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Ever since I completed each and every title in Metal Slug Anthology at least fifty times over, I've been neglecting my Wii. I've been playing Metal Slug [or Slugs] using the GameCube controller, so it didn't even feel like a Wii game and I gues at its core it really isn't. The time of me not playing proper Wii games has come to an end however, with a little help from Zack & Wiki.


I'm a sucker for all kinds of point and click adventure games and I've been meaning to buy this title for a long, long time. It always was a bit pricey, but last week I found a brand new copy for which I paid a bit under $20, and that's including shipping. Deals don't get any sweeter than this, so naturally, I grabbed it.


The game takes us on an adventure filled with puzzles, pointing, clicking, twisting, turning, pushing and pulling. We'll use the Wii controller to help Zack [who not unlike Guybrush Threepwood of Monkey Island fame, is trying his hardest to become the greatest pirate roaming the seas] and his magical monkey friend Wiki to collect body parts of Captain Barbaros. Yes, that's right. You have to collect body parts to revive Barbaros, who will reward your efforts with a big fat treasure and a legendary pirate ship.


It's not the greatest story in the world and it brings a dozen similar tales to mind, One Piece being one of them, but that's really nothing to complain about as long as the game is well made and Zack & Wiki is a top shelf production. If you're into solving puzzles, you'll love this title. Everything is well thought through and the controls could not be better. The game can challange you but unlike many PC point and click games, it's not likely to become a chore.


We all know that Wii is a bit behind in the processing power department when compared to PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360, but Zack & Wiki is one of those games where high polygon count doesn't really matter. Cartoonish and semi cel-shaded graphics are perfect for this game and I wouldn't even think of changing anything as far as the looks go. In fact, I wouldn't change anything at all. The game is a ton of fun and if you spot a cheap copy, buy it. Maybe thanks to your support Capcom will decide to make a sequel because this game deserves one.


Aside from Zack & Wiki, I also bought the Cloverfield movie. I haven't really read or heard that much about it so it might turn out to be crap, but who knows. It was only $4.50 and that much I can give for a movie I know almost nothing about.

PR

Hey, Mr. Postman! Is that a letter for me you have in your bag? Yes it is! And it's not just any letter either. It's in fact the maxi single CD from Mirror's Edge - Still Alive: The Remixes. The CD premiered in Sweden just yesterday so I was surprised to get it so soon, but then again I did pre-order it.


The shop I bought it from is one that I frequently visit and few weeks back they were nice enough to e-mail me a gift certificate for 50 Swedish kronas. And what way to spend them if not on the then upcoming Lisa Miskovsky's Still Alive single, which costs 49 kronas? I didn't think twice and I pre-ordered it paying just a local shipping fee.


I wanted to get this long before the CD became available for purchase, and after listening to some of the tracks on the official remixes page, I was hooked. I like Lisa Miskovsky, mainly because of Kent's Joakim Berg who is a fantastic writer and who writes and produces most of her songs. Berg wasn't involved in this project, but having Arnthor Birgisson and Rami Yacoub from Maratone on board is nothing to complain about.


What we get on the CD are seven tracks. Radio edit of The Theme from Mirror's Edge and subsequently six of its remixes by known DJs and / or producers. Benny Benassi, Paul Van Dyk, Armand Van Helden, Junkie XL and Teddybears are all here to have their way with the original track. Aditionally, Benny Benassi's mix is featured in two versions, a full length track and a radio edit.


Do the mixes deliver? Some of them do, but if you haven't heard any of them yet, don't expect much from Paul Van Dyk. Probably best known from the bunch, Mr. Dyk treats us to a fairly generic track with a typical club beat and arbitrary clips from “Still Alive” thrown in. For some reason, his track reminds me of Rendez-Vous 98 mix Apollo 440 did on Jarre's "Odyssey Through O2", only it's not nearly as good.


Remixes that I personally liked the most are those produced by Junkie XL and Teddybears. Both of these artist took a slightly mellower approach, making their tracks into a pair of very melodic compositions which you can really listen to and enjoy. Not being straightforward club tracks, these remixes really stand out from the bunch.


Besides music, the CD holds one more surprise - a high resolution trailer from Mirror's Edge. Just pop the CD into your PC and you'll be able to enjoy a high quality 1280x720 QuickTime video with equally high in quality AAC audio. If you hold a grudge against Apple, you can always ignore the *.mov file from the disc and click on the thumbnail above to watch the trailer online on Nico Nico Douga.


I have also uploaded the radio edit of "Still Alive" and made it into a neat video. If you want to check it out, just click the box above and again, you'll be taken to Nico Nico. And what's the final verdict for the CD? I'd say buy it. It's a maxi single so it's cheap. I haven't heard anything about a standalone game soundtrack yet, so you might want to get this if only to enjoy the theme song in CD quality.


A small update - I found a high quality original video for Still Alive and thought I'd upload it, but someone did the job for me, so here it is.

