Hey all,
we're done with GDC and have a podcast (shorty) from tuesday going up tommorow along with some general impressions and in-depth commentary of the event this weekend.   I was only able to attend for two days, and have been busting my hump catching up on work for the rest of the week, so sorry if this is a bit late

In the meantime, heres the video of me being kinda a jerk at the Microsoft Blogger Breakfast.    I tried my hardest to ask tough questions, and I think that this was a huge improvement for me personally (from a journalistic "being an asshat" standpoint) over last year.   What do you think?

I'm the guy in the knit cap.

Video: GDC 2007 Microsoft Blogger Breakfast

Morning All,
Andy here at early-o'clock preparing to leave for our first day of GDC.   Edie and Kevin will be attending the next four days of the event (assuming there are things worth spending four days seeing) and so we'll be tossing up stories as we deem the relevent.   Today we're mostly booked seeing upcoming games on the PC and XBox360 since (as usual) Microsoft is the only of the console manufacturers who bothered returning our many phone calls.

On the agenda for today, we're attending talks, demos and hands-ons re:

Bioware: Mass Effect
Hironobu Sakaguchi: Blue Dragon
Peter Molyneux: Fable 2 (we assume)
Turn 10- Forza 2
Funcom - Age of Conan
XBLA and Casual Games
XNA Team
MSGS: Halo 2 for Vista

Additionally, I'll be sneaking in to a round-table discussion on next-gen RPG's.

Beyond that, we had hoped to gather some of the press and industry luminaries at the event for a podcast giving impressions on the events of the day, but unless we can convince someone to give us a couple of chairs (From what I'm told, a commodity more valuable than gold pressed latinum
Should we fail, we may retreat to a restaurant and bust our proverbial move  in the grand ol' style of Roscoe's Chicken an' Waffles.    Engineer Kev is with us for the day, so fear not chappies - the quality will be uber.   Joining us on tonights cast will be (potentially others) the infamous Joe from SPOnG, who was previously on episode 14 of GAL.   Thats right.  The one that never aired.

So buck up brave reader - And if there are any spots ya'll want us to stop by this week to give you some personalized reporting, hit me up at andy@gamerandy.com

Sure, gaming videos have been around since God wore short pants, but being a sound guy and an insatiable consumer of all things musical, I've noticed a new kind of gaming video that's starting to pop up on sites like YouTube.

Gaming musicals.

Maybe it's because I spent way too many nights of my youth dressed in fish-net stockings and singing "Let's do the time warp again," but I've always had a soft spot for cleverly written original music. Especially about popular issues not generally subject of songs.

So when I discover on YouTube a vid that melds gaming and music, I have to watch. And frequenly I enjoy.

Here's two that are well worth mentioning. First, this video puts to song the epic struggle between the PS3 and the XBox 360. Actually, it more than astutely highlights the epic struggle between Sony and itself. Through music and some conference clips of Phil Harrison, it susinctly nails down exactly what has gone wrong with the PS3 and why, ultimately, its phenominal failure can be laid flatly at the feet of the House of Kutaragi.

Even better, it's a really well-written song and performed pretty decently. Proof that not all people who really care about games are 15-year-old fankids!

The second, and by far my favorite, is a take on the bugs that plagued GTA-"inspired" Saints Row. As you all know, though many had an occasional burp, a surprising amount of people who purchased this title were plagued by massive glitches -- from cars disappearing to the dreaded "fall to the center of the Earth."

The author of this vid was obviously one of the unlucky. With nowhere left to complain (because there was certainly enough gripes on numerous forums to document these problems), he wrote "Buggy Saints Row: The Musical" to document how perfectly unplayable and frustrating the game had become.

And again, he kicks ass.

Here's to you, clever gamers, who rather than repeatedly whine in forums about what's wrong with the industry decided to take your frustration and put the energy and talent into finding a whole new way to protest!!

Woot!

Say what you will about the terrible anime series or the potential animal cruelty factor of a game that is basically a non-stop onslaught of cock-fights, Pokemon was one of if not the most influential game of Nintendo's portable game strategy. 

Apparently created by a fan collective, Pokemon Online is a completely non-Nintendo project that aims to turn the Pokemon universe into a working MMORPG complete with quests, an open world, and opf course a great deal of pokemon fighting.

Taping into the most interesting, if basic aspects of the Pokemon games, this could prove an interestijng template for Nintendo to pay attention to--could the future of Pokemon reside in the MMO genre, and if so can Nintendo match fan expectations?

