Grand Theft Auto IV is a violent, intelligent, profane, endearing, obnoxious, sly, richly textured and thoroughly compelling work of cultural satire disguised as fun. It calls to mind a rollicking R-rated version of Mad magazine featuring Dave Chappelle and Quentin Tarantino, and sets a new standard for what is possible in interactive arts. It is by far the best game of the series, which made its debut in 1997 and has since sold more than 70 million copies. Grand Theft Auto IV will retail for $60.

Hardly a demographic escapes skewering.

It looks like New York. It sounds like New York. It feels like New York. Liberty City has been so meticulously created it almost even smells like New York.

I will happily spend untold hours cruising Liberty City’s bridges and byways, hitting the clubs, grooving to the radio and running from the cops. Even when the real New York City is right outside.

I was sitting in front of my workstation today and something really strange happened. I'm not sure what to make of it...

I was working on something... I can't remember quite what it was. Somehow, almost psychically, I knew that Grand Theft Auto IV was about to hit the shelves. Then BAM! Blackout.

Next memory I can really piece together... I was staring at a an order confirmation screen on Amazon for a Playstation 3, HDMI cable, and a pre-order of Grand Theft Auto IV. I sort of watched myself hit confirm, but really had no control of it.. It really makes me uncomfortable to recount it.. It's hard to explain. I think I even signed up for Amazon Prime to save on the one-day shipping.

I mean, I buy from Amazon all the time. Why now?

Maybe Hillary Clinton and Jack Thompson are right. Maybe these games are brainwashing me. My lord, what could I go and do? Make a facetious post, and then it'd just all somehow go away?! HA. NO. NO sanity here.

Oh no.. I bought an espresso machine last week too... I see the way this is all chaining together. There will be NO productivity. This is a bad rub..

Hide the children! Folks, I'm going to sequester myself in front of an 46" 1080p screen with all the pieces of this puzzle until I figure this out..

Wednesday is the day. Wednesday. Wish me luck!

Grand Theft Auto Takes On New York

Electronics giant Sony has sparked a major row over animal cruelty and the ethics of the computer industry by using a freshly slaughtered goat to promote a violent video game.

The corpse of the decapitated animal was the centrepiece of a party to celebrate the launch of the God Of War II game for the company’s PlayStation 2 console.

Guests at the event were even invited to reach inside the goat’s still-warm carcass to eat offal from its stomach.

Topless girls added to the louche atmosphere by dipping grapes into guests’ mouths, while a male model portraying Kratos, the game’s warrior hero, handed out garlands.

In a word, "wow."

That's a party...

Slaughter: Horror at Sony's depraved promotion stunt with decapitated goat | the Daily Mail

If you've ever been to a concert, you've seen something like it. A lone spotlight hits the baby grand as the star sits for a final solo; in the audience, a sea of tiny lights flicker. But those aren't lighters, and this isn't a rock star. His name is Koji Kondo, and he's playing his own composition, one of the most famous tunes in the world -- the theme song to the video game Super Mario Bros.

And those lights in the audience? They're Nintendo DS game systems, opened up with their backlit screens pointed towards the stage.

"I wanted to create something that had never been heard before," he says, "something not like game music at all." Some of the tunes came easy, like the lilting, soothing music that trills when Mario is swimming underwater, or the staccato bass line that accompanies his travels underground.

But that signature theme, the first one in the game, took the longest to compose. Kondo would write one version, and then he and the team would put it into the game. If it didn't accentuate the action perfectly, didn't time up right with Mario's running and jumping, didn't harmonize with the different sound effects, he'd scrap it and start over.

Wired News: Behind the Mario Maestro's Music

How to build a sword-wielding, tennis-playing, WiiMote-controlled, friendly robot

This is pretty cool... However, I do not feel their job is done yet..

They need to use what they have come up with to build a gigantic R.O.B. The Robot to play 8-bit Gyromite using the new Wii controler.

The original used gyros, a machine to spin them up, and a base to set them on that interfaced to the A and B buttons on the controller. Using gigantic gyros might be potentially disastrous, but I'm sure something with weights could be done. And using the Wii controller to control the robot would sure as hell be easier than the old R.O.B..

R.O.B. The Robot 2007

Rockstar has made a video game version of The Warriors. Not a video game based on the movie, but a video game version of it... They even used the audio track from the movie for all the scenes and dialogue. Judging from the trailer, the entire movie is told over the course of the game.

The movie does go along like a video game.. Its really that ridiculous. All the gangs have themes that make them look more like clowns then gangsters. I remember watching the movie and thinking that the reason The Warriors were beating up the other gangs is because they were the least ridiculous looking.

The Warriors: The Video Game

This video is a little slow to start up, but worth the wait. Watch it full screen, because you won't believe your eyes otherwise.

Basically, some people have come up with one of the scariest arcade games ever, and are simply waiting for new victims, er players, to step and stick in some coins.

Proof that british people have a strange sense of fun

] What's nerdier then Nintendo? How about Acapella
] Nintendo?

8-bit 4 l1fe!

CollegeHumor.com : New Funny Pictures, Funny Movies, and Funny Hotlinks Daily!

] Sitting in the first-class cabin whisking him away from
] nine months detention in Japan, chess icon Bobby Fischer
] on Thursday launched a rambling diatribe against the
] United States, calling it "an illegitimate country" that
] should be given back to the American Indians.
]
] The reclusive Fischer - who is taking up residence in
] Iceland to avoid arrest in the United States - also
] unleashed his anger at Israel and likened President Bush
] to a comic book character.

How about a nice game of chess?

Yahoo! News - Bobby Fischer Rails Against U.S., Israel

] When I purchased this Unit I asked the owner of the shop
] about who brought the System in, and what he actually
] told me was that a gentleman had donated it that same
] morning and said "It was just sitting in his attic", and
] according to him, it supposedly belonged to his son who
] passed away years ago.

] I brought this System home, and on the first night of
] playing, about 10 minutes into the game, I began hearing
] sounds similar to human voices, mumbling to the
] background music of the television.

] On 3 separate occasions I've had the game 'Pause' by
] itself, without having my finger anywhere near the 'Start'
] button of the controller, and the really suspicious thing
] about it was the fact the timing of the Pause always
] happened to be during an intense moment of a game,
] as if the intentions were made for me to lose.

] And not only with me. I've invited close friends and family
] members over, and some but not all have witnessed
] something strange happen, like the one time the 'Arrow
] icon' on the Main Options screen of a game actually moved
] down to 2 Player Mode, all while the controller was out
] of my hand.

] Even my cat won't go anywhere near this System, unless
] she's 5 feet away and hesitating to sniff at it, and not only
] that, she's been running back and forth through the house
] in the middle of the night during the past few weeks, and
] that's something she's never done in the entire 8 years
] that I've owned her.

] I sincerely believe there may be some form of strong
] connection or attachment between this system and its
] previous owner.

Currently priced at $152.50. This has Laughing Boy written all over it.

Booga-Booga!

eBay item - Haunted Nintendo Entertainment System - Paranormal NES

] Do this dude edisoncarter cracked open what appears to be
] a cheesy 3rd party PS2 controller (save the good stuff
] for the gaming, we always say), hooked up the lines to a
] parallel port for signal injection, and then hash-cracker
] style used a custom app that ran brute force key
] combinations until he came up with a slew of unreleased
] cheat codes for GTA San Andreas. Damn, dude.

Neat hack.

Brute-forcing GTA San Andreas cheat codes