Over at Gamers With Jobs, Julian Murdoch looks at the craft of writing about games — and how being a gaming journalist has improved his relationship with games. While I've found writing about games has significantly cut into my time I can spend playing games — and there's a difference between playing for pleasure and playing for pay — I'll agree with many of Murdoch's thoughts in regards to going into situations with a new perspective, one that is frequently quite positive:

This self-conscious focus on both the game and the gamer is an unadulterated good. Playing games now brings a joy of personal intellectual exploration, in addition to the joys of escapism, mastery and conquest. There is no doubt in my mind that my enjoyment of BioShock was substantially magnified because I went into the game thinking, not just passively waiting to experience. How it was made? Who made it? Where the threads were that I could pull on, and discover how much fabric was really there?

Writing about games has taken me from the role of dreamer into the world of the lucid dreamer. Where once I woke from moments of seeming glory, grasping at the fading fragrance of what was right there just a moment ago, now I emerge from a game startled and awake, reaching for the pad of paper, struggling to synthesize the experience in a new form – a form hardened by an edge of language.

I have the problem that I find that intellectual, questioning part of me off — I approach all media with a certain critical eye, and it's hard to ever just sit and enjoy something just for what it is. Still, being able to approach games with a certain lucidity is a good thing, as are the overlaps between my 'academic' life and my 'gaming' life. My relationship with games has certainly changed since I started writing about them, but it's not always doom and gloom — making a living (or partial living) off of something doesn't have to kill the joy of it.

Pinning Butterflies [Gamers With Jobs via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

Ah Peter Moore, how we've missed you. No one has really stepped into the "public face" void filled by Moore's sudden departure over at Microsoft, but fortunately, Moore himself is still going to be very much a public face in gaming.

Today the EA Sports president launched his very own blog over on EA Sports. Moore says he hopes to update it weekly with thoughts on sports, sports gaming and the gaming industry. He also told me in a recent interview that he might post some picture of fancy new digs (complete with sports bar I'm told) on the site down the line.

If his first blog post, which touches on everything from Facebreaker, the Super Bowl and why he thinks Larry Hryb is the Perez Hilton of video game blogging, is any indication, Inside the Game with Peter Moore is going to be a must read for sports gamers. Oh, and the best part? His posting name is EACrazyLegs. Wow! Turns out that EACrazyLegs is actually the community manager who posted Moore's first blog entry. His real forum name is... PeterMoore. Boo!

Inside the Game [EA Sports]

This Beside Games blog network is pretty interesting! (Well, more interesting if you understand who the people are and what they're saying.) It features well-known musicians, comedians and model-types blogging about what games they're playing. What a great idea for a site! For those who care, my secret crush Natsuki Kato has a blog, which I've bookmarked. She's playing through Seaman 2 and taking copious pictures of herself playing through Seaman 2. She hasn't updated in a while and really should, you know. That's what blogging is all about!

Ann Nanba's Blog [Beside Games]

They just announced that Gas Powered Games partnered up with them to make a brand new original RPG for the PC.

The game will be unveiled in a few weeks, says Sega of America president Simon Jeffrey.

Sega of America was number ten for market share last year, up from number 14 in 2005 and number 16 in 2004.

On to the announcements:

First up is Happy Tree Friends, a download only game for PC and XBLA. It's Itchy and Scratchy meets the Lemmings. Yes, it has that happy meets horror feel and look of the fantastic web animation.

They're showing a clip now. In it two bunnies are enjoying a meel when a commando bunny jumps in and starts killing them with straws and ketchup and mustard bottles. Classic. And lots of blood.

The next game they are announcing is Ghost Squad. Ghost Squad will be going exclusive to the Wii. Oh, and it will be playable here today.

The game appears to be a first person shooter with knives and gomes. Oh and it's going to use a light gun. HOLY SHIT a LIGHT GUN.

You can unlock 25 tactical weapons and it looks an awful lot like Time Crisis.

Next up is Universal War. It was already announced for the PC, today they're saying it's also coming to the Xbox 360.

The demo they are showing seems to be showing snippets of giant robots, helicopters and other vehicles attacking each other.

Ah, now to updates.