Dystopia, my favorite source mod, has just announced the release of version 1. New models, weapons, armor, and maps are just but the beginning of what to explore in the long awaited and now released version.

Fileplanet is hosting the file which you can grab here.

For those unfamiliar with Dystopia, it's a cyberpunk mod for Half-Life 2. When I say 'cyberpunk' I mean a world where corporations have taken over and the 'punks' (essentially the resistance) is fighting them back via means of computers and manpower. The game features a seamless transition from the real world to cyberspace unlike any other. I highly recommend checking this out.

So much stuff.

Weeks like this, the hardest part isn't finding the news, it's elevating the cool from the merely exciting.  Major announcements left and right, gargantuan displays of corporate might, spectacular screwups.

More after the break...

With the public launch of Vista steadily approaching (look at that, I said steadily!), one can only wonder if all of the fancy bells and whistles add to the operating system, or merely mask what lies within. It is with that thought process that we bring to you, the dear reader, an in-depth analysis of the operating system and the mysteries that lie within. Some of you might not survive, but for those who do, remember that the fallen gave up so that you might have a better future. And if that doesn't work for you, just consider Darwinism and you're all set.

In all seriousness, the Gamer Andy Lab will be employed to discover how Windows Vista runs on a multitude of setups. From ye olde 386s to a supercomputer with the graphics card of tomorrow, we'll have a performance rating and analysis for your specific rig.

So stay tuned and watch the updates, come Vista you just might find yourself in a sticky situation. And who knows, there might be some sort of giveaway attached as well; that's just how we roll.

So, after our extended Hiatus GA is back on its feet!     For the first time in months I woke up with the actual desire to write an article designed to get you guys hyped up about a game that I'm absolutely freaking drooling for, so welcome back!

By now i'm sure most of you have heard that Microsoft has delayed the much touted demo release of "Crackdown"... You know, that game that comes with the Halo 3 beta?  Don't get me wrong, i'm all for super-hero open world games - it's just that when I played it at e3 with Edie (coop), it felt....  Clunky.   I suppose thats actually the wrong word, but the bottom line is that it just felt like too much emphasis was being placed on "stylized graphics" and the "feel" of the game was taking the hit for it, specifically in the physics that govern your effect on the enviroment.

Even so, I was looking forward to the demo hoping against hope that it would suprise the hell out of me and turn out to be a winner.  Because really, the 360 NEEDS a good coop sandbox game and if Crackdown proves it works then we'll start seeing it more (SQUEE!).

But this post isn't about Crackdown really, it's about the OTHER demo that was (and still is) set to release on XBLM this thursday.

Battlestations: Midway.  
BS:M is a game that when I first heard about it (september of 2006) I totally wrote off as another sad WWII budget title that I would probably rent and not care for, goddamn was I wrong.  For the past 2 weeks i've my lurking the Forums over at Eidos dedicated to BS:M and reading up on the multiplayer previews...  I am so amazingly stoked for this game, you don't even know...  

Check out this video and join me after the jump for thoughts and bubbling enthusiasm

Make the jump for a bit of commentary (and an update on the podcast!) 

So if you happen to have a PS3 laying around the house that you might consider throwing up on eBay, you’ll be sorely discouraged by the average bids already posted; $650, $700, $750 even. Michal Birecki from PS3center.net, however, saw the light. Stripping the PS3 of all exterior coverings, then sending the pieces to a body shop to be painted white, made the entire process feel like a bad episode of American Chopper. Be that as it may, once the process was completed, the finished product was a replica of the white prototype PS3 Sony has yet to release.

You can check out pictures of the entire process here, at PS3center.net. You can also check out the auction here, where the current bid as of this posting is $1525.01

Anyone up for making a red one? How about purple?

Hey folks, Andy here.
Its time for the holidays again and that means its time for UPS to start messing up their shipping routes again. In the spirit of the season, i've moved the Wii downstairs and am spending the day camping the door so i don't miss what will inevitably be one soft knock on the door signaling the return of my 360(as long as i viciously attack the door to sign for it)

i'm ranting..,
hopefully i'll see ya'll online tonight
merry xmas
-andy

Don't have a gaming collection? Don't know where to start? Well, markcz5581 is selling his collection at a starting bid of $25,000. Buy it now for $75,000 and you get a Wii with that.

