For those of you who are tired of the oversaturation of zombie flicks and feel like the current vampire trend has become vacuous and pedantic, I have encouraging news.

The werewolf film may be re-marking its territory.

Yes, I know that werewolves have already reared their heads in the forgettable, if not horrible Twilight franchise.  But that wasn’t technically a werewolf movie.  It was a movie about raping your face for two hours at ten bucks a pop.

I’m talking about honest-to-Cthulhu werewolves: ferocious creatures that serve as a metaphor for the insatiable beast that exists in all of us (except for Carl – he’s just a disappointment), but also amuse us with blood spray.  Sadly, it’s been quite some time since we were genuinely treated to a great werewolf flick.  Your tastes may vary, but most folks have to go back as far as the 80s before they can even think of one lycanthrope movie of any serious quality.  For some reason, werewolves seem to be a difficult topic to build a movie around.

But, I think there’s a moonlight at the end of the tunnel.  Universal’s new remake of The Wolf Man is definitely a pounce in the right direction.  Based on the 1941 monster film with Lon Chaney, Jr., this reimagining manages to invoke the spirit of the original classic while adding a dash of Hammer Films’ The Curse of the Werewolf.  The result is a fun and thrilling ride with a wonderful gothic atmosphere that manages to make you feel like you’re watching a new installment in the old Universal series.

I will admit right to your face that I’m a big fan of the old Universal monsters, with The Wolf Man being my favorite.  From Lon Chaney’s first foray into the fur to Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man to even the still-hilarious Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, I’ve been fascinated by the lupine creature.  So, I got quite excited when Universal first announced this remake, despite the soulpunch the studio gave me with that craptastic mess called Van Helsing a few years back.

Though the production was troubled almost from the beginning due to a change in directors, soundtrack swaps, and numerous reshoots, the solid script managed to remain enough of a stable base to give us a solid little film.  The biggest aspect of the movie that will slap you in the face (in a good way) as soon as that first reel starts spinning is the atmosphere.  Like I said above, the gothic tone being given off by the Victorian era setting sets the backdrop beautifully.  Combine that with the muted colors on display, and you almost think you’re watching the black and white classic.  This was actually one of my favorite elements of the film.

Then there’s the score.  Originally, The Wolfman was supposed to be set to a rock score.  I’m certainly glad it wasn’t, as that would have completely killed the mood set by the rest of the film.  As it is, we get yet another twitch of the baton from Mr. Danny Elfman, whose score isn’t as overwhelmingly Elfmannish as we’re used to.  But I think this is a plus in this case, as this movie really calls for something more atmospheric, which I think Elfman does well here.

As for the acting, everyone brings their A-game to the party.  Benicio Del Toro is practically channeling Lon Chaney, Jr. in his performance.  Hopkins chews every bit of scenery he’s in, but that’s always a good thing.  Hugo Weaving’s portrayal of Inspector Abberline (famous for the real life investigation of the Jack the Ripper murders) made me grin from ear to ear as he displayed his smug chutzpah to every character that got in his path.  And though her character seemed to be the weakest link in the film, even Emily Blunt was able to deliver a good performance.

I know one of the major upheavals that came about during production was the fact that Rick Baker’s marvelous make-up effects were not going to be used for the werewolf transformation sequences.  I was extremely disappointed when I heard this, as Baker is a master at this craft.  Heck, one of the reasons he asked to be a part of the film was so he could design these sequences.  Sadly, Universal decided to go with CG for the transformations instead.  I have to admit, I was not impressed when I caught glimpses of them in the trailer.  But, I was pleasantly surprised by how they looked in the final film.  With the right lighting (i.e. dark), I could hardly tell that it was CG at all.  Then there’s the best news of all – Baker’s designs for Del Toro’s final Wolf Man form were kept in unhindered.  And damn, does he look awesome!  Director Joe Johnston knew exactly how to play it, too – flashes of creature throughout the film until we get to see him full on at the end.  Johnston got it, and the viewers were rewarded.

Lastly, there’s the gruesome factor.  One of the things that the original Wolf Man loses on me with subsequent revisits is its lack of real savagery.  As a kid the Wolf Man scared the bejeezus out of me.  With his intense gaze and his rabid snarls Chaney was able to put the wiggins on a boy.  As an older geek, however, the ferocity on display is quite bland.  All Chaney ever really does is grab people while snarling, and maybe occasionally bite a dude away from the camera.  Don’t get me wrong – I still love the flick.  It transcends beyond what it loses as the viewer gets older.  It’s just that the scares aren’t scares anymore, but more like classic thrills in the vein of that kiddie roller coaster that you still enjoy riding from time to time.