Talking Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games.Games. Besically, they just said they're really excited... aren't we all.

OK, talking Marvel, specifically Iron Man and Hulk. They're talking about the Iron Man movie right now... and they said the director is interested in working with Sega on the game.

Both games will be coming out next Spring.

OK, on to the hands on previews. See ya later. Check back for my impressions later on today.

Update - They just announced Condemned 2 Bloodshot for the 360 and PS3 - That is all.

In a four-hour special called "News War," FRONTLINE examines how news media today is changing. Interesting and fascinating — Worth a watch, if only to see a millisecond of Kotaku. Be sure to blink so you can miss it! Brian Ashcraft

It's In Part III, Chapter 19 [PBS, Thanks to all who sent this in!]

Are you looking to land a sweet job writing for a video game related website? Do you constantly send in unsolicited writing submissions to your favorite blogs that no one really has time to look through? Your time is now, my friend. The fine people over at FiringSquad have announced The FiringSquad Editors Challenge, a contest sponsored by Intel that lets you put your writing skills to the test against other hopefuls for the chance at contracts to write or produce multimedia for their website. It's an elimination tournament that pits your writing against another challenger in a multi-round elimination contest.

FiringSquad is a site that focuses on PC games and hardware, so you must be able to somehow write 20 bazillion pages on a video card that people will skip so they can read the last paragraph for a quick summary, yet still make it compelling in case someone is really bored at work and has nothing else to read.

Hit the jump for the full details on the challenge. Sounds like an excellent opportunity to break into the field of journalism while clearing out our inboxes for a couple of months. Good luck! Michael Fahey

FiringSquad and Intel Announce First Ever Editors Challenge

Sponsored by Intel, Contest offers $3,500 in prizes and a writing contract with FiringSquad valued at over $15,000.

Santa Monica, CA, February 4th 2007-Top gaming website FiringSquad.com announced today what the first ever writing contest for a technology or video game website. The FiringSquad Editors Challenge, sponsored by the Intel Core 2 Extreme processor, invites all aspiring video game and IT journalists the opportunity to show off their writing chops and win cash, prizes, and ultimately an opportunity to break into the field of journalism.

Starting on February 7th and ending April 30th, the FiringSquad Editors Challenge will pit competing writers against each other in a multi-round single elimination contest. Judging the contestants will be the job of the FiringSquad editorial staff and the millions of FiringSquad readers who will rate each article based on content and quality.

The grand finalist for the will take home valuable hardware including the Intel Core2 Duo Extreme Processor, $1,500 cash and a writing contract with FiringSquad worth at least $10,000.

The first runner up will receive valuable hardware including the Intel Core2 Duo Extreme Processor and $500 cash.

In addition to seeking the best talent as journalists, and to showcase the capabilities of the FiringSquad Multimedia Blogging system, prizes will be awarded for the best multimedia productions. First place will receive $1,000 cash, and second place will receive $500 cash.

Contest will test writing and video production skills

Using FiringSquads unique multimedia blogging system - mblog - contestants will prepare reviews

There will be two separate contests for written and video content, and contestants can write about any piece of hardware or game they feel like. Four Intel Core2 Extreme CPUs will be given away to the 4 semi finalists to test and review. The grand prize winner as chosen by FiringSquad editorial staff wins a $10,000 writing contract for FiringSquad, plus $1500 cash and an Intel Core 2 Extreme processor. The top video production will win $1000 and a $5000 video production contract, plus an Intel Core 2 Extreme processor. The runners up both receive $500 and an Intel Core 2 Extreme processor. "The FiringSquad Intel Editor's Challenge is an unbelievable opportunity for individuals to make a difference," said Dan Turner, President of FiringSquad. "We're asking PC gaming enthusiasts to tell the world what they think."

Contest to Showcase FiringSquad's new online Social Networking capabilities

At the heart of the contest are the new social networking features which enable users to create their own content and interact with other users: the FiringSquad Matrix. Users will post their articles and videos using the Media Blogging capabilities of the Matrix. Compared with other blogging services or social networking sites, the FiringSquad Matrix is the first social network for gaming and technology enthusiasts. It fully connects FiringSquad readers to each other through the editorial content of FiringSquad, as well as reader's own created and shared content.