List after jump!

Mr. Manta Ray pointed us at this one.

Oh, my freaking god, this is the best Halo video I've ever seen.

I encourage ya'll to watch at least a minute of it before making judgements, it wasn't what I expected at first.

Ghostbusters at 4:30 and Chicken Dance at 5:17 for the freaking win!

Howdy!

Back from my ten-day hiatus, which involved both housesitting and being sick. This is GamerAndy.... Well, written?

Bottom line, I'm back -- expect posts :)

And, to start things off on the right foot we've got some news from a Belgian Microsoft employee via YouNewb re: seven-minute Halo vid on marketplace that'll contain two and a half minutes of gameplay footage.

From the post:

On December 20 a new Halo 3 video will be available on marketplace. It’s a seven-minute video that will be released next week. It highlights the emergence of the Brutes as playable characters in the game. It touches on their skills, origins, and how they are being created. It has about two and a half minutes of gameplay footage.

Frankly, I'm concerned that Bungie is taking more of a class-based approach to Halo 3. One of the series' greatest stregnths is that everyone starts the rounds on even ground. There's no advantages or disadvantages.

Is Bungie throwing that out to have a Brute character model?

I guess we'll see.

This is not your typical frou-frou white-with-pink-flowers wedding cake.

It's a wedding cake that features an Xbox 360, PS2, original Xbox, and Game Cube.

Jealous? I am too.  It even comes with icing controllers! The lucky bride had a difficult time finding a cake maker willing to take on the task of portraing four consoles with sugar and flour, but she finally found one up to the challenge. 

From the bride:

As you can see, the bottom layer is my fabulous Xbox 360. On top of that is my PS2 and the next layer is my Xbox. If you look closely enough, you can see the DVD remote sensor in a controller port. Such attention to detail! Topping the entire masterpiece (as it should) is the limited edition 'Legend of Zelda' gold GameCube. The back of the cake received just as much love as the front, as you can even see the handle on the GameCube. Cutting that cake with my husband was seriously the hardest thing I've had to do in our marriage.

I'm still laughing in my heart over that headline.

But you might be laughing even harder at the efforts of so many nerds, geeks and, might I say with conviction and love, neo-maxi-zoom dweebies to modify the already-innovative Wiimote.

Behold the latest of the "cool if not so weird" mods, the "Wii Power Glove."

Yes, indeed it does harken back to the late-80s and the third-party Nintendo peripheral "Power Glove," produced by Mattel in the United States.

You know, the one that Freddy Kruger used in "Freddy Krueger's Dead: The Final Nightmare"?

I wonder if we'll see this iteration with razors in the fingertips. If we do, I'll guarantee you'll see it on WeeHaveAProblem.com.

Video of the Wii Power Glove in action -- and a cute cat in the background.. awwwww -- right here:

[From Slashgear]

Gaze, dear mortals, into the fiery eyes of convergence; convergence of the sexiest machine in existence, the coolest controller yet, and, err, Windows.

If you all didn't already see it, here's the new trailer for Halo 3.

Halo3Commercial.wmv - hosted by mythica.org

I didn't get a chance to view it all since my Windows Media Player keeps stalling out, but what I did see before I got the "buffering screen of death" seemed really intriguing.

[Thanks to L33t of 7ru7h for the heads-up!]

It's the perfect holiday gift for every boy with a curious, slightly creepy, and possbly unhealthy obsession with Master Chief.

Homestyle gadget-gearhead Ben Heckendorn, famous for mods like the XBox 360-to-PC, the nPod, the PPS2, and the N64p, has been at it again. He's come up with what seems to be a rather workable one-handed, wireless XBox 360 controller.

Developed at the request of an Iraq War veteran, this controller allows for full functionality of the 360 controller using your left hand. The right side must be leaned against a surface, but your right hand can do anything it wants while you're playing.

And who doesn't prefer your right hand? Am I right?

If this thing catches on, I predict an upsurge in sales of Dead or Alive Xtreme 2.

[From BenHeck.com]

I got yer stocking stuffer right, here!

This is real. This is available for purchase.

... and this is hilarious.

NESBuckle.com, the same wild and crazy guys who brought you the NES belt buckle, have taking the whole show just a step farther into sheer lunacy.

Behold the NES Advantage Belt Buckle. So old-school in brings tears to your eyes and makes everybody with their funky bus fare say, "Hoooooo."