Now, you want a Wolf Man movie with bite?  And not just bite – I’m talking eviscerating, lip smacking, flesh-tearing bite.  This film has got it.  Talbot’s beast does his fair share of all of the above, and then some.  And I love it.  There were some pretty gruesome kills in this flick, and I cackled with glee at every one of them.

Now, is this a perfect film?  No.  It definitely has some flaws.  The character development between Talbot and Gwen is kind of weak and feels rushed.  The plot stumbles a couple of times as well.  Talbot’s trip to the asylum in London felt more like a sidetrack to the main story, but at the same time it set up one of my favorite sequences in the film.  I mean, who doesn’t want to see the Wolf Man rooftop-hopping in the light of the full moon in Victorian-Age London?

Despite these flaws, the movie pulls you in and along for the ride.  Like Avatar, you find yourself living and breathing in the environment while getting wrapped up in the events as they unfold on one Lawrence Talbot.  I found myself enjoying it so much, I’m planning on going back to the theater to see it again.

I know that Universal is planning on resurrecting the rest of their creature pantheon as well.  If this movie is a sign of things to come, we may be finding ourselves emerging into a new era of Universal Monsters.

Van Helsing be damned.

The Don was drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic’s.  His hair was perfect.

Greetings, Station!

The other day I was listening to the Tenacious D song “Beezleboss (The Final Showdown)” from the soundtrack to Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, a movie which no one saw (as evidenced by the abysmal box office numbers).  Despite its lower-than-lackluster performance, I found the film to be a fun romp in the spirit of the rock band misadventure movies of old.  And being a fan of Tenacious D itself (comprised of Jack Black and Kyle Gass), it was only natural that I picked up the soundtrack to the film.  While it isn’t as good as their first album, “PoD” still contains plenty of little musical gems.  One of my favorites is the afore-mentioned “Beezleboss”.

The song retells a slightly altered version of the story regaled in the previous D song “Tribute” – JB and KG get involved in a “rock-off” with the Devil.  The stakes?  If The D wins, Satan must go back to Hell… and he has to pay Jack and Kyle’s rent.  If Beelzebub wins, he gets to take KG back to Hell with him to be his slave (and not the indentured servitude kind, either).

With the stakes in place, the rock-off commences.  Satan begins with an epic, dark mass of metal proportions.  Tenacious D reciprocate with a fairly inspirational effort, but to no avail.  The Devil wins and prepares to take Kyle back to his domain for eternity.

But wait!  At the last minute, Jables intervenes, causing the Beezleboss to break off a piece of his own horn.  With that piece in Black’s possession, he is able to command the Devil to go back to Hell once more until he is “complete again”.

So, I’m listening to this song and the thought occurs to me – most tales that chronicle Ol’ Scratch competing for a mortal’s soul seem to paint him in the same manner in order to sell the message that good always triumphs over evil.  He’s almost always painted as an honor-bound entity that can be easily beaten by someone with enough talent, hard work, and moxie.

Wait, what?  Hold on a minute.  This is the same guy who had the molten stones to challenge The Big Man.  Sure, he lost and was cast out of St. Peter’s jurisdiction, but he obviously had enough power to challenge George Burns in the first place.  You don’t make such a bold gesture unless you know for certain that you got the Mana to do so.

Plus, Lucifer is also a master of deception.  He managed to fool the first man and woman with fruit.  The guy’s got some serious ad executive powers going on if he can sell a couple of nudists on foliage sweets.  Come to think of it, this isn’t all that different from the supernatural ability Steve Jobs has to convince people to buy things like iPads.

Wait… Steve Jobs… Apple…

Mind = blown.  Where was I again?

Oh yeah… So, The Dark Lord is obviously a master manipulator.  There’s a reason why he is called The Master of Lies – the guy uses words to confuse, deceive, delude, dupe, fool, gull, hoax, hoodwink, kid, snow, take in, trick, intrigue, machinate, plot, scheme, arrange, contrive, devise, finesse, mastermind, cheat, chisel, defraud, fleece, gyp, hustle, and swindle (thanks, Merriam-Webster!).  He’s always in it for his own ends and he does whatever is necessary to get what he wants.