The contest is open to any and all comers. The panel of judges are FiringSquad senior editors Alan Dang, Jakub Wojnarowicz, Brandon Bell and John Callahan. To enter, or for more information, go to www.firingsquad.com

—-

Found by Kotaku contributor Alice on her way back from the airport. Signs of the times, signs of the times, folks. All that's missing is a Viagra ad. Brian Ashcraft

Madden Tourney [Wonderland]

Wired's Game|Life is on the prowl, looking for an East Coast writer. The site's Chris Kohler blogs:

Let me put this delicately: we are looking for a writer who lives in the beautiful Eastern time zone who can write news stories in the morning while your site lead — that's me — is still asleep after a marathon Wii session.

Send three sample blog posts and an introductory paragraph to gamelifejobs@gmail.com. My advice: Look for non-Nintendo stuff. Kohler's got that soooo covered. Good luck! Brian Ashcraft

Write For Wired [Game|Life]

Normally we don't really post much about the inner workings of Kotaku, but I just wanted to point out a couple of things.

Last month, I wrote up a post about how to write for Kotaku.com, and not too subtle hint that I might, in-fact, be looking for new writers. And I was.

I plucked Flynn from the center of his gaming empire, but what I really want to point out here, is that two of the people I ended up hiring were in-fact regular, every day Kotaku readers.

While I appreciate the hard work that some of the very talented existing gaming writers do, I just love finding genuinely talented writers who make a living doing something other than writing and giving them a chance to change careers.

Luke was one of the hundreds of people who sent me an email shortly after I posted that HowTo and after reading his stuff on his personal blog, I jumped at the opportunity to get him working for us.

Mike Fahey, well I initially found Mike when he started posting stories on my personal site RedAssedBaboon.com. I really liked his writing style and just never had an opportunity to offer him a chance until recently.

So I really wasn't bullshitting when I said that the best way to get on job writing for Kotaku was to blog.

Merodeando, a spanish gaming site that sorta looks like it's a true blog, was recently uninvited to an Electronic Arts event because they bad-mouthed FIFA, which, I believe, everyone has bad-mouthed.

I've had my run-ins with Electronic Arts, believe me, lots of run ins, but they've always been very professional with me and with Kotaku as a whole despite our often taking them to task for their missteps. So I was surprised to hear they would be so overtly obnoxious about something like this. But the site actually posted the email and, unless it's a fake, it spells out the fact that they were uninvited to the Command and Conquer 3 event because of their coverage.

A poorly translated snippet:

as you will include/understand, you are many webs of game those that quereis to collaborate with us, and we must prioritize to whom, to ours modest to understand, they treat to us better

with articles of this type at the present time he is not plantable that we have
a collaboration flu da with you, is therefore cancelled
invitation to pasaros by our offices to see C&C3

if it seems to you, we let pass the time, and seeing a little like
the things evolve volvemso to raise material enviaros to us e
invitaros to this class of eventos...

Let's hope that someone gets fired over this because I would hope it has not become EA's policy to try and strong-arm websites into granting them positive coverage.

Besides, iIf EA were to blackball everyone who has ever disagreed with them they would have very empty press events. Brian Crecente

Electronic Arts: si me criticas no te ajunto [Merodeando]

After some weird rumors of a "big" announcement coming out of Ken Kutaragi's TGS 2006 keynote, it has passed with stifling a yawn and feeling "blah" But there's still some pretty hysterical commentary in some of the other liveblogs that covered the event.

First of all, from the lovely Alice, who wrote some really withering remarks in her liveblog, this comment on Ken Kutaragi hating sequels:

Sony finished off with a little finger-wagging at the development community: "why so many sequels", Ken asked, having demo'ed Ridge Racer SEVEN, Virtua Fighter FIVE, Mobile Suit Gundam SIX (at least, if I'm not wrong) and Final Fantasy THIRTEEN. Innovation will come from users, or the power of the network, or by returning game designers to the creative process instead of having them out there photographing cars and landscapes for the next racing game.

And this off-the-cuff diss by the Eurogamer crew:

If you're wondering when Ken is actually planning on talking about games or anything remotely concrete or relevant to gamers, developers or anyone else - so are we!