It's the perfect gift for that gamer who has everything but good fashion taste. Actually, not true. This thing is fly! Supah fly, if I might say so myself.

In fact, might I suggest it's "Dy-no-miiiight!" And it's only $50.

I will personally send you my love, devotion and maybe an autographed photo or something cooler to the first GamerAndy reader who sends us a photo of him/herself sporting this righteous, super-dope, super buckle.

Fanboys rejoice! The day of reckoning is upon us!
From the GamerScoreBlog:

Starting Monday, Dec. 4, visit http://www.halo3.com, those of you in North America will be able to register for the opportunity to be one of the select members to join the Halo 3 public beta program, scheduled to kick off in spring 2007. This is the first path of entry to participate in the program. Through the resulting feedback, Bungie Studios will be able to further refine and hone the end result of Halo 3.

Hey all.
Saw this when I was crusing Destructoid this morning and thought it was worthy of a post. Let's keep in mind though that this is a rumor by way of a rumor by way of an unconfirmed anonymous conversation, so don't *really* get your hopes up.
The original article is up at RumorReporter.

You knew it was going to happen.

I believe this is the first incarnation of what will likely become a new variant of machinima: Mii-nima.

Using the Mii function of a Wii, a user named Bluegoggles used a scene from The Big Lubowski with Mii characters and Wii Bowling to create a rather humorous little video.

Warning: Filled with obscenties, so those underage should just take my word for it and not watch unless your parents say it's okay.

Find it here.

Enjoy, dude.

Man, I don't even have words.

HEEEEELLLLLLLLLLL NO!

Just had to share this. I was watching the Colbert Report last night and saw two of my favorit things, Steven and a Wii. I knew the internet would have this up by morning, and it did not fail. Thank you internet, thank you.

The idea of being a "hacker" has always appealed to me. The time/devotion/brainpower, not so much. That said, I'm sure some of you readers out there have the technical knowhow AND the elbow grease to hack into this lil' ol PS3 and earn yourself a $600 ($1,000 on EBay!) console.

From the site:

Own this Playstation 3 and earn it!

• The PS3 with all its default accessories
  (note: the hard disk was replaced with a 160 GB hard disk!);


• an HDMI cable;


• Linux (Fedora core 5 PPC + PS3 add-on) preinstalled, of course;


• The game "Resistance - The Fall of Man".

Wii owners!

Are you despondent that your new little Wii won't surf the web as it's intended. Are you bummed that you have to wait for Nintendo to release its Opera browser?

Dry your tears, little ones. Like the addage about a million monkeys and a million typewriters, if you give enough Wiis to enough gamers, one of them will figure out a workaround for the whole "lack of a browser" thing.

And then, of course, that monkey.. er, gamer... will post it on YouTube.

Behold. The Internet-connected Wii.

... and there was much rejoicing.

We got this email from Chris over at the Gears of War forums a few days ago, and I havn't gotten around to posting it until now:

Since the release of the Nintendo Wii a few weeks (wii-ks?) ago, there are plenty of people who have had problems with the console wounding them. We've all heard the stories of errant Wii-motes coming unseated from over-enthuastic or overly sweaty-palmed gamers and finding a new nesting place in the depths of LCD screens, but how big is the problem, really?

You're in luck, fair wanderer! Wii've got your back.

Okay, swear to god that was my last Wii pun.

WiiHaveAProblem.com is here to track your Wii-related mishaps, and from its current damage total (brand new blog keep in mind) there have already been two TVs, a window, and a ceiling fan that have fallen prey to this insiduous creation (just joking, Nintendo)

So yeah, check it out! And if you don't, it's going on my RSS list so I'll be bringing you entertaining news as it happens.

Apologies for making two erection references in a row here, but I couldn't help myself.<

The people over at GameLuv.com have a story (and juicy picture) up of what is apparently a Target exclusive Legend of Zelda... thing. It's a special "limited time only" box that looks like a book, sort of, and contains one-sixth scale replicas of Link's sword and shield! Oh, and it also included a soundtrack sampler (though Target's site lists it as "official soundtrack from the game"), which is nice, i guess.

A quick search on Target.com didn't turn up any results for online order so you know what that means.
Get thee to a Target-ery!

Check out the awesome new footage of Super Smash Bros Brawl with the obvious return of all your favorite characters, plus Samus without her regular suit on. Expect the same old moves with the same old gameplay modes and perhaps a little more? I can't wait to see what the hidden character are.

