G-pinions

I may not be a religious man, but I understand the purpose of Easter. It was originally some sort of pagan ritual with lots of dancing and maybe even a little hot coal walking. I don't know the specifics. But I do know one things - it is supposed to be about rebirth. Those dead trees and still saviors you see littering the road are supposed to come alive. And with their new life a whole sea of new beginnings is supposed to spread across the land like Ebola on an airplane. Here I am, watching the world turn green from my window, and I have to wonder why nature is able to follow a tidy schedule but the video game industry is so reluctant to stir even slightly. I didn't play Grabbed by the Ghoulies last week for my health! I try to write a column about the weekly releases. I am supposed to play a fancy new game every week. How am I going to do that with one last generation port coming out each week and not a single thing more?

Sorry I didn't inform you earlier, but Guitar Hero 2 came out last week... again. The biggest difference between the X360 version and the PS2 original is the new guitar design. The best engineers in the world put their heads together and drew up a tool that could turn my normal human hand into an unsightly claw in no more than three songs. This is a notable improvement from the first Guitar Hero, where it took as many as five songs to make my hand revoltingly unusable. In fact, I feel it is time to official wrestle the Most Painful Game Ever trophy away from the first Mario Party and crown Guitar Hero 360 as the king of pain. Guitar Hero 2: It will contort your hands, damage your ears and empty your wallet in one fell swoop.

I have one suggestion for future music games: no more covers. There are ten new tracks in this edition, two of them by a pair of my favorite bands of all time. The Toadies contributed their master tape, the original recording, of their one hit wonder from 1994, Possum Kingdom. Pearl Jam merely allowed less talented musicians to cover Life Wasted, the opening track of their most recent album. One of these songs rocks quite hard while the other feels dull and lifeless. Please, no more covers. It's for the good of the world.

If you don't own an X360 or have no interest in shelling out $100 more to play a last generation port that doesn't even have the decency to include online play, there is a new game coming out this week for the Wii. Sadly, it is just another port. Like Twilight Princess, Nintendo was content to slap some motion controls on an already finished game and announce it as a Wii Exclusive Extravaganza. Sadly, while a GC version of Zelda did surface a few weeks later, you have no choice but to play Super Paper Mario on your Wii. Thankfully, it's a port that may actually be worth playing (hide your head in shame Ubisoft). Super Paper Mario is the third game in the exceptionally verbose Paper Mario series. You may remember my slightly critical posts about its predecessor, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. I still can't believe I played through that whole game. Hours upon hours of dialog that tried to be funny but ended up stale coupled with never ending fetch quests and combat that would be too easy for a zygote. One of my least favorite games from last generation, and I played P.N. 03 and Brute Force. And yet, I am still interested in Super Paper Mario. This is what happens when nothing new comes out. I'm stuck playing through a sequel to a game I didn't even like. Wish me luck!