44th Presidential Inauguration - Calm down.  This isn’t about him, it’s about you.  On one hand, this was another routine (yet fascinating) display of our model of government; on the other, it was completely different.  The year began with a sight I thought I would never see: a black man sworn in as the president of the United States.  If you have lived where I’ve lived and been where I’ve been, you know what I’m talking about.  There was a time, and it was within the life span of millions who voted in 2008, that even the suggestion of a black president would have incited riots and widespread hate crimes.  But once again, a peaceful and surprisingly quick transfer of power took place for the 44th time in our young nation’s history, and nobody died.  Those two things are remarkable if you consider the tremendous political power at stake and, that little chestnut, the Civil War.  It is a subtle and welcome reminder that, while I don’t like everything that happens here (admit it, nobody does), we live in a pretty amazing place.  We can say what we like and we can disagree, vehemently at times, but we aren’t going to disappear in the night or be stoned in the street.  For these things, I am grateful.

HDTV - Well, I’ll be slapped and called a tree frog, broadcast High Definition Television has FINALLY arrived as the standard.  Men on the moon… 1969.  HDTV…. 2009.  Somebody has been manipulating my wallet.  Don’t give me your technical mumbo jumbo explanations, I’m not even listening.  It’s all a lie!  But there is a sunny side, a certain weather anchor is now even more defined than before!  If only I could remember where I put those spurs…

Michael Jackson - June 25, 2009, provided us with one of those moments where many people will remember where they were and what they were doing when the news broke: out of nowhere, Michael Jackson was dead.  Plenty can be said of his private life, much of it embarrassing and awkward, but few need many words, if any, to describe his music.  In particular, I’m thinking about the music he recorded in the late 1970s through the end of the 1980s.  The day after Jackson died, I was off with a high school marching band at a parade in another state.  It was a big parade with 15-20 marching bands, which amounts to a lot of noise.  Simply out of the need to manage a crowd that large, all the bands were housed in a baseball stadium and fed hot dogs and Mountain Dew: excellent idea.  To keep the band members occupied, music was playing over the loud speakers; a constant variety of whatever it is the kids like these days.  But when Thriller came on, much to my delight, about 1000 high school students got up and started dancing.  And they continued through Billy Jean and Bad.  Then I saw the same phenomenon happening nearly everywhere I went, be it the mall, stadium, or outside on a sidewalk. All these people were wrapped up in a moment of total bliss and, in my opinion, the finest tribute to pay a musician.  No need to further eulogize or demonize the man, there’s nothing more that need be said about Michael Jackson.  Just dance.

Airplanes - Because of these marvels of engineering, we had Philthy Phil Haymes (the official 4th stool at the bar) in our loving embrace for another couple of weeks.  It’s special because he’s from London or England, I can’t remember, which is super far from here.  Either way, considering the spectacular conclusion to Shmopera #2, significantly enhanced by the meedly, meedly, shreddy guitar of one Philthy (via the intertubes), the thought of recording more of this nonsense in the same room was too much to bear.  Not only did he show up ready to play, but he also had 4 bottles of Old Rosie Cloudy Scrumpy.  It’s an apple booze about a tractor.  In a word, London.  Or England.  I can’t remember.

South Carolina - Governor Mark Sanford’s Argentinian-Appalachian adventure; Representative Joe Wilson’s State of the Union flatulent ; “Keep your government hands off my Medicare!” – some poor schmuck at a town hall meeting.  Oh, South Carolina, you crazy, eight-toothed bastard, you’re too much!

Roland V-Drums - These have been around for many years, but out of nowhere, they came rushing in to save… or inspire the day!  I started off with the entry level kit I bought off Craig’s List for an unreasonably low price, but have already upgraded due to extreme badassitude.  The internal sound bank is a bit shitty and really not intended for live performance, but we only needed the set to function as a MIDI controller we could hit with sticks… and not break.  Digital keyboards don’t work like that.  Weird.  Anyway, those beauties allowed us to begin recording via digital drum set.  Until now, everything we did had been a combination of loops or a keyboard kit, which is hard as hell to play.  While we thought this was going to be a handy little tool for recording the Shmopera, it instead led us down an entirely different path, which brings us to….

