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Running in to Major Nelson at the Pac-Man World Championships

At the Pac-Man World Championships, we ran into the man that Xbox 360 fanboys and girls know and love -- namely, Major Nelson (whose real name is Larry Hyrb), the Director of Programming for Xbox Live. He keeps gamers informed of all things Xbox on his blog, including the new Pac-Man Championship Edition, available at 5 a.m. EST tomorrow. Major -- er, Larry -- was a cool guy, and he had us laughing our asses off with his enthusiastic explanation of the whole event (despite his bad run-ins with Pac-Man at the workplace). If there were achievement points for being entertaining, Major Nelson would get the full thousand.

Pac-Man Legends: Toru Iwatani and Billy Mitchell

So Jaded Cynic had the opportunity to get his Pac-Man marquee signed by two Pac-Man legends -- creator Toru Iwatani and Billy Mitchell, the first person ever to score a perfect score (3,333,360) in Pac-Man in 1999. When we interviewed Iwatani for our upcoming G-Hole segment, he said he had no idea a perfect score could be achieved -- that is, until Billy came along. However today, in this tournament, Billy placed eighth overall (I guess the new version of Pac-Man threw him off a bit). Regardless, Billy was as nice as could be, signing autographs, giving interviews and handing out bottles of his proprietary hot sauce:

King Bowser and the Generic Nintendo Title

He’s been around for over 20 years.

He’s been around in a bunch of different forms; remade, skeletal, a baby, a really crappy character in a movie, even Giga.

He’s golfed, played soccer, kart-raced, even been invited to the party.

He’s even got kids!

Isn’t it really about time that the King of the Koopas gets his own game?!?!?

Gene Simmons Brings Tongue, Self to Guitar Hero II 360 Event in NYC

As Major Nelson announced last week, today Gene Simmons made a special appearance at Times Square's Virgin Mega Store, which happens to be right across the street from our offices. We waded through the crowds to get a glimpse of the KISS guitar hero with the um, Guitar Hero 360 controller. Also at the event were the nation's top five Guitar Hero gamers who jammed onstage in front of many bewildered tourists. The highest scorer, which in this case was J.W. McNay, got to play "Strutter" with Simmons (Simmons played on his own ax... literally shaped like an ax). The kid also got a custom-made 360 controller signed by Simmons. Except for the fact that I was in the same building as a member of KISS, it was pretty odd and uneventful. And Major Nelson was nowhere to be seen... For more of pics, make the jump.

Rock Out For Charity

You had better be ready to rock, because these cool Guitar Hero II auctions will not last very long at all.

A host of celebrities have customized Guitar Hero II controllers, and are now putting them up for auction. Artists include My Chemical Romance, Tenacious D, Buckcherry, Nickelback, Tony Hawk, and Kelly Slater, and all the proceeds from this auction are going directly to the Musicares charity.

What more needs to be said? This rocks, they painted, you go bid now.

Anatomy of a Game Junket, Part II

It's always sort of odd when you combine wrestlers with game writers. As part of its almost week-long Wrestlemania festivities, THQ lets a select few game journalists interview a handful of WWE wrestlers as part of the WWE Superstar Challenge. Before the wrestlers compete to see who's the best at the video game Smackdown vs. Raw, they're shuttled from room to room so people from Nintendo Power, EGM, GamePro, etc., can ask them such hard-hitting questions as, which Nintendo character do you most relate to? And also, what do you think of the improvements made to next-generation wrestling games? We are all sure, each of us, to win maybe five Pulitzers apiece. But it's good fun, and we even get a tiny bit of insight into the men and women who make up the WWE's roster. Ken "Mr. Kennedy" Kennedy wants to make an X-rated video game. Batista who up until Wrestlemania was the world's champion said, "I think a lot of fans live vicariously through us. You can't go into work to beat on your boss. We can."

Superstar Challenge

There's nothing less interesting in this world than watching other people play video games. Unless, of course, it's watching professional wrestlers playing video games.

Yet, oddly, the wrestling fans love it. Last week, THQ and the WWE held their annual Superstar Challenge, a contest to see which of the WWE wrestlers is the least inept at playing WWE Smackdown vs. Raw.

Wrestling fans packed the Gem theater in Detroit to watch the tournament and receive free stuff. Wrestlers such as Batista, Mr. Kennedy, Carlito, Jeff Hardy, and C.M. Punk participated in the tournament, and this guy won.

For the record, his name is Elijah Burke, and he wrestles for ECW. Go figure.

Head past the jump for exciting pictures of wrestlers playing video games.

The Big Wind

Dave Batista is kind of a low talker. The WWE wrestler is sitting down, talking to a bunch of game journalists as part of THQ's Wrestlemania celebration. More than 50 of us have come to Detroit to see WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2008 (for DS, PSP, PS2, PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii).

Batista, a very nice man, is wholly disinterested in video games. This seems odd because this portion of the event will be followed by a game exhibition where the wrestlers get to compete in Smackdown vs. Raw for the Xbox 360 and see who's the best. Batista is scheduled to participate, will lose his "match" in roughly 12 seconds.

Right now, we're asking him hard-hitting questions: What Nintendo character do you most resemble, how do you feel about video games, etc. And now, I'm asking him what's the weirdest thing that's ever happened to him in the wrestling ring, or maybe outside of it. I'm doing this because clearly, Dave Batista has already cashed his check and is out the door.

He stops for just a second. "I don't know the weirdest thing," he says. "But I do know [wrestler] The Big Show once farted on me when I was trying to pin him."

We are all dumbfounded. And soon, Batista is out the door. I am obligated to report that I felt vaguely uneasy the rest of the day.

YOU ICEHOLE!

What self-respecting junket whore would pass up a chance to stay in a hotel made entirely of ice? So when EA Canada invited us to Quebec to demo SSX Blur at Quebec's Hotel de Glace, we jumped and brought along The G-Hole crew for some, ahem, cold play.

Who Wants To Be A Superhero?

New York Comic Con wasn't all nerds in costumes... oh wait... yes it was. The Sci Fi Channel's Who Wants To Be A Superhero? (hosted and judged by the comic god among men, Stan Lee) was holding auditions for its second season, so we got our old friend Nitro G and Fat Momma from season one to help us out with interviewing some of the wacky and wondrous superhero hopefuls. We also got our host Blair (who's a huge comic book collector) to interview Stan Lee once again (see G-Hole episode 6). To Blair's delight, Stan remembered him and dubbed him "Loquacious Man." Fitting.

For behind-the-scenes photos of the auditions, make the jump!