We're a geek culture podcast and blog covering video games, music, food and more. We are the kinds of people who evangelize whatever we are into - it could be anything - but it's usually pretty geeky.
posted by Chris on April 30, 2007 9:52 AM in Games
Well, maybe 2 and a half games. Still quite impressive! Microsoft just announced that this Wednesday not only will you be able to download the classic arcade goodness that is Centipede and Millipede, but Catan as well! If you aren't familiar with Catan it's a board game from Europe which is apparently quite addicting.
With Nintendo and Sony's often anemic offerings with their download services, it's quite cool to see some really unique stuff coming to the Xbox Live Arcade. I mean, obscure German board games?! Fantastic. Any of you Geekateers going to grab up these delicious nuggets of gaming?
Guys, I'm so excited. The full trailer for Ratatouille was released a couple days ago. In case you've been living under a rock, Ratatouille (rat-a-too-ee) is the next upcoming film from the golden gods over at Pixar.
The basic premise is that there's a rat named Remy in Paris who wants to be a great chef. And beyond that, all you need to know is that it stars Patton Oswalt, it's directed by Brad Bird (of The Iron Giant and The Incredibles), and it's friggin' Pixar.
Oh, and if that wasn't enough, it's also got Peter O'Toole and Ian Holm.
I am such a Pixar fanboy and I am not ashamed.
John Lasseter is the reincarnation of Walt Disney. What is his secret? Did he drink Disney's stem cells? Why is Pixar so goddamned awesome?
We geeks sure do love our tee-vee. When we aren't using the boxes to play our favorite electronic distractions, we are watching riveting series. We are obsessive in our television watching, renting season after season of our favorite shows from Netflix and watching hours in one sitting. Television is arguably better than movies these days, and to prove that here is The Weekly Geek's list of the Top 5 TV shows of all time. Cue up your queue and get crackin'. Full lists after the jump.
posted by Chris on April 26, 2007 8:17 AM in Games
Well, it seems the rumors are true. Yesterday Joystiq reported that English-named Pokémon were big in Japan, being traded over the Nintendo WFC for rare or high level Japanese ones. I tested this theory last night by putting up my level 6 Buneary named "Your Mom". This morning what did I wake up to? A shiny new Chimchar. Being that I selected a Turtwig as my starting Pokémon, this is quite the boon. I put up a Magikarp named "Engrish" to see if I can get a Piplup. Cross your fingers (or just try it yourself!)
Apparently this is because the Japanese players cannot input English characters to name their Pokémon, so being a culture literally obsessed with the concept of novelty they snatch them up right quick. If you try this, post in the comments what you traded and what you got back! We'd love to know.
What constitutes a good chair for gaming? Two main issues spring to mind: portability and flexibility - you can move it to whatever room or area or spot you want to game in and it has to be easy to sit in for long gaming sessions and not start to be uncomfortable. In the past this has been relegated to the world of bean bag chairs, but most lose their shape too quickly, or are made of cheap stuff. Like sawdust, I dunno. Maybe you have a cozy couch to game in, or maybe you have some strange contraption you created out of pine needles and glue. Throw all that crap away and get yourself a Sumo. What's this? Chris is being a shill for a company? Hells yes. Not only is the Sumo Omni beanbag chair the best beanbag chair in the universe, it's also the best gaming chair hands down. It's made with teensy microbeads that are durable, rip stop fabric that is easy to wipe all your sweaty friend's gunk off of, and they can be folded into various positions to fit the look and shape of your gaming space.
Click the jump to see some pictures of my gaming area setup, and how the Sumo chairs actually fit into the whole equation.
Installation artist Aram Bartholl recently (well, in 2004) created a series of life-size crates from Counter-Strike and watched as people reacted to the pixel-perfect recreations. From the site:
The constantly recurrent textures are immaculate and constant, they never wear out. Blood and corpses dissolve by themselves into virtual thin air after few seconds. The crate, which is always the same, is an image map called “de_dust“, one of many changing game scenarios which appear frequently in varying sizes. The desert scenario imitates the appearance of certain countries or regions but remains locationless within its restricted spaces. The game design transforms the wooden crate into a generic, duplicatable and locationless object.