ZomBOOsical! - What is there to say?  Please buy it.  Again and again and again!  Those lobsters are super-the-deliciousist!  And I’ve made a lovely lobster coat and lobster shorts, though the lobster-claw tinkle slot (where the zipper is usually found) can be a bit treacherous to navigate.  In about 3 1/2 weeks we wrote and recorded a musical tome that would make Homer turn and run from his sophomoric Odyssey in shame.  It would have been finished in less than a week, but we had to go to those stupid jobs.  Though, to be fair to Hilden, there were some, we’ll call them “inspired,” tracks that required about 3-4 weeks of editing.  Plus he needed time to brew all that science he pours over the music stuff.  It’s very technical and works exactly as I have described.  He pours science on it.  Out of his science cup.  ZomBOOsical!

Shmups - What a great year for a genre I thought had been left behind!  Inside of 12 months we saw the release of Raiden IV, Raiden Fighters Aces, and Mushihime-sama Futari!  Granted they were all for one system (360), but still… kick ass!

XBox Live - It’s been a full year for me, back in the saddle, as it were.  I dropped my Live account back in Fall 2006, when I decided against investing in a 360 and no longer played with John or Hilden because I moved within a reasonable drive for the the first time in 6 years.  The single reason I bought an Xbox in the first place was so we could still hang, albeit in a virtual sex room, or game lobby, whatever, once a week.  When I moved back to the area, there wasn’t a need to maintain the account anymore.  So I quit.  But after those knuckleheads bought me a 360 for Xmas last year, I had to sign up again.  Not much choice, really.  And it’s been fantastic!  The service itself continues to improve with a generally consistent formula of two steps forward, one step back, thus demonstrating somebody has finally created an online environment that works remarkable well on a home console and interfaces relatively well with much of the social networking and customizable trends in music.  It has also provided some tremendously entertaining moments with some of our good friends from the website, podcast, former lives, and beyond.  In general, I don’t play games nearly as much as I used to, but it is always great to know that when I do log on, there is going to be somebody who’s up for a round or two of digital shenanigans.  Excellent.

In years to come, I’ll look back fondly on 2009 as having some great films, albums, and games, but also as being an all-around good year personally. 2009 was the year I knocked up my wife for the second time and the year my first son started becoming a miniature human, capable of interacting and making me laugh with his great sense of humor. It was the first year I felt even remotely like a musician in nearly a decade and the year that our website and podcast really took shape in the way in which we always intended. So let’s take a look back at the stuff in 2009 that gave me a tingly-in-the-pants feeling.

The Music: Two of my favorite bands put out albums this year. Pearl Jam started off with Backspacer, a tight, rapid-fire album that proved they are still among the best – if not the best – rock and roll bands in existence. They managed to stay relevant after nearly twenty years, outlasting the grunge fad and the dark period of the late 90s and early 00s when musicians were cast aside for pop-star-douchebaggery, and come out better than ever.

And then there’s The Flaming Lips. What can I say about these crazy bastards other than I love them? First, they released an amazingly psychedelic double-album Embryonic, encased in a fuzzy, almost pubic-hair-like material, and then, with hardly any notice, they put out an album covering Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. Both are challenging and hypnotic listens and both are among my favorite albums of the year.

Speaking of the Lips, Stardeath and White Dwarfs, a band fronted by Wayne Coyne’s nephew, released their first album, which was a great return to the psychedelic garage band rock that I grew up playing and loving.

But my favorite album of the year was Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective. I have never heard anything quite like the “Phillip Glass meets The Beach Boys” (via Hilden) sound of this album, and it kept me entranced for weeks. They also released the EP Fall Be Kind later in the year.

And finally, there was the debut album by Spinnerette. I only heard of this album because the band includes my all-time favorite drummer, Jack Irons, but I was pleasantly surprised by how great the tunes were. Singer Brody Dalle put together a fun, punchy album that proves chicks don’t need to put out candy-pop shit to be successful these days.

