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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.

Eight Questions with 'Touch the Dead' Artist Arthur Suydam

You may know Arthur Suydam for his brilliant, blood-drenched cover work on the Marvel Zombies comic book series, which featured zombified versions of Spider-Man, Captain America, Wolverine and other Marvel superheroes. But the A-list artist has also delved into making cover art for another zombie venture -- namely the DS rail shooter/survival horror game Touch the Dead. Recently, Arthur took the time to answer some questions about his undead artwork, his favorite zombie flicks, and why he's just so damn awesome...

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.

Blair's Long Gesticulating Game O' The Week

This Friday, March 23rd in the Year of Our Lord 2007, long-delayed PC game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl is finally being released a mere 983 years since its first appearance in the public consciousness. Historically, when a company takes almost a millennium to release a game, said game ends up being as interesting as a tour of Paris Hilton's brain. However, in the case of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., the only thing that really feels dated is the graphical quality. Now, I could spend all day -- or all blog if you will -- convincing you to check out this game, but I'd rather let the experts sell ya on it. So for now, take a look at this tour of the game courtesy of the award-winning (Emmy, Oscar, Grammy, SAG Award, People's Choice Award, Nobel Peace Prize, Harvard's Hasty Pudding Award, and The Myrtle Beach Annual 3rd Grade Spelling Bee Award -- just to name a few) videogame show The G-Hole and decide for yourself. Buh bye.

Marc Silvestri Says...

"We have Halo in the [Top Cow Comics] office," Marc Silvestri says. The comic creator is in San Francisco today, showing off a preview version of The Darkness, a video game based on the book he created. "I can hold my own pretty well." Sadly, Silvestri won't join in on the mayhem when three game writers and a representative from 2K Games have a go at Darkness' multiplayer action. He's content to sit and watch, and to praise the game's maker, Starbreeze. "They understood what The Darkness was," he says. "And they brought it. They brought it to this game."

Miyamoto Aims for 'Painless' Games

Violence in video games has become a hot media topic as gory, cinematic fight scenes and guns with chain-saws make more frequent appearances in today's most popular games. Historically, Nintendo has withstood toiling competition with other game corporations by not choosing the violent path, designing playful combat with butt bounces and spinning turtle shells as a refreshing alternative to bullets and hand grenades. 

In a recently translated interview, from CNN's TV show Talk Asia this past December, Nintendo's president Shigeru Miyamoto reveals his personal philosophy on gaming violence and his particular concerns for children gamers:

"My personal thought is, and I think it is the same with Nintendo, that before thinking about how to handle violence in video games, I think it is important to think about pain people feel. For example, you would not laugh at people with disabilities. There are bullying problems in Japan. Looking at the overall picture, it is important to understand and feel the pain that people might have. We make our games based on that philosophy, using means other than violence. But we also have to take a careful approach, even in the circumstances when we are not portraying direct violence. I think it is always important to give children a product with a careful approach."

So sorry to disappoint folks, but I think we can thus safely assume that Marcus Fenix will not make a cameo in the upcoming Super Smash Brothers Brawl (despite floating rumors of his on and off affair with Samus Aran). Seems for now Nintendo will keep its hands clean of the bloodlust.

I "BEAT" Americans!

So Mr. Alex Ward (creative director of EA's Black) seems kinda pissed at we Americans who didn't seem to appreciate his last-gen game. Before I go on, peep this recent interview over at Multiplayer with Mr. Ward. Now what I find funny is the fact that he goes off into this whole silly rant about how we Americans always claim that we "beat" (he seriously dislikes the term) games. He makes it sound as if we don't care or appreciate a game that one beats. I don't know about you guys, but growing up, I always assumed the word was just a slang for completing a game and not necessarily meant in a way that says a game was not worth the time. Either way I get the feeling ol' Ward was just buggin' out because his game Black, didn't quite live up to the expectations of us "American" gamers. He must have been so sure we were going to eat that joint up since it dealt with GUNS, GUNS, and mo' GUNS because thats what Americans like...right? And before the game even dropped, he coined the phrase "Gun Porn" and whatnot and now all of a sudden he claims he was trying to tell a deep story on some American vs. American terrorist bullcrap. Whether he had a message or not, bad storytelling is bad storytelling! Deal with it Mr. Ward, and save your deep stories for Sundance! Games are meant to be fun and not some psycho, mindf**k with a deep message. Peace and God bless.

A Halo Halloween, Part II

I had wanted to ask Eric Nylund, author of three out of the four existing Halo novels about the Xbox 360 shooter Gears of War. Nylund played a key role in creating the game's story, and I'd thought to ask about the game's content. More to the point, I thought to make a joke at the expense of the Germans...

Gears of War, a game you worked on, is too violent for Germany, I wanted to ask. Is
that perhaps the most ironic thing in the history of recorded irony?

Anyway, we ultimately opted not to pose that question to Nylund. We got others in, to be sure, and some really good answers came back. And, you know, as with Halloween candy, it's waste not want not...

Me: What's a bigger feat? Working within the confines of an established universe to, say, create a Halo novel or the completion of an original piece of fiction?

Eric Nylund: They end up being about just as hard—only in different ways. Working in an established universe is easier as many of the people, places, and things are there for you to crash together. The trouble starts when you want everything to synch seamlessly with the other parts of the intellectual property (games, novels, comics, etc). Then things can get ugly and complicated. On the other hand, you usually don’t have that problem in an original piece of fiction, but you DO have to create everything from square one.

Me: When you wrote Halo: Fall of Reach, you created a history for Master Chief from almost no source material. You had a guy in an armored suit with a masculine voice and an inclination for solitary warfare against aliens—using that information, how did you build a character?

There was an existing HALO story bible for FALL OF REACH, and it was full of information (props to Trautmann, Boran, and Zartman)--but at that time, you’re right, not a heck of a lot was known about the Master Chief.  I started at the beginning, figuring out where a super secret intelligence operation would recruit for the SPARTAN-II program. Answer: the playground. There was John in that first scene--playing King of the Hill with a bunch of other kids. I wondered how far I could take the normal kid predisposition toward a “Lord of the Flies” behavior. Could it be channeled into military training? What kind of friendship would that forge? What kind of man would it make? Well, in the process of answering those questions and writing those scenes the Master Chief was born (at least in my head).