This means that there is no way in Hell (pun intended) anyone like Charlie Daniels or Ralph Macchio could ever hope to defeat him in a one-on-one.  It doesn’t matter how hard you try or how much spirit you poured into your efforts.  The Devil can say whatever he wants.  He could play two plunky chords off- key while you play Vivaldi backwards with your butt cheeks.  He’ll declare himself the winner no matter what.  It’s what he does.  Say goodbye to your soul, Karate Kid, because no amount of Crane Kicks or Drum Techniques or Lipton Brisk Iced Tea will save you from spending an eternity waxing on and waxing off The Prince of Evil.

Now, I’ll give “Beezleboss” some credit.  Despite the fact that the Source of All Evil adheres to a “demon code”, the song (as well as the final scene of the movie, which is where the song comes from) does finally illustrate that The D had no chance of winning a rock-off against The Dark One.  Even the “Real Ghostbusters” episode “Night Game” had a better understanding of how things should work when you compete against dark forces.  Granted, Winston was playing baseball against your more run-of-the-mill demons, but the ump still recognized that evil was free to cheat and play as dirty as it wanted (well, at least as dirty as a Saturday morning cartoon can get).  Of course, in the end good still won, despite the fact that the evil demons cheated the hell out of that game.

Don’t get me wrong.  I completely understand the intention behind the way these stories are told.  Triumph of the human spirit against the forces of evil and the belief that we are inherently good enough to conquer our own (metaphorical) inner demons is a popular trope that’s never going away.  As a society we need to be able to watch movies and television shows, listen to music, and read books and comics that remind us no matter what dark paths we go down or what nefarious entities we meet, we still have a chance and the power within us to punch old Beelz in the front-flow and scream “Adrian!” in triumph.

It’s just that every once in awhile I would like to see Mephisto with his Adamantium cup on.

The Don went down to Georgia.  Her mother didn’t approve.

Greetings, Noghri!!

I hope everyone had a great holiday and is having a wonderful New Year so far.  Let’s not forget that 2010 marks “The Year We Make Contact”.  Not sure what we’ll be contacting, but let’s hope it doesn’t involve turning Jupiter into a sun.

Now that the holidays are over it’s back to the old grind, which means I have returned to deliver my first “Office” of the new year!  Oddly enough, it’s a run-down of some of the cooler, geekier things I got for Christmas.

So as to avoid the funny stares, let’s just get started, shall we?

I actually made out pretty darn well this Christmas, but here are the highlights of my spoils that fit in more with the spirit of Spwug (make with the clicky to make biggy):

About a week before Christmas even arrived, I managed to order the latest re-offering from mattycollector.com – Skeletor.  Made from new molds and fully articulated, Mattel has been offering He-Man action figures based on the classic designs for over a year.  I wasn’t able to get these two when they were first offered in 2008, but I managed to snag them both over the past two months when they were re-offered.  The sculpts are incredible and each figure is based on a combination of the original cartoon design and the original figure design.  They’re a little pricey (about twenty bucks), so they’re only for the serious collector.  They usually offer one or two figures a month, but they sell out quickly.  This month they are offering a figure of a character that never saw plastic – Princess Adora.  You can bet I’ll be snatching up that one.

Another awesome offering from Mattel, these guys are based on the movie versions – not the cartoon counterparts.  I’ve been ordering them for the past couple of months.  The latest figure – Winston – came the same day as my Skeletor.  I almost have the entire team; only Venkman remains.  Bill Murray was the last of the original cast to sign off on his likeness, which is why his is the last of the four to be produced.  He should be available in February.  I can’t wait.  Now I just need to find my Real Ghostbusters figures and have a crazy crossover…

This game is so much fun to play, and I haven’t even started a new game on it yet.  Let me explain: when you first load up the game, it puts you in a practice area where you can just mess around.  For those not in the know, mess around means you can create almost any object by writing the word on the stylus screen based on a word database consisting of tens of thousands of words.  The object of the game is to create objects to solve puzzles.  I haven’t gotten to that part of the game yet, as I am too busy in the practice area creating God and then pitting Him against other people and creatures to see who would win.  So far, God wins every time… except against vampires.   They always manage to turn him.  Weird.  Still, I’m having so much fun with this game that I’m hoping to actually play it soon.