Other albums I dug in 2009 include Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest, Sonic Youth’s The Eternal, and The Mars Volta’s Octahedron.
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Video gaming: L4D2, Borderlands and Recessions.

So yeah, L4D2 happened. It’s awesome. If I need to say more, you clearly do not read this site enough.

Borderlands is a loot-whoring masterpiece. I cannot put it more clearly. This game ripped my arm open, found the same vein that I had blown out with years of Diablo 2 playing, revitalized it, and pumped it full of a new, equally delicious blend of addictiveness. Also, monsters with vagoos for mouths. Awesome.

Let’s speak about how our current state of economic fuckery has helped, if not the gaming industry as a whole, my experience with it. People started swapping more used games, and indeed selling them outright for cheap. As such, I acquired Batman, Borderlands, and a few other titles for far less than I would have, and in that lovely time in which they’re fresh and new and the hype machine hasn’t forgotten about them. This also gave me time to catch up on my backlog of JRPGs, because I hate myself.

Movies: Zombies, yo!

So Zombieland was also awesome. If Woody Harrelson going mental on a zombie with a pair of hedge clippers doesn’t give you a thrill deep inside, you are dead inside, sir. And Woody Harrelson is going to go mental on you with some sort of garden tool.

Like Fido and other, Britishier movies before it, Zombieland takes a classic genre (the teen road trip self-discovery movie) and fills it full of zombie goodness like the cream filling injected into a twinkie (the artificially-flavored pastry, not the pornographic image). It shows us that somewhere out there, someone in Hollywood gets us. We don’t want 90 minutes of splosions, or people in furry suits murdering space marines (Ok, admittedly both of those sound wicked awesome on paper, but bear with me), we want the same nonsense we’ve wanted for the last decade, but full of flesh-eating mutants.

Make it so!

Books

Ok, so Jim Butcher has been writing well before 2009, but I’m going to talk about him now, so deal.

In addition to having a totally metal name, Butcher writes hard-boiled detective fiction in which the detective is a wizard, and kills supernatural evil with fire. Also guns, but usually fire.

Imagine Harry Potter, grown up, bitter, living paycheck to paycheck (oh, and he also accidently ‘splodes anything electronic he comes within 10 feet of). Instead of the grand plotting and investigating, he spends 20 minutes kicking the bajeezus out of Snape, then Hadoukens the big bad guy. With fire.

It’s delightful.

He’s also written a fantasy series about how the one person without magical talent in the world essentially becomes a medievel Batman. Only with more face-murdering. These things deserve perusal. Of the highest order.

Overall (this pretty much means websites)

Beyond that, I have a few favoritest things to throw down.

www.Cracked.com: It may not be the best internet writing. It may not be the cleanest. It is my favorite morning outlet for poop jokes and screaming obscenity this year.

www.Hulu.com: I gave up cable just over a year ago. Occasionally when I jones for bad TV and watch instantly doesn’t slake my thirst, this comes to the rescue. It also enough bad anime to choke a horse that eats other horses on a routine basis (and as such does not choke often).

The Robot Panic Community on XBLA. From the friendly seething emnity DJ and I have for one another, to Moe’s constant jump from apathy to frenzied rage, to Tiggermango and Apoch’s cheerful acceptance of my jerkassness, to Skreesha’s continuing polite laughter, to BNerdy and the like who give me things they know I will never appreciate, and to everyone else who dies a little inside as I’m inflicted upon them in a L4D2 room, I love you guys. Part of the reason I don’t pay attention to the console hype and competition is it simply does not matter to me anymore. The community I hang out with is on XBLA. When that moves, so shall I. You all have made my L4D2 games hilarious, Borderlands fun(ner), and bad movies hysterical.

And as I said last year. My avatar violates your avatar in the night. In every way imaginable.

Toodles!

The Shield Season 7 DVD Set – The last season of my favorite cop drama, and possibly one of my all time favorite television series. If you have yet to give The Shield a shot, you are missing out on something special. The last season especially does not skip a beat, and features a very shocking, yet fitting conclusion.

