I’m back.

I was going to explain where I was all this time, but it’d involve me explaining the practicalities of the legal system and frankly, no one gives a shit. Instead let’s go with “sorry, I was at a Gamespot protest and lost my plane ticket home.” By the way, Manhunt 2 rocks!

Here’s a look at some recent gaming news.

Pre-ordering my pre-order

Earlier this week, Amazon offered pre-orders for Gears of War 2. Here’s the catch, Gears of War 2 hasn’t been officially announced yet, let alone given a release date. Unfortunately, soon after Amazon started taking pre-orders they had to stop due to the volume. How did people find out about this in the first place? Did they just check the site everyday?

Imagine the routine of these people:

Well, still no Gears of War available. Now, the rest of my checklist:

Knife – check

Duct tape – check

Puppy – check

Shovel – check

Gas for the ice cream truck – check

Mapquest directions to RFK Elementary – check

Off to work!

Excuse my remote boner

A few months ago, I dreamed that, eventually, the Remote Play features for the PS3 and PSP would allow me to remotely power-on my PS3. Weeks ago, that dream came true. Now with the new PS3 and PSP firmware updates, PSOne games will now be operational via remote play.

While I love being married (it’s not rape if you’re married), there are some drawbacks, like sharing space. Our house, unfortunately, is not big enough for my 8 or 9 consoles, so the PSOne currently resides at my parents. My games, however, were gathering dust in a spare bedroom, until now.

Being able to play Chrono Trigger or still refusing to play Final Fantasy VIII on my lunch break is an absolute godsend. Thank you, Sony!

I like my Gaming Conferences like my Country Clubs, restricted.¹

E3 announced that the once “best target to eliminate every Gamestop employee in the greater 48” convention is returning to its former home, the LA Convention Center. But before you get your hopes up, it’ll still be invite only.

From what people have told me about last year’s show, while getting around town was donkey penis, the scaled down nature of the event alleviated many past complaints.

And if you’re still depressed about missing out on all the action, G4 will have wall to wall coverage, featuring the best in American Idol rejects.

EMI 360

A recent PC World article reported that the IT staff at Morrisville State College (resisting the Ann Arbor snobbery compelling me to make a joke) discovered that radio signals from the Xbox 360 (specifically the signals connecting the controller to the console) caused interference with LAN devices, including some Bluetooth devices.

The article continues, reporting that when the staff synced a Bluetooth headset to the 360 waves, they could hear the word “murder” being repeated over and over.

I might be kidding, but there is no way I’m letting my 360 anywhere near my Green Goblin tractor-trailer anytime soon.

In case you were wondering where Jack Thompson would be this Holiday Season

There are two things that can cause twenty emails to immediately pop-up in my inbox, the release of a hot video game (especially around the holidays) or a news story about video game violence.

While I’m glad to respond to the former, I can’t stand dealing with the latter. If you haven’t heard, two teens have been charged with killing the 7-year-old sister of one of them, by beating her with imitations of moves from Mortal Kombat.

The two Colorado teens (oh, Colorado teens, fan-fucking-tastic) tried reviving the girl by putting her under running water and attempting CPR before they called her mother and 911. The girl died at a hospital.

And wouldn’t you know, my email exploded with “did you heard about this?????” subject lines.

The news of the year in video games should be about the artistic strides made in games like Bioshock and Portal, but instead, the Discovery Channel documentary series has to spend an entire episode, described as "games move into three dimensions," covering violence in video games. Now I get to spend the next two weeks of having in-laws (and direct family) question whether my video game playing is "healthy."

I know I bitch, but let's not be blind. Video games, movies, comics, hell, even the Shakespeare can be someone's violent inspiration. But that doesn't mean that they are the problem. The guy who shoots up a school has some sort of problem our society hasn't figured out yet. The video game that he re-enacted is merely a tool, like the gun or the car he used to get there.

And that's the problem with how we, as a society, react. If we take the guns away, these people would use knives. Take the knives away, they'd use a board with a nail sticking out. We’re not curing the TB, we're just muffling the cough.

By the way are we sure Linden Ashby isn’t somehow involved? I’m just saying, we’re still not sure who was handling the props on the Crow that night.

On the bright side, at least they didn’t try to pull out a sea-slug.

That’s all for now.

1. I don’t care if I’ve used that joke before, I love it.