I don't know if I would think twice seeing something like this crate out in the real world. Would you?
posted by Mike on April 23, 2007 12:25 PM in Music
After twelve years of existence, Chicago-based band Wilco is set to launch their sixth studio LP Sky Blue Sky in May. The five previous releases have run the gamut from straightforward Stones-based Southern Rock (Being There) to highly experimental Noise Folk (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot). This time though, the seasoned vets take one melodic step forward and two sonic steps back.
posted by Chris on April 22, 2007 6:49 PM in Podcast
On this week's podcast, The Geek and Chris "Frodo" Furniss are joined by Colette Bennett from DESTRUCTOID as they discuss games being blamed for violence, Extreme Home Makeover, Mortal Kombat going serious, the long dialog of Okami and Super Paper Mario, and Harry Potter. Also included is a discussion about whether or not you should die in a well-designed game. SUPER BONUS ROUND: voicemail! Download the podcast here or subscribe. You know you want to.
In order to present a more tangible taste of the music reviews here on The Weekly Geek, we now have an imeem account that will allow us to share full songs from past, present, and future music features. Hurrah! Obviously, we’ll still be doing the quarterly music podcasts for commentary purposes, but the limitations imposed on us by the Fair Use Act doesn’t provide an accurate glimpse of the songs we snapshot. (How much can we really point out in 30 second clips?!?) This will hopefully be a much more efficient way to portray our listening habits and turn you on to some new tunes.
Did you know that The Weekly Geek, both in blog and podcast form, is done on a completely ZERO budget, with no corporate sponsors? This is not a lie! Though we like to pretend we are living large, we certainly do not. We just have years of experience making the most out of what little pocket money we can scrounge up, and from the support of our listeners.
We just want to take this time to thank all of you who have supported the site in the past and want to encourage anyone who hasn't to drop a buck or two in the tip jar. This goes to web hosting and bandwidth fees and podcasting supplies like microphones and software.
If you want something tangible in return for your support, why not check out our high quality video game prints in the store? They are all hand made and limited edition.
There are other ways you can support the site without having to pull out your wallet, including clicking on any of Caspian's iTunes links and purchasing songs from the iTunes store. Or clicking on Google ads. Or by clicking any of our affiliate banners.
Heck, even if you just sent a link to one friend, we'd be more than grateful.
posted by Chris on April 20, 2007 11:18 AM in Games
Ever wonder what it would be like if Radiohead got a copy of Flash and started making games? Jason Nelson brings you what I think is the most accurate representation of this concept in Game Game Game and Again Game. This strange game/poem/thing features seemingly random text, strange platforming elements and great ambient music(?).
It's hard to explain. Play through the 13 levels and enjoy.
posted by Chris on April 19, 2007 11:41 AM in Games
Every Wednesday brings delicious new games to the Xbox Live Arcade. Last Wednesday was Gyruss and some 3d Minigolf game (congratulations to Brian for guessing correctly, your prize is in the mail). What are we gonna get this week?
All you have to do is post in the comments what you think is going to go up on Xbox Live Arcade next Wednesday and if you get it correct, we will send you a code to unlock the game. Comments will be closed before the official press releases are sent out, so no cheating!
Get guessing! Once guess per person. If you guess twice, you are disqualified. Duplicate guesses are on a first come, first served basis.
UPDATE: No winners this time as it was announced that Eets and Pinball FX are being released! Try again next week!
Super Paper Mario is the latest (and hotly anticipated) title in Intelligent Systems' Paper Mario series, this time departing from the quirky RPG formula in favor of a quirky platformer with RPG elements. This isn't to say it's a bad thing, but it's also not a great thing. The Super Mario RPG series (even starting way back when with Square's SNES title) has always been a game for the fans. Filled with in-jokes, fun puzzles, secrets galore and great action, it has a little bit of everything for real Nintendo lovers.
The plot actually departs from the typical Mario setup (though not the typical Paper Mario setup, sadly). [Villain who is not Bowser] kidnaps [something] and has an [insert devious plot here]. [Villain] is bumbling and slightly silly but has a [secret past]. Mario must set out and save [town name] from [villain].
Sure the plot is a bit tired, but does the crazy cool paper art style and clever dialog make up for it? Does the merging of RPG and platformer work well, or is it like the N-Gage, trying to be two things at once, and not doing either very well? Hit the jump for the full review.
posted by Chris on April 18, 2007 7:41 AM in Games
What do you do when every game store within a 50 mile radius has run out of Wii Remotes and your friends are demanding (demanding!) to play Wii Sports together? Well, those crazy Italians from the Interaction Design Venice workshop have it all figured out apparently. Make your own!
