Staring into the flashing, colorful eye of madness

Have you ever wondered what it looks like inside the head of a coked-up comic shop owner? Play Marvel vs. Capcom 3. I rented it from GameFly today, and I’m not quite sure how I feel about it yet. Basically, here’s the breakdown of pros and cons so far:

Pros: Hitting random buttons and watching cool stuff happen

Cons: Galactus

See, I’m not much of a fighting game guy, so when “hit random buttons” is a perfectly valid strategy for everyone but the final boss, it throws me off. I just want to see Tron Bonne’s ending, dag nabbit.

Here are a few of my pieces today from Shacknews:

• More free PS+ games! – I knew being a Plus subscriber would pay off eventually. I don’t have much interest in playing these Genesis titles yet again, but free games is free games.
• Yeah, threaten them, that’ll stop the hackers – Never mind that free PSN accounts means. This is the problem with hacks; anything that can be done can be undone by someone with the know-how. I don’t blame Sony for trying to put the toothpaste back in the bottle, but it just seems so futile.

I tried out Tactics Ogre last night, and it’s pretty much exactly what I’ve wanted in a spiritual successor to FFT. Though FFT was inspired by Tactics Ogre, so it all comes full circle. I also played through a bit of the latest Pokemon Mystery Dungeon; I had a little money left in trades and I’ve gotten a fondness for roguelikes lately.

I’ll be trying out You Don’t Know Jack pretty soon; the buzz has been really positive so far. And I came to find out in the middle of the wee hours that Telltale has released episode 2 of Back to the Future. I reviewed the first one for 1UP and really liked it, so I’m looking forward to cracking into this one now.

My wife and watched Survivor tonight; we’re not huge fans (Amazing Race is better), but we’ve gotten into the habit lately. The Redemption Island element is kind of interesting, at least, but I don’t like giving Russell a third shot so soon. Hilariously, though, his strategy seems to be a conniving ass again. The only reason that worked the last two times is because you weren’t known for it then, dummy.

Tonight’s tribal council was among the strangest I’ve seen. This former government agent Phil is both weird and douchey, which I have nicknamed “weirdouchey.” He basically spilled all the details of his alliance’s plan with no prompting whatsoever. I predict he’ll be kicked off soon enough.

Also, apparently this is Wonder Woman? Alright, I suppose. Anyone who’s listened to the lastest GeekSpeak knows we have some justifiable reservations about this show.

New in the neighborhood

It occurred to me about a week ago that I’ve become spread pretty thin lately. Not in terms of workload, but where people can find my work if they want to read it. I’m on Shacknews, 1UP, GamePro, GeekSpeak, Re-Play Radio and Newsvine — and still others might be coming. It was getting awfully inconvenient to follow my work.

So I decided to start up a blog that would serve as a a catch-all for everything I produce. I’m still working on prettying up the place, so don’t mind the dust and drop cloths while I get settled in.

Here’s a little sampler of the types of links and commentary I’ll be trying to provide here.

• Double Fine somehow gets more adorable – It’s too bad I don’t own a Kinect. I’ve really enjoyed this notion of smaller downloadable games from the studio, but I might be counted out of this one. I have a soft spot for Sesame Street, and all Muppets really. If I had a toddler I could justify buying a Kinect for this game. Maybe I can borrow my nephew….
• Man, nerds love Felicia Day – But then, you don’t play a freckled WoW player and a mad scientist love interest without picking up a few fans.
• Oh, like robot kittens – I just can’t think of Voltron without picturing that Penny Arcade.
• Looks like I’m getting Joe Danger for 50% off – At least, I hope so. It seems strange to give the discount based on popularity. The people voting will be the people who played the game, and if they already played it they don’t need a discount. Maybe I’m just bitter that I already own almost everything that will probably win.

I also wrote a story on DJ Hero 2 at Shack today, but I have no real commentary or interest in it. I never was much of a music game guy, but sometimes you just write a story that you don’t personally care about, because it’s still valuable news to someone. When it comes to Shacknews, I produce at least 5 stories per day, so I’ll only bring them up here when I have something to say.

I should have a cool feature coming at 1UP, restarting a series that I began years ago. Now it should be monthly again, and I’m pretty excited about this first entry. Look for it sometime next week.

I got Tactics Ogre in the mail today (thanks Amazon trade-ins!), so I’m looking forward to starting that up. It came with a deck of tarot cards, which I had read about a bit in preview coverage but not thought about too much. I didn’t realize it was literally going to come with them, at least. I’m not sure if I’m going to follow the Law or Chaos path, but the idea of more Final Fantasy Tactics appeals to a very potent synapse in my brain.