Media Molecule and Sony, you’ve lost a customer. The game, as we all know, is LittleBigPlanet. It’s a game that Chuck really loves in his review and one that I was going to pick up after spending some time with it over at his house. I’m not a big fan of side scrolling jumping games but LittleBigPlanet has potential and I love games with potential. It lets you let loose with your creativity and design levels for all to play with its ease of sharing capabilities. Well, so I thought.

As reported earlier, some levels were being moderated or removed without having the ability to get it back. While I can understand some things being removed such as for offensive content and infringing on other people’s intellectual properties, there are many instances where the user’s levels were removed without any indication why. Sony has issued a statement saying they are looking to improve communication and also give a reason as to why they are moderating the level. So far their efforts have been just as before with another group of levels being moderated without cause. I’ve seen some of the videos of some of the levels being removed and I really can’t see any reason as to why they would be in line to be moderated.

Worse yet, there hasn’t been any communication as to why the level’s being moderated. There’s a system you guys developed Sony whereby you can leave messages in the person’s inbox on your PlayStation 3. You know that little envelope where messages appear from friends and so forth? You might consider using that online feature to let the person know that 1) the level in question is being reviewed for a specific reason and 2) your level was moderated because it contains the following items.

As good as LittleBigPlanet is, I can’t find myself spending my hard earned money on a game where there’s creativity being stifled and no communication between the creators and users on issues that the company might have with the content generated. I’m not going to spend many hours trying to create a fun level for others to enjoy only to have a chance for it to be moderated without any warning. It would be a very frustrating experience and I feel for the folks that this has happened to. Sony, you guys have perhaps started a new trend with user generated content on your system to increase the value and replay ability of a console game. It’s too bad your handling these issues in such a poor manner and with that you’re losing at least one sale from me and I wouldn’t be surprised if many more were lost from those reading about your actions.

Some might say that my “fright reactions” are often at an elevated state.  I’m easily startled by people rounding cubicle corners, I overreact to drivers inching towards my lane in the road, and static electricity in particular makes me jump back inordinate and embarrassing distances.  Those things may all be true, but I prefer to re-label “fright reactions” as “anti-predatory mechanisms.”  I mean, my ancestors didn’t survive billions of years just so that I would suffer cardiac arrest from a fast-moving cubicle farmer balling out of control for the laser printer.

We all like to think that games release some intangible level of endorphins or adrenaline into our bloodstream, relaxing or exciting us in controllable doses.  But Dead Space?  EA’s just-released sci-fi horror game is certainly “exciting,” but in more of an “alarmed response” way than I’m used to drinking up during a videogame.  Onboard the USG Ishimura, I’m experiencing sensory overload – ironically – through sensory deprivation.  Trying desperately to dig through the dark, my pupils are dilating like I’m high on THC.  Straining to categorize between innocuous versus dangerous sounds, I can practically feel my cochlea throbbing in my inner ear.  My mouth is going dry, presumably to keep my unblinking eyes from drying up and perma-gluing my contacts to my cornea.

Gee, other than that, I’m great.  While I’m feeling the chemical reaction from being “thrilled” from the expected cat-jumping-out-of-the-closet tricks, the auditory frights are on par with anything being thrown at me visually on the screen.  Perhaps the audio is so frightening because I have so little control over it.  In the game, when a violently-disfigured Necromorph is plodding towards me, I can (sometimes, definitely not always) fall back, rapidly assess the situation, hone my target, and saw off a limb with a prize-winning gunshot.  And I could do this with far less panic if I decided to cheat myself, mute the volume, and nullify the $60 I just dropped at Software Etc, sure.  But it’s that volume.  The volume that pours horrible ambient sounds into my ears.  And the volume of darkness poured into the set pieces making the blood pulse through my ocular veins.

Dead Space is, and already has, set off a disturbing number of dormant anti-predatory mechanisms in my brain.  This, coming from a guy that’s already beset with daily elevated fright reactions.

 

[Sean Nack's a good guy.  He doesn't mean to show me up as much as he does.  But when I came out with "Alternative Theme Songs For Winter Games" (two of which was eaten by internet ether) he devised a Top 5 list of his own.  Here it is. - Randy]

There are a lot of lists. Especially in our community, everyone has their "Top 5" lists, or their "Best Ever" lists. All that's well and good, but how many times can you read "Top 5 Hottest Characters" or "Most Influential", or the ever popular "Coolest"?

