Or at least its promotional artwork.

The SITE Intelligence Group mine terrorist message boards daily for evidence of terrorist activities, and they find all sorts of interesting things. One of those things was the above image from Fallout 3, which sadly lacks a man, faithful doggy companion by his side, pumping hot lead into the twisted nuclear zombie survivors that make life in the postapocalyptic age such a tricky prospect. Apparently, Al Qaeda are so confused and misguided that they believe a nuclear-ravaged Washington DC doesn’t need anything else, and I’m willing to bet the message board was filled with obnoxiously short posts best summarized as “Dude, awesome! (smiley face)”.

It’s worth noting that, contrary to initial reports, the SITE Intelligence Agency didn’t believe this was a commissioned piece demonstrating “the feasibility of nuclear strikes against the US and Britain.” While terrorists in general can be depressingly effective, they tend to work low-tech and aren’t widely known for their ability to generate high-end computer renderings. Their ability to appropriate images for their own (sometimes bizarrely amusing) ends is, however, somewhat better documented. Just ask Bert.

High quality designs at an afforable low price.

“Handheld gaming systems and cell phones have become a big part of our everyday lives,” states Matt Witek, Co-Founder of GHskinz.com. With the increasing trend of consumers looking to add personal custom designs to their personal gadgets ranging from the Nintendo DS to the iPhone. GHSkinz has announced a new lineup of high-quality skins offered exclusively online for $4.49 a pack. Each set includes 20 different designs for each of the following systems including the PSP, DS, Wii, Xbox 360 as well as Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch.

This is the perfect solution for anyone who lacks the resources or funds to invest in custom designs that typically end up expensive. Rock Band enthusiasts should especially take note that the site features a lineup of skins and accessories including guitarOn a different note, the site also has a section dedicated to Rock Band enthusiasts, featuring a lineup of drums skins and other Rock Band related accessories including guitar stands, guitar straps, mic stands, mic covers and drum sticks.

Editor’s thoughts: The skins are actually impressive, but the designs seem to favor the females more.

The future of the feature is obvious, and console gaming needs to embrace it.

It's been a long time since the days of the Doom wad, when obscure tools were required to make maps and only the truly dedicated could create something worth playing.  Level design tools have come a long way since then, and now anyone with creativity and a bit of perseverance can play game designer.  While the distribution methods on the PC side of things have evolved nicely, with the clear leader in the field being Trackmania's incredible community website, consoles…  Hmm…  How to put this kindly…

Level distribution on consoles sucks syphilitic goat wang.  That's the polite, sugar-coated version.

N+ had its online level distribution yanked by Microsoft at the very last second.  Boom Blox lets you share your levels with friends, putting Nintendo in the unique position of being smarter about the ways their online infrastructure is used than Microsoft.  Echochrome is even better, automatically uploading a handful of user-created levels every week or so in addition to allowing users to trade.  Taking things a step farther, Blast Works: Build, Trade, Destroy will allow players to upload their levels to BlastWorksDepot.com to share with the world, and Little Big Planet will do roughly the same thing a few months afterwards.  Now we're talking!

Tangent-  Part of the reason given for Microsoft pulling the plug on N+ level sharing was fear of rude words and genital-shaped creations polluting the minds of America's youth and upsetting their lawyer-happy parents.  While I have no doubt that there will be more than a few giant penis bosses to download for Blast Works, Nintendo is still showing themselves to be less afraid of the shenanigans their users get up to than its more "mature" competitors. -End Tangent

Creating things can be a lot of fun, although I'll admit I'm not particularly good at it.  There's not much point, though, if you can't share what you've made with other people, and so far it's been very difficult to do on consoles.  The PC world has been dealing with the content for years without any problem, and in the age of memory sticks, USB drives, and web browsers built right into the system it's time for the console world to follow suit.  Every game with a level editor needs to have a web site where users can upload, trade, and rate their levels, from now on.  It's being fixed, slowly, but two games working to build an online community around shared content barely qualifies as a nice start.

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

Now this is how you fix a mistake.

Okami is one of the prettiest games available, but the Wii version shipped with a blemish right on the front cover.  By Amaterasu's mouth you can plainly see an IGN watermark, complete with compass and logo.  Even worse, a quick scan at my local Gamestop the other day showed that the preview box art had it on there too, meaning there was plenty of time to catch and fix this error.  Oops!

It was a silly error, and Capcom is manning up to it with free replacement covers for all.  Head on over to Capcom's website to snag one of three different covers for your game, free for the asking and no receipt necessary.  One is the original art and back cover copy without that pesky watermark or unsightly Play Magazine score, but the other two are full wraparound art without even a Wii logo to mar them.  Prettify your Wii copy or replace the original PS2 cover, they're system agnostic.

While you're indulging in appreciation for Okami's amazing style, it's worth dropping in to Okami Art for a look around.  The art book they're promoting is pretty tempting.

The best baseball man in the biz takes a giant risk in 2008.

I loved MLB 2K7, from its gorgeous visuals to the near-simulation-perfect gameplay (after a couple of slider adjustments) and solid pitching controls. Naturally, I expected a few tweaks here and there to 2K's followup this spring…perhaps a modified (and easier) hitting mechanic, some more nuance in the franchise mode, and even more online options.

Boy, were my expectations way off.

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