should be something else...

By way of Quiddity, it's everyone's favorite parlor game, PeggJongg! I'm with the folks who think Simon Pegg (of Spaced and Shaun of the Dead) might make for a decent Rorschach in The Watchmen, but, after trying to beat this a few times, I gotta say, it might be awhile before I feel like seeing his face again. Update: Speak of the devil, Pegg talks Rorschach. Update 2: Even more Peggness -- the man of the hour will team up with Brendan Fraser and Woody Harrelson for Three Bad Men.

In a nod to her husband's V-Chip triangulation strategy of 1996, Senator Hillary Clinton joins perennial bluenoses Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and Rick Santorum (R-PA) in calling for a new ratings system for television, video games, and the like. Ok, fine, if this helps Sen. Clinton gain cred with Bush-leaning soccer moms, so be it...a uniform ratings system isn't the end of the world. But I'd be more heartened if Hillary spent less time trying on the moralistic protective camouflage of the GOP and more time articulating the differences between the Democratic and GOP conceptions of "moral values."

For example, Republicans love to throw the Bible around. Well, last I checked, the New Testament has more to say about compassion, tolerance, the hypocrisy of self-appointed moral arbiters, and the excesses of the wealthy than it does to recommend the small-minded bigotry and pro-corporate, devil-take-the-hindmost avarice of today's Republican party. The Dems would do well in 2006 and beyond to draw attention to these huge shortfalls in GOP "values," rather than rush to appropriate their shallow, scapegoating dramaturgy. (In fact, perhaps they should take a page from groups like the surging evangelical-environmental movement.)

Slate's Clive Thompson reviews the most recent wave of MMORPGs, namely City of Heroes and World of Warcraft. The latter has already consumed several of my family members, and, frankly, I'm just afraid of it -- my gaming binges are bad enough without adding an open-ended MMORPG to the mix. Sounds fun, though...

Well, thankfully the expected post-Christmas gaming binge only lasted one month instead of two -- I can now look upon the promise of February with nary a high-end gaming product to keep me from my academic business, pleasure reading, blogging, and/or other pursuits. (Well, that is until Day of Defeat Source or, God forbid, Civilization IV rear their heads. I also hear good things about World of Warcraft, but am too fearful of the egregious time-suck that would undoubtedly occur if I started getting into a well-done MMORPG.) A quick roundup:

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: As clever and immersive as GTA III and Vice City, but I thought San Andreas suffered in some ways from slight overkill (particularly in the food/clothing/weight-room character maintenance and the drawn-out travel times between cities.) That being said, having recently replayed the first two forays on XBox, I think my San Andreas experience was hindered by the graphics capability of the PS2, which made the scenery look muddy or devoid of color at certain times of day. (The fact that puppy Berkeley had long ago chewed my PS2 controller joysticks into jagged, thumb-wounding sculpture probably didn't help either.) San Andreas is undoubtedly amazing, but I'd probably recommend Vice City first to GTA newbies, at least until the XBox port comes out.

Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords: I spent the first week of 2004 doing very little but playing KotOR I, and the first week of 2005 followed the pattern. The game play hadn't changed much -- ok, the game play hadn't changed at all -- but both KotORs traverse the divide between puzzle-based RPG and action-game nicely, so I actually quite enjoyed this second installment. Obviously, I'm also a sucker for the Star Wars bent to these games -- At the very least, they're more fun (and often better-written) than the prequels. Now if only LucasArts would bring back Sam and Max...

Halo 2: As noted everywhere, the multiplayer is really something else -- even if I have yet to figure out how not to get endlessly slaughtered by trigger-happy 12-year-olds. Yet, I actually found the single-player campaign both somewhat dull and hard-to-follow. As this Slate article suggested, the Covenant storyline seemed pretty intricate, but damned if I could figure out what was going on half the time. To be honest, I think I prefer my FPS's on the PC anyway, since, unlike in games like Call of Duty or Day of Defeat, I rarely feel I have any sense of the hitbox on Halo 2...I'm just blasting away and hoping I'm doing damage. Which leads me to...

