, the news that Halo 2 Vista shipped with "accidental" partial nudity . The "accident" led the ESRB to issue warning labels for the game saying it contains "Partial Nudity."But what part, exactly, was nude? And how was it in the game "accidentally"? I'll let the ESRB explain after the jump, but be warned the explanation features a naked ass.

Coders Gone Wild: ESRB Comments on Halo 2's Naked Ass - Kotaku

I can't decide if this is funnier because of the fact that Halo now ships with a "Partial Nudity" sticker or because the ESRB is getting upset about the content of error messages inside the level editor. Either way, this cracked me up!

technorati tags:Halo2, ESRB, Microsoft

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The fact that I went undefeated at the First (and so far only) MAMBA Kings Guitar Hero invitational notwithstanding, I never got through much of the Hard mode on Guitar Hero 1. Guitar Hero 2 was even worse because I had waited for the 360 version and had a slightly different guitar to contend with. Then I had to send the 360 back for repair and blah, blah, blah. But recently I read some advice which changes everything about playing Guitar Hero. Maybe everyknew knew this but me, but if that's true I'll ask why the hell you didn't tell me!

You shouldn't normally hold the guitar so your finger is on the green button. Your forefinger should rest on the red button, and then your remaining fingers can cover yellow, blue, and orange. The means your middle finger rest on the yellow button, not your ring finger. (The yellow button also has the raised pip, so it's easy to find without looking.) On easy mode this is very counter-intuitive, since it only uses green, red, and yellow. But you get used to holding the guitar this way and used to reaching (with your forefinger) for green. Then you don't have to reach with your pinky for orange when you get there, and you're not using your pinky for those damnable red/blue chords.

Now, sometimes you have to shift your grip up for some complex run of green & red notes, but you should always attempt to recenter on yellow when possible.

I just tried this for the first time, and played through several songs on Easy. It took two or three songs to get where I wasn't abysmal, and it still is costing me points on Easy, but it feels better. A weird side-effect is that it cured my last remaining controller issue. I was still having trouble activating Star Power on the 360. Not that the guitar itself didn't work or anything, but my grip would slip a little bit as I swung the neck upward and I'd often miss a note. Now, the different grip seems much more solid as I activate Star Power and I can do it comfortably in the middle of a complex (well complex for Easy mode) passage. Sweet!

I'm also going to work on strumming upward as well as downward while I'm slogging through easy mode songs. Once I get back to Medium I think it will see quite a payoff!

technorati tags:GuitarHero, Xbox360

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Having engaged in many phone, email and IM back-and-forths with various people over the NPDs, as they're generally referred to, we've decided to bring some of those often unheard discussions to light with our newest occasional feature, Monday Morning Quarterback. Our first participant, and hopefully a regular, if his schedule permits, is the Game Head himself, Geoff Keighley. We profiled the prolific Keighley last year, and we're glad to have him aboard to kick things off, pitting his BlackBerry-fueled insights against our Palm-enabled observations. Sit back, strap in, and get ready for a wild ride.

Level Up : Monday Morning Quarterback: An Armchair Analysis of Videogame Sales for April 2007

This is worth reading - it's an extensive analysis of the NPD April numbers. I've been talking about this with a few friends - Tony and I have bet riding on whether there is a PS3 price drop before sometime-in-September (the exact date is a little fluid) among other conversations. The cheap takeaway is that A) PS3 sales are miserable, and B) the Wii continues to sell monstrously despite a software lineup that isn't much deeper than the PS3. Then there's the software list - dominated by the PS2.

There's no real way to look at these numbers that seem healthy, especially for third party publishers. They've already abandoned PS2, they've bet against the wacky Wii controller, and suddenly the "next-gen" market isn't really here. Oopsie!

technorati tags:VideoGames, PS3, Xbox360, NPD, analysis

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I finally decided to spend the serious cash on a serious office chair. Not some $30 hunk of plastic from Office Depot, but a real grown-up chair, one that would make me want to sit at my desk, instead of slouching off to the chaise lounges in the backyard. For the last few years I've used a hand-me-down chair that I acquired during the shutdown of Circus Freak. I don't remember if it was my actual office chair or not - I'm pretty sure it had been a conference room chair before it made it to CFS.

Out with the old!

I had been contemplating buying an Aeron, but I didn't really want to. There were several reasons. First off I don't really like the look of the Aeron. Second off, they are so mid-90s nowadays. They just scream "Web 2.0" to me, and I assume there's a marketeer lurking nearby - complete with their sob story about how they had to work so late they were in the office after six PM, and the sushi plate they ordered in wasn't even very cold! (Please note: I'm not making that anecdote up. Really happened at Accolade. It was the explanation as to why somebody was getting a "110% award".) Third, they are fussy and finicky. Fourth, even given my desire for a grown-up chair and a willingness to pay for comfort they cost about a grand. That's a lot for one chair. (And please don't start in with me about Craigslist. I want a new chair, and I want to just pick it out, order it, have it show up and not worry about any mysterious stains on it.)

Luckily I remembered Cory Doctorow talking up the Steelcase Think last fall on Boing Boing. I looked around on the web a bit and decided that A) it was the chair I wanted, and B) there was no major discount to be had compared to ordering it straight from Steelcase. They aren't super-fast, it took them about a week to fulfill my order, and a week for shipping, but I did get it last Thursday. It's smart, modern looking, color matched to my desk, and it only has four controls (counting the lumbar adjust). I like it a lot. And it came with a big huge box that makes the cats happy :-)

Most suprising thing? It's quiet. I hadn't realized how much noise the casters on my old chair make with the squeaking and grumbling until the first time I slid from my desktop over to my laptop and didn't hear any sounds.

In with the new!

technorati tags:Office, Steelcase, Think, Chair, Furniture

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Planar Chaos Auf Deutsch.JPG

These showed up in the mail yesterday. Guess the book is out in German!

technorati tags:PlanarChaos, MagicTheGathering, book

Blogged with Flock