Click here to watch!

Crysis is one of those games that, if you haven't heard of it yet, you abso-freaking-lutely will when you see trailers for it at launch and realize, "Shit, I need a new PC".

Slated for release in the second quarter of 2007, Crysis is one of the titles Microsoft is looking to really push Vista adoption into the mainstream of gaming with its DX10 technology. Oh, did we mention you need a new video card, too?

Anyhow, Hexus.TV got some footage (20 minutes of it!) from an event in Britain that includes a walkthrough of the latest build plus a bit of Q & A. It's not up on YouTube, so I gotta link you to its page, but damned if it isn't worth the terrible lag. Some of the innovations in this game are just freaking scary.

Things to note from the part of the vid that loaded properly for me:

• Modular, customizable weapons;


• Instant accesss and ability to rearrange your stats by way of the Nanosuit;


• Alien ship portion of the game will be entirely zero G?;


• Trees: They still blow up real nice;


• Componant vehicle damage (though tires don't go flat; they just explode, leaving you to drive on the rim. A little strange, but still cool).

Some of these pictures have been floating around for a while (photos of people's faces as they play videogames) but I've avoided posting them because I see them everywhere. That said, this most recent set really caught hold of me when I saw it on Grand Text Auto. In all honesty, this is a really good idea -- I wish more people would grab hold of games and use them for artistic expression. Maybe that'd help get the politicians off our back.

I can't decide if I like Boston mayor Thomas Menino or not.

For those of you woefully uninformed, last week he warmed the cockles of my heart by holding Sony responsible for the riot caused outside one of their first party retailers.

PIcture it -- hundreds of people waiting in line, in the rain, all night long (and when I say line, I more mean an alley packed wall-to-wall with prospective purchasers) and nobody knowing how many consoles the store would be getting. Needless to say, when at 6 a.m. the crowd discovered that the Sony Store had let a measley 20 people into the store and locked the door behind them, things got violent. The police were dispatched, and line-sitters got hurt by the rampaging mob.

I think Thomas Menino is right to send Sony a bill, and for that I like him.

That said, it appears he's using his new-found fame for neither good nor awesome. In a recent press release he's called for the removal of ads for GTA in the subway.

WTF? Let's all agree right now that GTA shouldn't be marketed to children, but his stated rationale for the move seems to fall into the same shaky ground of First Amendment rights. Full story at GamePolitics.com,

I'm mostly just wondering what you guys think? Is Thomas Menino getting an undeserved bad rap, or is he really just a dick?

So, by now you've heard about our big movement to get some form of response from Epic on their broken ranked multiplayer system in the blockbuster hit of the season, Gears of War.

Early next week (following the holidays), I'm going to start sending daily emails to Epic in hope that I'll just get annoying enough for it to respond. In the meantime, however, I think there are still some people out there who actually buy into this post made by a Gears of War developer, Joe Graf, who essentially says, "It's Microsoft's fault, talk to them."

I, like many of you, was willing to buy into that excuse (despite Saints Row's lobby-based system that apparently "slipped through the cracks"). But no longer.

In an interview with several Bungie (Halo 3) developers published yesterday on 1up.com, Luke Smith brought up Epic's recent accusations (though not in so many words):

1UP: Recent Xbox Live games have made it difficult to party with your friends for ranked games, the reasons have been cited as Microsoft's certification and TrueSkill system. Will players be able to enter ranked games as a party in Halo 3?

Allen Murray, producer: Of course! Core features from Halo 2, such as the Party System, will remain intact and are being improved upon. You will most definitely be able to create a party with your friends and enter into ranked matchmaking -- that's where the fun is! The Xbox certification process and TrueSkill system do not prevent games from having a feature that allows parties of friends to enter into ranked matchmaking as a team -- but they also do not provide that feature as part of the core set of matchmaking services. This system is something that Bungie has built into our game that is uniquely ours and a key ingredient in our special sauce.

Full Story

Unfortunately, since it's Thanksgiving and I'm at my folks house on dialup, I'm unable to put up a picture or even stay to comment further on this rather revealing comment. I encourage YOU though to post your thoughts. Anybody think that GA and the Gears community is unfairly dealing with Epic? Does this latest comment from Bungie entirely invalidate Epic's excuses and reveal this missing funcitonality to be, in fact, due to a rushed game?
Either way though,

HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM GAMERANDY.COM!!

