Earnest "Nex" Cavalli

Consider this an atypical entry in the mini-reviews canon. The beginning of 2009 signals the typical lull in gaming releases, so with nothing new flooding my mailbox I find myself focusing today on a re-release of a 14-year-old Super Nintendo game and a title only available on the iPhone. Chrono Trigger DS — $40 — […]

With the possible exception of Tawny Kitaen humping the hood of a Jaguar, nothing says “1980s Americana” like a stirring montage. Capcom’s Street Fighter series was introduced in 1987, which, as you’ll recall, was during the 1980s. And with that, my tenuous link is established. Roll the clip: Street Fighter IV is currently in arcades […]

Apology time: During December’s snowpocalypse I completely failed to mention the sublimely awesome Metal Gear Solid downloadable content pack for LittleBigPlanet. Luckily the developers at Media Molecule just dropped a handful of clever LBP/MGS mashup artwork created within the DLC pack to further promote their game (and presumably make my telling you this in January […]

Is there anything Australians can’t do? Yes, they’re all descended from rapists and warlocks, but over the last few centuries they’ve produced both Paul Hogan and Yahoo Serious — a feat only matched by Norway, for a short period in 1982. Paul Robertson, one such downunderner, has consistently put America’s finest neo-retro, pixel-based, action short […]

Japanese kids look like tiny bundles of polite joy, but like our own tow-headed American bastard spawn, given the opportunity they’d eat you and everyone you love. The only way to soothe the savage beast, as this Japanese commerical for Patapon 2 demonstrates, is to drum their little asses right into a herd of sheep. […]

Do you know what happens in the game industry on December 30 of every year? Absolutely nothing. How am I supposed to feed my family of 7 on the meager scraps The Merc throws my way if I can’t find content to offer the most attractive readers in Portland? Wm.™ Steven Humphrey lives in a […]

There’s a new movie based on the Street Fighter line of videogames headed to theaters in February with nary a Van Damme or Raul Julia in sight. Hyde Park Entertainment, the people who cajoled Capcom into handing over the rights after the last movie on the subject was widely ridiculed as worse than cancer, released […]

It’s time to face facts: Lars Ulrich’s “Kill The Internet” platform didn’t go over so well with Metallica’s key demographic of teenage social outcasts. You could almost hear the IRC channels and AOL chatrooms spring to life in a chorus of “LOLs” and “ROFLMFAOs” the moment Lars went on record against Napster. In an effort […]