Halflife 2: Now this is a first-person shooter. HL2 benefited from being the first game I played after procuring a mid-level Radeon graphics card, but still...while I never got around to the recent Doom 3, I can't remember being this amazed by game graphics in a very long time. (I may have to go back to the original Prince of Persia from 1989.) With HL2, it really seems that game-makers are starting to find their way through the Uncanny Valley. And, while the single-player is on the short side, the 1984 meets Pink Floyd The Wall storyline is great fun, and the physics of the gravity gun really expand the boundaries for environment interaction in these sorts of games. In short, Halflife 2 was worth the wait.

A very happy birthday to my Dad, who turned 60 over this past weekend (and celebrated with some inter-clan Halo 2...the family that slays together stays together.)

By way of Boing Boing, a collection of text-adventure responses to cursing. Should bring back some memories, even if Infocom is woefully underrepresented.

"More pointedly yet, the aliens refer to their defeat in the first game as 'The Atrocity at Halo.' Who wrote this thing, Noam Chomsky?" Slate's gaming writer Clive Thompson speculates on the political economy of Halo 2. I'm still traipsing about San Andreas at the moment (finished all storyline missions and only 65% complete), but, to no gamer's surprise, I expect either this or Halflife 2 will be my next time-suck of choice.

By way of Usr/Bin/Girl, a chess program that draws what it's thinking. (Not surprisingly, it still worked me.)

"I'm not going to beat around the bush. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the single best PlayStation 2 title I have ever played." Six -- SIX -- times bigger than Vice City, and featuring an all-star vocal cast running from Samuel L. to Axl, it's finally here. So I'm off to San Andreas in what moments of free time I have these days, and I don't expect I shall return. In fact, I mean not to!

Rockstar updates its site for GTA: San Andreas (due out Tuesday) with a new trailer and an interactive map of Las Venturas (Las Vegas), the third of the game's major cities. In case you missed them, Los Santos/LA and San Fierro/San Fran are also worth a gander.

As GTA: San Andreas edges closer, the gang at Rockstar preview the ten in-game radio stations to be had this time around, and as expected the selections seem as deep and diverse as they were on Vice City. More info will be out Monday, but the artists featured so far (along with G'n'R and A Guy Called Gerald, which we already knew about) include James Brown ("Payback"), Slick Rick ("Children's Story), Bel Biv Devoe ("Poison"), Rage Against the Machine ("Killing in the Name"), The Ohio Players ("Funky Worm"), Eddie Money ("Two Tickets to Paradise"), Max Romeo ("Chase the Devil"), Willie Nelson ("Crazy"), 2Pac ("I Don't Give a F**k"), and Raze ("Break For Love"). Good driving music, that. Update: Rockstar reveals the official soundtrack listing, which includes a lot of the songs above, and extends many of the radio station previews to include tracks by Heart, Cypress Hill, Eric B & Rakim, and others.

Two choice links courtesy of Tomb of Horrors: The Infocom Hitchhiker's Guide game gets a 20th anniversary makeover, and a site emerges to preserve the correspondence between Dave Sim and Neil Gaiman.

What has gotten into John Woo these days? Apparently, he'll now be making He-Man after finishing up Spy Hunter with The Rock. I mean, I know the guy needs a hit, but this is an even worse idea than Metroid. (And between this and The Punisher, Dolph Lundgren must be wondering at this point when Rocky IV is getting redone.)

"Cock-a-doodle-do, we're a huge corporation. Cock-a-doodle-do, we can't be stopped..." Rockstar continues its tantalizingly slow rollout of GTA: San Andreas with an interactive map of San Fierro (a.k.a. the Bay Area) and a spiffy new trailer (which reveals that G'n'R, at least, is on the game soundtrack.) As with Los Santos, the map is ripe for exploration. It already seems pretty clear this game is going to eat my life for a few weeks.