During one intensive week students built their own Wii remote (Wiimote) and designed original Wii mini-games, learning a bit of electronics, rapid prototyping and game interaction design in the process. See how they did it and build your own!
I am quite impressed that the homebrew community has done SO MUCH with the Wii remote. People have used it to control games on their PCs, they have hacked the sensor bar to use candles, made wireless sensor bars, even used Wii remotes to control robotic arms. Even though we have a massive game drought that we will most likely just have to get used to, the innovation is pouring out of people.
posted by Mike on April 16, 2007 12:33 PM in Music
Owen Pallett makes the most confusingly fantastic brand of composition- hinging and teetering from Indie Folk to pseudo-Tchaikovsky pieces and furthering what can only be called Baroque Pop from the charted territory of Harry Nilsson and Van Dyke Parks. It would be original enough if he had the assistance of three philharmonic mercenaries to pull it off, but for the live arrangements (at least) he is the quartet. Aided by his violin, a bottle of Stella Artois, and a loop station, a YouTube bootleg shows Pallett sampling himself up to five layers thick on some songs- difficult enough for the average rock musician, let alone someone pulling off symphony worthy string passages.
Please email frodo@weeklygeekshow.com so we can get you your code when the game is released. Didn't get a chance to enter? Check out next Thursday when we do another edition of the Weekly Xbox Live Arcade Psychic Giveawayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy *fades into black*.
In the realm of completely awesome things Microsoft is doing these days (except Vista cuz it sux lol), the big M is sponsoring a television pilot contest. From the press release:
Microsoft Corp. and the New York Television Festival (NYTVF) today announced the Xbox LIVE® Originals contest, granting aspiring television producers the opportunity to create a pilot that could be chosen for the first original series developed specifically for the Xbox LIVE online gaming and entertainment network. Microsoft will award the winning entrant a $100,000 budget and an opportunity for a six-episode commitment to air the television series on Xbox LIVE, the largest social network in the living room. The pilot episode of the winning series is scheduled to debut this fall at the third annual NYTVF, the industry’s first showcase for independent television, before being featured exclusively on Xbox LIVE, home to a community of more than 6 million people worldwide. This marks the first time that user-created entertainment content will be available worldwide for download exclusively on Xbox LIVE.
It's in line with what we have all been saying these companies like Nintendo and Microsoft should be doing with their online networks - open them up for independent content. While I am sure they are going to have to wade through some poop, I would love to see what people come up with and what they finally choose. Will they pick a cheesy sitcom? Tetris Machinima? A Jackass-style show with IN GAME STUNTS? Don't touch that dial, tune in to this station to find out.
If you happen to be in the LA area (West Hollywood specifically) check out the i am 8 bit art show opening April 17th. The opening is from 7-11PM and is usually a grand old time. Apparently there is going to be a GIANT ATARI JOYSTICK (that works!). From the release:
...over 100 artists will reinterpret images, characters and scenes from our favorite old school 1980's video games, including Travis Lampe's "Sad Joust" seen above. Look and purchase new and other original video game masterpieces from Joe Ledbetter, Amy Sol, Luke Chueh, Roland Tamayo, Erik Alos, Matt Dangler, Greg "Craola" Simkins, Bob Dob, Jose Emroca Flores and many, many more. This exhibit is packed with some of the best work this gallery have ever seen, as well as some new prints from favorites from prior years.
I checked out the first year of this event, and was impressed by a lot of the pieces. What I wasn't so impressed with was the fact that the show wasn't open to submissions. All the artists are local LA artists with ties to the gallery in some way, and many of them aren't even part of the actual video game art scene. Being part of that scene myself, I was slightly offended I didn't get a chance to get showcased in such a high profile show, but such is life.
Get cultured and go see some art. 8 Bit Weapon is playing too.
posted by Chris on April 15, 2007 7:30 PM in Podcast
This week, The Geek and Chris "Frodo" Furniss discuss why you shouldn't see the Transformers movie (it's not for you), how to possibly rip off Gamestop in theory maybe, some notable Wii releases (Super Paper Mario forevaaaah) and the Guitar Hero II downloadable song price-gouging going on. Will you enjoy it? Probably! Subscribe now, download it here, whatever your flavor.
I realize it's entirely too premature to post a positive follow-up article announcing the "success" of my Xbox 360 repair. However, I did find a few interesting pieces of informative ammunition during my process with Microsoft's Support Team.
