One of the hardest things about working on stuff is that, well, it takes time. For example, we’re roughly a month into the New Year, and outside of one podcast, and our blog posts, we haven’t had a whole bunch to show you folks. The truth is, we’re all handling multiple projects right now and hopefully you’ll begin to see the fruits of such projects soon.

I’ve spent the last week tinkering around with a new visual style for the site. The changes aren’t too drastic, but I think they help punch things up a bit. Tonight I have been working on the new top banner, which is very similar to what’s going on now, only a little larger, and hopefully a little more slick. There are a few other bells and whistles we’ll be adding to the site as well.

Frank has started plugging away at the next short, and I plan on joining him next week. As you might know, we recorded the dialogue, and did an animatic, so now it’s actually time to start digging in and doing the rough stuff. I suspect the two of us will probably spend a full weekend going to town on this thing, so expect some live streams in the near future to catch a glimpse of what we’re up to.

The Uninvited – a chick’s mother dies and she ends up in the looney bin for a while. When she gets out, she finds out her dad is now engaged to a much younger woman (Elizabeth Banks) who was actually her mother’s nurse. The girl is visited by her mother’s ghost who warns her about the new woman in her father’s life.

Taken – Liam Neeson is a former spy now leading a normal life. When his daughter (Maggie Grace) wants to go on a vacation with a friend to Paris, he is hesitant but eventually allows it. She ends up being kidnapped by slave traders and Neeson must rely on his old skills to get his daughter back.

In what has to be Nintendo’s most abysmal first quarter line up in the entirety of their life span, the company plans to release only two new Wii titles, and a handful of DS titles, relying on their first quarter profits from the still hot Wii console and a new Pokemon game. The catch is, these Wii games aren’t actually new, and are simply rebranded Gamecube titles under the “New Play Control” moniker. The two games are Shigeru Miyamoto’s pet project, Pikmin, and Camelot Software’s Mario Power Tennis, and they’re going to retail for 30 bucks a pop. It’s painfully obvious that these two games aren’t intended for the Nintendo faithful, instead aiming to attract some of the new crowd the Wii has ushered in, but the real question is, are you going to buy them anyway?

It is true that this new line is essentially a cash in, but I don’t feel it is any disrespect or slight to the Wii audience. You are not being told to buy these games, and if you really wanted to, you could buy these games used for around 10 dollars each. There is a certain outcry in the game community that is damning these rereleases, but lets face it, rereleases aren’t anything new, but I guess there’s a certain sting about it when Nintendo blatantly double dips (not that they never did before).

While I’m personally not overly excited for either Mario Power Tennis (it’s fun, but whatever) or Pikmin (I adore Pikmin and already played it to death) I won’t exactly rule these rereleases out. After all, Capcom earned my money all over again with Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition, which if anything was ahead of the curve as far as repackaging and rebranding a Gamecube release is concerned. The thing is though, I love RE4: Wii, I personally believe it is the definitive version of the game offering better control, wide screen support, and the content missing from the Gamecube release but added into the PS2 version. From what I hear, Pikmin controls like a dream (and Miyamoto himself said that Pikmin would lend itself incredibly well to the Wii’s then mysterious controller), and Nintendo has also added in true wide screen support, along with a retooled save system. While I’m not clear on what additions are being made to Power Tennis, I’m sure they’re along the same lines as the bells and whistles added to Pikmin. I may not buy Pikmin, but I don’t own Pikmin 2 and could totally see myself plunking down 30 dollars for it, especially since the Gamecube original fetches for more than that price.

2009 is turning out to be quite a year for me gaming-wise. So far this year I’ve purchased two EA titles, something that rarely happens with me any more. Something has been going on over there at EA, you’ve probably heard about it. Over the past year they’ve been putting out ambitious titles like Mirror’s Edge, Skate, Burnout Paradise and Dead Space in an effort to get themselves known for more than the yearly Madden update. I guess they’re doing something right because two EA titles in a month is more than I’ve bought from them in the past 5 years.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t played a Tony Hawk game since THPS4 several years back. I was a huge fan of the series for 2 and 3, but somewhere in the middle of playing through the 4th game I became bored. It just seemed like the series was getting too “over-the-top” and had lost the element that I enjoyed so much in the beginning. So I moved away from skateboarding games and had pretty much forgotten about them. When I saw that EA was entering the Skateboarding arena, I’ll admit I kind of chuckled to myself. Well, after I checked out the demo for Skate 2 i realized just how wrong I had been.

