Forwards from Phil: Jan. 31, 2008
January 31st, 2008 by PhilIt’s the end of an era! Or at least January. Will FfP continue into February? We’ll find out! But we’ve got an extra-hearty helping of stuff for you today, so let’s get kraken crackin’ on what you might’ve missed.
- Not being out in the elements is always a good thing, especially in Russia: St. Petersburg is starting the process of becoming a domed city. Okay, well, that might be a little overly dramatic; they’re doming over a shopping district and putting a matching glass(-domed?) bridge over a nearby river. (Still, I suppose that when the inevitable zombie crisis strikes, St. Petersburg will be safe - as long as they expel the infected with no mercy, which they can do, because they’re Russian.) Apparently it’s designed to show what the weather is doing, without pedestrians actually having to be out in the weather. I’m all for this; bring it local!
- Time After Time becomes a sci-fi musical. It’s not immediately obvious what it’s about from that link, so let me sum it up for you: it’s about H.G. Wells and Jack the Ripper in 1979 San Francisco.
“In this cult favorite, Wells invents a time machine in 1893, zooms into the “present” and meets a woman in what he considers a dystopian future (imagine thinking the future would be all gleaming steel and floating airships and ending up in Haight-Ashbury in 1979). Then he zaps Jack the Ripper, and heads back to his own time (lady in hand) to live happily ever after.”
- Apparently this year’s Super Bowl ads can best be summed up as “nice”.
- One less person to annoy you when all you really need is a quick run in and out: Dell is closing its mall kiosks. Now if they could just get the damned T-Mobile people out of the mall I’d be thrilled. Those are some persistent mofos. Apparently “I have an iPhone; your network doesn’t support it, you cockmongler” isn’t enough of a reason to leave me alone.
- The Rock Band DLC for March is outlined in this month’s Official Xbox Magazine (what happened to February?). The outlook: well, great, if you like Metallica and other bands like them. This is the first big group of DLC I’ve actually felt pretty “meh” about.
- A trip down memory lane: back in 1996, there was this little startup with a web browser called Opera. That was about the time Microsoft thought the Internet had nothing to offer us, and a plucky little browser called Netscape Navigator was on everyone’s desktops. All those features you like in Firefox or IE7? Opera beat them to it. Unfortunately, there is such a thing as getting too far ahead of your time. (For the record, I actually do recall using Opera - quite faithfully - during this time period because IE4 and IE5 were abominable pieces of crap.)
- If you thought the previous Fatal Frame games were freaky, wait’ll you see the list of names on the next one: Tecmo, Grasshopper, and Nintendo. Tecmo’s not a big surprise, since they’re the Fatal Frame folks, and they generally ensure it’s a creepy series of games. Nintendo’s also not a surprise, because - yes - the next Fatal Frame is on the Wii. (At last, a use for my Shark Gun!) It is kind of unusual, though, for Nintendo to be publishing a Tecmo game. The newcomer here is Grasshopper, better known as the studio associated with Killer7 and No More Heroes. I think we can count on Fatal Frame Wii to be the creepiest one yet.
- Remember, gang, every man who still enjoys video games is an adulthood-stunted child-man who’s obviously going nowhere with his life and has a fear of commitment. Because, you know, it’s obviously true that we can all be lumped into one huge category, right?
- I will never understand this, but the default for a blank spot on those NFL graphics is not a blank string of characters, but some combinations of A’s and G’s. Which leads to interesting pictures like this when someone forgets to fill it out first:
Or else Tony Romo was just playing like his analogue of Bad Rex, Tony Ohno.
- Sakurai says: SPOILER ALERT. The Smash Dojo’s going to start showcasing hidden characters and features that haven’t been revealed up to this point. Hooray! Stuff I already know! (And some I don’t!) Speaking of which, Sakurai went over the actual Brawl character selection screen. You can now choose which Pokemon to throw out first as the Pokemon Trainer, and Zelda players can choose to skip that stupidity and just start as Sheik.
- Zero Punctuation reviews Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles. See? I had an actual reason to use the ‘Zombie’ category, not just the made-up St. Petersburg zombie invasion from above.
- Destructoid covers five reasons why people crave Super Smash Bros. Brawl so much.
- And, last but not least, Off-Road Velociraptor Safari is out, free, and available in your browser; feel free to go start murdering other raptors using your Jeep. Seriously, this is the plot of the game. You’re a raptor in a Jeep killing other raptors to send them to, I dunno, I think it’s a food corporation? Do you need reasons? Go play it.