So to fill in the gaps: I posted my Ring of Death Rant. Our friends at Joystiq relayed my post and raked in 189 comments from other plagued Microsoft patrons. A few days later, I sent a polite plea to Arne at Microsoft's Marketing Unit who explained to me that it was their policy to help members of press have operable machines- warranty or no warranty. He also notified me that they've upped their standard warranty length from 90 days to 1 Year.
We all know that large chain game stores are pretty much the bane of gamers. It's a fairly universal experience among our kind to receive crappy treatment at our local GameEBcrazystop. Once in a while, you'll run into a few decent employees peppered around these franchises, but for the most part, people who work at these stores annoy you with constant pushing of pre-orders and membership cards. Many times, they'll hassle you for returning or exchanging a game even if you do it within the limited guidelines of their own store policies. I've even heard stories of game store employees telling their customers that their choice of purchase is stupid and that they should get something else. On top of all this, their used games programs are pretty much just thinly veiled extortion, buying used games from you for 10-15 bucks at most and selling them back to someone else for only 5 dollars less than new.
However, depending on participation in your area, there is a small, petty yet satisfying and legal way to get back at them.
posted by Chris on April 12, 2007 10:56 AM in Games
Welcome to a brand-new Weekly Geek contest feature! Each week we are going to hold a contest to see which one of you Weekly Geekateers are psychic. Each Thursday tune in to this spot to have a chance at the prize. All you have to do is post in the comments what you think is going to go up on Xbox Live Arcade next Wednesday and if you get it correct, we will send you a code to unlock the game. Comments will be closed before the official press releases are sent out, so no cheating!
Get guessing! Once guess per person. If you guess twice, you are disqualified. Duplicate guesses are on a first come, first served basis.
Overview: You know it, you love it. It's Guitar Hero. Now for the Xbox 360, this version features an all-new X-Plorer controller and 70 tracks (some of which aren't on the PS2 version). Also featuring downloadable content, this is the definitive version of Guitar Hero II. It's fun and difficult, the multiplayer is solid and the achievements come steadily. But how is the controller? Song selection? How does it look? Do you still get that weird optical illusion where everything is slowly moving upward after a song? The answer to most of these questions and the rest of the review after the jump.
We all have our guilty pleasures. Whether you like to listen to Britney Spears or love watching Pokémon movies, we all have interests that may possibly get us beat up if said interests were revealed on the playground. One of the mainstream complaints about Nintendo, for example, is that the games are too "kiddy". From the "Celda" flame wars when Wind Waker was announced to a general aversion to Kirby games, irrational loathing for colorful, fun titles is completely absurd. There are some truly excellent titles out there if you get past the marketing, and here is a couple lists compiled by us Geeks especially for you. If you avoided any of these games because you thought your friends would call you gay or something, now is the time to suck it up and enjoy some incredibly good titles.
posted by Chris on April 11, 2007 9:18 AM in Games
Aww yeah. From the creators of the super excellent Geometry Wars comes Boom Boom Rocket, released today on the Xbox Live Arcade. Boom Boom Rocket is described as DDR for your fingers and if the published screens and videos are any indication, it's going to be just as addictive as DDR and Geometry Wars combined. Pick it up on XBLA today for 800 points ($10).
posted by Chris on April 9, 2007 12:10 PM in Games
Everybody's favorite chainsaw bayoneting game gets a big content update today! At 4:00 PM PST, Gears of War gets a brand new king of the hill-style multiplayer mode called "Annex". Also included in the update are a few general maintenance things, such as not accidentally taking cover so much during a roadie run. Unfortunately the update did not include some sort of "douchebag" filter to help you weed out the awful people you will eventually encounter online.
I will be online later to check out the brand new mode (like everyone else. Here's to hoping there's no lag!). So if you'd like to test out Annex with me, add Frodeaux to your list.
posted by Chris on April 9, 2007 11:26 AM in Games
Wow. Talk about a rad idea. This guy replaced most of the textures from Super Mario 64 with classic NES mario stuff. Bricks look blockier, pipes look old-school and even Mario is sporting the classic brown-ish overall ensemble. This is exactly the kind of thing Nintendo should be doing for the Virtual Console. Too bad they won't.
Connor Oberst, however whiney and misunderstood, you felt would eventually find a niche out of sheer prolificacy. His 2005 effort I’m Wide Awake, Its Morning seemed, at the time, a happy accident- a departure from his typical Emo/Folk ramblings and a venturing risk into the Country territory of his Omaha upbringing. Admittedly, if he was going out on a limb, it was a pretty thick one. He recruited famed siren Emmylou Harris for backing vocals and with tunes like the Cash-soaked “Another Travelin’ Song” Oberst was a padlock fit for making country marketable to the underground.