This.  For those of you that have read my Christmas articles, there is one particular memory that makes it Christmas for me over anything else – Mario.  Ever since I got that NES all those years ago, it seemed like every Christmas brought another adventure for the plumber boys to embark on.  No matter what console it was for, it just seemed like Super Mario Bros. and Christmas went hand in hand.  But for the past several years, things have been different.  Nintendo has been sparse with their Mario titles (sparse with any good titles, for that matter).  So, the past few holidays were surprisingly quiet on the coin block front.  Then this wonderful game revealed itself when I ripped off the wrapping.  Holy crap, it’s like I’m a kid again.  This game manages to hold up pretty darn well against what has come before.  With a mixture of SMB 3, World, and the most recent release for the DS, this game is extremely fun and challenging.  Add to it the ability to play up to four players simultaneously, and you have a game that will frustrate you as much as make you squee.

This came as a surprise to me.  I didn’t even know this book existed, and I’m a huge zombie fan.  Christmas carols with the lyrics altered to be about zombies.  It’s so campy, but at the same time it is beyond awesome.  Christmas 2010 – be ready, as I’ll be singing these all over the place.

Along with the Matty Collector figures above, this has to be the coolest geek collectible of 2009 – a Back to the Future Delorean that lights up and makes ten different sound effects from the movie.  I had ordered this through my comic shop, but my wife was nice enough to buy it out from under my nose so as to make it a prezzie for me.  This thing is sweet.  Almost everything that you can think of that should light up on the car in the movie lights up here – headlights, tail lights, dashboard, time circuits, flux capacitor, and – of course – the flux bands on the outside of the car.  This thing is incredible.  Sadly, there aren’t any action figures to go with it (at least not yet).  So, in order to make sure the car had a driver, I had to improvise:

That there would be Matt Tracker from M.A.S.K.  Not the original figure, mind you, but the limited edition figure that was made as part of the most recent (non-movie) G.I. Joe line.  I figured that since his last car had gull-wing doors he was worthy enough to take a spin through time.

Hopefully the rest of you out there had a holiday that visited just as much geekdom at you as I did.  Here’s to a new year and a fresh supply of Spwug for 2010.

I leave you with some disturbing developments that occurred in our LEGO Advent Calendar just after Christmas.  Let’s just say the negotiations apparently turned hostile:

Manny Bothans died to bring The Don this information.  Poor guy.

Seasons Greetings, Chipmunks and Chipettes!

As you’re reading this, it should be Christmas Eve.

Hang on…

Sorry.  I had to take a moment to laugh at the idea of anyone being around to read this on Christmas Eve.  But still, as part of the season of giving I feel it would be unfair of me if I didn’t offer up something to stick in your Spwugnerian stockings.  I’ve noticed that my last couple of holiday offerings were in the form of lists, and since old Kringle himself is a fan of checking such things twice I figured it would keep in the spirit of the season to do another as the last of my Christmas-themed articles for the year.

This time, I offer up my top five favorite Christmas songs:

5. “It’s Christmas All Over the World” – Sheena Easton

I’m a child of the 80s.  Most people know that.  Growing up, I had a HUGE crush on Sheena Easton – her voice, her Scottish accent, and her… hotness.  I will admit that I have a couple of her songs on my iPod.  So, when she did this little ditty for the film Santa Claus: The Movie, I knew I had to have it.  I really love this song.  It’s the epitome of 80s Christmas music – it’s an 80s ballad and a Christmas song all in one.

4. “Christmas Time is Here” – Vince Guaraldi

Christmas just isn’t Christmas without this timeless, holiday classic.  “A Charlie Brown Christmas” is one of my favorite Christmas specials, and both the vocal and instrumental version of this song immediately get me into the Christmas spirit.

3. “Christmas at Ground Zero” – “Weird Al” Yankovic

“Weird Al” is still one of my favorite artists to this day, and this song is still one of his best originals.  Combining yuletide festivities with nuclear Armageddon, this song manages to make me laugh every time I hear it.  This song has to be on my playlist; it just isn’t Christmas without it.

2. “Winter Wonderland” – The Eurythmics

Yeah, I know… I’m a sucker for 80s music, and that more than includes 80s Christmas music.  This is probably my favorite version of this holiday tune.  It’s just infused with so much energy.  Annie Lennox is clearly having a lot of fun, and it’s infectious.

