I hate to be the only one posting here, but I digress. Anyway, lets pretend it’s SUnday and not Thursday and I’m not 4 days late and get on with the program. Anyway, this isn’t the greatest southren rap album ever. Hell, it isn’t even the group’s best album (That would be Chapter 2: World domination). However, it’s thier most important album, not only for the group, but for Memphis and the south. At the time of it’s release, it was the first album Three six as a group had put out in 3 years, since 97’s chapter 2. It was the last album before HCP came apart almost and lost Koopsta (One has to wonder why he wasn’t shown on the cover or any of the artwork, even though he was featured on several songs on the album) and Gangsta Boo (along with several others). Even though this album helped blow up Three Six mafia nationwide, the group still has yet to get thier just due. It contained the singles “Sippin on some syrup”, “Who run it”, and “Tongue Ring”, which are probably the most well-known singles released from this group. Also on this album are the songs “weak ass bitch” and “Jealous ass bitches” which take shots at all the haters jealous of thier success. Ex No limit soldiers Fiend and Mr. Serv On appear on “Touched with it”, and Insane clown possee and Twiztid appear on “Just another crazy click”. Other guests include Bigg Gipp of the goodie mob, and then-HCP members T-Rock, La Chat, and MC Mack.

This album came out in the summer of 2003. I picked it up becuase I liked the single cadalliac on 24s. I burned it and another song to my xbox hard drive and forgot about it. 2 years later, I pulled it out just to have something to bump in my ride, and I discovered how G.O.A.T this cd was. When ‘I’m serious’ came out in 2001, I thought to myself that this would be just another one of those flash-in-the-pan-flavor-of-the-month southren MCS who get a deal today and drop off the face of the earth tomorrow. Boy was I wrong. The first few lines of “I can’t quit” a song about not quitting when things get tough describes my life precisely at this point. “I still luv you”, a song apoligizing to his girl, his father, and his daughter is probably one of the deepest songs ever from an artist down below. “beezle” is a dope track featuring three of the south’s top MCs, Eightball, MJG, and Bun B, and of course “24’s” isn’t bad either (considering that’s all I bought the album for). He followed it up late 2004 with “urban legend” and that isn’t a bad LP either. (I might even take a look at that later) TI earned some animosity when he proclaimed himself the King of the south(See Beef 3), but If he keeps dropping stuff like he has been, then hey may have very well earned that title.

Brett Ratner’s bid to doom the franchise!
Ok, maybe not. Take away what I know about the movie from spy reports and this actually looks good. Not as killer as that first X2 teaser with Holst’s “Mars” playing over the footage of the army invading the masion all with Magneto’s voice-over… but its still decent. Nerd note: Vinnie Jones as Juggernaut in Magneto’s army doesn’t make sense since he isn’t a mutant. But if we got organic webshooters, we’ll get this and no-one will probably care too much.
The Xverse has some nice caps of the trailer if you can’t watch it for whatever reason. I already made myself a new desktop celebrating the infamous Magneto quote from the X-Men Arcade game: Welcome To Die!

New Game Informer magazine (Splinter Cell cover) has a 6 page story about the X3 game from Activision. 3 playable characters: Wolverine (obviously), Iceman (cool!), and Nightcrawler (huh?).
The game itself bridges the gap between 2 and 3, and will feature missions returning to Alkali lake to salvage bits from Stryker’s Cerebro to fix the one damaged during the assault on the mansion. Wolvie also meets up with Deathstryke who’s survived, and will go to Japan (Silver Samurai?). His levels will be brawlers, taking on many enemies and taking cover only long enough to heal before pounding through more enemies.
Iceman gets very fast paced levels as he’ll race around using that ice surfing trick I loved so much from the old Spiderman show. Looks like his levels will use some Sonic the Hedgehog type stuff. one of the screen shots show him using an ice blast against a fire engulfing a nuclear plant (likely Pyro’s handywork).
Nightcrawler’s levels will supposedly set his story out away from the action of X3, hopefully explaining away why he’s not in the movie. He gets *bamf* around people, kicking them in the back and also sneak around.

Movie games are SO hit and miss these days, which is better than they used to be, which was all miss. Though I know I should prepare for another ass game linked to what may very well be an ass movie, x2 was too kind to me to just abandon it now. I still saw Batman Forever after all, but learned my lesson by Batman & Robin.

IGN has the video presentation.
thoughts from nintendo power writer Steve Thomason
and of course, The Powet forum

While the world is still collectively reeling from this and everyone has blogged their opinion, I’ll toss in mine as well.

It is quite obvious to me that Nintendo has given up the battle with Sony and Microsoft. They cannot win playing by the rules that they themselves established 20 years ago. They went back to the drawing board and released the DS, which is literally a drawing board. It took some time to take off and start to find its niche, and it looks like great and inventive games are out or coming out soon for the DS. They’re truly making the PSP look like just a portable video player or just a portable playstation.

So now theres their new console, which they’re losing ground to the imperially established Sony and the increasingly aggressive Microsoft. They took a look at the competition and realized that if they couldn’t beat them they could at least shake up their own future enough so that they don’t even appear to be in competition anymore.

And thats whats happened. Nintendo is out of the race and in a class by themselves now. Third Party support for the gamecube was dwindling because the cube wasn’t capable of anything the PS2 or Xbox was. So now they have a console and a portable that make direct ports to other systems impossible! And, any game ported over from another system will have to be heavily reworked to make use of unique control schemes. This is it! Back to the days of the NES and Gameboy where the entire lineup is exclusive.

Weird control configurations are now standard in Arcades now. Sure, Tekken 5 is munching quarters without having anything original in control (hell you can plug a PS2 controller into the cabinet to use instead of the stick!), but the rest of the arcade is sit down racers, gun games, and dance games. And skee ball. But all of those offer control and experience unavailable on a home system (home racing wheels and guns are never as good anyway, and standard dance mats are considered a joke). Its that “I can’t play this at home” thing that keeps arcades open now, and Nintendo is going for an audience that will quickly realize that “hey, this game is not possible on Xbox 360 or PS3!”

Of course we still haven’t seen a Revolution game. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed this controller wasn’t premeired with a new Mario or something. And thats the only thing that can prove the concept. Possibilities are endless, but I remember how Mario 64 proved the analog stick to be a great idea. Revolution still has a chance to prove to the haters who say Nintendo has lost their minds as well as satisfy those who have been smoking the company dope for years. And if Nintendo has their way, they’ll also get people who’ve never gone into gaming before.

To add on to what’s below me, here’s another classic arcade compiliation from Midway, makers of the Mortal Kombat Series. Volume 2 is also available, and volume 3 will be out later this fall. This game pack has a lot of classic games from the 70s to the 80s including Joust, Defender, Klax, and paperboy. Xbox owners can post thier scores to the Xbox live leader boards. It also includes old advertisements and promotion material. So, if you are looking for an addition to your xbox collection on the cheap, or just want to show the kiddies what real games were like, pick this, as well as volume 2 up. For more retro fun, pick up Namco museum 50th anniversary comming next wee for all 3 major systems, and watch for upcomming compiliations from Tecmo and Taito later this year.