Just a quick note for any TAG-ers out there who might be contemplating using the Best Buy trade-in kiosks.

All in all, the experience went really well. You can see the trade-in value online before you head into the store. In my case, Best Buy was offering a couple of bucks more for the game than Amazon (which I have also used before.

Some interesting requirements: You need both a driver's license (to track you down in case you dupe them, I presume) and a credit card (presumably for the same reason as the license) in order to use the kiosk.

The process works like this:

1. Scan the UPC on the case
2. The system tells you what the trade-in value is
3. If you accept, you pull the disc out of the case and stick it in the machine - yep, you read that right... you stick the bare disk in a slot on the machine, similar to a slot-loading DVD player
4. You have the option of having an email sent with the receipt (and the typical spam, which you can opt out of at the kiosk)
5. A receipt prints which you take to the cashier to convert to a gift card
6. You slide the case into a bin on the side of the machine

There was one significant hiccup: The cashiers were clueless about how the process worked. The cashier initially told me that I was supposed to bring the receipt back when I was ready to use it towards a purchase. However, I read on the receipt that you must use the credit the same day and at the same store. Luckily the supervisor was familiar with the process.

In short: make sure they get you the gift card then and there. :)

Other than the newness of it all - for me and the BB staff - it worked out pretty well. Plus, I got to avoid all of the nagging questions typical of a visit to GameStop and the UPS delays (and packaging costs) of using Amazon Marketplace.

For those who do not keep up with the latest goings on in Forza-land, let me bring you up to speed. Since E3, Dan Greenwalt has been touting how Forza 3 is the best console racing sim - EVAR!

In the interest of full disclosure, I don't own a PS3, but the original Gran Turismo caused me to fail one of my college finals miserably. So, I've got much love for GT and still see it as the benchmark for console racing sims. Don't get me started on Race Pro. That's a separate post.

But I digress... Part of Greenwalt's claims were based on newly added features:

• Improved damage modeling, including car rollovers
• 10x more polys per car
• Full-on 60Hz frame rate - 24x7
• 400 cars
• 100 tracks
• Newly added race types like drag racing, a Project Gotham Kudos-like system for scoring drifting
• Improved livery editor
• Personalized storefronts on Xbox Live for the tuners and painters
• 150% more sunshine and unicorns

Ok, maybe I made that last one up, but you get the idea. The 10x polys is highlighted, as this was one of the bullet points you heard over and over as Forza 3 was hyped.

As many of you might have seen, the Forza 3 demo released last week and the response from the community has been harsh to say the least.

At the top of the list of complaints is the fact that the whole "10x polys" thing was just for the car intro screen (AKA: car pr0n mode) and photo modes - not in game. You can definitely see the amazing amount of detail in the cars, down to bump mapping to give the tires an embossed look on the side walls. Truly impressive.

Now, I'll say that I think the game still looks good, but I wasn't able to figure out why the cars didn't look significantly better than Forza 2 until I researched it a bit. Once I found out the 10x poly increase not being in the game itself, then it became clear. 

So, as you can imagine, the forums were lit up with debates of whether or not demo build was graphically similar to the final build. After a week of pissing matches - with both sides having no data to back up their claims - Che Chao, Turn 10 community manager, released a statement on The Examiner's web site to address the matter. He even went so far as to slight the community by saying:

But does it justify the vitriol of some of the threads I've scanned this morning? I'm not sure that it does.

Not only did they mislead the community by pimping that the cars are greatly improved graphically (but leaving out the important piece that you don't get this in game) but they chose to address the issue away from the community.

In the end, it reminds me of the commercials for Ally bank. Just a bit too shady for my tastes.

All of this said, I preordered the game and will still have a hell of a lot of fun playing it. The amount of new content alone warrants the purchase for me, plus the new career mode, customizable online modes, etc.

On a side note: If you're looking for someone who can play Forza for fun, instead of reporting you as a bad player because you missed a turn and ran into them, feel free to send me an invite (GT: El Munky).

I was calling complete BS on Parris' vision of a "console in the cloud" (paraphrasing here). I thought, "Good idea, but lag and the bandwidth needed to stream the video would make it impossible."

Well, looks like I'm wrong:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i122eef64e5ea3297dced6afe27455ac6

From the article:

Perlman described OnLive as a revolutionary, on-demand game platform that can deliver the latest and most advanced games on any TV via a sleek, inexpensive MicroConsole or on almost any PC or Mac. "You can have instant access to games," he said in an interview. "You just click on it and it goes."

Unlike current consoles like the Sony PlayStation 3 or Microsoft Xbox 360 -- or even the PC -- OnLive will have all the graphics, assets and game play taking place on its servers and then streamed in real-time using a special interactive compression technology that took seven years to develop.

Set to launch in winter 2009, OnLive is aimed at the more than 70% of U.S. households with a broadband connection. The company plans to charge a monthly subscription for access and then offer a number of different pay programs ranging from rental to outright purchase of games.

Being a guy who works in some bleeding edge tech, I am not calling this done until I see it working first hand. The fact that Warn-a-Brotha is the company backing this casts further doubt.

Anyway, props to Ms. Cleo Parris to seeing the future. Parris, can you hook a cracka up with some NCAA picks?

Thought you guys might get a kick out of this video - even if you can't stand Techno (or more Techno pop in this case). Heck, if you grew up with a console pre-PS 1, you have to have at least a partial affinity for beeps and boops.

Anyway, on to the goods. This is a video for Royksopp's "Happy Up Here," which inexplicably segues  into a real-life Space Invaders battle:

http://royksopp.com/videos/happy-up-here 

The more you watch it, the more cool stuff you see (e.g.: using buildings ala shield in Space Invaders).

This has to be the coolest use of Space Invaders since Futurama's take on the topic:

http://www.transbuddha.com/mediaHolder.php?id=2073 

To continue the gaming connections, the video was directed by Ruben Sutherland who also directed the commercials for Resistance and Resistance http://www.joyriderfilms.com/reuben_sutherland.htm

Enjoy,

CJC

OK, so I am sure that peeps will say I need to turn in my gamer card for raising this question, but ... $60 for a 3D-ified re-re-re-release of Street Fighter? Really? I'm sure you have Street Fighter in some incarnation somewhere in your gaming library.

Is SF4 really that much different?

  Yeah, I said it!

I fear that we have reached the point in gaming that movies hit around the turn of the century: The Land of the Remake/Re-release. Instead of creating new IP, it is all about putting a new spin on an old classic. Just what I need: Yet another re-release of "The Parent Trap" (rolls eyes).  Well, that did kick start Lindsay Lohan's career. But, I digress...

Obviously there is $120 million in the Capcom coffers that says I have no business deciding what the market wants (OK, I know that's retail, but play along). Don't we deserve better than this as gamers? Is SF4 really worth 6x SF II Hyper Fighting via XBLA or 4x Super SF Turbo HD Remix? Is there as much gameplay/replayability as another full price title like Halo 3, Call of Duty, Burnout Paradise, or Left 4 Dead (...after the new DLC comes out, that is ;) )?

Most importantly, is it worth paying $60 to get into another Hadoken-fest with some dillhole on the other side of the planet? Is the only progress we have made in fighters simply the ability to play with any a-hole on the Intert00bz instead of being stuck with the ones at your local arcade? 

Or is it simply cashing in on nostalgia? I will be interested to see how quickly copies of SF 4 litter the shelves of your local Game Stop. 

Cheers,

Bitter 

Munky