So I was browsing through Screwattack's VGV on NBA Jam. After watching the short review, I was reminded on the epic game, so I dusted off the old SNES, blew on the cartridge, and played basketball the way it was meant to be played. After 30 minutes of high flying dunks, great balls of fire, and glass shattering awesomeness, I put down the SNES controller, and picked up the PS2 one.

I decided to slot in NBA 06. When a game costs 5 dollars cause it sucks, you have to get it. After choosing the team, I played a game. I was surprised on how slow the game play was compared to NBA Jam. In the time it took you to get to one side of the court in the other in 06, you had already made 10+ points in NBA Jam.

Sure, I thought, of course the NBA games are modeled and praised for their realistic gameplay, but when someone enjoys playing a basketball game that came out more than a decade ago over a game that came out 2-3 years ago, someone's not been doing their job, and someone obviously did a beautiful job.

Plain and simple, NBA Jam kicks ass. Share your love of NBA Jam.

I have yet to play the sequel, which was NBA Showdown(?) I seriously think they need to make a remake, not only does the game play so smoothly, but if you hook it up with some monster graphics, thats just beautiful.

So I didn't add the accent on the e, sue me.

My brother decided to have a marathon and watched all the old Pokemon episodes together. Not that "Johto" or Master League bullcrap, I'm talking about the old Pokemon that didn't suck (as hard.) My brother was on the episode when Ash's Pikachu defeats Brock's Onyx.

When I was a little noob myself, I thought "Holy crap that was a smart way to defeat a match that was already won, I never thought of that"

When I looked at the episode now, I had a few questions, and began to analyze the horrible facts.

For those of you who don't know, the episode starts off as Ash challenging Brock. Obviously Ash, being the biggest noob at the time, chose Pikachu, and Brock Onyx. Not surprisingly, Ash gets thrashed, demoralized, and pwned. A man appears and helps to "super charge" Pikachu by some water wheel or something. Ash comes back, Pikachu fights Onyx, and wins, but the only reason that he won was because when Pikachu used his/her/its most cliche move, thunder shock (not to be confused with thunder, or thunderbolt) he/she/it sets off the sprinklers, and as we all know if even a small speck of water hits Onyx, a rock type pokemon, he will instantly get knocked out.

As I said before, back then I used to this was genius, but now I question it.

The show was modeled after the game, or the game modeled after the show? Either way they should have made the game much more similar to the show/game. In the game, if you even attempt to try a Thunder shock on Onyx, you're only going to tickle him, while he mercilessly beats the crap out of you. In the show, Ash exploits the Gym's structure, and comes out victorious. If you can't do that in the game, why can you do that in the show?

Another few examples are when Ash + any other trainer tells their pokemon to "dodge" That line is used so much in the show "______ use ___ !!" "___, dodge/jump !!" Now I wish I could do that in the game. If I could order my Pokemon to dodge, that'd make things so much clearer. But no, in the game you have to take the hit full on. I always had this sick fantasy of a Smash brothers game only with Pokemon, and the B moves can be their attacks.

Thats just my little rant I had. Thanks for reading.

Happy Black Friday Everyone. At the time of this post, only 30(?) days left of Christmas Shopping.

I decided not to hit the malls bright and early, I wasn't going to buy anything anyways, I was just going there for what everyone goes to, the gaming sections. I decided to hit up a local Wal Mart with my 9 year old brother. After battling our way through waves of carts and clothes thrown on the floor, we reached the forbidden zone, the Electronics Section.

Of course the section was full, so I maneuvered my way through the hordes of crazy shoppers, and found myself in line for Rock Band. In previous months I played their Guitar Hero demo, but since I already owned the game, I found myself literally spanking everyone at the game. I put my best "gee I don't know how to play this game" (:[) face on, and then switch to my game face when I do begin to r0x0rz t3h n00bs (>:[). So I was pretty confident that I wouldn't have much trouble with Rock Band

The lined shortened, and it was finally our turn. I pushed my brother towards the drums, and I picked up my axe. After choosing In Bloom by Nirvana, and selecting the easiest difficulty, I was prepared to rock everyone's face off.

Too bad that never happened.

When the first notes came down, I found myself missing them. I looked down, the controller, it seemed fine. I tried to hit another sequence of notes, but I missed. I looked down again, and concluded that the controller was unresponsive. I had to hit the notes a second early for them to actually register. My brother was having a hard time too, he had to smash the drums for them to register, again a second later.

The virtual crowd began to boo, my brother and I tried to save our asses, but it was too late. I put the guitar down in shame, and walked away.

I was browsing through some other games, when I came across the 360 booth. Too bad no one was playing it because it had a "Please Insert Disc" screen.

I headed over to the Wii booth, it had "Please connect the Wiimote." I looked around, a nunchuk, but no Wiimote.

Over to the DS booth, I had a hard time seeing anything because the bottom screen was so scratched up, some with random scratching others with some gang signs.

I walked out of the store, disappointed because not only I had failed in my quest to rock everyone's face off, I also was upset on how Wal Mart treated games. Video Games are a work of art.

Feel free to share your stories of how your dreams were shot down by crappy retailers.

With the anniversary of the start of the Next Gen War coming up, Sony decided to revamp their now 7 year old console, the PS2. The only major change is that the power adapter will be built right into the system, therefore making it even more smaller. Sony says that they want the player to feel more...portable with the console. Too bad the Gamecube beat you to the punch, 6 years ago.

Source.

With the latest Guitar Hero game coming out, I thought It'd be nice to go down memory lane. I picked up my Guitar Hero 1 disc, blew off the dust, and returned to the song that haunted me, Cheating on the Church. I beat it, not the best score, but I beat it, and I was flailing at the notes when the hammer ons came on. I tried GH2, then I finally put it GH3 and played it. I don't own GH2 Encore :(, so I didn't get to try that one out. Playing GH3 after having previously played GH a few minutes before, I noticed how different the series progressed, and how everything had just..

In my personal opinion, the best one would always be the original. It was innovative, unique, it introduced us to the series, a guitar controller ?! That was crazy talk. The songs were very familiar, Smoke on the Water, Godzilla, No One Knows. The game was very basic if we look back on it today, just a few songs to complete, 2 characters + a small bundle of guitars/finishes. Now we have so much to do I haven't completed GH2 when I got GH3.

So I ask you, the reader, what Guitar Hero game is your favorite?

I've been a big fan of accessories. Those iPod arm bands, the wireless controllers for almost every game console, the cases in which you could fit every hand held thing, sure pile them on. Of course, we do have some stupid ones, and I'm pretty sure this is up there.

The Wind up battery gives a new definition of boredom, as if waiting for your batters to recharge isn't enough, now you can wind them up, manually. Isn't that what video games drive us away from? Manual Labor? I think winding this thing up might be as much fun as sleeping on a bed of nails.

Can you imagine sitting there, and then having the pleasure of watching someone furiously winding up a battery for their DS? I'd sure enjoy seeing that.