The last time I tried to watch Blade Runner was ten years ago, and its slow pace was unable to retain my attention. To this day, I've never seen director Ridley Scott's masterpiece all the way through.

I'm beginning to rethink this hole in my cinematic education, as both it and its director have made a variety of headlines this year. Blade Runner's 25th anniversary edition hit theaters in 2007, prompting an interview by Xbox Live's Major Nelson, of all people. (That conversation occurs from time indices 48:33 to 52:48 in the linked podcast.) Though it seemed an unlikely meeting of the gaming and film fronts, such reoccurred a few days later when Scott was attached to an upcoming game-to-film adaptation: Monopoly.

Then, courtesy Slashdot, came 1UP.com's look at Blade Runner's influence on video games. Rather than a general look at the two media, the crux of the two-page article occurs on the second page, which outlines eight specific games with obvious stylistic homages to Scott's opus. Some memorable selections include a title for the Apple II; the best adaptation I've encountered of the pen-and-paper RPG Shadowrun; and the newly-released Mass Effect.

With all these confluences, maybe it's time I go back and give Blade Runner a second chance. Or maybe I should read the book instead. In the meantime, I'll observe the influence of the anniversary in my own special way — with a viewing of Aliens vs. Predator.

Today's The Joy of Tech proposes why Nintendo can't ship enough Wiis. It is rather astounding that a console that shipped a year, a month, and two days ago still can't be found on store shelves. I don't think the shortage is manufactured, though it's certainly saved Nintendo the cost of marketing.

I never had a problem getting my Wii: waiting in line for an hour before GameStop opened one October morning guaranteed me #12 of the 14 Wiis they were promised for launch day. It's the first and only time I've ever waited in line outside a store for a product. What about you — is everyone here getting (and giving!) what they want for the holidays? To what extremes have you gone to get your goodies?

No less a genius than Mike Nelson, criminal mastermind behind Mystery Science Theater 3000 and RiffTrax, is blogging about his PlayStation 3. He ostensibly picked one up as a Blu-Ray player — and, of course, had to put it through its paces with some PS3 titles. More recently, he's had trouble getting its firmware to live up to its advertised DivX support. When you want your entertainment news liberally sprinkled with hijinx and non sequiturs, the RiffTrax blog is becoming the place to go!

The news and rumor mills are abuzz about Star Trek XI, which releases to theaters nationwide exactly one year and one week from today. As a hardcore Trekkie and a hardcore console gamer, I thought I knew all there was to know about the myriad intersections of those two media… so it was a pleasant surprise to stumble across LostLevels.org review of an 8-bit Nintendo version of Star Trek V. The game sounds as painful as the movie, so I'm grateful to experience it only vicariously — though how Lost Levels got the ROM to provide us with this service, I'll never know. Check out the awful photo gallery while you're there!

Via Slashdot comes Games Radar's article on twelve iPod-worthy video game tunes. Highlighting mostly recent soundtracks such as Portal and Metal Gear Solid 3, the list represents how far we've come from the 8-bit era (which definitely has its own appeal). Games Rader supplies one-minute sample clips of each of the twelve tunes, with the full versions reserved for the context of the original games or their CDs when available (we must obey copyright, after all).

The list prompted me to consider what selections are top-ranked in my iTunes library's "Soundtrack (Game)" genre, which currently contains 40 albums and 361 songs. Here are some notable four- and five-star choices:

• Silent Hill 3's "You're Not Here" (with lead-in "Lost Carol")
  
• Tracks 3-5 and 8 on the imported orchestration of Dragon Quest IV (perhaps not eligible, since it isn't the original soundtrack)
  
• Ending Theme from Final Fantasy VIII — a lousy game with good music.
  
• Tracks 7 & 19 from Intelligent Qube. And no, my copy of this rare and awesome puzzler is not for sale.
  
• Kitty-N's theme, "Bust a Groove", from the game of the same name.
  
• "Magical Dreamers" from Chrono Cross.
  

As suggested by one of the above entries, the best video game music is often orchestrated adaptations of RPG music. I've recently purchased both Dragon Quest in Concert and 20020220 (the latter available from the iTunes Store), representing both my favorite role-playing series, and often have them on continuous loop while at work, transporting my mind to other realms even as I dwell in a mundane cubicle environment…

What about you — what are some of your favorite tunes?

I'd previously outlined the many online wares available for the three major consoles. Here, I'd like to review my current favorite: Pac-Man: Championship Edition.

Now, this may be blasphemy around here, but I was never a big fan of the original.  This isn't to say that I disliked it — I liked it just fine — it's just that for me, it was nothing more than an occasional five-minute diversion.  Dodge the ghosts, eat the pellets, eat the power pellets for a bit of revenge, and repeat: quick cheap fun while you're waiting for your food at the local recreation center, and that's about it.

Pac-Man: Championship Edition changes all that.  The game is still simple fun, but by making a few changes, it's also added levels of depth for those who really want to get into it.

What changes are those?