I have nothing against lists in general, but what about we try a list that might actually help you out a little bit? How about a list that might change your perspectives, alter your perceptions, and maybe, just maybe, help you get in the proper frame-of-mind for a few of the most anticipated games of the year? Prepare yourself for the next contender for the "Best Lists List": the Top 5 Books to Get You In The Mood…wait for it…For New Games.

Yes, you read that correctly. I said books. I'm an old-fashioned guy, ladies and gentlemen, and I firmly believe in the power of the written word to transform a person, and even to prepare you for the types of situations you'll encounter in the next few months. So grab a book (they're square-ish, made largely of paper, you may be familiar), curl up on the couch (honestly, what else do you have to do this month?) and get your literature on:

1. Game: Far Cry 2

    Book: The Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad

With as much remorseless violence as you've no doubt dealt out throughout your  videogame career, you surely consider yourself a hardened killer, completely prepared for whatever the African savannah has to dish out. My friends, I  encourage you to e-shoot and e-burn and e-bomb to your heart's content, but  know this: in the real world, violence not only has physical consequences, it  corrodes the soul. In Joseph Conrad's classic tale, based on his actual adventures  in the then-Belgian Congo, the author demonstrates the incredible toll that  violence and the degradation of humanity takes on a man, when his boat is  assigned to head hundreds of miles up-river to retrieve a company rubber  collector who has gone completely insane and set himself up as a god-king in the  African jungle. When  the man is finally overcome by his illnesses, both mental  and physical, his final words are a reflection of his actions, and his own  heart:  all he can see is "the horror…the horror." You may also recognize this plot,  modified quite a bit, in the classic film "Apocalypse Now." After you read this  book, you may find yourself questioning your own actions in the game: how far  into your own heart of darkness are you willing to go?

2. Game: Spore

    Book: Origin of Species, Charles Darwin.

While obviously not as inspired as the previous selection, and certainly tougher to  read, where better to get a strategy for creating and leading your own organism to success than from the man who is most closely associated with evolution? This  book may have ushered in some morally-questionable science, such as that old misconception about "nature, red in tooth and claw", but if reading about  Galapagos finches gives you that one great idea for your creature that makes you  the dominant force in the universe…like I've always said, as of about right now,  there's no place for a great fictional idea than the real world. 

3. Game: Fable 2

    Book: The Black Cauldron, Lloyd Alexander

Thought you saw LOTR coming, didn't you? This one is a personal choice for me,  because, well, I'll put it this way: I hate sword and sorcerer crap. I'm way more interested in the sci-fi end of the business, for one thing, but for another, I read  this book when I was about seven years old, and nothing ever stacked up against  it. What I should say is that this is actually the second of a five part series, and  that the Cauldron creates armies of the undead, blah-blah, but what caused me to  pair the two is the series inimitable hero: Taran, Assistant Pig-Keeper. Much like  your faceless, nameless hero, he was nothing until adventure came along and  claimed him. The tenor of the series is also much different from LOTR, as it takes  itself far, far less seriously, though is still inspired by Welsh mythology, and it's  this mix of the grand and the humorous that makes it a perfect lead-in to Fable 2.

4. Game: Left 4 Dead

    Book: Zombie Survival Guide, Max Brooks.

Ok, so this one is pretty much a gimme. Max Brooks' equally fantastic World War Z is also a valid choice, but the survival guide makes you think  strategically, question the efficacy of your surroundings, and most importantly in  a zombie apocalypse scenario, act defensively. As a person who is actively and  seriously preparing for the zombie apocalypse, the defensive considerations  are paramount in the initial stages, and while you can't change Valve's plan or  weapon load-outs, you can learn to manage your surroundings to your  advantage. Attacked in a two story house? Run up the stairs, create a choke-point,  and plink away. Learn which weapons are most effective in what environments,  and most importantly, take away from your time spent in the imaginary  apocalypse some lessons for the real world.

5. Game: Fallout 3

    Book: Lord of the Flies, William Golding.