Play Beyond. Very probably a tagline that Sony will take to the grave and defend it up until the final moments. We've seen Riiiidge Racer come and go, 4D Gaming has left the building, and This Is Living is just a statement easily forgotten (to make it truthful, In Abject Poverty! could be added). Play Beyond, though, lives on. In your feet.

Nike, in its constant and sometimes odd determination to put is brand on your feet, has released a Playstation Shoe. According to PS3 Fanboy, bastion of unbiased PS3 news, the shoe features an awesome hologram "swoosh," if only awesome due to its rarity -- only 24 pairs are in existance (a substantial amount more than PS3s in Europe).

The shoes also feature the PS3 launch date slapped on the back and mechanical drawings of the PS3 inside the shoe. The part of the shoe that dissuades me from purchase (aside from its price -- $3,000 is a little steep for shoes) is the patent leather, which mimics the heat sinks on the PS3. Yes, leather mimicing a computer component. Smart Leather. My only fear is when this smart leather one day rises up against its stinky-footed master, automagically tying the shoelaces together, like in a Tex Avery cartoon.

I almost forgot to mention: Please do put a bid in. According to the auction site, all of the proceeds from the auction will go to a charity. Remember, theses are the most awesomest shoes of all time!

Auction HERE

Yeppers. It's real and courtesy of our silly friends at Gizmodo.

Those silly Canadians. They're so sweet. They're so funny. They're so literal.

This is, supposedly, a true EBay Canada auction, wherein a sly seller is trying to cash in on the PlayStation 3 hysteria (or at least make a good joke) by duct-taping together a PSone and a PS2.

Technically that would make it a Playstation 3, right? RIGHT??

Look at that line. Look at that angle. See the grey of the duct tape glimering in the midday sun!

Look on this might PlayStation OnePlusTwoDoesNotEqualThree, ye mighty, and despair!

You gotta give mad props to the guy for creativity, and hats off the Canadian schools system, which apparently managed to successfully drill into the noggin of at least one Canuck that "one plus two equals three."

[Read Gizmodo story here, and thanks for the tip, Kev!]

Help Spread The Word and Digg This Letter
Andy's Note:     Since I wrote my expose on cheating in Gears of War last week, I've been getting emails from cheaters and victims of cheating. Recently, I was contacted by a member of the official Gears of War forums who told me that there was an incredible portion of the online community who were, at Epic's request, posting comments and suggestions for what needed to be improved.   

Strangely though, Epic employees and/or forum moderators were going through and deleting comments regarding the multiplayer lobby situation.   I have been linked to numerous closed threads that discuss the problem, and it really does appear that Epic has decided it doesn't want to deal with it and is hoping it will just go away eventually.   I have contacted Epic's VP, Mark Rein, for comment on several stories over the past week, and when he's responded, I've been directed to this post which, unfortunately, does nothing to address the fans' most significant concern.

What follows is a letter to Epic, written by the community, that was posted and then deleted from the forums.   GamerAndy.com thinks these problems are very real and that a company like Epic Games has a responsibility to its fans and supporters to at least listen.   I'm posting it on the front page of GA in its entirety, and I strongly encourage webmasters and bloggers out there to help us spread the word in an effort to convince Epic Games to fix their "broken Gears."

Since it began airing Monday, the new World of Warcraft TV ad revisits a classic scene from the much beloved Office Space. Whereas in the movie Peter is playing a game of Tetris, this 32 second ad for WoW paints a much different picture. With a World of Warcraft box on top of the monitor, and WoW cds scattered about, it’s nothing short of a miracle that Peter moves, joins a party, casts spells, and attacks enemies all by using the four directional arrow keys on the keyboard.

Screw your TPS reports Lumbergh, I’m playing World of Warcraft you R-tard!

 Morning all,
Our brothers over at YouNewb are reporting that Gears of War has been confirmed as one of Microsoft's new big trilogies.

From the article:

Oh the humanity. We knew this was coming. All the jokes about the PS3 looking like a George Forman grill has finally resulted in some actual PS3 harm.

This gutted out and retrofitted PS3 now, instead of cooking up a few games, cooks up a few meat pieces -- and not with its processor either. The guys over at The Real PS3 Grill gutted out a fresh PS3 and installed an electric griddle... and cooked a few dogs and pieces of chicken to prove it worked.