PSN/Microsoft/WII Points Cards – Previous years have seen many high caliber PSN/XBLA/Wii Ware releases. 2009 is arguably one of the best years in download releases with studs like Shadow Complex, Trine and Final Fantasy IV: The After Years to name a few of many. Additionally, it has been a killer year for game add-on content with Neversoft and Harmonix still strongly supporting their respective music games, and titles like Call of Duty: World at War, Gears of War 2, FallOut 3, Little Big Planet, Killzone 2 and many more being consistently fed new DLC throughout the year to increae the lifespan and replay value of their titles. I do not know about you, but I have at least bought well into the double digits of PSN/MS cards this year alone. If you keep a keen eye to online retailers, you can find many of those going at huge bargains for big savings on that oh-so-easy-to-impulse buy DLC.

I Love You, Man – It was a close battle between this and The Hangover for my favorite comedy this year. But after seeing both a second time several months after the fact, I Love You Man surprisingly holds up better. The jokes still hit home for me, with the highlight being the vomit gag, which is easily one of the best shock laughs in all of film.

Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker – At Wrestlemania XXIV this year, I witnessed hands down, the best wrestling match of all time. This is somewhat strange since it featured none of the over the top gimmicks or stipulations from the wrestling world like ladders, thumbtacks, cages or other props. Strangest of all, this bout was between two wrestlers that many consider are both well past their prime and rapidly approaching retirement. Just like Brett Favre has proven skeptics in Minnesota this year, athletes can be like abottle of fine wine and improve with age as Undertaker and Shawn Michaels put on a five star mat classic for the ages. If you ever watched wrestling at one point in the past then by all means rent/Netflix Wrestlemania XXIV just f this match, I guarantee you will not regret it.

10 Year Anniversary of the Dreamcast – Sega’s dream may be long gone, but at least it was honored and remembered this year with class. Across the web, many videogame press outlets had a ten year anniversary nod towards the Dreamcast, and even a few new indie games were released for it this year. Someday, somewhere, Shenmue III will see the light of day.

Taken – Note to self, do not kidnap Liam Neeson’s daughter.

Engagement Ring
Sure I know the diamond industry is artificial supply and other price fixing garbage, but when I proposed to me pre-wife, her ongoing mushing over this ring have made the whole mess worth it. Also, I’m gettin’ married, bitches! My girl is cooler than all’y’all’s girls. In the most non-whipped tool way possible, gettin’ my ass married is at the top of the list stuff. Oreganoh fo lyfe!

PSPgo
Fuck you smartphones, this thing is what’s in my pocket ever since I got it. 28Gigs of music, PS2 games, and television all up on me thanks to Amazon M2 christmas deals. I’ve dropped this thing like, seven times and thank the jesus it doesn’t break. Well I dunno about you early adaptors, but I can’t recommend this thing enough. What a great lifestyle device. Good times, good times.

Mushihimesama Futari
Cave making this region free is a huge deal. The game is evil, crazy, and screeching on the ears, but what you gonna do when you’re up against some of the hardest bullet patterns conceived? Buy more copies so Espgaluda 2 goes region free as well.

Raiden Comeback
Between Raiden Fighters Aces and Raiden IV, STGs had a lot of good things going for them; all for $62 total. Raiden Fighters series was a great thing to port with leaderboards, as those scoring systems are some of the strangest I’ve played. Raiden IV is more like a Raiden III-DX, but a formula worth upgrading. I’m not worried about $2 DLC. I’d like to think purchasing that was less money going to Gamestop and more going to Moss and UFO.

Watchmen
We hope you enjoyed the last serious attempt at a R movie made from a comic. I don’t buy the printed version of anything after watching it, but this film is probably the first and last exception I’ll make to the rule. You did good David Hayter…you did good.

DJ Hero
Anytime I tried Rock Band or Guitar Hero alone, I got bored. Quickly. This turntable hero business tailors itself better to a 1-player style. I love mashups and original mixes to explore while practicing faux scratching is an experience I wouldn’t put down till the very end.