I know what you're thinking: where're the nukes, the zombies, the irradiated  monstrosities? Where's my apocalypse? All those things are important to the  scenario, but the theme is paramount, and Lord of the Flies is thematically about  as apocalyptic as anything ever written. William Golding's tale of British  schoolboys trapped on a desert island illustrates perfectly how that most delicate  construction of man, society, fails in the face of our greatest enemy: man. What  keeps us from killing and eating each other, what element is removed when you  have such infamous incidents as Rwanda, the Holocaust, or My Lai? Society's  restrictions on killing. Society and the fickle goodwill of your neighbors are the  only things that keep us recognizably human. What better definition of apocalypse  is there, on a small scale like Lord or a large scale like a post-nuclear wasteland,  than mankind's' loss of humanity?

If I asked you to recall that one Gears of War trailer whereMarcus Phenix runs down a narrow street and shoots at an alien withspidery eyes, you might not have any idea of what I'm talking about. But if I asked you to recall that one trailer with the Donnie Darko version of "Mad World" playing, then I bet you'd know.

If I asked you to remember that one Assassin's Creedvideo where Altair is flicking out his wrist dagger and leaping acrosssome rooftops in slow motion ... that could be anybody's guess.  But ifI asked you to remember that one video scored by UNKLE's "God Knows Your Lonely Souls," then I bet you'd know that one too.

Akiller soundtrack can go a long ways -- longer than its typical 3minutes and 30 seconds during some fleeting cinematic presentation. Here's five games coming out in the next several weeks that couldbenefit from having a memorable song scoring a GameTrailers video. These recommendations are probably only half as apt as Assassin's Creed's, and nowhere even close to as brilliant as Gears of War's.  Nevertheless:

 

Spore -- "Into the Ocean" from Foiled, by Blue October

Samplelyrics:  "With envy for the solid ground // I'm reaching for the lifewithin me // How can one man stop his ending // I thought of just yourface // Relaxed, and floated into space."

Starting off withpresumably a lightning flash in a mud puddle, your little spore will"flOw" its way up the food chain, eating and evading its way throughthe evolutionary cycle.  Blue October's "Into The Ocean" draws onimagery reaching from the ocean depths to outer space, carrying yourspore from one cradle of life to the next.

 

 

 

Fallout 3 -- "Consoler Of The Lonely" from Consolers Of The Lonely, by The Raconteurs

Samplelyrics:  "Haven't seen the sun in weeks // My skin is getting pale //Haven't got a mind left to speak // And I'm skinny as a rail // Lightbulbs are getting dim // My interests are starting to wane // I'm toldit's everything a man could want // And  I shouldn't complain."

Withmankind bombed back into the Stone Age -- or at least the 1950s -- yourcharacter will emerge from Valut 101 into a Wild West stage setting. The Raconteurs' "Consolers Of The Lonely" has an eagle-eye fortumbleweed details, sung from a bone-dry throat choked withclaustrophobia.

 Left 4 Dead -- "Believe [Moon Version]" from The Sun And The Moon Complete, by The Bravery

Samplelyrics:  "The faces all around me they don't smile they just crack //Waiting for our ship to come but our ship's not coming back // ...Something's always coming you can hear it in the ground // It swellsinto the air with the rising, rising sound // And never comes butshakes the boards and rattles all the doors // What are we waiting for?"

"Believe"engages minor tonalities that stretch heavy-hearted shadows across theground, while the vampiric organ pulls undead clouds across a groaningsky.  And the Bravery's metaphorical tie-ins with the sedentary and thezombified can't be ignored.  Left 4 Dead looks mighty grim, alone inthe dark.

 

[EDIT:  Urk.  Due to technical difficulties, the Far Cry 2 entry has been chewed up and spit out into the internet ether.  I dunno either.] 

San Francisco’s hot, and the DJ on the radio agrees.  “It’s so hot outside that my only suggestion is you stick your head out the window of a moving car and sing this!”  Immediately, Jordin Sparks starts complaining that there’s “No Air."

The Bay Area is tinted the color of baked clay with all the smoke from California’s usual summer forest fires.  Sweat trickles down the back of my neck and it’s only a quarter to 10:00.  I’m trekking up three trolley-stuffed blocks to the University Club on Powell Street, just a stone’s throw from West Coast shopping Mecca, Union Square.  On the vaulted University Club’s fourth floor, I’ll soon receive an unexpectedly bone-crushing handshake from CDV Software Entertainment’s Ted Brockwood, PR Account Manager for the video game publisher’s North American branch.

