The old school MST3K crew return to ripping bad movies a new one.

Being a longtime fan of the geek humor of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and having seen every episode except their UHF trial run, I never thought these talented people could be lured back to the world of making fun of bad movies.  Yet in recent years, Mike J. Nelson started up Rifftrax, often joined by the newer voices of Tom and Crow, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett, where they fill a downloadable track full of strange quips to be synced up with well known movies, both good and terrible (the movies, not the jokes).  They've also done a series of DVD releases under the Film Crew, that returns mostly to the MST3K format with host segments and truly terrible movies to poke fun of.

Now the original crew of the Satellite of Love have gotten back into the action under the optimistic label of Cinematic Titanic.  You've got your Joel "Robinson" Hodgson, "TV's" Frank Conniff, Trace "Crow with a dash of Forrester" Beaulieu, and the original smarmy voice of Tom Servo, Josh Weinstien.  Joining these originators is the always radiant Mary Jo Pehl.  Their first release has hit my mailbox in the form of the Oozing Skull, which is neither oozing nor particularly keen on skulls, aside from a few obviously fake skeletons in the closet.  It's the sort of movie that Ed Wood Jr. would have been embarrassed being associated with, even when decked out in a matching dress.  Seeing as this is a videogame related site, I wasn't going to comment on it, at least until the silhouette of Stephen Hawking rolled out during a typical mad scientist body switching scene, and delivered the following line:

"If this brain transplant works, I've got next."

If that doesn't rate a mention, I don't know what does.  So what's it like?  Well, imagine if you will one of the rock super groups like the Police or Led Zeppelin suddenly reunited long after their breakup and just started jamming together again.  None have lost their talent for off hand remarks and crazy quips, but the timing and the delivery has gotten a bit rusty, especially for those that hadn't done much of this sort of thing before.  There are no host segments.  No puppets on strings.  Instead, after a jazzy theme song they launch right into the movie, but there are occasional breaks where they pause the film for a few bizarre segments, taking advantage of their silhouette setup to throw in a few sight gags.  I still find myself wanting some bits at the beginning and the end to make it a little more than shadows razzing a bad movie, but it still brought a truckload of laughs.

So if you're curious, give a peek at their site, read a few blogs, watch the trailer, and even comment in their forum.  I hope their next release oozes along soon enough. 

Sweet tooth is back, nuff said.

Sony definitely knows there's a ton of happy, existing PS2 owners out there who aren't in any major rush to grab a PS3. And to date, it's got one of the most extensive libraries of any current platform on the market. Recently, SCEA revealed an all-new addition to the Twisted Metal series is in the works which you can read in more detail at the official PlayStation.blog. (In case you haven't heard — it's for the PS2 — not the PS3 as a lot of people assumed and hoped as I did). :p

The December 4th announcement offered a small taste of what's to come; which by now I am sure is old news to many of you. And if that's the case, then perhaps today's update will be of greater interest. I won't go into too much detail, but it does reveal some exciting highlights which reveal the PS2 release will include: the original PSP release (Twisted Metal: Head On), the ability to control Sweet Tooth (no, that's not a typo — believe it), a 30-minute documentary tracing the history of Twisted Metal, and much, much more. I am eagerly looking forward to this release. Now hop over to the link for all the screenshots.

This time, he's naming names.

Electronic Gaming Monthly Editor-in-Chief Dan Hsu is quite the controversial character, it seems.  We're not talking "controversial" in a negative, "tries to get mouth-love in an airport restroom" sort of way.  Rather, this is the positive, "tells the truth regardless of who he pisses off" variety.

Most of you probably remember the infamous editorial he previously posted in EGM (Issue 199), wherein he openly attacked certain gaming publications for engaging in the practice of trading favorable coverage for advertising dollars.  The problem?  He never specifically named the publications in question.  As can be expected, responses to his allegations were mixed.  Some praised his willingness to even broach such a touchy (and potentially career-wrecking) matter.  Others saw his unwillingness to be specific as part of a ploy to artificially boost the credibility of his own magazine.