Cassadaga (hitting stores and iTunes tomorrow), Connor’s latest undertaking, is named after a city in Florida that has the highest population of clairvoyants. While on a recent episode of NPR’s All Songs Considered, Oberst said he was given a reading in Cassadaga that gave him peace of mind about his alignment with the universe. It doesn’t take a psychic to see that his contentment has translated positively to his songwriting and style choice.
The first single from the album and the inspiration for his last EP “Four Winds” is an obvious standout from the first play. Featuring amazing fiddle player Anton Patsner (who Oberst discovered playing metal cover songs on violin outside a Cursive concert in San Francisco), Bright Eyes’ polarizing lyrics find shelter in sweet Opry-worthy harmonies and the quintessential backwoods jangle of his own acoustic guitar. I highly doubt this song would get him pelted off the stage in any club in the nation, except maybe the one in the video.
Ahh Spring. The time when a young man's fancy turns to... ignoring his girlfriend and playing video games. It's been in the rumor bin for a while, but finally we get to find out what is in store for us with the BIG XBOX LIVE SPRING UPDATE. On May 7th, Live users will be treated to more in-game distractions with the integration of Windows Messenger and Xbox Live. Yes, that's right. Full integration of IM and chat, right in your console, further blurring the line between PC and video game system.
In addition to being annoyed by your friends even more than you already are, Microsoft announced that the update will actually show what achievement you unlock as it happens. Some games already sort of support this, but it will be nice to not have to go to the menu and check the achievements list to see what you just got.
Also this summer they promise a QWERTY input device that connects directly to your controller, so no more clunky USB keyboards for you! Other things were announced as well, so why don't you just hit the jump to find out what they were?
posted by Chris on April 9, 2007 6:15 AM in Podcast
This week The Geek and Frodo (now known by the clever Internet moniker "Chris Furniss") rant about why April Fool's Day sucks, the virtues of Guitar Hero II for the Xbox 360 (and why unlocking things is excellent), Super Paper Mario, Red vs. Blue ending, Subway and the bullshit obesity epidemic, Steven Colbert's ice cream, using Mitch Hedburg quotes in real life, and then finally in the end Chris sells out. Download the podcast now or subscribe in your favorite reader. You do have a favorite reader, don't you? Click the thing for show notes.
As a chubby guy, I am a big fan of tasty desserts such as ice cream. I am also a big fan of The Colbert Report. So imagine my delight when I found that these two seemingly unrelated items were coming together in a whirlwind tour de force of sugary proportions. Enter Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream from Ben and Jerry. The legendary ice cream duo have created a special flavor in honor of America's favorite pundit. Can this new taste sensation stand up to the grand tradition of being named for Stephen, following such other worthy namesake receipients as a Hungarian bridge and a baby eagle? Tonight's edition of The Word is "click the jump."
Groundbreaking machinima series Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles is set to end at episode 100, a recent Rooster Teeth forum post states. The round number does seem like a good time to end it, and if you haven't checked out Red vs. Blue before, now is a great time! It is surprisingly funny, even if you don't play Halo like the rest of the world.
Somewhere in Tucson, Arizona Joey Burns, John Covertino & Co. are using their uncanny foresight to plan their next collaboration. Whatever they decide, it'll ultimately turn to Southwestern Gold. Looking back at the last three years of music, I'm realizing that all my favorite song moments had one thing in common- a member of the band Calexico was part of the recording. The ironic part is that none of these songs are on a proper Calexico album. My latest theory is that they relish being the mercenary types (and they're probably not even getting paid for it).
Take the bungee jump for my three highlighted Calexico moments.
Owen Pallet (better known as the artist Final Fantasy, arranger of amazing orchestrations for Arcade Fire) released an album in 2006 called He Poos Clouds. Which should be enough for you to go out and buy the album alone. The title track is filled with game references including the lines "gotta find and kill my shadow self/ gotta dig up every secret seashell" (Link's Awakening reference! yay!) and stating that "Every boy I have ever loved has been digital".
Today must just be Gay Day here at The Weekly Geek. Check out the video for He Poos Clouds here. Not only is it about video games, it's quite excellent!
I just can't stop listening to this album. For serious.