I thank Ted for the invitation to CDV Editors Day ’08, and that’s when I realize that I need to develop a much firmer handshake the next time I meet him.  He’s ready to talk shop, but I’m already eyeballing the oversized hi-def screens positioned around the room.  Representatives from PC Gamer, IGN, 1UP, and Destructoid are filtering in, and everyone’s making requisite commentary about the hilly climb.

Ted’s got bigger fish to fry, and I’m about to entrench myself in hours of hands-on time with Sacred 2: Fallen Angel, today’s center-stage beauty from German developer Ascaron.  Ascaron is hitting crunch time for Sacred 2’s September PC release, with PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 dates rolling in November.

Ascaron is first and foremost a PC developer.  This is their maiden voyage into console development, although an immense portion of the game is already stable enough to allow dozens of players to teleport at will across its 22-square-mile map.  (For comparison’s sake, Oblivion’s map was 16 square miles.)  That’s not including two more levels of wormy underground tunnels in the Sacred land of Ancaria.  Early reports stating that Sacred 2’s underground levels “double” the size of the map are grossly exaggerated, but there’s no doubt that the dozens of cavern entrances make for plenty of spelunking opportunities.  Additionally, every square inch of the topographically-dynamic map is handcrafted.  Every swaying pine, every frog pond, every stretch of beach sand, and every hillside hike is carved, placed, stretched, shrunk, and smoothed into place, one piece at a time.  No overrated random dungeons here.

By nightfall, a full workday later, QA and Customer Support Manager Mike Tata (pronounced Tay-tuh) has already had a long day, not to mention the even longer days he’s had leading up to this event.  Regardless, he’s been bouncing around the game rooms, helping people through a few known bugs, a few unknown ones, and a fair but not unexpected amount of freezes and crashes.  But that’s what crunch time is for, right?  That’s why, even though Ascaron’s offices in Germany are ten hours ahead of us, they’re probably still in there, midnight oil burning, or coffee pots gurgling the start of yet another early-to-rise day.  Guten morgen, I bet.  CDV has been working closely with Ascaron since February, so, compared to the average publisher, they’re rather intimate with the game’s progress, though they’d only recently cracked open today’s latest build from the developers.

Mike has kept his chin up, soaking in people’s feedback, some of it constructive, some of it not so much (the first thing one journalist says:  “Grid-lined inventory system?  F***, I thought we were past this”).

At one point during the day, I grab Mike by the shoulder and walk with him into the PC room where four monstrous desktops and four powerhouse laptops have been buzzing with drop-in/drop-out multiplayer matches since we arrived.  Later, I also snag the gregarious and sharply-dressed Mario Kroll, Director of Marketing and PR, and ask him for a moment of his time, too.  Most of the questions I’ve heard from the other journalists today are centered around game technicalities, embargo dates, and the like.  There’s plenty of joking quips to go around as well.

IGN’s Jason Ocampo asks, “So will there be mounts in this game?”

“Yes.  In addition to horses, each character will have a unique mount,” Mike says.

“Will there be ponies?” Jason raises an eyebrow.

“No, but there will be, uh, horses.”

 “But no ponies, you say?”

Everybody has a chuckle, but it’s apparent that, at least since 2:00 this afternoon, visitors have been taking greater advantage of the full bar in the next room.  As for me I’m pretty sure the bartender wanted to floor me with a single Cape Cod, so I’d had to switch to water pretty quick.  Before that vodka and cranberry mix started making my monitor wobble, the bartender had punked me for ordering “just” a soda earlier.  I contested that the rum part could wait until after lunch, but thank you.

The Cape Cod had me pushing through the rooms like I was being moved by WASD keys.  And Mike, being more of a first-person shooter fan than a role-playing game fan, hopes against hope that WASD movement can be integrated into the PC version before the game ships.  Having the option would be brilliant -- agreed -- but probably won’t mesh well with Sacred 2’s click-and-hold combat on the PC.  The consoles require a touch more skill; since there’s no auto-targeting, the much more natural analog movement is balanced by having to continually reposition footing to face your opponent.

Mario, however, having spent egregious amounts of time playing RPGs (he names off about 12 of them before he goes on), feels that Sacred 2 is full and complete in and of itself.  He also acknowledges a certain “luxury” CDV has as a publisher, in that they have the power to push back dates until they see what they like in the final product.  “We’re not just some publisher that shoves the game in the box and sets it on the store shelf,” says Mario.  “To be on my team, you have to be a passionate gamer.  You have to love games.”

