Wow, that’s a mouthful.

If you find yourself cringing at the price of a pair of PocketWizards for your wireless strobe triggering needs…or perhaps cursing at your el cheapo eBay radio triggers (I’m on both camps), you’re in luck…because the genius that is Paul C. Buff has created yet another splendid product aimed “for the rest of us.” A pair of the transmitter/receiver is cheaper than a used PocketWizard transceiver.
Alas! It’s only available for pre-order. Be rest assured that this site will be host one of the first reviews available when AlienBees start shipping this (hopefully) awesome product.

Popularity: 24% [?]

If you think writing “Shawshank Redemption” is reason enough to elevate this man to godhood, think again.

With the Congress, Senate and Presidential candidates and a certain lawyer bitching about the “connection” between violence and videogames, His Highness has spared a few minutes of his time from just being awesome to writing this column on Entertainment Weekly to explain his insights.

As always, the man has managed to transform mere entertainment magazine column writing to an artform:

“What really makes me insane is how eager politicians are to use the pop culture — not just videogames but TV, movies, even Harry Potter — as a whipping boy. It’s easy for them, even sort of fun, because the pop-cult always hollers nice and loud. Also, it allows legislators to ignore the elephants in the living room. Elephant One is the ever-deepening divide between the haves and have-nots in this country, a situation guys like Fiddy and Snoop have been indirectly rapping about for years. Elephant Two is America’s almost pathological love of guns. It was too easy for critics to claim — falsely, it turned out — that Cho Seung-Hui (the Virginia Tech killer) was a fan of Counter-Strike; I just wish to God that legislators were as eager to point out that this nutball had no problem obtaining a 9mm semiautomatic handgun. Cho used it in a rampage that resulted in the murder of 32 people. If he’d been stuck with nothing but a plastic videogame gun, he wouldn’t even have been able to kill himself.”

This is why is he has “King” for a surname.

Popularity: 18% [?]

I’m not sure if the game reviewers who gave this game a negative or a mildly-positive review actually played the game. As a gamer who have recently completed the game I can unequivocally that this is one of the best action games I have played so far. If you enjoyed “Resident Evil 4″. “Gears of War”, and “Chronicles of Riddick,” quit reading further and buy this game. You can thank me later.

Now, let me do a rebuttal on the common complaints with the naysayers of this game:

• It’s pretty much a “Gears of War” copycat. OK, so what? I would see it as a negative if it has worse controls than GOW…but the funny thing is, I’d go out on a limb and say that DS has better controls than GOW. With GOW
• Graphics is nice but not much better than anything that’s out there. DS IMO is so much better than any Unreal Engine game out there? Why? I got two words for that: consistent framerate. And while it also suffers with the “everything blue or brown” just like most Unreal-Engine-powered games, it has better textures and particle effects (for the most parts)…
• …and one other thing I have noticed: weapons physics is frighteningly accurate. Shooting with a rifle has lag and recoil that’s very similar to a real rifle, shooting with a gatling gun is so much different than shooting an uzi. And the best part: controlling the mech-like thing called the “Jackal.” Controlling that thing has never been satisfying since…Chronicles of Riddick (controlling the mech towards the end of the game)…NO! forget about that POS “Lost Planet”…not even close.
• They say there’s a “lack of compelling story.” Holy crap. This isn’t “Indigo Prophecy.” If this was an adventure game, I’d whine about that. But it’s not. GOW doesn’t have a compelling story, either…but I didn’t hear anybody bitching about that.

Negatives? Of course, there is…but not enough to keep you from thoroughly enjoying the game.

• Yes, I *somewhat* agree that there are some parts of the game that all you do is kill zombies and soldiers. But with the glaive, each kill is satisfying. I nit about this is that there’s not much animation for decapitations and finishers.
• It’s short.
• Boring multiplayer.

There you have it. It’s a very good game, but it’s a bit short of making it to “great game” status. At least it should keep you busy while waiting for GTA4, MGS4, and GT5P.

Score: 9 out of 10.

Popularity: 24% [?]