If you have been inexorably drawn to unique new McDonald's breakfast items, it may be because you have recently visited IGN. We looked at it a lot yesterday, an hour or so while we ferreted out the hidden meaning of the McDonald's Pantheon, and I want a McGriddle so Goddamn bad now it hurts. I'm going to get one of each kind and eat them right there in the fucking parking lot. I keep making a fist, reflexively.

I noticed on Evil Avatar that Tierra Entertainment have started to move on an update of Quest For Glory II, the absolutely necessary sequel to Quest For Glory I, which is also called So You Want To Be A Hero. This is great news for you. It's great for both of us, actually - there are plenty of people playing games now who don't have any idea what an Excruciator is, which is sad, because I can't make oblique references to them. There are projects now out to resolve that, so you can expect more discussion of the rift between the disparate halves of the Ur-Quan. This is no different, and updating these hallmark, cornerstone titles for free release enriches our community beyond measure. Sierra these days has a reputation attached to it, by which I mean a bad reputation. But there was a time when absolutely no-one could touch them, they embraced technology like no other company and taught it astonishing tricks. Fully orchestrated scores that output to MIDI enabled devices, before the advent of sound cards. Two-hundred and fifty-six color art in King's Quest Five - the effect of what were, in essence and in actual fact, paintings on your screen that you could play through and interact with can't be overstated. They even had an online gaming network, back when you were supposed to put a dash between "on" and "line." Take a look at this list of games - they pushed the envelope so far that it fell off the table. Humor, even bawdy humor, horror, action, mystery, their publishing roster ran the gamut and consistently expanded the lexicon of electronic entertainment. They purchased talented developers, and then those people did the same - Impressions, Papyrus, Dynamix, and Berkeley Systems are all well known to us.

This is history, and listen up, because it's Goddamn important. If people can recollect and deify people for wearing jerseys and hitting balls, or jumping very high let's say, then you and I can catalogue the moments particular to our own fascination and invest them with gravity and power.

Also on the nostalgia tip, you have heard me regale you with tales of Wasteland - an inspiration for Black Isle's superlative Fallout series, to say nothing of the very operation of my mind. It is the architect of my expectations where a role-playing game is concerned. But I rarely gave any credit to The Bard's Tale, the fantasy series that provided the technology and gameplay that Wasteland was founded on. It spanned three games on computers, saw some action consoles as well I believe, and even had an unofficial sequel called "Dragon Wars" that no-one seems to have liked very much. I played Bard's Tale games much later than they came out, as they included Sorcerers and whatnot, and my mother felt that games of this sort would have allowed the devil into our home. I was steeped in superstitious nonsense as a child, and it's a shock that I can traverse a courtyard or pass through a doorway without some kind of spoken oath or protective hand gesture. In any case, I enjoyed them very much by the time I was able to wrest my thoughts and deeds from irrelevant tradition. The progenitors of Devil Whiskey, a game apparently in tribute to the classic trilogy, also bear what must be considerable affection for the series. For example, while I'm content to mention the game and bitch about my mom, they're busy creating an entire game in homage.

(CW)TB out.

like i do

Meowrowrrrl!

It's great, when someone from White Wolf was trying to tell me why his own company was right in the Underworld lawsuit, he quoted this guy, too. Justin Achilli! I do hope to cross paths with the Philosopher King again soon, probably the next time I'm right about something.

(CW)TB

Re: McGriddle

Save yourself the time and money, they taste like shit.

Really? IGN gave it a 9.7.

(CW)TB

I am wondering if you know which people are Programming Language Inventors and which ones like to kill people. This is a useful skill, for reasons which I think are obvious.

(CW)TB

I just wanted to talk for a second about the Gamefly ads you guys are seeing over there on the right. Where as IGN is riding Ronalds bone pony all the way to the McBank we take a little bit different approach to advertising. We have selected a service that I think you guys will actually like. We’re innovators, I know.

Gamefly is a game rental service similar to Netflix. You pick games from a huge selection of titles for each system and add them to your “Game Q”. They send you two of the games at a time and you keep them as long as you want. When you’re done you mail them back in the envelopes they supply and they send you the next couple games on your list. For example I’m looking at my “Q” right now and I can see they just shipped my copy of Disgaea and FF:Tactics will be sent out later this week. Pretty fucking cool.

The other cool feature is, say you have a game and you decide you like it enough to keep it. For most titles you can simply click the purchase button next to the game in your “Q” and you can buy it at a used price. Not to shabby.

You can follow the link via the ad on the right and sign up for a free trial. If you end up liking it the price is $21.99 a month to keep going. I can vouch for it being a quality service. It’s an excellent way to get games that you want to play but don’t necessarily feel like dropping cash on. Disgaea for example looks awesome but I know I don’t have the attention span to stick it out. I still wanna play it though so I put it on my list. Same with Tactics. Obviously signing up for the free trial helps us out as well which is much appreciated. It’s really a win win situation for everyone.

In the next couple months we are gonna get hammered with new titles. Just off the top of my head I can think of a bunch of games I’m interested in like Billy Hatcher, Tiger Woods 2004, D&D Heroes, Boktai, Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, Tak, and Time Crisis 3. That’s just in the next two months and I know I’m forgetting stuff. Renting this stuff through Gamefly seems like a much better option than taking out a small loan.

-Gabe out

I had no idea that the McDonald's Concpiracy field had been so well plowed. There is already much ink spilled in service to it.

For example, political machinations are no strange occurrence in Hamburger Town, which is actually called McDonald Land or some shit. Of course, the true friend of those looking to comprehend modern events is history.

The modern, docile The Grimace is apparently a lobotomized amputee version of the original four-armed, shake-snatching behemoth.

(CW)TB

White Wolf just put up a press release announcing that though the court did not grant their injunction, it did other things that were encouraging to them. Go check it out, if this story interests you.

(CW)TB

I was looking around at EB's site to find out the ship date for D&D Heroes - that's on the 23rd, by the by - when I saw something I didn't recognize.

I guess the "Tom Clancy Exclusive Companion Demo Disk" drops on the fifteenth and includes a demo of Rainbow Six 3, three Splinter Cell missions (two of which are exclusive to this product), and four bonus maps for Island Thunder. It's like Ten Bucks, and I've bought magazines just for the coverdisk that were about ten bucks. Probably have to pick this one up.

(CW)TB

I just grabbed the new update to Xbox Live, which adds considerable functionality - booting up the system without a game in logs you in to Xbox Live automatically, and places you in a new UI where you can manage your Friends list, voice chat, and receive invites. This is part of an upgrade that extends a bit beyond the console, as you'll be able to access leaderboards, tournament information, and your Friends information from your computer as well.

I wanted to see how the chat facility worked, but nobody I knew happened to be on. Luckily, I received a chat request from "Ogrods" who, along with TheBattleToad, FinalJustice, Valkyn, Carnage119, Shadow051, GrandThief, and the suave ladykiller Josh2cool124 rule all of Enfield, Connecticut with an Iron Grip. That's something I didn't know before.

(CW)TB