Unboxing tech products may not be the absolute nerdiest porn on the internet, but it's at least gotta be up in the Top Three (Dearest Community: this is not a challenge, please do not send me your sketchy collection of weird/distrubing links, as it will only make me banhammerize you). The boyz from Mad Catz -- where all S's are Z's -- have just popped their own unboxification video onto the YouTubes, showing off the high-end Tournament Edition of the FightStick. Trust me when I say this product is rad -- to the MAX!!1 Seth has been chomping at the bit (not champing, but chomping, like a pirhana flower from a Mario game) to post his thoughts and impressions on the Mad Catz controllers for some time now, but he's been put on hold 'til January. Until he's given the green light to shower praises on the pad and sticks, feast yer peepers on the tantalizing hint of controller greatness above. And for the hundreds of thousands of you already cracking out on Super Turbo HD Remix -- thanks and Merry Xmas, by the way -- you're going to want one of these, too.
Keiji Inafune, Capcom's head honcho of all things game-development, was in town a while ago and managed to make some time in his crazy-busy schedule to talk with James Mielke from 1up.com. Mielke had a diverse range of questions -- nearly ADD in subject-bouncing -- but Inafune-san took them all in stride(r). Check out the interview on 1up for Inanfune's responses and thoughts on future Breath of Fire games, the remains of Clover, Mielke's straight-up begging for another Strider and a interesting metaphor comparing Japanese and Western development differences to Teriyaki burgers versus American hamburgers. Check out the interview on 1up.
In this pic: Inafune-san is wearing an awesome snowboarding jacket we presented to the Lost Planet team at the community launch event.
As much as I admitted to forgetting about DMC4 this year (and I did a quick survey around the office to find I wasn't the only one), several others have not. Take Maxim, fer instance. They dropped two Capcom characters into their "17 Hottest Video Game Babes of 2008" feature, which is currently running on their website right here. Thanks, Maxim, for putting our ladies up against Jenny McCarthy, Lara Croft and Maggie Q.
Wait. Maxim knows that these girls aren't like, y'know, real, right? Especially Jenny McCarthy.
Over at MTv, Stephen T looks back at his favorite gaming moments of the year, which is an interesting read as it is much more than the usual gush of Gears/Rock Band/Fallout 3/whatever praising that you're going to find everywhere else on teh webz0rz. Amongst his callouts for the year is DMC4's outstanding aerial combat, which caught me off guard. Mostly because I realized that just 11 months after the release of DMC4 that I've almost totally forgotten about the game! We were incredibly undermanned here at Capcom when the game released (the communications team is literally 200% larger in December than it was in January) and so much has happened this year. Thanks, Stephen, for reminding me about one of the great games that I worked my tail off on this year!
Judging from the amount of email that Seth, Shawn and Christian and I receive on a nearly daily basis, there are a lot of Marvel vs Capcom fans out there (ProTip: import a copy of Tatsunoko vs Capcom for the Wii, guys). IGN has a new clip from the upcoming Marvel animated feature Hulk VS, which features the not-so-jolly Green Giant smashing up both Canada's number one export* and the God of Thunder hisself. While watching this clip, I couldn't help but think of all the ways Wolvie could have countered Hulk's attacks, including tagging in an air or projectile character to counter Hulk's ground-based combat. That said, I am a nerd. Hulk VS hits Blu-Ray and DVD Jan. 27.
*Note: Canada's number one export is actually Wolverine not, as previously assumed, the Barenaked Ladies, Pamela Anderson or William Shatner. Although the Shat does rule.