It feels so great when good things happen to good people and being a good person, I'm pretty pleased with what happend today. I never get any real mail, and by real mail I mean letters from people who care about me. I do however get bills, catalogues, supermarket flyers and offers on daily basis. Usually I just throw most of them away, even bills, but luckily today I took the time to find this sweet deal.


Guitar Hero 3: Aerosmith for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 or Wii, guitar included, could be mine for 299 Swedish kronas. That's roughly 38 US dollars. I called the supermarket up to check how many copies for the Xbox 360 they had in stock and "plenty" was the answer, so I rushed to the store to pick one up. I even took a picture of the nicely looking Guitar Hero pile.


Christmas is just around the corner and it's only natural for deals such as this one to be seen in bigger stores. They can afford to slash the price and that's exactly what they did. Strangely enough, they also had standalone copies of Guitar Hero 3: Aerosmith for the Wii, PS3 and the 360, and the pricetag on these was 549 kronas, and that's around 70 US dollars. I already feel sorry for people who will buy these.


After a quick trip to the store and an equally quick trip back home, it was time to take a closer look at what I had purchased. I always liked guitar games, ever since I got the first Guitar Freaks back in '99. "Gadget games" are always fun and easy to get into, so even if you have some friends over and none of them tried Guitar Hero before, playing the game will surely be a blast.


I had three versions of the game to choose from, and while the title is equally good on both PlayStation 3 and Wii, I rarely see major discounts on popular titles for these platforms, thus it's more likely I'll score a cheap Guitar Hero for the 360 when I'm looking for a standalone game with some new songs. Plus, Wii doesn't feature any downloadable content. Sorry Nintendo, but I don't get you. What is the Wii's SD card slot for anyway?


So what's in the box? Most importantly, we have the guitar. It comes in two parts that you connect together and it's, of course, wireless. I really liked the Aerosmith faceplate. I always thought that most of the faceplates sucked, or at least the ones I've seen. This one is quite ok.


There's of course the game itself, packed like any other brand new Xbox title. The game box doesn't say it's a bundle copy and the only thing that makes the it distinguishable from the retail version is the lack of barcode on the back, with "Not For Resale" written in its stead.


There are some extras aswell. Included with the bundle is a "Tour Book" printed in colour on a really thick paper. I just flipped through it and it seems to contain some Aerosmith info in several langiages. Still, a cool addition. We also get some stickers. If you wish to decorate your guitar or your dad's drivers license, there are plenty of stickers to choose from. We also get simple instructions explaining how to connect your guitar to the console, but who reads instructions? I read them only after everything I try by myself fails!


The game features over 40 songs, majority of them by Aerosmith, but there are also a few extra tunes by Joe Perry, plus Lenny Kravitz, The Clash and others. I still haven't played the game properly and all that I had time for was a quick test run, but everything plays just like any other Guitar Hero, minus the glitches previous versions were known for.


In other news, shortly after purchasing Guitar Hero, I picked up a new issue of Game Reactor, a nice free and high quality publication, and a Planet Terror DVD, which I watched today. I have to say, it was more upbeat than Death Proof, and thanks to its pricetag of 15 Swedish kronas [1 US dollar and 90 cents!], it was a nice cherry on top of today's main attraction.


While in the store I also saw some Rock Band sets, but the price on those will have to drop a bit before I'll get one. I'm sure it's tons of fun, especially with the drumset, but fun or not, it will have to wait. Besides, I have a whole guitar game ahead of me.

Today, after many weeks of waiting, package containing my Sam & Max: Season 2 stuff had arrived. To my surprise it wasn't a cardboard box like the usual Telltale packages, but a regular envelope with bubblewrap. Fortunately nothing got damaged.


I was lucky this time around and I didn't get slapped with additional tax fee. I've also noticed that instead of the usual green declaration sticker, they used a different one. Well, the customs declaration information is basically the same, buy maybe it was the different look that threw customs off. Again, lucky me.


The way things work with Sam & Max these days is that the game is split into episodes which later become seasons. These episodes are released once every two months or so and are distributed via Telltale's website. You can buy a single episode or you can buy a whole season, which is of course cheaper in the end and you also get a disc release, once the season is complete.


The disc contains all of the episodes that you can also download via your Telltale account, plus some extras. We have trailers, outtakes, special movie features and hours of developers' commentary for the ingame cutscenes. The disc is a hybrid, so you can pop it into any DVD player and watch the extras. Stick it into a DVD drive and you can access additional goodies like wallpapers or a soundtrack sampler.


In other words, there's a ton of content to keep you entertained. It will take some time to play through all of the episodes and add to that many hours of extras and you have a game worth everything you paid for it. If the game and extras aren't enough, Telltale can supply you with some additional junk.


The case file. It's basically an envelope filled with items you see in the game. It's rather cheap. For $5.99 you'll get some neat collectibles so if you're a fan, imagine how neat it would be to have a napkin from Bosco's or a postcard from the moon [both of these came with season one case file]. If you're unsure whether you should get it or not, let me just tell you that season one case file is already sold out and people are paying $50 for it on eBay.