Finally, from Joystiq:

During the keynote, the DS pictochat room that had fallen silent sprang to life as bored attendees decided to entertain themselves, since it was clear that Ken Kutaragi had no intention of doing so. After the keynote, we head the words "meltdown," "total disaster," and "trainwreck" bandied about the press room. This keynote was worse — way worse — than Sony's E3 showing.

You know, Sony, the second you guys stop fucking up every last details of your launch, we'll cover it. Keep us posted, okay, guys? Florian Eckhardt

Related: http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/tgs06/tgs06-liveblogging-kutaragis-keynote-202427.php

That's right I'm sitting up here on a panel about blogging, and blogging it. It's an addiction, I can't stop.

We're talking about the different relationships bloggers and main stream media have with PR firms. Which is quite striking in my opinion.

Chris Grant over at Joystiq (He's sitting next to me) points out that bloggers tend to have more of an adversarial relationship with PR companies.

We're talking about how to generate revenue with blogs. It's not pretty, basically you need to get hired by a big blogging comany (like Kotaku or Joystiq) or depend on weak sauce Google Ads which doesn't pay me a damn penny on Red Assed Baboon.

Law and blogging: It should be a class. The problem with taking information down from a blog is that you could set a legal precedent of you take something down and down the line you might be legally forced to.

The great blogging revolution, its democratizing the Internet and reinvigorating all media. It also juices.

For the record, a journalism degree isn't a total waste of time, but it's best when temprered with a working knowledge of what you cover... like games.

And it's done... and no one stoned me to death. Wiiiiii!

The July Carnival of Gamers is at Ron Gilbert's place, and he's got a nice batch bubbling on the ol' fire. For those of you out of the rollercoaster's terrifying loop, here's Buttonmashing's explanation:

What is this Carnival of Gamers you speak of? The Carnival of Gamers is a bi-weekly monthly gathering of video game bloggers at a central location. The premise behind the Carnival of Gamers is similar to those of other "Blog Carnivals" — it is a showcase of blogs that are about video games. Some of the participating blogs are almost exclusively about video games while others deal with a wide range of topics, from music and movies to politics and punditry to video game design.

This month's carnival covers everything from the beautifully unsettling guilt inherent in Shadow of the Colossus, to the hilarity of Oblivion's M rating:

My character class, determined early in the game from my tendency to hide when bad guys show up and strike from behind, is an ASSASSIN. [...] To get enough materials together for constant alchemy practice, I take the 'scenic route' from place to place so I can take time to ... pick flowers.

Another of the assassin's key abilities is Acrobatics, which is increased over time by hitting the jump key. So long as endurance doesn't run out, I find myself hopping around as I go from place to place to increase that ability.

Which means that as the vile, evil, bloodthirsty assassin, I am spending MUCH of my time hopping and skipping through meadows picking flowers.

Links to these posts and more over at the Grumpy Gamer! Step right up! eliza Gauger

July Carnival of Gamers [Grumpy Gamer]

I don't know why Sony and Nintendo haven't gotten onboard the blogger express. Come on guys, you can spoon feed your own brand of tasty half-lies and boosterisms directly to gamers. Alllllll aboard. Brian Crecente

LetsKillDave

Blogger Joi Ito pens a piece on World of Warcraft addiction in this month's Wired. Old hat for some, but it's Joi Ito! And he used to hang with Timothy Leary, worked on the Dreamcast online and is related to Cornelius!! The piece does a fine job of laying of Ito's WoW addiction, but wraps up nicely with this last paragraph:

The quality and the popularity of World of Warcraft has propelled MMORPGs from a subculture into the mainstream; some call it the new golf. But it's more than that: World of Warcraft is millions of people with diverse backgrounds collaborating, socializing, and learning while having fun. What we're experiencing with this game is similar to the "adhocracy" of many successful open source software projects. It represents the future of real-time collaborative teams and leadership in an always-on, diversity-intensive, real-time environment. World of Warcraft is a glimpse into our future.