1. “O, Holy Night” – Johnny Mathis

For me, Johnny Mathis is Christmas.  His Christmas music was a staple of our household growing up.  Every Christmas morning, my brother, sister, and I were awakened to the sounds of Johnny crooning his magical holiday tunes.  To this day, every time I hear one of his songs I feel like a kid again.  Because of how much I enjoy his entire collection, I had a hard time picking just one song to represent my number one.  In the end, I chose “O, Holy Night” simply because I think it is one of the best renditions of the song out there.  Johnny’s crescendo in the final notes of the song is just so powerful and touching, it gives me shivers.

And there you have it, folks – my last Christmas article for 2009.  I hope everyone out there has a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday.  For those that don’t celebrate, have a happy Friday.  Woot to the weekend!

I leave you with one last prezzie.  Remember the LEGO Advent Calendar?  Here it is in full glory, all its secret nooks and crannies revealed (make with the clicky to see it larger):

The Don we now our gay apparel, fa-la-la fa-la-la la la la…

Welcome to this week’s post of my Geek Journal!

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Sorry for the last of a post last week, I was following the standard holiday herd mentality and visiting family for Thanksgiving. I hope everyone reading this had a good Thanksgiving as well.

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While I was visiting said family, I was able to go see Mannheim Steamroller in concert again thanks to them having a show in Detroit on the Friday after Thanksgiving. I had managed to see them in my local area last year, but they chose not to come back this year (my bet it was the area’s traffic that did this). I had my mom join me for the concert and she enjoyed it as well.

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Gotten from an IRC chat that I spend time in, I give to you 25 Hilarious WiFi Network Names. Note that this may not be safe for work. It gave me the idea to set up an access point with the name “The Black Hole” and have it constantly dump all traffic sent to it.

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That’s all for this week’s post!

…congratulations to Richard and Katy, the supreme rulers of the Spwugniverse!!!!!

They are the essence of everything that is Spwug.  Without either of them, this site wouldn’t be here to bring you a daily dose of all things geek.

It was an honor and a privilege to witness the joining of these two forces of good.  They are my friends.  They are my family.  I am proud to be the head writer of something they envisioned, and I am proud to be a part of their lives.

My best wishes to both of you, Pocky Rich and Katy.  Here’s to bigger and greater things.  With your powers combined, anything is possible.

Greetings, Bugaloos!

Has there ever been a good Batman game?  Sure, there are one or two games that have come close.  Some folks really liked one of the various entries that came out for the early Nintendo or Sega consoles.  Others are huge fans of the arcade game that came out years ago based on the first Tim Burton film.  I, personally, really enjoyed Batman: Vengeance when it came out back in 2001 for the PS2.

But, much like what is going on currently in the comic books (SPOILER ALERT: Dick Grayson is the current Batman!), there’s a new Bat in Gotham…

…and this one is kicking ass and taking initials (it doesn’t have time to write down full names).

Batman: Arkham Asylum is to Bats what Spider-Man 2 was to ol’ Webhead himself – a game that makes you feel like you’re really playing as the character.  I mean, all of the tricks of the Bat-trade are here – gadgets that help you accomplish different tasks, Batman’s signature fighting moves.  There’s even a viewing mode you can switch to called “Detective Mode” that allows you to look for clues.  This is most likely the first time any video game has been able to effectively capture the detective side of our caped crusader.

Every little detail of this game is practically perfect.  Paul Dini, of “Batman: The Animated Series” fame, wrote the storyline for the game.  Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, and Arleen Sorkin return to voice Batman, Joker, and Harley Quinn, respectively.  The music, while not lifted from the show, is a perfect match for the atmosphere of the game.

The game begins with Batman showing up on the front doorstep of Arkham Asylum with a “gift” – the Joker, who had recently escaped (again).  The Dark Knight follows the guards as they escort his arch nemesis to his cell.  Unfortunately, it appears that the Joker allowed himself to get captured on purpose!  Having concocted an elaborate plan that sets himself free and puts him in charge of Arkham, the Joker locks everyone inside and sets all the inmates free!

What follows is a very Metroid-style adventure, pitting Bats against many angry thugs with a grudge, as well as some of his greatest villains.  All the while, Batman has to look for clues and secret passages in order to rescue the guards and circumvent different security measures that the Joker has put into place to stop our pointy-eared crimefighter.  Add to that an extra set of clues laid by the nefarious Riddler for Batman to solve, and you have a game that is extremely well-crafted and fun.

