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In my recent tradition of picking up games two weeks after everyone else, I finally bought New Super Mario Bros. this weekend. It’s pretty much everything you would expect. It’s really more of a return to the original Super Mario Bros. than an expansion on the series. You will be hard pressed, however, to not feel the “magic” when you happen upon the first Tiny Mushroom. I am upset that the game has completely abandoned the flying dynamic established in Super Mario Bros. 3. Someone pointed out to me that you can still hijack Lakitu’s cloud, but it ain’t the same thing. It’s still pretty fun though. I will no doubt devour it quickly.

In another retro twist, I powered through Mega Man this weekend, too. A friend of mine got me the anniversary collection last Christmas. Let me assure you, anyone who can get through Mega Man the right way—in one sitting with no saves—has my respect.

In yet one more blast from the past, I played through a level or two of Halo 2. I also picked up the Halo 2 Soundtrack Vol. 2. It’s pretty nice if you’re a fan. I’ve kind of been on a Halo kick recently. I’m going back through the novels in aniticipation of the next graphic novel/book/game/movie. Hell, I must have spent two hours last week reading the Wikipedia entry on The Covenant. I also found out what a Covenant engineer looks like. They look like this:

Crazy, no?

Anyway, I hope the Americans among you had a nice Memorial Day. I did.

This isn’t exactly news, but I’m really excited about F.E.A.R. coming to 360. There is new F.E.A.R. content available on Marketplace for those who are interested. Ah 360, giving me the PC games that my PC could never play.

Major Nelson has confirmed the Spring Update for LIVE. For those of you who haven’t heard about it, the update will introduce many new features to LIVE and the 360 dashboard. Among the new features are background downloading, download queues, and easier content access. My favorite feature is the ability disable autoboot. It’s really annoying that you have to take a game out of the tray in order to boot to the dashboard. Well, not anymore. Check out Joystiq for pictures.

First thing’s first, congratulations Reggie.

Hey, internet peoples. Remember that VGA cable I ordered for my 360? Well, it showed up yesterday. Lo and behold, my eBay curse has not been lifted: it wasn’t what I ordered. The guy I bought it from advertised a Microsoft brand VGA cable. That is not what I received. Call me a snob if you want, but I don’t like third party cables—unless it’s high end stuff like Monster, which is too expensive anyway. Besides, I didn’t order a third party cable, I ordered a brand new Microsoft cable still in its blister pack.

So, I sent him a pissy email. He was gracious about it—already refunded my money—so that was good. In the end, I just went out and bought the damned thing at a store (Best Buy if you must know). The picture is much brighter than component cables, though I suspect this has more to do with my TV than the cables. It’s almost too bright really, almost washed out. Remember, I was playing at 1080i before and traded cables to get 720p. So the picture is technically fuzzier but it runs at a smoother framerate. I think the trade was worth it. I played Tomb Raider on it. My brightness settings—still very bright from the component cables—actually had to be tuned down much lower than even the default. The picture was great though.

Speaking of Tomb Raider, I finished the game last night. It’s very good. I would go so far as to say it’s the best Tomb Raider yet produced. Keep in mind, I finished the game, but there are still unlockables that I have not attained. In most games such things would not bother me but Tomb Raider is different. Seeing as the unlockables are found by exploring—or “raiding”—tombs thouroghly, I am enticed to “catch ’em all.” I’m actually looking forward to laboriously going over every inch of these levels to find what I missed the first time. I haven’t done that since Ninja Gaiden. Let’s just say Tomb Raider: Legend is good and leave it at that. I’ll try and write it up properly soon.

Now I only hope the fine people at Crystal Dynamics can get back to making Legacy of Kain games.

An interview has an analyst predicting that the Da Vinci Code’s Blu-ray release will be a huge sales boost for the PS3. Being a Sony owned film, it’s probably a safe bet that it won’t be released on HD-DVD.

I don’t really think one movie—megahit or not—will be enough to drive sales. Then again, I’m not a highly paid analyst.

How do you get into that racket anyway?

—read the article on Vnunet.com

Update: I’ve completely re-written this post. I like it better now. So there.

I almost forgot, the Hitman: Blood Money demo hit Xbox Live Marketplace yesterday. I haven’t downloaded it yet. Still busy raiding tombs.

Smash Bros. Dojo has been updated yet again. We now have images of Zero Suit Samus and Wario. A few new details have been added as well. For instance, Zero Suit Samus is not a complete character. Rather, under certain circumstances Samus’ armor will fall off and she will become Zero Suit Samus. Will it be a morph like Zelda/Sheik? Maybe whenever she reaches a certain damage percentage? Also, the Wario fart move has tentatively been titled the “Wario Waft”. And the longer you wait, the more his gas will build. Wow, that was weird to type. More images after the break.

Continue reading “More Smash Bros. Brawl Goodness”

Do those two old ladies to the right look like hardened criminals to you? Well, they are. These women are Olga Rutterschmidt, 73, and Helen Golay, 75, two Californians with no criminal record. They were recently arrested for mail fraud. The scam? Take out life insurance policies on homeless men, kill said homeless men with well planned hit-and-runs, and collect on said life insurance policies. So far, the LA Police can only charge them with mail fraud but are trying to build the murder case. The life insurance policies—taken out on two homeless men—were worth over two million dollars.

Why is this story on 8-bit Ninja, you ask? I’ll tell you. If these two fine ladies were in fact young men, you can bet your ass they’d be using the Grand Theft Auto Defense ™. Hell, they still might, it’s not too late.

Wow. I left my site alone for maybe 45 minutes. I knew they had linked one of my stories—I should know, considering I sent it in—but I had no idea what that would mean. I’ve had some stories linked to them before, but jeez, I’ve had literally hundreds of visitors in the last hour. So, if you’ve stumbled in here via Joystiq and you bothered to check out 8-bit Ninja beyond the Bungie story, welcome. I hope you like it.