A buddy of mine, Dave Heiss, recently released a new short to the ol’ tubes called “Hey Diddle Diddle” which is a humorous take on the nursery rhyme of the same name. It’s a collection of interviews of Dog, Cat, The Fiddle, and of course, Cow, about the events leading up to and after Cow attempted to jump over the moon. Dave’s a vetern animator in the NY animation scene and he produced “Hey Diddle DIddle” in his spare time. I got a kick out of it. Its a solid short with some good laughs in it. Check it out here at 295films.com.

If you listen to Born Again Casual, you’ve probably heard my complaints about the mean-spirited cynicism that seems to dominate the gaming scene these days. It seems like most podcasts and game blogs are having an unspoken competition to see who can be the biggest smart-ass. To hear a lot of these people talk you’d almost wonder if any of them actually like video games at all. Well there is one podcast out there that shines through like a beacon of hope…

Whattheyplay.com is a web site that is primarily geared towards parents who want to be informed about the games that their kids are playing. The site provides information about games ranging from E-rated titles for kids to the M-rated titles that often elude parents. Even though I’m a gamer parent with a knowledge of games that is beyond most of the other parents I know, I still get plenty of enjoyment from visiting the site. One of the best features of the site is the weekly ‘What They Play Podcast’.

John Davidson (formerly editor of EGM/1up, and co-host of 1UP Yours/ListenUP) has put together a podcast that covers all of the angles listed above and also has insightful discussion about current game industry news and releases. The podcast manages to do all of this in under an hour, something that most game podcasts seem to be incapable of. There are no long-winded rants or diatribes, everything stays on point and on topic. It really has a feeling of professionalism that I feel is lacking across the board.

If you often frequent video game websites, you’re probably well aware that the Gameboy turned 20 earlier this month. I’m not going to go into the history of the little portable that could, because chances are all you already know how awesome it was, how Tetris did this and that, and how Pokemon literally pulled Gameboy out of a coma in the late 90s. Instead, I’m going to go the more personal route and run over a handful of the games that I felt really defined my experience with the Gameboy.

Super Mario Land Series

An easy way to get people to buy a Gameboy was to make a Mario game that played on it. Enter the original Super Mario Land, likely one of the top two reasons to buy a Gameboy at launch. This somewhat oddball Mario title, complete with shooter-like stages, was the first game I personally ever played on Gameboy and needless to say, it was love at first sight. Although Super Mario Land may have been the first true Gameboy experience for many people, mine was actually Super Mario Land 2.

This week on Born Again Casual, we recap the Hardcore/Casual debate that sparked from last week’s episode. We also talk about Square-Enix’s slow-mo development process as well as Uncharted 2 Multiplayer and much more! Be sure to chime in with your thoughts so we can use them in next week’s show!

Many thanks to Jake ‘Virt’ Kaufman for providing our intro music, ‘Blast Off’ from his FX2 collection. Check out more of Virt’s music at Big Lion Music. Subscribe to Born Again Casual on iTunes.

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.

Bride Wars – best friends (Kate Hudson & Anne Hathaway) get engaged on the same day and book their weddings at the same place. Scheduling conflicts cause one of the weddings to be canceled so the brides-to-be fight to see who gets that spot. The conflict drives them apart and forces them to sabotage each other’s wedding.

Hotel For Dogs – two orphans are sent to live with their aunt. They find a stray dog in need of help but their aunt is highly allergic. So they turn a nearby abandoned house into a place for all stray dogs of the city to take shelter but they must keep it on the down low.

For the DIY musicians and amateur engineers who want to know more about audio recording and production, I figured I’d start out with a small post sharing some insight in the recording field.

Surprisingly, a recording session starts before even entering the studio. The band or artist should have their music worked out from start to finish and know exactly what they are going to play. In addition, knowing the number of tracks you plan on recording beforehand will save you tons of headaches and time in the studio. A band shouldn’t write new parts or change existing ones during a booked session since that can waste the engineer’s time, and even more so, the musician’s money.

The rule of thumb for knowing how much time to book is generally ‘1 minute of material = 1 hour of recording time’. So, if you have an album that is 35 minutes long, you can expect to spend about 35 hours in the studio. This formula can definitely change either way depending on the musician’s skill level, but it’s a good starting point.

Lately I’ve been dying to get my hands on a Sega Genesis and a handful of games for it. Growing up as an SNES kid, I was willfully ignorant towards lots of the cool stuff that was on the Genesis and I guess I regret treating Sega’s black box that way. Thanks to my extremely generous friends (thanks dudes), I now have a Genesis complete with a library of great titles. One of those games in the library happened to be Ninja Turltes: The Hyperstone Heist, which is fantastic since that’s one of the games I wanted to revisit.

I played through Hyperstone ages ago at a friends place and being the jerk I was, I just kind of wrote it off as the poor mans Turtles in Time. In a way, I’m still right in thinking that, because I believe Konami wasted a really cool opportunity here. Instead of crafting a brand new experience for Genesis owners, Konami decided to take the easy way out and use all of their assets from both Turltes In Time and the original Arcade game. Mainly aping Turtles in Time, Hyperstone literally shoe horns in some of the locals from previous games, like the pirate ship which is now a ghost ship. With the exception of a stage themed after a dojo, along with a brand new boss (Tetsu from the TMNT movies), a handful of different foot soldiers, and a new music track or two, nearly everything in the game is recycled from previous titles.

Speaking of the bosses, the first three bosses in the game (out of about 6) are nearly identical in their attack patterns. They stick to one side of the screen, throw a few objects and then charge to the other side of the screen. Considering the wide variety of bosses Konami had to choose from (since you know, they didn’t feel like creating new ones) you would think they would choose some characters that offered a couple different attack patterns.

The Soloist – Robert Downey Jr is a reporter who befriends Jamie Foxx, a brilliant musician who is now homeless due to some troubling problems. Downey Jr decides to start writing articles on him to bring him to the public’s attention and help him achieve his dream of playing a grand performance at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Fighting – Channing Tatum is a young counterfeiter who is introduced to the world of underground street fighting by a veteran scam artist, Terrence Howard. Howard becomes his manager and the kid starts making money by beating up other people.

For the past week or so, our forums have been getting absolutely slammed with spam bots registering accounts and posting ads, pornography, etc. In an effort to prevent this, we temporarily enabled the feature on our forums that requires an Admin approve each new user before they can post. Unfortunately, we didn’t anticipate that we’d be getting hundreds of these registration alerts and we had to trashed them all. We’ve dealt with the problem and hopefully we won’t be getting spammed for a while now.

However, this could be an obvious problem if we had some real people trying to register for the site during that time. If you feel like this applies to you, please know it was nothing personal and you just got lost in the megaton shit-storm of spam we had to deal with. Hit that Register link again and join us!

If you’re awesome and subscribe to Born Again Casual through the RSS feed (itunes, etc) then you already know that Episode #9: Super Larry Brothers has been available to download since Tuesday night. If you’re not, well… here you go. Don’t choke on it ya assholes. This week we talk about the Madworld / GTA: Chinatown Wars NPD controversy, Sony’s new game-plan and Lego Rock Band. Be sure to chime in with your thoughts so we can use them in next week’s show!

Many thanks to Jake ‘Virt’ Kaufman for providing our intro music, ‘Blast Off’ from his FX2 collection. Check out more of Virt’s music at Big Lion Music. Subscribe to Born Again Casual on iTunes.