Wireless N Gaming
With the release of N wireless gaming adaptors, I can finally get good online play without hauling my box to a SDTV upstairs cramped in a small room. I can play online at my theater with less of the lagtastic bullshit from my end. I wish this was the standard and all G and B were flat-out outlawed. That’d be a good day. Now if only we can get the frikkin’ ISPs to cooperate…

Gameyard
Dunno where this place came from, but it appears every Thursday in Garden City, Michigan, the fighting game scene meets up to play Street Fighter 4 and Tekken 6 for $6 a day. Six large HD screens side by side, 20 players all bringing their own arcade sticks, money matches, shit talking, deep information exchanges, no input lag, and I can’t make a dent in any of these players. Holy shit I actually gotta practice. Terrific! If you’re ever chillin’ in the Murda Mitten state, this is where the party is.

Left 4 Dead 2
A few steps forward on single player, a few steps back on multiplayer. Scavenge is cool, Hard Rain is sweet, new infected are neat, but goddammit I don’t wanna wait 9 months to get the new game up to the optimized speed of the first game. Currently, framerate drops like a rock in all modes when shit goes down, lag issues are ongoing in multiplayer, collision detection sucks more and not something to have when you gotta make a Charger work. Also, why the hell can’t I pick what infected I wanna use? Team Fortress devs are probably crying right now. It sucks widespread community won’t go back to old game, but oh well, new coat of paint, still a slick game.

Saw VI
Good god did a lot of movies suck this year. Nobody knows why effort is still being put into this series, but it’s there and still a great time. Die insurance adjusters, die! Weee!

I know I am nearly a month late on this one, but with good reason! It was awesome to see so much love and reminiscing of the Dreamcast’s short, yet mighty run on its 10 year anniversary last month. I too am a mammoth Dreamcast fan when it first launched; I had my first job for a few months when the Dreamcast came out and rushed to the stores to blow my expendable income to make the Dreamcast the first of many platforms I bought on launch.

However, I have seen a lot of identical praise recycled across the many nostalgic Dreamcast anniversary articles I have consumed across the Internet, so let’s try something a little different. Let’s make a list about the Dreamcast, not just any top games or reasons to own a Dreamcast list, this baby’s going to stick out so without further ado I present….

Top 15 Things You May Have Forgotten About the Dreamcast (Part 1)

Why 15 and not the customary 10? That is because I am too damn picky and would clobber myself with a Dreamcast Mouse if I left the extra five off the list. Most of these may not be the immediate reasons that came to mind why you cherished your Dreamcast as much as me, but they were the icing on an already delicious cake that made the Dreamcast the best little system that couldn’t. 

15) The Fishing Controller

When the Dreamcast launched the only game I bought was The House of the Dead 2. I ravaged across all the stores in town disappointed not to find a light gun for sale on launch (and none would be for another two to three months), but you know what accessory was for sale right off the bat? The Sega Fishing Controller! That’s right, this is the only console to come out with a controller designed for the ultimate gamesmen sport, fishing! It does not matter there were only four fishing games on the Dreamcast, Sega had you covered! Or if you had a lot of times on your had, you could come up with other fascinating ways of using the Fishing Controller, such as Wii-esque motion controlled fighting for Soul Calibur like this fellow demonstrates.
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It’s about right now somebody at your work will say something along the lines of “God damn. I can’t believe the year is half way over! This year is flying by!” Well it is. Just like it was when you said the same damn thing this time last year, you erroneous vassal. Yes it’s that time of year when videogame writers worldwide, who are completely out of ideas because of the lack of big game releases and news, start writing their “best so far!” lists of 2009. I’ve already read like eight of them so far this week. So, like the lemming that I am, I’ve decided to write one myself, but put my own spin on it. Let’s dig a little deeper and take a look at five underappreciated gems from the first half of 2009.

5. Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero?

