Wii

These have been called Super Mario propaganda posters, but clearly these are Bowser propaganda posters. These are what we picture at the Bowser headquarters, in the Koopa and Goomba barracks and on the walls of their nurseries at home. It would only be through omnipresent propaganda that Bowser could command his followers on so many failed attempts to take over the Mushroom Kingdom.

Time has been gradually marching along since the news broke that I would be attending this year's Electronics Entertainment Expo—or E3, as most of us know it—and I thought that it's time to start talking about some things that I'm expecting to see happen during what will be one of the most important shows in recent memory. Some of these are already confirmed, and some may be a bit more unexpected. We'll certainly see how my predictions stack up versus reality when the show actually gets going in early June.

Good thing Mario (and most video game characters/mascots) never got a portal gun. He (they) would get far too lazy and ruin his (their) games.

Recent economic trends—notably rapid increases in fuel prices and associated price hikes in the general cost of living—should be something that the console video game industry starts taking seriously. Everything is getting more expensive at a most inopportune time for the domestic economy, and with the decline of disposable income, it's only a matter of time before pain is once again felt by the console gaming industry.

As nice as this trailer looks, it only reminds me that Sega still doesn't know what to do with Sonic the Hedgehog. Sega wants so badly to fit Sonic into a large 3D world that it has forced him into games with hover boards, wolf transformation, giant swords and even guns. Fans on the other hand just seem to be begging for more of what they grew up on—2D platforming levels.

We're back! Again! Join us for captivating spoiler-free discussions of Portal 2 and Dead Space 2. Plus: the merits of silent protagonists, PSN madness, Chi buys a 3DS, Mike subscribes to Final Fantasy XIV, Tim loses it over Dante's Inferno, and so much more. We were just so happy to hear each other's voices, we couldn't stop gabbing. With Chi Kong Lui, Brad Gallaway, Mike Bracken, Richard Naik, and Tim "Chance" Spaeth.

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• Dead Space 2 Review
• Portal Review
• Portal 2 Review
• Dante's Inferno Review

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Hokuto "Hok" Konishi is a member of the Quest Crew. (For those that didn't know, Quest Crew were the winners of Season Three of MTV's America's Best Dance Crew. They've been enjoying great success since then making appearances all over the world.)

Konishi injured himself while training so he is sidelined from dancing. However, while he can't express himself with his feet, he still has two working hands and has used them to create this video "tribute" to Super Mario.

The most difficult part of reviewing a game is reviewing the difficulty. A few games—Super Meat Boy, I Wanna be the Guy—can uncontroversially be called hard, but the essential question is actually whether they are too hard. Since that level of difficulty depends not only on the individual player's skills and experience, but also on his values, it can be difficult to state what goes over the line. It is even harder to accurately say whether a game is too easy, primarily because most reviewers are skilled and experienced gamers, many of them drawn to the hobby during its early days when challenge was practically all a game could offer in terms of fun.

One of my new favorite shows comes out of Britain. It goes by the name of Misfits and airs on E4 (whatever that is). Anyway, it features a group of young superheroes (or super anti-heroes) and one of them actually uses parkour to get around.

Now, that has always looked cool, but watching the character who is only now starting to do the parkour  thing, I began to wonder where one would learn to even do this stuff and at a level where you could just traverse a city.

Well, wouldn't you know it, there is a place like that. It purports  to be "California's first indoor facility dedicated to freerunning and parkour."

Whether that is true or not is irrelevant. The skills of the people in the video are amazing and even if there weren't some Mario-theme sections in their facility, I'd still find a reason to post this video here.