G-pinions

Though I can't find it off-hand, I can assure you that we're talked about Krazy Kreatures at one point or another. If you have an NES or an emulator of some sort, do yourself a favor and check out this brain hemorrhage-inducing, ridiculously, exhaustingly great animal-swapping puzzle game. With that said, I just finished up a 36-minute game of Zoo Keeper, and MAN is it great. Like it's ancient, Krazier predecessor, You have a grid of different animals, and you can swap any two that are adjacent vertically or horizontally. If you line up three of the same, they disappear. The main difference with Zoo Keeper is that the board is always full, and when a group disappears everything else drop into it's place, adding more to the screen from the top. Oh, and unlike Krazy Kreatures, you can't swap a piece unless it's creating a threesome in the process - meaning you can't "walk" a piece you need from one side to the other just from swapping. Now that I think about it, it's a bit like a mix between Krazy Kreatures and the almighty Tetris Attack. And as far as puzzle games go, that is a pretty respectable lineage indeed. It's an awesome game, and I can't wait to hit up some wireless one-cart multiplayer with Tom. Rumble in the jungle.

Check out the new Doom trailer. For the movie, that is. While it doesn't look particularly enthralling, it seems fairly faithful to the game, and the FPS segments look hella cool. Kind of like what I expect from third generation 360 and PS3 stuff. Enjoy.

I know I've said this a million times already, but I cannot believe Microsoft is still being so secretive about their new console that's coming out in a few very short months. Even though the hype machine hasn't even begun to rev up yet (have we even seen one real screenshot from Perfect Dark Zero?) MS if finally letting their lips flap a little, even if very little concrete information is actually escaping.

According to this 1up.com article, it seems like backwards compatibility for the X360 will actually be a lot better than anticipated. It seems as though Microsoft has created a software emulator which (hopefully) will be pre-loaded on every hard drive. While some games will probably run poorly or not at all, I wouldn't be surprised if most games end up working just fine. Remember, Sony never promised complete backwards compatibility with the PS2, but very few PSX games fail to run on the system.

It seems like the talk of only a handful of titles being backwards compatible was strictly for consoles without a hard drive. Honestly, why would anyone even consider buying the core package? Microsoft really has to step in here and admit they made a mistake. To get any games running on the retard pack they are forcing developers to create a version of the game that can run without the hard drive. Doesn't this defeat the purpose of backwards compatibility in the first place? I want to play all my old Xbox games on the new system. I want to be able to buy a cheap, used game without worrying whether or not it will actually run.

MS has to be able to guarantee that 99% of Xbox games will run flawlessly on the Xbox 360 or just forget about the whole endeavor.

One point about a puzzling sentence in the 1up.com column. They said, "One of the rumors floating around is that backwards compatibility will only work with a hard drive." Single J Allard, in his internet chat interview, said "because we didn't abstract storage in the first generation xbox back compat will require a hard drive." Though that isn't exactly English (abstract storage?) I interpreted that as "Core owners are SOL."

Edit: Addition by Nick - It has also just been revealed that you cannot move your Xbox game saves to the 360, making backwards compatibility for games that you already own largely pointless anyhow.

I realize I am treading in shark populated waters by writing about a game bought and cared for by my colleague, but after laying my greedy hands on Graffiti Kingdom last week I simply cannot get the game out of my head. So with apologies to Nick, who I am sure is already seething that I once again stole a column from him, I am proud to talk about a game that introduces a feature so undeniably entertaining I am hereby placing it right behind co-op and ahead of level editors as something that should be included in every, single game from this point forward.

If you're anything like me, you have no idea what Graffiti Kingdom is. In fact, since I never can remember the name, I had to once again visit EB.com just so you guys would know what I am talking about. Basically, this is a generic third person adventure title with RPG elements thrown in for good measure. You run around, battle enemies with a few moves, and generally take part in some of the most bland 3D adventuring you can imagine. Clearly, while the main gameplay mode is far from bad, if that was all there was to the game it would have been forgotten less than 48 hours after release. Instead, this is probably one of the most entertaining and memorable games on the PS2.

What this game does feature is the the most comprehensive character creation mode ever seen in a console title. Basically, if you can imagine it, you can create it. And it isn't even that difficult. You are given a blank screen and draw whatever creature you would like to play as. Start by drawing a body and then decide where you will place the various other appendages. You can fix as many legs, tails and heads on the body as you like, and, because you are drawing these parts free hand, they can take any form you like. Not only that, but you can designate parts to rotate or even hover mere inches from the body. If you decide to dub that squirrelly looking appendage a tail it will move and flex just like you would expect it to.

While simply being able to draw any character you can imagine sounds good enough to warrant a $50 purchase on its own, the player creation even goes farther than that. You can set how your character moves, what sorts of attacks it has, and even what voice it will use to intimidate its foes. Unfortunately, you are forced to actually play the main game in order to unlock all the features this mode offers, but you can just use this as an excuse to try out your character in a real world... er... game... enviroment.

While Nick and I struggled to make a character anywhere near the greatness of Jade or Jigglypuff, some gamers have already assembled characters that look better than anything Square has done in the last five years. Check out these pictures and imagine the possibilities.



Go to this site and check out a whole bunch of other user made characters. For some reason, though this is the first gallery, it's actually listed as 3_1. Just ignore the odd Japanese numbering system and check out the super awesome models. This movie of Samus Aran is one of the coolest things I have ever seen.

Just think, this is finally my chance to play a game starring a VelociRex! Now I just have one wish: please, for the love of God, make a DS version of this game.

Though there are plenty of comedic lowlights from the already infamously lame "Allard Chat", my favorite moment happened as such:

"Q: will the core system come with a memory card? if not, how can u save games?
J Allard: i think it is really important to emphasize especially for the folks in this chat room that we did not design the core system around you guys. similar to the shuffle, the boxter, the 4:3 tv, the 1mpix camera, we designed the core system as a way to get folks to come into the family at a cheaper prices and decide if an how they scale the system. the great thing about our approach unlike these examples is that the core owner can upgrade the system and match the capabilities of the premium system when the time is right for them."

So, basically, no one except the hardest of hardcore gamers like to save their games. That is, unless he was dodging the question...it's hard to tell, what with all the idiocy being thrown around like so much wedding rice. If he is comparing not being able to select your songs on an iPod shuffle or take professional-level photos with a 1-megapixel camera to saving your progress in a video game - and it would seem that way - well, apparently he is not familiar with either of those devices, to say the least. It's actually more comparable to only being able to listen to thirty seconds of a song at a time/not having any way to save the pictures that you take, respectively. A kick in the balls for you Allard, a kick in the balls.