Hey, remember when Sony claimed that rumble was a "last generation" feature?  Remember when they insisted that you could not have rumble and motion controls?  Well, if you've been keeping up with game news, you'll know that none of that is true and Sony finally came to their senses (and settle a lawsuit).  The product?  Sony release the Dualshock 3 in Japan.  As for the North American release, nothing has been announced yet.  But that's why we're here.

 As of today, we now stock the Dualshock 3 in white and black.  It's selling for $64.99, so if you can't wait for the domestic release we've got you covered.  A few games support rumble at this point.  Most new releases (such as the incoming Devil May Cry 4) have rumble, while other older releases (Resistance, for instance) are being patched to include rumble.  And while these controllers are Japanese, there are no region lockouts for accessories so they will work just the same as an American PS3 controller.  Oh, and if we sell out (I expect to) we can simply order more, so you can put your name down if you want and we'll get it for you.

Tomorrow (1/26) is our tournament, and just incase you don't check our myspace page, it'll be at 1 p.m..  You can come early if you want to practice a little big, and registration will start at 12, with the actual tournament begining at 1.  It's going to be very straight forward this time around.  Just $5 to enter, and the prize will be dependant on how many people sign up for it.  No characters are banned, though, you do need to pick 3 distinct characters.  There will be a time limit for each match after all, for the sake of keeping things moving.  If you have any extra questions, feel free to stop by or call the store. 

 Oh, also, if you've got an extra Dreamcast lying around, along with a copy of the game and some extra controllers, it would be cool if we could set up a few different stations.  Otherwise we'll be playing on my system, with my copy which is no big deal.  At any rate, I hope to see a lot of you tomorrow, and remember we need at least 8 players to get things going.  I don't think that will be a problem but all the same, tell everyone you know that might be interested.  See you tomorrow!

Looks like the Dreamcast remains the system of choice for most people.  That surprises me, since I would like to play on the DC I assumed that everybody would want the opposite.  

For now, we're looking at the DC for the tourney's format.  We'll have the PS2 version on hand just in case there's a majority of PS2 players.  So pack controllers accordingly.  

The time still remains up in the air.  What works best for everyone?  Afternoon (12 to 4 ish) or evening (6 to 9)?  I'm leaning towards the afternoon, but I know a lot of people work on Saturdays and/or go out at night.  Let me know what you guys want, it won't happen without you after all!

It's January, and you know what that means?  The holidays are finally over and done with, and now it's time for more tournaments!

 First up I think we can all agree that it's high time we've had a Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 tourney.  That's going to be the easiest for us to pull off, and I think the demand is there.  I'm thinking PS2 version, bring your own controllers, with the rest of the details to follow.  As far as a date?  Lets say.... January 26th for now.  That's a Saturday.  I want some feedback before we run this, so that could change.  We've also learned from the past tournaments and will be requiring a minimum of 8 entrants to run the tourney.  

So lets here, it, I want to know what day works best, Saturday or Sunday?  Afternoon or evening?  Drop me a line either on myspace or through email and don't forget to spread the word. 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The HyperStone Heist (Sega Genesis) 

I started playing this game a couple of days ago.  Even though I could have beaten sooner, it wasn't beat until today, simply because there are much more engaging things to do than play this game. 

This game makes me wish I had an NES so I could play Battletoads.  Oh man, did I love that game.  The people on this website should make that happen for me.   

I first started playing TMNT:HH in two-player mode with a friend.  We started playing on a whim because it was a two player game that seemed mindless enough to not care about.  We couldn't have been more correct. 

Anyway, it's okay to kill anything in this game.  Nothing dies.  It's all robots.  No body, no blood and guts on the ground.  It's nice and safe for everyone.  Even the organic looking enemies (like Foot soldiers, bosses like Rocksteady, etc) are, in fact, robots.  Their enemies are smart enough to make robots that look like flesh and bone, and the best they can come up with is stealing the Statue of Liberty.  It's excellent. 

And don't worry about death on the part of our heroes either.  Their enemies (OMG ALL THESE ROBOTS) are only able to render them dizzy.  Totally rad! 

The game starts out with April O'Neill reporting about the Statue of Liberty mysteriously vanishing and then cutting to Shredder saying some stuff about his ultra powerful hyperstone or what have you.  The only thing I really cared about was skipping through the inane storyline to try to save the world with the Turtles. 

On the first run through, I died several times and used up a continue.  We were able to reach Stage 3, but we ran out of lives.  Well, I used up too many continues and left my friend with none, so I lived on to Stage 4 while his health bar read “Game Over”.  Normally, I'd be the type of gamer who'd want to become proficient at playing games.  Not in this case,  however.  After a couple more failed run-throughs, I decided that the replay value of this game was so crappy that I didn't even feel like playing through the first levels again.  Luckily, in the Options menu, you can give yourself five lives and five continues so you only have to go through this game once. 

After setting all that up, a buddy of mine showed up to hang out.  So, I handed him the controller so he could play and I consumed some pasta.  It was delicious.  My two friends ended up being the ones playing the game and when one of them ran out of their initial five lives at the final stage, I took over so I could experience beating the game. 

Now you might be thinking that that wasn't very sporting of me.  You can keep thinking that if you wish, but the fact is that all you really need to do to defeat this game is jump and kick.  Over and over again.  You can even control where your turtle will land their ultra-amazing kick move.  Add a little dash of spatial reasoning and you should be fine.  Besides, it was only five levels.   

The whole thing is unimaginative, repetitive, and pretty much just bit off of the success that the franchise was enjoying at the time it came out.  It's hard to believe that someone purchased this game.  It's even harder to believe that it survived to present day so they could sell it to a video game store.