Rez was the last game that really took ahold of me, and I recall playing the game hours at a time, for days on end (being unemployed and jobless, and therefore having a lot of free time certainly helped), and it never got boring. Hell, I still have the craving for a quick fix every once awhile, and of course, I never get tired talking about it with others, both longtime diehards and new fans alike.

Radiano: Actually, you are correct; the actual core AVS was not present. The tape player looking thing seems to be just that, though for reading & writing game data. You can actually see more pics of the prototype, including the core unit at the bottom of this page.

Rez is one of the last original console games I personally enjoyed, and played, to a great extent. [Now it's all arcade-style stuff...]

So Nintendo World doesn’t actually sell anything too cool, then? Great pictures, anyway.

That PD “uh oh” pic is *so* 2004.

I saw those pics of the Marvel/Transformer toys a few months back; my preference is for the Hulk Tank. I’m particularly entertained by how it makes it look not like the Hulk pilots it, but rather, he is simply contained within the tank which is fueled by HIS RAGE!!!.

I’m quite entertained by the “brushed metal ’85″ look of the prototype controls. They look so consisent with the styles of that time period; like the controls in a 198x Cadillac.

Last night’s new Family Guy and American Dad were much better. I’ve generally found Family Guy to be … entertaining enough, but too *disposable*; I’ve never considered myself a real fan of it. It’s cheap humor. It’s often good cheap humor, or cheap humor very well done, but it remains nonetheless cheap. So my official response to Family Guy’s return, both when it was announced and over the course of these new episodes, has been simply “meh.”

(Contrast this with Futurama, which I love like it were my own child.)

I enjoyed your Rez interview; I’ll check out the forum thread … nowish.

But the real problem is that Microsoft doesn’t seem to realize any of this this, and keeps on emphasizing HD graphics as the future of games, which is beyond asinine. The bottom line is that they’re the first to the gate, and when that happens, the graphics ends up being inferior when compared to those who follow. Hence why I had assumed that MS was smart enough to look at the past and learn from it. Another reason why I think its almost suicide to not have backwards comparability. Screw the legal hassles, they’re MS, they own most of the world. Another $3 towards each system won’t kill them.

Then again, perhaps their plan of catering to the player at every angle is their solution for the lack for graphical prowess. But anyone who has taken the five or so minutes necessary to think about what they’ve been promising will realize that much of what they’ve talked about is logistically impossible to pull off, at least effectively, and for every single game as they’ve also promised. Though the real issue is all the crap that MS is touting is what people think they want, until they actually spend their money and realize how utterly useless, boring, and frustrating all of it is. At the end of the day, people don’t need messages in the middle of the game or stupid faceplates, they want games. Period.

And in response to second Jason’s comments, the thing is, I really don’t like Family Guy. In fact, you could say I even hate it; I just find the whole thing rather obnoxious. I like to think of the show as that angry guy who thinks he’s really funny by practically yelling jokes at the audience loud and fast, but really isn’t. It’s perhaps the top reason why I find random, staccato humor so played out these days. Plus the fact that it sorta hand a hand in almost killing off one of the best shows on television, Arrested Development, makes me dislike the show even less.

Am I right in criticizing the new season even though I haven’t seen it? Well, when I was really bored, I decided to download the season premiere when it got leaked on the net. Even though I wasn’t a fan, I was curious to see if the show had changed at all, and maybe even gotten better. Well just like every other episode I had seen, I got bored after five minutes, and extremely agitated after seven, causing me to trash the file as fast as I could.

Hey, if you like the show, more power to you. Just do me a favor and don’t be like every other Family Guy diehard and be pissed if someone doesn’t like the show.