I had an absolute blast with this game.  In an unusual turn of events, I was actually able to finish story mode before I picked up Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 this week.  That’s not to say that the game is over.  There are several challenge maps to play through.  If you are a PS3 owner, this includes an exclusive challenge level where you take on “skeletons” while under the influence of Scarecrow’s fear gas.  The other sweet exclusive is the ability to play the challenge levels as the Joker.  The rest are just separate challenge stages where you have to either face of against several waves of thugs, or stealth levels where the object is to take everyone out one by one without getting caught.

Oh yeah – did I forget to mention that there is some element of Metal Gear Solid to the game as well?

That there’s what we call an “inverted takedown”, and it’s one of the many upgrades you can purchase as you play the game.

If there was one complaint I had with the game, it wouldn’t be with the game itself, but with the coding.  It appears that certain PS3 systems have a tendency to freeze up during game play.  I’ve done some research and found that this is a common occurrence, but it only seems to happen with the older systems.  The freezing got so frequent on mine that I eventually couldn’t even play it, as it froze up the minute I started to play.  Every time.  I ended up having to do a system restore to my PS3.  That didn’t eradicate the problem completely, but it did reduce it back to just once every one or two game hours of play.

Despite that frustration, I thoroughly enjoyed Arkham Asylum and have every intention of going back to it at some point, especially since there will be DLC coming with more challenge maps.

But first, I need to switch over to the Marvel Universe for a bit and get my Ultimate Alliance (2) on.

The Don is the terror that craps in the night.

Being a gamer, it naturally follows that I’d love remixed video game music. The talented folks over at OverClocked ReMix and VGMix have seen my patronage for the better part of the past decade.

Years ago, I downloaded pretty much the entire stock of both sites (before VGMix went down for several years), but Life conspired to Get In The Way, and I didn’t listen to much of my stash until recent months. Somehow, I managed to whittle down over 5 gigabytes of music and add the winners to my collection. I just completed the final weeding right before writing this, in fact. Of course, playing so many songs in rapid succession means you pick up on running themes in the composition of the tracks. And then you realize that some of those themes are more like annoying clichés, having been used and reused and done to death, then done even more until the resulting track rises up again as a shambling musical zombie, and you’re forced to grab a shotgun and put a hole in its head to end its eternal misery.

Metaphorically speaking, of course. In actuality, the head-shooting is achieved merely by hitting the delete button on your keyboard. I guess I’m just boring that way. Also, I don’t own a shotgun. I know whose house gets swarmed first by the upcoming zombie apocalypse hordes~!

So! In celebration of increasing my music collection while decreasing the strain on my hard drive, I decided to make up this list for your reading pleasure. If you’re an aspiring remixer or a current composer, here’s the clichés of video-game remixing that you might wanna avoid:

1. Putting a generic drum and bass beat in the background and doubling the tempo doesn’t make it a rave mix.

2. If you’re doing a Zelda remix of “Epona’s Theme” you really do not need to have repeated sound effects of horses neighing. They just clash with your music.

3. If you’re doing a Mario remix, you don’t need to have sound clips of Mario shouting “Here we go!” and “Wheeeeee!”

4. Likewise, if you’re doing a Castlevania remix, you don’t need to have whip-cracking sound effects. I’m serious. No, really, you don’t need them. Especially not in what seems like every single remix.

5. You don’t need sound bites from media that have nothing to do with your remix. This includes tacking clips from Fight Club, Kill Bill, or The Breakfast Club at the beginning/middle/end of your Final Fantasy track. It also includes random whispering and fuzzy conversations.

6. If your song involves rain (example: remixing Zelda’s “Song of Storms”), having gentle rainfall in the background is nice. Not so nice are loud lightning cracks and thunderclaps overpowering the music all throughout the track.

7. Never ever make a country music remix of your favourite video game theme. I’m begging you.

8. There’s no law that says all Castlevania remixes have to be heavy metal. (Although some of the awesome ones I’ve heard sometimes make me think there should be such an edict.)

9. If you don’t have a professional-quality microphone, don’t put your voice in the track.

10. Related to #9: the chances of you being a bad singer/rapper are much higher than the chances of you being the next MC Frontalot. Please take this into consideration before you fire up that mic!

