Mario and Link team up....along with Maxwell?

WB Games announced today that the Wii U version of Scribblenauts Unlimited will include playable Scribblenauts versions of Nintendo characters (Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Yoshi, Link, Zelda, Epona, and a goron). Scribblenauts Unlimited will be available for Wii U on launch day, November 18.

I'm a big fan of Scribblenauts, and the Mario and Zelda franchises. So this excites me.

It's funny, Gamestop's Facebook page had a tease about it beginning Monday. Their banner had an image of Maxwell (main character of Scribblenauts) flanked by two bulbous shadowy areas. The text asked "Who's playing with Maxwell?" Folks in the internet had figured out who the shadows were within a matter of hours. And I for on am glad they were right.

 Without a magic notepad, I remain,

 - Nic


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Wii U Launch Thoughts

Given that the Wii U launch is just a hair over a month away, I figure it's past time that I, the resident Nintendo fanboy, weigh in on the September Wii U press conference and all the information that was revealed (and what information wasn't revealed). We're planning on doing a podcast about the Wii U launch in the coming weeks, so think of this as just a discussion of the major points.

If It's Not One Thing...

Sorry for not delivering on the content so far. I really hate this, as I was serious the other day about getting serious about posting content.

But my family and I have been moving for the past few days. Between the run up to the move, the move itself, the aftermath, and other things happening, I've had very little time.

And then there's this: So we have DishNetwork. We love DishNetwork. They have great channel packages, great quality HD, and an excellent DVR.  They also have this service called "Dish Mover" for when you move and want to keep using Dish (hence, the appropriate named service). It's quite convenient.

Monday was the offical move day, and thus the day of the Dish Move. The technician came, installed the actual dish in the new place (not an easy feat, given the foliage in the area), and hooked it up to our reciever, with the aforementioned DVR, which was filled to the brim (if harddrives have such things) with copious amounts of programming, including new episodes of the shows I'm going to review--episodes I had not yet watched (that's important to the story). The tech said that sent we'd now be picking up signal from different satellites than we had been, the occasional "complete signal loss" messages we were seeing were normal, and would end by the next day. You probably know where this is going. They didn't end. Rather, they stayed pretty steady. New episodes of shows were recorded throughout the week, although often they were so glitched up as to be unwatcheable (and creepy). So today I called them up, and let them know about the situation. They offered to send out a tech this afternoon. I took them up on that. And long story short, he determined that the reason for our low signal was that our almost-six-year-old reciever was malfunctioning and needed to be replaced. My first thought was, "And there goes our DVR recordings."

Indeed, they're gone. They're all gone, folks. Clone Wars. Voltron Force. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Thundercats. Castle. NinjaGo. The Looney Tunes Show. The Big Bang Theory. NASA Channel stuff. And a bunch of other shows/movies y'all either don't care about or would mock me for having.

So, I'm going to try this again, begining with episodes airing tomorrow. Hopefully our shiny new Dish reciever will cooperate.

Now recieving programming from satellites at orbital locations 110 W, 119 W, and 129 W, I am still...

 - Nic


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Tekken Tag Tournament 2 vs. Dead Or Alive 5 Opinions / Mini-Review

On release day, I got my hands on a shiny new copy of Dead Or Alive 5 for the Xbox 360. Not the shiniest copy, as that title goes to the Collector’s Edition (art book, soundtrack, a tin case, etc). I intended to purchase the CE, but unfortunately, it was a Gamestop PREORDER exclusive. Why is “preorder” in all caps? Because Gamestop, at least on their website, never stated that it was, in fact, a preorder exclusive. I had to find that out by calling around to several stores within driving distance, only to hear the clerks say, “Um… yeah… the collector’s edition is only for people who preordered.” Lame. Lame, indeed.

Clone Wars Interviews

News-A-Rama has three short video interviews with the three Jedi leads on The Clone Wars. Though there's nothing really revelatory here, it's good to see the three of them showing their enthusiasm for the about-to-start-its-fifth-season animated show.

Matt Lanter Interview

James Arnold Taylor Interview

Ashley Eckstein Interview


Less than three days to the premiere!

 - Nic

The Avengers Impressions

Tomorrow (Sept 25th), The Avengers arrives on Blu-ray to the delight of  millions of people. In light of this...and in light of the fact that we never did one...I thought now would be a great time to offer my informal review/impressions of the wildly successful superhero ensemble movie directed by TV's Joss Whedon.

Warning: Past this point there be spoilers.

I Am Not A Crook

So, almost none of you know this, but for a few months now I've been working on my own set of stories, set in my own fictional universe. I'm trying to blend some of my favorite genres (science fiction, fantasy, and a few more) into something that I hope will be original, entertaining, fun, and even thought provoking.

At this point, many of my characters will wield bows. One of the main female protagonists, herself a bow wielder, I'm currently envisioning wearing an outfit of green and brown.

So JJ Abrams and Jon Favreau come out with the show "Revolution" wherein the female lead, a bow wielder, looks like this:

Great, now  people will think I'm just ripping off an NBC show.

Thanks a lot McFlares-A-Lot and Happy Hogan!

 - Nic


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