Say hello to the new stock response to those that don't "get" MMORPGs. Brian Ashcraft

Read It Here [Wired]

The show's about to get underway. Phil Harrison will be taking the stage in a few minutes to, hopefully, drop a few bombs. Check back on this post for updates throughout the show.

First up: Phil Harrison, gets quite an interesting intro. He is, apparently, a GOD!

Harrison starts off by saying that more than 100 million PS2s and more than One billion pieces of software. Globabal market share is more than 60 percent.

"Our job is to grow the market, our job is to lead and our job is to innovate."

(MORE AFTER THE JUMP)

Harrison just welcomed David Jaffe, creator of God of War, to the stage. I think they re about to demo it. Sweet. (Man, he s like Brian short.)

There are millions of gamers who will continue to game on the Playstation 2 God of War 2 is totally on track to be better than the original God of War. We brought a clip from the game."

The short clip looks amazing, it shows the lead taking out some big ass monsters and some amazingly large enviroments.

The whole clip is packed with some sweet ass Greek God on Greek God takedowns.

Update Tons more updates from the keynote here.

You can also check out Harrison's Q&A and the PS3 Live announcement.

I ve had the Micro sitting in my pocket most of the afternoon, and I ve decided that it weighs even less than my featherweight wallet.

The unit they sent me, a pre-release, came with a silver faceplate, but no extras. The screen is a tad smaller than a GBA cartridge and the buttons respond well to your touch. I did have to adjust to the shoulder buttons. You can t tap the far edges of them and get any sort of response. Instead you have to push in the middle of the button or the ends near the middle of the unit. Once you realize this it s no biggie.

The stereo is quite soft, but you can hear the sound in a pinch and the Micro does have a regular earphone jack, so it s pretty easy just to plug some in to play.

The power button is a stiff little switch on the bottom edge of the device. There is also a cable plug for hooking up to other GBAs and Micros.

The screen is just plain pretty. It s amazing to see such a crisp image on such a diminutive screen.

Despite the Micro s small size, early play-testing leaves me quite happy with the device. I d even say that this is probably more comfortable then using the already fantastically designed GBA SP. For short burst of play, it feels like the Micro was built for my hands, almost like I had one made for me.

Check back for a run down of how different types of games and video looked and played on the Micro. I also plan on comparing graphics between the SP, DS and Micro.

And, as always, send me your questions and I will try to answer them.

Make sure you check out our extended coverage:

Photos Galore

Micro Reader Mailbag

Micro Micro Review

Micro Field Test

Micro Macro Pics

Powergrid Fitness, the people who make the excellent Kilowatt joystick exercise device, are coming out with a redesign of the unit. The Exer-station is a smaller, less expensive version of the Kilowatt.

The device is used sitting down, but Powergrid says it will still work out the same muscles. It will sell for $199.99 and is expected to hit the market by the end of the year.

What a great idea. I love using the Kilowatt, it seems to be giving me a good upper body workout, but one of the things I don't like about it is how friggin huge it is. It's not any larger than your typical workout machine. It's about the size of a smaller treadmill or a eliptical, but it's sitting in front of my TV in the loft of my house, which isn't making my wife exactly happy. The idea of combining the great workout potential with a device you can easily put away is fantastic.

Powergrid Fitness [Official Site]

I think I pulled something. I spent the weekend messing around with the Kilowatt, trying out the giant joystick exercise machine with a bunch of video games.

Racing games seem to offer up the best endurance exercise, especially when you use the stick to control throttle. I still need to master using the stick with first-person shooters. Action games work fine, but really don't offer any sort of exercise.

Then I got the idea of using the stick with my copy of Capcom Fighting Evolution. Oh My God. After a 15 minute session of pulling off fireballs and uppercuts using the stick I think I pulled a muscle in my back and I know I worked the hell out of my arms. The worst part was, even when my muscles were burning I couldn't stop playing.

Fighting games are now my new official favorite game to play with the Kilowatt. I think I'm going to come up with a workout regime that includes a half hour of GTA or Forza and then another half hour of Fighting Evolution.

Best workout ever.

Liveblogging the Kilowatt [Kotaku]

So I spent a little time over the weekend playing around with the Kilowatt Sport sent to my house on Thursday. The giant joystick is designed to give you an upper body workout while playing games.