[Via Engadget]

Here's another video (and probably the last vid of the day) but this one is different. Why? Because I filmed it!

Yeah, the shakey-cam was from the caffiene. Apologies, there.

Another YouTube video this morning. This one comes to us via SlashDot Games. Here we have a rather soothing narrator walking us through the startup of Fedora (linux) on the Playstation 3. It looks like it goes pretty smoothly, though I'm a bit curious about what appears to be a pretty low resolution for the desktop. I'd be curious to know how long the install itself takes, but that's not addressed in this video.

If you're any kind of a gamer at all, then you know the trouble with fanboys: unreal expectations and a refusal to accept any reality other than their preferred reality.

Ever listen to someone talk about that awesome MMORPG they’re playing? You know the one with millions of players and gold farmers, not to mention the most casual gameplay ever? Ah, World of Warcraft. Ever listen to some of these WoW players, and I mean, pay attention to them? They’ll go on about how it’s the best game ever and that every other MMORPG there is simply copied from World of Warcraft. In fact, now that I think about it, I think I do remember a ridiculously low and easy-to-achieve level cap in Everquest!

Oh wait, no, no I don’t.

Anyway, for those of you who know anything of the Warcraft lore, you’ll know Warcraft is simply a watered down version of Warhammer. With the Warhammer MMORPG in the works and making great progress, one can only ponder at how many WoW players will claim Warhammer Online copies directly from World of Warcraft.

*Sigh*

Anyway, there are new Warhammer Online screenshots here!

My little camp at Oakland International Airport as I deal with my phone not working.

Alright, I've calmed down a bit from when I wrote this blog the first time. This isn't gonna get posted until I'm actually at the event, so it's not much of a live-blog -- but, yeah.

So I got up this morning at around 7 a.m., headed to the airport at 9 a.m. and my flight leaves at 12:55 p.m., arriving in Burbank at around 2 p.m.

Why all these numbers? Why all this time spent in airports?

Because I, Gamer Andy, am on a mission.

My mission is to blog the crap out of the official Nintendo Wii launch party taking place tonight at midnight. Depending on the crowd when I get there I may end up in line and try to land one for myself, but more importantly I'm going to be there all goddamn day as the eyes and ears of our generation. The Gamer Generation.

Big N has promised me access to some of their special peoples for interviewey goodness, and I discovered (as I packed up this morning) that I still have Edie's magical Tape-Recorder-Of-Awesome-Journalismness. It's got fresh batteries, I've got a nice five megapixel camera and the means to transfer photos. The only restricting factor is gonna be wi-fi, which I've been told, will be made freely available to me upon my arrival.

The plus side? It can only get better from here.

Photo dump + shot-by-shot commentary after the jump...

It's PS3 launch day and you're dying to get your hands on one. Only problem is you have a life. Not to fear however, as we all know large department stores with small sections of video games don't usually have campers lining up days in advance. So you and some buddies head over to your local Sears and ask around for a PlayStation 3.

To your dismay the store only has two units, and they're already reserved. Then suddenly from out of nowhere the sales representative, not yet ready to lose a $600 customer, points you in the direction of the Nintendo Wii. The notion of enlightening the sales person of the actual release date notwithstanding, you calmly grab a Wii box, pay for it, and head straight for the Internet -- or at least, that's what this guy did on NeoGAF.

Looking for a Wii? Head to Sears!

File all these under things I'm not talented enough to make:  a Katamari bag, a crocheted 1up Mushroom, a felt mushroom, a black mage outfit, and a plush murloc.

It amazes me that these people have time not only to play their favorite games, but also to spend time and effort in these tributes to game icons.  Sure, you could go out and buy a 1up mushroom somewhere but isn't it cooler to have a handmade one?

Pictures, patterns and links after the jump.

A lot of people like to give to the needy around the holidays, and I felt it appropriate to inform Gamer Andy readers about two gaming-centric charities that you might consider donating to this coming holday season.

Get Well Gamers and Child's Play both take donated toys, videogames, and consoles to give to children's hospitals around the world.  In many of these hospitals, most or all other donations are in the form of medical research funds and so there is very little for children to do in an effort to take their mind off the illnesses and injuries they may be suffering, especially during long-term care.

Both of these charities make toys and games available to ill and injured children so that they and their families can have a fun and relaxing time during a stressful situation.

More after the jump

Wow,
Just Wow.

I so freaking want to see this movie