Luckily I had some store credit for GameStop sitting in my wallet so I promptly went over and bought a copy for the PS3. I’ve only spent about 4 hours or so playing the game as of writing this… so please don’t mistake this for a full review. My general impression so far is that Skate 2 embodies all the things I loved about the early Tony Hawk games. The controls take a bit more skill to pull off tricks than the combo system of THPS. If you haven’t played Skate 2 (or the first game), it uses the right analog stick to pull off various ollie and flip tricks. This takes a little getting used to, but once you get it, you’ll wonder what you did without it.

Pride & Glory – a family of New York City cops played by father Jon Voight, son Edward Norton, and son in law Colin Farrell. Norton investigates a scandal that leads to police corruption. His family is shaken up when Farrell is the prime suspect.

The Rocker – Rainn Wilson plays a former member of a famous rock ‘n roll band. Twenty years later, he jumps at the opportunity to join his nephew’s garage band as their new drummer so they don’t have to cancel their prom gig. He then starts trying to relive his rock n roll glory days.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona – two friends (Rebecca Hall & Scarlett Johansson) on a vacation in Spain fall for a painter (Javier Bardem) even though they are fully aware that his ex-wife (Penelope Cruz) is still in the picture. Written and Directed by Woody Allen.

The title alone is as ridiculous as this new series created by Matt Burnett and Ben Levin is. It is a mini-series that follows two buddies and their battle with their nemesis, The Ninja Geek Gamer. Actually, I’m not even sure if I’m summing it up properly and doing the series any justice. At one point, an FBI agent shows up who looks a hell of a lot like Scully from X-Files, and another one of the characters seems to think he’s stuck in the Matrix. The whole thing is done really well as it spoofs the nerdy video game world we all have come to love. Embedded above is part one of the series.

Under the title of “For Tax Reasons”, Levin and Burnett have done a host of really well done shorts. You can find what looks like all the of the RDCCDX series as well as the rest of their catalog here!

Once in a while some game blog will link to an “article” over at the AOL owned game website GameDaily.com. These guys are basically another dime a dozen site that sits there and tries to be above the rest of the pack by making all sorts of snarky wise cracks and weekly Top 10 lists… just like all the other game websites out there. Case in point, the latest article I’ve found over there is titled “10 out of 10: What were we thinking?” in which the writer goes over a handful of games that their site awarded with a perfect 10, that in reality, don’t deserve a perfect 10. The games run the gamut of the likes of Halo 2, Call of Duty 3 and 4, Mass Effect, Nintendogs, Prince of Persia and even Viewtiful Joe. While I do agree that most of those games probably didn’t deserve the coveted perfect 10 score, what does this do for their reputation? For one, it tells me I should never trust what GameDaily has to say about anything (not that I ever did), since they obviously admit to giving into the hype. Second, it also proves to me that these guys are once again another set of game enthusiasts that let their excitement get in the way of their actual judgment.

I’m going to say that at least once a week I click a link that leads me to GameDaily for one of their shitty write ups, and I always say to myself “Why did I come here?” Most of the time I don’t even make it through half their articles since you need to click “Next Page” after each and every paragraph. This is a poor and shoddy attempt to generate click throughs, keeping people at their site, and driving up their daily hit totals. For example, their “Top 25 Worst Nintendo Published Games” literally forces a user to click through 25 different pages. Do people really click through this many pages? They really want to know want to know what Robert Workman’s most hated list is? Surprise, Wii Music is on the list, which as of the writing was a week old. Guess his hatred inspired this hard hitting list. Nice to know this guy is getting paid to be a glorified message board troll.

In the end, I’m sure I’ll keep going to their horrible site, reading their horrible features, and continuing to be angry at nearly everything they do because in my mind I need to “keep up with this stuff” even though I shouldn’t really care one way or another. As far as I’m concerned, these guys are the bottom of the barrel when it comes to game journalism. Don’t trust their opinion for a second.