In the trailer bin, Robin Williams edits memories for a living in the sci-fi thriller The Final Cut, while you (a.k.a. Carl Johnson) build a criminal empire in a first look at the much-awaited Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (and specifically the peril-filled city of Los Santos.) If you're a GTA enthusiast, the interactive map is worth playing with.

Two fanboy icons get the Remix treatment...First, Tyler Durden gets all Tekken up in here with Fight Club: The Game. (Hmm, sadly, it looks Ikea-Nesting-Instinct-lame.) Meanwhile, Kirk & co. get their funk on in this strange ad for the Star Trek Original Series DVD. Well, it's definitely more fun than an Odd-numbered Trek.

He's gonna keep drinking til he can't move a toe... By way of Web Goddess, see if you can get the drunk Swiss guy home. I've found it easier if you don't move your hand too much.

What were you doing? Sneaking... Slate's Clive Thompson ruminates on the rise of "stealth" games. I spent much of the July 4th weekend skulking about Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, and thought it was a nice change of pace from the usual shoot-em-up. That being said, the haphazard alarm system could also get quite frustrating.

"Resident Evil Outbreak's humans are realistic, but their facial expressions are so deadeningly weird they're almost scarier than the actual zombies you're fighting. The designers of 007: Everything or Nothing managed to take the adorable Shannon Elizabeth and render her as a walleyed replicant." Slate's Clive Thompson examines game developers' struggles through the Uncanny Valley.

"Manufacturers design games primarily for women over 55 with lots of time and disposable income, and casinos near retirement communities...operate small fleets of jitneys that shuttle back and forth to assisted-living centers. As a come-on, one casino advertises free oxygen-tank refills for its players, and heart defibrillators are increasingly becoming standard equipment inside casinos...As one old Las Vegas hand put it, the country's casinos are now providing 'day care for the elderly.'" The NY Times Magazine delves into the fantastic rise of slot machines as the casinos' prime cash cow.

One of the few shows I caught regularly last fall, Celebrity Poker Showdown returns for a second season on May 27, with Kid in the Hall Dave Foley replacing Kevin Pollack. This time around, the players will include Sean Astin, Jennie Garth, James Woods, Matthew Perry, Angie Dickinson, and Dave Navarro. Samwise versus Big Bad Mama...I'm so there.

John Woo on Metroid? Now there's a film that really never needs to see the light of day. What's next? Tony Scott's Excitebike? Oliver Stone's Kid Icarus?

Though this be madness, yet there is method in't. By way of my sis-in-law Lotta, the Hamlet text adventure game. How cool is this? I look forward to playing it through once I finish up my freelance work. Here's a tip...don't jump out of Ophelia's window. Update: Ok, I got distracted and went ahead and beat the game. It's pretty clever, except for one really dumb and annoying puzzle that involves screaming a word in a theater. I used the hint to beat it...and the author basically admits that he intended it that way. Oh well, other than that one hiccup, it's great text-adventure fun.

As the recent banishment of a newspaperman suggests, the small towns of The Sims Online are less George Bailey than Old Man Potter. So does this make them more or less realistic? And what does Curt Schilling think?

With Celebrity Poker Showdown beginning tonight, CNN examines the recent rise in televised card games. Hey, I'm all for it.

They announced it a few months ago, but I only saw the ad for Bravo's Celebrity Poker Showdown yesterday. December 2nd, baby...I'm so there.

In the most recent skirmish against the machine chessmasters, human contender Garry Kasparov tied X3D Fritz in a four-game series. He fights for us.

For you gamers out there, Day of Defeat 1.1 was released last night (over Steam.) I suspect it will conspire with Civilization 3.2 (Conquests), which I picked up while Christmas shopping today, to tempt me away from my increasingly necessary orals reading. A WWII FPS and a dominate-the-world strategy game counts as time spent historicizing, doesn't it?

