A new year, a new spiky-haired lawyer.

Having completed Capcom's newest legal adventure, I offer a few impressions for you to nibble on with your evening brandy.

It has been seven years since the events in Trials and Tribulations transpired.  Phoenix Wright has been disgraced and disbarred (for reasons that you know I can't reveal here), and he now makes a living as a fifth-rate John Tesh in a Russian dive.   Enter the titular Apollo Justice, an oh-so-pure defense attorney who's about to be touched for the very first time.  So how is it?

Well, the gameplay is practically unchanged.  There are some investigation elements that take advantage of the console's touch screen and 3D capabilities, and some nifty FMV sequences have been thrown in.  Otherwise, it's standard Ace Attorney fare:  tap through menus, follow dialogue tree, progress to next section, repeat as desired.

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Gratuitous profanity included for your reading pleasure.

The infamously opinionated (and potty-mouthed) David Jaffe, of Twisted Metal and God of War fame, has managed to once again ignite an Internet brouhaha, this time due to his comments in a recent interview with Wired.  The discussion began as follows:

Wired:  Apparently when Miyamoto first went to Retro Studios, they were making a car combat game, he said, "Why would you make that? Why would you put a gun on a car?" And they stopped development on the game. So maybe you should answer that question. Why would you put a gun on a car?

Jaffe:  You know, honestly, I've been too busy recently trying to figure out why the fuck go-karts shoot banana peels.

Well, well, well.  He might be slamming one of the most celebrated and accomplished figures in gaming, and he might be flame-baiting the legions of overzealous Nintendo fanboys, but the man does have a point…

As could be expected, this little snippet made the rounds on gaming sites, including the ever-reliable Kotaku.  Comments ranged from utter indignation to hearty chuckles to reverent admiration for a man who has no problem calling things as he sees them.

Fast-forward a couple days, and Jaffe is now attempting to quell the tempest.  In a video posting on his personal page, he decisively puts the throngs of humorless, online-enabled crybabies in their place.  The best line of the video sums it up perfectly:

"The fact that anybody out there actually thinks that I put my design skills in the same league as Miyamoto's, or I'm insulting the father of video game design, it's like, 'Go fuck yourself, man.'  And to the people that think I use bad language because I think it's cool, I think that's your fucking problem."

Well, I'm glad that little clusterfuck is all sorted out.

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.

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.

After eleven long years, I have returned to my happy place.

[Note:  This is not an official review.  Rather, these are just my impressions after a few hours of hands-on time.  If this were an official review, the game would have been awarded an Official GotNext Seal of Absolute Supreme Awesomeness.]

Okay, so last night I get a creepy-yet-somehow-alluring phone call from Mario.  He's calling me on behalf of GameStop to let me know that my copy of Super Mario Galaxy will be available the next day.  Oh, and GameStop is a great place to trade in your used games.  Mario has become quite the corporate shill, it seems.

Anyways, I pick it up around lunchtime today.  The next few hours are brutal as I wait for my day to come to an end.  Usually, the mental image of supple breasts keeps me alert in those cumbersome afternoon hours.  Today, it's a pudgy man with a mustache.  The clock crawls along and I shake with anticipation. (more…)

Now with some nifty online features.

For the five of us who have not been swallowed by the Halo 3 hype machine, I offer this tasty morsel:  the venerable Sega Genesis classic, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, is now available for purchase on Xbox LIVE Arcade for 400 points (or five dollars).

It is part of the SEGA Vintage Collection, which is essentially a way of saying that they are going all Square Enix with their library, but in a more economically reasonable manner.  While there is no online co-op mode, you can utilize the Internets to play the versus mode.

Classic games enhanced with some form of online multiplayer…  Are you paying attention, Nintendo?

Granted, Sonic 2 has seen several releases over the years.  However, if you suffered a deprived childhood, or if you didn't pick up Sonic Mega Collection a few years back (and shame on you if you didn't), go ahead and part with your points.  It's a small price to pay to experience blast processing in its arguably finest form.

And now, special "behind the scenes" insight that you couldn't care less about: I should point out that this isn't exactly "news," as it was released a couple weeks ago.  But when your day job encroaches on the twilight and seeks to also become your night job, these things happen.  Hopefully, I will soon have enough capital raised to open Andrew's Dildo Emporium.  From then on, as an independently wealthy entrepreneur, I will be able to bring you the latest and greatest in a more timely manner.

That's my roundabout way of saying I've been busy over the past couple of weeks, but everything is now back to normal.  If any non-Halo 3 news drops in the near future (unlikely), I'll let you know.