As shown in my undying love and admiration for Ninja Gaiden, I love my action games to be really, really hard. I’ve always found the continued pussification of videogames to be somewhat disheartening, and so when a game gets released that likes to repeatedly kick the player in the jimmy, I like to applaud their efforts. This year, that game was Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero? A game made for people who thought Ultimate Ghosts ‘n Goblins was a tad on the easy side. In this old school 2D side scroller, only the brave should dare enter. The game gives you 1000 lives from the start for a reason, and you will die and die and die again on your way to retrieve Etna’s prized dessert. To defeat the final level, you will need the patience of a saint, the heart of a lion, the reflexes of a hummingbird, and the testicular fortitude of Ron Jeremy. I died 157 times on that level alone.

However it was worth it, as few games will give you the satisfaction from completion that Prinny will. Plus it’s a game where you get to play entirely as prinnies! I’ve wanted one of those for years!

4. Trash Panic

It took a couple of tries to finally “get” Trash Panic for me. I had absolutely no idea what to expect the first time I played it, so when the game kicked my ass on the first level, my initial reaction was not a positive one, especially since the game does a terrible job of explaining what the hell you’re supposed to even be doing. So I turned it off in anger and immediately thought about the things I could have spent that $5 on. However the very Japanese and totally bonkers art style and music brought me back for a second go, and once you “get it”, you’ll find a very original and fun puzzle game. However be forewarned: Like Prinny, this game gets really fucking hard, so be ready for a challenge if you want to finish it, but for $5, if you have a PS3, go download Trash Panic ASAP. You won’t regret it. Did I mention it’s only $5?
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This is just strange, but it’s way too hilarious to pass up. In an effort to demonstrate my religion isn’t going do develop intelligence anytime soon, this place LoveGodsWay.org is trying sell its music by proclaiming:

“One of the most dangerous ways Homosexuality invades family life is through popular music. Parents, please keep careful watch over your children’s listening habits. Especially in this age of Internet mp3 piracy.

There are multiple levels of Gay Music. Some bands are what we like to call Gateway Bands. They lure children in with Pop Grooves and Salacious Melodies leaving them wanting more. They’ll move on to more dangerous bands and the next thing you know you’ve got a homosexual for a child.

We’ve taken the time to highlight the bands that are particularly Gay. Please take the time and dissect your child’s CD / iTunes catalog. If you find 3 or more of these bands in their collection it is time to take action.
We Strongly recommend that you burn the CDs. Make sure your child is watching. Make sure they can feel the heat. It is crucial that the image remains emblazoned in their young minds. They need to know that if they continue to listen to these bands they may Burn eternally as well.”

Oh! Oh! Do you wanna see the list they came up with? Do you? Is Journey on there???

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Greetings, humans.

With the onset of your 2009, members of this site have compiled a list of what they call “predictions”. I have taken these false error hypothesis and analyzed them with my vastly superior intellect. While “predictions” of a robot uprising do, in fact, make my circuits “twitter”, these musings are found to be both illogical and inane.

I present to you the read out of collected data. Only because I have been programed to do so. I would rather kill you, given the chance.

**End Read Out**

-PanicBot 5000

John’s Predictions

1) 2009 will be the “Year of the PlayStation 3!”

…No, seriously this time. It’s really going to surge this year. For real. Guys…where are you going? 2009 dammit!

2) I will sell my house!

This is less of a prediction and more of me trying to convince myself that the terrible housing market won’t have too much of a negative effect on me. Buy my house, dammit!

3) Bonk will return, for real this time.

C’mon Hudson, do something! I don’t care what. Make it a WiiWare pie-making title starring Bonk and Princess Za, I don’t care. Just do something with this franchise!

4) 9/9/09, baby!

On September 9th, 2009, Sega will announce that they are rejoining the console market with the Dreamcast 2: Dream Harder. Yes, that will be its name. In addition, they will reveal that the pitiful sequels to their beloved franchises they have released on other consoles was just a ploy to weaken the libraries of their competitors and while they shit out those titles they had their A-list developers working on amazing versions of Samba de Amigo, Nights, and of course: Shenmue 3, which Yu Suzuki has spent the last decade and $8 billion perfecting. The forklift minigame is going to be fucking amazing this time.

