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A while back I went to see the film Juno. I'd heard good things, and Jason Bateman was in it, so "what the hell", I thought. Then, just a few minutes into the film, someone (I don't remember if it was annoying girl or slutty friend) said "Honest to Blog". And then all I could feel was hatred, eating away at my soul and humanity. I turned to the friend sitting next to me and said "The only way this won't be the worst film I see this year is if, by the last ten minutes, it's somehow become a movie about Werewolves with rocket launchers battling Robots on motorcycles." Needless to say, this did not happen, and the film went on to be depressingly dull.

Why am I writing about this here, on a game review site? Well, allow me to post this picture from the Magic Box, the only place to go for pictures of Japanese games that may never come out in North America:

You're not seeing things. That's a werewolf with a rocket launcher. When I first saw pictures of this game late last year, it was like all my fondest dreams of werewolves launching rockets were coming true. According to my therapist, those dreams represent my contentious relationship with my grocer. I suspect my therapist isn't very good at his job.

The link between videogame experience and surgical ability has been widely reported in the media. Until now, however, there has been no published research regarding the question of how videogame experience affects the speed of surgical skill acquisition.

Just finished God of War: Chains of Olympus on the PSP a few minutes ago. It's a short, smooth ride that packs a lot of action and intensity without ever resorting to a lot of filler or tedium. As a result, it can be beaten in about a day, but I'm not complaining.

Crysis almost certainly did fall short of its sales potential, even if it sold over 1 million, and piracy may indeed have taken a significant toll. But it's not because the game is too system-intensive, or because the game wasn't any good; rather, it's because Crytek overlooked one of the key channels for modern PC gaming: digital distribution.

The response to my previous post has been remarkable; clearly, many gamers are passionate about DRM and its place (or lack thereof) in PC gaming. I've read through all the comments, and would like to take a moment to respond to them.

Bioware's highly acclaimed and formerly XBox 360 exclusive RPG Mass Effect is fast approaching its release on the PC. Most PC gamers were undoubtedly pleased to hear about enhanced graphics, faster load times, and a re-designed menu system; but it's likely that fewer were happy to hear about the evil digital rights management that will be unscrupulously bundled with the game.

I downloaded Doom on a whim off of Live, and I've got to say I'm surprised by just how good it still is. Great level design, interesting enemies, good weapon balance.

Music can't really make the game part of a game better. With the exception of rhythm-based games, music doesn't really have any connection to gameplay. Which kind of begs the question: to what extent is it fair to judge a game by its music?

This week, Crytek president Cevat Yerli, mastermind of the next-gen blockbuster Crysis, mentioned in an interview that his company will no longer produce PC-exclusive games, asserting that piracy has become so rampant on the PC that making exclusive games for the platform is too risky.

I haven't played Grand Theft Auto IV yet, and I probably won't play it for quite a while. But that doesn't mean it isn't exerting an influence on my life. Like many people, I've been keeping track of the game's astronomically high Metacritic ranking, and it's safe to say that I'm pretty damn stoked about the possibility of playing it. The problem is that I'm currently in the midst of a competing set of interests and commitments, which for sake of brevity I'll simply refer to as "life."