Welp, that about wraps it up for this jaded old gamer. Come back next time! But for now, get off my lawn, you darn kids.

We lost two major pop culture icons today.  Farrah Fawcett passed this morning after a long bout with cancer, and Michael Jackson passed this afternoon after suffering a cardiac arrest.

I’m in total shock.  I was too young to get into the Farrah phase back in the 70s, but I respected her iconic status.  As for Michael Jackson – I’ve always enjoyed his music despite what went on in the rest of his life.  I’ll be listening to a couple of his albums over the next couple of days.  I think “Thriller” is still his best album, and probably the best pop album ever.  The video for “Thriller” is still my all-time favorite music video.

Rest in peace, both of you.

Greetings, Key Masters and Gate Keepers!

With the northern hemisphere less than a week away from entering into that official seasonal agreement with Mr. Sun called summer I realized that while a lot of folks will be going on vacations from work or enjoying non-school, my schedule will most likely be a little busier than it usually is throughout the rest of the year.  So, you may see more “Meetings” over the next several weeks over my slightly longer “Office” installments.  Of course, this makes the introduction of the new series “The Don Says…” even more convenient and special.

For today’s “Meeting” topic, I have only one thing I wanna talk about:

“Ghostbusters: The Video Game”

Now, this isn’t a full review.  I plan on doing a full review at some point, but I want to get at least halfway through the game before I do so.  No, this is just my initial impression of the game since it dropped yesterday.

My first impression: Marvin the Martian, when I was ten.

My initial impression of this game: Holy crap, I was giggling like a boy who saw the first movie for the first time.

Seriously, this game is instant fun right out of the case.  I mean, you get to bust ghosts!  With the original Ghostbusters!  Voiced by their original actors!  Or, you can do what I did and skip the single player mode and go right into the online multiplayer.  I ended up busting ghosts for almost two hours with our fellow Spwugnerian Krellion and another friend of ours.  Two hours!  And I’ve never been a fan of online multiplayer anything.

After our two hour ectoplasmic bug hunt, I did end up switching back over to the single player mode in order to see how it stands up.  I have to say, I’m really impressed.  It starts out just like you’re watching the movie – it opens with the Columbia Pictures logo, followed by the “cold opening”, which in turn go right into the opening theme song and the Ghostbusters logo we all know and love.  I have to admit, I got giddy when I saw this, and I hadn’t even started playing yet.

After a brief tutorial by Dr. Raymond Stantz himself and a little exploration of the fire house (There are easter eggs scattered all over the place in this game!  Look for the Sorrow of Moldavia and hear what he has to say.), I eventually joined back up with the rest of the GBs as we packed up, regrouped, got a grip, came equipped, grabbed our proton packs out the back and we split in the Ecto 1-B.  Our first job?  Back to the Sedgwick Hotel!

At that point it was incredible.  I felt like I was literally inserted into the film and interacting with these characters that I have loved since I first saw Ghostbusters (even the original Elmer Bernstein score plays throughout the game).  We were wandering around the halls of the hotel looking for ghosts.  You even get to select a mode where you get to wear the infrared goggles and used the PKE meter to search for full-torso apparitions!

I don’t wanna give too much more away, partly because I haven’t gotten that far into the game yet.  I will say that I haven’t gotten this excited about a movie tie-in game in a long time.  I have already found myself at work wishing I was at home busting ghosts.

I want to address one issue that I have seen pop up repeatedly in the regards to this game before I tidy up.  There has been some mudslinging towards the PS3 version of this game in comparison to the Xbox 360 version.  One site in particular (I don’t want to name names) gave the PS3 version a hard thrashing, including screen caps that did make it appear like the PS3 version of “Ghostbusters” was indeed greatly inferior to the 360 port.

I can tell you after playing my copy for the PS3 that those reports are crap.  This game looks great on the PS3.  I’m not sure where those screen caps came from (word is that they are from an early, unfinished demo), but the real deal looks miles better than we’re lead to believe.  Yes, I will admit that the 360 graphics do look slightly better in some regards.  But, the differences are so minimal that anyone who has this for the PS3 will not feel like they just got kicked in the wolfman nards.  So relax, folks – you’ll be just fine with whatever platform you chose to get this game for.

Unless you get it for the PS2.  I mean, really.  Who still gets games for that system?

The Don never studied.  He had the Cliff Notes.