I'm supposed to walk through some set-up issues with the company on Monday, but of course I've already put it together and tested it out.

So far, I can say I'm fairly impressed. The thing is basically a giant metal pole mounted to a floor board with a universal game controller stuck to the top. It works be sensing the amount of pressure you exert on the pole and converting it into joystick movement.

The controller seems best for shooters and racers, though I plan on testing it out on everything. There are two ways you can use the stick in one of these games. By sliding two switches on the face of the controller you can adjust the stick to be either or both axis of either thumbstick, then it's just a matter of deciding how hard you want to make it on yourself.

For instance, in Gran Turismo 4 you can set up the stick to just control your steering and use buttons to control braking and gas or you can use the stick to control breaking and gas and a thumbstick to steer. In other words, you can set this bad buy up to convert how hard you push forward on the chest high pole into acceleration. So when you're running a race you have to literally press the pole forward and hold it there for the duration. Setting it to steer doesn't make it much easier on your muscles. Now instead of having to push the pole forward and hold it, you have to push the pole side to side over and over and over again.

You can also use the controller in shooters to either control your character's movement or aim.

This weekend I played around mostly with Burnout 3, letting the controller stand in for my steering. Man are my chest, back and arms sore. Granted, I'm not exactly fit, but I really think this could have some benefit for me.

Using the controller for a shooter wasn't quite as easy, but I'm sure with time I will adjust. The main thing is that so far the Kilowatt is an excellent distraction for exercise. I may not want to set aside 20 minutes or so to do push-ups and pull-ups, but I will to play a game with this thing.

The two most important things a piece of exercise equipment needs to do are motivate you and provide results. So far the Kilowatt passes the first test with flying colors. The final test will really be the results, I'll make sure to keep you up to date on how motivated I remain and how well this thing works over time with different games. I plan to post at least once a week about the Kilowatt. Make sure to check back.

I just received a Kilowatt Sport in the mail. The Kilowatt is basically a giant joystick that you hook up to a game console or computer and use to exercise. The way it works is by making you push around a giant metal pole to control your in-game character. You can use it for any game, but it is said to work best with games that require a lot of movement, like racing titles or Super Monkey Ball. I get to use the unit for the next three months and plan to post regular entries on Kotaku about what I think of it. It will sort of be a live blogging journal. Expect lots of text and little to no pictures of my flabby stomach.

Kilowatt [Power Grid]

The PSP is a fantastic gaming device, one that could actually replace a home console in many ways. I actually found myself sitting on a couch downstairs for hours last night, playing with Honey. I can't think of the last time I played a portable game while being distinctly immobile. (Besides Yoshi Touch & Go of course.)

Online play, which I'm told is still being tweaked for launch, is blazingly smooth, with the occasional dropped session thrown in for good measure.

Honey totally locked up twice in two days. No clue why, no one can even guess what the deal was, but I had to remove Honey's batteries to reset.

The Spider-Man 2 movie doesn't just look nice on Honey, it actually looks better then it would on my TV. That makes me sad.

Transferring my own pictures, movies and MP3s to the PSP took no effort. You just pop the USB into your computer and drag and drop shit onto your PSP. No biggie. Once in it's new home, the homebrew stuff looked and sounded fantastic. It's also kind of nice to listen to music, without having to wear headphones, earbuds or some sort of brain jack.

The speakers are useless for any sort of outdoor, or noisy environment play. I tried using my PSP in a restaurant and couldn't hear a thing. It's not too bad for in-house, alone time, though.

I wouldn't dare whip out Honey anywhere in public, not because I'd be embarrassed of it, but because I'm afraid someone's going to jack me and leave my blood leaking corpse on the side of the road, sans my Honey.

The shiny screen is absolutely useless on very bright days outdoors, but maybe that's a good thing. It's called exercise, maybe we all should do a little more of it.

The screen is some sort of bizarre fingerprint magnet that leaves any proud PSP owner polishing his screen every two to three minutes. No, that's not a euphemism.

Duo memory sticks are a pricey little piece of hardware that you will definitely need to buy to do anything remotely interesting with your PSP that doesn't involve a UMD. The cheapest I could find a 1 Gig stick for was about $150, while you can land a 512 Meg stick for about $60.

