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Santa Has A Lightsaber...

...And this year, all the bad little boys and girls are going to get cut!

Anyway, the merry pranksters at LucasArts have come up with a new way for you to enjoy Christmas: by killing endless Stormtroopers as Santa Claus.

You'll need a copy of Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy. LucasArts' instructions follow:

Step 1: At the Mos Eisley Cantina, enter the following two codes:
CL4U5H (for Santa hat and red clothes)
TYH319 (for white beard Extra)

Step 2: Go to the Character Customizer and create the proper costume. Use a human head, the appropriate red clothing...and don't forget the red cap! Santa can wield the weapon of your choice -- we recommend the green or red lightsaber to seasonally complement his shiny red duds. (Remember, the color of his lightsaber decides whether his Force powers are naughty or nice.)

Step 3: In the Extras menu, activate Disguise 3.

Step 4: Enter the character-based level of your choice in Free Play.

Step 5: Spread holiday cheer to a galaxy in pieces.

A Virtua Drubbing for PlayStation 3

After proclaiming Virtua Fighter 5's PlayStation 3 exclusivity to the dogs and back, Sega dropped this minibombshell on the video game world.

SEGA ANNOUNCES VIRTUA FIGHTER 5 FOR XBOX 360

Premiere Fighting Game Franchise Makes First Appearance on Microsoft's Next Generation Videogame Console

SAN FRANCISCO & LONDON (December 21, 2006) – SEGA® of America, Inc. and SEGA Europe Ltd. today announced that the highly anticipated arcade fighting game, Virtua Fighter™ 5, will make its way onto the Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system. Virtua Fighter 5 is scheduled for release on Xbox 360 in North America and in Europe late summer 2007. The game will also be available for the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system on February 20, 2007 in North America and will be available in Europe simultaneously with the system's launch in March 2007.

 

A Virtual Christmas Present

Because all of you have been very good boys and girls, Sega will be giving you the gift of funk this Christmas. Sega will be releasing one of the all-time most funnest games ever in ToeJam and Earl for the Sega Genesis.

Wii owners can download the classic game—which I should also point out is, as the kids say, dope and also fresh, but not whack—via the Virtual Console on Christmas day. It will cost 800 Wii points ($8), and if you don't buy it, baby Jesus will cry.

 

The Top 50 Games of the Year

It was a massive undertaking, but Next-Generation.biz and I completed a massive list of the 50 best games of the year.

You can read the list, and we can discuss the choices, if you'd like.

Take your time, too. I'll be here all day.

Strap it On: The Quest for $$$

Despite a nationwide recall of Wii straps, a San Francisco law firm will continue onward with its class action lawsuit against Nintendo.

Law firm Green Welling alleges Nintendo is in breach of its product warranty with the Wii. It wants purchasers to have their monies refunded or replacement Wii remotes (ones that function as intended) given out.

In other words, someone wants some $$$—and don't think another lawsuit might be coming over the property damage caused by errant remotes flying from peoples' hands.

Read more about the lawsuit here.

Listmania 2006: The Blunder Years

I wholeheartedly approve of any list that makes fun of corporate greed, Jack "Jerk" Thompson, and The Phantom.

Next-Gen.biz staffers, bless their hearts, have the balls to pull down false idols and say what everyone is thinking. "Nintendo Wii, current darling of the videogame press, has a dark side: it can kill unexpectedly."

Now that, dear friends, is a sentence!

 

A Happy Activision Holiday

Video game company Activision sent out its holiday card today. And lo! instead of a dumb old paper cut waiting to happen, it sent a link to a quaint Flash minigame where you, as a penguin, must collect Activision games while avoiding snowflakes.

As my good friend Dan "Dandy Dan" DiGiacomo noted, "My wish is for a world where games really did fall from the sky."

Now if this does not warm the cockles of your heart, you have no cockles. Nor a heart.

 

The Next Generation of Boorishness

This whole business of new console launches has long since lost any novelty it may have had.

I am sick of the lines, of the greed, of the sheer lack of humanity that's taken place in the past few weeks. We've become somehow less than human, hurting one another, and behaving like asses all in the name of getting the new, hot toy.

This personal account of one woman's attempt to buy a Wii for her boyfriend is just the latest straw piled on the camel's back. Although the link to the story suggests this is a funny Wii-tale, it most definitely isn't. Humor doesn't factor into the equation, you see, when a woman has to be given a police escort after buying a video game console.

I have my Wii, and I now have a new PlayStation 3 to replace the one that was stolen from my apartment in November. I need these to do my job. But if I didn't need one, I would stick my middle finger up at both Sony and Nintendo for making console launches a competition to see who can create the most tension among buyers. I'd tell them exactly how many walnuts to cram in which specific orifice for making it so people feel scared, or get hurt, or are violated in the process of buying something that should have absolutely none of those things attributed to it.

Seriously. Happy holidays Nintendo and Sony. Congratulations on making video games one of the least fun propositions this year.

 

Time For a New Story

Sony's not catching a break with its PlayStation 3. Time magazine has labeled the new console one of the top 5 busts of the year.

"The big story in computer games this year was HOW TO BLOW A HUGE LEAD, by Sony," the article reads. "Its PlayStation 2 was the champ in the last round of the console wars. This time Sony bet on a chip called the Cell and a disc format called Blu-ray. They're probably awesome, but how would anybody know? The PS3 is hideously expensive--it goes for up to $600--and Sony manufactured only a piddling few hundred thousand for the U.S., fewer for Japan. Plus it's hard to write games for; the launch titles were lame. You know you're in trouble when you get beat by something called a Wii."

Time, of course, is notable for being stupid enough to give you its Person of the Year Award.

Behind the Scenes: Rayman Raving Rabbids

The Rabbids from Rayman Raving Rabbids are making one last hurrah, this time with a series of behind-the-scenes videos.

You've got to hand it to the game's developers. They've really gone the extra mile to promote their game, even if they've relegated its protagonist to a bit player. You can see the last of the game's videos here, here, and here.