So, what's in the case file this time? Telltale really did a great job, surpassing what they did last time, and I was already impressed back then. You get a punch card, a Tiny Tiki coaster, a Soultrain token [made of metal and really heavy for its size], The Friendly Demon Song mini CD [which contains six tracks plus a hidden message - a definite highlight of this eclectic item package] complete with vinyl print on the disc and scratchy vinyl sound and a postcard.


I am really happy that Telltale is doing this. There was little to none merchandise sold when the original Sam & Max: Hit the Road game came out back in '93. Plus if you didn't live in the US, there was no way of getting a hold of anything. Today we have internet and everything is easy, so buy your collectibles while you still can. If you delay, you might regret it in a few years.


The soundtrack, as usual, doesn't disappoint. Jared Emerson-Johnson did a great job composing some fine jazzy beats and catchy tunes. This kind of music won't appeal to everyone, so of all the items here, this is the one you should buy only if you really enjoyed the music while playing the game. Or if you're a collector and you just have to own it along with every single piece of Sam & Max merchandise.


We get two CDs packed with audio directly from the game. One thing I've noticed is that some of the tunes loop a couple of times. That's fine, but the second CD has some additional audio stored on it in mp3 format. I'd rather have the looped tracks shorter and have as many of the mp3's as possible present on the disc as audio tracks.


There is plenty of additional mp3 music on the disc two. Music from cutscenes and trailer is included here, along with an explanation why Telltale chose to include compressed music. The fact of the matter is, there was simply too much music composed for Season Two and Telltale had a two disc limit for the soundtrack. That being said, I still would have preferred the loops being cut down to size so at least one more track could fit.


At least the mp3's are encoded in 320 kbps and the bitrate is constant. Let's hope that for the next season, if the amount of music will be equally huge, the two disc limit will change to three. I'll pay the extra buck, Telltale. Don't worry. I'm a loyal customer and a loyal Sam & Max fan.


So now I have two seasons, two case files and two soundtracks before me, and even though I have damn cold and a headache, I'm happy as a peach. Season One for the Wii is out, so if you haven't bought the PC version and you feel that pointing and clicking with the wiimote is more up your alley, buy it, play it and laugh, laugh, laugh.


I've been willing to write about this for quite some time, so I'm glad I finally got around to it. What is it that I am going to complain about this time? Cartridge cases. It seems that nowdays nobody bothers to include a game cartridge case, even though games aren't cheap and manufacturing a case out of a few drops of plastic doesn't cost much.


It's funny how a copmany such as Nintendo, who could manufacture cases for their games back in the GameBoy and GameBoy Color days, can forget so quickly about the customers who brought them to the top and focus on the cash. It's obvious that the lack of casings is just another way to lower the production costs, but I'd gladly pay the extra dollar just to have some protection for my game when it's not in the box.


When Nintendo took over the handheld market completly, after killing both Neo Geo Pocket and WonderSwan, they decided that protective cases won't be happening during the GameBoy Advance era and this theme continues even today, with Nintendo DS. The funny thing is, people want protection and plastic cases are being manufactured. Of course you have to buy them separately and someone will make a profit because Nintendo doesn't care about its customers.


In the past there used to be some form of protection for every cartridge type. Neo Geo Pocket games always came with a small case, just like the old GameBoy games. WonderSwan games had a neatly designed plactic cover. Even PC Engine games came in protective sleeves, not to mention N-Gage titles, which had a special case in every box, with not just one, but four places for MMC cards.


Back when PlayStation premiered, during the first two years or so, every console box came with a case for the memory card, even though there was no memory card supplied with the console. Later however, Sony forgot all about this nice custom and stopped including these handy plastic boxes. When PlayStation 2 came along, we could forget about the memory card cases because clever midgets at Sony designed a memory card holder present in every single game box, even though nobody used them.


Nintendo duplicated the idea in GameCube game boxes, equipping them with a memory card holder and not supplying a case with the expensive, separately bought memory card. I don't know about you, but I can't be bothered to look through hundreds of game boxes looking for a damned memory card. I'd rather have a special casing for it.


When you buy a memory card for your camera, phone or PDA, it usually comes with a casing. Even the cheapest ones. I bought some SD cards that were so cheap, I didn't even believe they would be working once I plugged them in, still they had the protective case [and yes, they worked. Still do]. I bought a Nintendo DS flash cart and it came with a special protective case with rubber lining. If China can do it, why can't Nintendo and Sony?


It's sad to see once respectable companies sinking lower and lower, focusing on making more and more money. Forget about the customers, just get the product out and they'll buy it. After all nobody can say to Nintendo "Hey, why aren't there any cases for DS cartridges? Competition has them!" because there is no competition. I don't see PSP as competition, but even if I did, their UMDs have no protective covers either.


We can always hope for the better and in the meantime, buy third party products to protect our games. Shame on you Nintendo and shame on you Sony. Oh how I wish for Namco Bandai to make a new WonderSwan and whoop your asses.
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