Nintendo 2011 Holiday Preview

I'm a stupidly huge Nintendo fanboy, there's just no escaping that fact. I swoon at the thought of new Mario and Zelda games, such as Skyward Sword and Super Mario 3D Land, and I'm actually happy with my 3DS purchase (even if I'm a foolish early adopter). After heading to PAX last month I had the opportunity to play through a handful of titles that'll be appearing very soon, so I went and wrote up a little holiday season preview for everyone over at Toy-TMA. Head over and read it here.

Armchair Thinkers Episode 25 Is Live!

So it takes a while for Armchair Thinkers episodes to get made and then even longer for them to finally go live. None of this is my fault I might add. Kyle and I only get a chance to match open times in our schedules maybe but once a month, time that is typically spent ripping through a podcast episode if we can. However, once I send the edited episode off to our guy to post, it may take a week, two weeks, or even over a month at times before everything works and it goes up.

Thankfully we're not pitifully outdated with today's topic, which is George Lucas and why he's bothering us again. Plus, we debrief from PAX 2011 at last. Go give it a listen and enjoy! You can find the new episode here.

No Right Answer and Drinking Games for Thursday, September 15th

It's got to be one of the best days ever for me as both No Right Answer and Drinking Games today let me talk about topics I absolutely love.

On No Right Answer, the debate posed is "Who Is The Worst Father?" The choices: Goku from Dragonball and Firelord Ozai from Avatar. I finally got to talk about Dragonball Z! Awesome! But we couldn't decide who won, and Dan refused to judge, so we're leaving it up to the fans. You can check out the video and leave a comment here.

On Drinking Games, I'm allowed to go off on Super Smash Bros Brawl, one of my favorite games ever because I'm a silly Nintendo fanboy. Plus, Kyle gives us his Canadian accent on today's Annals of Gaming History when we look at some simple rules for Blades of Steel from the NES. Did you ever play it? You should! You should also go check out the episode here.

BloodRayne: Betrayal Review

My very first review token! I was ecstatic when I got added to a bunch of media lists due to blowback from PAX, so when a company said "Okay, everyone who wants review codes please make sure we know," I was all over that. Free game? Score!

Turns out the game in question was BloodRayne: Betrayal. I've never played a BloodRayne title before, which may have been slightly in my favor as Betrayal is nothing like any previous game in the series, but then again I don't think it would have really mattered now that I played it. It's...not my favorite game on XLBA (that'd be Super Meat Boy), but I suppose there's an audience out there.

Here's the full review via Toy-TMA. Go check it out and see if your opinion of the game matched with mine:

BloodRayne: Betrayal Review

No Right Answer and Drinking Games for Thursday September 8th

Here we are on a lovely Thursday evening, so that must mean new shows went up on The Escapist!

For No Right Answer, Kyle and I decide to get angsty and debate which movie is full of more instances of angst between the entire Twilight saga and Spider-man 3. Who's going to win this one? You'll have to watch to find out.

In the realm of Drinking Games, Dan, Kyle and myself look into Resident Evil 5 and start to see all teh racism compacting upon itself. Our solution? Create a drinking game out of it! And in the annal of gaming history, it's Super Mario Land, another surprisingly racist game. Don't believe that we'd deal with issues like race in video games? Watch and be amazed!

Tomocast Episode 30: Toy Story!

Last week was a busy week for a lot of reasons, so of course I added a handful of Tomopop articles to my plate, as well as an episode of the Tomocast. Pedro, who is truly the man by the way, put up episode 30 of the Tomocast, which finally has our group of myself, Rio McCarthy, Kristina Pino, and Pedro the Man doing commentary on Toy Story, a movie that needs no introduction. You can listen in here.

And in case you were wondering what I've been writing over at Tomopop that's so very important here's the rundown:

The Marvel Select line of action figures showed off their Colossus figure, a character I absolutely love. You've got all the right pieces here like a bunch of articulation, the right costume, and even an accessory that's a chunk of the Danger Room. I'm all for this, even if we may have covered it before. Regardless, the write up is here.

I have a soft spot for anything related to Futurama, so when Deviant Artist artanis-one went ahead and created a handful of Planet Express' crew in realistic statue forms, I was overly happy. Write up for that is here.

It can be really hard for me to sort through tips since there's usually a flood of things that reference Munnies, Dunnies, Qee, and other such base model toys that people then use to make awesome customs. Very rarely does one come around that I want to talk about, but Gabriel Carpio, also a Deviant Artist, succeeded in getting my attention with a whole collection of customs with a kabuki aesthetic. The full write up is here.

Lastly, Kirby is one of those characters I can't help but love. I dare any of you to say you actually hate the little puffball, even if you don't usually find yourself playing bright and colorful games where tomatoes heal your healthbar and lollipops make you invincible (or invencible in some cases). How can I say no to plush Kirby keychains then? I can't. The write up for that is here.

PAX Prime 2011: Archibald & Remus Demo

The very last demo I had a chance to sit down and play while at PAX was an interesting little tower defense title by SRRN Games called Archibald & Remus: Minor Lords. I'm not usually a fan of tower defense games (with the one major exception being the Pokemon Tower Defense game), but the aspect that caught my attention from Archibald & Remus happened to be a more minor portion of the game: It's a buddy comedy. More on that after the jump.