Although the PSP is super wide, it still slips effortlessly into the pocket of my khaki work pants I just can't bend my leg while it's there, so tying shoes is right out.
Again, these are really just bloggish random thoughts on the PSP. I'm going to spend some more quality time with Honey over the weekend while I write my full review for the Rocky Mountain News and try to get my wife interested in a little techie three-way action.

Live Blogging the PSP [Kotaku]

Onyx Cold Storage
Kinection Cosmos
Twister Drumattic Twins
Cross The Line Elite Force
Grand Theft Freq Nasty
We Got Juice Friendly
Room 2 Jay Tripwire
Flu-Shot LFO
Hellion Ming + FS
Ignition Paul Hartnoll
C Note Photek
Black Jack 3 Plum DJs
Bug Rennie Pilgrem & Roxkiller
The System T Power
Night Mover Stanton Warriors
Crafty Youth Tayo Meets Acid Rockers Uptown
Mean Red Then Rock
Gold Rush—Tiesto
Naks Acid Aphex Twin

Chatting is an enormous pain in the ass, mostly because it uses the phone-letter system, but besides that it was tons of fun.

I played Jim from Gaming-Age and the game ran silky smooth, at least the first time around. You can customize just about everything in a game and the maps are more than big enough. It looks like the game supports up to six players, which should be tons of fun.

After winning the first game, we both exited and I started hunting and pecking out a message to Jim, but was kicked from the server.

I logged back in, found Jim and started a second game, but a few seconds in, I dropped again.

I went to exit the game, by pressing the PSP's start button, and the whole thing locked up on me. I had to remove the battery to get it to restart. This is the second lock-up so far.

Why Honey? Why?

The sorta blocky looking cover art completely misrepresents the beautifully rendered game. The controls are smooth and the music is kickin'. I ended up playing through my entire dinner break last night, which made one hungry but happy Brian.

Can't wait to find someone to play with via WiFi.

I spent the evening playing World Tour Soccer (sweet) and Wipeout Pure (super, super sweet). I'll post some early impressions in the morning. I need to get some sleep. Ah, who am I kidding, I want to play some more PSP games.

Brightly lit outdoor PSP is not a good thing. Someone s going to need to come out with an anti-glare shield or something. Then again, maybe I shouldn t be walking and playing.

From top right (clockwise): Nintendo GBA SP, Clie TJ37, Zodiac, N-Gage, N-Gage QD, iPod 20GB, Nintendo DS. (center) PSP.

Make sure you check out my mini-live blogging of the PSP and all of the games that came with it, including Metal Gear Acid.

Live Blogging the PSP [Kotaku]

Love the intro movie and the gameplay. Sheesh, I'm actually getting a little motion sick. While I love staring at myself as much as the next guy, the super shiny screen is starting to annoy a bit. I'm going to have to find a dark room where I can play with Honey.

Ah, much better. The action is unbelievable. I'm still getting a little used to the PSP's tiny thumbstick. It actually controls things quite well and I don't think I'm going to be getting any Joystick thumb with it anytime soon.

The action is a bit too fast, there's no blurring in the game, but things are zipping around so much it's hard to track at times. But it's still crack-like fun. I'm gonna have to wait a week to see what multiplayer is like, but I've got plenty to do between now and then.

It may be a bit longer before I move on to the next game...

Metal Gear Acid: Note to self: Don't wear the headphones while playing. The gunshots when the game started actually made me jump out of my seat. I've never been a huge fan of the Metal Gear franchise. Three won me over a bit, but this high-art blend of superb animation, card games and turn-based strategy has captured my heart. I can see myself spending long, lonely nights with this game.

Will you marry me MGA?

The music videos included on the sample disc are pretty nice. The sound is truly impressive. I do wish I could pump things up a bit in the volume department. I'm usually not happy unless I'm killing off my hearing while listening to music.

Alright, enough with the foreplay, time for some games.

Me: (Mubbling from the other room, apparently in profound conversation)

Her: Who are you talking to in there?

Me: (Embarrassed silence)

Her: Brian ?

Me: My PSP, I named it Honey!