1. Evolving levels.  Instead of eating all of the pellets to proceed to the next level, the level morphs as you eat pellets.  Levels are split into a left side and a right side.  Clear all the pellets on one side, and a piece of fruit will appear on the opposite side.  Eat the fruit, and the cleared side will refresh with a new layout, more pellets, and maybe some power pellets.  No pesky level transitions to interrupt the action.
2. Adaptable difficulty.  The longer you stay alive, the faster everything gets; die, and the speed slows down a bit.
3. New scoring system.  Eat many pellets without dying to increase the points given per pellet.  Chain power pellets together (eat the next power pellet before the first one runs out) to gain more points with each consecutive ghost eaten.  Eat a lot of fruit to unlock higher point fruit.
4. Time limit.  The goal is no longer to last as long as possible, but to get as many points as possible within the allotted time, thus encouraging more aggressive play and maing the experience that much more exciting.
5. Five additional modes, each with a different level style and time limit.  The standard Championship Mode has a wide variety of level designs and a five-minute time limit.  There's also a speedway mode (five-minute time limit, long straightways, all sprites are on maximum speed all the time); a dark mode (10 minutes, only the walls immediately around Pac-Man & the ghosts are lit up); feast and famine (the stages go back and forth from having a ton of power pellets to having none); small to big (10 minutes, stages start out confined and steadily become more open); and variety (10 minutes, variety of stage designs).

Throw in some subtly enhanced visuals & audio (improved but with plenty of retro appeal) and online leaderboards to track your scores, and you have a game that appeals to both casual and hardcore gamers.  The casual gamer will enjoy trying out the different modes and just trying to survive for the entire time limit, whle the hardcore gamer will spend hours mastering the different modes, trying out new strategies (do I focus on ghost chains or try to clear the pellets as fast as possible? focus on one side of the screen or both sides equally?), and trying to get the best scores on the worldwide leaderboards.  Pac-Man: Championship Edition is the perfect example of how you successfully update a classic game.  At a mere $10 to download, there's no excuse not to buy it if you own an Xbox 360 and if you don't already own an Xbox 360, it's a good incentive to get one.  It's easily one of my picks for one of the top 10 best games of 2007.

The current console generation has brought many additions to the gaming experience — high definition visuals, motion sensing controls, downloadable expansion packs, widespread online gaming — but by far my favorite addition to the console arena this generation has been the addition of cheap downloadable games.  All of the major systems have their own version: Wii has the Virtual Console where for $5-$10, you can download great games from the NES, Genesis, SNES, N64, TurboGraphx-16, Neo Geo, and more. Early next year, the Wii will also have a channel from which original games can be downloaded.  The PS3 has the PlayStation Store, where there are a few good original games (I hear Super Stardust HD and Everyday Shooter are especially good) for around $10, and some original PS1 games for $6-$10.  The especially nice thing is that the PS1 game downloads work on the PSP: I can think of quite a fun old PS1 games that I'd love to have on a portable system at $10 or less a pop.  Finally, the Xbox 360 has the Xbox Live Arcade where original games and ports (often upgraded) generally come out at $5-$10 a piece and the recently added Xbox Originals — older Xbox games for $15 a piece.

I've noticed that these download services have had a drastic impact on the games I play and favor.  Back in the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, I gravitated toward console RPGs almost out of necessity.  As a young child without a lot of disposable income, it just made more sense to spend $60 on a massive epic like Dragon Warrior II or Final Fantasy that would take me weeks to finish, rather than spend it on an action game that I might beat in a couple days.  However, now I'm faced with dozens of high quality games from a variety of genres that only cost $5-$10 to download.  Sure, I might not have gotten as many hours out of, say, Mutant Storm Reloaded (a fast paced shmup played in the Robotron fashion) as I would out of the latest and greatest RPG, but I've definitely gotten my $10 worth.

All of the console download services have good games on them, but the online store that gives me the most fun is Xbox Live Arcade.  Although the first year of the service was a little bumpy with frequently delayed releases and many weeks with nothing new, now it's really gotten going.  Good XBLA games come out faster than I can play them, and I really can't offer better praise than that.  The breadth of the service is really remarkable: you have old Arcade classics (often with update visuals) for $5, high quality ports from the PSP like Lumines, EXIT, Puzzle Quest, and Gripshift (one of today's releases, a weird yet awesome mix of racing, platforming, and puzzles), ports from other systems like the PS1 classic Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, various PC casual games, and of course, original games.  Just recently, Microsoft implemented a new XBLA Greatest Hits line where older XBLA games have their download prices reduced.  Now, besides Geometry Wars (great Robotron-esque game), Space Giraffe (Tempest on acid) and all the old arcade classics, $5 will buy you Zuma (a really fun puzzle game somewhat similar to Bust-A-Move) or Marble Blast Ultra (think Marble Madness in 3D).  And hey, everything on the service has a free demo version so that you can see if you like the game before you buy the full version.

I could talk about many of my favorite XBLA games (and I probably will over time), but first I'll talk about what is probably my favorite: Pac-Man: Championship Edition.  Watch for a full review soon!

Children who are not at home but in a hospital, waiting for the next test or treatment, can still look forward to a happy holiday season thanks to Child's Play, a non-profit organization of gaming enthusiasts dedicated to spreading the joy of electronic entertainment.

Child's Play was founded in 2003 by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, authors of the popular Web comic Penny Arcade, in response to a perceived negative stereotype of gamers. "The media seems intent on perpetuating the myth that gamers are ticking time bombs just waiting to go off," Krahulik wrote when announcing the formation of Child's Play. "I know for a fact that gamers are good people… We are just regular people who happen to love video games." With that in mind, they began soliciting monetary donations with which to buy Nintendo and PlayStation goods for their local children's hospital.

Their motivation isn't just good PR; there's a scientific basis to support their actions.

Read the rest of this entry at Computerworld.com »