The source code of the much-anticipated Halflife 2 is stolen and pirated online, knocking back its release until April 2004. Hmm, that's very annoying, and particularly if, as feared, the leak allows unsavory types to exploit further the myriad holes in Valve's new STEAM launcher. As it is, the DoD servers I admin for are being overrun anew with h4x0rs, teamkillers, and other FPS annoyances, who've all received a new lease on life in the shift from WONID to STEAM. I shudder to think what will happen if the smartest of the bunch get their hands on the code and find ways to hack directly into players' PCs.

Via my friend Ben, try your hand at balancing a state budget...if you can.

Now here's a reality show I can get into. Coverage of the World Series of Poker starts tonight on ESPN. If you've never tuned in before, you'd be amazed at some of the psych-out tricks these guys try to play on camera. (Via Mark.)

More good news on the gaming tip - Apparently, gamers aren't only more spatially aware, they're social multitaskers, too. All this validation for gamers is going to end up getting me in trouble...the last thing I need right now is another Civ binge.

An Albany congressman proposes a "fat tax" on junk food, video games, and TV commercials to combat NY's growing obesity rate. Thinking outside the box, I suppose, but where would this end? There are very few items in American life these days that don't contribute to obesity, so it seems a bit harsh to pin the blame on Grand Theft Auto.

After three-some-odd years of beta testing, my FPS of choice, Day of Defeat 1.0, is now available for download. There went my weekend.

It's probably a strange time in world affairs for a link like this, but nevertheless, these FPS propaganda posters cracked me up. Battlefield 1942 players will find them especially on point.

Verrry aggressive...you're a new man, and won't be pushed around. A Boston Globe editorial surveys the long and sordid history of poker and war. (Via Dangerous Meta.)

Fresh from the Game Developer's Conference, IGN Filmforce hosts a fascinating keynote by WETA Digital on their work for LOTR: TTT, with several Quicktime shorts on the evolution of Gollum, the Ents, and MASSIVE (and a few Toy Story-esque blooper reels). Definitely worth checking out, if you can spare the bandwidth.

Speaking of social warfare, FPS privates take note: The 1.3 patch for Battlefield 1942 is now online, featuring, among other tweaks, faster loading maps and quicker sniper reloads (the latter being the only major gaming area in which Day of Defeat is still definitively superior.) And it's almost time to take the road to Rome...

As I suspected, ever since last Tuesday GTA: VC has been seriously undermining my attempts to get anything of purpose done. But I just finished the main narrative arc of the game, leaving only the side missions, rampages, and such, so I might now be able to wrench my life back. Fortunately, Columbia students get the Monday and Tuesday of Election Week off, so I still have time to catch up on all the research I should've been doing over the weekend. At any rate, if you love GTA 3, you'll love GTA: VC. It's the same...but different.

If you're one of the many gamers out there avidly awaiting Grand Theft Auto Vice City in eight days, the official site has some interesting stuff up, including a radio station preview and Kent Paul's Nostalgia Site. Looks like we'll be hearing more from both Lazlo and Fernando Martinez on the 29th.

Try your hand at Online Mini-Putt, via Catherine's Pita. I got a 44 first time around...and I'm afraid to try again 'cause I doubt I'll do any better.

Robin Williams plays DoD?! Hmm...I wonder if I've killed him...That's for Patch Adams, n00b.

A gang of clowns rob a Manchester wine bar, getting away despite three accidents en route. Probably wouldn't normally blog this if I didn't currently have Grand Theft Auto III (which I borrowed from my sister over the weekend) on the brain. (Via Triptych Cryptic.)

Booyah. After the long wait for 2.0, Day of Defeat 3.0 is just around the corner (next week), with all-new paratrooper classes.

My brother and sister-in-law left a copy of Freedom Force here on their recent sojourn, and I can feel it calling to me as I write. Doesn't seem as addictive as Civ 3 (yet), but it's clearly working with a very playable engine. Definitely makes a nice break after making Powerpoint slides all day.