Whatever the case may be, a lot has happened in the past two years.  The biggest bombshell dropped not too long ago in the highly-publicized firing of Jeff Gertsmann from Gamespot in late November of last year.  While no evidence of a wrongful termination has officially surfaced, it was difficult to follow the story without being reminded of Hsu's editorial.

Now, Video Game Media Watch reports that Hsu is back on the warpath, and he is specifically calling out the offending companies.  In his most recent editorial, he names the Mortal Kombat developers at Midway, sports game developers at Sony, and Ubisoft as inhibiting EGM from covering their products.  This move is apparently in response to the companies receiving what they perceived to be negative coverage in the past.  In other words, if the EGM editors smelled a turd, they didn't pretty up their impressions of the experience for their readers.

It should be noted that, as in the Gertsmann situation, nothing has been technically proven one way or the other.  Nonetheless, Hsu is a well-respected professional charged with overseeing the creation of a premier print gaming publication.  That he would gamble with his reputation, and that of his magazine, without good cause seems downright silly.  That being said, it seems a safe bet that no amount of salt need be ingested with this story.

This blog article should be recognized as the sole opinion of the editor and does not necessarily reflect GotNext’s official opinion on the subject.

Did your favorites make the cut?

Major Nelson just recently announced the Top Ten XBLA Games of 2007 and I must say, the list kind of took me by surprise. How so? Well, see if you notice a theme between what made the cut:

1. TMNT 1989 Arcade
2. Worms
3. Castlevania: SOTN
4. UNO
5. Bomberman LIVE
6. 3D Ultra Minigolf Adventures
7. Sonic The Hedgehog
8. Pinball FX
9. Geometry Wars Evolved
10. Texas Hold 'em

So what did you figure out? That's right… most of the games are classic titles. Word Puzzle, SWOS and Undertow are nowhere to be seen. That's great news for retro enthusiasts since this could very well lead to an increase of the old-school stuff making their way onto Xbox Live Arcade. I'd say it's about time Capcom go into their vault and not just break out the long-awaited Street Fighter Alpha series, but Mega Man and other 2D classics in my opinion are long overdue. TMNT making the number one slot really shocked me. Now they gotta bring out The Simpsons Arcade Game. And there's a long laundry list of classics SEGA can roll out. It's been rumored that Chu Chu Rocket was going to make a debut, but perhaps they're not ready to release Dreamcast games yet. It can't be too far behind though seeing as the XBLA limit has been increased to allow more much larger games to be developed. Here's hoping 2008's lineup is even more promising.

Put down the pitchforks, the end (of service interruptions) is near.

Yes, Xbox Live isn't quite back on its feet — fortunately, the service is starting to improve one day at a time. By the time you read this, Xbox.com will be publishing a letter from General Manager Marc Whitten regarding the recent service interruption on Xbox Live. Luckily for you, we've got the public address for you to read verbatim:

It reads:

         Dear Xbox Live Members;

During this past holiday season you helped us break a number of Xbox LIVE records.  This included our largest sign-up of new members to Xbox LIVE in our 5 year history and just yesterday you broke the record for the single biggest day of concurrent members ever on the service. 

As a result of this massive increase in usage we know that some of you experienced intermittent Xbox LIVE issues over the holiday break.  While the service was not completely offline at any given time, we are disappointed in our performance.  I would like to take this moment to thank you each and every one of you for your patience and understanding as our team has worked around the clock to return the service to a stable state. 

At the same time we would like to offer a token of our appreciation to all of you in celebration of record success for the service.  And as a thank you for your loyalty during this holiday period, we will be offering all of our Xbox LIVE members around the world access to a full Xbox LIVE Arcade game that will be available.

Hm? A full Xbox Live Arcade title you say?  Watch it end up being Joust (again!) Shoot, I wish Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo: HD Rexix was available, I'd pick that up in a heartbeat. Beyond that, there's not too much else I have to say on the subject. It's great to see Microsoft's continued diligence to get things back in order and offering a nice reward to all its customers throughout the globe. Protip: order more servers during the holiday season guys – now you realize just how awesome your gaming service truly is.