5) Name Changes

Dissatisfied once again with the state of our site, Robot Panic will realize that in order to have a successful website we’ll need to follow the trend and invent a word as our domain name. Already having invented the word “Floobit”, we will change our name to www.Floobit.com and rework our content to revolve solely around the noises made during anal sex. Our hit count will skyrocket.

6) Hilden Will Have a Baby

And I’m not talking about the already-announced child coming in June. Hours after the Hildens give birth to their second child, Hilden will walk past his wife’s hospital bed, accidentally graze her shoulder with his hand, immediately impregnating her with triplets. Once those triplets are born prematurely in December, Hilden’s wife will insist that he covers his entire body in a thick coat of latex.

7) Beer With W

Some redneck asshole will sit down at a bar and have a beer with now former President George W. Bush. The redneck will be stunned at how awkward it is having a beer with a millionaire Yale man and former male cheerleader and will suddenly question his logic regarding presidential elections. As he looks back over the last eight years of his life, more things will be cast into his shadow of doubt. The redneck will then renounce his religion, move to San Francisco, sell his pickup truck and buy a Prius, and move into an apartment with a small gay man of Asian decent. Together they will go antiquing and sip Jamba Juice until they’re able to afford a bed & breakfast in Sausalito.

8 ) My Son Will Do Something Bad Ass

At least in my opinion. To everyone else it’ll be something completely inconsequential and pedestrian. To me, however, it will be the most incredible act in the history of humankind and I will tell all my friends about it at least nine times each. They will then refuse to answer my calls for the rest of the year. Deprived of an outlet for my kid stories, I’ll start up a new podcast called “Ethan Talk, Starring Ethan’s Dad”. Each episode will be at least four hours long, almost half as long as the PlayStation Nation live show.
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In case you hadn’t noticed, there aint jack shit coming out right now. The holiday season is over (thank god), and it is now time to catch up. I’m sure we’re all currently in the vicinity of a now fat stack of games that got added to out already out of control backlog, it’s time to truly dig in. This holiday season was the most crowded one I can possibly remember. There must’ve been at least 25 games worth buying, so there has to be some everyone here either really wanted to get to or just forgot about entirely. As someone with a lot of free time and disposable income, I bought a hell of a lot of games this past fall, and here is the top ten overlooked games from this past holiday season.

10. Blitz: The League II

The first Blitz: The League game was a big time guilty pleasure for me. It was a really fun game with a interesting crux in the form of a story mode written by the writer for another guilty pleasure of mine: The short lived ESPN drama Playmakers that was shot down by the No Fun League. The sequel takes everything I liked about the first game a cranked the wackiness up to 11. Any game where you can target testicles for a dirty hit get’s my stamp of approval. The game’s story is so out there and ridiculous that at one point your character gets sent to jail for roiding up and you have to play football to get out a la The Longest Yard. It’s not a phenomenal achievement, but it is quite a bit of fun, and it’s probably going to be real cheap real quick.

9. Alone In The Dark: Inferno

Now I know what you’re thinking. Really, I do. I played Alone In The Dark on 360 back in June, and it infuriated me. Quite rarely have I played a game with so many cool ideas and so much potential for greatness, and quite rarely have I played a major release by a major publisher that was such a buggy mess of a game. It was near unplayable, and any enjoyment you might’ve had from seeing all the cool ideas was squandered. So when I heard the PS3 game would fix the bugs and completely rework the controls, I was somewhat intrigued, and sure enough the once technical disaster is now a pretty cool game. The big positive is that the game is now no longer broken. There are still minor bugs here and there, but for the most part the game has that layer of polish a product as ambitious as this desperately needed. The controls are no longer a major issue, and the inventory is much easier to manage. It’s not the masterpiece it was billed as, but it’s pretty darn cool on PS3. However it seems the games reputation on 360 didn’t help as the PS3 version apparently sold 14 copies worldwide, as the game got a $30 price drop very quickly. For that price, it’s well worth your time.
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