Despite the fact Braid was one of my most anticipated Xbox 360 titles, I put it off until about a week ago. I have now had the pleasure of playing through Braid, and I can honestly say that I have been completely blown away on nearly every aspect of being blown away. I know Braid, by this point, is old news, but looking at my friend roster shows that only two of my buddies actually have the game. More importantly, it is supposed to come out for PC sometime next month, so people will likely be talking about it all over again once it hits.

Braid is the baby, brain child, and genius of creator Jonathan Blow. This man spent three years of his life, and reportedly $180,000 of his own money to create Braid. This guy pretty much put his entire life and living on the line to create this game, and hopefully the sales, great reviews, and positive word of mouth has made it completely worth his while. Considering the demand for the PC version, and a possible PS3 version down the line, I believe it was the success Jonathan needed.

Upon playing Braid, it’s hard not to spot the intentional Super Mario Brothers references because they’re everywhere. Expect to see such staples as goombas, plants coming out of tubes, clouds to ride on, enemies being shot from canons, the first stage of Donkey Kong, the end stage castle and flag, the princess, and even a Yoshi like creature that explains that your princess must be in another castle. It’s as if Blow wanted to create a “serious” and alternate take on the Super Mario Brothers saga, because aside from jumping on enemies to kill them, the similarities in game design end there.

Braid is all about time travel, but not time travel in the traditional sense. There is no going forward, only different ways of going backwards and actually slowing down time. It seems that the theme of the game is trying to correct ones mistakes, as we find out during the story that main character Tim has made plenty of mistakes. Each world acts as a different sort of memory, complete with optional text passages from what appear to be different moments of Tim’s life. The passages tie in the central theme and rules of that particular world, so not only do they set up a story, but also work as a guideline for what the player will be doing. For example, one world allows Tim to use a ring that causes time to move slower depending on how close something is to the ring. The passages uses the idea of a wedding ring as a metaphor for Tim’s new way of time manipulation, playing with the idea that people take caution when they spot a wedding ring on an individual and likely make slower advancements towards said person. There likely hasn’t been such a thought provoking story that is literally tied into the game design since Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. Like MGS2, people have already spent countless hours pulling apart and trying to make sense of the whole story.

The announcement of Mega Man 9 was likely one of the secret most important events of this entire console generation. With Mega Man 9, Capcom was able to prove that there was still a market for the gamer that grew up playing 8-bit titles, and that graphics don’t really mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. The hope was that Capcom’s bold direction would pay off and that other developers could follow suit with similar 8-bit throw backs. Now that time has passed and Mega Man 9 has proven to be a success, the new 8-bit games are starting to emerge.

Two retro themed games are on their way to Nintendo’s WiiWare service, and it shouldn’t be a surprise. Nintendo’s service demands for smaller game sizes, and these throw back titles make for a perfect fit. Sega’s upcoming Pole’s Big Adventure (pictured above) is said to be a parody of the types of games from the 8-bit era. From what we’ve seen, the game seems like Super Mario Brothers with a gun, complete with question blocks, turtles, stars and empty castles with fireworks at the end of a stage. One of the goals of the game is to find all of the hidden visual gags, like going down a pipe only to emerge covered in dirt. Pole’s seems more like something that would be on the Master System than the NES, and Sega even included the “Sega” voiceover from Sonic’s 16-bit days. The game is set to hit WiiWare soon in Japan for 500 Wii Points, and will hopefully make its way to the US.

Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans – a prequel to the previous Underworld movies which reveals the reasons for the feud between the Death Dealers and the Lycans. Lucian (Michael Sheen) is an influential Lycan who rallies his race in an uprising against the vampire king Viktor (Bill Nighy). But there is a vampire (Rhona Mitra) who empathizes with the Lycans and is the love interest of Lucian so she helps them.

Inkheart – Brendan Fraser is a bookbinder who has the power to bring characters to life when he reads aloud. When he is captured by one of the evil characters he reads about (Andy Serkis), his daughter must rally her real and imaginary friends together to rescue him.

In limited release is the Mickey Rourke/Thomas Jane/Diane Lane starring thriller Killshot about a hitman going after a couple in the witness protection program. Also there’s Outlander about Jim Caviezel crashing on Earth during the Viking times and bringing an alien predator with him. Finally there’s Donkey Punch about a botched sex act turning a fun cruise into a fight for survival between some girls and the dudes that invited them onto their boat trip.