***Update***

The problem with games isn't that they cost too much. I'm not an economist or anything, but I'm willing to bet that regular old, non-collector games cost more or less what they used to in real dollars. What's more, the technically savvy have been getting games for free as long as there have been games, and this will only get worse as prices go up. No, I'm afraid we won't be joining this boycott, or any other boycott, or signing any petitions, or wearing a silly suit and walking back and forth, or any of that shit. Activities like this will only anger our corporate overlords, causing them to activate dormant volcanoes in our midst and bury us in molten rock. So if you're into magma or whatever, you know, hey.

You probably don't know this but I'm a golfer. I know I know, it's hard to imagine Gabe partaking in any kind of outdoor activity even one as relaxed as golf. I took a shine to the game at a young age and my parents supported my enthusiasm with countless professional lessons. I grew up playing Washington state junior golf which had me competing in tournaments all over the northwest. As I got older I worked at a course as a ball boy (paid target) and played for the High School team. After probably ten years of intense competition I was burnt out and quit the game. I came back to it a few yeas later and realized that what I had grown tired of was the competition and that I still loved to play. While I am not able to get out as much as I'd like I still have a special place in my heart for golf.

When you buy a peripheral anymore, you might as well just get a jigsaw before you leave the mall. We don't lock up our prisoners this well. Why our gamepads and so forth must be hermetically sealed is beyond me - have they done something wrong? Is it for their own protection? If they don't want me to have the controller, and that's fine, maybe a better plan would be to keep it out of the store in the first place.

If you, like me, are having a hard time making Unreal Tournament 2003 run on your system without crashing literally every ten seconds, give this a try.

I just uploaded an interesting article about the Tokyo game show. It’s written by a PA fan who is currently living in Japan. His name is Karl Ignaczak and he put together a real nice piece about his trip to the show. You can check it out here.

There's some noteworthy stuff I thought was worth noting.

Human beings are overwhelming my Inbox in support of a Robotech purchase, but before I could possibly have hit the mall the producer offered me a copy. You know what that means. It means Robotech gets ten out of ten.

I forgot to mention something about Sly Cooper - it has slowdown in some areas. Okay, that's it. It doesn't bother me none, and it's confined to very specific spots. I didn't want you to try it out and be like, "Hey! Tycho didn't say anything about slowdown!" or something like that.

There's these goofy little creatures you get in Starfox that let you continue. They're called Bafmodads, I think. I know that it starts with Baf and ends with Dad, and I feel like that's good enough. There is room for error between those two poles, but also for romance and adventure. So I'm set.

Gabe seems to like Starfox Adventures well enough. I haven't jumped on all that many platforms since The Killing Game Show years ago, so it's probably not my place to say - but I don't think this is a game I could play for any extended period of time. Every mission I've seen is nothing more than an unbroken string of petty indignities.

Those of you interested in the import gaming scene might want to hit VGD. Street Fighter Zero 3 for the GBA dropped this week. I had the opportunity to play this game at E3 this year and it's fucking incredible. It is an amazing conversion with a ton of animation and great art. The other cool thing is that you can play import games on a US GBA. No need for any special adaptors or Mods, just plug it in and go. Also coming out this week is the latest Neo-Geo release, Rage of the Dragons. I honestly have not had a chance to play this one yet so I can't say much about it. It's a 2D fighter based on the Double Dragon Universe and from what I hear it's pretty solid.

I was also sent a link to Ready Room's XP/2K tweak guide for gamers, and it's been pretty interesting so far. Caveat emptor, of course. The Ready Room is an information site for strategy-action hybrid Natural Selection, which I can't seem to stop talking about for some reason.

Perhaps a more accurate way of putting it would be "You Had It, And Then Gave It To Me."

It's hard to know what to think about Microsoft buying Rare, but there are a variety of responses.

With all this Ghost hub bub I totally forgot to talk about Starfox. I have had it for about a week now and it's a hell of a good game. This really isn't a Starfox game though. It's a platform/adventure style game that just happens to have Fox, and a few precious minutes of Arwing action here and there. It's easily one of the best looking games on any console. The water effects rival those in Mario Sunshine and the characters look totally awesome. I honestly was sort of disappointed in the combat before this evening but that's because I didn't actually understand how it worked. I realized there must be more to it and so I sat down tonight and actually read the manual. It turns out the combat is actually really fucking cool. I'm pulling off wicked combos now and bad ass special moves. Rare has always seemed to have a hard on for making players collect shit. Starfox takes this concept to new levels by giving you approximately three hojillion different items to collect. I'm looking for spirits, fruit, scarabs, fuel cells, gems of various colors, little fucking animals that let me continue, spellstones, different kinds of seeds, mushrooms, nuts and roots. the list is fucking endless. I am beginning to think that my love of platform games goes beyond a simple affection for the genre. While I don't feel the need to wash my hands every five minutes I do think that just a touch of OCD is required to really love these games the way I do. I simply must find every fuel cell. I have to know what happens if I give the mammoth the golden root. Tycho once asked me if I think something bad will happen if I don't collect all the things. I told him I don't think I would die, but why take that chance.