Astute Weekly Geek listener Wade sent this in this morning, apparently after visiting our MySpace account, assumptions were made about his sexual preferences. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
If there's one fluid we love the most here at The Weekly Geek, it's ferrofluid. The magnetic fluid is alien and almost magical in nature, and it can be sculpted by magnets. There's a ton of rad videos on this viscous liquid on YouTube, and the cool guys over at Boing Boing have directed us to this little gem. Enjoy. SCIENCE!
Full disclosure: I am a Quiznos guy. Their sandwiches, though still fast food and utter shit, are way less shitty than Subway's sandpaper and barkdust special. In a recent ad, Subway's advertising agency proves themselves completely out of touch by showing a fat kid playing video games and just getting fatter.
How could you make this commercial work? Make it funnier. I say when the kid in the game eats the junk food, have the kid in the commercial get exponentially more fat, Mr. Creosote style. Then have Jared come in and stab the kid in his weather balloon-sized stomach with a sandwich, letting all the fat out in a torrent rivaling a fire hose.
posted by Chris on April 2, 2007 7:34 PM in Podcast
This week Frodo went to Disneyland and The Geek didn't! So they talk about that in this week's podcast. But that's not all! Frodo endorses Meet the Robinsons, both applaud EMI for their DRM-free iTunes songs and they talk about the announcement of Rock Band (the game). The mailbag is opened, and last but not least: a rant about spam. It truly is a fulfilling episode of The Weekly Geek. Download it here, or subscribe to it. Notes after the beep.
EA, MTV and Harmonix took a moment from their insipid love fest to announce something incredibly cool and exciting. Rock Band! It is apparently going to be using guitar, bass, drum and microphone peripherals and will span all genres with master recordings of most of the songs. An official website has been launched which you can see here.
This seems to go hand in hand with EA's announcement of more music partnerships, and is the big secret project we have all been waiting for from the creators of Guitar Hero. Hopefully EA doesn't crap it up. More details as they come to us. Maybe we will see a playable version at E3?
Unfortunately for the Wii, it's only for PLAYSTATION 3 and Xbox 360. Another nail in the coffin. Full release after the jump.
Eliot Van Buskirk over at Wired's Listening Post brought up a topic this morning that's been on my mind since the "Enhanced CD" days in the late 90s. That is: Why hasn't the music industry upgraded their ideas on album art?
Let's face it- the physical CD and liner note sleeves are little more than a waste of plastic and paper at this point. Besides just being conscientious of our home planet, dragging album art into the digital age could bring the music loving consumer a whole lot more content for the price of their download.
The Weekly Geek is done on a zero budget, with no funding other than ads and merch. Help support the site with a donation! Consider it like tipping your waiter. We also give gifts for larger donations.
Installation artist Aram Bartholl recently (well, in 2004) created a series of life-size crates from Counter-Strike and watched as people reacted to the pixel-perfect recreations. From the site:
Super Paper Mario is the latest (and hotly anticipated) title in Intelligent Systems' Paper Mario series, this time departing from the quirky RPG formula in favor of a quirky platformer with RPG elements. This isn't to say it's a bad thing, but it's also not a great thing. The Super Mario RPG series (even starting way back when with Square's SNES title) has always been a game for the fans. Filled with in-jokes, fun puzzles, secrets galore and great action, it has a little bit of everything for real Nintendo lovers. 
We all know that large chain game stores are pretty much the bane of gamers. It's a fairly universal experience among our kind to receive crappy treatment at our local GameEBcrazystop. Once in a while, you'll run into a few decent employees peppered around these franchises, but for the most part, people who work at these stores annoy you with constant pushing of pre-orders and membership cards. Many times, they'll hassle you for returning or exchanging a game even if you do it within the limited guidelines of their own store policies. I've even heard stories of game store employees telling their customers that their choice of purchase is stupid and that they should get something else. On top of all this, their used games programs are pretty much just thinly veiled extortion, buying used games from you for 10-15 bucks at most and selling them back to someone else for only 5 dollars less than new.
Groundbreaking machinima series Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles is set to end at episode 100, a recent Rooster Teeth forum post states. The round number does seem like a good time to end it, and if you haven't checked out 
EA, MTV and Harmonix took a moment from their insipid love fest to announce something incredibly cool and exciting. Rock Band! It is apparently going to be using guitar, bass, drum and microphone peripherals and will span all genres with master recordings of most of the songs. An official website has been launched which you can see 