We’ve all seen the effects of games castrated by poor localization:  Inexcusable misspellings, poor grammatical structure, or linguistic idioms lost in translation when they cross the Pond.  CDV recognizes this, and they’re determined not to let their developers’ products fail from wanton oversights like those.  “Something I’ve always said,” Mario clarifies, “is that Coke and McDonald’s sell worldwide, while bratwurst and lederhosen do not.”  I think I know what he means, and now CDV’s purpose and intent gains clarity.  CDV isn’t micromanaging their developers just so they can feel better about themselves.  Like German-American alchemists, CDV is there to exchange local coinage into global currency.  “Sure, we could just leave developers alone and adopt a hands-off policy, but I’ve lived in the United States for 20 years.  I have a better connection with this culture than they do.  We’ll look at a game and maybe say, ‘Hey, this has got a cool core, but this is something you need to tweak to make it more palatable for an American audience.’  We want to make this a joint brand.”

This attention to cultural nuance -- and having a strong base game to begin with -- is why the original Sacred was translated into multiple languages, selling over 1.8 million copies globally, and being named PC Gamer’s RPG of the Year in 2004.  Yes, 2004 was also the year of Fable and Knights of the Old Republic II, heavy hitters if ever there were some.

But what about 2008?  It’s arguable that Action RPGs have settled themselves into a cozy spot and haven’t budged far outside of their own box.  With forum boards recently aflame in a Blizzard-fueled fire, some naysayers would completely write-off Sacred 2 after seeing nothing more than a 20-minute gameplay video of Diablo 3 (it’s smashing, there’s no doubt).  Still, after watching that gameplay video multiple times myself, I’m still not convinced the genre is pushing any envelopes, and especially not by Blizzard.  They may be the best refiners in the business, but they’ve never been accused of sourcing their peons for the cultivation of raw materials.

I carefully load an 800-pound-gorilla-sized question into the chamber before aiming it at Mario’s forehead.  I want to know why people will still be talking about Sacred 2 in two years.  I want to know why Sacred 2 is going to be a Diablo 3 killer, even though Diablo 3 likely won’t be around for a long time."

Mario becomes noticeably hesitant for the first time all evening.  He stares out from the University Club’s balcony, looking at the TransAmerica building but not really seeing it.  He sucks in a breath between his teeth before continuing.

“It’s not,” he starts slowly.   “It not going to be a Diablo 3 killer.”  But he wasn’t saying that in a way to disparage Sacred 2.  “Our character development is much deeper.  Diablo 3 has more action, but not necessarily the depth we have.”  He turns back towards me.  “I have no doubt Diablo 3 is going to be a kick ass game.  But Sacred 2 can totally stand on its own.  It’s not a me-too title.  It never was.”

And then we turn back towards the dusky cityscape, inhaling the forest-fire fallout.  From having played the Diablo games as well as sizeable handfuls of other lazily-labeled “Diablo clones,” Mario finishes by simply stating, “I’m convinced,” when considering whether Sacred 2 will indeed stand on its own.  “I’m convinced,” he said again. "I mean, after all, football fans can play both Madden and NCAA.  Shooter fans can enjoy both Battlefield: Bad Company and Call of Duty 4.  Why, if you're a fan of RPGs, would you not want to buy a role-playing game shipping in a few months, rather than sitting out all year, waiting for another title?"

And with those comparisons beginning to clear up, it becomes more obvious that there will be enough air to breathe for both Diablo 3 and Sacred 2 in the same atmosphere.

The game:  GRID.  The car:  Lamborghini Murcielago RGT.  The track:  24 Hours of Le Mans. 

The level of idiocy required to actually attempt this race on the real-world 24-hour setting:  Astronomical.

My wife is down in Tijuana, Mexico, for nine days, leading her high school youth group in a home-building project sponsored by Habitat for Humanity.  In keeping with the spirit of selflessly giving her time and energy to a family in need, I decide to stay cool and air-conditioned indoors, sidestepping Oregon's Rogue Valley heat, preparing for a binge gaming session that I will not recover from for at least another 48 hours.  First on the docket is Codemasters' GRID.

Knowing that this is one of my only chances in this lifetime to attempt anything faintly resembling a 24-hour gaming session, I entrench myself into the living room, ready for the long haul.  I've got Kettle brand sea salt & vinegar chips.  I've got a six pack of Thomas Kemper ginger ale.  I've got a Therapist Select Shiatsu Massaging Cushin.  I've got no shame.  And while I fully realize this won't see me through a full 24 hours of gaming, it's a start.

A clock counts down from 24:00 hours in the upper-left of the screen.  The Circuit de la Sarthe is about 8.5 miles long.  I don't have to win, per se.  Simply keeping my car alive for that length of time will be a victory in my book. Here's how it went down.

24:00 -- With only 10.5 miles put on my spankin' new Lamborghini Murcielago RGT, I look once more at the real-world clock out of habit.  It's 9:40 a.m.  I don't have any fancy racing equipment.  I've got a gamepad, just like you; and I've got a stinging fear that my right trigger finger (the gas pedal) will be blistered long before I hit the 12-hour mark tonight.  I've only been in a couple dozen races, I'm guesstimating, and my racing technique reminds me of something comedian George Carlin once said:  "You drive like old people f*ck:  Slow and sloppy."   The light's green and tire smoke fills the lineup.  We're off.

23:40 -- 66.0 miles in and I'm half a car-length ahead of Ron Fellows, a racer I'd been piggybacking since the start line.  He clips my rear quarter and sends me sidelong into a guardrail fence.  Damage indicators light up green in all quadrants:  Gears, suspension, steering, engine, and both front wheels.  I sneer out of the gravel and find that the Murcielago still handles beautifully.

23:39 -- I paused at a bad time.  Coming out of pause, I immediately hit another huge patch of gravel, list right, and roll my car over once.  She lands feet down, so I swerve back onto the road, not much worse for wear.  My trained videogame instincts begin scanning the ground up ahead for a health pack to run over, or perhaps my mind started counting down the few critical seconds required for my shields to regenerate.  Moments later I come to the realization that I'm not playing a first-person shooter.

23:27 -- 96.6 miles in and I'm lapped by first-place Emmanuel Pirro.  He's in a low-slung LMP1 class vehicle.  From what I've gathered, "LMP1" means "Faster Than Me.  One."  I'm currently in 11th place (out of 15).  I unlock the Short Haul achievement, having driven 500 miles in-game.  My pit manager chirps in, "Okay, Dude.  We're looking into the damage to your engine.  It looks like your performance is down 15 percent."  That's the last time I ever hear from him, though things will get much, much worse before this race is over.

23:00 -- The racer in 12th place is making a concerted effort to catch me.  I take a bathroom break.  My urine smells like McDonald's house blend.  I turn on the wife's massage chair and set it to full Shiatsu for 15 minutes as I get ready to unpause.

22:33 -- I've side walled one-too-many curves and my gears are paying the price.  The gears indicator lights up orange.

22:25 -- I side-walled yet another railing, spun my wheels in the grass for a few seconds, and then was promptly dropped from 11th to 13th place.  I panic and begin driving more erratically, with two other racers playing leap frog ahead of me.  I push my car's lightly-damaged limits, hit another patch of grass, start pumping my brakes, and then put it face-first into a farm fence.  My engine's damage indicator is now orange.  (Those were the gears that lit up orange earlier.  This is going well.)  Down from about 215 mph at the beginning of the race, I'm now barely able to push it up to 200.   A wheel noise I'd only suspected before has now increased in volume, especially during slow-down and take-off around tight corners.

22:00 -- I'm a good seven seconds behind 12th place.  I'm more regularly passed by the LMP1 cars.  Second piss break.  I grab a Vanilla Coke, crack it open, and let it start to go flat before I take a sip.  Second 15-minute chair massage begins.  This time on the "rolling" setting.

21:47 -- A near race-ending crash spins out one car in the chicanes (zig zags, I call 'em) before the stadium.  I barely miss the collision, but I carry the other driver's door as a hood ornament for a good 200 yards.

21:35 -- One of the fast-bred cars clips me as we're making the last large bends before hitting the stadium again.  I shoot across the track, overcorrect, shoot back across the track, and plant myself into a wall of tires.  Reminds me of a joke I heard on the 1up Show once:  What do you do with 365 used condoms?  Melt them down, mold it into a tire, and call it One Damn Goodyear.  I'm sure the cries of anguish coming from the audience stemmed from hearing that joke in my head.  My engine light is full-on red.

21:33 -- My driving is better than ever, due in no small part to my inability to driver faster than 194 mph anymore.  Along the straight stretch, I also find that the Murcielago is now pulling ever-so-gently to the right.  Only having a gamepad, compensating for this is a jerky proposition.

21:21 -- Feel like I should begin experimenting more with the e-brake around corners.  But my current driving formula is already failing miserably enough that introducing anything new into the mix right now could prove disastrous.  GRID features a lovely 'rewind' button if you get caught in a bind.  Depending on the difficulty level you're racing at, you'll have more or less of them to play with during any given race.  Without realizing it, I'd used my four flashbacks during the first hour.  I squandered them all.  At best, I should've only used one every six hours.  I'm less than three hours in, and one hard hit into anything and the race is done for.

21:17 -- Wondering what it says about me -- as a person, as a member of society -- having set aside 24 hours of my life to compete in one, single, virtual racing event.  I need to be doing something productive.  Mowing the lawn comes to mind.  Not something I get my kicks doing, but now the need to mow the freaking lawn is suddenly overwhelming.  Instead, here I am, listening to a creaking sound coming from my tires that will undoubtedly narrate my dreams for the next week.

21:06 -- Tom Kristensen pulled in front of me several minutes ago.  I'd nearly lost his tail.  Then he misses a 90-degree turn.  I see a cloud of tire smoke in the corner ahead of me, and one second later, Tom Kristensen is heading right for me, playing chicken (?).  I brake, swerve, and clip the left front of his car at a thankfully low speed; but now I have light (green) damage to my rear driver's side wheel.  I'm currently wondering what it's like to be that third wheel.

21:00 -- 466 miles.  Threw some Papa Murphy's into the microwave.  Let's hear it for Customer Appreciation Day leftovers.  Lack of a soundtrack during the Le Mans is killing me.  Spun the Klaxons' Myths of the Near Future.  That's better.  My eyes have been glossing over, and at one point during the race I'd suddenly snapped to my senses, wondering how I'd made it that far without crashing.  I've experienced that very real fear during lengthy road trips from San Diego, California, to my hometown of Coos Bay, Oregon.  But that's a 14-hour drive.  Only three hours into a videogame, though, has accelerated that feeling prematurely.

20:06 -- Entering a Zen-like racing state of mind.  Things are progressing well.  I'm watching the tree-lined shadows crawl a couple more inches across the road with each passing lap.  My trigger finger isn't complaining anymore.  I'm flipping through a stellar mix of personal albums:  Digitalism's Idealism album; These New Puritans' Beat Pyramid; Holy F*ck's LP, and Add N to (X)'s Loud Like Nature, along with the aforementioned Klaxons.  I hear a telltale blip from Xbox LIVE informing me that I've just unlocked another achievement:  Long Haul.  I've officially driven 1,000 in-game miles.

20:05 -- The achievement yoinked me out of any Zen-like race state I'd entered.  At the zig zags leading up to the stadium, I began to slow down, but forgot to start cornering.  The car explodes in a tiny fireball.  A screen of statistics tells me:

        Speed of impact:  112 mph

        Force of impact:  83.82G

        Total damage:  98%

I made it less than 17 percent of the way into 24 Heures du Mans (in the French), and a supreme feeling of relief washed over me, not even giving frustration a chance to rear its pointless head.  I walked away from the Xbox 360, headed for the garage, and wheeled out the lawn mower.

It'll probably never happen. It's a pipe dream but one that I hold on to. Capcom sees the detriment in not having it. But what if instead of having a handle for each console out there there was one unified service for online gaming? Instead of creating a PSN ID, a 360 Live Account, and distributing a friends code on the Wii we all had one single point where it held our online gaming information. We don't have to have separate friends lists separated by consoles and we can send messages across to each other no matter what machine they are playing on. Take it a step further and imagine playing Quake Wars: Enemy Territories with people on the 360, PS3, and the PC. All your statistics would be aggregated into one area no matter which platform you played on. Online football leagues would span across all platforms. You'd have a greater range of people to play against. The closest we've come to currently and in play right now are the few cross platform games of the Xbox 360 and the PC. Console makers will never go for it because they want to control the online capabilities of their machine. Unfortunatly, it's just a dream and will probably stay that way.